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THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
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THE JOURNAL or PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY
AND
SCIENTIFIC METHODS
EDITED BY
FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE
AND
WENDELL T. BUSH
VOLUME XVI
jANUARY-DECEMltEB, 1019 .& ^
.rH
1
1019
PRESS OF
THE NEW ERA PRINTINQ COMPANY
LANCASTER. PA.
VOL. XVI, No. 1. JANUARY 2, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
PROFESSOR DEWEY'S "ESSAYS IN EXPERIMENTAL
LOGIC"
IN reading this collection of essays, I have been conscious of a
much greater measure of agreement than the author would con-
sider justifiable on my part. In particular, in passages dealing
with my own views, I have often found that the only thing I dis-
agreed with was the opinion that what was said constituted a criti-
cism of me. There seems to me quite clearly to 'be, in Professor
Dewey's outlook, a misunderstanding of some, at least, of the "ana-
lytic realists." I shall try, in what follows, chiefly to remove this
misunderstanding. Philosophical writing, as a rule, is to my mind
far too eristic. There are various classes of difficulties to be dealt
with in philosophy, each fairly easy to solve if it stood alone. Each
philosopher invents a solution applicable to his own problems, and
refuses to recognize those of others. He sees that the theories of
others do not solve his problems, but he refuses to see that his
theories do not solve the problems of others. I do not wish to offer
merely another example of this kind- of blindness, since I consider
that it constitutes a most serious obstacle to the progress of philoso-
phy. In return, I would beg Professor Dewey to believe that cer-
tain questions which interest me can not be solved unless his doc-
trines are supplemented by theories brought from a region into
which, as yet, he has not thought it necessary to penetrate.
A misunderstanding, as between him and those who hold views
more akin to mine, is likely to arise through different use of terms.
What he calls "logic" does not seem to me to be part of logic at all;
I should call it part of psychology. He takes the view for which
there is much better authority than for mine that logic is con-
cerned with thought. The ways in which we become possessed of what
we call "knowledge" are, for him, questions of "logic." His book
is said to consist of studies in experimental "logic." Now in the
sense in which I use the word, there is hardly any "logic" in the
book except the suggestion that judgments of practise yield a special
form a suggestion which belongs to logic in my sense, though I do
5
6 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
not accept it as a valid one. A great deal of his criticism of my
views on the external world rests, I think, upon this difference of
terminology. He insists that what I call data are logical, not psy-
chological, data, and in his sense of these words I entirely agree. I
never intended them to be regarded as data which would be psy-
chological in his sense. The subject which I call "logic" is one
which apparently does not seem to Professor Dewey a very impor-
tant one. No doubt he feels that I attach too little importance to
matters which he regards as vital. This differing estimate of rela-
tive importance is, I think, the main source of differences between
him and me. I hope that, if both recognize this, the differences may
come to be greatly diminished. It is in this hope, and not in a spirit
of controversy, that the following pages are written.
I. LOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL, DATA
I will try first of all to set forth what I conceive to be the most
important features, from my point of view, in Professor Dewey 's
doctrine as regards data. To a great extent I am in agreement with
his doctrine ; but I shall leave the critical consideration of it until I
have endeavored to state it. Let us begin with some quotations.
1. "That fruitful thinking thought that terminates in valid knowledge
goes on in terms of the distinction of facts and judgment, and that valid
knowledge is precisely genuine correspondence or agreement, of some sort, of
fact and judgment, is the common and undeniable assumption" (p. 231).
2. "A functional logic . . . has never for a moment denied the prima facie
working distinction between 'ideas,' 'thoughts,' 'meanings,' and 'facts,' 'exist-
ences,' 'the environment,' nor the necessity of a control of meaning by facts"
(p. 236).
3. "The position taken in the essays is frankly realistic in acknowledging
that certain brute existences, detected or laid bare by thinking but in no way
constituted out of thought or any mental process, set every problem for reflec-
tion and hence serve to test its otherwise merely speculative results" (p. 35).
4. Perceptions are not themselves cases of knowledge, but they are the source
of all our knowledge of the world: "They are the sole ultimate data, the sole
media, of inference to all natural objects and processes. While we do not, in
any intelligible or verifiable sense, know them, we know all things that we do
know with or by them. They furnish the only ultimate evidence of the existence
and nature of the objects which we infer, and they are the sole ultimate checks
and tests of the inferences. Because of this characteristic use of perceptions,
the perceptions themselves acquire, by 'second intention,' a knowledge status.
They become objects of minute, accurate, and experimental scrutiny" (pp.
259-260).
5. But this cognitive function of perceptions is derivative. It is a "super-
stition" that "sensations-perceptions are cases of knowledge. . . . Let them
[the realists] try the experiment of conceiving perceptions as pure natural
events, not as cases of awareness or apprehension, and they will be surprised to
see how little they miss" (p. 262).
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 7
6. "To find out what is given is an inquiry which taxes reflection to the
uttermost. Every important advance in scientific methods means better agen-
cies, more skilled technique for simply detaching and describing what is barely
there, or given" (p. 152).
7. "According to Mr. James, for example, the original datum is large but
confused, and specific sensible qualities represent the result of discriminations.
In this case, the elementary data, instead of being primitive empirical data, are
the last terms, the limits, of the discriminations we have been able to make"
(pp. 298-299).
These quotations may serve for the moment to illustrate Pro-
fessor Dewey 's doctrine as regards data.
The first three raise no point of controversy as between him and
me. The sixth and seventh, though I believe he would regard them
as affording an argument against some of my views, certainly do not
say anything that I disagree with, except in so far as there is an
ambiguity in the second sentence of the seventh: "primitive em-
pirical data" may mean primitive in time, or primitive in logic.
The logical articulation of a man's knowledge changes as his knowl-
edge increases; at every stage, there will be parts of his knowledge
that are logically more primitive and parts that are logically less so.
What, at an advanced stage of knowledge, is primitive in logic, may
be very far from primitive in time. The last terms in our discrimi-
nations are very likely to become logically primitive in our knowl-
edge very soon after we have reached them. But if Professor Dewey
means "primitive in time," there is no matter of disagreement be-
tween us so far.
The different senses in which things may be "data" need to be
considered somewhat more fully, if misunderstandings are to be
removed. When I speak of "data," more particularly of "hard
data," I am not thinking of those objects which constitute data to
children or monkeys: I am thinking of the objects which seem data
to a trained scientific observer. It is quite consciously and deliber-
ately, not by mistake, that I am thinking of the trained observer.
The kind of "datum" I have in mind is the kind which constitutes
the outcome of an experiment, say in physics. We have reason to
expect this or that; this happens. Then this is what I call datum.
The fact that this has happened is a premiss in the reasoning of the
man of science ; it is not deduced, but simply observed. The state of
mind that I am imagining in investigating the problem of the phys-
ical world is not a naive state of mind, but one of Cartesian doubt.
The confusion between the two kinds of primitiveness 1 is not
iWhen Professor Dewey speaks (p. 406) of "Russell's trusting confidence
in 'atomic' propositions as psychological primitives," he is imagining that I
mean one sort of primitiveness when in fact I mean another. I mean what
would be a premiss to a careful man of science, not what is a premiss to a baby
or a gorilla.
8 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
always easy to avoid. In those whose knowledge has not reached a
high level of logical articulation, there will 'be comparatively little
that is logically derivative. The habit of reasoning and inferring
and binding together different pieces of knowledge into a single
logical system increases the proportion of logically derivative knowl-
edge, and the deductive weight that has to be supported by what re-
mains logically primitive. One thing that makes the problem ex-
ceedingly confusing is that even what we are calling the logical
articulation of a man's knowledge is still a question of psychology,
in part at least. If a man 'believes two propositions p and q, and if
p implies q though he has never noticed this fact, then p and q are
separate pieces of his knowledge, though not separate in abstract
logic. The logical articulation of a man's knowledge is subject to
restrictions imposed by logic, since we shall not regard one part of
his knowledge as logically derivative in relation to another unless it
is logically inferable, as well as psychologically inferred by him;
but although logic thus enters in as controlling the possible articula-
tions of a man's knowledge, logic alone can not determine them, and
his individual psychology is required in addition in order to fix the
actual logical order among his beliefs.
We have thus three different problems, one of pure psychology,
one of mixed psychology and logic, and one of pure logic. We- may
illustrate the three problems by means of the science of physics.
1. The problem of pure psychology is this: How do we, as a
matter of history, come by the "beliefs we have about material ob-
jects? What earlier beliefs preceded those which we now entertain,
either in the individual or in the race? What vaguer state than
"belief" precedes the growth of even the earliest beliefs? And
what vaguer objects than those presented to a trained observation
are to be found in a less sophisticated experience? All these are
questions of psychology. They are questions which I, for my part,
have not attempted to discuss. Nothing that I have said on the
problem of the external world is intended to be applicable to them.
2. The problem of mixed psychology and logic is this: How do
we, ordinary persons with a working knowledge of physics, organize
our physical beliefs from a logical point of view? What, if we are
challenged, and an attempt is made to make us doubt the truth of
physics, shall we fall back upon as giving a basis for our belief
which we are not prepared to abandon ? Take, say, the facts out of
which modern physics grew: Galileo's observations on falling bodies.
We have in Galileo's work a mixture of argument, inference, mathe-
matics, with something else which is not argued or inferred, but ob-
served. For him, this something else constituted part of what was
logically primitive. To those who are troubled by skepticism, the
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 9
discovery of what is logically primitive in their own beliefs (or half-
beliefs) appears important as a possible help in deciding as to their
truth or falsehood. We will call the primitive in this sense the
"epistemological primitive." It is the primitive in this sense that
I mean when I speak of "data." I agree entirely with Professor
Dewey when he says (p. 428) : "To make sure that a given fact is
just and such a shade of red is, one may say, a final triumph of
scientific method;" but when he goes on to say: "To turn, around
and treat it as something naturally or psychologically given is a
monstrous superstition, ' ' we shall no longer agree if we are speaking
of "data" in the sense of "epistemological primitives" rather than
temporal primitives.
3. In addition to these, there is, or may be, a third kind of prim-
itive, namely, the pure logical primitive. This, when it can be de-
fined, can only be defined by logical simplicity or deductive power.
A deductive system is preferable when its premisses are few and
simple than when they are many and complicated, but this seems to
be mainly an esthetic question. There is, however, something be-
yond this in logical simplicity. The law of gravitation, for example,
implies Kepler's three laws, and much besides; in this sense, as a
premiss, it is logically preferable to them. Although, often, in a de-
ductive system, there will be a certain element of arbitrariness in the
choice of premisses, yet the arbitrariness is restricted: there will
be, usually, a fairly small collection of propositions from among
which it is clear that the logical premisses should be chosen. And
the more advanced the logical organization of the system, the more
restricted will be the choice of premisses. But this sense of "prim-
itive" does not enter into inquiries of which the purpose is to find
out whether the grounds for believing some body of scientific propo-
sitions are sufficient. In such inquiries, it is the second sense of
"primitive," the epistemological sense, that is important. The
pure psychological and the pure logical are alike irrelevant. And
it is in the second sense that I speak of "data" in discussing the
problem of the external world. As an example of the search for
the logical primitive in physics, we may take Herz's Principien der
Mechanik. In tin's book the author is not concerned to persuade us
that physics is true, but to find the best way of stating premisses
from which physics (supposed known) can be deduced.
There is a problem as regards the comparative merit of the
differing psychological data at various levels. The common-sense
view is that greater discrimination and more analytic observation
yield more knowledge. It is supposed that we know more about
an object which we have inspected closely, with attention to parts
and differentiation, than about an object of which we have only
10 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
what is called a "general impression." The successes of science,
whose observation of facts is highly analytic, have confirmed the
view that observation of this sort yields the most information. But
as against this common-sense view we have a sort of artificially
archaistic view, which opposes analysis, believes in a faculty of
"intuition" possessed by peasant women, dogs, and ichneumon
wasps, loves savage religions, and maintains that the progress of
intellect has driven wisdom away from almost all men except the
few immovable philosophers among whom intellect has not pro-
gressed. Those who adopt this artificially archaistic view believe
that the large confused data spoken of by James (in the seventh of
our above quotations) have more capacity for revealing truth than
is to be found in scientific observations. I do not think that Pro-
fessor Dewey belongs to those who take this view. Accordingly he
does not regard the vaguer data as giving more knowledge than
those that are more analyzed. But there are aspects of his theories
which might mistakenly suggest that he took this view.
I do not wish, at the moment, to consider Professor Dewey 's
views so much as to consider the problem in itself. The problem
concerned is what we may call the problem of "vagueness." It
may be illustrated by what occurs while we watch a man walking
towards us on a long straight road. At first we see only a vague
dot ; we can not tell whether it is moving ; we only guess that it is a
human being because it seems about the right size. Gradually it
passes through various grades of growing distinctness : we recognize
it as so-and-so, and at last we see what sort of expression he has on
his face, and whether he looks well or ill. In this case, it is clear
that the more analyzed apprehension enables us to know more. We
can more or less infer what a man would look like a long way off
when we see him near at hand; but the converse inference is much
more circumscribed. Now although, in the case of the man ap-
proaching along a road, our attention remains throughout equally
analytic in character, and the changes that occur are due merely
to the fact that the object comes nearer, yet I think that there is a
close analogy between the quick changes in this case and the slow
changes in the case of increasing powers of analytic attention. In
these changes also, I think, what happens is that more differentia-
tions exist in the new datum, and that the new datum allows more
inferences than the old one. At the same time, as in the case of
the man approaching, what (to save trouble) we may call the same
physical object gradually comes to occupy a larger portion of the
field of attention, so that, although more is known about an object
which remains within the field of attention, there are fewer such ob-
jects at any one time. A man who is reading sees differences on the
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 11
printed page which are probably more minute than any that a dog
ever sees, 'but while he is seeing them he may miss other things
which the dog would never miss, for instance a person speaking to
him, There seems no reason to reject the common-sense view that,
through trained attention, we acquire more knowledge about the
things we attend to, but become more restricted as regards the area
of attention.
Following the analogy of the man on the road, whom I will now
suppose seen simultaneously by a numiber of people at different
distances, I suggest that it is possible, theoretically at least, to dis-
tinguish elements, in the perceptions of all these people, which are
correlated and may be called perceptions "of" the one man. For
the moment I do not wish to go into the meaning of this "of"; it is
enough that these elements are correlated in the way that leads to
their being said to be "of " one object. It is not necessary that the
element which is a perception of the man in question should be
consciously isolated and attended to by the person who has it:
it is enough that it occurs, regardless of whether anybody knows
that it does. (But of course the hypothesis that it sometimes occurs
without anybody's knowing is based upon what is known.) Now
among the correlated occurrences which we call perceptions of the
one man, some allow more inference as to the others and some less.
Those that allow less we will define as "vaguer;" those that allow
more, as "less vague." Those that are less vague are more differ-
entiated: they consist of more parts. In a very vague perception
of the man, he is an undifferentiated dot. In a still vaguer per-
ception, the whole man may be absorbed into the smallest discrimi-
nated element: we may see a distant regiment as a speck, without
being able to distinguish its component men. In all this, I am ac-
cepting common sense. It may be necessary to abandon common
sense on some points, but in all that concerns vagueness what I wish
to maintain is in the closest agreement with common sense.
We may lay down the following common-sense propositions. (1)
All that we learn through the senses is more or less vague. (2)
"What we learn by careful analytic attention of the scientific kind is
less vague than what we learn by causal untrained attention ; what
we learn by seeing things close at hand is less vague than what we
learn by seeing them at a distance. (3) Even the vaguest per-
ception has some value for purposes of inference, but the vaguer
it is the smaller becomes its value for inference. From these char-
acteristics we may advance to those implied in the albove definition
of vagueness. The inferences drawn from what we perceive (or the
12 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
expectations aroused) are motived by habitual correlations. 2 And
the correlations of this sort (e. g., those between what are called ap-
pearances of a given object at different distances) are many-one
correlations : many different appearances near-to will all correspond
to the same appearance further off. Wherever we have a many-one
correlation, the "one" can be inferred from any of the "many,"
but not vice versa; we have the "one" determined Iby any of the
"many" but not any of the "many" by the "one." It seems to
me that the vague data of unanalytic attention are just as "true"
as the more precise data of trained observation, but allow fewer
inferences. We might illustrate the matter by an analogy. If you
are told that a man is descended from Adam, that gives you the
vaguest possible information as to his ancestry ; if you are told that
he is descended from William the Conqueror, that is still pretty
vague; but as the generations grow later, the information that a
man is descended from so-and-so becomes more and more significant.
The reason is that the relation of son to father is many-one: when
you are told that B is a son of A, and Z is descended from B, you
can infer that Z is descended from A; but when you are told that Z
is descended from A, you can not infer that he is descended from B,
because he may be descended from one of A's other children. So it
is with correlated perceptions: the vaguer correspond to the earlier
generations and the more precise to the later. But of course in the
case of perceptions there is possible continuity instead of the dis-
creteness of generations.
1 claim for the above view of the relation between psychologically
primitive data and the precise data of science various merits which,
as I shall try to show, do not seem to Ibe possessed by Professor
Dewey's theory.
(a) The transition, as we have been explaining it, is a contin-
uous one, and is one not having a terminus in either direction. No
perception can be so precise as to be incapable of greater precision
unless, indeed, we were to accept, in regard to all physical things,
the theory of quanta, and hold that all physical quantities are dis-
crete, in which case there would be a theoretical limit of complete
exactitude, though of course far below the threshold of our per-
ceptions. And at the other end of the scale, no perception can be so
vague as to be incapable of greater vagueness, unless, indeed, the
world appeared always just the same whatever the environment might
be. Perhaps absence of life might consist in this absolute vague-
ness ; but where there is life, even so low in the scale as the amoeba,
an environment which contains food will seem different from one
2 These inferences are not logically cogent, and are sometimes mistaken, but
that is a point that need not concern us at this moment.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 13
i
which does not (to judge "by behavior), and will therefore be per-
ceived with less than the maximum of vagueness.
(&) Another advantage of our definition and theory is that it
allows some inferential value to even very vague data. It does not
have to say : The precise observation of the scientist gives truth, and
the vague feeling of the infant gives error. Still less does it have
to say the opposite. Assuming a common-sense world, and leaving
aside all doubts as to causality, induction, etc., our perceptions al-
ways give tolerable ground for some expectation or inference; but
though the vaguer perceptions may give inferences which (in some
sense) cover a wider field, the more precise perceptions allow more
inferences within the field they cover. That is to say, suppose what
is originally one vague object of attention A (a crowd, say) is corre-
lated with what are later ten more precise objects of attention (ten
men, say), then regarding any one of these ten (Z, say) the system
of its correlates can be better known when Z is perceived than it
could when only A was perceived.
(c) Connected with this is one of the great merits of our theory:
namely, that it does not involve an Unknowable, either at the be-
ginning or at the end, because the differences involved are differ-
ences of degree, and it is not necessary to assume the existence of an
unattainable limit in either direction. There will doubtless be de-
grees that are unknown, but that is a different matter from having
to declare them unknowable. Any one of them might become known
at any moment. The case is analogous to that of a large finite
integer which no one has ever happened to think of : any one might
think of it any moment. In like manner any degree of vagueness
or exactitude might be attained, and there is no need to suppose that
there is such a thing as an absolute exactitude, which would be
unattainable.
There are, not unconnected with our last point, certain other
questions which, to my mind, raise difficulties as to Professor
Dewey's instrumentalism. It would seem to follow from what he
says that, although we can know that there are crude data, yet we
can never know any particular crude datum, because objects of
knowledge have to be objects of a certain kind, and crude data are
not of this kind. Now I do not say that such a view is impossible,
but I do say that it is difficult, and that, before it can be accepted,
something must be done to show that the difficulties are not insur-
mountable. This brings us, however, to a general discussion of
what Professor Dewey calls "instrumentalism." 3
I leave on one side, for the present, the question raised in the fourth and
fifth of the quotations with which we began this section, namely, the question
whether sensations and perceptions are cases of knowledge. I do not myself
14 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
II. INSTRUMENTALISM
The theory which Professor Dewey calls instrumentalism is a
form of pragmatism, but (as appears by the twelfth essay, on "What
Pragmatism Means by Practical") it is a pragmatism which is not
intended to be used for the support of ancient superstitions or for
bolstering up common prejudices. Some quotations, again, will
serve to state the position which he advocates.
1. "If we exclude acting upon the idea, no conceivable amount or kind of
intellectualistic procedure can confirm or confute an idea, or throw any light
upon its validity" (p. 240).
2. "Instrumentalism means a behaviorist theory of thinking and knowing.
It means that knowing is literally something which we do; that analysis is
ultimately physical and active; that meanings in their logical quality are stand-
points, attitudes, and methods of behaving towards facts, and that active ex-
perimentation is essential to verification" (pp. 331-332).
3. "The thesis of the essays is that thinking is instrumental to a control
of the environment, a control effected through acts which would not be under-
taken without the prior resolution of a complex situation into assured elements
and an accompanying projection of possibilities without, that is to say, think-
ing. Such an instruinentalism seems to analytic realism but a variant of ideal-
ism. Tor it asserts that processes of reflective inquiry play a part in shaping
the objects namely, terms and propositions which constitute the bodies of
scientific knowledge. Now it must not only be admitted but proclaimed that
the doctrine of the essays holds that intelligence is not an otiose affair, nor yet
a mere preliminary to a spectator-like apprehension of terms and propositions.
In so far as it is idealistic to hold that objects of knowledge in their capacity
of distinctive objects of knowledge are determined by intelligence, it is ideal-
istic" (p. 30).
4. "Again, the question may be asked: Since instrumentalism admits that
the table is really 'there,' why make such a fuss about whether it is there as a
means or as an object of knowledge? . . . Eespect for knowledge and its ob-
ject is the ground for insisting upon the distinction. The object of knowledge
is, so to speak, a more dignified, a more complete, sufficient, and self -sufficing
thing than any datum can be. To transfer the traits of the object as known to
the datum of reaching it, is a material, not a merely verbal affair" (pp. 44-45).
The view of Professor Dewey, if I understand him rightly, might
be restated roughly as follows: The essence of knowledge is
inference (p. 259), which consists in passing from objects present to
others not now present. In order that this may be possible, one of
the essentials is that the material originally given should be so
shaped as to become an available tool for inference. After this
shaping, it becomes what science calls a datum ; it is then something
different from what was there before. The essence of a belief is
the behavior which exemplifies it (which is it, one is tempted to say) ;
this behavior is such as is intended to achieve a certain end, and the
believe that this question is of great importance to the issue between him and
me. I shall return to this topic briefly at a later stage.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 15
belief is shown in the behavior adopted for that purpose. The be-
lief is called true when the behavior which exemplifies it achieves its
end, and false when it does not omitting refinements due to co-
operation of different beliefs. Knowledge is like a railway journey :
it is a humanly constructed means of moving from place to place,
and its matter, like the rails, is as much a human product as the rest
of it, though dependent upon a crude ore which, in its unmanu-
factured state, would be as useless to intellectual locomotion as iron
ore to locomotion by train.
There is a great deal that is attractive in this theory. I am not
prepared dogmatically to deny its truth, at any rate in great part.
But there are some problems which it seems to be unable to deal with.
First and foremost, we have the problem of the crude datum.
The crude datum, in Professor Dewey's view the "large but con-
fused" original datum of "William James is something which lies
outside knowledge. This has to do with the other thesis, exempli-
fied in the fourth and fifth quotations of our previous section, that
sensations and perceptions are not cases of knowledge, but inference
alone is a case of knowledge. This, further, has to do with the prac-
tical bias the view that knowledge must be treated as a means to
something else. It is true, I think, that as a help in practical life
the sort of knowledge we need is the sort that embodies or suggests
inference. We want to know what will help or hinder, which is al-
ways a question of inference in a behaviorist sense. And here, fur-
ther, if we are to take behaviorism seriously, we must contend, for ex-
ample that a man or animal who eats something believes (unless he is
tired of life) that it is nourishing food, however little he may reflect
for he has adopted the behavior appropriate to that belief, and be-
lief must not depend for its existence upon anything except behavior.
Thus in every case of eating there will be a case of inference. But
the sort of knowledge that would be called "contemplation" has to
be abandoned on this view.
Let us develop the point of view which is suggested, rather than
fully stated, by Professor Dewey. It might with advantage, I think,
be brought into connection with the thesis which the "neutral
monists" have taken over from William James, that there is no such
thing as "consciousness," and that what are called the mental and
the physical are composed of the same material. It is not difficult
to make sensation and perception fit into this view, by means of the
thesis, urged in some of the above quotations, that they are not
cases of knowledge at all. It is more difficult to fit in judgment and
inference. But judgment is practically denied by Professor Dewey,
as something distinct from inference; and inference is interpreted
on behavioristic lines. Interpreting him, we might say : ' ' Inference
16
is behavior caused by an object A and appropriate if A is succeeded!
or accompanied by B." I do not say that this definition would be
accepted : it is schematic, and artificially simplified, but it may serve
to exemplify the theory we are examining. We thus arrive at some
such picture as the following: Man, an animal struggling for self-
preservation in a difficult environment, has learned to behave towards
oibjects as "signs" a practise which exists also among other ani-
mals, but in less developed forms. An object which is not in itself
either useful or harmful may come to be a "sign" of something
useful or harmful which is frequently found in its neighborhood,
that is to say, it may come to promote behavior appropriate to that
of which it is a sign, rather than to itself. Such behavior may be
said to embody inference, or the "knowledge" that the object in
question is a sign of the inferred object. Objects which are useful
as signs acquire a special interest, and it is an essential part of the
business of science to perfect the manufacture of such objects out of
the material presented in nature. Such, it seems to me, is Professor
Dewey's theory in outline.
I do not wish to maintain that this theory is false; I wish only
to suggest that the reasons for thinking it true are far from ade-
quate.
The first criticism that naturally occurs to any one who has en-
deavored to ascertain the truth about causality is, that the theory is
amazingly light-hearted in its assumption of knowledge as to causal-
ity. 4 The writings of Hume, I know, are inconvenient. There are
two recognized methods of dealing with what he has to say on Cause :
one is to maintain that Kant answered him, the other is to preserve
silence on the matter. I do not know which of these is the more
inadequate. The second is the one adopted by Professor Dewey (in
common with other pragmatists). His conception of signs and in-
ference, his whole notion of knowledge as instrumental, depends
throughout upon acceptance of the ordinary common-sense view of
causation. I do not wish to be misunderstood in this criticism. I
am willing to believe that there may be a great measure of truth in
the common-sense view of causation, and I am incapable of saying
or writing much without assuming it, at least verbally. The point
is not that this view must be false, but that, for instrumentalism, it
must be knoivn to be true. "We must actually know particular
causal laws. Our beliefs will be beliefs in causal laws, and we must
know what effects are caused by our beliefs, since this is the test of
their value as instruments. The very conception of an "instru-
* "The term 'pragmatic* means only the rule of referring all thinking, all
reflective considerations, to consequences for final meaning and test" (p. 330).
"Consequences" is a causal word.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 17
ment" is unintelligible otherwise. For those who are troubled by
Hume's arguments, this bland ignoring of them is a difficulty, sug-
gesting, at least, that a good deal of re-statement and further analy-
sis is necessary 'before instrumentalism can take its place among
articulate possible philosophies.
The second criticism which occurs to me is closely allied to the
first. It is, that Professor Dewey ignores all fundamental skep-
ticism. To those who are troubled by the question: "Is knowledge
possible at all?" he has nothing to say. Probably such a question
would appear to him otiose; he would argue (no doubt justly) that
to a fundamental skepticism there can be no answer except a prac-
tical one. Nevertheless, a theory of knowledge should have more to
say on the matter than he has to say. There are different levels of
skepticism; there are popular prejudices which are easily dissolved
by a little reflection, there are beliefs which we can just succeed in
feeling to be doubtful by prolonged destructive analysis (such as
the law of causation for example), and there are beliefs which it
is practically impossible to doubt for more than a moment, such as
the elementary propositions of arithmetic. But the beliefs which
are epistemologically primitive in Professor Dewey 's system will
have to involve propositions which even the most hardened anti-
skeptic could be made to doubt without much trouble. For, if the
truth of a belief is proved by its being a good instrument, we have to
know what effects the belief has, what effects other beliefs would
have had, and which are 'better. This sort of knowledge is surely
about as doubtful as any that would ever ibe called knowledge. "We
also assume to begin with, in Professor Dewey 's system, the whole of
what is involved in the biological position of man : the environment,
the struggle for existence, and so on. Thus our theory of knowl-
edge begins only after we have assumed as much as amounts prac-
tically to a complete metaphysic.
This might be admitted, since Professor Dewey considers that
"theory of knowledge," as a sulbject, is a mistake. I suppose he
would say, what I should agree to in a certain fundamental sense,
that knowledge must be accepted as a fact, and can not be proved
from outside. I find, however, both in this respect and as regards
data, an insufficient realization of the importance of degrees and
continuous transitions. The passage from crude data to the most
refined data of science must be continuous, with truth at every
stage, but more truth in the later stages. So there is a gradation of
truths; and similarly there is a gradation of beliefs, a continuous
passage from what we feel to be very uncertain up to what we can
not doubt, with some degree of belief at each stage, but more at the
later stages. And theory of knowledge exists as a subject which en-
18 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
deavors to organize our beliefs according to the degree of conviction,
and to attach as many as possible to those that have a high degree of
conviction. If it be asked: "Is a belief of which I feel strong con-
viction more likely to be true than one of which I feel a good deal
of doubt?" we can only answer that, ex hypothesi, we think it more
likely to be true. And there is no miracle by which we can jump
outside the circle of what we think to be true into the region of what
is true whether we think so or not.
Professor Dewey, in an admirable passage, points out the effect
of bias in forming the theories of philosophers. He says :
"It is an old story that philosophers, in common with theologians and so-
cial theorists, are as sure that personal habits and interests shape their op-
ponents' doctrines as they are that their own beliefs are 'absolutely' universal
and objective in quality. Hence arises that dishonesty, that insincerity char-
acteristic of philosophic discussion. . . . Now the moment the complicity of the
personal factor in our philosophic valuations is recognized, is recognized fully,
frankly, and generally, that moment a new era in philosophy will begin. . . .
So long as we ignore this factor, its deeds will be largely evil, not because it is
evil, but because, flourishing in the dark, it is without responsibility and with-
out check. The only way to control it is by recognizing it" (pp. 326-7).
These are very wise words. In spite of the risk, I propose to
take the advice, and set down, as far as I can, the personal motives
which make me like or dislike different aspects of behaviorism and
instrumentalism, i. e., motives which would make me wish them to be
true or false.
I have a strong ibias in favor of the view, urged by James and
most American realists, that the mental and the physical are merely
different arrangements of the same stuff, because this (like every
other application of Occam's razor) gives opportunities for those
logical constructions in which I take pleasure. I tried (in my Ex-
ternal World} to show how the particulars that (in my view) make
up the stuff of the world are capable of a two-fold classification, one
as physical things, the other as biographies or monads, or parts of
monads. Such logical constructions I find enjoyable. Desire for
enjoyment of this sort is a creative bias in my philosophy i. e. f
what Kant (less self-consciously) would call a regulative idea of
reason. The same bias makes me like behaviorism, since it would
enable me to define a belief as a certain series of acts. An act in-
spired by two beliefs would be a member of the two series which
would be the respective beliefs. In this definition I find, further, a
good-natured malicious pleasure in thinking that even the theories
conceived by those who hate mathematical logic can be taken over
and stated in such terms as will make them repulsive to their own
parents. I recognize that this is a shameful motive, but it does not
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 19
cease to operate on that account. All these motives combine to make
me like behaviorism and neutral monism, and to search for reasons
in their favor.
My bias as regards instrumentalism and pragmatism is quite
different. Often (though not in Professor Dewey) pragmatism is
connected with what I regard as theological superstition, and with
the habit of accepting 'beliefs because they are pleasant. Some
ascetic instinct makes me desire that a portion, at least, of my beliefs
should be of the nature of a hair shirt; and, as is natural to an
ascetic, I incline to condemn the will-to-believers as voluptuaries.
But these feelings are not roused in me by the pragmatism which is
advocated in this book: on the contrary, the very genuine scientific
temper in the book appeals to me. Nevertheless there is a pro-
found instinct in me which is repelled by instrumentalism: the in-
instinct of contemplation, and of escape from one 's own personality.
Professor Dewey has nothing but contempt for the conception of
knowledge as contemplation. He is full of that democratic philan-
thropy which makes him impatient of what seems to him a form of
selfish idleness. He speaks of
"that other great rupture of continuity which analytic realism would maintain:
that between the world and the knower as something outside of it, engaged in
an otiose contemplative survey of it. I can understand the social conditions
which generated this conception of an aloof knower. I can see how it pro-
tected the growth of responsible inquiry which takes effect in change of the en-
vironment, by cultivating a sense of the innocuousness of knowing, and thui
lulling to sleep the animosity of those who, being in control, had no desire to
permit reflection which had practical import ..." (pp. 72-3).
and so on, and so on.
Will the present amusing inappropriateness of these remarks to
the case of one at least among analytic realists suggest to Professor
Dewey that perhaps he has somewhat misunderstood the ideal of
contemplation? It is not essential to this ideal that contemplation
should remain without effect on action. But those to whom contem-
plative knowledge appears a valuable ideal find in the practise of it
the same kind of thing that some have found in religion : they find
something that, 'besides being valuable on its own account, seems
capable of purifying and elevating practise, making, its aims larger
and more generous, its disappointments less crushing, and its tri-
umphs less intoxicating. In order to have these effects, contempla-
tion must be for its own sake, not for the sake of the effects : for it
is the very contrast between action and pure contemplation that
gives rise to the effects. William James in his Psychology urges (if
I remember right) that when a man has been enjoying music he
should show how he has benefited by being kind to his aunt; but
20 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
the man who could not appreciate music apart from its effect on
conduct would never be enough stirred by it to have his conduct
improved, and would be just as unkind to his aunt after a concert
as at other times. The habit of making- everything subservient to
practise is one which takes the color out of life, and removes most
of the incentives to practise of a really noble kind.
Escape from one's own personality is something which has been
desired by the mystics of all ages, and in one way or another by all
in whom ardent imagination has been a dominant force. It is, of
course, a matter of degree : complete escape is impossible, but some
degree of escape is possible, and knowledge is one of the gateways
into the world of freedom. Instrumentalism does its best to shut
this gateway. The world which it allows us to know is man-made,
like the scenery on the Underground : there are bricks and platforms
and trains and lights and advertisements, but the sun and stars, the
rain and the dew and the sea, are no longer there sometimes we
seem to catch a glimpse of them, but that is a mistake, we only see
a picture made by some human being as an advertisement. It is a
safe and comfortable world: we know how the trains will move,
since we laid down the rails for them. If you find it a little dull,
you are suffering from the "genteel tradition," you belong to an
"upper" class given to a detached and parasitic life (p. 72) . I have
now expressed my bias as regards the view that we are not free to
know anything but what our own hands have fashioned.
III. THE EXTERNAL WORLD AS A PROBLEM
I come now to the defense of certain views of my 1 own against
the criticisms of Professor Dewey, especially as contained in the
eleventh essay, on "The Existence of the World as a Logical Prob-
lem."
A great deal of what is said in this essay depends upon the mis-
understanding as to the sense in which I use "data," which we
have already discussed. For example, on p. 290 ff., I am criticized
for taking as "really known" (when we observe a table from diff-
erent points of view) a set of facts which are complicated, involving
series and logical correlations. Now such criticism all rests upon
the supposition that what is "really known" is intended to be some-
thing which is believed at an earlier time than what is (if possible)
to be proved by its means. This is not how I conceive the problem.
I find myself, when I begin reflecting on the external world, full of
hitherto unquestioned assumptions, for many of which I quickly
realize that I have as yet no adequate reason. The question then
arises: what sort of reason could I hope to discover? What, apart
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 21
from argument and inference, shall I find surviving a critical
scrutiny? And what inferences will then be possible? I give the
name "data" or rather "hard data" to all that survives the most
severe critical scrutiny of which I am capable, excluding what,
after the scrutiny, is only arrived at iby argument and inference.
There is always much argument and inference in reaching the epis-
temological premisses of any part of our knowledge, but when we
have completed the logical articulation of our knowledge the argu-
ments by which we reached the premisses fall away.
The chief thing that I wish to make clear is that, in discussing
the world as a logical problem, I am dealing in a scientific spirit
with a genuine scientific question, in fact a question of physics.
Professor Dewey, almost wilfully as it seems, refuses to perceive the
question I am discussing, and points out the irrelevance of what I
say to all sorts of other questions. It is perfectly clear that, start-
ing from a common-sense basis, what a physicist believes himself to
know is based partly upon observation and partly upon inference.
It is also clear that what we think we observe is usually much more
than what, after closer attention and more analysis, we find we
really did observe because habitual inferences become unintention-
ally mixed up with what was actually observed. Thus the concep-
tion of a "datum" becomes, as it were, a limiting conception of
what we may call scientific common-sense. The more skilled an ob-
server has (become, the more what he thinks he has observed will
approximate to what I should call a "datum." In all this, we are
proceeding along ordinary scientific lines. And the utility of such
analytic data for inference is fully recognized by Professor Dewey.
But he is continually misled by the recurrent belief that I must be
speaking about beliefs that are early in time, either in the history
of the individual or in that of the race. However, I have said
enough already on this aspect of the question.
A phrase about "our own" data leads to the question: "Who
are the 'we.' and what does 'own' mean?" (p. 282 n). The an-
swer to this is that it is quite unnecessary to have any idea what
these terms mean. The problem with which I am concerned is this:
Enumerate particulars in the world and facts about the world as
long as you can; reject what you feel to be doubtful; eliminate
what you see to be inferred. There then remains a residuum, which
we may call "data." The outsider may define this residuum as
"your" data but to you they are not defined in their totality,
they are merely enumerated: they are a certain collection of par-
ticulars and facts, and they are the total store from which, at the
moment, you can draw your knowledge of the world. Then the
question arises: what inferences are justified by this store of par-
22 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
ticulars and facts? This is a perfectly genuine problem. It is no
use to find fault with me on the ground that my problem is not
some other, which is more interesting to Professor Dewey, and!
which I am supposed to be intending to attack in a muddle-headed
way. And it is no use to shut one's eyes to my problem on the
ground that it may be inconvenient. Every philosophy has been
invented to solve some one problem, and is incapable of dealing
with many others ; hence every philosophy is compelled to be blind to
all problems except its own. It is time that philosophers learned
more toleration of each other's problems.
Some of Professor Dewey 's criticisms are so easily answered
that I feel he must have found my views extraordinarily 'distasteful
or he would never have made objections with so little cogency.
Take, e. g., the contention that it is a mistake to call color "visual"
or sound "auditory" until we know that they are connected with,
eye and ear respectively. The answer is, that, quite apart from
physiology, objects which (as we say) are "seen" have a common
quality which enables us to distinguish them from objects "heard."
"We do not need to experiment by shutting the eyes and stopping
the ears in order to find out whether the sense-datum of the moment
is "visual" or "auditory:" we know 'this by its intrinsic quality.
When I speak of "visual sense-data," I mean colors and shapes, and
it is not the least necessary to know that it is through the eye that I
become acquainted with them. Another very feeble argument is
the objection (p. 285 n) to my calling certain things "self-evident"
on the ground that a thing can not offer evidence for itself. This
is not what is meant by "self-evident." What is meant is "known
otherwise than by inference." Professor Dewey 's contention almost
suggests a quibble a la Plato to prove that no man can be self-taught,
because we can only teach what we know and learn what we do not
know, and therefore it is impossible that teacher and learner should
be one and the same. But this is not the type of argument that Pro-
fessor Dewey would wish to be caught using.
Another source of confusion in Professor Dewey 's arguments is
that he is apparently unaware of the distinction that I draw be-
tween the universal "red" and particulars which are instances of
it. 6 I dare say this distinction may be mistaken, but it is in any
case an essential part of my theory, and I can not be refuted by
arguments which ignore it. This applies particularly to the para-
graph on p. 288 beginning, "If anything is an eternal essence, it is
surely such a thing as color taken by itself, as by definition it must
be taken in the statement of the question by Mr. Russell. Anything
8 See "On the Eolations of Universals and Particulars," Proc. Arist. Soc.,
1911-1912.
23
more simple, timeless, and absolute than a red can hardly be thought
of." And at the end of the same paragraph another even larger
question is raised, namely that of the temporal position of a simple
particular. In the case which I am supposing, we are told, "we
are dealing in the case of the colored surface with an ultimate,
simple datum. It can have no implications beyond itself, no con-
cealed dependencies. How then can its existence, even if its percep-
tion be but momentary, raise a question of 'other times' at all?"
(p. 289). One might retort simply by a tu quoque: tell us, one
might say, what is your way of reaching other times? One might
reply that it is of the very essence of my theory that the datum is
usually not simple that it is a fact, and facts are not simple (state-
ments both noted by Professor Dewey, but supposed to constitute an
inconsistency). One might point out that Professor Dewey, re-
peatedly, shows that he has failed to take account of the analysis
of the time-order suggested both in Chapter IV of the book he is dis-
cussing and in the Monist for 1915 an analysis which, right or
wrong, demands discussion in this connection. But the chief thing
to point out is that, in the problem in question, we are up against
the very question of causality and knowledge of the future, which,
so far as I can discover, Professor Dewey has never faced.
After a description of the kind of world which I accept as
datum, the essay proceeds (p. 292) : "How this differs from the
external world of common sense I am totally unable to see. It may
not be a very big external world, but having begged a small ex-
ternal world, I do not see why one should be too squeamish about
extending it over the edges." Now there are several points to be
made in reply to this criticism: (1) as to what I mean 'by an "ex-
ternal" world ; (2) in what sense the world I start from is "begged" ;
and (3) how this world that I start from differs from that of
common sense.
1. The word "external" is perhaps an unfortunate one to have
chosen, and the word "inferred" would have been better. Pro-
fessor Dewey does not admit that we can be said to "know" what I
call sense-data ; according to him they simply occur. But this point,
though he makes much of it, seems to me to make very little differ-
ence as regards our present question. He admits (pp. 259-260)
that perceptions are the source of our knowledge of the world, and
that is enough for my purposes. I am quite willing to concede, for
the sake of argument, that perceptions are not cases of cognition;
indeed my desire to accept neutral monism if possible gives me a
bias in that direction. I see objections which I think he has not
shown how to meet, but I am not at all sure that they can not be
met. However that may be, Professor Dewey and I are at one in
24 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
regarding perceptions as affording data, i. e., as giving the basis for
our knowledge of the world. This is enough for the present; the
question of the cognitive status of perceptions need not concern us.
Now it is a plain fact that what I see and hear has some relation
to my knowledge which is not possessed by information obtained
through historical or geographical reading. This is admitted, im-
plicitly, by Professor Dewey in the passage just referred to. The
words used for describing the difference are immaterial. When the
difference is first noticed, it is vague and blurred, as is usually the
case with newly cognized differences. Reflection tends to show that,
as the difference comes to be drawn with more skill, less and less
appears on the same side as what is seen and heard, and more and
more appears on the same side as what we learn through reading.
Nevertheless, if I am not mistaken, even the most rigid scrutiny will
leave, on the same side with what is seen or heard, certain things
remembered (with the fact that they are past) , various observed re-
lations (in part rather complicated), and some a priori knowledge
whether all of it logical or not, I do not know.
All this group of particulars and facts constitute what I call
"data." They make up the world which I am intending to contrast
with the "external" world. I do not wish spatial notions to ob-
trude: the world that I call "external" is so called only in this
sense that it lies outside the group of data "outside" in the logical
sense. The problem that I wish to discuss is: "Can we make any
valid inferences from data to non-data in the empirical world ? " In
the mathematical world we know that we can. Starting with a few
numbers, we can infer other numbers ad lib. In the physical world,
science and common sense believe that similar inferences are pos-
sible. Are they justified? If so, why? If we can not at present
decide the question, can we see any way by which it might be
decided? These problems are genuine, and no useful purpose is
served by trying to evade them.
2. To say that I have "begged" a small external world is to
miss the point. I have accepted it as datum, because that is the
sort of world that, speaking empirically, seems to me, rightly or
wrongly, to be given. Professor Dewey does not argue that this
is not the case ; he merely contends that it is not the world that is
"given" in a different sense, i. e., as I understand, given to babies,
which is irrelevant. The "given" world that I am speaking of is
that which is "given" to the most educated person to be found in
the matter of physical observation and the distinguishing of obser-
vation from inference. If I have wrongly described the "given"
world (in this sense), I am ready to amend the description. It
makes very little difference to my problem what is the detail of the
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 25
description of the given world. If Professor Dewey will offer me an
alternative (provided he will remember that it is not the historical
primitive that I want), I make little doubt that the bulk of my
argument will be able to adapt itself with little alteration. I have
not "begged" my small external world any more than Columbus
begged the West Indies; I have merely chronicled what I observe.
I can not prove that it is there except by pointing to it, any more
than Columbus could. But if others do not see what I point to, that
does not prove that I do not observe it. There is no reason why
what one person can observe should toe also open to the observation
of another. Nevertheless, to chronicle what one observes is not the
same thing as to "beg" a world.
3. As to how my initial world of data differs from the world of
common sense, there are various ways: (a) by extrusion of the
notion of substance, since I do not consider a physical thing, such as
a table, to be a datum at all, and I do consider that it is a series of
classes of particulars, not a single particular. (I am not speaking
of the fact that the taible has physical parts: what I say would be
equally true of an atom or electron, according to the theory). (&)
Among data we can only include the existence of a particular during
the time when it is a datum: its existence or non-existence before
and after that time, if knowable at all, can only be known by in-
ference. The things that Professor Dewey says on this subject
(pp. 286-290) are only explicable to me by supposing that, when I
speak of "inference to other times," he thinks that I mean inference
to the existence of other times, whereas I mean inference to the ex-
istence-of-something-described at a time when something else is
known to be existing. E. g., I look out of the window and see, as
we say, a tree ; I look back to my book and see print. Can I know
whether what I saw when I looked out of the window, or anything
in any way correlated with it, exists while I am looking at my book?
My world of data does not include anything which gives an answer
to this, whether affirmative or negative; an answer will not be pos-
sible unless there are valid inferences from particulars at certain
times to (described) particulars at certain other times, (c) In par-
ticular, my world of data does not include anything of other people
except their outward show. In these and other ways it is very
fragmentary as compared with the world of common sense.
Professor Dewey takes advantage (e. g., p. 295) of occasions
when, for the sake of brevity, I have adopted the language of com-
mon sense. To avoid this altogether would hardly be possible with-
out adopting the language of mathematical logic. But there are
hardly a dozen philosophers living who will take the trouble to read
anything written in that language. And so long as one uses Ian-
26 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
guage they will condescend to read, one is condemned to the vague-
nesses, inaccuracies and ambiguities which keep philosophy alive.
There is much that, if space permitted, I should have wished to
say on the subject of time. Meanwhile, I will conclude with the
hope that the reader will perceive the reality of the problem which
concerns me. There is a passage in the Essay we have been con-
sidering which seems to show why Professor Dewey and I have such
difficulty in understanding one another. He says (p. 299) : "No
one can deny that inference from one thing to another is itself an
empirical event, and that just as soon as such inference occurs, even
in the simplest form of anticipation and prevision, a world exists like
in kind to that of the adult." Certainly no one denies that infer-
ence is an empirical event. What is toeing examined is not its
occurrence, but its validity. The above passage seems to suggest
that if I infer a world, there is a world. Yet I am not the Creator.
Not all my inferences and expectations could prevent the world
from coming to an end to-night, if so it were to happen. I trace in
the above quotation, as in much of what pragmatists write, that in-
stinctive belief in the omnipotence of Man and the creative power
of his beliefs which is perhaps natural in a young, growing, and
prosperous country, where men's problems have been simpler than
in Europe and usually soluble by energy alone. Dr. Schiller says
that the external world was first discovered by a low marine animal
whom he calls "Grumps," who swallowed a bit of rock that disagreed
with him, and argued that he would not have given himself such a
pain, and therefore there must be an external world. One is
tempted to think that, at the time when Professor Dewey wrote,
many people in the newer countries had not yet made the disagree-
able experience which Grumps made. Meanwhile, whatever accusa-
tions pragmatists may bring, I shall continue to protest that it was
not I who made the world.
BEBTRAND RUSSELL
REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE
Contributions to Psycho- Analysis. S. FERENCZI. Translation by
ERNEST JONES. Boston: Richard G. Badger. 1916. Pp.
These contributions, originally published in Hungarian and Ger-
man in various journals by one of the best known and brilliant of
Professor Freud's pupils, have been collected and translated by Dr.
Ernest Jones in their present form. For one who has read many
of the articles in the original one of the most poignant impressions
is the joy to ibe derived from a translation in such excellent English
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 27
that it conveys not only the exact meaning, but the spirit of the
original. One can do no less than to recommend this book as a model
for critical study to all translators in this field.
The book is valuable also as showing in its various chapters the
landmarks in the development of the theories and practise of psy-
choanalysis. The very first chapter on the analytical interpretation
and treatment of psycho-sexual impotence shows this clearly, when
one notes the trend that is implied in the sentences added at the
end of the chapter, which is abstracted from a short article written
several years later. The chapter on introjection and transference is
especially interesting and opens up many new viewpoints in the
processes of hypnotism and suggestion. The chapter on the psy-
chological analysis of dreams is the best one in the literature for
lay readers. The rest of the book contains material that no psy-
chologist interested in human behavior can afford to leave unread.
LEONARD BLUMGAET
NEW YOEK.
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
REVISTA DE FILOSOFIA. July, 1918. Notas solre el prob-
lema de la degeneration (pp. 1-31) : CARLOS 0. BUNGE. - Degenera-
tion is rapidly increasing in our modern society. There are two
classes of degenerates, the lower class which comprises the idiots
and the criminals, and the higher class represented by the man of
genius. Probabilidades (pp. 32-40) : JORGE DUCLOUT. - The theory
of probabilities, besides its well-known applications, can also be
applied, and is applied by the author to a theory of the evolution of
the world. Por la logica positivista (pp. 41-52) : LEOPOLDO MAUPAS. -
The logic of positivism has had two series of opponents : the dogma-
tists, who make use of false arguments, and the anti-intellectualists,
such as Bergson, whose theories are brilliant, but meaningless. Los
sentimientos y la conducta durante la crisis de la pubertad (pp. 53-
69) : VICTOR MERCANTE.-A psychological study of the evolution of
feeling in early youth. Un decreto del virrey Cisneros sobre instruc-
tion primaria obligatoria (pp. 70-75) : EICARDO LEVENE. -In 1809,
Cisneros, viceroy of Buenos Aires, promulgated a decree making
primary education compulsory. En el museo etnogrdfico (pp. 76-
83) : S. DEBENEDETTI. - Speech delivered on occasion of the inaugura-
tion of Ambrosetti Hall in the Ethnographic Museum. La men-
talidad mistico-romdntica y la filosofia cientifica (pp. 84r-89) : H. F.
DELGADO. - The greatest obstacle to progress is that men despair and
think things impossible. Ideales viejos e ideales nuevos (pp. 90-
28 TEE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
134) : Jos INGENIEROS. - In the feudal society, human life was con-
sidered as a state of transitory expiation, and the individual will was
subordinated to the power of the state. In the new society which is
building itself, the rights of the individual are asserting themselves
every day with a new vigor. Sucesos de la Universidad de Cordoba.
Boynton, Richard Wilson. The Vital Issues of the War. Boston:
The Beacon Press. 1918. Pp. viii + 134. $1.00.
Drummond, Margaret. The Dawn of Mind: An Introduction to
Child Psychology. London : Edward Arnold. New York : Long-
mans, Green & Company. 1918. Pp. xi + 179. $1.10.
Follett, M. P. The New State : Group Organization the Solution of
Popular Government. New York : Longmans, Green & Company.
1918. Pp. 375. $3.00.
NOTES AND NEWS
DR. DAVID MITCHELL, of the Bureau of Educational Experiments,
New York City, has rendered a service to clinical psychologists and
students of mental testing through his revised classified bibliography
of psychological tests. In addition to being an exhaustive catalogue
of all worthy tests in the field, the bibliography furnishes further
valuable aid by classifying titles under various headings, so that
one who wishes to work in a special field may readily find the neces-
sary references. The first three parts of the bibliography include
discussions of general problems, the development of procedures, and
the treatment of results. Another part lists the tests which may be
used as group tests, and still another part arranges the tests accord-
ing to name and names of the authors reporting on the tests. Dr.
Mitchell gives promise of keeping this bibliography up to date by
stating that further additions will be made when the references are
available.
DR. WALTER B. SWIFT, of Boston, has been appointed Consulta-
tion Expert for Speech Defects to the Division of Medical Inspection
of the Public Schools of Cleveland, Ohio. He is engaged in installing
methods in speech correction by directing some 15 teachers whom he
trained last summer to conduct speech correction classes.
VOL. XVI, No. 2.
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
THE USE AND MISUSE OF HISTORY.
classics, it is said, must be expounded anew for every genera-
J- tion in order that they may continually bear fruit in the
present. The recorded past is in itself mute ; it receives its articula-
tion from the mind of the present. We are impelled to reinterpret
the records and sources, not merely because the material is frequently
amplified by the discovery or rediscovery of forgotten records and
the disclosing of remains hitherto neglected, but still more because
the concepts that guide historical writing in one age are critically
scrutinized and have their weaknesses revealed in a later period.
Revision in the light of fresher ideas is accordingly welcomed, and
a different fashion of writing history and different ideas concerning
what may be expected from historical writing occupy the mind.
Signs are not lacking of a dissatisfaction with the ideas that
regulated the larger works in the history of philosophy of the last cen-
tury ; the leading ideas that determined the point of view from which
the history of philosophy was regarded in the more important works
spread from them into the class-room compendiums, so that even the
lesser works do not escape criticism. There exists, with respect to
the history of philosophy, a keener sensitivity for distinguishing be-
tween the character of a philosophy in its original concrete setting
and the traditions concerning that philosophy conserved by the his-
tories of philosophy. Without attempting to define precisely the
source of this warier attitude, it may be said that it is generated in
the same circumstances that have given rise to the social and socio-
logical point of view that prevails in contemporary thought. It is
not easy to say just what this later attitude finds objectionable in
the older histories of philosophy and what better mode of writing
the history of philosophy should be suggested. However, a pro-
visional characterization of the situation may be offered.
One cause of the rather common dissatisfaction with the cus-
tomary manner of treating the history of philosophy may be de-
scribed as the practise of turning the history of philosophy into a
method of establishing the historian's own system of philosophy, or
of confirming a certain type of philosophy as the outcome and
29
30 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
"lesson" of that history. Indirectly the history becomes an elab-
orate argument for this or that kind of philosophy. This may be
regarded as inevitable because the historian of philosophy suffers
from those limitations of sympathy and point of view that handicap
all historians. But even if this be admitted we can assert that the
privilege need not be abused. The difficulty is of course a part of
the general difficulty of writing about the past in the present. It is
the source of much skepticism concerning history as a whole. Lord
Chesterfield, it is reported, during illness refused to have historical
writings read to him because, he said, he knew they were lies. This is
rather an elaborate recognition of the difficulty. History written be-
fore the event is prophecy and is not very dependable. But is history
written while it is being made or after the making so much better ?
The historian recording contemporary happenings can seldom grasp
or nicely balance the multitudinous forces that are engaged and re-
vealed, his apergus are generally either partial or superficial, and
his profundities artificial. He is overwhelmed by the plethora of
material. The historian writing after the event has certain ad-
vantages. The materials have been sifted; and after-effects may
help to place causes in better perspective. But while the opening
of archives and the revelation of secrecies, the winnowing of the
material, and a more composed mind, are advantages, something has
been lost. The animating spirit has paled and vanished. For the
immediacy of sensing and comprehension and the active sympathy
of the spectator the historian must substitute devious and dubious
inferences, lacking in that warmth of intimacy of the 'participator
which even the most strenuous exertion of a re-creative imagination
can not wholly compass. At every step there is the danger of recon-
structing the past in terms of the present while seeking to construe
the present in terms of the past. There can be no completeness of
record. However ample the data at our disposal, they are the
desiccated remains of a living time. To resuscitate the life that is
gone requires the infusion of life; but the only life open to the
historian is that of his own age. Resuscitation is apt therefore to
be a putting of a new life into the old 'body rather than the restora-
tion of the departed life. An almost inveterate habit conspires to
lead the historian to such an arrangement, organization, and evalu-
ation of his data that the present and the more recent past are in-
jected into the more distant past. The past thereby reconstructed
is naturally displayed as organically connected with the present,
and the past is deftly disclosed as containing embryonically the
present.
These admissions however do not justify the use of the history of
philosophy for establishing a doctrine or a tradition. We must
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 31
recognize that these handicaps are matters of degree and are sub-
ject to some control. If we should take them over-seriously we
must conclude that historical research is a sort of sport, a poetical
adventure, and history an art, not a science. And for that matter,
the question whether history is an art or a science is still a matter
of debate. "History, . . . , which passes for the account of facts,
is in reality a collection of apperceptions of an indeterminate ma-
terial; for even the material of history is not fact, but consists of
memories and words subject to ever-varying interpretation. No
historian can be without bias, because the bias defines the history. . . .
Then, after the facts are thus chosen, marshaled, and emphasized,
comes the indication of causes and relations ; and in this part of his
work the historian plunges avowedly into speculation, and becomes a
philosophical poet . . . And the value of history is similar to that
of poetry, and varies with the beauty, power, and adequacy of the
form in which the indeterminate material of human life is pre-
sented." 1 It would hardly be profitable to discuss the question
whether the history of philosophy is an art or a science. Perhaps
the simplest attitude to take is that the impediments enumerated 1
are hardly insuperable obstacles to trustworthiness. They indicate
the need of methods and agencies of control. And in any case, if
it be insisted that the work of the historian of philosophy is always
an art, the historian's artistry need not be mere license. It would
be well to insist that he 'be constrained by his material and by a
technique arising from a mastery of the materials. His imaginative
constructions, even if he be a philosophical poet, should not be
vagaries and magical exegetical tricks. One might recall Huck
Finn's remarks concerning Mr. Twain's history of the Adventures
of Tom Sawyer: Huck recognized that there were some "stretchers"
in Mr. Twain's account of the adventures, and yet in the main he
approved of the narrative. In similar fashion we can not wholly
discredit history because of an occasional "stretcher." After all,
the important consideration is the kind and degree of the stretching
that is performed. Admitting that some stretchers are unavoidable,
we may find consolation in the thought that a little stretching, if
judicious, may add interest and relevance to a work even if it
prejudices for the literal-minded its fidelity as record. It is worth
while sacrificing some slight degree of completeness in a compilation
of abstractions, on condition that the supposed lessons of the history
really have a fruitful re-entry into later human experience. This
may counterbalance the depreciatory attitude attributed to Chester-
field, and leads to an insistence on the need for the continual re-
vision of history. History affords a sort of second-hand catholicity
i George Santayana: The Sense of Beauty, pp. 141-142.
32 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
of experience. But it must gain its relevance and applicability
through a judicious and not a capricious organization of its raw
material .and it must genuinely extend experience.
The defect of the histories of philosophy that have had the great-
est vogue is that they have done the stretching not wisely, but too
well. At least too well for our present temper. Whatever world-
views the more celebrated historians confirmed for their contem-
poraries through the history of philosophy, it can hardly be main-
tained that these works afford the present student a similar service.
The peculiar manner in which the history of philosophy, the philoso-
phy of history, and a diffused metaphysics or theology were inter-
mingled is not as illuminating to our generation as to earlier gen-
erations. Just as history in general may degenerate into an edify-
ing substantiation of an existent system of ideals and aspirations,
and an elaborate confirmation of the finality of present values and
ideas, -so the history of philosophy can be written, and has been
written, in such a way that the purposes of edification and apolo-
getics are subserved. The fact that systems and the philosophers
who write them influence one another may be shaped into a proof
that the progressive attainment of truth leads to a certain later
system and outlook as the consummation of the movement. Con-
tinuities of speculation become through this treatment an evidence
and assurance that such speculation is ' ' on the right track. ' ' This
does not occur only when a priori ideas, and especially the doctrine
of an immanent dialectical movement in history, form the basis of
treatment. "We have of course the clearest illustration of this
fashion of writing the history of philosophy when it is so constructed.
But the same difficulties occur on a more unassuming scale when
no similar guiding ideas are avowed. From the more pretentious
works the fashion passes into the simpler works. Besides, the temp-
tation to find just a bit of immanent dialectic here and there is
well-nigh irresistible, or the regularities and linkage thereby se-
cured give the account a high degree of esthetic appeal. To get
one stage of history out of a preceding stage, neatly, compactly, and
inescapably, is as absorbing a feat as a conjurer's pulling a rabbit
out of a hat. This flippant remark does not mean, of course, that
there are no continuities of speculation, no criss-cross and logitu-
dinal influences in the course of temporal events ; it does mean, how-
ever, that the outcome of previous efforts to interlock all the ma-
terials of history or of the history of philosophy in one majestic
movement suggests some skepticism even when the process is scaled
down. There seems to be little likelihood of contemporary histor-
ians trying this grand style. The extent to which we are still in-
fluenced by those models is another question that we would do well
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 33
to ponder. If the flippancy is pardonable, one might ask how many
of the secondary stretchers we can accept, granting that the whole-
sale stretching is no longer acceptable.
Even those to whom such ideas are repugnant may nevertheless
be unwittingly victimized by them, particularly because of the
brilliant examples of such work that we already possess, and be-
cause, indeed, the histories of philosophy to which the student is
apt to turn are modeled in varying degrees after the classic expres-
sions of this spirit. The influence in this direction of Hegel's Phe-
nomenology and Philosophy of History, and of such works as Kuno
Fisher's monumental History of Modern Philosophy is to this day
a not inconsiderable force. To the Romantic movement in the early
nineteenth century primarily is due the tendency to seek in history
the manifestation of some one principle, the unfaltering progressive
realization or development of something-or-other. In discovering
the "historical point of view" the romanticist was apt to discover
also a method of demonstrating the validity of romantic aspirations
and sweeping generalizations concerning God, man, and the cosmos.
Without depreciating the value and ancient services of the methods
thus inaugurated or the results of such ideas, it is fair to point out
how easily the notion of historical evolution combined with roman-
tic ideals leads to manufactured history. J. T. Merz has indicated
this danger as emanating from the Romantic movements: he notes
a "secret tendency nursed in the school of Hegel to transform theo-
logical into philosophical dogmatics, and also to look upon the line
of reasoning which runs through the idealistic systems as the true
backbone of all philosophy, compared with which other speculations,
naturalistic on the one side, theological on the other, have only
collateral, but not truly systematic, importance. The latter tend-
ency is probably most distinctly evident in Kuno Fisher's great
History. It was, however, considerably mitigated in the later
editions. . . ." 2 "We can admit the evil results of Hegel's attitude
without depreciating the value of some of his perceptions.
There are, of course, other histories of philosophy that certainly
are not guilty of being sources of these forms of misguidance. Some
are formidable compendiums of information, filled with reports of
the dissection of systems. A few words concerning such phenomena
as the rise of the Sophists, a brief elucidation of the attitude of
the church in the nominalistic controversy, and other occasional bits
of "historical background" sketched here and there, and that is
about all there is to animate the dusty pages. They have their
2 Merz : History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. 4,
p. 266, note; cf. p. 741, and Vol. 3, p. 150.
34 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
utility as manuals in the anatomy of systems; if they contain
no stretchers, neither do they manifest the pulse of life. They do
not seduce the imagination ; but neither do they enlarge or envigor-
ate it. Like mummies, the outward features are preserved, but the
vital principle has departed.
Are we placed in a dilemma ? Must the history of philosophy be
either a compendium or syllabus or else an unrestrained manipula-
tion of material for the substantiation of a transcendental prin-
ciple or an over-expanded formula? Must it be either a digest, or
a circumlocutous method of presenting a system or a type of phi-
losophy as the crowning achievement of philosophical history?
To avoid the dry-as-dust, we may maintain, it is not necessary to
admit that the history of philosophy must be whimsical and capri-
cious. A preliminary programme or a synoptical point of view is
in any case necessary. It is the guiding idea and method that re-
quire criticism and control.
Those who are convinced that history is always a species of
poetry may say to all this: If interpretation in terms of the indi-
vidual writer's point of view is inevitable, how can one be sure of
betterment by rejecting the older ideas and advocating a new ap-
proach? Since every historian is influenced by the opinions of his
own age and possesses foibles and preferences all his own, it follows
that if he hasn't an outspoken a, priori scheme which he seeks to
illustrate in his history, he has some other scheme whose character
and influence he may not wholly recognize, but which is in effect
equally a priori and misleading. To this an appropriate reply can
be made. Because every historian is limited and innocently biased
in his attitude toward his subject-matter, it does not follow that
their interpretative efforts are equally informing and valuable or
equally pernicious and misleading.
The matter in dispute depends on the kind of idea which orms
the leading principle of interpretation. The preliminary pro-
grammes vary in the degree to which they are amenable to control,
subject to verification or checking-up of some sort, and in their con-
gruity with the total progress of science and research. To guard
against the whimsical, the extravagant and rhapsodical, is not so
difficult. Poetry that can be identified as poetry does not easily
pose as science. The effective beguilement of the mind occurs
chiefly when poetry dons the sober mantle of a metaphysical or theo-
logical or "scientific" concept. The transcendental principle, em-
bodying some sort of theological or metaphysical vision in more or
less sublimated form, that has gathered authority and impressive-
ness from its possibilities of edification, soon gets out of hand. The
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 35
evolutionary formula, captivating in its brevity, packs all history
into a few stages, and exerts a spell over the mind. The lesson of
history may be invoked in the interests of various kinds of pro-
grammes. But the lesson must often be injected into history before
it can be gotten out of it, unless we are to believe that time brings
no genuine novelties.
These and similar notions are the chief sources of the injudi-
cious stretchers. Principles of a transcendental character or a sci-
entific formula whose universality and sufficiency are hastily as-
sumed are responsible for this cavalier treatment of the raw mate-
rials. Principles too impressive to be called fanciful, too edifying
to be discounted as whimsical, and too recondite to be submit-
ted to a homely test, sustain the attempt to attribute one direc-
tion, a single character, and a fixed goal to the historical flux.
The historian's mind is apt to be dominated by such ideas for they
are frequently captivating. Ideas of a transcendental nature
are more likely to transfigure history romantically than other pro-
grammes. For such ideas can not be verified. Often, indeed, they
seem to be abundantly verified, but that is because we mistake illus-
tration for verification, while the illustration is but a particular
instance of interpretation in the light of the idea. Since the idea is
insusceptible of verification, it owns an elusive adaptability that
lends it a specious air of concreteness. The over-hasty extension of
a scientific generalization is more speedily checked because the justi-
fication of values has not been staked upon its adequacy. And
finally, since one way of finding support for a philosophical stand-
point is to show how nicely it dovetails with the history of philoso-
phy and how it strikes a balance between historical issues, the his-
torian of philosophy assumes unconsciously a mediating function:
while endeavoring to fit contemporary speculation to history, he is
tempted also to fit history to contemporary speculation. So it comes
about that the historical movements are given weights commen-
surate, not with their original importance, but with their connection
with a present programme and its supporting tradition.
A glamor of infinite significance is conferred upon history and
the history of philosophy when the basis of exegesis is an idea of an
a priori and transcendental character. Crabbed philosophies become
visions, and testy philosophers become seers when a system represents
some sort of cosmic essence, or reflects the movement of reality, or
forms a necessary stage in the realization of a pre-ordained goal. As
the great men of history are sometimes viewed as instruments of the
Almighty, so philosophers might be regarded as embodiments of the
absolute. This seems to imply that the philosophy of no man can be
36 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
hopelessly vain and empty. It must contain its valid elements be-
cause it shares in a march which may seem devious but is really un-
swerving. For the very erroneousness of a philosophical idea is de-
manded in a necessary movement towards a fixed goal. And since
what is evolving is human life, philosophy is an expression of life,
perhaps its supreme expression, and it must be relevant to life. It is,
indeed, the hidden core of that life. Philosophy in general, and
everybody 's philosophy in particular, is thus vindicated. Even when
the exegetical formula is less poetic and romantic, the simplification
. of the course of history by means of the one principle provides a sat-
isfaction for the mind that wishes to sum up existence in an epigram.
This simplification makes a history that leaps from one matured
systematic expression to another, with the confused processes of
generation and maturation undisplayed. Historical philosophies
are thus still further removed from the common life.
To protest against the assumption of the finality and inclusive-
ness of one formula of exegesis does not preclude the writing of
history. It can be written in terms of less pretentious reductive
schemes. What is thereby lost in loftiness of aim and elevation of
thought is more than replaced by a useful precision in results. It
should be possible to discover schemes of interpretation resting on a
more assured basis, more amenable to control and empirical test,
and involving a less finely-spun metaphysics. What is needed are
ideas which, if unconfirmed by research, will not unhinge all ex-
istence and dislocate all values, and endanger misbegotten and high-
flown hopes. Where so much is at stake, failure is too depressing
to be tolerated. A premium is therefore put upon sleight-of-hand.
The truth of the matter is that histories of philosophy that shall
organically relate systems to their generating conditions and con-
nect concepts with the massive and fecund life of groups, have not
been written. We do not possess histories that really relate the
doctrines of different times to human life and the ideas and purposes
then current, in such a manner that appraisement in a concrete
setting is facilitated. Those that are launched under the impri-
matur of some ultimate principle may purport to set forth the
course of philosophy in organic connection with all the ramifications
of human experience, but they dissatisfy because their focus of
interest is the elucidation and illustration of the principle rather
than a search for whatever ideas may be imbedded in the mate-
rials. They fluctuate between the interpretation of philosophy in
humanistic terms and the interpretation of human events in terms
of presuppositions concerning the character of the historical proc-
ess. Without this double movement of adjustment history may
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 37
lose much of its consecutiveness and its esthetic and romantic charm,
but it will be better history.
The real problem is often overlooked. The principles of inter-
pretation must be developed from the historical materials, not his-
tory from an assumed principle. It is becoming, or has become,
old-fashioned to try to sum up history in a phrase, or to know the
forces and meanings supposed to be secreted beneath the surface of
historical changes. It is proper modesty not to speak with as-
surance of the implicit aims and ends of history. We look upon
history as made but not pre-ordained. Only by a constant play of
the imagination over the data can the emergent ideas be appre-
hended and brought into clarity of statement. And we hesitate
before attempting to reduce these ideas to a systematic unity to be
hypostatized as the end or goal of history. It may seem para-
doxical to insist that the data must generate the guides to interpre-
tation, since, as has been pointed out, the mere assemblage of the
data presupposes some degree of interpretation and constructive
activity. The paradox exists only when the situation is considered
abstractly. What it amounts to is an insistence on a constant give
and take, as opposed to a wholesale preliminary taking. And at
any rate, the paradox will hold of the verification of all hypotheses.
Here and there are sporadic attempts to accomplish the involu-
tion of historical philosophies and the circumstances of civilization
and life in which alone they are rightly apprehended. But these
efforts have mostly had the character of presenting the philosophical
tableaux against a background of "social forces:" but just this
projecting against a background leaves the actual interweaving and
interlocking untouched. Perhaps the nearest approach to this ideal
is to be found in the historical writings on general culture. These
works, however, are concerned with philosophy proper only in a
general sense. Some of them have had an axe to grind, being apolo-
getical in character. And however close may be the community of
interest between histories of culture and histories of philosophy,
there is a demarcation between them based on a difference in purpose
and emphasis.
There is nothing novel, of a surety, in claiming that philosophies
germinate and sprout in a social and cultural matrix; that individ-
ual philosophies are the products of converging lines of thought
and feeling ; and finally, that they become the instruments by which
the inarticulate and nascent ideas and aspirations are brought to
clear consciousness and organized expression. Through the inter-
action between the products of reflection and the inchoate mass of
sentiment and thought, occurring at every stage in the movement,
38 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
a more or less satisfying and consistant world-view or "reasoned
creed," to borrow a phrase of Merz's, is evoked in the social con-
sciousness. A system of ideas, varying in the degree of fidelity and
pertinence to the germinating mass, is precipitated from the turgid
inconstant complex in which the traditional, the accepted and un-
questioned, and the sacrosanct are ceaselessly warring with the new
and problematic elements that surge up because of the stress of
circumstances; the new ideas represent the voicing of compelling
needs that are all the more insistent because of the manifest in-
fertility of the time-honored in the face of new situations. It must
be urged, however, that there is no fixity of temporal sequence in
these interactions, nor even a guarantee that the interactions shall
occur. A philosophy may be comparatively foreign to the con-
temporary social environment, having little relevance or signifi-
cance for it, and largely neglectful of its characteristic demands.
The needed synthesis and articulation may come from art, from
religion and poetry. Because philosophies are generated in societal
life, and frequently afford it a genuine expression, it does not follow
that they always do so, or that they always do so in the same degree.
Through conservation of past superstitions, through one-sidedness
of emphasis, or inaccuracy of diagnosis, and finally through the
limitations of individual power and capacity, the response of this
or that philosopher may be beside the point. Such philosophies
lead nowhere and finally die of inanition. There are blind alleys in
history. Again, the philosophical synthesis may be artificial, cor-
responding neither to contemporary needs nor to past needs : for it
may be devoted to carrying out a problem which arose from an in-
adequate or unilateral comprehension of a bygone problem. There
is such a thing as a society outgrowing a problem before philosophy
has had time to find its solution. Or, if we must say that the prob-
lems do not change, but only the formulations of problems change
(which often seems to be a distinction without a great deal of differ-
ence), we find the spectacle of society eagerly awaiting new formula-
tions of its problems while philosophical interests are devoted to the
older formulation, and philosophy acquires a value primarily anti-
quarian. To affirm that every philosophy is either essentially ger-
mane to its age, or else ahead of it, would be equivalent to ascribing
to philosophers a power of efficient divination little short of mirac-
ulous. Hegel has something to say to the effect that the owl of
Minerva does not take flight until twilight. To which might be ad-
ded the wish that it could see how to fly in the daylight.
In short, the interaction of the products of speculation and the
world of men is subject to manifold circumstances of time and
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 39
place : it is always contingent, accentuated by the unexpected novel-
ties that accrue from the sheer unpredictable creativeness of life
itself. To these matters our Pneumatologies and Histories of Cul-
ture and Histories of Philosophy based more or less consciously on
inflexible a priori schemes have done scant justice. And there are
considerations in extenuation of this neglect other than that in-
volved in the influence of the a priori expository principle.
In the first place, the more general and comprehensive the view
taken, the less apparent are the discontinuities that are intermingled
with the continuities of history. And furthermore, the minute
concatenations, as well as the preliminary and anticipatory expres-
sions of new ideas, are buried so deeply in a mass of historical rub-
bish that human patience can hardly be expected to delve into it.
The genealogy of doctrines is more apprehensible than the genesis
of ideas. For the genealogy deals with a partly systematized set of
ideas; it begins with a product and traces its subsequent history.
But the genesis of the fragmentary thoughts whose gradual agglu-
tination represents the starting-point of the first logical develop-
ment, is obscured and overlooked. And this holds whether the
origin of ideas is to be sought in the individual genius or in the
common life or in both together. The setting of a doctrine is often
recorded more concretely in history's lesser monuments than in its
greater, for the greater contain the product in its final stages and not
in its earlier moments. This gives to historical philosophies when
abstractly expounded a specious clairvoyance, an unreal detachment
and independence. Therefore the history of philosophy is likely to
present to us a series of results only, or to picture each development
of thought only in the later and more conscious stages of its fashion-
ing. These results can be the more readily organized into a con-
tinuity because of this simplification through omission, and because
they represent the more abstract stages of reflection in which the
peculiarities of origin are lost. And it is primarily in these ab-
stract stages that the new idea makes its juncture with the syste-
matic tradition; this contact, when that tradition has prestige and
authority, may lead to an adjustment of the new to the old, and
not of the old to the new. False perspectives of one sort or another
are engendered.
We have noted the fact that not every philosophy can be re-
garded as vitally related to the totality of cultural needs and prob-
lems. The relations it may sustain may be partial, and the philoso-
phy may be astigmatic, and consist of sterile fantasy, in part at
least. Or finally, it may be responsive to social pressure only by
casting its response into a form congruent with that of the idols of
the theater of a superseded time. Besides these dangers, there are
40 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
others arising from the attitude of detachment that in its first
intention is only provisional. Philosophical thought that tries to
furnish a genuine and sympathetically enlightened response to the
requirements of one age and that grapples with its dominant prob-
lems may be carried by a sort of inertia of its own to a point far
removed from the actualities of. its source or of its contemporaneous
setting. It must .abstract from the concrete flux of life; but it is
perilous to forget to re-enter it. Its problems are formulated, its
methods of procedure devised. But these preparatory measures
that involve a temporary and instrumental aloofness may become
confirmed as a relatively lasting aloofness. A certain hardening
and callousness sets in and its sensitivity to the life that created it
is diminished. An independent world of reflection is created, and
thought lives and moves in this detached sphere. Philosophy thus
is in danger of becoming an exclusive cult. One is reminded of the
present virtual detachment of art from the common life as com-
pared, let us say, with its intimate union with that life in Renais-
sance times. When this exclusiveness and seclusiveness (becomes
characteristic of philosophy, its successive systems manifest a higher
continuity just because their excessive sequestration makes philoso-
phical pursuits so largely a process of dovetailing systems and push-
ing still further preceding analyses and syntheses. But the world of
life and deed has meanwhile forgotten its ancient needs and devices
in the face of new difficulties provoked by new combinations of forces
not even foreshadowed in that former time. While waiting for the
elucidations of philosophers, some compromise has been perforce
.accepted, and somehow or other the world has in ungainly fashion
passed around and beyond the former obstacle and turned its at-
tention to the new, with the philosophers lagging in the rear.
There is accordingly less reason for wonder, when these mat-
ters are borne in mind, that philosophy should continually be open
to the charge of irrelevance, pedantic ossification, and unservice-
ability. The world seeks the consolations it desires in other ways, in
religion or in art, or more probably falls victim to hare-brained but
well-advertised doctrines that are "all the rage." In such a situ-
ation the philosopher is puzzled by the world, and the world a great
deal more puzzled by the philosopher. The latter can not meet the
world and lend it assistance without something of a rupture with
the philosophical past.
Our histories of philosophy, however, have been largely respon-
sible for making that rupture with the past so difficult. The ob-
structions to fruitful philosophical activity, it will be generally ad-
mitted, have existed at times, if not always. What is not so gen-
erally recognized is the role of the histories in perpetuating and con-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 41
firming such, obstacles. This is the reason why past modes o.f writing
the history of philosophy should be discarded. The aberrations and
irrelevances of philosophical thought, both historical and contempo-
rary, are not recognized because the works do not reveal concretely the
history of ideas. Conformity with the portrayed trend of history and
astuteness in effecting a skilful junction of one's speculation with
that trend, comes to be more of a test of the success of a philosophy
than its relevance to the life about it and its fruitfulness in the guid-
ance and enrichment of that life. The histories of philosophy do not
adequately reveal how germane ideas may have been to the age in
which they flourished, the limitations involved in this quality, nor
how speedily they lost that quality after they had become abstracted
from their several original settings and confirmed as zealously
guarded traditions in a cloistered mental life. We fall into the two-
fold error of regarding as sheer abstractions and perversities ideas
that were concretely validated and accepted in their times, and, on
the other hand, of regarding ideas that had grown to be abstractions
mere side-shows of the intellectual circus as a preordained move-
ment of thought. The problem concerning the number of angels
that could dance on the point of a needle may leave us to-day coldly
indifferent. It would be well, however, if histories of philosophy
were to show how and why the problem was once real and pressing.
But not merely that. It would be helpful to learn how the problem
ever became a matter of indifference and then to take the lesson
to heart. A history of philosophy that is neither an a priori organi-
zation of the materials, nor a handbook of facts, and is not, finally,
a diffuse literary history of culture, should serve to mitigate these
evils. It should help to free philosophical thought from over-re-
spect for the past, to provoke a more forward-looking manner of
thinking, and make history an aid and not an obstacle in the pur-
suit of wisdom.
ALBERT G. A. BALZ.
UNIVERSITY OP VIRGINIA.
"DUALISM IN ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY"
IT can not be often that a critic gives so much pleasant stimulation
to the "critickee" as Dr. Grace de Laguna has given by her
discussion under the above title in the issue of this JOURNAL dated
November 7. I am well aware that my views need philosophical
overhauling, since the habit of philosophical analysis has too long
been laid aside by their author; and I have only gratitude for the
philosopher who is kind enough to give them expert attention.
42 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
The difficulty which I find in fully profiting by Dr. de Laguna's
criticism is that of understanding her own position. She rejects both
the dualism of The Animal Mind and the " mechanistic behaviorism"
which that dualism opposes; her own form of behaviorism is not as
yet clear to me. Since she doubtless wrote her article in order to
present just this conception, and since she usually writes with great
clearness, my difficulty is no doubt due to my inexpertness in hand-
ling philosophical categories ; but still it exists.
Dr. de Laguna's arguments against the view that in animals and
in man there exists an inner aspect to behavior, an aspect which is
directly accessible only to the introspection of each individual but
whose nature may be inferred by other individuals on the principle
of analogy, do not convince me any more than behavioristic argu-
ments have ever convinced me. One of the points she urges is that
all experimental investigation of alleged subjective states of mind
involves standardizing objective conditions, and that "the phe-
nomena thus investigated become in effect functions of the factors
constituting the standardized conditions of the experiment." As
the dualist would not hesitate to admit that subjective phenomena
are functions of objective conditions, he would evidently fail to
appreciate the force of this objection. He would, of course, maintain
that some of the objective conditions of a psychological experiment,
such as for instance the play of cortical associative tendencies, may
best be ascertained by means of their subjective accompaniments as
revealed by the subject's introspection. Nor would the dualist real-
ize why Dr. de Laguna needed to occupy a page in showing that in
actual procedure and in results the studies of a dualist and of a be-
haviorist in the field of comparative psychology are identical. Since
we can obtain no introspections from animals, such a statement
would appear to be self-evident: it is the interpretation of results
that differs for the two types of workers.
It is in considering another argument of my critic that I feel the
need of a better understanding of the position which she would have
me substitute for that of dualism. She urges that the psychologist
would never have reached the conception of anger, for example, as
a distinct type of experience, on the basis of introspection alone ; he
would have been prevented from so doing by the fact that the term
covers feelings and experiences that are subjectively different.
* ' Cold still anger is a somewhat different feeling from hot passionate
anger." Upon what basis, then, can such a conception be reached?
There would seem to be two possibilities, so far as I can see. Either
(1) anger denotes a series of behavior phenomena that are always
called forth by the same objective conditions, or (2) it means a series
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 43
of behavior phenomena that always produce the same objective re-
sults, under which head their effect on an outside observer may be
classed. But it is clear that on the one hand anger is called forth
by very different objective conditions in different individuals, and
on the other hand that it looks very different to an outside observer
when noted in different individuals. I do not see where the beha-
viorist has any advantage here over the dualist, who says that
"anger" means a class of experiences which, while they differ in the
same individual at different times, all have certain common elements
observable by his introspection; and that similar elements may be
inferred to be present in other persons whose behavior shows certain
resemblances to his own behavior when such feelings are present in
his consciousness.
When Dr. de Laguna turns upon the behaviorists, and declares
that even the dualistic arguments are preferable to "mechanistic
behaviorism," I still fail to understand what her own non-mechan-
istic behaviorism is. She quotes with approval, as against the mech-
anistic behaviorists, my statement to the effect that if a physiol-
ogist could observe the nervous process that occurs in my cortex
when I see red, or the contraction of the muscles that occurs when I
say "red," he would observe nothing red about either. Now I meant
to imply by this statement that red is something other than behavior :
that it is essentially a subjective experience. Dr. de Laguna seems
to mean, by approving the statement as opposed to mechanistic be-
haviorism, that there exists a form of behavior which is not either
nervous action or muscular action. I can not guess what behavior,
so interpreted, is.
Nor does the following passage enlighten me. Why, Dr. de
Laguna asks, can not the behaviorist "assert of the subject's red,
as the physical chemist asserts of the electrical charge of the ion,
that it is a function of directly observable phenomena; in this case,
of discriminative responses to a set of standardized conditions?"
Indeed he can, I would reply, and so can the dualist. But the dualist
has an advantage over the behaviorist in recognizing the fact that
the subject's red can not only be inferred, but directly observed (by
the subject himself). When the behaviorist says that my conscious-
ness of blue is effectively only my movements when I say blue, the
dualist replies, "It is true that these movements are all that you,
another person, can react to when I get the sensation blue. But I
can react either to my sensation blue, or to my own movements of
reaction which you observe : I can observe them also, and my reaction
to the sensation blue in my consciousness is something quite unlike
my reaction when I observe my own reactive movements. Therefore,
44 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
judged even by the standard of their effects on the outside world,
my sensation blue and my reaction to that sensation are two different
phenomena." This argument, it seems to me, disposes of the ordi-
nary behaviorist on his own ground: what effect it has on Dr. de
Laguna's behaviorism I do not know, because I do not understand
what her type of behaviorism really is.
MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN
VASSAR COLLEGE.
DOCTRINAL FUNCTIONS
PROFESSOR Keyser's article with this title 1 is so illuminat-
ing and so completely confirms certain suspicions I have long
entertained, that I am tempted to draw some further corollaries from
his doctrine, and to ask him whether they would not meet with his
assent.
1. If, as he shows, a "postulate-system" requires interpretation
and admits of more than one, and is therefore to be regarded as a
"doctrinal function" of which the variables may be filled up vari-
ously by various persons, may we not trace this state of things else-
where than in mathematics? Will it not follow that any "doctrine"
which is laid down dogmatically or hypothetically but is capable of
various interpretations, is in truth a ' ' doctrinal function. ' ' In par-
ticular, is it not manifest that the various philosophies and religions
are preeminently doctrinal functions? They are assuredly "postu-
late-systems" in their genesis, which are believed and declared true
long before they are proved. They are built up mostly of value-
judgments and "presuppose" some essential dogma which is an
article of faith, though it is usually camouflaged as an "ultimate
demand of reason." They always contain, moreover, "one or more
undefined terms" (generally more!}, as well as "at least one element,
that is to say a thing or a substantive as distinguished from a rela-
tion. ' ' Moreover the great variability exhibited by philosophies and
religions is well accounted for by their being "postulate-systems;"
while the great variety of interpretations put upon an established
system, like Idealism, Realism or Christianity, is natural enough if
they are really "doctrinal functions," to which each believer can
give the values most pleasing to himself. What is true of religions
and philosophies applies also to political creeds and catchwords ; they
too are plainly "doctrinal functions."
2. Are there not a large number of persons many or all of whose
beliefs are habitually ' ' doctrinal functions ? ' ' For the meaning and
value they attach to them appear to vary considerably with their
circumstances, moods, temper and state of health.
i In this JOUENAL, XV., p. 262.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 45
3. I was not a little delighted to hear from Professor Keyser that,
unlike a "proposition," "a propositional function is neither true
nor false," because "it is always possible to select such constants
as will, if substituted for the variables of a given function convert
the latter, not into a proposition, but into nonsense."
This appears to me to be profoundly true, and to be applicable to
the whole of pure mathematics. There is not, properly speaking, any
mathematical truth, because all mathematical doctrines are "doc-
trinal functions," capable of an infinity of applications true and
false, significant and nonsensical; and, until the mathematical for-
mula is actually applied, i. e., used, nothing can be predicted about
the value or validity of the interpretation put upon it and the values
assigned to its variables. This may perhaps be made sufficiently
clear by a very elementary illustration. If the formula "24-2 = 4,"
which is usually regarded by philosophers as an "absolute truth," is
in reality a doctrinal function, it will be possible to apply it to cases
such that the resulting "propositions" will be (a) nonsense, and
(fc) false. Accordingly we can apply it to disparate entities and de-
mand to be told what sum results from the addition of 2 caterpillars
to 2 virtues ? Common-sense will of course correctly answer that the
problem is nonsense, because the entities to be summed are not com-
parable for any rational purpose. Nor again can the question
"What will 2 lions added to 2 lambs make?" be answered truly by
"four." The lions will no doubt make a meal; but this answer is
not arithmetical, and the arithmetical formula has proved inappli-
cable. In short, before we can infer that 2 -f- 2 make 4 in any appli-
cation we have to be reasonably certain that the case is such that the
entities concerned may be treated, for our purpose, as homogeneous
units.
Furthermore, the principle that a formula is only a "doctrinal
function" in its "pure," abstract, or unapplied state, applies far
beyond the range of mathematics. Indeed it seems to hold univer-
sally. There appears to be no doctrine whatsoever which it is not
possible, with a little ingenuity, to reduce to nonsense, if it is taken
merely as a verbal formula and without regard to the meaning sought
to be conveyed by its means in a definite situation by a definite per-
son. Similarly it will be found that such a formula may always have
a value assigned to its terms which will yield a false proposition.
That this has not altogether escaped the notice of all philosophers
I have endeavored to make clear in my article on Aristotle's Refuta-
tion of Aristotelian Logic. 2 I there showed that Aristotle (on occa-
sion) was aware that a general rule may be true in the abstract
(cb-Aois) when unapplied, and yet may fail to apply, or be falsified, in
2 In Mind, N. S., No. 89.
46 TEE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
a special case. The great example of this principle, which has forced
itself on the notice of mankind, is the breakdown of ethical rules
when they encounter the difficulties of casuistry. It is not appar-
ently possible so to formulate any ethical rule as to confer on it a
prophetic adjustment to the circumstances of special cases sufficient
to decide them aright in advance, or even to be felt by the best moral
sentiment to have any significant application to them at all. "The
noble death of Cato" does not fall under the rule against suicide,
any more than Regulus's return to Carthage or Socrates 's refusal to
escape from the city that was bent on "sinning against philosophy,"
while only a moral pedant would refuse to celebrate with the poet
acts like that of Hypermnestra, splendide mendax, et in omne virgo
nobilis aevum. This impossibility of fixing, in advance of the facts,
the rule to be applied to the case is the reason why any applicable
system of ethics is always careful to leave the ultimate decision of the
right thing to do to the intelligent moral judgment of someone who
knows the particular circumstances of the case.
Now the inferences I would draw from this situation are two.
(1) There are no rules which can be pronounced absolutely true, no
truths which are strictly universal: those so called, which are com-
mon enough, are true in general (cbrAais), and their "truth" does
not preclude failure and falsity when they are applied to the wrong
sort of case. (2) There are no rules, "universals," "principles,"
etc., which do not get their real meaning from their application to
cases ; and as this application has always to be made by some one who
wishes to use them, real meaning is always personal. If they are
taken in the abstract, the "meaning" that clings to them is merely
verbal "dictionary-meaning;" because in Professor Keyser's phrase-
ology they are only ' ' doctrinal functions. ' ' The application of these
two corollaries to philosophic controversy would, I am sure, greatly
accelerate philosophic progress, by clearing away great masses of
pseudo-problems and enormously simplifying those that remained.
F. C. S. SCHILLER.
CORPUS CHEISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD.
OF OUTER-WORLD OBJECTS
IN a previous issue of this JOURNAL 1 1 have called attention to the
well-recognized fact that, if some special characteristic x is fre-
quently noted as inherent in a frequently observed experience A;
then where there is given a less frequently observed experience B in
which this characteristic x also inheres, the remainder of the more
i Vol. XV., No. 23, pp. 627 ff.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 47
frequently observed experience A tends to be revived as an image,
and this image becomes part and parcel of the total of the less fre-
quently observed experience B. And I there noted that in such cases
we tend to interpret the less frequently observed experience B in
terms of the more frequently observed experience A. If we perceive
a round, properly shaded, piece of yellow paper, we are likely to say
"what a clever representation of an orange." "Were round, shaded,
pieces of yellow paper more common in our experience than oranges,
we should say, when we observed an orange, "how much it looks
like a round, shaded piece of yellow paper." I shall not repeat the
suggestion there made in regard to our assumption that other men
have minds like our own. I would ask the reader rather to note
that the above mentioned psychological fact may be stated in another
way, and to consider certain implications resulting from this ob-
servation.
If a characteristic of a given experience A is, after many repe-
titions, given in connection with a new experiential characteristic
B, any subsequent repetition of the newer characteristic B will tend
to carry with it a very marked revival of the often repeated char-
acteristic A. Thus it is that the sight of a round, shaded, piece of
yellow paper reminds us instantly of an orange, while the sight of an
orange does not commonly remind us of a round, shaded, piece of
yellow paper.
1 presume it may be assumed that the human babe, at the moment
immediately following its birth, is a conscious being. Its conscious-
ness may be exceedingly vague and chaotic, but it will be generally
agreed, I imagine, that it is sufficiently developed to involve a dif-
ferentiation of characteristics. Were it not, we should not find our-
selves attributing to it the ability to discern the difference between
sight and hearing which is indicated by the differences of its be-
havior upon being stimulated by light and by sound respectively.
If we agree that the child at birth is a conscious being of this
type, we can scarcely fail to agree that it was a similarly constituted
conscious being some hours before birth, and indeed during some
months before birth, to look no further back. 2 Hence it seems clear
that the capacity to differentiate characteristics within consciousness,
which is so distinctly evidenced immediately after birth, must have
existed during these prenatal months.
This differentiation must, doubtless, have yielded the beginnings
of the mental characteristic which we ourselves know as the sense
of movement ; for it is a well known fact that the babe in the womb
is more or less active for some time before birth. And beyond that
2 Cf. my Consciousness, pp. 166 ff.
48 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
this differentiation must have yielded the beginnings of the charac-
teristic which we ourselves know more definitely as the sense of
resisted movement; for the mother knows that the babe struggles
against the walls of her womb. Thus the child at birth will be
possessed of a rudimentary differentiation of its consciousness x
corresponding with the obstruction of its movements, which, be it
noted, has been often experienced. To this characteristic x we may
give a name; let us call it the "otherness" characteristic.
The movements of the child immediately after birth, as it is held
in the hands of mother or nurse, must yield an experience of this
"otherness" characteristic, which has been so repeatedly experi-
enced during its prenatal life. But presently when it opens its eyes,
it experiences a quite new characteristic in rudimentary sight. Its
very early life will very soon lead to a conjunction of this new sight
characteristic with the often prenatally repeated rudimentary sense
of movement characteristic, and presently a conjunction with the
as often prenatally repeated "otherness" characteristic, which latter
will be given anew when its movements after birth are obstructed by
what we call outer-world objects. Hence will arise a new differentia-
tion Y, which we may call the "out-thereness" characteristic.
As the "otherness" characteristic has been very frequently ex-
perienced, while the sight characteristic has not, the occurrence of
the latter will tend to arouse the revival of the former ; and the con-
junction of the two differentiations will yield the "out-thereness"
characteristic. Thus it will very soon come about that each experi-
ence of the sight characteristic of a certain definite type will at
once result in the re-instatement in marked form of the revival of the
"out-thereness" characteristic. In other words, the babe's sight
characteristic of a certain type will immediately suggest the possible
existence of the "out-thereness" characteristic as it would be if
actually experienced. And it will soon discover by its movements
that this imaged "out-thereness" is very frequently displaced by
actually realized ' ' out-thereness, "as it finds its movements restricted
in relation to what it sees.
As the result of this, whenever the babe gains a sight experience
of the nature referred to it will immediately picture, as an expecta-
tion, the possible realization of the "out-thereness" characteristic;
and this expectation will be so frequently realized that the babe will
soon come to assume a possible ' ' out-thereness ' ' experience whenever
it notes the special sight experience under consideration, even though
this "out-thereness" characteristic is not in fact realized. Hence
it will soon happen that, whenever the special sight characteristic
referred to is given, the child will assume the possible existence of
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 49
the "out-thereness" characteristic even when it can not possibly
be realized. And this assumption will tend to become habitual be-
cause its validity will be attested by innumerable experiments.
In the interest of simplicity I avoid all reference to the fixation
of this assumption by the correlation of the movement with senses
other than that of sight.
When once the assumption under consideration is firmly estab-
lished, it is not difficult to picture to ourselves the process by which
we construct a somewhat that is the ground of this actual or pos-
sible "out-thereness" experience; by which, in other words, we con-
struct on its basis the concept of outer-world objects, and of the
outer-world as a whole. What I wish to emphasize is this; that we
seem to find in the very nature of consciousness itself the basis
for the development of this conception of outer-world objects. And
it is to be noted that this conception is itself a mental construct
quite within conscious experience.
This conceptual assumption, verified as it is by countless experi-
ments, is perhaps the most thoroughly validated of all the assump-
tions made by the conscious man; and I for one am content to be-
lieve that we are fully warranted in holding that the entities thus
assumed do really exist. I am concerned here merely to support the
view that this belief in outer-world objects is based upon an assump-
tion pure and simple ; that the existence of such outer-world objects
is purely hypothetical, although the hypothesis involved is as thor-
oughly verified as any hypothesis ever can be ; and that this assump-
tion, and the hypothesis based upon it, are data of our conscious
experience based upon a fundamental characteristic of consciousness.
This position is strengthened if we view the subject from a slightly
different angle.
When one awakens of a morning all that exists for one is a
succession of what we, when sophisticated, call "objects-in-the-outer-
world;" bath-wrapper, bath-tub, towel, water-in-tub let us say.
But presently we find in experience water, and then hot ; the former
of which is an object-in-the-outer-world, the latter appearing to be
of a quite distinct nature, and not an object-in-the-outer-world. We
describe it as part of consciousness.
Analysis indicates that this distinction is bound up with the fact
that the water experience has, and that the hot experience has not,
a special characteristic. This characteristic we may call ' ' out-there-
ness." It is because we have many experiences of this nature that
we are led to distinguish between the outer-world and consciousness.
Further analysis indicates that this "out-thereness" quality
within experience, in itself, belongs to the grouping which we call
50 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
consciousness. It certainly does not belong to that grouping which
we call the outer-world.
If we agree that this is correct, it becomes interesting to note that
by adding this psychic quality "out-thereness" to some special item
in consciousness to which it is not originally attached, we at once
transform this item into an object-in-the-outer-world. A cry of
distress out of the mist, carrying with it the psychic quality of ' ' out-
thereness," at once transforms what I had just thought to be a
mere illusion, a purely mental thing into a real man in the outer-
world.
On the other hand, we at times find in experience objects-in-the-
outer-world from which we are able to remove the psychic quality
of * ' out-thereness ; " and then we find that the object-in-the-outer-
world disappears as such, and forthwith the experience becomes what
appears to be merely an item in consciousness. The drunkard sees
real snakes ; but, if he is not too far gone, we may convince him that
he has experienced only a mental state which we call an hallucina-
tion. We thus by reasoning, which is a purely mental process, re-
move the "out-thereness" quality, which is a mental quality, and
instanter his object-in-the-outer-world becomes an experience wholly
within what he calls his consciousness.
HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL
YORK CITT.
REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE
Liberty and Democracy and Other Essays in War-Time. HARTLEY
BURR ALEXANDER. Marshall Jones Company. 1918. Pp. 229.
This collection of essays was "written, from time to time, under
the impulse of events, and for contemporary reading. They can not,
therefore, pretend to either system or consecution, and they un-
doubtedly contain repetitions, not only as between the several essays,
but of matters that have been frequently and better expressed else-
where. . . . True, there is here no constructive, no reconstructive
programme. But the hour calls for diagnosis."
I select three points which seem to me to express the burden of
the book : 1. The downfall of traditional democracy ; 2. An analysis
of the German conception of freedom; 3. A sketch of the lines along
which a re-statement of democracy should be undertaken.
The dominant intellectual characteristic of the eighteenth century
was its spirit of optimism, an optimism at once romantic, humani-
tarian and complacent. Its basis was founded on man's trust in
reason as an expression of universal law and a faith in humanity
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 61
as inherently good. Democracy was born of this optimism. To-day
we see its downfall. "I can think of no death in history quite so
stupendously bitter as is that which has stricken down the gorgeous
humanitarian optimism of the nineteenth century." Why this col-
lapse ? Partly because the underlying ideas were never subjected- to
reflective criticism. Furthermore, the basis of Asocial solidarity and
the principles of political unity were entirely subjective and senti-
mental. Liberty was a thing of ideas, feelings, literature and art.
It lacked the machinery of organization for the execution of its
ideas; it had no objective basis in institutions. Men attempted to
fraternize on the basis of sentiment. As a result there developed a
childish romanticism and a laissez-faire philosophy.
Germany, on the other hand, developed a tyrannous institutional-
ism. "The institution of feudalism was Germany's first gift to
European civilization." The structural principle of feudalism is
not liberty, but loyalty. The individual occupies no status as an
individual, but derives his status by virtue of his relation to one
higher up. Every man is some other man's man. This leads at
once to the cardinal German virtues of system, organization and
efficiency, involving a regime which is mechanical, non-human and
impersonal. "A machine has all of the devices of a rational pur-
pose, but none of its soul. ... It is an efficiency destitute of that
adaptability of means and idealization of ends which is the humane
essence of true reason. ' '
If democracy, lacking an objective basis of control, has been
drifting toward anarchy, autocracy, in its glorification of authority,
has tended toward tyranny. What is needed is an analysis of the
concept of liberty, a liberty which will be more than a sentiment and
less than submissive loyalty to an established institution. "But
while it is easy to see the fault in what we would avoid, it is not so
easy to discover the virtue of what we prize. The essence of liberty
is illusive of analysis, possibly because the thing itself is so passion-
ately a part of the colour of life." There follows, therefore, no
complete analysis of liberty, but the lines along which it should be
undertaken are indicated. Freedom means man thinking; it is,
therefore, a characteristic of reason and not of feeling. The exer-
cise of reason involves both freedom and control. The two are not
hostile elements set over against each other, but supplementary phases
of developing experience. Having connected liberty with rational
choice, involving both individual initiative and responsible submis-
sion to the material conditions of thought, ' ' it follows inevitably that
reason must be sought not in collectivistic states, but in democratical
states, where liberty and individualism are prized."
M. T. McCLURE.
TULANB UNIVERSITY.
52
Experiments in Psychical Research. JOHN EDGAE COOVER. Stan-
ford University ; University Press. 1917. Pp. xxiv -f- 641.
It was inevitable that such a work as Coover's Experiments in
Psychical Research would be written. At first sight it is surprising
that it was not written before. For nearly forty years organized
societies of large membership in both Europe and America have
carried on propaganda for the scientific investigation of the occult.
Substantial rows of volumes containing their published reports
attest convincingly to their vigor and perseverance. But, unfor-
tunately for the advancement of scientific knowledge concerning the
problem of psychical research, their industry was rarely matched by
the adequacy of their methods of investigation. Indeed one may
seek long in these voluminous reports to find little of the precision,
exactness, rigid control of conditions and thorough command of psy-
chological technique which so richly characterize the present work.
The first and most extensive group of experiments reported by
Coover is concerned with thought-transference. The problem was
attacked repeatedly and from a variety of angles. One series of
experiments was performed to see if the ideas or images of lotto-
block numbers from 1 to 100 could be transferred from one mind to
another. A second series of experiments was performed to test the
truth of the popular belief that people can tell, in the absence of the
ordinary means of perception, when they are being stared at. A
third and most extensive series was performed to determine whether
ideas or images of ordinary playing cards could be transferred from
one mind to another. Eeputable mediums supposed to have special
psychic and telepathic power, as well as individuals presumably
normal, were used as subjects. In all, the attempts at thought-
transference amounted to nearly fifteen thousand.
The series of experiments in which the "psychics" were used as
subjects are typical of the general method used in the experiments
on thought-transference. The medium sat in the laboratory at dis-
tances varying from one to ten meters from the experimenter, her
back to him and her eyes closed. She placed her mind in an attitude
favorable for receiving telepathic impressions. The experimenter
shuffled a pack of playing cards, cut them and chose the bottom one.
Before looking at it, however, a die was thrown. If an odd number
of spots came up he proceeded to image the card in one of three
ways according to whether the die showed one, three or five. If an
even number came up, however, the card was not looked at until
after the subject had recorded her impressions. From these data
it was possible to compute the number of right guesses which
would result by pure chance, together with the possible varia-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 53
tion of empirical from theoretical chance under the particular cir-
cumstances. Any excess of successes over this must be due in the
case of the even throws to clairvoyance, in the case of the odd throws
to telepathy or clairvoyance or both. It would be relatively easy
also to determine which distances and which types of imagery were
most favorable for telepathic transmission. Ten different psychic
subjects were used. The most elaborate statistical analysis of the
results obtained from them, however, failed to reveal any such ex-
cess of successes. Equally negative results were obtained with the
normal subjects. In fact neither in this nor in any of the other ex-
periments on thought-transference was there found the slightest
trace of telepathic or clairvoyant power.
As a check on the accuracy of the methods used above, a series
of experiments was performed in which at certain throws of the die
the card was so held that it could be seen faintly reflected in the
experimenter's left cornea. The subject sat in a position where he
could view the reflection when present, through a laboratory tele-
scope. It was found that the proportion of successes on these par-
ticular throws ran far ahead of chance, while the other throws re-
mained consistently at the level of chance as in previous experiments.
Repeated attempts were made to continue the telepathic experi-
ments with a semi-professional trumpet medium of international
reputation. The experiments were conducted in a totally dark
seance chamber while the medium was in a state of trance. It was
found that the voices "who could report the safety of relatives in
Mexico and could define the attitude of Japan toward the quarrel-
ing republics, could not after months of effort bring themselves to
naming the cards. They could see the cards and they had the power
of speech but they became completely exhausted when they tried to
coordinate these two powers." A telegraph key was pressed re-
peatedly by "spirits" until printer's ink, which had been spread
on it, was found later smeared on the medium's hands and on the
trumpet. By appropriate methods graphic records were taken of
the vocal organs of the medium while the voices were speaking
through the trumpet. The records revealed movements on the part
of the medium such as would take place if the medium herself were
doing the speaking.
Important series of experiments are also reported on the per-
ception of subliminal visual and auditory impressions, which throw
light on certain seance phenomena. A similar function is per-
formed by other experiments which reveal a strong tendency for
more or less meaningless auditory syllables to be interpreted as
meaningful discourse. There is an exhaustive treatment of number
54 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
habits and their relation to certain number guessing experiments in
telepathy, and an excellent exposition of theoretical as related to
empirical chance. In connection with the various experiments valu-
able critical summaries are given of similar work previously done.
There is an illuminating account of the sequels to a number of
experiments which have been alleged as proving thought-transfer-
ence. The volume concludes with a most complete bibliography
of works related to psychical research.
In our appreciation of this work we should not overlook the one
who made it possible. Some years ago Mr. Thomas Welton Stan-
ford, of Melbourne, Australia, endowed Leland Stanford University
with 10,000, the interest of which was to be used in psychical re-
search. Thus was Professor Coover enabled to produce this monu-
mental work. Thanks to the generosity and wisdom of Mr. Stan-
ford, Professor Sedgwick's remark that, so far as he could see,
psychical research had made no discernible progress in the last
twenty years, is now no longer true.
CLARK L. HULL.
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. July, 1918.
An Experimental Study of Mixed Feelings (pp. 237-271) : PAUL
THOMAS YOUNG. - Pleasantness and unpleasantness are not felt simul-
taneously. Mixed feeling are really rapid alterations, doubt, or in-
terruption. The Human Mind (pp. 272-290) : HENRY JONES MUL-
PORD.-The genetic viewpoint is emphasized. Brain is made the
basis of mind. Mental development is measured in terms of brain
development. ^Esthetic Unity (pp. 291-315) : MARGARET OTIS. -
The factors of position, form, color, direction and size were considered
in the unification of groups of figures. Some Variabilities and Cor-
relations in Learning (pp. 316-326) : GARRY C. MYERS. -The first
few ranks in performances of a task are very much the same as the
ranks after practise. Minor Studies from the Psychological Labora-
tory of Vassar College. A Further Study of Freshmen (pp. 327-
330: MARGARET MONTAGUE, M. M. REYNOLDS, and M. F. WASH-
BURN. - The reading-backwards test and verbal-memory test are given
a fair index to probable academic success. Further Tests of the
Verbal Ability of Poor Spellers (pp. 331-332) : MARGARET E. COBB,
MARGARET KINCAID, and M. F. WASHBURN. - Good spellers have
greater verbal ability than bad spellers. Experiments on a Possible
Test of ^Esthetic Judgment of Pictures (pp. 333-336) : JUDITH
55
CATTELL, JOSEPHINE GLASCOOK and M. F. WASHBURN. This is a
study of a group of pictures by the order of merit method. Minor
Studies from the Psychological Laboratory of Cornell University.
The Psychological Attitude of Charles Dickens toward Surnames
(pp. 337-346) : E. DELASKI. - Dickens 's names are of English origin
and in most cases descriptive. Notes on the Presidents of the Amer-
ican Psychological Association (pp. 347-349): CLYDE B. MOORE. -
This study gives the age, degrees and place of birth of the presidents
of the American Psychological Association. Book Notes (pp. 350-
353) : Felix Adler, An Ethical Philosophy of Life, Presented in its
Main Outlines. Joseph Alexander Leighton, The Field of Phi-
losophy; An Outline of Lectures on Introduction to Philosophy.
Joseph Jastrow, The Psychology of Conviction; a Study of Beliefs
and Attitudes. Frederick Bligh Bond, The Gate of Remembrance.
The Story of the Psychological Experiment which Resulted in the
Discovery of the Edgar Chapel at Glastongury. Charles S. Gardner,
Psychology and Preaching. Hereward Carrington, Psychical Phe-
nomena of the War. M. Luckiesh, The Language of Color. E.
Baudin, Cours de Psychologic et de Philosophic. Lewis M. Terman
and others, The Stanford Revision and Extension of the Binet-Simon
Scale for Measuring Intelligence. Eudolf Pintner, The Mental Sur-
vey. Robert Sessions Woodworth, Dynamic Psychology. Wilfrid
M. Barton, Manual of Vital Function Testing Methods and Their
Interpretation. Ferdinand Morel, Essai sur I'introversion mystique;
etude psychologique de pseudo-Denys I'Areopagite et de quelques
autres cas de mysticisme. Edward Safford Jones, The Influence of
Age and Experience on Correlations Concerned with Mental Tests.
Franklin C. Paschal, The Witmer Cylinder Test. Agnes Low
Rogers, Experimental Tests of Mathematical Ability and Their
Prognostic Value. Rudolf Pintner and Margaret M. Anderson, The
Picture Completion Test. Eugene A. Nifenecker, Assistant Director,
Report on Some Measurements in Spelling in Schools of the Borough
of Richmond, City of New York. Leta S. Hollingworth, assisted by
C. Amelia Winford, The Psychology of Special Disability in Spelling.
H. B. Wilson, Training Pupils to Study. Darwin Oliver Lyon,
Memory and the Learning Process. Charles H. Rieber, Footnotes
to Formal Logic. Anton Chekhov, Nine Humorous Tales. (Tr. by
Isaac Goldberg and Henry T. Schnittkind.)
Hocking, William Ernest. Morale and Its Enemies. New Haven:
Yale University Press. 1918. Pp. xv -f 200. $1.50.
Kallen, Horace M. The League of Nations, Today and Tomorrow.
Boston: Marshall Jones Co. 1918. Pp. xx-f-181. $1.50.
Lord, Herbert Gardner. The Psychology of Courage. Boston : John
W. Luce & Co. 1918.
56 TEE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
NOTES AND NEWS
According to the Rivista di Filosofia Neo Scolastica the philosoph-
ical journals have suffered severely from the war. Most of those
published in English, however, continue to appear. The Revista
receives regularly Mind, Philosophical Review, International Jour-
nal of Ethics, Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific
Methods, Psychological Bulletin, Psychological Review, Archives of
Psychology, American Journal of Psychology and The Monist, and
nearly all of them have the normal number of pages. Only the
Journal of Experimental Psychology has discontinued.
Of the French reviews there remain only the Revue Philoso-
phique and the Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale.
Among the Italian journals Cultura filosofica, edited by Profes-
sor De Sarlo, has been discontinued and the next number indefinitely
postponed, with which, however, a new series will begin.
The office of the Revista di filosofia has been transferred from
Turin to Rome, and E. Troilo is again its editor. Associated with
him are E. Buonaiuti, Faggi, Juvalta, Levi, Marchesini, Pastore,
Valli, Varisco and Vidari. The numbers are, however, somewhat
reduced in size. A few months ago the editor published a sort of
financial statement to show that the readers of the chief official organ
of Italian philosophy are not very numerous; a recent statement
adds that publication is continued through the aid of its friends.
The Critica of Benedetto Croce appears regularly, and the Rivista
Rosminiana at irregular intervals.
The Spanish reviews are all keeping up.
With regard to the journals devoted to scholastic philosophy, the
Revue Thomiste has just begun to appear again. The Revue de
philosophic has not yet been resumed. And of course the admirable
Belgian reviews are extinguished. The PhUosophisches Jahrbuch
appears regularly, as well as Ciencia Tomista and Razon y Fe.
Dr. ARTHUR 0. LOVEJOY, professor of philosophy at Johns Hop-
kins University, was elected president of the American Association
of University Professors at the meeting recently held in Baltimore.
VOL. XVI, No. 3. JANUARY 30, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
HERE is perchance nothing that would surprise Hegel as much
-i- in contemporary philosophy as the decline of the influence of
his own teaching. This need not be ascribed entirely to egoism, or
to lack of historical perspective, for his amazement would continue,
and perhaps increase, were he informed of the objects and enthusi-
asms of much of our thought. Sobermindedness, precision, the desire
to see the world as it is, and to record it as such these are the objects
of our own day, and Hegel would doubtless claim a share in them.
Certainty, definite certainty, is our aim ; and certainty, absolute cer-
tainty, is what he desired.
The variation, slight though it appear, is, of course, the funda-
mental difference, the unbridgeable chasm between us. The achieve-
ment of absolute certainty was the passion, as well as the objective,
of Hegel's system; to James it seemed unattainable; to many con-
temporary thinkers it seems undesirable, uninteresting. The change
may be an instance of sour grapes perhaps having discovered that
the truth was not to be ours, we have found in relative truths values
and delights which do not really appertain to them. Be that as it
may, the change has necessitated a more complete break with the
past, and with philosophic tradition than James ever envisaged.
Thought has been brought down to earth to operate on things
earthly, and there to find its fruition. Having determined that it
was not for us to know Heaven, it has been decided that Heaven was
not for us. Having discovered that the truth was undiscoverable,
it has been decided that it was not there to be discovered. Having
abandoned epistemological discussion as futile, since its problems
were unreal, the pragmatist has tended to pursue a policy of negat-
ing metaphysics. He has found a genuine and an abiding satisfac-
tion in investigating and attaining values of a more immediate va-
riety. And he has come to regard absolutistic thought as a museum
exhibit, of philosophical paleontology, interesting only to a few, and
has preferred to recover philosophy for a modern world by dwelling
in modern wisdom and living fact.
57
68
Problems which interested William James, though he believed
them to be without solution, seem to leave his descendants uninter-
ested, and at times disgusted. Perhaps they are, as we have seen, too
busy with more pressing, more important problems to give much
thought to "the meaning of truth;" perhaps the answer has been
found in denying its existence; perhaps but probably the vocabu-
lary has changed so completely that the problem which could never
be answered, can not now even be presented. At any rate, it is cer-
tain that no contemporary pragmatist would or couhi vouchsafe us an
answer to James' self-imposed query "What kinds of things would
true judgments be, in case they existed?" or claim with James that
' ' the answer which Pragmatism covers is intended to cover the most
complete truth conceived of, absolute truth, if you like." The ques-
tion has no meaning for him, nor would he want his answer to have
reference to things which do not exist. It is sufficient if they cover
specific cases, if they have application to the data in hand this they
must do, and no more. Indeed, more is impossible.
I do not mean to imply that the basis of pragmatism has changed
in any inherent respect. Though the interest in the meaning of truth
has faded to nothingness, the accepted meaning of truth remains the
same. To quote James once more, true ideas have always been those
"which we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify," and
their truth merely "means their agreement as their falsity means
their disagreement with reality." Yet in so defining truth and
though they do not appear to worry about the truth, our contempo-
raries would, I imagine, define the term essentially this way we are
really expressing a platitude. To assert the relationship of truth and
reality and to use such an assertion for purposes of definition, is, it
may be argued, somewhat disingenuous. For within this relationship
there is such a wide variation possible, due, perhaps, to the very un-
certainty inherent in the word reality, that we have hardly pene-
trated the difficulty, and certainly not illuminated the problem. To
say that what is real is true is startling neither as an heretical nor
as an orthodox definition. It is startling only when we begin to real-
ize that by so defining truth we have involved ourselves in the meshes
of ontology. But we need not so naively walk into the spider 's parlor.
Though we will have occasion later on to consider one phase of what
reality is to man, as an active and imaginative being, we may for the
present accept James' definition of truth, and employ it as a cri-
terion in judging philosophic enterprise.
But though we can judge the truth and the falsity of all philoso-
phies by the simple criteria which this definition suggests, we may
profitably stop for a moment and question whether this is a wise and
an honorable method of judging philosophy. If, as Professor Wood-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 59
bridge lias suggested, we are to estimate philosophies not by their
truth but by their power, is not a consideration of their truth or their
falsity irrelevant? Is it not worse than superfluous to give a mo-
ment's consideration to their factual strength or weakness? Though
our Puritanical instincts warn us to heed them and to apply our yard-
stick test, even though the scale be variable or uncertain ; though our
literal-mindedness persuade us that it is difficult to believe that which
we know to be false, we yield to this generous impulse. Not by their
truth, but by their power ! Yes, it is not an easy doctrine, but its re-
wards are great.
And yet how could we apply it to a man like Hegel? It is easy
to judge Plato by this measure, for poet-like, he put his state, his love,
his friendship, his everything in Heaven, though he saw their natural
bases in Athens. It is easy to judge a mystic by this scheme, for his
vision is not of this world, but of another, though he live here with
the rest. It is easy to judge all in this way whose philosophies are but
an attempt to conceive a universe. But what of Hegel, who is not
content with such activity, but preferred to act as recording angel to a
spirit which was all-inclusive, and for whom the factitious world sup-
plied an important testimonial ? It is easy to judge those philosophies
by their power which find their natural basis in this world, if but
their fulfilment be truly ideal ; but what of the system which makes
its basis ideal and its fruition and manifestation natural? Must we
not consider its truth as well as its power if we are to see in it aught
but a futile, albeit an eloquent, attempt to fit the actual into an ideal
and unrelated frame ?
It may appear that the distinction between a philosophy with a
natural basis and an ideal fruition, and one with an ideal founda-
tion and aiming at a natural fulfilment is somewhat arbitrary. But
I think that the antithesis is fundamental and real. To be sure, an
ideal of any variety has some, albeit a remote, relation to actuality,
and many philosophies aim at an ideal realizable in turn in the
world of facts. In so far the two are similar, and may be subjected
to similar tests. But we must remember that we are accustomed to
judge a philosophy by its fruits, whether real or fancied. Fancied
fruits, poetry in short, are, as we have seen, properly judged by
their power, by the conviction which they carry. And on the other
hand, a programmatic system of thought is rightly judged by its
adequacy in specific situations. This variation of criteria on which
to base a judgment applies equally well to the basis of thought as
to its fulfilment, though for obvious reasons we insist on it with far
slighter emphasis. For though a natural basis admits of criticism
solely on questions of truth or falsity, this is not stressed since, being
natural, it is held to be ipso facto true. Conversely, a system
60 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
founded on an ideal basis implies ideals sufficiently powerful to stim-
ulate and fortify thought, so that the basis itself is but seldom sub-
jected to this criticism.
A division of this type will result in strange combinations, and
will group together systems which can not be associated on any other
principle. Platonism, mysticism, all philosophies which contem-
plate Utopias, be they of this world or another, varying widely in
their contact with the natural order and differing fundamentally in
their appeal, all these we must classify together by reason of the fact
that their goal is ideal rather than natural (though in some cases it
may be achieved in fact as well as in fiction), and all will be judged
by the common principle of their power and appeal. On the other
hand, all philosophies which attempt to apply an ideal to the actual
whether this ideal be derived directly from the natural, or be more
or less independent in its origin which are programmatic in char-
acter, will be grouped together and judged primarily by their con-
formity or lack of conformity to the world and the facts which they
pretend to describe. This will include all empirical and all prag-
matic systems, and it will also include Hegelism.
Exception may be taken to the fact that I have included Hegel's
philosophy in a category whose basic characteristic is programmatic
intention. It may perhaps be argued that only a philosophy which
aimed at the comprehension and the control of its environment and
which formulated a description and a method or plan for influencing
it, could properly be designated programmatic, since it alone at-
tempted to give reality a conformity to the circumstances and con-
ditions which it had envisaged in its ideal. And as a postulate
to our former arguments only a philosophy of this variety need sub-
mit to examination as to its truth or its falsity.
An analogy may illuminate the problem. Let us suppose our-
selves at a concert and in the possession of the concert programme.
We read the names of the selections, and of the artists the plan for
the evening's entertainment. To judge the programme's validity
we must compare the printed list to the actual performance if they
coincide the programme was accurate, descriptive, true ; if they vary
the programme was inaccurate fictitious, false. Now let us suppose
ourselves in the possession of another programme, say one of a per-
formance which we did not witness. It remains a programme though
it is a plan of something past, and it is subject to the same tests and
judgments as the other.
In this latter sense at least the Hegelian system may also be
described as programmatic. It shares some of the characteristics of
the former too, since it implies', if it does not always state explicitly,
the nature of future events. This was inevitable since the account,
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 61
the programme, which Hegel presented aimed at being a description
of eternity, as well as a history in time. It therefore has the ad-
vantage, or the difficulty of enabling or requiring verification as a
history and as prediction. But in both instances the verification will
depend on its truthfulness. Hegel was attempting, as we have seen,
to apply a theory in order to explain reality, to superimpose on
actuality an ideal structure. Therefore it is by the truth rather
than by the power of this thought that we must primarily judge him.
It is neither requisite nor pertinent for me to inquire into the
individual fallacies and factual errors of the Hegelian system. I
[have not the ability to do so, nor would much be gained by a
campaign of this sort. It may not be taken amiss, however, if I
turn my attention for a mere moment to what, I think, may be con-
sidered the fundamental fault of this system from the point of view
of facts i. e. } a mistaken psychology. The traditional psychology
of the early nineteenth century was based on the division of reality
into ego and non-ego which found its rise in the Cartesian philoso-
phy. This is the basic argument of the system, the assumption
which underlies the whole theory that makes knowledge a mental
picture, a more or less perfect reproduction of an objective world
existing independently, and apart from it. Thus distinction, as we
know, gave origin and meaning to the epistemological excursions of
the preceding century. But to contemporary psychology which rec-
ognizes only one possible division and that a somewhat artificial
one betwen man and his environment and which sees in mind a
biological phenomenon, a factor in nature, an instrument to control
and to alter it such a psychology and a philosophy recognizing it
can find little meaning in the discussions of realism vs. idealism,
rationalism vs. empiricism. It can not enter them for it speaks
another language ; it grows impatient with them, for it sees that they
are futile since their problems are unreal. I may be pardoned if I
enter into a further brief digression.
This behavioristic psychology, which repudiates as too inflexible
the Kantian a priori method in experiment with its categories and
forms of thought operative unconsciously and unreflectively, and in-
sists that all psychological data must be interpreted with reference to
activity, can free itself alike from the theories of traditional ration-
alism and traditional empiricism. It can eliminate the machinery of
the Kantian machine-shop which assumes the truth of the empirical
up to a certain point in isolated sensations, and then endows thought
with synthesizing qualities through some transcendental a priori ma-
chinery. And in so doing it makes the rationalistic-empirical con-
troversy largely irrelevant. Similarly, it outlaws the conflict be-
tween epistemological realism and idealism. It denies the justice of
62 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
both the theory of Kant, of Fichte, and of Hegel that mind in
knowing phenomena makes them what they are, and the reaction of
the realism which holds the creative factor of mind to foe an intolerable
illusion, coming between truth and ideas which should be avoided in
order to see objects as they really are.
It does all this not so much by solving the problems as by elimi-
nating the classical anthitheses between Mind and the "World; the
Knower and the Known; Consciousness and its Object. Instead it
recognizes only one antithesis: that of Man and his Environment,
and considers mind as an instrument by which man may control and
modify his surroundings, and use natural forces for his own advan-
tage. Consciousness is not merely a mirror, so that the question of a
similarity between the two has little bearing. Mind is an instru-
ment of control, a factor in man's activity, and so regarded it leaves
no room for traditional epistemological considerations.
To return to Hegel, however, though we may regard this funda-
mental assumption as a basic error, this is not an ultimate indict-
ment. For after all, as Granz once pointed out to Schelling, you
can not destroy a system merely by refuting specific facts. The
method and the principles may remain and may be of enduring
value and importance. Nor need you damn Hegel uberhaupt merely
because you lack interest in uberkaupts, or find it necessary to
denominate Hegelism as absolutely valueless just because you have
stopped speaking in terms of absolutes.
"What else, it may be asked, can you do about it? You have
determined that Hegelism, since it poses as a programme after the
fact, must be judged by its truth rather than by its power, and you
have seen that it must be rejected as untrue not only in its facts but
also in its anticipated goal. What more can be said? To answer
this question you must recollect the nature of our definition of, truth.
I assumed that, though less interested in this phase of the matter,
contemporary thought accepted James' account of the meaning of
truth ; to see why this was the proper criterion to apply to Hegelism
and to explain in this light why it has been rejected. For, to quote
Eoyce, himself an admirer of much in Hegel, it can not be disputed
"that his system, as a system, has crumbled." This in brief has
been the content of the above discussion. Much of it may have ap-
peared irrelevant, and this belief may be accentuated when I say
that I do not believe that our definition of truth is adequate for our
purposes, or that the whole story has been told when a system has
been considered from this point of view.
It will perhaps be not unprofitable, therefore, to give a more
careful analysis of in how far human experience justifies the prag-
matic reliance on the identity of truth and of fact verifiable in ex-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 63
perienee. Such a consideration will lead us, I am inclined to think,
to ask whether to speak of poetry as true really means anything;
and if we agree, as I trust we shall, that poetry is true, whether this
type of truth is the same as the truth that two times two is four.
Perhaps we will even have to ask whether all facts are true, or
whether facts are merely "so." We may have to ask whether the
disproof of the factual basis of an ideal invalidated the ideal, or
even deprived it of its truth. And finally, we will have to consider
imagination as a factor towards truth. This will perhaps lead us to
identify truth in its non-positivistic sense with power, so that we
can judge all philosophies by a single standard as soon as we have
considered the factitious basis of a programmatic system as to its
"so-ness." It will be remembered that we are not invalidating our
argument which subjects these philosophies to a test of their facts,
but are merely adding thereto this further test, of truth defined in
terms of human experience rather than radical empiricism. For us,
as for Kant, we may find "nur in der Erfdhrung ist Wahrheit." A
philosophy, perhaps, could be judged both false and good.
Again it may be necessary to indicate that we have not been in-
clined to accept Hegelism as true in a pragmatic or scientific sense.
There may be some who will regard this statement as callow and:
superficial, with some justice, inasmuch as I made a slight attempt to
substantiate this opinion by a necessary reference to specific fallacies
or errors. My only reply to them would perhaps be an appeal to
authority. But I will not even attempt a reply ; rather I will go on
to consider the system from another, and it seems to me, from an
infinitely more significant view-point. As a product of human
imagination the Hegelian system has had an almost unexampled
influence on human imagination, and what will appear more im-
portant to some, it has had an influence on human activity which has
by no means ceased to exert its force.
It must not be thought that in thus characterizing this philos-
ophy I am endeavoring to cast a prejudicial flavor into my criticism.
Imagination is an essential factor in any constructive enterprise, as a
matter of fact, which aims to affect the conditions of human activity.
This may have reference to an actual transformation or it may only
refer to the formulation of a plan or a programme whereby such trans-
formation might be accomplished. In either of these senses imagi-
nation is fundamentally a scientific instrument, though only in the
former case is the instrument adequately tested. Whenever man
acts, and does so consciously with reference to some purpose to be
accomplished, he is said to be acting intelligently because he has
shown himself to be an imaginative creature. Whenever he thinks,
and thinks in terms of a world different from the one in which lie
64 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
finds himself, but which he envisages as a possible or perchance the
only possible outcome of the present world, then he is likewise an
imaginative creature. If his judgment is sound, if his prophecy is
found to be a correct prediction, then he may be called scientific.
It should be evident that I do not believe that Hegel was scientific
in this sense, that he had this variety of imagination. My purpose
in sketching it was frankly to gain for the imaginative function that
sober respectability which is so often denied it. Surely as a scien-
tific instrument no one would deny the respectability of imagination.
And perhaps it will be allowed to carry this virtue over into other
fields.
For the imaginative function, though it necessarily always oper-
ates on the material offered by experience, and in terms provided
by experience, is capable of producing results only remotely related
to the natural order and of conceiving worlds utterly apart from
this world. Such constructions we properly designate as fiction and
put them into a new and a separate class. But though they vary
it is evident that the products of a common function are related,
and that when considered together the one is capable of illuminating
and clarifying the other. Nor is their similarity confined to a com-
mon originator ; they likewise share a common origin. For fiction is
necessarily based upon fact, the ultimate elements of an imaginative
structure are inevitably supplied by experience. It can not be
otherwise.
How comes it then that the offspring of the same parents, nour-
ished in the same surroundings and occupied in not dissimilar
operations, are treated so differently ? Why is it that we regard the
one with sober respect, and the other with suspicion, though it be a
fond and sympathetic suspicion? Or, if we deal less harshly, why
do we still insist on careful isolation? In short, why do we ascribe
truth to those products of the imagination which have reference to
our own immediate surroundings, and not to others?
Granted that James was right in saying that "the true is only
the expedient in the way of our thinking" there still appears to be
no obvious reason why we should make factuality an innate and es-
sential characteristic of all truths. For unless we wish to regard
expediency in its very narrowest meaning, as something which will
provide results with the least effort, we are obliged to regard it in
well-nigh its broadest meaning, as something which will provide the
greatest eventual benefits. In this sense, it retains all that is most
consistently interested in progressive operation, and it retains its
pragmatic bias in favor of effective influence on human events. But
it recognizes the importance of the non-factual, and the influence
which it exerta on nan's activity. It recognizes that belief as well
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 65
as knowledge is power, and it seeks to stimulate and to foster those
beliefs which will increase power, which will insure benefits, which,
if you will, are most expedient.
Such an attitude, to be sure, requires no radical reconstruction
of our present ways of thinking; it merely recognizes an existing
state, and believing that it can be put to better and to more desir-
able uses, it seeks to control it, to make it part of the life of reason.
But though it implies no signal departure from most of our ways of
doing things, it will, I think, alter to no small degree our judgment
of things, and the criteria by which we seek to affect these judg-
ments. Quite specifically, it will require a redefinition of truth on
a more adequate basis, or it will at least necessitate the establish-
ment of a new term of approbation as a substitute for truthfulness.
I am inclined to believe that the former alternative would be
preferable. Words by their use, whether this be logical or no, gain
for themselves qualities which did not originally appertain to them,
and which are not perhaps inherent in them. To some who are ex-
cessively literal-minded, these accessory meanings, these peripheral
implications seem faulty, since they are adventitious. But to others
it would seem that, though the product of accident, these sec-
ondary meanings are valuable and useful, and that far from deserv-
ing to be discarded, an intelligent understanding would seek to con-
serve and employ them. In general we may say this condition arises
from the attachment of emotional, or at least an extra-rational sig-
nificance to words. It is for this reason perhaps that the majority of
terms usually associated with religious activity have gained this
state, so that, in Wordsworth's phrase,
"... the soul
Remembering how she felt; but what she felt
Remembering not, retains an obscure sense
Of possible sublimity."
Gradually these qualities tend to become the fundamental and most
important part of the word's meaning. It is for this reason that in
the attempt to analyze terms such as these we discover that though
their use has given us all essentially the same emotions, we mean
rather different things by them. The discovery naturally arouses our
suspicion, and the obvious temptation is to solve the problem by
ridding ourselves of the troublesome word. This solution, however,
is enormously wasteful. In attempting to practise it, we are disin-
heriting ourselves of a priceless birthright to ancestral activity.
The danger is manifest in respect to the word "truth." Under
idealistic auspices it had received an aura of excellence, it had be-
come a quality to be predicated of perfection, and of nothing less.
66 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
The custom had its dangers, but it also had its benefits. The dangers
arose from a predisposition to regard truth as static, and hence to
assume that growth and progress were not to be accomplished. In its
attempt to rid philosophy of this danger, positivistic and pragmatic
thought has, however, also deprived it of the benefits of seeing in
truth an ideal to be worshipped and striven for. And, ironically
enough, pragmatism has thus been inclined to deny to man a useful
instrument and a practical aid.
! The question naturally arises how this discussion can have rel-
evance in considering an idealism which would not have recognized
truth in these terms, even though it would have recognized truth
with these qualities and virtues. And, in turn, this confronts us
with a larger question of the propriety of trying to judge a philos-
ophy in any but its own terms. We have heard much about the need
for understanding thought in relation to the period and conditions
which gave it rise, and no one surely would question the advisability
of such a course. To understand answers we must first understand
questions ; to comprehend a philosophic system it is necessary first to
comprehend the interests, enthusiams and prejudices of the times in
which it was given birth. And it is equally necessary to have an in-
sight into the life and the character of the thinker. Without this,
adequate appreciation is impossible; without adequate appreciation
we can not hope to gain insight ; without insight we are blind. But
when this method goes so far as to tell us that all philosophic systems
are true, that two answers to the same question uttered simultane-
ously and differing diametrically are both true, then we must indeed
turn skeptics.
For judgments and understandings are not synonymous, and
though both are prerequisites to intelligent criticism, their objects
are by no means identical. Nor are their methods. If we must seek
to understand a philosophy in its own terms we must judge it in
our own. This is not a counsel of perfection ; it is inevitable as well
as desirable. For we can not free ourselves from the interests and
enthusiasms of our own times, and even less can we cast aside the
controlling activity of our character and education. If we could
do this, criticism would not only be dispassionate which of course
is desirable it would also be devitalized.
This then may be my excuse for attempting to measure Hegel in
the initial pages of my paper in accordance with a pragmatic and
scientific standard. It will likewise by my excuse for applying to
him the test of truthfulness, using the word in a sense which he
would recognize as little or even less than the former. For him, the
true was the absolute and certain; for James it was conformity to
67
reality; for us it will be the powerful, the effective in promoting
human action.
It will, therefore, be advisable first to consider what the relation
is between the pragmatic and the humane attitude. In how far will
we continue to recognize scientific facts as true, and what relation
will factual records have to truth? An illustration of a rather ex-
aggerated character may serve to preface my argument.
The fact that we apply the same name, history, to the sequence
of events, and to their written record, does not obscure the very real
difference existing between them. That this is not entirely acci-
dental, that it is inherent in the situation, must be evident. For lack
of information, or actual misinformation, causes the very fewest
variations. They arise chiefly from the fact that the function of a
historian is necessarily selective, and that he is therefore obliged to
give to his work emphases and connections which are not always
found in the original. This is not the fault of history, unless we
take an exclusively empirical point of view. The virtue of history
as an educational instrument consists especially in the fact that it
can make those things into a connected and correlated narrative
which were formerly dispersed and diversified. Written history is
inaccurate, since it can never attain complete pluralism; it is effec-
tive because of its unreal unity. But be that as it may, we know at
any rate that written history is not a mere reproduction of facts.
The problem, therefore, will suggest itself as to how great variation
is justifiable. The answer obviously should be based not on a priori
grounds but on a consideration of the educational value of history,
and on the need of the persons that are to be educated. For history
is not merely written of people; it is also written for people.
Granted that it is to act as an inspiration as well as a warning, must
we not consider the kind of inspiration and of warning required?
This perchance is the justification of glorified history. If history
is partly fiction, anyhow, why not make it the best possible fiction?
Why not make our heroes more divine, and our failures more
significant ; why not use our imagination ? The illustration may be
fanciful, but it can not be silenced summarily. For it is essentially
scientific procedure. It is entirely analogous to the action of the
physicist who assumes his perfect vacuum, or of the chemist who in-
sists on the truth of H 2 as the formula for water. Both of these
are radically contradictory to the testimony of experience, yet they
are assumed to be factual, and hence are denominated true.
Whether their truth should be an immediate corollary to their
factuality is a problem which need not detain us long. We may
seek to dispose of it in two ways. If we refuse to regard science as
a mere truth factory, through whose operation falsehood is dis-
68 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
carded and truths are assembled, and if we are willing to forget for
a moment our prejudice in favor of regarding all that is not strictly
scientific as smacking of untruth and perversion, we may succeed in
rendering an invaluaible service to science. For if we have an ade-
quate appreciation of the value of the scientific endeavor and point
of view, we will be unwilling to hamper it with irresponsible epis-
temological implications. We will seek neither to establish the
identity nor to insist on the opposition of the true and the factual;
we will simply admit that the question is irrelevant. There will, of
course, be no doubt as to the definiteness and certainty of our knowl-
edge when based upon scientific principles. This will be complete
as always, rational as ever, and having pragmatic sanction. But it
will be the case not because of any superior reality or truth inherent
in these products of experience, but merely because confirmation is
possible, because the facts support the case. Science's natural basis
will, therefore, be nature itself. Its ideal fulfilment will be a com-
plete and accurate understanding of its own basis. Fact and truth
will then not be thought to have anything to do with each other.
But, clearly, this would dodge the issue.
On the other hand, we may make our consideration of f actuality
and truth dependent on our assumption that truth is a. quality to be
predicated of those things which influence human activity. Facts,
since they are the results of an analysis of a world previously con-
sidered as a unified whole, if considered at all, are also portions of
the controlling and determining structure of all activity. In this
.-somewhat negative sense, at least, we are justified in ascribing to
tfacts the quality of truthfulness, and in some cases facts are endowed
with an enormous fund of influence over human actions, and hence
with an enormous amount of truth. Thus the nature of the solar sys-
tem influences all man's behavior, continually and in specific man-
ners, but for Galileo it was possessed of a superior and more compel-
ling variety of truthfulness. This latter type, moreover, corre-
sponded in a signal degree to what we may designate as religious
faith and passionate certainty. A man's suffering for his con-
victions on astronomy is not to be ascribed to stellar arrangements,
and, on the other hand, the sun and the moon and the stars are but
faintly concerned with the truth of the law of gravitation. And the
nature of truth about constant facts may vary, though the truth re-
main the same ; for truth is an attribute of things, but its significance
rests with men.
Yet even though knowledge and imagination both mean power
they are not to be considered identical, and though we may predicate
truth of the objects of the former, as well as of the products of the
latter, since both influence and stimulate man to act, it is clear that
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 69
fact and fiction must 'be held separate. And since the realm of fact
is determined to a large extent, whereas the realm of fancy is un-
determined and is continually being created by man's imagination,
we must see to it that for the advantage of each, and hence for the
benefit of man, the kingdom of fiction be kept within bounds.
It might of course be possible voluntarily to restrict our investi-
gations of fact and hence uphold the domination of fancy, but
though the attempts to do this have been frequent and ardently sup-
ported, they have but seldom met with success. And well so. For
though we can limit our knowledge of facts, we can not limit their
effects unless, indeed, we cease to limit our knowledge. We can
not keep both our ignorance and our power, and it is not to be
wondered at that we strive for the latter. The limitation of scien-
tific investigation might have some benefits, but it would be fatal.
Science alone can fix its own bounds and limit its own activities if
it is to be effective and progressive. We must not seek to restrain it.
We must not ; indeed we can not.
But this by no means destroys the importance of! the imaginative
function, nor does it even restrict its operation to that field in which,
as we have seen, it is the henchman of the scientific investigator and
of the practical reformer. For scientific investigation always leaves
some worlds for the imagination to conquer. In the first place, there
are always those spheres which, in its advance, it has not reached,
and whither imagination, since it is less heavily armed, and since its
line of supplies is more easily maintained, may always travel far in
advance. Its only restriction is really its starting point and its
tools, namely, life and the materials offered by experience. Its tri-
umphs are fantastic, bizarre and attractive. They have their place
in a rich and well-ordered world. But clearly, these products of
the imaginative function can not be enduring as such. Science,
though it is a slow and a ponderous traveller, will certainly overtake
them and they must yield it their dominion. Like all enterprises
which do not voluntarily restrict themselves beyond the restrictions
of complete necessity, which do not cherish the lamp of obedience
for the sake of its light only, they gain the privilege of license, but
they suffer its consequences.
There is, however, another field in which the imagination may
properly operate, and it is to this that I would in closing turn
my attention. Its area is smaller that that of the realm which we
have just been considering, but its soil is more fertile, and though
its products are perhaps less luxuriant I believe that they are more
wholesome and enduring. This realm contains those things which
science has rejected as non-existential. One advantage will imme-
diately be evident. Whereas the field which science has not invaded
70 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
is always growing smaller, the number of things which science has
rejected is continually increasing. And there are other advantages,
too. There will be fewer dangers to human progress when imagi-
nation plays in this province. There will be no tendency for imagi-
nation, whose fondness for her wards, religion and idealism, is no-
torious, to attempt to combat science, for science will be no longer
trying to dispossess her. It will call on her for her services which,
as we have seen, it invariably needs ; and when it is done with her it
will let her frolic.
But I have been lapsing into excessive metaphor. And, what is
even worse, I have forgotten Hegel. What reference can a dis-
cussion of imagination, functioning on material which science has
rejected, have to his writing? Clearly, he would have disavowed
any intention to avail himself of this subject matter; and equally
clearly he would have denied any correspondence between the di-
alectic process and what he might have denominated "die Methode-
losigkeit" of the imaginative function.
To what part of Hegelism, then, may our discussion have appli-
cation? Obviously, it has no relation to those unnumberable judg-
ments and statements concerning history and the world of nature by
which he sought to establish the existing order, social, political, and
religious, as marking a climax in the world process. Though many
of them have been taken exception to, and though some of them have
been disproved, they still form a substantial testimony to his rare
insight and his extraordinary versatility as an interpreter of history.
Almost as obviously it has no relation to the dialectical method,
though it, like all other methods, might well be judged by its ultimate
results on man, as well as by its immediate products. It is, however,
to the absolute uberkaupt that I would turn my attention, as a con-
cept which has been rejected by science because it has no existential
or factual validity.
I have, then, admitted that I never saw an absolute, and never
hope to see one, for the mere reason that absoluteness is not a quality
which is found to exist in this world. On its acceptance, however,
would depend in the last analysis, one's attitude towards the Hegel-
ian system. For though one could accept verbatim Hegel's evolu-
tionary and dialectic-evolutionary theories, if one rejected the con-
cept of absoluteness one would cease to be an Hegelian ; and, on the
other hand, though one modified and altered all else, if one retained
this one might properly claim to be a follower of Hegel. If one's
vision, therefore, is restricted by the horizon of the natural order,
one will perforce reject Hegelism as untrue in a scientific or prag-
matic sense. But what of its truth considered from the point of
view of its influence as a structure of the imagination on man's
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 71
career ? If we grant that the absolute does not exist, what may we
conclude of the power of an absolutistic philosophy on man?
There would be few who deny that it has in the past been an
extraordinarily controlling factor in determining human activity.
It is difficult however to go further than this. It is almost im-
possible to generalize as to the value or the virtue of its influence.
Only one thing as we have seen is certain. -In the judgment of abso-
lutes, since their f actuality is no longer claimed, they become part of
the kingdom of the imagination and must be judged as such. Are
they, then, effective in determining human destinies, and do they
tend to promote progress, to benefit man?
As in all else, we may well make our judgment of absolutes
relativistic. We may discriminate and determine which absolutes will
pass our test, in which our criterion of virtue is a beneficent in-
fluence on human behavior. Surely then we need not share Socrates'
uncertainty, who as he tells us in the Parmenides "sometimes
grew disturbed, and began to think that there was nothing without
an idea" and that even "such things as hair, mud, dirt or anything
else that is foul and base" had its absolute counterpart in Heaven.
Such ideals we will reject as unworthy and false, and we will retain
only those typically Platonic ideas such as absolute beauty, truth,
and goodness. For these are the things that stir man's imagination,
that stimulate his enthusiasm and rouse him to energetic activity.
He may believe in their excellence and desirability, and may strive
to attain them. They will determine his every action, and guide
each effort. They will evoke his whole-hearted admiration and as-
piration ; he will worship them, and hold them to be most important
and most real.
For whether man be or be not the measure of all things he is
certainly the measure of reality. He alone engages in metaphysical
enterprise, the results of which are significant for him alone. They
determine his behavior, and give him those characteristics which we
long to call typically human because they are typically divine. "We
need claim no existence for them, but that will not make them less
significant or less real. Nor will we be obliged to talk disparagingly
of "mere" existence, for since the test and the proof of our ideals
are necessarily found in their influence through man on the natural
order, we will have done them no service by condemning this order.
Rather our ideals will teach us to prize it more highly. Here then
we have, a reality of an ethical rather than a metaphysical import.
It is truly humanistic for its test and its justification is human faith
and the power that faith gives, its proof is human improvement and
advantage, and its origin is human creative imagination.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. JAMES GUTMANN.
72 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PRAGMATISM AND THE IRRELEVANT
PRAGMATISM has had many names bestowed upon it. Early
in its history, because of its emphasis on the relativity of
knowledge, it was identified with subjective idealism. At length a
scandal leaked out. It became known that pragmatism details to
the process of knowing only a nervous system and an environment
which stimulates that system in a unique manner. Immediately it
was whispered in certain quarters that the doctrine should be called
materialism. Still another, and radically different, kinship is
claimed for it in Miss Ackerman's stimulating article Some Aspects
of Pragmatism and Hegel* It is objective idealism, according to
this account, which the characteristics of pragmatism reveal.
A family resemblance on this side pragmatists are eager to have
recognized. They claim that objective idealism and pragmatism
display a common and distinctive trait in the stand they have taken
as regards the organic relationship of consciousness and its objects.
An insuperable dualism, in this connection, they remind us, is sub-
scribed to by all other philosophical creeds. Miss Ackerman, how-
ever, goes further. She asserts that along with the point of re-
semblance just stated go others, by implication, at least, which are
so fundamental that pragmatism has nothing whatsoever to distin-
guish it from Hegelian idealism. It is a reincarnated spirit whose
earlier embodiment left no new worlds to conquer.
In support of this conclusion she presents an analysis of the as-
sumptions involved in the pragmatic theory of knowledge, pointing
out the agreement between these assumptions and Hegel's deliver-
ances in the Phaenomenology. Pragmatism claims that knowledge
is a process which is purposive and continuous and which gives, at
times, the fulfilment of anticipation. But if this is true it must be
granted that there is a structural counterpart of knowledge which
connects up the successive stages of the process. It would be im-
possible to entertain purposes if one refused to believe that a future
which somewhat resembles the past is guaranteed. Suppose, for
example, that I am watching my neighbors newly-hatched chickens
with the secret purpose of supplying myself later with tender
"fryers." I must necessarily make predictions concerning the
growth of the chicks, the continued efficacy of certain midnight
methods, the survival of my appetite for "fryers," and other con-
ditions too numerous to be stated. Let us suppose besides that I am
called to account for my theft. My knowledge of the justice who
probes my case grows out of my knowledge of my neighbor's chick-
i This JOURNAL, Vol. XV., pp. 337-357.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 73
ens. In fact, it comes as the fulfilment of certain unwelcome antici-
pations which thrust themselves upon me one dark night. These
facts show that the future both is and is not present in the past.
For this is the puzzle which continuity and fulfilment present.
"The only intelligible explanation," to quote from Miss Ackerman,
"is that both past and future are parts of, a more inclusive whole
where they are interdependent elements in one relational system."
Add to the above list one other tenet of pragmatism and its
identification with objective idealism is complete. Pragmatism sub-
scribes to the "trans-individuality" of knowledge. This point does
not need to be argued. Every manifesto carries with it the implica-
tion that there is an interrelation of the knowledge processes of
proclaimer and hearers. But if this is true, then it must be granted
that the structural counterpart of knowledge, observable in the
thinking of an individual mind, extends itself under that of all
minds, making a relational whole. It is, then, the absolute in all of
its fullness before which pragmatism must bow. Deny the all-in-
clusive structure, whether in part or in whole, and the pragmatic
logic and metaphysics change from an intelligible and highly satis-
fying account of the universe to the babbling of madness. We are
moved to cry, "Thank God for Hegelism!"
Common sense, to be sure, will not join with us in this thanks-
giving. That one can predict, observe continuity and fulfilment in
the process of thinking, and have intercourse with one's fellows
without subscribing to a total and fixed structure of things is veri-
fied, it tells us, by the fact that the unlearned do all of these
things. The Phaenomenology and similar discussions are read late,
if at all, and it is true that the of TroXXoi do not gain information
about the structural counterpart unassisted. But this objection is
irrelevant. Miss Ackerman, if I understood her, does not assert
that all persons are sages. She states, rather, that one finds the
structural counterpart when the logic of purposiveness, continuity
and fulfilment of experience is reflected upon.
This brings us to the crucial point of the discussion. Let us
grant that if we stop where pragmatism claims to, the concepts
under discussion are unintelligible. Does the addition of the sup-
plement which Hegelism furnishes make them meaningful? This
is the question, I believe, which should be considered before one
joins the singing of the Te Deum.
The following characteristics of the remedial "structure" are
stressed. First, it is a part of and at the same time apart from
the process of knowing; it is a counterpart. Second, it performs a
function; it makes a unity out of numerous segments. Third, it
74 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
does its work in a manner that brings forth a specific form, namely,
one that is fixed and all-inclusive.
Each of these traits of the structure raises a problem which the
introduction of the structure was supposed to remove. The puzzle
of continuity, which is that the future is in the past and yet not in
the past, has an exact parallel in the structure which is both a part
and yet not a part of the process of knowledge. The problem which
fulfilment presents when no provision is made to hold together aim
and goal, is repeated in the functioning of the structure, which has
nothing to tie together the beginning and end of its praiseworthy
act. And this specific problem of the structure becomes the more
noticeable when it is recalled that it is a set type of relationship
which it makes. Why the structure should not create an unstatic
and incomplete complex, since it has no structure to hold it in the
straight and narrow way of objective idealism, is not made clear.
Meaning involves relationship. Pragmatism is said to neglect
this fact, and is, therefore, found wanting. But by the same proc-
ess the acid test for Hegelism also is discovered. The structural
counterpart of knowledge as defined is devoid of all relationship.
How then can meaning be read into it? And if it is unmeaning,
how much does one gain by taking it as the explanation of knowl-
edge? Hegelism thus becomes its own critic.
"We have not given pragmatism a hearing on the question: How
is knowledge possible? It explains the purposiveness, continuity
and fulfilment of the process of knowledge in terms of the behavior
of the body and its environment. It finds that when knowing oc-
curs the body is stimulated in such a manner that it prepares for
the future before it arrives. The sight of a red apple causes my
mouth to water even before I taste the apple. I say that the apple
looks delicious. In this manner the future is proposed and gets into
the past. Fulfilment, on the other hand, is adjustment. In the
case at hand it is the behavior of the salivary glands proving ap-
propriate when I eat the apple. The misadjustment which occurs
if I bite into a hard crab apple after I have made preparations for
deliciousness illustrates the opposite.
Whether this is a correct statement of the behavior of body and
environment it is not our purpose to consider. The cogency of the
method which is implied in this description, however, the discussion
of the preceding pages would seem to make evident. Hegelism
would have us go beyond knowledge to explain knowledge. But
until the manner of going ~beyond is made clear one seems to play
the part of wisdom in confining all explanations to the brute facts
of experience. Q. L. SHEPHERD.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 75
COMMENT ON DR. GOLDENWEISER'S "HISTORY,
PSYCHOLOGY, AND CULTURE"
DR. GOLDENWEISER'S articles on History, Psychology, and
Culture in the October 10 and 24 issues of this JOURNAL are a
contribution of prime importance to the methodology of the social
sciences. Had the author not been devoid of Teutonic conceit, he
might have entitled them Prolegomena to any Future Social Philos-
ophy Whatsoever. It is certain, at any rate, that they will have to
be reckoned with by any one who wishes to write intelligently on
scientific methods in the study of social phenomena in the future.
They are the more valuable because they are written by an anthro-
pologist, a thinker of natural science training, who has stood apart
from the hot controversies in philosophy, psychology, and sociology
over the moot points on which he touches. Every psychologist,
sociologist, historian, or student of any phase of human social life
should read the articles.
The mere pointing out of the different categories into which Dr.
Goldenweiser divides social and cultural phenomena (namely, "Ob-
jective-Historical, " ' ' Objective-Contemporaneous, " ' ' Psychological-
Historical, " " Psychological-Contemporaneous, " ' ' Deterministic-His-
torical, " " Deterministic-Contemporaneous, " ' ' Accidental-Histor-
ical" and "Accidental-Contemporaneous") throws a flood of light
on the difficulties of social science and does much to explain the con-
troversies among students of social phenomena as to method and
point of view. On the other hand, the acceptance of these categories
by students of the social sciences would do much to clear up difficul-
ties and settle controversy.
But students of social phenomena will have to have Dr. Golden-
weiser 's broad, liberal, common-sense point of view before they will
accept his categories. As long as the dogma that science consists
solely in the tracing of causo-mechanical sequences persists on the
one hand, and the dogma of individualistic subjectivism on the
other, many social scientists will find little use for Dr. Goldenweiser 's
categories. Only the frank recognition of the complexity of social
causation and the giving up of all attempts at scientific "monism"
would open up the way in the social sciences to the acceptance of his
point of view and the use of; his categories. In other words, social
scientists would have to do what Dr. Goldenweiser has evidently done,
leave metaphysics and pet theories behind them and base their work
frankly upon the common-sense view of social reality.
A few significant quotations from the article will make our con-
tention evident. Dr. Goldenweiser, for example, tells us : " Statistics
76 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
presents at best but a rearrangement of the data. The data, thus
marshalled, can not in themselves provide a solution to any social
problem. In fact, the most signal merit of statistics consists perhaps
in the very aptitude of that method to bring to the surface problems
which otherwise might never be recognized. But the solution of such
problems can only be reached within the level to which the data
themselves belong, and thus falls to the lot of the sciences repre-
senting the conceptualizations of the particular set of data, whether
this be biology, or psychology, or sociology."
Again, "the different aspects or features of a culture are inter-
related. The level of these interrelations is psychological, or psycho-
sociological ; what else, indeed, should it be? It is generally recog-
nized, except, perhaps, by the extreme behaviorists, that it is the
links between the different traits of a culture which constitute it an
organic integer, not a mere aggregate of disparate traits."
Again, "no permanently and exclusively objective fact can ever
constitute part of culture, which itself belongs to the psychic level.
Thus the truly objective might be left out altogether, the categories
being conceptualized as actively psychological and potentially psy-
chological. Then again the deterministic and accidental aspects of a
situation are not mutually exclusive, but represent two sides of the
historic reality which is never wholly deterministic nor yet wholly
accidental, but comprises enough stabilizing factors to allow the
formulation of certain historical principles or tendencies, even
though not laws, and enough accidental factors to justify the concept
of the uniqueness of historic events."
And finally, "What results from this critique of our analysis is
thus the rehabilitation of cultural [and social] reality, which is
never wholly deterministic nor yet wholly accidental, never wholly
psychological (or active-psychological) nor yet wholly objective (or
potential-psychological), never wholly of yesterday nor yet wholly
of today, but combines all these in its existential reality."
Needless to say, my own point of view is so nearly identical with
that of Dr. Goldenweiser that I have little or no protest to make to
his argument. The only protest I would raise is to the sub-title of
his article, "A Set of Categories for an Introduction to Social Sci-
ence." If by this title and other remarks in the article anything
pedagogical is implied, I should be sorry. The truth of Dr. Golden-
weiser 's contentions should be cordially recognized by all workers
in the social sciences, but their pedagogical application is another
thing. Personally I believe that while every teacher and every re-
search worker in social science should be well grounded in the use of
these categories, yet in presenting results to the public or to imma-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 77
ture students the familiar and time-honored categories of origin and
development, organization and functioning, continuity and change
should be followed. Perhaps the less obtrusive we make our method-
ology in teaching social science, the better we shall succeed !
CHARLES A. ELLWOOD
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI.
EEVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE
Dynamic Psychology. ROBERT SESSIONS WOODWORTH. New York:
Columbia University Press. 1918. Pp. 210.
This book will have a wide popular appeal on account of its in-
teresting style, and because it brings together in popular form some
important recent developments in psychological literature. It is ad-
mirably suited for general readers, as well as for supplementary
reading in elementary courses. However, the author's facile style,
and the fact that he holds the reader's attention from the first page
to the last, should not cause the fact to be overlooked that Professor
Woodworth advocates several new conceptions and methods that
challenge the consideration of psychologists, especially of social psy-
chologists.
The opening chapter is a brief historical sketch of "the modern
movement in psychology," indicating the sources and motives
epistemological, physiological, comparative, anthropological, lin-
guistic, pathological, pedagogical, and industrial that have given
rise to the modern science. Otherwise comprehensive as a short sur-
vey, the author fails to notice, here or elsewhere in the book, the
work that has been done in the psychology of religion. The second
chapter evaluates the methods of those who conceive psychology as
the "science of consciousness" and as the "science of behavior."
The former are credited with "considerable progress" in the study
of sensations, "good work" with mental imagery, and "suggestive
beginnings" in a description of the conscious process of thinking.
Regarding "behaviorism" the author remarks, "though few had
given expression to this view of psychology when attempting to de-
fine it, a large share of all the experimental work from the time of
Fechner down is virtually work on human behavior, and only inci-
dentally, if at all, on consciousness" (p. 31). This holds true, not
only of work on reaction time and on animals, but also of most stud-
ies of memory and practise, individual differences, heredity, mental
development, and abnormal conditions. A mere union of the meth-
ods of "consciousness" and "behavior" would not provide a co-
78 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
herent system of processes for causal treatment, and so "dynamic
psychology" must combine the results of the two with those of brain
physiology, "working always toward a clearer view of the mental
side of vital activity" and "an understanding of the complete proc-
esses of mental activity and development" (pp. 35, ff.). The third
chapter, dealing with "the native equipment of man," is chiefly
novel for adding to reflexes, instincts, and other usually recognized
propensities, what the author calls "innate capacities." The latter,
which are adaptations to more special features of the environment
than instincts, serve to account for differences of natural capacity for
diverse vocations and other activities. The fourth chapter summar-
izes recent investigations into the manner in which the ' ' acquired or
learned equipment" of man is added to the native equipment. The
following two chapters, under the captions "Selection and Control"
and the "Factor of Originality" show how, in the development of
knowledge and character, selection is made between possible modes
of reaction, and originality in reasoning and willing appear. Illu-
minating interpretations of "abnormal behavior" and "social be-
havior" from the point of view of "dynamic psychology" conclude
the book.
The chief working distinction in "dynamic psychology" is that
between "mechanism" and "drive." In a machine, "drive" is the
motive power applied to make the "mechanism" go. Human and
animal behavior, of course, are more complicated, and a variety of
"preparatory reactions" characterized by a "persistent inner tend-
ency" may lead toward the "consummatory reaction," as illustrated
by a hunting dog in search of a lost trail, who is not "simply carried
along from one detail to another by a succession of stimuli calling
out simple reflexes," but is "driven along by some internal force"
(p. 41). The mechanism for the consummatory reaction of captur-
ing the game, once it is set into activity by a suitable stimulus,
"acts as a 'drive' operating other mechanisms giving the prepara-
tory reactions." "Drives" and "mechanisms" are not essentially
different; "any mechanism might be a drive" (p. 42), and "every
drive is also a mechanism" (p. 126). Though by no 1 means a dis-
ciple of Loeb or Watson, Professor Woodworth seems to have de-
cidedly mechanistic inclinations; in fact, he goes so far as to com-
pare the human mind with a large manufacturing plant, stocked
with all sorts of mechanisms, some useful, and others grown stiff
and rusty with disuse (pp. 105, ff.).
In his exposition of "dynamic psychology" the more novel and
distinguishing features are usually stated in contrast to the posi-
tions of the Social Psychology of William McDougall. The latter
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 79
derives nearly all human conduct from the "principal primary in-
stincts" (flight, repulsion, curiosity, pugnacity, self-assertion, sub-
mission, parental, food-seeking, sex, gregariousness, constractiveness)
with their attendant emotions, and the "non-specific innate tend-
encies" (imitation, sympathy, suggestion, play). Professor Wood-
worth apparently would accept all or most of these as genuinely
innate tendencies ("innate mechanisms" in his own terminology),
but he contends that in addition there exist other "innate mechan-
isms" which he calls "native capacities," i. e., aptitudes or gifts for
certain activities, or for dealing with certain classes of things, as
"when we speak of one person having a natural gift for music, an-
other for mathematics, another for mechanics, and another for sales-
manship" (p. 59). Conduct may be initiated by any "innate
mechanism" whatever. "The great aim of the book is, that is to
say, to attempt to show that any mechanism except perhaps some
of the most rudimentary that give the simple reflexes once it is
aroused, is capable of furnishing its own drive and of lending drive
to other connected mechanisms" (p. 67).
The author's arguments for this doctrine of "innate mechan-
isms" in opposition to McDougall's simpler method of deriving all
conduct from instinctive tendencies are principally three. (1) Mc-
Dougall assumes that persons are with difficulty aroused to activity,
so that "powerful" impulses are requisite, whereas the opposite is
the truth, as is clearly evident in the case of young children, who
alone are limited to native propensities.. (2) Children are absorbed
in any subject-matter for which they have native gifts, and their
interest is not held where this is not the case. (3) McDougall's view
implies that in order to secure action it is always necessary to appeal
to extraneous motives (instincts) and not to interest in the activity
itself. This is bad pedagogy and 1 bad ethics. It implies that teach-
ers and employers must appeal exclusively to extraneous motives,
and not to love of the work itself.
The t'rst two arguments, so far as they do not beg the question,
appear to be involved in the third, and likewise to assume that to
appeal to an instinct is usually to appeal to an extraneous motive.
Now why does Professor Woodworth believe this to be the case? I
suggest two explanations. (1) He has regarded McDougall's "in-
stincts" as a species of his own "mechanisms," which latter are
structural units like the pieces of machinery in a factory. This cer-
tainly is not the notion of an "instinct" held by McDougall, wh'o
speaks of "instincts" as "tendencies," "dispositions," "functional
units" (Social Psychology} : who says that they may be regarded as
differentiations of a "will to live" or elan vital (British Journal of
80 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Psychology, Vol. III., p. 258), and who in Body and Mind describes
an instinct as in part purely psychical and without physical corre-
late (Chap. XIX., especially the reference to "curiosity," pp. 266,
ff.). (2) Professor "Woodworth, perhaps in consequence of his
mechanistic leanings, overlooks the fact that for McDougall many
native stimuli and modes of reaction may become suppressed and
others be acquired, and that the latter then are integral parts of the
instinct. He also fails to appreciate the importance in McDougall 's
system of the "sentiments." As a concrete illustration, let us take
Professor Woodworth 's instance of a child induced to study sing-
ing by appeals to his self -feeling. Such a child, he contends, unless
he had a natural musical gift, would soon drop out and parry the
appeal to his self -feeling by deriding singing and those children who
excel him (pp. 67, ff.) . No doubt this is true. (This, by the way, is a
fortunate illustration for the author, as a native gift for pitch dis-
crimination probably is a prerequisite for learning to sing.) But
suppose that the child proved to have this native gift and learned to
sing. Should we have to 1 say that his further progress in singing
would be due to gratification of this native gift, while his self-feeling
would ever remain an extraneous motive ? On the contrary, it seems
to me that singing might become integrally attached to self -feeling in
his case and become a characteristic mode for its expression. We
may go on to imagine the child becoming so absorbed in singing that
a sentiment develops, and that this sentiment (love of singing) re-
ceives the support of most, or all, of his other instinctive emotions,
as well as of the numerous and novel complex emotions which the
sentiment brings into existence. Ultimately, it may be, singing be-
comes the master passion of his life, and nothing else can rival his
art as the most important constituent of his self; in regard to noth-
ing else have his self-feelings become so sensitive to stimulation, or
so violent in reaction. Similarly, Gaus's extreme absorption in
mathematical work, ' ' due to nothing else in the world but his inter-
est in what he was doing" (p. 200) , could no doubt, if we studied his
biography, be traced to the development from instincts, first of a
sentiment, and later of a master passion, for mathematics.
It does not therefore seem to the reviewer that Professor Wood-
worth is successful in showing that "native capacities," if such exist
at all, are capable of controlling human conduct and character in
independence of the instincts. On the contrary, if such "native ca-
pacities" do exist, they must become incorporated in the modes of
behavior which are integral to instincts and sentiments. But to
what extent do such "native capacities" exist? Professor Wood-
worth nowhere attempts to make a list of them. To do so, he says,
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 81
would be of little profit, for it would simply be "to enumerate the
various occupations of mankind" (p. 60). They are not, however,
he tells us, differences in talent for abstract mental activities such as
reasoning, imagination, and memory, in which men do not differ so
much as in the class of subject-matter in which they excel (pp. 60,
75). In one passage they appear to be differences in interest and
adaptability to certain objective features of the environment
"color, form, tone, spatial arrangement, mechanical effect, plants,
animals, human beings" (pp. 75, ff.). It must, I suppose, be con-
ceded that there are differences in native ability to discriminate
pitch, and make other adaptations to the environment. Some activi-
ties in life, no doubt, have as prerequisites an unusual amount of na-
tive ability to make specific adaptations of this sort. Perhaps ex-
perimental work in "vocational analysis" in the future will estab-
lish quite a number of such instances. But there is no warrant for
supposing that any activity to which a person's attention might be
called, and for which he has a natural knack, could become the
dominant interest in his life, unless it became the object of a senti-
ment, capable of enlisting the principal primary instincts in its sup-
port. So far as such natural gifts exist they must, like the instincts
themselves, be to some extent general, and capable of expression in
a variety of activities. For, suppose the attention of one of two
brothers were early in life to be attracted to a business opening in
the manufacture of hats, and another to an opening in a shoe fac-
tory, and each brother became a great captain of industry. Should
we not have to assume that the two men probably did not differ
greatly in their native capacities, and that either would have suc-
ceeded if he had started in the calling chosen by the other ? Other-
wise, the number of possible "native capacities" would be infinite,
and inclusive of every human activity in which people differ in abil-
ity, from singing and salesmanship to lawn tennis and bridge whist,
and in that case even the Lamarckian theory of the transmission of
acquired characters could hot suffice to account for the diverse ele-
ments attributed to human native equipment!
To charge an interest in the novel, as McDougall does, to a gen-
eral instinct called "curiosity" the author thinks is to miss the point.
"Curiosity" is simply "a collective name for an indefinite number
of impulses, each of which is dependent on the existence of some de-
gree of ability to perceive and understand a certain object" (p. 103).
Here, one suspects, the author has been misled by Thorndike, whose
conception of instincts as specific reactions to specific stimuli has led
^im to split up the comparatively few principal primary instincts
into an almost infinite host of mechanisms. But Drever (Instinct
82 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
in Man, Chap. VII., Cambridge, 1917) has effectively answered
Thorndike in behalf of McDougall on this issue, and Hocking (Hu-
man Nature, and its Remaking, Chaps. X., XI., New Haven, 1918)
has given a better explanation of "curiosity" as a kind of process in
which stimulus and response are both primarily central. Personally,
I am still disposed to believe that men, like animals, delight to watch
whatever is novel in their perceptual experience, that this became
the source of reverie, and that scientific interest, going as it does be-
yond practical needs and the promptings of other instincts, is a
further development of this same instinct of curiosity (this JOUR-
NAL, Vol. X., pp. 653 ff.).
A more justified criticism of McDougall appears in the discus-
sion of social behavior (pp. 188-206). Group activity has for man
an attractiveness of its own, not covered by McDougall 's "gregarious
instinct" (which he makes a mere tendency to herd). McDougall
has failed to perceive this, and so he makes little reference to com-
radeship and other relations between equals. So he has little to say
of justice, which evolved chiefly by fair play among equals, rather
than by domination and submission. Here it must be conceded that
there is an omission in McDougalPs account of the native equip-
ment of man. But it is by no means necessary to adopt the author 's
doctrine of "native capacities" in order to remove it. In an account
of the psychology of punitive justice, some years ago (Philosophical
Review, November, 1911) I sought to overcome this difficulty by giv-
ing wider scope to the "gregarious instinct." Professor Graham
"Wallas, in the Great Society, suggests that there may be a slight
native propensity to love felt between fellow members of the same
species generally (pp. 142, ff.). Probably it would be wiser to re-
serve the term "love" for the sentiment, and to call this native pro-
pensity the "social instinct." In any event, Professor "Woodworth's
objection can be successfully met, either by widening the scope of
one or more of the instincts in McDougall 's list, or by adding another
to them. In the light of Hocking 's classification on different planes,
this added instinct could belong to the same general non-specific type
as "curiosity."
While therefore, the undersigned can not declare himself a con-
vert to the doctrines of "mechanism," "drive" and "native capac-
ity" in preference to the simpler and less mechanistic conceptions of
McDougall, he has found this book stimulating and suggestive. It
provokes thought on fundamental principles, and it is bound to con-
tribute much to make social psychology dynamic in the best sense of
the word.
WILLIAM KELLEY WEIGHT.
DAETMOTJTH COLLEGE.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 83
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN: February, 1918. Association
Number. Extracts of the papers read at the annual meeting of the
Amer. Psych. Assoc. - Twenty in general and experimental psy-
chology, 5 in educational psychology and 10 in mental tests.
PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN: March, 1918. A Note on
Measurement ~by Relative Position (pp. 57-60) : S. C. KOHS.- Diffi-
culties encountered in the use of Thorndike's method of measure-
ment by relative position are mentioned. Speed of Presentation
and Ease of Recall in the Knox Cube Test (pp. 61-64) : L. M.
RACHOFSKY. - The Knox cube test was given to different groups at
different speeds. The accuracy of recall increases inversely to the
rate of presentation. General Reviews and Summaries: Vision
General Phenomena (pp. 65-75): L. T. TROLAND. - Sixty-three
articles on vision are reviewed. Hearing (pp. 76-85) : E. M.
OGDEN. - Twenty-seven researches are reviewed. Special Reviews:
Hout and Voivenel, Le Courage, H. N. GARDINER. Report: Defini-
tions and Delimitations of Psychological Terms, prepared by a Com-
mittee of the American Psychological Association: twenty-eight
words and phrases used in psychology are defined.
Carlisle Chester Lee. The Causes of Dependency : Based on a Sur-
- ey of Oneida County. Eugenics and Social Welfare Bulletin No.
XV. of the New York State Board of Charities. The Capitol, Al-
bany. 1918. Pp.465.
Mackenzie, J. S. Outlines of Social Philosophy. London and New
York : Macmillan Co. Pp.280. $2.60.
Sheldon, Wilmon Henry. Strife of Systems and Productive Duality :
An Essay in Philosophy. Cambridge : Harvard University Press.
1918. Pp. iv + 528. $3.50.
Strong, Charles A. The Origin of Consciousness: An Attempt to
Conceive the Mind as a Product of Evolution. London : Macmillan
Co. 1918. Pp. 330. 12s. net.
Stuart, Henry Waldgrave. Liberal and Vocational Studies in the
College. Stanford University : Stanford University Press. 1918.
Pp. 72. 75 cents.
84 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
NOTES AND NEWS
IN commemoration of the six hundredth anniversary of Dante's
death, which will fall in 1921, the Rivista di Filosofia Neo-scolastica
and the Catholic Committee for the Dante Centenary announce a
prize of five thousand lire for the best essay giving an exposition of
the philosophical and theological doctrines of Dante Alighieri, illus-
trated from the sources.
The essays must be received by four P.M., January 31, 1920, at
the office of the Secretary of the Italian Society for Philosophical and
Psychological Research (Milan, Italy, Via P. Maroncelli 23). They
must be unedited and may be in English, Italian, French, German or
Latin. The essays for which prizes are assigned are to remain the
property of the promoters of the competition. These latter under-
take to publish during the year 1921, the centenary year, the success-
ful monograph or the essays honored with partial prizes. The essays
are to be delivered anonymously, and must be accompanied by a sign
or number to be repeated on a sealed envelope which shall contain
the competitor's name and address. The Examining Committee in its
sittings will follow the usual academic rules.
THE Revue Philosophique for November-December 1918 reports
that "Edward Abramowski, the Polish psychologist and sociologist,
died at Warsaw on June 22, 1918, at the age of forty-eight years. He
studied at Geneva, and after that came under the influence of Peter
Kropotkin. During the last ten years of his life Abramowski was
busied chiefly with experimental psychology. He founded a psycho-
logical laboratory at Warsaw, from which appeared a number of
works, including the important one on The Normal Subconscious
which Abramowski brought out in 1918 through the firm of Alcan,
and which bears the stamp of a strong and original mind."
VOL. XVI, No. 4. FEBRUI.KY 13, 1919
r
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
POLITICAL THOUGHT IN RECONSTRUCTION
DILETTANTISM is as widespread to-day as it was when Carlyle
wrote Past and Present, nor is it 'altogether self-evident why
this term of disapprobation has 'been transferred from the world of
politics to the realm of art. For it can hardly be denied that essen-
tially the same failure to apply intelligence and imagination to
social questions, the same ineffectiveness, and the same petty oppor-
tunism typify our legislative assemblies, as characterized the parlia-
ments which called forth the scorn of the author of Sartor Resartus.
Yet a change of decided significance has taken place. Social questions
and political problems have begun to evoke the interest and to occupy
the attention of thinkers capable of making at least some headway,
and though the results of their labors are uncertain and have hardly
affected the trend of practical affairs, nevertheless the ascendancy
of political philosophy gives rise to the hope that parliaments may,
ere long, cease to be mere talking establishments.
At any rate, an important change in philosophical tradition has
undoubtedly taken place. It would be manifestly absurd to argue
that at any time in the history of thought problems of social organi-
zation have been entirely neglected; yet it is equally obvious that
while interest was focussed on Heaven or on the Thing-in-itself, man
was naturally relegated to a position of secondary importance. For
preoccupation with the other world and with the world of exagger-
ated dualism inevitably decreased the interest in exclusively human
affairs. To be sure, St. Augustine's City of God had its mundane
implications, and Hegel wrote a Philosophy of Rights, but though
there is hardly a philosopher of note with whose name some political
tract is not .associated, thought was removed in more ways than one
from the subject-matter of the Republic, the Ethics and the Politics.
Nevertheless there were more things in this world than Horatio
dreamt of in his philosophy, and though no Plato or Aristotle ap-
peared to formulate the conditions of social progress and to offer a
programme for its furtherance, political life continued and under
the influence of discovery, invention and industry, took on new forms
85
86 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
and guises. Perhaps it has never been adequately realized to how
large an extent the errors of the industrial revolution are to be
ascribed to accident, or rather to a single accident the absence of
intelligent comprehension, foresight and guidance. The dismal sci-
ence was gloomy more because of the narrow vision of its exponents
than because of the inherent darkness of the subject-matter of so-
called political economy.
As an antidote to what he conceived to be the pessimism and
pettiness of the school of Malthus and Eicardo, Carlyle advocated a
return to the ''eternal verities." By fixing his gaze on these, man
might assert his spiritual self and demonstrate his affinity to the
transcendent super-sensible world. And in so doing the ills of this
world would largely disappear.
There is perhaps little in this combination of German idealism
and temperamental mysticism to remind us of Greek philosophy.
Yet in Carlyle we have at least the recognition of two fundamental
and axiomatic principles. He recognized in the first place that man
was no mere passive subject of economic laws, but that he was an
active agent capable of influencing and affecting the conditions and
circumstances of his life. He did not fall into the fallacy of forget-
ting that economic man was primarily a man and only incidentally
an economic man. In the second place he realized the importance of
a plan of action, an imaginative programme by which activity could
be guided. These two principles, it seems to me, so often neglected,
are essential to any system of thought properly denominated polit-
ical philosophy.
: The supreme importance of these factors in our present situa-
tion is evident. "We have perhaps been somewhat disingenuous in our
protestations of complete disinterestedness in the war. To be sure
we desire no colonies and have no irridenta to redeem ; yet in a sense
the world is our irridenta. We battle to secure it for our ideals.
Are we prepared to mobilize the 1919 class of our ideals for prompt
invasion ? It were a sad commentary on our intelligence if they had
in no way been affected by the experiences of the past four years.
Though the condition may not be the most desirable it is manifest
that a world in chaos is more plastic for our reforming desires than
a world in the languid quiescence which we have been wont to call
peace. Excessive optimism might suggest that in war we have found
that cooperative organization to which we aspired, that in the strug-
gle we have attained a moral equivalent for peace. Remaining more
sober we may hope that we have made some progress even though
we have achieved only the semblance of organization. To continue
the development of these ideals and to endow them with new vigor
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 87
and purpose must be the primary function of political thought in
reconstruction.
If reconstruction is to mean more than an attempt to return to
ante-bellum habits, if political problems are. to be of paramount sig-
iiificanc'e in ethics, then surely it is of the utmost importance that
political thinkers avoid the dangers which have in the past rendered
their activities ineffective the twin disabilities of insufficient prac-
tical intelligence and inadequate idealizing imagination. Imagina-
tion without intelligence usually results in beautiful Utopias to
which we may flee from a less perfect world and for which we
may well render grateful appreciation, but which do little to
solve our problems since they fail to suggest means of accomplish-
ment. Lack of imagination, on the other hand, has led thinkers into
the pragmatic fallacy of forgetting that instruments must be sub-
ordinated to ends of some kind, that a programme must imply some
result which it aims to achieve. Realpolitik, like realism in art, tends
to suggest that only the base and the ugly are genuine, that ideals
have no reality or importance.
A significant political philosophy will, then, seek to provide the
essential features of an education which will foster and perfect it.
It will attempt to provide a methodology and a technique suitable
to the attainments of the ideals which it envisages, and in addition it
will aim at that subtlest and most indefinable of all things essential
to intelligent control in political affairs an attitude of mind. Since
this is to secure the greatest possible control by intelligence it may
briefly be designated the scientific attitude, a willingness to judge
each new experience and each newly presented fact with as slight a
prejudice as possible. Or, to reverse the emphasis, it is an inclina-
tion to judge each experience in the light of the past, so that each
added fact may be as significant as possible. This implies no lack
of balance, no tendency to indulge in wild and fantastic flights with
insufficient preparation. Our programme will depend to a large
extent on individual temper, but complete openmindedness is not in-
compatible with caution ; it is a mistake to assume that only radicals
and revolutionaries can be "intellectuals."
We are also in error when we attempt to identify intelligent ac-
tion with action which can be formulated in terms of a syllogistic
sequence. If we seek thus to limit the sphere of intelligence we will
inevitably restrict the achievement. The function of reason is
rather to coordinate all the elements of a complete life than to elimi-
nate any. Through its agency we may hope to attain variety with-
out dissipation. It is especially necessary to insist on this at the
present moment of reconstruction when there is danger that in
jbuilding our new house we may forget to include many of the
88 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
chambers in which we have been happiest and most justifiably con-
tent. Nor can we be satisfied to have these placed in an annex. If
we seek to confine reconstruction to economic or even to obviously
political affairs we can not really be successful. Every human im-
pulse and endeavor must be given its place, for though peace be more
generous than war in allowing casual activity, all industry must foe
made essential to a creative peace. And even those values which
have to many seemed remote can no longer be isolated but must per-
meate all activity. If I have seemed to limit the importance of phi-
losophy to purely ethical concerns, the significance of a world view
to ethics here becomes manifest. If intelligence is to function most
successfully it must be guided by an ample and attractive ideal.
But, it may be objected, is such an imaginative structure neces-
sary or even desirable ? Will not intelligence function effectively if
left unhampered by a preconceived plan of action, so that it may
judge according to definite circumstances and determine its course
in every specific situation? Is there not a tendency for any pro-
gramme to become antiquated, lack application to altered conditions
and at the same time to grow rigid and thus obstruct possible prog-
ress ? For whether a social theory arose as a protest against the ex-
isting order or as a supporter of it, we know that with the lapse of
time when the conditions which gave it rise had ceased to pertain, it
still tended to continue by force of sheer inertia.
Yet it does not seem to me that these objections touch the main
point, and as a matter of fact they seem here to transcend their in-
disputably useful role of critic and to prevent desirable advance
along new lines. Nor does this imply that their usefulness is a thing
of the past; the suggestion is rather that they must remain critical
but not obstructive. Otherwise there is an obvious danger that they
will merely substitute new absolutes for old, though these be of
somewhat negative character.
To propose that man cease to operate in terms of ends, that he rid
himself of programmes because they may interfere with progress, is
to suggest that he deprive his imagination of its essential creative
quality. It can not be done. For imagination must provide the
materials which intelligence is to weigh and test by energetic appli-
cation to actual social problems in specific situations. The initial
criterion of its success will surely be its power to rouse our enthu-
siasm, to stimulate us to ardent endeavor and fortify us for success-
ful activity. For if a system of thought is to affect political destinies
it can not do so "ex machina," but must first gain supporters.
But the pragmatic and instrumental values of a programme are
by no means confined to this single virtue of rousing enthusiasm for
purposeful activity. Granted that the ideal is more useful as an
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 89
instrument towards progress than it might be as an actual "end,"
its usefulnes need not be restricted to its psychological effects. It
will serve as a convenient measure by which advance may be deter-
mined and it will be a standard by which progress may be judged.
But if this is one of its benefits it is likewise one of its dangers. For
if we may estimate success by reference to a determined ideal, it will
not really be a success unless in the process our ideal also has ad-
vanced. A plan can be of abiding value only if it is a growing plan.
To aim at an end is certainly necessary if we are to aim precisely
and with adequate assurance, but if the end is a finish then it will
have served only half its purpose. It is a process of reciprocal aid
for which political thought must strive, in which imagination and
intelligence fortify each other for their mutual 'advantage and hence
for man's benefit.
JAMES GUTMANN.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
AN OPPORTUNITY
To the JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY:
America is already playing a visible part in the destiny of Serbia.
As a result of our common struggle, the Serbian race will be united
in the free independent Jugoslavia, where all of us Serbs, the Croats
and the Slovenes hope to find peace and an opportunity to pursue
happiness and to contribute our modest share to the common civili-
zation of mankind. But our needs after the war will be enor-
mous, as our sacrifices during it have been of the heaviest. May I
take advantage of your courtesy to draw the attention of your readers
and contributors to a special need of the Jugoslavs which can be
easily overlooked, but without the satisfaction of which much other
assistance of a material order might prove futile.
Serbia and the Jugoslavs fight not only for their political and
economic freedom. They are fighting not only for open ports, but
also to come into free contact with the rest of the world, and so be
able to exchange moral goods with the great and happier democ-
racies of the West. Our first national need will be a new orienta-
tion and organization of our thinking. We have need of a national
philosophy. We think that it can not be done successfully without
the voluntary and sincere help of the American, British and French
thinkers, scientists and philosophers. Therefore may I not appeal
to such men in America to give a place in their thought to Serbia?
They can help her very much in a practical way if they would write
articles on the subjects they like most, but which can be immediately
90 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
applied to the life of a young 1 struggling democracy which still has
to find its way to a larger life of humanity. Such articles will be
translated into the Serbo-Croatian language and published in a
monthly magazine which I with some friends have arranged to start
publishing as soon as our life in Serbia shall be restored.
V. R. SAVIC,
Commissioner of the Serbian Government
To THE FRIENDS OF PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA AND ELSEWHERE:
Everyone who regards life as the subject matter of philosophy
must hope for Mr. Savic all encouragement and cooperation in the
enterprise he has at heart; especially Americans, bred up, as we
believe, with ideals of freedom, must be in hearty sympathy with
such a purpose. While our friends in Serbia wish to develop in
cooperation with the rest of a friendly world, exchanging experi-
ences and ideas, their life will demand 1 its own spontaneous sincerity,
and it does seem as though philosophers in America ought to be able
to offer some fruits of the freedom we admire.
No doubt many American writers can do so; but to what extent
are they writers of "philosophy" ? How many of us, the members of
our philosophical associations, are ready with ideas that might
assist in the intellectual and imaginative orientation of people so
confident of their future, but obliged to build over again so much
that has been destroyed? Perhaps many can do so; or if not, one
explanation suggests itself at once. When the life of Serbia shall
have won for itself a background analogous to our own, when the
life of contemplation and analysis in the university of Belgrade
shall be as complex and as professional as in our American uni-
versities, then, to be sure.
There is a good deal of truth in this, but there is much of naivete.
If our friends in Serbia put on our own burden of tradition, they
will, no doubt, have to get rid of it by a similar travail of meta-
physics ; but as friends not alone of philosophy, but of freedom, we
ought not to invite them to anything like that.
The journal that Mr. Savic hopes to establish does not, unfortu-
nately, yet exist; we can not write for it. But all friends of
progressive culture must desire its birthday, and wish to help it to
prosperity and usefulness. We urge the friends of philosophy in
America to consider how they may aid so excellent a cause.
W. T. BUSH.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 91
To the JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY :
A new nation is simply a fresh experiment in that world-wide
political laboratory wherein, since the beginning of civilization, the
great research for Utopia has been going on. And now comes a
representative of a particular new nation, Jugoslavia, with a decla-
ration which, even in these astonishing days, makes us ruib our eyes
and ask whether we are awake. Here is a man who states that what
a new nation needs above all things is a philosophy. And he asks
help in this matter from America.
No! this is not a stroke of sardonic humor. It is a perfectly
serious request. Yet, if we Americans have any humility left, it
ought to cut us like the unconscious criticism of a child. Since
when has America believed that a nation should be founded on the
love of wisdom ? The roles should be reversed. This man has more
to teach us than to learn from us. If he is in any way typical of
his countrymen, the Jugoslavic experiment will be worth watching.
Perhaps it is as true of nations as of men our own early history
suggests as much that the child is father of the man.
But while this is the plain moral of, the matter for us, to leave
the thing here would be unjust to the serious character of Mr. Savic 's
proposal. Clearly Mr. Savic is not a man who needs to be reminded
that the love of wisdom has no necessary connection with a hanker-
ing after a theory of reality (ontology, to use the ugly word itself),
that the spirit of wisdom, since long before Socrates and Diogenes,
has had a habit of assuming strange guises and lurking in out-of-
the-way corners, that philosophy is not in the custody of the pro-
fessional metaphysicians. Yet a Serbian might well not realize the
extent to which the perversion of the word philosophy has gone
among us a perversion so absurd that if I pick off my shelves at
random a history of "philosophy," I shall be likely to find forty
pages devoted to the brain-spinnings of Leibnitz and less than forty
words to the world^shattering doctrines of Rousseau ; Hegel spread
over a voluminous chapter, Nietzsche dismissed in a footnote;
Herbert Spencer dissected at length and Samuel Butler not so much
as mentioned (the last omission the more venial since the literary,
the scientific, and the religious worlds have been as tardy as the
philosophical in discovering Butler).
My idea, then, would be that Mr. Savic would do well to beware of
trusting too much to merely professional publications, would do well
to survey American periodical literature, .both learned and popular,
as widely as possible, picking out for translation articles of any
character whatever which (1) reveal the presence of that impalpable
something which betokens fervor for the truth, and which (2) are
92 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
sufficiently human in subject matter to fit Serbian as well as Amer-
ican readers and conditions, sufficiently simple in expression to
make a wider than merely professional appeal, sufficiently practical
to suggest points of application to the social and political problems
of Jugoslavia. Articles I care not what their subjects that can
pass these tests will be pretty certain to be philosophy. Conversely,
might not American authors and scholars create more philosophy,
if, before printing, they would subject their work to the difficult
test: "Would this help Serbia?
One further suggestion. America is fortunate in having pro-
duced as great a prophet of democracy as ever lived : Walt "Whitman.
If I were editing a journal in behalf of Serbian philosophy and
democracy, I would not let a single issue appear that did not con-
tain the translation of at least a few lines of Walt Whitman's
wisdom.
HAROLD GODDAED.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE.
To the JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY:
I suggest that it might put us in the way of helping in this good
cause if we should determine to give in our various institutions a
course on fundamental values of life as they appear to us in the
light of the past four years, and on the important ends social, edu-
cational, national, legal, economic, moral, religious which we may
reasonably work for after the war. Suppose we should drop or
hold in abeyance for a time some questions we have loved, and
follow the tradition of Plato and Aristotle, Locke, Descartes and
Kant, not by discussing their problems, but by attacking the most
vital public questions of our day. Might it not help American stu-
dents, as well as possible readers among the Jugoslavs? And
possibly our own thinking would profit if we should work in a field
where we could not lean so heavily upon the past.
JAMES H. TUFTS.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
To the JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY :
The letter of M. Savic, a voice, as it were, out of Macedonia, is
such a challenge to American! thinkers as should bring us, if not
to offer the aid for which we are so little competent, at least to the
public confession of our weakness and the honest man 's effort to get
free of it. As from the fine and affecting plea of M. Xavier Leon,
last year, for the closer interchange of American and French
thought, so here we are brought to face a self -accounting : what have
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 93
we to offer, we who bear the proud title of philosopher in the world's
greatest republic, that is of social and moral and humane value to
our fellows overseas in the year and the day of their stress and
tribulation? "That philosophy is vain which eases no human ill,"
alas ! it is always some Greek we must quote, even when we would
set a measure for our own self -judgment. Balk at it we may not;
the plain tact is that we in America are still but pale pensioners of
European thought. The men of our race, Americans we call them,
have undergone a tremendous social and physical experience in
building up a new life in a new continent. But up to this hour, in
an inner and profound sense, the meaning of this experience, in
such form that it may be made vital and adaptable by men of other
life in other lands, has found no expression. I am not forgetful of
Emerson and James and Royce, nor doubtful of, the genuineness of
their Americanism; but who can pretend that they have given us
such a glass of our reflective self as can show its unwavering line
or depth? Their boldest strokes are still but faint tokens of the
truth.
But if philosophy is with us thus inept and helpless there must
be reasons therefor, which, through understanding, may indicate
the paths of reform and rejuvenescence. Two, at least, of these are
obvious.
Whereof the first is assuredly the narrowness and distortion
which comes of a merely pedagogic horizon. American philosophers
are teachers of philosophic tradition rather than formers of phi-
losophic ideas. I do not mean to say that there is no inventiveness
nor progress in our thinking; but that its main color and temper
are determined, not by the life of the great society, but by the needs
of the lecture-room. Where we should be leaders of public life, at
least as being its heard critics, we are instead occupants of scholas-
tic ''chairs," heroes of seminars, and wordy astonishers of youth.
In brief, we are teachers, not only before we are philosophers, but
before we are citizens. This is, of course, no more true of professors
of philosophy than of other professorial groups; but it is perhaps
more damaging in the case of philosophy than with other forms of
learning, for the very reason that the one pretension which can
justify philosophy is the breadth and depth of the social and
human experience upon which it builds. Not until we cease to be
"professors" first and "philosophers" second, not until we free
ourselves of scholastic seclusion and dependency and share with
our fellow citizens the whole peril and adventure of civic creation,
can we hope to speak with authority for America.
But philosophy must perforce be futile and sterile if there be
94 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
no public to which it can appeal; and where, in America, is the
civic group ready to listen, even should we break through the bands
of our pedagogy and seek to speak as men? Truly, it is thin and
scattered; the average American has neither the zeal nor wit to
follow strenuosities of reasonings remote from his obvious interests;
at his best, where speculation is concerned, he is idly curious.
Now this is not his fault (if it be a fault), nor altogether ours.
He would reform, speedily enough, could he perceive the ap-
plicability of ideas to his affairs that is, to his life, and the lif!e
of the state of which his is a part. And we should convince him of
this application, were our speech not so foreign to him, and the
gap between his interests and ours not so intellectually bridgeless.
To some degree we are responsible; our pedagogy is responsible;
for assuredly, if the teachers of philosophy were to succeed in college
in impressing upon the minds of its students, not merely the in-
tricacy but the tremendous social importance of speculative studies,
we should soon have a public of our own making, ready to harken
to, participate in, and spread philosophic knowledge. No doubt,
in a great decentralized state, such as is the United States, this is
vastly difficult; but it should not be impossible to such groups of
men as are represented by our philosophical associations. Let them
but begin publicly and collectively to address the nation, on such
elementary matters as are subject of agreement with them, and in
no long period they will be answered by the public interest.
For never in our history was there such an opportunity for the
thinker as is now. A great war has been fought in Europe, and
its end marks the close of that Renaissance which began with
Petrarch and Erasmus, with Luther and Descartes, which upbuilt a
high and superb idol of human nature, and which now beholds the
ruins of its imaginings. The work of philosophy which, through-
out the ages, is the slow and deceitful labor of framing an adequate
outward representation of man's ever undiscovered inward nature
is to begin anew, on new foundations, with new insights, to new
ends. Politics, ethics, esthetics, metaphysics, psychology, too all
the old terms must be given refreshed meanings. The European
Renaissance, with all its ideals, is now as closed a chapter of human
history as is classical paganism or medieval Christianity (as closed,
and living), and we are face to face with a new birth, a World
Renaissance.
Pray do not mistake me ; I do not prophesy. I am no blind be-
liever in a fated "progress" (whatever that may mean) of all men;
nor am I in the least confident that even the great economic and
social alterations of men's condition which seem certain to come
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 95
will necessarily be accompanied by a genuine enlightenment of the
spirit. For aught I know, we may be on the eve of such an inner
darkening of mankind as no race yet has fared through. But
being, in the poor professional way, a philosopher and a believer in
philosophy, and having faith in the final power of American thought
to find its genuine and effective expression, teaching others as it is
taught by others, I can not abandon the great hope that the new
age upon whose threshold we stand is to be an Age of Man in a more
beautiful and spiritual sense than any which has preceded it. For
now it is not Europe alone which brings the revelation; it is to be
the whole world of! Earth's men.
HARTLEY B. ALEXANDER.
UNIVERSITY OP NEBRASKA.
To the JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY :
The Serbian invitation opens stimulating possibilities for Ameri-
can philosophy. Philosophy, as we know, thrives most on doubt,
perplexity, struggle. Where there is finality, philosophy shrivels up
and dies. During the past two or three decades, there has been an
illusive appearance of finality in our American life. We had
achieved democracy. The long travail of the ages was at an end.
What more was there to do ? There were loose ends to be trimmed,
no doubt, and ragged places to be tidied up. These were tasks for
the lesser fellows economists, sociologists, biologists, chemists, physi-
cians, and so on the engineers as over against the philosophers.
The great principles were clear; the ultimate trends established.
Philosophy, therefore, might retire on her well earned income and
play epistemological chess games with herself for the rest of her life.
Of course the finality was an illusion. Democracy had not been
achieved. Society ached and groaned for deliverance. Philosophy
had been duped into a too easy acquiescence.
To attempt now to write or to help write a philosophy for Serbia
is to plunge again into all the stimulating perplexities. It is to re-
value what has been valued. It is to help build up from the ground
and to build better.
Few tasks could be more salutary for American philosophy.
Few tasks could more effectively rescue her from many of her latter
day futilities.
I sincerely hope that the all too flattering invitation may be
accepted by American philosophers.
H. A. OVERSTREET.
COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
96 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
THE FUNDAMENTAL VALUE UNIVERSAL
TN the history of ethics and of the theory of value it has usually
-*- been assumed that good or goodness is the fundamental value
category. Occasionally right or ought has been taken as funda-
mental. The object of this paper is to prove that the relation " bet-
ter" is a sufficient fundamental universal for the theory of value
and that it is the only value universal which can be taken as funda-
mental. In other words, all value facts are facts about betterness.
Our problem must be dealt with by definition and analysis. "We
wish to prove that whenever we think or speak about any value
characteristic, we are at bottom dealing with the relation better.
To prove this, we must construct a system in which betterness is
taken as the starting point ; this means that betterness will be unde-
fined in this system. Then all other value terms must be defined by
means of "better" and of such general terms as are common to all
systems. No attention will be given to the question whether better-
ness can be defined in non-value terms. That is a subsequent
problem.
The importance attached to such a system of definitions will de-
pend upon the importance attached to the value experiences and
beliefs of human beings. But it should be obvious that the impor-
tance of value experiences arid beliefs can hardly be settled until
-after an accurate analysis of value has been made. Moreover this
is not the place to answer those who dislike any accurate analysis.
II
Although we are not concerned to define "better" in any non-
value terms, yet we must distinguish different meanings of the term
and point out the sense intended. There are at least three differ-
ent uses of "better," but only the first use given below is important
for our present discussion. (1) In comparing two entities, say A
and B, we may consider A alone and B alone, and so judge that A
is intrinsically better than B. Here the effects or consequences of
A and of B have been temporarily disregarded. (2) We may com-
pare the effects of A and the effects of B. Then A may be called
extrinsically better than B, because its effects are intrinsically bet-
ter. (3) We may compare the totality of A and its effects with the
totality of B and its effects. Then we may say that A is completely
better than B, because the one totality is intrinsically better than
the other.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 97
It has been necessary to distinguish these different meanings of
betterness only in order to fasten attention on the first use as in-
trinsic betterness. The other uses are obviously indirect ways of
dealing with intrinsic betterness and are definable by it. So when
the word "better" is used by itself, it is to be understood as mean-
ing intrinsic betterness. As most of the other general value terms
have the same plurality of meaning, their use without qualification
will denote their "intrinsic" meaning. All of these distinctions
may seem obvious, but the neglect of them vitiates a large amount
of recent discussion on the theory of value.
Ill
The term "worse" is defined as the logical converse of better.
"A is worse than 5" means "B is better than A." Every two-
term relation has a logical converse, and it is plain that worse is the
converse of better. Some will object here that in comparing two
good things, we speak of A being better than B rather than of B
being worse than A. So when dealing with two bad things we use
worse rather than better for the comparison. The explanation of
these verbal usages may be interesting, but it could hardly be thought
that they denote any important differences in the values. Worse is
the converse of better, and any verbal idiosyncrasies must be dis-
regarded. If this is true, it may be suggested, then worse could
have been taken as the fundamental value term instead of better.
This is quite true. Such a plan would involve no objective differ-
ence from our present plan. But as human beings dislike to look
on the dark side, it is more convenient to start with better as
fundamental.
Value equality is to be defined by the negation of both better
and worse. "A is equal in value to B" means "A is not better than
B, and A is not worse than B." Here it is presupposed that both
A and B are in the value scale, that is, that each is better or worse
than something. We would not wish to say that two things outside
of the value scale are equal in value.
The terms "best" and "worst" have meaning only when they
are limited in their application. There is no reason to suppose that
there is an absolute worst or an absolute best. 1 "A is the best mem-
ber of class X" means "A is better than every other member of
class X." "A is the worst member of class X" means "every other
member of class X is better than A."
i This should be evident to any student of the logic of relations. I hope
to discuss it in a separate article on the highest good.
98 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
IV
The definitions given above are simple and obvious. The impor-
tant definitions are those of goodness and badness. Here we must
distinguish intrinsic goodness or badness not only from extrinsic
goodness or badness, but also from "moral" goodness or badness.
Moral goodness or badness applies only to voluntary or intentional
conduct, but many things besides this may be judged intrinsically
good or bad. Our question then is, can intrinsic goodness and bad-
ness be defined by betterness? The following definitions are at-
tempts to do so.
In discussing the definitions of good and bad we must notice
that these qualities, like all intrinsic value universals, apply only
to "facts." This has been observed by many writers, so a detailed
discussion of it may be omitted here. 2 What is good or bad is a
fact, and a fact is whatever can be denoted by a complete judgment.
"We may symbolize these facts by such expressions as "that so-and-
so is the case," "that so-and-so exists (or does not exist)," or "the
existence (or the non-existence) of so-and-so."
Another consideration to be noted is that good or bad facts are
always positive or existential. This is because all of the negative
or non-existential facts in the value scale are indifferent or neither
good nor bad. The proof of this statement will require separate dis-
cussion. Here it is asserted merely in order to explain the follow-
ing definitions:
11 A is good" means "the existence of A is good" or "that A
exists is good. ' ' Now this is to be defined as meaning ' ' the existence
of A is better than the non-existence of A," or "that A exists is
better than that A does not exist."
"A is bad" means "the existence of A is bad" or "that A ex-
ists is bad." This is to be defined as meaning "the non-existence
of A is better than the existence "of A" or "that A does not exist is
better than that A does exist." By the use of worse the definition
will be "the existence of A is worse than the non-existence of A."
It should be noticed that these definitions treat goodness and
badness as being complex, relational characteristics. Goodness and
badness are not simple qualities. This relational complexity may
seem strange at first thought, but reflection will show that the
equivalences stated in these definitions are correct. There may be
other ways of stating the same facts, but the method used here is
sufficient for present purposes.
2 In addition to the works of Meinong and his school, see G. E. Moore,
Principia Ethica, London, 1&03, p. 120.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 99
These definitions of good and bad contradict the letter of Mr.
G. B. Moore's assertion that good is indefinable. 3 They do not
necessarily contradict the spirit of his doctrine which is that the
fundamental value term is not definable by any non-value term.
Betterness may or may not be definable or analyzable, but goodness
and badness are certainly definable by betterness.
Do these definitions give an answer to the world-old problem as
to the relation between good and bad? Where better occurs in the
definition of good, there worse occurs in the definition of bad. So
good and bad are converses in the precise sense of the modern logic
of relations. Neither good nor bad depends on the other, but both
good and bad depend on better.
With the term "indifferent" we must distinguish two usages.
It always applies to what can not be called either good or bad. But
this is ambiguous. "Indifferent" is sometimes applied to what is
not on the value scale at all. This usage is unimportant here. In
the other sense "indifferent" is applied to what is on the value
scale but is neither good nor bad. In this sense "A is indifferent"
means "the existence (or the non-existence) of A is indifferent" or
"that A exists (or does not exist) is indifferent." Here we must
give separate definitions. "The existence of A is indifferent" or
"that A exists is indifferent" means "the existence of A is better
or worse than something, but is neither better nor worse than the
non-existence of A." Or we may use the notion of value equality
already defined, and say that "the existence of A is indifferent"
means "the existence of A is equal in value to the non-existence
of A"
Since all negative facts which are on the value scale are equal
in value, 4 we may define indifference for them by the symmetrical
transitive relation of being all "equal in value." "The non-exist-
ence of A is indifferent" means simply "the non-existence of A is
equal in value to the non-existence of anything."
The phrase "as good as" obviously means "not worse than,"
though it is usually assumed that both of the objects compared are
good. "As bad as" means "not better than," though here it is
assumed that both objects are bad. Such phrases as "very good"
s G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica, Ch. 1.
* This assertion will be proved at length in a future article. Here the
reader is asked to see if he ever judges as intrinsically good or bad what is a
negative fact or a fact about non-existence (such as A does not like B, no one
likes B.) These facts may be extrinsically but not intrinsically good or bad.
100 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
or "very bad" are usually rather vague in assuming a somewhat
indefinite standard with reference to which something is "as good
as" or "as bad as."
There are many vague value terms, such as natural, reasonable,
and ideal, which hardly call for discussion here. But the term
"value" and similar terms may be explained.
"Value" as a noun may refer either to a universal or to that of
which the universal is predicated. It is clearest to use "value"
merely to denote a universal. Then "value" means goodness or
badness or indifference. In the ultimate analysis, value means bet-
terness. A value universal is a universal determined by betterness.
A value symbol or a value term is a symbol or term which refers to
a value universal.
A "value object" or a "value relatum" is whatever is better or
worse than anything. 5 To have value or to be "a value" is to be
better or worse than anything. To be on the value scale means to
be better or worse than anything. To have positive value means to
be good, and to have negative value means to be bad.
A "value fact" is a fact which has betterness or something de-
pending on betterness as one of its main relations. A "value judg-
ment" is a judgment asserting a value fact. Similar definitions
may be given to "valuations" and "value feelings."
It has now been shown that all of the above general value terms
can be defined by betterness. It remains to ask whether any other
system of definition is possible. As we have admitted, worse could
be used as fundamental, but this would involve no objective differ-
ence in the resulting system. It must be repeated also that we are
not now raising the question whether betterness itself can be denned
by any non-value term. The problem is whether or not betterness
must be accepted as the unique fundamental value category.
VI
Can anything other than betterness be taken as the fundamental
value term? Only a careless thinker would take extrinsic value as
fundamental, so we may confine our attention to the intrinsic value
terms. Among these terms most writers have taken as fundamental
either good alone or good and bad together. It can be shown that
these are impossible theories.
If goodness alone is taken as fundamental, neither bad nor bet-
ter can be defined by it. Bad is obviously not the contradictory of
good. To say that bad is the opposite, contrary, or converse of good,
B The complete analysis of value relata will require a separate article.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 101
has no clear meaning unless we introduce the meaning of converse
used in the logic of relations. But this would clearly be dealing
with the relation better. In the next place, good alone can not be
defined by better. Better means more than "more good," and even
"more good" is a relational characteristic which goes beyond the
mere quality that good might seem to be. At the very least, "more
good" presupposes that goodness has degrees, and this means that
we are dealing with a relation. This relation is clearly betterness.
If we assume both good and bad as fundamental, we shall have
just as much difficulty. In the first place, what is the relation of
good and bad? It is surely necessary to explain their relation, but
it is to be feared that this is impossible on the present assumption.
Certainly no one has ever done it. In the second place, even the use
of both good and bad can not define better. One might say "A is
better than B" means " (1) A is good and B is indifferent, or (2)
A is good and B is bad, or (3) A is indifferent and B is bad." But
this would still leave out the cases where A and B might both be
good or might both be bad. To say that betterness is "more good-
ness" or "less badness" would obviously be to bring betterness into
the system by a verbal disguise. To speak of degrees of goodness or
of badness is to speak of betterness. To say that better is the rela-
tion that holds between the union of two goods and one of them
alone, would be an objectionable disregard of Mr. G. E. Moore's
principle of organic unities. It does not follow that because A and
B separately have a certain quality (such as good is supposed to be),
therefore the union of both will have "more" of that quality than
either one alone has.
If one said that good, bad, and better are all fundamental and
primitive value terms, one would have two difficulties. In the first
place, there are many universal relations between these terms. For
instance, take the very simple fact that the existence of a good is
better than the existence of a bad. If good and bad are defined by
better, this fact can be given a simple and easy explanation. But
how could this fact be explained if good and bad and better are all
taken as ultimates? It would have to be left as peculiar and inex-
plicable. So it would be with many similar facts. Only the assump-
tion of betterness as the fundamental term can bring order into the
theory of value. In the second place, it is objectionable to assume
more fundamentals than necessary. The assumption of better as
fundamental can account for all of the facts ; therefore no additional
assumptions should be made.
Is it not plain now that among the general value terms better is
a sufficient fundamental term and that better is the only sufficient
fundamental term?
102 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
VII
In addition to the general value terms with which we have been
dealing, there are what may be called limited value terms. These
are such terms as "duty" and "ought" which apply only to a cer-
tain kind of conduct. A limitation or restriction upon the use of
these terms is implied in their very meaning. Of these terms the
two most important kinds are the ethical and the esthetic value
terms. We need not here consider the other kinds of limited value
terms, such as legal or economic terms, because these values are gen-
erally admitted to be dependent upon the general value terms or
upon the ethical value terms. So far 1 as I know, no one has ever
treated any of these other limited value terms as fundamental for
the entire theory of value.
Our treatment of the ethical and esthetic value terms will be
short and elementary. It will be sufficient for our present purposes
to show that these terms depend upon the more general terms al-
ready discussed, and that they are too limited in their application
to be considered as fundamental terms for the entire value system.
For ethical value terms the most nearly correct definitions have
been given by G. E. Moore, H. Eashdall, B. Russell, and C. D.
Broad. 6 These terms, such as right and wrong, ought and duty, are
complex in their definitions and they have different shades of mean-
ing. But all of them are determined in the final analysis by intrinsic
betterness. The following proposition indicates in an unquestion-
able way the connection between betterness and one use of a moral
value term: "It is always wrong knowingly to make the universe
as a whole intrinsically worse than it otherwise might be." What-
ever difficulties there may be about special points, there can be no
serious doubt that right and wrong are determined by the total
value of the universe of which the given action is a part. This total
value is intrinsic value, which has been shown to be betterness. So
right and wrong are determined by better and worse.
Moreover right and wrong apply only to what can be affected
by our choice or intention. The same thing is true of all of the
moral value terms. This point has been stated so admirably by
Bertrand Russell that I shall not linger on it. 7 So moral value is
too limited in application to be taken as a fundamental term in place
of betterness.
It should be noticed that ethical value depends on betterness,
not on goodness or badness.
C. D. Broad, ' ' The Doctrine of Consequences in Ethics, ' ' International
Journal of Ethics, April, 1914.
i B. Russell, Philosophical Essays, p. 6.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 103
It is probable that entirely satisfactory definitions have never
been given to esthetic value terms. But the more plausible defini-
tions treat beauty as depending upon intrinsic goodness. Thus Mr.
G. E. Moore says : "The beautiful should be defined as that of which
the admiring contemplation is good in itself." 8 I doubt if this is
quite satisfactory as a final definition, but it is certainly correct as
far as it goes. Nothing can be beautiful if the admiring contem-
plation of it would not be intrinsically good. So beauty depends
in part at least upon intrinsic goodness. Therefore beauty depends
in part upon intrinsic betterness.
Not only is betterness involved in the definitions of esthetic
value terms, but these terms have other qualities which make it
impossible that esthetic value could be more fundamental than bet-
terness. Esthetic value is obviously limited to objects of admiring
contemplation. But there is no reason for limiting all intrinsic
value in this way. Moreover esthetic value seems to many people
to be more subjective than other values. Finally esthetic value does
not have the same clear comparison which is involved in better and
in right. For these reasons we may conclude that esthetic value can
hardly be taken as the fundamental value category.
VIII
We have now gone over all of the general value terms carefully.
Betterness was shown to be the fundamental term among these. 8
Then a short examination showed that ethical and esthetic value
terms depend upon the general value terms which in turn depend
upon betterness. So all value facts are constituted by betterness.
All value judgments are judgments about the relation better. Value
is betterness.
8 G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica, p. 201.
So far as I know the main contention of this paper is new. It was sug-
gested by a synthesis of modern theories of value with the new logic of relations.
Such a system would have been impossible before the development of the logic
of relations. Yet as every theory has hints which precede it, I give a few refer-
ences. In none of these is the relational analysis present in an adequate manner.
Aristotle, pp. 1008, b26, 731-732; E. Price, Review of the Principle Questions and
Difficulties in Morals (London, 1758'), pp. 79, 112-114, 119-121; G. Santayana,
Life of Season (New York, 1906), Vol. 1, p. 46; H. Eashdall, Theory of Good
and Evil (London, 1907), Vol. 2, p. 351; G. E. Moore, Ethics (London, 1912),
pp. 162-163; T. Leasing, Studien sur Wertaxiomatik (Leipzig, 1914), p. 21.
(This last work is an astonishing example of that beclouded thinking which in
former years would have won world- wide fame among scholars.) The entire
theory of which the present paper is merely one part was outlined before the
American Philosophical Association in December, 1914. See this JOURNAL, Vol.
XII., pp. 105-106. For more recent discussions see W. M. Urban, this JOURNAL,
Vol. XIII., pp. 677-683.
104 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
The conclusions given above have been reached by an attempt
at logical analysis of value concepts. Perhaps this method by itself
has given sufficient proof. Additional proofs can be given later by
showing that the present hypothesis is more fruitful than other
hypotheses, both in introducing order and system into the general
science of value and also in furnishing a tool for the inductive study
of human value judgments and value facts.
ALBERT P. BROGAN.
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS.
REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE
Philosophical Opinion in America. GEORGE SANTAYANA. Proceed-
ings of the British Academy, Vol. VIII. London : Oxford Uni-
versity Press. 1918. Pp. 13.
Professor Santayana 's address to the British Academy the fact
that Mr. Santayana is not really a professor any more would be an
entirely irrelevant detail were it not so regrettable deserves the
appreciative attention of all who study American imagination in its
more serious moods. America has, as it should, both the diffidence
and the nai've confidence appropriate to a people just emerging from
the awkward age. The problem of emancipation recurs for every
vigorous generation and the vitality of American philosophy has ap-
peared in nothing more clearly than in the will to be independent of
what Mr. Santayana has excellently called "the genteel tradition."
To the extent that our culture was transplanted from Europe, our
philosophy, as part of it, is rooted there; and in so far as the new
climate has been really new, the fruits show features that are novel
and original, and, no doubt, what old gardeners call a little wild.
How has migration to the new world affected philosophical ideas?
This is, as Mr. Santayana observes, a question curious in itself and
one that may become important in the future; it is the topic with
which his address is primarily concerned.
"At first sight we might be tempted, perhaps, to dismiss this
question altogether, on the ground that no such effect is discernible.
For What do we find in America in the guise of philosophy? In
the background the same Protestant theology as in Europe and the
same Catholic theology; on the surface, the same adoption of Ger-
man idealism, the same vogue of evolution, the same psychology be-
coming metaphysics, and lately the same revival of a mathematical
or logical realism. In no case has the first expression of these va-
rious tendencies appeared in America, and no original system that I
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 105
know of has arisen there. It would seem, then, that in philosophy,
as in letters generally, polite America has continued the common
tradition of Christendom, in paths closely parallel to those followed
in England ; and that modern speculation, which is so very sensitive
to changed times, is quite indifferent to distinctions of place. ' '
This is true, however, only of "polite America," America of the
Puritan tradition. But life here is colored by other things. "The
horde of immigrants eagerly accepts the external arrangements and
social spirit of American life, but never hears of its original austere
principles, or relegates them to the same willing oblivion as it does
the constraints which it has just escaped Jewish, Irish, German,
Italian, or whatever they may be. "We should be seriously deceived
if we overlooked for a moment the curious and complex relation be-
tween these two Americas. ' ' The millions who have come here seek-
ing the land of their hopes have thrown the philosophy of puritan
values badly out of joint. Whether we like it or not, there has
grown up a democracy of speculation. "Every system was met
with a frank gaze. 'Come on,' people seemed to say to it, 'show us
what you are good for. We accept no claims ; we ask for no creden-
tials; we just give you a chance. Plato, the Pope, and Mrs. Eddy
shall have one vote each. ' '
Yet the very struggle for emancipation makes new theories, in
so far as they are ways of escape, functions of the old ones, and thus
much supposed independence is largely imaginary. Escape from a
tradition comes not in fighting it but in forgetting it, and the meta-
physics of theological romanticism have, Mr. Santayana thinks, been
largely forgotten by the younger American philosophers, whose style
is, indeed, "deplorable," and who put up openmindedly with "be-
ing toasted only on one side." But it has been for most of us
harder to forget idealism than Mr. Santayana suggests, and the con-
cern with various problems of ' ' consciousness, ' ' problems of ' ' knowl-
edge," problems of existence, is a proof that emancipation has been
less thorough than, theoretically, it ought to have been.
' ' It may seem a strange Nemesis that a critical philosophy, which
on principle reduces everything to the consciousness of it, should
end by reducing consciousness itself to other things ; yet the path of
this boomerang is not hard to trace. ' ' Mr. Santayana traces it with
his usual clarity. It leads to the conclusion that "Things are just
what they seem to be, and to say they are consciousness or compose
a consciousness is absurd. The so-called appearances, according to
a perfected criticism of knowledge, are nothing private or internal;
they are merely those portions of external objects which from time
to time impress themselves on somebody's organs of sense and are
responded to by his nervous system.
106 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
"Such is the doctrine of the new American realist, in whose de-
voted persons the logic of idealism has worked itself out and appro-
priately turned idealism itself into its opposite. Consciousness, they
began .by saying, is merely a stream of ideas; but then ideas are
merely the parts of objects which happen to appear to a given
person; but again a person (for all you or he can discover) is
nothing but his body and those parts or other objects which appear
to him; and finally to appear, in .any discoverable sense, can not be
to have a ghostly sort of mental existence, but merely to be reacted
upon by an animal body. Thus we come to the conclusion that ob-
jects alone exist, and that consciousness is a name for certain seg-
ments or groups of these objects." Thus, as Mr. Santayana puts
it, "to deny consciousness is to deny a prerequisite to the obvious,
and to leave the obvious standing alone." And the same psycho-
logical criticism viewed from a slightly different angle is found
"transforming the notion of truth much as it has transformed the
notion of consciousness."
Mr. Santayana does not explicitly say so, but he makes it clear,
I think, that the cloud of ambiguities that has darkened the discus-
sions of "pragmatism" is due very largely to the unhappy circum-
stance that this discussion was supposed to be about the notion or
meaning or concept of "truth." The word is, of course, ambiguous,
having either the logical or the psychological emphasis. According
to Mr. Santayana 's definition, "the truth properly means the sum
of all true propositions, what omniscience would assert, the whole
ideal system of qualities and relations which the world has ex-
emplified or will exemplify. The truth is all things seen under the
form of eternity." On the other hand, the psychological criticism
has given the word an improper and subjective meaning.
If, instead of being phrased as a discussion about truth, which
it never was, the controversy over pragmatism had been more clearly
about the reasons for regarding specific propositions as true or as
false, and the ways of arriving at propositions that can be labeled
either true or false, a whole chapter of academic misunderstanding
might, we may hope, have been avoided. That is, the controversy was
really aJbout scientific method and the handling of evidence. The
best definition of pragmatism the reviewer has come across is one by
Professor Boodin in his book on the subject. He defines pragmatism,
if I remember rightly, as ' ' scientific method conscious of its own pro-
cedure. ' ' And this way of putting the matter agrees, I think, but I
am not quite sure, with what Mr. Santayana means by the follow-
ing: "Now there is a problem, not impossible to confuse with the
problem of correctness in ideas, with which psychological criticism
can really deal : it is the question of the relation between a sign and
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 107
the thing signified. Of this relation a genuinely empirical account
can be given : iboth terms are objects of experience, present or even-
tual, and the passage between them is made in time by an experi-
enced transition. Nor need the signs which lead to a particular ob-
ject be always the same, or of one sort : an object may be designated
and foretold unequivocally by a verbal description, without any di-
rect image, or by images now of one sense and now of another, or
by some external relation, such as its place, or by its proper name, if
it possesses one; and these designations all convey knowledge of it,
and may be true signs, if in yielding to their suggestion we are
brought eventually to the object meant.
"Here, if I am not mistaken, is the genuine application of what
the pragmatists call their theory of truth. It concerns merely what
links a sign to the thing signified, and renders it a practical substi-
tute for the same. ' '
The spirit of all this is, Mr. Santayana points out, not entirely
negative. It is full of the negations of escape, but it is positive,
progressive and assertive. "It is very close to nature, as the lover
of nature understands the word."
Mr. Santayana sees pragmatism too much, I think, in the very
human but rather impulsive exposition of James, whereas the point
of view which that word suggests to-day in America is the much
more critical and analytic position that found expression in Chicago.
It is difficult, to be sure, to contemplate Chicago under the form of
eternity, and this may have something to do with the nuance of Mr.
Santayana 's emphasis. He says, speaking of the spirit of all the
radical views referred to: "It is very sympathetic to science, in so
far as science is a personal pursuit, and a personal experience, rather
than a body of doctrine with moral implications. ' ' If, however, we
restrict the application of this sentence to the position of the most
distinguished living exponent of pragmatism in America, we must
reverse the statement and say it is very sympathetic to science in so
far as science is a body of doctrine with moral implications, and not
a personal pursuit and a personal experience.
But as for the way in which the new world has affected philoso-
phy. It has furthered the emancipation from conventional cate-
gories, and it has favored the undogmatic "assemblage and mutual
confrontation of all sorts of ideas. ' ' Philosophy can not conceivably
be, not for a long time at least, in America, the metaphysics of a
genteel tradition. "It is time for it to become less solemn and more
serious. ' '
WENDELL T. BUSH
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
108 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Studies in the History of Ideas. Edited by the Department of Phi-
losophy of Columbia University. Vol. I. New York: Columbia
University Press. 1918. Pp. 272.
This book is an achievement and a promise. The authors
modestly describe the volume as expressing the "desire of those who
are or who have been identified with work in philosophy at Columbia
to encourage research and the exercise of the historical imagination
and to contribute something to the work being done in this depart-
ment of human interest." The volume does more than this. It
sets a new standard for the historical approach to philosophical
ideas. The history of philosophy, in large measure, has been as
woefully false as the history of kings and queens. It has either
taken philosophical ideas in separate abstraction from their living
context, or it has planted them one after another as progressive sign
posts on the way to the millennium. As a matter of fact, most philo-
sophical writing and teaching during the past generation has been a
convenient mixture of the two convenient, for the abstraction of
philosophic ideas from their social context has made unnecessary an
infinite amount of labor, while the arranging of philosophical ideas
as in splendid development out of each other has given to phi-
losophy the appearance of triumphantly getting somewhere. Thus,
for example, there has become fixed in philosophical teaching the
tradition of the logical progression from Locke, through Berkeley,
Hume and Kant. How every one of us, brought up in the old
school, at one time or another, has led his class shudderingly through
that valley of the deepening shadow! How we have made them
breathe hard as they waited for the death of an utter skepticism to
make an end of them ; when lo ! out of the shadows, the blessed sun-
shine of Immanuel!
The present volume modestly requires that history be not fiction.
And it modestly proceeds to transform some bits of fiction into the
likeness of history. Noteworthy in this respect is the paper by
Wendell T. Bush, An Impression of Greek Political Philosophy.
Dr. Bush, suspecting that Greek political philosophy was not the
fine flowering of what we have traditionally regarded as the noble
Greek life, but that it was rather the strong protest against a type
of life very far from noble, brings to bear a wide range of reading
in Greek history and literature to prove his point. As a result we
have a living setting for Greek political philosophy. We see it
warmed to its business by the characteristic shortcomings of. its
time. We note its function as a protest and corrective.
Dr. Dewey's paper, The Motivation of Hobbes' Political Phi-
losophy, is likewise an attempt to substitute history for fiction. ' ' It
is the object of this essay to place the political philosophy of Hobbes
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 109
in its own historic context, ' ' a context which shows Hobbes to have
been primarily concerned not with the problem of individual free-
dom versus public control, but rather with that of the conflict of
church and state. And so again, a whole series of neat logical pro-
gressions to which we have grown accustomed is disposed of.
Walter Veazie makes an elaborate search through Greek writers
to discover the meaning of <ims; M. T. McClure, analyzing the sci-
entific, mystical and humanistic interests of the Greeks, comes to
some valuable conclusions as to the meaning of reality in Greek
thought.
John J. Coss quotes from Francis Bacon, showing him to be in
fact the progenitor of this new movement in historical philosophical
thinking. "In general, those who have not followed Bacon's advice
have considered philosophy to be a continuous series of approxima-
tions to a solution which must be single and absolute. With such a
view, what could be more appropriate than the presentation of the
history of philosophy under the headings of its most persistent prob-
lems? Such a system enables one to see in a kind of kinemato-
graphic fashion the flicker of opinion, and, if the cataloguer is at all
an historicical dramatist, an unfolding of the dialectic plot which
will bring down the curtain with the destruction of the villain of the
opposition and the glory and renown of the hero of the story. ' '
Albert G. A. Balz writes on The Psychology of Ideas in Hobbes;
Robert B. Owen on Truth and Error in Descartes; William F. Cooley
on Spinoza's Pantheistic Argument. Dr. Woodbridge contributes a
paper on Berkeley's Realism, which places Berkeley in a philo-
sophical position distinctly different from that in which he has tradi-
tionally been placed and so leads to new interests and evaluations.
Adam Leroy Jones writes A Note on Dr. Thomas Brown's Contribu-
tion to Esthetics which links up the old Doctor with so different a
philosophic personality as George Santayana.
The two logical papers of W. P. Montague and H. T. Costello
fall outside the general scheme of the book, but are nevertheless
acute contributions to the more modern aspects of logic. Dr.
Montague writes on The Antinomy and its Implications for Logical
Theory; and Dr. Costello on Old Problems with New Faces in Recent
Logic.
With all its decided excellence as a path-breaker in philosophical
method, one can not help wondering at a certain remoteness of this
book. "Philosophy," says Dr. Bush, "when it is most in earnest,
begins not in vision, but in the search for it. It starts with disin-
tegration and thrives not so much upon its own success as upon
partial failure in mastering its problems. ' ' One would suppose that
the present years were the very ideal stimulus for a new develop-
110 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
meat in philosophy. And yet this book moves with a serenity of
unconcern about things contemporary that makes one wonder whether
all this pother about a world at grips is not a bit overdone. Or is
it that the new philosophy, born out of the stress of the present,
is being thought and written not by the accredited philosophers
at all but by common soldiers, journalists, statesmen, novelists, and,
now and then, even by sociologists. Such a thing has indeed
happened before in the history of philosophy, as witness Boehm,
Spinoza, Marx, etc.
The hope in the present instance lies in the fact, first, that this
little book is but Volume I of a series still to be written ; and second,
that a number of its writers are men whose interest in things con-
temporary has not only been profound but effective. The volume
sounds a note of vigorous dissent from old philosophic methods; it
applies, frankly and searchingly, a new method. It is to be hoped
that a succeeding volume will bring the older philosophic ideas into
connection with the unsettled problems of a very much perturbed
world of to-day.
But the book is not only an achievement and a promise ; it is also,
and most significantly, an invitation. "The title of the volume
represents a larger field of inquiry than the matter here included
would indicate, a field in which others than philosophers are engaged
and in which it appears that ideas have a history and that their
history is influenced by contact with lines of experience not commonly
called philosophical. The contributors have a sense of their obliga-
tions to co-workers in other branches, and wish to encourage and
invite their collaboration."
This, perhaps, is the most inviting note struck by the book. Phi-
losophy, having lived overlong in bilious epistemological seclusion,
announces to the world that it means hereafter to be a merry fellow
with the rest. In fact it opens its forbidding door and offers the
beginning of a feast ! Surely, when philosophy becomes aware that
there are "co-workers in other branches" in economics, history,
politics, law, poetry, the drama, as well as in mathematics, physics,
biology and so on co-workers with whom there may be effective
collaboration a new and far more fruitful day -has dawned for an
intelligent approach to human problems.
H. A. OVERSTREET.
COLLEGE or THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 111
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW: Vol. 25, No. 4. July, 1918.
Associative Aids: II. Their Relation to Practise and the Transfer
of Training (pp. 257-285): H. B. REED. - Evidence that learning
things in one order helps to learn them in different orders is con-
sidered proof of transfer of training. Such transfer takes place
through the use of associative bonds common to the old and new
orders. Such a use is essentially a case of thinking through old
associations in new directions. Evidence for the theory that trans-
fer of training must be explained by common associative bonds is
present in these experiments. There is no contradiction with Thorn-
dike's theory of identical elements, but simply gives it specific mean-
ing. The experiment demands a reformation of the law of con-
tiguity. The togetherness of objects in experience is not sufficient
condition of association unless it is accompanied by active attention.
Intelligence as Estimated from Photographs (pp. 286-296) : RU-
DOLF PINTNER. - Sixty-three adults judged the intelligence of 12
children by their photographs. The 12 children were tested by the
Yerkes-Bridges scale. They varied from 4 to 16 in chronological
age and from 5.7 to 12.5 in mental age i. e., some were bright and
some feebleminded. The pictures of the children are included in
the paper. The results showed no correlation between the judg-
ments of people and the intelligence of the children. Snap judg-
ments of children's intelligence are not reliable. The Genesis of the
Image (pp. 297-304): CURT RosENOW.-A suggestion is made for
the birth of imagery. The objective is open to the observation of
all; the subjective is experienced by the individual alone. The
genesis of thought sketches the coming to consciousness of this dis-
tinction. A discussion of Miss Washburn's treatment is made.
The Heterochromatic Differential Threshold for Brightness: I.
Experimental (pp. 305-329): LEONARD THOMPSON TROLAND. -Re-
search from the Nela Research Laboratory, General Electric Co.,
Cleveland, Ohio. The feature of the studies which is perhaps of
the greatest importance for photometry is the relatively great in-
fluence exerted upon the brightness threshold by small color differ-
ences. Rate of Pupillary Dilation and Contraction (pp. 330-340) :
PRENTICE REEVES. - Research from the laboratory of the Eastman
Kodak Company. The rate of closing of the pupil was measured
by taking motion pictures of an eye fully adapted to total darkness.
Time and rate adaptation curves showed marked differences for
different colored lights and for different intensities of the same
color.
112 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
REVUE DE METAPHYSIQUE ET DE MORALE. July-Au-
gust, 1918. Le concept chez Aristote (pp. 405-418) : 0. HAMELIN. -
The concept does not give the substance nor the real essence of sub-
stance, for the reality of the individual comes from matter. Neo-
vitalisme et Sciences Physiques (pp. 419-431) : R. MOURGUE. - Phys-
ics itself has given the proof of the special order on which manifesta-
tions of the vital order appear. L'optimisme et la science (pp. 433-
473) : A. LECLERE. - Neither absolute optimism nor absolute pessimism
is justified by science but a little pessimism has the greater value as
tonic effect. Etudes critiques. La metaphysique de Josiah Royce
(suite) : G. MARCEL. Enseignement. Pour un enseignement philos-
ophique nouveau: E. CRAMAUSSEL. Discussions. Sur la degradation
de I'energie: C. D. BROAD.
Aristotelian Society : Life and Finite Individuality. Two Symposia
edited by H. Wildon Carr. London : Williams & Norgate. 1918.
Pp. 194.
Perry, Horace. Theories of Energy. New York and London : G. P.
Putnam's Sons. 1918. Pp.231. $1.75.
NOTES AND NEWS
RIKIZO NAKASHIMA, Ph.D., Yale, 1889, for many years professor of
ethics in the Imperial University of Tokyo, translator and author of
many works in his field, and actively connected with moral education
in the Japanese school system, died of influenza, December 21, 1918.
THE Revue de Metapkysique et de Morale for September-Decem-
ber, 1918, is a very much enlarged number, devoted to the examination
and criticism of the Prussian interpretation of the Protestant Refor-
mation as an exclusively German achievement. There are thirteen
articles, devoted to various aspects of the Reformation in Germany,
France and England, the Protestant beginnings of democracy and the
relations of the Reformation to the modern world.
VOL. XVI, No. 5. FEBRTTABY 27, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
NEW AND DOMINATING TENDENCIES IN FRENCH PHI-
LOSOPHY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR
A CHANGE of attitude, both, remarkable and rapid, regards
fundamental problems, found expression recently in French,
thought.
When the war began, France was still hailed as the land of philo-
sophical renovation at the hands of men like Boutroux and Bergson.
But, when after a period of about three years, people were ready
again to listen to philosophical discussions, France appeared to them
as if possessed with an entirely new speculative mind. Anti-Bou-
trouism, and especially Anti-Bergsonism, seemed to be the rallying
cries. Books like J. Benda's Sentiments de Critias (1917), and R.
Lote's LeQons intellectuelles de la guerre (1917), have a vigor that
can hardly 'be surpassed, and an outspokenness that indeed nobody
can misunderstand. They oppose with the utmost determination, to
modern Intuitionism which they connect with old Romanticism,
and with German Transcendentalism the clean-cut Intellectualism
which obtained in the line of pure French tradition from Descartes
down to Taine ; and they sound a threatening warning against any
temptation to relapse into subtle, and fluid, and metaphysical, and
falsely humanitarian sentimentalism. It is only right to say that
both Benda and Lote had spoken before the war; the first was the
author of Bergsonisme ou une philosophie de la mobilite (1912), the
second of Les origines mystiques de la Science allemande (1913).
The only difference is that almost nobody listened to them before the
war, while now hardly anybody disagrees. 1
But, important as such programmes may be, dealing more with
epistemological methods and philosophical attitudes, the construc-
tive theories of men who already have actually applied non-in-
i No mention is made here of G. LeBon '& books, La Guerre europeene et ses
enseignements psychologiques, and Premieres consequences de la guerre (1915),
which are (as Professor Perry has shown in this JOURNAL) rather disconcert-
ing. The suggestions of the author of the Psychologie des foules are always
interesting individually; but they offer no consistent and connected attitude
towards the war.
113
114 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
tuitionistic minds to the practical problems brought about or empha-
sized by the war, are even more important. And we have, three
years after the outbreak of hostilities, and while they are still raging
with unabated fury, two full-fledged philosophies, pretty well de-
veloped by writers often very forceful, or at least of indisputable
dialectic skill. While widely different in nature, they are both in
line with anti-intuitionism or specially anti-Bergsonism.
They run parallel ; at the same time, while one seems to have al-
ready yielded what will probably remain its most vigorous products,
the other has been, for reasons to be explained, a little slower in de-
veloping; but there may be a compensation, perhaps, in a brighter
future. The first is what we may call Papalism, by which is meant
Neo-catholicism in as far as it represents a political, rather than a
theological creed; the other is what we may call, provisionally,
Democratism a term which is vague, but rightly so, for it covers a
multitude of political creeds.
NEO-CATHOLICISM AND PAPALISM
Papalism had been started before the war ; it had been together
with violent and yet guarded outbursts of monarchism, which, how-
ever, is now left almost completely in the background taken up as a
means to stop the disorders resulting from the strifes of republican
political parties; these disorders had appeared increasingly danger-
ous as the German war menace came to be realized. Twenty years
ago Papalism had been given a great impulse by philosophers and
men of letters like Brunetiere, Bourget, Lemaitre, Coppee, while the
concrete and purely political aspect of the movement, "nationalism"
as it was called, was given in the famous paper L' Action Fran$aise
(since 1899). Both, political and philosophical aspects, had then,
been taken up by Barres in his two remarkably keen series of novels,
Le Roman de I'Energie Nationale, and Les Bastions de I'Est; also
by Ch. Maurras in the Revue Encyclopedique Larousse, and in his
book L'Avenir de I'Intelligence; again by Pierre Lasserre, Le
Romantisme Frangais (1908), and by A. Seilliere, Le Mai Roman-
tique (1908), etc. More recently Papalism received a fresh impetus,
thanks to the current of opinion created independently by Charles
Peguy, the man who connected the political renovation of France
with the mystico-patriotic inspiration of three saint women, the Vir-
gin Mary, patroness saint of Christianity and impersonation of
divine love as symbolized in the great French cathedrals, Joan of
Arc, patroness saint of France, and Sainte Genevieve, patroness
saint of Paris. Thus, when, after two years of war, France was pre-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 115
pared again to discuss social theories and political organization, the
prospects were not bad for Papalism. Ch. Maurras, known already
as one of the most forceful writers of France, made use of the oppor-
tunity with skill and decision, as might be expected. And of course
his writings, pointing towards Eome as an inspiration, were to find
even more echo in consequence of the religious dispositions awakened
by the war; then militating in his favor, too, one must count the
very outrages of Germany in Belgium, and especially at Louvain,
which outrages have given to a Roman prelate, Cardinal Mercier, a
prominent place among war personalities. Maurras 's articles have
been collected in several books ; one will particularly well illustrate
his doctrines : Le Pape, la Guerre et la Paix. It has the usual vigor
and keenness which one expects always from him, it is consistent in
all its parts, and his dialectic power is not marred, as it was in
Brunetiere, by heavy, complex sentences. He has the fine, tradi-
tional, French style of Bossuet and Joseph de Maistre.
Reduced to its simplest terms, his contention is: that the world
must return to the idea of a catholicity of humanity, in social or-
ganization as well as in philosophical thought; there must be some
sort of link between and above the national units of the world, some
concrete medium of communion between the human families. Now,
this universal communion, this catholicity, was once impersonated by
the Pope; even to-day the Pope remains an impersonation of uni-
versality. Socialistic universality has failed; imperialistic univer-
sality, in the German sense, will fail. The people must see, thus, that
"we work to reestablish a notion a little more reasonable of what the
pope, the Holy See, stands for, of his function among nations and
above nations. ' '
That lofty universality, which did exist, was destroyed by the
Reformation. The principle of the Protestant movement has been
to substitute for the theory, according to which men will obey gov-
ernments dealing rationally with problems, a theory according to
which the people and thus the nations will be ruled by a subjec-
tive moral conscience, which disregards rational principles. This is
bound to breed disorder, and indeed the period of the Wars of the
Reformation all over Europe is the worst that civilized humanity
has known. Maurras adopts Barres's formula, "no possibility of
restoration of la chose publique without a doctrine."' In modern
times, Protestant subjectivism has ended in the monstrous attempt
of one individual to subject all the others, Imperialism. The meg-
alomaniac "conscience" of the Kaiser suggests to him that he is the
representative of God, and that he must rule the world according
to his inspiration. . . . Thus Maurras endeavors to "expose" what
116 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
he calls "the old-time antinomy of Lutheran Germany and of Latin
Catholicism. ' '
Another point of Maurras's doctrine is this: he believes in re-
flected, intelligent arrangement of the world, and in all the nations
working harmoniously under one rule, this rule to be represented by
a moral power like that of the Pope. But he does not believe that all
the nations are equal, mentally speaking, and have an equal right to
international affairs; this is a matter of intellect. In his universal
society there must be hierarchy (Plato) : "that dogma of equality of
nations is the cause of anarchy in Europe. . . . Yes, France is a na-
tion (patria), but not all nations are France, nor comparable to
France. . . . There are obligations, which all countries have to ac-
cept, but does one believe that the man from Germany, no matter how
vehemently patriotic he may be, is possessed with the same qualities
(biens), and with so many qualities, as the man from France?" Of
course, Maurras admits that the Republic of France has not been a
model of political organization, but he offers the example of the
seventeenth century, when different social conditions being taken
into consideration French diplomacy under Cardinals (Richelieu,
Mazarin, not to speak of Bossuet) gave France a world prestige po-
litically, while keeping for her the title of Fille ainee de I'Eglise.
Concretely speaking, the first step would be to have the French
government send a delegate to the Vatican where now the Austrian
delegate, undisturbed, can control the only international political
organization in existence. 2
In Maurras we find the same attacks that we have seen before, on
those who, knowingly or not, represent the Lutheran spirit in France.
He attacks faux latinisants like Pichon, who accept "miserable mod-
els which are of barbarian make, viz. Germanic and Lutheran,
through Kant and Rousseau." As to Boutroux, one of the guilty,
he was honest enough to go beyond Fichte, and point to Kant as the
father of nineteenth-century Lutheranism ; but, if Kant, "one must
grant also Rousseau Rousseau born on the borderland of Latinity
and of Germany, Rousseau, great revolutionist, and inspirer of Kant
in Germany, Rousseau, by the same principle, author of the so-called
French Revolution, Rousseau, the last incarnation of the spirit of
Luther." Or "the French Terreur is the consistent result of the
Declaration of the Rights of Man, and of Rousseau sentimentality,
as the Imperialism of Fichte is the consistent development of Kant's
individualism." Maurras goes so far as to ascribe the sinking of the
2 J. Benda, in his pitiless criticism of all that does not appear clear and
straightforward, has a few pages on the attitude of the Pope during the present
war, in Sentiments de Critias (pp. 91-97) ; they are worth reading, in view of
the constant attempts by Maurras to justify the neutrality of the Pope towards
German barbarians.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 117
Liisitania to Protestantism ; giving up intellectual and mental devel-
opment for mere material progress, the Reformation was bound to
bring about such horrors. "To counteract the result of that fatal
material progress, an improvement and a higher training in the edu-
cation of human souls would have been necessary." But this did not
take place, and "men to-day feel infinitely less brethren than five
^hundred years <ago, or even two hundred years ago. . . . The inno-
cent passengers of the Lusitania meant nothing to Wilhelm II. and
his subjects." Maurras has no soft feelings for Bergson; the lat-
ter 's dangerous fame irritates him "it is no longer possible to pro-
nounce the word qualite in an official ceremony without bowing
deeply before the Jew from Scotland, who is not even a good scholar
of Aristotles and Saint Thomas."
*******
Representing the same tendency, two books have attracted quite a
little attention: Henri Massis, Le Sacrifice (1917), crowned by the
Academy. He is the friend of Ernest Psichari, the author of the
much-praised military novel, L'Appel des Armes (1913), and who
died a beautiful death in the first days of the war. Massis, who had,
with Tarde, Jr., written L : 'Esprit de la Nouvelle Sorbonne, in 1912,
denouncing the Germanic teaching of some Parisian professors, later
came to adopt with Psichari entirely Neo-catholic ideas. Le Sacrifice
is made up of articles composed since the war. Maurras hias a sharp,
keen mind, his reason guides him when he advocates a social organi-
zation under the supervision of the Pope; but Massis is a fanatic,
and with a generous, but really unconvincing ardor, he denounces
human reason itself the very reason which Maurras tried so hard
to oppose to subjective Protestant conscience as the great cause of
the modern catastrophe. His book is very alert, and stimulating, but
even when his eloquence moves us, it does not convince ; how could it,
since he opposes dogma to reason? He evokes Peguy, Psichari, dis-
cusses war and politics, always abusing "la raison depravee des
modernes," and "la vaste et charnelle futilite du temps present."
In the fierce struggle of the war, he sees mystically the struggle be-
tween soul and flesh ; and to France he ascribes the same part to-day,
which Christ played two thousand years ago, when He died in ex-
piation for the sins of a wicked humanity. The war means an ac-
tion, the purification of the world by Catholic France: "All that is
spirit will be saved in this struggle ; therefore, whether we want it
or not, it is the Christian world that France defends."
Vallery-Radot was known before the war for a novel, telling in
burning style, of a conversion to Catholicism, L'Homme de Desir
(1913). Since the war, he published an Anthologie de la Poesie
Catholique, de Villon a nos jours, (1915), with a preface containing
118 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
these words: "Who would suspect, in reading Eabelais, Montaigne,
Eacine, Moliere, V. Hugo, that a God died for us on the Cross? This
must stop." His Reveil de l f Esprit (1917), even more perhaps than
Massis's book, may compromise the cause it was meant to defend;
here again the reader, who may well have been convinced by the su-
preme dialectic cleverness of Maurras, will possibly suffer a shock,
and feel like turning his back on the whole Neo-catholic movement.
That exalted, at times inflated, style leaves one dazzled perhaps, but
confused as well. There are once more the same furious attacks on
rationalism, on Rousseau, on Protestantism, on the materialism of
the age ; but in vain do we look for that clear and concrete thought
of Descartes and Bossuet, which the author claims to be the natural
mark of Neo-catholicism. Denouncing bitterly "democratic fetish-
ism" or morbus democraticus, as mere word-eloquence, or talking
loudly about "Protestant and revolutionary pride, which has passed
into our veins with the liberal virus," is no refutation; to call the
other Cain, and reserve for one's self the name of Abel, is no argu-
ment either; and to say all the time that one represents the elite,
without proving it, is dangerous, to say the least. Making so prepos-
terous a summary of Eousseau's doctrine as Vallery-Eadot does in
his introduction is not very chivalrous; not to mention the fact
that our author's fanatic sermon against twentieth century frivolity
and corruption reminds one strikingly of Rousseau's famous Proso-
popoeia of Fdbricius, directed against eighteenth century frivolity
and corruption ; when he actually condemns the sanitary houses of
our days, and good light, is this not a sign of short-sightedness,
rather than of superiority? Is it quite accurate also to claim that
the whole world is already converted to his own views: "All the
forms of thought, which had tried to eclipse Catholicism in the nine-
teenth century, and which have seduced the elite Pantheism, Ea-
tionalism, Humanitarianism, what do I know fall rotten to the
ground ; they are things dead, and which only individualistic fetish-
ism or the vanity of the old world succeeds in keeping up." Even
the fact that he proclaims his triumph from the depths of the
trenches can not remove all doubt from our minds as to the sweeping
victory; and it causes one to wonder, too, why he needs to put so
much passion, then, in crushing ungenerously a pitiable foe.,
But for one who wants to become acquainted with that current of
thought, Vallery-Eadot 's book altogether is worth knowing. The
Christian-Catholic view of the war is his as Massis's. "War is sent
to us by God. "I have understood the criminal folly of our elders.
... I have understood the warning of the Sacred Heart. Matter
[material progress] has turned on us, and crushes us; here is the
secret of this war." But "our generation does not want any longer
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 119
manichean suicide [matter and mind side by side, for matter must
be subordinated to mind] : it has found again the truth of Incarna-
tion ; our generation wants the spirit to become flesh, and sanctify
the flesh, like the Word whom it adores. ..." Just one more sample
of this curious mystic style ; Yallery-Radot protests against the word
"poilu:" "No, the true hero is much more beautiful than this hairy
animal of the false legend; it is humanity itself, which offers itself
as a sacrifice in union with the Man made God [en union avec
I'Homme-Dieu] ; it is Passion, which renews itself, even when he [the
soldier] ignores or denies it. In these men, crushed under the weight
of their work, bleeding from their wounds, soiled with dirt, freezing,
how could we not recognize the agonizing limbs of Christ ... ?" 8
II
ECONOMIC DEMOCRATISM
The second constructive theory, because of its technical nature,
could not so well appeal to the general public, as one catholic; it has
been slower to come out for this reason, and also because, although
not new among students of social questions, circumstances since the
war have not favored its exposition. Democratism aims at shifting
the center of gravity of our modern conception of the State ; on the
one hand, discarding the traditional political principles of states-
manship as obsolete, leaving alone as irrelevant, e. g., the question
of form of government monarchy, aristocracy, or republic that of
divine right of kings or natural rights of individuals; and, on the
other hand, proposing instead, to organize our societies on a purely
economic basis ; in simpler words, speaking of the State as of a purely
commercial and business proposition.
To initiate the general reading public to such novelties seemed
difficult, as long tas the realities of war claimed all our attention.
Yet gradually, the entrance of, America into the war, and the revolu-
tion in Eussia, procured favorable opportunities to impart to all
these ideas, which had before been expressed only with reserve. Of
s We do not quote here such books, -which are advocating about the same
views, but in a commonplace way, e. g., Victor Giraud's Le Miracle Francois.
He is the disciple of Brunetiere, but the fact that he endeavors to be so diplo-
matic in his presentation of the doctrine, makes it appear almost exclusively
rhetorical; while his style may touch the masses of the readers, it will leave
unmoved the thinker. See, e. g., his discussion of the literature of to-morrow;
what an awkward and commonplace way of pleading his cause! Literature of
to-morrow will mean a return to traditional classicism in French literature, it
will be patriotic, it will not advocate the cult of the ego, but will preach solidar-
ity, it will have religious inspiration in other words, literature will be exactly
what men of Giraud's opinion would like it to be.
120 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
course, Russia's revolution, although democratic at the beginning,
led to temporary disaster; but everybody was aware that old-fash-
ioned political intrigues were again at work, and were temporarily
veiling the real issue. Moreover, while Russia was apparently shift-
ing away, America's social organization was now looked into with
more sympathetic interests ; a democratic political rule seemed to be,
to say the least, entirely possible.
Even without the war, that theory of state would ultimately have
materialized in France, only more slowly. Men like Peguy, if one
takes the trouble of reading behind the words of the text, would not
at all be opposed to it; indeed Peguy was turned away from what
is here called Democratism, only by the petty personal intrigues of
demagogues who posed as socialists ; his heart was entirely with the
people, and he was inclined towards a sort of nationalism, because
he saw there one step to get nearer to humanitarian justice to all.
Although he had a mystical language, his aspirations were intensely
practical ; and he was far from ignoring the economic point of view.
But the "Papalistes" would hardly join the movement. A proof
will be found in Maurras's book Quand les Frangais ne s'aimaient
pas. He published there (1916), without changing it, a significant
and very curious article, written in 1895, on Bourget's Outre Her
(La France et I'Amerique). He does distrust America very much:
let us admire it with Bourget, he says, but let us remain French.
Should we attempt to trace the economic theory of the State to
writers before the war, we would find the most remarkable repre-
sentative way back in 1836, namely, Auguste Comte. 4 We must con-
fine ourselves, however, to writers immediately before the war. At
least one very striking little book deserves a brief mention, Etienne
jEey, La Renaissance de I'Orgueil Frangais (Grasset, 1912). The
argument is as follows: The bourgeois of after 1870 was afraid of
a war of revenge : ' ' then were formulated the humanitarian and in-
ternationalistic doctrines ; the leading classes turned their apprehen-
sions into theories and into principles, and their adhesion to pacifism
and socialism was only a screen destined to cover their cowardice."
But the young felt differently; they did not repudiate the idea of
war, which might be a means to regain prestige, and more than that,
might bring material prosperity (revival of I'orgueil guerrier).
Indeed, they shaped a new mentality (revival of I'orgueil eco-
nomique), to gain a leading rank among modern nations; for the
France of the future must no longer waste her time in strifes be-
* The most lucid exposition of the economic State known to the writer
before the war, was Jack London's People of the Abyss. He had expounded it,
however, before he became the victim of publishers, who, selling his novels well,
induced him to give up socialistic studies and devote himself entirely to fiction.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 121
tween royalists, republicans, Bonapartists, and socialists, but must
bring about a strong industrial and economic organization. Ferry,
with his colonial policy, had shown that Frenchmen thought of such
an ideal. Here are a few sentences from Bey: "In modern states,
the soldier has had to yield the first place to the industrialist and the
business man . . . but it is only since about fifty years ago that the
conditions of existence have truly changed for the people." "It is
the orgueil of figures, of big interests, of large bank accounts, and
there are nations which have never known any other . . ., but the
economic necessities, the progress of business, the widening of the
world-market, and the prodigious development of industry have im-
posed on all countries this new order of things. ' ' Conclusion : ' ' The
orgueil economique and the orgueil guerrier have just joined hands
in a same feeling of national pride, and this is surely one of the
strongest signs of a French national revival. The problem of social-
ism is very serious, but socialism, in imposing to the world the
marxian theory of history, has been the most useful instrument of
the new economic and industrial ideal . . .; without it, democracy
would have remained the narrow, bourgeois monarchy of Louis-
Philippe, the republic of wealthy industrials and land-owners."
What about the Church and the Neo-catholic movement ? ' ' The part
of the Church in the past has not been very glorious. . . . The
Church has been unable, for forty years now, to take advantage, as
well of the periods of anti-clerical politics, as of the periods of toler-
ance. . . . To-day the Church of France is a great wasted power."
Eey had, in 1912 as had a good many others whom we shall
mention now connected the reform of French organization with the
Action Fran$aise. But there was no necessary connection between
Neo-catholic tendencies and the economic development of France ;
indeed they might be incompatible. In fact, the alliance ceased
Quite naturally, although reminiscences of the former collaboration
might be found.
*******
Since the war, since 1917 especially, several books have claimed
attention, which have sprung from quite different quarters, and these
show how the economic preoccupations have taken the lead in the
minds of independent thinkers. 6
* Here again we endeavor to mention only such books as present, in some
of their parts at least, clearly and definitely, some original contribution to war
literature. This is "why we do not deem it necessary to dwell on Paul Adam's
La Litt6rature et la Guerre (1916, 131 p.), although evidently that author has
a vague presentiment of the orientation of thought towards economic doctrines.
The little book ia full of platitudes and repetitions, besides a few strong sentences
and inspirations, which do not redeem the rest. Adam tries to guess what lit-
122
Let us begin with Sargeret, La Guerre et le Progres (Payot,
1917), which, although ending on the economic note, discusses rather
abstractly the principles involved in the great conflict; he keeps
aloof from concrete points of the controversy, so as not to impair
impartiality. These pages form certainly the most conscientious at-
tempt to look at things objectively ; there are no sentimental biases
patriotic or humanitarian ; at the same time, the author is a strong
enough man not to betray the cause in which he believes personally,
out of fear of not being fair to the cause in which he does not believe
(as Bonnet, L'Ame du Soldat, or Eomain Holland, Au-dessus de la
Melee) . Some chapters are not easy reading ; the style is very philo-
sophical, spinozistic; but in such chapters as IV., X., XIII., the au-
thor is admirably clear, fearless, and illuminating. He has a special
gift for dislodging, with a pointed little sentence, some ideas which
stuck in one corner of our brain for no reason but their old age, and
which make a considerable difference in preventing us from looking at
things straight. Three topics are discussed : the meaning of the war,
the meaning of progress, and the relation of war and progress. The
raison d'etre of the book is plainly an examination of the theory,
recently defended by German authors, that an organic connection
between war and progress exists; the Darwinian theories of the
struggle for life, and of the survival of the fittest, being used di-
rectly or indirectly, as arguments for the necessity and the excellence
of war. Sargeret can not see any connection whatsoever between
war and the progress of the human race ; and he explodes, one after
the other, various view-points, which need only to be clearly formu-
lated to betray their intrinsic absurdity: e. g., that the victor is
always superior to the conquered which presupposes identification
of superiority in war with superiority itself; elsewhere Sargeret
shows how often, in a struggle, the inferior physically will survive
the superior, on account of some quality which accidentally happens
to be important ; the rabbit, for instance, is more developed than any
other being along certain lines, and survived all species, manifestly
superior in all sorts of ways. How often does the question of climate,
and not ability, settle the question of survival between two species,
favoring the inferior race, and killing the better (European, in
many tropic countries) ! Even in war the stronger physically is not
erature will be to-morrow; and lie answers: the era "which will open after this
war of nations will probably be tfhe age of civilisateurs ' ' meaning the era when far
away countries will be conquered and economically organized; he mentions books on
Africa, Tonkin, and other colonies, and one can see that he considers that already
some books have foreseen the future of those colonies. He also mentions a
.curious note fooind in Flaubert's papers: "the great social novel to write now,
since ranks and castes have gone, must picture the struggle, or rather the fusion.
of barbarism and civilization."
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 123
always the survivor; in the Napoleonic wars, the stronger won the
battle, but many being killed, the bulk of the weaker survived. The
same is true in the present war; it means "selection a rebours."
Again the European wars are not wars of races. The races are
pretty well mixed in Europe everywhere, anyway; all over Europe
there are Bracihycephales and Dolichocephales ; and see the many
people fiercely French in their feelings, with German names, in
Alsace. The conflict is on national grounds, not on racial grounds.
... In conclusion: "War is not a scientific fact, it is only an histor-
ical fact . . . ; we could identify it with a scientific fact, if it were
assimilable to such natural phenomena, which are accompanied by
constantly similar effects. Which effect is constant in war? Selec-
tion : but selection itself does not select consistently the same quali-
ties for triumph. . . . War picks out its victors at random, as also
ithe principles by which the men in power govern nations are a
matter of accident. '*' Thus it is nonsense "to make of war an ele-
ment of progress. War and progress are two notions not connected,
not opposed, but simply alien to each other. ' '
War as an element of progress being dismissed, Sargeret hints at
the real problem before modern society. "War -can not be ignored,
for war remains possible ; this is so much so, that the claims of the
belligerents consist most of the time in winning favorable conditions,
not for coming peace, but for the next war. ..." War prevents a
rational economic organisation of the planet by human kind.
What is progress? He takes over, with modern arguments, the
theory that everywhere each progress implies a regress, in biology,
as well as in psychology and sociology. That economic progress is a
progress of civilization, needs no demonstration; it is commonplace,
and', all considered, truth. But in a general way only. This economic
progress, like all progress, claims a tribute ; one must pay ; the ques-
tion is to pay the least possible. And here Sargeret takes up the
problem so vigorously dealt with by Rousseau in the eighteenth cen-
tury, of the price of economic progress in corruption, unrest, dis-
satisfaction, jealousy, and war. This part of the work is less orig-
inal : Sargeret just applies to war, and especially to the present war,
the ideas developed a few years ago by Haycraft, Darwinism and
Race Progress, and in France by Demoor, Massart, and Vandervelde,
L'Evolution Regressive en Biologie et en Sociologies or Capitaine
Constantin, Le Role Social de la Guerre et le Sentiment Naturel,
which is an answer to the German Steinmetz, War as a Means of Col-
lective Selection.
Rapid mention only can be made of the following books :
Probus, La Plus Grande France, la Tache Prochaine (Colin) was
considered quite radical when it came out, but has since been con-
124 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
siderably outdistanced both in outspokenness and in constructive sug-
gestions. His criticisms of prevailing views as regards political ad-
ministration are strong, his points, when he suggests possible reforms,
well-taken. He chiefly advocates decentralization but the idea
that emphasis in the future ought to be laid on economic reforms
rather than on politics, is forefelt more than actually apprehended.
The same thing is true of Lachapelle, L'CEuvre de Demain
(Colin). There are chapters on: La Constitution de 1875; Les
Moeurs Politiques Electorates; La Eeforme Electorale; La Decen-
tralisation ; La Revision de la Constitution. One still feels a tempta-
tion to say: that man is putting "new wine in old bottles." (He
is also the author of Nos Finances pendant la Guerre).
Edouard Herriot, Agir (Payot) , a collection of articles by a man
of action ; and the fact that he is referring constantly to problems of
the day and to concrete needs, rather than to abstract considerations,
has led him to his completely economic attitude. He was one of the
supporters of a Paris conference on economic problems, to follow the
one on military problems which, on March 28, 1917, decided upon
"solidarity in military action." Above all, one must develop the
sources of French industry; if, by a politique miniere more intelli-
gent than our politics up to date, France could develop even part
only of the wealth her soil contains, the country could nourish all
hopes. And Herriot gives figures. In the reconstructive period
after the war, ' ' one law must dominate all the details of the plan, we
must make France rich." He recommends that his countrymen
study the excellent hand-book by H. Hauser, Meihodes Allemandes
d'Expansion Economique. 6
Victor Cambon, Notre Avenir, very outspoken; he is very in-
teresting, especially because he is a politician by profession, who has
been led to believe for the future in politics with an economic basis.
Another politician's book Clemenceau, La France devant I'Alle-
magne contains a collection of articles, especially from the famous
paper, L'Homme Enchaine, by the fearless Premier, or the "Tiger,"
as he is often called by those who dread his pen and his political
honesty.
One of the most curious books of the war, because of his enter-
taining way of dealing with really fundamental problems, is Gaston
de Pawlowski, Dans les Rides du Front (1917). It was written at
the front, Pawlowski combining remarkably sober good sense with
an imaginative mind ; (he had written an essai sur la quatrieme di-
6 By the way, Herriot is one who has been not only the Eousseau of Ro-
manticism, but also the practical Eousseau of political theories (article sur
I'Economie Politique, Lettre it, d'Alembert, and Contrat Social): "The time
has come to re-read Rousseau. Long live the beautiful trades of France I ' '
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 125
mension, with very bold hypotheses, Inventions Nouvelles et Der-
nieres Nouveautes he is a "Wells of French literature, with a comic
inspiration, and as witty as possible). His criticism is always con-
structive. One of his favorite topics is the question of coal and oil
in France (see, e. g., chapters XXII., XXVI., XXVII.) : oil is sure
to replace coal; let France protect the oil-fields of Algeria and
Morocco; what would be the use of France colonizing these two
countries, if the oil-fields are run by German capital, and for Ger-
man profit?
*******
Two men have come to realize more fully than those mentioned
before, the revolutionary nature of their efforts toward turning
politics into the channels of economics. Their books are beautiful;
they may not have the conventional esthetic adornments that some
expect naturally from artistic books; but they rely entirely on the
fine eloquence of facts and figures.
The first is Pierre Hamp, connected before the war with the
Nouvelle Revue FranQaise. He was also the author of striking in-
dustrial novels, Le Rail (a railroad problem), Maree Fraiche (fish-
ing trade), Vins de Champagne (wine industry) ; and of L'Enquete.
Since the war he has continued his enthusiastic apostolate ; his deifi-
cation of industry; he has visions of labor solving the problem of
happiness in the world, especially in France. His three books are
well worth reading. With more conviction than ever, and thinking
of the task of the future, he says: "We are face to face with this
moral necessity France must be rich," and France must begin at
once to work. ' ' War is transitory, labor is eternal. ' ' Pierre de Lanux,
in Young France and New America (pp. 73-86), has given an excel-
lent summary of the war books in which P. Hamp develops these
ideas, especially Le Travail Invincible, La Peine des Hommes, and
La Victoire de la France sur les Frangais. The great problem in
France is to substitute, as America did, machinery for men.
But the most vigorous books which would call to life the dead
are Lysis, Vers la Democratic Nouvelle, and Pour Renaitre. This is
plain talk, remarkably refreshing and promising, because nobody
doubts that the French can do things ; indeed their very intelligence
and cleverness has often been a temptation to depend on those nat-
ural gifts anytime, and has lulled them into that sort of laziness and
carelessness which has brought them to the brink of the abyss.
In the first volume, the reader will find over and over again such
plain statements as this: "We are forced to recognize that this medi-
eval and feudal State (Etat moyen-dgeux) , for which we profess
some contempt, knows so well how to run a government that within
126 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
a few years they reached a power astonishingly superior to our own,
and Germany beats us completely in all fields of industry and agri-
culture." There is no possibility of revolting and pouting; Lysis
has figures, terrible figures, back of his statements. The conclusion
that France ought to copy Germany, he does not accept, however, for
the very simple reason that governments which are not autocratic,
but democratic, have achieved similar progress along the same lines ;
the form of government has nothing to do with it "we have a
temperament, aspirations which are our own ; the Americans are not
German either, nor are the English, the Italians, the Belgians, the
Swiss." France must do what Germany did, but not as Ger-
many did.
One legend which has been blindly accepted all over the world
for many years, must go namely, that France is a rich country.
"France is a poor country" because undeveloped; that there is
money in France, and capital, is a fallacious argument: "True
wealth is not money, true wealth is the means of production. ' ' And
as French capital is mostly invested abroad, France contributes to
the wealth of other nations and at her own expense. What must
take place after the war, is a revolution of French "democratic men-
tality;" France must change political leaders; the twentieth cen-
tury "sees no longer men with titles who are in power, but instead
sees politicians." Politicians must go, and industrial and business
men must take their place. 7 The fact to face is this : the economic
war of nations is not on the wane, but is bound to increase ; and both
employers and employes must join to govern the State (let the
reader realize how far this is from conventional socialism).
The second volume, Pour Renattre, contains a similar vigorous
appeal to sound, practical thinking on "the German progress and
the French decline for forty years" with developments on some
special points. The alcohol problem must be dealt with strongly:
the drinking alcohol must go (it has done enormous harm to France;
in Paris there have been at one time as many as one cafe for each
four houses), but industrial alcohol, alcohol as machine power, must
come. To render any fraud impossible, the industrial alcohol must
be rendered undrinkable by putting in it something that renders it
absolutely distasteful to the mouth.
*******
Such literature reminds one of one-hundred-and-fifty years ago,
when men like Voltaire, Montesquieu, the Encyclopedists, the Phys-
i Part of the remarks about politicians who must get out of employment
were censored; enough however, was allowed to stand, so that the reader may
continue the argument to the practical end.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 127
iocrats, and Rousseau, dealing with similar problems, brought about
the first step of the social revolution; the second step seems to be
at hand.
ALBERT SCHINZ.
SMITH COLLEGE.
SOCIETIES
EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN
PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION
TT)ERHAPS it is because the war is over that philosophy has felt
free to relax, and return as of old to its privileged triflings
with eternal things. Perhaps even with the armistice signed, peace
genuine and enduring comes only with the perspective of eternity.
Certainly there was much less in evidence at this year's meeting of
the American Philosophical Association that passionate and pur-
poseful concern with the reconstruction of reality which has been a
latter day preoccupation of philosophy. With the exception of
President-elect Alexander's eloquent plea for the directive entry
into the affairs of men of an intelligence suffused with righteous-
ness, there was complete nonchalance as to the fate of a world which
has been only tentatively saved. Philosophers seemed to have felt
that they had done their bit (the records of the War Department
will bear them out, as did the presence of uniforms at the meetings),
and were entitled now to the glorious dissipation of problems at once
provocative and insoluble.
Peace was celebrated with irresponsible irrelevance by a revival
of the controversy as to the primacy of mind or matter, stated in its
modern equivalence, mechanism versus vitalism. The admirable
clarity and distinction of the discussion would have gladdened the
heart of even the most . intransigeant pragmatist. Besides the
chiseled beauty of the discussion he would have found in it the re-
assuring savor of science.
Three of the leaders, Professors Henderson, Jennings and Warren,
were, it goes without saying, specialists, rendering expert and un-
equivocal testimony from their respective fields of physiological
chemistry, biology and psychology. The remaining two, philosophers
undisguised, scrupulously avoided encroaching upon fields beyond
their professional ken. Professor Marvin, in his capacity as logician
and psychological historian of philosophy, exposed to ruthless (the
epithet is well advised, as will appear in the sequel) analysis the
origins and implications of vitalism. Professor Hoernle called at-
128 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
tention with a valiant and vigorous lucidity to the legitimacy and
imperativeness of concepts additive to those of mechanism, which
in the incomplete disjunction fashionable in the last decade, have
come to be regarded as exclusive of any differential vital categories.
It was instructive to observe that in the case of Professors Hen-
derson, Jennings, and "Warren, mechanism was supported upon evi-
dence drawn from just those crucial regions of science which have
been the fertile sources of vitalist contention. Professor Henderson
adduced the convincing evidence of patterns in physical science,
similar in scope to the organization and patterns, which, when dis-
covered in the field of biology, have provoked the vitalist to whisper
in hushed awe of entelechies and vital forces. Teleology, organiza-
tion, patterns, these were convincingly indicated to be as character-
istic and determinable features of the organic realm, which has been
freely accorded to mechanism, as of the biological realm where they
have been held to discredit mechanism irretrievably. Certainly
the favorite vitalist retort that the mechanist is missing the point
could hardly be made to Professor Henderson, who dealt with those
crucial and arresting facts of pattern and organization which have
been repeatedly offered in the nature of sensational and conclusive
evidence by such vitalists as Bergson, Macdougall, and Driesch.
No less did Professor Jennings, imported from his absorptions
with the "perceptual determiners" of the biological laboratory,
come to confirm mechanism with unequivocal evidences drawn from
the distinctly mooted areas of the biological domain. His presenta-
tion was noteworthy, apart from its illumination of the question at
issue, for its clean cut definition of the faith and technique of the
actually operative experimental scientist. It was a pretty as well
as a profound exposition of the organon which guides, the presump-
tions which control the laboratory logician. The experimentalist
pins his faith as he bases his technique on experimental determinism,
through perceptual or observed determiners. The whole question
at issue is whether later perceptual diversities correspond to earlier
ones. This conception has been increasingly supported by exper-
imental observation since those early days of experimental biol-
ogy, when Driesch retreated from the laboratory to a metaphys-
ical despair. There is no case, Professor Jennings insisted, where
later perceptual diversities are not preceded by corresponding
earlier ones. The idea of equipotentiality is in the realm of biological
mythology. The conclusion incontrovertibly testified to by all bio-
logical experimentation, that experimental determinism holds true,
is valid even if the laws for vital phenomena are different from those
of mechanical phenomena. All it demands is a correspondence of
later perceptual diversities with earlier ones. It neither implies nor
opposes the autonomy of one class of phenomena over another. But
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 129
nowhere in the extensive recorded observations of vital phenomena
was there to be found a break in the chain of earlier perceptual di-
versities followed always and accurately by corresponding later per-
ceptual diversities.
Professor Warren spoke on mechanism as revealed in psychology,
,and showed that the scientist may treat purposive activity, or either
,of the other teleological modes, as special complex forms of causation
falling under the general physico-chemical type, placing them, there-
lore, within the wider general sphere of mechanism.
At this point Vitalism seemed by implication, and therefore all
the more seriously, to be discredited at the hands of purely neutral
scientific inquirers offering evidence of an unequivocal nature from
their special fields. No one of the scientists called in to offer expert
testimony displayed either animus or prepossession although Pro-
fessor Jennings 's definitive exposition of the logic of the laboratory
was an undeliberate piece of propaganda for the spirit and methods
of science.
Vitalism was to receive more direct damage than that of impli-
cation. Professor Marvin, claiming no more than his accredited
function as logical analyst and psychological historian of the think-
ing of mankind, let the facts be what they might, and from the
luminous dispassionate heights of critical analysis, surveyed the
origins and motives of the rival attitudes assumed toward the pre-
sumably same set of objective facts. Professor Marvin in his pur-
view of philosophies, has seen intellectual creeds rise and fall in
response to human purposes and desires, and as expressions of
human faiths and frailities. To him the issue is clean cut and con-
clusive. Nor is it the issue as stated by the two opposing camps.
Biological mechanism is part of the creed of science. Vitalism bears
all the earmarks of that animism and magic whose painful slow ob-
literation has been synchronous with human progress. The issue is
not between two sets of evidence, but between two faiths. Not be-
tween two sets of disinterested inquirers who happened to arrive at
different conclusions, but between two passions and enthusiasms.
It is the combat between the powers of light and the powers of dark-
ness, in its modern transfiguration, intellectualism versus roman-
ticism. It is not two reasoned and documented briefs in support of a
conclusion, but two unreasoned desires. It is on the one hand the
desideratum of a world ruthless and implacable but controllable by
man, and on the other of a world of "peace, calm and absorption in
the absolute." The vitalist "wants a world in tune with the heart
of man; a world of creative teleological agents." The mechanist
"wants a world, simple, controllable, manageable." Vitalism, as de-
scribed by Professor Marvin, has petulantly given up faith in that
already prodigious infant science, without waiting to see what
130 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
further wonders it can accomplish when it grows up. If we want
man to control his destiny, we must have him self-confident and con-
fident that this is a logical world. Vitalism for an analytic logician
Professor Marvin grew a bit intense "is a vagabond, a quitter, an
adventurer." As parting indemnities for all these analytic vitu-
perations, Professor Marvin amiably admitted that vitalism had
done ia service by protesting against the ingenuous over-simplifica-
tion of science, and the discounting of the teleological which has
latterly become a recitative of the mechanist's creed.
Professor Marvin persuasively and penetratingly insisted that
the root of the vitalist-mechanist controversy was, after all, in the
logic of passion rather than the logic of fact. Loeb's and Bergson's
major premises were their major desires. One wonders whether this
luminous Freudian analysis is not too dangerous a boomerang even
for so talented a wielder of it as Professor Marvin. How easy it is
to turn this probing of motives back upon its promulgator. In illus-
tration of which: What are the motives behind Professor Marvin's
descriptions of vitalism as quitter, vagabond, adventurer? What
fears or fervors make Professor Marvin cling with such wistful
tenacity to the atomic reals of the neo-realistic logic? What sup-
pressed desires are responsible for the New Naivete. Freudian
analysis is a double-edged sword. It bears a strange and perturbing
resemblance to what used to be known under the less intriguing
soubriquet of the Ad Hominem argument. It lends itself facilely
to the "Better than thou art" type of finality. It starts a regress
more infinite than inquiries into the First Cause. Freud with his
implicit dictum, "Subconscious man is the measure of all things" is
Protagoras redivivus. It is wholesome to recall that Sophistic
analysis came near to reducing the intellectual life of Greece to
nihilism. Perhaps Freudian analysis ought to be used with more
circumspection and reserve at the American Philosophical Associa-
tion. Otherwise even mathematical logic may cease to be regarded
as dispassionate. Who knows? Even the neo-real world may, to
borrow Professor Marvin's felicitous characterization of vitalism,
come to be regarded as a form of paranoia.
Professor Hoernle closed the formal discussion of vitalism and
mechanism by bringing up the ultimate metaphysical questions in-
volved, questions involving not the empirical facts adduced by
mechanism or vitalism, but the philosophical legitimacy of teleolog-
ical categories in a world discoverably mechanistic. Professor
Hoernle pointed out with salutary emphasis the fact that mechanical
(Categories are inapplicable even in the realm of biology, that bio-
logical facts, in so far as they are distinctively biological, can not be
pubeumed under mechanical categories. He launched into a much
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 131
needed attack on the current " nothing but" methods of explanation,
,where classes of facts distinctive and unique are held to be, as in the
pase of vital phenomena, "nothing but" configurations of atoms or
.what not. Professor Hoernle convincingly pleaded for the autonomy
of teleologieal categories 1 , in biology in so far as the biological facts did
display characteristics distinctively marked off from other types of
(Configurations of atoms, such as those in the inorganic realm.
Professor Pratt, when the formal discussion was closed, arose to
protest against the false pretenses under which the association had
been convened. The symposium had been heralded as a convocation
on mechanism and vitalism, and it had turned out to be a peean of
unanimity for mechanism. The only glimmer of vitalism had been
that in Professor Hoernle 's paper, and that was "nothing but" a
call for philosophical fair play. Vitalism was explicitly defended
the second day of the discussion by Professor Montague, who brought
up considerations to show that on the very basis of Professor Jen-
nings 's "experimental determinism," teleologieal activity was inex-
plicable. A brief psychological analysis was likewise contributed by
Professor Alexander, this time in vindication of vitalism, which he
regarded as an encouraging evidence that the poetic or magical way
of conceiving the world which had its philosophical as well as its
poetic uses was not entirely dead. He welcomed President Calkins
under the banner of the poet-philosophers on the basis of her brilliant
presentation of the Personalistic Conception in Ethics in her Presi-
dential Address, which was acclaimed by all present to be the most
comprehensive and persuasive presentation of the personalistic view
of nature that the Association has been privileged for years to hear.
Miss Calkins rose, however, to disclaim Professor Alexander's greet-
ing. Psychological analysis was again creating difficulties. Miss
Calkins as emphatically objected to the assimilation of the personal-
istic conception to poetry, as Professor Pratt did that of vitalism
to paranoia.
It would be impossible to reproduce in a brief report the atmos-
phere and eloquence of President-elect Alexander's paper on "Wrath
and Euth," the beautiful and vibrant delivery of which was in itself
esthetically precious. It was frankly a propaganda, at once enthu-
siastic, tempered and righteous. It was, as hinted earlier in this
article, a plea for the directive emergence in the world's affairs of
an intelligence stirred to the common good. It was a moving in-
sistence that in a world palpably and painfully in the remaking, it
was 1^he obligation, as it was the opportunity of philosophy to bring
reason to bear, to substitute wrath for ruth. The only dissident
voice raised was that of Professor "Warner Fite, who, granting
the persuasiveness of Mr. Alexander's paper, yet felt that the
132 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
novelty of the problems which confronted philosophy was much
overestimated by philosophers with a large social sensitiveness.
Human beings were still what they had been ; reason was still what
it had been. The difficulty was merely that in the recent unhappy
days, human beings had paid scant or no attention to reason. The
philosopher's business was what it always had been; the business
and the propagation of reason. The philosophers had nothing to
learn. Professor Alexander's passionate retort must be recorded:
"If philosophy has nothing to learn from the greatest event in the
history of the world, then," rang out Professor Alexander's big
Nebraskan voice, "so much the worse for philosophy." It is dif-
ficult at the meetings of the American Philosophical Association to
detect the intellectual temper of the age. It is pleasant, however,
and possibly portentous to record that Professor Alexander is the
new president of the Association.
Space does not permit a detailed record of all the papers read at
the meetings, nor of the discussions that followed. Else considerable
attention might be profitably given to Professor Urban 's interesting
considerations on the applicability of moral judgments to groups
and associations (qua groups and associations), to Professor War-
beke's penetrating exhibition of the partial inadequacy of teleology
for a system of knowledge, and Professor Pratt 's lucid account of
the difficult problems of perception raised in connection with the
realistic viewpoint, as also Dr. Smith's paper on "Imaginary In-
ference," and Dr. Eoback's on the "Status of Ethics."
Dr. Sheffer 's clear but, in the nature of the case, skeletal presen-
tation of the concept of equivalent systems was the most outstanding
of the logical contributions. Dr. Sheffer 's paper had, besides, a
moral significance in that he stressed at once the importance of the
science of mathematical logic for philosophy, and the equal impor-
tance of restricting its discussion to those who literally knew some-
thing about the subject.
The last session closed with Dr. Kallen's paper on "The Defini-
tion of Americanism and the Theory of Relations," which laid con-
siderable stress on racial affinities hitherto disregarded, and on the
intelligent organization of social relations in the light of these limit-
ing relational facts.
IRWIN EDMAN.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 133
The Psychology of Conviction. JOSEPH JASTROW. Boston and New
York : Houghton Mifflin Company. 1918. Pp. xix -f 387.
The war has been a continual lesson in the psychology of con-
viction. It showed us at the outset, in Germany, that unscrupulous
manipulation of public opinion is a far greater menace to peace than
any amount of purely material military preparedness. It proved
later, in Eussia and Germany, that autocrats fear propaganda more
than they fear armies or assassins. It has revealed recently, in
America, that what happens in Moscow or Petrograd is often deter-
mined, after the event, in the editorial sanctums of New York. It
ought to have taught us, everywhere if we have any philosophy and
concern for the future that political democracy is a delusion unless
attended by intellectual democracy. Freedom to cast a vote is pure
mockery if the voter's convictions are under some other man's con-
trol. Such freedom is only slavery under a new name.
In the Psychology of Conviction, then, Professor Jastrow has
chosen a supreme theme. Because there is no more vital one in the
world to-day, we expect big things of a book that treats it and have
a right to judge it by exacting standards.
The plan and method of this volume are as admirable as its
choice of subject. It follows the "case" system. In other words,
after two chapters of more general introduction, "The Psychology
of Conviction," and "Belief and Credulity," the author presents
his material in the form of nine concrete illustrations or issues.
Five of these ("The Will to Believe in the Supernatural," "The
Case of Paladino," "The Antecedents of the Study of Character and
Temperament," "Fact and Fable in Animal Psychology," and
" 'Malicious Animal Magnetism' ") have to do predominantly with
the "deviations" or "more irregular aspects" of the psychology of
conviction. The remaining four ("The Democratic Suspicion of
Education," "The Psychology of Indulgence," "The Feminine
Mind," and "Militarism and Pacifism") discuss conviction in the
making in controversial questions of the hour. On the whole, the
emphasis of the volume is decidedly on the matter of personal as
contrasted with social conviction and the problems suggested in the
opening paragraph of this review are conspicuous by their absence,
especially the question of journalistic control of public opinion with
its political and economic ramifications. Perhaps Professor Jastrow
is reserving all this for later treatment. If so we shall be less in-
clined to criticize him for practically omitting the dominant figure
in his drama: the newspaper. This, however, is by the way. The
134 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
point we were making is that the concrete method of the book is
precisely the right one: calculated to make the lay reader realize
that psychology is not an abstract subject of concern only to high-
brows and professors, but one of compelling human interest and im-
portance for everybody.
The temper of the book is in keeping with its main contention:
that as rapidly as possible we should substitute the method and
spirit of scientific verification for the older and easier methods of
believing what we always have believed, or what authority orders us
to believe, or what happens to be agreeable to believe. Throughout
(save perhaps for a faint trace of animus in the matter of Psychical
Research), the author shows a scrupulous desire to view his subjects
under all aspects, to weigh the evidence carefully, and to arrive at
sane and balanced conclusions. This is especially true of his excel-
lent treatment of militarism and pacifism.
The subject, the method, and the temper of the book, then, de-
serve nothing but praise 1 . It is a pity that the same can not be said
of its style. Not that its style is notably bad. As books on psychol-
ogy go it is quite the opposite. But a volume like this, with an op-
portunity of wide appeal, ought to have a notably forcible and vivid
style. The Psychology of Conviction ought to have a style as con-
crete as its own case method. It has a style that at times is exasper-
atingly abstract. Scientists do not seem to realize it, but this is a
tremendously important matter. The success of democracy depends
on the dissemination of knowledge, and knowledge will never be
widely disseminated until the men who have it learn to write more
nearly at the level of popular literary expression. If Professor
Jastrow showed no power to do this, I should not have mentioned
the matter. But he does. In two or three of his chapters, where his
material includes much fact and anecdote, he shows it fairly con-
tinuously. Elsewhere he shows it more rarely. On few pages is it
wholly lacking. He can strike off a telling metaphor, as when,
speaking of the effect of confession, he writes, "The mental abscess
has been lanced, and relief follows." He has command of irony:
' ' The increasing number of college graduates may always be pointed
to to prove the growing enlightenment of the state." He can pack
wisdom and satire into two lines: " 'Let thy knowledge be another's
power, ' is a proper text for a baccalaureate sermon that seeks demo-
cratic approval." He is capable of epigram: "The man of ideas is
not gagged or muzzled, but tethered;" or (when he makes the
pacifist reply succinctly to the 1 taunt that his dreams are Utopian),
"The alternative is between Utopia and Hell." The man who can
write like this has a gift for expression. He has the less excuse,
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 135
therefore, for perpetrating such literary atrocities as, "Lord Morley
thus protests against what he calls the House of Commons view of
life, which subordinates principle to expediency, which may be
unfortunate, but necessary, but in so doing sacrifices the paramount
significance of principle, which is both unnecessary and perni-
cious;" for putting plain thoughts with such squirming indirectness
as, "Among issues characteristically modern, the controversy as to
the true nature of woman and her place in the social order is pecu-
liarly rich in complexity of argument and variability of conclusion ; ' '
or for diluting his style by piling up polysyllables (controversy,
controversies, controversial, and uncontroverted, repeated ten times
in the space of three pages is the first example that comes to hand) .
Literature ought to be cream. There is lots of cream in Professor
Jastrow 's book. But there is aiiso much that is only milk. And there
are many sentences suggestive of a still thinner liquid. If the volume
were half as long, it would be four times as forcible.
Thought and expression are inseparable; and the harm done by
the author's use of abstract language does not stop with the style;
it seriously affects the philosophy of the book. This may be illus-
trated by the use of two words which are as nearly as any its key-
words: logic and science (with their corresponding adjectives).
"The logical sense," says Professor Jastrow, "is the slowest,
most laborious, as well as the most precious of psychological
growths." "Wisdom is the name for the exercise of the logical
function." "Thinking is an art, the art of logic." "Our approach
to [the latter day issues] and our faith in them is in the main a log-
ical one. ' ' And so on. Now for the purposes of a narrowly profes-
sional or technical discussion a man is free to define and use the word
logic as he wishes. But when he addresses the public he is bound,
I contend, to employ words not in accordance with arbitrary defini-
tion, but with a sense for their history, their association, and what I
may call their present moral character. Professor Jastrow 's use of
logic makes us blink, and ask how many centuries the calendar has
been turned back. To attempt, in the year 1918, to pass off logic as
even a remote synonym for wisdom, or to call it the most precious
of psychological growths, is on a par with trying to make the word
Pharisee the 'complimentary term it was in Jesus 's day, or attempting
to impart to the term pious the flavor of genuine holiness that it had
in church circles a hundred or more years ago. The thing simply
can not be done. As well try to give vogue to the pictures of
Cimabue. And when the author goes further and half equates logic
and science as in the clause, "It is the prerogative of the scientific
method that it enthrones the logical right," he does violence to long-
136 TEE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
standing habits that have led us to associate logic with the deductive,
science (in spite of its deductive element) with the inductive method,
to think of the age of science as a revolt from the age of logic.
Listen, now, to two or three men with a nice feeling for the past
history and the present sense of the word logic. " Logic," says
Samuel Butler (equally great as psychologist and man of letters),
"has no place save with that which can be defined in words. It has
nothing to do, therefore, with those deeper questions that have got
beyond words and consciousness. ... In all cases of doubt, the
promptings of a kindly disposition are more trustworthy than the
conclusions of logic, and sense is better than science. " " The poet, ' '
says Chesterton (I quote from memory), "tries to get his head into
the heavens. It is the logician who tries to get the heavens into his
head; and it is the head that splits." "This very law which the
logicians would impose upon us," says William James, " if I may
give the name of logicians to those who would rule out our willing
nature . . . is based on nothing but their own natural wish to ex-
clude all elements for which they, in their professional quality of
logicians, can find no use." These men have caught the very soul
of the word logic. If Professor Jastrow had done so, he would not
have tried to reinstate in our favor a term that is soaked in formal-
ism and fairly reeks with the.odor of scholasticism.
The weakness in the author's use of science and scientific is of a
very different character. Professor Jastrow comes close to apothe-
osizing science (you wonder he doesn't capitalize it). It is the
"sovereign method" and "now that science has entered into her
kingdom and the vastness of her domain is willingly recognized . . .
the busy problem is the infusion of the scientific method into all our
ways of thinking, its application to all the various kinds of beliefs
that affect our ideals, our working conceptions, and our actions."
And even in those departments of life that are "not ready" for its
' ' exact application, ' ' its spirit, we are told, should prevail. Now no
one denies that it would be well if the scientist's love of truth could
pervade all our life. But why, to the confusion of language and
thinking, call this love science? As well call the sun scientific be-
cause it gives light ; or the moon because it is clear ; or a child because
it blurts out the truth. What this stretching of the word science to
cover all creation is bound to end in has been foreseen and stated by
Samuel Butler. "Science," says Butler, "is being daily more and
more personified and .anthropomorphized into a god. By and by
they will say that science took our nature upon him, and sent down
his only begotten son, Charles Darwin, or Huxley, into the world so
that those who believe in Mm, etc. ; and they will burn people for
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 137
saying that science, after all, is only an expression for our ignorance
of our own ignorance." Butler, himself a great psychologist and
biologist, saw the limits of science. One price of not seeing them
we have observed on the battlefields of Europe.
This loose use of the word scientific follows Professor Jastrow,
and, unless I am mistaken, betrays him in his innermost philosophy.
It accounts for his failure to distinguish between two vitally differ-
ent kinds and realms of conviction; it leads him to put his various
"cases" except for the incidental reason that some are settled and
some still in the process of being settled all on one level. Yet the
distinction he fails to make is the most important one in the whole
world of conviction. Let me illustrate :
Whether the earth goes round the sun or the sun round the earth,
depends not one iota on human wishes. But whether democracy is
the best form of government for mankind, depends absolutely on
human wishes (if you wish to make Prussians, for example, democ-
racy, decidedly, is not the thing). Whether Eusapia Paladino (to
come to Professor Jastrow 's own case) tipped tables miraculously
during her seances in New York, is in no way affected by what we
should like to think in the matter. But whether "the feminine
mind" should dedicate itself to babies, or politics, or, for that matter,
to table-tipping, is a question, fundamentally, of nothing except
what we should like. Science may indeed show us what a baby-
tending feminine mind will be ; or a politically acting feminine mind ;
or a table-tipping feminine mind. But when it comes to which of
the three is most desirable, science has not a word to offer. That is
a question for religion, for philosophy, for art or whatever other
name you may give those human activities that have to do with the
ends of life. Science (unless we stretch the word in the very way I
am condemning) has to do only with the means.
It is the failure to make this distinction that leads Professor
Jastrow to say in a passage that is the very heart and thesis of his
book: "Viewed retrospectively, the greatest triumph of the human
mind was the gradual removal of large areas of belief from the influ-
ence of the personal psychology of conviction. Scientifically estab-
lished truth came to proceed objectively, undisturbed by interest in
the outcome of inquiry and determined by the sanction of verifica-
tion. The gradual disestablishment of the anthropocentric view of
the universe culminated in the removal of human desire from its
place of dominion in the formation of belief. ' ' Though the point is
incidental, it is worth noting in passing that the phrase "undisturbed
by interest in the outcome of inquiry" is false to the history of sci-
ence. "If you want an absolute duffer in an investigation," says
138 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
^William James, "you must, after all, take the man who has no in-
terest whatever in its results : he is the warranted incapable, the posi-
tive fool." Perhaps what Professor Jastrow meant was not "undis-
turbed by interest in the outcome" but "undeterred by the nature
of the outcome." That would have been true. And with this im-
portant qualification of the phrase "human desire" the whole pas-
sage becomes true of scientific belief. But it is anything but true
of other kinds of beliefs. The truth there is just the other way
around. "Viewed retrospectively," we might say of religious,
philosophical, or political belief, ' ' the greatest triumph of the human
mind has been the gradual enthronement of human desire in its
place of dominion in the formation of belief. ' ' In the old days men
used to believe that the world, physical and human, was what it was,
or what the gods decreed, independent of human desire. Men still
believe that of the physical world ; but it is the precise mark of the
modern man (I refer to no creed, school, or philosophy) that he be-
lieves the human world is what men make it ; that it is what it is in
virtue of human desire or lack of that desire. It is the glory of
science whenever her limits have been understood that she has
contributed to that conviction. Without her power to serve human
desires, she could not, for all the vain babble about truth for truth's
sake, survive for a single day.
There are other abstract words unwisely used in this volume
besides logic and science. I can mention only one other case. The
phrase, "the will to believe," occurs and reoccurs on these pages,
but never, so far as I have noted, in James's sense of "the will to
believe," the power to create by faith, but always rather in the
sense of the inclination to believe, the tendency to drop into the easy
or agreeable belief: an attitude that James, like all virile men, ab-
horred. Professor Jastrow abhors it too. Why, then, for giving
expression to his dislike, he should have chosen to debase James : s
phrase in a volume that bears James's name on the dedicatory page
it is hard to understand.
To sum things up : the capital weakness of this volume is the lack
of a fine sense of fitness in the use of abstract words and phrases 1
i The most striking example of this in the volume is perhaps the following:
"The mind as the logical instrument depends upon supporting qualities. These
supporting qualities lie partly in the same field as the logical operations; such
are keenness of perception, capacity for detail, sustained attention, ready
imagination, range of association, a sense of pertinence, value, propriety, effec-
tiveness. Quite as largely they are in the field of feeling and will, or encroach
upon them; such are conscience, persistence, endurance, self-control, and that
composite attitude that makes the professional temper." What can be made
out of a passage that makes "sustained attention" (which of course is simply
will) akin to the logical operations, while "persistence" is akin to feeling and
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 139
with the attendant confusion of thought that inevitably results. The
reader is at times at a loss to know whether this confusion is in the
author's mind or in the unintended implications of his language.
Even if it is only the latter, it might just as well, so far as the reader
is concerned, be the former.
The emphasis I have placed on this one matter has involved the
risk, I realize, of doing grave injustice, through lack of proportion,
to the many merits of The Psychology of Conviction. I owe the
author an apology perhaps for having not so much reviewed his
work in the conventional sense as having made it a peg on which to
hang an essay on a single aspect of it. Here Professor Jastrow
makes an honest and largely successful attempt to popularize psy-
chology, and here comes the reviewer jumping into him for not being
even more successful. It is very ungrateful. Well; all I can say
is that when you see the right thing being done you want to see it
done up to the hilt. That must be the excuse for my procedure, that
and what I believe to be the critical importance of the point I have
stressed.
Plato taught us that political happiness will never be attained
until the rulers of men are philosophers. Democracy means that the
people are to rule. Therefore the people must become philosophers.
One of the first and most indispensable steps in this direction is that
the present leaders of thought should think like philosophers but
write like ordinary men. Fo*r as that astonishing genius William
Blake once remarked : " Truth can never be told so as to be understood,
and not be believed," a sentence that would make a good motto for
a democratic university and comes close to putting in a nutshell the
whole psychology of conviction.
HAROLD GODDARD
SWABTHMOEE COLLEGE.
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN: April, 1918. An Experi-
ment with an Automatic Mnemonic System (pp. 99-103) : D. S.
HILL. A classroom experiment with an automatic mnemonic is ex-
plained. General Reviews and Summaries: Affective Phenomena
Descriptive and Theoretical (pp. 104-108) : H. N. GARDINER. - Seven
references are reviewed. Attention and Interest (pp. 108-111) :
W. B. PILLSBURY". - Ten references are reviewed. Time and
will? To say nothing of other inconsistencies and strange collocations! The
passage is a good example of the tendency to make logical mean so much that it
means nothing.
140 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Rhythm (pp. 111-114) : H. WOODBOW. - Seventeen references are
reviewed. Correlation. Thirty-nine researches in which correlation
is mentioned are discussed. Special Reviews: DeWitt H. Parker,
The Self and Nature, MARY WHITON CALKINS. Hollingworth and
Poffenberger, Applied Psychology, HAROLD E. BURTT. Report:
Courses in Psychology for the Students' Army Training Corps (pp.
129-136). (The delay in the appearance of the Bulletin has per-
mitted the insertion of the foregoing report, which is much post-
dated as compared with the present number of the Bulletin. The
importance of the report has made this apparent anomaly of little
consequence as compared with the value of immediate publications.
S. I. F.)
Dumas, Georges, et Aime, Henri. Nevroses et Psychoses de guerre,
chez les Austro-Allemands. Paris : Felix Alcan. 1918. Pp. 242.
i 6 fr. (Majoration temporaire, 10% du prix marque).
NOTES AND NEWS
THE January number of Mind contains the information that those
,who wish to join the Mind Association "should communicate with
the Hon. Secretary, Mr. Henry Siturt, 5 Park Terrace, Oxford; or
.with the Hon. Treasurer, Dr. F. C. S. Schiller, Corpus Christi College,
.Oxford, to whom the yearly subscription of sixteen shillings should
jbe paid. In return for this subscription, members receive Mind
(gratis and post free, and are entitled to buy back numbers both of
,the Old and the New Series at half price. Members resident in Amer-
|iea can pay their subscription ($4) into the account of the Hon.
Treasurer (Dr. F. C. S. Schiller) at the Fifth Avenue Bank, 44th St.,
^Tew York."
. JOHN J. Coss, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Columbia Uni-
versity, returned to his academic duties on February 1. He had been
engaged for more than a year in government service as a member of
ithe Committee on Classification and Personnel under the direction of
,the Adjutant General. For some months Professor Coss served in
civilian capacity, and was then given the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
/Ml
VOL. XVI, No. 6. MARCH 13, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
FELIX ADLER'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
I
discussions of the nature of the good, of virtue and happi-
ness, of social welfare and self-interest, and from the im-
personal "consensus of moral consciousness," i. e., of respectable
opinion rather than of personal feeling and conviction, to be found
in our ethical treatises and text-books (of which I also have been
guilty), one turns with a certain relief and fresh interest to such
a book as Felix Adler's An Ethical Philosophy of Life. Here we
have "a philosophy of life growing out of the experiences of a life-
time:" the philosophy of life of an ethical teacher, lecturer of the
Society for Ethical Culture, who takes his calling with a prophetic
seriousness, enlightened by philosophy and intensified by a pastoral
contact with the more tragic sides of life, and whose resolute free-
thinking can not conceal a mind passionately religious.
The work is divided into four books, of which the first, consisting
of an "Autobiographical Introduction," is possibly the most interest-
ing but the least capable of being summarized. I pass by }iis search
for ethical salvation, which began in Judaism and took him through
Christianity, Emerson, Socialism and "social work" (whose social
ideal appears to him to aim at nothing higher than raising all men
to the level of a respectable, middle-class Philistinism) and note the
reflections embodied in the last chapter, on "My Vocation." He
has told us that ' ' one of the leading principles to which I early gave
assent, and to which I have ever since adhered as a correct funda-
mental insight, is expressed in the statement that every human being
is an end per se, worth while on his own account. ' ' One of the chief
results, however, of a forty years pastorate as ethical teacher has
been to give him a strong sense of the inevitable "frustration" which
attends more or less all human purposes: frustration, for example,
in the married life through bereavement, defective children, or
change of character; frustration in self-development, in the diffi-
culty of uniting specialist proficiency with breadth of culture and
character; frustration, again, in the attempt to find a moral worth
141
142 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
for life under the worst conditions, such as life in the slums. I
wonder whether this chapter may not largely explain Mr. Adler's
rather dogmatic rejection of happiness; whether, indeed, the quest
for happiness is not condemned less because it is ignoble than be-
cause it is futile; and whether he would not admit that the attain-
ability of happiness, i. e., the possibility of so controlling the condi-
tions of existence as to carry out our plans of life, would of itself
vindicate the dignity of man. "As viewed empirically," he tells
us, however, "the human generations are but accidents of nature,
waves on the sea of life, passing shadows. And viewing ourselves
in this manner our self-respect goes to pieces. The idea of obliga-
tion vanishes. Man's claim to infinite worth is bitterly mocked."
Under these conditions the problem for an ethical philosophy is
"how to remedy the belittlement of man;" how to affirm his moral
worth in spite of his infinitesimal significance as a creature of time
and place.
II
The second book, under the title of "Philosophical Theory,"
sketches the author's metaphysics. A statement of the ethical mo-
tive has prepared us to learn that he began his philosophical think-
ing as a disciple of Kant; and though he has long since recanted
Kant, it is with reference to Kant that we can best define his general
position. In spite of his thoroughgoing criticism of Kant, I should
call him still essentially a Kantian, at least to the extent of giving
us what Kant would have taught if he had not been the cut-and-
dried person that he was, living in a cut-and-dried century. Nor
is his criticism of Kant invariably well chosen; when, for example,
he attacks the categorical imperative on the ground of a similarity
to numerous other imperatives, such as the primitive tabu. Surely
Kant, if any one, made clear the distinction between the imperative
of reason, which raises the question of self-contradiction, and the
force of habit, which raises no questions whatever.
To his general criticism, however, that Kant's thinking was
vitiated by an abstract intellectualism and a blind reverence for
physical science, resulting in an absolutism grotesque and unreal and
a so-called respect for man which respected only an abstract prin-
ciple, one may cordially assent. Yet it seems to me that Mr. Adler's
correction consists precisely in affirming boldly what Kant dared
affirm only rather haltingly, namely, the right of the will (as well
as of esthetic taste) to rank with the intellect as a final criterion of
truth. But we are not to call him a pragmatist. "Exasperation
with absolutism does not of itself justify recourse to the opposite
extreme [equally exasperating, I presume] of pragmatism." The
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 143
point is rather that "science, the work of the intellect, and art and
ethics, spring from a common root, namely, the reality-producing
functions. ' '
And this means that ultimately all truths, whether scientific or
ethical truths, are in some sense a priori. As Mr. Adler prefers to
put it, they are ' ' functional finalities;" by which phrase he refers
to "the independent part played by our mental constitution in build-
ing up experience, and in affording us the conviction of certainty,
and of reality." But it seems also that scientific thinking differs
from ethical thinking. Scientific method consists in combining part
with part; -and these parts of the universe stand fast as certainties,
whatever we may say about the universe as a whole. This was the
meaning of Kant's showing that from the conditioned we can not
argue to the unconditioned. In ethics there is no possibility of con-
sidering the parts by themselves. No single rule of conduct is ever
right in itself. ' ' It takes its ethical quality from the plan of conduct
as a whole, and without reference to the whole it is devoid of right-
ness. ' ' Briefly, it seems, a fact is a fact without regard to any other
fact, but no value is a value apart from a system of values.
If space permitted I should like to contest this distinction, and to
show that what is here affirmed of values is, ultimately at least, also
true of facts. Mr. Adler uses the distinction as a basis for showing
that, while there is no "intellectual bridge" from the sensible world
to the supersensible (not to be confounded with the supernatural of
vulgar thought), there is an ethical bridge. In other words, the
ontological proof for the existence of God, rightly criticized by Kant
from his abstractly intellectual standpoint, becomes on broader
grounds valid. Not, indeed, for the individual "God" of the older
anthropomorphic type, but for the reality of a spiritual universe,
conceived by Mr. Adler as a spiritual society. 1 As thus conceived,
the spiritual universe expresses the two fundamental demands of all
thought, both scientific and ethical: the demands, namely, of a
unity which shall be irreducible to diversity and of a diversity which
shall be irreducible to unity; mutually irreducible, yet "jointly"
imperative. That this statement of principles leaves us with an
irrational duality, Mr. Adler is evidently prepared to admit. Since
he holds that, in the last analysis, man is incompetent to explain the
universe, he prefers to accept a certain irrationality as, for us at
least, inevitable, just as he prefers to face evil rather than make a
futile attempt to explain it away.
i This conception, I should say, is not less anthropomorphic than the older
conception, but only more modern and democratic; and one may ask whether
a conception of the universe not anthropomorphic could still have a meaning
or be true.
144 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
The bearing of this metaphysical principle upon ethical relations
is indicated by the fact that, while standing emphatically for the
independent worth of each person, the author refuses to call himself
an individualist. "Individualism" is for him a term of reprobation.
It means that social harmony can be explained as a composition of
private interests. Such a unity is forever false. It is equally false
to conceive the individual as a product of the social harmony.
Ill
Books III and IV give us the ethical implications of this phi-
losophy as concerned, respectively, with personal and social prob-
lems. I must forego the attempt to present the author's ethical
views in detail and confine myself to a statement and criticism of
the ethical attitude.
The statement of ethical principles has already been given by the
author (on p. 117), as follows:
A. Act as a member of the ethical manifold (the infinite spiritual
universe).
B. Act so as to achieve uniqueness (complete individualization
the most completely individualized act is the most ethical) .
C. Act so as to elicit in another the distinctive, unique quality
characteristic of him as a fellow-member of the infinite whole.
The ethical attitude implied in this formulation suggests again
a comparison with Kant. As conceived by Mr. Adler, it is the
Kantian attitude with an important difference, which he states by
calling his own attitude ' ' positive, ' ' the Kantian attitude, of course,
"negative." For convenience we may say that two questions con-
front us in the attempt to frame an ethical attitude. The first is,
What is to be my attitude towards the material conditions of life
in other words, what moral value is to be attributed to sensuous
desire? The second is, What is to be my -attitude towards my neigh-
bor? To the first Kant seems to reply, No moral value whatever.
The satisfaction of material wants yields happiness, but happiness is
morally irrelevant. The categorical imperative is a method, one
might say, not so much of extracting moral value from material
conditions, as of disposing of these conditions just as the letter-
carrier disposes of his letters, indifferent to the message they may
contain, and satisfied if he has delivered them correctly. Mr. Adler
is likewise indifferent to happiness. At times, indeed, he seems to
be hardly less of a rigorist than Kant. In his little book on Mar-
riage and Divorce he goes 1 so far as to say, as I understand him,
that it is, not merely unwise but morally wrong, to seek happiness
in marriage. But though indifferent to happiness, he is not indiffer-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 145
ent to the material conditions. The earthly life is not something to
be simply disposed of by a rule of duty. It is the source of all
spiritual possibilities. The supreme ethical end is the development
of the spiritual possibilities of the finite world. And therefore the
only truly ethical attitude is that of "a cheerful world-builder,"
who takes an active and whole-hearted^ interest in the improvement
of material conditions not with a view to happiness, but for the
purpose of assisting and developing his spiritual nature. But what
is meant by the spiritual nature ? Some light upon this conception
is given in the chapter on "The Practical Vocations." The activi-
ties of industry, which result in the production of material goods,
also affect the development of character and personality. How far
industrial efficiency may be achieved pari passu with the develop-
ment of personality, and how far it matters, we are not clearly told.
But of the two results it is the second, or spiritual, result, which,
and which alone, it seems, has ethical value. Such is the significance
of the "positive" attitude.
The attitude takes a more distinctive and characteristic form in
the answer to the second question. How shall I treat my neighbor ?
Kant and Mr. Adler agree in replying, Above all, reverentially; as
a person, valuable in himself ; as an end withal and never as a means
only. But how is this respect to be expressed? Kant replies, By
letting him alone ; at most by consulting his comfort and happiness ;
his moral welfare is none of your business. And here Mr. Adler
objects. Simply to leave your neighbor alone is to show, not respect,
but indifference. And to consider only his happiness while you
reserve for yourself aims higher than happiness for example (I
should say) , to credit him only with a demand for justice in a case
where, for yourself, you would prefer to be generous is really to
treat him as an inferior. True respect for another is bound to
credit him with moral dignity. And therefore I must "act so as
to elicit" (according to Principle C) what is best in him. This is
the most characteristic feature of Mr. Adler 's conception of the
ethical attitude.
IV
And it is at this point on the implications of ' ' elicitation ' ' that
I take issue. With his criticism of the Kantian attitude I cordially
agree. There can be, I should say, no true respect for another which
does not involve understanding and sympathy ; and no true sympathy
which does not credit him with his best. But how to take a sym-
pathetic and helpful attitude towards another and yet refrain from
trespassing upon his moral freedom this is a most difficult question.
Kant removes the difficulty by dispensing with the sympathy and
146 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
helpfulness on behalf of freedom. Mr. Adler, I should say, dis-
penses with freedom.
In thus laying the burden of emphasis upon ' ' elicitation, " it
seems to me that Mr. Adler abandons for the time being the principle
of personal worth in favor of the more popular ethics of the brother's
keeper and the good example. I might urge here the natural bias
of one whose vocation of ethical teacher commits him to elicitation,
but from this I am spared by remembering that the identification of
the moral with the didactic attitude is a trait almost universally
American. Among us, it seems that an indispensable mark of a
"moral" person is that he "exercises a moral influence." In the
older Puritan days, not yet completely past, he was obliged to show
a righteous indignation against the evil-doers. The sole evidence of
having a conscience of one 's own, it appears, is a disposition to direct
the consciences of others. It would be very interesting to ask how
much of our moral code is made for the use of others. Who is not
familiar with the idea that ' ' it would be all right for you and me, but
it would never do for the masses"? Or with the fear that a con-
cession to personal freedom, not otherwise unreasonable, would be
"liable to abuse." 2 This rather distrustful anxiety for the souls
of others Mr. Adler would extend to one's wife. According to him,
the only ethical motive for marriage is the mutual elicitation of moral
qualities ; never, it seems, the enjoyment of companionship. I agree
with Mr. Adler in thinking that Kant's conception of marriage, as a
mutual contract to furnish sexual intercourse, is rather horrible, but
I should like to ask whether one who made an offer of marriage in
Mr. Adler 's terms would not be rightly rejected as a prig.
If elicitation of moral qualities means simply that it is my duty
in an important crisis to lay before another (preferably a friend)
the consequences of the alternatives confronting him and the signif-
2 In Marriage and Divorce one of the grounds upon which Mr. Adler
opposes all divorce is the following: "Moreover, if divorce is granted in the
first instance, it can not be refused in the second instance or in the third; and
there follow such scandalous performances as those with reports of which the
newspapers have of late entertained or horrified the reading public." But, I
ask, Let it be so; what difference does it make to you or me? We are not
obliged to associate with such persons. It may also be seriously asked how
much of the vileness and indignity associated with "scandalous performances"
does not lie in just the fact that they are exploited in the newspapers. Let us
remember that legitimate marriage would be made vile if similarly exploited.
And the further question arises, What if those who used freedom of divorce as
an opportunity, say, for am annual remating turned out to be otherwise worthy
persons? I do not fear that myself. But, as an honest inquirer, have I any
right to fear it? Precisely such a test is needed, I should say, to answer the
question whether permanent fidelity ia a sine qua non of moral character or a
mere convention.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 147
icance of his choice as a revelation of himself, well and good. A
morally worthy and responsible person is bound to be hospitable to
such elicitation as long as it promises to be helpful and enlightening.
But when I undertake to dictate his choice, it seems idle to claim that
I still recognize the principle of personal dignity and worth. Mr.
Adler would go as far as this, and further. // science should ever
be able to show that "the union of certain character-types will lead
to an infelicitous marriage" which, fortunately for the whole phi-
losophy of personality, he doubts "the state will be justified in
prohibiting such unions." 3 In Appendix II., treating of the exer-
cise of force, he is ready to employ force, not merely to protect one's
own personality from invasion, but to direct the development of
personality in others. This forceful moulding of (the other's) char-
acter is warranted by "the positive conception of freedom." Alas,
that words should play such tricks with us ! "Would it not be better
to say that where we recognize the necessity of restraining others,
we admit a difficulty in the way of personal worth as a sole universal
ethical principle?
Intimately connected with the ethical question of what it means
to treat my neighbor as a person is the psychological question of
what constitutes a person. And upon this point Mr. Adler is far
from clear not unnaturally, since the question is one of great diffi-
culty. It is to be noted, however, that he justifies the coercion of one
person by another by assuming, as if beyond question, that within
the individual life one desire may coerce another. And this justi-
fication is fortified by an "instrumental" conception of the personal
life according to which some, if not all, of the parts of one 's life are
to be treated as mere instruments, or means, to a supreme end. This
conception of "instrumentality" pervades more or less his whole
conception of the ethical attitude. I am to treat another person as
an end withal, and never as a means only; myself, however, as an
instrument for the ends of society. I am to achieve individuality,
but only instrumental individuality. The present generation is to
be instrumental to the next. The whole career of the race is to be
instrumental to ends that lie in the infinite beyond. Only in the
infinite it seems, if even there, may we contemplate the possibility
of realization, of satisfaction, of enjoyment; or, if you please, of
happiness.
Now this identification of personal with purposive activity and
of purposive activity with the use of means for ends, is doubtless a
common feature of self-realization ethics, which, as against the
hedonist's life of happiness, proposes a life organized for an end.
s Pp. 307, 371.
148 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
I am none the less persuaded that, as a characterization of personal
activity, it misses the point. Let it be remembered that to assert
the means-to-end principle in morals used to be the distinctive (and
opprobrious) mark of the utilitarian. Against him the Intuitionist
argued that honesty, for example, was not a means to an end but a
good in itself. And this seemed to leave the moral life without coher-
ence and in possible danger of anarchy. Accordingly, the theory of
self-realization teaches that honor, chastity and the like, are, not
each a good in itself, but connected as features of personal worth;
and the moral life is then viewed as a coordinated system of personal
activity. But this seems to say that honor is after all only a means
to an end ; in other words, that self-realization is only a new utili-
tarianism, in which, once more, the means are justified by the end,
the end, however, the perfection of the person rather than his happi-
ness. Such, I should say, is the common way of conceiving self-
realization, and it is apparently the conception implied in Mr.
Adler's "instrumental" view.
This conception overlooks an important difference. Let cooking
the dinner be the means, of which eating the dinner is (at least the
proximate) end. To say that the process of cooking is merely a
means signifies that value is realized only in the eating, or in the
end. If we could get the cooked dinner without the cooking, so
much the better so much the better, indeed, that nearly all who
can afford it prefer to employ a cook. In other words, on the bal-
ance-sheet of value, the end alone stands for receipts, the means
standing for a necessary and unwelcome expenditure. Now, it is
surely not in this sense that honor is conceived as "instrumental"
to perfection, or development of character. In no intelligible sense
of perfection can one be conceived to desire perfection and yet
loathe honor. The point is that the conception of end and means
implies that the activities or experiences representing end and
means respectively are separable in time. Thus only can they be
distinguished as ends or means and the realization of value located
in the end. In the development of character means and ends are
not thus separable. We attain perfection, let us say, not after we
have practised honesty, but in the practise of honesty itself. The
end comes, not after the means, but in the means themselves. This
suggests, I should say, that for the relation between the several
features of a personal activity the distinction of end and means is
meaningless.
An instrument, in plain words, is a tool. I will then venture the
suggestion that the conception of instrumentality is a metaphorical
derivation from the use of tools; or, more broadly, that the whole
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 149
scheme of means and ends is built upon an observation of dis-
tinctively mechanical activities, involving the use of tools and the
preparation of material. It is here distinctively that ends and
means are separated in time ever more widely as, in modern
industry, processes are lengthened and tools become complex ma-
chines and no value is realized short of the end. It is here also
that ends and means have the least "organic" relation. It is not
necessary that a shoe be made of leather or that leather be made into
a shoe; that a man be killed with a knife or that a knife be used
only to kill a man. As soon as we pass from mechanical to vital
processes the relation is altered. A kitten can develop only into a
cat, a cat only from a kitten. So far, however, as the two stages
can be given a moral relation, they are not now related as means
and end. To say that the child is only a means to the man is true
only from the standpoint of "cannon-fodder," or from the hardly
less sordid standpoint of a puritanical rigorism, which looks upon
life solely as a disciplinary process and upon childhood solely as a
training for maturity. It is scarcely humane, I should say, to treat
the child merely as a means.
But in passing from mechanism to life we are approaching
personality. Personality begins, it might be said, with the exercise
of foresight and the adaptation of means to ends, as manifested,
say, in the use of tools. True, but it only begins here. The pur-
chase of ends at the cost of arduous and unwelcome means marks
the stage of blind submission to external necessity. The progress
of culture stands for nothing more clearly than a revolt against this
grinding necessity ; and a revolt which is ever, if ever incompletely,
successful in reducing the element of necessity. Sympathy with
this revolt is part of Mr. Adler's conception of the ethical attitude.
In his view extreme poverty is morally degrading; not because the
poor must work and encounter hardship, but because their choices
are ever bound by necessity. And modern machine-industry also
tends to degrade, because, in dissociating the means so widely from
the end, and in associating the worker solely with the means, it
makes a tool of the worker himself; because, in other words, his
work stands for so little of choice and reflection and for so much
of habit and necessity. Here it seems that the instrumental ideal
is repugnant to himself.
But how is the element of necessity to be reduced? This is not
a simple question, but two points may be noted: (1) In the revolt
against the burden of cooking for the sake of eating, I summon my
intelligence to the task of reducing the burden by making the
process easier and simpler. (2) But the very exercise of intelli-
150 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
gence works a change in the character of the task. Along with the
saving of labor, cooking becomes an interesting, at least a challeng-
ing problem, more or less worth while in itself, thereby less a work
of labor and more a work of art. It becomes a "personal" activity.
I doubt if Mr. Adler would reject this element from the solution.
Let me, however, enumerUte some of the implications: (1) In a life
governed by the principle of personality no part of life may be
a mere means. As a person I insist that every part of life has a
worth in itself; every part must also be an end. (2) No desire can
be regarded as subordinate to other desires or subject to their
coercion : every part of our nature has its rights. (3) And the ideal
of life is not mere striving, but also realization fruition enjoy-
ment; that is to say, it includes, among other considerations, the
rejected consideration of happiness.
As a further illustration of the instrumental motive I may cite
Mr. Adler 's suggestion for an ideal state: namely, that the state
be organized on the basis of vocational groups as a league, or society,
of guilds. To me this savors strongly of that German-made state
which we are now commanded to detest, and against which, just as
a person, I feel called upon to protest. This emphasis upon the
vocational motive is another mark of the self-realization theory,
which, in setting up against the hedonistic ideal of pleasure or
happiness the ideal of "work," tends to make the profession or
"career" the chief, if not the sole expression of the person. As a
corrective to self-indulgence it has its uses. As a definition of the
person it strikes me as narrow, utilitarian, and in a certain measure
degrading. As a person I can not consent that my vocation of stu-
dent and teacher of philosophy shall rule as the determining or
dominating motive of my life. I can recognize no moral obliga-
tion to prefer philosophers as my friends, to prefer philosophical to
other and often more enlivening reading, to listen to a Beethoven
symphony from a philosophical point of view, or to look upon my
children with the eyes of a philosophical parent. I admit that, in
point of fact, I shall be bound to make my profession a matter of
chief importance. But bound by what? Again, I should say, by
necessity : partly, indeed, by the necessity of earning a living, but no
less by the necessity of accepting the conditions offered by the exist-
ing organization of society if I am to be personally effective. Those
conditions are not more likely to fit my person than a ready-made
coat. Even the academic distinctions of philosopher, historian,
biologist, chemist, and the like stand less for personal and logical
distinctions of problem and task than for a convenient arrangement
of academic fences. In brief, the society of guilds may be an
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 151
excellent political arrangement for the transaction of business; it is
not a unity of persons.
These mark the points at which, I should say, Mr. Adler has
not quite succeeded in his "joint" method of driving two horses
abreast. His two horses are personality and social harmony. It
seems to me that an unconscious deference to popular conceptions of
social morality of the kind already deprecated in his criticism of
socialism has led him to drive the social horse ahead of the per-
sonal. But it is not to be expected that any of us will succeed in
driving two horses abreast ; nor, I fear, that any of Us will succeed
in driving his philosophical chariot with less than two horses. The
criticisms touch the book only in certain aspects. The book as a
whole is an impressive presentation of an ethical attitude, and the
attitude is marked by nobility of conception, by spiritual insight
into the souls of men, and at the same time by a fairly resolute
recognition of the facts of life.
WARNER FITE.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.
THE APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF MAN
IN Europe, at the present time, we have the exhibit of men strug-
gling with problems of the highest complexity without an ade-
quate equipment of scientific knowledge. Despite efforts which were
made towards the end of the eighteenth century, the systematic
study of man has been so neglected that in the emergency of to-day
we are left without guidance other than the conflicting opinions of
a limited group of statesmen. We take a certain pride, just now,
in the fact that the war has forced us to look at the problems of
mankind from a world point of view ; but while our sympathies are
going out to the aspirations and activities of the lesser and debatable
nationalities, it must be insisted that, if we are to be ultimately suc-
cessful in promoting the highest interests of humanity, we must be
prepared to apply ourselves, with a resolution and earnestness hith-
erto unrealized, to the scientific study of man.
There is no escaping the fact that such a study presents the
gravest difficulties. It is, for example, hard for men to overcome
the feeling that human affairs are so dominated by "accident" and
by the uncertain motives and wills of individuals that scientific
method is here inapplicable. Then, it must be acknowledged, no one
of the existing disciplines in our universities has shown the power
or disposition to take up the study of man as a whole. The sociolo-
gist may demonstrate that logically his subject should embrace and
coordinate the results of all humanistic studies, but as a matter of
152 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
fact this has not been done. Humanistic learning in the narrower
sense (i. e., the classics) provides no avenue leading to a sufficiently
broad outlook; history still remains content with its chronological
presentation of political events; while anthropology still limits its
interest to the less civilized groups of men. On the other hand, it
is but fair to reflect that the way is not open for any one existing
"subject" in the university to make itself responsible for such a
study, since this, of necessity, demands the coordination and co-
operation of every discipline which may be included in ' ' the humani-
ties." Again, a further difficulty, of a practical sort, arises from
the fact that the recognized division of subjects in the university
has not sprung from the needs of scientific study, but is the outcome
of tradition, modified by demands for the recognition of new sub-
jects during the last fifty years. The study of man, in short, can
be instituted only with the support of each of the separate depart-
ments or units into which the "College of Letters" is broken up, for
each one of these represents an integral and essential aspect of the
inquiry.
The first problem, then, that confronts us, in the effort to obtain
recognition for the systematic study of man, is the necessity of mak-
ing such an approach to the study as will gain the confidence and
enlist the support of the different groups of scholars involved. What
is to be desired is that the humanistic side of the university should
adopt as its fundamental aim, not the separate study of philosophy,
of psychology, of anthropology, of history, of geography, of lan-
guages and literatures, of economics and political science, but the
unified study of man. If, however, this is to be accomplished it can
only be through the convincing nature of the approach which may
be offered. The cooperation sought can be hoped for only through
the presentation of a set of ideas which will enable men working in
different lines to see how their individual efforts may be made con-
tributory to a great and highly desired end. It thus becomes evi-
dent that the manner in which we may propose to set about the
study of man is of crucial importance.
This being the case, it is of significance that in various connec-
tions efforts are being made at the present time to mark out lines
of approach to the study of man. Of these the contribution of Dr.
Goldenweiser in this JOURNAL (October 10 and 24, 1918) bespeaks
attention, being a serious effort entitled to consideration in an ap-
preciative spirit.
Dr. Goldenweiser begins by pointing out that the approach de-
sired is not to be gained by discussing the relations of established
academic subjects, and proposes that we should turn directly to the
facts themselves. This, it seems to me, is essential; we need a re-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 153
turn to the whole body of facts available for the study of man
unembarrassed by distinctions which have arisen through the exi-
gencies of university teaching. But the question follows at once:
are we approaching the facts themselves when, as the author pro-
poses, we "attempt an analytical conceptualization of the relations
of such facts" (563). What is meant by this phrase may be ex-
plained a little more fully. ' ' An examination of a set of social data,
as presented by the historical record or by modern conditions, nat-
urally leads," Dr. Goldenweiser thinks, "to three questions: what
kind of data are they? How are they related to one another in
time? And what is the connection between them? This," he con-
tinues, "suggests three standpoints from which the data can be en-
visaged: the standpoint of level, ... of time, . . . and of connec-
tion or linkage." From this beginning he goes on to develop a set
of eight categories of data (objective-historical, objective-contem-
poraneous, psychological-historical, psychological-contemporaneous,
deterministic-historical, deterministic-contemporaneous, accidental-
historical, accidental-contemporaneous) the further description of
which constitutes the body of his paper.
What we are concerned with here is not the detailed interest of
the paper under discussion, or the wealth of illustration Dr. Golden-
weiser is never at a loss to introduce, but the mode of approach which
he offers as "an introduction to social science. ' ' The point then that
seems to me crucial in this 1 connection is that the proposed concep-
tualization of the relations of facts, before the facts have been sub-
jected to scientific treatment, is calculated to lead to no sound or
valuable result.
An illustration will best serve to bring out the force of this criti-
cism. Dr. Goldenweiser 's ultimate objective, in the paper with
which we are concerned, is an analysis of the relation of the ' ' deter-
ministic" and "accidental" elements in human history. Briefly,
his point of view is that in any given event there are certain ' ' deter-
ministic" elements which we may isolate, but we will also have to
acknowledge "there is no denying the overwhelming weight of acci-
dental factors" (606). "The accidental appears, after all, as pre-
dominant in history, when it comes to the particular when, where,
how, and even what, of events" (605). "Thus the accidental and
the deterministic appear as two inseparable ingredients of the his-
toric process. Leave out the deterministic, and history becomes a
hodge-podge of adventitious things and events, a something without
rhyme or reason; leave out the accidental, and grave injustice is
done to reality, for law and order is then claimed as a fact, whereas
it is at best but an aspiration, a tendency, not strong enough to have
154 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
its way wholly, but fully strong enough to regulate, and to that ex-
tent to control, the stream of accidental fact" (607).
Now, as he himself is aware, what the author does here is to take
certain particulars, related in chronological sequence, and reflect
upon the nature of the "linkage" (to use his own expression) be-
tween them (564). Kemark, he is not proposing or dealing with a
scientific problem, he is simply looking at certain facts, i. e., events,
and thinking about the relation in which one happening stands to
the next, in terms of "determinism" and "accident." As a result
of this consideration it is obvious that the ' ' accidental ' ' features will
preponderate, for the reason that the so-called "deterministic" fac-
tors can not be arrived at or discerned by contemplation, they can
only be discovered through scientific investigation (if at all), and
this, in the subject under discussion, has not been carried out. The
approach adopted by Dr. Goldenweiser may lead to the expression
of an infinite variety of opinions, in which appeal will be made to
the existing body of knowledge, but it will not open the door to
scientific investigation and the extension of scientific results, from
which it follows that the conclusions reached by Dr. Goldenweiser
may be rendered invalid at any moment through new research.
Let us accept the proposal to turn to the facts themselves, but,
instead of reflecting upon the abstract relations in which the facts
stand to each other, let us ask what sort of knowledge it is we want
to gain. As I understand it, every science is engaged in the effort
to find out "how things work" in relation to some specific aspect of
the world in which we find ourselves. Every science makes the
assumption that things in the world we know work in characteristic
ways, and that these ways may be discovered by scientific analysis.
Hence it is that the students of physics and chemistry, of astronomy,
geology, and biology are not greatly concerned in regard to the rela-
tions of the sciences, for they are occupied fully in the task of an-
alyzing the modus operandi through which the results we observe in
nature have been and still are produced.
If we adopt this methodological point of view in the case before
us, it will appear that the kind of knowledge we want in relation to
man is an understanding of the ways in which things work to bring
about certain results. But what results ? Here we are in the presence
of a difference between the aims of the student of nature and of the
historian, for while the former endeavors to describe how any exist-
ing condition has come to be as it is, the latter attempts to explain
events. The difference is marked, and is of the utmost significance
in point of method. The one procedure leads to an analysis of the
characteristic processes through which existing conditions have been
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 155
and are produced; the other leads to views on the "accidental," to
opinions on the influence of "great men," to religious beliefs on the
place of ' ' God in history. ' ' The one method leads on to a more and
more complete and objective description of the ways in which things
work, the other ends in interpretations which are inevitably personal
and emotionalized.
We have before us, in the form of documents and other memo-
rials, evidences of what has taken place in the past. The historian
seizes upon these materials and endeavors to "reconstruct the past."
What he does is to create for himself, from the data available, a
drama of events, and he does this by selecting what he deems to hav3
been the episodes of cardinal importance, supplementing the record
by the imaginative reconstruction of the motives of the participants.
It is all human and romantic, and, in the hands of a master, of ab-
sorbing interest; but the story will never be the same in any two
"histories," and the proportions of the "accidental" will vary with
every treatment. The scientific investigator, approaching the same
materials, will, on the other hand, begin with the present, and he
will utilize the facts available in regard to what has happ.ened in
the past as so much evidence from which to isolate the various proc-
esses through which the existing situation or condition has come to
be as it is. As a consequence, the latter procedure gives some hope
of an eventual understanding and comprehension of how things work
in relation to mankind, whereas the former leaves us with ever-
varying statements as to the importance and significance of what
has taken place. With this contrast in mind, it will readily appear
that the whole question of "accident" and "determinism" in his-
tory is an outgrowth of the concentration of attention upon events,
and is one that disappears as an essential matter for consideration
when once the scientific attitude has been adopted.
The study of man is a fundamental interest for the world at the
present time. If we profit from the experience gained in other lines
of inquiry, we will see that the urgent need now is to apply the
method of science in this all-important field. It may, at first sight,
seem impracticable to unify studies in which every branch is distin-
guished by a special body of fact and a special technique of investi-
gation; but, on second consideration, it will become evident that
these differences are no greater than those which characterize the
different branches of physics or biology. What we are in need of is
an approach to the study. of man which will orient the aims of the
different "subjects," and show how all our efforts may be made
contributory to a common end. What this means is that we require
the statement of the scientific problem which lies back of all the data
156 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
with which our recognized "subjects" deal. As I conceive it, this
problem is contained in the question: "How has man, with all the
infinite variety of his activities in literature, art, thought, and handi-
craft come to be as we find him throughout the world to-day?"
But it also means that we require a method in common the method
of science, which may for the humanist be found illustrated in the
historical study of language.
FREDERICK JOHN TEGGART.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
"SCIENTIFIC PREPOSSESSION" AND ANTISCIENTIFIC
ANIMUS
"PROFESSOR FITE'S clever caricature of scientific psychology,
in the December Atlantic, like all clever caricature, achieves
its end by seizing on a few conspicuous features of its victim ; feat-
ures not necessarily of vital importance; and by skilful exaggera-
tion and subtle misrepresentation of these features, entirely obscur-
ing the victim's real characteristics.
Against such caricaturing it is useless to argue, and undignified
to protest. Where the motive is kindly, it is best to laugh with the
artist. Where the motive is spiteful, serene indifference is sufficient
protection. There is no reason to be concerned over Professor Fite 's
playing up of the "behaviorism" of a few radicals as if it were the
real current of psychological opinion and method. We need not
become excited when our caricaturist assumes for his own purposes
that the Freudian pseudo-psychology, with its mystical Subconscious
and medieval demons of complexes, is accepted by the laborious sci-
entific psychology, slave to dull fact and grinding method, which
he scornfully describes in another page. Even when, after telling
us that "no one thinks of demanding . . . from the 'expert psy-
chologist' ... a broad and sympathetic appreciation of literature,
a cultivated and instructed taste, and, above all, a thoughtful ex-
perience of life, ' ' he proceeds, without a verbal blush, to quote from
"a recent writer" who is actually one of our best known American
psychologists, and who has in a very high degree just this appre-
ciation, taste, and experience: proceeds, indeed, to quote from this
"recent writer's" delightful satire on experimental psychology:
even then we should merely admire the philosopher's adroitness in
juggling with facts. There would be reason for concern if it were
probable that the cartoonist believed his caricature to be a veracious
portrait ; but one hesitates to assume such naivete of Professor Fite,
just as one would hesitate to assume it of Goldberg or one of the
other cartoonists of the evening papers.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 157
Professor Fite's presentation of Psychology is, however, not all
caricature. The feature which he evidently finds most objectionable
is a true and essential feature, although somewhat unfairly repre-
sented. It is the uncompromising insistence on scientific proof, as
against conjecture, popular report, and anecdote, which galls, not
only occasional philosophers, but galls also a vast company of mys-
tics, spiritualists, Freudians, Christian scientists, character analysts,
and worshipers at the shrine of the thinking horses. Misery makes
strange bedfellows, and the misery of those whose spirits rebel at
treading the hard road of scientific procedure makes the strangest
dream-mates of all. Let us quote from our critic's words:
Psychological Laboratories have been in operation for thirty years or more;
and for more than twenty years I have been searching for one fact worthy of
consideration for one "discovery," so to speak, as measured by what they call
a discovery in other sciences for one fact discovered in the psychological labo-
ratory which did not repeat what we already knew, or which required a labo-
ratory for 'its discovery.
Several years ago I thought I had found a little one. A distinguished
psychologist, in a public lecture which I attended, was explaining the value of
the psychological laboratory. We all know, he said, that imagination may be
mistaken for reality, but it required the laboratory to show with scientific
certainty that reality could be mistaken for imagination. I can give only a
rough outline of the experiment reported. The subject is seated facing a screen
of ground glass, behind which, unknown to him, there is a projection-lantern,
and in the middle of which, if I remember correctly, there is drawn a circle of
a few inches in diameter. He is told to look at the circle and to imagine that
it is red. Presently the area of the circle begins to be tinged with red; and
since he is unaware of the fact that a projection-lantern is being operated
behind the screen, he takes this reddish tinge to be the product of his imagina-
tion. Thus we prove, by scientific method, that reality may be mistaken for
imagination.
I will admit that, asi I walked home after the lecture, I felt that I had
received a demonstration. The ' ' discovery ' ' was not precisely awe-inspiring, but
did it not amount to a vindication of scientific method? How could one have
unearthed such a fact except in a laboratory? Then I suddenly remembered.
A few evenings before, it had happened that my wife, who was sitting in my
study reading, had laid down her book, assumed an attitude of listening, and
then, taking up her book again, had remarked to me with a smile that she was
so accustomed to listening for the baby's cry that she often heard him cry in
imagination when in fact he was quiet. Whereupon, having imagined the same
thing myself, and doubting that we could both be victims of imagination, I
opened the door and discovered that the infant was really crying. Here then
it was demonstrated, in the heart of the household, with no apparatus except a
baby, yet with all the scientific rigor that one could reasonably desire, that
reality may be mistaken for imagination.
To those who have studied the "proofs" of spirit communica-
tion, levitation and materialization; who have waded through the
older animal psychology and the early monographs on child study;
158 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
and who have patiently analyzed the documents of the Freudian
propaganda, Professor Fite's naive reactionary method of accumu-
lating data is distressingly familiar. It is such a simple, easy,
method! Any one can use it, and most gratifying of all can
prove by means of it exactly what he wants to believe.
Professor Fite would prove a presumably important fact of the
relation of perception to imagination by an anecdote : by an observa-
tion he believes he made in the immediate or remote past. Sir Oli-
ver Lodge would prove the possibility of communicating with the
dead by certain incidents which he believes came under his observa-
tion. Professor Barrett, in the same way, would demonstrate the
marvelous efficiency of the divining rod. Christian scientists of un-
doubtable sincerity relate anecdotes of the uniting of broken bones
through the reading over the patient of a few pages of Mrs. Eddy's
Book. Various observers of animals have constructed entertaining
theories of the "animal mind" on the basis of anecdotes vouched
for by reliable persons. And all these apostles of the Easy Way
protest that it is silly to insist on scientific demonstration of the
phenomena they declare they have observed by merely "keeping the
eyes of the mind open," as Professor Fite so neatly puts it.
Against this flood of superstition, which has, from the remote
past, beaten upon our slowly emerging civilization, there is no strong
bulwark except the scientific method which the mystics would so
lightly sweep aside. We may admit that many psychological beliefs
which are popularly held are correct, although not scientifically veri-
fied. Many other beliefs are false. What shall decide between the
true and the false ? Are we to assume the theories we like, and deny
those we dislike ? It is here that scientific method is indispensable.
Scientific method, as it applies to the experimental sciences, and
specifically as it applies to experimental psychology, is very well
illustrated by Professor Fite's story. Scientific method does not
accept the mere statement of what is believed to have happened. It
demands an arrangement of the conditions such that there is reason-
able freedom from doubt that what is reported is what really oc-
curred. Most important of all, it requires the statement of condi-
tions under which the observation can be deliberately repeated.
Neither of these demands can be fulfilled absolutely, but their ful-
filment must be approximated. Mistakes are constantly being made
in spite of the method, yet by repetition these mistakes are corrected.
Professor Fite's observation is of the class to which belong the
anecdotes which "prove" the occurrence of telepathy. The factor
of coincidence is not eliminated. It might be that the crying of the
babe was really heard : it might be that it was only imagined. The
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 159
fact that the babe was actually crying at the time is no proof that it
was heard. What really lends plausibility to the inference is the
scientific demonstration of its possibility. The experiment of the
* ' distinguished psychologist ' ' is far more conclusive, and since it can
be repeated by any competent experimental psychologist, and the
conditions even more carefully checked, it is the initial step in proof.
If any importance attaches to the alleged fact that perception can be
taken for imagination, its psychological demonstration is indispens-
able, in spite of a thousand unchecked inferences from the daily
life of philosophers and others.
This fundamental need for scientific method is something that
mystics and apostles of the occult find it very difficult to grasp.
Writers on spiritistic phenomena are constantly deploring the skep-
ticism of scientists, and branding it as unreasonable. Why, they ask
us, do we refuse to accept the circumstantial anecdotes of phenom-
ena transcending the known laws of nature? Was not the accept-
ance of radioactivity as revolutionary as would be the acceptance of
levitation or telepathy ? They do not understand that the existence
of radium would never have been accepted on the mere statement
of the Curies, or on the statements of a dozen scientists. Nor do
they understand that any phenomenon, however occult it seems now,
would be admitted at once, if it were demonstrable through the in-
dispensable method of scientific procedure, as was the existence of
radium.
When one considers the important contributions which psychol-
ogy has made, not only to pure knowledge, but also to applied sci-
ences, one wonders where Professor Fite has been searching "for
more than twenty years" with so little result. (It would be cruel
to inquire what striking discoveries have been made by him and
other philosophers in the same period.) For the guidance of those
critics who really wish to see a sample of what the scientific method
in psychology accomplishes, we suggest that they watch for the re-
ports which will presently appear on psychological work in the vari-
ous branches of the army and navy. Here will be found a brilliant
record of the practical accomplishments of psychologists, most of
whom were taken directly from their laboratories, and faced with
the necessity of solving practical problems in short order. Remark-
able as the accomplishments were, they would have been even greater
if it had not been for the inhibitions of unscientific men in positions
of authority, who, like Professor Fite, preferred guesswork to sci-
entific certainty.
Because of the successful practical application of the results of
psychological research, in 'education, business, medicine, and many
other departments of activity; and especially because of the impulse
160 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
given to applied psychology by the war, there is indeed danger that
the pure research of which Professor Fite speaks contemptuously
research conducted for the purpose of ascertaining facts regardless
of application, which is the primal flame from which alone the fires
of applied science are lighted will be dangerously neglected. In
the past the greatest obstacle to successful application has been the
urgent demand therefor, which has led to the premature use of prin-
ciples, and has opened a field to a company of fakirs character
analysts and self-made "experts" who have tended to discredit sci-
entific work. Unless more adequate provision is made for pure re-
search in experimental psychology, the progress of applied psychol-
ogy in the future will be much retarded. One of the greatest benefits
which could be conferred upon the nation at the present moment
would be the foundation of an institute for psychobiological research
on a scale comparable to that of the Rockefeller Institute and other
institutes for applied science.
Rich as is the field for psychological research, and important as
are its applications, the results must ever be disappointing to those
who expect thrills, and "discoveries, so to speak, as measured by
what they call a discovery in other sciences." Psychology deals
with the mind : yes, psychologists still claim that : and with the physi-
cal and physiological phenomena which are closely connected with
mind. Mind is the common possession of the human race, at least,
and there is no reason to assume the existence of any mental proper-
ties or processes so hidden from the innumerable possessors of mind
that if discovered they would be such novelties as were Hertzian
waves and radium to physical science. In fact, an important part of
the work of scientific psychology is to demolish the thrilling "dis-
coveries" of amateur psychologists such "discoveries" as subcon-
scious "complexes," telepathic communication, and dogs with super-
canine intelligence.
Psychological research finds its work less in extending the field
of knowledge than in bringing order out of the chaos within the
field, a duty in no wise less important than the other, but more labori-
ous, and lacking in appeal to the poetic imagination. Psychology
will always be disappointingly dull to those who have not the "sci-
entific prepossession," -the "prepossession" that no labor is too hard,
no course too long, if it lends to the ascertainment of truth.
KNIGHT DUNLAP.
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 161
PREDICTION AND SPONTANEITY
THE two functions of the intellect are "to describe" and "to
reason." The difference between them is that "to describe"
relates wholly to that which we have experienced, while "to reason"
means to go from that which we have experienced to that which we
have not experienced. It -is reason which permits us to predict.
Both description and prediction are statements about phenomena,
but there is a radical distinction between them. Description relates
to the past and therefore it can be accurate, because the past may
have come within our own experience, but prediction relates to the
future which has not yet come within experience. "We describe the
past, we live the present, we predict the future. Under what condi-
tions then can prediction be accurate ?
Accepting the idea of cause and effect, without analyzing the
philosophical meaning of these terms, we may say that if the cause
is known, reason can predict the effect. But as a prediction involves
the passing of time between it and the phenomenon predicted, this
time must not introduce any cause not known at the time of predic-
tion, otherwise the effect can not be predicted because all the causes
are not known. Hence it may be said that the prediction of a phe-
nomenon will be accurate in just the proportion that the time between
the prediction and the phenomenon predicted is negligible as a cause.
This happens in the inorganic world. If I pour acid on a metal the
reaction is the same, whether I do it now or wait a week and then
do it. Of the inorganic world it may be said that once we know the
cause of a phenomenon our experience shows us that the passing of
time does not alter this cause. This is all that we mean when we
speak of the immutable laws of Nature. But this is only true of the
inorganic world ; it is not true of the organic world, and especially
it is not true of human beings.
Let us now consider spontaneity as it shows itself in us. I shall
define the spontaneous act as an act, all of the causes of which do
not come into existence until the very instant of the act. Our spon-
taneous, or free, act is an act which is caused by the whole of our
experience up to the instant of the act. Manifestly such an act can
not be predicted. To predict, one must know all of the causes, and
from our definition of the spontaneous we should have to wait until
the very instant of the act in order to know all of the causes. But
if we did this we could not predict the act, we could only describe it,
because it would then belong to the past, not the future. Of course
we do not always act freely; habit and reflexes determine many, if
not most, of our acts and when they do our acts can be predicted.
162 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
But when we do act freely, or spontaneously, prediction is impossible.
Many people believe that our inability to predict in this field is
due to a temporary ignorance of biological laws, which ignorance
will disappear in the future. This belief is due to a fundamental
misconception of the influence of time on our reactions. Prediction
is most accurate in the sciences of logic, mathematics, astronomy,
physics and inorganic chemistry, and is least accurate in biology,
political economy, sociology and history. In the former, spon-
taneity, as I have denned it, does not exist ; but in the latter sciences,
dealing as they do with the living, spontaneity is bound to enter
often and spoil our predictions.
The existing state of our biological knowledge has nothing to do
with the case. Whenever there is spontaneity, we fail in our pre-
dictions, and must always fail, because then the time between a pre-
diction and the phenomenon predicted can not be ignored without
destroying the accuracy of the prediction.
A. A. MERRILL.
PASADENA.
REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE
The Good Man and the Good: an Introduction to Ethics. MARY
WHITON CALKINS. New York : The Macmillan Company. 1918.
Pp. xx + 219.
Miss Calkins has given us here an excellent brief psychological
introduction to ethics. The discussion is condensed, clear and acute
in its discriminations. The first seventy-five pages deal with the
meaning of the terms "the good" and "the good man;" the hun-
dred pages following discuss the virtues thrift, abstinence, cour-
age, prudence, truthfulness, justice, generosity, obedience, non-con-
formity and pugnacity, with a very brief chapter contrasting the
moral with the esthetic and the religious experience. Thirty-five
pages of notes and bibliographical references, and a careful index,
conclude the volume.
Pedagogically, this arrangement leaves' little to be desired for
those who are interested in the psychology of morality. It is per-
haps a bit too schematic, and the discussions too abstract, to attract
the "general reader" who is fed in these days on every hand with
excitements and exigencies, and drawn irresistibly into the arena of
practical decision. Indeed, the drift of current opinion seems to be
that college students, in ethics courses, ought to be considering con-
crete moral problems, rather than or, at least, in addition to the
nature of instinct, will, and the "virtues." It is being widely
doubted whether these psychological discussions as well as the re-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 163
moter metaphysical discussions which Miss Calkins herself avoids
throw much light upon these actual problems of conduct which con-
front us. Men of the most opposite metaphysical and psychological
theories agree in their practical attitudes, while members of the
same school as regards "theory" differ diametrically in application.
The natural inference seems to be that what is needed for moral
guidance is not so much a correct analysis of the sense of duty, or
an understanding of the instinctive roots of the "virtues," as a
mass of information concerning the possibilities of action in a given
situation, and the results, immediate and far-reaching, to be expected
from these possible courses of action. Common sense and normal
human good will can then be trusted, without raising fundamental
questions, to make far wiser decisions than acute philosophical analy-
sis which lacks a comprehensive knowledge of the bearings of the
concrete situation.
When Miss Calkins does bend to a few words of practical appli-
cation, what she has to say is extremely pertinent and wise. The
remarks on the importance of truthfulness; on the danger that be-
sets truly loving parents and spouses, of "nagging;" on the prob-
lem of distributive justice, are indicative of the great practical value
that a development of the volume along these lines might have. Per-
haps a future enlarged edition may include more pages like these.
The best piece of analysis in the volume, however, is the ' ' double-
self theory" of the sense of duty, or "experience of obligation."
' ' The consciousness of obligation is the experience of self-compulsion.
And the explanation of the paradoxical combination in the moral
experience of the seemingly inconsistent factors of submission and
freedom lies precisely herein: in the fact that the law to which I
submit is neither an inexorable nature-law, or uniformity, nor yet
an external social law the imposition of another's will but is,
rather, the law, the imperative which I, as ruling self, impose on
myself, as compelled self" (p. 13).
Morality, according to- the view here presented, is subjective :
"A man is good or bad, moral or immoral, according as he wills or
refuses to will what is to him, and not to any one else, the good.
There are therefore no objective criteria of a man's goodness or bad-
ness" (p. 35). The doctrine is that of "the good man as he who
wills that which he conceives as a self -sufficient aim" (p. 37). This
turns out, indeed, to be only a verbal relativism, for, though ' ' it fol-
lows that men with different views of the good are equally moral, it
by no means follows that these men's views of the good are equally
adequate. Therefore the moralist, though he must judge a given
man good or bad according to the man's own standards, must, on
164: THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
the other hand, attempt to estimate both the man's conception of
"the good" and also the methods by which he tries to realize the
good by comparison with other conceptions and other methods" (p.
38). It is not worth while to quarrel over terms; but to the present
reviewer the exclusive or dominant use of the phrases "the good
man" and "morality" in the subjective sense seems out of harmony
with ordinary usage, and therefore needlessly misleading.
The discussion of hedonism in chapter V will seem to some the
weakest point in the argument. Universalistic hedonism, the doc-
trine that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the proper
criterion of conduct, is condemned for its "narrowness." The only
description of the good which is broad enough is that which de-
scribes the good "not in terms of any one kind of consciousness,"
but as "the fullest expression of every capacity, the freest exercise
of every activity of the whole universe of selves" (pp. 78-79).
There is a confusion latent here, is there not, between the concrete
activities that we are to call good, and that which makes them good.
Certainly, all sorts of concrete acts are good (if not "the fullest
expression of every activity, ' ' which is surely saying too much, since
some activities are clearly undesirable). But why are they good?
Many of us will still believe that it is because they tend to bring
happiness to (or to banish unhappiness from) some one somewhere ;
or because the breaking of the code that enjoins them has dangers
for human happiness. At any rate, it is not clear that the "broad-
est" criterion must be the truest; and utilitarianism can hardly be
disproved by calling it "narrow."
If one more objection may be permitted, where so much is above
criticism, it must be to the assurance with which a particular view
of the nature of religion is presented as unquestionably true. ' ' The
object of the religious man's experience is a self, or selves, greater
than himself or than any other human self. This statement may
be made with great confidence" (p. 171). Must the object of the
religious man 's experience be " a self, or selves ' ' ? That is, no doubt,
the received opinion, and the outcome of Miss Calkins' own meta-
physical outlook. But surely the views of those who hold otherwise
as, for illustration, Dr. Stanton Coit, in his illuminating discus-
sion in The Soul of America should not be so summarily rejected,
least of all by a philosopher of the judicial and generous temper
which we well know the but just now president of the Philosophical
Association to possess.
DUBANT DRAKE.
VASSAB COLLEGE.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 166
The League of Nations, To-day and To-morrow. HORACE MEYER
KALLEN. Boston: Marshall Jones Co. 1919. Pp. xx+181.
This is a timely book. When the war suddenly terminated, few
had been seriously considering what must form the structure of a
lasting peace. A group of men in New York City had been more
far-sighted. For over a year "a body of men of affairs, university
men and journalists, mostly editors," had been considering together
the economic and political aspects of the problem. They appointed
a committee consisting of Mr. Ralph S. Bounds, of the New York
Bar, and the author, "to organize and conduct an investigation, of
which the result is the present monograph" (p. vii).
The book consists chiefly of a "Protocol for a League of Nations"
and arguments upon its various articles. The scheme, which has
been worked out in elaborate detail, is claimed to be in the spirit of
President Wilson's state papers and addresses, which are cited in
its support. The protocol begins with the "purposes of a league of
nations" which are: " (a) to assure to its members and their peoples
security, freedom, equality of economic and cultural opportunity and
thereby to maintain lasting peace;" and " (&) to create and main-
tain whatever agencies may be necessary to effect these ends" (pp.
18, f.). All nations are to be eligible for membership in the league,
their voting power to be determined on the basis of their political
and economic organization, their actual economic and military re-
sources, the democratic character of their governments, and the lit-
eracy and size of their populations. The government of the league
would consist of an International Council, composed of representa-
tives from the various states, elected by popular vote on the basis
of proportional representation, together with other bodies subsidiary
to it. With this council would rest the duty to enforce peace on
recalcitrant nations, to punish international offenders, and to avert
wars. The council would delegate powers to eight commissions
which would exercise supreme control within their respective prov-
inces, viz. : Armaments, International Commerce (with seven sub-
commissions), Central Africa, International Finance (with subcom-
missions on Credit and Political Loans), Education, Undeveloped
Countries, International Hygiene, and Labor. There would also be
an International Court, consisting of twenty-five judges appointed
for a term of seven years. Appeals could be taken from the de-
cisions of this Court to the International Council itself.
It is impossible within the limits of a book review to outline
further the details in this scheme of international federation, much
less to state and discuss the arguments advanced for them. The
precautions necessary to assure the permanently democratic charac-
166 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
ter of the league are carefully thought out. The same is true of the
provisions to secure fair play in international commerce, to prevent
the evils of secret treaties and diplomatic intrigue, and to protect
backward nations from unjust economic exploitation, while at the
same time affording them opportunities for the development of their
natural resources. In general, the spirit of the book is fine. It may
appear ungracious to criticize it at all. However, it seems to me
that the scheme, while desirable in the main, is too ambitious in
what it expects the league to undertake at the outset. It is true
that the commissions proposed have precedents in the control of
commerce, food, raw materials, banking, etc., made necessary dur-
ing the war. But do we love government by commission so well, and
has it thus far proved so successful as to warrant continuing in
times of peace, and for practically the entire world, the permanent
regulation of commerce, banking, labor, and even education, along
the lines suggested by the analogy of our own Interstate Commerce
and Trade Commissions?
On the whole, might it not be prudent for the League of Nations
to begin with a more modest programme? Were it to fail because
it attempted too much at first, the idea of an international federa-
tion would become utterly discredited, perhaps for generations to
come. On the other hand, if the League can succeed in handling a"
few matters of importance during the present generation, the world
will thereafter be glad to give it larger powers and responsibilities.
But this is only my personal reaction. The book ought to convince
every one that some sort of a League of Nations is an immediate
necessity; and doubtless it will be all the more helpful to many
because it is so thought-provoking that they will be unable, at least
on first consideration, to agree with some of its details.
WILLIAM KELLET WRIGHT.
DAETMOUTH COIJ^EGE.
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. May, 1918. Scientific
Method in Philosophy and the Foundations of Pluralism (pp. 227-
273) : C. A. RICHARDSON. - New realism, or scientific method in phi-
losophy, is here contrasted with pluralism, or the genetic method.
The points of difference are those touching the existence of the self,
and the meaning and validity of the objective categories of experi-
ence, viz., causality and continuity. The error of scientific method is
that it considers things objectively in abstraction, taking into ac-
count only the objective side of experience. It can thus only be de-
scriptive, never explanatory. New realism ignores the existence of
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 167
the self, or at best considers it merely an inference. Pluralism
takes the existence of the self as an initial explanatory hypothesis
based on the concrete realization of our own existence. From this it
works outwards to an explanatory account of continuity and causal-
ity, categories which for new realism are merely descriptive. The
Social Nature of Thinking (pp. 274-295) : J. E. CEEIGHTON. - Main-
tains that ' ' the notion of the isolated individual is as inadequate and
misleading when taken as a basis of logic as by general assent it is
acknowledged to be when employed to explain the moral, political, or
religious experience of the individual." Thinking is a joint enter-
prise at every stage of its procedure, and is comprehensible only in
the light of its social relations. It presupposes an organic relation
of the individual mind to other minds and also the relation of the
individual mind to the external order of nature. Reviews of Books:
John Laird, Problems of the Self: R. F. A. HOERNLE. William M.
Salter, Nietzsche, The Thinker: WILBUR M. URBAN. Isaac Husik,
A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy: NATHANIEL SCHMIDT.
Henry Maudsley, Organic to Human-Psychological and Sociological:
J. E. BOODIN. Notices of New Books. Summaries of Articles.
Notes.
Parker, G. H. The Elementary Nervous System. Philadelphia
end London: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1919. Pp. 229. $2.50.
NOTES AND NEWS
A MEETING of the Aristotelian Society was held in London on
January 6, 1919, President Wildon Oarr in the chair. Mr. C. D.
Broad read a paper on "Mechanical Explanation and its Alter-
native. ' '
Controversies between mechanistic and non-mechanistic biologists
suffer, he said, from a lack of clear definition of what the opponents
mean by mechanism. The ease is also prejudiced by confining the
controversy to biology and -not raising the same question about chem-
istry and other advanced sciences.
Mechanism must mean at least obedience to the laws of motion or
some substitute which reduces indefinitely near to them for moderate
velocities. This condition is summed up by the form of Lagrange's
Equations and the form of the function T and the nature of the
variables in it. .But this is never a sufficient condition of mechanism ;
for it leaves open to the functions on the right-hand side of La-
grange's equations all sorts of forms and all sorts of variables. Ac-
cording to the different limitations imposed on their functions and
their variables, different senses of mechanism emerge. Five senses
are distinguished; the two least rigid are "macroscopic," the remain-
168 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
ing three are "microscopic" in Lorentz's sense of these words. If
the more rigid forms hold at all they must hold microscopically, for
it is certain that they do not hold macroscopally.
Microscopic explanations need not be mechanistic. Only the less
rigid forms of mechanism are necessary for scientific explanation,
and they are not necessary for any profound metaphysical reason
but because (a) we can only accurately measure directly geometrical
magnitudes, and (&) we can not deal with a multitude of complex
irreducible laws. Even the most rigid form of mechanism might,
however, be true if we carry our microscopic analysis further than it
has yet been carried.
The main advantage of pure mechanism would be a unification
in our theories of nature. Without it science is perfectly possible,
but will take the form of a hierarchy of laws of various degrees of
generality ; the more special of these will not be deducible from the
more general.
When account is taken of secondary qualities it is seen that pure
mechanism can not be the whole truth even about the non-mental part
of the world. There is no necessary conflict between teleology and
mechanism ; and the ultimate cause of the special structure of teleo-
logical systems is inexplicable with or without mechanism.
The annual meeting of the Western Philosophical Association will
be held at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, la., April 18th and
19th, 1919. In accordance with the plan usually followed by the
association, one session will be devoted to the consideration of a single
subject. The subject which the executive committee have chosen for
this year's discussion is "The Function of Philosophy in Social Re-
construction. ' ' At the remaining two sessions an opportunity will be
given for members to read and discuss papers on other philosophical
subjects.
Ifct
VOL. XVI, No. 7. MARCH 27, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
LOGIC AS THE SCIENCE OF THE PUEE CONCEPT
OUT of Italy, after the lapse of nearly two centuries, has come
another great system of philosophy. The tradition founded
by Leonardo, that grew so wonderfully down to the time of Vico's
Scienza Nuova (1722), has not been dormant since; and nearly
every page of the Logic 1 of Benedetto Croce attests the fact. His
system as a whole is the most courageous and commanding attempt
that has yet been made to systematize the values that make up man 's
world (and he does not honor the distinction between judgments of
fact and judgments of value).
Although, in expressing his thought, he constantly uses Kantian
and Hegelian terms, and even credits the discovery of the central
conceptions of his Logic to these two German idealists, an impartial
comparison reveals that the new doctrine is far less Prussian than
Italian, far less Teutonic than Hellenic. Kant and Hegel have few
critics who are at once so appreciative and so deadly : they have had
few followers who knew how to both prize and appraise the logical
a priori synthesis and the Idea as does this interpreter of them.
Croce himself regards G. B. Vico as his immediate predecessor in
teaching the main thesis of this logic, the thesis that the pure con-
cept, the definition of the pure concept, the individual judgment,
the logical a priori synthesis, and perception, are one and the same
thing, that philosophy and history are identical, and that there ex-
ists neither Ding an sich nor transcendental ego. "Writing of the
Kantian a priori synthesis, he says : ' ' This synthesis is the unity of
the necessary and the contingent, of concept and intuition, of
thought and representation, and consequently is the pure concept,
the concrete universal-," and then he adds, "Kant was not aware of
i Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept. By Benedetto Croce. Translated
from the third Italian edition by Douglas Ainslie, B.A. (Oxon), M.B.A.S. Mac-
millan & Co., Ltd., London, 1917. Pp. xxxiii _]_ 606. The first edition ap-
peared in 1908, after the author's general position had already been defined
before the Aeademia Pontiana in 1904 and published in the Transactions, Vol.
XXXV., 1905.
169
170 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
this. ' ' Instead of developing the thought of his genius with a mind
free from prejudice, Kant let himself be vanquished by the abstrac-
tionism of the time. In this way, the apriority of the intuition led
him, not to art, but to mathematics ; the apriority of the intellect led
him, not to philosophy, but to physics; "hence the impotence which
afflicted that synthesis when confronted with philosophical prob-
lems" (536). Again, "The logical revolution effected by Kant con-
sists in this : that he perceives and proclaims that to know is not to
think the concept abstractly, but to think the concept in the intui-
tion, and that consequently to think is to judge" (570). And then,
for a brilliant page, Croce goes on to point out the inept misunder-
standings of the a priori synthesis to be found in the pages of Kant.
"Not even in Hegel is there to be found the elaboration of the doc-
trine of the individual judgment, nor is its identity with that of the
concept explicitly recognized" (572). One almost forgives the au-
thor 's sentimental admiration for these Germans, in view of his own
masterly handling of them. "The synthesis is the palpitating real-
ity which makes itself and knows itself in the making : the Kantian
philosophy makes it rigid again in the concepts of the sciences ; and
it is a philosophy in which the sense of life, of imagination, of indi-
viduality and of history, is as completely absent as in the great sys-
tems of the Cartesian period" (536).
Meanwhile, Croce 's Esthetics, his Philosophy of the Practical
(Economics and Ethics), and the present work, taken together,- com-
plete the circle of man's spiritual activity; they set forth a realistic
methodology of life, and so of the universe in which it is lived. A
more noteworthy synthesis has not been attained by the present gen-
eration : the total result is monumental.
Our author refers to his own philosophy as a system, but it is a
system only in the sense of a systematic methodology, or real logic.
In a sense he is a critical philosopher, but his conception of knowl-
edge resembles Leonardo's celebration of the seeing eye, the intui-
tive science of Spinoza, the rational perception of Campanella and
the intellectual intuition of Rosmini. In Italy these terms have al-
ways had meanings quite different from the same terms in Germany,
where the prevailing tendency is to take them stiffly and abstractly
after the analogy of physical energies and mathematical concepts.
One feels that Croce 's generous praise of the Germans, while criti-
cizing their usage of these terms, will go a long way toward realiz-
ing the translator's hope, that this book may "serve to point out to
the Anglo-Saxon world where the future of the world's civilization
lies, namely, in the ancient line of Latin culture, which includes in
itself the loftiest Hellenic thought" (vii). Outside that "line" the
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 171
conception of knowledge that runs through this book, in spite of
its Kantian phrases, is reminiscent chiefly of Spinoza.
It is already clear that this work is not a contribution to formal-
ist logic or logistic, except as a confutation of the fundamental pre-
suppositions and methods of a body of doctrine can be said to be a
contribution to it. In the days of Leibnitz and those of Wolffian-
ism ; a century ago in the time of Hamilton ; more recently, in con-
nection with the name of Jevons ; and now in the writings of Peano,
Boole and Couturat, attempts are made to reform and correct
formalist logic by inducting into it mathematical concepts and sym-
bols : but these attempts all follow in the mistake of formalist logic
in pretending that words are thoughts, that verbal propositions are
concepts, and that logical relations run on all fours with those of
grammar. This algebraical, algorithmic or symbolic logic is hailed
in some quarters as a general science of thought, comprehending
both the mathematics and logic. As a general science of thought,
says Croce, "it is a laughable thing," "a charming amusement for
those who have a taste for it. ' ' He pauses to sketch the simple out-
lines of the doctrine of the syllogism and of logistic ; but they obvi-
ously lie to one side of the trail over which he conducts the reader :
presently he turns away, as a tourist might lower his field-glass, with
a sigh of well-meaning patience, "Well, if they be roses, they will
bloom." They sprang from Aristotle's writings, but "he was a
philosopher, and his successors were very often manual laborers"
(586). The indispensable condition for surpassing the Aristotelian
logic was a new philosophy of language, but the early reformers for
the most part still revolved in the narrow circle of formalism. The
revival of the philosophy of language begun by Vico and carried on
by Hamann, by Herder and by Humboldt was unknown to Hegel,
or had no influence on him. For this reason formalist logic has
continued to exist (with difficulty) until to-day.
Croce represents philosophy as a systematic account of the predi-
cate of the individual judgment whose subject is the subject-matter
of history. He posits the compound equation, " Philosophy =
thought = history = perception of reality" (494). "The formula
that we oppose to. Hegel 's formula of the identity of philosophy and
history of philosophy, is that of the identity of philosophy and his-
tory" (487). Without doubt, an idealist; he is also a realist and is
not incapable of discovering elements of truth in materialism and
the economic view of history. "All philosophical systems (includ-
ing materialism and skepticism) have, whether they admit it or not,
displayed or implied the same principle, which is the pure concept,
and every philosophy is idealism" (483). "Every philosophy, to
172 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
whatever results it may attain, and whatever be its errors, is in its
essential character and deepest tendency, idealism" (266) . Absolute
skepticism does not exist: it is in fact self -contradictory : and what
does exist as the basis of science and philosophy is the concept. But
Croce's idealism is not that of Plato or the modern transcendental-
ists : the reality he celebrates is rather that of perception, of the in-
dividual judgment: and his philosophy is not theistic in any medi-
eval or transcendental sense. And yet, he is also an idealist in the
sense of not being several other kinds of a philosopher, such as a
materialist.
Where the term idealist is used as a synonym of philosophy, or
as a synonym of thought, it is desirable to distinguish types of ideal-
ism wherever we wish to distinguish types of philosophy. But to
place his system on a shelf with others of its kind is difficult: a
product of Italian culture and an exposition of a great Italian tradi-
tion, it does not readily fall into the schemes of classification by
which we usually pigeonhole philosophies. The Logic contains many
pages that might be transcribed into pragmatist writings, but his
insistence on the non-practical character of the pure concept would
not be consistent with such a description of his system. A human-
ist viewing the world from the standpoint of man, his doctrine of
the concept would no doubt be repudiated by Dr. Schiller. The
world is for Croce just as various as any reflecting mind finds it to
be : he is not a monist : and yet, one is sure the term pluralist does
not adequately characterize him. Above all, he expounds a doctrine
of the pure concept, but the formal and abstract definition of the
pure concept by Kant does not in the least portray the vivid, pul-
sating thing that Croce has in mind.
In a way the name of Heraclitus is suggested by the argument
unfolded in these pages, but it is Heraclitus with the Heraclitean
Logos, and Heraclitus in a most modern dress. Croce aspires to
write a "dynamic" rather than a "static" philosophy, a method-
ology rather than a metaphysic : he makes no attempt either to solve
all problems or to furnish the basis upon which such solutions might
be attained: he offers a vindication of the seriousness of logical
thought, a vindication that would restore to philosophy its own
riches, "the whole of history, both that known as history and that
known as the history of nature." The practical convenience and
indispensableness of the sciences are emphasized, but he views the
sciences one and all as historic phenomena. No hypothesis can prop-
erly be called philosophical that is not thinkable as a pure concept
or idea. Philosophy (not logic alone) is the doctrine of the cate-
gories: Logic is "a Category of the categories, a Philosophy of phi-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 173
losophy. " ' ' The pure a priori synthesis, which is the reality of the
individual judgment and of the definition, is also the reality of
philosophy and of history" (324). Croce is an idealist of the Latin
type, with his eyes focused, not on transcendental abstractions, but
on life in its utter richness and inexhaustible variety. So far as the
pure concept is concerned, he is also a realist ; and he criticizes Kant
for his intellectualism.
So far as the truths of science, industry, commerce and morality
are concerned, the doctrine of Croce 's Logic is in a way pragmatic
and experimental; and the pure concept is the concept of these
truths. The special task of empirical science is classification, and
this is always dominated by practical motives. By resorting to con-
vention, empirical science gives to representations of the singular
the value of the concept. 2 In the mathematics, again by convention,
the value of the single is given to abstract concepts. "Thus it
(mathematics) divides spatiality into dimensions, individuality into
numbers, movement into motion and rest, and so on. It also creates
fictitious beings, which are neither representations nor concepts, but
rather concepts treated as representation. It is a devastation, a
mutilation, a scourge, penetrating into the theoretical world, in
which it has no part, being altogether innocuous, because it affirms
nothing of reality and acts as a simple practical artifice. The gen-
eral purpose of this artifice is known; it is to aid memory. . . .
They serve to supply the abstract concepts, which make possible the
judgment of enumeration," and the latter is a false a priori
synthesis.
Mathematics is sometimes represented as the appendix magna
to the natural sciences ; but the two together constitute an appendix
magna or an index locupletissimus to history, "which is full knowl-
edge of the real." History is the foundation of natural sciences,
and the scientific treatment of history does not possess theoretic
value. The whole content of truth of the natural sciences is his-
tory (351).
A syllabus of this theory of knowledge is as follows : ' ' There are
two pure theoretic forms, the intuition and the concept, the second
of which is subdivided into judgment of definition and individual
judgment, and there are two modes of practical elaboration of knowl-
edge, or of formation of pseudo-concepts, the empirical concept and
the abstract concept, from which are derived the two subforms of
2 ' ' That constancy and uniformity, which is postulated and falsely believed
to be objective reality, is the same practical necessity which leads to the neglect
of differences and to the looking upon the different as uniform, the changeable
as constant. . . . Natura non facit saltus means: mens non facit saltus in
natures cognitione, or, better still, memoriae usus saltus natures cohibet" (338 ff.).
174 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
judgment of classification and of judgment of enumeration" (247).
The elaboration of this syllabus, the first part of the book, is full
of meaning. Intuition (or sensation) is a cognitive act, an unre-
flective synthesis of representation and expression. The usual des-
ignation of sensation is either "representation" or "intuition."
The concept is neither a representation, nor a mixture nor a refine-
ment of sensations; but it arises out of sensations as something im-
plicit that must become explicit.
But concepts are of two kinds, either pure theoretic forms or
"practical" elaborations; and this difference is indicated by the
terms pure concept and pseudo-concepts (or fictional concepts).
The last expression, I take it, is used in its etymological sense, mean-
ing constructed: as Croce uses it, it does not mean either false or
valueless. Pseudo-concepts are subdivided into empirical concepts
(such as tree, oxygen), and abstract concepts (such as law, circle,
free motion) ; but pure concepts are of one kind, such as good, true,
useful, and beautiful. Croce refuses to make a list of pure concepts ;
but they are all ultra-representative and omni-representative, while
pseudo-concepts are neither. That is to say, all pure concepts are
present in each and every object of reflection, and pure concepts
represent far more than any or all actual objects; while pseudo-
concepts are present only in such objects as, for practical purposes,
they are allowed to represent. Pseudo-concepts presuppose pure
concepts: they are the work of the practical spirit: they are "prac-
tically, ' ' not theoretically, rational : and their purpose is mnemonic,
convenient, or useful. They are not related to pure concepts by
identity or contrariety : they are related to pure concepts merely by
diversity.
Pure concepts, on the other hand, are expressible: they can be
expounded: they are not mute acts of the spirit, such as practical
acts are. They are both universal and concrete, concrete universal-
ity being their most important characteristic. The pure concept
transcends the single representation, but it is immanent in all rep-
resentations. Pseudo-concepts are either concrete, as in the case of
the empirical variety, or universal, as in the case of the abstract
variety : they never possess both characters at once. Croce is a real-
ist, so far as pure concepts are concerned, and a nominalist so far
as pseudo-concepts are concerned. The Platonic ideas were really
pseudo-concepts. Intellect and reason differ as pseudo-concepts and
pure concepts, truth being a function of reason, not of intellect. But
reason is wrongly represented as a unifying faculty joining the
theoretical and practical. The latter do not need joining: they are
simply different functions of the spirit.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 175
' ' The multiplicity of concepts can be referred only to the variety
of the objects which are thought in the logical form of the concept,"
but Croce recognizes that you can not jettison distinction without
rendering the concept unreal. "A unity is thinkable only in so far
as it has distinctions within itself and is the unity of the distinc-
tions;" and at this point Croce 's doctrine gives rise to a serious
question. If it is not pluralistic, neither is it monistic : the question
is, Is there such a thing as mono-pluralism? Our philosopher's
answer would doubtless be that numerical concepts are utterly in-
adequate to express the relation concerned. ''The distinctions of
the concept are not the negation of the concept, nor something out-
side the concept, but the concept itself understood in its truth. . . .
Unity and distinction are correlative and inseparable" (77). "The
Beautiful, the True, the Useful, the Good are not the first steps in
a numerical series, nor do they permit themselves to be arranged at
pleasure, so that we may place the beautiful after the true, or the
good before the useful, or the useful before the true, and so on."
They mutually imply one another and, hence, are not to be described
as finite in number, because number is altogether incapable of ex-
pressing such a relation. Pancalism and panpracticism are alike
impossible, from this point of view.
In the spectacle of life, the fact that comes after is certainly dif-
ferent from that which precedes, but is also the same. "This is
called history- and therefore the relation of the concepts . . . can
be called ideal history; and the logical theory of such ideal history
has been regarded as the theory of the degrees of the concept, just
as real history is conceived as a series of degrees of civilization."
One degree of the concept is never found without the others in the
smallest fragment of reality. The practical man does not exist be-
side the theoretical, the poet beside the philosopher : the work of art
never stands separate from the labor of reflection. "The abstract
distinction is unreal ; and that of the concept is real ; and the real-
ity of the distinction ... is precisely ideality, not abstraction."
"In every fact there are all the determinations of the concept."
Distinct concepts can be taken abstractly; but they then become
pseudo-concepts, and the character belongs to the latter, not to the
distinct concepts as such, which are always distinct and united. The
symbol of the concept is not the bracket imposing unity upon terms
that would otherwise be different, but the circle in which each point
is both a beginning and an end ; only spirit is the final end of spirit.
Opposite concepts ought not to be confused with distinct con-
cepts, although they sometimes are. The practical and the non-
practical are not distincts; they are not species of the practical; a
176 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
species can never be the negation of its genus. When opposite con-
cepts as a class are distinguished from distinct concepts, they them-
selves become distincts; but if you treat any two opposite concepts
as distincts, they vanish into each other. The Hegelian dialectic is
simply this false and falsifying treatment of logically opposite con-
cepts as distinct concepts. "He who meditates on the connections of
affirmation-negation and unity-distinction has before him the prob-
lem of the nature of thought, and so of the nature of reality: and
he ends by seeing that the two connections are not parallel nor dis-
parate, but are in their turn unified in unity-distinction understood
as effective reality, and not as simple abstract possibility, or desire,
or mere ought to be" (99).
"The dialectic belongs to opposed categories (or, rather, it is the
thinking of the one category of opposition), not at all to representa-
tive and abstract fictions, which are based either upon mere repre-
sentation or nothing. As the result of that arbitrary form, we have
seen vegetable opposed to mineral, society opposed to the family, or
even Rome opposed to Greece, and Napoleon to Rome ; or the super-
ficies actually opposed to the line, time to space, and the number one
to the number two" (102). This is an example of the error which
Croce names philosophism. ' ' Considered as real, the opposite can
not be anything but the distinct; but the opposite is precisely the
unreal in the real, and not a form or grade of reality" (103). The
law of thought is not, A is A, which leads to a motionless and empty
concept of being, nor, A is not-A, which destroys the criterion of
distinction and is the false application of the dialectic principle ; but,
A is A, and, A is not-B, the principle of identity and contradiction.
However, it is a very improper formula, a very equivocal one, says
Croce, "because it allows it to be supposed that the law or principle
is outside of, or above, thought, like a bridle and guide, whereas it-
is thought itself ; and it has the further inconvenience of not placing
in clear relief the unity of identity and distinction." All formula,
all words, are exposed to misunderstandings. The application of
opposition to the forms of the spirit would produce, not a circle,
which is true infinity, but a progressus ad infinitum, which is false
or bad infinity. The form of law given to the concept of the con-
cept has led 1 to this confusion ; for it is an improper form, all satu-
rated with empirical usage. The peculiar nature of the concept is
more nearly expressed in the principle of sufficient reason; "but
what else does seeking the sufficient reason of things mean but think-
ing them in their truth, conceiving them in their universality, and
stating their concept." "The concept has the character of spiritual-
ity and not of mechanism, because reality is spiritual and not me-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 177
chanical" (48). "The concept gives the essence of things, and in
the concept essence involves existence" (116). That this proposi-
tion has been contested is due to a confusion between the essence
that is existence, and therefore concept, and the existence that is not
essence and therefore is representation. "If the concept of virtue
is conceivable, virtue is; if the concept of God be conceivable, God
is. To the most perfect concept the perfection of existence can not
be wanting without being itself non-existent" (117).
Croce 's interest in the reality behind the forms of language leads
to the position that definition and syllogism are the same. "The
connection of the concepts represents nothing new in relation to the
thinking of the concept" (121). The middle term and the ergo are
important only in so far as they express "the synthetic force of
thought." The number three symbolizes the thinking of the singu-
lar concept in the universal through the particular, or the determin-
ing of the universal through the particular by making it a singular
concept, whence it is certain that the relation of these three deter-
minations is not numerical. It is a false abstraction to separate the
reasons for truth from truth itself; except in the case of pseudo-
concepts whose definitions are commands and not properly reasoned
truths at all. Of pseudo-concepts infinite demonstrations are pos-
sible precisely because none are possible, because the definitions
themselves are infinite. Any offer of demonstration in such cases
is pro forma. Practical convenience, not logical cogency, deter-
mines such proofs, and the proof is usually a pretense. ' ' The prac-
tical work of persuasion, proper to the commercial traveller, . . .
and the merchant or manufacturer, . . . are not pertinent to Phi-
losophy" (147).
The individual judgment has as its base a concept or definition,
but it contains also a representative or individual element, which is
transformed into logical fact, but does not lose individuality on that
account. In the definitive judgment, the distinction between sub-
ject and predicate is purely grammatical or verbal: in the individ-
ual judgment, subject and predicate are different and distinct, the
former being presentation and the latter conception. The analytic
and synthetic judgments are nothing but the definitive and the indi-
vidual judgments, respectively. "Intellectual intuition" is nothing
but individual judgment, and a much more familiar name for indi-
vidual judgment is perception, or perceptive judgment. "To per-
ceive means to apprehend a given fact as having this or that nature :
and so to think or judge it" (155). In perception or individual
judgment, ' ' the ultimate and most perfect form of cognitive facts, ' '
the circle of knowledge is completed. "The individual judgment,
178 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
or perception, is fully adequate to reality" (158). The error of
treating it as the first form of knowledge leads to empiricism and
rationalism, sensationalism and intellectualism, which are pseudo-
concepts and give rise to pseudo-judgments. In the distinction be-
tween individual judgments and individual pseudo-judgments, be-
tween perceptions and pseudo-perceptions, Croce sees "perhaps the
most profound" of all motives for the division of judgments into
judgments of fact and judgments of value. Existentiality is a predi-
cate in the individual judgment, but not in the definitive; but the
predicate of existence does not suffice to constitute a categorical
judgment.
The argument of the text goes on to distinguish between individ-
ual pseudo- judgments of the empirical and the abstract varieties,
and empirical judgments are spoken of as judgments of classifica-
tion. Sometimes we hastily form empirical judgments that take the
place of pure individual judgments, whence arise certain controver-
sies about the truth of perception, such as the straight stick bent in
the pool, and the thing in itself. Abstract pseudo-concepts presup-
pose pure concepts, but not pure individual judgments: i. e., it is
not necessary to know individual things in order to form concepts
of numerical series or geometrical figures : no representative element
enters into them or is involved in their formation. The application
of these abstract concepts is made possible by classification, which
thus makes enumeration and measurement possible. Space and time
in the mathematical sense are "thoughts of abstractions," not to be
confounded with real thoughts or with genuine thoughts of reality.
The Kantian conception of the ideality of time and space "is among
the greatest discoveries of history and should be accepted by every
philosophy worthy of the name" (197). However, the character of
mathematical space and time is not ideality, but unreality, or ab-
stract ideality. Empirical and abstract concepts can not be reduced
to the pure concept. The book advocates the economic theory of the
empirical and abstract sciences, thus excluding them from the sphere
of logical thought, although their existence presupposes logical
thought.
For the sake of the light it throws on Croce 's method, permit me
to add to this lengthy exposition of his Logic what we take to be the
second most important feature of it, namely, his doctrine of error,
again omitting for the present all comment. Error is usually defined
negatively as a lack of consistency, a lack of conformity of thought
to its object, the absence of convenience, and so forth. The negative
or opposite of thought is thus error, while thought itself is truth.
The mistake of conceiving error as the opposite of truth would be
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 179
evident if such definitions were maintained with thoroughgoing
rigor ; for it would then appear that as a form of spiritual activity,
error does not exist.
On the other hand, we all know errors that are distinguishable
from truth and thus exist for themselves. Croce holds that such
error consists in the substitution of a practical act of the spirit for
a theoretical act. One who commits error passes "from thought to
deed-, and his doing, in fact his thinking, is to open his mouth and
emit sounds to which there corresponds no thought, or, what is the
same thing, no thought which has value, precision, coherence and
truth" (394). The practical act is rational enough (practically) :
it often obtains the material end, the applause, or whatever, at which
it is aimed. It is often successful, far-sighted, and therefore ra-
tional; but it is not morally good. ''Morality demands that man
should think the true. Producers of error evade, or rather, do not
elevate themselves to that duty." Error is thus an improper com-
bination of ideas, as Vico said, and it is feasible to determine the
number of types of improper combinations that the forms of cog-
nitive activity admit.
Representation precedes the pure concept, while empirical and
abstract pseudo-concepts follow it as their conditioning antecedent.
Either representation or one of the pseudo-concepts may be taken
for the pure concept, giving rise to either estheticism, empiricism
or mathematicism. Again, the a priori synthesis of concept and
representation in the individual judgment may be violently sundered
and either element substituted for the whole, giving us as two
further types of error philosophism and historicism (or mytholo-
gism), of which Hegel and Comte can, I suppose, be taken as illus-
trations. When attempts are made to preserve both the true form
and the insufficient form or forms, the result is dualism, skepticism
(or agnosticism}, and finally mysticism. A new list of idols is added
by the text, consisting of the tendencies of individuals and nations
to carry over into philosophy their habitual thoughts and senti-
ments: these are named professionalism and nationalism.
This work further contains ingenious and suggestive sections on
the phenomenology of error, and a historical sketch of the develop-
ment of logical doctrine in general and of the doctrine of the logical
a priori synthesis in particular. "We have found them both, and
the book as a whole, refreshing and scholarly. It is impossible for
one who does not read Italian fluently to know to what extent the
style of the book is due to the translator ; but a poetic delicacy in the
choice of words, in the structure of sentences and in the arrange-
ment of materials does distinguish it, giving to a profound and
180 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
learned discussion the dignity and grace of great statuary and archi-
tecture. Croce is one of the most educated minds of the present
time. He is so saturated with civilized life indeed, his thought
fairly drips with it that no logic that is not real interests him.
One lays the book down feeling as if he had been wandering in a
diving-bell through the veins and arteries of humanity with the
warm currents of its life pressing him on every side. One gathers
from the text that the author is himself a sculptor, a traveller, a
lover of poetry and painting, perhaps himself a poet, a sympathetic
student of religions, and with it all, a man of the world. His humor
is subtle and whole-hearted. He knows his own mind and speaks
his thought right out, like one who both enjoys and trusts his pen.
He has written a wonderful book, and it has been elegantly trans-
lated and printed.
G. A. TAWNET.
UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI.
EXPERIMENTAL DETERMINISM AND HUMAN CONDUCT
IS a reasonable theory of human conduct possible on the basis of
experimental determinism? Are conscience, responsibility,
praise, blame, reward, punishment, compatible with complete deter-
minism? What is the relation of experimental determinism to
freedom ?
The misgiving revealed in these questions I find to be the chief
ground for hesitation in the complete acceptance of experimental
determinism, even by men engaged in experiment; it is doubtless
felt by all men who on other grounds would naturally assent to ex-
perimental determinism. 1 Does its acceptance involve a contradic-
tion between one's theory and the necessary practise of daily life?
If so, the theory is doubtless wrong.
What are the fundamental things that experimental determinism
implies and what does it not imply ? The writer has tried to answer
these questions elsewhere; 2 here merely certain main points will be
recapitulated.
Determinism holds that whenever there is a diversity between
two events, this is preceded by other diversities so related to the later
ones that if the preceding diversities are lacking, the later diversi-
ties do not occur. Experimental determinism holds that a given per-
ceptual diversity between two events is always accompanied and pre-
i This difficulty has recently been strongly put by my colleague, S. O. Mast
(Science, December 13, 1918).
a "Mechanism and Vitalism," Philosophical Eeview, November, 1918.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 181
ceded by other diversities that are likewise perceptual, in the sense
that they are manifested, not alone through the given perceptual
result, but are subject to other perceptual tests for their occurrence ;
and are so related to the later diversities that if the earlier diversity
is removed (experiment), the later one disappears.
Experimental determinism does not coincide with mechanism in
the narrower sense, which is only one form of experimental deter-
minism; a form that appears not admissible for all biological phe-
nomena. Experimental determinism does not demand that the re-
sult of a given diversity should be computable or predictable before
the result has occurred. It admits the possibility of the continual
appearance of things that have never occurred before, and could not
have been predicted from a knowledge of what had occurred before ;
all it demands is that diversities in the things so appearing shall be
preceded by other perceptual diversities that experimentally deter-
mine them. Experimental determinism does not imply that con-
scious states have no (experimental) effect on action; does not im-
ply that the mental is isolated from other perceptual activities ; does
not imply that " everything would have happened in just the same
way without consciousness." It holds that diversities of human
actions are determined by just what critical observation and experi-
mentation find them to be; by diversities in character, education,
reasoning, feelings, principles, appetites, as well as by diversities in
the sense organs, muscles, nerves and in the present outward situa-
tion. It holds also that diversities in all these things are accom-
panied and preceded by other perceptual diversities that experi-
mentally determine them.
Is a reasonable theory of human conduct possible on this basis?
What is the alternative? Is a reasonable theory of human con-
duct possible on the basis that action is not determined in any way?
Can we reconcile conscience, responsibility, praise, blame, reward,
punishment with the notion that what a man does is not the expres-
sion of what he is, not the result of his character, nor of his princi-
ples, nor of his reasoning, nor of any process occurring within him,
nor of the situation in which he finds himself, but is independent of
all those things and of everything else ? Can a man be held respon-
sible for an occurrence that is independent of all that he is? Can
we reasonably praise him or blame him, reward him or punish him
for actions that do not depend on his character, his will, his wishes,
his intellect; the situation in which he finds himself?
To some minds the asking of these questions appears equivalent
to answering them. Action that has no dependence on a man's
character, principles, knowledge, reasoning or situation, would ap-
182 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
pear to be precisely the height of irresponsibility. If crime is not
determined in any way, then whatever my character, I am as likely
to commit a crime as the most hardened criminal. A man can not
reasonably be commended, blamed or held responsible for occur-
rences that have no connection with what he is. If my actions are
not determined by my thought, why take thought. This, not experi-
mental determinism, is the doctrine that leads straight to fatalism.
On the opposing view, one of the determining factors in a man's
conduct is precisely his conscience, his sense of responsibility ; with-
out it he would act otherwise. Praise and blame, reward and pun-
ishment, are justified because they control conduct (not because con-
duct is independent of them ! ) . The death penalty controls the con-
duct of other members of the stock; or is a measure of safety for
the other members, like the putting out of a fire. Those responsible
for the Great War are so because it is the outgrowth of their prin-
ciples or lack of principles, of their characters and theory of life;
not because it produced itself independently of them. To take
thought is justified because thought determines action.
All the necessary phenomena and practises in the daily conduct
of human life find their place in the scheme of experimental deter-
minism; each plays its part. But if actions are not determined in
any way, conscience, reasoning, reward and punishment are with-
out function.
What is the relation of this to freedom? The just basis for the
concept of freedom is that a man is not controlled exclusively by
forces external to himself, nor by chance, but that what he does, and
what happens in the world outside of him, depend upon Mm; upon
his character, his knowledge, his desires, his thought. Two men un-
der the same outward conditions will act diversely, depending upon
their diversity in th^se internal differentiations; the character and
thought of each determine what shall occur. Is a man free if he
acts in a way that has no connection with his experience, wishes,
character, thought or situation? Not irresponsibility, chance or in-
determinism, but holding within one 's self the determinants of action
is what constitutes freedom.
But it is when one takes the long view, when he looks at the
continuity of determining and of occurrence from before his own
coming into action until after it, that he seems not to be free. For
it appears that all now occurring was determined by earlier condi-
tions ; hence, does it not seem that it is now not 7 that am acting, but
those pre-existing conditions; does it not appear that / am quite
impotent? How can I feel responsible or make efforts or take
thought for what I shall do, since that was determined long ago ?
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 183
We seem to meet the same difficulty met when we held that action
is free in the sense of undetermined. There we said: Why take
thought if thought does not determine action ? Here we are inclined
to say: Why take thought if the action was determined 'before the
thought occurs?
At the worst the position of experimental determinism shares this
difficulty with the theory of indeterminism ; as well as with any
metaphysical deterministic theory, such as that which holds that
action is 'determined by entelechy or God or providence ; so that we
are left to choose our theory on other considerations than this.
But I am disposed to question whether the difficulty exists for experi-
mental determinism; it appears to result from a wrong notion of
what such determinism implies. The notion that seems to make my
own individuality count for nothing in action, is that the action was
already worked out, ''scheduled," computable, in some sense existent,
before it occurred; before I existed. But experimental determinism
does not imply this; it implies only that if! what now occurs were
different, the earlier conditions would have been different; though
what now occurs need not be predictable from nor existent in those
earlier conditions; it is determinism in a backward view, not nec-
essarily in a forward one. Combinations in me may be such as have
not occurred before, giving results not to be known till they appear,
so that my action has all the interest of the unknown, the novel ; my
individuality is precisely what makes this particular result possible,
so that I am indeed creative. I could not possibly hold this if what I
am does not determine my action; nor could I hold it if I conceive
that my action is but a coming into view of a preexistent entelechy.
Experimental determinism presents the just basis for formulable
science, for rational conduct of life, and for creative evolution.
H. S. JENNINGS.
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.
DR. DAWES HICKS ON REALITY AND ITS APPEARANCES
DR. HICKS 'S general theory of the nature of physical objects is
markedly realistic, if we take this term to mean predominantly
non-sub jectivist appearances "evince themselves as ways in which
the reality itself is apprehended as partial, imperfect, incomplete
ways in which the reality is known;" in no sense are they "inde-
pendent of, and separate from, the reality of which they are appear-
ances." 1 Further, they "are not objects, but ways in which objects
i Appearance and Eeal Existence (Proc. : Aristotelian Soc. : 1913-14, pp.
33-36). In connection with this article should be read its predecessor (Sense-
Presentation and Thought, 1906).
184 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
are apprehended. It is of things that we are immediately aware,
while presentations as such are not immediately known ; ' ' and ' ' not
to produce [sense-qualities] but to become aware of them ; is the func-
tion of conscious process " (p. 45).
1. Merely in order to elucidate the position on which such criti-
cism as I have to offer is based I venture to express my complete
agreement thus far with Dr. Hick's view: Appearance, briefly, is
always partial reality, 2 and never otherwise unreal; "there is no
ground for regarding the appearance as a third existent, ' ' additional
to the real thing and the knowing mind (p. 46). At the same time,
it appears to me that the complete development of Dr. Hicks 's
theory is such that we are in the end (a) debarred from ever know-
ing reality itself (as he holds that we do) 3 and (&) as an inevitable
consequence of this incapacity, we are also unable to set up any dis-
tinction whatever between reality and appearance we can not, i. e.,
know appearances to be such, because we can possess no real criterion
wherewith to determine their character.
A possible ambiguity appears to lie however in the phrases "way
in which reality is known," "ways in which objects are appre-
hended;" for the word "way" here in itself might refer either to
the process of our knowing or to the content known; it might mean
either the way in which we know, or on the other hand, the mode in
which reality manifests itself its significance, i. e., may be either
epistemological or ontological. But of these possible meanings, the
first must be excluded the reference is throughout ontological to
reality and its mode of manifestation. For it seems to be funda-
mental that if we know at all, we know reality, and never anything
other; 4 the only question being just how much of reality we know
in each particular case the answer depending on the degree in which
the conditions necessary are fulfilled.
But here a crucial difficulty appears to arise, when Dr. Hicks
continues (p. 39) : The physical object "is distinguished from other
objects, and its characteristics are discriminated, but always imper-
fectly, and in fragmentary fashion . . . the object is apprehended
only incompletely ; ' ' and the difficulty arises from the word ' ' always ' '
here, for I would submit, if the object is thus discriminated, dis-
tinguished, apprehended, always imperfectly and incompletely, then
it must be impossible for us ever to know physical reality as such in
2 1 think further that error consists in regarding any entity as Eeal, when
it is only Appearance, thus understood: I believe this view agrees with Dr.
Bosanquet's treatment in Logic, Vol. 1, p. 383.
s "It is of things that we are immediately aware" (p. 36).
* This principle of course settles nothing as to the nature of reality or of
knowledge both questions remain quite open.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 185
any way ; and that being so, also impossible for us to know appear-
ance as being appearance, to know that the apprehended content is
imperfect and incomplete. For Dr. Hicks 's article concludes with
a reference to "the conditions which space imposes even where ap-
prehension has attained its highest degree of accuracy" (p. 48) ; this
"highest degree," however, always falling short of the completeness
of reality itself.
There can be no question of course as to the imperfection of
what is apprehended in by far the vast majority of instances, in
which the inevitable fragmentariness becomes supplemented by the
mind's ideal content and reference; for it is only under these con-
ditions that knowledge is at all possible for finite subjects; and in
minds of a low order e. g., in animals this incompleteness need
never be transcended; only in that case the distinction between
reality and appearance never arises, and appearances as such are
not distinguished at all; naive consciousness, again, never attains to
any philosophic i. e., reasoned distinction between these categories,
and the term "real" has there no rationalized meaning.
But when consciousness becomes reflective it seems to me that it
is impossible that any knowledge of "imperfection" should ever
arise or any judgment of "incomplete" be made unless we can
attain somehow to the immediate apprehension of perfect and com-
plete reality; for both these terms are negatively derivative, and
all negation demands some positive affirmative basis. 5 It is impos-
sible to know that anything is incomplete unless we also know the
standard compared with which it is imperfect ; as Dr. Hicks himself
points out, "it is precisely in this contrast between the imperfect,
the partial, and the perfect, the complete, that the significance of
what is denoted appearance is to be discerned" (p. 39) ; but if, as he
at the same time asserts, physical objects are discriminated always
imperfectly, then the problem at once arises as to how the indis-
pensable standard of the perfect and complete physical object 6 is ever
to be obtained. If this is not given objectively, if it is not imme-
diately 7 known, then it can have only a subjective, which may even
mean in the end a solipsistic, origin; it must be supplied from and
arise in the individual mind itself. Nor even thus could the essen-
tial difficulty of Dr. Hicks 's position be overcome ; for even were it
admitted that the required criterial idea could be formed wholly by
s "Negation qua negation has no significance" (Bosanquet, Logic, Vol. I.,
p. 282).
e It must be noted that the problem is here restricted to the knowledge of
real physical objects; for if the question becomes widened to that of Reality as
a whole, then of course everything is known but incompletely, and the complete-
ness of the Eeal becomes a postulate based on all our experience.
7 In Dr. Hicks 's own sense of this term.
186 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
the mind itself, still this could only be on the foundation of its
immediate objective experience; but again if this be always of the
imperfect then the development of this idea appears to be wholly
impossible.
In fact Dr. Hicks himself asserts that "in numerous eases the
apprehending act results in a gradual lessening of the incompleteness
of its apprehension" (p. 40) ; i. e., I take it, of the incompleteness of
the apprehended content. Now what prevents this lessening proceed-
ing so far, under proper conditions, that the initial imperfection van-
ishes altogether, and the completely real itself becomes known?
Indeed it would seem that unless, the proper conditions being ful-
filled, we are immediately conscious of the real qualities the real
weight, temperature, size, etc.: of physical objects, exact science
would be wholly impossible.
2. But even if we admit (a) that "the object is apprehended only
incompletely" and (&) that the "imperfect ways in which the reality
is known" constitute appearance, still another essential characteris-
tic of appearance is adduced by Dr. Hicks; for (p. 46) "In and
through the apprehending act there is awareness of certain features,
and it is this awareness of a group of its features that constitutes
that group, as the content of the act of apprehension, an appearance
as contrasted with the real existing thing. ' ' And with this criterion,
as with the other, it seems to me that the mind is once again abso-
lutely debarred from ever knowing reality at all. Hitherto the ap-
prehended content is constituted appearance because of its incom-
pleteness or imperfection; and I have suggested the possibility of
this defeetiveness vanishing, whereupon the resultant content, being
complete, would therefore be real. But in the passage last cited it is
not the incompleteness of the group of features, but our awareness
of it, that constitutes appearance; and since there must be awareness
in every apprehending act, it follows at once that every apprehended
content without exception can be no more than appearance that we
can never therefore transcend appearance and attain reality. Dr.
Hicks 's first characteristic of appearance, incompleteness of the con-
tent, might possibly be remedied ; but his second, being an essential
factor in the mind 's very activity, can never be removed.
3. Nor, further, are Dr. Hicks 's two criteria in any way con-
nected, but rather seem arbitrarily independent of each other;
whereas if reality is one, it would seem reasonable to suppose that
there must be some essential connection between all the conditions
which determine appearance. But if the incompleteness of any
content constitutes its appearance, still we can not find in that char-
acteristic anything whatever to suggest that our awareness of that
content is also an essential factor; the one is, on Dr. Hick's own
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 187
theory of reality, an objective characteristic, the other is a subjective
attribute of the apprehending mind.
Finally, Dr. Hicks 's second criterion appears really incompatible
with his previous assertions that (a) "appearances will not have a
mode of existence . . . separate from reality" (p. 33), and (&) "the
external object is in no way altered or affected through the fact of
being apprehended" (p. 46) this object of course being real. For
if now our awareness constitutes any content appearance, and if
further this awareness is "in and through the apprehending act,"
then it seems to be a perfectly logical conclusion that ultimately it
is the apprehending act that determines appearance to be such ; but
if at the same time the external real object itself remains unaltered
and unaffected, then the appearance (determined by apprehension)
and the object (unaffected thereby) can be no degree identical; and
there is thus set up a dualism between the real object and the appear-
ance ; a dualism which, again, if the appearance is but the incomplete
way in which reality is known, is unfounded; for an incomplete
entity is not, merely on that account, distinct from the complete, but
rather the contrary.
J. B. TURNER.
LIVERPOOL.
REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE
Proposiciones relatwas al Porvenir de la Filosofia. JOSE INGENIEROS.
Buenos Aires: Casa Vaccaro. 1918. Pp. 149.
This work is very interesting and instructive, and it is perhaps
the most truly philosophical work that has ever been written in
South America.
The author has already published a good many works, most of
them being on sociological subjects, and has contributed important
articles to the Revista de Filosofia, of Buenos Aires.
In this last work of his, he does not intend to give us a system
of philosophy. His aim is more modest. He simply formulates a
certain number of propositions which he believes are to be the basis
of the metaphysics of the future.
According to the author, all past attempts at metaphysics have
been a decided failure. This has been due to the fact that meta-
physicians have been insincere. A whole chapter of the work is
devoted to the so-called "hypocrisy of the philosophers." These
philosophers, frightened by the memory of Socrates, Hypatia and
Bruno, have always endeavored to harmonize their systems with
vulgar beliefs, religious as well as political. And their philosophy
188 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
has thus been hypocritical and has brought discredit upon the very
name of metaphysics. Among the philosophers thus branded by
our author, we find all those we had been taught to regard as the
leaders of human thought, Descartes and Spinoza, Locke and Hume,
Kant and Hegel.
The metaphysicians of the nineteenth century, discouraged by
the failure of their predecessors, have turned their eyes toward the
history of philosophy. They have tried to bring back to life old
systems of thought ; and here again they have gone in a wrong direc-
tion. The study of previous systems may be important to make us
understand the origin of actual beliefs; but it ought to be regarded
by the philosopher as paleontology by the naturalist. It may and
will explain dead forms of thought, but it can not contribute any
vital element to the creation of new thought.
Human knowledge must have its starting point in experience.
It is experience, and experience alone, that legitimates the different
sciences and furthers their development. Human experience, how-
ever, will always be limited. However perfect our instruments may
become, there will always exist a field which they will be unable
to reach. It is with this field, which the author calls the unexperi-
ential, that future metaphysics will be concerned. Its aim will be
to formulate hypotheses with regard to the unexperiential. Where
science is unable to reach, metaphysical hypotheses will start. And
thus there will be no chasm, no discontinuity between empirical and
metaphysical knowledge. Metaphysics will not be science, but it
will be its prolongation. And metaphysical hypotheses will be legiti-
mate in so far as they agree with the "least insecure" results af-
forded by science.
The first impression which one gets on reading Mr. Ingenieros's
book is that the author is a true philosopher; or, at any rate, that
he possesses in an eminent degree the quality which is most essen-
tial to philosophy, namely, absolute freedom of thought. This qual-
ity, even in the twentieth century, is far from being so common as
one might believe; and we know too well that in our free America
there are not many institutions which would admit a man as an
instructor in philosophy, unless he belongs to a definite religious
sect. Sometimes, however, Mr. Ingenieros seems to go too far in
the opposite direction, and to believe too readily that past thinkers
have been insincere. I will not easily be persuaded that St. Thomas
Aquinas to mention one of those that are most suspicious has not
been perfectly sincere in his system of philosophy. His beliefs on
many questions were no doubt very different from ours ; and he may
have been mistaken; but this is not the question. "Whenever he
189
derived an argument from theology, it was by no means as a con-
cession to vulgar beliefs; but because he himself sincerely believed
that theological arguments, being based upon the word of God, which
is infallible, were safer guides towards the attainment of truth than
the fallible light of human reason.
Mr. Ingenieros seems also to call into doubt the knowledge which
modern philosophers possess of the systems they defend. He tells
us that the Kantists praise their master more than they read him;
and he is not sure that anybody has ever read the "Summa" of St.
Thomas. If I am not mistaken, we sin rather in the opposite direc-
tion. We read too much and think too little. If we study, for in-
stance, the problem of free will, we are anxious to read even the
most obscure German dissertation about the question, but we are
not sure that we have a definite opinion of our own. At any rate,
I have read several times the three Critiques of Kant and the two
"Summas" of Thomas Aquinas, and I have no doubt that many of
my colleagues have done the same.
A more fundamental criticism can be made on Mr. Ingenieros 's
book. His very conception of the nature of philosophy is open to
serious objection. According to his view, the aim of philosophy is
to formulate hypotheses about the unexperiential. Philosophy thus
becomes a mere prolongation of the sciences. If our instruments
were imperfect and our scientific knowledge limited, the field of
philosophy would be very extensive. The more our scientific knowl-
edge increases, the narrower will the field of philosophy become.
And if our scientific knowledge should become so complete as to
embrace all nature in all its manifestations, philosophy would auto-
matically disappear. There is no philosophy for a Divine Mind.
This conception of philosophy seems to us too narrow. No doubt
philosophy is bound to formulate hypotheses about the unexperien-
tial ; but this is only a small part of its task. Its essential nature is
different from the nature of science. For whereas science studies
the different kinds of being, philosophy studies being in general.
What is being? What is cause? What is substance? These are
questions which are beyond the field of the scientist. The physicist
will tell us that matter is made up of atoms or of electrons but
what the nature of these ultimate parts of matter is, whether they
are material or mental, and what is matter, and what is mind, these
are the questions which the philosopher will treat. In Mr. In-
genieros 's system, philosophy ceases to be "cmcilla theologies," but
I am afraid it becomes "ancilla, scientiarum."
The task of the philosopher in formulating new hypotheses is
studied with great skill by Mr. Ingenieros, and the chapters of his
190 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
work which deal with this task of future metaphysics are very im-
portant. They are original, of course, only to a limited extent. A
good deal of emphasis has been recently laid down, especially by the
pragmatists, upon the importance of hypothesis in philosophy. And
we do not see exactly why Mr. Ingenieros, whose views on the point
are not very different from those of William James, nevertheless
mentions him among the pseudo-philosophers, and speaks of his anti-
philosophism. It is even a question whether James's theory as re-
gards hypotheses is not after all more perfect than the theory now
given by Mr. Ingenieros. James has at least a definite criterion to
determine the value of a hypothesis. The true hypothesis in his
system is the one which works. In Mr. Ingenieros 's book, on the
other hand, we are looking in vain for a mark which will stamp our
hypotheses as legitimate. He tells us that they must agree with the
least insecure results afforded by science. But, as all these hy-
potheses are about the unexperiential, it is not very easy to see how
any agreement can be found between them and what has been
experienced.
In spite of all this, Mr. Ingenieros 's book is a very important con-
tribution to philosophical literature. It is a work which compels us
to think upon the great questions which have engrossed the human
mind since the age when man began to think ; and, if I am not mis-
taken, this is the most essential character of a great philosophical
work.
JOSEPH Louis PERKIER.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
Locke's Theory of Knowledge and Its Historical Relations. JAMES
GIBSON. Cambridge University Press. 1917. Pp. 338.
If there be such a thing as a definitive commentary on an epis-
temologist, Mr. Gibson may fairly be credited with having provided
such a work on Locke. The book is such an excellent one that the
reviewer is tempted to confine his remarks to words of praise. Con-
siderations of space prevent the detailed account that the rich con-
tent of the book merits. The reviewer will therefore confine him-
self to an account of the author's main thesis.
More than once it has happened that a philosopher has been
victimized by a traditional interpretation that became established
at an early date and has thereafter prevented commentators and
historians from placing his work in its proper perspective. Mr.
Gibson evidently regards Locke as one whose thought has been ob-
scured in this way, and his book is a vigorous and eminently suc-
cessful effort to dispel the obscurity that has grown up about Locke's
epistemology.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 191
The particular tradition against which the author protests is
that which over-emphasizes what may be called the psychological
empiricism of Locke. On the negative side, the author's thesis is
that the popular tradition which finds the main purport of the
Essay in a " theory of the genesis of ideas, which, denying to the
mind both activity and the possession of any definite character of
its own, derived all the contents of knowledge from particular data
of immediate experience" (p. 1) is a mistaken construction of
Locke 's thought. There is no justification for ' ' the supposition that
he first approached philosophy from a purely empirical point of
view, and that a different and opposite direction was subsequently
given to his thought from an external source" (p. 237). On its
positive side, Mr. Gibson's position is that Locke's primary interest
was in a theory of the nature and possible extent of certainty, or
knowledge, certainty, for Locke, being equivalent to knowledge. As
summed up by the commentator, the main problem of the Essay is
an ' ' investigation of the nature and condition of a knowledge which
is at once absolutely certain, strictly universal, 'instructive' or syn-
thetical, and 'real;' the consequent determination of the possible
extent of such knowledge, and the examination of its distinction
from and relation to other forms of cognition, which are deficient
in some of the respects enumerated" (p. 7).
The question of the genesis of ideas is strictly subordinate to
the main business of the Essay. But the question of the genesis of
ideas may assume several forms. It may "represent an attempt to
ascertain the primitive form of our cognitive consciousness;" or it
"may signify an attempt to show the dependence of some or all
of our ideas upon causes which are not themselves ideas" (p. 46).
Each of these inquiries has a place in Locke's thought, but Mr.
Gibson thinks that in reality the "whole historical aspect of experi-
ence possessed little significance and no intrinsic interest" to the
men of Locke's time and to Locke. "The truth is that the whole
inquiry into the origin of - our ideas, and the manner of formation
of those which are complex, is in Locke's mind inextricably con-
nected with the logical determination of their content" (ibid.).
The place occupied by psychological questions in the investiga-
tions of the Essay is, accordingly, subordinate to another interest.
Locke's method is "far from being that of introspection" (p. 22).
But what is the source of the traditional confusion of the histories
and commentaries which over-emphasizes the psychological genetic
account of ideas? The answer is, in Locke's own confusion. Here
a further question arises: How did this confusion in Locke's inves-
tigation come about?
192 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
The answer lies in the combined influence of the traditional
metaphysics which Locke never rejected, with its categories of sub-
stance and quality (p. -28), and in his use of the "composition
theory." Gibson remarks that for thinkers of the period of the
Essay the whole temporal process was conceived as containing noth-
ing but different combinations of the same simples. The complex
was taken to be a whole composed of its constituent parts, the
simple parts being unchangeable, and the whole being resolvable
into the parts without remainder (p. 47). Now bearing in mind
that Locke's course of investigation was, in its first intention, a
process of logical analysis and the discovery of the logical simples,
and also considering that the temporal process was looked upon as
a matter of combination and dissociation, we can see how easily
the logical simples came to be identified with the unchangeable ele-
ments which were grouped and re-grouped in every case of change.
The psychological genetic account of ideas accordingly got thrown
into terms of the combination of the simple parts into the complex
whole, and the logical analytic process is the reverse of the genetic
process. Mr. Gibson's point seems to be that it is not primarily
true that the logical analysis led to the psychological genetic analy-
sis, as that the composition theory made the two methods seem to
be one and the same. Perhaps the reviewer may venture to state
the point in his own language by saying that the case with Locke
was not so much one of falling into psychologizing, as one of never
making a distinction between the two methods of approach.
The "New Way of Ideas" is therefore both a logical and a psy-
chological way. The resultant difficulties center in the meaning of
the term "idea." Locke's principal interest is in the "objective
reality" of the idea, not in its subjective "psychical" existence.
But it possesses both meanings; it is at once "the apprehension of
a content and the content experienced; it is both a psychical exist-
ent and a logical meaning" (p. 19). Ideas are objects of thought,
and this implies for Locke relation to and dependence on a mind
or subject. While he "assumes throughout a realm of real being,
independent of the cognitive process, but to which our knowledge
ultimately refers, the constituents of this real are not 'objects' in
his sense of the term" (p. 20). The psychical character possessed
by the idea seems to be the result of Locke's acceptance of the doc-
trine of substances and qualities. The soul remains a substance to
Locke; in fact, "substance" as category he held to be perfectly
valid. The trouble was not with the category, but in the limitations
of our knowledge. Thus concerning the soul we are ignorant "of
the manner of its existence, and the way in which it performs the
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 193
functions revealed in experience" (p. 28). Locke's "assumption
of the current metaphysics" continually obstructs the course of his
thinking. "For, just as the composition theory, in the form in which
it was put forward by him, sought to resolve the contents of our
ideas into a number of separate and self-identical units of experi-
ence, so the metaphysics, which he inherited, held that reality con-
sists of a number of separate and self-identical substances, or units
of being" (p. 92).
The reviewer has chosen to state the author's general thesis at
some length rather than to summarize the details of his treatment
of various topics, for the author's handling of the separate prob-
lems depends on this thesis, and forms, indeed, its vindication. It
may be pointed out, however, that in Chapter 7, which is entitled
"The Kinds and Limits of Knowledge," we find the disentangling
of the various unresolved difficulties in Locke 's theory of knowledge,
and their connection with the different elements of Locke's thought
stated above.
Part II. of the book is devoted to the historical relations of
Locke's doctrine. Considering its compass, it forms the best dis-
cussion of the relations that we possess. Successive chapters deal
with the relations between Locke and Scholasticism (chap. 8), Des-
cartes (chap. 9), Contemporary English Philosophy (chap. 10),
Leibniz (chaps. 11 and 12), and Kant (chap. 13).
As a final word, it may be said that Mr. Gibson has rendered an
important service by writing this book, and his work should serve
as a corrective to the unjust treatment that Locke receives in so
many of our histories of philosophy.
ALBERT G. A. BALZ.
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. October, 1918.
The Influence of Mental Work on tine Visual Memory Image (pp.
355-370) : ANNA BERLINGER. - The usual daily work and a controlled
amount of work in each instance shortened the duration and reduced
the number of the images. The Theory of Recapitulation and the
Religious and Moral Discipline of Children (pp. 371-382) : WESLEY
RAYMOND WELLS. - Children must be taught morality with an au-
thoritative religion. Taboo and fears in religion are excellent con-
trolling forces. The Biological Value of Religious Belief (pp. 383-
392) : W. R. WELLS. - Religious beliefs have been of value through
their hygienic and moral influence. Intellectualism versus Intuition-
alism in French Philosophy Since the War (pp. 393-399) : ALBERT
194 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
SCHESTZ. - "When clear thinking and keenness of intellect return to
France she will again be restored in the philosophic world. The Dis-
crimination of Cutaneous Patterns below the Two Point Limen (pp.
400-419) : CORA L. FRIEDLINE. - Sub-liminal discrimination of two
points, due to the recognition of a pattern, is modified by fatigue,
practise, etc., because of a change in the object of the judgment.
The Localization of Feeling (pp. 420-430) : P. T. YOUNG. - Pleas-
antness and unpleasantness can not be located. The stimulus caus-
ing them can, and is often called a part of the feeling. Aristotle's
Other Logic (pp. 431^34) : HENRY BRADFORD SMITH. -For every
member of the A. E. I. 0. set of propositions there is another mem-
ber of the set which stands for the contradictory. Sixteen Origins
of the Mind (pp. 435-441) : J. F. DASHIELL. - The various sources
of the concepts of the ''mental" are found in psychology, physiology,
philosophy, theology, and anthropology. Minor Studies from the
Psychological Laboratory of Cornell University. A Preliminary
Study of the Psychology of Heat (pp. 442^48) : F. CUTOLO, JR.-
Heat as distinguished from warmth probably carries with it the ele-
ment of pain. The Mental Duet (pp. 449-450) : ARTHUR S. PHELPS.
-Man does mental work by reasoning, while woman bases her men-
tal work on feeling, both reach toward Truth. Book Reviews (pp.
451^457) : Marthe Borelly, Le Genie feminin franqais. Paul Bour-
get, Le Sens de la mort. Alfred Loisy, Mors et Vita. Rene Ben-
jamin, Gaspard. Charles Maurras, L'Avenir de I'Intelligence.
Emile Paul, Les Diverses Families Spirituelles de la France.
Paul Lintier, Ma Piece and Le Tube 1233. Book Notes. William
Ernest Hocking, Human Nature and its Remaking. Edward
Gleason Spaulding, The New Rationalism; the development of a
constructive realism upon the basis of modern logic and science,
and through the criticism of opposed philosophical systems. Maxi-
milian P. E. Groszmann, The Exceptional Child. William H. Allen,
Universal Training for Citizenship and Public Service. Walter
Scott Athearn, Religious Education and American Democracy.
John J. Toohey, An Elementary Handbook of Logic. Edited by the
Department of Philosophy of Columbia University, Studies in the
History of Ideas. Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical
Research: June, 1918. Leo Tolstoi, What men live by, and other
tales. American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Laski, Harold J. Authority in the Modern State. New Haven : Yale
University Press. 1919. $3.00.
Russell, Bertrand. Proposed Roads to Freedom : Socialism, Anarch-
ism, and Syndicalism. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1919.
$1.50.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 195
NOTES AND NEWS
THE following sketch of the career of Gaston Milhaud who died
recently is from the Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale for Jan-
uary-February, 1919 :
' ' Student at the Ecole normale in the division of science and fel-
low in mathematics at his graduation from the Ecole in 1881, he
seemed destined for an exclusively scientific career. But at Havre,
where he had 'been appointed professor of elementary mathematics,
he met his school friend, Pierre Janet, who was teaching philosophy
there at the time. This meeting probably exercised a decisive in-
fluence on his point of view. The long talks they had together de 1 -
veloped his natural taste for reflection and criticism : and when he
was sent several years later .as professor of advanced mathematics to
the lycee at Montpelier, he was already more interested in the history
and theory of science than in science itself. From 1892 on he gave
at this university 'a cours libre on 'The Beginnings of Greek
Science.' These lectures appeared the following year in a volume
which marked the beginning of his philosophical reputation. Soon
after, upon the presentation of two theses on philosophy, he was
granted the degree of docteur es lettres from the Sorbonne. The more
important of these theses was entitled Essai sur les conditions et les
limit es de la certitude logique (1894) : it will remain one of the monu-
ments of the great contemporary reaction against the predominance
of formalisme and the a priori and against the unreflecting belief in
the absolute value of 'Science' which prevailed; in the preceding
period. Le Rationnel (1898) is a commentary on this critique, and
complementary to it. Shortly after, he took temporarily the place of
M. Lionel Dauriac in the chair of philosophy at the University of
Montpellier, and succeeded him in this position in 1900. It was this
same year that he published Les philosophes geometres de la Grece,
soon followed by Le Positivisme et le progres de V esprit (1902) and
by the Etudes sur la pensee scientifique chez les Grecs et les modernes
(1906). Because of his growing reputation he was called in 1909 to
the Sorbonne, where a chair was created for him in 'The History of
Philosophy in its Relation to the Sciences. ' We have no need of re-
calling how he justified this call, and what services he rendered to
the students by his profound knowledge of our great mathematical
philosophers, Descartes, Leibniz, Comte, Renouvier, Cournot. His
lectures on general philosophy, at which he provoked and directed
the discussion among the students, had for them a charm of which
they have often spoken. In 1911 he published his Nouvelles Etudes
sur I'histoire de la pensee scientifique. At the same time there ap-
196 PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
peared in the Revue des cours et conferences a series of studies on
Renouvier; to say nothing of numerous articles printed in various
other publications. At the time of his death he had just finished a
book on Descartes savant, which is a most useful addition to our
knowledge of that great philosopher : the work can be judged by the
chapters that have already appeared, principally in this very Revue.
Some days before his death he wrote to tell us of the approaching
completion of a new chapter, which, in our opinion, should serve as
an introduction to the book. He was awaiting his return to Paris
to verify the notes."
DR. HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL has just completed a course of
eight lectures at the Union Theological Seminary, New York City, on
the subject of "Mind and Conduct." The topics discussed were as
follows :
A. The Correlation of Consciousness and Behavior
(1) Monday, March 3. The Correspondence and its Limits.
(2) Wednesday, March 5. Instinctive and Adaptive Behavior and
their Mental Correspondents.
(3) Wednesday, March 12. The Self.
B. Some Implications of the Correlation
(4) Friday, March 14. Creativeness and Ideals.
(5) Monday, March 17. Freedom and Responsibility.
C. Guides to Conduct
(6) Wednesday, March 19. Pleasure and Pain.
(7) Monday, March 24. Happiness.
(8) Wednesday, March 26. Intuition and Reason.
Erratum: On page 101, lines 3 and 4, for "can not be denned by
better," read "can not define better."
VOL. XVI, No. 8. APRIL 10, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
THE YOGA SYSTEM OF MENTAL CONCENTRATION AND
RELIGIOUS MYSTICISM
nnHERE appeared for the first time in 1914 a complete English
J-. translation of the most important of the Yoga systems, the
Yoga of Patanjali. 1 To the student of the psychology of religion,
this was an irresistible invitation to become acquainted with Hindoo
religious mysticism in its most definite form.
To characterize Yoga as a system of philosophy or of ethics would
be misleading. Its more direct analogy is with our manuals of re-
ligious worship; for its central purpose, like that of our books of
devotion, is to teach the way to salvation. But, as one would expect,
its practical directions are imbedded in a fanciful psychology and
unnecessary metaphysics.
The Yoga of! Patanjali consists of 195 rules which, if stated with-
out comments, could be printed in the space of a dozen pages. They
are, however, far from clear to the European reader, and presum-
ably little more so to the Hindoo, for they are accompanied by the
Yoga-Bhasya, a commentary much longer than the text, and by still
more extensive explanations due to Vacaspatimicra. According to
the translator, the rules were written between A.D. 650 and A.D.
850. The treatise is divided into four books: Concentration, Means
of Attainment, Supernormal Powers, and Isolation. The first two
treat in the main of the means or methods of attaining the perfect
state, and the last two describe chiefly that which is to be attained;
but one should not look for a strict logical arrangement of parts.
The Initial Propositions. Life is evil and death is merely the be-
ginning of another painful existence such is the double proposition
upon which Yoga and, of course, Buddhistic philosophy in general,
is grounded. The goal is escape from the round of rebirths. So far
nothing could be clearer. When we pass to the means of deliverance
i The Toga-System of Patanjali, or the Ancient Hindoo Doctrine of Con-
centration of Mind. Tr. by James Haughton Woods. Harvard University Press.
1914. Cambridge, Mass. Pp. xii >+ 384.
The word Yoga comes from the same root as the Latin jungo, to unite. The
3.1111 of the Yogin is to become one with the All.
197
198 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
from this inacceptable situation, the text becomes more difficult. We
must first note the distinction Yoga makes between the ''Self" and
the "mind-substance" or "thinking-substance," and the respective
functions it ascribes to them, for the whole scheme of deliverance
is dependent upon that distinction.
The Self is "the power of seeing," and the mind-substance is
"the power by means of which one sees" (ii., 6, 20). It would prob-
ably agree better with our ways of speaking to describe the first as a
"power" and the second as an "instrument." Without this mind-
substance the Self would be "isolated;" i. e., it would not be con-
scious of the world, for it is through the activity of the thinking-
substance that the Self becomes aware of objects, acquires knowl-
edge (i., 2; ii., 6, 20; ii., 17), and thus enters into relation with the
world. This entering into relation with the world by means of the
thinking-substance generates desires and passions and with them
the sense of personality. Rebirth is a consequence of desire and pas-
sion. Deliverance can therefore be attained by disconnecting the
Self from the mind-substance. "Isolate" the Self, make it "not
conscious of any object" (i., 20), passionless and purposeless, and
personality will have dwindled away thus speaks Yoga.
In certain parts of the book the mere realization of the difference
that exists between the Self and the mind-substance and of the role
played by the latter, is said to be enough to bring about the deliv-
erance of the Self. We read for instance that the fateful error of
man is the confusion " of the power of perceiving" with "the power
by which one perceives" (ii., 6). It is this confusion which gives
rise to the sense of personality and with it to all human misery. De-
liverance is therefore said to be obtained when one has become con-
scious of the distinction between Self and thinking-substance; then
the Self has "passed out of relation with the aspects or attributes
of things, and, enlightened by himself and nothing more, is stainless
and isolated" (ii., 27). But this theory is contradicted by the very
existence of Yoga, since it is not satisfied to point out the distinction
between the Self and the thinking-substance but places the main em-
phasis upon other means of achieving the liberation of the Self.
The task before the Yogin is, then, the suppression of the activity
of the mind; in the language of the Sutras, the "fluctuations of the
mind-stuff are to be restricted." The classification of these fluc-
tuations or activities offers one of the many instances of the naivete
of Hindoo psychology. Five kinds of fluctuations are enumerated;
source-of- valid ideas, i. e., perceptions and verbal communications;
misconceptions; predicate relations; sleep; memory (i., 2, 5-11).
We need not try to puzzle out this analysis of the mind's activities.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 199
That which matters most is fortunately clear enough : the mind-stuff
is to become quiescent, it is to be permanently in the "restricted
state."
"Concentration" is the name of the condition of him who has
entered upon the way to deliverance. In its lower degree it assumes
the form either of deliberation or of reflection upon any object of
thought (i., 17-18). At first the mind remains conscious of objects;
but in the higher stages of concentration it loses that consciousness ;
objects merge, and there remains only "subliminal impressions"
(i., 17, 18). Finally the Yogin "ceases to be conscious of any
object."
Hindrances to concentration, and how to overcome them. There
are many hindrances to concentration. Yoga divides them in two
groups. The reason for the separation in two groups is as obscure
as the reason for the composition of each group. In the first, we
find "sickness, languor, doubt, heedlessness, worldliness, erroneous
perception, failure to attain any stage of concentration, and in-
stability in the state when attained" (i., 30). In the second group
are put together undifferentiated consciousness (mistaking the im-
permanent, impure, etc., for the pure, permanent, etc.), the feeling
of personality, passion, aversion, and the will-to-live (ii., 3).
In order to overcome these hindrances and attain his goal, the
Yogin needs every available help. The sutras indicate eight methods
and devices (ii., 29-55; iii., 1-3)). Five are called indirect (absten-
tions, observances, postures, regulations-of-the-breath, and with-
drawal-of-the-senses), and three are called direct aids (fixed atten-
tion, contemplation, and concentration).
Some of these aids indicate a concern for ethical perfection
the "abstentions," for instance, which are defined as "abstinence
from injury and from falsehood and from theft and from incon-
tinence and from acceptance of gifts." "Abstinence from injury
in which 'all the other abstentions and observances are rooted.' " is
to be understood as "abstinence from malice towards all living
creatures in every way and at all times" (ii., 30). This is good-will
expressed negatively. The "observances" also are in part of a gen-
uine ethical character. Cleanliness is defined both as external, and
then produced "by earth or water or the like; and as inner cleanli-
ness of the mind-stuff" (i., 32). The Yogin is enjoined further-
more "to cultivate friendliness towards all living beings that have
reached the experience of happiness; compassion towards those in
pain ; joy towards those whose character is meritorious. ' ' The mind-
stuff of him who conforms to these prescriptions "becomes calm;
and when calm it becomes single-in-intent and reaches the stable
200 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
state" (i., 33). An ethical purpose and practise is not logically de-
manded by the goal of Yoga; for honesty, friendliness, etc., are ir-
relevant to one who seeks utter detachment and isolation. The
coupling of a concern for moral values with a desire for the sup-
pression of personality is one of the incongruities that betray the
confusion of thought from which this system suffers.
The most curious of the physical aidls to concentration are the
"postures." A sutra on postures enumerates them thus, "the lotus-
posture and the hero-posture and the decent-posture and the mystic-
diagram and the staff-posture and the posture with the rest and the
bedstead, the seated curlew and the seated elephant and the seated
camel, the even arrangement, the stable-and-easy and others of the
same kind" (ii., 46). 2 These postures are to be accompanied "by
relaxation of effort or by a mental state-of-balance with reference
to Ananta" (ii., 47). In this connection we may remark that re-
laxation of effort as well as "concentration" of attention plays a
capital role in the production of various automatisms and of trance
states. Relaxation is demanded of the subject for psychoanalysis,
and it is when the sinner despairs of reforming himself by his own
endeavors and surrenders to the will of God that salvation comes.
In the production of hypnosis one or the other of these expressions,
or both, are used to describe the attitude to be assumed byi the
subject.
The physical helps to concentration include mortifications, fasts
and other ascetic practises ; but the one most insisted upon after the
postures is perhaps the control of the breath. It is secured, we are
2 Pictures of these postures are given in Eichard Schmidt '8 Fakire und
FaTcirthum.
I draw the following passage from the Bhagavadgita.
"A devotee should constantly devote his Self to abstraction, remaining in
a secret place . . . fixing his seat firmly in a clean place, not too high nor too low,
and covered over with a sheet of cloth, a deerskin and blades of Kusa grass and
there seated on that seat, fixing his mind exclusively on one point, with the
workings of the mind and senses restrained, he should practise devotion for
purity of Self. Holding his body, head and neck even and unmoved, remaining
steady, looking at the tip of his own nose, and not looking about in all directions,
with a tranquil self, devoid of fear, and adhering to the rules of Brahmakarins,
ho should restrain his mind and concentrate it on me [the Deity], as his final
goal. Thus constantly devoting his Self to abstraction, a devotee whose mind
is restrained, attains that tranquillity which culminates in final emancipation and
assimilation with me." Elsewhere the devotee is directed to exclude from his
mind "external objects, concentrate the visual power between the brows, and
making the upward and downward life-breaths even, confining their movements
' ' within the nose. ' ' In another place, he is directed to repeat the single syllable
"om," a mystical formula for Brahma. Max Miiller, Sacred Books of the East,
VoL VIII., Chapters V. and VI., pp. 68-69, 66-67.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 201
told, together with the attainment of "stable" postures (ii., 49).
There are no less than four kinds of breath control : "it is external
in case there is no flow of breath after expiration; it is internal in
case there is no flow of breath after inspiration; it is the third or
suppressed in case there is no flow of either kind" (ii., 50). The
puerile subtleties into which sutras and ciommentaries enter in this
connection can not interest us. We need note merely that the fourth
and perfect control of the breath involves the total suppression of
the passage of air to and from the lungs. Since death would speedily
supervene should this be realized, we must suppose that the Yogin,
in consequence of the bodily and mental attitude he assumes, is de-
ceived into the belief that breathing is totally suspended. That he
suffers many illusions and hallucinations there can not be any
doubt. But why this unnatural behavior? Because in restraint of
breath, "the central organ" becomes fit for fixed attention, and
complete mastery of the organs is attained (ii., 53, 55) ; i. e., the
sense organs are "restricted," their activity ceases, and that, as we
know, is a step towards complete disinterestedness and passion-
lessness.
In Christian mysticism, absorption in the adorable personality
of God or Christ or of one of the saints, is a recognized method of
ascending the "ladder" that leads to ecstasy. A corresponding
practise is found in the Yoga system; it is the "devotion of the
Igvara" (i., 23). That being is not easy to describe. He is a "spe-
cial kind of Self," never in the bondage of time, space, and matter,
"at all times whatsoever liberated" (i., 24) ; in him "the germ of
the omniscient is at its utmost excellence" (i., 25) ; he is the Teacher
of the Primal Sages (i., 26). This exalted Being is represented by
the mystic syllable which, when reflected upon and many times re-
peated brings the mind-stuff to rest in the One Exalted (i., 28). 3
The use of drugs is not recommended in the Yoga of Patanjali ;
it is, however, mentioned and acknowledged as available and legit-
imate. Book IV. opens with this sutra, "Perfections proceed from
birth or from drugs or from spells or from self-castigation or from
concentration" (IV., 1). The commentary says that "agelessness
and deathlessness and the other perfections" may be had by the use
of an elixir-of-life. This implied recognition of similarity between
the condition secured by the Yoga-practises and that produced by
drugs is too significant to be overlooked by the student of the mys-
tical ecstasy.
s It is to be noted that in the explanation of this sutra, ' ' reflection ' ' is de-
nned as "an absorption in the mind again and again" (i., 28). "We are there-
fore to understand by "reflection" in this connection, not that which is ordi-
narily meant by it, but rather the opposite.
202 TEE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Results. The ultimate end is, we already know, the separation
of the Self from every object of sense or thought, the suppression of
all desire and passion, and the consequent elimination of personality.
But just as Christian worship offers secondary attractions of an
esthetic, social, or even grossly utilitarian mature, so among the
Hindoos, the desire to pursue the goal is greatly assisted by many
real or imaginary advantages that accrue to the faithful Yogin.
Each practise has its reward. Postures render the Yogin unassail-
able "by the extremes, by cold and heat and other extremes" (ii.,
48). Self-castigation brings perfection of the body, such as hearing
and seeing at a distance" (ii., 43). As a result of concentration
upon muscular powers, there arises strength like that of the ele-
phant; as the result of concentration upon the sun, there arises an
intuitive knowledge of the cosmic spaces. Concentration upon the
"wheel of the navel" brings "intuitive knowledge of the arrange-
ment of the body" (Hi., 29) ; upon the "well of the throat," "cessa-
tion of hunger and thirst ; ' ' etc., etc. It would be futile to attempt
a full enumeration of the marvelous powers promised to the faith-
ful Yogin, and still more to try to fathom the reason for the con-
nection affirmed between each practise and its alleged result. If it
is, at times, natural or logical, it is more frequently a connection
obviously fanciful in the extreme.
One of the most alluring of the imaginary claims of Yoga is the
possession of "all truth." When the Yogin has "ceased to be con-
scious of any object," he is said nevertheless to have gained the in-
sight by which things are perceived "as they really are" (i., 20).
He realizes, of course, that this omniscience is not acquired by the
ordinary way of protracted and systematic intellectual effort. It
comes to him in the measure in which he discards critical reason and
surrenders to the "unconscious:" it is when the Yogin has gained
"the vision by the flash of insight which does not pass successively
through the serial order of the usual process of experience" (i., 47)
that he possesses the "truth bearing" insight (i., 48). What does
that insight reveal? It reveals "all that he (the Yogin) desires to
know in other places and in other bodies and in other times. There-
after his insight sees into things as they are" (ii., 45 ; eomp., iii., 54).
This is obvious nonsense. The Yogin can not substantiate his
claim to a knowledge of the thoughts of other persons, of the time of
his death or of his present and future incarnations; concentration
upon the moon does not give him an intuitive knowledge of "the
arrangement of the stars" (iii., 27). A careful reading of Yoga
discloses, however, that magical omniscience and omnipotence are
not taken too seriously. After all, the Yogin keeps his eyes first of
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 203
all on 'deliverance from pain. Consider, for instance, this elucidation
of the nature of "insight:" "And in this sense it has been said, 'as
the man who has climbed the crag sees those upon the plain below,
so the man of insight who has risen to the undisturbed calm of in-
sight, himself escaped from pain, beholds all creatures in their
pain.'" (i., 47). Here the. function of "insight" is deliverance
from pain. That, in truth, is the gross purpose of Yoga and that
the faithful observers of the sutras obtain.
The omniscience and omnipotence claimed for the Yogin should
be placed in parallel with the similar claim made by the users ofi
drugs in religious ceremonies. In both instances the claim is an ex-
pression of yearning for unlimited physical and intellectual powers
and of an illusory realization of those yearnings, due in one case
chiefly to persistent concentration of attention, fixedness of bodily
postures, etc., and in the other, mainly to the action of a drug. Much
that is enlightening is lost if the experiences and claims of the drug-
ecstatic and of the Yogin are not remembered by the student of the
Neo-platonists, of Eckhart, and of the like of them.
If omniscience and omnipotence are, with the Yogin as with the
drug-intoxicated, illusory, real advantages are nevertheless secured
by both. During the early stages of the emptying process the Yogin
enjoys a sense of unlimited power and the delights of imagination
freed from the checks of critical reason. Physical pain is allayed
and, when the trance is sufficiently profound, altogether removed,
moral pain also vanishes, the dread of sickness and age, the wearisome
struggle to keep up with the demands of society and of one's better
self, the wickedness of duplicity, pride, and hatred, disappear when
the mind has become concentrated upon an "objectless content."
Sensuous raptures so conspicuous in drug ecstasy seem also in some
measure at least to add their delights to the Yogin 's; experience.
These gains, chiefly perhaps the last one, are responsible for utter-
ances like this, "what constitutes the pleasure of love in this world
and what the supreme pleasure of heaven are both not to be com-
pared with the sixteenth part of the pleasure of dwindled craving"
(ii., 42). In a similar way do Christian mystics rhapsodize about
the unutterable delight of "communion with God."
But does not this contradict the Yogin 's conception of the final
state; is unconsciousness, annihilation consonant with enjoyment?
Obviously not; it is merely consonant with painlessness. This con-
tradiction in the idea of Nirvana runs through all or most Hindoo
religious literature. Its existence is not difficult to account for: the
delights the Yogin finds on his way to unconsciousness, he mistakenly
ascribes to that final state. Similarly the sufferer who contemplates
204 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
ultimate deliverance from pain, can hardly refrain from speaking of
that condition as one of bliss, although, in fact, it is no more than
absence of suffering. The same confusion appears among Christian
mystics.
The Illogical Craving for Moral Perfection Manifested in Toga.
Attention has already been drawn to the very specific directions by
which the Yoga of Patanjali encourages the practise of social vir-
tues. Yet the removal of all ethical considerations would leave its
essential structure unaffected; for, after all, ethical considerations
have no logical place in a system that aims at the breaking of all
bonds connecting the individual to the physical and social world.
If Yoga sets down principles and prescribes rules of intercourse
with one's fellows that are not much inferior to the best in Chris-
tianity, it is probably because those who elaborated this scheme of
deliverance were after all keenly conscious not only of the presence
of the evils of existence and of a general desire to escape these evils,
but also of an ideal of social perfection, the worth of which they
tacitly acknowledged.
In the western world, dissatisfaction with) this life because of
physical and moral evils, instead of prompting to self-annihilation
and the destruction of society, spurred the cravings for self-realiza-
tion and social perfection, and their gratification was conceived to
take place in an ideal social order beyond the grave. Is the Hindoo
so different from the rest of mankind as to seek that which he
abhors? There is no sufficient reason to think so. After all, he,
no more than the westerner, gives up the struggle for self-realiza-
tion. To neither is the mere cessation of effort and extinction a
really satisfactory solution of the problem of destiny. The Hindoo
also seeks a victorious end. There must be no ignoble surrender;
evil has to be overcome before he will consent to enter eternal
rest. Is not rebirth a scheme to secure by gradual purification
ultimate triumph over evil and the realization of individual per-
fection? How senseless would be the prolonged torture of rebirth
were it not regarded as an instrument of self-realization! What-
ever its origin may have been, I am tempted to think that that
belief would have been given up long before Yoga was written, had
it not served this high purpose in the mind of the believers.
In this, then, Christianity and Buddhism substantially agree:
both seek a self-realization that involves moral perfection. But
beyond this a bifurcation takes place. The Hindoo considers that
victory over his imperfections entitles him to an honorable dismissal
from conscious existence^ The western mind, on the contrary, re-
gards the attainment of perfection as a warrant for a blessed and
endless continuation as a self-conscious being.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 205
It is easy to speculate as to the source of this divergence. A dif-
ference in the strength of certain primary instincts, as that of pug-
nacity and rivalry, may account for it. But here again the Hindoo
does not really stand so far apart from the western world as it
seems. Nirvana is described both as a state of unconsciousness and
of incomparable bliss. The practical significance of this contradic-
tion is clear: the Yogin need not, and the average Yogin probably
does not, seek utter annihilation. That which he anticipates is really
cessation of suffering and eternal, lethal enjoyment. Is there a very
important difference between this expectation and that of the Chris-
tian who seeks the joys of heaven? Probably not. Let it be remem-
bered in this connection that the idea of the future life, as it is found
among educated Christians, is so vague that little can be added to
the descriptive expression "eternal blessedness."
Some Results of the Yoga Method. The final earthly condition
of the faithful, uncompromising Yogin, as he appears to the un-
sophisticated observer, does not seem worthy of man's holiest en-
deavors. The emaciated, bewildered ascetic, reduced to the dimmest
spark of life, equally incapable for lack of energy of committing
good or evil is not a demi-god, but a shrunken caricature of what
man ought to be so at least does common-sense pronounce. The
Yogin, as also the user of drugs, may win partial or total uncon-
sciousness and, with it, isolation and peace ; so much must be granted.
But that this peaice and isolation have the exalted significance
attributed to them in the Yoga metaphysics, is quite another matter.
"We know in any case that he is much deceived in the magical powers
he ascribes to himself. His self-deception, the corresponding self-
deception of the user of drugs, and we may add of classical Chris-
tian mystics, constitute one of the most pathetic chapters of human
history. To aim so high, and to fall so low, is in truth both deep
tragedy and high comedy. Yet the stupefied Yogin is one o$ the
blundering heroes and martyrs who mark the slow progress of
humanity.
In this connection, we must not fail to remember that those who
make the final descent into unconsciousness are fortunately only a
small fraction of the followers of Yoga. Most of them never reach
that stage. Similarly, the final round of the "ladder" of the Chris-
tian mystic is reached only by a few, while millions practise without
realizing it, and much to the increase of their peace of mind and
moral energy, the initial steps of meditation and contemplation.
What features common to the religious drug-intoxication of
savages, to Yoga, and to the higher forms of mysticism justify their
classification together under the term mysticism? The avowed pur-
206 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
pose of all three is to transcend the limitations of the individual self
and to achieve some sort of connection with the ''divine." This
common purpose corresponds to an essential similarity of that which
actually takes place under the action of drugs, of the Yoga dis-
cipline, and of Christian mystical methods. They all produce a
reduction of mental activity that tends to dissociate the individual
from the world, and thus to liberate him from the pain, the distress,
and the efforts incidental to ordinary life. Thus, a temporary, if not
a final deliverance from physical and moral evil is secured. In all
three, the reduction of mental activity culminates in complete un-
consciousness.
A sense of quickened life and of marvelous, unlimited powers,
present at a certain stage of the drug-ecstasy, of the Yoga "isolai-
tion," and of the Christian mystical trance, is another common
result of these different practises. It is true that in order to reach
the goal set by the Yoga system it is not necessary to secure these
powers ; they appear to belong to an older circle of ideas that have
survived despite their loss of logical connection with the central
Yoga ideas, namely the "isolation" of the self from the world and
absorption in the All. In such a scheme as this, the acquisition of
magical or divine powers in order to control nature is obviously an
alien element. If it has remained in Yoga, it is because of the strong
appeal it makes to human nature. In the religious drug-ecstasy
of the savage, where the thought is not of self-surrender but of in-
definite enlargement of the self, the acquisition of some part or the
whole of the powers of the gods is of the very essence of the process.
In Christian mysticism something similar is logically expected.
A belief in the acquisition of "divine" knowledge is another
and the last common trait we need mention. The idea of revelation,
"unutterable" revelation, that fills so large a place in theories of
mysticism, is present in the lower mysticism, in Yoga, and in the
higher mysticism. But it should be recognized that in these three
types of mystical practises the emphasis is really placed not oh
knowledge as such, but on knowledge serving as an instrument for
the enlargement, the perfectionment, or the suppression of the self.
This fact is often ignored by the philosophers of mysticism.
What meaning and what practical truth there may be in the as-
surances and claims of the mystics, are problems demanding for
their solution the cooperation of the psychologist and the philosopher.
JAMES H. LEUBA.
BBYN MA WE COLLEGE.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 207
A MEDIEVAL ASPECT OF PRAGMATISM
rpHE historical setting of a doctrine is not in itself a criterion of
-L its value. It may be interesting, significant, or even danger-
ous for a doctrine to be in the mouths of certain men, but in itself
this constitutes no philosophical criterion. Truth, though a jewel
in a swine's snout, were none the less valuable, even though it suf-
fered eclipse or had to be rediscovered. Problems so far unsolved
are wont to assume, as the ages pass, a framework conforming to
their environment. And the fact lends much to the interest of
thinking. Surprise always awaits the investigator because funda-
mental issues, like Old Man Proteus, are constantly reappearing in
new shapes; despite our best efforts we never so much as perfectly
formulate certain problems. Philosophy therefore in general pro-
fesses, and ever ought to profess, a perfect charity for her children,
even for prodigal sons. Probably not a few, however, of those
among us who have concerned themselves chiefly with modern
movements of thought will be surprised, perhaps chagrined, to find
that Pragmatism is a descendant of a medieval Church doctrine and
that its antecedents consorted with those thinkers who tried to make
gold from sulphur and believed in the seven days of creation.
One can not too strongly insist, however, that this has nothing-
to do with the truth of the doctrine, unless, indeed, truth be finally
defined as an association of ideas having emotional satisfaction. We
might not agree with the Solipsism or the monetary Instrumentalism
of Protagoras, yet that would be no reason to repudiate whatever
else he stood for. Even a Pragmatism that had associated with
Seven Deadly Sins might, for aught we know, establish itself as a
valid method of philosophizing. We establish the character of men
in part by the company they keep, but ideas are beyond all such
considerations. They are in a certain sense of the word beyond
good and evil, a fact which, as we shall later see, has important
bearing upon pragmatic methods. Gorgias, though he was a quib-
bling Sophist, Superman, and philosophical Nihilist, nevertheless
made a contribution to our positive knowledge. At very least he
showed the limitations of imagination in dealing with nothingness
as contrasted with something, also the meaning of communication
as significant and representative, and what is implied by contradic-
tion all of them aspects of the thinking process which still possess
a peculiar interest in the discussion of Pragmatism. So also one
must recognize as a mark of philosophic temper the open-mindedness
which grants that saints in tortured bodies may yet have moments
of extraordinary penetration.
208 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Nowhere in the history of philosophy does the difficulty of
formulating precise issues show itself more markedly than in deal-
ing with the chameleon-like aspects of Pragmatism. Not only do
the " varieties" seem to contradict one the other; according to one
leading exponent the very Law of Contradiction demands its own
"abrogation." 1 Our purpose in this paper, however, is to consider
certain specific principles which may be regarded as central, though
without reference to any known "System" of Pragmatism, and to
trace them so far as possible to their axiomatic basis. In general
the term Humanism, though it suggests a somewhat misleading
relationship to the highly "intellectual" Renaissance, fairly char-
acterizes the leading doctrines of Schiller and James in so far as
man is regarded as the central interest in terms of which all things
in heaven and earth are to be interpreted. Humanism in that sense
often assumes the guise of a geocentric, or even anthropocentric,
teleology which has much in common with medieval theology. The
term Pragmatism preferred by James as implying the practical,
biological, ethical or sociological function of all truth, in effect also
continues the earlier tradition that the drama of creation plays
about the moral character, mental attitudes, or physical well-being
of humans.
"The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what
definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants
of our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be the true
one," wrote James (Pragmatism, p. 50). The definite difference
is throughout "practical," "moral," "active," as opposed to mere
interpretation which makes no appreciable difference. Such "In-
tellectualism, " or barren Conceptualism, because it does not bring
about any "change" in human affairs, is subjected to the anathema
of the higher authority which asks: What service and practical
assistance to men? Cui Ijono? In the Varieties James illustrates
the general principle by rejecting as "absolutely worthless inven-
tions of the scholarly mind" those conceptions of God which do
not affect men's conduct. A human being can not perform any
specific act the better to adapt himself to divine "simplicity," but
he can adjust his conduct to attributes inspiring fear and hope.
Hence the latter are truly existent in the character of the Deity.
He is omniscient because seeing us in the dark involves a difference
to us at definite moments of our lives ; and good, because our saintly
life requires such an idea for its more successful fruition (pp.
444-6).
This, as need hardly be pointed out, was a general principle
i P. C. 8. Schiller, Formal Logic, pp. Ill ff., 330.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 209
very characteristic of medieval thought, the Church, or Kingdom
of God, taking the place of James's less definite ethical or practical
well-being. All else was instrumental to this end, intellectual inter-
ests being measured in terms of the hindrance or furtherance which
they afforded this exalted purpose. An intensely practical use was
found for all accredited learning, and the standing of given doc-
trines was a function of that usefulness. Theory for theory's sake
was, indeed, tolerated so long as it did not interfere with the estab-
lished good of men, that is, so long as it made no practical differ-
ence. The Alchemists indulged in any theory of transmutation they
found most acceptable so long as they steered clear of transubstan-
tiation. Euclid and Democritus were expounded, and mechanistic
accounts of nature attempted in which the practical aspect lay in
avoiding any reference to man's position in time and space or to
the movement of atoms in the direction of his salvation. But when,
even as late as Giordano Bruno, doctrines dangerous to the social
fabric were fearlessly worked out, the practical interests did, on the
contrary, take precedence over theory to the personal discomfiture
of thinkers. In general, however, the assumption that theory is
harmless not only permitted the survival of ancient science even in
monasteries; the high purposes of the Kingdom joined hands with
"logic-chopping" and developed a refined technique of verbal in-
ference, wholly innocuous and serving a useful end as willing
"handmaiden." In this connection one may also speak of a medi-
eval Pluralism, one which was subjective rather than objective, one
which recognized independent compartments of mental life, a char-
ity which embraced even contradictory doctrines if they were instru-
mental to the attainment of political, social, biological good as
represented in the Kingdom of God.
A point of view very similar to this is presented in James's
account of the pragmatic "corridor" (Prag. p. 54) where we also
have many compartments, representing the traditionally vital issues
of philosophy, to which the corridor gives access without invidious
distinctions. In one chamber you may find a man writing an athe-
istic volume, in another some one on his knees praying . . . , in a
third some person excogitates a system of idealistic metaphysics,
while another philosopher in the next room shows the impossibility
of metaphysics. All are left quite undisturbed so long as they
acknowledge the pragmatic method of testing by fruits, conse-
quences, cash-values toward established good. And throughout we
have the implication and direct statement that what men think mat-
ters little, so long as it does not stand related to that good. Intel-
lectualism, theory for theory's sake, thus becomes once more either
210 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
a negligible ineptitude, or, when it pretends to dissociate itself from
the pragmatic method, a dangerous heresy, what men ought not to
believe. The attempt to represent anything in the world as inde-
pendent of man runs counter to the spirit of Humanism. Rational-
ists, who try to set up symbolic shadows, attenuated and bloodless,
conceptual proxies with themselves left out, are, therefore, to be
fought when harmful, ignored whenever possible, and used when-
ever they can be advantageously, just as God is best used in mod-
eration of thought. (Cf. Varieties of R. E., pp. 506, 7.)
This teleological quality of all true knowledge is perhaps more
directly set forth in various essays of F. C. S. Schiller. In the one
entitled " 'Useless' Knowledge" the conclusion is reached that such
a title would itself be a contradiction in terms since there can really
be no such thing. "True" simply means "useful." And while it
is not proposed to apply pragmatic tests to the dictum: "The use-
less is false" we have it by implication at least, in the form that
what has not yet established its usefulness is not yet true. Useful-
ness, again, means human usefulness. It is in the light of a " teleo-
logical psychology" that all problems of logic and metaphysics are
henceforward to be examined [and mostly rejected]. The "sway
of human valuations over every region of our experience" is "as-
serted" and "metaphysical validity" made a function of ethics.
"At a blow it [Humanism] awards to the ethical conception of
Good supreme authority over the logical conception of True and
the metaphysical conception of Real. The Good becomes a deter-
minant both of the True and the Real." (Ethical Basis of Meta-
physics, pp. 8, 9.)
We do not here propose to discuss the possibility of a coordina-
tion of such a general principle with others promulgated by the
same writers. James, recognizing the extraordinary variety and
even disparity of human "goods," set up as a corollary to the
main axiom the proposition that truth is no less various and some-
times disparate, as in the case of the Ptolemaic astronomy. Human
purposes and ends bring about many interpretations of constella-
tions as of atoms, and there are many types of men, some tough-
minded, active and adventurous, and others in their last sick ex-
tremity. What each severally needs is the noetic touchstone, though
a certain standard of product is demanded from the "philosophic
workshop." Truth must be neither too "saccharine" nor "idyllic"
and have occasional flavor of the "epic." Questions concerning the
typical homo whose good might serve as a basis for reference when
pragmatists disagree, like the ethical question of a good more inclu-
sive than that of humans, or that of the representative quality of
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 211
contradictory "truths" (Ptolemaic vs. Coperniean astronomy) are
here subordinated despite their importance in dealing with a theory
which presumably maintains its identity. It is the logical implica-
tions of a doctrine which asserts the ethical good of man (whether
individually or collectively) to be the criterion (howsoever deter-
minded) of whether things exist or do not exist (Reality), and what
their several relationships are a we apprehend them (Truth), which
shall now concern us.
As clearly and as validly as a theorem in geometry is traceable
to its axiomatic presuppositions, so a theory of human good as in-
dex of all true insight involves certain assumptions. These being
more ultimate than the proposition itself may be expected to help
in the elucidation of its complex factors. Stated in the briefest
and most general form as the present writer understands the doc-
trine, it asserts affirmatively, that all things are so coordinated with
the valuable interests of men that correct knowledge of any exist-
ence or event contributes to those interests; and negatively, that a
representation of things which does not so contribute is contrary
to fact. To know genuinely is to find that knowledge good. Now
in common with other theories of knowledge this one assumes: (a)
Existences, real things, and relationships among them; (fc) Definite
relationships between mental states and what they cognize; (c)
Causal relationships of the simplest kind involving the regular
sequence or accompaniment of one event, character, or existence
upon another; (d) Definite qualitative characters in our mental life
by virtue of which we are able to infer concerning the character of
objects as known. These may be regarded as axiomatic in any posi-
tive theory of knowledge. 2 In addition we have in the postulate
under discussion: (a) The specific quality of our mental life by
which we infer that existences or relationships obtain in a sense
other than mental, is value other than that of conceptual consistency
(which is transcended by usefulness, beneficial consequences as
above discussed). (&) The cognitive act which fails to have the
quality of furthering those interests is limited to something purely
mental, i. e., provides no basis of true knowledge.
A causation is thus assumed for all true knowledge in the defi-
nite sense that it invariably results in bringing about positive and
specific consequences, a real change, a difference. Cognition is held
to be instrumental to purposes over and beyond that of intellectual
conception. Its position in the chain of causation is shown not only
by results accruing from true comprehension; as every cause is in
2 For their Pragmatic affirmation in James 's The Meaning of Truth, Preface,
xii, xiii.
212 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
turn an effect so the antecedent (knowledge) is itself a consequent
oft the "real world." Something other than mental states are
assumed throughout to be in functional relationship with the mind
in its act of knowledge. Correct information is never made from
the "whole cloth," it is an outcome of "facts," and "corresponds"
with them. Thus we have a chain which binds the "fruits" with
their antecedent, knowledge, in the same way that knowledge is
dependent upon its antecedent, reality. Good is the outcome of
truth which in turn is the exponent of the real. This interdepend-
ence which we have called causation does not, of course, imply inter-
action. Whether mental states are as such to be regarded as prod-
ucts of some ' ' other, ' ' say matter, is a question which need not here
concern us. For our problem involves the relationship of antece-
dent to consequent (or of two coexistents) in the sense that a given
quality in one presents an invariable dependence upon a quality
in the other. A change in the "real" world involves a change in
knowledge of it, and knowledge in turn produces its benevolent fruit.
That the series can not be broken without surrendering this
portion of the pragmatic method will, perhaps, be clearer by exami-
nation of alternative series. Let us assume in the first place that
the break comes between knowledge and its fruits, in which event
we have the series :
Reality > True Knowledge Bad Results
This is the obvious contradictory of the principle under discussion.
In case we divorce the first and second terms we have:
Reality > False Knowledge GTood Results
which not only again contradicts but involves the doctrine in an
ambiguous position with reference to an assumed real world. So-
lipsism is quite generally repudiated by the supporters of Pragma-
tism. There is always the "something else which it means" (Pro-
fessor Dewey), the "Facts," "Nature," "Reality" of which knowl-
edge is a "Report" (James); and this report is a "common" or
"social" one, which implies that correct cognition is not an arbi-
trary or hallucinative act but one obeying a definite order and bound
up with the character of that "Other." Every positive theory,
indeed, assumes as noetic axiom a definite order of antecedent and
consequent here. The status of a "false knowledge of the real
world" is that of a straight line not the shortest distance between
two points, neither knowledge nor having anything to do with the
real world in the sense of those words commonly understood.
Thus the teleological character of knowledge (if it is to be so
characterized) is not a phenomenon to be isolated from the charac-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 213
ter of reality; it must be functionally an expression of that reality
not only in the sense in which mental states are themselves (whether
phenomenal or something more than that) in the plexus of "being,"
but as a direct result consequent upon that character. By the good
quality of true knowledge we therefore infer a certain attribute of
the thing truly known; more fundamentally still it may be said
that a certain activity of reality (including mental states) alone
makes possible the experience of good or the discovery of purpose
anywhere. But for simplicity's sake we shall not urge the latter
point, being content to rest our case upon the proposition that true
knowledge of a thing is our guarantee of the thing's character. And
if, therefore, a certain product (C) is the result of true knowledge
(B) which in turn is an expression of some "Other" (A) invari-
able in its relationship to B, then C is an expression of A. In other
words, if true knowledge is teleological the reason for it is to be
sought in reality itself. James himself stated our premises as fol-
lows: "Truth lies in rebus, and is at every moment our own line
of most propitious reaction. " (Meaning of Truth, p. 74.) We add
the conclusion: In rebus is to be found the basis for our line of
most propitious reaction. The " fundamentum" or "matrix em-
bracing idea and reality" (ibid., p. 163) is a world in which tele-
ology obtains.
Now James repudiates toto ccelo every form of teleological
hypothesis in rebus. He not only finds the Socratic conception of
rains falling and fruits ripening for the good of man impossible;
he definitely asserts the impossibility of accepting at present any
hypothesis of design, any recognizable order in the course of things.
(Varieties of R. E., pp. 438, 492, ff.) Any radical Pluralism would
also seem to make the assumption equally impossible, as also his
negative attitude toward Optimism. But again we are not dealing
with a "System," though the point might well be raised concerning
"Meliorism" whether a gradual progress toward the "better world,"
even though mediated through our efforts, would not imply the
"fundamentum" of some effective teleology. Nor would it be im-
pertinent to ask (since Pluralism is no friend of Nescience) if some
sort of hegemony be not assumed somewhere over the "big, bloom-
ing, buzzing confusion?" Very probably the presumption of tele-
ology was one taken as applicable to particular, isolated portions
of reality, there being no intelligible end "toward which the whole
creation moves." It is only by some such interpretation, at any
rate, that we can understand the assumption of teleology for men-
tal states of the truly knowing kind. As birds or insects by long
successive adaptations attained the capacity of flying, so the intel-
214 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
lectual penetration of men in process of natural selection gradually
shuffled off the useless and abstract forms, but neither one nor the
other process was at any time related to some scheme of the cosmic
whole. Thus one might avoid entangling alliances with Monism.
To the present writer such an isolation in the instance of our
knowing process does not, however, seem possible. Knowledge is
always potential omniscience, that is to say, there is no known limit
to the range of its content. The noetic act embraces the farthest
star which we perceive. Truth when genuine has, by hypothesis,
James's " fundamentum" with every reality thus known. If, there-
fore, that knowledge be assumed to have a teleological purpose it must
be that any reality (however pluralistically conceived otherwise)
provides the basis for this interpretation. And unless some valid
distinction is to be made between true-knowledge-of and actual-
eharacter-of reality the assumption of a teleology in the one involves
the same for the other. Every positive theory of knowledge is, of
course, involved in the predicament of getting from one to the
other. There is always the possibility that our every cognitive act
is a dream, that the order of mind is in no way coordinate with the
"other" which it knows; and Pluralism, radically understood,
would seem to require this divorce. But that is not our present
concern. Spinoza's "Ordo et connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et
connexio rerum" if rerum be conceived as that "other," the thing
known, remains the axiomatic basis for positive theories. For to
assert the contrary is to forego all save the dream process. (Cf.
Meaning of Truth, pp. 8-24.) James, however, postulates "corre-
spondence," "agreement," of ideas with reality and specifies the
definite "leading" of ideas. The specific character of the relation-
ship could hardly be more positively stated than as follows: "The
concrete pointing and leading are conceived by the pragmatist to
be the work of other portions of the same universe to which the
reality and the mind belong." (Meaning of Truth, p. 191, Italics
added.) If the "pointing" and "leading," then, be supposed to
appertain to all truly known things (and pragmatists do not limit
the method to specified portions of the universe of discourse), we
must assume that the function is an expression of the same universe
to which reality and the mind belong. The question of "degrees
of truth" in such a relationship would seem to involve degrees of
teleology, a conception easily applicable to some "terminus, ad
quern" (human good) but not to the universe a quo. But this again
is a problem of Pragmatism's cohesion as a "system" which we
have here denied ourselves.
Our general conclusion from analysis of pragmatic teleology,.
215
however variously it manifest itself as psychological, ethical, socio-
logical, biological, and whether it be man-centered or of wider in-
clusiveness (e. g., life as a whole), is that it involves a teleological
point of view for all truly known reality. In the expositions of
Schiller the human "good" which alone is criterion of the "true"
and the "real" frankly postulates a man-centered teleology. Less
explicitly the doctrines of James and Dewey presuppose a know-
able reality which contributes to definable purposes and ends. What
the latter might be was in no need of our investigation, nor is the
process as such necessarily instrumental in only one sense of the
word. Granted that any ends are attained by a process implicating
all reality, the conclusion is mathematically certain that all reality is
teleological. And this would seem to hold true even when the prag-
matic method deals with "particular situations," "pluralities of
things," particular experiences rather than metaphysical "wholes,"
because that method does not differentiate particulars being ap-
plicable to any given piece of experience, any event, change or thing.
This assumption is one deeply rooted in the ethical conscious-
ness of mankind and as a noetic principle finds place in the philoso-
phies of thinkers not only medieval and ancient, but among other
than pragmatists in modern day. Whether some form of universal
teleology is or is not involved in the assumption of a positive epis-
temology we shall discuss in another paper with special reference to
the method of Dewey.
JOHN WABBEKE.
MT. HOLYOKE COLLEGE.
ME. MARSHALL ON OUTER-WORLD OBJECTS
OTHERING as I am in these days to find reason for believ-
ing that there are things existing independently of ourselves
a belief that in common with most people I already have without
reason, at least conscious reason I have read with interest Mr.
Henry Rutgers Marshall's article, Of Outer-World Objects, in this
JOURNAL, Vol. XVI., No. 2 (Jan. 16th). The gist of his reasoning
seems to be that in the experience of movement resisted or ob-
structed, we come on the fact of ' ' otherness ; ' ' that in sensations like
those of sight, combined with the more elementary experience of
resistance, we get a consciousness of " out-thereness ; " and that in
looking for the ground of the "out-thereness" experience, we reach
the conception of "outer-world objects." This last conception is
called an assumption, a pure hypothesis, but none the less one veri-
fied by countless experiments, "perhaps the most thoroughly val-
idated of all the assumptions made by the conscious man."
216 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Now I find it easy to agree that in resistance or obstruction we
have the clearest, most convincing, if not the only, evidence of some-
thing existing other than ourselves at least than our will, perhaps
the most central thing in ourselves. We freely move, intend and
will to move, and then something opposes itself to us; the sense of
something -foreign becomes thereby unescapable to us it is impos-
sible, at least next to impossible, to think that the opposition is
created or begotten by us.
The next step is not quite so unambiguous. Sight, joined with
the experience of obstructed movement, is said to give us the notion
of "out-thereness." But just what is meant by "out-thereness"?
It is plainly possible that we should see our bodily movements before
they are obstructed, or indeed our body while at rest, i. e., before
or irrespective of movement. Is this not " out-thereness " ? Does
the phrase, as Mr. Marshall uses it, mean outside the body? It is,
of course, something to learn the genesis of the idea of a world
outside the body; but as such a world includes to each of us the
bodies of other people (I now take this for granted, though argu-
mentation might be necessary to prove it), and as these other people
may be supposably thinking and raising the same questions as my-
self, a generalized statement of a world outside the body would
reduce it to the non-human world, and the meaning of that interest-
ing part of physical existence composed by the complex of human
bodies would be left out of account. If, however, Mr. Marshall by
"out-thereness" does not mean outside the body, what does he mean?
The third step in Mr. Marshall's reasoning, I can scarcely get
a clear idea of. It is that in which we are supposed to pass from
the conception of "out-thereness" to that of " outer- world objects."
These latter are spoken of as the "somewhat that is the ground"
of the "out-thereness" experience; they are "entities," really ex-
isting. That they are not, strictly speaking, a part of experience
seems to be suggested in the statement that their existence is ' ' purely
hypothetical," that the belief in them is based upon "an assumption
pure and simple." My difficulty, first, is in understanding what
these objects are (i.e., what Mr. Marshall supposes them to be).
They are the ground of our experiences, but the ground of an ex-
perience would not seem to be necessarily the same as the experience
itself the ground of a pain, for instance, is not necessarily itself
pain, or the ground of heat itself hot and yet Mr. Marshall gives
us examples of "objects-in-the-outer-world" bath-wrapper, bath-tub,
towel, water-in-the-tub, which are surely immediate, unquestionable,
unhypothetical, sensible experiences, if anything is. Are then the
entities which really exist, and are the ground of our "otherness"
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 217
and " out-thereness " experiences, simple duplicates in color, form,
texture, etc., of our experiences, a repetition thus rather than a
ground? Mr. Marshall thinks that water is an "object-in-the-outer-
world," while "hot," when experienced in connection with water, is
not that it is without the characteristic which we call "out-there-
ness," and instead belongs to, is part of, consciousness which he
contrasts with objects in the outer world; that, indeed, on the basis
of experiences like those of heat we come to distinguish between
the outer-world and consciousness. But I think the fact is that we
all naturally and instinctively put heat in the (hot) object as much
as we do any other quality, its color, for instance, or its sound (in
the case of falling water) , or its taste, or its weight ; it is only as we
analyze and reflect, become "sophisticated" (to use Mr. Marshall's
phrase), that we put the heat in ourselves and say that it is not in
the object. But if the heat turns out to be in us, what on reflection
happens to the sound or the taste or the color or the weight of an
object? Are these not also sensations, feelings, a part of what we
vaguely call consciousness, as distinct from things that might con-
ceivably exist apart from consciousness are they not, if we continue
to use these spatial terms, "within" us rather than "out-there"?
But if so, what, or rather how much, is practically left of these
"objects-in-the-outer-world," of which Mr. Marshall speaks I mean
only what is it that is in his mind when he speaks of them? He
continues, "Further analysis indicates that this ' out-thereness '
quality within experience, in itself, belongs to the grouping which
we call consciousness. It certainly does not belong to that grouping
which we call the outer world." This, after what has been said
before, mystifies me completely, I confess though the fault may
possibly be my own.
The second difficulty connected with Mr. Marshall's concluding
step is that while the belief in "outer-world objects" is spoken of as
based on an "assumption pure and simple," the existence of such
objects being "purely hypothetical," he also speaks of the assump-
tion as "verified" by "countless experiments," "perhaps the most
thoroughly validated of all the assumptions made by the conscious
man." I had always supposed that when an hypothesis is verified,
verified time and again, it ceases to be an hypothesis and becomes
practically indistinguishable from what we call matter of fact
becomes, in short, scientific knowledge. But this is, perhaps, a
question of words.
WILLIAM M. SALTER.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
218
The New Rationalism: The Development of a Constructive Realism
upon the Basis of Modern Logic and Science and through the
Criticism of Opposed Philosophical Systems. B. G. SPAULDING.
New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1918. Pp. xviii-f 532.
Professor Spaulding has given us in the preface and brief intro-
duction to The New Rationalism so admirable a review of the con-
tents and essential doctrines of his book, that I find it difficult not to
quote them in full and then to ask the editor of the JOURNAL to accept
the quotation as my review of the book. However, I shall avoid this
breach of custom by not looking at the book again until I have written
out what I find to be the fundamental standpoints taken by the
author. I should add that I have had, since studying the book, the
help given by two hours of conversation with the author regarding
these standpoints, and that I feel it my chief duty as a reviewer of the
book to prevent certain possible misunderstandings of the author's
position.
In studying doctrines that are dressed so completely, as are those
of this book, in the garb of logic and rationalism the reader is liable
to be reminded of Descartes and Spinoza when he should be reminded
rather of Plato. I might put it, Spaulding 's position is to tliat of
modern thought as Plato 's realism is to the thought of Greece in the
fourth century before Christ. Yet Spaulding is and is not a Platonic
realist. He is not altogether a Platonist, for the simple reason that he
is a modern and Plato of course was not. That is to say, at the
bottom Spaulding is an experimentalist. He and even the pragmatist
can find a common platform, or at least a few planks, on which to
stand and grasp hands. He admits that man is indeed engaged in a
trial and error process. He claims no infallibility for man's intellect,
though he does believe that we discover facts through the intellect.
Man's world is subjective, subjective in the sense that it is a selected
world, a world, if you will, selected by the nature of man. Over
against this Spaulding is not the less a Platonic realist ; for there is
a world of eternal verities, a world not made by man but little by
little discovered by man. In short, the trial and error process called
the history of science and of thought is not a process of manufacture
or creation but one of discovery.
Perhaps nothing brings out so emphatically and explicitly this
realism as does Spaulding 's doctrine of values, or ideals. Many a
realist would admit the eternal verity and non-anthropomorphic char-
acter of mathematics, but would not admit that esthetics, ethics, and
religion are logically quite prior to or independent of human nature.
219
Man's conscience and esthetic taste are no doubt a human selection
and in that sense man's art and morals are human ; but the good and
the beautiful are such not one whit the less independently of man than
is the true. In short, as man's nature is not one of the fundamental
postulates of geometry, so also is man's nature in no way a funda-
mental postulate of ethics, religion, and esthetics. The good, the true,
and the beautiful form a Platonic world of eternal being not added to
or substracted from respectively by man's appearance or disappear-
ance in the drama of world-history. Therefore they can be and
should be studied quite apart from history and psychology. And as
a matter of fact they are frequently so studied.
May I add, the book was written in the years of the war and the
author clearly felt that one of the most dangerous heresies of modern
civilization is moral and religious subjectivism. If man is to regard
himself as the measure of all things 1 or to adopt natural selection as
the only ultimate criterion, our civilization faces inevitable decadence
in the near future. The greater our command over nature through
tools, the greater our capital, or command over human labor, and the
greater our field of operation, the quicker must come the cataclysm
when wayward, wilful, and skeptical mankind bring about another
Noah's flood. You may think to reach heaven by a moral tower of
Babel built as you will or as your biological architects advise ; but you
will not reach heaven in that way. Heaven and God are all about
you, not to be seen perhaps with your bodily eyes but to be discovered
with the eyes of the intellect as you have discovered the eternal
verities of mathematics. Spaulding believes it to be the supreme duty
of the modern philosopher to combat our subjectivism or humanism,
as Plato believed it his supreme duty to combat the men he called
Sophists. Such is Spaulding 's realism.
The next thing to be done, if we are to understand this book, is
to recognize the place of logic in the author's philosophy. Here we
quite misunderstand him if we infer that he undervalues facts and
verification through experimental enquiry. Mere logic can not verify
the conclusions of our :arguments; for this can be done only by
crucial experiments. Yet logic is to be given a highly important
place in man's intellectual enterprise. Logic itself deals with facts
as truly as does chemistry; and logic is one of the most powerful
intellectual tools or instruments man has discovered. Whether or not
we think that logic can be avoided, historically the student has not
succeeded in avoiding it. Logic is there ; and whether we like it or
not, we have to play the logical game. This game and its rules may
seem arbitrary; and such is the case in the sense that logic itself
is ultimately an experimental enquiry or procedure as truly as is
220 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
any other science. None the less if we play the game, that is, if we
adopt any given logic, we must abide by the rules of the particular
game we adopt.
This last statement introduces us to two of the bases of Spaul-
ding 's criticism of modern and current philosophical system. First,
what logic are we to adopt ; and secondly, the game once chosen, do
we obey the rules? He finds that modern philosophers are playing
the game of Aristotelian logic; whereas the most advanced or the
most exact sciences have a new game of logic. The Aristotelian logic
assumes a world of substantial things and their attributes, of inter-
acting tilings causally related, and in general of things related by
similarity and difference. In short, it is a logic of subject-predicate
propositions and a logic of classes related by exclusion or inclusion.
In contrast, the logic of the exact sciences is a logic of relations. It
is a logic of symmetrical, asymmetrical, transitive, and intransitive
relations, of types of order, of series, and the like. Its terms are
variables and these variables are functionally related.
In deciding between these two logics Spaulding is thoroughly an
empiricist. As a matter of fact modern science by its logic has suc-
ceeded in solving problems the Aristotelian logic has not succeeded
in solving. As a matter of fact modern science finds its relational
logic not only usable but in agreement with the results of experi-
mental enquiry. Whereas the Aristotelian logic is found to be inade-
quate. In the judgment of modern science we do not live in a world
of things and substances, of attributes of substances, and of causal
interrelationships. Rather we seem to live in a world whose rela-
tions can be external to the entities related, a world variously
ordered, a world containing series, variables and functional relation-
ships. Accordingly Spaulding condemns the modern philosopher
for continuing to play the wrong game. This philosopher is assum-
ing a world that modern science fails to find, really a world of the
ignorant and of our pre-scientific ancestors, a world of things and
their qualities.
As a consequence the modern philosopher has hopelessly divorced
himself from the remainder of the modern intellectual class. He is
trying even to solve problems raised regarding science by tools that
have been already found inadequate within science. No wonder that
modern philosophy as a whole has reached an impasse 'and that the
solutions offered by the several systems form a series of paradoxes
and even absurdities. Thus our author examines phenomenalism,
subjective idealism, positivism, and 1 pragmatism and finds them to be
causation philosophies; again he examines objective idealism and
points out that it is a substance philosophy. That is to say, these
philosophies are trying to solve problems by means of respectively a
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 221
causation and a substance logic, problems that permit no such, solu-
tion. In contrast, the author maintains that realism is at bottom an
effort to adopt the new logic of science and that this philosophy shows
promise of succeeding in solving the persistent problems of the tra-
ditional schools, in avoiding the old paradoxes, and in bringing back
philosophy once more into partnership with science.
But even if we pass by the question: Which logic? the traditional
philosophies should at least play the game of the old logic by obeying
its rules. Here the book introduces the criterion of self-criticism
which the author made use of and defended in articles published a
decade and more ago. If a, system claims to be logically 'consistent,
it should stand the test of self-criticism. It should not tacitly as-
sume as an initial postulate what it denies in its conclusion. For
example, absolute skepticism should not assume the possibility of
knowing in order to show that all knowledge is impossible. Phe-
nomenalism should not assume a knowledge of "the world of things-
in-themselves" in order to prove that this world transcends our
possible knowledge.
The final one hundred and fifty pages of the hook are given to a
critical and constructive formulation of the basic standpoints of real-
ism. Here too I would emphasize the underlying spirit rather than
the detailed results. Realism is loyally empirical. It is pluralistic
because the facts ultimately faced by science force pluralism upon
us. If I mistake not, Spaulding is deeply impressed by the logical
independence found among the fundamental terms and postulates of
the sciences. The world is populated by many terms and relations',
or entities which simply are there together. It is impossible to de-
duce them from one another. There is no reason why any one of
them should not be absent and the others not remain as they are.
They are like the dimensions of space. Why are there three dimen-
sions and not four? The question has no answer except, "We find
but three."
This same independence within reality and the resulting em-
piricism forced upon the philosopher are to be seen in the successive
strata we meet in going from the simple to the complex, from the
lower to the higher existences. The world might have had only the
chemical elements, but we find the chemical compounds. It might
have had only the lifeless, but we find the living. It might have
had only individual men, but we find societies. They 'simply are.
From the lower we can not deduce the higher, though we may find
correlations and one to one correspondences between the strata.
Again, this logical independence makes evolution and history a
real process. It is a process of creative synthesis in which the gen-
uinely and irreducibly new comes into existence.
222 TEE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Finally this logical independence is the true basis for a doctrine
of freedom. The higher stratum is independent of the lower. It
has its own realm of law and though not free in the sense of being
lawless is free in the sense of self-government. Life is governed not
by the rules of chemistry but by those of life. Mind is governed by
the laws of mind, the reason by those of the reason. The higher and
the lower are indeed consistent, but this in no way prevents their
being independent. Man has a biological and a physical organiza-
tion; but he is also an ethical and; a reasoning being. His ethical
and rational nature 'do not conflict with 'his biological and physical
characteristics. ' ' The particular ethical and rational characteristics
presuppose the particular biological, physical, and chemical char-
acteristics embodied in any one human individual, but they can not
be derived from or identified with these latter, though, once dis-
covered, they can in some way be correlated with them. But from
this there follows the conclusion of the gravest importance for the
world in the present world-conflict of standards that ethics is not
a branch of biology, even as biology is not a branch of chemistry and
physics, and also that conscience, will, and reason, although not
undetermined and lawless, are nevertheless free." They are not
free in the sense of belonging to a realm from which causation is
absent, but are free in the sense that they belong to a realm in which
"the ideals of right and justice and truth are present as efficiencies,"
capable of leading "men to act as they ought to act, and to reason
as the implicative structure of reality dictates, and not as tradition
and custom and authority would have them reason."
WAI/TEE T. MARVIN.
RUTGERS COLLEGE.
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
THE PHILOSOPHICAL EEVIEW. July, 1918. Philosophy
and Literature (pp. 343-355) : ERNEST ALBEE. - Maintains the ten-
tative conclusion that science enables us to comprehend the world
from without ; literature to appreciate it from within ; philosophy to
prove that the world is one, in spite of the apparent antithesis of
description and appreciation. The Teaching of Philosophy and the
Classification of the Sciences in the Thirteenth Century (pp. 356-
373): MAURICE DE WULF. - Develops the three-fold classification
of human knowledge: the sciences of observation, philosophy with
its sub-divisions into speculative, practical, and poetic, and theology ;
considers the sociological aspects of this classification. The Absolute
and the Finite Self (pp. 374-391) : HIRALAL HALDAR. - Plato 's Par-
menides teaches that "all particular beings are both finite and in-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 223
finite." Tlie view is here set forth this great truth of Plata is not
sufficiently recognized by the speculative Idealism of to-day. An
Approach to Mysticism (pp. 393-404) : C. A. BENNETT. - Mysticism
is usually an object of extreme critical praise or blame. The analy-
sis here undertaken seeks to diminish the violence of this opposition
in respect to three cardinal mystical doctrines, the renunciation of
thought, passivity, and naive optimism. The Present-day Concep-
tion of Logic (pp. 405-412) : ALBERT E. AVEY. -An account of the
effects of symbolic logic on common logic, rendering three important
advances, viz., logic as a science of relations instead of a science of
the laws of thought, the recognition of certain new forms of logical
operations and a consideration of the inner structure of the term.
The Mind and its Discipline (pp. 412-427) : CATHERINE E. GILBERT.
-Maintains that "the reality of general powers of mind can not be
denied, and that the transference of knowledge or power, far from
being a 'miracle' or 'impossible' is the only assumption upon which
any education can rest." Summaries of Articles. Notes.
Dumas, Georges. Troubles Mentaux et Troubles Nerveux de Guerre.
Paris : Librairie Felix Alcan. 1919. Pp. 225. 3 fr. 50 (Majora-
tion temporaire, 30% du prix marque).
Mackenna, Robert W. The Adventure of Life. New York : The Mac-
millan Co. 1919. Pp. ix -f 233. $1.25.
NOTES AND NEWS
PAUL CAEUS
WITH the death of Dr. Paul Cams, which occurred on February
11, at his home in La Salle, Illinois, a very interesting chapter in the
annals of American philosophical and general intellectual develop-
ment was closed. Through his connection with the Open Court Pub-
lishing Company, an institution generously endowed by the late Mr.
E. C. Hegeler, Dr. Carus found a ready means to carry on his propa-
ganda for liberal, religious and social thought.
Dr. Carus first studied at the University of Strassburg, and later
owing to the influence of his father, a high official of the German
state church, he went to the University of Tubingen primarily to
study theology, and in 1876 he obtained there his doctorate in phi-
losophy. Leaving Germany where he was born in 1852, because of its
lack of liberal thought, Dr. Carus went first to England and finally
arrived in New York.
When in 1887 Mr. Hegeler established the Open Court as a bi-
weekly journal, devoted to the reconciliation of science and religion,
Dr. Carus contributed some articles and upon the request of Mr.
224 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Hegeler came to Chicago to assist in the work of the journal, of
which he soon 'became managing editor. Through the work of Dr.
Cams the Open Court became a weekly organ for intellectual work of
all sorts. The pages of the journal were replete with discussions of
scientific and philosophical subjects, among which were many im-
portant German papers which Dr. Cams himself translated. In
1890 the large programme of the Open Court was divided and the
more technical articles were printed in the Monist which was then es-
tablished as a quarterly journal. The Open Court continued as a
popular weekly, devoted to the religion of science, and has since be-
come a monthly.
From the beginning 1 of its career the Monist has contained in
its pages articles of the highest scientific importance, many of which
have been reprinted in permanent book form. The reprinting of
valuable articles led to the development of a book publishing enter-
prise which has proved to .be of high intellectual value. Representa-
tive of its work is the Religion of Science Library, a splendid col-
lection of religious and scientific books, which includes in its latter
numbers reprints of philosophical classics so reasonable in cost as
to permit of a large circulation. This library hias also made easily
available, philosophical works previously difficult to obtain.
The wide cultural interests served by the Open Court Publish-
ing Company testify to the broad scholarly pursuits of Dr. Carus,
whose own writings cover a varied range of topics, prominent
among which are Oriental philosophy and religion. As an endowed
institution the Open Court Publishing Company could undertake
the publication of works of permanent scientific worth without re-
gard to the question of financial returns. The monistic ideals of
the institution formulated by Dr. Carus, as an attempt to system-
atize the results of the various sciences in a unitary world-con-
ception, influenced him to publish many important scientific trea-
tises such a.s mathematical works of Hilbert, Boole and Dedekind,
psychological monographs of Ribot and Binet, and physical works
of Mach.
Under the management of Dr. Carus the Open Court Publishing
Company has become a unique cultural institution. While it has
never given up its function of attempting to save religion from
dogma, it has expanded 1 its interests to include the propogation of
the best results of human learning. Dr. Cams' ideal of the system-
atic cultivation of philosophical thought, based upon positive
facts, places this distinctly American enterprise in sharp contrast
with the accepted tradition of American indifference to intellectual
pursuits.
J. R. KANTOR.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
VOL. XVI, No. 9. APRIL 24, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
LUTHER AND MACHIAVELLI; KANT AND FREDERICK
HISTORY plays tricks; it is never without humor. The great
war has been traced to Martin Luther, the great reformer.
Not the credit of it, as we of the Allies would measure credit, has
been given to him, but he has been named as one of the very impor-
tant forerunners of its militarism, Prussianism, brutalism; as one
of the early prophets of present day Pan-Germanism and Kultur.
Thus in Germany and the Next War, Bernhardi refers to Luther
as making a great early contribution to present German civilization.
Bernhardi also claims Immanuel Kant, associating him with Luther
in the making of this contribution. Kant did but carry on what
Luther before him had undertaken. Bernhardi 's appreciation of
the two, moreover, seems to have been accepted in the main by
Dewey, who uses it as a part of his argument against German phi-
losophy in his widely read and generally approved German Philoso-
phy and Politics. Dewey quotes from Bernhardi as follows :
Two great movements were born from the German intellectual life, on which,
henceforth, all the intellectual and moral progress of mankind must rest: the
^Reformation that broke the intellectual yoke imposed by the Church, which
checked all free progress; and the Critique of Pure Reason which put a stop to
the caprice of philosophical speculation by defining for the human mind the limi-
tations of its capacities for knowledge and at the same time pointed out the way
in which knowledge is really possible. On this superstructure was developed the
intellectual life of our time, whose deepest significance consists in the attempt to
reconcile the results of free Inquiry with the needs of the heart and thus to lay
a foundation for the harmonious organization of mankind.
Luther and Kant, the intended point is, reconciled, or harmo-
nized, "free inquiry" and the "needs of the heart" ! They did this
by divorcing reason and heart. In their different ways and their
different centuries the sixteenth and the eighteenth, they insisted on
the separation of the secular from the spiritual, the purely rational
from the moral and religious, and so, at least apparently, sanctioned
a certain irresponsibility of the former to the latter and at the same
time a certain consent and obedience "Unto Caesar that which is
Csesar's!" of the latter to the former. So was the intellectual life
225
226 TEE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
set free and, at the same time, the human spirit given an "inner
life," an Innerlichkeit, as rich in noble feeling -and good will as it
was aloof and unworldly; the two being "reconciled" by their very
agreement to differ and to remain apart. The intellect was free for
scientific discovery and material efficiency, being unhampered by
moral restraint, and the soul was splendidly, spiritually free, being
unhampered by the quite external worldly necessities. Simply put,
the most worldly world could not possibly seem tainted ; the noblest
ends could justify the most brutal and sordid means. Wherefore,
since of just such aloofness of the moral and the natural, of end and
means, are the militarism of Bernhardi and his kind and the vaunted
Kultur of Germany, Luther and Kant, separating Church and State,
moral and natural, "real" and "phenomenal," do appear as great
prophets of Germany's present Weltanschauung.
But are the appearances possibly misleading? Is Bernhardi 's
claim a fair one ? Is Dewey right in recognizing it ? As it seems to
me, the interpretation of Bernhardi and Dewey is at least super-
ficial. They reach their conclusion either by some change of empha-
sis or accent or by disregard of pertinent historical contexts. Per-
haps by both. A change of emphasis, as Heraclitus appears to have
observed long ago, may make all the difference between /3to s and /&' 9 >
life and the arrow that brings death. There is a great difference,
too, between "Look out!," when the context is one of passing bands
and banners, and "Look out!," when a chimney is falling. As the
Frenchman, troubled over his English, said: "It means both 'Put
your head out quickly' and 'Pull your head in quickly.' ' And,
after much the same manner, there is a great difference between
Luther, separating spiritual and secular, and his contemporary,
Machiavelli, separating spiritual and secular, or between Kant, sepa-
rating religious faith and natural or temporal necessity, and his
king, Frederick the Great, separating the religious and the natural
so successfully that he was able to make his reign remarkable at
once for the spiritual freedom that it nurtured and for political and
military successes. Plainly, with differences of emphasis and con-
text, the same formula may satisfy very different views and pur-
poses; it may be the utterance, actual or virtual, of very different
persons; so that one needs, when judging men, to be very careful
not to confuse black and white.
Emphases and contexts are easily forgotten or are wholly over-
looked even by the careful historian. They are forgotten or over-'
looked because they are not necessarily immediately in the historian 's
findings. Rather easily they may elude the "objective" historical
investigator. Along with what he actually and objectively finds
there is always something unseen that may be very important.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 227
Vision without a "blind spot," in short, is not even his prerogative.
Apart, moreover, from this fact, which is familiar enough and which
has its obvious application, there is to be reckoned with at the pres-
ent time another fact. At the present time judgments of men and
events are bound to be under the bias of the war values. Thus
Luther and Kant were Germans ; Prussians, too, both of them ; and
so, in these years of the great war, in spite of their long enduring
adoption by most of the Christian world, they must be what shall
I say? summarily deported or at least interned. Bernhardi was
glad enough to claim them, just as Germany has gladly claimed, but
not always recovered, many of her race who have long lived abroad ;
and Dewey's book, it seems to me, too readily recognizes the claim.
When war prejudice reinforces a philosophical view, as in his case,
it is hard to give the benefit of any doubt to any one, but it is well,
among other things, to remember in general that the present, bring-
ing the past to trial and judgment, should make due allowance for
the passage of time. Both the reformer Luther and the great criti-
cal philosopher Kant, however seemingly general and abstract in
their formal utterances, meant something very concrete and specific
in their day and generation. In one's judgments to abstract a spe-
cific utterance from its vital connection and' context and m'ake of
it only a general formula is, quite too often, to end by confusing the
death-dealing arrow with life or "Pull your head in" with "Put
your head out" the quicker the better in either case!
Not that Bernhardi or Dewey who did not wait for the war to
become a critic of Kant is altogether wrong. There is some ground
for the position they take. The appearances are not easy to gain-
say. Also Germans have very properly become objects of suspicion
ever since August, 1914, even the Germans of long ago; especially
if one read one's history how shall I say it? deterministically.
Thus, of course, what the Germans now are they must have been in
1783; in 1517. What they were then we are beginning to under-
stand now. It is true that other understandings of them, quite at
variance with that of today, have found expression and support in
Germany as well as out ; witness, specifically as to Luther and Kant,
the whole history of Protestantism and the remarkably versatile and
variant Kant literature ; but naturally the war has at last made all
clear, disclosing clearly and unequivocally the truth in re; if, I say,
history may be read deterministically. But not all of us can read
history so. Were present-day Germany, for example, quite differ-
ent, I can still imagine some one claiming both Kant and Luther out
of the past as great prophets of the present, the truth being that at
any time a significant utterance, as it is profound and comprehen-
sive, has to have a certain ambiguity and that a later time will there-
228 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
fore have a choice of meanings for it. Indeed the ambiguity at the
time of utterance may show itself and is very likely to show itself in
some open difference or conflict. In Luther's time, as has been re-
marked here, there was the very different Machiavelli, zealous ex-
cept for differences of accent under virtually the same formula ; just
as, if I may adduce an extreme instance of very much the same
thing, in the time of St. Paul there was that other great individual-
ist, Nero, or of Socrates, that other wise skeptic and boastful igno-
ramus, Protagoras.
So, in the interest of common fairness to a freer history and to
men with whom we have long had cordial associations, approving
and honoring them, but whom now some would intern at least "till
the end of the war, ' ' let us consider what case our one-time friends
may have. The case presented, we may decide, if nothing more, to
give them the benefit of awakened doubts. For my own part I have
to feel about the discovery Bernhardi's claim is virtually this of
Machiavelli in Luther, Luther being thus only a wolf in sheep 's cloth-
ing, or of Frederick, who was by the way a strangely scrupulous
critic of Machiavelli, in Kant very much as I have to feel over the
notion of certain Roman Catholics that but for Protestantism there
had been no war. Such a conclusion, of course, can be only an ex-
tension of the Bernhardi idea of Luther ; putting the blame for the
war on an unsanctified or an only aloofly spiritual secularism and
materialism in general, with which it would identify Protestantism,
not nuerely on Germany's peculiar Luther-inspired Kultur! But,
manifestly, in view of such a conclusion something has got loose;
something has gone wrong. Certainly the Catholic blame of Prot-
estantism can be no more trustworthy than Bernhardi's praise of
Luther. Again, to say that Protestantism started the war is only
a reductio ad dbsurdum of Bernhardi's idea.
Now in two ways, really only developing intimations in what has
already been said, I shall try to show how Luther and Kant may be
restored at least to some of the respect and importance that they had
before 1914. First there is that fact of the easy confusion and mis-
judgment, from which these men seem to me to have suffered ; a fact
that appears to be rooted in the very conditions of generalization
affecting all judgment; and, second, there is the importance of spe-
cific emphasis and context, without due regard to which no one can
really decide what Luther or Kant or any one else who has ever
spoken has really meant.
As to the easy misjudgment and the conditions of generalization,
it has been suggested above that one formula, the result obviously
of some generalization, may satisfy very different views. Any for-
mula, as it becomes general it is no true formula until it be gen-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 229
eral must cover an indefinite number of different cases and in the
end may apply even to opposites. Pessimist and optimist, speaking
in generalities, may say with equal honesty and earnestness :
Nothing to breathe but air
Quick as a flash 'tis gone.
Nowhere to fall but off ,
Nowhere to stand but on.
For good or for ill this is a world in which there is nothing to do
but deeds. Kant himself, keen-sighted after a manner all his own
in the theory of knowledge, in matters of human experience, recog-
nized just this truth about general formulas. Listen to him for a
moment. Said he in so many words : The general, universal, a priori
forms of thought are all affected with " antinomies"; they all harbor
opposites. Yet Kant, probably, should not be allowed to testify
here. His ways and his words are too forbiddingly technical. He,
moreover, is one of those now on trial. But, quite intelligibly, gen-
eralization has ever been a way to the reconciliation of differences.
All men, whatever their party or purpose or character, agree "in
the abstract"; that is, they agree in general principles. A common
flag waves over both political factions and shows, as it waves, a com-
mon patriotism. All things that are, agree perfectly just in being,
but not in what they are. Thus, like politics, generalization is ever
making strange bed-fellows and history, seen under general prin-
ciples, is bound to teem with humorous fellowships. St. Paul and
Nero have been mentioned here as contemporaries who achieved
greatly different things under the same general principle. They
were both great individuals. For them both a man was a law unto
himself; "legally supreme," as the phrase is. Their association,
moreover, suggests the special and pertinent interest that the pres-
ent discussion must have in the fact that general principles, so neces-
sary to all judgments, may bring opposites together. Thus the op-
position that a general principle harbors may be and certainly often
is expressed in a materialistic and in an idealistic application. Nero
and St. Paul differed just so in their individualism ; Protagoras and
Socrates in their skepticism ; and Luther and Machiavelli, Kant and
Frederick, also differed so in their separation of the spiritual and
the secular, the natural and moral. "Be a man; be yourself," ex-
horts somebody, and in response sensuality may ensue, or moral
endeavor of a highly idealistic order. "Seek pleasure," says some
one else, and inevitably some reply with hedonism, some even with
extreme asceticism. Nietzsche's "will to power," whatever it really
meant to him, has meant to his readers two very divergent things,
a most offensive brutalism and a most exalted idealism. He wrote
shockingly, brutally, but how often the language of profound moral
230 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
and religious experience has been intensely sensuous and materially
realistic.
Yes, formulas make strange companions and the historian, es-
pecially if conditions create a prejudice, may easily judge charac-
ters and events unfairly. But, secondly, in making out a case for
Luther or Kant, it is not necessary to depend on the ease of confu-
sion and misjudgment which comes with reliance on formal utter-
ances and general principles. The utterances or the principles are
never out of a clear sky nor are they ever unaccented. To speak
first of Luther, very far from being a passionless and abstract in-
tellectual, he was a public agitator, a great reformer, a mystic in
action. Not in any abstract way, not in an enterprise to which
merely intellectual processes had led him, but as a determined im-
passioned reformer of a positive and visible institution, the Eoman
Church, which on its side was at once powerful, tyrannical and re-
sentful, he came to insist on the divorce of the secular from the spirit-
ual and called on the German nation, resisting the Italians, to ac-
complish this object. Parenthetically, have I now betrayed my own
cause, since, setting the Germans against the Italians, Luther must
indeed appear as after all a forerunner of the Prussian Kultur and
the present war ! Well, to judge him. so on such ground certainly
would be quite as reasonable as Bernhardi 's appreciation of him and
the ground for it. The conflict, then, urged by Luther, was really
in the interest of idealistic reform. Institutional tyranny was to
be resisted and corrected. The individual was to be liberated. The
secular life, long exploited by the Church, was called upon to assert
itself and in doing so to effect at once recognition of its own worth
and right to open expression and the purification of the Church,
even the spiritualization of the spiritual. In such labor, too, the
secular would have even the approval of God. Not very differently
in meaning and purpose temporal rulers had been proclaimed to be
divinely appointed quite as truly as were spiritual rulers ; kings, as
popes ; so that, in its inception, the doctrine of divine right of kings
was a positive forward step in the direction of human liberty. Later,
when the cry came to be that all men were kings, all the equals
whether of kings or popes, 'being all so created by God, the doctrine
came in its turn very properly to stand for tyranny. And Luther's
separation of secular and spiritual, I say, has had much the same
history. In its time and context and with Luther's accent it meant
progress. Contexts and emphases are indeed important to meaning.
Luther's difference from his contemporary Machiavelli lay in
this. For Luther, reformer of the Church, the spiritual was the end
to be served; for Machiavelli,. at once personally ambitious and na-
tionally patriotic, the secular and temporal. In the interests of Ital-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 231
ian nationality Machiavelli would allow the king, the temporal
leader, all that the Church of his time had been employing and en-
joying, both all the tyranny and corruption, cunning and intrigue,
and all the appearance of virtue and holiness. So was the temporal
to get its cue from the spiritual. "A wise prince," we read, "must
constantly be on his guard that nothing may ever drop from his
mouth but what seems to proceed from a heart full of goodness,
mercy, truth, humanity and religion, but particularly the last . . .
[Yet let it be] the chief care of a Prince to preserve himself and his
state. The means which he uses for that purpose, whatsoever they
are, will always be esteemed honorable and applauded by every one.
. . . There is a Prince alive at this time (whose name, however, it
may not be proper to mention) who has nothing in his mouth but
'Peace and Good Faith': and yet if had inclined either to one or the
other, he would long ago have lost both his reputation and his do-
minions." So was the new end of national life to justify the old
means which the Church had fostered and of course sanctified. But
Luther, while also separating secular and spiritual, reversed the re-
lation, making the former serve the latter, and so, in sharp contrast
with Machiavelli, has been proclaimed a reformer. Luther was, in
a sense that might very well embarrass Bernhardi, quite uber-
Deutsch. Luther and Machiavelli were contemporaries ; their minds
might be said to have run in the same channel ; but, if one may ex-
tend the metaphor, they were certainly not running in the same
direction. Although saying Luther, Bernhardi really means Machia-
velli. Saying Luther, too, he might be looked upon as showing him-
self an extremely apt pupil of the great Florentine.
What of Kant? In his case, I think, it is even more important
to consider the facts behind the formula, the signs or sources of
special emphasis and accent ; for the formula of the Critical Philoso-
phy may easily betray the meaning of the philosopher himself to
readers of later times. Kant was a very different spirit from Luther.
Luther was agitator, reformer, mystic. Kant was an intellectual
and, although effecting a real revolution in philosophy, certainly had
a good deal of the manner and method of a reactionary. Kant's
problem was to reestablish authority instead of to overthrow author-
ity. He felt specially called upon to bring law and order, where in
those days of the Enlightenment, when in France Kousseau had been
calling for heart against reason and for a return to nature against
government, when some one else had said that mankind could never
be happy till all men were atheists and when certain European courts
virtually had their court atheists as well as their court preachers,
there seemed great danger of disorder, lawlessness, an uncontrolled
individualism. So did events make Kant seem a conservative, when
232 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
in fact he was a progressive. He insisted on law and order, on au-
thority, but he made authority a subjective, personally sanctioned
principle, no longer a visible external order. Visible, empirical or-
ders, as he put it, were only "phenomenal." Again, he insisted on
form in life, even on conformity, but he changes human life from
a condition of conformity to something outside to a condition of
forming what lay without to a law, a basis^ of formal constraint,
within and a priori; and just here we see the first significant empha-
sis of his philosophy. With regard to conditions of his day he dis-
credits and emphatically rejects the life of external conformity. Is
not the meaning and value of a philosophy in terms of what it re-
jects and supplants as well as in terms of what it sets up ?
But, protests some one, although rejecting external conformity,
he promptly puts in its place, what can really be no better, the con-
straint of a priori, universally innate and necessary ways or forms,
which constitute an order of life as absolute and inexorable as any
order of life could possibly Ibe and which suggest a sort of a priori
institutionalise!. True, he styles this order internal, but is there any
relief in a mere name? The objector speaks quite accurately; evi-
dently he knows some Kant ; but he is leaving out what is all-impor-
tant, the historical context. Exactly as that doctrine of the divine
right of kings, in its historical origin, was a doctrine of liberation or,
to give another illustration, not impertinent here, as Luther's well
known appeal from an infallible Church to an infallible Bible was
in spite of the still retained infallibility also a step towards human
liberty, consistent with respect for the natural human individual
reading his Bible and with the doctrine of justification by faith, so
Kant's apriorism, his universally subjective, internal, a priori insti-
tutionalism of thought and will, become in these different days an
offensive doctrine, was at the time of its rise an important advance,
of course on the visible, external institutional authority and restraint
that had aroused Luther's earlier protest, but also and especially on
the empirical rationalism and mechanicalism of the Enlightenment,
of such men as Hume and Diderot, that so deeply stirred Rousseau.
That peculiar rationalism, I should add, only spread the spirit of
medieval institutional authority over all nature and, while there was
of course advance in all this, the advance that always comes with
extension or generalization, there was something lacking. There was
a need that Rousseau met, at least in part, with his assertion of
heart against reason, and that Kant at least tried to meet when, in
the first place, he established law and order, that is, institutionalism,
in the self, making them or it subjective and a priori, that is, de-
pendent on internal, personal sanction ; and when, secondly, as we
have now to remark, he insisted that the subject was in reality mas-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 233
ter, being superior to the a priori institutional order very much as
a king from whom the law proceeds must himself be superior to the
law or "legally supreme." A king "can do no wrong," being be-
yond the law and its good and evil; nor was Kant's real subject, the
ich an sich, the mere slave or creature of a rational order. Bather
was it the maker or giver of such a rational order. The "real" was
above the "phenomenal," will above formal, rational, institutional
experience; and, as in a democracy all individuals are, like kings,
legally supreme, so in Kant's world all human subjects were ration-
ally supreme.
So, two centuries after Luther, did Kant separate the spiritual
and the secular, the moral and the natural and rational, warm will
and cold reason. Kant's protestantism, naturally, was deeper than
Luther's, because Kant came so much later, when the general formal
reason, instead of a particular institution, was the primary object
of protest. It is true that Kant, being broad-minded and candid as
well as polemical, in his protest gave important place to the formal
and orderly, to the institutional and rational, but emphatically he
made this subordinate to the real self and its real life. He made it
means, not end; he made the rational means to the moral as end,
subordinating as may be said the formal to the vital reason, the
positive programmes of experience to its free principle.
Above I mentioned, as the first important emphasis of Kant's
philosophy, the rejection of external conformity. Now, secondly, as
has been shown, there was his insistence on the a, priori, the subjec-
tive and innate character of the formally rational and institutional ;
and, thirdly, his declaration of independence in which was asserted
the superiority of the real self to all positive law and order. The
law and order which the self gave it was superior to ; and with supe-
riority on such conditions, I submit, in passing, the self could be
trusted, for in the long run it would hardly do violence without war-
rant to what it had itself set up. At the present time, probably, no
one would care to speak quite in Kant's way. Modern philosophy is
very generally anti-Kantian. But I venture now to say that in his
day, in view of the then conditions, his way of speaking was pro-
found and timely and really progressive. If later, under pressure
of the Napoleonic wars, such men as Fichte, great Prussian nation-
alist, and Hegel, great imperialist, translated Kantianism into Prus-
sianism and Pan-Germanism, the translation was possible only by
neglect of Kant's emphases or by complete inversion of them. In
the Kantian apriorism Dewey sees a prophecy of the German bu-
reaucracy. I can see it there, too, but hardly as Kant's meaning.
In Frederick the Great Dewey sees how shall I put it? Kant's
appropriate king, as it were the royal agent or executor of the Criti-
234 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
cal Philosophy, and Kant himself, perhaps lacking discrimination,
as is not unusual with contemporaries, seems to have respected Fred-
erick, if not to have acclaimed him, but in the great distinction of
the 'secular and the spiritual, the rational and the moral, Frederick,
while outwardly perhaps resembling Kant, really inverted the Kant-
ian emphasis, as aforetime Machiavelli had inverted the emphasis
of Luther.
Finally, in any appreciation of the Critical Philosophy it is cer-
tainly important to keep in mind that neither of Kant's two impor-
tant distinctions, both so fundamental to his philosophy, that be-
tween the real and the phenomenal, or the moral and the natural,
and that between form and content or matter, involved the ordinary
dualism sometimes inferred. In each instance the two things distin-
guished were quite inseparable; they were not two worlds or two
substances; they were two, in the first instance, only as end and
means and, in the second instance, as general law and particular
cases, a principle and its applications, may be so counted. Certainly
the sharp dualism, the two world view, that Bernhardi enjoys and
Dewey criticises, was not Kant's intent, although, as has to be con-
ceded, the philosophy can be read in that way at this time. Again,
with regard to the distinction between form and content, it is also
important to keep in mind that the a priori forms, so-called, the
basis of what has here been called Kant's a priori institutionalism,
space and time and the causal relation, were the enabling stand-
points, or conditions of mind, of such very general disciplines as
mathematics and natural science and so were not in any sense pro-
vincial or national. Nor, spite of recent claims, were they even
Prussian! For the understanding of them, furthermore, I suggest
that Kant's taking them from the external world and gifting them
to the subject with what constant emphasis he did this! should
be associated with the modern human interest in exploration and
travel, the modern study of history and the modern sense of human
independence and achievement, and with all that these have meant
to modern social, political and intellectual life. To speak generally,
before Kant's day and generation space and time and causation and
all that they held had been quite external to man and had accord-
ingly constituted only so many limitations from without of his
real life. Their world was in no sense his world. But Kant to be
sure only as a philosopher does such things made man the great
gift of them and, as at a stroke, all things spacial and temporal and
all things causal, that is, productive or creative, were revealed as
intimately human. The earlier limitations of distance in space and
in time and of activity from some quite transcendent power gave
way and there came to man a sense of the unity of all life, temporally
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 235
as well as spatially, and a sense of his actual participation in the
causation, the creative life of the universe.
Kant's a priori formalism is too commonly appraised merely
from the light that the single work, the Critique of the Pure Reason,
throws upon it, but its full value certainly should not be got in that
way. The other great Critiques are most important. Thus, there
is little left of Kant's mere formalism of his a priori institutional-
ism after he has completed his philosopher's story; little that is
Prussian and offensive, I mean ; and surely he ought to be heard to
the end, to the end of his story as well as with full regard to the
context of his times, before being judged. His a priori formalism,
at first, may seem to impart tyrannical rigidity, a military or bu-
reaucratic character to experience, but in reality such is not the
case. Only by a set-up, an asserted and accepted formalism is ex-
perience, reliable and scientific experience possible, and in the Pure
Reason Kant points this out. But Kant's lines of formal restraint
are drawn very broadly and then they constitute, after all, only the
terms of a sort of universal working hypothesis, the formal bases
of science in general, and so can have no authority or rigor other
than this. There is something immensely useful and efficient about
such a definite standpoint, but nothing dogmatic or tyrannical. The
Practical Reason, although it is virtually a declaration of independ-
ence against any possible tyranny from the Pure Reason, may ap-
pear in its own field and in its own way to be forbiddingly legalistic.
That Categorical Imperative of Kant's, for example, has given many
of us pause in more senses than one! Yet Kant's ethical legalism
is really quite innocuous. Critics of it offer two criticisms that some-
how, to say the least, neutralize each other. First they object to it
because it is so formally legalistic, bidding us rigorously do our
duty, slavishly live according to law, universal principle, what you
will, and then they complain that there is no intimation whatsoever
what specifically our duty is or what positively the law is. May not
the lack of such intimation be a distinct merit? The very abstract
and non-committal character of the Imperative, the order to law-
fulness, makes it absolute, but also makes it really amount only to
a call to rigorous conduct under whatever law experience at the time
may warrant. Man must always act under some law. Law, too, ac-
cording to Kant, is an object of will.
In such manner, different from that of Bernhardi's appreciation
or Dewey 's criticism, may the Critical Philosophy be read. Perhaps
today it is, in form and atmosphere, a forbidding and unacceptable
philosophy, but in its own day it was, I think, a timely and, as the
term is now used, un-Prussian philosophy. My suggested reading,
moreover, might even be called pragmatic, as well as un-Prussian,
236 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
since it justifies the form and atmosphere by reference to the times
and finds a meaning that is at least not opposed to the teachings of
pragmatism. Why, the Kantian Formalism, in spite of or because
of ? its present aridity, strikes me as most excellent fuel for us prag-
matists and our particular conflagration; especially, if in reading
the history of philosophy we be idealistic pragmatists. As a theory
in its own day and generation, it was pragmatic; and it was also
progressive, carrying on for Luther, not, like Frederick's militarism,
for Machiavelli.
ALFRED H. LLOYD.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.
HUMAN PERSONALITY AND ITS PATHOLOGY
THE most careful observation of what are known as mental dis-
eases and defects justifies the conception of them as defects
of personality in all its complexity. The behavior which is looked
upon as abnormal and unusual indicates that the personality is dis-
organized, or out of harmony with its environing circumstances.
The psychopathological behaviors of our everyday life represent
peculiar slight failures to adapt ourselves to our surroundings in a
usual or expected manner. This attitude concerning mental disease
is a symptom of the development of a series of valuable scientific
conceptions concerning human personality and human character.
Human personality may now be looked upon as a phenomenon of
science. It is an observable fact of our actual contact with concrete
objects, and therefore subject to serviceable interpretation. The
critical study of personality as a definite scientific phenomenon
promises great value for the student of social and ethical facts; it
will provide such students with data concerning human action and
its motivation, whether moral or non-moral adjustments, or unusual
maladjustments to the social, cultural, and physical surroundings.
II
Personality may be analyzed for psychological descriptive pur-
poses into two large component factors. One of these comprises the
actions which represent the actual movements and behaviors of any
particular person. In a broad way we have here the sum total of an
individual's behavior or actions which are the direct visible signs of
the individual 's nature. Included here are all the acts of the moral,
religious, esthetic, social, scientific, commercial and economic rela-
tions. The other major component is a series of more permanent
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 237
action elements, which may be considered potential behaviors. We
may best refer to these acts as dispositions or tendencies to action.
"When these dispositions or tendencies are actualizing themselves they
influence the general direction which a response adjustment takes.
In other words, whatever action an individual ever performs is de-
termined by these dispositions which are cumulative responses cen-
tering around an original tendency. The original tendencies repre-
sent the inherited phases of personality which usually are modified
by the actual experiences of the individual.
Both the actual behaviors and the dispositions may be further
divided into predominantly behavioristic or mentalistic factors.
This analysis is proposed with a clear view as to its artificiality, but
is undertaken in the interests of an understanding of the phenomena
to be studied. The predominantly behavioristic behaviors, which are
immediate-response acts, are analyzable into the series of reflexes,
habits, and instincts. Between these acts and those which are pre-
dominantly mental there are such behaviors as emotions and volun-
tary acts, which, properly speaking, are on the border-line. The
outstanding primarily mental acts are of course the perceptions,
memories, and thought. It must be remembered that these func-
tions are never isolated, but always factors or component functions
of large complex adjustments in which these acts partake in various
combinations. Further, these complex acts have no meaning unless
considered in connection with the occasions under which they func-
tion, and this brings into relief the more permanent elements in
personality, since every overt act is a product of the stimulating
conditions, and the organic-response dispositions. The predomi-
nantly behavioristic dispositions include three types: namely, the
muscular, glandular, and neural, which are capacities latent in the
glandular, muscular and neural structures. These dispositions con-
stitute the more permanent equipment of bodily functions necessary
for adjustments to external conditions, and require only some defi-
nite stimulus-object to cause them to participate in a response act.
It is clear then that the dispositions or tendencies to action are in a
genuine way the personality, 1 while the actual behaviors merely
manifest this personality or its changes. It is obvious that what sort
of person one is to be depends a great deal upon these latent powers
and their development. All the qualities of strength, beauty, and
grace center about these factors. We need only refer to the influence
of the capacities of the pituitary, sexual, and other glands, to modify
the quality of personality and its manifestations. 2
1 So far as behavior is concerned.
2 " It is coming to be believed that one of the important factors of the
involution period is the atrophy of certain of the ductless glands" "and that
238 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
On the mentalistic. side we must point out the innate capacities
of attention, impulse, discrimination, affection and others. These
are phases of conscious behavior which definitely stress the mental
aspects of organic adjustments. These two sets of original tenden-
cies, namely, the behavioristic and mentalistic, are of course abso-
lutely inseparable phases of a unit individual, and act as unit re-
sponses to provoking stimuli. The two members of the series of
incipient actions are variously organized as instinctive adjustments
to environmental conditions and as such form the basis for all acts
which the individual performs. The dispositions are therefore both
native and acquired, each one being a complex accretion of either
native or acquired tendencies or both around an innate core. At
this point it may be well to observe that the personality is not in
any sense a transcendent existence, but a concrete object developed
from actual contact with surrounding objects and persons.
The development of human personality begins as a process of
organization of the original instinctive tendencies into instincts,
which in contact with objects calling out some response result finally
in the instinctive action. This process marks the first stage in the
growth of character. The instincts are not uniformly developed
action systems nor do they begin to function simultaneously. An-
other difference between them is that they vary widely in their urge
to action, or in other words, they require stimuli of differing inten-
sities. The instincts of feeding, flight, locomotion, and curiosity
may be considered as appearing relatively early, while the instincts
of gregariousness and sex among others may be looked upon as com-
paratively very powerful in function. The strength of some in-
stincts, notably those of sex and gregariousness, have influenced
various writers to make the entire complexity of human nature cen-
ter around one or few instincts. When the individual begins to
use this organized equipment he prepares himself to acquire various
habits of response and many incipient responses. The entire equip-
ment of native and acquired action systems marks the capacity of an
individual to adapt himself to the various circumstances which the
surroundings and their changes call out. The further development
of personality is a process of constant acquisition of new forms of
adaptations as the result of the modification of the original instinc-
tive actions. This development parallels a concomitant development
of complexity in the environment. The instinctive acts are genuinely
modifiable elements of personality, a fact which is readily under-
stood when we recognize that they are in great part dependent upon
certain of the disturbances of this period of life are dependent upon an un-
balanced relationship brought about between these glands." White, Outlines
of Psychiatry, 1918, p. 172.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 239
the occasion which makes them function. Attention must be directed
to the fact that the instinctive action includes more than the innate
tendency which actualizes itself as a simple random conative re-
sponse; it comprises also more than the mere instincts which are
organized or directed random movements. Frequently instinctive
.actions are plentifully supplied with varying degrees of intelligence,
and when modified by various influencing conditions become the in-
telligent acts which give value to personality. Similarly modified
instinctive actions develop into the habits of thought, the complex
emotional responses, and the voluntary behavior of highly adaptive
persons.
The occasion for the modification of these instinctive acts are the
various contacts with objects, other persons, groups and group-
products such as customs, laws and other tangible and intangible
institutions. Under these various molding influences the person
becomes changed both by way of passive submission and active
response. The latter point illustrates the give and take which takes
place in the course of the development of a person. The individual
not only is influenced by the group, but exerts a powerful influence
upon other individuals and the group.
The acts of any particular person at any given time are repre-
sented by acquired dispositions in varying stages of development,
coupled with original tendencies. This indicates the extreme com-
plexity of the activities of a personality, which are always integra-
tions of past activities perpetuated as action systems, complicated
by persisting original tendencies, and adapted to currently existing
adjustment conditions.
The products of the interaction of individuals and the groups in
which they live are acquired dispositions to react in certain ways to
surrounding objects and events. In their aggregate these disposi-
tions upon which all action depends, constitute human character or
human nature. Such dispositions or potential acts may be classi-
fied as interests, sentiments, ideals, convictions, and beliefs. Other
traits of character such as desires, ambitions, fears, shames, rever-
ences and jealousies, are also preparations for acts of various sorts.
Some of these elements of personality are based upon accumulations
of information through past experiences ; others are more emotional
in their nature, while still others are primarily impulsive in type,
depending upon the specific character of their development.
Ill
The normality of a person is a function of the harmony of his
component action elements, and the efficiency of the person depends
upon how well the particular combination of action systems fit in
240 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
with the environmental conditions. Any serious misfit between the
equipment of the personality and the surroundings may mean a dis-
organization of the action propensities, which may result in mal-
adjustment to the environment. The defects of personality which
may occur are of exceedingly various types, and can be roughly de-
scribed as follows:
Pathological personalities may be due to imperfect development
of the psycho-physical tendencies. In such a case, the individual is
not fitted with a series of organized action propensities, which enable
him to adapt himself to his surroundings. We have here a pre-
disposition to forego the ordinary experiences which human indi-
viduals enjoy, and this marks an original failure of the mental and
behavioristic tendencies to so group themselves as to allow normal
responses. Such a condition indicates not only a defect of imme-
diate adjustment, but must result in a failure on the part of the
individual to develop any considerable degree of intelligence. The
variations of this type of defect are of course indefinite in number;
the many degrees of uncoordination result in differing truncations
of personality. This factor accounts for the varieties of morons,
imbeciles, idiots and moral delinquents. The organization of certain
specific mental tendencies with a corresponding lack of develop-
ment of others, accounts for such capacities as are exhibited by
"idiots savants." We observe frequently in what are otherwise
usual individuals the presence of some type of action tendency in
an exaggerated or insufficient degree. In most cases these inequali-
ties of endowment or of organization are not observable because the
disadvantages which they cause are overcome by various compensa-
tions, or by especially favorable environmental conditions. The
typical case of uncoordination of original instinctive tendencies
leaves the individual in an animal stage of development, and because
he is born into a human environment we have that pitiful object,
the idiot. The viewpoint here suggested indicates at once an advan-
tage over the almost universally accepted doctrine which classifies
the defects mentioned as cases of retarded mental development. If
we take speech as an example of conscious behavior we see that the
difficulty with the aments is that of a lack of organization of the
whole set of native mental and bodily action propensities. The de-
velopment of speech and the capacity to use it are present in the
higher grade of defectives and decreasingly absent in the lower ones.
Coordinate with this fact we find an undoubted progress in develop-
ment of psychophysical organization from the idiots to the high
grade morons. In the class of defectives known as aments we ob-
serve that the variation from the normal ranges from the idiots, who
are confined to primitive behavior in response to physical surround-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 241
ings, to the morons who have an added capacity to adapt themselves
to simple social conditions. The complex behaviors involving thought
and voluntary action are found here in various degrees of unde-
velopment.
The next type of personality defect which we may consider is
connected with a higher stage of human development. Here the
original tendencies are entirely coordinated, but the resulting actions
are not adapted to the needs of the individual, with respect to his
environing circumstances. This is essentially a case of the develop-
ment of unsuitable acquired tendencies, on a foundation of coordi-
nated and entirely functional original action systems. These de-
fective personalities build up habits of thought and action which do
not comport with the surroundings, thus preventing adequate main-
tenance and development. As occasions for adjustment we must
consider here a very complex environment or series of environ-
ments. Unlike the previous sort of defect which failed to provide
the proper mechanisms for adaptation to physical circumstances and
simple social conditions we have here disharmonies of complex social
and cultural surroundings. The defective persons included in this
group are incompetent to meet the requirements of the moral and
social environment which demands adjustment. The importance of
the development of the proper dispositions for a given environment
can not be overestimated because every action of an individual is a
specific function of adaptation to a specific object or event. We can
indicate for practical purposes four fairly distinct types of faulty
development of dispositions, with a consequent production of abnor-
mal individuals and actions.
We may take as our first case the personality of the moral delin-
quent. Students of behavior constantly meet with certain individ-
uals who apparently can not meet the requirements of their moral
surroundings. This is of course a problem of social harmony and
approval. These individuals have built up action systems which are
entirely incompatible with the environing society. Typical examples
of these persons are the pathological liars and swindlers. 3 Another
type of abnormal person is the exhibitionist and other sexual male-
factors. The abnormality concerned is a failure to check the develop-
ment of unsocial action tendencies by the development of suitable
habits of self restraint. These individuals permit their original
propensities to organize themselves and to develop without due re-
gard for social requirements and demands. Such individuals may
be very well adapted to care for themselves in the natural world,
and in certain social surroundings, but there are phases of the social
milieu which seem completely to overwhelm them.
3 Cf. Healey, Pathological Lying: Accusation and Swindling, 1915.
242 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
The second type of defective personality which is accounted for
by wrong development is the paranoiac. This type of person from
his early years builds up habits of shunning others, is suspicious,
and bears a general attitude of isolation and persecution. This atti-
tude may also take the form of exaggerated self-regard and expand
into a highly developed stage of grandeur-delusion. The individual
creates for himself a world far removed from actual contact with
natural events, and other individuals. This attitude of removal and
isolation may finally culminate in a situation extremely harmful to
the individual himself and the persons with whom he comes into
contact. There is always great danger in the systematic organization
of the behaviors and ideas of persecution and of grandeur, because
they inevitably result in a situation inimical to society. One of the
worst manifestations of these paranoiac behaviors is that which
reaches the querulous form. Those persons developing the habits of
seeking recourse to the law for all their ills, real and imaginary, may
clog up the local judicial system and involve hundreds of people. In
all these cases there is at the basis of the difficulty a separation of
the individual from his immediate surroundings; a condition which
breeds great mischief for the individuals with whom the paranoiac
is associated. The paranoiac type of personality defect may be dis-
tinguished from some of the other types by the fact that it is a
slowly developing system of acquired reactions which are out of
harmony with the requirements of the group in which the individual
finds himself.
We must consider next the great class of individuals who are
grouped under the heading of psychoneurotics. Here are individuals
whose original action tendencies group themselves into habits and
volitions which unfit them to maintain their expected place in so-
ciety. They develop such reactions to their surroundings as to cre-
ate great inconsistencies in their experiences. Consequently the
individual's responses are so out of tune with each other that he
loses control over his environment. An English soldier says of his
obsessions, "I know I'm a damned fool and it's rot, but there it is;
I can not help myself."* The psychasthenics develop obsessions,
impulsions, and fixed ideas all of which are incipient tendencies of
action which are extremely detrimental to the individual and his
group. We find individuals exhibiting abnormal reactions of fear,
and performing acts which are described as the pyromanias, arith-
momanias and others. In this same class are the persons who look
with suspicion and doubt upon all the world and its objects. Such
types are the so-called metaphysicians who can not go through a day
* Eder, War Shock, 1917, p. 109.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 243
without experiencing the most violent anguish because they can not
explain how the world was created or whether a God exists.
The neurasthenics establish as elements of their personalities
various inhibitions, or action habits which interfere with the ordinary
activities of normal persons. These Individuals are irritable, con-
stantly fatigued, and in other ways incapacitated to carry on their
usual activities. The neurasthenics cultivate idleness in all its forms,
and make themselves passive, helpless persons.
In the various manifestations of the hysterical individuals we find
evidence of the building of peculiar reaction habits. We discover the
most varied truncations of personality along every line of conscious
behavior. The hysterical person responds so differently to ordinary
objects as to be branded as abnormal. The peculiar reactions are
often acquired as protective devices to meet particular needs, such as
to shield one from extraordinary circumstances, or normal condi-
tions which appear difficult to these particular individuals. Hyster-
ical reactions involving the ignoring of various sensorial and
memorial experiences indicate the acquisition of response tendencies
which are substitutions for adjustments to unusual environmental
conditions. The individuals frequently lose their self-control and
become entirely helpless.
The building up of unserviceable reaction habits and tendencies
finds its mechanism to a considerable extent in suggestion. There
is always in these cases either a condition of being greatly over-
whelmed by external conditions, or the individual starts out with an
unstable personality. By an unstable personality is meant the con-
dition of organization of innate action tendencies which allows for
useless and ineffective responses. We find then action systems built
up which make for paralyses of various kinds; anesthesias, tactual,
visual, and auditory defects, aboulias and amnesias. The hysterias
of war, which are referred to as war and shell shock, show all types
of acquisition of abnormal reaction systems for protective purposes
against unendurable external circumstances. 5 In a general way we
might look upon the development of hysterical individuals as per-
sons whose instinctive tendencies can not harmonize and develop
coordinately in the particular environment in which they are
thrown. The secret of the value in Freudism lies in the fact that the
Freudians worked out fairly well the conflicts and confusions which
center about one of the important bases of human nature. When
psychologists work out as well the mechanisms of development for
the other equally important foundation stones of human personality,
we shall have reached an important stage in understanding person-
ality and its pathological states.
, 5 Cf. Donald E. Gore, Lancet, March 9, 1918, p. 365.
244 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
In dementia prsecox we find another pathological condition of
personality which is the result of the acquisition of unsuitable action
systems. In a genuine sense also, the preecox individual is one in
whom the innate action tendencies fail to harmonize, and therefore
seriously conflict. The result of this is the serious inhibition of the
complex integration of the original simple acts, and a consequent
incapacity to make correct adjustments. Typical examples of these
unfortunate individuals are found in what Hoch has termed the
"shut in" personality. Such persons develop response acts which
tend to seclude them and cut them off from other individuals. They
can not get into touch with the realities of life, and are abnormally
prudish and religious. They do not at all fit into the social milieu
in which they are doomed to spend their days.
There are three classes of defects of personality which may be
grouped under the general caption of disorganizations or disintegra-
tions. These three cases show various kinds of dissociation of the
original and acquired tendencies after they are organized and de-
veloped. In all these cases we have the breakup of the psycho-
physical organism with its mass of acquisitions resulting in a greater
or lesser prominence of the bodily components of the individual. In
some cases the disintegration takes place as an atavistic return to a
more primitive condition of reaction. We find the manic-depressive
individuals dropping off the acquired action tendencies, and respond-
ing to their experiences as children do, or as primitive people. These
disintegrated persons are lacking in their restraining influences
which are generated by interaction with social beings and institu-
tions. In the main these individuals become free and frank, and not
only constantly carry their hearts upon their sleeves, but persist in
drawing attention to their display. These individuals openly con-
fess their desires whatever they may be, offer all the information they
may have about themselves, and in general give themselves whole-
heartedly to those whom normal individuals would call strangers. In
their display of emotional reactions and flightiness of ideas, they ex-
hibit in a marked way the reactions of children. In the involutional
cases there is a clear dropping off of the developed phases of per-
sonality and a return to a primitive condition.
The type of disintegration just discussed may be considered as
a transverse splitting off of the acquired action tendencies, and thus
different from the next type, which marks a longitudinal dissocia-
tion of the components of personality. In the various kinds of
double and multiple personalities we have individuals whose original
reaction systems fail to be harmonized by their experiences and
thus can be split off from each other together with the acquisitions
built upon them. It is thus possible to find within a single individual
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 245
several personalities capable of separation under various circum-
stances. These individuals differ from normal persons who of course
always comprise numerous selves, in that the latter have their ex-
periences unified and harmonious. The various selves represent re-
sponses to varying surrounding conditions, all of which are threads
of a common fabric. In the dissociated personalities there are dif-
ferent weaves which may become disjointed. The Beauchamp case
of Dr. Prince admirably illustrates the development of the different
fabrics in what may be called a single piece of cloth.
Finally, we must consider the confusional disintegration of per-
sonality in which there is a general dismemberment of the innate
and acquired action systems in no definite order. In the various
types of paresis we have examples of the complete degeneration of
personality with concomitant deteriorations of its anatomical sup-
ports to the stage of total extinction. The paretics show us cases in
which there is a rapid disintegration of the acquired action systems
with undue and unlicensed exercise of the instinctive action tenden-
cies. In these cases we find a progressive severance of the individ-
ual from his normal surroundings and occupations with a striking
sense of confusion in the entire procedure. "When the elemental
action tendencies are released from the accretion of socially molded
tendencies, they have no survival functions and the individual be-
comes soon a hopeless and helpless wreck, a depersonalized mass of
plastic clay.
IV
The facts of pathological personalities offer numerous warnings
against considering them as definite fixed kinds of defects. Any of
the types may be affected in several different ways. The classifica-
tions of defects which have been made are approximations to actual
conditions and serve to illustrate the fundamental hypothesis con-
cerning the nature of human disintegrations, which have been known
as mental diseases. We might describe any specific defect as pre-
dominantly of one type or other, although it may at the same time
take on any of the other forms. Human personality is a dynamic
object of extreme complexity, and can not be assumed to function in
an inflexible and constant manner. The disintegrations of person-
ality can not be reduced to rigidity, because personality can not in
any sense be said to develop in a regular and orderly way but rather
in a complex hit and missi interaction of psychophysical organisms,
under extremely variable conditions of external circumstances.
The study of human personality and its defects also indicates in
a decisive way that the dispositions to actions as components of
personality are not metaphysical entities. They are not existing
246 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
potential acts, but represent such modifications in the mental and
bodily aspects of individual organization as to result in a specific
act under certain definite conditions of stimulation. This is a point
which unfortunately has been overlooked by otherwise successful
students of human behavior.
J. R. KANTOR
UNIVERSITY OP CHICAGO.
REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE
The Processes of History. FREDERICK J. TEGGART. New Haven:
Yale University Press. 1918. Pp. ix -f 162.
In order that the results of historical investigation may be ap-
plied to solving the difficulties that beset our civilization, Professor
Teggart would discover the factors that have heretofore been opera-
tive in every case of human advancement. The essential factor of
advance he discovers (p. 150) to be the release of the mind from
the fetters of conventional restraint ; whereby an awakened critical
'and constructive activity produces political organizations and sys-
tems of ideas that are new. In the past, this has occurred "when
a group, forced from its habitat, ultimately by a change in climate,
has been (brought into collision with another, differing from it con-
siderably in culture, and has remained upon the invaded territory"
(p. 149).
The evils of this preceding warfare of groups may perhaps here-
after be avoided if we may in some other way weaken the grip of
customary ideas and ways of doing things. To this end we must
distinguish genuine advance as above described from mere progress
within the circle of accepted ideas, or through the transmission of
culture elements from one group to another. We should not, then,
overestimate the value of an educative discipline that works for the
inheritance of the achievements of past generations ; the essential is
the release of all our native powers of thought.
With much conciseness and skill this essay does indeed "bring
into one connected view bodies of fact that have hitherto remained
disparate and intractable"; "it opens up new problems and new
fields of enquiry. ' ' But it appears to me that a certain weakness in
the argument is not to be explained on the ground that the posi-
tion is merely tentative or hypothetical ; and I regard these flaws as
significant in respect to the author's persistent depreciation of the
traditional type of historical construction, a narrative that pur-
ports to explain.
An historical theory, such as his, must, as Professor Teggart
recognizes, be verified in two ways: first, in the fields of natural
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 247
science that deal with its subject-matter in this case, psychology;
and second it must be shown historically that events in the past
explain on this principle the present evidence. For psychological
support, he looks to James' essay, "The Energies of Men," and
seems agreeably surprised to find there precise confirmation of his
hypothesis (p. 158). He supposes that James explains the release
of mental energy through critical activity induced by conflict of
ideas. But in fact no case cited by James conforms to this account,
and the psychologist emphasizes throughout his essay the uncritical
character of the release, its dependence upon external stress, emo-
tional excitement and hypersuggestibility. Critical activity he twice
mentions as a cause of the sealing up of energies.
As to the historical verification Teggart seems to take it for
granted. The analysis of "advance" which on pages 149-151 is
suggested as conceivable and accepted as an hypothesis, on page
158 "proves to be the essential element through which human ad-
vancement everywhere has been made." But, neither on the inter-
vening pages nor elsewhere in the essay can I recognize the slightest
attempt to prove that in any given case this description fits the
evidence we have of what actually occurred.
If we compare the work of the theorist in the field of geology, let
us say in the matter of continental uplift, erosion and sedimenta-
tion, we see that he also must verify his theory in these two ways.
Here the natural sciences involved, physics, and chemistry, I sup-
pose, show that the theory is conceivable; the historical verifica-
tion consists in constructing a narrative of continental growth, as
in the case of North America, which shows that the hypothesis will,
in connection with other accepted factors, give a series of events
that finally produce the continent as we now behold it, the evi-
dence in the case.
The work of historical narration does not only serve to verify
such principles of natural science, through showing how the uni-
verse in its present order and construction and tendency to act
can be explained through them; it performs also the supreme func-
tion of orientation, giving to every man and act its setting, and to
our plans the groundwork and starting point. This long labor
of narration Professor Teggart passes over, accepting the history
of the physical universe, of the earth, of life and of man as a pres-
ence in the face of which the scientist stands. But starting from
this present history the scientist finds that the last outcome of his
generalizations is the enrichment and consolidation of historic
narrative.
The difference between the great historians and that modern
school which, with Professor Teggart, depreciates the narrative type
248 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
of historical construction is not that the former failed to form
general theories; it seems that all of them, from Herodotus down,
did that; and were just as concerned as is our author in applying
them to the relief of man's estate. The difference seems to lie in
their acute sense that an hypothesis needs verification, in the way
open to an historian, by showing how the factors they have dis-
covered interact with accepted factors in human action to produce
a series of events; these factors must explain not only the re-
semblance between the several events but also the differences be-
tween them, and all the characteristics peculiar to what remains of
the past, in monument, tradition, record or institution. How can
this be done save in a detailed narration ?
On what ground is it asserted that the migration of groups is
uniformly or even commonly caused by changes in climate? We
are told (p. 76), that "we can not assume in groups long fixed in
habitat and ideas any sudden desire for 'booty or freedom or glory
or for ' something unattainable. ' ' Neither may we assume the
absence of these motives. It happens that in the case of those
migrations we know best these are the motives to which the evidence
seems to point. No psychologist, least of all James, will rule them
out as possible or even as probable factors, even as fundamental
causes operating through the medium of some Mohammad, Attila,
Cortez or Endicott. Why assume a destructive change of climate
in cases where the evidence only points to the possibility and not to
the actuality of such a change ? It seems that the need for finding
a ' ' factor operative in all human experience ' ' has misled the writer.
It is perhaps true that the vera causa of any event is a factor uni-
versally present; but when applied to man this universal factor in
a migratory movement would prove to be the neural stimulus to
certain essential muscles of the body. Universal principles still
have very limited utility in the field of history.
While the argument is highly ingenious and stimulating to
"critical activity" of a certain kind, I must say that I do not find
any of its conclusions adequately supported.
PERCY HUGHES.
LEHIGH UNIVERSITY.
The Next Step in Religion: An Essay toward the Coming Renais-
sance. HOY WOOD SELLARS. New York: The Macmillan Com-
pany. 1918. Pp. vii -f 228.
"I challenge any one to develop a really tenable system of theol-
ogy, a system which is self-consistent and relevant to the world as
we know it. I am certain that it can not be done. ' ' These words of
Professor Sellars (p. 164) characterize his book rather better than
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 249
its title. For not only does he give little exposition of the renaissance
that is said to be coming, and not only is he himself in doubt whether
the next step should be described as a step "in religion " (pp. 121,
220 ff.) or as some readers will say a step out of religion, but the
general plan of the book is that of a refutation of all possible theol-
ogies. The method consists, in general, in showing, first, that the-
ological doctrines originated in mythological and magical notions;
second, that the influence of these notions is present even in current
theology, and third, that the necessity of surrendering them in favor
of scientific views of the world and of man will involve a complete
renunciation of faith in God and a future life. In the end, so the
author is convinced, men will settle down to contented enjoyment of
the values that are certainly within our grasp (p. 121).
If the book were addressed to philosophers its theme could be
described as a thesis concerning the respective relations of facts and
values to reality. But the author can not have in mind an audience
of philosophical critics, else he would not offer a great number of
conclusions from a vast range of research anthropology, psychol-
ogy, ethics, the logic of evolution without analysis of the critical
studies that now occupy the attention of original investigators. This
remark applies even to what he regards as the crucial point for his
theory, namely, the nature of mind, and its place in evolution. He
merely asserts that ' ' experimental sappers in the laboratories of biol-
ogy and psychology . . . are seeking to show that . . . mind is just
a term for certain capacities of control exercised by the brain" (p.
99), and affirms his own conviction that the mind-body problem is
about to be solved (pp. 99, 149, 217). Thus, without as much as a
reference to the upspringing of dynamic and functional psychology,
or to any view of evolution other than that of "a closed system of
causal relations which spring from the nature of its parts" (pp.
117 ff.), he presents his particular point of view as the scientific one.
That is, his book is neither philosophy nor science, but preaching.
As preaching it might have dispensed with its one exact citation of
sources (p. 7), just as it may be excused for such hasty expressions
as that "science arose at the time of the Renaissance" (p. 63) and
that insanity is due to "a functional disorder" of the brain (p. 146),
as well as for the prominence of the personal equation (pp. 99. 149,
164, 217).
Inasmuch, however, as this preaching takes certain positive philo-
sophical positions, the reader will not be unduly critical if he asks
whether at one vital point the author has not entangled himself in
his own reasoning. He argues for a strictly impersonal view of
nature, and he affirms that from this objective standpoint "evil and
good differ not a jot from each other" (p. 166) ; he includes man
250 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
wholly and unreservedly within nature, as we have seen ; yet he re-
gards man's "will to live and create" as "the source of all value,"
and he regards nature as "a thing to be used for his own desired
ends" (p. 166). If nature includes man, and man creates and
values, then the universe is not a closed system that springs from the
nature of its parts, nor is evolution utterly indifferent to good and
evil.
GEORGE A. COB.
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. Sept-Oct., 1918. Etudes sur la
signification et la place de la Physique dans la Philosophic de Platon
(premier article, pp. 177-220): L. ROBIN. -The physics of Plato,
while teleological, is also in a sense mechanistic ; the purpose of the
study is to determine precisely the signification and place of the
mechanistic conception. Descartes experimental eur (pp. 221-240) :
G. MILHAUD. - Descartes was disposed, "to a degree that one does
not suspect, to follow instinctively the objective and spontaneous
march of the science of his milieu and his time." La Memoire (pp.
241-281). -A succinct exposition of the actual state of knowledge
on the question of memory. L'avenir de la Religion et le Mysticisme
moral d'apres M. Loisy (pp. 282-308): G. BELOT.-"The capital
problem appears ... to result from the conflict between the apol-
ogy given for 'Religion' and the radical critique that is made of
'Religions.' The first is stated to be necessary; but the existing
religions are declared profoundly insufficient." The idea of the
mystic character of morals, advanced by Loisy, and regarded as the
essence of religion, is critically examined. Notes et Documents. La
valeur des conclusions par I'absurde: M. DOROLIJS. Revue Critique.
William Mackintire Salter; Nietzsche the Thinker: ANDRE FAUCON-
NET. Analyses et Comptes rendus. Victor Delbos, Figures et doc-
trines de Philosophes : J. SECOND. L. Dugas, La memoire et I'oubli:
FR. PAULHAN. Marthe Borely, Le genie femiwin fran$ais: FR.
PAUKHAN. Revue des Periodiques.
Howard, Del ton Thomas. John Dewey 's Logical Theory. New York :
Longmans, Green & Co. 1918. Pp. iv + 135.
Wylie, Harry H. An Experimental Study of Transfer of Response
in the White Rat. Behavior Monograph No. 16. New York:
Henry Holt & Co. 1919. Pp.65. $1.00.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 251
A MEETING of the Aristotelian Society was held in London on
March 3d, Professor Wildon Carr in the chair. Mrs. N. A. Dudding-
ton read a paper on ' ' Our Knowledge of other Minds, ' ' a synopsis of
which follows.
On the basis of a realistic theory of knowledge our knowledge of
other minds must be pronounced to be as direct and immediate as
our knowledge of physical things. Mental states 1 "lived through"
by one person may be discerned or discriminated by another. Thus
if we see someone weep we become aware of his grief simultaneously
with his sobs, dejected attitude, etc.; the grief is revealed to our con-
templation in precisely the same sense as the bodily changes are. We
may sometimes infer people's emotions from their bodily attitude,
but if there were no direct acquaintance with other mental lives we
should have no clue for the interpretation of their expressive be-
havior and it would have no meaning for us. The existence of other
selves can not be inferred, as is usually supposed, from the analogy
which their behavior presents to our own, because (1) no priority at-
taches to the awareness of our own selfhood ; (2) the alleged inference
would have to be made for the first time at an impossibly early age ;
(3) the behavior of others presents, from, the point of view of the
percipient, no analogy to his own, and (4) if other selves were merely
inferred entities, human affections and relationships could not be
what they are. It is consistent with any theory of the ultimate na-
ture of mind to maintain that the presence of other selves and the
affective aspect of them can be directly apprehended.
THE nineteenth annual meeting of the Western Philosophical
Association was held at the State University of Iowa, Iowa City,
Iowa, on April 18 and 19. The programme of the meetings was as
follows :
Friday, April 18
The Logical Approach to Functionalism : D. T. HOWARD. Tho-
mistic Realism and Modern Idealism: E. L. HINMAN. Negation in
Traditional and Modern Logic : R. C. LODGE.
Discussion, The Function of Philosophy in Social Reconstruction :
leaders, A. H. LLOYD, J. H. TUFTS, G. T. W. PATRICK, G. W. CUN-
NINGHAM.
Address by the President, H. W. WRIGHT: "The Social Purpose
of Education."
252 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Saturday, April 19
Philosophy and the International Mind : H. M. KALLEN. The Two
Ideals: M. G. OTTO. The General Will: E. H. HOLLANDS. Plural
Sovereignty: NORMAN WILDE. The Unit of Civilization: J. H.
BOODIN.
THE Trade Union College, organized under the auspices of the Bos-
ton Central Labor Union, has issued its preliminary announcement of
courses for the spring term extending from April 7 to June 14 of
the present year. It has been realized that the best interests of labor
are suffering because education for the mature has not been made
sufficiently accessible to the men and women of the laboring world.
The College is to be in charge of representatives of affiliated organiza-
tions, and the instruction is by men of first rate academic standing
and experience, including such names as Eoscoe Pound, William Z.
Ripley, E. F. A. Hoernle and Harold Laski of Harvard, Irving Fisher
of Yale, Horace M. Kallen, Felix Frankfurter and a number of
others. The names on the Committee in charge are as follows :
Chairman: Michael A. Murphy; Stablemen's Union.
Secretary: Mabel Gillespie; Stenographers' Union.
Treasurer: John J. O'Hare; Newspaper Web Pressmen's Union.
Anna T. Bowen; Cigar Factory Tobacco Strippers' Union.
George E. Curran; Theatrical Stage Employees' Union.
Henry W. L. Dana ; Instructor in the Trade Union College.
Dennis D. Driseoll; Horseshoers' Union.
Jeremiah F. Driscoll; Milk Wagon Drivers' Union.
Arthur M. Huddell; Hoisting and Portable Engineers' Union.
P. Harry Jennings; Teamsters' Union.
Fred J. Kneeland; Painters' Union.
Harold J. Laski ; Instructor in the Trade Union College.
George Nasmyth; Instructor in the Trade Union College.
Charles C. Ramsay; Instructor in the Trade Union College.
John F. Stevens, Stone Cutters' Union.
William Leavitt Stoddard ; Instructor in the Trade Union College.
The work for the spring term includes courses in English, law,
labor organization, government, economics and science.
VOL. XVI, No. 10. MAY 8, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
WRATH AND RUTH
nnHE Great War has been fought. The dead, brave and poltroon,
-L innocent and criminal, lie in their graves. The maimed, the
broken, and the bereaved, with such resignation as they can com-
mand, live on, facing the gray decline of unillumined years. And
the great mass of mankind, beholding the fullness of their human
deed, are brought face to face with their own reflection, judged of
themselves.
What philosopher, in the fall of 1918, can write of human nature
and achievement as he would have written in the spring of 1914?
What prophet can now prophesy as he would then have prophesied?
Or what nation, of all earth 's nations, can now cling to the purposes
and politics which it pursued in that day, briefly past in time, but in
thought remote and buried? The world has changed since 1914;
the Titanism in human nature which we who call ourselves the
civilized had deemed to lie deeper than Orcus has made the lands to
tremble and has lighted cities with lurid flame ; fanes are shattered
and the old images are overthrown.
Looked at from the vantage of four years' experience the ideals
of 1914 seem shot through with the bizarre, the puerile, the pre-
sumptuous. Then we believed, with all our ostensible souls, in
human self-sufficiency ; we believed in hard reason and practical
realities, in the panacean powers of science and in the substantial
good of properties acquired; we believed, gaily, inflatedly, in our
superiority over all that was humanly past and in our ability to
insure progress through the future ; most of all, we believed in the
importance of looking out for "Number One" whether Number
One were a man or a nation and we trusted unblushingly in the
white man's capacity to calculate and get the Good. Even our
altruism and surely it was the most amazing of our egoisms was
unabashed: the world was populous with reformers who called
themselves servants, and proposed to be tyrants, with no other
credential than the approbation of their own bland consciences.
The whole attitude was taken as of course, and regarded as common
sense, and lived in as finality; and man's prime virtue was held to
be that he was self-made.
253
254 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Then this self-made man produced his man-made war. There is
a satisfaction of the kind we call grim to be derived from the clear
fact that war is man-made; we shoulder the responsibility for the
majority of our afflictions upon impersonal nature, but this we must
accept; and accepting it, see in it plain truths of our own nature.
Bitter as it is, the war is none the less a needed medicine ; we had
lived in a world of self-illusion, and worse, of ignoble self-illusion ;
the war has shattered this, pricked our bubble of conceit, and has
shown us, not Man as he is, which God alone can know, but the
civilized twentieth century man of Europe and America, blown with
pride, as both worse and better than he had dreamed.
Aye, better as well as worse. All-seeing heaven alone knows
what arrogance, avarice, lust, cruelty, diabolism, what storms of
spite and flames of murderous hate, man has been shown capable of
in this war. But there are other pictures, beautiful even in the
midst of terror: heroism, devotion, righteous wrath, gentleness,
martyrdom, like pure transfigurations of dross souls, which, even
more than the first, give the lie to the idols we had erected.
Among philosophers the rashest of these idolatries was surely
that of human reason: we plumed ourselves upon our rationalities,
our science; we styled our time an Age of Reason, an Enlighten-
ment ; we paraded our sense of reality and proclaimed the sufficiency
of the intellect in the guidance of human affairs. And reason, de-
liberate and calculating, precipitated this war ; and reason, cool and
hard-headed, scarred its history with atrocity; and reason in what
name but in that of reality ? pandered to every baseness of material
appetite. In such sense is reason our guide!
But again, we philosophers, with what little disguise we pro-
claimed the biological primacy, in human nature, of the passion for
self-indulgence. We called it utilitarian happiness; we chattered
about fitness and self-preservation; but we meant to say that the
sole key to human conduct is selfish hedonism. And now the spec-
tacle of the war has shown us whole peoples swayed by untaught pity
to the surrender of their comfort, and thousands and repeated thou-
sands of earth's common men making a glad sacrifice of their lives
for the good of other men and for the salvation of their ideals of
right. Far from a first and fundamental, self-seeking is rather a
weak and pacificist human sentiment: the springs of great action
move elsewhere.
Here, too, philosophers have been self-deceived; and in a third
place by their notion that justice and right are an insight common to
all normal mankind, a contribution of our common sense. For the
war could never have been fought had not each human group in its
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 255
turn been founded in the conviction that its cause was the just
cause ; wherefore we have had before us the profound and sobering
spectacle of men in a passion of righteousness slaying one another
and giving themselves up to die, each that his idol should not fall.
Other motives, some ignoble, some instinctive, have played their
part in the movement of the war ; but who can doubt that they pale
into irrelevancy beside the dominance of these the reason, the
pity, and the sense of right which so resistlessly give the lie to all
that we have adjudged of human nature? And again, who can
doubt, in his philosophic moods, that in this great and terrible
conflict of man with man, wrath and ruth are revealed as seated
traits of that nature, traits which, even when noblest, show how
sadly our affairs are out of gear with the world?
The philosophy of our past amused of its own drolleries, enam-
oured of its own sagacities, convinced of its own sweet reasonable-
ness is to-day fordone, blighted and withered under the blazing
apocalypse of war. Its problems are no longer problems, nor its
solutions ways of grace. It is true that its language is still spoken
by the many among us, men with clogged ears and eyes of clay.
Even over the ruin ministers of consolation come talking of the
eventual human "good" which will make of the war a blessing and
will justify all its expenditures, all its blood and torments.
"Justify"? But to whom? Are not the slain slain, and can their
blood be silenced? Have not the tortured suffered, and are their
pains no heritage of ours? Is the past non-existent? For whom,
then, is the justification? to whom the good? The man of affairs
does well, perhaps, to forget upon what foundations he builds; but
philosophy moves not save by reflection and in its essence is timeless.
And again they come to us, the comforters, with the high word
Democracy : it is for democracy, for the race, for humanity, that all
is endured. But do we know, in our heart of hearts, that the
democracy is worth it? If reason is no guide, if our masters are
our passions, is it indeed so great a thing to make passion every-
where free? . . . Yet again, religion is to be, not re-born, but re-
made: a new religion of humanity is to redeem the war's losses.
But who, among men acquainted with thought, can dream that a
creed made to order can win belief? . . . Nay, what is the truth?
Is not pugnacity human, and as deeply human as charity? Three
score years of peace we may have, for the war has been fearful and
exhausting ; but we can not make over human nature in a day, and
pugnacity, the brute willingness to fight, is an instinct of human
nature. Indeed, it may be, philosophically and truly speaking, as
precious an instinct as any that we possess, for who among men,
up to this hour, can give philosophical warrant, to me or any other
256 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Manichaean, that this our universe is itself pacifist, and that there
is within it no deep and eternal and bloody warfare of good and
evil?
To err is human. . . . Aye, aye; but how profound, how in-
scrutably substantial is this illusion in our human composition?
What kind of a universe created me, that it must deceive me ? Is it,
too, wandering and uncertain or is it curst at the core with duplicity ?
Are we altogether in error about right and wrong, good and evil,
true and false? and helplessly in error? Is there no hold which
our reason or feeling or moral sense can secure ? Is there no cosmic
sanity, no place where men can stand square with their world ?
Questions such as these are the old questions of philosophy.
But the old answers have played out into shallows, and now we must
take them up again, from their source, which is the perennial source
of human experience and which to-day is ruddied with new-shed
blood. It is a weary toil, and one oft-repeated in the long course
of human thinking ; but it is ours. At the outset, we may be clear
on one point at least: the ornate edifice which we have named
Science, and the high ritual which we have called Rationalism, are
tokens of a wanton and degraded cult, only to be cleansed save as
they be converted to a purer and humaner understanding of the
Good. Aforetime it was said, Tantum religio potuit suadere
malorum; to-day, with the dread fruits of war outspread before us,
we must repeat, Tantum ratio, tantum scientia to such ills doth
reason also persuade ! . . . But at least we recognize the ills ; out
of the past we have this one conviction to build upon.
What is the Good? That is still our problem; in philosophy it
is the sole final problem. La science des choses exterieures ne me
consolera pas de I 'ignorance de la morale, au temps d 'affliction;
mais la science des mo3urs me consolera ton jours de I'ignorance des
sciences exterieures. So spoke Pascal, doubting at the beginning of
our period what the succeeding centuries have wholly justified him
in doubting; for this at least we know of man, passionate pilgrim
that he is, his truth is an inward and driving truth, not a scaffolding
of external things. Nay, Pascal, in his fragment De I' esprit geo-
metrique, makes it our very punishment and corruption that the
reason is enslaved to the passion, and ''it is to punish this disordc.
by an order conformed to it, ' ' he says, ' ' that God casts his light into
the mind only after having conquered the rebellion of the will by a
sweetness wholly celestial, which charms it and leads it."
Your twentieth century philosopher of science is perhaps little
inclined to harken to the recluse of Port Koyal, savant and mathe-
matician though he was; yet by some such search as Pascal's, for a
new grace and a new illumination of the intelligence, must the quest
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 257
of the Good be carried forward. All our powers reason, feeling,
moral sense are selective in their operation; all alike, they pursue
and they abandon pursuit, and their ends are determined by some
nature more profoundly ours than we are willing to own. Yet it is
just this profoundly human nature, which must also in its degree be
the cosmic nature, that we must fathom, if we are to make for
philosophy in dividing the good from the evil in all that tempts us.
Herein is shown our task, herein the destiny of thought.
To be sure the task is beset with an apparent futility. Often
as the quest has been essayed in the past, even so often has it ended
in deception ; not that naught has been gained, but assuredly naught
in which we could rest, no quiescence, no end: the nature of man,
which alone can show us the nature of the world and alone can be
the measure of the Good, is still dark and unfathomed; how, then,
can we hope to do better than our fathers in philosophy ? Nay ; we
can not. But we shall do, perchance not as well as they, but still
our part, if we but make the attempt in what new light our new
experience has given us. For, indeed, history itself is the portrayal
of truth, and the search for values is their essence ; we must cease
asking for values that are but eulogies of the past; we must find
them in life itself, in time, not in eternity. Once more to quote the
wise Pascal: "Naught satisfies us save the combat; not victory
itself;" and a more ancient and metaphysical framing of the same
truth strikes off the very form of nature, man's and the world's,
TO yap epyov reXos, ^ S'evepyeia TO epyov. To which, again, Pascal adds
the codicil: "Craindre la mort hors du peril, et non dans le peril;
car il faut etre homme."
At the last, so we all know, to earth-born men the death must
come, to individuals and to nations and to the race. This fact also
philosophers must contemplate and measure. And if we say now
that the Good is in our human quest of it, how can we pronounce,
foreseeing our doom, aught save its ultimate defeat and destruction ?
Are not Goodness and Beauty, after all, but a flare in time, to be
snuffed out in eternity? "Who shall be the conqueror, save the last
great Darkness? . . . There is no vanity so great as is prophecy;
wherefore I would give such token as I may, using the language of
i/robability, and in the form of a myth. . . .
Through many millennia will have passed the circle of human
affairs and through many millennia earth and sea and air will have
surrendered to human wills their secretest powers; industry will
have branded the continents with man 's geometry ; the arts will have
starred them with monumental splendors ; in the domain of thought
science will have organized its numbers into a very simulacrum of
the perfect cosmos ; and in polities all felicities will have been lived
258 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
through. But yet other millennia will pass, and the last man will die
as certainly as the first man has died. But not without heritors.
No doubt, long ere this, man's mammalian companions will have
succumbed; but the birds will still survive. Light of weight and
swift of wing, able to forage in every clime and to find food in
every cranny, the birds are less slaves to gravity than is aught other
earth-dweller: they can laugh at man's clumsy aviations, for their
domain of the air is not by grace of earth 's mineral, but in defiance
of it. And the birds are artists and builders and songsters, devotees
and exemplars of beauty. Wherefore, long after man's tall monu-
ments have crumbled, and centuries after the bones of the last
human race have bleached and weathered, the birds will live on
Earth's final race and over the tombs of men departed their songs
will answer the music of the spheres, as the Sun dies away into the
cosmic twilight. Surely it was the anticipation of such a finality
which inspired the Wikeno tale to which mine is but the supplement ;
for these Indians say that the immortals would have endowed men
with everlasting life, but a little bird wished death into the world :
" Where shall I nest me in your warm graves," it cried, "if ye men
live on forever!" So it was decreed that men must die, and the
immortals returned to heaven, whence they looked down and beheld
men mourning their dead ; whereupon mortal souls were transformed
into drops of the blood of life, blown broadcast by the winds unto
a new birth.
Those only smile at myths who are unacquainted with human
history and with the motives which lie deepest in human conduct,
and forget that that conduct is the end and its motives the final
motives. In our own day and hour we are brought fearfully and
inwardly into the presence of two such motives, wrath and ruth,
which have transfigured, for a new cycle, the visage of our nature.
Let them be but righteous wrath and penitential ruth, for our
penitences are our supreme credos, and our condemnations are our
fullest measures of this two-fold world. Then may the requiem of
the birds be as a last great orison in our behalf, pleading the cause
of man, not for what he has done, but for the dust that is in him
and the breath which is his life, which are of the Cosmos, which are
of God. . . .
Lacrymosa die ilia
Qua resurgat ex favilla
Judlcandiis homo reus:
Huic ergo parce, Deus!
HARTLEY B. ALEXANDER.
UNIVERSITY OP NEBRASKA.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 259
THE BIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF BELIEF
DR. SCHILLER'S article on Truth and Survival-Value 1 illus-
trates a characteristic of philosophy found throughout its
history, the characteristic, namely, of emphasis upon minor differ-
ences of view while important points of agreement are left un-
noticed. The history of philosophy consists so largely of arguments
and contradictions that philosophers easily acquire the habit of
looking for disagreement rather than for agreement. My own point
of view in philosophy is fundamentally much like Dr. Schiller's. I
have been influenced in the development of my own ways of think-
ing by none more than by James, and by Dr. Schiller himself ; and,
though there may be unquestioned differences, as, for example, be-
tween Dr. Schiller's subjectivism and my own behavioristie views,
still the habit of regarding all human questions from the biological
point of view constitutes an important initial point of agreement.
In Dr. Schiller's criticism 2 of what I have called the "pragmatic
fallacy," 3 I feel that much of the difficulty and disagreement is
largely verbal. Indeed, our essential agreement on an allied subject
is shown in the last part of Dr. Schiller's article, where he has ap-
plied biological categories in considering the question of pessimism
in a manner precisely parallel to my own treatment of this question
in an article 4 that was in press when Dr. Schiller's article appeared.
In the present paper I wish to discuss further the question of the
biological foundations of human belief. My procedure will, in the
main, be in exact agreement with Dr. Schiller's and with James's
approach to the question of belief. The question of the relation of
truth to survival-value, however, will eventually arise. As Dr.
Schiller says, 5 ' ' The matter cries out for further investigation. ' ' In
considering the matter I shall attempt to make clear the real point
of difference between my own view as already stated and that of
pragmatism of the Jamesian type, a type now represented by Dr.
Schiller.
I
Darwinism has been one of the most fruitful sources of prag-
matism. After Darwin had convinced the world that man in his
1 This JOURNAL, Vol. XV. (1918), pp. 505-15.
2 Loo. cit.
3 Two Common Fallacies in the Logic of Eeligion, this JOURNAL, Vol. XIV.
(1917), pp. 653-60. See also On Beligious Values: a Ee joinder, this JOURNAL,
Vol. XV. (1918), pp. 488-99.
4 The Biological Value of Beligious Belief, American Journal of Psychology,
Vol. XXIX. (1918), pp. 383-92.
5 Loc. cit., pp. 514, 15.
260 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
physical aspect is part and parcel of the animal kingdom, James
extended Darwinian principles to the human mind, showing how
mental processes can be understood, so far as their origin and their
present operation are concerned, only when placed against an evo-
lutionary background in which natural selection of useful variations
has been a vera causa in the mind's development. Present-day be-
haviorism is one of the consistent conclusions of the biological trend
in psychology which was given so strong an impetus by the publica-
tion of James's Principles of Psychology and other psychological
treatises. It has been a short step from James's The Child as a
Behaving Organism" for example, to Professor Watson's Behavior.
Many of James's later philosophical views consist fundamentally
of an extension of Darwinian principles from psychology to the
larger problems of philosophy; and Dr. Schiller's Axioms as Postu-
lates,'' and some of his other writings, show as vividly as anything
in the literature of pragmatism the biological point of view in rela-
tion to philosophical questions. But whereas Dr. Schiller represents
a development of pragmatism in a direction that warrants Professor
Perry's criticism of it as a case of "vicious subjectivism," 8 behavior-
ism may be shown to be a more logical development of James's
views. So long as the mental life is regarded as somehow subjective
in the literal sense of the term, a completely biological treatment of
the mind is impossible. When, on the other hand, consciousness and
behavior are identified, as in Professor Holt's view 9 for example, so
that to be conscious means to respond specifically to an object as
the result of external stimulation, while the content of consciousness
becomes the external object responded to, it becomes easy to be
thorough-going in a biological account of mental life. The conscious-
ness of man, no less than that of the amoeba, may be treated object-
ively, in terms of stimulus and response. Mental variations that
have proved useful in the struggle for existence, and that have been
preserved through the operation of natural selection, are simply, in
their physical context, 10 useful modes of behavior.
For behaviorism, beliefs are not subjective entities, but objective
processes. A belief is an organic response. The physical presuppo-
sition of belief is a system of reflex arcs so integrated that some
given assertion or proposition may be responded to positively. A
This is contained in the volume, Talks to Teachers, Ch. III.
7 Published as Ch. II. of Personal Idealism, edited by H. Sturt.
*Cf. R. B. Perry, Present Philosophical Tendencies, pp. 216-217.
9 Cf. E. B. Holt, The Freudian Wish, especially the supplement, Response
and Cognition; also The Concept of Consciousness.
10 See James, Essays in Radical Empiricism, Chs. I. and II., for an unsur-
passed discussion of the distinction between the mental and the physical.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 261
belief is an acceptance or an affirmation of a proposition, and may
be either an actual response, or, in the absence of the proper stimu-
lus, a mere organic set or disposition. Thinking, likewise, which is
one of the means by which beliefs are arrived at, is not an ethereal
process occurring in a vacuum, but is a process consisting of re-
sponses of the animal type. Professor Watson has discussed the
thinking process in terms of implicit behavior in which incipient
responses of the tongue and vocal organs play a prominent part. 11
Professor Thorndike has given a more extended account than Pro-
fessor Watson's of the higher thought processes in terms of be-
havior. 12 Professor Dewey has analyzed the complete act of
thought 13 into responses which he calls, not ' ' automatic routine hab-
its," but "habits or reflective consideration." 14 Thinking, accord-
ing to Professor Dewey 's analysis, consists of locating and defining
a recognized difficulty, suggesting a possible solution, finding the
implications of the suggested solution, and testing this possible solu-
tion, or hypothesis, through observation of the facts. These opera-
tions are all habitual responses no different in kind from the sim-
pler animal responses. They are perfectly definite and objective,
and may be treated wholly in behavioristic terms.
Belief, as I have said, consists either of an actual response or of
an organic set. Belief is a positive set or response, as, for example,
the belief in the Copernican theory, which manifests itself in an
acceptance of the proposition asserting the theory in question. Dis-
belief is a negative response, a rejection. Doubt is an unstable re-
action, not definitely positive or negative. A proposition, on the
other hand, is not a response. It is, first of all, a group of words,
which, as words, are marks on paper or sounds in the air. Words
have meaning, however, which can ultimately be stated, perhaps,
only in terms of universals. However this may be, a proposition,
in the first place, is not psychological subject matter ; and secondly,
it is of propositions that truth and falsity are properly predicable.
We are justified by common usage, nevertheless, in speaking of true
and false beliefs. A true belief is really a positive reaction to a
true proposition. A false belief is primarily a positive reaction to
a false proposition, though a negative response to a true proposition
would be the equivalent of a false belief.
11 J. B. Watson, Behavior, pp. 18, 19, 324-28.
12 E. L. Thorndike, Educational Psychology, Vol. II. ; The Psychology of
Learning, Ch. IV., especially pp. 46, 47.
is John Dewey, How We Think, Ch. VI.
i* Cf. John Dewey, 'Public Education on Trial, New Republic, December 29,
1917, p. 246.
262 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
So far as questions of positivity and negativity in the behavior-
istic sense, and truth and falsity in the logical sense, are concerned,
"belief" and "judgment" are practically interchangeable. Belief
is a more sustained response, or a more permanent organic set, than
judgment, but for most purposes we may use the terms interchange-
ably without serious error.
II
After these preliminary statements, showing the point of view
from which I wish to look upon the question of belief, I am able to
pass directly to a consideration of the biological grounds of some of
the actual beliefs that have been held in the course of history, and
that are held at the present time. I have in mind especially beliefs
of a more or less philosophical and religious nature, for such beliefs
have been biologically conditioned in numerous important and in-
teresting ways.
The student of such a problem will do well to keep his own philo-
sophic beliefs in the background as much as possible. An impartial
observation of just what actual beliefs have been held is what is
desired, not a criticism of these beliefs because of their possible
falsity. Plato's definition of the philosopher as "the spectator of
all time and all existence," the observer who is himself detached
from the processes he is observing, is applicable in part to the be-
haviorist, whether he is studying animal behavior, the simpler human
mental processes, or the more complex intellectual processes of man.
The scientific attitude is one of impartial observation of facts,
whether the facts are agreeable or not to the observer; and the
behaviorist attempts, first of all, to make the study of the mind sci-
entific. The scientist, through the development of a rigid experi-
mental method, seeks to rule out "subjective" 15 preferences and to
be guided by the facts as the sole test of truth. As Mr. Russell has
well expressed it, "The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweep-
ing away of all other desires in the interests of the desire to know
it involves suppression of hopes and fears, loves and hates, and the
whole subjective emotional life. ' ' 16
Very few persons, however, ever develop the scientific attitude
in its full purity. People in general are unconsciously influenced
in their decisions and beliefs by their likes and dislikes, by their
"subjective emotional life." James has given classic expression to
15 The term ' ' subjective ' ' has a legitimate use and meaning for the be-
haviorist. The behaviorist should enclose the word in quotation marks, however,
to indicate that he is using it in the behavioristic sense, as referring to one
phase of the objective mental processes.
i Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic, p. 44.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 263
this truth in his Will to Believe. He has asserted 17 that man's pas-
sional nature decides for him doubtful questions that bear intimately
on his life. He has maintained that, even though naturalism were
the true theory of things, "theism, whatever its objective warrant,
would ... be seen to have a subjective anchorage in its congruity
with our natures . . . ; and, however it may fare with its truth,
to derive from this subjective adequacy the strongest possible guar-
anty of its permanence. " 18 ' ' Materialism and agnosticism, ' ' he has
said, "even were they true, could never gain universal and popular
acceptance." 19 Not only popular beliefs, moreover, but also the
views of philosophers, are in many instances determined by the
"will to believe." The impersonal mathematical and laboratory
methods of science can not easily be applied to the solution of the
issue between idealism and naturalism, for example; and undoubt-
edly his inherited or acquired emotional attitude towards life has
been the deciding factor in the trend of thought of many a philoso-
pher. That the judgment of the average man, untrained in the nice-
ties of scientific method, is influenced by desires and aversions, is so
obvious that it needs only to be stated to be admitted ; while James
has maintained of philosophers that temperament really determines
the acceptance or rejection of philosophic systems. Bradley has
said similarly that the efforts of philosophers have been exerted for
the purpose of finding reasons to justify what is believed in-
stinctively.
The biological foundations of belief may be exhibited in two
ways. In the first place, it may be shown in what manner some of
the human instincts, which are the basis of man's emotions and de-
sires; actually determine his beliefs. Since the instincts exist as one
outcome of the biological struggle for life, so far as beliefs rest upon
instincts they rest upon biological foundations. In the second place,
attention may be called to the direct survival-value that beliefs pos-
sess through their "subjective" effects upon the physical economy
of life.
How the instincts influence belief may be illustrated by refer-
ence to the instincts that form the ' ' subjective ' ' support of religious
belief. The biological basis of religious belief is similar to that of
a wide variety of other beliefs. I shall draw principally upon Mr.
McDougall's admirable study of the human instincts. 20 Mr. Mc-
Dougall's classification of the instincts is somewhat artificial and
17 The Will to Believe, p. 11.
"T&tdL, p. 116.
iZ&id., p. 126.
20 William McDougall, Social Psychology.
264 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
arbitrary. Man's nature resists any such precise analysis as he has
made. His general attitude towards human behavior, however, is
above criticism; and we can fall into no very serious error if we
accept, for practical purposes, his list of instincts and emotions.
Mr. McDougall expresses accurately the attitude that we should
take in examining the biological grounds of belief, when he says:
"Mankind is only a little bit reasonable and to a great extent very
unintelligently moved in quite unreasonable ways." 21 "The truth
is that men are moved by a variety of impulses whose nature has
been determined through long ages of the evolutionary process with-
out reference to the life of men in civilized societies." 22
It is impossible to maintain successfully that there is a religious
instinct. Nevertheless, man's religious beliefs rest, as a general
rule, upon several instincts as their necessary support. Mr. Mc-
Dougall analyzes the emotional components of the religious life 23
into three complex emotions, admiration, awe, and reverence. These
complex emotions, in turn, he analyzes into simple emotions, each
of which is associated with one of the primary instincts. Thus he
says that admiration consists of wonder and negative self-feeling,
awe consists of admiration and fear, and reverence consists of awe
together with the tender emotion. The simple emotions, then, which
in combination are at the basis of the religious life, are: wonder,
negative self-feeling, fear, and the tender emotion. Each of these
simple emotions coexists with one of the following primary instincts,
in the order given: curiosity, self-abasement, flight, and the par-
ental instinct. 24 Even though we should not accept all the details
of Mr. McDougall 's rather too neat and well-ordered classification
of the instincts and emotions, still we can not doubt the connection
between emotions and instincts, and we can not doubt that these
four instincts, and probably others, form an indispensable basis for
religious belief. The possession of these instincts and emotions does
not in itself constitute a man 's religion. A man is not religious un-
less he also has a belief as to the reality of some more or less super-
natural object or objects about which these instincts are united into
a religious complex. But, without such instincts as driving forces
in human life, religious belief would not exist among men.
Mr. McDougall 's discussion of the instinctive basis of religion
might well be supplemented by a greater emphasis than he places
upon the instinct (or sentiment) of love in the economy of the re-
21 Ibid., p. 11.
22 Ibid., p. 10.
2I6id., Ch. xiii.
2 Cf. Ibid., Ch. iii.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 265
ligious life. Freudian psychology explains religion as a sublima-
tion of the sex instinct. Human love, when denied its normal human
satisfaction, or else passing beyond such satisfaction, seeks and finds
compensation in a religious world of the imagination (believed real,
of course), a world the existence of which depends solely upon the
creative power of human love. Perhaps the Freudian view seems
crude and ultra-prosaic, but Freud has simply expressed in plain
words what poets and philosophers have long recognized. Plato has
described the truly religious love of eternal goodness and beauty as
a growth out of ordinary human love. 25 Emerson has expressed a
similar thought in reverse form in saying, "Love ... is the deifi-
cation of persons. ' ' 26 And Browning, most emphatically of all poets,
makes human love and religion closely akin. It is a common ob-
servation that people often become religious under either one of the
two following conditions. Those whose earthly love has been
thwarted may turn to the religious life for its transcendent com-
pensations. The classic case is that of the woman who withdraws
from the world into a nunnery because of a disappointment in love.
On the other hand, many who were not previously religious become
so upon "falling in love." Then, as Emerson says, "Nature grows
conscious," and the attitude of the lover towards the universe at
large becomes truly religious. Even definite religious beliefs may
now be adopted wholly as a result of love, which, in its origin and
evolution, has been of such profound biological significance.
The instinctive basis of religious belief is simply illustrative of
the biological basis of many of man's more spontaneous opinions and
beliefs the ones least subject to exact scientific verification or refu-
tation. The conditions of man's age-long precivilized and even pre-
human life, during which the primitive instincts arose and devel-
oped, probably as chance variations or mutations preserved by nat-
ural selection, or perhaps as racial habits becoming hereditary, ac-
count for the existence and permanence of many present-day beliefs.
The further fact of the direct survival-value of certain beliefs,
which renders them permanent in human life, whatever may be the
source from which they arise, whether it is instinctive or purely a
matter of chance, has already been pointed out in other connections.
Dr. Schiller's study of Axioms as Postulates 27 is a striking illustra-
tion of a biological explanation of the rise and survival of principles
that have come to seem self-evident and without need of historical
origin. James has spoken of the categories of our common-sense
25 See The Symposium.
26 Essay, Love.
27 Loc. cit.
266 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
ways of thinking as the discoveries of "prehistoric geniuses whose
names the night of antiquity has covered up," and he has given a
biological explanation of the survival of these categories. Dr.
Schiller has recently pointed out that the acceptance of this life as
real and not a dream, the rejection of solipsism, and the denial of
pessimism, all rest upon biological foundations. 28 In a similar man-
ner I have discussed what I have called the (1) hygienic, (2) moral,
(3) industrial, (4) scientific, (5) artistic, (6) social, and (7) legal
values of primitive religious beliefs, and the (1) hygienic and (2)
moral values of religious beliefs in the higher religions. 29 These
values have all been of a fundamentally biological type.
Ill
Though, in the matter of explaining the genesis and the present
basis of significant beliefs, especially religious beliefs, I am in pre-
cise agreement with the biological treatment accorded to the prob-
lem by such pragmatists as James and Dr. Schiller, there arise, nev-
ertheless, differences of view that appear so striking as to have
caused Dr. Schiller to single me out 30 as representing in my own
errors two fallacies "to which all logic has habitually been ad-
dicted." 31 Both of these fallacies attributed to me, called the Fal-
lacy of Ex Post Facto Wisdom and the Fallacy of Confounding the
Persons, have to do with the question of the relation between truth
and value, especially survival-value. What I have called the "prag-
matic fallacy" 32 is involved in the argument. In my original defi-
nition of this fallacy I insisted that truth was a logical matter un-
related to the question of value, and that the pragmatic fallacy
consisted of taking value, especially survival-value, as a test of the
truth of beliefs. Dr. Schiller, on the other hand, like James in the
later developments of his pragmatic views, asserts that, even though
truth and survival-value are not identical, "it might become neces-
sary to equate [them] in principle." 33
The whole question, in the last analysis, reduces largely, if not
wholly, to a question of verbal usage a question as to the applica-
tion of the word "truth." I accept without reserve Dr. Schiller's
account of the biological grounds of belief. I would agree that "it
is even possible that ultimately and indirectly all [beliefs, though
28 Truth and Survival-Value, loc. tit.
2 The Biological Value of Religious Belief, loc. cit.
so This JOURNAL, Vol. XV., pp. 508-10.
si Ibid., p. 508. See also p. 509, where the second fallacy named by Dr.
Schiller is spoken of as "very common in the traditional logic."
32 This JOURNAL, Vol. XIV., pp. 653-60; Vol. XV., pp. 488-99.
83 Loc. cit., p. 514.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 267
not all 'truth-values'] are affected by the survival- value test." 8 *
But I would assert that one goes contrary to established usage of the
term "truth" if one asserts that the truth of beliefs is tested by
their survival-value. In regard to the biological impossibility of
pessimism as a permanent creed, I have expressed views, 35 independ-
ently of Dr. Schiller's recent account of this matter, as I have al-
ready remarked, that agree precisely with Dr. Schiller's account.
That is, I have maintained that it is biologically impossible that
pessimistic beliefs should survive in the race, since, for biological
reasons, a pessimistic race would soon perish from the earth. But,
so far as pessimism is conditioned by some disillusioning naturalistic
type of philosophy, scientists and philosophers might agree that
such a philosophy is true even though its acceptance were psycho-
logically and biologically impossible for any very considerable num-
ber of people. Common sense and science assert that "truth is so,"
whether or not it is known by any human mind. On the other hand,
pragmatism of Dr. Schiller's type asserts that truth is personal and
subject to psychological and biological conditions. I would myself
try to mediate between these two contrary positions. I would say
that common sense and science are correct so far as the meaning
of the term "truth" is concerned, for, indeed, common sense and
scientific usage together determine the meaning of any term. I
would also say that pragmatism is correct so far as its account of
the genesis and growth of beliefs in a fundamentally biological con-
text is concerned. But even beliefs that are universally grounded
in biological needs of human nature need not thereby be true. They
are believed true, of course, for to hold a belief implies believing
that the first belief is true ; but beliefs which were universally held
might fail to satisfy the scientific test of truth if sufficiently accu-
rate methods of scientific verification were devised.
It was recognized by Aristotle that convention establishes the
meaning and denotation of words, but philosophers, more than any
other class of men, have persistently erred in insisting that a given
word means this or that, without asking the simple, concrete ques-
tion of just what, in actual human usage, the word does mean. We
may illustrate the part that human usage plays in establishing the
denotation and the meaning of words by referring to the original
fixing of names to objects in the growth of language, speaking, for
the sake of concreteness, in terms of an incident recorded in Hebrew
mythology. When Adam confronted an animal kingdom of un-
named species, the cat became a cat when he called it a cat, and in
s* Schiller, loc. cit., p. 514.
ss American Journal of Psychology, Vol. XXIX., pp. 383-92.
268 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
like manner the dog became a dog. ' ' Whatsoever Adam called every
living creature, that was the name thereof." Adam did not create
the animals, but he did create their names, together with the rela-
tions of reference that were involved. Adam did not judge that
this animal was a cat, that, a dog, for there was no chance of his
being in error. The names of the animals were a function, not of
Adam's judgments, but of his acts of postulations. That is, Adam
created the symbols (the names of the animals) and arbitrarily
determined what the symbols should denote. I have spoken figura-
tively; but for Adam substitute the whole human community, for
the animal kingdom substitute the entire world of objects, and the
situation is not altered except in the extent of application of the
principles involved.
The question of the meaning of "truth" becomes first of all the
empirical task of asking just what, in popular and in scientific usage,
the word is used to refer to. I submit that, in popular or common-
sense usage, "truth" is thought to mean simply what is "so;" and
in scientific usage, it is taken as predicable of theories, hypotheses,
propositions, and assertions that conform, in a definitely recognized
scientific manner, to the facts of the situations in question. Further-
more, in both popular and scientific usage, the truth is taken to be
entirely independent of what anyone may like to believe, or of what
anyone may be led to believe for "subjective" reasons. In other
words, truth is depersonalized in popular and in scientific usage;
truth is a logical matter and not a psychological matter.
That the unsophisticated mind thinks of truth in such imper-
sonal and immutable terms is illustrated by the first popular re-
sponse to the pragmatic theory of truth when interpreted as offer-
ing an excuse for lying. 36 Though pragmatism asserted that the
valuable in thought and belief is the true, still the popular mind,
more upright, perhaps, than the mind of the pragmatist after it had
become all sicklied o'er with the pale cast of Protagorean sophis-
tries, refused to give up its respect for genuine truth. An austere
respect for truth as something independent of all personal relations
to it, is well expressed by the poet when he stoically asserts,
"It fortifies my soul to know
That, though I perish, truth is so."
The scientific ideal of depersonalized truth is well expressed in
the passage quoted above from Mr. Russell. Scientists endeavor to
establish laws and theories which the objective facts, and the facts
alone, will substantiate. Sciences succeed so far, as they become
36 Cf. Schiller, loc. cit., p. 510.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 269
mathematical and experimental. Personal relations of the experi-
menter to the processes which he is studying are not allowed to
prejudice conclusions or to decide issues if it is possible to avoid
such vicious influences.
One of the chief differences between the pragmatic usage of
' ' truth ' ' and the scientific usage of the term is presented in the ex-
ample, cited by James, of the Ptolemaic versus the Copernican
theory in astronomy. Pragmatism claims that truth is personal, and
fundamentally an attribute or predicate of beliefs as psychological
processes. What is believed to be true, and proves serviceable for
definite reasons, is declared by the pragmatist to be true. Therefore
the pragmatist asserts that the Ptolemaic theory was actually true
so long as it was believed true, since the belief proved serviceable
in various ways. On the other hand, those not pragmatists would
say that the Ptolemaic theory never was true, since it never accu-
rately represented . the facts of the case, as has since been proved.
Scientists would assert, further, only that the Copernican theory is
probably true. It seems to represent the facts accurately. But, they
will say, whether it is really true or not depends, not upon the mere
serviceability of the belief, but upon its conformity to the facts.
Perhaps, scientists would admit, no theory can ever be shown abso-
lutely to be true, since the establishing of its truth is a human and
therefore an imperfect process. Scientists will insist, however, that
the truth of a theory, if it could be known absolutely, would be
found to depend entirely upon its impersonal relations to objective
facts.
Though the later developments of James's pragmatism largely
obliterated the distinction between truth and value, especially sur-
vival-value, James had the scientific theory of truth still in mind
when he wrote, in one of his earlier works, 37 ''Theism, whatever its
objective warrant, would thus be seen to have a subjective anchorage
in its congruity with our nature as thinkers ; and, however it may
fare with its truth, to derive from this subjective adequacy the
strongest possible guaranty of its permanence." Thus, according
to James, though naturalism might be the true philosophy, in the
sense of being the one that describes the facts of the universe cor-
rectly, idealistic and theistic beliefs would probably persist perma-
nently in the minds of men because man's emotional needs deter-
mine so largely what he believes. The pragmatist would here as-
sert that theism is true because the belief persists and "works;"
but those with a non-pragmatic theory of truth would still maintain
that, in the universe of discourse in question, naturalism would be
37 The Will to Believe, p. 116. Italics not in the original.
270 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
true, even though theistic beliefs persisted and were valuable, bio-
logically and otherwise.
In his controversy with Professor Perry, not so very long ago, 38
Dr. Schiller described the pragmatic theory of the meaning of truth
by means of a concrete illustration. Speaking of the World War,
Dr. Schiller said : ' ' What would happen if the victors prevailed so
utterly as to establish their version of the truth? Would not the
divergent accounts be voted down as false ? According to Professor
Perry some of these deserve to be called truer, but is it not amaz-
ing that he should regard the situation as not in the least derogating
from 'the theoretic truth' of the beliefs that are rejected." 39
On the contrary, it seems to most of us, I think I may safely say,
that it would be more amazing if military victories should always
be on the side of the truth. "Divergent accounts would be voted
down as false," because they would be voted down by the victors,
but is the cause that lacks military support necessarily false ? Ger-
many might conceivably have prevailed over the Allies, but would
even Dr. Schiller ever have accepted as true the views for which
Germany has stood? We are easily led to think that right 'and
truth have always been on the winning side throughout mili-
tary history, but one reason for thinking so may be the fact that
those groups which have been victors by force of arms have been
the survivors and consequently the final judges of the right and
truth of the issues involved. The biological struggle for existence
is the most fundamental factor in determining what social, political,
and religious beliefs shall survive and be held as true, but it does
not give assurance of the truth of these beliefs.
So long as one maintains the distinction which I have made be-
tween beliefs and disbeliefs as properly to be regarded as positive
and negative responses to propositions, the propositions being non-
psychological, and true or false according to their relations to facts
external to them, there can be no possibility of committing the prag-
matic fallacy. By courtesy, as I have said, we may speak of true
and false beliefs and judgments, for usage justifies this ; but funda-
mentally truth is a logical matter in which only propositions, the-
ories, hypotheses, etc., are involved, while the finding of these propo-
sitions, or the attempt to find them, and to verify them, is wholly a
psychological matter, of which truth and falsity may not properly
be predicated. This distinction between logical and non-logical mat-
ters, between propositions and beliefs, allows for a clear-cut distinc-
as Cf. Mind, N. 8., Vol. XXIII. (1914), pp. 386-95; Vol. XXIV. (1915),
pp. 240-49 ; pp. 51&-24.
so Mind, N. S., Vol. XXIV., p. 522.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 271
tion between the value of beliefs "subjectively" considered, and
the truth of propositions objectively considered; and it conforms
both to popular and to scientific usage of the word "truth."
Furthermore, so far as this distinction is made, the two falla-
cies which Dr. Schiller ascribes to me are seen to be inapplicable to
my statements. The Fallacy of Ex Post Facto Wisdom, relating to
"wisdom after the event," as, for example, in the case of the
Ptolemaic and Copernican theories, is clearly no fallacy in the rea-
soning of one who separates the earlier belief in the Ptolemaic theory
from the non-psychological aspects of the theory, and who separates
the present belief in the Copernican theory from its logical aspects,
and simply contends that the Ptolemaic theory was false, even
though believed, just as the Copernican theory might now be false,
even though believed. I have simply asserted that some false be-
liefs have had valuable ' ' subjective ' ' effects, in the case, for exam-
ple, of religious beliefs in the course of human evolution; and in
asserting this I have committed no Fallacy of Ex Post Facto Wisdom.
The Fallacy of Confounding the Persons, again, can be asserted
only of those who predicate truth and falsity of psychological proc-
esses. Both popular and scientific usage, to which I have tried to
conform so far as the meaning of the term "truth" is concerned,
depersonalize truth; and usage of the terms as well as the facts of
the situation allow one to assert of belief that a false belief, that is,
an acceptance of a false proposition, may have value in case the
believer is unaware of his error, because of the "subjective" effect
of the belief upon the believer. For example, the belief in God
might contribute to a man's happiness and morality, even though
there were no God.
Finally, the pragmatic fallacy is still a genuine fallacy, commit-
ted by those who maintain that the emotional effect of a belief upon
an individual, or the biological effect of a belief upon a race, is a
criterion of the truth of the proposition believed.
I agree with the pragmatic description of the biological grounds
of belief, but I contend that beliefs need not always be true in order
to be valuable. As Mr. Rashdall has so well expressed it, "Error and
delusion may be valuable elements in evolution; to a certain ex-
tent . . . they have actually been so. ' M0 To say, on the other hand,
that beliefs, because valuable, can not be errors or delusions, but
must be true, is to commit the pragmatic fallacy.
WESLEY RAYMOND WELLS.
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY.
40 Hastings Kashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, pp. 209, 10.
272 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
TESHLATIWA AT ZUNI
/~\N a recent visit to Zuni I noticed that my interpreter, a man of
V^ twenty-three or four, frequently sat with his right arm across
his body, the hand under his coat. In this posture, his attention now
and again would wander, and his look was uncertain if not troubled.
"Do you know about teshlatiwa?" he began one day a surprising con-
fidence. "No, what is it?" "It is scaredness, it is being scared.
You feel it in your heart, and you feel as if ants were crawling
under your skin. ' '
David went on to tell how teshlatiwa came from looking on the
dead. The Zuni cemetery is literally God 's acre and to secure a new
grave old bones must be disturbed. The sight of such mortuary
remains might give teshlatiwa to the grave diggers. The sight of the
corpse they were to bury might also give teshlatiwa. As a prophy-
lactic, bits of the personal possessions of the deceased would be
burned and the smoke inhaled by the four men who had served as
pall bearers and as grave diggers an instance of the practise of
inoculative magic not uncommon at Zufii. 1
"Americans" do not have teshlatiwa because the graves they dig
are fresh. David wondered why he himself had teshlatiwa. He had
never dug a grave. To be sure when he was at school at Albuquerque,
several years before, a schoolmate had died and he had seen the
corpse. That must have been the origin of his teshlatiwa. He could
think of nothing else.
Very recently, David said, his teshlatiwa had been increased. He
was sitting that night with some other boys when suddenly one of
them, a stranger to him, had an epileptic fit, and ' ' then he was dead. ' '
(Unconsciousness is thus described at Zuni.) After a while, "he
was alive." "Now I will get more teshlatiwa," David had said to
the other boys.
The other boys had been frightened, too, when they had seen the
epileptic for the first time in a fit, but teshlatiwa did not result.
David had a brother who had had teshlatiwa. ' ' They [medicine-men
of one of the curing orders no doubt] cut him in different places
with glass and let out the bad blood, then he was well again. ' '
Knowing that David was shortly to take part in one of the cere-
monial dances, physically exacting dances, and thinking he might
1 Parsons, Elsie Clews, ' ' Zufii Inoculative Magic, ' ' Science, N. S., XLIV.
(1916), 470. In the circumstance under discussion a lock of the hair of the
deceased was said to be burned.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 273
have some heart ailment, 2 I urged a visit to the "American" doctor.
It was quite evident that the visit would not be paid. Nor did David
seem to consider a native cure. Seeing him sitting with his hand
pressed to his heart, a friend had said to him, ' ' Have you teshlatiwa f
You are too young. Only the old have it." To the old it brings
pain. "And when I get old I will have pain too," commented David.
Teshlatiwa, as a phenomenon of depression, is of interest to the
psychologist. As a state of mind expressed in a funerary practise
it has interest, too, for the ethnologist. For the student of Southwest
culture in particular who recalls that the culturally-related neigh-
bors of the Pueblo Indians, the Navaho, desert the camp in which a
death occurs, the teshlatiwa of the Zuni has peculiar interest. As I
once heard Professor Kroeber query, did the town dwellers come
to suppress their fear of the dead in realization of the advantages
of a settled life, or having less fear of the dead than their migratory
neighbors did they more readily take to house-building? Or, shall
we say, the charm of the sedentary appealing, was fear of the dead,
not suppressed, but forced to take other expression, 3 expression such
as I have endeavored to describe through the experience of one indi-
vidual and expression in funerary practises, in the practise cited as
well as in other less obviously explicable practises ? 4
We might even stray into Freudian speculations and suggest that
the Pueblo Indian cult of the dead as bringers of rain and good crops
was due, in part, from the psychological point of view, not only to
the desire for food but to the desire to overcome fear of the dead,
an effort, so to speak, to rationalize desire, a suppression mechanism,
myth and ritual being not only a wish fulfilment but a justification
against fear. Curiously enough, from the cultural or historical point
of view, the katsena-kachina-koko cult, in its elaborate development
at least, appears to be a comparatively latter day cult and more or less
synchronous with the increase in permanency of village sites shown
by the Pueblo Indians in the last few centuries.
ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS.
NEW YORK CITY.
2 Subsequently it became clear that teshlatiwa or teshlati 'iwolpa (scared
goes under, inside) is to be more or less identified with the several baffling ail-
ments we call rheumatism.
3 However, fear of the dead in very simple form is also felt. A witch may
plant a prayer-stick for a deceased member of a hated family and ask the de-
ceased to draw to himself a given member of the family. Only a careless mother
would leave her infant alone lest a family ghost come and hold it. As a result
of such ghostly attention within four days the child would be dead.
*C/. Parsons, Elsie Clews, "A Few Zuni Death Beliefs and Practises."
American Anthropologist, XVIII. (1916), 245-256.
274 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE
The Philosophy of Benedetto Croce. H. WILDON CABR. London and
New York : Macmillan and Co. 1917.
Prior to 1914 I should have read this book with pleasure though
with vigorous dissent. Since we have seen the fruits of certain Ger-
man philosophies, a new sense of responsibility has made itself felt.
With an almost comic surprise, philosophers have come to realize
that their utterances are not mere intellectual babblings and may
be fraught with dire consequences. A philosophy carries with
it an attitude toward life, an attitude that must be taken seriously,
for its consequences may be serious. The philosophy of Croce seems
to me to bear a grave menace. If fundamental facts would justify
no other interpretation, we should have to put up with it. But even
where the facts can not be questioned, they can be thrown into a dif-
ferent perspective, used differently with a far healthier result.
There are other undesirable philosophies besides those of war and
power. There is a philosophic way, subtle, slow, but sure of under-
mining character and intellectual integrity. Obscurantism, intui-
tionism, and the cult of feeling are the friends of spiritual anarchy ;
perhaps a worse foe than the will to power. These things I find in
Croce. Mr. Irving Babbitt ought to understand this reaction, for
his New Laocoon senses so keenly the danger to art in such philos-
ophizing. I only wish he had seen more clearly the danger to civili-
zation that is fostered by the art theories he condemns. He has his
gaze fixed on a symptom of a modern ailment, but neglects the dis-
ease in correcting the symptom. In a healthy society such art as he
condemns could not flourish and a philosophy like Croce 's could
not flourish.
If we are to have a world that is a suitable place for human
beings to live in, there are four mental traits we must cultivate:
clarity in thinking, intelligent direction of instinct, creative endeavor
subject to experimental confirmation, and moral zeal to which hedon-
ism is irrelevant. Croee, explicitly or implicitly, offends at each
point. Let me illustrate.
"Philosophy studies reality in its concreteness ; physical science
studies reality in its abstractness" (p. 24). Philosophy and science
"stand to one another in the wholly unique relation that for philos-
ophy, reality or mind is concrete, the whole; for science, reality or
nature is abstract, a partial aspect. Philosophy is therefore the
Science of Sciences" (p. 28). It is true that philosophy and science
deal with the same world. I should say that prediction and control
are made possible by science and directed in application by philos-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 275
ophy. But if the concreteness of philosophy is contrasted with
the abstractness of science, as being knowledge of the whole as over
against knowledge of the partial, the concreteness of the philosopher
is a petty thing. I suspect it would be safe to challenge any phil-
osopher to utter a word, or word combination, denoting any charac-
teristic of this concreteness. If philosophers really confined them-
selves to discussing the world as a whole, philosophic literature would
be much reduced in quantity. I can not recall one who has ever
done so among the many who have expressed this intention. The
last sentence quoted is a riot of obscurantism. To paraphrase : The
study of the concrete whole (philosophy) is the study of the ab-
stract (science) of abstractions (sciences). In spite of Mr. Carr's
elaborations, I do not believe such thinking can ever attain the virtue
of clarity.
We still have our intuitions. "The intuition is the undiffer-
entiated unity of the perception of the real and of the simple image
of the possible. In intuition we do not oppose ourselves as empirical
beings to the external reality, but objectify without addition our
impressions such as they are" (Esthetica, p. 6) ; (p. 62) "Intuition
is ... mental creation. Intuitions are the matter of concepts. . . .
If knowing is not making or remaking what the mind itself has pro-
duced, are we not turning to dualism, to the thing confronting the
thinker, with all the absurdities dualism involves?" (pp. 80-81).
Intuition is the fundamental mental fact, more fundamental than
intelligence. We find this again and again. If it were true that
dualism were the only alternative to this theory of knowledge, I am
not sure but that it would not be more healthy minded. I know that a
horse has four legs, but to describe the process involved as making
or remaking something my mind has itself produced is a task fit only
for the class-room lecturer marking time. I am afraid of intuition.
The term is always changing its meaning, even with as able a
thinker as Croce. It always gives excuse for taking refuge in in-
stinct and relaxing the effort to be intelligent.
Intuition is here called creation, but "the individual mind . . .
carries along with it, in its esthetical and logical inventiveness, a
past which is itself determined in the present and which is also itself
eternally determining the present. The reality, therefore, which
confronts the individual mind is history, and with history the indi-
vidual mind is identical" (p. 18). In so far as this means that the
human mind is a product of evolution and that it bears in itself the
marks of the experience through which the individual and the race
have passed, it is true enough, but to continue that "the reality, there-
fore, which confronts the human mind is history, and with history
the human mind is identical" is pernicious obscurantism and false.
276 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
The reality which confronts us is present fact, which of course has
a history, and almost more, an anticipated future. If history is
merely a name for process, or for a Bergsonian elan vitale, we have
here an hypostatized abstraction, substituted for the actual processes
of evolution. Nor can the mind be identified with history, even
in this sense, any more than can a frog with the pool in which
he swam as a tadpole. There is no hint here of the specific creative
processes by which man may advance his mastery over life. The
emphasis on history makes implicitly denied what is explicitly
claimed, human creativeness.
This philosophy is laid out on the dichotomy of knowing and
doing. These in turn are subdivided. Knowing gives us intuition,
individual, the immediate expression of the image, and the concept
in which the image is universalized ; doing gives us action as of im-
mediate utility to the individual, economic, and action as universal,
ethical. Pleasure is the positive expression of economic activity,
pain its negation. "As, then, it is the positive economic activity on
which ethical activity depends, for only the positive is(!), and as
the positive expression of ethical activity is duty, there can never be
an opposition between pleasure and duty; the two terms must coin-
cide. 'When we speak of a good action accompanied by pain our
words are a contradiction, or, rather, we are using a mode of ex-
pression which can not be meant literally. A good action, in so far
as it is good, always brings satisfaction and pleasure. If it be ac-
companied by pain it can only be that the good action is not yet
wholly good, either because, besides the moral action, which itself is
pleasing, there is a new practical problem yet unsolved and there-
fore painful' (Practica, p. 248)." I am frankly tired of efforts to
make some sort of synthesis between the good and the pleasant.
Many a woman has sent her husband or sons to the war because she
felt the moral need of victory. She may be proud of them, approve
their sacrifice or her own. Such an act is intensely moral, but it is
accompanied by at least as much pain as pleasure. I know the sit-
uation can be juggled into the language of hedonism in terms of
satisfaction and "unsolved practical problems," but I think in so 1
doing it is thrown out of true perspective. My point is that to con-
sider the question of pleasure-pain in such situations is to bring in
psychological by-products that are dangerously confusing. The real
aim of morality is a better integrated individual and social life. 1 If
the psychologist can assert that this will result in happier living,
well and good, but the thing for the individual to keep before him
in moral striving is factual change in character, for the individual,
and in human relations, for society; that is, factual consequences
i Cf. Holt, The Freudian Wish and Its Place in Ethics.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 277
with respect to integration. If pleasure is to be added, it is more
likely to appear in a future generation than in the present moral in-
dividual. As a matter of observation, I am convinced that to take
hedonism seriously as a philosophy, does not produce even the
morality that a hedonist can approve.
To be just to Croce, let me add that he often exhibits the manly
heart which, according to Freitag, insures a satisfactory denouement
to the drama. There is a good ring in the following : ' ' A knowledge
which did not serve life would be superfluous and, like every super-
fluity, scrapped. . . . Knowledge serves life and life serves knowl-
edge. The contemplative life, if it is not to become idle stupidity,
must complete itself in the active, and the active life, if it is not to
become irrational and sterile tumult, must complete itself in the con-
templative. Reality in particularizing these attitudes has fashioned
men of thought and men of action, or rather men in whom thought,
and men in whom action, predominates. Neither is superior to the
other for they are cooperators one with another (Practica, p. 207) "
(pp. 109-110).
I have, of necessity, exhibited only fragments of this philosophy
and can not take it amiss if any one applies to my comments Croce 's
own fine passage on life: "Life is composed of a fixed web, woven of
ever varying actions, vast, small, and infinitesimal. No thought is
skilful enough to carve that web in pieces, and reject some as less
beautiful in order that in the chosen pieces alone, cut out and dis-
connected, it may contemplate the web, for it will no longer exist
(Practica, p. 336)" (p. 118). I am not sure of the truth of the
passage, but if true, it indicates the very reason I can not reconcile
myself to Croce 's philosophy, in spite of his moments of fine feeling
set forth so admirably by Mr. Carr. As a whole, like his romantic
expressionism in art, his philosophy seems to me an emotional de-
bauch that must sap our clearness of vision, soften our firmness of
purpose, and undermine our constructive energy. It encourages;
the undisciplined mind that prefers revolution to evolution. Hence
its menace. To-day we need, not the "concreteness" of totalities,
but the " abstractness " of analysis. Our flights must start from the
solid earth, not swoop down from the clouds. Philosophy that does
not rise in this humble way can only appeal when we are less serious
minded. Fortunately there is much philosophy among us not in
these straits. HAROLD CHAPMAN BROWN.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
Christian Belief in God. GEORG WOBBERMIN. New Haven: Yale
University Press. 1918. Pp. xvii+175.
It is a pleasure to read a critical defense of Christianity which
maintains throughout so high a level of tolerance and courtesy to
278 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
science and philosopy as does this little book 'by Dr. "Wobbermin.
The translation by Dr. Robinson has very evidently been carefully
done, being, I judge, very exact and yet in excellent English. The
Yale Press should come in for its share of commendation.
The argument of the book falls into five parts to which chapters
are devoted. Chapter one summairizes the chief tendencies of pres-
ent-day philosophy. Nietzsche comes in for his share of criticism,
a point made much of in the advertisement. Those who have read
Salter's Nietzsche the Thinker will be in a position to estimate the
adequacy of this criticism. It is not unfair, and yet scarcely just.
There are many good suimimairies of characteristic standpoints in
comparatively recent German philosophy, but and this is a very
striking fact William Jaimes is the only non-German mentioned.
One is inclined to ask oneself whether this mention is due to the
fact that Dr. Wobbermin is the translator of Varieties of Religious
Experience.
The second chapter concerns itself with epistemology in its rela-
tion to the belief in God. Neo-Kantianism comes to the front im-
mediately. Haeckel is rather smugly set aside as unlearned in
epistemology. It results that the world of nature is in some sense
phenomenal; just what degree of reality is given it I can not quite
make out.
The third chapter deals with cosmology. An attempt is made to
rehabilitate the cosmological proof for the existence of God. The ar-
gument is, not for a First Cause in the traditional sense, but for a
prime orderer of the physical universe. An objective mathematical
logic prevails in the world, and this order can not be accounted for by
the random movements of atoms. Is this not the sort of argument pre-
sented by all anti-naturalists? But a multitude of assumptions is
hidden in that term random. The conclusion Dr. Wobbermin draws
is precise: " Strict atheism is philosophically meaningless and un-
tenable. To-day the great majority of philosophers admit this."
The fourth chapter is in many ways the best, as it is the most
detailed in its treatment of science. It is an effort to prove that
the empirical teleology evident in the organic realm can not be
accounted for adequately by Darwinism. Naturally he calls to his
asistance the opinions of Driesch and Reinke. In details his treat-
ment is perfectly fair, and yet there is present the belief that
science isn't quite able to give all the factors of evolution. A divine
teleology must be called in to supplement the forces discovered by
science. The following quotation gives his approach quite fairly:
"The Christian belief in God alone comprehends the riddle pro-
pounded 1 by the theory of evolution it does not solve, but it com-
prehends this riddle. For it is most especially under the conception
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 279
of evolution that the world of living things seems like a work of
art, in comparison with which even the most elaborate human works
of art are hut very imperfect imitation." Like Balfour, he builds
his theism upon the inadequacy of the strict mechanical view. But
are there no other alternatives? Is there not creative synthesis of
a natural sort resulting in new properties and 'modes of function-
ing? It seems to me that Dr. "Wobbermin is just .a little too blind
to the new 'drifts in science and piliosophy. But I doubt whether
the protagonist of a fixed outlook could be any broader than he
has been.
The last chapter is devoted to the interpretation of the above
results in the light of Christian psychology. God is now conceived
as a personal, ethical Being. Of interest is his effort to harmonize
transcendence and immanence. It is rather vague to me and seems
to boil down to this: God's will 'dominates the world and yet his
personality is above the fret and worry of transient things. The
rest of the chapter shows the influence of James.
The book is to be classed with Otto's Naturalism and Religion,
whose influence it distinctly shows. Both are proper challenges to
the philosophical naturalist. R. "W. SELLARS.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. November-December, 1918.
L'emotion musicale (pp. 353-369) : H. BEAUNIS. - Reviews the fac-
tors that determine musical emotion, with especial emphasis on the
importance of the tactile and organo-museular sensations for the
passional effects of music. Etudes sur la signification et la place
de la Physique dans la philosophic de Platon (suite et fin-' pp. 370-
415) : LEON ROBIN. -The physical mechanism of Plato is not, like
that of the Atomists, one that pretends to be self-sufficient and to
afford a total explanation of that to which it applies. Platonic
idealism is not static, but dynamic ; there exists a superior intellig-
ible mechanism, which is the movement of thought itself considered
as absolute. Numbers and mathematical ideas are the intermediaries
between the intelligible and the sensible mechanism. "The mechan-
ism of Plato can be comprehended only by a dynamism, which is a
dynamism of form." La loi de I'oubli (pp. 416-434) : M. FOUQAULT.
The dependence of forgetting on time is expressed by a hyperbola,
although the rate of forgetting is generally masked by a secondary
fixating action of a rumination, mostly unconscious and involuntary.
Reflexions sur la Thermodynamique a propos d'un livre recent (pp.
280 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
434-478) : Louis EOUGIER. -An exposition of the principles of M. L.
Selme's book, Principe de Carnot centre formule empirique de
Clausius; essai sur la Thermodynamique. According to the writer,
if the author's views are confirmed, they will modify our notions of
the degradation of energy, by showing that the principle of Carnot
is indistinctly applicable to all forms of energy. Notes et documents.
La representation libre et I'identite personnelle: J. PERES. Revue
Critique. H. "Wildon Carr, The Philosophy of Benedetto Croce.
The Problem of Art and History: G. L. DUPRAT. J. Segond, La
guerre mondiale et la vie spirituelle: LUCIEN ARREAT. Revue des
Periodiques. Necrology (Edouard Abramowski).
Scott, J. W. Syndicalism and Philosophical Realism : a Study in the
Correlation of Contemporary Social Tendencies. London : A. &
C. Black, Ltd. Pp. 215. 10s. net.
NOTES AND NEWS
A MEETING of the Aristotelian Society was held in London on
March 17, 1919, Dr. G. E. Moore, president, in the chair. Mr. A. E.
Heath read a paper on "The Scope of the Scientific Method," in
which he said that though the scientist makes a conscious effort to
avoid anthropocentric bias in his treatment of any field, this does not
mean that he is confined to non-human fields. Ethical neutrality of
method does not imply limitation to an ethically neutral subject-mat-
ter. Consequently it is held that the scientific method can be applied
to any domain of experience. This thesis is supported by: (1) The
claim that what is attempted is always the complete description, by
both qualitative and quantitative formulae, of an unanalyzed field of
"primary fact." This is accomplished by the setting up of appro-
priate conceptual constructions by the two processes of abstraction
and of generalization by analogy ; the method being sterilized by con-
stant reference back to primary fact. (2) It is then shown in detail
that such synthetic ordering of a primary field is both possible and
helpful in biology, political theory, history, and esthetics though in
the more concrete fields only qualitative treatment is as yet possible.
(3) Finally it is contended that the business of philosophy is the
analysis of the primary data accepted uncritically in each field. Its
method is thus a "reverse scientific method." The one is ready to
increase hypothetical entities for the purposes of economical descrip-
tion, according to Mach 's principle ; the other limits entities to those
left after radical analysis, according to Ockham 's principle of parsi-
mony. And the two principles are not contradictory but comple-
mentary.
VOL. XVI, No. 11. MAY 22, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
THE VALUE OF FALSE PHILOSOPHIES
"PHILOSOPHY may be bad because it is poor; again, it may be
bad because it is false. Poor and feeble philosophy, like sweet
fiorwers in decay, is ill-smelling stuff; we shall leave it alone. But
there are false philosophies that are not poor and weak. Unless con-
tradictory statements -can 'both be true, this is a category which em-
braces close upon half the chief systems, or half the theses of all the
chief systems. This fact has appeared, to many a critic of philosophy
in general, a confession of the futility of the whole endeavor ; and to
many a well-wisher, a cause for lament over wasted effort and) great
minds gone astray.
There are those who demur and say there is no difficulty in the
matter. Philosophy, they assert, is not to be judged by the standards
of science. It is to be judged by the standards of art or of religion.
It is to be judged by standards of power and inspiration. Its truth is
one and identical with its potential influence over human life. Phi-
losophy is a human attitude, and not a theory. But judged literally
by such a standard as this, the truest because the most dynamic phi-
losophy was the Mohammedan 's blind trust in the inscrutable will of
Allah, as being the one and only explanation for all things in heaven
and earth. From the straits of Gibraltar to the straits of Singapore,
from Zanzibar and the Niger to the steppes of Turkestan, weak in
numbers but great in infatuation, the irresistible armies of that faith
went sweeping abroad. Is it not true that the great dynamic ideas
are generally false, with at least the falseness of onesidednessi? For
they must never be tainted by doubt ; they must not be enfeebled by
critical analysis. The power and inspiration that is unaccompanied
by a more homely sort of trueness, is it not a dangerous thing, having
in it the seedis of persecution and fanaticism ? And as for philosophy,
are not truth to the facts of this world, critical aloofness, adequacy to
all the manifold phases of all the multitude of real things, its first
ineludible requirements?
Nevertheless there does seem to be something about a great
system of philosophy which, even though we confidently believe it not
to -be true, does make it, somehow or other, too much worth while to
281
282 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
allow us to reject it as foolishness and wasted energy. It is not
merely that it is a great feat of the imagination. That, in full meas-
ure, it may indeed be, and receive admiration accordingly, as we
might admire Dante's vision without believing his astronomy. But
considered 1 exclusively from this standpoint, even the great systems
are less satisfying than 1 the works of minor poets and second-rate
novelists. A philosophy is at once so abstracted and so pretentious a
thing, that seldom does it let you forget how pertinaciously it intends
to be true of the world of fact. Explicitly it insists that this is really
so, and that is 1 really so. You can not luxuriate in its fairy-land, or
forget that its dreams are dreams. You are forced, at every step, to
compare it with what you believe to< be actual, and though your belief
may be itself mistaken, it certainly precludes all artistic illusion.
So philosophy is like science. It does make a claim to scientific
veracity. A philosophical system lays down propositions about the
imake and texture of the world, propositions that run the risk of
being wrong. Hence ingenuity has been, employed in plenty to make
discrimination as to where science leaves off and philosophy begins.
We are even told that the distinction is this : whenever a domain of
knowledge reaches definiteness and exactness, it then sets up as a
distinct science, while philosophy comprises the ever-diminishing re-
sidue of the muddled and confused. This would be an excellent way
to annihilate the value of philosophy altogether. Yet the future sum
of the sciences does promise to be conterminous with the sum of
things. Once there was a time when philosophy was held to be the
study of mind, the sciences studied matter ; but there have now arisen
the mental, the psychological sciences. Even yet we are told that
philosophy is conversant with values, and science with facts ; but there
are already the beginnings of increasingly important sciences of
values. Before long, or so it would seem, science will have appropri-
ated to itself all the sweets of knowledge, and philosophy can enjoy
them only vicariously. Philosophy is left in the situation of the little
girl whose brother would not share any of his candy with her, but
magnanimously offered to let her kiss him while his mouth was sticky.
Thus it stands. On 'the one hand, philosophy can not rival art
and literature in the domains of fiction. Its fictions are dead and
theirs are alive; its imaginings are skeletons, but theirs have the
warmth of flesh and blood. On the other hand, philosophy would seek
an abode in the districts of fact. But the serried phalanx of the
sciences bars the way, and prevents approach. This is their country ;
no room has been left for a stranger here. What then remains for
philosophy ?
There is one noteworthy answer recently advanced or readvanced.
Let philosophy abate her old pretensions and narrow her ambitions.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 283
Let her become one of the sciences, the science which is the most ab-
stract. Then as a science, with the methods of science and the im-
personality of scientific inquiry, she may hope for the same success,
the same constancy of progress which other sciences have enjoyed.
Such is the proposal of Mr. Bertrand Russell.
That 'there is a possible science such as Mr. Russell looks forward
to, a science of fundamental categories 1 , of generality as such, a science
of logic far more ultimate and extensive than the ordinary logic of
Barbara Celarent these theses we are not anxious to dispute. Nor
do we doubt that decisions about matters of exceeding abstraction and
generality, far remote from ordinary problems, may have astonish-
ingly wide and! important consequences. A breath of air in the
Andes may send a snowflake to one side or another of a point of rock,
and thereby determine whether, through glacier and mountain torrent
and river, that drop of water shall reach finally the Atlantic or the
Pacific. And even so, in these remote matters of abstruse inquiry,
one turn or another may be ;taken without noticing there is an alter-
native, and from that point on, the dialectic gathers force and. mass,
everything seems swept on in one direction with inevitable convincing-
ness, until the philosopher believes his system admits of no rival and
is founded on eternal categorical necessity. Such, for example, is the
really marvelous dialectic of Francis Herbert Bradley. White moves
so and so, then black moves, then white again, and behold ! the decision
of that philosophic chess game is already recorded in the book of fate.
There is an innocent-looking suggestion put forward; it seems so
plausible and so little worthy of dispute that you acquiesce in it ; and
you are caught in the net, caught so cleverly that you imagine you
are still free, and moving of your own accord to those resultant con-
clusions that arise so naturally. You look upon the inquirers who
travel other roadis as being necessarily less clever than yourself. They
have doubtless not thought the question out. Some day, if they are
keen enough, keen as you have been, they too will see the light and
come to your conclusions. You pity them. Your own faith is built
upon a rock. Yes, it is true that these apparently remote questions
are significant. Granted that we want our philosophy to be reasoned
and reasonable, these subtle matters are fully as important as Mr.
Russell maintains. A training in such matters, an intensive study of
them, is as necessary for the philosopher as mathematics for the phys-
ical chemist. All this we may grant Mr. Russell.
But philosophy? Shall we make philosophy into a science? Re-
duce our philosophy without remainder even to this most metaphys-
ical and ultimate of sciences? Consider. Does not the philosophy
that abates one jot of her old pretensions abdicate her throne alto-
gether ? Is it not the boast and glory of philosophy that she takes
284 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
the universe for her province, and admits no bounds to her empire ;
that her thoughts go out to the ends of the world, and her rule and
compass span all the infinities? "But," you say, "limitation is
requisite for success; too bold an ambition will overreach itself and
philosophy will fail." And is it, then, such a lamentable thing to
fail ? Are there not tasks wherein to try, though you try and fail,
is a greater distinction than all the smug successes you could win in
lesser ventures ? It is better, we say to Mr. Russell, that philosophy
should remain philosophy, a splendid failure, than that it should re-
nounce its high calling to win a more commonplace success. If phi-
losophers to-day are wary of syste'm-building and take conceit in the
modesty of their aims, it is because they lack courage and lack power.
He who is too afraid of being in the wrong stands an excellent chance
of never being in the right either. Better a downright false philoso-
phy, contrary to obvious fact, than a philosophy that is a nullity. In-
tellectual modesty may be a personal virtue in a philosopher, but phi-
losophy can not itself be modest and remain a philosophy. That
philosophy should constantly strive to emulate the precision and im-
personality and justice in weighing the evidence which distinguish
science, is, we grant and proclaim, a worthy and necessary ideal. A
philosopher should never for a moment forget that his most cherished
theories are, omce and for all, theories ; that he does not know every-
thing ; and that the feeling of absolute assurance is excellent evidence
of failure to see the other side which every philosophical question
possesses ; but, all this notwithstanding, he, as a philosopher, is still
bound to have opinions and plenty of them, and the courage of his
opinions ; and when he stops being bold, stops following his opinions
to their uttermost extent, he ceases to be a philosopher, and becomes
not a cautious scientist, but a nonentity. Philosophy is that science
which abstracts from nothing, that science to which nothing is alien
and for which nothing is negligible, and therefore is philosophy not a
science at all. Philosophy is philosophy.
But what then is the sort of achievement to which philosophy looks
forward? There are at least two types of aims which have been
mixed up together under the one title of philosophy, and they need
to be discriminated from one another, as well as from science and art.
We might call them theoretical and practical philosophy, yet the
terms mean little until explained.
Theoretical philosophy is a sort of knowledge. But the character-
istic trait of it is that, while scientific knowledge is accomplished when
facts are known, known as they are, philosophical knowledge is then
no more than ready to begin. The facts now need to be interpreted
and understood. This interpretation is not an evaluation of good and
bad, and it is not necessarily a seeking behind and beneath the facts
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 285
for some reason and ground thai explains why things are as they are.
It may well be that the facts in question are simply brute data, with-
out reason and without worth. But the interpretation which the phi-
losopher gives of those facts consists always and essentially in a no-
table widening of the purview. It is a widening, to use the terminology
of the old association psychology, by both contiguity and similarity.
Where do these facts stand in a larger context ? How do they com-
pare with other facts like them or differing from them. The mere
widening by contiguity might be done by science, though never so
fully done. But the widening by similarity and contrast is much
more 'peculiarly philosophical, in so far as it asks for the instituting
of comparisons, not merely with what is, but with what might be;
and it opens to the philosopher not only the realm of the actual, but
the limitless stretches of the ideal and possible; introduces him to
things even forever impossible in this world of ours, yet not im-
possible in themselves. Now there is no philosophic value in castles
in the air, whatever may be their artistic beauty. The only value
from the intellectual study of the ideal and the possible is when it
throws a new light of contrast or likeness upon the actual, reveals
what is contingent in the actual and so could be otherwise, reveals
the facts of the strange arbitrariness of many an aspect of this
world of ours, until the common things of earth take on an arresting
wonder and mystery. And such comparison reveals likewise sim-
ilarities and analogies among things the most diverse, threads of like-
ness or relation that knit together things far remote.
All this is an intellectual inquiry. But it is an intellectual in^
quiry which has no peculiar subject-matter. Philosophy can begin
anywhere ; the characteristic of it is only that it never rests where it
began. It is never satisfied with knowledge of given fact, however
well certified to. It looks out beyond. And it is an intellectual in-
quiry the truth of whose results, though very much the same as the
truth of science in toeing some correspondence of knowledge and
things, is subject to tests which 'are not merely any pragmatic ones of
success or of leading into touch with facts. If there is successful
leading involved, it is ever a success plus an interpretation of that
success. This point is not altogether peculiar to philosophical knowl-
edge, but it assumes a special importance there. No comparison, for
instance, can ever be tested (by merely being led to the things com-
pared, and especially so when one of those things compared does not
exist at all. Yet every proposition we utter has its contradictory, as
is a commonplace of logic, a commonplace with very uncommonplace
implications. For we can never judge without asserting that some-
thing is this way and not otherwise, thereby comparing the way it is
with the way it might be, but nevertheless is not. And only the
*
286 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
simplicity, or apparent simplicity, of this comparison leads us to
ignore its presence, as so regularly we do. The only test of a com-
parison is another comparison ; you get more data and you compare
again. The things are doubtless given as like or different, but they
do not compare themselves. There is, therefore, no return from a
comparison into a flow of non-intellectualized experience, no goal of
merely immediate recontact with fact. Therefore it fpllows that the
progress of theoretical philosophy, which thus looks 1 wider and brings
in new items to compare, is to be contrasted, with any such sort of
practical interest in making machines and keeping us fed which is
often, justly or unjustly, considered the final aim of scientific knowl-
edge. A philosophical inquiry furnishes means only for more phi-
losophical inquiry; it is a self -perpetuating process. Philosophy
leads, of itself, naturally and only to more philosophy. If it is to
have value at all, it must be because it is worth while in itself, that
it is its own excuse for being. Though it is not for the theoretical phi-
losophy to estimate its own worth to human inquirers, there are those
of us who, as practical philosophers of the type to be mentioned in a
moment, do come to consider it as a priceless! privilege to philosophize
so, because it is a great and noble thing to stand apart from the world
and yet have knowledge of it ; to stand 1 apart, not plunge in, as Berg-
son bids us do, for only he who is not too much immersed in the game
can see all things in their just proportions ; to stand apart, the clear-
headed critic, and say to the harshest of brute facts, "You are but
accidents after all," saying to that which bulks greatest in our fore-
ground, "You are, in the total of the great world-prospect, a very
trifling thing. "
But there is, and we have just referred to it, another sort of phi-
losophy. Practical philosophy is a matter not so much of knowledge
as of will. There may be things valuable which are simply found to
be so, about which we can say there is a true view and a false one.
It is then a matter for intellectual inquiry to find out which is 1 which.
If all value is of this sort, there is little or no ultimate place for
what we have here termed practical philosophy, save as an emotional
acceptance of given truths about values. But our present situation is
not ultimate nor ever will be. And it does indeed seem obviously true
of us in our present situation, as well as at least possibly a permanent
factor that would survive into even the most ideally ultimate point of
view, that sometimes our judgment, "This is good," means really a
fiat of ours, "Let this be my good." We have here a sort of thing
that never becomes a matter of ordinary truth and falsity. There are
those, it is true, who maintain, as does for instance Professor John
Dewey, if we do not misinterpret him, that such fiats are really propo-
sitions, which are not true as first uttered, but are made true or false
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 287
by some one's considering them as if true and living accordingly, so
that he thus experimentally finds out whether he is still willing to
accept them after trial. But there is no real objectivity gained even
so ; the result arrived 1 at must again be accepted in a fiat, * ' Let this be
my good." If the primary decree has a proviso, "Let this be my
good, because it has these and these characters, ' ' the qualifying clause
may indeed be refuted by experience, but that is due to its being an
ordinary judgment of fact, not created by the willing of it. Such a
"passing of judgment" on things, such evaluating of their final
worth, is therefore in its essence a fiat of will, to be accepted or re-
jected, but never in an objective sense true or false.
Now, asi a mere matter of fact, some of the most remarkable ex-
amples of what has been historically called philosophy have been fiats
of this sort. They have been fiats of acceptance or rejection directed
towards 1 the universe in general, either towards the whole range of
this our actual world, or towards some of those possible or ideal
worlds which thebretical philosophy may dispassionately contrast
with this of ours. It is generally such a valuation which we have in
mind when we speak of a man's philosophy of life ; it is what we mean
when we speak of a national philosophy. We do not in such cases
mean what men and nations think about the world. Doubtless they
most often think very little. We mean how they feel about it, and
towards what ideals their will is directed. It may also become more
explicitly formulated, and embedded in the midst of many judgments
of fact. But we have such a philosophy in any case wherein some
one declares, "To this world of ours I say yes" ; or when he says, "I
hate these brutal facts ; let us escape to where beauty is uncontami-
nated and reason free" ; or when he says, "Let us accept this world 1 ;
but looking on it with eyes that cease to desire, let us view it as a show,
a spectacle, like the play-world wrought by the magic of some master-
artist. ' ' Such a one is no longer a philosopher of the theoretical sort.
His hopes and fears are in the game. His dreams and' his aspirations
have become weights in the balances. Truly he must, to deserve the
name of philosopher, have still something of the theoretical basis to
give him a content which he accepts or rejects ; and something of the
theoretical attitude also viewing at times his wildest dreams and his
deepest aspirations with an eye that is clear-sighted and aloof. But
in a practical philosophy there is always something more, a choice, a
decision. Whether we call this 1 element philosophy at all, or call it
rather religion, or what not, that does not much matter. It seems to
overlap one aspect of religion, yet to include other cases hardly to be
termed religious. But it does matter a great deal to note that we have
this sort of attitude. We have it all of us. The philosopher has it
only more marked in degree, more self-conscious, more voluble in ex-
288 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
pression, than the layman. Mr. Bertrand Russell's A Free Man's
Worship is a perfect illustration; though he most among contempo-
rary philosophers has urged upon theoretical philosophy that it be im-
personal, ' ' appealing to less mundane hopes and fears. " It is a prim-
itive source of inspiration from which comes the driving force that
carries the investigator across the more arid and arduous fields of
strictly theoretical philosophies and abstract sciences, giving him a
faith that that sort of activity is eminently worth while. Once and
for all we do, every one of us, explicitly or otherwise, evaluate and
pass judgment on the world ; we do pass judgment on it as well as
seek to know it; we decide where we will to stand, we choose and
we reject.
And now our old question : "What, then, is the value of false phi-
losophies ? ' ' Let us consider it from the standpoint, first, of theoret-
ical, and then, of practical philosophy. There is, if our opinion be cor-
rect, no one theoretical philosophy towards which we are moving ; we
are moving towards a loosely coordinated group of ways of taking the
world. Endless are the possibilities wherewith we many contrast it ;
inexhaustible by us are the comparisons of diverse aspects which we
may set up. And herein is found the present value of any historical
philosophy. Theoretically, Spinoza, for instance, may be false, for
lie meant to tell us about present reality and he told us wrong. We
may think that we can disprove great sections of his philosophy, and
with more knowledge we could disprove it all. 'The world is not
built like that. But if Spinoza has, as a theoretical philosopher, done
his work thoughtfully and well, he has furnished us with a sketch of
a world that might be ours. It is a possible world, a plausible world.
In the very considering, the very disproving of it, we must necessarily
come to understand our world better by the contrast. Had Spinoza
started with the explicit aim of creating a fiction, a dream-world, the
chances are that he would not have given us anything so profitable to
compare with the actual world as he has done ; lacking in earnestness,
his pen would have traced a caricature, a thing that could not live.
The artist, limiting himself to one fragment of the concrete, may deal
in fictions for their own sake; but the philosopher's task, set him by
the tremendous elaboration of the world of fact, is too heavy a one to
permit him to stray far from what he thinks is fact and not fiction.
And even the artist seems to gather strength by nearness to the solid
ground of actuality ; the fancies of even A Midsummer Night's Dream
are pale and empty, when set alongside the gripping reality of Hamlet
or King Lear. But to us who read 1 philosophy, and wish by its aid to
understand our world better to us, Spinoza, or Plato, or Hegel, or
Immanuel Kant, must appear as often substituting fiction for fact.
And we might study them, as too many a beginner studies the history
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 289
of philosophic thought, as illustrating the aberrations of the human
mind. But we also may study them as 1 part of philosophy, a living
part to-day, and by no means a mere catalogue of dead and moldering
errors. Our world will never be so well understood as by him who
understand it in its likeness to, -and contrasts with, the worlds of
Plato, and Spinoza, and Kant. By their very departure from it, they
furnish us a fulcrum outside the world of fact which will give us a
leverage on it, a new standing-place whence our eye can more ade-
quately survey it. To understand anything you must know more
than it ; from beyond and without it you must bring the standards by
which it -can be measured and judged. Such then is the theoretical
value of false philosophy. Such is the reason why, though we read
with only an amused curiosity many of the scientific blunders of the
Greeks, we nevertheless turn to the philosophical pages of Plato and
Aristotle with an eager desire to learn. Science, confining itself
rigorously to the narrow limits of its actual subject-matter in hand,
leaves its discovered errors hurriedly behind it, because they are to it
a source of shame, and an uneasy warning to present science that it,
too, is infected with mortality. But the progress of theoretical phi-
losophy is one that can carry all its past with it, the richer by all
that has been done ; and can draw ever new profit from ancient error,
as well as from ancient truth.
The errors of philosophy are not so directly relevant to practical
philosophy, because the latter is, as we have seen, not to be judged by
standards of truth and falsity. But an evaluation of the world 1 which
is to furnish any lasting satisfaction to one who has had his initiation
into theoretic philosophy, must found itself on truth. If for instance,
some particular evaluation of a world is of a world wherein man is
the center of the physical universe, and it declares therefore that suns
and stars move in order that he may have days for work and nights
for rest, that evaluation is not of this world we live in. But after
all, seldom are the great evaluations much qualified 1 by such condi-
tions of true 'and false. There are, for example, optimists and pessi-
mists among the mechanical philosophers ; there are likewise both op-
timists and pessimists among the idealists ; likewise there are on both
sides those whose temperament leads them to declare that the matter
of temperament is an impertinence. And philosophies, big and little,
have been, and doubtless ever will be, saturated with these evalu-
ations, almost as multifarious as philosophers have been numerous.
Such evaluation can be more or less intelligent ; it is so, however, only
when there has been some sort of choice. Men are doubtless born
with one or another philosophic temperament. But man can also be
born again in philosophy, when he has appreciated and compared and
deliberately chosen. But to do this he must guide his choice by con-
290 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
sideration of the great galaxy of previous choices and evaluations ; not
merely learning what Spinoza or Plato thought, but feeling within
himself what it was they clove to, what it was they desired. He who
would be a philosopher must learn to feel with the philosophers, as
well >as think with them ; and pass judgments of final preference with
them. And here their errors are seldom to be dwelt upon ; but the
tone and color and flavor of their vision are a priceless heritage, a new
glory that is given to all mankind.
H. T. COSTELLO.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
PURPOSE AS A CONSCIOUS CONCEPT
IN their repudiation of anthropomorphism as a method of explana-
tion both scientists and philosophers agree. The significance
of mechanism as explanation has been such a hard won and widely
profitable achievement that any suggestion to curtail its application
naturally arouses vigorous opposition. But that there may be advo-
cated a method of procedure the converse of anthropomorphism,
carrying in its train consequences which may be no less serious, ap-
pears to be not so generally recognized. That is, in contrast to
psychomorphism (the modern refinement of the older anthropo-
morphism) physicomorphism (if I may be allowed to use the ex-
pression) is practised when physical concepts are applied to a realm
where their employment is not so much superfluous for explanation
as it is unintelligible. To extend mechanical description so as to
include all activities of living beings is, I take it, an instance of this
nature.
Professor Warren's study of purpose 1 with its point of departure
in the analysis of conscious purpose affords a particularly valuable
basis for the thesis I wish to elaborate in this paper. The biological
approach to the discussion, while the fundamental conclusion is in
general agreement with the position of Professor Warren, has pro-
ceeded (and naturally so) in the direction of proving that experi-
mental evidence is favorable to the physiochemical conception of
certain activities of living beings characterized as purposeful. The
further implication is suggested that all organic activities may even-
tually be included under the same rubric. Here, psychological cate-
gories are assimilated to biological, purpose is one type of physico-
chemical description. In Professor Warren's discussion, on the other
hand, it is a significant fact that the analysis of the conscious experi-
14 Study of Purpose, this JOURNAL, Vol. XIII. (1916).
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 291
ence comes first. Here the elimination of certain factors usually
considered essential to conscious purpose is effected with the result
that the biological processes are assimilated to the mental events.
Now the argument I propose to develop in the following pages main-
tains that this elimination of any peculiar features of conscious ex-
perience and the assimilation which follows is made possible by a
fundamental confusion in the distinction between the mental and the
physical, a confusion bound up with the ambiguous use of certain
terms employed in the description of conscious purpose. If the
basal assumption concerning the relation of the mental and the
physical rests upon their absolute existential disparateness, it may
prove that the type of psychology which, while recognizing this
distinction as relevant to one stage of explanation, advances to
another level of interpretation of the diversity points the way to a
dissolution of the confusion.
We proceed to the analysis of conscious purpose. Briefly, the
final conclusion reached as the result of the examination of purposive
experience is that anticipation and fitness are characteristics which
distinguish this type of experience from other series of mental
events. The illustration which serves to illustrate this fact is as
follows: "I am reading and it grows dark. I think of turning on
the electric light and without hesitation the action is performed."
That is, psychologically, the series of events consists in the percep-
tion of darkness, the idea of light and the perception of light. The
idea of turning on the light constitutes the forethought or the antici-
patory experience. The analysis then procedes to affirm (and here
we come upon the crucial point in the description) that the peculiar-
ity of this experience, that which renders it purposive, is the fact
that it embodies an inversion of the usual order of events. In gen-
eral the representation or idea follows the perception; in this type
of experience the idea precedes the perception. The point that I
desire to advance here is that this statement gets its only possible
meaning from an ambiguous use of the term idea or representation.
The meaning of the term idea which can be involved in the statement
that the idea generally follows the perception is relevant to a specific
perception, a definite experience which for certain reasons is desig-
nated a perception. The representation is a representation of the
specific experience to which it refers, a reproduction in the sense of
lacking the characteristic of the perceptive factor, and this it is as a
matter of definition. On the other hand the employment of the
term idea in the description expressed in the statement, the idea
or representation precedes the perception, involves a different signif-
icance. Manifestly it can not be solely a representation, a repro-
duction in the sense of being a replica embodying a definite previous
292 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
experience. In other words, idea here is not merely if at all a
representation of what has happened. It consists of a prerepresenta-
tion and embodies an antecedent occurrence to just the extent that
it contains elements which have been previously given in a percep-
tion. But, on the other hand, it can be characterized as anticipatory,
as forethought, because it involves additional factors or qualities
(whatever these may turn out to be) not discovered in the percep-
tive experience. It is representation plus a prospective element : the
representation has reference to a future experience. In some
manner this fact of future reference as embodied in the present
experience must be taken into account since it is the pivotal point
of the whole analytical description.
Let us revert to the instance given above in which the order of
events was presented as, the perception of dark, the idea of light,
the perception of light. Does analysis reveal these occurrences as
a successive series, or does not a closer scrutiny disclose that finding
more harmonious with the facts, which discovers perception of dark
and idea of light to be simultaneous factors in a single complex? 2
Perception of dark is the experience of an absence of light, absence
being a privation and therefore denoting something (in this case
the darkness) to be removed or replaced by a different condition.
It means the presence of the future light in the only sense in which
it can be present without committing a contradiction in terms. Thus
there is discovered a meaning in the statement, the future event
influences a present. The future as future can not conceivably
affect a present, but the future as a present future or idea is a
conception which we may entertain.
Furthermore, if this forethought which marks the distinguishing
trait of conscious purpose functions in a manner similar to the
sensory element in all perception, and differs only in the fact that
the prospective element is less definitely in consciousness in purposive
experience, then conscious purpose is a special case of the purposive-
ness of all mental life. For example, I am walking along the street,
I see a person advancing towards me from the opposite direction,
I turn to the right to avoid a collision all the while continuing my
conversation with the friend at my side, having performed this
action with no obvious notion of so doing. In this case we have the
element to turn aside bound up with the sensory patch of color,
parallel to the forethought in the instance above, but differing from
it in emphasis so that it is not apparent to immediate inspection.
The perception itself involves elements which function in a manner
similar to that of the forethought. That is, the sensory stimulus,
2 John Dewey, The Beflex Arc Concept in Psychology, The Psychological Ee-
view, Vol. III. (1896).
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 293
the patch of color, involved the reference to the obstacle to be avoided,
the turning aside, a possible future experience.
This suggests the consideration of an important point in con-
nection with the description of a purposive experience. As noted
above the typical order of events was designated as follows : percep-
tion, idea, perception, these distinctions being those of the psy-
chologist or observer, and not those of the experiencing individual.
These distinctions, accepted without question by the psychologist,
with the assumption that they would be the utterance of the experi-
encing agent, could he articulate the events in such terms, permits
the vibration between the two sets of categories pertaining to the
physical and the mental respectively, and thereby results in the
violation of the basal standpoint of the discussion. Thus if the
individual's description which runs, it is dark, I must turn on the
light, the light is here, should be rendered in general terms the
series would be, first a physical fact (it is dark), second a mental
event (the idea of turning on the light), and third a physical fact.
That is, the first member of this order is accepted as a physical fact
or more exactly a physical fact is there involved, and is not appre-
hended as a perception, if by perception is intended a mental event.
The same thing may be said of the final perception which is character-
ized as fit. The psychologist differentiates perception and idea by
the possession of a sensory datum in the former. This distinction
involves a reference to a physiological condition, which can not be
included in the account of the experiencing agent in so far as he is
limited to the particular experience under consideration. That is,
purporting to give a description of a series of events within the
conscious realm, a distinction in the nature of these processes is
made which involves, but does not explicitly recognize, an extra-
mental factor.
To sum up the conclusion of this discussion of purposive conscious-
ness, we find that, instead of revealing an inversion of causal order,
anticipation gets its significance from the fact of a non-causal or non-
mechanical description of events. This, we must recall, is the result
of the analysis of our description of a subjective process; it is a
matter of meaning and in no sense a proof derived through ob-
jective observation or experimental evidence concerned with physio-
logical processes. This latter point brings us to the consideration
of biological purpose.
We come now to the concept of purpose as applied to certain activi-
ties of living beings. I say certain activities advisedly, because it is
in general only to specific types of organic activities and not to all
vital processes that this category is ascribed. Professor Warren
maintains that the distinguishing characteristics of such processes
294 TEE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
are found in the phenomenon of anticipation followed by an activity
which is designated as fit, this latter quality being a judgment of
the observer and not a quality inherent in the process. For example,
the animal seeking its prey actually begins the process of seizing
and masticating before the food is possessed. The animal striving
to get out of the cage and to obtain food prepares for that result by
beginning some of the activities involved in eating before that process
is operative. An activity of this sort is anticipatory in view of the
later process for which it is a preparation. In other terms, it ex-
hibits a reaction to a situation before the situation to which it is a
response exists.
Now while it is asserted that such operations in terms of their own
inherent qualities must be conceived as strictly mechanical or capable
of adequate description in physiochemical terms, 3 according to Pro-
fessor Warren they are purposive in so far as the mechanical process
exhibits an order which is the reversal of the usual causal order.*
Masticating generally takes place only when the food is in the mouth.
Occurring before this event, it is a preparation for it. Now the
point I wish to emphasize in this connection is that it is allowed that
only from the point of view of the observer can the phenomenon of
anticipation be said to exist. To repeat, the process viewed with
respect to its own inherent qualities is physiochemical, mechanical,
causal. We ask then, what is the significance of the introduction
of the point of view of the observer? Is it a justifiable basis for
the characterization of a process as purposeful with the applications
derived from it? The conclusion I desire to advance, respecting
this point, is that ultimately this reference to the observer resolves
itself into the inclusion of the process which is being inspected under
some more comprehensive situation. In the instance noted above,
the masticating considered with reference to the actual possession
of the food, the consumption of which makes for the well-being of
the animal, is purposive. If this be granted, then the ground for
designating the particular types of activities specified, as antici-
patory, is removed. Any eating process in so far as it tends to the
survival of the individual might be considered as preparatory to such
8 We are not here concerned with such a conception as the entelechy of
Driesch which superimposes an additional explanatory element upon the physical
account.
4 In asserting the fact of an inversion of the causal order such modifying
phrases as, in a sense, of a type, so to speak, are frequently interpolated. The
contention which follows ascribes to them a far more important function in ob-
taining the results reached by Professor Warren than appears to be assigned
to them.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 295
a result 5 provided our interest was concerned with that fact, and
this is not admitted in the conception of purpose defended. That is,
if we appreciate the reason for characterizing a stage of a physio-
logical process as anticipatory with respect to the end term selected
by the interest of the observer, then any earlier step of such 'a
process may be viewed under given circumstances as preparatory
to a particular result. That is, preparation for an end has no more
significance than a sequence of before and after except as the ob-
server selects a member of the series (arbitrarily as far as the series
above is concerned) which he fixes as a result, even if his motive is
grounded in a fact without the investigation. The procedure in such
an explanation reduces to the setting up of limits to the domain of
a problem, and then transcending those boundaries by enlarging the
field to include data not relevant to the terms of the original problem.
The physicochemical process described in terms of its own inherent
qualities derives its term denoted as final from the interest of the
observer (in this case, concerned with the survival of the individual),
in the same manner as this process (the survival of the individual)
gets its characterization from its relation to a more inclusive body
of physical facts (an environment). Or, approaching the matter
from a different angle, it might be said that neither of these processes
owes its character to the point of view of the observer, if we con-
sider that the human interest may be disregarded in the special
problem as is the case in general scientific procedure. Considered
from its effect upon survival of the individual, eating in general
or breathing is just as much and just as little anticipatory as the
initial mastication is to the catching of the prey. Thus, all such
expressions as end of activity, result, prospective propensity, con-
trolling propensity, 6 preferred or selected responses, employed by
their various authors to denote the peculiarity of purposive organic
processes, are simply so many diverse ways of denoting the relation
of the particular activity under discussion to other more compre-
hensive processes and should be divested of any additional im-
plication.
There is a conceivable meaning which could be attached to the
characterization of an organic process as anticipatory (inherently
so), and that is, in the event that a non-physical or mental element
(such as a vague feeling in the case of the animal striving to get out
5 The fact that intervening acts must occur before the end process, in rela-
tion to which the first member of the series is characterized as preparatory, in
no way affects this statement.
E. B. Perry, Psychological Review, January, 1918, p. 12. "It is essential
that the action should be thus determined by its relation of prospective con-
gruence with a controlling propensity which is both prior and more general. ' '
296 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
of the cage, or a vague idea of the food resulting in the masticating
before the prey is caught) determines any part of the activity, we
should 'be obliged to assert then not a reversal of the causal order,
but rather a non-causal sequence to the extent to which that factor
entered into the determination of the process. I am not here con-
tending for any such hypothesis; I merely desire to point out an
intelligible conception of the expression, the response to a situation
in advance of the existence of that situation. On any other basis
such phrases as dissatisfaction and striving employed in connection
with the description of what is held to be a series of physical events,
even in the capacity of inefficacious correlates, have no significance
nor excuse for being. Variability and selectiveness in response,
conceptions taken over from mental life, are rendered unintelligible
when made descriptive of strictly mechanical series. From the
standpoint propounded there can be no variation of response ; every
reaction is as necessary as every other. Picturesqueness here tends
toward confusion and does not assist in clarification.
If the above considerations concerning the significance of a de-
scription based upon the point of view of the observer hold, then
the basis for assimilating organic purpose to conscious purpose dis-
appears. There is no meaning in the reversal of a causal order if a
physical explanation obtains. There is no place for a concept of
preparation or anticipation employed in a sense which permits it to
serve as a basis for agreement between the two divergent orders of
events distinguished as mental and organic, the latter ultimately
reducible to a special type of physical process. If the assumption of
psychophysical parallelism proves not so clear and satisfactory in
its developments as it may appear to be, is it inevitable that an
hypothesis diverse from this necessarily retards the study of the
brain and nervous system? 1
S. A. ELKUS.
SMITH COLLEGE.
"DUALISM AND ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY:" A REJOINDER
TDROFESSOR WASHBURN'S reply to my recent article Dualism
-L in Animal Psychology raises so clearly and insistently the
fundamental issues in dispute between the dualist and the behavior-
ist, that a rejoinder seems imperative, the more so since my article
failed to make clear in certain matters the real point of my criticism.
7 E. B. Holt, The Concept of Consciousness, p. 308. ' ' Now in attempting
this deductive account of consciousness, I have had one prime purpose in view,
and that is to free once and for all the study of the physiology of the brain
and nervous system from its present and retarding association with metaphysics. ' '
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 297
As I understand it, the issue is briefly this: Is psychology
properly concerned with a class of phenomena (conscious processes 1 )
which are observable only by one person? Must therefore the psy-
chological study of animals and of one's fellow-men rest, first, upon
the argument from analogy, and, second, upon the capacity to re^-
construct imaginatively the mental processes of the animals or
human beings in question?
Behaviorism, as a scientific theory, and not a metaphysical
doctrine, is not concerned with the question whether or not there be
conscious processes which are hidden from all but one. Its con-
tention is merely that if there be such processes they can not by
the very nature of the case be objects of scientific study. For it is
an essential condition of scientific investigation of any phenomenon
that observations made by one individual shall be verifiable by
others. Otherwise indeed a phenomena is not even identifiable.
This was the point of my argument that psychological phenomena
investigated experimentally " become in effect functions of the
factors constituting the standardized conditions of the experiment. ' '
Professor Washburn's reply, that the dualist may admit this with-
out affecting his claim that the phenomena are in themselves ob-
servable only by the subject, does not meet the real objection, namely,
that it is only as functions of standardized conditions that they can
become objects for science.
Suppose that the problem to be investigated is the determination
of minimal changes in grays. The standardized conditions of the
experiment include constant lighting, distance of observer from
stimuli, time and order of observations, etc., and finally, the use of
standardized black and white paper. Let us admit with the dual-
ist, for the sake of argument, that what the subject is observing is
a visual sensation-quality which is private and incommunicable.
The essential fact remains that the observations can only be de-
scribed in such terms as: "observations of revolving discs of so
many degrees black and so many degrees white," etc. Further-
more, earlier and later series of observations can be correlated with
each other as observations of the "same" phenomena, only in so far
as the phenomena are described in similar objective terms. In
other words, the dualists' assumption of the private and incom-
municable character of the phenomena under investigation is wholly
inoperative for the scientific procedure in question. It affects
neither method nor result. What is being investigated is the sub-
jects' capacity for discriminating differences in objective stimuli.
The same point is involved in Professor Washburn's comment:
"Nor would the dualist realize why Dr. de Laguna needed to
occupy a page in showing that in actual procedure and in results
298 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
the studies of a dualist and of a behaviorist in the field of compara-
tive psychology are identical. Since we can obtain no introspection
from animals, such a statement would appear to be self-evident:
it is the interpretation of results that differs for the two types of
workers." But it is precisely the scientific value of such additional
"interpretation" which is in dispute. My contention was that so
far as scientific procedure and scientific results are concerned the
dualist and the behaviorist are practically at one, and that "just
in so far as the dualist claims to infer from the facts of behavior the
existence of an inner order of being related in an inscrutable way
to those facts, hie is stepping outside the bounds of scientifically veri-
fiable hypothesis and entering upon purely metaphysical speculation
in the bad sense of the term. ' ' This contention, which to me seems
the essential one, together with the charge that the dualists' " inter-
pretation" involves, on Professor Washburn's own showing, an
appeal to supernatural insight, has been entirely ignored in her
reply.
The issue between the behaviorist and the dualist, upon which
the whole controversy turns, is, I believe, the nature and status of
introspection. It is here that the real strength of the dualist seems
to me to lie, as is brought out in Professor Washburn's reply. It is
so obvious on the one hand that there are things, like the pain in
my tooth or the pressure on the back of my hand, that are directly
observable by me and by no one else in the world, and with which
psychology is clearly somehow concerned, that the position of the
dualist seems inevitable. On the other hand, it is so obvious that
the pain in my tooth and the pressure on my hand are not them-
selves modes of behavior, that the alleged proposal of the behavior-
ist so to classify them seems sheer perversity. If behaviorism is to
be made a reasonable doctrine in the eyes of the dualist it must take
account of these facts. Advocates of behaviorism have usually
failed I think, to distinguish properly between the behavioristic
status of such commonly recognized psychological phenomena as
"sensation" on the one 'hand and "emotion" on the other. The
claim that the study of emotion is a study of a type of behavior is
plausible enough, but the claim that the study of sensation is a
study of modes of behavior is open to obvious objections. "Red"
is not a set of reactions in the body but a directly observable some-
what; so also are "pressure" and "pain." But to recognize this
is by no means to accept dualism. It is quite open to behaviorists
to admit the possibility of directly observing these phenomena, and
of course many behaviori'sts, notably the neo-realists, have main-
tained this position most vigorously.
Let us admit this claim. Let us admit also that these and other
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 299
simillar phenomena come within the field of psychology, or at least
within the scope of introspection, in so far as they are directly
observable by one person only. Psychological introspection is then
to be distinguished from ordinary "objective" obervation just be-
cause it is the observation of that which is essentially private and
incommunicable. To the all-important problem which is thus
raised : how introspection, which is iby definition a sort of observa-
tion unverifiable by others, can yet possess scientific value, the only
solution I know is that offered by behaviorism, viz., that intro-
spection has such a value only in so far as the introspective observa-
tions of the subject are treated as responses, and not as statements
of observed facts. In other words the introspections are data for
the psychologist, as the flight of the bee is for the naturalist,
digestion is for the physiologist, or the burning of coal ,f,or the
chemist. This solution is, I believe, theoretically sound, and it
accords moreover with the actual procedure of the experimentalist.
The real scientific observer in the psychological experiment is not
the but the E of the experiment. The series of introspections is
a series of responses given iby the under the conditions of the
experiment, and observed and interpreted by the E.
That introspection is a peculiar type of response which needs
careful analysis in order to distinguish it properly from other types
of response is of course true. I must frankly admit that no behav-
ioristic discussion of it which I have yet seen seems at all adequate.
But I do believe that behaviorism offers the only promising theo-
retical basis for a fruitful analysis of the nature and limits of intro-
spection.
It remains to say a few words in reply to Professor Washburn's
question as to the possibility of a non-mechanistic behaviorism.
The problem is of course far too large a one to be properly discussed
within the limits of this rejoinder. It would seem, however, that it is
the assumption of the possibility of a mechanistic behaviorism, i. e.,
an exhaustive description and explanation of the phenomena of
human and animal behavior in terms of physical science, which, in
view of the actual achievements of biological science is in need of
justification. But however that may be, the terms in which behavior
is actually describable to-day are very far from being exclusively
physical, or even physiological. The claim that physical or physio-
logical terms are the only ones in which an objectively valid descrip-
tion of behavior can be given, would appear to me, I confess, nothing
short of metaphysical dogmatism, and for this reason I doubt
whether I have rightly understood Professor "Washburn's position.
"When she writes: "Dr. de Laguna seems to mean . . . that there
exists a form of behavior which is not either nervous action or mus-
300 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
cular action. I can not guess what behavior, so interpreted, is," my
doubt increases. Professor Washburn here ignores a distinction
which to me appears 1 of cardinal importance, that between physiolog-
ical process on the one hand, and behavior on the other. Of course
in one sense there is no behavior that is not nervous or muscular ac-
tion, just as, for example, there is no digestion that is not chemical
action. The physiologist classifies a given process as "a digestive
process" not on the basis of its chemical character, but because it
bears a certain type of relationship to other processes making up the
life cycle of the organism in question. The same chemical process
occurring in a different organism might not be a digestive process at
all because it would, not occupy an analogous place in the life cycle
of that organism. If we compared the digestive processes of a jelly-
fish and a rat we might conceivably find no chemical identities at all.
Physiology, in short, is primarily the analysis of the internal bodily
processes with reference to the fact that they constitute a vital econ-
omy. It is the exhibition of a schema, a type of systematic relation-
ship. The schema once made out, the detailed investigation of how,
in each distinct species, the various processes actually play their parts
in the schema, depends on the use of chemistry and physics. But the
use of chemical and physical categories is distinctly subsidiary, albeit
indispensable, to the actual procedure of physiology.
In a perfectly analogous way the use of physiological categories
(as well .as those of physics and chemistry) is subsidiary, albeit indis-
pensable, to the procedure of the behaviorist. For the external be-
havior of the living being also constitutes 'a life cycle, an economy
analyzable into different factors from those found by the physiologist.
A certain response is classed as "play," or a "fear response," not
because it consists of certain specific muscular contractions or nervous
processes, but because in the individual in which it occurs it occupies
a specific place in the larger vital economy which constitutes his be-
havior. The task of the behaviorist, as I conceive it, is primarily, like
that of the physiologist, the exhibition of the complex activities of
the living being as a systematic economy. The schema which the
behaviorist has to exhibit is vastly more complex than that of the
physiologist, since the relationships constitutive of the factors of the
schema include relationships with factors of the environment, not
exceptionally as in the case of physiology, but essentially and syste-
matically. Moreover such factors in the environment are themselves
factors in the schema of behavior. It is for this reason that the econ-
omy which the behaviorist has to investigate forms the subject matter
of a distinctive science psychology.
GRACE A. DE LAGUNA.
BETN MAWB COLLEGE.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 301
Traite de Logique. E. GOBLOT. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin.
1918. Pp. xxiii -f 412.
Important logic books are usually distinguished as falling into
one of two main classes. Either they interpret, with a sympathy
which amounts to acceptance, the traditional or ''formal" logic, or,
leaving traditional logic almost wholly on one side, they give us a
new theory of the work and characteristic standards of thought
usually in such a way that "logic" and "theory of knowledge"
tend to lose their distinguishing outlines and coincide. As an ex-
ample of the first class, we have the work of writers like Mr. H. "W.
B. Joseph, and as examples of the second, the work of men like
Sigwart, Bradley, Bosanquet and Wundt, and of movements such
as we find exemplified in pragmatism and neo-realism.
Professor Goblot's treatise is difficult to classify. He does not
range himself clearly with some definite group of thinkers with
whom he finds himself in sympathy, and then devote his energies
to carrying on the work of that group. Indeed, the work of the
various philosophical groups, and even the main tendencies of his
fellow-workers in logical study seem to leave him indifferent. 1 Per-
haps it would be more just to say that he is so much interested in
developing his own thought, that he leaves to others the question
of making comparisons with the thought of other logicians.
One characteristic of the book must be admitted at once its
originality. The charming preface of Emile Boutroux is hardly
needed to inform the reader that his former pupil has worked his
own way to his own conclusions, and that the study of scientific
method, especially as exemplified in mathematics, has been especially
influential in forming his thought. The detailed treatment of the
concept as a "virtual judgment," the theory of deduction as quasi-
mathematical, the theory of teleological induction with its mindless
purposefulness these and many other theories bear the undeniable
stamp of the author's discovery. Indeed, there is hardly a page in
the book but reads like a genuine discovery, and it may fairly be
confessed that the chief characteristic of Goblot's work is its
originality.
i For example, the idealist and neo-realist schools are hardly mentioned,
even by implication. Pragmatism is mentioned, but in a perfectly external way.
The "Logic of Kelations" is discussed briefly, in reference to a criticism of
Lachelier. Lotze, Bradley, Bosanquet, Wundt, Erdmann, Dewey, and their
characteristic doctrines, escape all mention. Sigwart is mentioned once, but only
in order to support a negative criticism of a theory traditionally ascribed to
Kant.
302 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Originality yes. But are these discoveries new 11 . Does Goblot
add anything to what we have already learnt from other recent
writers? Let us consider. The role of intelligence is said to be to
substitute art for nature, and we are explicitly informed (2) that
one of the novelties of the book consists in regarding "substitution
of the imperative for the indicative" as the essence of reasoning.
When, however, we read the chapter in which this view is further
developed (chapter XVII., on value-judgments), we learn that in-
telligence finds means to ends, but the ends are indemonstrables,
arising out of the depths of our nature with the force of an impera-
tive. But this is in essence nothing more or less than our old friend,
the practical syllogism of Aristotle, tricked out in modern guise.
Again, in dealing with the theoretical syllogism, we are told that,
while the "categorical" syllogisms of Aristotle do not advance
thought, a kind of syllogism for the discovery, or at least elabora-
tion, of which Goblot claims credit the ' ' hypothetical ' ' syllogism
does advance thought. The detail of hypothetical syllogisms is
worked out so as to correspond to the details of Barbara, Celarent,
etc., 2 and is certainly new. But the principle involved is surely not
in any sense new. Its discovery, in acceptable form, is usually asso-
ciated with the name of Sigwart, if not of Lotze, and it has long
ago become an integral portion of modern logic. Indeed, in prin-
ciple, the standpoint taken by Goblot 's treatise has already been
passed. For since the work of Bradley and Bosanquet has familiar-
ized us with the view that all thought is both categorical and hypo-
thetical categorical so far as sensory, and hypothetical so far as
intellectual Goblot 's sharp opposition of the concepts "categorical"
and "hypothetical" as applied to inference has lost much of its
point. In spite, then, of genuine originality, 3 Goblot has here failed
to reach the front-line trenches of present-day logical advance.
A third discovery, in the light of Goblot 's own studies of mathe-
matical method, is that thought is essentially synthetic. The essence
of mathematical inference, for example, consists in the "construc-
tion." But surely this has been a philosophical commonplace since
the time of Kant, and for a student familiar with the work of Lotze
2 Goblot follows Lachelier in refusing to recognize a fourth figure. He also
identifies the negative moods of the first two figures. Datisi and Disamis are
also identified.
By "originality," it is meant that Goblot makes his own discoveries,
whether by discovering for himself paths already known to others, or whether by
discovering new paths which lead to known conclusions. It is not meant that the
conclusions are unknown. Sometimes this happens to be the case, and then Gob-
lot 'a thought is not only original, but also discovers something which his col-
leagues would regard as new.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 303
and Sigwart to mention no others contains nothing which could
be called new. Indeed, since Bradley 's demonstration of the inter-
connection of analysis and synthesis, and especially since the very
thorough treatment which the constructive work of thought has re-
ceived at the hands of almost all modern logicians, it is hardly too
much to say that Goblot's discoveries in this field, though undoubt-
edly original i. e., made by himself are almost naive. He writes
as though "formal" logic in its older form still held the field and
needed to be routed.
In a number of points, then, which are of fundamental impor-
tance, the book presents us with little which can fairly be called
new. It remains to discuss one other point, which at least at first
sight seems more promising. This is the treatment of "teleolog-
ical inference." Stated briefly, his view is as follows: Baconian
logic studies causal laws. But there are various types of causal
laws, and the time has come to make an advance upon the logic of
Bacon and Mill. Causation in the usual sense is regarded as a con-
tinuous chain without beginning or end, but there is one type of
causal series which is more than this. Certain series have, even as
processes in rerum natura, a beginning and an end, and scientists
employ specialized tests for dealing with such special causal series.
Examples are to be found, e. g., in physiology, in such cases as the
creation of an organ by a function. Some initial stimulus sets in
motion processes which come to an end when an appropriate organ
has come into being. There is in such cases a purposefulness on
the part of nature, and it is exemplified in many biological phe-
nomena, such as natural selection, adaptation, etc. This purpose-
fulness is, of course, unconscious, and the conscious purposefulness
with which, e. g., human beings adapt themselves to concrete situa-
tions, should not be regarded as the exercise of a "free" will
whatever that might mean but simply as a more complex form of
this fundamental biological purposefulness. Just as the logic of
Bacon and Mill provides canons for establishing laws of causality,
so the new teleological logic should provide special canons for test-
ing and, where possible, establishing the special kind of causality
which is purposeful. Purpose and causality are thus not rigidly
opposed to one another, but what we call purpose is simply a special-
ized kind of causality, and its study should be recognized as legiti-
mately belonging to the sphere of a rigidly empirical science.
That this view is largely "original," there is no reason to doubt;
and as applied in this way to logic, it is also largely new. But in
itself the theory is not entirely novel. The view that disturbance of
the equilibrium of an organism leads gradually to the recovery of
304 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
a new equilibrium, is well known in biology, and has been very fully
worked out in psychology. 4 In Goblot's treatise, the comparison
with the "inductive logic of Bacon and Mill" is certainly suggest-
ive, but his treatment is thin and sketchy, and leaves us with a mere
outline.
So much for the major points. Minor points are treated in the
same kind of way. That is to say, the discussion is almost always
suggestive, and occasionally seems illuminating, but further reflec-
tion produces doubt as to whether the reader has really learnt any-
thing which could be called new. Thus the treatment of the "in-
demonstrables" as essentially admitting of alternatives from a
strictly theoretical viewpoint is admirably clear and illuminating,
and seems highly original but in principle is thoroughly familiar
to every student of the Kantian "antinomies." The treatment of
definition seems fresh and original. The treatment of classification
seems original, indeed, but poor, and produces no accession of in-
sight. The student of Wundt already knows more about classifica-
tion than Goblot can tell him, and in the case of definition, he is left
wondering whether the chief function of definition is, after all, to
substitute a clear for an obscure conception. He also wonders
whether Goblot really believes that such an entity as an ' ' initial ' '
definition a modern version of the Aristotelian "essence" is really
attainable by man.
Apart from questions of content, the book is written very un-
evenly. Certain chapters especially in the more "formal" part
are so much condensed as to be at times obscure. In a few sections
it is even necessary to take pencil and paper, and work one's way
through the various statements as if they were so many unfamiliar
algebraical examples. In other chapters especially chapters XIV.-
XVII. the treatment is so loose and sketchy, that one is surprised
to see them published in what is professedly a systematic treatise 5
on logic.
Partly for this reason, and partly for others, it is far from clear
for what class of readers the book is intended. Certain portions
e. g., the first part of chapter XVIII., and a number of the simpler
historical explanations, such as the characterizations of Aristotelian
and Baconian logic might be read by the veriest beginners. Other
portions e. g., most of the closer reasoning in chapters III.-X.
might be worked through with profit by the average college gradu-
ate in this country. But few students would be able to appreciate
4 By G. F. Stout, in his Analytic Psychology.
6 The preface, written by Boutroux, explains the thread of connection here,
but it remains true that the connection is to be found in the preface, rather than
in the chapters in question.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 305
the later chapters (XIV.-XVIL), and in any case the reader's judg-
ment would be much exercised in deciding what he ought to label
as "Goblot's view" and what, on the other hand, he might safely
regard as authoritative. For example, the reader is told that judg-
ments of difference are affirmative, and judgments of identity are
negative in character, and there is not the slightest hint that a con-
sensus of logical opinion takes the opposite view. He is also in-
formed that no logical arguments have ever been brought against
Hamilton's doctrine of the quantification of the predicate, and that,
in fact, the doctrine is acceptable. 6 It is further stated that the
procedure of mathematics is; typically deductive, and there is not
the slightest hint that other authorities such as Wundt, and even
writers of elementary manuals, such as S. H. Mellone regard it as
largely inductive, and that, in fact, modern logicians generally re-
gard induction and deduction as two complementary aspects of one
and the same type of logical thought. His own distinction amounts
to stating that induction contains an explicit reference to sensory
experience, whereas in deduction such a reference is only implicit.
The distinction is not, however, very clearly brought out. From
these illustrations, it should be sufficiently evident that the book is
scarcely to be regarded as containing information which the would-
be student of modern logic could implicitly accept.
The principle underlying the above criticism is simple. It is
not urged that Goblot's contentions are not frequently valuable and
true. The sole objection made to his work is that it is too individ-
ualistic, and that not enough account is taken of the great modern
logicians whose theories are universally recognized as holding the
field. He can not be said to align himself with any well-defined
philosophical tendency, and his work accordingly lacks a thorough-
going unity. Three tendencies are prominent, but none of them is
carried through. (1) There is a sociological attitude present in the
introduction, in the second chapter, and again in the fourteenth
chapter i. e., a tendency to regard logic as arising in answer to
social problems. Along with this goes a tendency to regard truth
with its claim to necessity, as a social convention or agreement which
approximates to a human universality. But this is not worked out
in detail, and the epistemological problems to which it gives rise are
not definitely faced. (2) There is also a psychological tendency.
6 The common lecture-room criticism is that the doctrine leads to ' ' identical
judgments ' ' or tautologies. ' ' Some negroes are men, ' ' e. g., becomes, when fully
determined, ' ' Some negro-men are some negro-men. ' ' Other logical criticisms in
the literature are to be found, e. g., in Erdman's LogiTc, 2d edit., pp. 352 ff. ; W.
Nedich in Wundt 's Philosophische Studien, III., pp. 157 ff . ; Welton 's Manual of
Logic, I., pp. 200 ff.; Joseph's Introduction to Logic, pp. 198 ff., etc.
306 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Logic is regarded as belonging to the "psychology of intelligence,"
on the ground that the belief that a statement is true influences our
actions. With this is connected the "substitution of the imperative
for the indicative" mentioned above, and a tendency to regard
ideals as ultimately psycho-physical. He maintains, e. g., like
Hobbes and Spinoza, that a thing is good because we want it, and
not that a reasonable person should want it because after rational
deliberation he decides that it is "good." This psychological tend-
ency, however, is almost entirely without influence upon the main
body of the work (chapters III.-XL). (3) Finally there is the in-
terest in a "teleological" logic, to which reference has already been
made ; but this also is hardly worked out in detail. We are thus left
with the conviction that the book is little more than a collection of
detailed attempts to deal piecemeal with groups of problems usu-
ally regarded as falling within the province of logic, but that the
treatment is neither in a line with recent work on the subject, nor
in itself perfectly unitary and consistent. On many detailed ques-
tions his conscientious and careful study often results in a satisfac-
tory clearness, but, taken as a whole, the book is disappointing. No
large and clear-cut aim has been achieved.
RUPERT CLENDON LODGE.
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. January-February, 1919. Les
fatigues societies et I'antipathie (pp. 1-71) : DR. PIERRE JANET.- A
study of the social conduct of the nevropath. Claude Bernard et
I' esprit experimental (pp. 72-101) : RAYMOND LENOIR. - The method-
ological and philosophical conceptions governing the work of Claude
Bernard form a protest of lasting value to the extremes of positivism,
and illustrate the persistence of the French philosophical tradition
that philosophy is reflection on science. L'ere de I'ingenieur penal
(pp. 102-130) : ALBERT LECLERE. - Contains a discussion of the rela-
tion of criminality and insanity, and a programme of work for the
"penal engineer." Etude Critique. La logique de M. Goblot:
ANDR LALANDE. Analyses et Comptes rendus. Ed. Abramowski,
Le subconscient normal: DR. JEAN PHILLIPE. Francesco de Sarlo,
Psicologia e filosofia: FR. P. Hartley Burr Alexander, Liberty and
Democracy: LUCIEN ARREAT. Revue des Periodiques. Necrologie:
M. GASTON MILHAUD.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 307
PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN. July, 1918. The Obtaining
of Information: Psychology of Observation and Report (pp. 217-
248): G. M. WHIPPLE. - Forty-five conditions affecting observation
are discussed. General Review and Summary: Reading (pp. 249-
250) : E. H. CAMERON. -A review of 12 articles on reading printed
in the past two years. Special Reviews: The Stanford Revision and
Extension of the Binet-Simon Scale for Measuring Intelligence: L.
M. TERMAN and others ; A Scale of Performance Tests : R. PINTNER
and D. G. PATERSON ; The Picture Completion Test : R. PINTNER and
M. M. ANDERSON ; The Mental Survey : R. PINTNER, FRANK N. FREE-
MAN. Notes and News.
Higier, Heinrich. Vegetative Neurology : The anatomy, physiology,
pharmacodynamics and pathology of the sympathetic and au-
tonomic nervous systems. Translated toy Walter Max Kraus. New
York and Washington: Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing
Company. 1919. Pp. vii -f 144. $2.50.
Miner, James Burt. Deficiency and Delinquency: an interpreta-
tion of mental testing. Educational Psychology Monograph No.
21. Baltimore: Warwick & York. 1918. Pp. xiv + 355.
$2.25.
Reely, Mary Katharine, editor. The Book Review Digest. Volume
XIV., Reviews of 1918 books. New York: H. W. Wilson Co.
1919.
Richardson, Roy Franklin. The Psychology and Pedagogy of
Anger. Educational Psychology Monograph No. 19. Baltimore :
Warwick & York. 1918. Pp. 100. $1.25.
NOTES AND NEWS
ATTENTION is called to the "Report of the Psychology Committee
of the National Research Council" by Professor Robert M. Yerkes,
printed in the Psychological Review for March, 1919. It is a detailed
account of the technical assistance given by psychologists to various
branches of the service. The following paragraphs are from the end
of the article :
"The eager and effective cooperation of psychologists in profes-
sional war work has enabled the Psychology Committee to win the
confidence and the hearty support of the several scientific groups
which together constitute the Research Council. Largely because of
the way in which it responded to the practical demands and the op-
portunities of the military emergency, psychology to-day occupies a
place among the natural sciences which is newly achieved, eminently
308 TH JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
desirable, and highly gratifying to the profession. An immediate re-
sult of this improved status is the desire of the Executive Board of
the Research Council to have psychology adequately represented in
the permanent national organization."
"It is proposed to associate psychology with anthropology in a
Division whose chairman and vice-chairman shall be chosen alter-
nately from the two sciences, a chairman from anthropology serving
with a psychologist as vice-chairman and vice versa.
1 ' If psychology is to meet successfully the now rapidly increasing
practical demands by which it is challenged, it must organize for co-
operative endeavor in a way not thought of prior to the war. On the
one hand is the imperative need of highly developed and specialized
methods ; on the other, the need for largely increased and adequately
trained personnel. The war activities of the Psychology Committee
have revealed, or created, opportunities whose scientific and. practical
significance can not be estimated. Two years ago mental engineering
was the dream of a few visionaries. To-day it is a branch of technol-
ogy, which, although created by the war, is evidently to be perpetu-
ated and- fostered by education and industry.
"Psychology needs therefore as never before in its history intimate
associations with the more exact natural sciences, as well as with the
biological sciences which are more nearly related to it. The support
and cooperation of other scientists and especially their intelligent
interest, are indispensable.
' ' For the speedy and sound development of psychology as science
and as technology, the National Research Council should prove the
most important of agencies. It is earnestly to be desired that the
psychologists of the country may unite in their support of this na-
tional organization for the promotion of scientific research, its prac-
tical applications, and the profitable relations of sciences and of
scientists. ' '
CHARLES W. HENDEL, JR., Ph.D. (Princeton), has been appointed
instructor in philosophy at Williams College.
VOL. XVI, No. 12. JUNE 5, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
INSTRUMENTALISM AND MYTHOLOGY
WHENEVER, in the course of his history, man has beguiled an
hour snatched from his immediately necessary pursuits to
practise with and exercise his intelligence rather than some one of the
other implements in which he needs to attain skill, he has asked of
the world, "What is man? What has been his past, what will be his
future? What is the purpose that guides him through life?" Of
course, only a final philosophy could hope to settle those questions,
and a final philosophy will not be possible until the spectator upon
Sirius has beheld the last dying flicker of our solar system. But
since man will obviously never cease to propound these embarrassing
questions, we must needs seek some kind of answer ; and we can find
it in that very fact. "What is man?" The only really important
thing about him is that he is the kind of a being who does ask,
"What is man?", who knows that he has had a past and believes that
he will have a future, and who is firm in the confidence that a pur-
pose does guide him through life. How foolish, we may say, and
many of us do say to-day ; how foolish is this creature who persists
in seeking to answer the unanswerable, to attempt the impossible!
But it is exactly that which makes man what he is :
Nur allein der Mensch
Vermag das TJnmogliche.
Were man to attempt anything less, he would not be man, but a
brute ; and the most interesting fact of all about him is that so often
he succeeds in his attempt ! It is as if his very self-confidence, his
very audacity and disregard of the actual aspect of the world into
which he has got, as it were, by mistake, by a kind of cosmic blunder,
so amazed and baffled mother Nature that she has no other course
than to grant her spoiled child whatever he demands.
Man's first and most important work has always 'been to arrange
the universe to suit himself. Fortunately he has never let the facts
of existence bother him particularly ; since those he finds so often dis-
please his fancy, he considers it much preferable to construct a mytho-
logical universe of his own, and chastise Nature until she is forced to
conform to his idea of what she ought to be. Mythology or philos-
309
310 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
ophy (for philosophy is simply mythology grown less colorful and
more respectable) serves two important functions: it enables man
to create a world congenial to his own personality, in which he can
build a pleasant habitation while storms rage in the rude realms of
existence; and it also serves for the creation of new facts in that
world of existence, for the moulding of that world to the will of man.
The hostile forces of Nature are seemingly too firmly entrenched to
be taken by assault from the level plains of the pluralistic and pur-
poseless realm in which they have their stronghold. Therefore man
flees to the mountain-tops, and from their vantage-points he can
easily train his guns upon his foe and slowly but surely beat him
back. In fulfilling its dual function, mythology can and must build
a Heaven into which man may escape if need be, and draw fresh in-
spiration ; and it must furnish him with the architect's plans of some
of the celestial mansions, that he may continue building operations
when he returns to earth. It must provide the incentive, and indeed
the final goal of life ; and it must provide the means to the achieve-
ment of some measure of heavenly beauty on the drab fields of earth.
If, then, our view of the significance of man's incurable interest
in the meaning and purpose of his life be right, he is a dreamer of
dreams, a seer of visions. In an imperfect world he possesses the
power of envisaging perfection ; though he live in the depths of Hell,
yet can he ascend to Heaven and behold God face to face. And the
vision he glimpses of perfection is no idle escape from the evils of
life ; it alone enables him to make his imperfect world more perfect.
The God he finds is a God who can help him in his battles, who can
and will aid him in his long struggle to realize upon earth some of
that perfection whose glory in the sky has dazzled his eyes.
The question, then, is not, "Should man philosophize, should he
dream dreams and make pilgrimages to Heaven?" Being human,
he could not well do anything else. The question is not, ' ' Is there a
Heaven?" It is rather, "What is the best kind of a Heaven?" If
man be incurably idealistic, and persist in seeing life, not as it is,
but as he wants it to be, how can he make the picture he paints the
best kind of a picture ? If he must build mythologies, the important
point is to see that the mythologies he builds are the best possible
ones, and serve his interests in the best possible way. They are of
value in just that measure in which they serve the two functions of
mythologies. Every satisfying philosophy must aid its maker in
two ways: it must enable him to control and change his surround-
ings, to make the actual world he lives in a better place in which to
dwell ; and it must furnish him with an ideal world which can make
his struggles worth while, which can console him for his failures, and
spur him on to new successes. It must help him to build a new earth ;
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 311
but it must also aid him to build a new Heaven. Control and conso-
lation: these are the two aspects which every satisfying mythology
must have. It must answer the very concrete and pointed questions,
what is there which inspires men to battle for the right, to fight the
good fight against whatever they regard as evil? and what is there
which makes that fight worth fighting even if we know it is fore-
doomed to defeat, which makes it better to have died with the right
than to have been crowned for the wrong ? Why has the world been
fighting Germany? And why shall we regard all of our suffering
and sacrifice as worth while even if, as may very well happen, none
of the things for which we are combating actually do triumph ?
A brief survey of history will show that what we have called
"consolation" was peculiarly the aim of philosophy from the death
of Aristotle to the Renaissance, while in the modern era, the German
tradition excepted, men have been far more interested in altering
this world for the better than in improving Heaven. In the thirteenth
century men lived in Hell but were very sure of Heaven. We are
certain we have made a great advance because we live in Purgatory.
The Greeks, wisest of all, found it Heaven to live on earth. They
realized that the most important kind of control is self-control, and
that that implies, not, as our Puritan ancestry urges, self-repression,
but rather self^direction, the careful and intelligent application of
man's powers where those powers can and should control, and the
conservation of those powers where they can and should not. But
then, the Greeks are a part of our own mythology ; they people our
Heaven. Such an ideal is not to be expected on earth.
To-day we are apt indignantly to reject any such thing as "con-
solation" as a return to the terrible Middle Ages, when man was so
entranced with Heaven that he forgot earth entirely. We feel that
any attempt to get man to accept the universe is apt to end in his
believing that whatever is, is right. Our philosophy must say^ what-
ever is could be better, and must show us how to make it better. It
must be above all things a social philosophy. And we are offered
what I was about to call a very definite social philosophy, pragma-
tism or instrumentalism a philosophy which raises a clarion call for
social control, which frowns upon all attempts at consolation, and
which comes perilously near to abandoning entirely the philosophical
enterprise of perfecting the imperfect and building a satisfactory
universe in which to erect a satisfactory society. With the aim of
this philosophy there is no one who is not in the heartiest sympathy ;
and there are few who do not welcome with hope and joy the
method it offers to solve some of our vexatious social problems. It is
just because we do feel so intensely interested in making man's life
a better life, and are so sure that instrumentalism has offered us a
312 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
wonderful tool, that we desire it to be not merely a good tool, but the
best possible.
Men being natural mythologizers, and setting out to complete the
loose ends of existence, inevitably supply in their visions of perfec-
tion just those phases of life which are in the actuality most imper-
fect. When men emphasize the power of God, they feel helpless and
impotent before the forces of nature. When they have gained a little
mastery, they commence to lay stress on the wisdom of the Deity.
And when they acquire a little knowledge, they straightway appeal
to his goodness and beneficence. Man creates the gods, not in his own
image, but in the image of that he would most like to be. And what
he most admires is always present in his own nature, but in a subor-
dinate degree. Gods always bear a family resemblance to their
creators, but they are always better better in just that point which
is most prized because it is rare.
'This is even more evident in our modern form of mythology, social
philosophy. When men set about to tell their fellows what is the
really right, the really natural form of social or economic organiza-
tion, they emphasize precisely those features which are not realized
in their own states. Writing political philosophy in universals, as
Professor Bush so well phrases it, is the best way of writing it in the
imperative mood. Man can not do otherwise and remain true to his
nature. Behind his every demand for change and reform he must
place the authority of the universe. Tell men it would be much
better for them were they to be a little less arrogant and self-com-
placent, and you secure small results ; tell them the Perfect Man said,
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," and you
cause millions to glory in humility. In the same way, tell men that
perhaps ability and reward do not always coincide, and you make
no impression; tell them that all men were created free and equal,
and you bring about a French Revolution. Men possess an uneasy
sense of their own fallibility, their own ignorance ; they lack confi-
dence in themselves. They are not strong enough to insist that
their own ideals are right, and they can gain no hearing for them,
until they are convinced that "the world was created especially to
bring about just what they desire. A man who has caught a vision
of a better way of doing things may think it desirable to get men in-
terested in bringing it about, but he can never inspire any real en-
thusiasm unless he is convinced that the cosmic processes are on his
side. We may laugh at the Kaiser's assurance of the support of
Gott, but let us ask ourselves whether we are not convinced that God,
the moral law, and the law of evolution are upon the side of the
Allies. Of course, in this particular case we happen to be right and
the Kaiser wrong, obviously.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 313
Take the social philosophies of Rousseau and Bentham, for in-
stance. No one examining them to-day can fail to see that Bentham
is in the main right and Rousseau in the main wrong. On the ques-
tion of the rights of man, Bentham has all the facts. Men are not
created free and equal. They have no inalienable natural rights.
And yet when, in the heydey of the Revolution, Bentham pointed out
these unpleasant facts to the French, they quite properly laughed in
his face. They knew they had been born free and equal, because
they were enjoying their freedom and equality at the moment. They
knew they possessed inalienable rights; had they not just acquired
them ?
Rousseau and Bentham both had visions of a better life for man ;
but Bentham could have for years written volumes showing that man
would be a little better off without a hereditary nobility, without the
hundred and one abuses of the ancien regime, and there would have
come no change. Rousseau told of the social contract and the in-
alienable rights of man which had been alienated ; and his philosophy
brought about the Revolution. Bentham 's recommendations came
from a middle-aged English gentleman; Rousseau's, from the creator
of the universe himself.
Or take Marx's "scientific" socialism, as another example of the
way in which man gets the universe back of his enterprises; more
"scientific" than its predecessors only because more mythological.
Marx did not bother with what was best, as the Utopians had done ;
he saw their failure, and so he showed that his particular ideal was
inevitable, was a part of the onward-moving world process, and hence
could not be escaped. No wonder the poor worker was cheered when
he learned that in the future he had to triumph! No wonder he
formed political parties to assist evolution ! He was so sure that the
absolute economic determinism of life had prepared for him a future
of power and control that he made every sacrifice to aid the world-
process. This, perhaps, is the chief value of the myth of determin-
ism, that if we tell men they are bound to do a certain thing whether
or no, they are so willing to aid nature that she seldom disappoints
them. In 1914 men felt war was inevitable; and it came. If only
our faith in the will of God had been as strong as our faith in the
tyranny of the laws of nature, we might long ago have achieved the
millennium.
To many to-day this method of securing the assent of God to all
our plans seems a complicated and extraordinary way of accomplish-
ing our ends. How much easier, they say, merely to point out the
actual change we want ; how much simpler to put our fingers on some
particular reform, without necessarily altering the structure of the
universe ! Suppose we do think it wiser, for instance, to allow work-
314 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
men to share in the profits of the concerns for which they work.
Why do we have to invent myths about the happy times in the Mid-
dle Ages when men lived together in joy and bliss, until the cruel
capitalists descended upon the innocent workers, seized their prop-
erty, and forced them to toil as slaves, that their masters, harsh,
bloodthirsty tyrants, whose every act evidences selfish hypocrisy,
might roll in wealth and comforts ? "Why do we have to talk about
class-wars and revolutions, about the final catastrophe which is to be
visited upon the cruel masters, and about the imminent return of the
idyllic and happy Middle Ages ? Why do we have to make all history
revolve about this event, painting the universe, much as Augustine
did, as the great theater set for this cosmic revolution ?
The answer is simple. Men are made so that they have to do such
things. They have to rewrite history whenever they wish to make it.
They have to recreate the universe whenever they wish to change
their way of life. To ask them to get along without all their ma-
chinery, is to ask the impossible. Like the bridge builder, they must
erect great temporary scaffoldings by means of which to advance
their permanent structure. They are so feeble by themselves that
they must needs feel each step to be the last, lest they weary and fall
before their task be accomplished. They must be spurred on by the
vision of the New Jerusalem ever before their eyes, just over the next
hillock. They must think the Celestial City is before them, that each
weary effort they make to drag themselves onward is the climax of
their age-long pilgrimage across the trackless wastes of time. What
profiteth it to tell them that their dreams are but mirages, that the
sandy desert stretches on and on into the dim reaches of the future,
that no matter how great their advance the golden gates and the
crystal mansions are destined to hover before their eyes ever the
same distance away? They have beheld the Heavenly City, and it
was near at hand.
Once again to-day the world has caught a vision of perfection, and
once again she fondly hopes that she is about to realize it. We have
fought this war that small nations shall secure their rights and that
treaties shall be sacred, that the principles of justice and righteous-
ness shall prevail. For us the course of history has been one long
progress up to the final glorious day when mankind, in a League of
Nations, shall have forever put behind it the wicked ways of its past.
If we stopped to ask ourselves the question, we should probably admit
that the world will be little juster or more righteous after the war
than before it ; and we might even deny that there is such a thing as
justice or righteousness. After all, it will not be long before the
ideals of nationality and the sanctity of treaties will have been super-
seded by something nobler and better. And yet if we did not be-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 315
lieve that there is a righteousness and a justice, that small nations
have rights and that treaties are sacred if we did not know that we
are helping to make the world a better place to live in, we should
never have gone to war, and we should have lost our souls. We have
seen our vision, we have builded our mythology and who will deny
that that mythology is divine?
These, then, are the philosophies which actually control men : the
philosophies which have caught visions, which regard them as worth
while in themselves, and which spur their believers on to realize per-
fection in the world. Man, if he is to act at all, must believe in some
absolute. He must have some ideal, valuable in and for itself,
around which he can group his interests and towards which he can
direct his actions. The man who is to accomplish things can not
afford the luxury of relativism ; he must possess some fixed truth
fixed while he is acting, at least. Men discover that some ideal is
worth dying for, or, what is far more difficult, worth living for ; and
they accept that as a criterion by which to measure life. They seize
upon a vision of universal peace, or of social justice, and they meas-
ure the imperfect world by the ideal it has called forth. Life becomes
important as they can struggle toward their chosen goal; they pic-
ture the entire universe as struggling with them, and are sure their
purpose is the ultimate reason for existence.
Of course, there is a great danger arising from the fact that ideals,
which must be provisionally absolute, may become fixed and static
that mythology, which must be the lightest and airiest of all castles
in the air, will grow leaden and sink to earth. It is so easy to imag-
ine that Utopia is a place to live in ! As a matter of fact men never
realize their ideals; they only approach them. As they grow, so do
their Heavens. Unfortunately, it often happens that men cling to
ideals long after they have ceased to be useful instruments of prog-
ress. It is unnecessary to point out how Eousseau 's mythology, which
worked wonders in the eighteenth century in freeing man from bond-
age, worked equal wonders in the nineteenth in keeping him in
chains. The rights of life, liberty, and happiness became the right
to the life, liberty, and happiness of the unfortunate whom you
happened to hire in your factory. And it is needless to show how
Marx's myth of determinism produced, in some literakminded souls,
a tendency to refrain from all attempts at reform, in the hope that
the sooner things got as bad as possible the sooner the revolution
would come.
Like every keen and well-sharpened tool, the myth can destroy as
well as create. But because boilers blow up, we have not abandoned
the use of steam. The only safety in life is in the grave ; the only
safe method of social organization is not to organize at all. We can
316 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
hardly afford, merely to gain seeming security, to forget that the
most pragmatic of all instruments of control are ideals.
The trouble comes in when we grow literal-minded enough to
think that Utopias are ever intended to be realized on earth, that
Heaven is a place to live in. Were our ends ever the End, then there
might be justification for looking upon them with suspicious eyes.
Perhaps it would be better to continue cur wanderings, now in one
direction, now in another, drawn hither and thither by will-o'-the-
wisps, if whole-hearted devotion to any one ideal meant stagnation
when it was achieved. But ideals possess their power over human
souls just because they never are reached. What would be the mystic
potency of the rainbow, if we could discover the pot of gold ? Like
the rainbow, ideals lead us on and on in our search for perfection;
and though we never find the treasure, our eyes are ever toward the
rising sun. We must remember that the place for the Heavenly City
is not upon earth, but in Heaven ; that Plato 's Eepublic is an ideal
state, to be realized only in that mythological time when philosophers
shall have become kings; and that no Hell could possibly be more
terrible than to have to dwell in Heaven.
Of late social philosophy has become so impressed with the real
danger of the fixation of ideals which must be absolute for the mo-
ment, that it has attempted to dispense with them entirely. Fright-
ened at the havoc absolutes can cause, it has been afraid of all prin-
ciples. In one sense this is good mythology, for it is obviously ele-
vating the imperative into universals. But this is mythology in the
same sense that atheism is a religion or anarchism a theory of govern-
ment. No one wishes to condone the atrocities committed by intel-
lectual Absolutism ; but neither do we desire complete Bolshevism in
our social ideals. We need rather a responsible ministry, with plenty
of real power, but always subject to a recall if it fails to secure a vote
of confidence.
Our pragmatic social philosophy seeks to avoid all suspicion of
mythology. It does not claim to have the right solution to any prob-
lem; it merely believes it has better solutions, despite the obvious
fact that nothing can be better unless something is best. It talks
much of criteria and values, but it preserves a discreet silence on
what is good and valuable. It is so afraid of getting somewhere that
it does not ask whither it is going.
Fortunately, man is much more than his systematized philosophy,
and if pragmatic social philosophy has no ideals, the same can not be
said of the philosophers who employ it. They have ideals, and very
good ones indeed; but they are careful to keep them out of their
philosophy. There is, in fact, nothing to hinder sinister forces from
capturing instrumentalism, just as they captured that other formal-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 317
istic system, the Kantian two-world view, and filling in the method
with dangerous ends of their own.
The only positive ideal we have allowed to creep into instrumen-
talism is that of Control. We are formulating, we say, a philosophy
of social control ; we can not become interested in what our fathers
used to call principles, for we realize that the best thing to do in any
particular case depends entirely upon the specific situation. Give
us an actual problem, and we will solve it for you. If you press us,
we do have one aim : that is to control and guide men, that in every
case we can lead them the better way. We don't know just where we
are going, nor exactly how to get there; but we do want to be in
control. Instead of loyalty's loyalty, we offer control's control.
And so we go careening down Niagara, heedless of the cries of the
watchers on the bank. It's all right, we call back; can't you see we
have control of the tiller ?
The most obvious point about our ceaseless cry to-day for social
control is, that, like all good mythologizers, we are calling for what
we do not possess. Were we actually able to direct the forces of so-
ciety into what channel we would, we should be so busy choosing
that channel that we should entirely forget that we were directing.
The really powerful do not talk about power ; they talk about what
they are going to do. Only invalids consider their health. We must
remember that Bacon, from whom we derive so much of our inspira-
tion for control, held forth the ideal of "extending the bounds of
human empire, to the attainment of all things possible," because
they were so very, very narrow. In Bacon's day science was in its
infancy. Our modern scientists do not talk about controlling the
universe; they are too busy removing mountains and dividing con-
tinents. When we tell ourselves that we hold within our hands the
key to the forces which guide our destinies, it is safe to assume that
we have failed to improve man's lot and make the world a better
place to live in. When men set about proving the existence of God,
they have ceased to walk with him.
If there is any philosophy in the world to-day which has actually
controlled, it is the intensely mythological and absolutistic Staats-
philosophie of Germany. It did not need to talk about control; it
could spend its time on the state and Deutschtum. That philosophy
we have been opposing; but we have opposed it, not with our phi-
losophy of control, but with one which actually does control, not with
pragmatism and experimentalism, but with the ethical idealism we
have inherited from our Puritan ancestors. It is not with control
that we have combated Prussia ; it is with justice and righteousness
and liberty and democracy. These are the things men are willing
to die for.
318 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Unfortunately, it is not merely that we have become so absorbed
with the machinery as to forget the boiler. That would mean only
that we were not succeeding in our enterprise. But man will still
build mythologies, though we help him not ; and the great danger is
that those he builds may resemble that which ruled in Germany. It
is all very well to wait for the particular problem to arise before we
consider a solution; but unless we have coordinated those problems
into one whole, unless we have some general notion of whither as a
race we ought to tend, our movement is far more apt to be back-
ward than forward. We are groping in the dark, for we have ex-
tinguished the great beacon-light of Truth and Right, writ with capi-
tals ; since we have only the flickering candles of little less-f alses and
betters to show us the way, it is no wonder we find the path strange
and full of obstacles.
It is the part of relativism to criticize the mythologies of the past,
to prune away the ideals which, no longer serving their original pur-
pose, are working evil instead of good. This is a service which will
always be necessary, to offset the dangers of a literal-minded accept-
ance of mythology. But unless we have something more than that,
some new vision of perfection to spur us on, and unless we are con-
vinced that that perfection is worth while for its own sake, we can
not hope to aid in social improvement. Pragmatism and experi-
mentalism are admirable instruments for the criticism of old and
outworn myths ; but to-day the world is clamoring for new visions.
To-day the demand is for social reconstruction. It behooves us to
consider carefully whether it is not time for us to supplement our
excellent method with as excellent a mythology, that we may really
guide and control mankind in the new age.
So far we have followed the current of modern thought, and
tacitly assumed that it was right in demanding that all philosophy
be social, that it be an instrument for the bettering of man's lot and
the improvement of his life. We have granted that the aim of phi-
losophy to-day is to control the various factors which make the best
life possible ; our plea has been that we have mistaken the means,
somewhat. But we have already seen that this is but one side to
man's mythological completion of the incomplete. Without deny-
ing the primary importance of this aspect, let us approach man the
myth-maker rather as the dweller in Heaven than the toiler upon
earth.
We have found that our control-mythology expresses an ideal,
and is not any description of life to-day. But, like all ideals, this
too belongs in Heaven, and not on earth. The physical basis of life
we shall never be able to change ; birth and death, sorrow and pain,
will remain. Fortunately, also, we shall never be able to control
319
more than a small part of our environment. Suppose that the boasts
of modern pseudo-scientists were fulfilled. Think what a horrible
universe it would be were man able to improve upon the law of gravi-
tation, and put the moon upon a more convenient schedule ! "We are
to-day waging a terrible war because we have learned too well to put
the secrets of nature to our own base uses. Could Bacon behold the
diabolical products of our New Atlantis, he might well turn his face
away in shame. As it is, we seem quite able to destroy the human
race. If in our present mood we should gain control of the entire
universe, we should probably hurl solar systems at each others'
heads and involve whole constellations in our ruin. Or suppose that
we should succeed beyond our wildest dreams in that far more diffi-
cult task, the control of mankind. Cosmic disintegration would be
preferable to the sway of a Controller of Public Opinion, and imagi-
nation palls before the power of that supreme Czar, the Happiness
Controller.
We control entirely too much, as it is, of our universe. "We must
learn self-control before we set about governing the stars. "What
profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?
Fortunately, there is so much of existence which must be ac-
cepted, whether or no, which is beyond our power to change in the
slightest, that the small portion left over may be not unsuited to our
limited capacities for direction and change. But in the main, our
ideals are never realized ; our ventures always fall far short of our
hopes. Again and again we fail, and even those who, measured by
our standards, have achieved the greatest success, have in their own
eyes failed most terribly. The most successful men in history were
Socrates and Jesus ; but they were also the most magnificent failures.
Failure, imperfection, what we have traditionally called "evil,"
being the way of the world, it is for our mythology to recognize that
man's powers of controlling his environment are after all extremely
limited, and to enable him to accept the universe, not resignedly,
but joyously. The chief glory of the Middle Ages was the sublime
consolation offered to men's bruised souls. It has always been re-
ligion's inestimable contribution to human life to show how good
may come out of evil ; but it has far too often been her failure, that
she let that good justify the continuance of the evil. If the danger
is great in employing a mythology of control, it is no less in a
mythology of consolation. We catch a gleam of hope in an intoler-
able situation, and we are all prone to let God, or evolution, accord-
ing to our particular theology, bear the brunt of the responsibility
for its alteration. It is such a temptation to apply a mythology ad-
mirably suited for securing self-control and consolation in the face
of the inevitable, where we might change things for the better if
320 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
we were only to try. Here again we must avoid both Scylla and
Charybdis; for instance, the world would undoubtedly have gone
mad if it had discovered no redeeming features in war, yet it will
inevitably go mad if it allows that mythology of consolation to be-
come a mythology of control, and allows wars to continue.
It is to the philosophical enterprise that we must go for a solu-
tion. Were existence nothing more than the loose ends we find, one
succession of failures, then indeed Hegesias would long ago have
been the final philosopher. But man seeks a purpose, a meaning, a
worthwhileness in life, and failing to find it round about him, he is
impelled by his very nature to invent it and impose it upon the
world. Unable to beautify earth, he builds Heaven, and is willing,
for the sake of that Heaven, to bide his time in suffering until earth
haa grown more amenable. He seeks consolation in his ideals, he
dwells in the house of the Lord; and there he secures spiritual
strength and fortitude, and the power of self-control necessary to
the weathering of the blasts of life : unshaken by the evils which he
can not avoid, he conserves his energy that he may direct it whole-
heartedly against those which he can eradicate. "We must believe
that there is something which makes it all worth while, something of
intrinsic value which compensates for all our lack of success. And
that something we all of us find in our Heavens. Even the most
relativistic of experimentalists has a Heaven, a vision of perfection,
to attain which no suffering is too great.
It is true that our mythology differs from the religious mythol-
ogy inherited from the Middle Ages. In those days, despairing
of the world, men placed perfection after death. We place it in
the future still, but we hope for the millennium, to come upon earth.
Both, views are mythological, because both assume that perfection
is a thing which either does exists now somewhere in the skies, or
that will exist sometime in the future. We have not yet learned
that it is not in the nature of ; perfection ever to exist.
The peculiar form our mythology takes to-day is in placing hap-
piness as the end of man, and then believing that it can be increased
quantitatively. I suppose there are none of us who would disagree
with Mill's Utilitarian principle of the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, especially since happiness is a terra of such vague
content that it can mean almost anything. We believe that this
should be the aim of society and of social control ; this is our Heaven,
and it is in visions of the days when this goal has been attained that
we seek consolation from the unhappiness of the present and find
inspiration to alter conditions for the better. We imagine that it
is possible to increase man's happiness by improving his life. We
believe in the myth of progress. We are willing to suffer and die,
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 321
if need be, that our visions of social justice and a harmonious and
happy world may become realities. This is the spirit with which
our doctors, our reformers and social leaders, our armies on the
field of battle, our mothers and sisters and wives at home, are
enabled to fight the fight for their ideals. What matters it. we say,
if you or I or any individual falls and is vanquished; there will
always be others to carry on our work and see to it that the ideals
we were not aJble to fulfil shall be accomplished. When the happy
day comes when the cure for cancer has been discovered, when the
social revolution has taken place, or when international organization
has been accomplished, then we shall receive our recompense in the
increased happiness of mankind. We are content to fail personally
if only we feel we have helped to build more of a Heaven on earth.
And we should know, if we cared to reflect, that this is all
mythology; celestial and divine, yes, but nevertheless mythology.
For we know that man will never be any happier than he is to-day.
Measured in terms of happiness alone, the Greeks were as happy
as we are, and the cave-men as happy as the Greeks ; for it is a sub-
jective thing, an attitude, and has very little to do with externals.
Those who have every boon of life are often most unhappy; while
those who must struggle most are often the happiest of men. It is
folly feverishly to undergo one hardship after another in the hope of
that distant good, when we might have it here and now for the ask-
ing. Happiness is valueless if we must wait for a perfect world in
which to enjoy it. Whatever advantage our myth of paradise on
earth may have over our father's myth of paradise in the sky is
certainly not due to greater scientific accuracy.
Behold the result of our refusal to examine the myths we do
believe in! Our pragmatic mythology, which consists in a pro-
found faith that we shall succeed in controlling, and that very
shortly, may be a good mythology in spurring us on so long as we
do succeed; but there will come a time, sooner or later, when we
shall fail, and when we shall realize that though perfection is, yet
shall it never exist. Brought face to face with the fact of war, for
instance, we shall suffer all of the bitter disillusionment of the
ascetic who sees his materialistic heaven crumble before his eyes;
and as it ia folly for him to seek happiness only after death, so is it
folly for us to seek our Heaven only when we have attained a per-
fect world. We who pin all our hopes on being able to control, must
realize that the true instrumentalism would know how to fail, would
succeed all the more in controlling men's souls when it could not
control their environment.
No, our consolation, our happiness, must be sought neither in a
mythical state far distant in space, with the Middle Ages, nor far
322 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
distant in time, with our later ages. If we are to find it at all, we
must find it here and now, in the midst of all the imperfections and
evils which exist around us. We must find our Heaven where the
Greeks found theirs, where Plato found his, in the blue sky above
us. We must see our visions of perfection, and consider them
worth while in themselves, independently of whether we succeed or
fail in the battle to realize them. The value of the sacrifice of the
millions killed in this war, and of the millions more who have given
the best of their lives that certain things shall prevail, in no wise
depends upon whether those things do prevail or not. Who of us
will say, that had Germany conquered, these sacrifices would have
been in vain? or that, if, though Germany ibe defeated, her prin-
ciples emerge triumphant, the hardships undergone by the world
will have been proved futile? And what holdisi true of the pecu-
liarly dramatic sacrifices of war is just as true of the no less painful
and significant sacrifices of peace. Far from being less glorious,
sacrifices which fail to succeed in their purpose, which we fondly
call "in vain," are even more noble than those which are successful.
For the latter secure their reward on earth, while the former gain
theirs in Heaven.
Progress, then, is a myth; that is, it has no existence on earth,
but belongs to the realm of ideals, to Heaven. It isi not measured
i>y what man does to his physical universe ; it does not consist in the
increase of the general average of happiness in the world. In Mill's
famous repudiation of Utilitarianism, and indeed of Hedonism, "It
is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied," the differ-
ence is not on earth, but in Heaven. The discrepancy is not be-
tween contentment and discontent, but between plenty of mud and
swill and the city in the sky, between the perfect pig-pen and' the
perfect state. Though we be no happier to-day than we were a
thousand years ago, we know we are "better off," that our life is a
nobler life, nobler in just that measure in which our ideals, our
visions, our Heaven is better. We do not want to secure justice
and right for the workers in order that they may be happier, but
that they may dream nobler dreams. The aim of all our efforts at
controlling the factors which make a ibetter physical life for man
possible is progress in Heaven.
Happiness, then, is not a state possible only when we have
secured a more equitable social organization. It comes, not when
we have attained our ideals, but in the very act of struggling and
working for them. We are happy only when we have a vision of a
better life for man, and set to work to make the world more like
our vision. We must believe in our ideal, heart and soul, think that
it is the only important thing in the world; and in moments of
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 323
struggle we must even accept it as an afbsolute and hope to realize it
actually. But in more reflective moods we must realize that that
ideal can never be attained, simply because by the time we have
made the life of man a little better by our action we shall have
caught a new vision; that is the only criterion of progress. Our
pilgrimage will be a long and a 'hard one, marked by many a failure
upon earth ; but no sincere effort can fail to take its place in Heaven,
where it will cast a radiancy of glory over all succeeding visions.
We use our ideals to improve the natural basis whence they have
sprung ; and in its turn the better social conditions give rise to new
and better mythologies. The process has neither beginning nor
end; it is one continual improvement of Heaven. And when we
fail, as we often must, when all looks black around us, and our
efforts seem in vain, we can control ourselves and bide our time,
in the absolute knowledge that whether we succeed or not, it is
better to have died with the right than to have conquered with the
wrong. In the noble words of Giordano Bruno:
E bench' il fin "bramato non consegua,
E 'n tanto studio I 'alma si dilegua,
Basta che sia si nobilmente accesa!
If our reading of the book of life be correct, we have found a
mythology a little more in accord with the actual way in which man
approaches the obstacles besetting his path than the prevailing ex-
perimentalistic mythology. We instrumentalists have not examined
carefully enough the natural basis of our ideal of social control.
We have caught a vision of a better life, a life in which Reason
shall harmonize and coordinate our actions. We have found the
crying need of the world to be some method of (bringing about those
changes of whose necessity we are so convinced ; and we have devel-
oped a method which bids fair to succeed. Individually, we have
our ideals; and! we have nearly achieved a remarkably effective
means of approaching them in the social structure. But let us not
forget that the driving power of our movement is its ideals, its
mythology; let us make our pragmatism more pragmatic, and our
instrumentalism more instrumentalistic, not by disclaiming all
Utopias, all provisional absolutes, but by recognizing them as the
one great phenomenon marking man off from the brute. Let us
preserve our experimental methods of achieving what we have
decided is worth achieving; but let us remember that our guiding
and directing must be towards the Heavenly city in the sky. And,
lest we despair at our ill-success, let us not forget that the only true
progress must take place in Heaven, and that even if our sacrifices
avail nought towards making our nation a better nation, there is
324 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
not one which does not build a new mansion in the golden streets of
Ziou.
This, then, is the conclusion to which we are brought 'by our con-
sideration of man as the animal who asks "What is man?" who
builds new worlds and new Heavens. Man, grown philosophic, can,
nay must, accept the universe ; not for the crude thing it is, but for
what he and his fellows can make of it. He must accept it for the
sake of the ideals it calls forth from him, for the wonderful oppor-
tunity it affords him to dream his dreams and make them come true.
Satisfied and contented he can never 'be, for the attainment of one
Utopia will find him longing for the next. But he can and must
find his happiness in the very act of struggling for a better life.
He must find it in the myth that he is helping to make others happy
in the future ; but he must recognize that their happiness will be as
his, and that they will find it in improving life even as he has
found it.
Man, grown philosophic, will know when to control conditions
and when, in the face of the inevitable, to control himself; he will
know that the world is a wonderful place to live in because it does
offer him the opportunity to find Heaven, and through Heaven to
make a new earth. He will not seek, with the monk, to withdraw
from life in the fond hope of attaining an impossible Paradise ; but
neither will he give uip the search. He will see the possibility of
Paradise on earth, the perfect in the imperfect ; and he will set out
to guide and direct mankind to 'better things. His program for
action, his ideals, he will find in Heaven; and his Heaven he will
find in working for his ideals.
J. H. RANDALL, JR.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
THE history of the development of thought is in large part the
story of a search for more suitable standards. The most ob-
vious standard would seem to be a personal one, for it appears to be
ready-made and always accessible. Soon, however, the individual
finds it difficult to get along in a world where there are as many
standards as standard bearers and he is forced to inquire whether
there is not some one criterion by which all others may be measured.
Something like this has occurred in the history of hedonism. If
pleasure was the ideal then the ideal was easily recognized, for did
not every man know his own pleasure? In order to recognize a
pleasure was it not necessary to occupy the unique position of the
individual who was experiencing it?
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 325
Almost at the beginning of hedonic speculation, indeed, we find
attempts to discriminate among pleasures, positing some as more
desirable than others. There was an attempt to instruct others as
to the greatest pleasure rather than leave this to the independent
discovery of the individual.
In few respects, if any, has the hedonistic philosophy passed be-
yond the stage to which it advanced in the Grasco-Roman period.
The theological hedonists pointed out that posthumous pleasure was
the pleasure to be perf erred above all others ; the utilitarians sought
to escape the selfish tendency by pointing to the pleasure of all as
the ideal, as that which must be preferred by all ethical beings to
any individual pleasure ; the psychological hedonists have argued an
inevitable choice of pleasure. Yet little help has this been to ethics.
In recent speculation about the ethical value of hedonism we
find much striving after two things: pleasure and an ideal. It is
marked in John Stuart Mill who insists that poetry is better than
push-pin and Socrates than a fool, irrespective of the pleasure con-
noted by the experiences; we find this striving to secure both
pleasure and an ideal in Sidgwick, in Rashdall, and, to some extent,
in Everett's recently published Moral Values.
One has the feeling that the problems as formulated by these
writers do not permit of a solution. Yet the problems may be
soluble and their divergence may disappear if these two things,
pleasure and ideal, can be put into the same category and so made
transposable equations. It seems clear that no solution can be
hoped for so long as pleasure is viewed as an unique and irreducible
experience.
The trouble comes does it not? from our tendency to insist
upon this individual and irreducible character of pleasure. In
order to get rid of this difficulty we propose a definition of pleasure
in terms that admit of comparison and so of valuing.
"We must forthwith forego all psychological twaddle about pleas-
ure being merely pleasure and not to be judged, as regards the
element of pleasure, save by the individual experiencing it. Of
course this is true, as it is true of his experience of a star, a picture,
or an intellectual process. But the truth avails nought for him, for
us, if pleasure can not be expressed objectively.
We must be able to know not merely that a pleasure exists for
him : we must be able to know that what he accepts as a pleasure is
one or is not one, as the case may be. His judgment is not sacredly
and invariantly true just because it is a judgment about his own
experience. He may mistake and accordingly misrate a pleasure
of his own experience as surely and as disastrously as he may feel
an ache in a premolar when the trouble is really with the molar.
326 TEE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
His surety and the immediacy of the experience is no guarantee of
its truth. He is not the infallible judge of, whether or not he is
experiencing pleasure.
The hedonistic paradox is a partial recognition of this duality of
judgment, for it insists that pleasure is -wont to disappear as soon
as a man consciously strives for it or even introspects in order to
discover whether he is experiencing pleasure. The "paradox'*
comes from the fact that we have failed to take into account two
processes which are entirely separate and might not foe united in the
same individual, namely, pleasure and the consciousness of that
pleasure.
As it is not essential to greatness that a man be conscious of
greatness, or to philanthropy that he be conscious of his philan-
thropy, so it is not essential to pleasure that the man realizing it be
conscious of that pleasure. If the pleasure is great, or long con-
tinued and involving many phases of his life, it is probable that he
is not conscious of it. The converse is true. He may think himself
seething in pleasure when he is not remotely near it as an example,
the hilarious but feeble drunkard. He who is judging best is often
other than he who is judging self. To this the realm of pleasure
is no exception and should be none.
The existence and the nature of my pleasure is, then, a matter
of which I am judge but not sole judge, and, possibly, not even an
exceptionally able judge. I may not be in a position as advantage-
ous for pronouncing judgment as are others who have a more com-
prehensive grasp of the situation and can analyze it better than can
I. To their greater wisdom my lesser wisdom must pay homage.
Subjective pleasure, to acquire meaning for us as a workable con-
cept in ethics, must become objective, a something upon whose
quality we, the outsiders, can pronounce. This means that we must
be able to define pleasures so as to make the concept usable a quality
that can scarcely be claimed for it at present.
To this end we propose, tentatively, to define pleasure as the
doing of a thing for its own sake. The remoter implications may
raise more questions than are thereby answered and create diffi-
culties greater than those that are vanquished. Intoxication, when
for its own sake, is, therefore, a pleasure. Yes, so far as we con-
sider this foit of life or experience as an isolated bit or as a totality.
But if the experience fits in with a larger experience, the day with
a year, the question whether it be pleasure in view of this larger
sphere is open to question and must be answered by the same test.
There are, to be sure, false views of things which should be done for
their own sakes, and so there are false as well as true views of
pleasure.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 327
True pleasure, then, is not so much that which is, as a matter of
fact, done for its own sake, but is rather that which, all things being
considered should be done for its own sake. How we are to de-
termine this "should be" is another question, and one which is no
part of our immediate task.
WILSON D. WALLIS.
FRESNO, CALIFORNIA.
DR. GOLDENWEISEE AND HISTORICAL INDETERMINISM
OF Dr. Goldenweiser's "Set of Categories for an Introduction to
Social Science" the most significant to a philosopher must be
his pair "deterministic" and "accidental." If one's philosophy de-
pends in some measure on the results garnered by the sciences, and if
the social sciences find themselves compelled to interpret cultural
history by the latter of these two categories, then it would seem that
the ideal of a completely knit universe, however attractive it may be,
is not confirmed by scientific evidence. In the inorganic realm, even
perhaps in the field of biology, that ideal may be approximately
verified, but in the arena of human culture it would appear to be too
narrow and one-sided to be philosophically valid. At least, this eon-
elusion is just if these categories are taken seriously and objectively.
I dlo not forget that Dr. Goldenweiser is careful to define "acci-
dental" so as to imply no real indetermmism ; x he adheres to a philo-
sophic platform which would not permit that (cf. pp. 564-565). I
mean only that if the reader were to neglect the author's philosophy
and attend to his scientific results alone, and use those results to
build up a philosophy, he would have one which, admitting on the
whole a system and order, yet allowed a certain free play and spon-
taneity of action between the parts. For the author shows most
cogently that social science can not proceed (as apparently physics
and chemistry can do) without using the concept of "accidental"
as well as "deterministic." It needs both. He says at the end of
his papers "thus the accidental and the deterministic appear as two
inseparable ingredients of the historic process" (p. 607). And if
that is so, then the one category should be granted as good an objec-
tive status as the other. There appears no reason why the philosophy
of human culture should adopt the one, and relegate the other to the
limbo of superstition.
Let us trace the course of the exposition as it brings out the
inevitableness and the significance of both "deterministic" and
"accidental" factors in cultural history.
In contrast with those who would see in history no laws, but only
i This JOURNAL, Vol. XV., p. 565.
328 TH% JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
unique individual processes or acts, he declares that it is useful to
align cultural processes in deterministic series: "an analytical sepa-
ration for heuristic purposes of the deterministic from the accidental
factors in history, tends to throw a great deal of light on the proper
sphere of each, as well as on their interrelations" (p. 590). Ex-
amples of determinism are: the survival of an institution whose
emotional or intellectual content is lost, e. g., ' ' marriage by capture,
which from a grim reality becomes a mere puzzling symbol, or mag-
ical rites which evolve into children's games, or prayers which are
not even suggested by a set of nonsense words" (p. 592), etc. "The
principle of division of labor also belongs here. Take a group of in-
dividuals with certain tasks to perform, and sooner or latter speciali-
zation . . . and division of labor will set in" (p. 592). Or again:
"Development in a certain direction will often continue, according
to the principle of inertia or the line of least resistance, until a
physical limit is reached or a psychological limit, which makes the
situation absurd or self-defeating; then reaction sets in, 'opposite'
developments come into favor, the pendulum swings back, perhaps
only to return with a similar exaggerated sweep" (p. 593). There
are also "tendencies which spring from the coexistence and coordi-
nated functioning, in varied situations, of individuals in different
degrees of socialization. Illustrative of such principles is, for in-
stance, the universal emergence at all times and in all societies of
leaders, strong men, dominant personalities, with reference to whom
the remainder of a group appears as followers, inferiors, supporters,
disciples" (p. 599). (Dr. Groldenweiser's account is full of interest-
ing examples.) Now it seems as if we might well call these "deter-
minisms" by the sacred name of law.
But these laws are not rigid in the sense that they allow much pre-
diction; "the determinisms do not, in themselves, constitute a guar-
antee that anything further will happen" (p. 596) ; they only assure
us that "if anything further happens ... it will be one of a more
or less restricted set of events, inventions, ideas, or it will fall within
the limits of a certain range of possibilities" (ibid.). In spite of this
hypothetical character, the reader can find no ground for refusing
the full dignity of law to these "tendencies;" inasmuch as all law,
even in the exact sciences, is confessedly hypothetical.
Having then to all intents and purposes defended' the category of
law in history, the author goes on to establish the counter-category,
accident. Once more he warns us that he means by it no uncaused
factor: "an accidental event or thing is one normally belonging to
another system of preferential relations than that in which it makes
its appearance in the particular instance ; from the standpoint of the
latter system the event or thing is accidental" (p. 599). Thus
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 329
"from the standpoint of the North African natives the advent of
Mohammedanism was an accident ; so also was the Spanish introduc-
tion of the horse among the Indians of the Plains . . .," etc. (p. 599).
After further illustrations we come to the most interesting case, that
of the relation between the individual and his environment. The acci-
dental quality of the individual consists in the fact that, though a
reflection of the cultural milieu, he is a selected reflection; he has
"congenital capacities and limitations" which enable him to partici-
pate in some aspects, and make him "powerless to assimilate" others,
of that milieu. Also "the reaction of the individual to any particu-
lar cultural material which confronts him depends on his attention,
interest, his assimilative' readiness, the value or significance which the
new item of experience has for his ego, all of which factors again de-
pend on the totality of his past experience, on his biographical ego,
on the particular and unique configuration of the psychic individual
as a historic complex sui generis. . . . Thus, the individual emerges as
a highly adventitious aggregate of psychic elements and dispositions,
unique and unforeseeable, except in its most general aspects" (p.
602). And "the ingress of the individual as cause into culture as
content, or history as process, must therefore always appear as the
crossing of two relatively independent systems, and the exact time,
place and purport of that crossing must be recognized as accidental,
as unforeseeable, except within certain most general limits. While
this would be so even though the individual were nothing but the
exact replica of his culture, the fact that this is precisely what the
individual is not stands for the added significance and the ever inde-
terminate possibilities of his breaking into the chain of historic
events" (ibid.). Now let us recall that according to Dr. Golden-
weiser and I think he is right the individual is not a process or
entity outside his cultural environment, but quite within it; does it
not follow that that milieu contains within itself as many fortuitous
processes as there are unique individuals? He says: "Unquestion-
ably, the specific content of the individual psyche is derived from
the cultural milieu where else, indeed, should it come from?" (p.
601) ? Accordingly, that milieu would, appear to be a complex proc-
ess containing many contingent factors, as well as general tendencies
following certain laws ; and these contingent factors are not due to
the crossing of that culture with systems external to it, but to its own
constituent elements (individual persons). This impression is con-
firmed by his later words. "The driving power, the 'yeast' of his-
tory, is supplied by various accidental factors, in origin individual,
or socio-psychological, at any rate, external to a given system. Not
that these accidental factors must of necessity fall into the 'foreign
contact' group. If the culture is at all complex, the processes of cul-
330 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
tural self-fertilization through interactions between smaller systems
included in the cultural group or nation are quite adequate to supply
the 'yeast' themselves. Among these smaller systems the individual
is one ..." (p. 605). The action of this yeast he compares to "the
breath of life, whipping into shape the heretofore unrealized possi-
bilities of the deterministic tendencies. . . . Thus the accidental ap-
pears, after all, as predominant in history, when it comes to the par-
ticular when, where, how, and even what, of events. The concept of
the 'uniqueness of historic events' is thus vindicated" (p. 605). The
accidental or contingent is found in "the maturing of certain ele-
ments within a system" (ibid., italics are mine). "But withal there
is no denying the overwhelming weight of accidental factors" (p.
606).
Although he probably would not grant it, has not Dr. Golden-
weiser here given us the best scientific evidence for a philosophic
indeterminism (in this field only, of course) ? The inevitableness
and significance of "unforeseeable" novelties cropping up within a
social system, and therefore neither determined from without nor
(by his definition) resulting from that system itself the inevitable-
ness and the significance of the accidental factors appears, as we read
through his discussion, with steadily increasing clearness. Quite
apart from the genuine merit of his discussion as a contribution to
the philosophy of science, this result should engage the serious at-
tention of philosophers.
"W. H. SHELDON.
COLLEGE OP THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE
Moral Values: A Study of the Principles of Conduct. WALTER
GOODNOW EVERETT. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1918. Pp.
xiii + 439.
Professor Everett's Moral Values suggests an old conundrum,
mutatis mutandis: When is a text-book not a text-book? The an-
swer, of course, being : When it is really readable ; when it has move-
ment and unity and other things that according to the best prin-
ciples of rhetoric make for vital interest; when it lacks obvious
method and arrangement; when, finally, it lives, instead of just
presents, its subject. A text-book thus not a text-book is what Pro-
fessor Everett has both consciously planned, to judge from his
Preface, and with more than ordinary success really accomplished,
to judge from the dozen, baker's dozen in the good old times!
chapters that follow. In fact, except for an occasional excess of the
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 331
preceptual, a wiser, on the whole more readable and generally more
serviceable book for university classes in ethics would be hard to find :
for, with the other merits, this is a book that very well might inter-
est, I will not say the general reader, but certainly the thoughtful
reader, the general thinker; and it is a book, too, that while not
doing violence to the demands of history is up to date or "progres-
sive," being at once idealistic without being either narrow or ab-
stractly moralistic, and pragmatic without being at all materialistic.
Surely such a book has peculiar opportunity of being useful to the
universities at this time.
Besides the freedom from the character of the conventional text-
book, two other things, also announced in the Preface, may be men-
tioned with an approval almost as cordial ; namely, the appropriate
and especially the well-controlled use of the concept of value and,
closely related to this, the purpose of being concrete.
Ethics and logic are both often defined as normative sciences.
But, while thus in the same general class, they may not be regarded
or presented in the same manner, being as far apart as will and
thought, volition and cognition, value and idea. True, as many
disasters, now meaning books, which time has presented to the his-
tory of thought, bear witness, each has had need of learning of the
ether. Works in ethics, for example, have often been obtrusively
lacking in practise as well as in precept of logical form, being quite
too Oh, for an adjective! too valorous, too well-meaning, too
"moral," while works in logic have on their side overdone the de-
pendence of thought and its manner on value, being too psycholog-
ical, too biological, too pragmatic ; but the fact that ethics and logic
have needed to learn of each other is no justification of such, inver-
sions as have taken place frequently. Professor Everett's work,
however, while well constructed, while itself fundamentally logical
and while recognizing the great importance of knowledge and rea-
son to moral experience and development, is no inversion, being al-
ways mindful that its primary interest is in the will and in the world
as value. Witness its own persistent and pervading spirit of moral
earnestness and purpose ; not its sentimental moralism, for it is very
largely free from that, but its genuine and candid ethics. Witness
also its respect for the concrete.
With regard to the purpose to be concrete, when one comes to the
actual performance there is perhaps something wanting. Some
readers may feel a real lack. One does not find, for example, much
direct special discussion of concrete problems, such as appears in
Drake's Problems of Conduct, particularly in the portions given to
"Personal Morality" and to "Public Morality," where questions of
health and drink and sex, of patriotism and charity and privilege,
332 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
are examined. What one does find, however, is a clear, well-pointed
philosophy of concreteness, making the book, so to speak, open to
problems as concrete as you please. What Drake's book has lacked
in the opinion of many is just such a background.
In the interest of the concrete Professor Everett denies finality
and exclusiveness, say, moral adequacy, to any of the traditional
formula, or summa bona, such as pleasure, happiness, duty, perfec-
tion. At best, he says (p. 177), these are only "principles to point
the way one is to go." Singly or collectively they decide nothing.
They "do not free one from perplexity where ways converge and
cross. " * ' Ethics, ' ' he goes on, ' ' in striving for unity of thought, can
not neglect the manifold which it would unify. . . . The abstract
must be interpreted in terms of the concrete, the good must be trans-
lated into goods, value into values." In other words, the world of
actual moral experience, the world of value, is no unified world; it
is rather, after James, a "pluralistic universe," and one may not
meet it successfully with a single, exclusive formula or rule. In
practise a moral principle would stand in the way of real moral
principle. A man of principle is so much better than a man of a
principle; so much more reasonable and responsible, so much more
efficient, so much more human; in short, so much more a man for
the world as the world is actually experienced.
In place of any summum bonum or universal principle, Professor
Everett offers, first, a ' ' table of values, ' ' and then what the present
reviewer would diagnose as a genuine trust in common human na-
ture. History and experience being what they are and man being
what he is, man being disposed in general to learn from history, to
be made self-controlled and rational by his experience, human na-
ture can be trusted to react, for character and progressive living, to
the values that the world offers. Indeed, as Everett hardly makes
as clear as might be wished, those very values are themselves out-
growths of experience, making a confidence in experience and hu-
man nature so much more justified. Thus, now to the table, under
a broad interpretation, the only practical interpretation, morality
is a matter not merely of the ordinary "character values," but also
of economic values, bodily values, values of recreation and of asso-
ciation, and of esthetic and intellectual and religious values, these all
making the "world of values." To this table, or list, of course no
absolute value can attach. It is simply something to work or think
by. No sanctity inheres either in the order or the number of the
different values. Even the division may be a cross-division. But it
is of the nature of man under the demands of his life, as his experi-
ence grows, to come to recognize and follow a hierarchy of values.
Instrumental values are subordinated to intrinsic, transient to perma-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 333
nent, productive to unproductive, and so on (p. 221 ff.), reason act-
ing throughout as the principle of preference and organization (p.
224) and the outcome being an organically valued world and a moral,
because controlled and adapted and harmonious, individual. The
process, moreover, is seen not as different but as only more efficient
and more productive, as well as at once more complex and more
comprehensive, when it is recognized that "no values can be real-
ized by individuals in isolation" and when accordingly due atten-
tion is given to the part of society (Chapter VIII.).
But, not to attempt further exposition, it is interesting to find
that Professor Everett handles all the old time issues of intuitionism
and empiricism, indeterminism and determinism, dualism, pluralism
and monism, very much as he has handled that of hedonism and per-
fectionism. All of these, representing so many abstractions from
experience and having each one some justification, but being in no
instance exhaustive, are indications, in the form of isms, of condi-
tions which always have to be reckoned with, but any one of them
taken abstractly and given finality, is taken too seriously. Everett,
then, does reckon with them, but does not take them too seriously.
Notably, to give an example, he reckons with monism, but in discuss-
ing the problem of evil and the worth of human ideals he does not
take monism too seriously and so, while giving value to its super-
humanism (p. 419), is nevertheless quite able to say (p. 419), what
very well marks the spirit and character throughout his book, that
there is "sufficient justification" of human values and ideals "in
ity," again (p. 420) "is established in and through our experience."
the fact that they do enrich and ennoble man's life." "Their valid-
ALFEED H. LLOYD.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.
Economic Problems of Peace after War. (Second Series.) W. E.
SCOTT. Cambridge University Press. 1918. Pp. xii + 139.
This publication is based on the second course of the H. Stanley
Jevons Lectures at University College, London, delivered in 1918 by
the Adam Smith Professor of Political Economy in the University of
Glasgow. With a foresight that was almost as characteristic as it
was commendable, British statesmen and students of public affairs
long before peace was definitely in sight, gave attention to the serious
problems of economic adjustment after the war, just as in the
midst of hostilities they were bending every effort to enlist all avail-
able economic forces for the country's service in warfare.
Economic problems following a great modern war are of two
kinds. One kind relates to the readjustment necessary to divert pro-
duction from a war to a peace basis. These problems, while of press-
334 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
ing importance, are necessarily acute only during the period of tran-
sition from war to a full peace organization. The other kind are the
deeper and farther-reaching economic problems which, while not
necessarily new in all their elements, take on, because of the very
fact of war and of its consequences in the various phases of social
life, new aspects, and, perhaps, an entirely new character, which
makes it necessary to recast old conclusions and to devise new
remedies.
Professor Scott dealt in his lectures with these more permanent
and more broadly significant economic problems. A catalogue of
their titles will suffice to disclose the scope of his studies: Mare
Liberum; Aer Clausus? A League of Nations and Commercial Pol-
icy, The Financial Burden of To-day and To-morrow, Conscription
or Proscription of Capital, The Period of Financial Transition, Ten
Years Later. In discussing these broad topics, Professor Scott put
emphasis on what were, to him, the durable underlying principles.
Consequently it would avail little to try to summarize briefly his
viewpoint and his conclusions. It will be enough to say that his out-
look is that of an intelligent, able, forward-looking liberal. He de-
livered his lectures, however, before Bolshevism threatened a com-
plete overthrow of the existing social order, and so great are bound
to be the results of Bolshevism and of other types of revolutionary
economic readjustment, that, read from the present-day point of
view, Professor Scott's lectures seem strangely concerned with a so-
cial order already passed away. Nevertheless, all who may be in-
terested in reflecting upon the economic problems of the future will
find that notwithstanding an inevitable British viewpoint, Professor
Scott's finished and well balanced lectures supply many helpful and
stimulating suggestions.
E. E. AGGER.
COLUMBIA UNIVEBSITY.
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN. August, 1918. PHYSIOLOG-
ICAL AND COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY NUMBER. The Neurone (pp.
257-263): H. B. FERRIS. - Seventeen researches reviewed. Reflex
Mechanisms and the Physiology of Nerve and Muscle (pp. 263-
272): E. B. HOLT. - Seventeen references reviewed. Tropism and
Instinctive Activities (pp. 273-280) : M. F. WASHBURN. - Forty-five
researches reviewed. Sensory Physiology of Animals (pp. 280-287) :
K. S. LASHLEY. - Forty-one references reviewed. Special review.
M. F. Washburn, The Animal Mind, second edition : HARVEY CARR.
Books Received.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 335
Babbitt, Irving. Rousseau and Romanticism. Boston and New
York: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1919. Pp. xxiii -f 426. $3.50.
Carroll, Robert S. The Soul in Suffering: A practical application
of spiritual truths. New York : The Macmillan Co. 1919. Pp.
241. $2.00.
Ladd, George Trumbell. Knowledge, Life and Reality : an Essay in
Systematic Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
1918. Pp. 549.
von Hug-Hellmuth, H. A Study of the Mental Life of the Child.
Translated by James J. Putnam and Mabel Stevens. Nervous
and Mental Disease Monograph Series No. 29. Washington:
Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co. 1919. Pp.
xiii + 154. $2.00.
NOTES AND NEWS
THE following note supplements the information contained in
the printed announcement of the Boston Trade Union College :
During the spring of 1919 the Trade Union College, under the
auspices of the Boston Central Labor Union, was organized and its
first courses of instruction opened on April 7th.
The committee in charge was made up of eleven representatives
from the Boston Central Labor Union and five representatives of
the instructors giving courses in the college.
The courses were open to all trade unionists of the American
Federation of Labor and to members of their immediate families
and it is possible that the admission may, in the future, be extended
to include non-union workers as well.
The lectures are given in the rooms of the High School of Prac-
tical Arts in Roxbury a region which is rapidly becoming the
geographical center of Greater Boston. The courses during the
Spring term have been of ten lectures each, meeting once a week
from 8 to 10 P.M., the first hour usually being devoted to the lecture
and the second hour to a general discussion. The fee charged for
the course of ten lectures has been $2.50.
The opening term has begun very modestly with only 160 or so
students enrolled, but it is hoped that in the autumn the scope of the
work and the number of students enrolled may be largely increased.
The courses which have been given this spring are the following:
How to Write English. Carleton Noyes and Maurice J. Lacey.
Practise in Discussion. Alfred: D. Sheffield.
Masterpieces of Literature. H. W. L. Dana.
336 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Shop Committees and Collective Bargaining. W. L. Stoddard.
Introduction to American Law. Roscoe Pound.
Eepresentative Government. Harold J. Laski.
Economics. George Nasmyth and Irving Fisher.
Physics. Horace Taylor.
Psychology and Logic. Charles C. Ramsay.
Among the other instructors who may give additional courses in
the autumn are the following: Professor William Z. Ripley, Pro-
fessor Felix Frankfurter, Professor R. F. Hoernle, Professor Zacha-
riah Chafe, and Professor Francis Bowes Sayre.
The experiment is an interesting one in the history of education
because it is perhaps the first time that a college has been started in
which the administration lies in the hands of organized labor. There
are institutions for higher education in certain radical labor groups
and there are, of course, colleges aplenty for the conservative middle
class, but the great masses of labor who are not radical have for the
most part had little or no opportunity for advanced instruction.
It is those groups, perhaps the most numerous and the most impor-
tant of all to reach, that have hitherto been neglected. It is pos-
sible, therefore, that this experiment in Boston, humble as it now is,
may spread to carry on a very important educational work among
the rank and file of labor in Greater Boston and by means of exten-
sion courses, throughout New England.
It is hoped that similar experiments may be tried in other centers
of the labor population until America has built up a movement to
correspond with the great work done by the Workers Educational
Association in England.
Major C. S. Yoakum, Ph.D. (Chicago), formerly director of the
psychological laboratory at the University of Texas, has left the
psychological section of the Surgeon-General's Department to be-
come associate professor of applied psychology at the Carnegie In-
stitute of Technology.
VOL. XVI, No. 13. JUNE 19, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
A DEFECT IN THE ARGUMENT FOR REALISM
fcfc rp HINGIS as they really are, unmodified and unconstituted by
-L .the act of knowing." "It is denied that knowing makes a
difference to the object known." These two sentences, taken in sub-
stance from E. G. Spaulding's book on The New Rationalism (see
page 219), represent the usual and typical basis of the argument of
the realists against idealism. It is evident that the definition of real-
ity or of relation to reality is made with this polemic in mind. In
each of the sentences above the negative is the important part.
In itself this emphasis on negation might not be indefensible, if the
rest of the idealistic definition were accepted, only amended in this
one particular. The danger, however, is that the amendment may be
taken for the whole original definition. This seems usually to have
been the case. Reality is defined as not affected by knowedge, but
what does constitute reality is nowhere that I can find answered. If
the realist makes his case good, he simply throws us back again to a
renewed study of reality. Instead of having discovered a basis for a
new metaphysics or cosmology, he and we with him must start anew
from the bottom of the hill.
That the definition is essentially polemic is seen from the mention
of knowledge. The naive and primitive point of view does not raise
this question. The thing known is there, that is all. When reflection
comes in, and the child or savage asks where the thing is when not
seen cr felt by him, we get the beginning of philosophy. To the ideal-
ist's answer to this question the realist objects. I can not see that
he makes any answer of his own. To lay a sure foundation he should
go further back, and ask what is the reason for the dualism of thing
and relation. Perhaps the idealist is wrong in his fundamental
analysis. The definition that would correct this must rest on a lower
plane in the construction than the level of the idealistic upper works.
In the theory of the externality of relations we have not a thorough-
going revision of the idealistic analysis.
One explanation of the dependence of the realist's definition on
polemic is due to the fact that very frequently, perhaps usually, he
337
338 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
has arrived at hiis conclusions on account of the unsatisfactory nature
of the idealistic construction. Following out idealism to its logical
conclusion he has found, as he thinks, a reductio ad absurdam of at
least some part of the premises. In the usual method of scientific
construction of a theory he has sought to make such changes as are
necessary in order to make the theory with which he started ideal-
ism conform to the facts. As the chemist of to-day still makes use
of a modified atomic theory in spite of the overthrow of that theory
as an explanation of matter and substance, so the realist still makes
use of a modified idealism. Professor Spaulding is particularly given
to this argument by attack. Only upon the partial ruins of all oppos-
ing systems does he erect his new rationalism. As a method of criti-
cism, and of necessary destruction, such polemic is justified, but
fundamental definitions can not be built on piles of unsorted and
scattered rubbish. If idealism fails to explain the facts of life, if we
can not resolve everything into mental phenomena or will, then it is
not sufficient to simply deny that all relations are constructive of
reality. Such denial erects- no building upon the ruins. The real-
ist's understanding of the defect in pragmatism, that a working hy-
pothesis can only be a temporary expedient, must be applied to real-
ism itself. It is not denied that we find ourselves in relation to what
we call the real world. As a preliminary hypothesis it is justifiable
to maintain that that real world is not as a whole dependent on our
relation to it. Unless we are to give up as unsolvable the primitive
question as to what is the nature of reality, we can not stop here.
If we must yield and be content with negation, then pragmatism
would seem to be preferable, with its acknowledgment of its limita-
tions. If realism is to be more than negation, it must make an inde-
pendent analysis of reality.
A further proof and 1 result of the dependence of realism on po-
lemic is that its definition of reality involves in that definition a rela-
tion. The consequences of this are fatal to the present lines of argu-
ment of realists like Spaulding. It therefore needs attention. To
involve relation in the basic definition of reality is to assume that
relations are basic and inescapable parts of reality. Once we have
assumed this, we open the field for the idealistic construction, for we
are certainly parts of the real world, and the relations which bind us
fast in it will therefore also be essential parts of reality. Without
such relations the world we inhabit would not exist as it does. We
do not need to continue this line of argument to see that we have al-
ready moved 1 far from the realistic position that relations are not
constitutive and make no modification of reality. To stop such a de-
velopment of the argument we must take care that the basic defini-
tion of reality does not' involve relation. I do not mean, of course,
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 339
that the relation of defining or thinking concepts must be absent, but
that the things defined must not include relations.
The definition in any form in which I have seen it does include a
relation, the relation of 'change. If we may paraphrase, and remove
as far as possible the negative, we may say that the realist defines
reality as that which is in certain ways constant through change.
The particular change stressed is the coming of a knower into rela-
tion to the real existence. Spaulding's definition of parallelism shows
this clearly. Again paraphrasing, parallel tracks' are those which
whenever we come upon them are the same distance apart. To a man
who never moved from the railroad station, the real, the unchanging
thing, would be the fact that the tracks, to him, did meet. It is only
the man who changes his position who can verify the truth that they
do not meet. To answer the naive question, where is the track when
no one sees it, realism answers that when any one does see it, it will
be the same as when last seen. When seen it has not changed from
the moment before. It is 1 the fact of this persistence through change,
of being the same essentially in varying relations, that for the real-
ist constitutes reality. What does change is, in so far, not real. The
track I may imagine as taking itself up and walking off is not real
because the real tracks never do this. The definition does therefore
involve a relation as essential the relation of change. So far as this
definition goes, were there no change there would be no criterion of
reality. In a static world dreams and stones would be equally stub-
born unchanging facts. I am not attacking the realist's definition,
but only pointing out that it involves necessarily the relation which
we call change.
Besides involving the complicated relation of change in its defi-
nition of reality, realism assumes the universality of change. By
putting forward the doctrine of the externality of relations as a con-
tribution to our understanding of reality, realism assumes that
change is so fundamental in reality that the statement that, though
so prevalent, it does not change reality, is important. Once again,
we are not attacking this statement, but only pointing out its conse-
quences. Were change only present in some small part of real exist-
ence, or performed only a very small function, such a statement
would tell us very little about reality in its larger aspects. Nor can
we let the realist rest in the statement that change, though impor-
tant and prevalent, is not universal. Once again, if change is not
present in some particular part of reality, then at that point there
exists no criterion between reality and non-reality. This assumes
that the realist offers no test of reality except this doctrine of the
externality of relations. If he does offer something in addition, then
he must be judged by that, but that additional something will be of
340 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
the nature of either materialism or idealism or a mixture of both.
If monistic it may be either; if dualistic or pluralistic it may be
mixed of both. Such a construction will then be judged on its mer-
its, and lie open to all the arguments against idealism, materialism,
dualism, pluralism or monism. This is not the contention of the
modern and recent realist. They 'assert that theirs is a new construc-
tion. Their new theory, then, with the other theories necessarily in-
volved in it, is the sole necessary criterion of reality. That is to say
that change is universal, and is sufficient to divide real from unreal.
Change is a complicated relation involving as its fundamental
element the flow of time. If change is universal, then time is uni-
versal. The consequences of this seem to have escaped most recent
realists as well as pnaganatists. Bergson is a noted example of one
who sees clearly the dangers and fallacies of a too great extention of
spatial relations, but puts up almost no guard against exactly the
same dangers from the undue extension of temporal relations.
There can be no change without the passage of time. If change,
therefore, ineffective change, is the great criterion of reality, then
time must affect every particle of reality, and be a very important
factor. It is time that destroys the unreal. What may for the
moment have some sort of being, but not real existence, the next
instant destroys, and the real thing stands forth uncluttered by the
passing and temporary unreality. Without the coming of that next
instant, real and unreal would alike be a part of life, and nothing
exist, no difference, that could part them. Hence the realist must
emphasize the necessity of time as a revealer of truth. Moreover,
as change is an integral part of his definition, so time is necessarily
involved. Reality, to paraphrase, is that which persists through time.
This definition, while it implies the universality of the time
relation, at the same time minimizes it. Relations make no differ-
ence to the things related. This includes the relations of change
and of time. That this offers no real or adequate explanation of
what does affect and constitute real things, we do not here urge.
It is sufficient to take realism at its word, and carry forward its
doctrines to their conclusion. Realism offers a definition which
assumes time as universal, and then minimizes it. This is in itself
a sign of danger. What is a universal criterion of reality would
seem by that very fact to be important. This is not a logical
necessity, 'but it does require more attention than realists have
given to it. Due probably to the forging of their weapons under
fire, as a defense against opposing errors, they have not seen just
where their shots are due to land. We can not rest content with
this uncertainty. Such an all-prevailing relation as time must be
studied further before it is relegated to the scrap heap.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 341
>
It seems to have been assumed that "time" is a simple relation.
To be next in space has been for long acknowledged as raising many
problems. To be next in time, though for Kant similar .difficulties
arose as with space, has for his successors 1 seemed a simple matter
to be passed with little or no mention. Many of the spatial prob-
lems are really problems in time relation. This is especially true
of the classic example of the flight of an arrow. With time so
divided as to be in a one-to-one correspondence with each portion
of space, there is no problem. However much of space remains to
be covered, so much also of time has not elapsed. Infinite division,
conceived of as it has been in this problem, is implied as continuing
infinitely. If we define the infinitesimal as has been done, without
reference to time, it presents no such problem. In space there is no
apparent reason why we must go through each point before coming
to the next. If there is no next, as the <d)octrine of the infinitesimal
asserts, and we claim that we must pass from next to next, we
have no insolvable problem. But in and by itself space makes- no
claim that we can only pass from next to next. The three points
of a triangle taken as they are apart are perfectly definite, and
we can pass from one to the other without touching anything in
between. We can take all three together and ignore anything
between. This is part of the " spread out" quality of space. It
is not true of time. Time, as a one-dimensional relation relates its
parts only by duration of one up to the other. They must be next,
or they are not part of the same time. It is from time, therefore,
that the problem of nextness and of change comes. Far from being
a simple, easily understood relation, it is the time relation that is
responsible for many of our most difficult problems. It seems
strange that Bergson and others should take refuge in this relation
to escape difficulties. Evidently time is a sweet charmer who hides
the rocks of difficulty beyond.
There is one aspect of time emphasized by James which should
have given modern philosophers pause. The specious present, or
temporal present, has been carefully studied by psychologists 1 but
seems to have little interest for logicians and epistemologists. A
duration which is both in active movement yet comprised in a single
state of consciousness obviously offers the most natural lapproach
for an 'analysis of the concept and of the relation of duration and
of time.
The peculiarity of the specious present is thiat, appearing while
focal in consciousness as a single whole, to any later conscious state
it is seen not to be simple, but to hiave a beginning and an end, and
to have a constant progression from the beginning to the end.
Unless we had some such ability to hold duration and change within
342 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
one conscious staite, we could not be conscious of the relation of
change, certainly not of that of duration. It is from consciousness
of this specious present that our conicept and understanding of time
comes. Prom the analysis of this specious present must come,
therefore, our conception of time and the understanding of the
temporal relation.
Our interest in such a relation and! analysis of time is in regard
to its effect on knowledge. If reality is that which persists through
change and has duration in time, then the real is the permanent
and unchanging in such a specious present. If this is correct we
will find 1 in the specious present a dualism of real and unreal.
The very unchangeability will be the important and obvious ele-
ment. The fact of change, or progression or duration, will for the
benefit of the organism 'for the better discovery of reality, of
real dangers and real blessings be minimized. That which is
unchanging will be the real, the important. Just the opposite is
true. A wild animal seeks safety in absolute immobility. For
his pursuer motion is the important thing. As Bergson and many
others have pointed out, it is change and progressive change
that is significant. What for the realist must be regarded as in
some measure at least unreal, what is modified by coming into our
consciousness, this for the animal amd for man is the important
thing. Not what is unmodified by our knowledge, but what by our
relation to it takes on special significance for us, this is important.
Value and reality may not foe the same, the realist would say.
In fact it is against just such arguments that 'his criticism is
directed. His criticism of the pragmatist, amd of the arguments
for religion, also emphasizes his objection to .any conclusion of value
and truth. A good dleal of the 'Criticism of my own published
arguments for the importance of the religious experience for theology
haive come from this same realism. It is not, however, to answer
them that I call attention to this. Again our present interest is
simply to draw out the realistic position to its logical conclusion and
see what happens.
On one point the realist is consistent, more so than many of
his critics. If the real is that which is unmodified by knowledge,
then it will not be concerned with the one knowing it. It takes no
special account of him, and it is therefore not surprising that it
may not be of special importance to him. Putting aside the ques-
tion whether this something of relative unimportance is what we
mean by real, it is at least evident that the real as thus defined does
not cover the (whole of; what is in consciousness. The relation be-
tween two men is certainly different when each knows that the other
knows him. To be known, to foe popular, is a goal many set them-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 343
selves. The being known certainly in such cases does make a differ-
ence to the person seeking such notoriety. Again leaving to one
side the question whether all such cases can rightfully be put in the
class of the unreal, it is evident that the doctrine of the externality
of relations does not apply to them. The relation of 'being knoiwn
or of escaping being .known is of the utmost importance to the
hunted fox or bird. Such relations therefore fall outside the real-
ist's definition of reality.
One of two things folDaws. The realistic definition may not be
a complete criterion of! reality. Some things may be real which are
modifiable by (being known. The realistic effort is then understood
as an appeal for the possibility of external relations. The second
possibility is that all social and conscious life is shut out of reality.
There have been extremists who hold nearly this, but none, I think,
in western lands. The western form of this second conclusion is
to take refuge in dualism. Part of the contents of consciousness
are modified in the act of becoming related. These are the mental
and social facts. Then there are the real things, the unmodified
and unchanging.
The first alternative, that the doctrine of the externality of
relations does not apply to all reality, wie do not need to examine
long. If some real things are modified by being known, it then
'becomes a question of faict whether all are not so modified. The
line between must be capable of deinarkation. But a thing is only
in consciousness as known. What it was before we <can never tell.
No way of parting the modified from the unmodified is open to us.
All reality that we are conscious of is or may be modified. The
mere possibility thlat it may not 'be, but can never be certified not
to be, is certainly not worth fighting for, and is not sufficient to ac-
count for the vigor of the realistic effort. Such a lame conclusion
puts no stronger barrier in front of the idealist.
It is the second alternative with which we are really concerned,
that there is a duality in life, things and relations. The things
are real, the relations are the changing and individual and social
side of life. Our world is made by the existence of unchanging
centers in the midst of; changing relations. This does two things.
It puts reality out of tilme, 'and! puts relations in time. All relations
then are temporal. Time becomes an essential part of relation, and
has no effect whatever on reality. A gulf is fixed, into whose depths
we must explore.
It. is the existence of this gulf that should have given the realist-
ist pause. If relations are no part of reality, what are they ? Does
the real world produce existences which are not real? If it does
not, if relations are real, then that which changes can not be ex-
344 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
eluded from reality? If relations are excluded from reality, where
are they? It is admitted that we are discussing something which
has some kind, of existence. Relations in some sense "are," yet
reality is defined by excluding relations. Relations have then some
other kind of existence than do real things. They are put outdoors,
hut where is this outdoors? Also, exclusion is itself a relation.
Two men with a door between them are related by that fact. To
none of these questions has a satisfactory answer been given by the
realists. Most of them seem not to 'have noticed the difficulty. To
recent naturalism such reasoning is begging the question. Rela-
tions and things related are both real, therefore we need not concern
ourselves with moire fundamental questions. We need only to en-
quire into their connections with one another. But we can not allow
the realist to rest in thds naturalism. Asi a subordinate problem, the
connection of relations to things related has a place. But first we
must have some idea as to the general world in which both exist.
What our idea of that world is must affect our theory of relations.
We are therefore justified in pressing the question as to the meaning
of the kind of existence to be ascribed to relations. Are they real as
things are real? Are they unsubstantial imaginations or emana-
tions? Are they reflections of something in reality? Or are they
like the square root of a minus number, impossible existences ? The
realist must face these problems, which his definition raises.
'There is another problem which this definition forces upon us.
It is as old as the problem of the monads. If reality is what it is
apart from relations, how is it cemented together? Again, this is
not 'begging the question. That reality is cemented we agree, but
unless realism can account for that cement as an integral part of the
real world, we can not accept his theory. It is not possible to push
this use of the word cement and say that relations just tie together
what was before unrelated. Cement and mortar make possible a
brick wall only because the bricks are so made that they will hold
tight to the cement or mortar. Also, both cement and bricks are
equally real in the same world. The cement is not really the rela-
tion at all, but only another thing to be related or rather already
related by its nature and the nature of the bricks. So we must de-
mand of the realist some conception of the interconnections of real-
ity. He takes away relations as a modifying force, what does he put
in their place ? He can not be allowed to rest in the statement that
relations do connect but do not modify. If they can connect with-
out modifying, then that is because reality is so made. If they are
necessary to reality, as this hypothesis requires, necessary in order to
connect, and reality is so made that they can connect without chang-
ing it, then reality requires relations, and instead of being excluded
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 345
they are included in 1 reality. This is exactly the opposite of the
end the realist seeks. We are not to jump, however, to the con-
clusion that realism must therefore 'be rejected. We have been ex-
amining certain conclusions made necessary by his attempt to define
reality. It may be possible that if we retrace our steps we will find
a way around this deep gulf fixed between reality and relations.
From the beginning, we have based our deductions on the state-
ment that things as they really are are unmodified and unconsti-
tuted by the act of knowing. If we are to find a solution it will be
by retracing our steps to this point. This statement, as we have
seen, includes in its definition the conception of time. The alterna-
tive to this 1 is to so phrase our definition of reality that time is not
implied. If we do not implicate time in our definition we do not
include the necessity of change. This of course brings against us
the Bergsonians with their charge of the evil of a static world. A
static world is a world without change. Avoiding the use of the
concept ' ' change ' ' implies neither its presence nor its absence. The
world we seek to define is neither wholly static nor wholly in flux.
Both notions have place in reality tand neither should be excluded.
But neither should be made fundamental. So long as we do not use
reasoning which is applicable only to a static world we can rightfully
ignore the time element. What we seek is a definition that will not
require change in order to give it meaning. The bricks are what
they are whether or not they are ever built into a wall. They have
the characters that make that wall building possible, and we do not
need to define them in terms of a future. The present intention is
real enough to explain. It is not static, for it looks forward, but
neither is that future required to be or to come into existence.
There is 'a third possibility between a static world and a world in
complex flux. The realist is correct in saying that my knowing the
bricks does not create them nor change t)hem. When time relates
the bricks to the wall they fit into the wall without change. They
do this, however, because they are so made. Already they are re-
lated to that wall by the intention of the brick-maker. It is that
intention, and not the fact of my seeing them built into the wall,
that is the primary factor. Thus the elimination of time from the
definition of the real brick does not mean the ignoring of time.
Time itself comes in as one of the already existing relations.
It is not my purpose here to give a new definition of reality.
Much that the realist says in criticism of past and current idealism
is true, and we can not simply go back to the old idealism. Instead,
the realist needs to make that criticism thoroughgoing. He must
bring relations themselves into the real world. He has been too in-
tent on the thing known, as the idealist has been too intent on the
346 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
knower. Both points of view are needed. It will be well, however,
even though we do not reach a new definition, to indicate the direc-
tion in which we should go. What we find in life is a whole world.
Whether monistic or pluralist, whether coining into being at some
one moment of past time, or infinite in time, or continually receiv-
ing accretions, this world which we know the world we seek to
define and account for is a connected world. It is these connec-
tions with ourselves which primarily interest us. If we only find,
but do not modify, then the interest grows. The new thing did not
come forth from us ; we must go out and investigate it. Our interest
being primarily on the relations to us, and those relations certainly
part of the world we exist in, they must be included in our defini-
tion of reality. There is then no gulf between things and relations.
As we find them both together, we must leave them together. If we
do not assume time as fundamental we shall not expect that these
relations will modify our world. Neither can we conclude that
things force relations. Yet we can not sunder the two. It is not a
state of independence that we are studying, but of mutual de-
pendence.
If we put relations first in importance, we will solve some of our
problems. A direaim is not as real as our perceptions of our waking
moments; it has not as close connection with our actions and with
the content of those waking moments. A falsehood does not tell of
reality because it does not connect with what we find to be true. An
imaginary quantity in mathematics is not as real as the "real"
numbers, because it can not be connected as closely or as widely
with the rest of our world. Here we have consciously been using
the idea of time, for we have been speaking of verification, which is
a temporal concept. We have not, and shall not here attempt to
define reality, yet we see a way opening out. First of all we see that
there may be no fixed status of real and unreal. The character of
reality may be possessed in greater or less measure. It depends on
the character of its relations. The more those relations affect us, the
more completely we have to take account of them, the more real we
find this thing to be. Thus we find reality to be something which
is primarily related. If that were not of its nature, it would not
concern us.
Realism has a large part to play in its critical analysis. If it will
loose itself from its bondage to pragmatism, completely distinguish
between verification and definition, it can be of much help toward
a new definition of reality. But toward that new definition others
have also a part to play. The idealist, as well as men like Royce,
have worked toward this new light. If realism will lay aside its
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 347
polemic character, and base its construction on a non-polemic analy-
sis, it can correct defects and join in this new construction.
CHELSEA, MASS. GEORGE A. BARROW.
THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE THEORY OP
TYPES
"DECENT developments in mathematical logic have brought to
4- *> light a number of weaknesses in the views traditionally main-
tained by the Critical Philosophy. This is most notably true of
Kant'-s somewhat inconsistent theories of space and time, and his
notions with regard to infinity. It is safe to say that in these realms
the contentions of the Critique of Pure Reason have been disposed
of with what at least approaches finality. But important as such
criticisms may be, it is clear that there is no need to regard them as'
more than matters of detail. The Critical Philosophy might well
submit to revision in these as in other particulars, and yet refuse to
admit that its essential position had been invalidated. It is cer-
tainly true that the modern theory of the continuum, although it
may lead us to abandon the doctrines of the Transcendental Esthetic,
and of the Antinomy of Pure Reason, does not in any very obvious
or immediate way upset the thesis that the understanding makes
nature. But formal logic embodies an instrument whose scope goes
far beyond any mere rectification in detail of the outlines of the
Kantian Philosophy, and which casts the most serious doubt upon
the central contention of the critical method. This instrument is
the Theory of Types.
The Theory of Types was devised by Russell and Whitehead as
a basis for mathematical logic, in order to avoid the contradictions
which are encountered in elaborating the theory of assemblages, and
which seem to stand in the way of any rigorous exposition of the
principles of mathematics. The theory is approached by the dis-
cussion of a number of so-called "reflexive fallacies," such as that
of Burali Forti. Stated in negative terms, the principle by which
it is proposed to avoid these fallacies is that whatever involves all of
a collection must never be a member of that collection. For the
purpose of the present discussion there is no need to take up the
technical development of the theory. Our interest is rather to point
out its general relation to Epistemology. And of the cases cited
by Russell, that which most immediately suggests epistemological
considerations is naturally the paradox of Epimenides, where we
have immediately a proposition about propositions. According to
our negative principle the assertion that all Cretans are liars, if it
is to be significant, can not be a member of the collection of asser-
tions which are characterized by it. This condition is fulfilled by
348 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
importing the notion of the hierarchy of types, when it is pointed
out that the significant assertion that all assertions made by Cretans
are false must be of a higher type or order than the assertions which
are thus described. That is to say, we impose a certain limitation
upon the meaning of the word "all" as it is used in the assertion
that all assertions made by Cretans are false by making it apply only
to a certain determinate type of propositions, and not to all propo-
sitions without any restriction whatever. So in general we see that,
as Russell says, "whatever we suppose to be the totality of propo-
sitions, statements about this totality generate new propositions,
which on pain of contradiction must lie outside the totality. 1
Now it would seem that the Kantian Philosophy is necessarily
concerned with assertions about the totality of propositions. Kant
defines the task of the Critique of Pure Reason as being to determine
and define the realm of possible experience. And the realm of
possible experience can be nothing but the realm of all experience.
So it appears that we are here dealing with a totality. Further this
is a totality of propositions. We find that for Kant experience always
comes to us in the form of judgment. Judgment he defines as the
faculty of subsumption under rules. And this definition would
seem to amount to making judgment roughly equivalent to what
Russell calls assertion. The equivalence is only rough, because
Kant's definition of judgment carried with it a special reference to
the Aristotelian logic which is absent from the notion of assertion.
"With this difference, which from our point of view is not essential,
~we may say that the Kantian individual judgment as distinguished
from the general faculty of judgment, will coincide with the propo-
sition as understood by Russell. It will be the unit of assertion and
of experience. Thus it would appear that we may interpret the
contention of the Analytic of Judgment as being that all proposi-
tions have the properties a b c . . . . And the question at once arises
as to whether we have here an illegitimate totality.
It is clear that if we accept this formulation of the import of
the Analytic of Judgment as it stands, we find ourselves directly
confronted with a reflexive fallacy. But many statements whose
original form brings them into conflict with the principle of the
Theory of Types may be amended in such a way that they cease to
be objectionable. We have seen that this is brought about by
limiting the application of our universal assertion to a determinate
type of entities ; and thus our question is whether it is possible to
impose such a limitation upon Kant's assertion that all propositions
have the properties a & c .... To arrive at a decision it will be
i American Journal of Mathematics: vol. 30, p. 224.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 349
necessary to ask what is the general nature of the properties which
Kant ascribes to all propositions.
We find that an enumeration of these properties is arrived at in
the schematism of the categories, which itself is directly derived from
the Analytic of Conceptions. The schemata purport to be the con-
ditions under which the understanding can take up the perceptual
manifold and form the synthetic judgments which are characteristic
of all experience. The formulation of such rules is the peculiar
task of what Kant calls the transcendental, as opposed to general
or formal logic. We are told that general logic, even though it
offers us a list of predicables, is unable of itself directly to give us
rules for the operation of judgment, for the reason that it is formal
in the sense of abstracting from all content of knowledge. General
logic however is important as providing us with a guiding thread
for the deduction of the categories, serving thus as a basis for tran-
scendental logic. The distinctive features of this transcendental
logic are a metaphysical deduction designed to show that the cate-
gories are a priori on the ground that they correspond to the general
logical functions of thought as enumerated by formal logic, and also
a transcendental deduction designed to show that they are condi-
tions for the possibility of experience, which according to Kant
must be at once a priori and a posteriori. Both these points are of
great importance in making an estimate of the logical significance
of this system of philosophy. For the moment we are concerned
only with the transcendental deduction. This essentially consists
in pointing out that the categories are the rules or conditions under
which the original synthetic unity of apperception, the "I think"
which must accompany all our ideas, can and must function in ex-
perience. In other words we have here a set of conditions for or
expressions of what Bosanquet would call the standing affirmative
judgment of the waking consciousness. Thus we see that the list
of categories is for Kant an exhibition of the entire field of knowl-
edge as such. Kant in effect asserts that knowledge, or as Bosanquet
would prefer to say, consciousness, actually consists on its formal
side as opposed to its material side, of a mechanism which is de-
cribed in the doctrine of the categories.
This at once enables us to find the required interpretation of the
assertion that all propositions have the properties a & c .... For
these properties, which are exhibited in their final transformation
and determination in the schematism, now appear as properties of
knowledge in general. Thus when Kant in effect asserts that all
propositions have the properties a & c ... he is asserting that all
propositions have the properties of knowledge as worked out in the
Transcendental Deduction and the Schematization of the Categories.
350 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Now it is clear that this makes it quite impossible to impose any such
limitation upon the notion of all propositions as the Theory of Types
would demand. We can not now interpret the assertion as being
to the effect that all propositions of type n have the properties
a & c .... For we are now dealing with knowledge in general or
knowledge as such, that is with all propositions without any restric-
tion. And so it would appear that the central theory of the Critique
of Pure Eeason is based upon a reflexive fallacy.
There are various objections to this criticism, which we may now
consider. First it may be said that since the Theory of Types is
nothing but a highly special logical expedient, it can not be the
basis for a general objection to a position such as that of Kant.
Second, and more generally, it may be said that since the Theory of
Types is purely formal in character, it possesses at most only an
indirect epistemological significance. This second objection will be
examined (a.) with special reference to Kant himself, (6) with
reference to later Idealism.
With regard to the first point, it has already been seen that the
Theory of Types was elaborated as a basis for mathematical logic in
order to avoid certain breaches of the principle of contradiction
which are exemplified in the vicious circle paradoxes. But this is
very far from foreclosing the supposition that it might be possible
to find various other expedients which would give us the same result.
Whether these would be so convenient in practise, or so consonant
with common sense, is a matter which is of no importance for the
present discussion. The point is that the paradoxes could be re-
solved by methods other than that of the Theory of Types. Thus,
for example, it might even be possible to deal with the problem by
working with a set of postulates for logic which would involve a
limitation or denial of the principle of contradiction, though this
would be an extreme case. And it might be argued that if we admit
that the Theory of Types is not a sine qua non for formal logic, we
are not justified in criticizing the Kantian Philosophy on the ground
that it offends against the .fundamental principle of that theory.
For it may be said that it is absurd to demand that a general system
of philosophy shall stand or fall by its consonance with a theory
which is not indispensable even in its own sphere. But the imme-
diate reply is that even though we may substitute something else
for the Theory of Types, this is very far from dissipating the prob-
lem which is presented by the vicious circle paradoxes. Naturally
if we adopt some other basis for mathematical logic the solution of
the paradoxes will undergo various appropriate transformations.
But the problem which they exemplify will certainly not cease to
exist, and will still have to be considered. And the logical difficulty
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 351
which the Theory of Types exhibits in the Kantian Philosophy,
though it will be expressed in different terms, will nevertheless still
remain.
We now come to our second point, for it may be said that in any
case purely formal considerations, however important in their own
sphere, can have no more than an indirect significance for the theory
of knowledge, and that this constitutes a rebuttal of our criticism.
(a) With regard to Kant himself this is certainly not the case.
It has already been remarked in effect that the Metaphysical Deduc-
tion is an essential moment in the Kantian Philosophy. Now the
Metaphysical Deduction is an explicit postulation of the identity
of the formal and the a priori. And the Transcendental Deduction
takes the matter up at this point, and shows that the a priori is nec-
essary for all experience. Experience for Kant is always a union
of the a priori with the a posteriori, and is always exemplified in
judgments which are at once analytic and synthetic. Thus the
Kantian thesis amounts to the attribution of certain formal prop-
erties to all experience. Clearly this statement itself either possesses
some formal character or it does not. If it does not, it is simply
not a matter of possible experience in the Kantian sense. And this
could only mean that it is a sort of direct mystical intuition, when
it constitutes a direct and immediate contravention of Kant's own
leading thesis. If it does possess a formal character, then it involves
a formal reflexive fallacy. Thus it would seem that the only way of
escaping from the admission that it comes within the scope of the
Theory of Types as part of a formal science, to criticize such a posi-
tion as that of Kant, is to say that Kant himself transgresses his
own central principle in its very enunciation.
(6) With regard to modern Idealism, or more specifically, Eng-
lish Idealism, the case seems at first sight somewhat different. Here
we find a strong reaction against the technical mechanism of Kant.
And it must be admitted that by this means the school in question
has been able to do away with a number of obvious difficulties which
have been found in the Critique of Pure Reason. For instance, it is
relieved of the impossible task of formulating an adequate list of
predicables. And in general the whole system becomes much more
elastic and manageable. But this is not enough to save it from the
reproach of moving in a vicious circle. While a logical theory such
as that of Bosanquet or Bradley largely amounts on the negative
side to a protest against pure formal logic, it by no means abandons
all the formal side of experience. Indeed, it explicitly refuses to
take refuge in intuitionism. Instead of giving up the concepts of
formal logic, it retains and seeks to interpret them. Thus it would
seem to be open to the same objections as were urged against Kant.
352 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
For here too we find the same type of universal assertion to which
exception is taken. When we find Bosanquet agreeing with Schopen-
hauer that ''the world is my idea," defining judgment as the at-
tribution of a content to reality, regarded as an intellectual con-
struct, or saying that the world is in the mind rather than the mind
in the world, we are in the presence of philosophy which distinctly
involves assertions about all knowledge or all propositions. We see
the same thing in the hysteron proteron argument with which T. H.
Green opens the Prolegomena to Ethics, which is highly character-
istic of this school, and which once more commits philosophy to
assertions about the whole of knowledge. And since this philosophy
at the same time insists upon the formal, or better the discursive
character of all experience, we have vicious circle fallacies appear-
ing at the very center of the system, which in spite of their formal
character can not be ignored, because the system itself necessarily
has its formal aspect.
In summing up, it is clear that this criticism has more than a
merely historical interest. Many elements in the Kantian discus-
sions have passed into the common stock of philosophical ideas, and
the influence of the Critical Philosophy, whether direct or indirect,
is apparent in almost all later speculation. Thus any far-reaching
criticism of Kant is of high systematic interest, and without taking
the matter up in detail it may be noted that three important points
arise immediately from what has been said. First the Critical
Philosophy, with its notion of a whole of analytic-synthetic experi-
ence, is based upon a reflexive fallacy from which there is no
escape. Second, the only philosophy which can speak of the whole
of experience without such a contradiction being created is that
philosophy which abandons the entire notion of a logical element in
all valid knowledge, that is to say, pure Intuitionalism. And third,
this logical difficulty is not encountered by Phenomenology, which
can and presumably must limit itself to the inspection of various
types or species of experience in detail. What the issue of this last
adventure will be, only the event can decide.
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. JAMES L. MuRSELL.
The Present Conflict of Ideals: A Study of the Philosophical Back-
ground of the War. RALPH BARTON PERRY. New York : Long-
mans, Green and Company. 1918. Pp. xiii + 549.
The obvious thing to say albout Perry's volume is that it is made
up of two books. Chapters I.-XXV. (380 pp.) constitute a per-
spective of ante-bellum philosophies and philosophical tendencies
353
which is affected Iby the fact of the war in only a faintly incidental
fashion. Chapters XXVI.-XXXV., beginning with "The Philoso-
phy of Nationality" and following with discussions of German,
French, English and American philosophical expressions, are war-
inspired and form a consistent and unified treatise. From Perry's
introduction I assume that this broken-backed effect is not due to
intention. There he says and the saying is a wise one that "the
age after the war will be a new age; not so much because the map
of Europe will be changed, but rather because the map of the
human mind will ibe changed);" and he goes on to outline his pur-
pose: "I should like to be able to construct a world-map of con-
victions, creeds, ideas, like the maps which the ethnologists make
showing the distribution of racial types in Europe ; or like the maps
economists make to show the distribution of the corn-crop. I should
like to make a map with intellectual and moral meridians, with de-
grees of latitude, trade-routes of thought, and great capitals of
faith." /This reads well, and one regrets that the author did not
keep such a project clear in the eye in planning his (book which
certainly most fumblingly answers such intention. The cause of
the fumlbling is revealed in the preface where we are told that the
order of the first part of the book follows that of Present Philosoph-
ical Tendencies so that "the two books may be used together."
This is rather 'dismal: a man may surely be allowed to forget his
folio 'd past, however discreet, and Ibe thankful to the reader who,
in such an hour as ours, will pay attention to the book in hand.
But, reviewer's privilege though it be, it is ungracious to find
fault with the manner in which a service is performed if the service
be a real one; and a real service, it is a pleasure to say, Professor
Perry has rendered. For in whatever projection it be drawn, a
map of contemporary speculation is bound to !be full of, suggested
excursions and tarryings, tours among books and adventures with
ideas, provided the map-maker tie, as is Perry, gifted with an entire
curiosity and provided with voluminous information. Indeed, it
will be an inattentive reader who will not margin the pages of The
Present Conflict with notes and point them with interrogations
and this, surely, in philosophy means a successful book.
In what I must inescapably call Part I. of the book (though it
has no such typographical demarcation) the projection employed is,
quite pardonaibly, the neo-realist. Materialism, socialism, evolution-
ism, panpsychism, optimism, absolutism, pluralism, (pragmatism,
vitalism, and a score of other contagions of the mind (why weren't
they all called) -itis, I wonder?) are passed in more or less hapless
review before at last there rolls into sight the triumphal car of the
New Realism, moving forward with a snap and a click and the
354 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
glitter of finality. The key-idea (something between a principle and
a crotchet) which gives a really fine consistency to this part of the
book is the author's notion of a warfare between faith and science.
Thus : ' ' Science is no respecter of persons. Its task is to reveal the
common clay, the identical mechanism, the general forces, which
underlie the superficial pageantry of life" (p. 103) ; ''Although in
some cases science has seemed to reinstate and confirm the tra-
ditional moral code it has invariably [so 'tis writ! ' invariably M]
discredited the metaphysical and religious foundations on which that
code is ordinarily supposed to rest" (p. 173) ; "It is possible to use
pragmatism simply for the purpose of getting rid of the menace of
science, and then to restore to the old authorities the claims which
they enjoyed! before the modern scientific movement 'discredited
them" (p. 298) ; "Bergsonism, like idealism in the last century,
has gained 1 miscellaneous adherents who have 'been driven into its
camp by the .common fear of materialism. There is always an army
of such refugees ready to accept the leadership of any champion
who at the time promises to save them from this formidable menace"
(p. 348). And finally: "The realist assumes that philosophy is a
kind of knowledge, and neither a song nor a prayer nor a dream"
(p. 368). Yes, the theme moves forward with the sweep of a
crescendo, and terminates, as I have suggested, with a fine eclat.
And yet
Why will these (beastly qualifications everlastingly intrude to
stem the tide of our admirations! It is nothing to me that in
punishing his opponents Perry takes every advantage that the bias
of epithet can give (though I do own some curiosity as to just how
that particular bias is to be eventually logieastered) ; epithet is good
ad Iwminem: "let the galled jade wince!" Nor am I disturbed by
the fact that his openness of mind and the fullness of the display of
his properties seem to have something of the same candor that
marks the prestidigitateur opening his performance with an appeal
to public inspection; for, after all, this is rather flattering to the
reader, and it has the further advantage of relieving one from the
assumption of an impossible naivete on the part of an author who
can first reproach Bergson with ' ' the discipleship of every man with
an intuition," and! then go gravely on to expound Bergsonism qua
system. These are mere incidents of the descent into controversial
style, which no author need 'disclaim and no reader need resent.
But there is an aspect of the matter, and not wholly remote from
these just mentioned, which gives me pause.
No one can mistake the entire sincerity with which Professor
Perry expresses his adherence to democratic principles, of which he
shows in his final chapters in particular a most admirable under-
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 355
standing; nor can one doubt the sincerity of his belief that the New
Realism sustains democracy. And yet the qualification recurs
his whole point of view is obviously that of an intellectual aristocrat,
whose aristocracy, moreover, is no accidental attribute of his intel-
lectualism. I do not think that I mistake in putting the author in
the ranks of those who "incline to accept a double religion: for the
enlightened the disillusioned exercise of reason and imagination;
for the vulgar such wholesome illusions as the enlightened shall
select for them" (p. 44) ; and no one can miss the aristocratic
animus on pp. 294 f. : "The Intellect is regarded by many as un-
pleasantly exclusive and undemocratic. It refuses to let everybody
in. Intellectualism reserves knowledge for specially qualified per-
sons." Etc., etc. The truth in this is not particularly damaging
to democracy in philosophies which recognize other types of value
than the intellectualistic ; but for a philosophy which processes to
be wholly rationalistic, it leads directly to that conceit of superior-
ity in which no democracy can thrive : and it is no -departure from
caution to say that the most -of Professor Perry's discourse moves
in an atmosphere of conscious classi-superiority. Of course this is
not a sin of morality; it is the perfectly legitimate consequence of
an hypertrophied intellectualism ; but when it is accompanied by a
profession obviously sincere of a belief; in democracy, and by an
understanding obviously sound of whiat 'democracy stands for, then
it becomes a sin of the intellect or, at least, a psychological puzzle.
It is this last which I have accepted. After all, Deo gratias!
philosophers are men; and utter consistency, making a machine of
him, would spoil any man's charm. Perry has far too much both
of charm and sense to be less than human. Being human and right-
mindedliy American, he is a 'democrat, and he twists his intellectual-
ism to the support of his ideals with as brave a will to believe as any
disciple of James ought to have. Of course he is not conscious 1 of
this (quick though he is to see the twist of 'desire in others') . Why?
"Who knows! In the brief editorial preface to the striking recent
number of the Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale, commemorating
the fourth centenary of the Reform, a keen Gallic apothegm caught
my eye, "Un philosophe, au fond de son coeur, reste toujours un peu
theologien." Perhaps this is in part the explanation of Professor
Perry's psychology. For I suspect him of; sternly Puritan and
grimly Calvinistic ancestry, and the stock does not readily dete-
riorate.
By all the rules of letters my review is done, but I am tempted
none the less to add a codicil to my judgment, touching the crux of
Realistic philosophy (Neo-brand) and therefore the core of the
356 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Eealists' psychology. The crux (as they themselves express it) is the
"externality of relations" theory. Now this theory is obviously
true in so far as it amounts to the assertion that there are describable
objects in the world that A is A, a spade a spade, and euphemism
the worst form of lying. As Aristotle remarks, if he is to reason at
all a man must say something which is significant both to himself
and another a truth which Perry quite happily generalizes : ' ' Hu-
man intercourse is based upon the fact that normally human pro-
fessions can be taken at their face value" (p. 15). But the Realists
do not stop here; they go on to talk about "independence" and
"indifference," meaning, as I gather, that the cosmic politics and
manners of entia (for 'tis to politics and manners that the terms
apply) are marked by these traits; and they infer therefrom the
itemization of knowledge ("knowing as we go," Perry puts it) and
the compartmental seclusion of truths. It is perfectly evident that
this notion goes by the board when the affairs of morals are the con-
cern. Of independence, taken in its humane sense, Perry says (with
entire justice) : "The cause of liberty is saved neither by those who
break it down nor by those who exalt it, but by those who limit its
action and use it well" (p. 519) ; and again he justly says: "The
surest guide of conduct is the happiness and well-being of sentient
humanity" (p. 536). In other words, law, which expresses depend-
ence, and humanity, conceived as a consentient collectivity, are the
normal frames of moral reasoning. There is no possibility of "in-
dependence" or "indifference" or of "knowing as you go" here;
the best you can do is to experiment with imperfection, and experi-
ment socially, in collaboration. Perry remarks, in re Bergson (p.
348) that the morals of Bergson 's philosophy are yet to write; the
same is true of the New Realism : the moral code which the Realists
profess belongs to the individuals through Calvinist ancestry, or what
not rather than to any cogency of rational relationship. One feels,
indeed, that Realism has "externalized" morals out of all relation to
the intellect, as it knows' the intellect and that means that it misses
being alive. It is, in fact, but a closet philosophy ; it never looks na-
ture full in the face, but, having had its origin in a concern about
method, it can not get out into the reality it covets. Naturalism it
never is and can not even define ("by naturalism I mean such phi-
losophy as grows directly out of the methods or results of the phys-
ical sciences," says Perry [p. 7]) ; and it reasons smoothly only in
the chiaroscuro of a half-closed apartment or of a sedate club corner
as if deprecating the light like Matebranche 's Theodore: "But
draw the curtains. The full light of day would incommode us, and
give perhaps a too great brightness to certain objects. ..."
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA. H. B. ALEXANDER.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 357
JOURNALS AND NEW BOOKS
RIVISTA DI FILOSOFIA NEO-SCOLASTICA. June, 1918.
II Processo di Socrate (pp. 241-268) : F. KIESOW. -The best account
of Socrates 's condemnation is given by Plato in his Apology. L'or-
dine artistico (pp. 269-285) : M. DE WULF. -The pleasure caused by
a work of art is due to the elements of unity and multiplicity har-
moniously combined. Mazzini filosofo (pp. 286-294) : FRANCESCO
OLGIATI. - A study of the life and of the political ideals of Giuseppe
Mazzini. L'assolutezza delle massime morali (pp. 295-307) : U. A.
PADOVANL - Moral law is one and immutable in so far as God is con-
cerned. For us, however, it varies according to times and circum-
stances. Analise d'opere. George A. Coe, The Psychology of Reli-
gion: A. GEMELLI. E. Peillaube, L 'introduction de la scolastique
dans I'enseignement secondaire: A. GEMELLI. Alessandro Levi, Bib-
liografia filosofica italiana: A. GEMELLI. Aristotele, Politica: LEON-
IDA BIANCHI. Luigi Perego, I nuovi valori del diritto penale. F.
Kiesow, II daimonion di Socrate: A. LEVI. Notiziario.
Parker, G. H. The Elementary Nervous System. Monographs on
Experimental Biology. Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippin-
cott Co. 1919. Pp. 229. $2.50.
Sorley, W. R. Moral Values and the Idea of God. Cambridge : The
University Press. New York : G. P. Putnams Sons. 1919. Pp.
xix + 534. $500.
NOTES AND NEWS
DEWEY 'S LECTURES IN JAPAN
IN the months of February and March Professor John Dewey de-
livered a course of eight lectures at the Imperial University at
Tokyo on "Problems of Philosophic Reconstruction." The following
is the syllabus prepared for the audience to which the lectures were
addressed. We understand the lectures are to be printed in Japan-
ese. It is to be hoped that Professor Dewey will publish them in Eng-
lish at his earliest convenience.
LECTURE I
CONFLICTING IDEAS AS TO THE MEANING OF PHILOSOPHY
I.
The Origins of Philosophy. 1. Since man is primarily a being of
desire and imagination, his primary beliefs spring from his hopes and
358 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
fears, successes and failures, rather than from observation ; they are
poetic and religious, rather than scientific. 2. These ideas when
fixed and organized under community tradition and authority be-
came the material out of which philosophy developed.
II.
Positive or Matt er-of -Fact Knowledge. 1. Information regard-
ing nature, and the natural conditions and consequences of human
acts, is necessary to life. This knowledge grows up around the prac-
tical arts which give to man the use of the natural environment. 2.
After a time the incongruity between this knowledge and the body
of emotional beliefs is so great, that some reconciliation is sought for.
Then philosophy proper arises. This fact is illustrated in the de-
velopment of both Greek, medieval, and modern German philosophies.
Matter-of-fact knowledge is (i) specific, limited, hard and cold; (ii)
accurate and quantitative, and useful; and (iii) consists of tested
facts; while poetic and traditional beliefs are (i) universal and com-
prehensive; (ii) qualitative, vague, but socially fundamental; and
(iii) concerned with meanings and values rather than with facts.
Hence arise
III.
The Chief Traits of Classic Philosophy. It is (i) apologetic and
"compensatory"; (ii) formal and rigorously systematic, or dialec-
tical; (iii) concerned with the difference between absolute, universal
Reality and Knowledge and that which is relative, partial and em-
pirical.
IV.
The Newer Idea of Philosophy. This (i) recognizes the impos-
sibility of reconciling the traditional beliefs with modern scientific
developments, and (ii) recognizes the origin of philosophic questions
and interests in social conflict and needs, and hence conceives of
philosophy as an organ or instrument of social direction.
LECTURE II
KNOWLEDGE AS CONTEMPLATIVE AND ACTIVE
I.
Contemplative Philosophy. 1. Man forms pictures of an ideal
world by conceiving a state of things in which only the satisfactory
or complete exists. Reflection analyzes the features of such a world,
and finds them to be permanence, unity and harmony, and thus
creates a noumenal real-ideal realm of being. Plato. 2. In contrast,
the existent and evil empirical world is one of multiplicity, partiality
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 359
and change. The primary function of philosophy is to lead the mind
from belief in this world to contemplation of the ideal-real world.
This contemplation leaves the phenomenal world unchanged, but
assimilates the mind to true Reality. Aristotle's theory of true
knowledge and its influence.
II.
Active Philosophy. 1. Its " realistic" phase consists in willing-
ness to study and to take into account existing facts, regarded as
obstacles and means in achieving desired changes. They are not
treated as things to be escaped from nor yet to be acquiesced in.
Direction of change is the great problem. 2. Its "idealistic" phase
consists in cultivating suggestions, ideas, or ideal possibilities and
meanings as methods and plans for transforming and improving
existing conditions. Forecast of a better future is the pragmatic
substitute for the noumenal world in contemplative philosophy.
Ideal meanings are thus not separate or ultimate, but are instru-
mental and need to be tested by consequences.
III.
The Special Function of Active Philosophy. While the function
of all knowledge is to rectify troubles, that of the sciences is tech-
nical, while that of philosophy is social and human or moral. Why
knowledge is objective, impersonal and universal. Philosophy is
comprehensive and ultimate in the moral sense of going below prej-
udices, traditions and purposes which divide classes, races and peo-
ples and trying to discover moral adjustments.
LECTURE III
SOCIAL CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHIC RECONSTRUCTION
The two previous lectures have dealt with the contrast of the
classic and the modern conceptions of the nature and function of
philosophy. The next two consider the reasons for the growth of the
newer point of view, the present one dealing with the more general
historical and social factors, the next with the more special scientific
factors.
I.
The Philosophy of Francis Bacon. This may be taken as exem-
plifying the transition from the classic to the modern point of view.
It had for its chief features the ideas that: 1. Knowledge is power,
not contemplation. Yet this knowledge is obtained only by "obey-
ing nature," not by "anticipating" her. 2. This knowledge can be
360 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
obtained only through cooperative and organized research, not by
mere individual ability which results only in disputations or orna-
mental knowledge. 3. The end of knowledge is the relief and im-
provement of the human estate.
II.
Social Factors in This Point of View. 1. Industrial, matter-of-
fact activity and invention had reached a point where the idea of
constant 'and systematic progress through control of natural forces
was possible. Travel, exploration, discovery of a new world. 2. The
beginning of the break-down of feudal class divisions, and the rise of
national states with a corresponding release of the individual from
the bonds of custom. The contract theory of the origin of the state.
3. The beginnings of freedom of criticism and conscience in matters
of religious belief and worship. Belief in the power of Reason and
Thought was transferred from the conception of the formation of the
Universe at large to concrete things and human institutions. Ide-
alism ceased to be cosmic and objective and became in Bacon's suc-
cessors individual and subjective.
LECTURE IV
MODERN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHIC RECONSTRUCTION
The growth of science since the seventeenth century has revolu-
tionized our ideas of (I.) Nature and (II.) the Method of Knowing.
I.
The Contrast as to Nature. 1. The classic view, formulated by
Aristotle and adopted by medieval thought, held (1) that nature is a
closed whole, finite, and composed of parts qualitatively different,
and arranged in a hierarchy of higher and lower; and (2) that there
are a definite number of fixed classes or species, each having its own
immutable form which controls its movements and growth, so that
(3) individuals which change and perish are real only as members
of fixed and universal classes. 2. The modern view asserts (1) the
infinity, uniformity and homogeneity of Nature, thus substituting a
democracy of elements for an aristocracy of classes, (2) that motion
and change are more important than fixity and (3) the universal
subordinate to individuals.
II.
The Contrast as to Method of Knowing. 1. Classic method em-
phasized the importance of definition, demonstration, and syllogistic
reasoning the inclusion of particulars within the conception of the
class. Sense perception was knowledge of perishing particulars and
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 361
had to be subsumed under the rational knowledge of conceptions. 2.
Modern science is interested in inquiry and discovery rather than
proof, and hence insists upon experimental analysis of all sense ob-
servations, and the experimental verification of all general ideas
which are regarded as only hypotheses till verified by experimental
production of individuals. Control of change is both the object and
the test of knowing. Pragmatically, infinity is equivalent to pos-
sibility of indefinite progress.
III.
Effect upon Philosophy. For a considerable period, the effect of
the change was limited to physical matters and hence was technical
and industrial rather than humane and moral; or, in the latter
region, the influence was skeptical rather than constructive. Now the
influence is extended to the moral and social.
LECTURE V
THE CHANGED CONCEPTION OF EXPERIENCE AND REASON
I.
Earlier History of the Notion of Experience. 1. To Plato and
Aristotle, experience meant an accumulation and gradual organiza-
tion of a multitude of particular acts and perceptions into a kind
of practical insight and ability, like that of the builder or physician.
The "empirical" versus the scientific. 2. The early modern, Brit-
ish, notion of experience was under the influence of sensational psy-
chology, and eliminated all traits of organization save those supplied
by casual association and blind habit. It was a powerful tool of
skeptical criticism, but was impotent for construction.
II.
The Earlier History of the Notion of Reason. It was framed to
meet the weaknesses in the current idea of experience. 1. To the
Greek philosophers, Reason was the faculty of insight into the uni-
versal, the law, cause or principle, which was the only source of sci-
entific explanation and demonstration and of sure direction of con-
duct. Historically, this "rationalism" became formal, the source
of neglect of empirical observation, and the originator of a pseudo-
science of simplification and abstraction: "rationalization" as ex-
plaining away and covering up. 2. Kant responded to the sensa-
tionalistic idea of experience with the theory that Reason is a
faculty of organizing the chaotic details of experience through a
priori fixed concepts as categories. Effects in developing absolutism
of thought and action in Germany.
362 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
III.
Recent Ideas of Experience and Reason. 1. Modern psychology
has destroyed the sensational notion by bringing out, under bio-
logical influence, the active and motor factors in experience. Ex-
perience is doing, trying, and sensations are clews to adjustive be-
havior which modifies the environment. Experimental method has
destroyed ancient empiricism by emphasizing projection and in-
vention instead of accumulations from the past. Reason thus be-
comes Intelligence the power of using past experience to shape and
transform future experience. It is constructive and creative.
LECTURE VI
THE RECONSTRUCTION AS AFFECTING LOGIC
The problem of logical theory is important because it involves
the question of the possibility of intelligent method in determining
man's attitude toward his environment, both natural and social.
Logic has to be rescued from abstract formalism on one side and from
sterile epistemology on the other. Reconstruction emphasizes :
I.
The Connection of Thinking with Behavior. 1. Thinking origi-
nates from problems and perplexities, and these arise in conflicts.
The intellectual as distinct from the emotional solution of conflicts
involves a technique of observation, hypothesis forming and testing,
ratiocination, etc. 2. The function of thinking is to develop meth-
ods of, dealing with specific situations; the "idea" is a hypothetical
plan of action to be tested by consequences. 3. Science or disinter-
ested inquiry is an indispensable form of practise ; meaning of think-
ing for thinking's sake.
II.
Inductive and Deductive Aspects of Method. Their traditional
separation resulted from the traditional separation of experience
and reason; hence they are now to be treated as mutually comple-
mentary. 1. Induction comes at the beginning cf a complete in-
quiry, for experimental observation is needed to analyze the con-
ditions which constitute a problem, and also to test the theory or
hypothesis. 2. Deduction is indispensable as the intermediate step
of developing an intelligent method. Abstraction liberates ; general-
ization extends and applies; system, classification, prepares an
orderly set of instrumentalities, ready in advance for dealing with
emergencies as they arise.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 363
III.
The Conception of Truth. This is a consequence rather than a
foundation of other logical features. From the instrumental char-
acter of reflection it follows that only theories, ideas, can be true
or false, and can be true or false not in themselves but in their ap-
plication or use. The mark of consistency has to do with the deduc-
tive development which works out an applicable conception; corre-
spondence is practical, not epistemological.
LECTURE VII
THE RECONSTRUCTION AS AFFECTING ETHICS AND EDUCATION
I.
Goods and Ends are Specific and Active, not General and Static.
1. Each situation requiring action has its own good depending upon
its peculiar needs and conditions. Comprehensive and general ends
are of value as instruments of better insight into these specific situ-
ations; similarly, principles and standards are tools of analysis and
understanding, rather than direct rules of conduct. The effect of
the doctrine of the plurality of unique goods is to increase respon-
sibility of intelligence ; to decrease formalism, moral dogmatism and
Phariseeism. 2. Ends and goods are within each situation, not ex-
ternal. An aim or purpose is a working hypothesis for directing
the development of a situation, and is tested by consequences.
Hence ends themselves are developing, not fixed. An ideal is a
sense of the possibilities of a situation, and is of value only as in-
spiring action and directing for ameliorating its evils; meliorism as
compared with optimism and pessimism. Happiness is found not in
possession or fixed attainment, but in the active process of striving,
overcoming and succeeding ; failures are to be turned to account, and
are not incompatible with moral happiness.
II.
Value and Defects of Utilitarianism. It 'has the merits and
defects of a transition from one point of view to another. It made
the end and good, natural and social, and subordinated law to ends.
But in resolving happiness into a mass of pleasures it was made
something fixed and uniform in quality, and something to be ac-
quired and possessed. Thus utilitarianism emphasized security of
acquisition and possession rather than power and security in cre-
ative achievement.
III.
Effect on Education. Education comes to foe regarded, accord-
ingly, as not only the method by which moral and social ends are
realizable, but as identical with the end, namely, growth and devel-
364 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
opment. The purpose and test of social institutions is their edu-
cative effect, while education, in its narrower sense, becomes the
primary method of social progress.
LECTURE VIII
RECONSTRUCTION AS AFFECTING SOCIAL. PHILOSOPHY
From the conclusion that the moral test of institutions is their
educative effect there follow other conclusions of importance for
social philosophy.
I.
Relation of Individual and Social. The three historic theories
of subordination of individual, subordination of social, and "or-
ganic" relationship suffer from the same error. They regard in-
dividual or social as fixed, given ready-made, instead of as devel-
oping and therefore as objects to be continuously worked out. When
the individual self is treated as isolated and fixed, social arrange-
ments can only be external means to its pleasures or possessions.
But in fact institutions, legislation, administration, etc., are nec-
essary to the release and operation of the capacities that form the
individual. Society also means not a fixed organization, but re-
ciprocal and growing sharing or communication of experience. Or-
ganization is subordinate to association. The political state is only
one of a numiber of forms of association, each having its distinctive
value. The state is instrumental rather than final.
II.
Relation of Rights and Duties, or Freedom and Law. Neither is
ultimate, because both are conditions of effective furtherance of a
community of experiences, of common ends and values. Unless
all the capacities of the individual are liberated and used, society
is static and impoverished. Personality develops only through as-
suming of responsibility, and responsibility is limited except as
persons have a share in deciding the matters that are of ultimate
importance at the given time. Law is a statement of the order
upon which fruitful association depends. British "Individualism"
made liberty an end in itself, and German Political Philosophy
made Law and the State absolute.
III.
Religious Aspect of Reconstruction. As the changes described
take deeper hold on emotional disposition and imagination, they
get a religious coloring ; till this happens, the classic philosophy will
seem to have the advantage in ideality. Religious value of person-
ality and of the community; place of Nature.
VOL. XVI, No. 14. JULY 3, 1919
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS
THE DEFECT OF CURRENT DEMOCRACY
DEMOCRACY, the notion most loved 'by the modern occidental,
the faith to which we are without reservation committed
dare we suspect in it aught of imperfection?
Yet it must be remembered that when the emotions are deeply
engaged, then more than ever is dispassionate reflection needed.
And especially so here: for the term in question, like the ideals it
reveres, is no static one. Its application is reaching far beyond its
birthplace, politics; democracy, as to-day conceived, is an all-per-
vading spirit, a philosophy of life, to most of us indeed the synonym
of the all-good. By its standards we adjudge merit in the most
diverse fields; we praise a leader for his democratic manners, we
brand as undemocratic an educational project, we reject the older
conception of God as an autocrat, art and literature we insist must
become democratic if they are to endure and so on. And in all
this how ambiguous is the word! The United' States government,
some of us believe, is the only true form of democracy; the Bolshe-
vists say the same of their own system ; free competition in industry,
and state ownership, alike claim the title. A recent writer declares
that democracy is not representative government, nor government
by majority, nor equal suffrage, saying "We have not even a con-
ception of what democracy means; that conception is yet to be
forged out of the crude ore of life" (M. P. Follett, The New State,
p. 3). When a notion so profoundly influential is thus contradic-
torily interpreted, it appears to be high time to put it through a
sifting process. The fact is that men take democracy as a cherished
emlblem; they set up what they believe to be the ethical and social
good and call it by the sacred] name. And it would almost seem as
if these ideals had little in common save their opposition to aris-
tocracy.
It is of course profitless to enter upon a verbal discussion; it
does not matter which definition has the first right to the term. We
wish to lea/rn what is the ethical and social ideal that does justice to
the needs of human nature, and whether or not current interpreta-
tions of democracy adequately provide for these needs. And in order
to ascertain this we must bring to light those needs, those ideals, whose
365
366 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
satisfaction is essential to man's successful prosecution of his va-
rious activities. What ideals have governed men's procedure in
science, in art, in religion, in morals, etc f And if our inquiry would
be fundamental, reaching to the very roots of human nature, it must
be a broad one, covering as many of these fields as possible ; we
shall however, for reasons of space, here restrict ourselves to the
fields of science, religion, morals, and education. Probably these will
afford a basis broad enough tor safe generalization.
What ideals, so far as an outsider can judge, have the scientists
followed in their work? The scientific attitude seems to be that of
free inquiry or empiricism. Nothing is prejudged : a fair field and
no favor, for all facts alike. In contrast with theology, which is
interested inquiry, science is disinterested inquiry. Every fact is
to be recorded, every hypothesis to be allowed a hearing, all to be
tested equally. This is the spirit of induction of the ' ' true Baconian
principles" upon which Darwin declared that he had worked. Is
this motive of equality then the essence of the scientific point of
view? Clearly it is no more than half the story. Recording of all
facts without discrimination of important from unimportant would
be stupidity. Some are to be selected, others neglected. Scientific
skill, it would appear, is conditioned by the knowledge how to dis-
tinguish. Nay more, it consists in forsaking at times the spirit of
disinterested inquiry, and selecting such facts as will prove a certain
hypothesis; in active looking for a certain type of fact more than
for other types. Unless one becomes enamored of a theory he will
hardly find all the evidence for it; unless he heartily dislikes an-
other he will not easily discover all the evidence against that. Dis-
interested inquiry, so necessary in the inductive state, must later be
replaced by interested;, even prejudiced inquiry. Of course it is
only at a certain stage that this is necessary. But note that it is at
the interesting, the progressive stage, when explanations begin to
dawn upon the inquirer, that this motive of preference is necessary.
In other ways too preference and selection are unavoidable. One
must discard certain hypotheses out of hand, as not worth entertain-
ing; and according to his degree of expertness, is one able to reject
without trial more and more of the possible explanations that sug-
gest themselves. Also, of those that would pass the tests, one chooses
the most fertile. The principle of economy compels us to prefer the
theory that will account for the greatest number of facts: whose
deductive power is greatest. In the free competition of facts and
theories which constitutes the growth of science, some facts and some
theories are so superior that they will have their way, and progress
in science lies in recognizing this difference. Besides the motive of
equality, then, which controls the inductive side, we find that the
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 367
counter-motive of distinction, which controls the deductive aspect;
and the latter, while 'by no means more necessary, is more fertile for
advancement. For it is preeminently by the ability to distinguish
relevant fact from irrelevant, fruitful theory from unfruitful, and
by the fecundity of his imagination, that the discoverer in science is
known. Creative genius emphasizes distinction.
Treating 1 now of science as a body of doctrine, let us consider the
relation between law and fact. Both of course are equally , nee- '
essary. Yet every science, as it grows, becomes better organized:
which means that it becomes more of a deductive system. It con-
tains a hierarchy of laws, under which the facts are subsumed, and
hereby the laws are placed above the facts as explaining them.
From the logical point of view, this is a distinction of higher from
lower. Or if one holds that law is only a shorthand and resume of
facts, then he will say that its superiority resides in its utility and
economy rather than in its explanatory virtue. In mathematics,
which expresses an ideal of all science, the whole ibody of doctrine
is generated out of a few initial postulates ; and these postulates are
logically superior to their consequences.
We find then two motives in man's scientific activity, viz., equal-
ity, and distinction or superiority. On the one hand, all facts are
equally to be accepted, law and fact are equally requisite, and all
hypotheses are entitled to fair consideration. On the other hand
some facts show, as science grows, a superior distinction over others :
laws are found to be more significant than facts, certain theories
than certain others. Nor does the superiority establish itself as a
necessary consequence of the equality. Facts, arrayed dispassion-
ately 'by a recording intelligence, do not push out from among them-
selves those which are intrinsically pivotal ; theories, competing be-
fore the mind of the thinker, do not of themselves resign and give
place to the best. The thinker has to choose the more interesting
and promising, and give it greater opportunity than the rest, devel-
oping its consequences to a greater extent, treating it as altogether
a privileged thing. Equality is then a necessary, but not a sufficient
condition of scientific inquiry: superiority, being added, alone
suffices to make it go. Both motives are necessary, and in this re-
spect neither has the advantage ; but they are not equally valuable,
since superiority is more in evidence at the productive stage.
We pass to the religious consciousness.
The Christian church is severed into two great halves, Catholic
and Protestant; the former standing in the main tor the principle
of authority, the latter for the right of private judgment. On the
Catholic view, some men know religious truth better than others;
these men are inspired by divine grace. Such were the disciples of
368 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Jesus, particularly Peter; and the inspiration was transmitted
through Peter to his successors in the Papal chair. They are the
religious experts to whom the 'believer trusts his soul's welfare, as
he trusts his body's to the physician. It is open to any one to live
the good life, but good works alone do not entitle one to 'become
a religious expert. All men have equal opportunity to perform
them, but God, or his representatives in the church, selects some
albove others to be the special channels of His inspiration. In this
way Catholicism uses both the motive of equality and that of dis-
tinction. To every man it is open to become a believer and by good
works a candidate for saintship, but Divine authority will choose
for its own reasons only certain ones of those candidates. Prot-
estant churches, on the other hand, while displaying a similar dual-
ity, lay more stress upon the motive of equality. Their respective
creeds, to be siure, are determined already, by their founders, and the
individual member can not alter them to-day so far there is author-
ity; but he is allowed a far greater liberty of interpretation than
the Catholic. Indeed, with the Unitarian there is almost perfect
liberty, the only authority lying, if anywhere, in the direct words of
Jesus himself. Also, with perhaps the single exception of the Cal-
vinist, he may be saved by individual good works or faith. Prot-
estantism claims, I believe, no infallibility in any fixed body of men ;
and all men are to have equal opportunity for salvation or saintship.
It is apparently true, moreover, that to-day the element of authority
in Protestantism is fast diminishing, and an attitude like that of
the Unitarian is becoming common, viz., theology (authoritative
doctrine) plays but a small part; one is to take the Bible as he
understands it for his guide and 'his desert is to be adjudged by his
conduct alone. Here the motive of equality of all men, signalized
by the phrase "brotherhood of man," assumes the dominant role.
It looks as if the last vestige of authority, even that ascribed to
Jesus and God the Father, were about to vanish ; for Jesus is prac-
tically treated as no more than the elder brother and God as no
personal monarch, but a sort of immanent law of progress in human
history.
Yet even here is found the principle of distinction, for if re-
ligion does not turn into morality, it worships some highest prin-
ciple, be it only dubbed Humanity or a Power that works for prog-
ress; and reverence for such a principle makes distinction of high
and low, with at least superior power ascribed to the principle.
Perhaps the transition of religion to morality is marked by the
view of James that God is no king, not even a gentleman, but a sort
of superior people's helper, sharing many of our faults, growing
stronger and better as we grow. But here we are passing the
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 369
bounds of Christianity. In that field, at any rate, we seem to find
the two motives of equality and distinction; the Catholics laying
more stress on the latter, the Protestants on the former. However,
inasmuch as the difference of religion from morality is reverence for
some one greatest principle, be it personal or impersonal, it seems
that all religions are at bottom based upon distinction, viz., in so far
as they worship something. The degree of distinction between God
and man, ,and the degree to which distinctions among men in their
relation to God penetrate, differ in the several religions. So far as
I know, all religions have had priests and seers. Yet it remains
true that all men are declared, in one religion after another, to be
of themselves and apart from God, equal before Him. If they are
in this sense equal, however, it is because He created them all; the
motive of distinction, being the ground of equality, is the more
fundamental of the two. Jesus himself appears to have held this
view : he commanded first the love of God and second the love of the
neighbor as equal to one's self.
Morality, it would seem at first, is governed solely !by the prin-
ciple of equality; at any rate the modern morality of altruism and
social service. The adherents of this school tell us that we should
no longer content ourselves with the narrow, personal code of right-
eousness which our fathers respected. It is not enough to be tem-
perate, or chaste, or frugal, or dutiful parents and children, faithful
spouses, upright in -business, etc.; we must reach out and lif,t the
burden of woe from the poor and the oppressed. For all men are
equal; at least equally deserving of respect and the right to live
decently and usefully. To 'better the world is to equalize the mem-
bers of the world ; and first of all perhaps, to ensure enough wealth
to every one to enable him to live decently and usefully, to con-
tribute his meed to society.
Now by what means shall this be accomplished? Not merely,
I presume, by a redistribution of wealth on fairer terms than now
hold 1 ; not merely by preaching to the poor the necessity of thrift
or of small families; not merely by urging the laborer to increase
production though perhaps by all of these together, or even by
some other device added. There is, however, no way of making
permanent any system of social benefit except by educating the
recipient to a sense of responsibility. Until people of moderate in-
comes can learn to live within those incomes, to regulate the size of
their families, in short, themselves to follow the older code of per-
sonal ethics, no lasting reforms are possible. Surely it is thus evi-
dent enough that individual morality has got to precede the social.
The social problem, indeed, is but the problem of finding means to
educate morally the individuals who make up society. Mass-reme-
370 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
dies may be necessary, but only individual moral conduct is a suffi-
cient base for social progress.
Herein lies the potency of personality, of individual example, as
a moral force. No moral principle was ever successfully taught to
the many except as it was lived, first by the teacher himself, and
then by one follower after another until it became a common phe-
nomenon. It is from individual centers that reforms start; history
records no instances to the contrary. The teacher may not deem
himself better than others, because he sees in them the potentiality
of greater achievements than his own; ibut he must actually be
better, else he can not raise them to a higher level. This is, if I
mistake not, the fundamental law of moral progress. The motive
of equality is necessary, but without distinction of better and worse
individuals there can be no advance.
Indeed the same is true in other realms .than the moral. Progress
emanates from unique individuals; they alone furnish its TTOI oral
while the mass of mankind, relatively equal and undistinguished, is
the weight which their lever must lift. Of course the leader, moral or
scientific, is not merely a leader. He needs cooperation; he learns
from those he teaches. The primacy of the discoverer is not op-
posed to his interdependence with his fellows. Nor does it matter
that most great discoveries were in part, perhaps in every part, sug-
gested to their announcers by fellow-men. The discoverer was none
the less able to discern what the suggesters could not see, and to put
together into one fecund concept the scattered parts. Thus did
Darwin use the ideas of Malthus, Newton the empirical laws of
Kepler, Shakespeare the plots of older literature. But we do not
account such use a detraction from their originality, their spontaneity
and productiveness. It would be as reasonable to deny the supe-
riority of intellect over sense on the ground that all the material of
thought is drawn from sense-experience. No, we are not concerned
to deny the interdependence of leader and led. But the issue before
us is : which of the two deserves the greater consideration from the
point of view of progress? While both are equally necessary, one
may be of greater value and significance. And it remains true that
no doctrine of science, no religious insight or moral maxim, was ever
discovered by a body of men working together. On the contrary,
the assembled multitude, small or large, is usually hostile to such
discoveries and the larger it is, the more hostile. The mass of hu-
manity, in the degree in which they are influenced by one another
the extreme case being the crowd 1 or mob become stupid and open
to irrational suggestion. Here is the everlasting contribution of
Protestantism : the right of private judgment. It is the privacy of
the judgment that makes it at once a right and a duty; each man,
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 371
though he may and must consider proposals made by others, must
decide in his own mind upon the truth of them. Without such a
decision, he is tossed about by every wind of doctrine that blows.
It is, to Ibe sure, clear enough that social cooperation in the
search for truth is not always a matter of mutual hypnosis. It
ceases to be that in proportion as we ascend! from the level of the
majority. A gathering of specialists,, as in a learned society, a
board of directors, a committee, is Car removed from a crowd ; it is
what we might call an aristocratic crowd, a selection from the crowd.
Such a gathering however is fruitful of results just because it is
small and select ; by its smallness it gains the unity of purpose which
numbers lose, and by its selectness the expert quality. The larger
group develops high enthusiasm, but it does not easily display a
singleness of purpose, or concentrated will which persists in the
face of obstacles. Emotion it possesses, but execution and intelli-
gence on the whole decrease, other things equal, as the numbers in-
crease. And' even at meetings of learned societies, it is unusual for
discoveries to be made; they are generally made by the scientist
working alone. There is, undeniably profit in mental cooperation,
exchange of ideas and mutual criticism. In f|act, such cooperation
is indispensable to most thinkers. But note that the greater the
intellect the smaller is the number of colleagues with whom the ex-
pert needs to cooperate, and also that he draws profit from the dis-
cussion as a rule in the solitary reflection which succeeds it.
And further, even in the cooperation of experts, one contributes
more than another. One takes the initiative, others criticize; one
outlines a positive thesis, others correct and modify. When a final
report is drawn up, it is mainly written by one. The truth
finally reached is nearer to the initial view of one than to those of
the rest ; that one is the one to whom greater opportunity in future
meetings is likely to ibe given. In this way do men select their
leaders, to whom they award high administrative or scientific or
other positions. If we may safely generalize on the matter, it would
seem that on the whole the positive and constructive work is fur-
nished by the unique individual, the corrective, qualifying factor
no less necessary but less creative, admirable, and significant by
the social milieu; and the latter is of the greater value as the milieu
is smaller.
Generally speaking, it is in the arena of action rather than
thought that the principle of distinction finds its greatest emphasis.
In war-time we appoint dictators. When science becomes applied
we cheerfully yield to its purveyors an authority which in the
theoretic realm we should hesitate to give. We humbly obey the
physician, we take the advice of the engineer, the chemist, the
372 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
criminologist. In executive work we have to use the principle of
centered responsibility. Even in the field of sport, where the equal
level of play is apparently the ruling motive,, we have to have
captains and umpires. And all this is the best confirmation of the
view that the principle of distinction is the more important of the
two principles: for when the supreme test, the test of action, is
brought to bear, that principle is the one that bears the burden of
accomplishment.
It is often said that before the moral law men are equal ; it is as
true that after the moral law they are different. I mean that after
they have made their choices, have done right or wrong, differences
of character begin to appear. The great cleavage between bad and
good then arises 1 ; society punishes those whose choice is injurious to
society by giving them less than the equal opportunity they had
enjoyed. Indeed one 's whole character, so far as he is free to mould
it, his whole uniqueness and thereby distinctiveness from others,
depends on his own personal selection. Freedom of choice is itself
a distinction, a preference of one out of a number of equally possible
choices. Thus distinction is the very foundation stone of morality.
In education, the pupil is necessarily, in the respect in which he
is to learn, the teacher's inferior. He must first learn by rule and
rote, by discipline, and with a minimum of choice. There is no
question of equality. It may be objected that this is an old and
erroneous view of education, harking back to the era of brute force.
The newer practise of moral suasion, however, uses the same meth-
ods, even though by means of spiritual rather than physical com-
pulsion. The pupil must at least trust the teacher. As the pupil
grows older, he 'becomes more nearly equal to the teacher, but the
relationship remains asymmetrical. He can not profitably even
choose all of his studies; the abandoning of the purely elective
system in our colleges is the proof of this. But is there not absolute
equality in the class-room, between the many pupils ? By no means.
Brillancy is rewarded, sloth penalized. Equal standards of grading,
equal opportunity to study, recite, offer suggestions and hear ex-
planations these exist or should exist; but there Should also be
incentive for the embryo genius. Nor is the object of education to
produce equality, at least beyond a certain point. There is a certain
minimum of information, of course, a certain liberality and toler-
ance of attitude, which should be imparted to all, but education
aims also to foster originality and superiority. The able student is
advised to continue his studies; scholarships are awarded him; to
the duller no such aid is given. Education can not create ability,
but it does try to develop it, and to develop most the most able. It
builds upon the dictum "to him that hath shall be given." The
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 373
educator knows well that the world will look to the exceptional
individuals he can produce, and his interest is unavoidably centered
in those individuals.
The result of our inductive survey is then this. There is, first,
in each of the great fields of human activity here considered, a fun-
damental duality. We find a principle of equality and a principle
of distinction or superiority. In each several field, equality rules
at the beginning 1 . It knits together the parts that constitute the
field. To science, all facts are equally real, worthy of consider-
ation, and necessary; to religion, all men have equal opportunity,
are initially equal before Godi; to morality, all are, or should 'be,
equally free and subject to the moral law; in education, all should
have equal opportunity to develop their endowments. And doubtless
in politics and industry, the same equality must always be our ideal ;
every one should have a vote and an equal chance to work and earn
a decent living, to contribute his meed to society. Secondly, how-
ever, we find that in each field as development proceeds the principle
of distinction is involved. Some members are found sooner or later
to demand a greater opportunity than others. For science, some facts
are of pivotal significance and demand more study than others, some
hypotheses are more fertile than others; for religion, some men are
seers and are selected as priests; for morality, the better ones must
be given opportunity commensurate with their deserts ; in education,
the geniuses must be favored; and in politics the suffrage of all
should lead to the conferring of power upon specially gifted experts,
whether as representatives or as executives. And in every field,
the conferring of greater opportunity upon the selected ones is
followed by order and progress.
The organic view, by which individual and society are deemed
always interlocking and interpenetrating, is a symmetrical view;
the position here defended is asymmetrical. Or better, it is partly
symmetrical and partly asymmetrical. While individual and so-
ciety are in great measure mutually supporting, the individual
factor's part is the deeper one. From exceptional individuals, as
from dynamic centers, originate forces which spread and mould so-
ciety, which in turn reacts and moulds the individual. By empha-
sizing the interdependence alone, the organic view misses the in-
equalities, the nodal points, the novelties which the individual
factors provide, and which save humanity from being reduced to
the dead level of each-involving-all, every-man-equally-important-to-
the-whole. It misses the odd, incalculable chance^variation which
the individual now and again furnishes, the motive of dash, bril-
liancy, and adventure ; the romantic quality, in short, which a bal-
anced organic unity, the model of classic perfection, will never
display.
374 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
It is, in fact, quite false to assume that man is not anything what-
soever of and by himself alone. We might know that so one-sided a
view is bound to be mistaken ; and it needs but a little unprejudiced
observation to reveal aspects of life wherein one may be and often is
quite sufficient unto himself. In the enjoyment of art's master-
pieces, in exquisite, uncommunicated moments of spiritual exalta-
tion, and at the other extreme in the simple sensual pleasures, we
have sufficient refutation of this social-relation view. And it would
seem that no educated thinker should need such instances, for it
was long ago objected that if no individual is aught of himself, he
can not become aught by relation to others who are naught of them-
selves. Why do we not see that the social relation theory is just as
exclusive and narrow in its own way as was the older individualism ?
The truth is that man is in some ways and to some degree fairly
complete by himself, and in other ways and perhaps to a greater
degree dependent on Ms fellows.
These being the two underlying and unequally weighted ideals
in the several fields of man's culture, what are we to say of
democracy ?
The natural view historically is that democracy is in line with
equality, and if not opposed to superiority, at least neglectful of it.
We should then say that the democratic ideal asserts ' ' all men should
have equal opportunity to develop their contributions to society."
This coincides roughly with the meaning of the motto "liberty,
equality, fraternity," with the statement that "all men are born
free and equal ' ' so far as that statement is true, and with the ideals
of equal privilege for all classes which govern so much of current
ethics and socialism.
But if so, democracy is clearly one-sided and therefore danger-
ous. By neglecting, even if not explicitly denying, the need of
initiative and leadership, it tends toward an all-leveling type of
society of which Bolshevism is the extreme case. Much of the criti-
cism of our present administration is due, I think, 'to the feeling
that it is facing too nearly in this direction and I share that feel-
ing. There is, however, a fairly widespread belief that if the prin-
ciple of equal opportunity were realized, the other principle would
take care of itself; and if this is true, then democracy even in the
one-sided interpretation is far from dangerous, being rather the one
guarantee of social stability and progress. But it is not true. It
does not follow that men do justice to the motive of distinction, once
the principle of equality is assured. In fact in our society to-day
there is a strong current which sets in the opposite direction. But
even were this not the case, equality merely of itself does not in-
volve the emergence and selection of superior individuals; not, at
any rate, of the requisite quality and degree.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 375
That equal opportunity entails the selection of those who have
achieved! more than their fellows, and the conferring upon them of
greater opportunity, is not usually the fact. In science, as has been
indicated, it needs a special effort on the part of the investigator to
single out the fertile hypothesis and the pivotal fact. In morals,
the freedom to do one's duty by no means ensures the doing of it,
nor are the faithful necessarily rewarded according to their faith-
fulness. In education, the equal opportunity of the recitation-room
hardly guarantees that the genius will further pursue his studies ;
special opportunity, in the form of financial aid and expert guid-
ance, must be added. In the learned society even, where discussion
is free, it does not always follow that the most intelligent view will
win the day ; it demands arduous labor to ensure its proper empha-
sis in the resulting decision. Equal opportunity no doubt makes
these possible; but it is far from sufficing to produce them. To
speak in Aristotelian terms, it is the potential factor of progress ; the
actualizing cause lies in the strenuous toil of men more highly en-
dowed than their fellows. Such toil no laws, systems, or institu-
tions can guarantee beforehand effort alone will do it. But that
effort needs encouragement ; whereas a society which puts a premium
upon equality and social fusion discou 
