The Journal of speculative philosophy

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THE JOURNAL

O F

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.

VOLUME XIV.

EDITED BY WM. T. HAREIS

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

ST. LOUIS: George I. Jones and Company; LONDON: Trflbner and Company.

1880.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by

WM. T. HARRIS.
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CONTENTS

Ars Poetica et Humana, John Alhee, 204

Atomic Collision and Non-Collision, Payton Spence, 286

Caird on Kant, /. Hutchison Stirling, 49

Criticism of Kant's Main Principles, J. H. Stirling, 25*7, 363

Educational Psychology (Outlines), The Editor, 225

Grimm on Raphael and Michael Angelo (Tr.), Ida M. £liot, 1&9, 306

Kant's Anthropology (Tr.), A. K Kroeger, 164

Kant's Critic of Pure Reason, Criticised and Explained by Himself (Tr.),

A. E. Kroeger, 1
Kant's Deduction of the Categories, with Special Relation to the Views of Dr.

Stirling, Edward Caird, 110

Kant's Principles of Judgment, John Watson, 376

Laws of Creation — Ultimate Science, TJieron Gray, 219

Method of Thought, Aleeds Tuthill, 13

Philosophic Outlines, H. K. Jones, 399

The Psychology of Dreams, Julia H. Gulliver, 204

Schelling on Natural Science in General (Tr.), Ella S. Morgan, 145

The Science of Education (Paraphrase), Anna C. Brackett, 191

Notes and Discussions, 134

(1) Edwin D. Mead's Translation of Hegel's "History of Philosophy;"

(2) The Concord Summer School of Philosophy ; (3) Lessing's Centennial

Birthday.

Notes and Discussions, 240

(1) Sentences in Prose and Verse ; (2) The Ideas of the Pure Reason ; (3)

An Oriental Mystic; (4) Mind to. Matter; (5) Ahnung; (6) The Prospec-
tus of the Concord School.

Notes and Discussions, 32'7

(1) Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner;" (2) Thoreau's Cairn; (3) Sentences in

Prose and Verse; (4) Schelling on the Study of Physics and Chemistry; (6)

Professor John Watson on Kant's Critique and its Critics.

Notes and Discussions, 421

George Spencer Bower on the Philosophic Element in Shelley.

iv Contents.

Book Notices, . . . • 140

(1) La Psychologie Allemaade Contemporaine, par Th. Ribot; (2) La
Science Politique. Revue Internationale ; (3) Verhandlungen der pbiloso-
phischen Gesellschal't zu Berlin.

Book Notices, 254

Delphic Days.
Books Received, 148, 350, 455

THE JOURNAL

OF

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.

Vol. XIV.] January, 1880. [No. 1.

KANT'S CRITIC OF PURE REASON, CRITICISED
AND EXPLAINED BY HIMSELF.

[translated from rant's appendix to his prolegomena.]
BY A. E. KROEGER.

Since all the methods heretofore pursued to constitute
Metaphysics a real science have proved fruitless, and since it
is most likely that such endeavors will never be realized
unless a preliminary Criticism of Pure Reason^ be established,
it seems to be not an unfair request that the attempt to estab-

1 "Science of Knowledge." [The translator desires to remark that the term
Critik der reinen Vernunft is literally translated Oriticism of Pare Reason, and
that the words " Pure Reason " signify, in Kant's terminology, the purely intellec-
tual faculty of the human mind, to the exclusion of the moral faculty, which
Kant treats in his Critic of Practical Reason, and also of the faculty of judgment,
which he treats in his Critic of that name. Those three critics go together, and
constitute one great work, a fact that should not be lost sight of The following
article, wherein Kant, in vigorous and unmistakable language, declares the real
drift of his Critic of Pure Reason, concerning which there has been — foolishly, as
the translator believes — so much misunderstanding, appeared as an appendix to
his Prolegomena, which is, as Kant himself expresses it, a sort of text-book of, or
guide to, his Critic of Pure Reason. In short, the Prolego?nena are the Critic of
Pure Reason itself, in a very condensed form (reduced to about one-eighth in bulk,
I should say), and arrayed in the analytical — not, like the Critic, in the synthet-
ical — method. Students of Kant cannot take hold of a better work as a general
introduction to his system. — A. E. K.]

XIV — 1

2 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

lish such a Criticism be carefully and thoroughly examined ;
unless, indeed, students choose rather to give up all claim to
Metaphysics, in which case no objection can be made, pro-
vided those students remain true to their purpose.

If we take the course of things as it is in reality, and not
as it ought to be, we find that there are two kinds of judg-
ments : one which precedes an investigation — which would
occur in our case if the reader should pronounce a judgment
on my Criticism of Pure Reason from the standpoint of his
Metaphysics, the very possibility whereof my Criticism under-
takes to question — and another kind, which follovjs an inves-
tigation — as, where the reader is able to put aside for awhile
the consequences that result from my critical investigations,
and that may run very hard against his adopted Metaphysics.
If the doctrines of ordinary Metaphysics were acknowledgedly
certain, as those of geometry, the former kind of judgment
would be valid ; for, if the results of certain principles are in
conflict with established truths, those principles are false, and
to be rejected without further investigation. But if this is not
so ; if in Metaphysics there is not a hoard of indisputably certain
synthetical propositions ; and if it should turn out to be that
a number of its propositions, seemingly as valid as the best of
them, are yet at variance with each other as to their results ;
and that the science of Metaphysics, indeed, does not show us
at all a sure criterion of the truth of really metaphysical (syn-
thetical) propositions — then the former mode of passing
judgment is not allowable, and an investigation of the prin-
ciples of my Criticism must precede any attempt to judge of
its worth or worthlessness.

Specimen of a Judgment on waj Critic of Pure Reason Pre-
ceding an Investigation.

Such a judgment maybe found in a review published in the
Goettingischen Gelehrten Anzeiger, third supplement, of date
January 19, 1782, page 40 : —

" When an author, who is well acquainted with the subject
of his work, and has generally been anxious to put down the
result of his own thoughts in its elaboration, falls into the

KanVs Critic of Pure Reason. 3

hands of a reviewer who, on his part, is sharp-sighted enough
to spy out the points on which the worth or worthlessness of
the work is chiefly dependent ; who does not cling to phrases,
but goes to the root of things, and not merely examines the
principles from which the author started, it may very well
happen that the author should be displeased at the severity of
the judgment. The public, however, remains indifferent,
since it gains thereby, and the author ought to be content that
he obtains an opportunity to correct or explain his work, thus
timely reviewed by a competent judge, and in this way, if he
believes himself to be in the right, to remove in time the bone
of contention, which afterwards might be in the way of the
success of his work."

I am in another predicament with regard to my reviewer.
He appears not to have comprehended at all what I wished to
arrive at in the investigation which I — luckily or unluckily —
undertook ; and, be it ascribable to impatience in having to
think throuo-h so voluminous a work, or to ill-humor at the
threat of reform in a science which he imagined to be flxed on
a permanent basis long ago, or, which I very reluctantly
assume, to a really narrow-minded faculty of going beyond
the ordinary School-Metaphysics — in short, he wades floun-
deringly through a long series of propositions, in reading
which one cannot think any thing at all, unless their premises
tire known. Here and there he scatters his censure, of which,
again, the reader perceives no ground or reason any more
than he understands their meaning, except that it is directed
against my work. Hence his review is of no advantage to
the public, and cannot do me any harm in the judgment of
competent critics ; and I would have passed the review alto-
gether in silence, if it did not give me occasion for some ex-
planations that may protect the reader of these Prolegomena
against misinterpretation.

My reviewer, in order that he may be able to place himself
on a standpoint from which he can place my whole work be-
fore the e3^es of the public in the manner most unfavorable to
myself, and at the same time escape any special investigation

4 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

thereof, begins his review, as he ends it, by saying : "This
work is a system of transcendent [or, as he translates it,
higher^] Idealism,"

At reading these lines I saw at once to what sort of a review
they would lead ; just about as if a person who had never
heard or seen anything of geometry were to alight upon a
copy of Euclid, and were asked to give his judgment upon it.
After turning over some leaves and examining the figures, he
would probal)ly say : "This book is a systematic school of
drawino-. The author makes use of a particular mode of
speech, in order to give mysterious, incomprehensible rules,
that, after all, can accomplish no more than any person can
achieve by means of good natural eyesight, etc."

Let us see, however, what sort of an idealism that is which
runs through my whole work, although it by no means con-
stitutes the soul thereof.

The proposition of all genuine Idealists, from the Eleatic
school down to that of Bishop Berkeley, is contained in this
formula: "All cognition through our senses and experience
is nothing but pure appearance, and the ideas of pure under-
standino; and reason alone contain truth."

But the proposition which governs and determines 7iiy
Idealism all through is, on the contrarv, as follows: "All

1 On no account higher. High steeples, and their similars, metaphyically-
high men, are not for me. My place is in the fruitful Bathos of experience, and
the word transcendental,* the significance whereof I have so often explained, seems
not even to have been looked at by my reviewer. Something transcendental does
not signify anything which transcends all experience, but which, although it —
h pnoi-i — precedes it, has yet no other mission than to make empirical cognition
possible. Whenever those conceptions go beyond experience, their use is called
transcendent, and must be distinguished for their immanent use — that is to say,
their use limited to experience.

* [Kant here again alludes to the vital distinction between transcendental and
transcendent, a distinction to which I also have had occasion to refer on various
occasions. I take this opportunity to state once more that "^ra«scertaJenteZism,"
as the word is used by Kant, is so much distinct from transcendentism, that
the transcendental philosophy of Kant expressly negates the possibility of tran-
scendent reasoning, and would throw all such argumentations or mystic utterances
as constitute what is generally known in this country as Transcendentalism into
the rubbish chamber of illegitimate synthetical d. priori propositions. — A. E. K.]

Kant 's Critic of Pure Reason. 5

cognition of things resulting from pure understanding or
pure reason is nothing but mere appearance, and only experi-
ence gives truth."

Now, this is the very reverse of that " genuine " Idealism.
How, then, did it happen that I made use of the expression
Idealism for an utterly opposite purpose, and that the reviewer
never perceived the distinction ?

The solution of this difficulty rests upon a matter that
might easily have been gathered, if he had been so disposed,
from the context of the work itself. Space and Time, together
with all that they contain, are not the Things or their Quali-
ties in themselves, but belong merely to the appearance
thereof; and up to this point I entirely agree with the com-
mon Idealist. But the}^ and amongst them, specially, Berk-
eley, consider Space as a merely empirical representation,
which is made known to us altogether like the appearances
within it, and only l)y means of experience or perception. I,
on the contrary, show that Space — and Time also — though
Berkeley paid no attention to the Time fact — can be cognized
by us, with all their «^9r/or/ determinations, because Space and
Time are inherent in us in advance of all perception or expe-
rience, as pure forms of sensuousness, and hence make possi-
ble all contemplation thereof, and hence also all phenomena.
From this it results, that since truth rests upon universal and
necessary laws as criterions, experience can have no criterions
of truth in Berkeley's system, since his system furnishes no a
priori basis for the phenomena thereof; from which it follows,
again, of course, that experience is nothing but a mere phe-
nomenon (appearance). But with me, Space and Time (and
the pure conceptions of the understanding therewith con-
nected) prescribe the \ii\\ a priori to all possiljle experience,
and thus furnish at the same time a sure criterion where])y to
distinguish truth from appearance in experience.^

1 Genuine Idealism always has its fantastic purpose, and, indeed, can have no
other ; but my Idealism has no other purpose than to comprehend the possibility
of our cl pnoi-i cognition of objects of experience — a problem which has never as
yet been solved, if, indeed, it has ever been proposed. Now, this my Idealism
utterly overthrows '.the whole of that fantastic Idealism which always draws con-

6 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

My so-called, properly named critical-Idealism is, therefore,
of a very peculiar kind — namely, in this way: that it over-
throws the common Idealism, and that it iirst gives objective
reality to '^^\ a priori cognition — even that of Geometry —
which the most zealous of realists would not have been able to
maintain without this my proof of the ideality of Space and
Time. In such a state of affiiirs I was anxious, in order to
avoid any misunderstanding, to attach another appellation than
that of Idealism to my system, but it did not seem practicable
to change the name altooether. Hence I be^ that I may be
permitted to call it in future, as I have done heretofore, formal,
or, better still, critical Idealism, in order to distinguish it from
the dogmatical Idealism of Berkeley and the skeptical Ideal-
ism of Descartes. * * *

There is still much in the way to explain why a scholarly
periodical, let its contributors have been selected with ever so
much care and precaution, cannot keep up its otherwise well-
deserved standing on the field of Metaphysics. Other sciences
and branches of knowledoe have a standard. The science of
Mathematics has that standard within itself ; History and The-
ology have their standard in profane and sacred writings ;
Physics and Medicine in Mathematics and Experience ; Law
in Statutes; and even matters of Taste (Esthetics) have a
standard in the models of the ancients. But to find a stand-
ard for the measurement of what we call Metaphysics is still
a matter of the future. I have attempted, however, to deter-
mine it, as well as its application.

But, what is to be done in the meanwhile, and until such a
standard is adopted, in order to make possible judgments on
this kind of writings — books on Metaphysics? If they are
of a dogmatic kind, every critic may do as he pleases. No
one will remain master for a Ions; time, since some other one
will arise to block his game. But if they are of a critical

elusions — as can be seen even from Plato — from our d, pHot-i cognition (even
those of geometry) to another — namely, intellectual — contemplation than that
of our senses ; and simply because not one of those Idealists has ever as much as
dreamed that the senses also could contemplate d, priori.

KanVs Critic of Pure Reason. 7

kind — and not merely in regard to other writings, but in
regard to reason itself, in which case the standard of judgment
cannot be already assumed as generally admitted, but must
first be discovered — we may very well beg that objections
and blame be set aside ; and still there must be at least a desire
for harmony at the basis, since the need of a common under-
standing is mutual, and the lack of required insight causes a
judicially decisive tone to appear improper.

But, in order to connect this, my defence, at the same time
with the interest of the philosophical commonwealth, I hereby
make a proposition which is decisive as to the manner in'which
all metaphysical investigations must be directed to their com-
mon object. This is nothing else than what mathematicians
have done in other cases, to decide the advantage of their res-
pective methods in a contest ; that is to say, a challenge to my
reviewer to prove by a priori reasoning, in his own way, any
single one truly metaphysical — namely, synthetical — propo-
sition, cognized a priori through conceptions ; nay, were it
but the most indispensable — as, for instance, the principle of
the permanency of substance, or of the necessary determina-
tion of the events of the world throuo;h their cause. If he
cannot furnish this proof — and silence is consent — he must
admit that (Metaphysics being altogether impossible without
an apodictical certainty of propositions of this kind) the pos-
sibility or impossibility of Metaphysics must first be decided in
a Criticism of Pure Reason. He is, therefore, bound either
to confess that the principles of my criticism are right, or
to prove their invalidity. But since I see in advance that,
however recklessly he may heretofore have relied u^^on the
certainty of his propositions, he cannot now, where a strict
proof is required, find a single proposition within the whole
realm of Metaphysics which he can boldly advance, I am ready
to grant him the most advantageous condition that can be
granted in a contest, namely, to relieve him of the onus pro-
handi, and take it upon my own shoulders.

First, He will find in these Prolegomena and in my Criti-
cism of Pure Reason (Theses and Antitheses of the four
Antinomies) eight propositions, each two of which contradict

8 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosopliy .

each other, and yet each whereof belongs necessarily to the
science of Metaphysics, which science must either accept or
refute them — although there is not one of them which some
philosopher or another has not accepted in his turn. Now, my
reviewer is at liberty to clioose, at his pleasure, any one of
these eight propositions, aud to accept it without proof —
(which I shall grant him), but only one, since a waste of time
will be as obnoxious to him as to me — and then to attack my
proof of the very opposite proposition. If, then, I shall nev-
ertheless be able to save my proof, and thus be able to show
to him that, in accordance with principles which every dog-
matic science of Metaphysics must recognize, the very oppo-
site of the proposition chosen by him can be proved quite as
clearly as his own, the conclusion is that there is in the
science of Metaphysics an original sin, which cannot be ex-
plained, and much less solved, unless we ascend to its birth-
place, pure reason itself; and hence it will be necessary either
to accept my Critic of Pure Reason or to substitute a better
one ; in which latter case, however, mine will at least have to
be studied, which is all that I demand at present. If I, how-
ever, can not save my proof, then a synthetical proposition a
priori is established by dogmatical principles on the part of my
opponent ; my accusations against the science of Metaphysics
have, therefore, been wrong, and I am ready to acknowledge
his censure of my Critic of Pure Reason to have been legiti-
mate (though that is by no means a consequence).

Proposition to arrive at a Judgment on the Critic of Pure
Reason, following an Investigation.

I am under ol)ligations to the public for the silence with
which it has honored my work for a considerable time, since
this evinces at least a postponement of judgment, and hence
some presumption that in a work which abandons all old tracks,
and strikes out an entirely new one, not at first easily to be fol-
lowed, there may, after all, be contained some thing by means
of which an important, but now died-out branch of human
knowledge may receive new life and fruitfulness. It thus

Kanfs Critic of Pure Reason. 9

evinces carefulness not to break off and destroy the tender
graft by an over-hasty judgment. A specimen of such a re-
view, dehiyed on account of the above reason, has just now
reached me.

And now — since an extensive building cannot possibly be
judged by a casual glance, in its entirety — I propose that my
work should be examined piece by piece, from its basis up-
ward, and that in so doing use be made of the Prolegomena,
as a general text-book, as it were, with which to compare the
work itself, as occasion may arise. If this suggestion were
nothing more than my imagination of an importance which
vanity usually attaches to our own productions, it would be
immodest, and deserve to be indignantly rejected. But, in the
matter of speculative philosophy, things are now at a point
where they threaten to become extinguished altogether, al-
thouofh human reason clinics to them with a never-to-be-ex-
tinguished inclination, and endeavors to change itself into
indifference now only because it is being incessantly deceived.

In our age of thought, it is not to be presumed that men ol
merit will not improve every occasion to contribute toward
the common interest of the constantly growing self-enlighten-
ment of reason, if there is any hope visible that the desired
object may be attained. Mathematics, Natural Sciences,
Laws, Arts, even Morals, etc., do not completely absorb the
soul ; there always remains a space in it, left for the occu-
pancy of pure and speculative reason ; and the emptiness of
this place forces us to seek, apparently, occupation and enter-
tainment, but, in point of fact, only mental dissipation, in
caricatures, play-work, or phantasms, so that we may deafen
the annoying call of reason, which, by its very nature, de-
mands some thing that may satisfy itself on its own account,
and not cause it to work merely on behalf of other purposes,
or in the interest of other inclinations. Hence it seems to me
that a work which busies itself solely with this sphere of in-
itself-existing reason,^ must, on that very account — namely,
because in it all other cognitions, nay, even all other pur-

^ [A Science of Knowledge, in Fichte's terminology. — A. E. K.]

10 The Journal of Sjjeculative Philosophy.

poses — unite into a whole — have a great charm for every one
who ever has attempted thus to enhirge his conceptions — a
greater charm, indeed, I think, than any other theoretical
knowledge holds out, since no one would likely exchange the
former for the latter.

I propose these Prolegomena rather than the Critic of Pure
Keason itself, as such a text-book, for the following reason :
Although I am still quite satisfied with the latter work, so far
as its contents, arrangement, method, and the care bestowed
on each proposition are concerned — for each proposition had
to be carefully examined and tested ; and it took me years to
satisfy myself fully, not of the Avhole work, but sometimes
even of a single one of its propositions, in regard to its
sources — I am not fully satisfied with my expositions of some
of the chapters of its Elementary Part — as, for instance, the
Deduction of the Conceptions of the Understanding, or the
chapter on the Paralogisms of Pure Reason, a certain ampli-
tude therein obscuring clearness. In their place, therefore,
the chapters of the Prolegomena that relate to the same sub-
ject may^be used as a basis of investigation.

It is said of the Germans, in their praise, that, in matters
wherein pertinacity and diligence are required, they are able
to excel all other nations. If this impression is correct, there
is here an opportunity to confirm it by completing a work,
concerning the happy termination of which there cau scarcely
be a doubt, and in which all thinking men have an equal inter-
est, though it has never yet been achieved. This is especially
the case here, since the science which it concerns is of so
peculiar a character that it can be established at once in all
its completeness, and in such a permanent condition that it
cannot thereafter be advanced in the least, or amplified by
later discoveries,^ (I do not count in any ornamentation that
might be appended in the way of increased clearness or prac-
tical usefulness) — an advantage which no other science pos-

1 [This same statement has been even more emphatically put forward by Fichte,
and seems to have been made then, as it is now made, one of the main objections
to the general recognition of a universal Science of Knowledge. — A. E. K.]

Kant's Critic of Pure Reason. 11

sesses, or can possess, since no other science relates to so
isolated a facnlty of cognition, one so independent of and
unmixed with any other faculty. At the same time, it appears
to me that this suggestion of mine does not hit upon an
unfavorable period, since people in Germany seem nowadays
not to know wherewith to employ themselves, unless it be the
so-called useful sciences — provided it does not seem to be
mere play, but also business, whereby a permanent object may
be attained.

I must leave it to others to devise the means by which the
efforts of scholars can be united for such a purpose. It is
not, however, my intention to request any one to merely fol-
low my propositions, or merely flatter me with a hope of their
success. On the other hand, there may be attacks, repeti-
tions, limitations, or perhaps confirmations, corrections, or
extensions thereof. All I want is, that the matter be inves-
tigated from its very basis, and then it can no longer fail that
a system — though it be not mine — be thus established which
will be an inheritance to our posterity for which it must be
grateful.

It would be useless to show here what might be expected
of a science of Metayhysics, if scholars were first agreed as to
the correctness of the fundamental principles of the Critic of
Pure Reason, and how that science would by no means appear
so poor, and be reduced to so small a figure as men think —
though deprived of its false feathers — but rather shine forth
in another respect, respectably and grandly. But all other
practical uses which such a reform would bring about are too
evident to need pointing out.

The general science of Metaphysics was useful at least in
this : that it looked up the elementary conceptions of the
human understanding, in order to make them clear, and in
explaining, to define them by analysis. In this way that
science became an educational school for reason, in whatever
direction reason might choose to employ itself. But, then,
this was really all the good that science did accomplish ; for it
annihilated again this, its merit, by favoring in the manner of
reckless assertions the conceitedness ; and in the manner of

12 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

subtle evasions and embellishments the sophistry ; and in the
manner of the ease whereby it sought to get over the most dif-
ficult problem of thought, through means of a little schoLasti-
cism, the general emptiness of thought (which is all the more
seductive in that it has the choice of borrowing, on the one side,
from the lauiruaffe of science, and on the other side from that of
popularity ; and which is, therefore, a Jack of all Trades, but a
master of none). The Critic of Pure Reason, on the contrary,
first establishes the standard for our judgment whereby real
knowledge can with certainty be distinguished from pretended
knowledge ; and, by applying it to its fullest extent in the
science of Metaphysics, gives rise to a mode of thinking which
subsequently extends its beneficial influence to all other fields
of reasoning, and thus inspires them all with true philosophic
spirit. But even the service which it confers upon theology
in making it independent from the judgment of dogmatic
speculation, and thus placing that science in a position of abso-
lute security against the attacks of such opponents, is surely
not to be underrated ; for ordinary Metaphysics, although
promising theology great support, was not able subsequently
to fulfil its promise, and rather placed weapons in the hands
of the enemy when it called dogmatic speculation to its assist-
ance. Fantastic vagaries, finally, which can pass current in
an enlightened age only when they take refuge behind school
metaphysics — under whose protection they may dare to rave,
as it were, rationally — are driven by critical philosophy out
of this, their last hiding-place. Above all, however, it must
surely be of great importance to a teacher of metaphysics to
be able to say for once, with general consent, that what he
teaches is now at last a Science, and hence of real use to the
Commonwealth .

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 13

THE MATTER AND THE METHOD OF THOUGHT.

BY MEEDS TUTHILL.

H. The Method.

Now, as Man thus finds himself to be a likeness to, and not
an " identity " with, God — finds himself " substantially " free
in the physical and moral spheres only in his imitation and use
of the Divine methods, laws, substance — so, in the intellectual
sphere, in knowing, must he model his activity on the Divine
pattern, to render it truly free and efficient. He must " know
himself," therefore, as God knows Himself — by expression, by
activity — which ends in a synthetic process to which all mere
analysis can only be preparatory, and may be likened to that
universal distribution of the Divine activity into its differential
element of the " last relation " of things. Hegel has furnished
the full analysis of this method, but has seemed to conceive
of it as end, instead of means ; has miscalled mere likeness
"identity;" has neglected Swedenborg's better word, "cor-
respondence," and used instead the words "unity" and
"sameness," "one and the same," which he confesses to be
ambiguous, and which he certainly applies in a way that con-
founds all distinction between the abstract and the concrete.
For that relation of parts which constitutes a whole is like a
self, but is not a self unless it be the vital relation of real
activity.

Plato, on the other hand, first used this method consciously,
with the concrete instinct of a poet, and also with a philo-
sophic grasp (^Begrif) of analysis into its true unity; for, in
his language, " idea " means " a form," whether in an external
object or in our own conceptions (a "form" is merely that
in which we see relations) ; and he did not call this mere
" form " identical with that substantial essence or activity
which produces it, and of which, in his view, we " partake,"
and can, therefore, also produce it in ourselves and recognize
it elsewhere.

14 The Journal of 8]}eculative Philosophy .

This true synthetic method has for its oflSce to unite in the
real relation — in its differential element — Spirit and Matter;
in the Universal phase, God and the Universe ; in both, God
and Man. Tims also, as matter of Science, it reconciles and
unites, as a dissevered one, Spiritualism and Materialism.
Practically, all the secret of it lies in Expression. Expression
is Art ; and indeed this is the Divine Art of Thinking, which
we can learn best by imitation of Divine methods, as we learn
to be free physically and morally.

For Thinking, itself, is only an Expression of our percep-
tions into forms — giving them relation, and thus form, more
or less complex. This inevitable element of Relation is in-
volved in the very existence of Consciousness, and at once
gives form and being to idea. Our very first knowledge must
be a concrete conception — a sense of Self in relation to some
thing else — and all subsequent real knowledge is built on that.
Self-consciousness can exist only in this Expression of Idea —
i.e., in some act, if it be only the first act of Perception — and
it grows vivid only in proportion to subsequent expression, by
which the Knower learns his relations to other things. Ab-
straction is part of the Art by which we build up larger
conceptions of Act and Actor, by first severing the original
concrete idea into its related elements ; elements, however,
which, as naturally correlative, irresistibly seek each other
again in concrete unity, though we part them to infinity with
interrelation of " laws," " secondary causes," or whatever we
choose to call these intermediates. The synthesis is inevitable,
not because of the reaction, the "moment" of return upon
itself in the " Idea," as Hegel describes it, as though it had a
movement of its own (though that answers well enough as a
' ' figurate expression ' ' to give life to an abstraction ) , but
because we have no consciousness of reality, no evidence of
truth, no sense of completeness, till this synthetic unity of
conception is achieved. Hence we cannot fully know any
thing external till we realize its unity of relation in ourselves.
Hence, too, Man's impulse to express himself outivardly ; for
that is realizing his thought, and testing it ; it shows where the
inner Expression lacks, and helps to give it completeness.

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 15

AikI hence, lastly, Science and Philosophy seek in theory for
a completeness not furnished by tacts, and are not loath to thus
satisfy the " inner man " at the expense of the outer Universe.

Hegel has perfectly analyzed and synthesized this process
as to abstractions, but has left it in abstractions. The concrete
Act and Actor are drawn by him in vague and vanishing out-
lines, all Reality being resolved into a Shadow, which is figured
by pure light upon inky darkness, as Being fitfully flickers in
and out of Nothing. Let us see : —

" Spirit is the Idea, which from its Otherness returns into
itself." There is a " Spirit of a Nation," a "World-Histori-
cal Spirit," etc. And in this sense, as well as others, the term
is thus defined: "The very essence of Spirit is Activity ; it
realizes its potentiality ; makes itself its own deed, its own
work, and thus becomes an object for itself — contemplates itself
as an objective existence." " Spirit is essentially the result of
its own activity." "Man's consciousness imports this : that
the individual comprehends itself as a person — i.e. , recognizing
itself in its single existence as possessing universality, as
capable of abstraction from, and of surrendering all speciality,
and therefore inherently infinite." Is it not difficult to see
how this capacity for " abstraction," which makes Man " in-
finite," differs at all from the Hindoo conception of absorption
in Brahma?

Hence, though Hegel has reached a logical synthesis of
marvellous completeness, it is itself but a synthesis of abstrac-
tions — only a likeness to real developments — and therefore
applicable as means and method of knowledge, but by no
means as Reality itself. Here is the fundamental error of
Idealism : to mistake knowledge of a thino- for the thins; itself.
Hegel seems, at least, to fall into this error of considering
Logic a "complete Science," because it contains all abstrac-
tions in their simplicity and in their systematic concretions,
although it does not give any real knowledge of any thing
except of the operations of the mind itself, and that chiefly as a
means of real knowledge of Self, and of other things. Hence
Hegel himself is far more comprehensible in those poetic
moods which now and then flash through his conscientious

16 27^6 Journal of Speculative Philosojihy .

abstraction in " pure thought," and prove, what we might well
suspect from even his ordinary style, that an imagination of no
ordinary power works the concrete in his own thought, how-
ever he may strive to disguise or to escape it. His guiding
principle is, however, that he has found the Universal Idea in
the last possible abstraction, and such a Universal must, of
course, have an abstract Particular, in mere Relation. This
is perfectly true of mere "philosophical" Knowledge; and
in this view of it, Hegel is consistent in his exposition of
"Logic, Nature, and Spirit," though he uses his terms sa
picturesquely as to give the impression that he believes he is
speaking of Realities.

Thus, " The Idea " is nothing more than a ffmnd concretion
of Truth in its universality and in its detail, as if it were
wholly comprehended in one simple formula, from which all
other truths are derived, and in which, therefore, they have
their roots, and their placing as Particular parts or develop-
ments ; so that they can be seen, as it were on a map, as
contained in and springing from this One all-comprehensive
and all-genetic " Idea," as " Begrifls." Now, this is all very
w^ell as a description of universal knoivledge ; for that is mere
abstraction, and its "Self" is nothing but this element of
Relation w4iich reason finds. And w4ien called to apply this
as mere " ideal " knowledge of " Nature," it is proper to con-
sider mere form in Nature as all we can put in this form of
knowledge, and comprehend by abstract relation. So, in.
"Spirit" our abstract knowledge is only formal, — resolves
itself into mere perception of this Reason, which relates things
and forms a whole.

But, having thus faithfully absorbed ourselves in Abstraction
as the only " Real," and put the Brahminical ban of " pariah "
on all the faculties which connect it Avith " Self," it is natural
that we here see that concrete Self vanish on this abstract
side in mere "nothingness" of relation, and that that
"Warrior," Imagination, revenges himself by presenting to-
ns The Idea as the only " entity," and " Thought" as " the
Universal Element " in which it exists and organizes " things "
as merely " phenomenal and unreal." In other words. Matter

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 17

becomes abolished, because it is not this abstract " substan-
tial," or formative power, Kelation — Reason. Yet were we
to regard Matter as " atomistic," and treat it in this way as
the "only substantial," avc could retine it awa}^ to a "mere
nothing; " and by that same process it, too, becomes " every
thing," genetic and universal, just as this " Idea " has become,
by a similar abstraction from the Self. In either case, the
relation of Suljstance to the Self is lost, and is considered only
as Kelation, apart from Activity, which alone denotes and
announces the real Self. But we are just as certain that some-
thing exists as Substance in Matter, as we are that something
exists as Substance in Self, though we cannot tind it as
Substance in either, but only as Form. It does not end in
Nothing in either case, simply because an Infinite cannot end
in nothing — cannot end at all, but must return into itself in
all its forms.

Substance is, in fact, that Other Self of the Divine — its
passive side — and can be seen only in this aspect of relation to
what is active (just as we can see motion only as relative).
Hence, according as it takes the form of one's own activity, it
seems like the real, active Self, /rrational Mankind has seen
the God-Self in the Irrational ; Philosophy sees Him only in
the Rational — i.e., merely as this Relation, or Reason. But
why stop there, if there be a still higher aspect of the Man-
Self, who thus judges that Other by himself? For this Rational
judgment is only the appearance of the real Self in its first
element of mere relation — our recognition of a Whole,
instead of a chaos in the Universe, but only a whole. This
first step, then, is mere objective knowledge; and the true
integration depends upon a further use of this vanishing
element of mere Relation as being, not the Self, but only like
the Self. For, on due api)eal to consciousness, Man finds he
is not merely a t^AoZe — a thinii: of rational relation merelv —
but a consciousness which is his only real knowledge, and in
which, when he looks there, vanishes again this relation, to
Substance as passive, but in an opposite direction — i.e.,
there, he seems a mere activity, ?(nrelated, so far as he can
see. But here, again, that relation, as before, does not vanish
XIV— 2

18 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

into nothing, simply because its reacii is infinite ; but, as iii>
the other direction of relation to the passive, Substance grew
infinite and activity infinitesimal, so here, in relation to the
active, substance grows infinitesimal, and activity infinite in
the real Self: the former is novv the " mere relation " to God,,
as Substance, of a dependent Self; and the latter is that in
which this Self is to be made real — whole.

For it is not true, as Hegel says, that " the Incomprehen-
sible is encountered only in Nature, for to be manifest to itself
is the essence of Spirit;" for it is precisely the infinitesimal
side of Self-consciousness in Man which is incomprehensible
in form, as this infinitesimal side of the Divine Self as mere
Relation in Nature is incomprehensible, except as mere relation,
till recognized as the Thinking of another Infinite Self, whose
inner Self-consciousness is another infinite depth which no-
form of Reason can " comprehend," but which yet itself com-
prehends all, not as mere knowledge, but as Reality.

Hence, when Hegel comes to apply this scheme of Ideal
knowledge to Reality, he is forced to a more concrete concep-
tion : "The material of Truth is Spirit itself — inherent,,
vital movement" — of what, if not of a Self? " But what is
Spirit? It is the one immutably homogeneous Infinite, pure
Identity ; which, in its second phase, separates itself and makes
this second aspect its own polar opposite, viz., as Existence for
and in Self, as contrasted with the Universal," (Here we have
the separation of the Divine being into its two "Selves" —
the one, inner consciousness ; the other, external object of its
activity, connected with it by mere relation as Substance. )
" But this separation is annulled by the fact that atomistic
Subjectivity, as simple relation to itself, is itself the Univer-
sal — the Identical with Self." (Here we have the confusion
of " likeness " with " identity," by reason of the abolition of
any distinction between Substance and Activity in the Self —
in the Actor. This tenuity of projected " Thought," which is
held objectively as an " atomistic Self" by the mere thread of
relation, can become the vital and real Particular Self only by
the restoration to it of the " inherent vital movement " which
characterizes real Self, and by restoring also to the All-Self

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 19

the all-Substance from which this and all other forms thereof are
produced, and in which they have their means of action. He
then soes on to add, as if conscious of this defect of his defini-
tion of Spirit as applied to God,) " If Spirit be defined as abso-
lute reflection within itself, in virtue of its absolute duality —
Love, on the one hand, as comprehending the Emotional ;
Knowledge, on the other hand, as Spirit — it is recognized as
Triune — the Father, the Son, and that duality which essen-
tially characterizes it as Spirit." And so he finds Man
" posited " by Spirit — i.e., God — as an opposite, but real Self,
and " as the return from that opposite into its Self." Here
then, as Reality, we have a really concrete scheme, of which
the philosophical, or abstract scheme in mere knowledge, is
only a likeness, not an identity ; in the latter, the abstract
Self of mere Relation produced only an abstract and unreal
Universal ; in the former, the inexorable real Self, as Par-
ticular, requires and produces a concrete Universal Self. In-
stead of an abstract Universe of Idea and its Begriffs, we hare
the real Universe of God, Nature, Man.

Thus, to compare these results, Ave have in the abstract
sphere of mere Knowledge : Idea, Nature as form thereof.
Spirit as comprehending all forms in one Idea. In the con-
crete sphere of Reality, as seen by Man, we have : Thought or
Knowledge, as his unsubstantial non-self of mere relation or
Reason; Self-consciousness as a phenomenal form of Self;
and God as the Real Substantial Self, in whom all relations
meet in one consciousness of Self. In the Divine sphere, we
have the negative Self in Substance, as related in Natural and
other objective forms ; the positive Self, in concrete free
activity, as found phenomenally in Man, as reflection or return
of the real Self; and, lastly, that Real and All-Self to which
this consciousness everywhere returns, in God.

And it is just the glory and the grandeur of this " Idea"
of Heo-el, that it thus resolves itself into the real Self-con-
sciousness of God, — or into Nothing:. For we may conceive
that His consciousness may at any time be actually represented
by mere relation, — the Divine relation to all that exists in the
Universe, thus grasped in one Whole Idea. But, what then?

20 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

As knowledge only, even this is Infinite, and would take us an
eternity to comprehend in its complexity — i.e., it is incom-
prehensible, even as mere Relation. But is that a Fixed Idea,
unchangeable, immutable, etc., — never any thing new in that
consciousness? That may be " orthodox" conception, but it
is Brahm-ish ; and it is not Hegel's, nor is it Reality. This
Earth has a history, so has Mankind, so has the Universe.
Actual relations are changing, so far as we know, constantly,
everywhere, and with them this " Idea," — unless we suppose
a " balancing of the account " somewhere, so as to keep " one
and the same," perpetually, this Consciousness of God. But
a consciousness of that sort is none at all, — mechanical,
unreal, denotes no thinking. Thus aijain we find that mere
Relation is insufficient as a bond of this Divine Consciousness ;
there is something else in it which makes it real, makes it
Self ; — Activity. For in that Consciousness there is constant,
necessary Self-development, as in this " Idea " of Hegel's con-
ception. As the Past, it is God's Memory; as the Present, it
is Reality ; as the Fnture, it is His Will.

And so we are assured that Reason only finds, or can find,
Relation as a mere likeness, an evanescent infinitesimal of the
Self, which the Self alone can integrate and make real. The
whole Self must be brought to this task ; all its means of Per-
ception, all its process of Abstraction, all its imaginative
reflux into the Self in conception — in expression of a real and
vital whole. For it is not enough to perceive all, nor to relate
all to One ; we must also feel all, realize all, in Self-experience
and Self-expression, in consciousness and in act. And, in
this vital unity of our own, we see that God also "grasps"
us, not as mere " Begrifis," not in a mere abstract relation,
but as particular Selves of His Loving as well as Thinking
Self.

Hence, when we recur to " Logic," we find that it is, and
can 1)6, only a method of thought. Form is all it is, or has.
Let us see, then, if Hegel has found here the Universal, and
therefore the genetic, form or method of thinking: " In form,
Loo:ic has three sides : " —

(A. ) The abstract side, or that of the Understanding, which

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 21

holds fast the fixed individual and its differences from others ;
and such limitated abstract has for it the value of what is
independent and Self-sustained ; " — i.e., such Logic is imper-
fect classification of " thino:s ; " there is no o-enetic element
recognized in all from which to produce a Universal classifi-
cation.

(^B.) "The negative-rational, or dialectic side;" "the
dialectic moment is the self-sublation of such individuals, and
their transition into their opposites." That is, the former
concrete conceptions of " things " separate into two elements
which take toward each other the attitude of antithesis ; the
form in the mind — the " Begrift'" — is seen to be another
" grasp " of the relations which constitute the form seen in the
" thino; " itself. Here the Understandinoj tends to " neo;ate "
the inner form as a mere nullity, and to hold fast still to the
external as the only Reality — ^.e., it clings to the particular
" thing," and hence finds no Universal. But Reason tends to
hold fast to the Ideal as the Reality, because in that only does it
see the Universal, as form; and thus it lets go the particular
"thing" to secure the Universal all. From this inability to
agree or decide " arises Scepticism," as a balance-holder in
the dispute between Materialism and Idealism.

( C. ) " The positive-rational, or Speculative Side," " recog-
nizes the unity of the distinctions, even in the antithesis ; " it
"negates the distinctions, but preserves them in the result."
Thus " it has a positive result, though by negation. It sees
that the forms of the Idea are its distinctions." That is, the
same Idea may exist in different forms ; this distinction of mere
form is therefore null in itself; the reality common to all
forms is the Idea itself — that unity of relations which is
expressed by them all. The " truth " of a " thing," therefore,
is found in the " Begriff"" — the mental grasp of its relations in
the form of idea ; for every Begriff", or concrete conception of
this sort, is only a "distinction " — i.e., some particular form of
the one elementary and genetic Idea in the mind ; which latter
is Universal, simply because it can thus develop and exhibit
itself in infinite variety of forms. And thus it is seen that the
"forms" of the Lo^ic of the Understandino; — the mere

22 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

classification of "things," which is based on no common
interior formative element, but on mere exterior and formal
resemblance — such •' forms are not even forms of the True,
but as being merely formal, are onl}^ forms of the Finite, of
the Untrue " — i.e., they are mere artificial distinctions.

Substantially, this is what we are assured of by this Logic —
this "thinking of thinking" — this analytic demonstration:
that, in our thinking, one single and simple primitive concep-
tion, because it is itself concrete and indivisible, inevitably
develops itself, by this process of alternate antithesis and
synthesis, into an infinite variety of " Begriffs," or subordinate
forms of its own essential unity ; that these forms of our
thought are applicable to interpret similar thinking any-
where — in others, in Nature, in God.

For let us remember that "thinking" and "thought"
(whether we write them with capital initials or not) imply a
Thinker ; and it is because we find correspondence to our
Thinking in Nature that we conclude to a Thinker there, whom
we call God, and infer that His thinking is like ours — a
development of simple genetic idea into infinite variety of
forms. Hence, a "thing" (the word itself is a compression
of "thinking") is only a development of the Universal or
primitive idea in that particular form ; and if we can evolve from
the Universal o-enetic element in our thinking, the Begriff —
the particular form of our thought which "grasps" all the
relations of that " thing " {that " thinking " ) — we shall have,
in such conception, not only the ideal form of that thing, but
also the placing of it in its Universal relations. In other
words, we thus repeat within us the genesis of things, and
thereby realize them ideally, or know them, without thereby
destrovins; them.

These " three sides " of Logic, says Hegel, " are not three
parts, but three moments of every Logical Real — i.e., of every
Begrifi", of every True in general. They may be set under the
first, or dianoetic moment, and thereby held asunder ; but, so
held, are not considered in their truth." That is, we are not
content with mere severance into particulars and artificial
classification ; we wish to relate everything universally, and we

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 23

feel that, otherwise, we do not comprehend its reality ; real
knowledge of it escapes us till we can thus relate it to the
Uiiiversal, and see its genesis from that. To make this clearer,
let us state the process in ditferent language, and from a dif-
ferent point of view.

(1.) The first tendency of thinking is toward mere percep-
tion, or reception, of things and relations — i.e., the Self is in
passive mood, and every reality seems to it objective. If
thinking end here, its Logic is mere classification ; and knowl-
edge naturally divides itself, in consciousness, into the imperfect
classification of external facts and an imperfect realization of
Self, which is confused and dizzied in this multitude of par-
ticulars. Hence, in feeling, the tendency is to mere Object-
worship.

(2.) The next moment or tendency of thinking is a return
inward of this act of perception, a study of Self, and of ex-
terior ol)jects as found there — i.e., of the phenomena of mind ;
for a New World is here discovered, but whether real or unreal,
IS a question which gives rise to two philosophies, one of which
" negates " the material world to preserve the inner one, and
the other does just the contrary. To the one, Knowledge is
wholly of external facts, and is thence derived ; the other says
all Knowledge, and all real facts, too, are internal, and there-
fore "identical." There is a complete stagnation of both
parties in the marsh of abstraction, in this " sublation " of
things into their opposites, and their obstinate refusal to return
from that flight. The Logic either finds no Universal, or finds
it in Self; hence the tendency ends in worship of Nothing or
worship of Self, which is practically the same result, for
inipaitial Scepticism bows down at the same shiune.

(3. ) The final tendency is back from this negative or abstract
Universal into the concrete Self, to find there the element which
has been lost in this mere abstraction. For, if consciousness
has become conscience, the case begins to look serious wiien a
man has " reasoned" himself either into a nonentity or into
an " infinite." In either case, there is no God ; and whether
a man calls himself a non-Self or an All-Self, he can scarcely
•come for an instant out of his abstractions into Realit}', with-

24 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

out hearing, aroiind, above, within, without him, a universal
chorus of contradiction . Especially does that vast overhanging-
canopy of Heaven trouble him with its infinite depths, and
there comes rushing upon him an overpowering sense of that
Divine Self which must correspond to his own ; at least, as
centre and life of all this outer Universe, as he finds his own
Self to l)e the centre and life of his own inner World. And
this intuitive sense of that Infinite Self (though concrete in
feeling only) makes concrete and vital his own Self, even while
seeming to amiihilate it ; for he is conscious that his world of
"Thought," his Creation, has not even the regular round of
sunset and sunrise, but flashes up and flashes out of existence
like an electric aurora. Even now it is extinguished in pres-
ence of this permanent Creation, or exists only as knowledge of
that ; yet in this very constancy and persistency of capacity to
reproduce God's World in his thought, he recognizes his very
Self — the verity of his nature.

And then comes to him, not in a mighty, rushing wind, but
in a still, small voice : " My child, learn to know thyself that
thou mayest know me. Thou art not a mere Idea; thou hast
a heart, thou knowest what Love is ; learn to synthesize, as
that does, by losing thyself in another in order to find thyself.
Thy true negation, and thy true being, consist in loving what is
good with all thy heart, and mind, and soul, and strength. So
shalt thou know me. Express this love in thought, in word,
and especially in outward deed, and thou shalt surely grow in
the image of the Divine. To thee have I given the capacity,
both to comprehend and to continue in my name this work
of mine — to recreate this Creation in its ideal character, to
repeat my thoughts, to be my Providence in acts — that so I
may fully see nn^self in thee. Take freely my substance ; I
am near unto thee always, even in thy very heart, as thou in

o

mine."

Such counsel receives this self-" annihilated " Self when
it communes in feeling with its overshadowing, but life-giving
Universal Self — its concrete counterpart. When this feeling
is fully (if it ever is fully) "translated into thought," it
sio-nifies that to Man is given the capacity to follow in the foot-

' The Matter and the Method of Thought. 25

steps of an Almighty Father, and by imitating His work, to
understand Him.

And this revulsion from our strained expansion in abstrac-
tions back into the very depths of our being, where we float
upon the elemental ocean of Divine concrete feeling, indicates
that it is there, in the very elements of our concrete conscious-
ness, that we are to find the basis of all our knowledge, the
test of all our artificial systems, and the completion of the true
one. It is not in our elementary beliefs that faith wavers, but
in the complex structures we build thereon, and wherein we
err by not recurring to our test of concrete completeness and
correspondence with God's Reality. It is our ofiice and our
duty to build on these elements — Heaven-high if we can. But,
if we proceed by mere analysis, it is only an infinite progress,
or an absurdity, never rounding into itself and becoming con-
crete as a real Self. Man is never to reach God by a Tower of
Babel, even if it be built of the "purest" thoughts, i.e.,
abstractions ; simply because God is not so far ofl', after all,
but right here, in the heart; every truly real, ^.e., concrete
thought, though it be of the simplest, finds Him there.

It is evident, indeed, that Man can never know the Infinite
by mere classification, nor by actually seeing all the relations
of this Totality of Thino;s : nor even bv dialectic dealing with
the most profound analysis of his own thoughts. All that
comes to nothing, or to a " bastard infinite," which is also a
nothing. If, indeed, we were condemned to get a satisfactory
conception of our relations in such ways as these alone,
pitiable would be our lot. We must in that case agree with
Spinoza, that we cannot know God till we know all about Him ;
that we cannot aspire to immortality unless we have climbed
the highest rounds of Reason's ladder into Heaven — that is,
that we have otherwise no real Self, no entelechy, nothing
worth preserving, but are the worm-eaten buds on Nature's
tree. As Guizot wittily observes of this, it will hardly do, in
these anti-privilege days, for philosophers to claim a monopoly
of immortality ; nor, we may add, of such uncommonly plenti-
ful and universally claimed "property" as Self and Selfish-
ness.

^6 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Hence the essential thing (or thinking) in thinking is this
revolt from abstraction — this refusal to part, except momen-
tarily, the vital unity of the Consciousness — this return to
the whole consciousness, and recognition of it as the place
where every thinking must have its reality tested, whether it
present itself as Truth, Beauty, or Goodness. That is just why
a true method of thought must appeal to, and can be developed
in, the humblest as well as the highest ; for it is this vital
unity of the Self which gives " Common Sense," whether it
be called "hard sense," or aBsthetic sense, or conscience;
and in any of these forms it recognizes that a man is no more
sane — whole — when he " reasons " himself out of his senses,
than when he sensualizes himself out of his Reason. As
Dante's poetic eye saw in the Divine Trinity " now One, now
Three," so in Self-consciousness there is a trinity in unity
which cannot be severed in complete thinking. A true method
of thinking, then, will not permit the Self to be regarded as
whole, except in its unity of action as Feeling, Imagination, and
Reason ; nor as otherwise capable of full realization in any of
its spheres of action, Science, Art, and Philosophy, which are
all one in Relimon.

That one, in all these trinities, of which its mates are apt
(in their abstracted mood) to speak with the most condescen-
sion, as "powerless Beauty," or "sensuous Imagination," or
"Art which iinds its material in feeling " — that " one and the
same" is yet the Mediator of the others, and the greatest of
them all, for it is Love — that which unites, synthesizes.

The patronizing air with which "Philosophy" is wont to
speak of Art is particularly refreshing to behold, especially in
one who has gone daft with "Reason," for lack of Imagina-
tion. For Art, simply because it must be this concrete Self-
expression, and can restore those perceptions which are present
in "feeling," but which cannot be thence taken as abstract,
has always led the van of human progress. In that, Man
iinds his initial freedom ; and therein he always will express
his highest ideal conceptions, in a form not merely rationalized
by relation as a whole, but vitalized by feeling as a Self. It is
in Art that he first discovers this correspondence between

TJie Matter and the Method of Thought. 27

human and Divine ideas, and taiies heart. Man works in Art
from Love, and as by inspiration ; for he is on the right path —
that of imitation — and instinctively his thought reaches out
from his own creation to a Divine Creator. One is reminded
of that " Ode to the god of the festival " which compunctious
Socrates spent his last days in toiling at, warned by his
" monitor " that he had always been a mere reasoner, and had
never before trie^i, from "poverty of invention," to lay a
tribute on the altar of Art.

Science follows after, allured by Art's ideals — inspired to
realize what somebody has imagined. And the true office of
practical Science is to complete the data of human experience,
as it is in reality, so that the mere abstractions of Reason shall
not be taken for that reality ; that is to say, nothing can be
fully realized or known without actual self-experience of it,
by sympathy or otherwise. We cannot know all the *' rela-
tions " of a flower, unless, by some subtle alchemy of feeling,
we can put ourselves in its place, and, as it were, feel in our-
selves the throb of the Divine life in its tender petals. So, we
cannot fully " diagnose " another Self, till we sympathize with
its pain or its pleasure. The physician must take his " case "
to heart, before it fully conies to his head, unless he can know
it as one of those "parallel cases" which experience itself
proves never occur. Now Science is that which gathers in
the lost threads of personal and general experience, in its
"statistics," its "memoranda" of inductive "succession,"
as cause and eftect. Thus it restores to individual, and espe-
cially to public judgment, what its own sympathy may fail to
supply. And as all vital Sciences — physiology, sociology,
politics — escape the reach of mere abstract relations, they must
necessarily be thus empirical. The Family, State, Church, are
those larger selves, modelled on the pattern of the average
individual Self in them, it is true, and hence happy, or wise,
or godlike, only as he is good ; yet, in all of these, empirical
Science — as Statistics, History, all forms of experience — tends
to bring men out of their abstract, incomplete, partial judg-
ments, and restore to them the vital and real judgment of that
concrete Self, which thus finds it must know and care for the

28 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

whole man. In short, Science may thus find " the golden
rule," as Confucius did, in this purely practical direction.
China is a statistical empire, and illustrates both the virtues
and vices which will result from exclusive use of the empirical ;
it is conservatism without progress — a taking forever to know
the self, because not finding God.

Last of all comes Philosophy ; but, to be true to its name
and its duty, it must be a poetic philosophy, creating in love of
Reality, concrete in heart and soul, recognizing and using the
whole Man. Hence it cannot be that " Positive Philosophy "
of Comte, based on sense alone, where sentiment itself grows
sick and perishing, and can find the " complement " of this zero,
Man, only in that " bastard Infinite," " Humanity," as V Eire
Supreme. Nor is it that opposite abstraction of Idealism
which reduces all to fog, or mystery. It must be that Real
Philosophy which recognizes that the Soul can be " reconciled
with the Body" in the Present, and still, and even thereby,
be also "reconciled with the Divine" in the Present and
Future. For it is in this Earthly Beauty, and this Earthly
Love, that we may divine, as Plato did, that the immortal
Beauty and the Ideal Truth are One and Real in God. " Grant
me," sighed Socrates, "grant me only the existence of the
Absolute Beauty, and I will prove that the Soul is immor-
tal ; " — thus showing the inevitable vivification of the real
Self in that conception, and its pathetic sorrow at not being
able to fully realize itself in that philosophy which sees trans-
figuration promised in this Human likeness to and longing for
the Divine. For man is transformed into that which he loves,
whether it be sensual or spiritual. Likeness is not liking ;
indeed, one loves what he lacks — his opposite ; but it is a
maxim that two who love srrow like.

As true thinking recognizes Science, Art, and Philosophy as
only a triunit}', so does it regard Feeling, Reason, and Imagina-
tion as the necessary triunity of every act of the Self — Feeling,
as its passive state of receptivity ; Reason, as its active state
of Perception ; Imagination, as its formative act in conception.
Hence, Feeling is the very consciousness itself, where all the
thinking, or other acts of the Self, must come back for realiza-

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 29

tion in form. But it is more — it is also consciousness of the
non-Self; and in this passive mood it says, "I am the stuff
that dreams are made of ! ' ' That is, it recognizes its capability
of being. acted upon — of being transformed by others into
all forms, vague or monstrous, as well as definite or beautiful.
In this deepest deep of Consciousness, what we know we know
not — can know, in part, only by searching for its form actively.
Hence, though all we know, or can know, is there in solution.
Self itself is known only as activity shaping itself into form by
act of Will.

Reason is this active effort to perceive more ; and that is all
it is, alone. It is the opposite of the concentrative passive
reception of Consciousness in Feeling, its expansion and dis-
sipation by analysis. It is itself a consciousness of relations,
and an active dissolution of "things" thereby — a severance
of the concrete whole into parts, of the Self from the non-Self.
As this seclusion in the Abstract, it is the most difficult and
refined use of the mind, and requires the most careful culture ;
and hence it is liable to be the most conceited, and disposed
to tear itself loose as an independent entity, "to be by itself,
alone — for that is Freedom." Yet, in itself it is only percep-
tion of relations. It brings nothing into the mind, and can
perceive only what is there ; if anything is lacking to form a
whole, it can be supplied only by Imagination. Hence Reason
is only Simple Perception in what it perceives, and Imagination
in what it conceives ; its oflice is only to Separate. Reason is
helpless, therefore, as Newton admits, without Imagination —
cannot, without that, complete a theory or any other synthesis.
Thus, in itself, it is " negation " personified — the mere expan-
sion of the act of thought, and a finding of numberless parts,
but no whole.

If any faculty might assume to be complete in itself, it is
Imagination ; for that will have nothing to do with incomplete-
ness — except to complete it. It is the royal faculty. It rises
like an Alpine peak, based on all-comprehensive, tropical con-
sciousness, and crowned with eternal snows ; for, even in the
frio'id reg-ion of Abstraction, it is what concretes and unifies
and forms. It is the " closing-in," the return " moment," in

30 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

all forms of thought, whether as complete Simple Perception
of Self or another, or as the " positive-rational dialectic,"
which includes a Universe in its grasp. It is on the wings of
Imaofination that Reason oroes out from finite Self into the
Infinite ; and, unless it is wholly unreasonable, thus will it be
brought back again to that deepest Consciousness from which
Imagination takes its flight. Hence a man may as well put out
his eyes in order to see better, as to cripple his imaginative
power ; that is his insight, and also his necessary means of
realizing anything, either in thought or in action. Yet, alone,
like the others, it is null ; it grasps a nothing, or an illusion,
unless it unites with them to find God's Real. A true poet will
be a philosopher, but not " in spite of himself; " he must have
common sense.

A complete Philosophy is, indeed, in itself, only a complete
method of thinking ; and it may be asked what claim this
synthetic method has to be such a philosophy. Does it not,
like others, base itself upon some assumption? the assumption
here being this : that our thinking is, not the same, indeed,
but like the Divine thinking, and therefore able to interpret
"things."

The answer is, that, as Philosophy, this method does not
claim to be a " system," except in those large, general out-
lines, those few and simple features, which every one admits,
if he admits the validity of his Self-consciousness, and which
are thus within the grasp of all. All the rest — the details of
system — it leaves where they should, and must be left : to the
interpretation of self-development in the individual, and of
advancing knowledge in general.

As Method, its justification is in the very ntiture of our Con-
sciousness, and in the confirmation, by experience, of its use ;
in the fact that Man finds his Thought is broadened by imitation
of God's thinking, as he finds his physical power widened in
use of Divine laws, and his moral freedom in imitation of
Divine goodness. It is justified, also, as calling for the educa-
tion and use of the whole man. It has the highest reach,
because it goes to the deepest depths of human nature ; because
it includes all its powers, all its means of perception, and does

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 31

not seek to cleave asunder that which God has joined together.
It has its special vitality as means in that which is most vital,
most concrete, most universal in mankind — sympathetic feel-
ing — without whose aid it does not pretend to work its synthesis.
Finally, it is justified by the necessity of the case ; there is no
other method which meets the exigencies, either of the simple,
unphilosophic mind, or of the last refinements of human
intellijrence. If knowledo;e of God is shut out, and immor-
tality denied to all l)ut philosophers, as Spinoza would have
it, then must God and Heaven be mere abstractions which exist
only in the human mind ; for they are not humane — i.e., con-
cretely human, really Divine. And as Geometry, which deals
merely by comparison of like with like (not assuming them
to be "identical"), preceded analytic Mathematics, which
assumes to measure everything, and take exact account, so this
synthetic philosophy always did and will precede the analytic ;
and just as Mathematics failed to " measure " the Infinite, and
found all analytic methods powerless in its presence, and was
obliged to generate it in a comparative synthesis as a " like"
(by a process which its originators vainly sought to explain as
analysis, and therefore could not demonstrate), so Philosophy,
in its last resort, finds this synthetic method of " likeness " —
of comparative integration — its highest means of compre-
hension.

And so Man's every real thought, his every complete con-
ception of things, is, we may say, an integration by corre-
spondence. In imitation of the Divine activity in Nature, he
builds up within him complex ideas — relations of thought.
Just so fast as he can thus realize in himself the relations of
things, can he understand Nature, by repeating her ideal forms.
His ideas and their relations are the " differential equations "
by which he "integrates " Nature when he finds there the same
elements similarly related. But, as in the Calculus we are
stopped by our inability to construct differential equations —
correspondences in relation — beyond a certain point, so in our
interpretation of Nature are we unable to realize in ourselves
conceptions of sufficient complexity to apply for the resolution

32 The Journal of Speculative Pldlosopliy .

of all the interrelations of God's thought. Yet, in either case,
our capability has proved itself far beyond the call of practical
needs.

Heo:el has furnished, for this use, " formulas " of the hisrhest
order yet achieved, and has actually verified the method itself in
the abstract field, and applied it with great success practi-
cally, —though apparently with something of the same uncon-
sciousness of the real character of the method he is using,
as in the case of Newton, Leibnitz, Lagrange, Comte, and
others, with the Calculus. With Hegel, the Self is always
an abstraction, though it "moves itself," etc., etc. Give it
vitality, make it this real Self of ours, and the method is seen
at once to be one of comparison, likeness, correspondence of
synthesis, and it escapes the shoal of " identities."

A complete method of thought must apply to the concrete
as well as to the abstract. Now, the application of this method
to mere abstractions is patently evident ; otherwise, language
would be no means of communication. The thought is not the
words ; I can have it in another lanijuao-e, or without words at
all, in the relations of an image-form. Forms may differ vastly,
yet express the same thing — thinking, relations, reason-
ing. They may be, the one natural, the other purely conven-
tional, and yet do this. So, in the Calculus, the equation of
a curve is not " identically " a curve, but like a curve — i.e.^
the algebraic terms express the curve, and the genesis of a
curve, when they are ranged and dealt with in the same formal
relations as those of the curve, down to the genetic " point"
in that curve represented by the corresponding relation of
infinitesimals in the genesis of the equation. For if you have
a like formative relation between the parts of a whole, you can
conclude to the same likeness between the wholes thus differ-
ently represented. And so, when we treat the Infinite in any
form, our integration must not spring from a " nothing," but
from a real, though formal, element of relation — from that
" last relation " of the elements which compose that Infinite,
and from which it returns into itself. For a really infinite must
be concrete; if it were wholly abstract, "pure identity," it

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 33

would itself be nothing. If you call it " simple relation to
itself," that implies at least duality; otherwise, there can be
no relatioji.

Still further (and right here is the place to draw again the
contrast between our " three methods " of thought) , there can
be no infinite realized in conception without the accessory of
"motion" as working its genesis. Hence, in the purely
abstract methods, even in the Calculus, we have the progressive
and continuous evolution of the circle by motion ; so, in the
Universe of Materialism there is a "correlation of forces,"
and in Hegel's correlation of Ideas there is a necessity for
" Self-movement," or we have a Fixed Idea. In either case,
there is a failure to exhibit or recognize any real activity ; and
hence, just as much as in the Calculus, we have a merely
abstract, conceived-of force, or movement, to help out the
synthesis. Now, these methods both neglect, as null, the only
"force" of which we know the reality — this vital activity
of the Self and endeavor to make a Universe out of Substance
alone, the one calling it mysterious Self-moving Matter, the
other, mysterious Self-moving Thought ; and, truly, it is " in-
comprehensible " in either case, and wholly incapable of
forming an Infinite with its "identity" alone, or until that
name " Self" is made a real Self.

No, in this concrete and real Universe, the formative element
of relation is found, not in a mere static relation of the whole
to its parts, as in an idea, or a material universe without a
Mover, but in this concrete and real Self which we know
has the power to form the idea and to move Matter, in this
actual trinity of the active Self, as related to an Inner and an
Outer 6?/ its activity, and therefore genetic of the real Infinite.
Hence the whole Real cannot be known except by preserving
this real, though infinitesimal, relation of the Self in us — in the
inteofration. And thus it results that this method cannot con-
sistently annihilate either God or Man ; not the former, because
it must have an Infinite Self, and not an infinite abstraction ;
not the latter, because his Self-consciousness is the basis of the
whole thinking. As there can be no real genesis of things
XIV — 3

34 J'he Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

without a Real Self, so there can be no conceptive genesis of
thinking except in and by a real Self.

Hence, a true method of thinking implies, in the case of its
application to concrete things, not merely " reasoning," but
also " feeling," " sentiment ; " for it must be the full realiza-
tion of another Self, and hence must include the whole Spiritual
activity in all its forms. There can be no complete thinking
otherwise, simply because there is a failure of complete per-
ception ; and no complete expression, for want of full concep-
tion. Thus, Christ " spoke in parables," not in philosoj^hical
abstractions ; for he spoke from and to the feeling, the
conscience, the whole man; and, for this utterance, figure of
speech is absolutely necessary to restore the vital, real, and
active " Spirit" of things.

"Feeling" is often spoken of contemptuously as incomplete,
vague, or indefinite, and therefore worthless. But the fact is
that Feeling, only, is that in us which is complete in itself —
contains all — and its vagueness is merelv want of form. It is
Reason which fails because of incompleteness ; it does not
extract from Feeling or Sentiment all that is really perceived ;
and it is thus that its "definite forms" (which it owes to
Imagination) become abstract and unreal. True concrete
conception must restore these neglected perceptions which are
"felt," but not seen. (And we may note, also, that while
Reason rids us of our Superstitions, it also tends to deprive us
of our keenest intuitions and instincts. The savage, and even
the brute, retains those " divining" perceptions of the senses
which civilized man has lost by non-use, or whose monitions
he neglects as " unreasonable.") Hence it is perfectly true
that one may "feel" what he cannot "think" in any other
form. The emotions have their forms in flittino; images, which
sometimes express all that one perceives truly and concretely,
but vanish before we have fixed their outlines ; such is their
urgent procession through the mind. And it is that " common
sense " which refuses to surrender its real and concrete percep-
tions, no matter how evanescent or changeful they may be in
these " forms of thought," which enables " common people "

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 35

to understand, even better and deeper, the reality of things,
than does the " philosopher," who refuses to employ his whole
Self in the task, and hence fancies he has reduced the Universe
to a mere abstract formula. For to the true comprehension
of living realities we must bring, not merely " thought," so-
called, but that inner realization, by " sympathy," with which
alone we expect to be understood, by others, or can expect to
understand them. This will "give us the idea," as it is in
" that other;" for it completes our perceptions of what is —
restores the life to things, gives them their real being, and at
the same time preserves and very eftectually " connotes " our
differences from them.

Hence, " thought," which seeks to part itself from " feeling,"
or from Imagination, which is its own feeling for forms, in the
vain tancy of shunning Nature as impurity, is not only ungrate-
ful and impious in thus discarding its most intimate relations
with the Divine thought, but deprives itself of the perceptions
most vitally necessary to concrete conception, and is very sure
to reap the reward of its vanity by feeding on the dry husks
of unnatural abstraction.

The " purity " of thought which consists in its being abstract
is of the sort which never purities anything. For abstract
thought is notoriously inefficient morally ; it has no effect upon
the act, the life ; we can swallow a Universe of it, and be
wicked still. On the contrary, a thought or conception which
corresponds to anything real has such affinity with the whole
man that it finds its expression in all the forms of his percep-
tion, down to and including those relations of nerve-vibrations
in the senses where pathos melts itself in tears, and incongruity
of conception shows itself in laughter. Nay, the sense-per-
ception itself, in its actual experience of pleasure and pain, is
more really cognizant of Heaven and Hell than any "pure
thouo;lit " which divorces itself from sensation. Hence the
power of Music and its vast scope, so much a mystery to
"philosophers" because it deals only with the "feelings."
Take, for example, on one hand, Beethoven's celestial synthesis
of thought, and his maxim that "the true secret of Art lies
in the Moral;" on the other, the immense complication and

36 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

truth of expression in Wagner's "Bacchanals" — a furious
maniacal orgie, where Music reaches its very antithesis of being
not music, like the cavalry charge at Balaklava, which was
" grand, but not war."

This exterior effect of thought, far from impeaching the
purity of the thought, is, on the contrary, a test of its real
character — i.e., of its capacity for real application — which
requires that thought should end (like Infinity) where it
begins, in its primitive spring, in its means of application.
It is never too large for its birthplace, nor too good. There
is plenty of room for it there, and there is precisely where it
is wanted. That genetic element of sense-perception, from
which has sprung all this Universe within us, is also capable of
translating it into an outer creation of ours that shall express
all that is lovely, or good, or true, in it. For this " last rela-
tion " of thought, in the senses, contains in itself the whole
round of the Hegelian " moments," or tendencies of perception,
between the " Self" and the " not-Self," and their positive and
concrete resolution ; and it contains them in such simplicity
that the conception there urges itself into act, in Art, in
Politics, in Religion.

When we compare the relative merits, therefore, of Thought,
in its three forms of Abstract Reason, Imagination, and Simple
Perception, we see that Reason has more breadth of scope in
the sphere of relations, while Simple Perception has more height
and depth in the same sphere ; for the abstraction of Reason
separates it from both God and Man, while Simple Perception
goes from the nadir to the zenith of all we know. Thus, while
Reason seeks the Universal, the fundamental simplicity of
Perception preserves the Particular, and restores us to Reality.
Imagination is a medium between these two — unites them,
reflects the sense-perception in varied images, completes the
rational synthesis by its flashes of illumination, its electric
discharges of these "negative" and "positive" quantities
through its subtle feeling of Relation. The sphere of this
creative faculty, based on the primitive genetic element of that
"last relation" of Spirit to Matter which is Universal, rises
pyramidal through all the depth and breadth and height of our

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 37

thinking. Hence the immense power of Art, both to develop
and to inform ns. Take it in its most sensuous form — Music —
and there, just because it deals only with the primitive element
of mere motion, in its natural, or least conventionalized forms,
is it most varied and universal in its scope. As Melody, it is
11 particular Self; as Harmony, it is a Universal Self; for a
melody is such only because it is a successive harmony, and a
harmony is such because it is made up of successive melodies.
Each is the other, in its particular way, while the harmony
includes the others, as parallel, and also as changeable, in the
•" parts."

And here we see another distinction between the op})osite
-sides of this sphere of Thought : that of mere sense being
particular, yet indefinite, and in that respect touches the
abstract Universal, the Rational, seeking the definite in the
Universal, and for that returning necessarily to the Particular,
the embodiment of both is Art — true Self-expression in
infinite variety of forms.

Hence we must return at last to the Platonic S>'nthesis,
the poetic philosophy, the Christian principle of the Divine
Manifest in the Particular as well as in the Universal, in
Substantial Form as well as in active Spirit, complete and
•conci'ete only in an Actor — a Self, which is real, emotional as
well as thoughtful. Heart as well as Head, and chiefiy Divine
because it is thus Loving and Lovable.

" God is Love," may be, in itself, an insufficient, or a much
misunderstood definition of the Divine Nature ; but it is an
■utterance which springs from the intensest Self, from the very
heart and whole of the human being. In fact, it is true only
because it is not a definition, but recognizes the impossibility
of defining what is infinite, and so only names it in that aspect
which corresponds to this Self, in what alone it knows itself
to be — activity.

For, if God is Love, so also is the Self. Love may be
■described as " being " in its immediacy — i.e., abstractly or
initially — only that infinite cohesion of the Self which gives
and preserves its unity. But in this mere selfishness, this
isolation. Love "negates" itself; in this guise it is only an

38 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

abstraction — a not-Love — an imrealized Self; the "like-
ness" it finds there is unlike itself. There is, therefore, an
"immanent going out of Self" involved in it; it can find
itself only in its opposite of Self-separation — partially finds
itself in objectivization as real activity, but wholly only in
another Love, which restores to it its own full nature as both
Object and Subject. Here we have again these mysterious
" moments " of Thought itself in all its forms. Is " Thought "
itself, then, a mere " feeling?" It would never do to "think"
that !

Hegel has spoken passingly of this Love, especially in its
religious aspect, as "a feeling complete in itself and satisfy-
ing ; " as if he were conscious that here was something insoluble
into mere abstractions, something Divinely and perpetually
real, something that can exist outside the sphere of abstract
"Thought," and, in fact, everywhere else but there. His
searching analysis has served to rescue this vital conception
from the vagueness of mere mysticism, but not to explain the
unsearchable mystery of this inseparable unity of the Self,
which preserves itself through all change, all development, all
Self-contradiction .

Antithesis, however, is no mystery, in describing our self-
inspection, for it is obviously a necessity. If we choose to
regard the Self in any of its phases — whether as Love, or
Thought, or Activity — this antithetic necessity of "going
out" of the abstraction in which we have put it, in order to
become its real self, will result. We are not to be cheated out
of our common sense, then, by Hegel's constant habit of
speaking of abstractions as doing this or that. We recognize
this as mere figurative expression, good to give life to style, and
even necessary to representation of what is signified. But, in
stern Logic, one cannot pass from this figurative to an absolute
use of words, without simply begging the question. Thus, to
say, "Thought alone has Unity, and therefore is All," is no
argument ; we can boldly deny that Thought has anything
whatever ; it is had, by a Thinker. It is we, our little selves,
that have and do all these beautiful things, and are responsible
for their being loell done. We describe our acts of thought by

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 39

representing them as so many dramatic personages playing
their parts on this inner stage ; but it is another singuhir meet-
ino- of contradictions that only those who decry tigurative
speech are deluded by it. Just because they seek to avoid
such speech, and fancy they do, but cannot, they take these
fictitious personages for real actors or entities.

And, really, to clear up all this confusion of entities, which is
somewhat akin to the old Scholastic and older Hebrew worship
of Verbalism, we must perhaps show that this real Self of ours
is capable of all this tigurative transformation — this innering
and outering, " sublation," etc. But if, in so doing, we are
obliged to use figure of speech, let us recognize the necessity
or convenience of so doing, and thus save ourselves from
illusion.

In fact. Self cannot see its very Self in itself; that is just
why there is in it this latent antithesis, this inborn necessity of
going out of itself to find itself. Hence self-inspection —
seeking self within — is by no means the first or the habitual act
of human nature. Introspection is a habit acquired with diffi-
culty ; and even so, as we see, is quite apt to fix upon what it
sees within, in particular forms of thought as entities — other
selves — rather than to recognize them as merely particular
forms of its own creation. Self, indeed, has no real conscious-
ness of being anything but its own activity. Now Activity,
also, is abstractly — i.e., as §'was^-quiescent — an "immanent
going-out." But Self cannot " go out " in activity without
findinjy some result of this activitv ; and this result first seems
to it, or is regarded by it, as objective. But, on further appeal
to Consciousness, only the activity itself is found to be all real
or permanent. The result is only Self, again, in some particular
form of its transient activity, which hal)itual repetition,
however, makes easier for it to again assume ; in this aspect the
Self finds itself developing into a slave of its own acts, and a
victim of its own objects, if they are false or bad. Thus the
real Self is the unknown " Substance " of the process all along,
and the activity is its " content," taking various voluntary or
involuntary forms in and of that same Self (involuntary, e.g.,
in dreams). The Self naturally does not recognize itself fully

40 The Journal of Speculative Pltilosophy .

in any particulur oi'ie of these forms of its activity, which are
constantly increasing in number and variety ; especially not in
those which are involuntary, or quasi-\ oXwntAvy — its mere
let-be's, but only in some general or complete form — some
photograph of all these varied features in one whole. Or,
indeed, fain would it recognize its real Self only in that which
is selected, composed, and idealized as what Self would be, and
seeks to be, in its perfection. This eftbrt to realize a perfect
Self — i.e., to comprehend one's Self in a form which shall
rationalize all other forms as subordinate, and thus be, in itself,
beautiful in form and lovable in nature — inevitably leads to the
conception of God as that Self; by way of sentiment most
speedily, from sense of imperfection, and longing for that
which is perfect, but also, though more slowly and stum-
blingly, by way of "thought;" because all these particular
forms are transient and fleeting (or else are cruel masters),
the activity of Self is Saturnian — all-devouring — till it rests
upon that Divine conception, for there alone it can see a real
and substantial Being, for all — a Universal One, having a
Substance which this Self-seeker is not conscious of having,
or at least of knowing, and upon whom, therefore, it recognizes
its dependence. Thus, that which, till then, has known itself
only as activity, now knows itself as rest — reconciliation with
God — as in fellowship with Him in that universal Substance,
of which it has not yet been conscious, nor known in any or
all of the particular forms of its activities, because it can know
it only as its union with God, as its static condition, or status
in the Universe.

This seekins: and finding one's restful, static Self is also sub-
stantially Hegel's description of Love ; an internal condition,
at first, of restful i»iconsciousness of Self, which is developed,
as above detailed, till it finds, not merely longing, and eager
consciousness of unsatisfied activity, but full consciousness of
Self-substance in another.

But can we apply this also to God, the Universal Self?
Yes ; only here the process is exactly the reverse. As the par-
ticular Self, conscious only of activity, can find its substantial
Self only in the Universal, so the Universal, which begins with

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 41

full consciousness of Substantial Self, can fully realize its
■activity .only in the Particular, and in various Particulars
according to the modes of that activity ; hence the character-
istic Self-activity will develop itself in a Self — free activity.
The case here is not that of a Particular Self coming to full
consciousness, or knowledge, of Self, in love of a perfect
Universal, upon which it is dependent, both for substantial
being and for satisfaction of Self, but that of One seeking to
realize in a lovino; Beino; — a Beino; conscious of love as its
highest and fullest activity — a full and complete expression of
this Universal Activity, thus characterized as working in love,
and with Love for its highest and fullest manifestation. As
the Universal comes down to meet the Particular in all its
forms, and according to the form, so, as Love itself it comes
down to meet Man as Love ; and only thus does it wake him
to full consciousness of himself, for in Thought, it meets and
wakes him only to consciousness of his activity.

Love and Thought may, in abstract phase, be considered as
the intension and the extension of Self; the contractility is as
infinite as the scope, and inevitably unites the Universal with
the Particular. For Love alone is that which enables us to
conceive of an infinity of weal or wo as real or possible for us.
That alone reads and knows as by instinct, and needs no other
revelation than itself. That alone understands this absurdity
of finding one's Self in another, and in an Only other; for
when Love scatters its regards over numl)erless others, it
is as lost a child as Science itself, similarly unclassified ; it
does not recognize itself in them : they are only other Particu-
lars.

And let us hasten to add that this Love, like all other poetic
personations of thought, and other subordinate actors within
us, is only an act of contemplation by the Self; otherwise, its
"acts" would not be of the slightest consequence to us.
Hegel describes it as a state, a condition of the Soul (and
we will not too curiously inquire how a mere " internality "
can do this or that). So it is ; a state of full contemplation,
in which the Soul refuses the aid of none of its faculties —
(unless it be " Reason " ) — cannot so refuse, but seems forced

42 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

to open itself passively, on all sides, to the Universal ; and the
inflow upon it of impressions is real as it is universal. It is a
full reception and acceptance of all the perceptions in an infinity
of detail, yet in a felt one-ness, in Self. Hence it is the
intensest state of Self-consciousness, and its progress is neces-
sarily through suffering ; this static side of it is its Passion.
But every state has its active side in Self, for it is only a state
of activity. So every act has its static side ; and here is where
Love differs, as an act, from Thought ; it is a complete act of
the Self, and has a real object, while the latter is only a
partial act and has a fictitious object — the mere forms of
thought. Thought, particularly in its " higher,"' i.e., abstract
forms, is selection — choice of some, and discarding of other
objects of perception ; that is what gives it its special power,
but also is its special weakness ; it is not a full embodiment
of Self as act, nor a full consciousness of Self as state. But
that is precisely what Love is, as act and state. It is a suftering
not to find, a looking to find, a joy of all joys in finding, that
substantial and real Self in which Activity (which is all it has
known or can know as its particular Self, and which is now
mere imprisoned chaos) has its wholeness — that Infinite and
Divinely ordered expansion which is its only rest, its released
and unbounded Freedom.

Thus Love, from first to last, is a realizing. As state, it
receives all ; as act, it perceives all ; as result, it conceives all,
in One — i.e., has its object completely imaged in conception
of it, can there retain it always, repeat it at will, and thus
grow like it.

From an abstract point of view, we may say there is no
sentimental mystery about this Love which thus embraces the
All in One, for the nature of it applies to small things as well
as great ; it will have the lohole of any thing. The feeling in
it is just that subtle reentry of perceptions which are real, and
cannot be shut out by mere abstraction. It is our love for the
Real, the True, which makes us revolt at cadaverous abstrac-
tion claiming to be Truth, and insist upon the Particular and
the Universal being brought into their actual relations in
things. This Love of ours sees very clearly, and feels very

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 43

rationally, that a living thing with the life left out of the
Synthesis is not itself, and cannot be thus known.

And so, indeed, let us not dissever the ^elf itself into mere
names, where all is really one — one activity in Sentiment as
well as Reason, Feeling as well as Abstraction. Feeling finds
the whole ; Reason, the parts ; Imagination, the Form.

Feelino-, as concentrated thought — consciousness — sees
itself, first, only in the Body, and as the Body — as suffering,
passive, receptive, unconscious of its own activity ; next, as an
active and conscious out-looking at objects, as being the Body
only passively — disposed to reject it as non-self; lastly, as
mystic, it consumes, yet wholly lives for the first time, in a
flaming, formless Universe of Love.

Thouo-ht, as the radiation of feeling — the diffusion ad
infinitum of consciousness — is another name for activity, a
name which seeks to sever the Self from its being-aCted-upon.
But such abstract separation of the Self as mere Activity
destroys all basis of passivity, or state, or receptivity, and all
which results therefrom in conception, viz., Substance as
Object, and thus "Thought" is a severance of Spirit from
Matter; Substance as means of realization, and thus it parts
Soul from Body ; and, finally, it abstracts its own activity from
all real or imaginable Form — i.e., denies to it any capacity for
Expression — and so reduces it to the mere abstraction of
" Thought," as activity in and upon Nothing. Thus God is
parted from Man, and Thought, in this guise, has negated
itself even as Activity, and finding itself and all to be nothing
in this abstract Infinite, returns with a shock to its feeling of
Reality.

But Imagination, as feeling of wholeness (whether in Beauty,
Truth, or Love), is ever uniting Thought and Sense, Soul and
Body, God and Man ; " reconciling" the two by showing that
the latter is capable of expressing all the conceptions of the
former — its most abstract thou^'ht easiest of all — since that is
a "thing" of the simplest possible relations, with Matter as
Substance-form of motion.

This Spirit is reconciled with Matter as its own static form —
i.e., its substance, its means of formal expression. Soul is

44 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

reconciled with Body as its temporary form, its substantial
means of realizing all the feeling, thought, activity of which
the Soul is capable ; and also as its means of education. Self-
development, and this as much by the Body's own activity as
by that of the Soul ; for the former shows that health, beauty,
love, give sanity, joy and goodness, while disease, deformity
-and vice enforce this lesson by their penalties. So, lastly, God
is reconciled with Man as the Spiritual, full form of His
activity, developed in Man's Love — i.e., in that full reception
by Man's Spirit of the Divine activity — which now transforms
him from a mere passive Beholding, Thing, or Thinking of
God's Creation, into a living, free Beholder, Lover, and Like-
ness of the Divine Self.

And so "Thought" has no Form, or rather an intinity of
unknown forms, in its concentration as Feeling in inmost Con-
sciousness ; while in its uttermost of abstraction there is a
mere radiation into abstract Particulars, for which even Imag-
ination can find no whole except in an abstract Universal — a
mechanical, lifeless, static relation of whole to parts — and this
Reason itself declares a nullity and revolts from. But Thought,
as Love, is reunion — return from this negation of Abstraction
into Reality ; it finds its Particulars, its Genera, its Universal,
only as concrete triunities, from first to last — e.^., as Self,
Family, State, Church, God.

That "Self-contradiction," as "Reason" calls it — the
Trinity — is, in fact, that without which nothing real can exist
at all. Li all "things," or " thinkings," there is this vital
tri-unity, which it is impossible to reduce to an abstract unity,
a " pure identity ; " for that is an isolated, helpless Nothing.

Thus, as even in the conception of the least things, the Self
insists upon finding their entirety, and especially that which is
most vital and unifying, so does Self, recognizing its own unity
or wholeness only in Love, except only the All-Loving as the
One in whom it can lose itself wholly, and yet find itself real.

Hence, only in the love of Truth can a man realize Truth as
it is ; when he loves it as an object for its own sake, then will
he find it as a sunrise in his own Consciousness, in all its
primitive and essential features. So, in the love of God, only,

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 45>

does one find God, real and present, another Self, yet not Self,
in a communion ever intimate as the heart, ever broadening
with the thouo;ht.

We see, then, that Hegel himself has really fallen upon this
constructive, this poetic Philosophy, " in its immediacy," as
he would say — i.e., in its al)stract form. He has reached the-
constructive element of self -relation, and illustrated how it
operates by these necessarily returning rounds of self-inspec-
tion, self-sublation and self-reference, to transform our thought,,
from stage to stage, into all possible concrete varieties, as from
a Universal germ.

For let us note that Hegel himself uses this method, though
in a peculiar way, not readily apprehended, and which has beem
sufficiently illustrated, perhaps, in the foregoing examples.
His guiding principle is, that the genetic is found in the
abstract, in the most universal phase in which we can con-
ceive of a thing ; hence he always begins with that as the-
"immediacy," or the "substantial" of it. But he at once
calls it Nothing, or " not-itself," in that mere static form, and
hence goes to its direct opposite — its active " going-out " from-
this null passivity — to find its definition, its formal Reality.
This is an awkward, and perhaps unconscious, way of saying
that the Abstract is not real, and that there is nothino- o-enetic
in it at all until the active principle is added to it to bring it
back to Reality. The fundamental necessity for all this artifi--
cial machinery lies in the first conception that abstract " Being,"
which is exactly Nothing, is the uttermost abstraction of
Thought, and therefore the genetic Reality of which Change is-
mere passing and wnreal Form. But, in fact. Change is
nothing but the constant transformation of Reality, and does
not come from abstract "Being," nor go to Nothing, but to
Something else Real. For, as infinity cannot end in Nothing,
nor at all, so it cannot begin at all. It is only our finite habit
which insists upon "a Beginning;" that exists only for-
Change, and not for Eternal Reality.

How, then, does this aspect of things affect Hegel's method?
Not at all as to its " Substance," but it removes the apparent
absurdity of it, and renders it more "active" practically..

46 The Journal of Speculative PhUoso'pliy .

For we see that his abstract " substantiality" of a thing is
really the Substance of that thing in its most oeneral aspect.
Take our Body, for example ; it is like Descartes's lump of wax,
which he watched melt and show capacity, as substance, for
infinite variety of form — a fact from which he inferred that
this "general idea" the mind gets of a thing as existius; in
many forms is a conception that is really " thought," and quite
free from the infection of " Sensuous Imagination ! " — l)ecause,
in its last result, it quite loses the " idea'-' of the wax itself!
Hegel fell into the same absurdity of regarding a mere ivhole
as "Thought," and not at all a Form of the Imao-imition.
Hence, by him, this Body of ours would be dissipated, at once,
as "Substantially" something which the ugliest Body in
Christendom would never recognize as " itself" in a lookins;-
glass; and yet, just Substantially what it is "in itself" —
mere Matter. But what is Matter? Hegel would say,
" Nothing ; " but then he would make it "go out of itself to
find itself," as mere form of transient Change. But suppose
we stop before we get to Nothing — i.e., recognize that Infinity
does not end at all. We shall then see that Matter, just
because it is " infinitely divisible," is in fact capable of
remaining " substantial " in an infinite variety of forms, and
that its disappearance is not into Nothing, but into some trans-
formation on this infinite round it is travelling. But we see,
also, that Form itself is a reality, and not an illusion — it is
just the Reality of Substance, joined to the Activity, which
produces Change. And now we have " terms " that we can
handle with some assurance of their not disappearing in some
mist as " Self-sublation," or other mysterious movement, where
we had ignored movement ; for we are not now dealing with
an abstract Nothing. Once we have Substance and Activity
thus joined in every Form of this Matter, we see that our
process of abstraction is only finding the "last relation" of
these two in that Formal connection ; and from this we make
our integration.

Thus this Body of ours proves God, not less than does our
Soul ; for this evanescent Matter of which it is " formed " so
actively, is, even in the last possible remove of it in the mist

The Matter and the Method of Thought. 47

of Abstraction, but ti Substance form of the Divine, the
Universal activity in its simplest relations therein as Real.
And this Body itself is not a mere phantasmal " opposite " of
Nothing, but a real and marvellous work of God's craft, as we
see ; not to be despised, nor shunned as deadly poison to
"pure thouglit," but rather to be studied with awe of that
skill and complexity of Divine thought which is disphxyed in
it. In fact, " the inner man " has been employed now for some
thousands of years in trjnng to form a " diiferential equation "
which is adequate to fully effect the "integration" of that
Body. It is much easier for us to build a Universe in our
thoughts (for there the " ideas" are more " general," because
the relations are more simple) than to fully comprehend any
of these infinitesimal works of God's fingers. Not the teles-
copic, but the microscopic, is what thwarts us most. Does it
not seem as though the capacity of Matter were tested quite
as much in furnishino- the "Substance" of an organized
animalcule as in supplying our own Spiritual "Substance?"

And so, when we call Hegel's " abstract," or " Substantial,"
or "immediate" aspect of anything its real Substance or
static condition only, and then deny, as we must, that it has
any reality so, but must be joined with activity, the mystery
of its " Self-sublation " is itself sublated ; for then we join it
in Reality with the Divine or other activity which iniovms.
This is simply putting things first in their most general aspect
in a class, in order to project them thence, according to the
form of their activity (which alone characterizes them), into
their particular species or sort ; and it is doing so in a
picturesque and striking way.

Hegel's way of using this method is vague and self-illusory,
with its artifices of activity ; yet it answers well for very
o;eneral outlines — for " thinkino; in Universals." But he o-ives
it up himself in smaller details, and, in fact, in nearly all
practical Sciences, where he charges its failure to the presence
of " infinite contingency." And truly it is not easy to find
explanation of an ant, for example, in the " opposite " of the
abstract formica !

As to the vast majority of things, then, the method must take

48 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

its true form of practical integration, dependent on improve-,
ment bj experience in its means of application. Hegel's form
of it applies obviously to all aspects of our own mental activity ;
for there it is literal. It applies also, by analogy, to all
enlarged phases of human activity, as in State, in History, etc. ;
but if we take it literally there, it is a species of Comte-ism,
showing how extremes of " positive " and " negative " meet.
But, as all things may be regarded as forms of the Divine-
Activity, and as this activity is seen to be like our own activity
in thinking — formative and seeking form in Expression —
there is the true starting-point for real integration, in that last
but real relation of Activity and Substance as Form ; for from
this we must inevitably reproduce Reality, and not mere
Shadows.

What is now lacking, therefore, is to recognize this Philos-
ophy in its real character, as vital, and not abstract ; and to
apply this generating power of self-relation in our thought, as
the true and vital interpreter of Nature. For it is such an
interpreter, simply because it is artistic, creative, imitative of
the Divine in Nature, which always reproduces itself to mark
the round of its every finite activity, and in man has produced
a Thinking, Loving Self — an endless activity, itself capable
of re-soundino; all the harmonies of the Divine Poet.

For Man may be defined (in likeness, to this Self-return of
our own Thought) as a reaction of God's act, an Echo of His
Thought coming from the very confines of the Creative Sphere ;:
as a continuation of that reaction which, beginning in chaos, as
the last extreme of Creative Energy in its utter, and even dis-
orderly simplicity, has reverted into physical order in the
Material Universe, and goes on its way Imck to God, through
all subordinate and partial forms, to attain its ideal form in
Man's purest, and most loving thought; not that "pure
thought" which dissipates itself in mere abstraction; not
that idle thought which floats in and out, truly a Universe
which comes from nothing and goes to nothing ; none of
these is the thouoht which the Creator can recoonjze in us, as
reconstructive or continuative of His Creation. No, our think-
ing, "as such," is only our means to our End.. That End,.

The reader of Dr. Stirling's article will please note carefully tlie following corrections
made in the author's revision of tlie proof sheets: —

Page 49, line Zfrom hottom, for three read six
" 60 " 6 " " " the " my
" 51 " 9 " top " as far " so far
" " " 12 " " " then " then
" 53 " 11 " " " of A. li. C. D.

read A B C D
Page 53, line 11 from hottom, for more read

even more
Page 55, line 20 from bottom, for be a read be

at once a
Page 55, line lOfrom bottom, for own read one.
" 56 " 6 " " " the denial rearf

denial
Page 57, line 34 from bottom, for expressions

read expression
Page 57, line 10 from bottom, for olijects read

object
Page 58, line Id from bottom, for should read

sliould ever
Page 58, line 11 from bottom, for the 7-ead

Kant's
Page 59, line 27 from bottom, for should read

should now
Page 59, line 6 from top, for topics read topic
" " " 30 " " " in " is
" 60 " 2 " " " had " had

expressly
PageW, line 21 from tojy,for\\e read we now
" 61 " 23 " fcoiiOHi " strained reof/ de-
nied
Page 61, line 14 from bottom, for accessary

read accessory
Page&2, line 32 from bottom, for objectivity.

read objectivity?
Page 63, lines 14, 15 from top, for the part by

part read the, pai't by part.
Page 64, line 34: from top, for those read these.
" " " 34 " bottom. " for " for to

him
Page 05, line 39 from bottom, for also read

, also.
Page G5, line '2d from bottom, for series read

secjuence
Page 65, line l(\from. top, for objectivity read

objectivity is
Page 66, line 23 from bottom, for ship -series

read ship-sequence
Page 66, liiie 9 from bottom, for with read to
" 67 " 39 " " " production

read the production
Page 67, line 39 from bottom, also read " of a

judgment of objective"
Page 67, lines 32, 21 from bottom, for Herr read

the Herr
Page 67, line 2i>from bottom, for all rend all
" " " 25 " '' " not " not

Page 68, line 15 from bottom, for this proof

read the proof

Page 68, line 14 //-o^rt bottom, for would read

could
Page 69, iijie 36 .A'077i bottom, for subjectively

read only subjectively
Page 11, line SI from bottom, for Caird's read

Caird's doing so
Page 71, line 11 from bottom, for all read all
" " " 4 " " " generally re«rf

genetically
Page 71 , line 1 from top, for alway read always
" 72, "26 " " " time; " time — •
" 72, " 14 " bottom for uonseuiie i-ead

obvious nonsense
Page 72, line 6, from bottom, for could read

may
Page 73, line 35 from bottom, for the universe

read this universe
Page 73, line 11 from bot!om,for on read on the
" 73, " 33 " top, for causality. The

read causalit}' — the
PageH, line 2S from top, for time; read time,
" 74, " 41 " " " Meta.,994, a, 221

read Jleta. 994 a 22
Page 74, line 13 from 6of#o;H /or Aphrodisceu-

sis read Ai)brodisieusis
Page 75, line 6 from top, for 1023, b. 5 read

1023 b 5.
Page 77, line ifrom top, for propter read projier
" 77, " 27 " " " , whose " whose
" 79, ''25 " bottom, for actual read ab-
solute
Page 80, line 21 from top. for of read of
" 81, " 9 " bottom, for a caui^e read

a cause
Page 82, line 2f>from bottom, for and read and

the
Page 88, line 2 from top, for There read Here
" 89, "18 " 6o<fo?«,. A"' consciousness

read self-consciousness
Page 90, line 34 from bottom, for expand read

expand
Page 93, line 5 from bottom, for surely read

surely, too
Page 91, line22 from bottom, for him ?-ea(/ him-
self
Page 98, line 42 from bottom, for third read

fourth
Page 100, line 16 from toj), for mind ; rend

mind; he has not actual events before

his mind ;
Page 102, line 31 from bottom, for succession

read extension
Page 103, line Wfrom top, for by the by read

by the bye
Page 105, line 9 from bottom, ./or obligation

read obligations

Professor Caird on Kant. 49

or design of God in and through us, is that this marvellous
means should result in real thought, in thought expressed in
loving act, which it is competent to do at once and in all.
God will not recognize Himself in our floating Universes, our
*' systems of thought," our philosophies — all these He re-
gards kindly, perhaps, though smilinglj^ as enlargement of
our means, if indeed they are capable of inspiring one good
deed — but it is in Goodness alone that the Divine sees itself
fully expressed ; that is what makes of Man God's Providence
here, and seals him with the immortal promise. For a loving
deed — that is verily, and alone, a Divine thought, concrete,
complete, expressed — an Act.

PROFESSOR CAIRD ON KANT.

BY J. HUTCHISON STIRLING.

Before proceeding to the second of my objections in allusion, it
woukl throw light, and assist understanding, did I refer to Mr. Caird' s
views on this, the most important question in the entire Criticism of
Kant; for to mistake causality is to mistake the system.^

It will be obvious to every one whose opinion is relevant, that Mr.
Caird's views on causality must be sought where Mr. Caird treats
causality, and that it is only wilfully vexatious to get up a hue and cry
against what a man truly finds there, or, with an air of indignation,
point to an elsewhere that exists not, or is iaiapplicable, or that is
simply hoped to be taken on trust. To every one so quaUfied, it will
also be equally obvious that what a man finds there, and truly finds

1 In reference to this "allusion," I have to explain that Mr. Caird's reply, in
this .JouRXAL, to certain remarks of mine in my Kant-Schopenhauer article, found
me busy with preparation of a continuation to that article. Into this continuation
I saw it would be advantageous to it, if permissible for me, to introduce what
might be said in rejoinder to Mr. Caird. Accordingly, I occupied myself for some
time in this direction. The result, however, was a paper so long that I have been
obliged to divide it. The half now given (which regards Mr. Caird), had it been
alone concerned, might have appeared three months ago. "Why it should precede
the other half — publication being once determined upon — will be understood
without diflBcultj'.

XIV— 4

50 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

there in Mr. Caird, is a taking for granted of the correctness of
Schopenhauer in his objection to Kant, at the same time that a justi-
fication is tendered for Kant, which, tliough simply warping the one
vice into an ultimate exquisite extreme, proceeds, surely — - with due
recompense of resultant glor}' — onl}- from the deeper insight of the
more accomplislied student! In view, then, of such things — even
with discount of the factitious cry of misrepresentation, misrepresen-
tation, that is on their credit risked — further reference to Mr. Caird
on my part may not only "• to many appear superfluous," but actually
unworthy. Nevertheless, like the writer quoted, I aim at public
iitilit}', and shall allow myself, so far as concerns Mr. Caird's refer-
ence to Kant's causality, a discussion in detail. And yet I have,
in truth, amply indicated above the entire state of the case.

When a man is caught luifortunately blundering, he is apt — espe-
cially perhaps in these days of unscrupulous party-trickery — to "kick
up a dust," as the phrase goes, and ''die hard," or even, as it were, to
throw into the air a handful of such dust, trivial dust, hard-won, with
the hope that the default — appearances being kept up, and the look
of saying something — may in this way obtain a cover at least from
the eyes of the groundlings. The expedient, for the most part,
however, only baffles itself, and magnifies exposure. Better, far
better, it were, in such circumstances, when one is not great or gener-
ous enough simply to kiss the rod, then, instead of resorting to an
expedient at all, just to hold one's tongue.

Mr. Caird opens his reply by asserting that ''Dr. Stirling's remarks
contain an entire misrepresentation of my views ; and I should never
have supposed that an}^ one could ascribe such to me, had not Dr.
Stirling actually done so." Mr. Caird refers also to Dr. Stirling's
"attack," but is good enough to declare that he has "no wish to
retaliate." Now, if I am to be regarded as a proper object for such
words, I must, perforce, be regarded also as something ver}^ equivo-
cal ; and the dut}^ of defence, accordingly, would seem imposed upon
me, so far at least as the words are demonstrably unjust. Neverthe-
less, I should probably say little or nothing in that direction but for
the prospective service to Kant.

In the article in question, out of fifty pages, only eight concern
Mr. Caird; and they are certainly not an " attack." Neither, then,
properly, do the3' admit of " retaliation." But, so far as writing of
mine is before the public, Mr. Caird is as free as any other man to
remark upon it. I deprecate no man's speech, and expect always
the usual mishaps.

Professor Caird on Kant. 51

Mr. Caird was the single professor in Scotland who was currently
understood to make common cause with myself in philosophy; while
otherwise, at least as I took it, we were on terms of amity. It is not
easy to describe, therefore, in what unwelcome quandary I felt myself
when I opened Mr. Caird's book. What appeared to me to be before
me was not — at least as I had instructed myself, and so far as I
saw — Kant, but an inapplicable myth, an alien and isolated dream,
an unfortunate, but unmistakable fiasco. Let it be observed, how-
ever, that I say, as I had instructed myself, and as far as I sato (read).
Going no farther than the one consideration, I explain that the other
concerns only what to me is Kant's centre, the cateo-ories. I was
surprised, then I grieved, and I disapproved ; but I held no patent
of chamberlain or censor in philosophy ; it was not for me, unless on
special call, to open my mouth. Accordingly, I staved off speech,
till accident rendered such call too audible to be longer resisted ; but
even then — after some two years — I was at ex[)ress and very real
pains to say (in the before-mentioned eight pages) only the least pos-
sible. And now this is the result. I shall have "• attacked " Mr.
Caird; I shall have "entirely misrepresented" Mr. Caird; and I am
to be thankful that I am spared the " retaliation " of Mr. Caird ! The
position is sufficiently grave. I do not see that anything is left me
but to act gemdnehi up to it. I shall still sa3% however, the least
possible — restricting myself, too, to what is immediately before me.
Nay, as intimated, in what I may say I shall rather have in view
what is to me the true understanding of Kant than any opposition to
Mr. Caird.

Mr. Caird conditions his reply in this way: that he "passes over
some almost verbal criticisms," denies one allegation, justifies
another, ignores Schopenhauer, and winds up magnanimously abnega-
tive, with renunciation of the right to "retaliate." We may allow
such surface as this the praise of ingenuity; but, alas! surface is
surface, and ingenuity, when it is only ingenuity, a smoke that dis-
appears even as it is looked at. But, be that as it may, the account,
as it stands, seems to contain but one element that calls for notice on
my part. There is only one allegation of mine, namely, that Mr.
Caird denies ; everything else that is said by me, Mr. Caird either
justifies or passes over as verbal. But if, out of several allegations,
only one be excepted to, does not such a phrase as "Dr. Stirling's
remarks contain an entire misrepresentation of my views," look rather
like a contradiction in terms? But there is more than that. The
allegation denied by Mr. Caird is nowhere made by me; it is an inven-
tion of Mr. Caird's oion. Never, consequently, was a charge of

52 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

"entire" misrepresentation, or of "misrepresentation" at all, more
insecurely situated,

Mr. Caird charges me with accusing him of "asserting, and
asserting as the doctrine of Kant, that objects are known as objects
through the category of causality alone." I cannot f.nd a word of
this in anything that I say of Mr. Caird. All through my article on
Schopenhauer, all through my remarks on Mr. Caird, I talk of " suc-
cessions," " sequences," only. I know not that the word "objects "
ever occurs, even in what relates to Schopenhauer ; but I know well
that if ever it does occur, and surely it must, it refers only to the
successions and sequences with which every other sentence positively
bristles. In what relates to Mr. Caird in this connection, however,
this word " objects " 7iever occurs — not once! There is not a single
expression in all the relative pages, that could even yield to torture
the allegation made for me by Mr. Caird. The reader can easily
make good this for himself. The last three pages (of the eight) alone
refer to any allegation of Mr. Caird's in connection with causality. A
glance will show this, and it will require little more than a glance to
do the necessary reading. The phrase, " assertion that objectivity
results from the category of causality alone," occurs certainly once;
but, though the only one that might seem as much as to approach the
relative suggestion, it would not, as I say, even yield to torture the
allegation made for me. The bare word "objectivity" cannot be
replaced at will by the word " objects; " and, as it stands, it is no
bare word. On the contrary, even in that position it is, with quite a
superfluity of expression, made known to the reader as the objectivity
of succession. Look to all the connections in which it stands! The
first sentence, in the same reference, immediately above, runs thus :
"These are successions — necessary successions, too — and they are
absolutely independent of causality, whether as existent or cognized."
The first sentence, likewise, in the same reference, immediately
below, runs again thus: "Kant, consequently, cannot even dream of
making cognition of succession, as such, conditional on presupposition
of succession causal." The words almost directly next, too, are:
"bestow objectivity, and so bestow objectivity that even the suc-
cession of a house is not subjective," etc. In short, while " objects "
are never once mentioned, there is no "objectivity" spoken of that
is not the objectivit^'^ of "successions." Repeated more than once,
and repeated always in the same wa^^ this is my charge against Mr.
Caird : —

"It was a fearful blunder on the part of Schopenhauer to suppose Kant con-
sidered the succession of the house subjective, and no succession objective but

Professor Caird on Kant. 53

that of causality alone. As we see, Mr. Caird fully indorses that blunder — the
radical blunder that is the theme of this essay; but then, further, he out-Herods
Herod. Schopenhauer, even making the prodigious blunder he did, was never so
far left to himself as to conceive the cognition of succession, as succession, only
possible to Kant on presupposition of causality. Following on was to him as
much sui generis as following from. One vainly turns the eye round and round
in search of how and where Mr. Caird could get even the dream of such things.
Kant shall have held it impossible to cognize the rows on his book-shelves, the
steps on his stairs, the laths in his Venetians, etc., endlessly, unless on presup-
position of the category of causality ! Why, there are successions even necessarily
in the form of A. B. C. D., etc., which are not causal, and utterly independent
of causality in anv' reference," etc.

But if these sentences contain, as they do, the whole charge (and
on all its aspects) ever made by me, in a causal reference, against
Mr. Caird — if every sentence that I write in that connection (even
of rows, steps, laths) concerns successions, explicitly concerns suc-
cessions onl}' — why has Mr. Caird, of his own motive and free will,
converted "successions" into "objects," and, denying me the propo-
sition that is mine, gratuitously complimented me with another that
is his?

Perhaps some light will be obtained here if we consider Mr.
Caird's second ^ proposition, — the one, namely, which he justifies.
It is this: "Objective sequence cannot be known except by a mind
that connects phenomena as causes and effects." Let us compare
with this, now, his first proposition ("objects are known as objects
through the category of causality alone"), when corrected. Let us
replace, — that is, " objects " by objectivity of sequence, or, what is
palpably the same thing, objective sequence, which was what Mr.
Caird, of his own act, removed, and we shall have this proposition :
"Objective sequence is known as objective sequence through the
category of causality alone." Would not one require some instru-
ment more powerful than microscope or telescope, to discover wherein
the one proposition differed from the other? And 3'et, on the strength
of Mr. Caird's own wilful manipulation, we have two propositions —
one which is justified., and another which is denied! " I should never
have supposed," says Mr. Caird, with a charming air of outraged,
but meekly forgiving virtue, "that any one could ascribe it to me,
had not Dr. Stirling actually done so! "

Now, the reader will be pleased to observe that the result before us
is not owing to any intercalation of mine ; it is the result simply of

1 I find I have inverted the order of Mr. Caird's propositions ; but, that being
understood, no inconvenience will result.

54 TJte Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

the substitution of fact for fiction, and the whole procedure is as
ohjective as any demonstration in EucUd.

Will the reader in truth be but pleased to observe, further, this :
that the common proposition is Mr. Caird's one original and peculiar
proposition (of unit}') in regard to Kant? In Mr. Caird's book, the
title of page 456 is, "Schopenhauer's Objection to the Deduction
of Causality;" and the immediately following title (458) is, ''The
Judgment of Sequence Implies the Judgment of Causality." Now,
this means that while, as regards the first title, Schopenhauer's
objection is admitted to be relevant, yet, as regards the second title,
Kant's matter in objection is expressly justified. What is alluded to
as Schopenhauer's objection is, that he " denies the Kantian doctrine
that objective sequence implies causality," having first pointed out
inconsistency on the part of Kant for the "statement that we can
have a judgment of sequence which is not objective." Schopen-
hauer, as we may recollect, considered himself to prove against Kant
that while, on the one hand, we could have objective sequence
without causality, Kant's own case, on the other hand, of subjec-
tivity in sequence for alleged want of the category of causality, was,
in reality, no case of subjectivity, but, on the contrary, a case of
objectivity', due, too, to the very category (causalit}') said to be
wanting. Objective sequence without causality lie instanced in
reference to the tile, day and night, etc., and the alleged subjectivity
of the liouse he converted into objectivit}' by the movement of the
eye.

Well, now, Mr. Caird is quite in agreement generally with Scho-
penhauer — only that his peculiar doctrine of unity obliges liim to
go a little farther. To Mr. Caird, for instance, it is inconsistent on
Kant's part to suppose sequence (as in the house) possibly subjec-
tive, at the same time that the Kantian doctrine truly is (for him)
what Schopenhauer says it is — "that objective sequence implies
causality." So far he is quite as Schopenhauer — blunders quite
as he about the house, and causality being alone the category of
objectivity — thankfully accepting, also, the brilliant conceit of the
eye (and just these things constitute that wherein I shall have
"entirely misrepresented" Mr. Caird!); but, then, there comes the
step farther, that, against Schopenhauer's objection to the Kantian
doctrine of objective sequence implying causality, he justifies Kant!
Yes, at page 458, under the title, " The Judgment of Sequence Implies
the Judgment of Causality," Mr. Caird is at express pains directl}' to
justify Kant for maintaining that very dictum; and his reason is that

Pi'ofessor Caird on Kant. 55

universal ciyptic unity which, for him, Kant attributes to all things.
No wonder, then, that we have (in his repl}') Mr. Caird's second
proposition, together with the perception on his part, that, in conse-
quence of such out-and-out and undeniable breadth of doctrine,
iterated and reiterated in his book, said proposition must at all hazards
be acknowledged, and if possible vindicated. " Objective sequence
cannot l)e known except by a mind that connects phenomena as causes
and effects." Or again, "The judgment of sequence implies the
judgment of causality." Or yet again (omitting the various other
forms already seen about the i^osi hoc, the jyropter hoc, etc.), '' 01)jec-
tive sequence implies causality." Compare with these propositions
that other, "Objective sequence is known through the category of
causality alone." As already said, surely no instrument that ever
was invented will enable us to discover this last proposition — "but
in the estimation of a hair" — to differ from the rest. Vet this last
proposition is that with which I charged Mr. Caird ; I certainly did
not charge him with "objects are known as objects through the
category of causality alone." How the one proposition ever became
the other, it is not for me to explain. Neither do I make any accusa-
tion ; I onl_y point out the advantage which has l)een obtained by the
possession of two propositions, such that, though in import identical,
there could be a face of denial for the one, and equally a face of
justification for the other. If any possible difference, indeed, can be
found between them, the latter it is that must be pronounced the
more flagrant ; for while the one that is denied asserts of objective
sequence only that it is known by causalit}^ the other, that is justified,
asserts the same thing of sequence at all. In two of the forms given
above, the word "objective " appears ; but the formal justification that,
under the title "The Judgment of Sequence Implies the Judgment of
Causality," occupies two pages, is to the effect that sequence at all,
as known or experienced, presupposes causality. That is Mr. Caird's
own proper and peculiar doctrine.

But, however this be, and attributing the conversion of objectivity
(of succession) into "objects" to what cause we may, there is no
reason, so far as I am concerned, why Mr. Caird should be balked of
a meeting, even on his own terms. I have not accused Mr. Caird of
" asserting, and asserting as the doctrine of Kant, that ol)jects are
known as objects through tlie category of causality alone." But I will
now do so. In short, I will now accuse Mr. Caird of asserting, and
asserting as the doctrine of Kant, first, "that objects are known as
objects through tl»e category of causality alone; " and, second, that

56 The Journal of Speculative Philosoplty .

" objective sequence cannot be known except by a mind that connects
phenomena as causes and effects." I will now, I say, so accuse Mr.
Caird ; and I will further assert that what he assumes to deny, he can
not deny, and what he assumes to justify, he can not justify. The
issues here, then, are unmistakable, and they are expressed in Mr.
Caird's own words.

At first sight, this may have a very equivocal look on my part.
Why, it may be thought, should I have made so much of Mr. Caird's
conversion of a phrase, at the very moment that I was about to justify
it? Is not this conduct glaringly contradictory, and how can we be
expected to give attention to what, in such circumstances, may be a
tour de force, but cannot be serious? The objection is not unnatural,
but it will not be found to lie. Observe how differently we are placed,
Mr. Caird and I. It will not be denied that I was quite within my
rights to object to the conversion as a conversion. Still less will it be
denied that I was all the more justified to object to this conversion,
in view of the use to which Mr. Caird turned it. Again, it is quite
possible for me, without inconsistency, to regard the two propositions
as identical ; but that is impossible for Mr. Caird, unless with immer-
sion into a very Maelstrom of contradiction. Mr. Caird's two proposi-
tions, for example, are either identical or different. If they are
identical, then Mr. Caird must either deny what he justifies, or justify
what he denies. If different, again — why, I fear that horn is even
the worst of all ! Mr. Caird could not deny his determination of
things into time by causality in such manner that there was an all-
pervading unity in this universe, both in whole and in part. But,
reminded of the other categories, he bethought himself that he did
apply them in '•'determination" of "objects," no matter what he
might have taught or thought about " objectivity ; " and, so bethinking
himself, he took courage to say as much, or even a little more. Why,
however, he should have so completely changed my words, remains to
be explained ; but it would be cruel, as it is now unnecessary, indeed,
to press the point.

But, as intimated, all is differently situated in my case, the propo-
sition attributed to Kant is not parcel justified and parcel denied
by me — ^^it is wholly denied; and, in the denial, it does not in the
least signify whether the false action on the part of causality is said
of objects or of objective sequences. But it is this we have now
to see.

As he so wills it, I accuse Mr. Caird of asserting, then, and " asser-
ting as the doctrine of Kant, that objects are known as objects

Professor Caird on Kant. 57

through the category of causality alone." But, standing now before
this plain issue, let me prefatorily touch on a general point or two.
The occasion of my reference to either Schopenhauer or Mr. Caird
has been already explained, and I think it will be allowed to have
been sufficiently simple, natural, and irresistible. Surely, too, it will
also be allowed that, once having entered on the reference, I took
every care to be exact. I placed before the reader, even anxiously
translated, the whole relative section of Schopenhauer ; and while
resolved that there should be no mistake as to the state of my mind
with respect to Mr. Caird' s work, I constrained my expressions in
every possible manner that appeared to me legitimate. I confined
myself, on the general merits, to mere indication ; and, as regarded
the particular issues which I had necessarily to confront on causality,
I was at pains to quote fully and fairly Mr. Caird's own words, and
then — to say only the least possible.

In such circumstances, the charge of misrepresentation seems,
again, to say the least, extraordinary. The issues raised are so
unequivocal! Schopenhauer had found a certain hotise of Kant's
subjective, but had volunteered to make it the objective thing it plainly
ought to be, by the ingenious or ingenuous expedient of moving his
eyes. That was the whole. And that — literally that, in both of
its clauses — seemed adopted by Mr. Caird. Here are his own
words : —

"Kant distinguishes two cases : The case of such an object as a house, where the
sequence of our perceptions is reversible ; and the case of a boat sailing down a
river, where it is irreversible. We can begin with either the top or the bottom
of the house, but we cannot see the movements of the boat except in one order.
In the latter case, therefore, as Kant argues, we give to our perception of succes-
sion an objective value ; but in the former case we regard it as merely subjective ;
or, what is the same thing, in the latter case we bring the sequence of our percep-
tions under the categor}^ of causality, and in the former case we do not.

"Kant either forgets, or abstracts for the moment from the fact, that whether
we say the sequence is due (as in the case of the house) to the movement of our
organs of sense, or whether we sa^' that it is due to the movements of the objects
perceived (as in the case of the boat), in both cases we make a judgment of objec-
tive sequence."

Evidently, whether as concerns Schopenhauer or Mr. Caird, the
house, in regard to which they both perfectly agree, is the centre
of the whole business. Let us quote now from II., 753, and see how
it is situated with Kant in the same reference : —

"If, for example, therefore, I take into observation the empirical perception
of a house, through apperception of its complex of parts, there underlies it for
me the necessary unity of space and of external sense-perception generally —

58 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

and I limn, as it were, its shape in accordance with this synthetic unity of the
parts in space. But just the same synthetic unity has its seat in the understanding
when I abstract from the form of space, and is the category of the synthesis
of the homogeneous in a perception in general — i.e., the category of quantity;
completely in accord with which must be, therefore, said synthesis of apprehen-
sion — i.e., of perception."

This, evidently, is an example of how the category quantity acts
on the perceptive complex of a house. It is followed by another in
reference to the freezing of water, which illustrates the action of the
category cause. Both examples are, so to speak, conducted in the
very same way, and on the very same principles. No preference is
given to the one category over the other ; the word "objective " does
not happen to be used of either ; but both are named, and equally
named, and in the same way named, "synthetic unities of the under-
standing," which again are also equall}^, and in the same way, named
" conditions a ^rto?-/." There can be no doubt whatever that, con-
sidering what these phrases mean, both examples are regarded by
Kant as equally objective. There is a note, indeed, that directly
says this. This note, moreover, is not referred to the conclusion
of the common passage, but directl}' and expressly to the paragraph
on the house. It proceeds thus: "In such way it is proved that
the synthesis of apprehension, which is empirical, must be necessarily
in accord with the synthesis of apperception, which is intellectual,
and completely contained in the categor3\" And that names the
process quite generally whereby a category'' raises a subjective multiple
in apprehension into an objective unity in apperception. The house,
then, is objective to Kant ; and it is quite inexplicable why it should
have been considered subjective by Schopenhauer. No one, at least
as I think, can read the passage even in the second analogy without
seeing that the ship-series is not regarded by Kant as one whit more
objective than the house-series. Schopenhauer's mistake, however,
arises from the first words in tlie immediately following paragraph :
"I shall, therefore, in our case, necessarily derive the subjective
sequence of apprehension from the objective sequence of the percep-
tions," etc. ; where, to have known that all sequence in apprehension.,
when apprehension, as mere susceptivity of sense, is opposed to
the apperception of understanding — to have known that all such
sequence is only subjective, would have been of small credit even to
a first year's student of Kant.

As for Mr. Caird's mistake, its origin lies in the mistake of Scho-
penhauer. How it was that, in matters so glaring, Mr. Caird allowed
himself to be imposed upon is another question.

Professor Caird on Kant. 59

It is a glaring error to say the house was subjective to Kant ; and
it is a more glaring error — it is even a terrible error — the most
terrible eiror possible in a student of Kant — to say that Kant holds
causality to be singly, alone, and in exception to all the rest, the
category of objectivity. Why, when directly, and expressly, and
«lone considering such topics generally, was Mr. Caird silent on a
misunderstanding, on the part of Schopenhauer, so glaring, on a
misunderstanding so terrible? Nay, seeing that he himself had
actually adopted the glaring misunderstanding, would one have very
heinously erred, had one attributed to Mr. Caird, if for nothing hut
his extraordinary silence in such a case, the terrible misunderstanding
as well?

It is very curious to think, with all that before one, that Mr. Caird,
once for all so very peculiarl}' implicated in merely following the lead
of Schopenhauer, should (in his reply) not attempt to justify Scho-
penhauer in any one single point whatever. On the contrary, he
indirectly admits the whole burden of transgression that has been
proved against Schopenhauer, His words are these: "Dr. Stirling's
charge is based upon the fact that I refer to Schopenhauer, on one
occasion, in connection with the category of causality. But surely
one may refer to an author without adopting, or (as was the case here)
without even remembering, all his opinions." One wonders what Mr.
Caird can refer to as not remembered, when he was writing the pas-
sage in question ; for that there was something he did not remember
is positively asserted; it was "the case here," he says. It is suffi-
ciently strange, however, that Mr. Caird should not have " remem-
bered " all about Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's name is in Mr.
Caird's preface as that of one to whom he " owes most; " Schopen-
hauer's name is in the contents ; Schopenhauer's name is in the index ;
Schopenhauer's name in on his page-margin ; Schopenhauer's name
is again and again in his text. Nay, Mr. CaircT was not, so to speak,
asJced to remember "a?? Schopenhauer's opinions;" Mr. Caird was
referred to as considering " Schopenhauer's objection to the deduc-
tion of causality ' ' — as considering that objection alone — the precise
one point that, in Mr. Caird's regard, I brought in question. When
Mr. Caird discussed "Schopenhauer's objection to the deduction of
causality," surely that was what he did discuss, and surely that alone
was what he could be expected, what he could be asked to remember.
All that he mentioned he surely remembered ; and he certainly men-
tioned those opinions of Schopenhauer which were the express objects
of my discussion. Non mi ricordo is not a plea that can be admitted

60 Tlie Journal of Speculative Pliilosophy .

to record here, then. Mr. Caird had expressly to do in Schopenhauer
with what I had to do, and both by silence and by speech — however
extraordinary that was, howev^er damning that was — he gave it the
most significant support. In very fulness of his lieart, indeed, view-
ing Schopenhauer's assistance in the composition of his work, Mr.
Caird, when that work is accomplislied, cannot help tendering express
thanks to Schopenhauer as one to whom he '" owes most." And what
did Mr. Caird owe to Schopenhauer? What could Mr. Caird owe to
Schopenhauer — what but these same extraordinary deliverances on
causality? That reference — the reference to Schopenhauer on
causality — is express, and full, and at large. There is only one
allusion to Schopenhauer elsewhere in Mr. Caird's whole book, and it
is a trifle about weight, which is rejected by Mr. Caird himself, and
dispatched in a clause. The conclusion is inevitable, then, that the
contributions for which Mr. Caird so expressly thanks Schopenhauer
concerned causality alone. Perhaps it was they, indeed, that sug-
gested to Mr. Caird that original step beyond Schopenhauer. All the
more curious it is, then, that he should not have remembered this ; the
rather, too, that it was the only thing he was, so to speak, asked to
remember. But let us come, now, to the two allegations.

Mr. Caird complains that he is accused of " asserting, and asserting
as the doctrine of Kant, that objects are known as objects through
the category of causality alone;" and his reply is: This "assertion
has never been made by me ; it is inconsistent with many express
statements of m^'^ book ; and I should never have supposed that any
one could ascribe it to me, had not Dr. Stirling actually done so."
To this, discounting all that we know about such words not being
mine, my rejoinder is that I homologate the accusation. Mr. Caii'd's
language, as discussed in my Schopenhauer article, directly contained
the assertion ; and what he brings forward now, whether by quotation
or by reference, as proof of the contrary doctrine, contains no such
proof.

Had a contrary doctrine really existed elsewhere in Mr. Caird's
book, it would have been no misrepresentation on my part only truly
to represent what was then and there before me ; and that I did. The
expression of an opposite doctrine may exist in Mr. Caird's book ; but
it seems even yet to be beyond Mf. Caird's consciousness. Mr. Caird
does not succeed, in his reply, to refer to a single true case of it ; and
that such expression should occur, or even must occur, we have at
once the explanation and the guarantee in the fact that Kant's own
language must at times not only be directly referred to, but actually

Professor Caird on Kant. 61

quoted. The existence, in fact, of any number of contrary doctrines
in Mr. Caird's book would be no surprise to me — in view, that is, of
his own equipment for the work, and the principles on which it
appears to have been conducted. It is said of Schelling, in reference
to his successive publications of varying systems (to call them so),
that he carried on his studies "before the public;" and, perhaps,
something similar may be relevantly said of Mr. Caird and the suc-
cessive chapters of his Kant. Mr. Caird, namely, does not seem, if
we may be allowed to judge from what we see, to have first articulated
Kant to his own self, and then to have re-articulated him for the public.
On the contrary, one would figure him to have studied Kant simply
from chapter to chapter, and to have written down his results just as
they came to hand, without referring them the one to the other, and
all together to any correlating ground-plan of the whole — a ground-
plan which he had previously been at the pains to put together for
himself. But, such considerations apart, what alone occupied me (in
my former article) was Mr. Caird on " Schopenhauer's objection to
the deduction of causality," at pp. 456-460. The reader can
examine these for himself, and draw his own conclusions. I, for my
part, assert them unequivocally to contain the doctrine with which I
charged Mr. Caird, even as by him strained ; and what satisfies me in
proof, are considerations both of silence and of speech. To call
Kant's iLOuse subjective was a monstrous error on the part of Schopen-
hauer ; but to hold Kant to regard his category of causality as alone
the agent of objectivity in perception, was an error infinitely more
monstrous — an error that struck at the foundation of the whole
building — an error that summarily sisted any pretending expositor's
entire case — an error that was simply ruin at once both to principal
and accessary. Now, both errors being the matters — wholly and
solely the matters — expressly and directly viewed, it never once
struck Mr. Caird — even in passing — to call Schopenhmier wrong!
On the contrar}^ like Schopenhauer, he directly calls the house sub-
jective ; and, like Schopenhauer, he unequivocally expresses himself
as implying the conviction that causality is alone, of all Kant's cate-
gories, the objectifying minister. Surely that silence, in such a case, is
not less significant than this speech ! But what does it imply that Mr.
Caird finds himself obliged, with Schopenhauer, to regard the house,
as in spite of Kant, objective — obliged, therefore, further, and still
with Schopenhauer, to 7nake the house objective, and show it objec-
tive? Schopenhauer, as there is, to his behef, but one category of
objectivity to Kant, thinks himself under a necessity, for the due
effecting of the operation and the proof required, to have recourse to

62 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosophy.

that category — the category of causaUty alone. And Mr. Caird^
whatever the state of his belief, certainly is at pains, though without
alluding in this particular to Schopenhauer, to objectify the house in
the same preposterous and amusing manner as Schopenhauer ! The
illustrations of house and freezing water were actually previously
before him — a good way back, however — and he seems to have for-
gotten them. Or did he not forget them, and is it not rather, that
though he applied, then, quantity to the house and causality to the
freezins: water, he was not aware of the full force of what he himself
did ; but that, determining the house by quantity, he yet left it subjec-
tive, and only in the other case produced objectivity. For it is vain
to point to the other categories and ask, What could be meant, if by
their determination there was not meant objectivity, or what could it
be supposed that the other categories were there for? Such question,
I say, in its vei-y suggestion (and I suppose it is, on the whole, ray
own), ought to carry great weight with it ; but it is wholly vain in the
circumstances. If it could bestead Mr. Caird, for example, it ought
equally to bestead Schopenhauer, who speaks of all the other cate-
gories a hundred times, and yet holds causality to be Kant's sole
agent of objectivity! Mr. Caird, indeed, uses the other (mathemati-
cal) categories for determmation ; but the determination is only in
imagination, it is not objective. But, be all that as it may, it is quite
certain that Mr. Caird did at one time determine the house by quantity.
Now, however, that he is a hundred pages farther, it is equally certain
that the house is to him only subjective, and that he finds himself
under the same obligation as Schopenhauer to make it objective by
the same expedient of causality alone ! Is the conclusion at all unfair
that Mr. Caird must, like Schopenhauer, have regarded quantity — and
if quantity, surely other categories — as ineffective of objectivity, but
causality, on the contrar3% as in that function, alone effective? No
one, as it appears to me, can read these four pages (complemented,
say, by what concerns causality on 451 and 455) without finding this
.conclusion formally supported by every consecutive sentence.

Mr. Caird begins his consideration of Schopenhauer's " objection "
by the passage that declares the reversible house-series subjective,
and the irreversible ship-series objective. " In the latter case,
therefore, as Kant argues, we give to our perception of succession
an objective value," he says, "but in the former case we regard it
as merely subjective ; or, what is the same thing, in the latter case
we bring the sequence in our perceptions under the category of
causality, and in the former case we do not."

Now, there is much here that is instructive to us, and that must be

Professor Caird on Kant. 63

borne in mind as we proceed. It is to be observed, for example,
that the words sequence and succession are synonymous. They both
mean the same thing, and are indifferently used by Mr. Caird, as by
everybody else. Again, holding the views he does about the post
Jioc, necessarily presupposing and depending on the propter hoc,
objective sequence is to him not one whit stronger than sequence
simply, nor objective succession one whit stronger than succession
simply. These expressions likewise are synonymous to Mr. Caird ;
and these, too, as actual extracts will probably sufficiently suggest,
are indifferent to him. Lastly, in this reference, the word '"objects "
is to Mr. Caird, as it is to Kant, synonymous with "objective
sequences and successions," or with "sequences and successions"
sim[)ly. As regards Kant, an object, we learn from II., 97, is "a
one consciousness which unites Into one representation the part by
part perceived, and then reproduced, many, manifold, or multiple
of units of impression." Then, 108: "A presentation to sense con-
tains a manifold ; consequently, in its case a multiplicity of perceptions
are found in the mind, separate and single in themselves." Again,
157: "Our apprehension of the manifold of the presentation is
always successive ; " as, 168 : "In the synthesis of presentations the
manifold of impressions always follow each other" (i.e., the units
of the manifold). The same doctrine is to be found at 733, 740,
741, and, indeed, passim. Mr. Caird's testimony and doctrine are
to an identical effect. He says (339), "Ere we can perceive any
individual object as such, we must have a manifold before us, and
we must combine this manifold into a unity ; but to distinguish the
elements of the manifold means, in the case of a successive con-
sciousness like ours, to distinguish the times in which the manifold
is given." That is, plainly, all objects are successions — sequences
in time. The same thing is repeated again and again by Mr. Caird;
but for certainty here we need not leave the "materials which are
presently before us. " The sequences of our perceptions," Mr. Caird
says, "in the case of such an object as a house, are reversible,"
while, "in the case of a boat sailing down a river" they are "irre-
versible." Here the two objects (one of them a house) are plainly
put upon the same level of sequence or succession. It is no objection
to this tiiat Mr. Caird proceeds to call the one succession subjective,
and the other objective ; for he immediately turns to causality, in
order by that means to make the house-succession quite as objective,
and in the same way objective, as the succession of the ship. He
argues, indeed, that we must not separate the two cases ; that we
must not have a judgment of sequence in our perceptions which is

64 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

not a judgment of causality. And he illustrates this assertion by
showing that, in the case of the house, we make the sequence objec-
tive just in the same manner as we make the sequence oI)jective
in the case of the ship. "In both cases we make a judgment of
objective sequence." To Mr. Caird, as to Kant, then, all objects are
successions or sequences in time of units of impression, and no one
object is more so than another. Here is proof absolute that Mr.
Caird did assert that "objects are known as objects through the
category of causality alone; " for objectivity of sequence, plainly —
that is, an object as an object — is due to causality alone. Yet, saj's
Mr. Caird, this "assertion has never been made by me, and I
should never have supposed that any one could ascribe it to me,"
etc. ! In fact, as is but too manifest, discussion at all with Mr.
Caird is superfluously idle — but for the lesson as regards Kant.
Should it appear, too, as I may say again, that Mr. Caird was not
so very culpable in changing my objectivity of succession into his
"objects," — the words now being declared synonymous by ra^'self, —
let the use be once more considered which Mr. Caird made of the sem-
blance of difference thereb}' gained. Like Schopenhauer, he asserted
Kant to ascribe objectivity to causality alone ; he even went a step
farther, and asserted Kant to ascribe sequence as sequence, post hoc
as post hoc, whether as judged or experienced, to the sequence causal,
the sequence propter hoc. By substitution of " objects " for objec-
tivity of sequence, he was able to give the one clause, in the above
common matter, the appearance of being opposed to the other ; and
so, consequently, there was something to be denied ; and, again, there
was something to be justified. The difference in the identity was
eminently convenient, not but that it is equally easy for us quietly
to put back the original identit}" — identit\^ even with a little excess
in the one clause — and that the one, not that is denied, but that is
expressly and laboriousU' justified !

But to return to the extract before us, in description of what suc-
cession is subjective and what objective. Surely, if words are ever
to be allowed a meaning at all — surely those words mean, and must
mean, and can only mean that, " to give to our perception of suc-
cession an objective value," is '■'■ the same thing " as to "bring the
sequence in our perceptions under the category of causality ; " while,
to regard our perception of succession "as merely subjective," is
'■'■ the same thing" as not "to bring the sequence in our perceptions
under the category of causality."

" Now, it is evident that if this were the only proof for the transcendental
necessity of the principle of causality, we could have a judgment of sequence

Professor Caird on Kant. 65

(viz., in our own perceptions) which was not a judgment of causality, and thus
Kant's argument against Hume would lose all its force."

It is thus Mr. Caird continues, and truly these words also contain
revelations unmistakable. They assume, in the first place, Kant's
contrast of the house and the ship to have been intended by him as
"proof for the transcendental necessity of the principle of causality."
It never even crossed Kant's brain to imagine that his simi)le contrast
in illustration of difference of sense-many, under difference of cate-
gorical unity, could ever be supposed a "proof," and a proof of
what never as much as occurred to him in dream, that causality was
alone the agent of objectivit}^ ! But Mr. Caird, for his part, has no
doubt about this "proof." Seeing that the objectivity of the one
series is contrasted with the subjectivity of the other, there can be
nothing in Kant's mind, he thinks, but an argument in behoof of
what it never seems to have occurred to Mr. Caird (following Scho-
penhauer) even to question — the one sole minister of objectivity-
causality. Still, Kant to Mr. Caird does not say enough for causalitj'.
If this were the " only proof," he thinks, then, in view of the sequence
of the house (even suppose it subjective only), "we could have a
judgment of sequence which was not a judgment of causality."
Evidently, the possibility of a judgment of sequence which was not
a judgment of causality loomed little less at that time to Mr. Caird
than a catastrophe, — a catastrophe that must prove fatal to the whole
common industry. It was so sun-clear to him then that we can not
have a judgment of sequence in our own perceptions other than a
judgment of causality! Nor must this be limited to the house ; all
objects whatever are, on the consideration of succession, situated
quite as the house is. Plainly, then, we cannot have a judgment
of objects, as objects, that is not a judgment of causality — again
the assertion which Mr. Caird never made, and which so righteously
surprises him! But, further, in what case would " Kant's argument
against Hume lose all its force?" Wliy, that would happen, mani-
festly, just if "we could have a judgment of sequence in our own
perceptions which was not a judgment of causality." That, then,
is, to Mr. Caird, Kant's argument against Hume: we cannot have
a judgment of sequence which is not a judgment of causality — the
post hoc depends on the propter hoc! Unless all judgments of
sequence are causal, Kant's argument against Hume fails! Kant
no more argues against Hume, or at all, that all sequence is causal,
than I argue that Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwyn Sands.
Kant's argument against Hume is as relevant to Tenterden steeple
XIV — 5

66 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

or to Goodwyn Sands as to the argument ascribed to him by Mr.
Caird. Kant says to Hume only this : I grant all that you say, and
the evidence of sense can only be contingent ; but I have discovered
a whole system of Epigenesis, which, descending upon the things of
sense, whether in series causal or in series non-causal, elevates them
into necessity. One wonders at what Mr. Caird sees instead of this ;
one wonders at what Mr. Caird denies. Hume's question is. Why is
the unquestionable contingent post hoc of mere sense supposed, in
certain cases, to be, after all, necessary? Kant's answer — to take it
roughly, on the whole, but, on the whole, still truly — is: There are
twelve post hoes, and being received, respectively, into twelve chequers
of my twelvefold epigenesis, they thereby become necessary. Not a
ghost of an idea of the process involved in this become ever struck
Mr. Caird ; causality is to him an absolute nail in an absolutely fixed
universe.

Mr. Caird, then, will save causality from the catastrophe threatened
it by Kant's " forgetf ulness or abstraction for the moment." He
will show that even in the house, contrary to the example made of it
by Kant, causality is the minister of the sequence. We have seen
the sentence more than once already, and need not quote. We know
that Schopenhauer, conceiving the ship-series to be due to the move-
ments of the object perceived, and to be therefore pronounced causal,
and consequently objective, turned the tables on Kant (who, poor
man, had only made the house objective by quantity), and proved
that the house-sequence, being due to the movements of our organs
of sense, was therefore equally causal, and, consequently, equally
objective. We know, too, that, though without acknowledgment,
Mr. Caird has repeated all this — "in both cases we make a judg-
ment of objective sequence." Mr. Caird will show Kant, with gentle
reproach of his oblivion for the moment, that it is a mistake to
suppose sequence, as non-causal, only subjective in the house ; on
the contrary, as a moment's thought will suggest, it is really causal
and objective !

"And if it be true that we can date events in time only hi so far as we can put
them in causal relation with each other, in both cases alike there must be a judg-
ment of causality. Kant, in fact, has here made the inconsistent admission that
one kind of sequence can be determined without any help from the principle of
causality. But if we could determine one kind of sequence without reference to
causality, it would be difficult to prove that causality is necessary to determine
any other kind of sequence. Kant's argument can be valid only if it is made uni-
versal — i.e., if it is shown that all judgments of sequence are implicitly judgments
of causality. And the remark, mutatis mutandis, holds good of judgments of
reciprocity and coexistence" — (i.e., that these, too, are judgments of causality).

Professor Caird on Kant. 67

That is perfectly in accord with Schopenhauer: that "in both
cases we make a judgment of objective sequence," and "in both
cases alike there must be a judgment of causality," And if that
does not mean that, for production of a judgment of objective
sequence, a judgment of causality is, simple as it stands there, a
necessity., then it may mean Tenterden steeple, or Goodwyn Sands,
or green cheese, or the plains of Marathon, or the Magellan clouds,
or whatever else anybody may simply wish. It is a pity, however,
to see at last the little rift in the lute — a pupil so docible showing
signs to leave his master at last. At three seconds to one o'clock,
Herr Dr. Schopenhauer went to his own door, and at two seconds to
one o'clock — the very next second, that is — a tile bonneted him ; but
that was necessarily all a dream of the worthy Herr Doctor's own,
for " we can date events in time only in so far as we can put them in
causal relation to each other," and that is impossible in the case of
Herr Dr. Schopenhauer bonneted by the house-tile. It is the Herr
Doctor, himself, has introduced the illustration, and as demonstrat-
ing the fact that all sequences are not causal. Mr. Caird, however,
is so pledged to the suppositious Kant that he will maintain the pos-
sibility even of sequence, as sequence, to depend upon the judg-
ment of causality. That is the proposition we have to see Mr.
Caird justify ; and that is a proposition that, surely, may be named
an a fortiori to the proposition he denies! Comment, indeed, is quite
superfluous with expressions so very glaring confronting us. To be
consistent, for example, Kant ought to rule that all sequence, even
in a house, is determined by causality alone. Without help of that
principle no sequence can be determined. If any one sequence could
be determined without such help, it would be difficult to prove it for
any. The argument must be made universal — all judgments of
sequence are implicitly judgments of causality. Causality, indeed,
is the universal agent; and it is implied, not only in the sequence of
the house, but in that of reciprocity also. Causality, in short, shall
determine all sequence. Nay, "the denial of causality necessarily
involves the denial of all succession in time " — " sequence is equiv-
alent to causality! "

When Mr. Caird proceeds to justify — and that, too, in its extremest
form — the doctrine of causality imputed by Schopenhauer to Kant,
we naturally strike at once on another absolutely irresistible proof of
his holding the proposition which he now denies. " Schopenhauer,"
says Mr. Caird, " who has pointed out the inconsistency of Kant's
statement, that we can have a judgment of sequence which is not
objective, also denies the Kantian doctrine, that objective sequence

(J8 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

implies causality. It is, he argues, absurd to say that sequence is
equivalent to causality ; for, in that case, we should never recognize
any sequence but that between cause and effect. But night and day
have followed each other constantly since the beginning of the world,
without any one being tempted to find the cause of the one in the
other." But, after all that has already been said, this passage may
be allowed to speak for itself. Mr. Caii-d, far from telling Schopen-
hauer, as even any first year's student of Kant ought to have done,
simply that such things at all are not in Kant, agrees with Schopen-
hauer that Kant attributes the function of objectivity to causality
alone; and even justifies the latter, as reproached by the former, for
holding sequence to be equivalent to causality !

Before passing to consideration, however, of the proposition sug-
gested here, which Mr. Caird justifies, we have to see what he brings
forward in his reply to prove, as alleged, the fact that he, Mr. Caird,
does not assert " that objects are known as objects through the cate-
gory of causality alone."

We have already admitted and explained how it may be, or must
be, with expressions in Mr. Caird' s book, in regard to possible occa-
sional implication of a true Kantian doctrine ; but, certainly, those
which he himself either actually lirings forward, or only refers to, in
his own support, do not seem tantamount to even so much as that.

" In the last chapter, we have considered the principles on which phenomena
are determined as objects of experience, under conditions of space and time.
Taking these principles together, we reach the general idea of nature as a system
of substances, whose quantum of reality always remains the same; but which, by
action and reaction upon each other, are constantly changing their states accord-
ing to universal laws. And this proof of this idea of nature is not dogmatic, but
transcendental — i.e., it is proved that without it there would exist for us no nature
and no experience at all."

Mr, Caird quotes these words from "Phil, of Kant, p. 473; c/.,
also, pp. 460, 470, etc." And if we examine into all that is definite
in these references, I suppose we shall not be called to any very rigor-
ous account should we profess ourselves to fail with the " etc." Of
the passage quoted, Mr. Caird, "in these words, has declared," he
says, "as clearly as possible, that the test of objective reality is to be
found in the connection of experience as determined by all the cate-
gories." I, for one, however, must petition for pardon if I confess
myself quite unsatisfied of this. Determination of some kind on
the part of the categories, we may grant to be acknowledged by any
man who simply names them. So, Mr. Caird, in lumping together
all the principles on which phenomena are determined in space and

Professor Caird on Kant. 69

time, might very well have conceived categories included whose
action was only subjective, as well as the category whose action was
only objective. We positively know that to Mr. Caird the category
quantity, though a determining principle, was only a subjectively de-
termining principle. And, surely, the universal reference to nature
is much too general to yield any evidence as to what categories were
to Mr. Caird subjectively determinative, and what other was objec-
tively determinative. When the question is of so capital a doctrine
as that of objectivity being function of all the categories, and when
this doctrine can be so easily made perfectly explicit in these or a
thousand similar expressions, it is surely unfortunate that Mr. Caird,
out of seven hundred pages expressly devoted to the subject, should
have been able to quote onl}' so vague and indefinite, so inexplicit
and equivocal, so scanty and general a passage as tliat — the rather,
too, that while attributing (what, at least, appears) exclusive objectiv-
ity of sequence to the category of causality, he expressly calls the
very important category of quantit}^ subjective !

But Mr. Caird continues: "My view, in fact, is just that which
Kant expresses when he says that ' nothing is to be admitted in the
empirical synthesis which could be a hindrance to the understanding
in establishing the continuous connection of all phenomena in one
experience.'" Was it as such "hindrance" that the category of
quantity could not be " admitted " as an element in such connection ;
and is it not certain that what we may name, par exemple, Mr. Caird's
doctrine, is the attribution of the thorough-going unity in question to
the category of causality alone? Why, we have just read two pages
under " 1," in Mr. Caird's repl}', which are for no other purpose than
to justify such exclusive attribution ! Has not this an odd look? Mr.
Caird will have causalit}- the exclusive category of objective sequence,
and yet, objects being to him only objective sequences^ he will still place
them under all the other categories as well — that is, I suppose,
quantity apart, which is subjective! Really, Mr. Caird, emphatically
attributing here a wonderful unity to causality alone, and again as
emphatically attributing there this same unity to all the categories, has
enough to do to hold on by both arms.

I would remark, further, in this place, that in the quoted words of
Mr. Caird another of his most distressing peculiarities in treating
Kant extrudes itself. Mr. Caird — that is, though his own words seem
to say exactly the reverse — always treats Kant " dogmatically," and
never " transcendentally." The general statement of Mr. Caird is of
a philosophy "dogmatically " in explanation of this universe, which
is a perversion and an inversion of what it ought to be. Kant's words,

70 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

namel}', are spoken of as a "proof" of an ''idea of nature," and
he is said to have *' proved that without it there could exist for us no
nature and no experience at all." That is dogmatic. We there see
Kant, as some vast conjuror, coming forward to the hem of the uni-
verse, and stretching out his enchanting rod in easy explanation of
it. So it always is with the exposition of Mr. Caird. The point of
view from which he always looks is an utter perversion ; for from that
point of view Kant is always a dogmatic analj^st of facts, and not a
mere hypothetical projector. " Nature a system of substances, whose
quantum of reality always remains the same " — that, as it is put, is
a dogmatic result — a finding — of a theticall}'^ anal3zing, thetically
reasoning, positive philosophj' ; and an uninitiated reader looks on as
,at the unclosing of the book, the opening of the seals. Now, the
truth is that these results, these findings, are not results, are not
findings, but admitted facts of this universe now and here to hand —
not proved, not found — but simply appealed to in test of the success
of the hypothesis of a certain projector. Kant's work is not a
IDhilosophy. It is simpl}-, on a certain assumption, a new theory of
perception ; and with the assumption the theory itself disappears into
vapor. This assumption, namel}', is that we know never things with-
out, but always only ideas within. On which assumption, then, the
question was. How, though knowing only contingent affection within,
do we yet come to seem to know an objective universe without, that
is plainly in possession also of necessary elements? In explanation
of this state of the facts on the basis of the previous undoubted
assumption, Kant, now, only offered us his hypothesis of an a priori
epigenesis. The facts of experience, then, were not determined by
this hj^pothesis ; but this h3'pothesis itself was from stage to stage
determined (tested) by these facts. Mr. Caird gives onl_y a A^ery mis-
leading view of all this. And who now will grant Kant's premises?
It is simply false that the objects of perception are only affections
and ideas within us ; tlieN' are actually independent things without.
Then the prodigious Zmnuthung that time and space are not actual
entities out there on their own account, but mere spectra within our
own unity — what a prodigious call on our credulity is that! All
ordinary readers are advised of this, then, that the dogmatically
explanatory, the thetically interpretative, the mysteriously recondite
and ultimate system of philosophy which they see in Mr. Caird's
book, exists — at least, so far as it is referred to Kant — only in their
own dream.

What Mr. Caird, then, actually quotes from himself, while unsatis-
factorily indefinite all through, seems at the last to throw on his pre-

Professor Caird on Kant. 71

tensions an even adverse light. Let us now turn up and realize his
mere references. The one of them is this: " The determination of
things as in space and time implicitly contains in it a determination, not
only by the categories of quantity and quality, but also by the cate-
gories of cause, substance, and reciprocity — i.e., it involves ?l higher
synthesis than it expresses.'' Determination by categories, as has
been pointed out already, neither need be, nor alway is, to Mr. Caird
objective. We know that, to Mr. Caird, quantity is subjective ; and,
consequently, the other categories referred to ma}' be all equally sub-
jective. As the other categories are no hindrance to Schopenhauer's
holding the objectivity of causality alone, so, neither need they be any
hindrance to Mr. Caird's. It is quite certain that Mr. Caird conceives
certain categories to be operative only on imagination — presumably,
consequently, in such element, as only subjective. Nay, in such cir-
cumstances, he actually says we "represent or imagine objects
without determining them as existent." It is not well possible to call
anything objective that is not existent. Mr. Caird certainly attributes
much more importance to the categories of relation, and he names
them all ; but we have already seen him subordinate reciprocity to
causality, and when he talks of substance, it is always in reference to
"change," and change plainly involves causality. No; let us read
as we may in Mr. Caird, what always comes to the front of the ques-
tion of objectivity is causality ; and the other categories, let them be
conceived as they may, are all either subordinate, or in actual terms
subjective. It is a great mistake of Mr. Caird, indeed, to suppose
that though he should be found to count on all the categories for a
conjunct experience, he is thereby relieved of any one charge that
has been made against him in consequence of his doctrine of causality
as in connection with Schopenhauer. Even then, I should not with-
draw one word which I have applied in that connection. Mr. Caird's
position has been actually found to be very unsatisfactory as regards
other categories ; but, were that not so, all that I have said would
remain essentially the same ; and Mr. Caird, with determination of
other categories in his eye, cannot protect himself from tlie conse-
quences of his position, in regard to Schopenhauer and causality, by
any denial of the assertion "that objects are known as objects through
the category of causality alone."

The only remaining locus of reference in Mr. Caird's defence con-
tains expression of an attempt generally to connect together the three
categories of relation. But there, confessedly, Mr. Caird is not in
Kant at all — there he fancies himself beyond Kant — there, indeed,
it is to be supposed he fancies himself in Hegel. The simplicity or

72 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

stolidity of self-complaeenc\', however, with wliich he alludes to the
"suggestion" here, as calculated to ''free Kant from many diffi-
culties," is eminently declarative — as though there were anything
in it !

We pass to the proposition which Mr. Caird justifies ; and, in regard
to this, no reader now can well be in any difficulty. The quotations
already made from pages 456 and 457, especially the three sentences
in reference to Schopenhauer pointing out Kant's inconsistency, etc.,
will have put every reader, in this respect, quite au fait. Mr. Caird
treats this matter at considerable length in his reply, but more clearl^^
concisely, and satisfactorily in his book. These words of mine from
the Schopenhauer article I suppose to state the whole case : —

" Schopenhauer, even making the prodigious blunder he did, was never so far
left to himself as to conceive the cognition of succession, as succession, only possible
to Kant on presupposition of causality. Following on was to him as much sui
generis as following from. * * * It is in reference to the unity of the
universe, and the correlation of all its parts, Mr. Caird thinks, that there is justifi-
cation for Kant's (never made) assertion that objectivity results from the category
of causality alone."

The reader has now before him many extracts which clearly and
fully bear out the above words (where, of course, as already shown,
"■objectivity" means objectivity of succession). Mr. Caird does
hold, not only for Kant, but apparently also for himself, that follow-
ing on is only possible by presupposition of following from. "The
denial of causality necessarily involves the denial of all succession
in time; sequence is equivalent to causality' — sequence implies
causality." Mr. Caird, too, does solve the riddle Ijy reference to the
unit}- of the universe. Here, in fact, Mr. Caird, far from turning on
Schopenhauer to justify Kant //"om such nonsense, actually turns upon
him to justify Kant for such grand truth ! Nor can au}^ lapsus mem-
orim be gently pleaded here, for the sole consideration is of " Schopen-
hauer's objection." Sequence, Mr. Caii'd thinks, always "implies"
more than it " expresses " — " causality," namely; and the result is
that cryptic unity of the universe which, as a doctrine, is Mr. Caird's
own — his freehold, his peculiar — where he, and he alone, possesses
all the droits de seigneur.

Of course, it could be argued that a mind unprovided with the
category of causality could not be a mind at all, and that, conse-
quentl}^ such category must, in every case, be postulated ; but I think
consciousness of a simple succession of states quite conceivable, with-
out any causal reference whatever. It is this latter reference, indeed,
that is not presupposed by, but, on the contrary, presupposes the

Professor Caird on Kant. 73

former. And so, as yet, it has been taken by everybody except Mr.
Caird. Kant himself expressly says (87) that, even were causality
unapplied, " impressions would nothing the less present objects to our
perception" (which, even alone, is enough!).

Again, it may be argued, let the actual consciousness or experience
be what it may, causality is always at least potentially present. So
much, so put, must certainly be admitted. The concrete unity and
community of the universe, the presence at all times of every one of
its powers, and in continuity with the rest — that cannot be denied.
Emerson, in those Delphic droplets of song of his, tells us this a
thousand times: "All are needed by each one, nothing is fair or good
alone." Even such contraries as sense and understanding are, to
Kant's mind, but twin stems from a common root. Milton, too, was
of the same opinion before Kant ; " discourse," the angel tells Adam,
"is of test yours, the latter [intuition, perception] most is ours, dif-
fering but in degree, of kind the same." Still, distinction is distinc-
tion, even in the concrete ; water is not sand, and neither is following
on following from.

P^urther, it would be a simple proceeding to tell us that causality
does act in determination of sequence in time. We should be as little
likely to deny that, as that Kant writes in German. But that really
is the question with which Mr. Caird's replj' opens! " 1. Does Kant
assert that the category of causality is involved in the determination
of objective sequence?" He might as well have asked. Can a duck
swim? Of course, the category of causality acts in determination of
objective sequence. One would like to know what else we could put
it to. But that, " simply as it stands," is not the question. The
question is this. Does causalit}' alone determine cognition of objective
sequence? Rather, indeed, this question itself has now become, so
to speak, a shade deeper, and runs thus : Does cognition of sequence
at all presuppose causality? "Kant argues," says Mr. Caird, "that
the judgment of sequence cannot be made except on presupposition
of the judgment of causality. The judgment of sequence implies
the judgment of causality." So, namely, I took the question, and
so I take it. I interpolate no shade of meaning peculiar to myself ;
it is Mr. Caird's meaning I mean to meet, and Mr. Caird's meaning
alone. And my conclusion now, is my conclusion then. Such
doctrine, taken independently, is untrue. Such doctrine, as referred
to Kant, is untrue. Such doctrine, in view of his own expressions, is
hardly true for Mr. Caird himself.

The doctrine, independently taken, is untrue. The cognition of
the post hoc is, in point of fact, independent of the cognition of the

74 IVie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

propter hoc; and not only so, but the former even precedes and
conditions the latter. In a word, casual succession is as much a
fact cognized in time as causal succession. ; as such, indeed, it is
familiar to everybody, and referred to in books an infinitude of
times. Tenterden steeple was followed by Goodwyn Sands. The
sacrifice of Iphigenia was followed, as is the whistling of the sailors
nowadays, by wind. The small-pox in Norway was followed by the
disappearance of all the fish on its coasts. Lightning is followed by
thunder ; the fall of the mercury by a storm ; and burst shoe-ties by
divorces. The threat of Columbus was followed by th^ eclipse.
The ebb is followed by the flood ; inspiration by expiration ; and the
right leg by the left in walking. A red flag is followed by the stop-
ping of an engine. Tear follows tear, as one drop of rain another.
Lamp follows lamp in the twilight ; and systole, diastole. The tick
of the watch is followed by the movement of the minute-hand ; and
the fall of the time-ball precedes the shock of the time-gun. One
squib follows another in fire-works, and one man drops after another
in battle. Boys in pea-scuffles or stone-scuffles get blow after blow.
Minister succeeds minister in the pulpit, actor actor on the stage,
and player player at the wickets. Carriage succeeds carriage in the
drive, and horse horse on the ride. Look out of window, a puff
of smoke, a cry of soles, a wagon, some men, a school, furniture
on a cart, dust ahoy, sunshine, shadow, rain ; such units all duly
follow each other. Ideas of Napoleon, Csesar, Alexander, Wine,
France, Spain, Beauty, Esquimaux, Negroes, the Cape, Afghanistan,
Russia, Mr. Gladstone, the Earl of Beaconsfield, follow one another
in my mind, and are sequences in time. In fact, according tomodern
wisdom, all my ideas follow one another in time ; not at all by the law
of causality, but, principally, rather by the mere law of contiguity
(Mr. Caird should reflect on that). Alexander Aphrodiscensis says:
"Is it not clear that the proposition is false, that all that follows
something has its cause in the same, or all that precedes something
is its cause? For experience shows us, in the case of things which
follow one another, that the latter are not always due to the earlier.
It is not night because it was previously day ; nor winter because it
was previously summer ; nor are the Isthmian games because the
Olympic games were.'" De Fato (34), we find it said, Itaque non sic
causa intelligi debet ut^ quod cuique antecedat, id ei causa sit; and
from this it is clear that to Cicero, at all events, there were not only
causal sequences, but casual ones as well. But in such things it is,
as usual, Aristotle that is followed. Meta., 994, a, 221, it is said:
" One thing follows another in two ways, — either as this after that,

Professo7' Caird on Kant. 75

the Olympic games after the Isthmian ; or genetically, as the man
from the boy." The former mere chronological succession, remarks
Schwegler, in his relative comment, '■'• belongs not properly here at all,
and is not again mentioned ; we must believe, then, that Aristotle
names this zpo-oc; only to dismiss it." Elsewhere in Aristotle,
however (1023, b. 5), we have, as further instances of non-causal
sequence in time, night after day, storm after calm, ships at sea after
the equinoxes, and the Dion^^sia after the Thargelia. In short, the
independence of post hoc on propter hoc exists in nature, and is
universally accepted by all mankind in such shape as it occurs in
Hume: "An object may be contiguous and prior to another, without
being considered as its cause." Do not Aristotle, and all other logi-
cians, indeed, flatly forbid us, under pain of committing a sophism,
to reason from the post to the propter? And, as regards the allega-
tion that the former rather precedes and conditions the latter, are
not these last two references enough? Hume and the logicians both
refer to the two successions in such terms that we see the one, as
general, must simply precede the other as specific. It can add but
the last touch to the nail here, that even Schopenhauer, whom Mr.
Caird follows in so much, will not countenance any such doctrine as
the necessary presupposition of pt^'opter to post, but loudly reprobates
in Kant (though, of course, by mistake) the denial of casual and
the affirmation of only causal succession. Who, of all mankind but
Mr. Caird, could for a moment suppose that the very judgment, the
very cognition, the very "experience" of pos^ hoc, would be impos-
sible to us without the presupposition of propter /loc ? Knowledge
of casual succession is impossible without knowledge of causal
succession, and it is not the latter that follows the former ! Of
course, all that is no prejudice to the fact that all change implies
causality; but, surely, it is not that commonplace which Mr. Caird
would discover in Kant! I acknowledge to fe^l the circumstances
such that, in their regard, I can believe or conceive almost anything ;
but surely, surely, I am not called upon to believe or conceive that
the mysterious, deep-reaching, all-pervading, absolutely original new
truth (p. 455) — "the denial of causality necessarily involves the
denial of all succession in time" — amounts to no more than that !
But, in the second place here, there is no such doctrine as this in
Kant. Casual sequence in time is allowed by him quite its own right
in time — casual sequence in time is quite as much allowed its right
in time as causal sequence itself. Experience of casuality in time,
judgment of casualty in time, cognition of casualty in time, is
allowed by him to be by so much less dependent on the experience,

76 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

judgment, cognition of causality in time, as this latter must, in all
cases, be at least preceded, and so far conditioned, by that former.
This much, indeed, is only credible in the very terms of it.

Even suppose we had no direct comparison of the two successions,
casual and causal, in Kant, as we have such comparison in Aristotle,
Cicero, Alexander, Hume, and others, it would not follow that Kant
was not even as they in the general reference. It is wholly with the
necessary that Kant has to do. The casual or contingent, we may
say, he is never called upon directly to deal with, because, as such,
it is insusceptible of rule or order ; so that we might reasonably
suppose Kant, like Aristotle, to dismiss the subject as not belonging
to the sphere of his operations. But it is not necessary to suppose
or say that. The very fact that his one object is to introduce a
system of necessity — that is, of necessary order, necessary succes-
sion — proves indisputably that he admits or assumes, as his very
basis, a given and granted and understood element of contingency —
that is, of casual order, casual succession. His whole work, indeed,
is nothing but the epigenesis — the introduction of necessary succes-
sion into the foregoing, plain and manifest, never supposed deniable,
contingent succession (not, however, by causality alone). In fact,
every object is to Kant, in the first instance, as mere Erscheinung^
mere crude sense-presentation (and Kant calls Erscheinung not a
simple presentation alone, but even such compound presentation as
the phenomena in any case of causality, say that of the ship) —
every such presentation, I say, whether simple or compound, is
always a, MannigfaUiges — that is, a succession. "In the synthesis
of crude presentations," he says (II., 168), "the many or multiple
of the impressions is ahvays a following of the one the other" —
that is, on the part of the various units of impression, and that is a
succession, a sequence. In very truth, Kant assumes twelve contin-
gent successions, and the same number of categories, consequently,
to introduce into the former necessary order. What quantity sub-
sumes is series in time, like part succeeding like part in pure
contingency of sequence till the category acts. What quality sub-
sumes is succession in the filling of time, quite similarly regarded.
What substance subsumes is a vicissitude of accidents, and such
vicissitude is surely contingency in terms. What causality subsumes
are a first and second, which to me are always necessary, but which
to Kant are only contingent till subsumption has taken place. What
reciprocity subsumes are an exchangeable first and second ; and
these, too, though already in necessary order to me, are, in the first
instance, only contingent to Kant. Then the postulates ! They are

Professor Caird on Kant. 11

three in number, and if they assume one succession as necessary,
they take it for granted that one is only possible, and the other only
actual. Surely, these last examples are enough. You would not
say that a succession that is only actual (Kant's actual propter) is
necessary, and still less that what is only possible is necessary ? Even
in pure perception, Kant assumes the succession there to be only con-
tingent ; the succession of the moments of time is to him no more
than a succession, and, as he says again and again, a succession
without causal connection. In fact, it is precisely in causality that
there is least succession. Kant, to Schopenhauer's misunderstanding,
even takes pains to demonstrate the presence of succession in sundry
cases of causality. Are not these cases, indeed, very much examples
of two things at one and the same time? Sun and stone, fire and
room, capillary tube and fluid, bullet and cushion, frost and ice, are
all things together. The whole contention is at once disproved by
the fact of series being admitted not only to be irreversible, but
reversible as well. At least these two successions are ; and what is
reversible can never be causal. Of coui'se, all together are a whole ;
and causality is certainly one of the most indispensable of cate-
gories, but it is not the only one. Neither is its irreversible
succession the only one. In fact, reversible succession is quite as
much a need as irreversible succession ; and, as said, the former
rather precedes and conditions the latter. Fanc}' causality alone to
produce objective sequence, as Mr. Caird desires ; then there would
be irreversible series only, and the world cramped into a single
potence, a single potential ganglion, an illimitable intussusception,
the power of a quantity, whose index were infinitude. If quite direct
evidence is wanted as regards the state of Kant's mind, have we
not an actual example, at the hands of Kant, of objective sequence
produced, not only without the action of causality, but absolutely in
special opposition to the action of causality. He opposes the house,
objectified by quantity, as well to ice as the ship, both of which
exemplify, and are meant to exemplify, causality alone. To pass to
quite another region, too — can we not see that, when he speaks of
external design, he has before him a variety of events which, following
on each other, are yet without the slightest conjunction causally.
But we shall see more of Kant's mind, in this connection, when we
come to examine Mr. Caird' s doctrine of unity — that extraordinary
doctrine of a rjediegene Einheit, a hard integration of all things,
through the iron veins of causality — which has been more than
once referred to.

We have alluded to certain expressions of Mr. Caird's own, that

78 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

seem to render such doctrine as the dependence of sequence qua
sequence upon causality, hardly true for himself. These are to be
found where the words "reversible" and "irreversible" occur. If
Mr. Caird admits that there are two sorts of succession, so different
the one from the other, so opposed the one to the other, as these
words ai'e, then it is plain that they cannot be both causal. To admit
a reversible series at all, in fact, is to destroy his doctrine. Arev^ers-
ible series can never be causal. And here we stand by the one spot
which alone, perhaps, is sufficient to bring to the whole Kantian sys-
tem ruin. Did not sense itself, namely, offer material irreversible
sequences, the category of cause and effect would be null and void ;
it would never be called into play at all ; for it is only on reception
of an irreversible first and second that the logical function of ante-
cedent and consequent will consent to act — will, on plea of analogy^
consent to receive such first and second into its own necessary nexus.
But, allow once an irreversible series in sense, and you allow also a
necesssity in sense — a necessity already in consciousness, conse-
quently — which necessit}^ as independent of any artificial, intellec-
tual epigenesis whatsoever, renders all such epigenesis, and by
consequence Kant's whole system, a supererogatory^ superfetation
merely. But, let alone Kant, surely we have here a very trying light
to Mr. Caird. He is in the very midst of all these reversibJes and
irreversibles, and yet remains blind to what they involve, not only for
Kant, but even for himself! He is quite explicit on this, for ex-
ample, that to Kant there are sequences quite as well reversible as
irreversible — that is, that there are sequences in regard to which
causality has no application whatever — and j^et, in the teeth of this,
his own admission, he declares that the judgment, cognition, expe-
rience of sequence as sequence, is impossible without previous judg-
ment, cognition, experience of sequence causal, and that this is the
doctrine of Kant ! How is it possible to attribute any such doctrine
to Kant, at the very moment that one is canvassing statements of his
in regard to a reversible sequence which Kant himself declares can-
not he causal? This, certainly, seems somewhat of a dilemma; but
it will occur to us how Mr. Caird got out of it, if we recollect that
the reversible series (the house) was to Kant, in Mr. Caird's belief,
onlj^ subjective, and it was not, therefore, necessarily a contradiction
that he (Kant) should still regard the causal sequence as alone
objective. More than that, indeed ; Mr. Caird was at express pains,
with the assistance (unacknowledged) of Schopenhauer's "ej'^e," to
make the house itself dependent on causality, and only objective so!
Nevertheless, even as to that, it is to be remarked that, let the expe-

Professor Caird on Kant. 79

dient of the eye be as ingenious as it might, it left the sequence of
the house, as the sequence of the house, quite untouched. The eye
might rove from roof to cellar, or from cellar to roof, but that was
the concern of the eye only. The coalition of myriads of stone
parts and stone particles, or brick parts and brick particles, into the
actual stone tenement, or the actual brick tenement, was quite inde-
pendent of the eye. The eye had to take all that simply as it found
it ; it had nothing to do with the putting of it together. What a
futile thing, after all, then, was either the ingenuity at first hand of
Schopenhauer, or even the second-hand ingenuity of Mr. Caird !
Kant, evidently, knew his own business a little better than either the
one or the other of them knew it for him. He agglutinated the par-
ticles of the house into the house by the category of quantity, or it was
by this category that he made it objective. But this amounts to a
contradiction on Kant's part of Mr. Caird 's ascription to him of
the proposition that reversible sequence presupposes irreversible
sequence ; he actuall}' objectifies the former quite apart from, and in
actual independence of, the latter. Kant, in fact, in full possession
of his own doctrine, would have only wondered, had he seen Messrs.
Schopenhauer and Caird, in their self-imposed need to find an irre-
versible sequence for the house — which otherwise, poor thing, would,
all too plainly, as they thought, be left subjective — superfluousl}^
paining themselves to distort or contort their own organs of vision,
as if thus they could agglutinate into objectivity the house itself.
That they both felt such need, very delicately, but irresistibly, proves,
to say it again, that to both there was for Kant but one category of
objectivity, while to both, at the same time, the others in that refer-
ence were simply unthought of. Both — there cannot be a doubt
of it — went together so far, and then they parted, Schopenhauer to
object to Kant that there were objective wo?i-causal sequences quite
as well as objective causal ones, and Mr. Caird to justify Kant, and
assert that even sequence, as sequence, implied causality.

We assume the true doctrine, then, to be this (as illustrated from
Aristotle, Cicero, Hume, etc. ) : that, though all change implies
causality, yet that the judgment, cognition, experience of succession
as succession, sequence as sequence, is quite independent of, and in
nowise conditioned by, the judgment, cognition, experience of suc-
cession or sequence causal. Mr. Caird himself seems not unaware
that this is the state of the case as vulgarly understood. He admits
that it is said, "There are many phenomena which are determined as
successive, and which yet we do not conceive to be related as causes
and effects ; " but then he explains that " when they are so related,

80 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

we often do not know it; " and what is said, therefore, is " not to the
point!" When we do know it, he intimates, we find it causal.
When one is arrested by such utterances as these, one almost thinks
that, after all, what Mr. Caird has to tell us out of Kant is just the
commonplace already signalized. But are we to understand that said
commonplace, admitted by all mankind, instead of being simply the
one thing to be explained, is, not the starting question, but the con-
cluding result of the whole Kantian toil? Every change has a cause.
There — that is the relieving breath — that is what Kant ends with —
that is his answer to Hume? I suppose it will be "not to the point"
to hint that, Wliy we believe every change to have a cause? was
what Hume asked, and that Kant assumed to answer the why, and
not merely to repeat the fact? Mr. Caird's own words are these : "It
is, therefore, a perfectly accurate account of Kant's position to say
that he met Hume's reduction of the propter hoc to t\\& post hoc by
showing that no mind is capable of the cognition post hoc which is
not already capable of the cognition propter hoc.''' To Mr. Caird,
this — -so assured is he — is a perfectly accurate account of Kant's
position relatively to Hume ; and the truth is, that perhaps anything
more wide has, up to the present moment, never yet been said in
print. Hume's action was not reduction of propter hoc to post hoc.
We have just seen a quotation which admitted succession propter hoc
to be other than succession 2>o.si hoc, and propositions to the same
effect may be found passim in the authority concerned. Hume
referred cognition of the difference between projiter and post to
instinct naturally, and to custom philosophico-explanatorily. Hume's
whole question, in fact, was of the difference . He acknowledged our
belief in the necessary connection of cause and effect, but could see
no origin for this belief unless, as said, in instinct naturally and cus-
tom philosophically. If any one else, however, could show him
another origin, he was quite willing, he affirmed, to abandon his whole
contention. Kant, now, brought forward a whole system of intellec-
tual epigenesis, as this other origin which Hume desiderated. Here,
then, surely, to say the one reduced propter into post, and the other
answered him by counter-reduction of post into propter, is, if incor-
rect in the one proposition, absolutely wild in the other. Kant's
enormous categorical system — the whole of which is his reply to
Hume — 'Shall be demonstration of the impossibility of the judgment,
cognition, experience post hoc itself, unless there be "already"
judgment, cognition, experience of propter hoc. One hopes that that
would have proved as satisfactory to Hume as it does to Mr. Caird.
Cannot one imagine David Hume benevolently smiling here — hope-

Professor Caird on Kant. 81

lessly puzzled. The i^ost hoc never troubled me, be thinks to him-
self, only the propter hoc; and now I am expected to find my-
self, not at all only all the more troubled when told that even the
easy jjost hoc is really the unintelligible propter hoc, but actually in
absolute light at last just from that alleged fact! There is no diffi-
culty in understanding propter hoc, for — jjost hoc is propiter hoc!
Well, to be sure, that is an explanation; and it is the one mighty
result of the one mighty Kantian labor ! Why do we know that
every change has a cause? We know that every change has a
cause, because we know that one thing succeeds another only because
we know that every change has a cause !

As we have here Kant's answer to Hume before us, we may remark,
in passing, that Mr. Caird has said the same thing, with a certain
modification, in his book. "We cannot, like Hume, set succession
against causality; for so soon as we 'bring to conceptions,' or, in
other words, to clear consciousness, the synthesis by which two events
are determined in time in relation to each other, we see that it contains
or involves the category' of causalit}'." Hume, for his part, never
"set succession against causality; " he only asked, as we have just
seen : Is there any origin for the idea of necessary connection attrib-
uted to cause and effect, except custom ? But, so soon as we " clearly
conceive" the synthesis of cause and effect, we ".see" that it is the
synthesis of cause and effect. One hopes that Hume would have
contented himself with that also !

In presence of such things, the belief is almost irresistible, then,
that Mr. Caird's reason for his, apparently, so very peculiar doctrine
on succession is just the commonplace that every change has a cause.
But, are we to suppose that no more is meant by such profound
jsropos as, "sequence is equivalent to causality," " the denial of caus-
ality necessarily involves the denial of all succession in time" — are
we to suppose that no more is meant by such profound prop)Os than
the one proposition with which we, not all end, but, on the contrary,
all onl}' begin, no change icithout a cause? !

This leads us directly up to that iron unity of Mr. Caird's. Hav-
ing seen, namely, what could be said in resistance to Mr. Caird's
second proposition, on the ground that such doctrine is untrue in a
general reference, untrue in Kant's, and, viewing certain expressions,
hardly true in Mr. Caird's own, we have still to recognize fixture on
Mr. Caird's part in this, his second proposition, that sequence implies
causality ; and, without objecting Mr. Caird's emphatic denial of this
identical proposition under another face, we have now to consider it

XIV— 6

82 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

in connection with that idea of a cryptic unity in Kant which we have
so often alluded to as dominating Mr. Caird. This we shall follow,
first, in his book ; and, second, in his reply.

I have no doubt it was not inconvenient to "pass over ' ' certain crit-
icisms as " almost verbal ; " and the criticisms being left, I can hardh'
have much to object to Mr. Caird' s passing over them. I have said,
nevertheless, and in relation to my notice of Mr. Caird' s doctrines,
that, " while resolved there should be no mistake as to the state of
my mind, I confined myself, on the general merits, to mere indica-
tion." Now, that "indication" is what Mr. Caird passes over, as
"almost verbal." It was meant, however, as more than verbal —
it was meant to indicate, indeed, almost under the one word, trans-
elementation, what I found the work, on the whole. 1 began, for
example, though never leaving the one eleventh chapter (almost in its
first half only), tvhich specially considered caxisality^ by pointing out
an essentially radical and absolutely crucial mistake in regard to the
distinction between the mathematical and dynamical categories. Now,
it is in aid of his peculiar unity that Mr. Caird restricts the former to
imagination, and places existence under the latter. I should say, how-
ever, that Kant, for his part, gives no precedence to the one categor-
ical class over the other, even in reference to existence. Nay, if Kant
gives, in that reference, precedence to either of them, it is certainl}-
to those categories which, for Mr. Caird, are evidently only subjec-
tive and confined to the imagination. These latter, for example, are
actually named axioms and anticipations of ijerception^ while the
others are but analocjies or ^wstidates of relation, absolutely null till
the former have found objects for them. Kant (140 — 1) expresslj'
tells us that, while the mathematical categories are " out and out
necessary," the dynamical ones, on the contrary, are "in them-
selves only contingent." While the former are " apodictic," he
adds, the latter are only " mediate and indirect," not possessing the
"immediate evidence which is the special property of the others."
The former, further, are "intuitive," the latter only " discursive; "
the former (154) "constitutive," the latter only "regulative."
What all that amounts to. in regard to relative existential actuality of
knowledge, every student of Kant at once knows. Surely, what is
constitutive must be much more palpably an ingredient of existence
than what is only regulative — what concerns an actual object, as per-
ceivable, have much more the form of existence in it than a mere re-
lation, which has to wait for its objects. Such considerations as these,
however, seem to have wholly escaped Mr. Caird ; he thinks what

Professor Vaird on Kant. 83

here is constitutive has to do only with imagination, while what is
merely regulative has to do with actual existence. Why, imagination
itself, for that part, belongs quite as much to the dynamical as to the
mathematical categories. Both sets are in apprehension, and the ve-
hicle of apprehension is, to Kant, imagination. Coleridge, in reference
to Kant's peculiar traffic with imagination, held that faculty to be
" the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a
repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite
I Am! " That is transelementation. When we do not understand
plain prose as it is there before us, it loosens under our eyes into so
man}'^ Ossianic vapors of dream. That was Coleridge, however it be
with Mr. Caird. "The idea of Kant," says Mr. Caird, " that imagi-
nation limits knowledge, will be considered at the end of the chap-
ter; " and, " at the same time, we have to remember the danger that
accompanies this gift" — ha ! But I have said enough now to indicate
a mist that wonderfully extends itself without — the slightest occasion.
I should never end, if I took up every spot that I see. What it con-
cerns us to know here is that Mr. Caird, for that unity of. his, cannot
refer to any superiority, so far as Kant is concerned, in the one set
of categories over the other, at the same time that a oruiclins: liffht is
thrown, perhaps, on what, to Mr. Caird, is merely "verbal." We
consider at present only that idea of unity by means of which Mr.
Caird would prove, on Kant's part, identification of sequence, as such,
with sequence causal, and would impose on causality some altogether
supernatural or transelemental function of unity in reference to every
moment of time, and, I suppose, point of space. Of course, no such
thing exists in Kant, and it has a wonderful effect on one's mind to
be asked to look at it. We quote from said eleventh chapter a few
of the most salient sentences that bear on it : —

"Kant argues that the judgment of sequence cannot be made, except on the
presupposition of the judgment of causality. For time is a mere form of the
relation of things, and cannot be perceived by itself. Only when we have con-
nected events with each other, can we think of them as in time. And this con-
nection must be such that the different elements of the manifold of the events are
determined in relation to each other, ;in the same way as the different moments in
time are determined in relation to each other. But it is obvious that the moments
of time are so determined in relation to each other that we can only put them into
one order — i.e., "that we can proceed from the previous to the subsequent moment,
but not vice versa. Now, if objects or events cannot be dated in relation to time,
but only in relation to each other, it follows that they cannot be represented as in
time at all unless their manifold is combined in a synthesis which has an irreversi-
ble order ; or, in other words, unless they are so related, according to a universal
rule, that when one thing is posited, something else must necessarily be posited
in consequence. In every representation of events as in time, this presupposition

84 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

is implied ; and the denial of causality necessarily involves the denial of all suc-
cession in time. * * * We cannot, like Hume, set succession against causality,
for so soon as we 'bring to conceptions' (p. 77; Tr., p. 63), or, in other words, to
clear consciousness, the synthesis by which two events are determined in time in
relation to each other, we see that it contains or involves the category of causality.
For the relation of one moment to another is such, that the apprehension of one
moment is the condition of the apprehension of the next; and, therefore, in attribut-
ing succession to things, we are already attributing to them necessary sequence."

Preliminarily to explain : In regard to what is meant b^' the phrase,
objective sequence in time, I may seem to have applied it to units of
impression only, and it may possibly have occurred, in objection, that
matters might be different if we applied it, not to sequences of units,
but to sequences of the objects which these units compose. The
sequence of units that takes place in the formation of objects may be
one thing, and the sequence of these objects in each other's regard,
once they are formed, quite another. It is to be said at once, how-
ever, that neither Kant nor Mr. Caird has made the distinction. The
sequence of the units in the case of the house is taken for granted to
run parallel with the sequence of objects in the case of a ship varying
place on a stream, or of ice following water upon frost. As with
units, indeed, so with objects. Some are causal, and some casual, or
otherwise varied. Nor is the implication of causality in change one
whit stronger for the one series than for the other. Mr. Caird's words
in the above quotations reflect this indifference. We there see that
"events," ''objects," "things," are all openly put upon precisely
the same level. In short, to Mr. Caird causality is the minister of
objectivity to successions, whether implicit or explicit, and it is no
matter which.

Mr. Caird's own words give his reader little difficulty as to what
he holds of succession generally, and we again refer to them in con-
firmation of our o^n relative statements. In fact, the moment we
consider that these words are addressed — at least the latter of them —
to the objection of Schopenhauer, their import becomes unmistakable.
Schopenhauer, as in the case of the "tile," objects that there are
sequences casual as well as sequences causal, or, to use Mr. Caird's
words, that "sequence is not equivalent to causality." Mr. Caird,
consequently, can only oppose that by asserting Kant to regard
succession as but another word for causality. But it is with Mr.
Caird's reasoning in support that we have at present to do. Nearly
his first sentence maintains that " only when we have connected events
with each other, can we think of them as in time." Now, if there
are successions casual, that cannot be so ; we can very well think

Professor Caird on Kant. 85

of objects and events in time, and see objects and events in time,
without connecting tliem tlie one with the other at all. And that at
once negates Mr. Caird's next step, the " dating " of objects in time,
the identification of each object with its own moment in time, so that
objects must succeed each other in the same irreversible succession in
which time itself flows on. I have already shown (in first, unpub-
lished, part of this essay) that, let Kant's ivords seem ivhat they may,
there is no such doctrine as this in Kant. Mr. Caird holds it to be
impossible for objects or events " to be represented as in time at all,
unless their manifold is combined in a synthesis which has an irrevers-
ible order." It is true that no succession can be represented in time
as an event, unless its manifold is of itself in necessary order ; but an}'
succession, reversible or irreversible, or otherwise as it may, can,
simply as it stands there, be represented in time. Was Kant's house
incapable of being represented in time, then ; and what of series that
are reciprocal, ABC D's that are quite as much D C B A's? How-
ever it might be with time, it was quite evident to Kant that things
themselves were not always in the same kind of succession in time.
To Mr. Caird, however, it seems that " objects " "cannot be repre-
sented as in time at all, unless their manifold is combined in a syn-
thesis which has an irreversible order! " ■ — ^"the denial of causality
necessarily involves the denial of all succession in time! "

" So soon as we 'bring to conceptions' (p. 77 ; Tr., p. 63), or, in
other words, to clear consciousness, the synthesis by which two
events are determined in time in relation to each other, we see that
it contains or involves the category of causality." In one way,
that is saying nothing, for as much lies in the very word event; so
soon as we see event, we see causality. But what is meant must be,
that to "bring to conceptions," or, what is the same thing, "clear
consciousness," any sj^nthesis, is to see that it involves causalit}'.
That is proved by the words from which the above sentence follows
with a "for." "We cannot, like Hume, set succession against
causality, for so soon," etc. That plainly means that succession is
equivalent to causality, and that we see this the moment we " bring
it to conceptions," or, what is the same thing, to "clear conscious-
ness."

Suppose now, here, we turn up Mr. Caird's reference. In Kant
(I have not the translation) it runs thus: "To bring this synthesis to
notions, that is a function which pertains to the understanding, and
whereby it first procures us cognition (perception) in proper significa-
tion." Now what is this sj-nthesis? It is the "synthesis of the
imagination," which, as we have seen, and mav further see in a

8Q The Jotirnal of Speculative Philosophy .

thousand })laces else, means, in the first instance, no more than the
initial blur of sense-impression in time and space. That initial blur,
that mere raw material of special sensation, is then, in the second
instance, presented to tlie categories (the functions of self-conscious-
ness), to be by them objectified. That is what "bringing to concep-
tions" means — simply categorizing as such — '"not," says Kant
(169), "the making the perception of objects clear^ but the making
the perception of an object at all j^ossible." The categories are the
"conceptions" (properly, notions) meant; and, consequently, to
"bring to conceptions " is to offer any mere blur of subjective sensa-
tion to the categories, not to do what we mean by bringing things
to " clear consciousness ! " The result, then, is a completed object of
perception ; not that that result is due only to the category of caus-
ality, but possibl}^ to another, or others, of the twelve. Kant him-
self, in the case of the house, gives us an example of this process,
in which, as he express^ demonstrates, there is no reference to
causality at all. It is only under the delusion of causality being
alone the minister of objectivity that both Schopenhauer and Mr.
Caird think themselves under a necessity to rescue the unlucky
house from the subjectivity Kant inflicted on it, bj^ vindicating (in
his despite) causaUty for it, through the brilliant, but .utterly inappli-
cable, device of the twist of the eye. One sees how very intimate
Mr. Caird must be with the machinery of Kant, when that whole vast
machiner}^ — applied to make (what Hume desiderated) an objective
external world intelligible, in its necessary connection, out of a mere
subjective blur — was to him onh^ a bringing of things to "clear
consciousness! " But the concluding words of the passages quoted
are equally wide. For, that " the apprehension of one moment is
the condition of the apprehension of the next," is not, in any way
the slightest, a reason for regarding the attribution of succession to
things as identical with the attribution to them of necessary
sequence; reversible (reciprocal) or irreversible, all successions are
alike in time. Yet, to Mr. Caird, one moment in time being condi-
tion to the next, '■'■ therefore" succession at all is necessary sequence,
and necessary sequence is due to causality. Such things, Mr. Caird
tells us, shall have been the doctrine of Kant. I think it must be
evident to every reader who considers our quotations only, that, so
far as the atopical, inapplicable, and objectionable is concerned, they
are quite inexhaustible. Nor, in the same reference, will it strike
the same reader less with wonder that Mr. Caird, having all that in
his book, should still think it possible to him to say that he had
been — misrepresented ! Suppose we offer Mr. Caird here to apply

Professor Caird on Kant. 87

to him a crucial test. Mr. Caird, accused of regarding causality as
the only minister of objectivity, and just minded to vindicate pre-
cisely^ as much as that for Kant, loudly denies it all the same, and
maintains that he holds a like doctrine for all the categories. Does
Mr. Caird, then, still think it necessary, for the objectivity of the
house, to take the loan of Schopenhauer's eye, or will he now be
content, like Kant himself, with the category of quantity? One
moment of time, indeed, conditioning the next, so that all succession
in time is irreversible, how ,yet could succession in the house be
possibly reversible to Mr. Caird ? But we turn now from that, his
book, to this, his reply.

When, after analysis of, and due familiarity with, Kant, one con-
siders his own short statements of his own proceedings, and the pen-
etrating and comprehensive light they at once throw into the very
prose of these, one looks back with wonder on the strange, foreign-
looking, unintelligible monstrosities that must have stood for doc-
trines of Kant before the eyes of expositors of even not so very long
ago. De Quincey, for example, in liis article in Tait's Magazine, for
June, 1836 — what uncouth strangeness, under the name of Kant, looks
out to us from such writing as that ! We feel spoken to in whispers,
and we hold our breaths for awe. Coleridge gazes on the simple fact
of consciousness as in presence of the unspeakable I Am. Mr.
Buckle, sublime in self-complacency as above all in knowledge,
but understanding not one single word of what he says, talks, with the
characteristic puff, of that " wondei-f ul thinker" who, working out
'' the difference between the transcendental operations of the reason
and the empirical operations of the understanding," had, by this
difference, " solved the problem of free-will and necessity." It is
pleasant to think that, even as early as 1827, Thomas Carl3de could
be a conspicuous exception to such mere vaporing of ignorance and
pretension. In his article on ''German Literature" he has occasion
to say a word or two on Kant. But each is as unpretending as,
within the limits acknowledged, it is solid. It is now full half a cen-
tury since that article appeared, but even yet, in England, tiie common
knowledge of Kant is about as vague, shadowy, and unreal as it was
in the days of the Coleridges and De Quinceys. Kant himself talks
(II., 561) of a country "where the ground {instahilis tellus, inna-
bilis unda) permits one neither to stand nor swim, but only to stumble
a hasty step or two, of which time preserves not the shghtest trace ; "
and surely these words, written in Germany a hundred years ago, are
largely true still of the Critical regions, as they loom even now in the
eyes of most Englishmen. These are regions that have yet to us all

88 Tlie Journal of Speculative PhilosopJiy .

the strangeness, uncertainty, even dream, about them of some new-
found land. There the dragon still watches the golden fleece, and
there are brazen-hoofed, brazen-horned bulls, that vomit fire. The
mouth of the Euxine is still guarded by the terrific shears of the fell
Symplegades. Histor}^ has not yet cleared and fixed itself in prose,
but wanders mythically, mistily, over an unstable soil. Almost no
one even j^et speaks here, but his words are as convulsed, and soaind
as from the bosom of nightmare.

And yet, what has there not been done meanwhile to preclude all
that — not in one country only, but in several! In what short
synopses, easy to see through (as already referred to), does not
Kant himself — to leave out others — a thousand times repeat him-
self! I have said that he who "possesses" any subject "sees
all at a glance, and can tell all in one loord or a thousand; " and
Kant himself is a most felicitous example of this. In his various
works, from his " Kritik of Pure Reason" in 1781, and his earlier
essay in 1770, down through his Prolegomena, his Practical Kritik,
his Judgment Kritik, his Progress of Metaphysics since Leibnitz
and Wolf, his Concerning Philosophy in General, his Streit der
Facultiiten, his Anthropologic, etc., to his Logic (published) in
1800, we have specimens, again and again, both of the one word
and the thousand. Perhaps as short a statement as any in
Kant is the phrase (II., G74) that the whole materials of his work
proper consist in "Space, Time, and the Elementary Notions of the
Understanding." But that, again, in one word, is his " Epigenesis."
We have onl}' to bear in mind, in tiiese references, that to Kant, so
far as any perception of objects is concerned, we are only shut into
our own internal affections, our own subjective sensations, which are
thus, substantially, never entities without — we have only to bear
this in mind intelligentl}'' to see, further, time and space, as phenom-
enal dimensions, sinking into and separating affection, while the
categories, as functions of synthesis, follow, to unite all again into
a ^uasi-external system. That is the whole of Kant. That is the
assumed necessary epigenesis on the assumed subjectivity of all that
we feel or perceive. In fact, the whole of Kant is contained in the
single phrase, "the possibility of experience" — tinder such condi-
tions^ namely, as he thinks himself necessitated to presuppose. We
are surrounded b}' an external universe. The question then is,
necessarily, to Kant, how are we to conceive such show thrown up or
out? Evidently, under such conditions, one must always, like the
mole, work within. Time could only be within — a spectrum, so
to speak, only of length within, along which affection necessarily

Professor Caird on Kant. 89

extended itself. Space, also, could only be within — a spectrum
still, but this time a stereoscopic spectrum, as it were, in which
affection could only stereoscopically diffuse itself as so much nebula.
Now, what could make of this nebula, so situated, an object and
objects? What, but an element that was also within? What, but
(all that is still left us) the functions of the understanding, conse-
quently, which could only, by aid of the movement of imagination,
unite all manies or multiples of the sense-nebula in time and space
into the single ego, and so convert it, the nebula, so constituted and
so placed, into the formed world around us? Kant, as I say, feeling
himself so limited by assumed conditions of which he never doubted,
gives, himself, such scheme, in some such brief terms, a thousand
times. In fact, he significantly tells us, from Persius, Tecum hahita,
et norls, quam sit tibi curta supellex! Obliged to live within ourselves,
we had better take stock within, and see how small our house-furni-
ture is. Always we are to conceive that, shut into ourselves, "the
conditions of the possibility of experience," on that understanding,
are "the conditions as well of the possibility of objects." We are
always to find, consequently, these conditions in (1) the internal prius
of affection (sensation), as affection; (2) in its (affection's) two
formal or pure perceptive spectra of space and time; (3) in the
collocating and conjoining movementof imagination (memory) ; (4) in
the functions of the understanding, that variousl^y combine multiples
or manies of sense-perception, as multiples or manies of sense-per-
ception, into (5) the unity of consciousness. Things in themselves
are postulated as conditions (somehow) of the affection that is set
up in our sense, we know not how, but it is this affection alone that is
known. The postulated things in themselves are, for their part, never
known ; they have indeed, anywhere in this our world, no existence.
The affections themselves, as alone in consciousness, are alone what,
by said internal machinery, is constructed into objects, accepted as
external, and accepted, so far as independent, in" a system — the
context of actual experience. Of all this there is, on Kant's part,
only thousand-fold speech. "I must briefly point out," saj^s Mr.
Caird, " the general bearing of Kant's Criticism of Pure Reason." It
will prove belehrend to compare with such summaries from Kant, Mr.
Caird's " summary' " that follows; for it is here that, in justification
of what to us is his second proposition, Mr. Caird directl}- approaches
(in his reply) that peculiar unity of his: —

"Kant's view of experience may be summarized thus: In the Esthetic he
shows that inner and outer perception, involving as they do determinations of
time and place, are possible only through the pure perception of time and space.

90 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

For he argues, a moment in time and a place in space can be represented by us
only in relation to other times and other places, and, therefore, in relation to the
unity of time and space as individual wholes. We cannot perceive any object of
experience, as here and now present to us, except by relating it to one all-embracing
space and one all-embracing time."

This, we are to understand, is what Kant has to tell us in his
Esthetic; I can hardly realize a word of it. All that Kant has to
tell us in the ^Esthetic is that time and space are not, as we suppose,
independent outer entities, but mere potential spectra within us,
which, on hint of special sense, so to speak, expand to receive it.
His arguments, again, are (what bears on mathematics apart) only
these: (1) time and space, though involved in every act of special
sense, are not contributions of special sense; and, (2) time and
space are nevertheless not notions, but perceptions. That is the
whole of the Esthetic, and I can hardly find more than an echo of
any part of it in Mr. Caird's summary. Mr. Caird puts the entire
stress on unity — the unity of an all-embracing space, and the unity
of an all-embracing time. Kant sets no store by their unity ; his
whole object is accomplished when time and space are acknowledged
to be universal subjective forms of sense. Where Mr. Caird gets his
unity, however, it is not difficult to discover ; he has simply misun-
derstood the German equivalents of the following words : —

"Space is not a discursive, or, as we say, general notion of relations of things,
but, on the contrary, a pure perception. For, firstly, we can conceive only a one
space, and when we speak of a plurality of spaces, we understand thereby only
parts of one and the same sole space. These parts, likewise, cannot be before the
one all-embracing space, as if constituents rendering its composition possible;
they can only be thought as in it. It is essentially one ; the complex of parts in it,
and consequently, also, the general notion of spaces, rest solely on limitations."

Time is described almost in the same words, but still with shades
of difference that throw fight — as, " different times are only parts of
just the same time, but the consciousness which can be given only
by a one object is perception ; " " the fact that different times are
not at the same time, is inderivable from a general notion — it is
directly implied in the perception of time; " "where the parts and
every magnitude of an object are conceivably determined only by
limitations, there the whole is one of direct perception, and not of
notions, for, in the case of a notion, its parts are before it is."
These last words plainly mean that individual mammals — cats, dogs,
men, etc., which go to make up the general notion of the genus
mammal — must existentially precede that notion itself. They afford a
gloss, then, that would explain the previous phrase, " constituents
rendering composition possible," not chemically or physically, but

Professor Caird on Kant. 91

logically or metaphysically. With that light we might paraphrase
Kant's description of space thus: Space is not an actual object of
special sense, but, as it were, an optical mirage of general sense ; no
notion, but a perception, its parts being in it or only limitations of
itself, and not sub-notions, like individuals under a species. We might
add, indeed, did we accept the chemical or physical interpretation :
Space is evidently no object of special sense, but a spectrum or
mirage, as it were, optically thrown ; for its parts are all given with
it, and do not precede it to make it up, as acid and base to make up
a salt, or brick and mortar to make up a house. Take it as we may,
it will be difficult for any one not to realize now Kant's ideas of space
and time, and Mr. Caird' s relative misinterpretation.

What Kant " argues " is, that there is no special perception of any-
thing whatever that does not involve time and space as already "to
the fore," as it were ; and yet they are not contributions of special
sense. He has not a ^ord of argument about " a moment in time
and a place in space being able to be represented by us only in rela-
tion to other times and other places, and, therefore, in relation to
the unity of time and space as individual wholes." Neither is there
any more a Kantian sense in what follows. There is no such doc-
trine in Kant as, that "we cannot perceive any object of experience
as here and now present to us, except by relating it to one all-
embracing space and one all-embracing time." Kant says we never
do perceive any object witliout perception of time and space as well,
which, being no contributions of special sense, and yet always in-
volved, must be, so to speak, spectra, mirages, of genei'al sense. He
is quite contented that they should be taken so, and has no idea
of nailing things in definite moments and places of either. In
arguing that time and space are still perceptions, and not notions, he
has to show that they are, like all objects of perception, wholes,
unities, whose parts are only limitations of themselves. Kant's unity
of time (or space) is its elemental unity as perceptive object. It
is that argument for mere perceptivity, as against conceptivity, which
Mr. Caird, probably, has so marvellously transelemented.

"Kant," Mr. Caird proceeds, " finds himself obliged to prove that
the former determination of things, which was demonstrated in the
^-tEsthetic, is not possible except through the latter, which is dis-
cussed in the Analytic.'" Here, again, it is hardly possible for a
man to speak more widely of the very plain thing that is before his
eyes. There was no determination of " things " in the ^'Esthetic.
That may be boldly said with absolute truth. And still less is there
in the ^'Esthetic a determination of things, which is not possible

92 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosopliy .

except through the determination of things in the Analytic. The
Esthetic has nothing to do with determining " things " at all. It has
only to prove that time and space are subjective forms, and not inde-
pendent realities. Once you grant that, Kant is contented ; and his
time and space, any further, are simj)ly as yours; his Esthetic has
done its work, then, and that was the whole of it. Nor has anj'thing
in the Analytic the slightest tendency to alter that. The Analytic
has only to show that, time and space being such forms, the cate-
gories objectify in them the subjective affections of the special
senses. The categories concern quantitative series in time, qualita-
tive filling in time, relative order in time, and relative validity in
regard to time ; but they have nothing to do with determining to
"definite places or times," so far as that determining is conceived
to be a " dating. " The categories have really nothing whatever to
do with time, but only with what is in time. They connect in time,
so to speak, without thinking of time — in the same way in which
ropes, and bolts, and bars, and hooks, and chains, and nails, might
connect objects in so much water, without reference to the water.
Nay, the categories do less than that. It is as though the objects in
the water were all already connected in their own way, and the cate-
gories only struck government stamps upon the various media of
connection, ropes, bolts, bars, etc. All actual quantities, all actual
qualities, all actual things in relation, are in time and space quite of
themselves ; for time and space are forms attached to general sense,
and no particular sense can act without bringing them also into pla}-.
But all that is quite independent of the categories, which have posi-
tively nothing to do but enhance the authority of the connections
already in force ; and that too, without making any call whatever upon
time, as time. Mr. Caird seems to think the categories nail things to
their definitely appointed places in time and space, but it is only the
things themselves do that — it is only sensation does that; the cate-
gories only retouch the order of things as already existent in its own
way in time. Mr. Caird expressly has it, however, that "while we
cannot represent an object as existing, or an event as occurring, except
in space and time, we cannot determine either to a definite place or
time except through the categories, and especially through the
Analogies of Experience." These latter, as shown, have no advan-
tage over the other categories, and none of them have anything to do
with definite places or definite times ; that is left wholly to the empiri-
cal element. What have the categories got to do witii Csesar's death,
on the 15th of March, 44 B. C, at the base of Pompey's statue, in
the Senate-house? "Nothing can be known," says Mr. Caird, "as

Professor Caird on Kant. 93

existing or occurring at a definite place or time, unless it be also
determined as standing to other objects and events in those definite
relations expressed by the analogies of experience." Why should
Mr. Caird be at pains to point out such commonplace as that? Noth-
ing is known, or can be known, that is not in definite relations in
definite space and definite time. But, surely, we are not to regard
that as a discovery of Kant, or a work of his categories — surel5^, we
are not called upon to admire his wisdom, or their power, for laying
down, or effecting, that for us ! This comes of the false dogmatic
attitude of Mr. Caird to the transcendental operations of Kant. Mr.
Caird does not understand Kant's word transcendental^ and quite as
little his phrase, " the possibility of experience." Mr. Caird thinks
the phrase applies to a demonstration of the conditions of an absolute
experience, and that that is what transcendental means. But the
phrase means, what conditions can possibly explain this experience of
ours on the supposition, never for a moment to be doubted, that all
that can materially be known are contingent subjective sensations
within? The loord transcendental, again, is used of all those a priori
formal elements by which, in that they epigenetically come upon these
sensations, and infuse into them a new force, Kant proposes to
advance the required conditions explanator}^ of our experience under
such presuppositions. These, however, are not Mr. Caird 's ideas.
Kant's proposals are not to him tentative, but dogmatic; and he is
constantly bringing forward the commonest commonplaces of the
commonest experience as discoveries, results, of that profoundest
and most recondite, absolute philosophy. " Inner and outer percep-
tion, involving, as they do, determinations of time and place, are
possible only through the pure perception of time and space." "A
moment in time and a place in space can be represented by us only
in velation to other times and other places." "No one thing or
event can be known as objectively existing, or occurring, except in
so far as it is definitely related to other things and" events." "We
cannot represent an object as existing, or an event as occurring, except
in space and time." "Every object must exist in a definite part of
the one space ; and every event must occur at a definite moment of
the one time." I think we knew quite well, before Kant, or his cate-
gories, that objects and events were necessarily in space and time.
Surely, it has been commonl}' understood all along that a thing must
be in one place ; it cannot well be in two places at once. But Mr,
Caird is ever thus, coming out dogmatically with the commonest
things of experience as results — marvellous results — while at best they
could only be tests for Kant's extravagant hypotheses, of perception

94 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

being confined only to our own affections, of time and space being
but expansible discs within us, etc., etc. Mr. Caird seems ever to
have wholly lost sight of Kant's mere hypothetical stand-point, or at
least to have converted it into a dogmatic one. "Kant," he says,
" has an expedient of his own, which he frequently uses ; he asks what
would become of the unity of experience if the truth of these prin-
ciple's were denied." That is not so; that is dogmatic, and Kant
never asks anything in that way. Kant's principle is certainly the
possibility of experience, and he asks again and again how could
there be a ruled and regulated context of experience unless so and so
were. But then that is never done absolutely, but only relatively. If
we know only our own internal affections which are contingent
merely, how can that contingent subjective affection show to us as a
context of experience — as necessary objective perception — unless on
the supposition that such and such epigenesis from the functions of
self-consciousness descends upon it, or enters into it? That is what
the possibility of experience means to Kant, and what he proposes is
only hypothetical and tentative on the ground of certain undoubted
presuppositions. "Kant says that time and space cannot be per-
ceived in themselves, Init only through the relation of objects and
events in time and space ; and that no object or event is capable of
being determined directly in relation to time and space, but only
indirectly through its determination by the categories in relation to
other objects and events." The same errors are rampant there also.
Mr. Caird mistakes what Kant means by not perceiving time and space
themselves. When Kant says that, he means that they are not abso-
lute objects, which, being perceived, would by their own nature dictate
this and that ; he is only speaking in allusion to his own theorj' that,
being mere forms of general sense, they are not perceived by them-
selves, but only when special sense, acting, brings them, too, into act.
But, once brought before consciousness, they are for Kant quite as
they are for us. Potential subjective discs they may be, but they are
for all that precisely the same time and the same space that we know ;
and Kant does not impose conditions on them, but, on the contrary,
simply accepts the conditions of their peculiar nature, just as every-
body else must. Evidently, then, that being so, it cannot be true that
for Kant " no object or event is capable of being determined directl}^
in relation to time and space. ' ' On the contrary, all actual objects and
all actual events, let the categories varnish them as they may (and
the categories only varnish), are and can be only ^'■directly" deter-
mined in their " separate," " definite " places, and their " separate,"
"definite" times. But it is impossible to follow all Mr. Caird's

Professor Caird on Kant. 95

particulars ; we pass on to his conclusion in the reference that is
before us.

Objects and events, as we have seen, must to Mr. Caird be " dated "
in time; the}^ must actually, and in very fact, be " determined to a
definite moment of objective time." So it is that to Mr. Caird there
is a one both in time and space. So assured, indeed, is Mr. Caird of
this that he asks, airily, "Is it necessary to quote Kant for this?"
and answers as airily, ''If so, take one passage where many are
ready." What Mr. Caird quotes is a passage from Bohn's transla-
tion, and I have to say at once that, let Mr. Caird take what doctrine
he may from the translation, it is impossible to find any such in the
original. Let the reader have the goodness to contrast the following
translation (having previously verified it) with what Mr. Caird quotes
in his reply at p. 218 of the Journal : —

" That something happens, is a perception, belonging to a possible experience
which becomes actual when I regard the sensuous presentation with reference to
place, as determined in time, consequently as an object which can always be found
in the context of perceptions according to a rule. This rule, however, to deter-
mine something according to sequence in time is, that in what precedes, the
condition is to be found, under which the event always {i.e., necessarily) follows.
And therefore the proposition of sufficient i-eason is the ground of possible
experience, namely, of the objective cognition of sensuous presentations, as
regards the relation of these, in sequential series of time."

I think no Kantian student will make the comparison requested
without seeing where the shoe pinches — without seeing something of
the source of the strange delusion that, in a Kantian reference, pos-
sesses Mr. Caird. The reader may recollect that Schopenhauer was
shown (in my former article) to have referred expressions of Kant,
which concerned causal successions only, to successions general.
The same thing has happened here. The passage is quoted from the
second analogy, where Kant is dominated by consideration of only
one form of sequence in sensation, that which claims,the category of
cause and effect. Mr. Caird ought to have borne that in mind. Here,
however, are the words to which he has pinned his faith, and been,
thereby, widely misled in regard to the teaching of Kant: "Actual
experience " is " what is fixed to a definite point of time ; " an object
of such experience may "by the aid of a rule," be even always
" found ; " and so it is that causality is "the principle by which alone
we can have objective knowledge of phenomena in regard to their
sequence in time." One of the strangest things in Mr. Caird, to the
student of Kant, is his extraordinaiy doctrine (already seen) on time
and space. These, far from being mere subjective mirages, are

96 The Journal of Speculative PJdlosophy.

brought by him before us as though they were actual boards, uito
which events, Hke so many nails, had been immovably hammered fast.
When one reads what Mr. Caird quotes, however, one wonders no
longer. There, too, things are fixed to definite points in time, and
causality is alone the objective principle in regard to sequence in
time. Nevertheless both of these things are gross delusions, and
neither the one nor the other ever crossed the brain of Kant even in
a dream. Bearing in mind that there is no reference but that to the
manifold or nuiltiple which applies in causalit}'^, the meaning of the
clause about the definite point of time is, when something happens
(is of the nature of an occurrence), what is, so far, only sensuous
presentation, gets objectified when its place becomes determined
relatively in time. Tliat refers only to the relation of causality :
whenever something is, something else always ensues ; that being
given, this is given. And it does not matter in the least whether it
is given in the time of Caesar or in the time of Napoleon, in the
Athens of Pericles or in the London of Wellington. Kant has not a
moment's thought of time as time, and of definite points to which,
being actually nailed, events can always be found if we apply a cer-
tain rule ! Neither has Kant here, when he says " sufficient reason is
the ground of the objective cognition of sensuous presentations
relatively in sequential series," any thought of causality being the
only agent of objective sequence. Sequential series means that the
presentation is such as is required for action of the category of
causality — it is sequential, and the rest of the phrase means only
that the category has objectified the members of the series relatively.
Not a very breath of the thought of any multiple but that one multiple
that must necessarily present itself before the category of causality
can act, has ever crossed here the mirror of Kant's mind. By that
''rule," does Kant mean a chronological table! It is only, then, by
an extraordinary perversion of Kant that these extraordinary deci-
sions as regards either fixed time or universal category of objectivity
have been won. And yet, at the ver^'' moment that Mr. Caird perpe-
trates this perversion (he had Kant's own words before him, and the
translation is no excuse, but, on the contrary, an exaggeration of his
offence), he exclaims, "How Dr. Stirling can find in my words any-
thing like the assertion that objectivity results from the category of
causality alone, I am unable to discover! " I have shown that the
word " objectivity " stands in my pages, in Mr. Caird's reference, on\y
once singly ; that wherever else it occurs, and it occurs again and
again in every sentence which either precedes or follows, it is coupled
with the word "sequence" or "succession;" and that, where it

Professor' Caird on Kant. 97

stands, and as it stands, only inteittlon could discover it to stand for
aught else than objectivity of sequence. Mr. Caird' s sentence, also,
that immediately precedes his declaration of l^eing unaljle to discover
how Dr. Stirling can find in his words anything like the assertion that
objectivity (of sequence) results from the category of causality alone,
is this : " But what I contend is that, on Kant's own principles, it is not
possible to determine any series, whether of perceptions or external
events, as an objective or real succession, except through the category
of causality." Mr. Caird's words, again, that immediatehj folloiv the
ivord " discover," are, " the passage in question is concerned only with
objective sequence!" I meet this just so: I assert that the state-
ment of Kant's doctrine in regard to objective sequence is a greater
blunder in Mr. Caird than even in Schopenhauer ; and I assert, more-
over, that all these words are but a shuffle ; for what is said of
objective sequences, can also be said of objects. That I have shown
to be the doctrine not onl}- of Kant, but precisely, and accurately,
and literally, of Mr. Caird as well. Mr. Caird, then, here, is unable
to discover how Dr. Stirling could find in his words anything like such
and such an assertion — Mr. Caird says this at the very moment that
he admits this to have been certainly said by him of "objective
seqnence " — at the very moment that he knows that my word " objec-
tivity " stands there, and can stand there, only for objectivity of
sequence — at the very moment that he knows that all objects, even
as objects, are nothing but such sequences ! This is very gross — it
is doubly gross, and more than doubly gross when coupled with the
wilful alteration of my language in order to found an accusation of
"entire" misrepresentation — and it is beyond all measure gross
when it is considered that what is indignantly denied and angrily
branded as entire misrepresentation, is the very proposition that, with
a touching moral emphasis, is immediatel}^ to be — Jnstijied ! My
interest, however, concerns, and concerns only, the interests of Kant,
and to them I address myself.

This strange delusion about fixed and definite moments in time
follows Mr. Caird ever^^where, and is of such importance that I must
be pardoned for dwelling on it. I have said that Mr. Caird has failed
to perceive that he has again only erred like Schopenhauer ; he has
given a general reference to what concerned the peculiar sense-mul-
tiple that is to be found in cases of causality alone. The paragraph
quoted by Mr. Caird, indeed, immediately precedes that which con-
cerns Schopenhauer in the same reference. It will be useful to refer
to Kant's reasoning (168-171) in connection with both. The follow-
XIV— 7

98 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy.

ing paragraph, literally translated, contains the whole relative doctrine
(and I shall consider here five consecutive paragraphs, of which that
cited by Mr. Caird is the third) : —

"In the synthesis of sense-presentations, the units of impression alwaj's follow
one another. So far, no object is perceived ; the succession is still indifferent, and
such succession is common to all apprehension. When, however, I perceive or
assume that there is in the suite nexus of one state with another from which the
former follows according to a rule, then I have before me an occurrence, a happen-
ing, an event. That is, I perceive an object which I must set in time in a certain
definite position, which, b,y virtue of what state precedes, cannot be otherwise
assigned to it. When, therefore, I perceive that something happens, then, there
is implied in this, first, that something precedes, for just in connection with such
something the presentation gets its relation in time — gets to exist, namely, after a
time in which it was not. But its definite time-place in this relation it can only
get by this, that, in the preceding state, something is presupposed, on which it
alwaj's {i.e., according to a rule) follows. Whence it results that, first, I cannot
invert the series and set what happens before what it follows from ; second, that,
the precedent state being given, this certain event infallibly and necessarily follows.
Therebj^ it happens that there takes place between our perceptions an order in
which the present state (so far as it is a become state) refers to some preceding one
■or other, as a correlate (indeterminate as yet) of this given occurrence, which
indeterminate correlate, however, refers itself determinatingly to the other as its
consequent, and connects it necessarily with itself in the time-series."

This paragraph is followed by one of those which seem most
stronglv to rule that the succession of time, as such succession, is a
constituent in the causal judgment. Notwithstanding such an expres-
sion, however, as "preceding time necessarily determines succeeding
time," we have seen reason to decide that Kant never had the suc-
cession of time, as such, in his mind, but only the succession of things
in time — and of things, too, as he is careful to point out in parenthesis,
so far as they were things (not merely passing), but "become." We
saw then, too, that it was an error on the part of Mr. Caird to rule
that " we can connect events as in time, only in so far as we relate
them to each other in the same way that the moments of time are
related^'' etc., etc. The moments of time are related, to Kant, as he
expressl}' tells us, in mere indifferent succession, absolutely without
hint of the succession causal. Mr. Caird says, also, "objects are
perceived as in space only when the\' are related to each other as the
parts of space are related; " and thus, in the same way, gives space
itself a constituent place in reciprocity. Tiiat, also, is a mistake as
regards Kant ; and it is specially in place to mention the one and the
other here, as they largely go to confirm Mr. Caird in that board-like
nailing of events and objects, so that they are to he found when wanted
in time and space !

Professor Caird on Kant. 99

In the next paragraph there again occur words which appear very
strongly to refer to said doctrine of fixed points in time. " The per-
ception of an object in general," Kant seems to say, "only takes
place in this way : that the understanding transfers the time-order to
the presentations and their existence, in that it assigns to each of
these, as consequent, a place in respect to the preceding presentations,
a priori determined in time, without which place it would not coin-
cide with time itself, which a ]}'riori determines for all its parts their
positions." These words, nevertheless, however strongly they seem
to make time itself an ingredient in the very virtue of causality, have
no relation whatever to that virtue. They say only this : that events,
as necessarily only perceivable in time, must be necessarily only so
perceivable ; but not the slightest addition is made to the peculiar force
or virtue of causality by any relation of part of time to part of time.
By the paragraph translated, the due liglit will be found to be thrown
here, and indeed the following sentence in the paragraph before us
gives focus to what we have just seen: "This determination of the
positions, now, cannot be borrowed from the relation of the presenta-
tions towards absolute time (for that is no object of perception), but
inversely, the presentations must themselves determine for one another
their places in time, and make these in time-order necessary." That
is, appearing in time, they obey the succession of time ; but on the rule
of their places, as in the order of that succession, the constitution of
time itself has no effect.

The next paragraph is the one quoted by Mr. Caird from Bohn's
translation, and as it alone is cruciall}'' decisive, it is of the last
importance that it should be thoroughly understood. Now, the term
"actual" is capable of suggesting another light, that I wish to illus-
trate. "Actual," as we have already seen, is formally defined by
Kant, "what cojieres with the material conditions of experience
(sensation)." Here, however (context and modifying wDrds being
left out of consideration), it ajypears to be said that "a perception
becomes actual when its place is determined in time, and can alwa3^s
be found in the context of experience according to a rule. And it is
thus that Mr. Caird has taken it. He says (450): "To determine
any object or event as actual is, according to Kant, to give it a definite
place in the context of one experience, or, what is the same thing, to
determine it in one space and one time in relation t(f all other objects
and events." Mr. Caird, evidently, has forgotten "actual" as
specially defined, and has given it a meaning from this passage in the
second analogy. The words, as I paraphrase them above, and still
more as they appear in the translation used by Mr. Caird, present

100 Tlie Journal of Speculative PJiUosopliy .

cevtainh' no inconsiderable resemblance to those of Mr. Caird.
Nevertheless, Mr. Caird has still given them such extension and turn
of phrase as prove him to have altogether misinterpreted the German.
Here the word " actual " is not Kant's " actual " proper ; it has taken
on such shade of meaning as makes it equivalent to objective. IMr.
Caird says, "• to determine an}' object or event as actual ; " but he has
no authority for the word object. The " perception " Kant has in his
e3'e, as is onh' in place under the second analog}', is not an " object,"
but only a "happening," occurrence as occurrence, event as event.
In fact, it is not the perception, but the experience, that becomes
actual; and this experience becomes ''objectively actual" when the
subjective sensuous facts assume in each other's regard a fixed time-
relation in such manner that '-event" (happening, occurrence)
presupposes its precedent determining condition. Kant has no
Ei'scheinung before his mind but that of cause and effect ; he has not
objects before his mind ; he has before his mind only the phenomena
of event as event, the process "happening." To ''determine in
time" means for Kant, here, to determine two things relatively to
each other in time, and that quite generally, with reference to causal
connection, or with reference to such genei'al rule of '"order
in time." He has not the shadow of a thought of '"dating" in
time.

It will prove illustrative to bring in now the following paragraph,
the last that is to be referred to here. It is the one in which Scho-
penhauer is shown to have made a mistake of meaning ; and the state-
ment it contains is, to quote from my article, to the effect that, " in
the first instance, the order in a sensational multiple is indifferent,
but that, in the second instance, when received into the a priori
machinery, it is necessary. Otherwise, says Kant, there would be a
mere sport of mv own subjective fancies, and an}' assumption of
objectivity would be no better than a dream," etc., — Kant's "gen-
eral conception is simply this : Sensations only exhibit subjectivity ;
accordingly, as required, the categories — all the categories — shall
bestow on thera objecti\'it}'. Schopenhauer has actually read that
passage of Kant as if it declared all objectivity to be bestowed by
the single category of causality alone — -a blunder that, surely, would
be astounding in even a first year's student of Kant. In the par-
ticular paragraph. Kant, of coui'se, has no thought but of causality
and of causal multiples ; he has not the most distant conception of
enunciating it as a general rule for all sense-multiples that they can
get objectivity only from causality." In fact, the whole paragraph
is unmistakable, and even light-giving — light-giving, not only as

Professor Caird on Kant. 101

regards Schopenhauer, but in Mr. Caird's reference as well. For
what mistake Schopenhauer made, that same mistake, here also, Mr.
Caird has made. Both the one and the other ought to have reflected
that there was nothing in Kant's mind but that peculiar multiple or
manifold, that peculiar complexion of sense-consciousness that was
called event ; and that he was not talking of objects generally, and
not even of events as events. He was not confining objectivity only
to causal sequences, and he had no idea of the definite places of
objects or events in time, but only of the consecution in time of that
general thing called event. That general thing called event constituted
the "■perception," the "experience," actually named.

In short, as said, in the paragraph on which Mr. Caird builds, Kant
lias not the shadow of a thought of "dating" in time. This word
dating occurs again and again in Mr. Caird, and he really means it.
"We cannot perceive any object of experience, as here and now present
to us, except by relating it to one all-embracing space and one all-
embracing time ; " "no one thing or event can be known as objectively
existing or occurring, except in so far as it is definitely related by
means of the categories to other things and events, and therefore to
the unity of experience as one all-embracing whole; " "nothing can
be knoivn as existing or occurring at a definite place or time, unless
it be also determined as standing to other objects or events in those
definite relations expressed by the analogies of experience ; " " deter-
mined to a definite moment in objective time ; " "in dating it in short,
we ipso facto, assume it to be necessarily determined; " "to date it
thus in objective time would be impossible except to a mind that con-
nects phenomena as cause and effect." These passages are all from
the reply ; and they confirm the quotations already made from the
book, where general doctrine and particular term (dating) repeatedly
occur. What is meant by "determining as actual," as having "a
definite place in the context of one experience," as determined "in
one space and one time in relation to all other objects and events,"
if, for a moment equivocal in those forms, which surely it is not, must
be admitted to be sun clear when we hear that " every object ??ir<sf
exist in a definite part of the one space, and every event mxist occur
at a definite moment of the one time ; " where, however, it strikes us
that this " one " of experience, time, space, etc., is only a perversion
of that repeated "one consciousness" of Kant, which is conceived
by him to be the collapse to objective unity in any case of a cate-
gorized manifold of impression. Nay, Mr. Caird having asked,
"Now, on what does this empirical consciousness of the world as one
system of objects and events depend?" actuall}^ replies, "Kant

102 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosophy .

answers that it depends on the appHcation of the three schematized
categories of substance, causality, and reciprocity," " witliout whicli
there could be no emjiirical consciousness of the world as an objec-
tive unity in space and time ; " and at p. 458 he begins an express and
formal exposition of the necessity of such principles for "develop-
ment" " clearing-up," etc., though he admits that "even our first
unscientific view of the world contains already the idea of its unity,
and of the correlation of all its parts." The doctrine plainly is that
Kant regards even the empirical dating of objects and events in time
as dependent on causality with some aid from substance and reci-
procity ! Of course wliat is empirical must for Kant ai)pear onl}^ in
the succession of time and the succession of space, and it is then,
further, curdled by the categories, as it were, into objective singles and
objective singles in connections of rule. But all that is quite general
to Kant ; he has not the slightest idea of that definite empirical dating
which Mr. Caird ascribes to him. This, it may be, has been suffi-
ciently explained, as well as the false translation on which it rests
sufficiently demonstrated ; but it may, perhaps, with advantage, be
still further enforced.

The whole matter lies in this, that by determining in time, Kant only
means relative determination of any become state in time, generally
and indefinitely ; while Mr. Caird represents him to mean positive
determination of things and events in objective time definitely and
particularly, each special thing or event, that is, being conceived to
be in its own special actual moment of time — a mistake, than which
no other possible mistake in regard to Kant could be more absolute
or more fatal. The only complete demonstration of this would be a
translation and explanation of all that concerns the analogies, which
of course is impossible here ; but we may add a quotation or two to
what precedes. Kant expressly says (153), for example, that what is
concerned is only the time-relation ; there is a necessity for every
impression to undergo " synthetic unity relatively in time ; " manifolds
are to be "relatively united," "a synthetic unity, a 2)'>'iori deter-
mined," accrues to " all perceptions relatively in time." " Objective
consecution of sense-presentations " is said (165) to " consist in the
order of the manifold of impression, according to which order the
apprehension of that which happens follows on that of the other which
precedes according to a rule ; " where manifestly the order is what is
concerned. Three pages further we are told that " our impressions
(in causal cases) get objectivity' only by the necessity of their order
in the time-relation ; " and Mr. Caird's "certain definite place in time "
can only be a perversion from that of a term in reference to its cor-

Professor Caird on Kant. 103

relate in a general relation to the actual date of an empirical event in
time.

The moment our sensations are objectified, they have all their own
relative positions in time and place ; and though as sensations they are
contingent, they have all taken on, in themselves, in their order, in
their relation to us, a certain varnish of necessity from the intellectual
functions represented by the axioms, antici})ations, analogies, and
postulates. But there is nothing in the categories that nails them to
certain points in space and moments in time, and all together to an
iron unity, in which any member can at any time be found by a rule.
That is a mere caricature of the ideas of Kant. It is not at all the
business of causality, or any other category, to tell the sensations
where they shall be either in time or space — even mutually, though
varnishing them once they are there. That depends, wholly and
absolutely, on the sensations themselves. In one way, the categories
are concerned, not at all with time and space (which, by the by,
rather disunite than unite), but with groups of sensation already in
time and space. Once the sense-blur in time and space is presented,
through imagination, to the categories (the functions of intellect),
these objectify them ; but they by no means direct how or where the
objects shall be in time and space. Where this table, or that window,
or that falling shadow shall be in time and space does not depend
upon the categories, causality or other, but upon the empirical
succession itself. How an object shall be related in space, and where
it shall be related in space, and so of time, is wholly conditioned by
the sensation itself that determines that object, and not by the cate-
gories. It is only a further error to say " especially by the categories
of relation;" for, as already shown, these categories have not the
virtue in them that the mathematical categories have. Kant starts
with the inadmissible assumption, against which Reid directs himself,
that we perceive, not things without, but ideas within, and he never
quits it. That assumption is radically determinative with Kant from
first to last. There is nowhere in Kant an idea of ^an absolute
experience — of experience as experience — that consequently deter-
mines, on absolute reason, how this world shall be. What guides him
always is ''the possibility of an experience" on such and such
assumptions. So it is that when he comes to reason itself, as reason,
it has no constitutive prescripts whatever for us, but only two or three
subjective precepts (about a God, etc.) which, as convenient for
arrangement, had better be adopted. It is to be feared that others,
too, are as Mr. Caird, and look to Kant, as master of an absolute
philosophy, to tell us at last what the soul is ! That is particu-

104 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy.

larly delicious. Kant and Hume are tlie boys to tell us what the
soul is !

One would think that the illustration of the house ousfht to have
kept Mr, Caird relatively right. A house is an object. Mr. Caird
is aware that Kant has objectified it by the category of quantity, and
has opposed it to objects — ice and ship — categorized by causality.
Yet, like Schopenhauer, he is quite sure that the succession constitu-
tive of the house is to Kant only subjective. How, then, could Mr.
Caird believe that, in that instance, Kant had connected this actual
object into definite points of space or definite moments of time? That
would be impossible if it remained subjective, and Mr. Caird held
Kant, so far as Kant went, to regard the house as subjective. Is it
not touching, in such circumstances, that Mr. Caird should take pit}''
on the house, should not leave it out in tlie cold, but should, through
Schopenliauer's trick of tlie eye, all-inapplicable as it was, do for the
house what Kant, evidently, had only for the moment '' forgotten? "
Kant, more evidentl3% for all tliat, had not forgotten anything ; he liad
objectified the house by the category of quantity, and never dreamed
that it was necessary to apply causality also, in order that it might
be definitely placed in space, and definitely " dated " in time. Such
placing or dating, indeed, as has been so often said, never occurred
to Kant, even in a dream. All this does not alter the fact, however,
that, there being no forgetfulness on the part of Kant, then, in Mr.
Caird' s eyes, any actual house, though actually in the world, could
not be referred by Kant to the " systematic unity of experience" at
all.

I sleep in a strange room, and I see in the morning a sun-spot
dance on the ceiling, where one would not expect a ray of the sun ever
to fall. By and by, I find that the sun-spot is a reflection from a
basin of Avater in the window, on which the sun shines and the wind
blows. »So far as time is concerned, both sun-spot and water are co-
existent. Nevertheless, I have no hesitation in objectifying a con-
nection between the two through the category of causality. But that
is all. I do not, through causality, or any category, nail the sun-spot
to the ceiling, and the water to the window of No. 72 in the Green
Posts, Elxmouth, at half-past seven o'clock of the morning of 7th of
June, 1863. But it is that, if language is to convey meaning at all,
which Mr. Caird's words would have me do. I am, by my categories,
so to nail sun-spot into time and space that it may at any moment
actually be found — through a rule! One wonders, in such circum-
stances, of what good the categories are, or of what good Kant him-
self is. We know that, empirically, every man has his own father and

Professor Caird on Kant. 105

mother, his cnvn moment of birth, his own point of space at birth —
that not a mote in the sun but has its own space and its own time —
but what then? Did we need the categories or Kant to tell us that?
or is it the categories that do that? Why, after all, this original,
mythic, or cryptic unity of Mr. Caird is hut the common, prosaic,
every-day unity to wliich we are all present, without a dream of phi-
losopiiy ; and we all know well that, in place where and date when,
all is independent of us, let us categorize into quantities, qualities,
and relations as we may. It is really surprising the things Mr. Caird
attributes to Kant's machinery. "■ We cannot represent an object as
existing, or an event as occurring, except in space and time." It is
only a transcendental philosophy that could make us aware of that
grand truth. " Every object must exist in a definite part of the one
space, and every event must occur at a definite moment of the one
time." The prodigious discovery of Kant, that a thing is where it is!
Surely, it was with some such philosophy in his eye that Carlyle ex-
claimed, "With all my heart, but where is it? " Yet, is it not truly
admirable with what simplicity and stolidity of conviction Mr. Caird,
though supported only on misinterpretation and mistranslation, pleads
for this philosophy? Whatever he may be when he manufactures the
two propositions and complains of misinterpretation, he is sincere
here. Justice has not been done him in that, his own feat, beyond
Schopenhauer — the discovery that succession as succession is, through
causality, dated into unity in time and space. He, for his part, only
laments that the tlieory is, in Kant's hands, not complete enough —
that he (Kant) neglected that correlation of the various categories of
relation which he himself has " suggested elsewhere! !"

When one sees Mr. Caird' s success with Kant, one wonders what
part in it ought to be attributed, not only to " Kant's immediate suc-
cessors, especially Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Jacobi, Mairaon, and
Schopenhauer," to whom he "owes most," but also as well to the
numerous Drs. Bona Meyer, Cohen, Arnoldt, Holder, Paulsen, Lieb-
mann, Grapengiesser, Von Hartmann, Thiele, "and Qthers," whom
he onl3' mentions, as to the innumerable "special obligation," to
which it is "all but impossible " to do more than refer. Of all, the
result this — transcendental this — the deduction of the categories
this — the answer to Hume this — - necessary connection in experience
simply must be because it must be !

The truth is, however, that Mr. Caird has not understood Kant,
but simply perverted and travestied him. What Kant offers is a pro-
visional proposal on certain understandings, but of this Mr. Caird
makes a philosophy that is absolute dogmatism. If the reader will

106 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

please to turn back to the passage which Mr. Caird quotes from him-
self as "summing up the results of Kant's discussion of the prin-
ciples of the pure understanding," he will there find Kant represented
as bringing his principles to culmination in a general idea of nature
as a system of substances whose quantum of reality always remains
the same ; which idea of nature is nothing if not dogmatic. Yet, Mr.
Caird actually saj's : " The proof of this idea of nature is not dog-
matic, but transcendental — i.e.^ it is proved that without it there
could exist for us no nature and no experience at all." We have
already remarked on the misundei'standing here of the import of the
word " transcendental," and such use of it on the part of Mr. Caird is
not restricted to this occasion. In his book he says: "These prin-
ciples are proved on the transcendental method bj-'showing that with-
out them there could be no empirical consciousness of the world as
an objective unity in space and time." Now, it is evident from these
quotations that " transcendental " means, to Mr. Caird, a rising above
experience, in order to account for it on general principles of reason ;
but Kant never gave the word such meaning in his own mind. What
was transcendent was an element to Kant named by us in experience,
and so, perhaps, to us regulative in experience, but an element that
constitutively was never to be got at in experience at all. Transcen-
dental^ again, was what transcended special sense, but not experience ;
on the contrary, though d priori^ it was an essential constitutive ele
ment in and of experience itself. Kant had no idea of a transcen-
dental method that raised him above experience, to construe and con-
struct it out of absolute principles. His provisional theory of per-
ception, to account for this latter, in spite of certain necessary and
apparent!}' hostile presuppositions which (for him) required to be
granted, does not at all answer to what Mr. Caird evidently con-
ceives as the transcendental method. Consultation of III., 57, will
easily satisf}^ any one that Kant's idea of nature was not at all that of
Mr. Caird. We there find the empirical element allowed its own vast
domain in nature, and transcendental laws of nature restricted to
such conditions as make this experience of ours possible on the sup-
position that ive only know states of onr own.

In fact, the whole passage is a verj' fair sample of what I call
transelementation, in Mr. Caird's view of Kant. The effect of such
a passage is to make us see in Kant an absolute philosopher, who has
taken his measures so deep that he explains to us the very conditions,
substantial and essential, on which existence can onl}- be, and, just
by reason of the necessity of profoundest insight, must be. So to
represent Kant is not to understand Kant in the prose and reality

Professor Caird on Kant. 107

of his own thought, but, in default of such understanding, to impreg-
nate his plainness with visionariness and dream. One feels, every-
where in Mr. Caird's Kant, as if one were reading from those chapters
of Washington Irving or Charles Dickens, where forgotten enclosures
of defunct mail coaches have suddenly become once more tumultuous
with life. Or again, we are, as it were, in some vast furniture-
warehouse, where nothing remains at rest in the prose of actuality,
but all has become alive in a strange poetry of nightmare. Arm-
chairs rub their knees ; tables stand tipsily, like a dog, on a leg or
two ; wardrobes look stealthily out, and tall fire-stoves fall over in
open guffaws, with their hands in their pockets and their caps awry.
Mr. Caird exhibits to us Kant's machinery, piece after piece, not
as though these were the tentative, and provisional, and pro re nata
things they are, but as the solid beams and other materials of this
absolute universe. Mr. Caird has no germ of reality for the passage
I have quoted but the fact that Kant says, you see this or the other
piece of mine fits. It is a fact, he continues, and you admit it,
"That, in all the vicissitude of phenomena, substance endures, and
its quantum in nature is neither augmented nor decreased," or, that
"all changes take place according to the connection of cause and
effect;" now, ray machinery in explanation of perception, on the
supposition that we are never out of our own subjective affections,
fits this. That is all. It is quite a perversion to take Kant, as it
were, from the wrong end, and behold him, bit by bit, building up
the whole vast universe, apparently, on absolute principles. This
universe, in Kant's way of it, is, and is so as we know it; he only
wants to make it credible that (despite our knowing only our own
affections, as he is undoubtedly, though mistakenly, convinced) yet,
that his theory of perception explains how it is that we see these affec-
tions as this actual world of external and apparently independent
objects. This point of view, which is capital, Mr. Caird altogether
misses ; at every step he, to coin a verb, transeleraents Kant, so that
one who, perhaps, thinks himself at home in the Kant of Jiant, feels
always ivunderUch zu Gemuthe in the Kant of Caird. Nor is this
wonder lessened, but, on the contrary, very much increased, when
one turns to Kant himself to find out what is it that Mr. Caird is at any
time paraphrasing. What astounding contrast, that little bit of every-
day prose, and this whole vast mythological universe, which it shall
be supposed alone to support and vivify and generate ! Quantum in
nature remains the same ; change implies causalit3^ ; objects exist
and events occur only in time and space ; every object must have
its own space, and every event its own time — these and other such ,

108 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

endlessl}^, why should Mr. Caird mention them ever and anon as
results, discoveries? Why should he cumber his thought with so
much matter tliat requires no thought, nor, indeed, any word to be
said about it? Why, with that "dating" of his, should he run risk
of being held to regard time and space as, after all, things in them-
selves, into which — into whose very substance — our sensations are
actually incorporated?

The truth must be said at last, indeed, and, wrung from me — after
silence maintained, after only a word spoken as mere salvo to one's
conscience, when silence was longer impossible — wrung from me, as
I sa}', by Mr. Caird's entire misrepresentation, it is this : Mr. Caird —
witli a house before liim that, determined by quantity, was y^t sub-
jective ; accordingly, with a house before him which he must make
objective by the unacknowledged causality of Schopenhauer's ej'e ;
with all those erroneous views in regard to the categories, specially
and generall}- ; with wliat he conceived determining in time to be,
what bringing to conceptions, what transcendental, what possible
experience, etc., etc., etc. — was, possibly, not in a case to write on
Kant's central philosophy at all. Such a system as Kant's can only
be pieced together with the labor of many years. No man is strong
enough to read it off to us as he goes. Why, on his own showing,
Mr. Caird has not even German enough for the indispensable intelli-
gence. As it appears, he is still obliged to trust to translations,
which, moreover, he cannot — or at least does not — correct when
required, and no man — that is, of course, so far as ray own necessa-
rily limited experience may be relied on — no man, who, for a mo-
ment, would think of translations in connection witia an exposition of
Kant, is within years and years of such bare possibilit}'. Accordingly
Mr. Caird, at least within the limits specified, has rather dreamed over
Kant than seen into him ; and what is to him "the philosoph}' of Kant "
were, to my mind, almost more relatively entitled KanVs Mythology .^

This, within limits, and I have specified them. In other respects
the volume may be a xery admirable repertory of the most fertile and
original philosophical suggestion, and as such it maybe met b}^ and
deserve, the absolute worship of many. It cannot be my wish to
gainsay tliat, or to have it otherwise. It can only be my wish that it
should not be otherwise. At worst, one can hope for it such fate as
has attended even harder deep books. One of Hegel's best editors

' A previous remark may be extended to some of the objects of the above
strictures. It is just possible that things, everywhere palpably wrong in use, may
be correctly enough spoken of at times — inust be, where reporting another is
concerned.

Professor Caird on Kant. 109

tells us of that ehrenwerthe Klasse who were di-awn to the master
rather by "spontaneous instinct than clear consciousness;" and, I
dare say, we have all heard of that admiring, but perplexed pupil
who carried up the three volumes of the Logik even to the snows of
Chimborazo — presumably with the hope of solution there. One
knows that there are people in this world who, wholly unable to see
meaning in the pathology of Scirrhus, will rise at once to the crab in
one's breast that devours daily half a roll. But it is not these that
one would hope as readers for Mr. Caird.

One must certainly admit a great courage in Mr. Caird. It was no
small matter, with Kant's house on his back and only Schopenhauer's
eye in his head, to keep his feet and hold his own, as well b}^ that bold
shout of "verbal," as by that infinitel}' bolder cry of misrepresenta-
tion, misrepresentation, entire misrepresentation, on the credit of a
proposition onl}^ openly and transparently forged. For the comfort
and security of assurance, now, what is the acutest eyesight to solidity
and stolidity of nerve? Surely, when one thinks of it all, and when
one reads at the end of it all, "I have now answered all the matter
of Dr. Stirling's attack upon my views, so far as it seems to me to
require any answer" — surely, I say, when one thinks of it all, and
at the end of it all reads this, one must admire the trust indicated in
the possibilities of brow !

And so I conclude a very plain story of — entire misrepresentation,
which, in its length and otherwise, I hope the interests of the study
of Kant will excuse.

Mr. Caird's personalities (absolutely gratuitous and crassly pert as
they are) I do not notice.

In sum, what Mr. Caird had to meet was his implication in the
ignorance of Schopenhauer: of his proceedings in that reference it
will be now easy to judge. Further, when it is considered that Mr.
Caird — almost glorying in the assertion of objective sequence being
due to causality alone — did yet, for all that (weaklj' substituting
" objects "), brand me (who had imputed to him only his own propo-
sition), with the flagrant crime of "entire misrepresentation," every
one will readily understand what respect for such small arts remains
to me. I shall rely on the sympathy of all my readers, at least to
that extent. And, as regards Kant, surely the sympathies of the
world will be with him, when it is considered that Mr. Caird has writ-
ten, and printed, and published, a whole huge volume of seven hun-
dred pages to prove that the single outcome of that enormous labor,
the entire relative philosophy, is a fallacy, a sophism — the simple
fallacy, the simple sophism of reducing post hoc to propter hoc !

110 Tlie Journal of Sjjeculative Philosopliy .

KANT'S DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES, WITH
SPECIAL RELATION TO THE VIEWS OF DR.
STIRLING.

BY EDWAKD CAIRD.

In a recent number of this Journal, the Editor has expressed a
desire that I should give a fuller statement of my view of the points
at issue between Dr. Stirling and myself, in relation to Kant's Deduc-
tion of the Categories, and especially of the Categor}' of Causalit}-.
I had not intended to say anytliing further on the matter at present,
but perhaps I may best avoid further controvers}', and do my part to
place the question clearly before the readers of The Joubnal of
Speculative Philosophy, if I accept the Editor's suggestion, and
present at the same time with Dr. Stirling, a more elaborate explana-
tion of m}'^ views. And this I do the more willingl}^ because my
previous short statement was written in some haste, before I had been
able to read Dr. Stirling's article in the Princeton Review, and was
therefore confined entirely to the defence of my own position.

What is the great problem of the Critique of Pure Reason ? It is,
in Kant's language, to determine how experience is possible. This
suggests another question ; what does Kant mean by experience ? He
means bj' experience, simply our ordinary consciousness of the world
of objects in which we live, and of ourselves as objects. Experience
is either outward or inward; i.e., it is either a knowledge of objects
in space, and of their relations to each other as causes and effects,
or as reciprocally acting upon each other, with all the successive
changes of state through which they pass by reason of such influ-
ences ; or it is a knowledge of our inner life, as a succession of feelings
or "ideas," which are all states of the one permanent self. The
problem of transcendentalism is to account for this experience, to
determine what are the elements which are combined in it, or the
factors which are necessary to constitute it.

What led Kant to ask this question ? Obviously it was the failure
of that ordinary realistic solution of the difficult}' which had been
given by Locke, and gradually cleared of its ambiguities by Berkeley
and Hume. For the origin of knowledge, Locke thought it sufficient
"to send men to their senses," i.e., he regarded it as an adequate
explanation of knowledge to say that objects become known to us
through the feelings which they awake in our minds. This answer
however, immediately brought Locke into a difficult}' which he never

Kant'' s Deduction of the Categories. Ill

directly faced, though he was partly conscious of it. If objects are
presented to us purely in sensations, how can we know them as
objects? Feelings are "perishing existences," never two moments
the same ; how then can they give us the consciousness of a world of
permanent objects definitely related to each other in space and time?
B3' what possible alcheni}^ is the mere series of fleeting states trans-
formed into an ordered world, such as we have before us in experi-
ence? Locke's solution of the difficulty lay parti}' in emptying
experience of some of its contents, so as to make it correspond more
closely to that which can be supposed to be given in sense ; but
mainly, in attributing to sense an apprehension of objects, which are
not feelings, but felt things. In this way, for instance, he transforms
the mere sensation of touch into the apprehension of a solid object,
and therefore feels himself justified in saying that the primary
qualities of objects are felt as they are, and are as they are felt. In
the philosophies of Berkeley and Hume, the various disguises l)y
which this paralogism of Locke was hidden, were successively stripped
off ; until finally, Hume set before himself and his readers the prob-
lem of accounting for all our real or apparent knowledge by simple
impressions. Whatever we know must be traced back to the simple
feelings of the sensitive subject; whatever cannot be so traced, must
be regarded as illusory, though even of such illusion, of course, some
account must be given. But Hume, though he sets out with the
declaration that for every idea an impression must be produced, soon
falls back into the old method of Locke, the method of attributing
to feeling an apprehension of relations and objects which are not
feelings. And it is indeed only in so far as he attributes to feeling
more than properly belongs to it, that he is able to make a show of
reducing ever3-thing to feeling. Thus it is only as he finds given in
feeling the ideas of qualit}' and quantity, as well as of time and space,
that he can pretend to explain away the ideas of causation and
identity. It is no doubt true that Hume claimed the Sceptic's
privilege of believing like ordinary men, while philosophically he
undermined the basis of their beliefs, and that, as Dr. Stirling points
out, he did not hesitate to speak of Causality as the strongest basis
of reasoning, at the same time that he "could find no origin for it,
but the customary experience of constant conj unction. "i But that
does not make it less necessarv to distinguish between those relations
which Hume finds in, or pretends to derive from, the impressions,
and those which he tries to explain away. For it is just because he

1 Princeton Review, January, 1879, p. 186,

112 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

finds so much in sensation that is not contained in it, that he is able
to make a show of explaining experience on the sensationalist
hypothesis: Hume "finds no origin for causality but tiie customary
experience of constant conjunction;" but where does he get this
experience? The experience of constant conjunction is not merely
a series of associated feelings ; it is the experience of definitely
determined objects or events, standing in a certain definite relation
to each other in time ; and until that has been evolved from a mere
series of feelings, it is useless to talk of explaining awaj^ causality
by means of it. Na}^, it may be shown that such experience as Hume
describes already involves the idea of causality itself, for it involves
the idea of objects, which are recognized as identical upon their
recurrence; and Hume himself acknowledges that such a judgment
of identity implies causality. ^

Now the way in which the problem of knowledge presents itself to
Kant, is determined by his perception of this failure of sensationalism
to account for it. Out of mere feelings we cannot construct the
known world, for mere feelings can never give us either necessity or
universality, and therefore can never give us the knovvledge of any
object, I.e., of anything that is other than a mere passing state of
the subject. Nay, mere feelings cannot enable us even to know the
passing state of the subject as such ; for ere it can be so known, it
must be fixed as a definite state of the permanent subject, in relation
to his other states. What then, Kant asks, is necessary, besides sen-
sations, in order to constitute an experience such as ours? And in
the Critique he seeks to show that there are three things necessary :
first the pure sense-forms of Time and Space ; secondly the pure con-
ceptions of the understanding ; and thirdly, the unit^^ of the conscious
subject. In short it is his contention, that what we call experience
cannot be explained, unless we suppose that the mere isolated sensa-
tions are combined by the conscious subject under its categories,
subject to the conditions of Time and Space. Without the union of
all these elements, we could know nothing, either external or internal,
we could not be conscious of any object or an}^ world of objects mitli-
oiit us, and we could not know ourselves as identical beings, through
the succession of our feelings or " ideas" ivithin. Or, as he puts it
himself, in a letter to Dr. Marcus Herz : " My knowledge of the things
of experience, is possible only under these conditions, and apart from
them, all the data of sense would give me no idea of objects ; nay,
would not even enable me to attain to that unity of consciousness

^ Treatise on Human Nature, Part HI., chap. 2.

KanV s Deduction of the Categories. 113

which is necessary for the knowledge of myself as an object of inner
sense. I should not be capable even of knowing that I have these
sensations, and consequently for me as an intelligent being, they would
be absolutely nothing at all. It is true that, if I make myself in
thought into a mere animal, I can conceive the ideas of sense as
carrying on their regular play in my soul, seeing that they might still
be bound together by an empirical law of association, and so have
influence upon feeling and desire. This I can conceive, if I suppose
myself to be conscious of every single idea of sense, but not con-
scious, by means of the synthetic unity of apperception, of the rela-
tion of these ideas to the unity of the conception of their objects ;
but then I should not, through such ideas, have knowledge of anything,
even of my own state." ^

Kant then, seeks to prove that experience is a system of elements,
which reciprocally imply each other, in the sense that if any one of
them were taken away, experience would become impossible. In pur-
suance of this demonstration — which he calls "transcendental de-
duction" — he shows, first, that Time and Space are not accounted
for by sensations, but must be regarded as forms of perception, ?'.e.,
forms under which sensations must have been brought, ere they could
become perceptions of objects within and without us. Next he shows
that the mere combinations of the blank forms of Space and Time
with sensations, would not give us what we have in experience, ivith-
out synthesis, which again implies (1) the unity of the self, in
reference to which alone the manifold data of sense can be deter-
mined as objects, and as a world of objects; and (2) the Cate-
gories as general forms of synthesis or relation in which this unity
expresses itself. The Categories again form a system of relations,
all whose parts are interdependent, and, in application to the forms
and matter of sense, they give us our idea of Nature, i.e., of the
world of inner and outer experience. And every object, known as
such, must be known as having a definite place in this closed system.
In other words, it is only as determined by the idea of this system,
that any mere feeling can become an object of knowledge, or, what is
the same thing, can be a means of our knowing any object as such.
Kant takes up each of these elements in succession and endeavors to
prove that it is necessary, if out of the other elements experience is
to be produced. Or, in other words, experience is for him a whole
or system, which he analytically breaks up into its elements in order
that he may reconstitute it again out of those elements.

1 Kant's Works. Ed. Rosenkraiiz, XI, p. 56.
XIV — 8

114 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Now, what is the relation which Kant attempts to establish between
the diffei-ent elements which he thus puts together? Is it one of mere
logical subsumption? That is, does Kant suppose that we have first
the matter of sense given independently, and that we then bring that
matter under the forms of perception, and both again under the
Categories? If this were the relation in question, Kant's argument
would be liable to the obvious objection that it makes a transcendental
deduction impossible, by making it superfluous. For that which is
thus logically subsumed under a conception, must necessarily contain
already in it all that is contained in the conception under which it is
subsumed. And in that case, the conception would not need to be
brought from without to determine that which is subsumed under it,
but might quite as well be got by analysis of that which is thus
subsumed.

But this is what Dr. Stirling, as I understand him, finds in Kant.
Thus, speaking of the conception of Causality, he describes Kant's
procedure as follows: "The function of judgment which constitutes
its intellectual multiple is that known as antecedent and consequent : its
pure sense-midtiiole is to be a certain multiple of time : and its special
sense-multiple any conjunction of two matters of fact such that, if
the one comes, the other always follows. In its action on any such
conjunction, the function of judgment (of antecedent and con-
sequent) becomes the category of cause and effect ; and it is only
when this category has realized or asserted itself that the respective
sensuous conjunctions are struck from subjectivity into objectivity,
from contingency into necessity. The matter is still as it was, sen-
suous and a posteriori; but the form., the consequence, the vis nexus,
has now an a priori or intellectual validity."^ The doctrine so
explained, Dr. Stirling criticises as follows. "It is here, now, that I
place my objections to this Kantian theory. I assert, first, that any
time-multiple correspondent to the multiple of judgment, is not to
be found. I assert, second, that even on Kant's own terms that
multiple already must possess necessity. Lastly, I assert, in the third
place, that the second objection is virtually valid for all the categories
of Kant ; that Time and Space are not spectra within, but independent
objects without; and that, in general, the cumbrous machinery of
Kant is uncalled for, inapplicable, and a failure. "^

The first point Dr. Stirling proves thus. " It is utterly impossible
to see that any quale of sensation in time, conceived absolutely a
priori., would ever yield the multiple of one thing out of, or because

1 Princeton Keview, January, 1879, p. 202.

2 Ibid.

Kanfs Deduction of the Categories. 115

of, another. Any such assumption for any such assumed quale is
quite inapplicable : the quale may vary as a quale, the sensation
as a sensation ; but the relation would remain one of degree only : it
would never present the form of causality. But if it be so situated
with the quale, it is not different with time itself, whether empty or
filled. Time, in either case — time empty, time filled — exhibits
succession onlj^ and succession is not mutation proper ; it is but an
after one another of different individuals, no one of which is thi-ough
the other. "1 On the second point he says : "The special multiples
that present themselves as examples of causalit}^, already possess
necessity, and must possess necessity, or else it would be absolutely
impossible to subsume them under the law of causality ; which sub-
sumption, and only for necessity, is the peculiar prescript of Kant.
The succession of special sense that is named a &, if it is to be cau-
sal, and no mere formal succession (and that suggests at shortest the
nerve of the pi'evious argument against the possibility of the schema
of causality being found in a priori time) — ^this succession a b, in
such circumstances, is already necessary ; I cannot invert it, or take
it in any other order." ^

A little further on Dr. Stirling remarks that "one cannot help
wondering, at the same time, how Kant, who notoriously regarded
understanding as alone the Topos of rules, should have admitted the
bare possibility of a rule in sensation, which was to him only a feeling
set up, he knew not how or whence. * * * xhe schema already
is causality and all that we know of causality. A cause is but a reale
given, on which its effect follows. Of course Kant would repeat here,
That, in the first instance, is only subjectively so ; but we have
already debated the point. And there is no conclusion so far but
that Kant, leaving the causal necessity of the sensuous facts unex-
plained, has not met Hume's challenge by producing the original — the
impression for the idea."^

On the third point. Dr. Stirling then points out that what he has
said of causality, is true of all the other categories: "After all, it
is special sense that signifies, summons, dictates wheyi each category
shall act. That is, of such action special sense alone is warrant and
guarantee. May not, then, the very objective necessity, as alone
invoked and guaranteed by the subjective necessity, and consequently
sharing only a subjective authority, be itself called subjective? Is
it not evident, indeed, that even if the objective necessity could

1 Princeton Keview, January, 1879, p. 204.

2 Ibid., p. 205.

3 Ibid., pp. 207, 208.

116 TJie Journal of SpecAilative PJiiJosophy .

I'ealize itself, unpreceded by a subjective necessity, it would, as
unguaranteed, be really subjective, and of no account? On every
supposition possible to Kant — without guarantee, or with onlj- a sub-
jective guarantee — is his objective necessity not equally unsatis-
factory? "^

Now I do not hesitate to saj^ that this account of Kant's work,
simply deprives it of that which constitutes its distinctive value and
importance. The interpretation which Dr. Stirling gives is not a new
one ; I have repeatedly, in my book, called attention to it, as one that
is suggested by the letter of many particular passages in the Critique,
but which is wholly untrue to its spirit, i.e., to its meaning when
interpreted as a whole {e.g., Phil, of Kant, pp. 415, seq., and chap.
IX., pp. 370, seg. ). Kant's analytic method indeed leads him in
the first instance, to isolate sense, understanding, and imagination, or
their respective contributions to experience, from each other. And
as, in such severance, each part is necessarily treated for the moment
as a whole in itself, Kant is almost obliged to speak of the different
factors of experience, as if they, were, in their isolation, what they
are onl}' as factors in the whole. Further, it is also to be admitted,
that in treating of the relation of these different factors, Kant con-
stantly starts from the somewhat misleading analogy of logical
subsumption. But he as constantly corrects the inadequacy of this
view, by pointing out that the part cannot be known as what he had
previously represented it to be, except in and through the whole.
The conception of subsumption thus forms only the first rough
picture by which Kant prepares his own mind and the mind of his
reader, for the apprehension of that relation of interdependence which
it is his object to exhibit. And if, in some cases, he is not able
entirely to get beyond this first picture, or, if it comes back to
embarrass his movements after he has got beyond it, this is a logical
weakness, for which we can easily find excuse in the diflJculties of
one who was the first explorer of a new intellectual world, the first
to employ a new method of philosophy, and who therefore could not
be always successful in freeing his mind from the traditional concep-
tion of things. But that Kant had a new transcendental method,
other than the method of ordinary logic, is what no one can denj',
without making a great part of the Critique of Pure Reason meaning-
less.

What perhaps most obscures the argument of the Critique, is the
fact that Kant does not always stick to his problem. His problem

I Princeton Review, January, 1879, p. 209.

Kanfs Deduction of the Categories. 117

was, as he tells us, transcendental, and not psychological. "The
reader should never forget," he says, on one occasion, "that we are
not here speaking of the way in which experience arises in the
individual, but of that which is involved in experience. "^ But Kant
often seems to forget this himself, to discuss the process of knowl-
edge as a series of partial processes, each of which is done before the
other begins, and so to confuse the metaphysical question, what
knowledge is, with the psychological question, how a merely sensitive
consciousness, passes into the consciousness of a thinking being.
Now, the attempt thus to lay out the factors of experience, in an
order of time, easily leads to a denial, or at least, to an apparent
denial of their interdependence. If we do not observe this confusion
and guard against it, and if we hold Kant strictl}' to the "before "
and "after" of which he sometimes speaks, we may easil}^ prove
that Kant saw very little deeper into the organization of knowledge
than Reid, who also, in his way, analyzes the mind into a number of
independent faculties, which may work at different times, and whose
products have no necessar}'^ relation to each other.

But to adopt such a view of the Critique as Dr. vStirling has adopted,
is to set Hamlet on the stage, with the part of Hamlet omitted. It
is, as I have already said, to render meaningless the method of trans-
cendental Deduction, and to rob Kant of his distinctive merit as the
philosopher who first clearly conceived knowledge as a system, the
parts of which reciprocally imply each other. And it is to make him
escape from Hume's logic, b}^ an apparent sophism. For, as Dr.
Stirling tells us, on this view Kant's problem would be to produce the
impression corresponding to the different categories ; and as this is
impossible, or possible only by assuming that the impression already
contains what the category brings to it, we could come to no other
conclusion, "but that Kant, leaving the necessity of the sensuous
facts unexplained, has not met Hume's challenge by producing the
original, — the impression for the idea."^ To give such an interpre-
tation, is to turn Kant's weakness against his strength, instead of
turning his strength against his weakness. It is to make -his occa-
sional inconsistencies the means of obscuring the principle of his
whole work. No interpretation of the Critique can be successful,
which does not take as its motto the words of the preface, "Pure
Reason is so perfect a unit}', that if the principle of it were insuffi-
cient to solve one of all the questions which are set before it by its
own nature, we might then safely reject that principle forever, since

1 Prolegomena, sect. 22.

^ Princeton Review, January, 1879, p. 207.

118 The Journal of Speculative PhilosopJiy.

it must be equally inadequate to enable us to reach a certain result
in the case of any other of these problems." To show what the
systematic unity of intelligence is, and to show that experience is
only possible through it, is the one chief end and purpose of Kant ;
and we have the highest right to treat everything in the Critique which
is inconsistent with this leading idea, as an involuntary error, or defect
of logic. When, therefore, Kant tells us that the particular elements
of sense must be subsumed under the systematic conception of
nature which the mind brings with it, we must remember that he adds,
that this differs from an ordinary case of logical subsumption, in so
far as it is only by it that these particulars can become elements of
experience at all ; i.e., can exist for us as thinking beings. For in his
view, the impressions of sense do not, either in themselves or in con-
nection with the forms of sense, give rise to that consciousness of
things, as standing in definite relations to each other in Time and
Space, which we call experience. On the contrary, apart from the
unity of apperception and the categories, "a chaos (Gewiihl) of
appearances, would fill our minds without giving rise to an}^ distinct
apprehension of objects such as we mean by the term experience."^
"I should not be capable even of knowing that I have these sensa-
tions or ' ideas,' and consequently for me as an intelligent being,
they would be absolutely nothing at all."

When we examine the Critique in the light of such statements as
these, we see at once what Kant has in view. Starting from a
conception of the different factors in knowledge, as if they were
separate things (or in Spinoza's language, res completm') of each of
which we can speak without any reference to the other factors, Kant
steadil}', in one case after another, points out that this separation is
provisional and illegitimate ; or, in other words, that it is only as a
factor in experience, that each of these elements has that definite
character which he had attributed to it. And, if we take it away from
its relation to the other factors, it ceases to have the meaning which
it has in experience, and indeed — at least in the case of the mani-
fold of sense — to have any meaning whatever.

Kant's first step in the "Esthetic " is to show that time and space
cannot be accounted for as mere feeUngs. Our experience is out-
ward and inward; i. e., it is the experience of a world in space
which we distinguish from ourselves, and of a series of feelings
which we identify with ourselves. But neither of these forms of
experience can be referred to simple feeling. What makes us think

1 Kritik (Rosenkranz), p. 102.

Kanfs Deduction of the Categories. 119

that it can be so referred is, that we confuse what sense is to itself,
with that which sense is to the thinliing consciousness. A series of
fleetingr sensations cannot be conscious of itself as a series, still
less can it be conscious of itself as a world of objects in space, the
parts of which are permanent. As I have elsewhere expressed it,
"it is not incorrect to say that sensation is of the individual object
at a particular moment of time, and a particular point of space:
ai'zdd'jtrai roSa re xat -no /.dl ^mv. But this may be understood in two
ways. It may be understood as meaning that, to us who look upon
the sensitive consciousness from without, who regard the sensitive
being as an individual object, related to all other objects in space,
and determined by them in its successive consciousness — to us it is
manifest that sensation must always be of an individual thing, at
one particular moment, and in one particular place. Or it may be
understood as meaning that the mere sensitive consciousness itself
apprehends the object as an individual object, determined in space
and time. If we adopt the former explanation, the words quoted
from Aristotle express what are the limits of the individual sensitive
consciousness, as these are understood by beings who are not them-
selves merely sensitive, but who judge of that which is immediately
given in sense by relation to that which is not so given. But if we
adopt the latter explanation, we really make sense transcend its own
limits, and criticise itself, and we confuse the order of the world to
thought, the ordo ad universum, with the order of the world to sense,
the 07'do ad individuum." ^

In the Esthetic, then, Kant proves that the forms of space and
time are necessary, ere sense can give rise to an inner and outer
experience, such as our actual experience is. But in the Esthetic
(after a preliminary^ caution that the categories of the understanding
also have a place in experience) he generally speaks as if this were
all that is necessary ; in other words, as if sensation with the aid
of the pure forms of sense, at once gave us perception. His argu-
ment is simply this: Perception is of individual objects in space and
time — which themselves also are individual, and therefore objects
of perception — "infinite given wholes," in which all other objects
are placed, in relation to each other. But the perception of the indi-
vidual objects, as such, does not contain in it those relations of time
and space under which they are perceived. Hence, time and space
must be regarded as forms, under which the objects fall, as they
become objects of our perception. The mind, therefore, contributes

1 Phil, of Kant, p. 267.

120 The Journal of Siieculative PMlosopliy .

at least tliis element in addition to the matter of sense, ere that
matter can be what it is to us in inner and outer experience.

But, as we pass to the Anal3'tic, the problem of knowledge deepens.
Objects, it then appears, are not given in sense as objects, nor can
we say that space and time are, for sense, "infinite given wholes"
in which objects are placed. Neither space nor time, nor any object
in space and time, is given in its completely detei'mined individuality,
but, in both cases such definition must be reached through a process
of synthesis ; and the infinity of time and space, and of the world
of objects, only means that it is impossible that this S3'nthesis can
ever be completed. It was, therefore, merely a provisional abstrac-
tion, by which the unity or individuality of time and space was in
the u^sthetic, referred to sense. It was merely a provisional abstrac-
tion, by which objects were spoken of as existing for us independently
of the determination of the matter of sense by the categories (or
"conceptions of objects in general"), which the understanding has
to supply. Feelings, sensations, are a "fleeting manifold " which
can never give rise to an intelligible consciousness of objects or
of the self. Onl}^ as the thinking subject combines or integrates
the elements of the manifold with each other by means of the cate-
gories, and in relation to its own unity, can the manifold of feeling
give rise to that consciousness of the world without, and the world
within, which we call experience. It is here that the idea of logical
subsumption is first introduced by Kant, and we have to observe with
what modifications he applies it to the relations of the elements of
experience. In the first chapter of the Analytic of Conceptions, we
have a careful comparison of the process of thought or judgment
with which ordinary logic deals, with the synthetic judgment which
it presupposes, and with wliich transcendental logic has to deal.
The judgment with which ordinary logic deals, is primarily analytic,
or, if sjaithetic, its synthesis is based on a previous analj'sis. In it
we bring ideas together under a general conception, which we have
first reached by analysis of these very ideas. But this analysis
would be impossible without a primary synthesis, to bring together
the elements which are thus separated. And for this primary syn-
thesis, the binding conception cannot be got by analysis of the ideas
brought under it, but must be derived from thought itself. It is, in
fact, the determination of the manifold of sense by such a concep-
tion which first turns sensations into perceptions ; or, in other words,
turns feelings into an intelligible experience of felt objects. The
point of union which Kant finds between the ordinary and the tran-
scendental logic, is however, that the very act of thinking or judging

KanVs Deduction of the Categories. 121

carries with it the conception by which the object becomes known as
an object of experience. "The same function wliich gives unity to
the different ideas in a judgment, also gives unity to the synthesis
of different ideas in a perception, and this function, expressed in
its generahty is the conception of the understanding." But the
diffei-ence of the two cases is, that the binding conception in the one
case is, and in tlie other case is not found in the matter wliich is
combined.

The transcendental Deduction of the categories according to Kant's
own assertion, contains the central idea of the Critique ; and in it
we find the same line of argument further developed. In the first
part of that Deduction, Kant starts with the idea of a manifold given
in sense and immediately proceeds to point out that, as so given,
such a manifold would be merel^^ a multitude of isolated feelings,
and that sense cannot combine them, and, therefore, cannot know
them (even as a manifold). For such combination or knowledge,
they must be brought in relation to the unity of a conscious subject,
which is provided with certain universal forms of synthesis. It is
only as I combine the manifold in one conception, that I can have
consciousness of it as an object, (in other words, that for me as a
thinking subject, it can be a report of anything). And on the other
hand, it is only as I am conscious of the unity of m}^ action in com-
bining the manifold into objects, and again the different objects
into one experience, i. e., the experience of one world, that I am
conscious of myself as one identical self through all the variety of
my ideas or sensitive states. Thus it is only as distinguished from,
yet related to, the unity of the objective manifold world, that I can
be conscious of the unity of the self, and without it 1 should have
as Kant declares, "a many-coloi'ed, endlessly-varied self;" or, in
other words, I should never become conscious of a self at all. The
categories thus form the principles of unity in objective experience,
and the necessary conditions of the self-consciousness of the subject,
as distinguished from, yet related to, these objects.

The second part of Kant's Deduction differs from the |irst only
by introducing the forms of space and time, as the forms under
which the manifold has to be known in order to constitute outer and
inner experience at once in their difference and their unity. But
this alters the case only in so far, that it makes it necessary that
the forms of the understanding should be schematized, ere they can
become categories. In other words, in order that the forms of pure
thought may become the principles of synthesis which are necessary
to constitute our actual experience, they must be limited or determined

122 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

in relation to space and time. But for the i*est, the argument pro-
ceeds in the same way. Neither from mere sensations as such, nor
from the blank forms of time and space, can we get any synthetic
principle, any principle that shall so combine sensations as to pro-
duce what we call experience. In order to the possibility of such
experience we must presuppose the unity of the self and the whole
system of the categories. For our expei'ience is a consciousness of
objects as qualified and quantified substances, which may change, but
do not perish ; and which are bound together in one time and space
by causality and reciprocity. It is a consciousness of one world
without us, and, in opposition, yet in relation to it, of a permanent
self within, with a determined succession of states. And as such
consciousness of the world without us would not be possible but
for the existence of the self, and the system of the categories as
principles of synthesis through which it determines the manifold of
sense ; so, on the other hand, the consciousness of the self as the
same self in the succession of its feelings is possible only in relation
to such a world. For it is only through the unity of the known
world that we become conscious of the permanent identity of the
knowing subject ; and apart from the synthesis in which the activity
of the self manifests itself, we should have only a "many-colored,
ever-changing self," or, in other words, we could never become
conscious of a self at all.

Kant thus opposes the ordinary Realism by showing that the
world as known cannot be passively received in sense, through the
action upon us of an existent world outside of consciousness, but
that it is essentially related to intelligence, seeing that no single
phenomenon can possibly take its place in experience, except as de-
termined by the categories, and indeed by the whole system of the
categories, in relation to the unity of the self. "That order and
regularity in phenomena, which we call Nature, is something which
we ourselves introduce into them, and we could not find it in them,
if we had not ourselves originally put it there." * * * "Under-
standing is not merely a faculty which enables us by comparing
phenomena to rise to rules : it is itself the legislation for Nature,
i.e., without understanding there would be no Nature, no synthetic
unit}^ of the manifold of phenomena according to rules : for phe-
nomena as such cannot be found outside of ourselves, but exist
only in our sensibilit}'. But the sensibility^ with all that it contains,
is a possible object of knowledge in our experience only in the unity
of apperception." ^ In other words, sense, taken by itself in the

1 Kritik (Rosenkranz), p. 113.

Kant's Deduction of the Categories. 123

series of its feelings, — even if we suppose an association of these
feelings as simple feelings in the sensitive subject — cannot give us
the conception of a Nature, or objective world, or indeed, of any
object or realty whatever: and on the other hand, intelligence in
relation to the matter of sense must produce such an idea in order
to be conscious of objects, and through objects, of itself.

It is true that the understanding, according to Kaut, can only pre-
scribe a irriori laws to phenomena so far as is necessary to consti-
tute Nature in general; and that the particular Laws of Nature cannot
be deduced therefrom. But at the same time, he maintains that these
particular laws can only be known as particular determinations of
those highest laws which come from the intelligence itself. This
however, does not mean that the particular is given apart from the
general, and then brought under it. It means that it is only as
already brought under the higher laws, that we can have any appre-
hension of objects, or raise the question as to the particular laws by
which they are determined. Of any phenomenon of experience as
such, it is no longer doubtful that it is qualified and quantified ; no
longer doubtful that it is a permanent substance in a particular state ;
that it is an effect and a cause ; and that it is in necessary relation
of reciprocity with coexisting phenomena. But we may not yet be
able to determine what are the threads of necessity that bind it to
other things, or, rather, we may not be sure that the first determina-
tion which we have necessarily given it in making it an object, is its
true and final determination. Kant, indeed, frequently permits him-
self to speak (and it is almost a necessity of his analytic method
that he should speak) of the appearance of sense as something which
has a character of its own, independent of its determination by
thought ; although he also declares that the mere data of sense are
for us, as intelligent beings, "absolutely nothing at all." This kind
of abstraction he employs for instance, in the Prolegomena, when
he speaks of appearances as distinct from facts; and again of
"judgments of perception" {Wahrnehmung) as distinguished from
"judgments of experience." He has, indeed, to run this risk of
misunderstanding in order to be able to speak of the "sensible"
apart from the intelligible at all. For when we speak of a factor
of experience apart from experience, we inevitably treat it as having,
in this isolation, a character which it can have only as a factor.
Thus for example, to say that sense, as such, gives only a "mani-
fold " or a " successive manifold," is not untrue, but it may be
misleading if we do not add that it can be known as manifold, and
known as in time, onl}' through the transcendental apperception.

124 TJte Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

If we distinguish appearances from facts, we must remember that
this is a relative and not an absolute distinction. As Lord Palm-
erston said that dirt was only matter in the wrong place, so we may
sa}^ that an appearance is a phenomenon referred to the wrong con-
text of experience. An appearance is already admitted into the intel-
ligible world under some pretence ; it has already, as thus admitted,
been determined by the categories, and b}^ all the categories, and
the onl}^ question that remaims is, whether the place to which it has
been thus determined is its right place. I may be permitted to make
a quotation from my book, in which I have stated the point as clearly
as I see my way to state it: "So long as we conceive phenomena
as a mere pliantasmagoria passing before our mental vision, and
do not ask any question, or make any assertion, as to their corre-
spondence with an^' object beyond themselves, so long, it would seem,
we cannot be deceived. Thus ' the senses set the planets before
us, now as moving onward in their course, and again as turning
back, and in this there is neither truth nor falsehood, so long as we
are content to regard it all as mere appearance, and to make no
judgment in regard to the objective movements.' ^ The question of
truth or reaht}^ onl}' arises when we go beyond the appearances, and
make a judgment in which they are referred to an object. So long
as the mind passively apprehends that which is presented to it, so
long it cannot err ; for as yet there is to it no distinction between
appearance and reality, and therefore no possibility of mistaking the
one for the other. * * * But when we consider the matter

* •

more carefully, we see that the statement just made is not strictly
accurate. To say that the planets appear to our senses at one time
to be receding, and at another time to be advancing in their course,
is already to attribute too much to sense. He who can make such a
statement, has before his mind, not merely an unconnected ' mani-
fold ' of sensation, but a connected system of phenomena. He
stands at a point of view at which he could not be placed by mere
sense without acts of judgment — at the point of view of the objective
consciousness. The contents of visual sensation are represented by
him as an order of heavenly bodies moviug in space, and are thus
bound up, according to definite principles of synthesis, with his other
experiences of the external world. No doubt, after this synthetic
process is completed, a doubt may arise in his mind as to the objec-
tive value of its result. He ma}' then doubt whether certain move-
ments are real or apparent, whether certain phenomena, which he

1 Prolegomena, Part I., Rem. 3, p. 41 ; Tr., p. 57.

Kant's Deduction of the Categories. 125

bad interpreted as movements of the planets, are not rather to be
explained in some other way, e.g., as movements of the spectator,
or even as due to the diseased state of his eyes. But, in all such
doubt, he still presupposes the general reality of the objective con-
sciousness, and merely hesitates about the place of certain phe-
nomena in it. He doubts only, whether, in his first synthesis, he
has put certain data of sense in their proper relation to certain other
data of sense. The question is one touching the particular, not the
universal ; it relates, strictly speaking, not to the reality of the facts,
but only to their position in the context of experience. While,
therefore, it is true that appearance is not reality, we must remember
that there is for a thinking consciousness no possible return to the
unorganized data of sensation, the mere ' appearances of sense ' as
such. We cannot, in strict accuracy, imagine a previous state in
which things are presented to us as 'appearances,' before they are
determined as reaTT for the determination of them as in some sense
real, is presupposed in their determination as appearances. To doubt
whether experience deceives us, we must already have determined it
as experience. An illusion is but a reality referred to the wrong
place in the context of experience." ^

Kant's leading idea, then, is, that experience is possible only to the
self-conscious intelligence acting through the system of the cate-
gories ; or, in other words, that the mere series of sensitive states
does not explain our consciousness of the objective world, unless this
action be presupposed. If Kant had been quite faithful to this idea,
it would, no doubt, have carried him beyond the point at which he
actuall}^ stopped. It would have led him to reconsider the absolute dis-
tinction which he still preserves between the a 'priori and the It poste-
riori elements of experience ; it would have forced him ultimately to
reject the doctrine of the existence of things in themselves as opposed
to phenomena, or things as they are known (cf. Phil, of Kant, pp.
394, 469, 531, etc.). It was indeed simply by following out Kant's
logic in this way to its legitimate result, that the subsequent German
philosophy passed from Transcendentalism to absolute Idealism. For,
so long as anything is supposed to be admitted within the intelligible
world which is not determined by the intelligence, so long there is
some ground left for the objections brought by Dr. Stirling, and for
his method of refuting Kant by himself. Where the particular ob-
jects of experience are considered to have any characteristics over
and above those which they receive from the general idea of experi-

1 Phil, of Kant, p. 280.

126 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ence, and where, as is also the case with Kant, this general idea is
not conceived as self-differentiating, or, in other words, as neces-
sarily related to the particulars which are thus brought under it — it
is always possible to object that the particulars as such must bring
with them something to determine what is the right as opposed to
the to?'ong' application of the categories; i.e., to determine what is
the true place in which each phenomenon must be put in relation to
other phenomena. But to do this, is what I have called "turning
Kant's weakness against his strength, instead of turning his strength
against his weakness." Both weakness and strength are undoubtedly
to be found in Kant ; and it would be altogether a one-sided exposi-
tion of his doctrine to attribute to him all that may be reached by
a more consistent application of his method. But the distinctive
merit of Kant — that which marks him off from his predecessors,
and that by reason of which he became the beginner of a new philo-
sophical movement — was his transcendental Deduction; or, in other
words, his method of proving that it is only as related to intelligence,
and through its activity, that objects can have for us the charac-
teristics which they have in our actual experience. And it might
easily be shown, that it was by pressing home this argument, and
freeing it from the inconsistencies of Kant, that Fichte and Schelling
prepared the way for the result of Hegel. To take Kant, as it were,
by the other end, and to use his inconsistencies as the means of
driving him back to the position of Hume and Locke, seems to me
to be essentially unfair — though of course it is always logically
possible. Now, it must be remembered that we are forced to choose
between the one alternative and the other, for no possible interpre-
tation can make of Kant a self-consistent writer. But it is the
business of a critic, as I understand it, to point out how Kant
separates himself from his predecessors, and prepares for his suc-
cessors : and, while recognizing his inconsistencies, to note clearly
the direction in which he was tending. It is the business of a critic,
while showing the backsUdings that kept Kant from entering the
promised land of philosophy', to give him all the credit that is due
to one whose face was steadily set thitherward — to one who was the
first to strike into the road that leads to it, and who followed it as
consistently as he was able.

Within the last ten years, many voices have been heard, both in
this country and in Germany, bidding us return to Kant., as to that
which alone is at once sound and hopeful in philosophy : that which
unites the prudence of science with the highest speculative enterprise
which is possible without idealistic extravagances. And, so far as

Kanfs Deduction of the Categories. 127

this merely expresses an admiration for the philosophic temper
of Kant, no one would wish to question it. But it cannot be too
clearly understood, that the critical Philosophy is not a possible
halting- place of thought, and that we must inevitably be driven
backwards to some point of view analogous to that of Locke, or else
if we try to reduce it to a logically consistent system, we must sweep
away the imperfections that held it back from the full development
of the idealistic principle which is its central thought.^

Kant's philosophy is a bridge between the theory for which reality
is immediately given in feeling, and the theory for which reality is
essentially related to the intelligence by which it is apprehended. If
the former view be true, it has been shown by Hume and Kant that
knowledge is impossible. If the latter view be true, knowledge is
possible, and all its factors and elements are interdependent ; so that
ever}^ part of the known world implies all the others, as well as the
intelligence throuo;h which it is known. We, indeed, as individual
sensitive subjects, "parts of this partial world," are forced to
"know in part and prophesy in part." But, inasmuch as the parts
are necessarily related to each other, and can be known only through
the idea of the whole, which as self-conscious beings we possess,
our knowledge cannot increase by mere external additions from with-
out, but its advance is, in the full sense of the word, a development.
Or, to put it in another way ; its advance is the gradual communi-
cation to us of a system whose parts are presented to us in succession,
yet can only be understood as parts of an all-embracing whole ; and
in which, therefore, nothing can be known, except through the whole.
Thus our intellectual life begins with the tacit assumption that every
actual or possible object is part of the one world, in one space and
one time, and hence, also, with the assumption of the unity of the
self to which all objects are related. And its progress consists
simply in the development of this assumption, or, what is the same

1 From Dr. Stirling's former writings he must, I should suppose, seek to find his
way out of the difficulties of Kant by means of a more complete Idealism. Yet,
in his article in the Princeton Review, he uses language, which would, »to say the
least, as naturally be taken in the sense of ordinary Realism: e.g. (p. 206) "Sen-
sations to become perceptions require to be thought : and to think sensations, in
this case, is to reduce them under the category of cause and etfect. But though
such thinking or reduction is attended by necessity, this necessity is not, as with
Kant, merely boi-roxoed by the facts. On the contrary, the facts already possess
it; and the thinker, through his category, only recognizes it. But this point of
view — not, as yet, anywhere discussed — is out of place here, where, at present,
for the most part we confine ourselves to the machinery of Kant as considered
in itself."

128 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

thing from another side, its verification through all the compass of an
ever-oTowing experience. "Reason," as Kant himself sa^'s, "cannot
permit our knowledge to remain in an unconnected and rhapsodistic
state, but requires that the sum of our cognitions should constitute a
system. * * * The whole is thus an organism {articulatio), and
not an aggregate (^concervatio^ ; it may grow from within (pe?- intus-
susceptio7iem) , but it cannot increase by external additions (jje?-
appositioneni). It is thus like an animal body, the growth of which
does not add any hmb, but, without changing their proportions,
makes each in its sphere stronger and more active." ^

It is in the sections of the Critique that follow the Deduction of
the Categories, if anywhere, that Dr. Stirling may find support for
his view of Kant. In the Deduction, the synthetic tendency, on the
whole, prevails over the analytic, and the transcendental over the
psychological point of view. But in the sections on the Schematism
of the Categories and the Principles of Pure Understanding, the
reverse is not seldom true. Thus, Kant begins (as I have pointed
out, Phil, of Kant, p. 415) by speaking of the process of knowl-
edge as one of subsumption, without pointing out the difference
which he has elsewhere shown to exist between this subsumption and
subsumption in the sense of formal logic. And he takes up the dif-
ferent "principles" one after another, as if they were different parts
externally added to each other, without in this place sufficiently call-
ing our attention to the fact that they are parts in a s\-stem. Yet we
must always remember that Kant meant these sections to be inter-
preted in accordance with the preceding Deduction. And a careful
examination of his language shows that the inconsequence is onl^^
partial. If Kant ever for a moment lets go the thread of the trans-
cendental Deduction, he soon recovers it again, and adds corrective
statements which brings us back to the point. And if he sometimes
speaks as if the different categories were independent, yet he distin-
guishes and connects the mathematical and dynamical principles, as
having to do with phenomena "in regard to their possibilit}-," and
their existence respectively (Critique, Tr., p. 134). He had pre-
viously pointed out (c/. Phil, of Kant, p. 210, etc.), that in each class
of categories, the third category involves and includes the other two ;
and it is in accordance with this that he reduces the first two classes
of categories, quality and quantity, each to a single principle. In
the case of the categories of Relation this is not done, and Kant
never perhaps sees in its full meaning (c/. Phil, of Kant, p. 461) the

1 Critique, Tr., p. 503.

Kanfs Deduction of the Categories. 129

essential unity or correlativity of substance, causality, and reciprocity.
Yet, as we sliall see, he points out distinctl}^ that they cannot be sepa-
rated from each other, and his proof of their necessity in order to
the existence of experience or knowledge, involves their necessary
interdependence.

It would carry us too far to prove this in detail, and I shall, there-
fore, refer only to Kant's treatment of the categories of quantity and
causality.

The proof of the principle that all phenomena are extensive quan-
tities is that, " all phenomena are quantities, and extensive quantities,
because represented by means of the same synthesis, through which
time and space themselves are generated," i.e., by the composition
of the homogeneous manifold in a successive S3'nthesis, the conscious-
ness of which is the category of quantity. Now, on Dr. Stirling's
interpretation, this means only that the impressions of sense contain
the category of quantit}^ and therefore are subsumed under it ; and
by this subsumption are determined as objective facts — an argu-
ment with which, I venture to think, Kant would not have felt much
satisfaction. On my interpretation it means that the representation
of objects as extensive quantities is implied in their perception as in
time and space, and that this perception again is possible only through
a synthesis of the pure understanding, the rule for which is the con-
ception of quantity. In other words, the perception of phenomena
as extensive quanta would not be possible to a merel}^ sensitive sub-
ject, but is possible only through a synthetic act of the pure Under-
standing, and on the other hand, phenomena must be represented as
exclusive quanta, because only so can they be perceived as time or
space.

The principle of Causality is that by which Dr. Stirling mainly
illustrates his views, and the proof of it undoubtedly contains some
things, whicli, taken In' themselves, seem favorable to his interpre-
tation, though as he acknowledges it cannot on that interpretation
be made consistent with itself. Its confusion arises primaril3% I
think, from the cause already mentioned, viz., that in Kant'^ first
analj'tic process, he is led to treat, too much as if the}' were separate
and independent things, the very elements which he afterwards seeks
to show to be dependent on each other. Disregarding for the mo-
ment this source of confusion, we may express the substance of his
argument as follows : —

Kant seeks to prove that knowledge of objective change implies
the principle of causalit}', or, in other words, that we cannot know
XIV — 9

130 The Journal of Speculative Philosoi^hy .

any event as happening, unless we assume it to be true, tliat that
event follows necessarily and invariably upon some other definite
event. Now, to say that an event or objective change happens, is,
obviously, not merely to sa}' that a thing has gone from our con-
sciousness, and that something else has come in its place ; it is to say
that something has altered in objects, which jQt are identified as the
same before and after the change. The idea of objective change
implies therefore permanent identity on the one hand, and different
successive states of this permanent identity on the other. To know
objective change, is to know a difference in the successive states of
objects which yet remain permanent, and the same. It is to know a
permanent identity — which corresponds to the unity of time itself ;
and a successive difference — which corresponds to the successive
moments in time. Now, it will be observed, that these elements
imply each other. Identity can be known only in relation to differ-
ence, and difference only in relation to identity ; permanence can be
known only in relation to change, and change to permanence. But we
cannot derive such knowledge from a merely sensitive consciousness —
even if we suppose the successive states of the sensitive subject to be
associated together, so that one shall call up the idea of the other.
For such knowledge, we require a synthesis of the manifold, according
to principles supplied by the understanding. We cannot know any-
thing, unless the fleeting sensations be referred to objects which are
permanent. And, on the other hand, we can know tliese objects as
permanent, only as they are permanent in change: i.e., as the differ-
ence of their successive states is explained consistent!}' with their
permanent identity. But this implies that if the}^ change, they
change according to a universal law. For if we conceived it pos-
sible that the same object, in circumstances in every respect identical,
did not change in the same way, we should be forced to deny that
it was really the same object. The principles of substance and
causality must therefore, necessarily be combined with each other in
application to the manifold of sense, ere out of that manifold we
can derive any consciousness of objects as changing, or passing
through different states in time. And this implies that no objective
experience can be had, except through the principles of substance and
causality.

The force of this argument will be easily seen if we place it face to
face with the statements of Hume, to which it was meant as a reply.
" The nature of experience" says Hume, "is this. We remember
to have had frequent instances of the existence of one species of
objects, and also remember that the individuals of another species of

ITcmfs Deduction of the Categories. 131

objects have always attended them, and have existed in a regular
order of contiguity and succession with regard to them. Thus, we
remember to have seen that species of object which we call //ame,
and to have felt that species of sensation we call heat. We likewise
call to mind their constant conjunction in all past instances. Without
any further ceremony we call the one cause, and the other effect, and
infer the existence of the one from tlie other. "^ The experience
from which Hume here starts, and by means of which he explains
away causality, is not simply a series of sensations following each
other in a certain order, but it is an experience in which each sensa-
tion, as it came, has been referred to an object which is recognized as
again present to us as the same object, or an object of the same kind,
on the recurrence of a similar sensation. But sensations, thus inter-
preted, are not mere sensations. The}^ are sensations viewed as
reporting of permanent objects, which are regarded as the same, just
because they stand in permanent relations to other objects ; and
would not be recognized as the same, if their relations were regarded
as different. At any change in such objects, we are obliged to find
the cause in an alteration of the conditions ; and if we did not so
find it, we could not recognize them as the same, or even as objects
at all. To suppose that there could be presented to us in sense, a
succession of phenomena, which cannot be thus referred to a per-
manent identity, or a permanent identity, w'hich does not manifest
itself in the same way when other conditions are the same, would be
to suppose an experience in complete discord with the conditions
under which experience is possible. Such a series of sensations or
perceptions, Kant does not conceive as impossible in itself, but what
he sa^'s in regard to it is, that, if it occurred, we should never be able
to bring it into the context of experience. A miracle, in the sense of
such an abolition of the law of causality, ma}'^ be, for aught we know,
possible ; but it is an impossible experience.

This substantially is the argument of Kant in the Deduction of
causality. He successively insists on all these points, on the neces-
sary combination of causality and substance, of the ideas of»per-
manence and change, and the correspondence of each of these with
the two sides of the conception of time, as a unity, and as a series of
moments. At the beginning of the argument, however, he introduces
a confusing complication, when he asks why it is that we treat the parts
of a house, which we see successively, as not being really or objec-
tively successive, while we treat the successive positions of a ship

1 Treatise on Human Nature, Part III., sect. 6. Cf. Green's Hume, Vol. I., p.
263, sect. 312.

132 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

drifting down a stream, as objectively successive ; and when he ansivers
that it is because we cannot reverse the order in the latter case, and
that we can reverse it in the former. For here the problem seems
simply to be, how we are to account for a succession of states of
feeling determined as successive in our individual subjectivity, in
relation to the world without us. If we were thus conscious of our
own states as successive, we should already have reached a knowledge
of these states as events in our individual life, and the only problem
left would be to determine how this succession is to be accounted for,
in the connection of our individual life with other objects of knowl-
edge. And the criterion to which Kant refers only enables us to
determine that the objective change in the case of the house, is the
movement of our own e3'es, and in the case of the drifting ship, that
it is the movement of the ship itself. In other words, the problem in
this case, is not the general problem of determining how the knowl-
edge of objective change is possible, but the particular problem of
distinguishing different objective changes from each other.

If, however, we interpret Kant as meaning, not that we are con-
scious of ourselves as in successive states, or having successive
feelings or ideas, but that our sensitive life is a series of successive
states, and that such a series — even with the aid of association —
cannot enable us to account for a consciousness of real succession or
objective change either in ourselves or in any other object, but that
in order to such a consciousness, we must have determined our sen-
sations in reference to objects by the law of causality — if we take
this view of Kant's words, we can bring them into closer connection
with the general problem he has undertaken to solve. For what, on
this view, he intends to convey to us, is, that before a succession of
perceptions in us can become the knowledge of a real change in any
object, we must have synthetically combined these perceptions by
means of the law of causality: i. e., we must have referred them
to a permanent object or objects, and determined them as states
which will always occur in the same order in these objects, under the
same conditions. Dr. Stirling argues that the impression of sense
must " give the cue " for the application of the category, since in the
above instance Kant seemed to find in the irreversibleness of the time
order in which the portions of the drifting ship were perceived, a
reason for bringing the case under the conception of causalit}'. But
this would imply that the phenomena could be presented apart from
any determination by the category. What Kant needs to show is not
how the scientific man may arrive at a finally satisfactory application
of the category of cause, but that the idea of cause is involved in

KanCs Deduction of the Categories. 133

all apprehension of objective change. Of course, when we have
" brought to conception " the synthesis involved in our apprehension
of events in time, i.e., when by abstracting from the particular
events, and also from the form of time, we have become clearly
conscious of the category of causality which is involved in such expe-
riences, we can now use it as a principle of investigation ; we can,
by its aid, correct the ordinary judgments of experience, and thus
raise experience into the form of science. In this sense, Dr. Stirling
is quite right in saying that "the facts already possess necessity;
and the thinker, through his category, merely recognizes it." This,
indeed, is just what the transcendental Deduction is meant to prove.
Tlie facts already involve the category, and therefore the scientific man
can use it as a key to their better interpretation. The facts of ordi-
nary experience already involve the categories, and if they did not,
they would not for us be facts at all. But if we could reduce the
facts, as Hiune did, to the mere impressions of a sensitive subject —
a series of "■perishing existences" which are never the same for
two moments — they would not involve the categories, and therefore
would be no longer /acte, t.e., no longer objects or states of objects
for us. After we have separated the Universal from the Particular,
the category from the object determined by it, we can make it our
guide in a new determination of these objects ; but this does not imply
that we can ever have the latter presented to us, except by means of
the former.

I may now sum up in a few words the view of Kant which I have
been maintaining in this article. The question of Kant is, how is
experience possible? and he seeks to answer it in such a way as to
show the inadequacy of the ordinary realistic or sensationalist answer.
Experience he resolves into a number of factors, each of which he
proves to be necessary to the rest, if out of the rest we are to derive
which we call experience. His defect, however, is that he does not
f ull3' realize that the elements which he names are not only necessarily
that consciousness of the world of objects and of the self as an object,
combined in order to experience, but that they lose all meaning when
not conceived in relation to each other. Hence time and space, sen-
sations, the categories, and even each individual categor^s seem to
be set up by themselves as independent units, each of wliich might
exist even if there were nothing else but itself. And, though the
whole tendency of Kant's argument is to disprove this first analytic
view of things, yet it constantly reappears to embarrass his readers
and himself. But all this proves only the greatness of the effort which
was necessary in order to make the first step in a new region of

134 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

thought. It should not for a moment lead us to minimize our obliga-
tions to one of the greatest, ii not the greatest, of modern philos-
ophers.

I have now done. The authority of Dr. Stirling's name has in-
duced me to examine with some care the view of Kant which he has
opposed to mine. Whether I have been successful in showing the
inadequacy of his interpretation, and the adequacy of my own, I
leave to competent students of Kant to judge. A prolonged per-
sonal controversy, especially one turning upon such a question,
would seem to me a worse than useless waste of time. And there-
fore, so far as I am concerned, the discussion must now terminate.

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

HEGEL'S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, AND KANT'S CRITiqUES
OF JUDGMENT AND PRACTICAL REASON.

Mr. Edwin D. Mead writes from Leipzig, under date of May 1,
1879, that he has nearly read}^ for the press the translation of the
third volume of Hegel's History of Philosophy, containing the entire
portion which treats of Modern Philosoph}^ Our readers have seen
a portion of his work in the translation of Hegel's treatment of
Jacob Boehme (published in our April and July numbers, 1879).
Notwithstanding the man}^ and valuable writings on the Histor}^ of
Philosopliy (Erdmann, Kuno Fischer, Ueberweg, Zeller, Scliwegler,
and others), the work of Hegel remains indispensable, by reason of
his profound insight into the general spirit of the philosophizing of
any given epoch, and his precise and accurate characterization of
the principles involved. No doubt there were mistakes in regard to
details, which later writers have been able to correct, in a measure,
but there is no one since Aristotle who has shown such wealth of
ideas, united with such power of discrimination, as to assign to each
thinker his best thoughts without robbing the later systems of their
dues, in explaining the earlier ones.

Mr. Mead, we are persuaded, will render a signal service to
philosophy by his translation.

Mr. Mead (under the same date) writes, further: —

"I am sure that it will be of interest to you to know that a fine German scholar
and an exact thinker is undertaking a translation of Kant's Kritik der Urtheilskraft.

JSfotes and Discussions. 135

He will proceed with the work slowly, and it will be a year or more before its
completion, — but when it is completed, it is sure to be most satisfying. I hope,
mvself, to translate the portions of the Kritik der Praktischen Vermmft, which
Mr. Abbott's book does not give, or to make an entirely new translation, — and
English readers will then have all the material necessary for an understanding of
Kant's system." — [Ed.

THE CONCORD SUMMER SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY.

The experiment of a School of Philosophy at Concord was so
successful, it seems, that another session will be held the coming
summer. We hope to find room in our next issue to present some
of the discussions that engaged the attention of the school last July.
We have received the following circular, announcing the second
session : — '

THE CONCORD SUMMER SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY AXD LITERATURE, 1879-80.

Early in the year 1879 a faculty of philosophy was organized informally at
Concord, Massachusetts, with members residing, some in that town, some in the
vicinity of Boston, and others at the West. In course of the spring, the dean
of this faculty, Mr. A. Bronson Alcott, and the secretary, Mr. F. B. Sanborn,
both of Concord, issued the following circular: —

"A summer school for instruction, by conference and conversation, in literature
and the higher philosophy Avill open at the Orchard House of Mr. Alcott, in
Concord, Massachusetts, on Tuesday, July 15, 1879, and continue for five weeks.
The classes will be conducted by five professors, who will each give ten lectures or
conversations, between the hours of 9 and 11 a. m., and 3 and 5 p. M. ; each day
of the week, except Sunday, being devoted to two sessions, and no more. Five
days in the week will be occupied by the regular professors, and the sixth by
special lecturers on related subjects.

The regular professors will be —

A. Bronson Alcott, of Concord, on Christian Theism.

William T. Harris, of St. Louis, on Speculatioe Philosophy.

H. K. Jones, of Jacksonville, Illinois, on Platonic Philosophy.

David A. Wasson, of Medford, on Political Philosophy.

Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, of Boston, on The Histoi-y a7id Moral of Art.

The special lecturers will be —

F. B. Sanborn, of Concord, on Philanthi-opy and Social Science.

T. W. Higginson, of Cambridge on Modern Literature.

Thomas Davidson, of Boston, on Greek Life and Literature.

George H. Howison, of Boston, on Philosophy from Leibnitz to Hegel; and
others.

The terms will be $3 for each of the courses of ten sessions; but each student
will be required to pay at least $10 for the term, which will permit him to attend
three of the regular courses and all the special lectures. The fees for all the
courses, regular and special, will be $15, or $3 a week. Board may be obtained
in the village at from $6 to $12 a week, —so that students may estimate their
necessary expenses for the whole term at $50. A few single tickets, at fifty cents
each, will be issued for the convenience of occasional visitors.

136 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosoj^hy.

All students should be registered on or before July 1, 1879, at the office of the
secretary, in Concord. No preliminary examinations are required, and no limita-
tion of age, sex, or residence in Concord will be prescribed ; but it is recommended
that persons under eighteen years should not present themselves as students, and
that those who take all the courses should reside in the town during the term.
The Concord Public Library, of 16,000 volumes, will be open ever}^ day for the
use of residents. Students coming and going daily during the term may reach
Concord from Boston by the Fitchburg Railroad, or the Middlesex Central ; from
Lowell, Andover, etc., by the Lowell and Framingham Railroad; from Southern
Middlesex and Worcester Counties, by the same road. The Orchard House stands
on the Lexington road, east of Concord village, adjoining the Wayside estate,
formerly the residence of Mr. Hawthorne."

At Mr. Howison's request, in the course of the summer, his name was dropped
from the list of special lecturers, and those of Mr. R. W. Emerson, Prof. Benja-
min Peirce, of Cambridge, and Rev. Dr. Bartol were added. As finally arranged,
the professors and lecturers gave their conversations and readings as follows: —

Mr. Alcott's classes (9 a. m.), July 15, 17, 22, 24, 29, 31 ; August 5, 7, 12, 16.i

Mrs. Cheney's classes (3 p. m.), July 15, 22, 29; August 6, 13.i

Mrs. Cheney's classes (9. a. m.), July 16, 23, 30; August 6, 14.

Prof Harris's classes (3 p. M.), July 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 28; August 4,i 5.

Dr. Jones's classes (9 a. m.), July 18, 21, 25, 28; August 1, 4, 8, 11, 13, 15.

Mr. Wasson's classes (3 p. M.), July 30, 31 ; August 1, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16.

Mr. Higginson's two lectures (9 a. m.), July 19, 26.

Prof. Peirce's two lectures (3 p. m.), July 19, 26.

Mr. Davidson's two lectures (9 a. m.), August 2, 9.'

Mr. Sanborn's two lectures (3 p. M.), August 9, 16.'

Mr. Emerson's lecture (3 p. m.), August 2 (at the Second Parish vestry).

Mr. H. G. 0. Blake's Reading from the Thoreau Manuscripts, August 6.'

Dr. Bartol's lecture (10 A. m.), August 16.

The classes met at the Orchard House, except for Mr. Emerson's lecture, Mr.
Blake's reading from Thoreau, and the four evening lectures (August 4, 9, 13, 16),
which were given in the Second Parish vestry, on Walden Street.

Mr. Alcott, dean of the faculty, opened the school on the morning of July 15
with an address of welcome, and closed it on the evening of August 16 with a
valedictory address.

At the other times above noted, the persons named gave lectures, readings, or
conversations on the following topics, occupying for each exercise a period of
above two hours, on the average : —

Lectures by Mr. A. Bronson Alcott: 1. Welcome, and plan of future conver-
sations. 2. The Powers of the Person in the Descending Scale. 3. The same in
the Ascending Scale. 4. Incarnation. 5. The Powers of Personality in Detail.
6. The Origin of Evil. 7. The Lapse into Evil. 8. The Return from the Lapse
(the Atonement). 9. Life Eternal. 10. Valedictory.

Lectures by Prof. W. T. Harris : 1. How Philosophical Knowing diflers from
all other Forms of Knowing ; the Five Intentions of the Mind. 2. The Discovery
of the First Principle and its Relation to the Universe. 3. Fate and Freedom.
4. The Conscious and Unconscious First Principle in Relation to Human Life.

1 At 7 : 30 P. M.

Notes and Discussions. 137

5. The Personality of God. 6. The Immortality of the Soul. 7. Physiological
Psychology. 8. The Method of Study of Speculative Philosophy. 9. Art,
Religion, and Philosophy in Relation to each other and to Man. 10. The
Dialectic.

Lectures by Mrs. E. D. Cheney : 1. The general subject of Art. 2. Greek Art.
3. Early Italian Art. 4. Italian Art. 5. Michael Angelo. 6. Spanish Art.
7. German Art. 8. Albert Dlirer. 9. French Art. 10. Contemporaneous Art.

Lectures by Dr. H. K. Jones: 1. General Content of the Platonic Philosophy.
2. The Apology of Socrates. 3. The Platonic Idea of Church and State. 4. The
Immortality of the Soul. 5. Reminiscence as Related to the Precxistence of the
Soul. 6. Precxistence. 7. The Human Body. 8. The Republic. 9. The Mate-
rial Body. 10. Education.

Lectures by Mr. D. A. Wasson: 1. Social Genesis and Texture. 2. The
Nation. 3. Individualism as a Political Principle. 4. Public Obligation. 5. Sov-
ereignty. 6. Absolutism Crowned and Uncrowned. 7. Representation. 8. Rights.
9. The Making of Freedom. 10. The Political Spirit of '76.

Lectures by Prof. Benjamin Peirce: 1. Ideality in Science. 2. Cosmogony.

By Mr. T. W. Higginson : 1. The Birth of American Literature. 2. Literature
in a Republic.

By Mr. Thomas Davidson: 1. The Historyof Athens as Revealed in its Topog-
raphy and Monuments. 2. The same, continued.

By Mr. Emerson . 1. Memory.

By Mr. Sanborn : 1. Social Science. 2. Philanthropy and Public Charities.

By Rev. Dr. C. A. Bartol : 1. Education.

By Mr. H. G. 0. Blake: 1. Selections from Thoreau's Manuscripts.

These subjects will give a general notion of the scope of the school in its first
year. The courses of lectures (with exception of Mrs. Cheney's, which were his-
torical and biographical) were distinctly philosophical, while the single lectures
and pairs were either literary or general in their character. The conversations
accompanying or following the lectures took a wide range, and were carried on
by the students, the faculty, and by invited guests, among whom may be specially
named Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody and Mrs. R. W. Emerson, of Concord ; Rev. Dr.
Kidney, of Faribault, Mitmesota; and Mr. R. G. Hazard, of Rhode Island. By the
courtesy of certain families in Concord, evening conversations and receptions
(eight in all), were given at the houses of Mr. Emerson, Mr. Edward Hoar, Miss
Ripley, Mr. Fay Barrett, Mr. Edwin S. Barrett, Mr. R. N. Rice, Mr. Alcott, and
Judge Hoar; thus testifying the hospitality of the town, and bringing the school
into social relations with its people.

The whole number of persons (students, invited guests, and visitors) who
attended one or more sessions of the school was nearly' four hundred, of whom
about one-fourth were residents of Concord. Others came from New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri,
Colorado, California, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota.
Twenty-eight course-tickets were issued, of which twenty-seven were used; about
twenty complimentary course-tickets, of which perhaps fifteen were used; and
about eleven hundred and fifty single tickets were issued and used. The average
attendance of students was about forty; of students and faculty, about forty-five;
but at Mr. Emerson's lecture one hundred and sixty were present, and at several
of the other sessions more than seventy. The receipts from fees and single
tickets paid all the expenses of the school, without leaving a surplus; thus

138 The Journal of Speculative Philosopliy .

showing that the scale of tuition and expense adopted was a reasonable one.
This will therefore be continued in the coming year, as set forth in the circular
above cited.

The Concord Summer School will open for a second term on Monday, July 12,
1880, at 9 A. M., and will continue five weeks. The lectures will be arranged
in courses of five, in pairs, and by single lectures; and in each week there will be
eleven. They will be given morning and evening, except Saturday evenings, on
the six secular daj's, and, so far as can now be foreseen, will be arranged as
follows : —

Mr. A. Bronson Alcott, dean of the faculty, lectures on Mysticism.. Mr.
Alcott will also deliver the salutatory and valedictory, and will have general
charge of the conversations of the school.

Dr. H. K. Jones lectures on The Platonic Philosophy and on Platonism in its
Relation to Modern Civilizatio?i.

Prof. W. T. Harris lectures on Speculatice Philosophy and on The History of
Philosophy.

Mr. D. A. Wasson lectures on The Philosophy of History.

Rev. J. S. Kidney, D.D., lectures on The Philosophy of the Beautiful and the
Sublime.

Mr. Denton J. Snider lectures on Shakespeare.

Mr. F. B. Sanborn lectures on The Philosophy of Charity.

The following ladies and gentlemen will deliver one or more lectures each
during the continuance of the school. The subjects, so far as already known,
are mentioned below : —

Mrs. E. D. Cheney, on Color and Americaji Art ; Miss Anna C. Brackett, on
The Philosophy of Teaching ; Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, on Modern Society ; Mr. R.
W. Emerson, Mr. H. G. O. Blake, Prof. B. Peirce, Rev. C. A. Bartol, D.D., Rev.
A. P. Peabody, D.D., Rev. F. H. Hedge, D.D., Mr. John Albee, Mr. S. H.
Emerj-, Jr., Mr. E. Mulford, and Mr. George H. Howison.

A. Bronson Alcott,
H. K. Jones,
W. T. Harris,
S. H. Emery, Jr., director.
F. B. Sanborn, secretary.
For the Faculty of the Concord School.

Concord, September 30, 1879.

LESSTNG'S CENTENNIAL BIRTHDAY.
We have received the following : —

QUESTIONS FOR A HISTORY OF LESSING'S "NATHAN," FOR HIS HUJODREDTH

BIRTHDAY, MAY', 1879.

We earnestly beg, in the interest of science, for a speedy answer, and that you
will not take for granted as already known any circumstance, however apparently
unimportant.

1. Is Lessing's "Nathan" known extensiveW in your country?

2. Has "Nathan," in the original text, been copied or pirated in your country?

3. Accurate bibliographies of all the known copies and piracies.

4. Has "Nathan" already often been translated?

5. Into which language has it been translated?

N'otes and Discussions. 139

6. Exact bibliographies of all the known translations of "Nathan."

7. Has "Nathan " often been given in the theatres?

8. Old and new play-bills, in the original or cop3^ The setting of the chief
characters. How has the poem been abridged or enlarged?

9. Other characteristics from the performance of "Nathan."

10. Has "Nathan" had influence upon any poet in your country? Has
"Nathan " been imitated by any poet known to you?

11. Exact bibliographies of "Nathan " which you know.

Date : Nmne :

This list of queries, in English, German, and French, with the original text of
the friendly giver of the information, will form, in this way, interesting documents
of the latest history of " Nathan ; " wherefore, we beg that you will not lay them
aside without consideration. Even the slightest curiosm about the Lessing litera-
ture will be thankfully received.

The remittance sous bande is sufficient. Address : —

To the editors of the 'polyglot '■'■Journal of Comparative Literature" in Koloz-
svdr, Hu?igary.

KoLOZSVAR, December 1, 1878.

140 Tlte Journal of Speculative PJdlosophy .

BOOK NOTICES.

La Psychologic Allemande Contemporaine (Ecole exp^rimentale). Par Th.
RiBOT. Paris : Germer Baillifere. 1879.

lu this work M. Ribot has undertaken a task for which he is peculiarly well
qualified, both by his sympathies and by his wonderful faculty of clear and concise
exposition. Even more than in his book on English Psychologj', he has thrown
himself into his subject, putting himself forward as the champion of a cause which
he believes to have right and justice on its side. Without attempting to add any-
thing to what has been done by others, the author has produced a book that is at
once opportune and of great practical utility. It is hardly to be regretted that he
has so thoroughly identified himself with the writers of whom he treats as to be
unconscious of their limitations ; for what, at present, is most wanted is a clear con-
ception of the method and results of the new experimental school of psychology,
and this can be best given by one whose intense sympathy precludes adverse criti-
cism. In due time, no doubt, we shall have a more critical estimate.

In a ratlier vivacious preface, not in the very best of taste, M. Ribot deals some
stout blows at the " metaphysical" psychologists, who are told, in very plain terms
indeed, that their method is essentially unsound and their results worthless. A
bold contrast is drawn between psychology as it was and psychology as it is des-
tined to be. The former is vitiated by its "metaphysical" basis — by which M.
Ribot means that it starts from the presupposition of the "Soul," as a substance
distinct from and independent of the body. The latter is free from all metaphysi-
cal conceptions, and substitutes for the false contrast of two independent things
the true notion of a "single phenomenon with a twofold aspect." The former
relies entirely upon introspection ; the latter depends upon experiment and exact
measurement, and hence its results, meagre although they as yet are, rest upon a
solid basis of fact, and are not liable to be blown away by every new wind of doc-
trine. So strongly is M. Ribot convinced of the stability of the new psychology
that he converts the want of originality in its representatives into an argument in
its favor. When a study has fairly entered upon its scientific stage, he contends,
it bears less and less the impress of a single mind or of a single nation, and be-
comes the common possession of all nations. Thus there seems to be a perfectly
clear line of demarcation between the old psychology and the new, which, to the
author's mind, are contrasted as the dead and the living. The opposition, however ,
is not quite consistently maintained. The claim of complete freedom from " meta-
physical " presuppositions, which, in the first instance, is put forward as the distinc-
tive mark of experimental psychology, is virtually retracted when it is somewhat
grudgingly admitted that it is, "perhaps, a necessity inherent in all psychology,
even experimental, to start from some metaphysical hypothesis." So, also, the
method of the new psychology is, after all, not that of external observation and
experiment, but of combined external and internal observation. And this vacilla-
tion is not merely verbal, but is really the index of a contradiction running through
the whole reasoning of the school to which M. Ribot belongs. It is a matter of
perpetual surprise to those who hold that psycliology, in so far as it is a theory of
human knowledge, necessarily presupposes metapliysic, and who yet reject the
fiction of a "thinking thing" existing in complete isolation, to find all empiricists

Book Notices. 141

assuming that a denial of the latter presupposition must of necessity carry with it
a denial of the former. It is a matter of still greater surprise that those who osten-
sibly banish the fiction of a separate "Soul " should reintroduce it again in admit-
ting that pure inner observation is a separate source of knowledge. The fact that
this is done indirectly proves that shutting one's eyes to the metaphysical implica-
tions of one's system only leads to the substitution of unreasoned for reasoned
metaphysic.

From what has been said, the general character of M. Ribot's work will be evi-
dent. "Under the form of history," as the author himself admits, "the aim is
dogmatic." The body of the work is occupied with a statement of the four topics
that have mainh" engrossed the attention of the experimental school of psychology
in Germany — the theory of local signs, the origin of the notion of extension, the
measurement of the quantity of sensation, and the determination of the duration
of psychical acts. The rest of the volume is occupied with an account of the
gradual way in which the latest results have been prepared for, and of the disputes
on minor points within the experimental school itself. The pioneer of the new
psychology was Herbart, who occupies a middle position between pure speculation
and experimental psychology. His merit is to have shown that psychical acts are
capable of quantitative measurement. The ethnographic school of psychologists,
represented by Waitz, Lazarus, and Steinthal, although they differ widely in their
method from Herbart, are yet able to claim him as master, on account of his view
that psychology must remain incomplete so long as it views man simply as an
isolated individual. These writers do not make experiments, and hence ~Sl. Ribot
gives only the faintest outline of their philosophical creed. Still more superficial
is the account of Beneke, who, in fact, is rather out of place in the pantheon of
Experimental Psychologists, his chief claim to rank being that he fought bravely
against cl 'priori theories at the moment of their triumph, and thus helped on the
downfall of the speculative psychologists. So far, M. Ribot has only been skir-
mishing. It is when he comes to treat of Lotze that he begins to warm up to his
work, for Lotze is the originator of the well-known "local sign" theory — with
which the readers of this Journal are tolerably ffimiliar, from the articles of ^Ir.
Cabot and Prof James — a theory accepted in a modified form by Helmholtz,
Wundt, and the experimentalists generally. M. Ribot does not attempt to give a
statement of Lotze's comprehensive system as a whole, but practically limits himself
to his theory of local signs. In the next chapter, however, dealing with the so-called
"nativistic " and "empiristic" theories of the origin of Space, the author is thor-
oughly at home, for the last taint of metaphysic, strongly marked even in Lotze,
disappears, and we get down to a purely experimental basis. From this point on-
ward, M. Ribot is at his best. The account of the two rival theories of extension —
the one regarding the idea of extension as connate to the organism, and the other look-
ing upon it as gradually acquired — is concise and lucid, and may be advantageously
compared with Mr. Sull3''s treatment of the same topic in Mind, No. X. ^ Another
chapter is devoted to a statement of the psycho-physical researches of Fechner, the
clearest I have seen, and to a summary of the main objections to Fechner's ps3'cho-
physical "law," based upon that writer's In Sacheti der Psychophysik. Following
Delbceuf, M. Ribot decides that the law is not psychological, but physical. Why,
then, one naturally asks, should it be included in Psychology at all? M. Ribot
gives three reasons : that the facts on which it is based are of exceptional interest
to the psychologist ; that it is a new proof of the relativity of knowledge ; and
that it shows, in regard to quantity, what had been already established in regard
to quality, viz., that there is no equality or equivalence between qualities in the

142 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

object and states of consciousness in the subject. But it is no valid reason for in-
cluding in a science facts that belong properly to another science, that the former
uses them as data ; nor can the other arguments be regarded as more than an ex-
pression of the false dualism which sets subject and object opposite to each other,
as complete, apart from anj- inner relation to each other. A long chapter is occu-
pied with a statement of the topics treated of by Wundt in his Grundzuge der
Physiologisehen Psychologic, sufficiently full to give an idea of the varied contents
of that important work, but not full enough to absolve the student of psychology
from the trouble of reading the original. Next follows an account of experiments
on the duration of psychical acts, and a concluding chapter is devoted mainly to
Horwicz and Brentano.

No better introduction to experimental psychology could be put into the hands
of the student than M. Ribot's boolv, and the authors whose views he epitomizes
may congratulate themselves on having secured a disciple so enthusiastic, and with

so great a gift of popular statement.

JoHx Watson.

La vScience Politique. Revue Ixterxation'ale. Paraissant, le ler de Chaque
Mois. dirig^e par le Professeur Emile Acollas, Ancien Professeur de Droit Civil
Fran^ais a I'Universite de Berne; Membre de la Societe d'Economie Politique;
de la Societe d' Anthropologic et de la Societe de Linguistique. (Sur notre
drapeau est ecrit: "Emancipation par la Science; Justice et Libert^ pour
tous.") Paris: Librairie A. Ghio, Palais Royal, Galerie d'Orl^ans, 1, 3, 5 et 7.
Premiere Ann^e. No. 6, Decembre, 1878, a No. 12, June. 1879.

The following partial list of articles in the six numbers of this magazine will
convey an idea of the scope of its discussions : —

No. 6 — By Emile Acollas, on the Principal Theories in the Science of Politics
(Aristotle); b}' Dr. Louis Buechner, on the Physiological Nature and Social Des-
tiny of Woman ; by Jules Soury, on the History of Civilization ; by Leon Cahun,
on the Directing Classes; by C. Issaurat, on Priraai'v Education at the Exposition.

No. 7 — By Emile Acollas, on the False Principle of the Separation of Powers;
by Py y Margall, on the Federation ; by J. Sour}^ on the History of Civilization
and the Theory of Evolution ; by A. S. Morin, on the Historians of Jesus.

No. 8 — By Emile Acollas, on Marriage; by Maria Deraismes, on the Philos-
ophy of History.

No. 10 — By Professor Charles Schoebel, an Litroduction to a Philosophical
Catechism; by Dr. Paul Topinard, on The Human Brain: Its Evolution Through
the Ages; by Mme. B. Gendre, on M. Taine and the Education of Woman.

No. 11 — By Gabriel de Mortillet, on The Origins of Man; by A. S. Morin, on
The Latin Races.

No. 12 — By Viollet-le-Duc, on Art in Paris; by J. Baissac, on The Age of God
{i.e.. the age in which a belief in God prevails).

Verhandlungex der Philosophischex Gksellschaft zu Berlin. Leipsig.
By Erich Koschny.

The sixth number of these proceedings (1877) of the Philosophical Society of
Berlin is devoted to a lecture, by Dr. Gustav Engel, "On Empirical, Practical,
and Philosophical Knowledge," and an essay, by Dr. Adolf Lasson, on Prof.
Harms's recent work, "Philosophy since the Time of Kant."

The seventh and eighth numbers (for 1878) give an essay, by Dr. v. Heyde-
breck, on the "Limits of Painting and Sculpture," and a lecture, b}' Dr. Frederichs,

Boohs Received. 143

"On the Conception of Keligion, and on the Main Stages of Religious Develop-
ment."

The ninth number (also for 1878) is devoted entireh' to Dr. v. Kirchmann's
essay " On Probability."

The tenth and eleventh numbers (1878) are devoted to Prof. Dr. Michelet's
"History of the Philosophical Societ}^ at Berlin" (on the basis of a lecture deliv-
ered by him before the society, at its session of the 26th of January, 1878.)

The twelfth number (1879) contains a lecture of Privatdocent Dr. J. H. Witte
(of the University of Bonn), on immediate perception {Anschaulichkeit) in the
sensory, and the same in the thinking activity. It was delivered before the Philo-
sophical Society, March 30, 1878. Anschauen — according to Jacob Grimm,
=asjDicere, contemplaTi, irdueri — in English means to contemplate, to consider,
to look upon, to behold, always with a sense of the immediate presence or objec-
tivity of what is "intuited." [There is no word in German Philosophy which
occasions more difficulty to translators.]

The thirteenth and fourteenth numbers (1879) are occupied with Dr. J. H. von
Kirchmann's review of E. von Hartmann's Phenomenology of the Ethical Con-
sciousness — Prolegomena to every future ethical system — delivered as a lecture,
November 30, 1878, before the Philosophical Society ; and with the discussion that
followed the reading of the paper.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

A YoYAGE WITH Death, AND Other Poems. Bv Adair Welcker. Oakland,
Cal. : Strickland ct Co. 1879.

Addenda to Bibliography of Hyper-Space and Non-Euclidean Geometry.
Bv George Bruce Halstead. From the American Journal of Mathematics, Vol.
l.\ 1878, and Vol. II., 1879.

Notes on the First English Euclid. By same author, and from the same
periodical.

Geometry, Old and New; its Problems and Principles. A paper by B. Gratz
Brown. St. Louis : 1879.

The Divine Authority of the Bible. A sermon preaclied before the Synod
of Perth and Stirling, at Perth, October 15, 1878, by the Rev. George Mure
Smith. Stirling, Scotland.

La Philosophie Pour Tous. Organe Prouhdonien Revue Philosophique, Lit-
teraire et Scientifique. Directeur : Decandin Labessee. Annees 1876 et 1877.
Paris, 9 Rue Taranne. 1878.

Our Labor Difficulties. The cause and the way out; including the paper on
the displacement of labor by improvements in machinerv, bv W. Godwin
Moody. Boston : A. Williams & Co. 1878.

In the Matter of Certain Badly-Treated Mollusks. By Robert E. C.
Stearns. Read before the California Academy of Sciences, April 21, 1879.

Symptoms of Decline in Races. The Chancellor's Prize Essay, read in the
Theatre, Oxford, June 27, 1878, bv George Spencer Bower, B.A. Oxford:

1878.

144 The Journal of Speculative Philosopliy .

Prolegomeni alla Moderna Psicogenia. Memoria di Pietro Siciliani, Profes-
sore di Filosofia Teoretica e Incaricato dell' Inseg-iiameiito d'Antropologia e
Pedagogia nella K. Universita di Bologna. Estratto dalla Serie III. Tomo IX.
delle Memorie dell' Accademia delle Scienze dell Istituto di Bologna. Un bel
volume di pagine 112 carta di registro in quarto grande, prezzoL. ital. 4. (This
■work is announced by Nicola Zauichelli, Editore" Bologna: 1878.)

Principles of Natural Jurisprtjden-oe. By "William 0. Bateman, Esq. St.
Louis. G. I. Jones & Co. : 1878.

The Kneeling Nun. Suggested by the painting "Awakened Thoughts," by
H. C. Ives, Washington Universitv. By Lvman Whitnev Allen. Reprinted
from "The Western," May-June. "^ 1878.

Addresses Delivered on Installation of Rev. C. C. Stratton, as Presi-
dent OF The University of the Pacific, June 5, 1878. Containing also
the Baccalaureate sermon bv Prof. A. J. Nelson. San Francisco: .Joseph
Winterburn & Co. 1878.

En Sj.el efter Dceden. J. L. Heibergs Dram af samma namn granskad af

F. I. V. Oosterzee. Theol. Dir. 2 och Prof. R. N. O. . Oefversaettning

fran HoUaendskan af C. L. H. Forslind. Koeping, 1871 : J. F. Saefberg.

Principles that Should Govern in the Framing of Tax-Laws. A paper
read before the American Social Science Association at Cincinnati, April 22,
1878. By Thomas M. Cooley, LL.D. St. Louis : G. L Jones & Co. 1878.

Economic Tree-Planting. By B. G. Northrop, LL.D. New York : The Orange
Judd Company. 1878.

The Liability of Railway Companies for Remote Fires. Proximate and
Remote cause. Second edition, with introductory letter by Rowland G. Hazard.
By Francis Wharton, LL.D. St. Louis : G. I. Jones & Co. 1878.

Haeckel's Genesis of Man, or History of the Development of the
Human Race. Being a review of his "Anthropogenic," and embracing a sum-
mary exposition of his views, and of those of the advanced German school of
science. By Lester F. Ward, A.M. Philadelphia : Edward Stern & Co. (Con-
taining three papers reprinted from the Penn Monthly, and embod\dng an expo-
sition whose substantial correctness is acknowledged by Prof. Haecket himself.)

The Salt-Eating Habit; its Effect on the Animal Organism in Health and
Disease. A contribution toward the study of the rational good of man. By
Richard T. Colburn. New York: Austin, Jackson »& Co. 1878.

Buddhism and Christianity* Face to Face ; or an oral discussion between the
Rev. Migettuwatte, a Buddhist priest, and Rev. D. Silva, an English clergyman,
held at Pantura, Ceylon, with an introduction and annotations by J. M. Peebles,
M.D. London : James Burns. 1878.

The Conflict between Darwinism and Spiritualism; or Do all Tribes and
Races Constitute one Human Species? Did Man Originate from Ascidians,
Apes, and Gorillas? Are Animals Immortal? By J. M. Peebles. Boston:
Colby & Rich. 1876.

Circular of Information, and Annual Report op the Board of Visitors
AND Superintendent of the Kentucky' Military Institute. For the year
ending Jime (J, 1878. Col. Robert D. Allen, Supei'intendent. Frankfort, Ky. :
1878. (Containing — pp. l<i-30 — " Extracts from Lectures, explanatory of the
modes of government and instruction of boys, by Robert D. Allen," — lectures
containing ethical insights of remarkable excellence.)

Philosophie-Geschichtliches Lexicon. Historisch-biographisches Handwoer-
terbuch zur Geschichte der Philosophic. Bearbeitet von Ludwig Noack, ordeiit-
lichem Honorarprofessor und erstem Bibliothekar an der Ludwigsuniversitaet
zu Giessen. Erste Lieferung. Leipzig : Erich Koschny. 1877. (Preis 1 ^lark,

50 Pf. Each "Lieferung" contains 80 pages, double column, long primer.)

THE JOURNAL

OF

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.

Vol. XIV.] April, 1880. [No. 2.

ON NATURAL SCIENCE IN GENERAL.

[translation of the eleventh lecture of F. W. J. VON SCHELLING "ON THE
METHOD OF UNIVERSITY STUDY." BY ELLA S. MORGAN.]

When we speak of absolute Nature, we understand by it the
Universe, uncontrasted with aught else, and then distinguish
within it the two sides : one in which ideas are manifested in the
real, the other in which they are manifested in the ideal way.
Both are the result of one and the same creative energy, and
in accordance with the same laws, and consequently in the
Universe itself there is no duality, but, on the contrary, the
most perfect unity.

To comprehend Nature as the universal birth of ideas, we
must return to the origin and significance of ideas them-
selves.

The origin lies in the eternal law of absoluteness, viz., that
it is to be its own object ; for by virtue of this law the creative
energy is the reflection of the entire universality and essence,
through particular forms, which for this reason, while they are
particulars, are at the same time universals — what the philos-
ophers have called monads, or ideas.

In philosophy is shown more completely that Ideas are the
only means through which particular things can be in God,
and according to this law there are as many universals as
XIV — 10

14(5 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy .

there are particular things, and yet, by reason of the identity
of their essence, there is in all but one universe. Although
in God ideas are purely and absolutely ideal, still they are not
dead, but living, the first products of divine self-contemplation,
which therefore partnke of all the qualities of His being, and,
notwithstanding their particular form, participate in the undi-
vided and absolute reality.

By virtue of this participation the}^ are, like God, creative,
and work according to the same laws and in the same way, ac-
tualizing their essence in particulars, and making it manifest in
particular individual things ; being in their own nature not of
time, but becoming, from the stand-point of the particular, both
in and of time. Ideas are the souls of things, as things are the
bodies of ideas ; in this relationship the former are necessarily
infinite, the latter finite. But the infinite and the finite can
never become one, except through internal and essential iden-
tity. If therefore the finite, in itself and as finite, does not
comprehend and express the whole infinite, seen from the
objective side, then the idea cannot enter into it as soul, and
the essence is not manifested in and for itself, but through
something else, namely, through finite being. But on the con-
trary, when the finite, as such, reflects the whole infinite as the
most perfect organism, which is already in itself the entire idea,
then the essence of the thing is also numifest as soul — as
idea — and the reality is again resolved into ideality. Reason
is this complete identity, and is therefore the centre of the
Universe, and consequently of the objective actualization of
ideas.

As therefore the absolute, in the eternal act of knowing itself,
becomes objective in ideas, so the latter act eternally in nature,
which, regarded sensuously, or from the stand-point of partic-
ular things, gives birth to them in time ; and, having received
the divine seed of ideas, becomes fruitful without cessation.

We are now at the point where we can make clear the two
methods of knowing and conceiving nature in their antith-
esis. The one, which considers Nature as the instrument of
ideas, or, to speak generally, as the real side of the absolute,
and hence itself absolute ; the other, which conceives Nature

On Xataral Scienco in General. 147

itself, apart from the ideal, and considers it in its relativity.
In a general way, we may call the former the philosophical, the
latter the empirical method, and the question of their relative
value we shall settle by an investigation as to whether the
empirical method can ever in any sense lead to a science of
nature.

It is evident that the empirical view does not rise above'
matter as matter, and considers it as somethins: in and for
itself, while the philosophical view comprehends it only as an
ideal transformed into the real (by the act of subject becom-
ing object). Ideas are symbolized in things, and since they
are forms of absolute knowing, they manifest themselves in
these as forms of finite existence — as plastic art slays its ideas
in order to give them objectivity. Empiricism looks at existence
independent of its significance, it being the nature of a symbol
to have a life of its own. In this separation it can appear
only as a pure finite, with entire negation of the infinite.

If this theory had only developed itself in later physics to
universality, and if the idea of spirit were not absolutel}'
opposed to that notion of matter from pure materiality, which
prevents its being an independent whole, and from attaining
that completion which it had in the system of the old Atom-
ists, especially in Epicurus. This system (atomism), in the
annihilation of nature itself, freed the soul from longing and
fear, instead of, like the former, taking np all the ideas of
dogmatism and preserving the duality out of which it arose.

This svstem of thono-ht, which owes its orijjin to Cartesius,
completely changed the relation of mind and science to nature.
Without higher conceptions of matter and nature than those
of the atomic theory, yet lacking the courage to develop
them into a comprehensive whole, it considers nature in gen-
eral as a sealed book, a secret, which by accident or good iuck
can be only partially disclosed, never comprehended as a whole.
If it is essential to the conception of science that it is not
atomistic, but is created from and by one spirit, and that the
idea of the whole precedes that of the parts, not vice versa,
then it is clear that a true science of nature is impossible
and unattainable on this theory.

148 The Journal of Speculative Philosoplnj.

The purely finite conception, from its very nature, dispenses
with any organic theory, and puts in its place the simple
mechanical series, and in the place of genetic deduction mere
explanation of facts. From observed etfects causes are in-
ferred ; but that these, and only these are the causes, would not
necessarily make the efiects more comprehensible, even if the
method of conclusion be granted, and if there were not phe-
nomena which follow immediately from an absolute principle.
For it does not follow that they might not result from some
other causes. Only when the causes are known in and for
themselves, and the effects are deduced from them, could a
necessary connection of cause and effect be established and
made evident. We will say nothing of the arrangement by
which facts must necessarily follow from causes which have
been inferred with reference to deducing certain fiicts from
them.

The internality of all things, and that out of which arise all
living phenomena of things, is the unity of the real and the
ideal, which is in itself absolute repose, and is determined
to action only by differentiation from without. Since the
ground of all activity in nature is one and the same, is omni-
present, conditioned by no other, and is absolute in respect to
each thing, then the different activities can be distinguished only
according to form ; but none of these forms can be derived
from another, because each in its kind is the same as the other.
The unity of nature consists in this : that all phenomena have
a common source, and not from the dependence of one phe-
nomenon on another.

Even the suspicion of empiricism, that every thing in nature
is dependent on a preestablished harmon}' of all things, and
no one thing changes or affects another except by mediation
of the universal substance — even this was understood mechan-
ically, and transformed into the absurdity of a cause operating
at a distance, in the sense in which Newton and his successors
understood this expression.

As matter had no life-principle in itself, and they wished to
avoid explaining the higher phenomena — such as voluntary
motion, etc. — as the effect of spirit on matter, they assumed

On JSfaturcd Science in General. 149

something other than matter, which, while resembling matter,
should b}^ negation of its higher qualities — for instance,
weight, and others — approach the negative conception of spirit
as immaterial substance : as if the antithesis could thus be
avoided, or even lessened. Even conceding the possibility of
the idea of imponderable, incoercible matter, every thing in
matter, according to this explanation, would still be determined
by something external to it : death Avould be first, and life the
derivative from it.

But even if, on the side of mechanism, every phenomenon
could be completely comprehended in this explanation, the
case would still be the same as an explanation of Homer, or
any other great author, beginning with the forms of the alpha-
bet, showing how they are combined and printed, and then
finally how such a work was the result of these processes.
This is more or less the method, and particularly in what has
been called the theory of mathematical constructing in nature.
We have already remarked that the mathematical forms "which
are used have a purely mechanical application. They are not
the essential grounds of the phenomena themselves ; on the
contrary, they are entirely foreign and empirical : like suppos-
ing that the motions of the celestial bodies are the result of
an impulse wdiich they received from without. It is true that
applied mathematics taught us how to foretell with exacti-
tude the distances of planets, the time of their revolutions;
but it gives not the least clew as to the reason or first cause of
these motions. The so-called mathematical explanation of
nature is therefore a mere formalism, which contains nothiuii;
of a true science of nature.

The opposition generally assumed between theory and
experience has no true ground, for the reason that in the yqvj
idea of theor}^ there is presupposed a reference to particular
existence, and hence to experience. Absolute science is not
theory, and the notion of the latter belongs to the undefined
region between the particular and the general which charac-
terizes ordinary knowledge. Theory is to be distinguished
from experience only in this : that it expresses the latter more
abstractly, apart from accidental conditions, and in its orig-

150 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

inal form. To emphasize this, to represent clearly in every
phenomenon the action ofnatnre, is the business ot" experiment ;
hence both are equal in importance, ^^^e cannot see how
experimental investigation of nature can be superior to theory,
since the former is deduced entirely from theory, without whose
inspiration the interrogations of nature could not be sug-
gested, since the clearness of the answers obtained depends
upon the reasonableness of the theorj^ which prompted them.
Both have this in common : that the point from which they
begin is always some certain object, not a universal and
absolute knowing. Both, if they remain true to their idea, are
to be distinguished from false theorizing, whose object is to
give an explanation of natural phenomena l^}- inventing the
causes; for both are limited to the mere statement or presen-
tation of the phenomena themselves, and in this resemble a
priori deduction, which, on the other hand, does not concern
itself about explanation. If the effort in each were a conscious
one, neither could admit any other aim than to penetrate from
the periphery to the centre, as a priori deduction proceeds
from the centre to the periphery. But in both directions it is
an endless journey, and the possession of the centre being the
tirst condition of science., it is necessarily unattainable in the
former.

Every science demands for its objective existence an exoteric
Hide ; so there must be such a side in the science of nature or
in philosophy, through which it may be a construction of
nature. This side can be found only in ex[)eriment and its
necessary correlative, theory (understood in the sense we have
already indicated). But this must not claim to be science itself,
or any thing other than the real side of science, in wjiich we
have extended in s})ace and separated in time that which in the
ideal is one and simultaneous. Oidy when empiricism en-
deavors to become in its way what science is in its — namely,
empirical construction — only then will it be the body of
science, and thus a part of it. It will then be taught and
studied in the spirit of the whole, when, without explanation or
hypothesis, it becomes a pure objective presentation of the
phenomenon itself, and attempts to express no idea except by

On N^atural Science in General. 151

means of this. But not when inadequate empiricism looks
out into the universe through its eccentric views, and ap})lies
them to the objects it meets ; or when an empirical beginning
of this sort rises superior to truths already proved and accepted ;
or forms them into a system, with separate, isolated experi-
ences taken from a chain of facts of which it cannot see the
whole ; or taken from a multitude of contradictory, confusing
conditions — an endeavor to oppose science which, to use a
common comparison, is like trying to stop the inroads of the
ocean with straw.

The absolute science of nature grounded in ideas is, there-
fore, the first and the only condition on Avhich an empirical
theory of nature can substitute a systematic procedure, directed
toward a certain end, for a blind and aimless wandering. For
the history of science shows that a construction of phenomena
b}^ means of experiment, such as we claim has never been
accomplished, except in isolated cases, as the result of instinct ;
and there, in order to make this method of investioatino- nature
generally accepted as valid, the primeval type of all construc-
tion in an absolute science is necessary.

I have developed the idea of such a science in your presence
too often to make it necessarv to oive more than a ijeneral
presentation now.

Science of nature, from its verv idea, consists in risino- above
isolated phenomena and products to their idea, in which they
are one, and from which they proceed as from ;i common
source. Empiricism also has an obscure conception of nature
as a whole, in which one is determined by all, and all by one.
There is thus no use in knowing the one if the all is not known.
But the point at which unity and multiplicity are identical is
recognized only by philosophy, or rather, the knowledge of it
is philosophy itself.

The first and necessary purpose is to comprehend the birth
of all things from God, or the absolute, and' as far as nature is
the real side of the eternal act of subject become object, so far
is the philosophy of nature the first and necessary side of
philosophy itself.

The principle and element of it is absolute ideality, but this

152 T'he Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

would be forever unknowable, wrapped in ifself, if, as sub-
jectivity, it did not transform itself into objectivit}'^ — finite,
phenomenal nature being the symbol of this transformation.
Philosophy, as a whole, is therefore absolute idealism, since that
act (subject become object) is included in the divine knowing,
and the philosophy of nature offers no antithesis in the first,
only in the relative ideality, which is but one side of the abso-
lute ideal. For the complete reflection of its essentiality into
particularity, to the identity of both, produces in God the
ideas ; so that the unity of that through which they are in
themselves, and real, with that through which they are in
the absolute, and ideal, is one and the same. But in par-
ticular things, which are the mere copies of ideas, these unities
do not appear as one ; in nature, as the merely relative-real
side, the first preponderates, so that it appears in contrast
with the other where the unveiled, undisguised ideal shines
forth as the negative, while the former, on the contrary,
is its positive, and manifests itself as its principle — both
being but the relative modes of manifestation of the one abso-
lute ideal, in Avhich thev are united as one. Accordino; to this
view, nature is one, not only in its essence, where it is the
whole absolute act of subject become object, but also on its
phenomenal side, where it manifests itself as the relative-real,
or objective side of that act. Nature in its very essence is
one ; there is no inner antithesis in her ; there is one life in all
things, and one power to be, the same regulative principle
through ideas. There is no pure materiality in nature, but
there is everywhere soul symbolically represented in body, with
a preponderance of one or the other in phenomena. For the
same reason there can be but one science of nature, and the
parts into which it is divided by the understanding are but
branches of the same absolute knowins^.

A priori deduction (construction) is representation of the
real in the ideal, of the particular in the pure general in the
idea. Every particular, as such, is form ; but the necessary
eternal, and absolute form of all forms is the source and origin.
The act of making the subject objective {^'- suhject-ohjectiva-
tion''''^ goes through all things and generates special forms,

0)1 Natural Science in General. 153

which, being different modes of appearance of the universal
and unconditioned, are themselves unconditioned.

Since, further, the inner type of all things, by reason of their
common source, must be one, and this can be necessarily under-
stood, so the same necessity inheres in the construction which
is founded on this one. Consequently, it does not need the
confirmation of experience ; it is sufficient in itself, and may be
used where practical experience is hindered by insurmountable
obstacles — for instance, in the hidden mechanism of organic life
and of universal motion. Not for deeds alone does necessity
exist ; for knowledge also there is an unconditioned necessity,
namely, the inner essence of the universe and of nature. And
if the sio;ht of a brave man in conflict with his surroundings is
a spectacle on which even the gods look with joy, the struggle
of the spirit for a conception of primeval nature and the
eternal inner essence of its phenomena is no less sublime
a sight. As in tragedy the conflict only really ceases when
neither fate nor freedom is conquered, hut when both are
lifted to equality with each other, so the spirit comes from the
battle at peace with nature when it is transfigured into the
most perfect indifference with itself (^^ e., to self-equality,
devoid of tension or contrast) and to the ideal.

In the struggle which rises from unsatisfied longing after
knowledge of things, the poet has embodied his discoveries in the
poem which is the peculiar possession of the German people, and
thus opened an eternal spring of inspiration which alone is
enough to rejuvenate the world of science, and give it a halo
of new life. Let him who wishes to penetrate to the sanctuary
of nature nourish his soul with these tones of a higher world,
and in his early youth breathe in the strength which radiates
from this poem like beams of light, and moves the innermost
world. •

154 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

ANTHKOPOLOGY.

[translated from the GERMAN OF IMMAlfUEL KANT. BY A. E. KROEGER.]

PART I.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL DIDACTIC,

Concei'ning the manner in whicJi to recognize the Internal as
well as the External of Man.

BOOK I. CONCERNING THE FACULTY OF COGNITION.

§ 32. — Concerning the Faculty of the Power of Imagination
to represent the Past and make present the Future.

The faculty consciously to represent the past is called the
Power of MemoiT, and the faculty to represent something to
one's self as occurrino: in the future is called the Power of
Prevision. So far as they are sensuous, both of these facul-
ties are founded on the association of the past and future
conditions of the subject with its present condition ; and
although they are not themselves perceptions, they serve to
connect perceptions in time, to connect that which no longer is
with that which is present, and in a connected experience.
They are called faculties of remembrance and of divination, of
respiciency and prospiciency — if I may use these expres-
sions — ■ by means of which we become conscious of represen-
tations that we might find in a past or in a future condition.

A. Concerniny Memory.^

Memory is distinguished from the purely reproductive power
of imagination in this : that it is able to reproduce, at its will, a
previous representation, and that hence in it the mind is not

^ I beg leave to refer, in this connection, to Fichte's exposition of the faculties
of memory and remembrance — their distinctive character^- in his Science of
Knowledare. — Translator.

Anthropology. 155

a mere play of that representation. Phantasy — that is, crea-
tive power of imagination — must not mingle with it, for that
would make memory imtrue. To take hold in memory of
something quickly, readily to recall it, and to retain it for a
long time — these are formal perfections of memory. But
these qualities are rarely met together. When a person be-
lieves that he has something in his memory, but cannot recall
it to consciousness, he says that he cannot call it to mind.
The endeavor to do so, if nevertheless attempted, is a very
great exertion of the brain ; and the best method is to let
other thoughts busy one's self for a while, looking only casu-
ally back upon the ol)ject, in which case one will generally
seize hold of one of the associate representations that recalls
the primitive one.

To take hold of something in memorj'' methodically i^mem-
orim mandare) is called to memorize (not to study, as the
vulgar are a])t to say of the preacher, who merely learns his
sermon by heart). This memorizing may be mechanical, or
ingenious, ov judicious. The first is based merely on repeated
literal repetition ; for instance, in the learning of the multi-
plication-table, in Avhich instance the student often has to go
throuoh the whole series of the words that follow each other in
their usual succession in order to arrive at the ti<>ure souo-ht for.
Thus, Avhen the pupil is asked. How much is 3 times 7? he
will begin at 3 times 3, and arriving at 3 times 7, will also
probably catch the 21 : but when you ask him. How much is
7 times 3? he will not be so quick in arriving at the solution,
but will have to reverse the numbers in order to get the an-
swer. If it is a solemn formula which has to be learned, in
which no expression! must be changed, but which has to be
learned b}^ heart, as it is called, it happens that men, even of
the best kind of memory, are afraid to trust themselves (which
very fear is likely to lead them astray), and therefore con-
sider it necessary to read it oft" aloud. Indeed, the most'
practical preachers are apt to do so, since the least change of
words might make them appear ridiculous.

Ingenious memorizing consists in a method of impressing

156 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

upon memory certain representations, through association with
their co-representations that have in themselves (for the
unclerstandino;) no rehition at all to each other — as, for
instance, the sounds of a voice with images utterly dissimilar.
In this case people are apt, in order to get hold of something
in memory, to burden that memory with still further co-repre-
sentations, and thus to act absurdly : an unruly attempt on the
part of the power of imagination to pair together what cannot be
brought under one and the same conception, which is at the
same time a contradiction between means and purpose ; since
the intention is to ease the burden of memory, whereas it is,
on the contrary, made heavier by the unnecessarily accumu-
lated association of very dissimilar representations.

A remark which explains this phenomenon is this, that wits
have seldom a true memory {ingeniosis non admodum Jida est
memoria) . Judicious memorizing is nothing else than that of
a table of the mental divisions of a system (for instance, Lin-
naeus's svstem). In this case, if we have forsfotten something,
we can easil}^ recall it to mind by counting up what we have
remembered. Or it is the memorizing of a table of the visi-
ble divisions of a whole — as, for instance, the provinces of a
countr}^ on a map, etc. — since that also requires understand-
ing, which comes to the aid of imagination. A great assistance
to memory is to be had by constructing a commonplace book for
general conceptions by means of classification ; as for instance,
when we arrange our books on different shelves with dilFerent
headings. There is no such a thing as an art of memory
(ars memorire). Amongst the various tricks belonging to it,
we may mention rhymed proverbs (^veisus memoriales) , since
the rhvthm has a regular fall of svllables which irreatly assist the
mechanism of memory. One must not speak contemptuously
of the prodigies of memory — a Picus of Mirandoia, Scaliger,
Angelus Politianus, Magliabecchi, etc., the polyhistorians, who
carry in their heads a load of books sufficient for a hundred
camels, as materials for their different sciences — because, per-
haps, they did not possess a judgment proper for the selection of
all this knowledge for an appropriate use. It is merit enough.

Anthropology. 157

to have brought together so much raw material, eveu if it needs
other minds to work it up judiciously (^tantum scimus quantum
memoria tenemus). One of the ancients has said "the art
of writing has ruined memory," by making it partly super-
fluous. There is something true in this proposition ; for an
ordinary man generally has the manifold which he has encoun-
tered better arranged on his mental thread, and can there-
fore recall it easier, because his memory is here mechanical,
and admits no reasoning to intermingle, whilst the scholar,
whose mind is occupied with many foreign thoughts, forgets
many of his agreements, or homely occupations, through mere
mental dissipation, because he did not take hold of them
with suflicient attention. But to have your tal^lets safely
in your pocket, to be quite sure that you can find surely and
without difiiculty what you have just put into your mind, is, at
any rate, a very great comfort ; and the art of writing is, after
all, a very glorious art, which, although it is not used for the
purpose of communicating knowledge to others, can yet repre-
sent the truest and most extensive memory, the lack of which it
can replace.

Forgetfulness (obliviositas) , on the contrary — in which case
the mind, however often filled, remains nevertheless always
empty, just like a sieve — is proportionately a greater evil.
This evil is sometimes brought about without any fault of
our own, as in the case of old men, who may well be able to
remember the events of their early life, but always forget thi^t
which is nearest to their remembrance. Nevertheless this is
often the effect of an habitual mental dissipation, which is apt
to afiect specially lady novel -readers. For since the only
object of that kind of reading is to be entertained for the
moment, every one knowing that it is mere fiction, and the
reader having therefore full liberty to follow the bend of his or
her own imagination while reading, which naturally dissipates
the mind and makes absence of mind (lack of attention to the
present) habitual — memory must inevitably be weakened.
This exercise in the art of fcillino- time and makino; one's self
useless for the world, and yet complaining afterwards of the

158 77^6 Journal of Speculative P7iiloso2)1iy .

shortness of life, is one of the most dangerous enemies to
memory, apart from the phantastic mental condition which it
produces.

B. Concerning the Faculty of Prevision {Prcevisio).

§ 33. It is of more interest to possess this faculty than any
other, since it is the condition which determines all i)()ssible
practical acting, and all the objects to which man relates the
use of his powers. All our desires turn upon a (dubious or
certain) prevision of what our powers are able to accomplish.
We look back into the past (remember) only with a view to
make possible thereby our looking into the future ; looking
around as we do from our standpoint of the present, in a gen-
eral way, in order to resolve upon or prepare ourselves for
something.

Empirical prevision is the expectation of similar occurrences
(expectatio casuum similium), and requires no intellectual
knowledge of causes and effects, but merely a memory of
observed occurrences as they usually follow each other, and
repeated experience in these matters produces an aptness in
this memorizing. It is a matter of great interest to the sea-
man and the farmer how the wind and weather ma}^ turn. But
our prevision in this respect does not reach much further than
the common almanac, the prophecies whereof we praise when
tjiey are fulfilled and forget when they do not come to pass, and
which thus always retain some consideration anyway. One
might almost believe that Providence had purposely arranged
the change of weather in so inscrutable a manner, in order
that man might not find it too easy to make the proper arrange-
ments for every occasion in his life, but be compelled to use
his reason in order to be prepared for every occurrence. To
live thoughtlessly from day to day does not confer much honor
upon man's understanding, it is true ; as in the case of the
Carribee-Island Indian, who sells his hammock at mornings,
and is astonished in the evening to find that he does not know
how to sleep through the night. But, provided that it involves

AntJiropology. 159

no offence against morality, we may well consider a person who
is hardened against all the events of life happier than one who
kills all delight in life by constantly entertaining gloomy views.
Of all prospects which a man may look for, the most com-
fortable one is probably a moral condition which gives him
reason to believe in its permanence and a further advance
towards improvement. But if, although courageously resolv-
ing to lead hereafter a new and better mode of life, he is forced
to say to himself: I suppose it will not amount to any thing,
after all ! because he has so often made the same sort of a
promise to himself, but always broken it, under the plea of an
exception, for that one excepted time — then he is certainly in
a disconsolate condition, arising from the constant expectation
of the same results.

But where the future depends upon the fate that hangs over
us, and not on the use of our own free will, this looking ahead
is either a presentiment (prcesensio) or preexpectation (prce-
sagitio). The former suggests, as it were, an occult sense for
the perception of what has not yet become present ; the latter,
a consciousness of the future, derived from reflection on the
law of causality in the sequence of events.

One sees clearly that all presentiments are brain-specters ;
for how can we feel that which as yet is not? But if they are
judgments based upon dim conceptions of such a causal rela-
tion, then they are not presentiments, since we can discover the
conceptions which lead to them, and explain the grounds of
those judgments.

Presentiments are generally of the painful kind ; a feeling
of dread, which arises from physical causes, precedes, with an
uncertainty as to the cause of the dread. But there are also
presentiments of a joyful and bold kind, indulged in by
enthusiasts, who scent the approaching unveiling of a mystery,
for which man nevertheless has no receptive sense, and who
believe that they see with their eyes, just newly uncovered,
the presentiment of that which they, as seers, expect in
mystic contemplation. The second sight of the Scottish High-
landers — with which some of them believe they see a person

160 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

hung up on the shipniust, of whose death they then, as soon
as their ship reaches shore, pretend to have been just advised —
belongs to the same chiss of enchantments.

C. Concerning the Gift of Prophecy {Facultas divinatrix).

§ 34. To foretell, to divine the future, and to prophesy are dis-
tinguished in this : that the first is a prevision, — according to
laws of experience, and hence natural ; the second, opposed to
the known laws of experience, and hence unnatural ; while the
third is an inspiration by means of a cause distinct from nature,
or held to be so distinct, and hence supernatural. Therefore the
latter gift, seeming, as it does, to originate from the influence
of a God, is also called the real faculty of divination — for it
is wrong to call every clever anticipation of the future a
divination.

If we say of some one : he prohesies this or that, this may
indicate a very natural talent. Bat if, in doing so, he pre-
tends to be supernaturally inspired, we ought to say of him :
he is a fortune-teller; as in the case of the gypsies, who call
palmistry reading the planets, or of the astrologers and treas-
ure-hunters, with whom we may also class the gold-makers ;
supreme over all of whom ranked in ancient times Pythia,
rank in our day the ragged Siberian Schaman. The prophetic
utterances of the auspices and haraspices of the Romans
had in view, not so much the discovery of what lies concealed
in the future of the world's events, as the will of the gods,
to which their relioion taught them to submit. But how the
poets came also to consider themselves inspired (or possessed),
and prophets (vates), and to boast of receiving inspiration in
their poetical moods (furor jjoeticus), can be explained only
hy the fact that the poet does not execute his work at leisure,
like a prose- writer, or orator, but must wait for a favorable
moment, when happy thoughts and images crowd upon him
of their own accord, as it were, he remaining in a manner pas-
sive ; and, indeed, it is an old saying that a certain dose
of madness is always allied to genius. This explains also

AntJn^opology . 161

the faith in oracles, which people believed were to be found
ill passages chosen at random from the works of celeln-ated
poets (who were impelled by inspiration, so to say — sorfes
VirgiliancG) a means of discovering the will of heaven similar
to that of modern pietists, who use their devotional books
for the same purpose ; and also in the interpretation of the
Sibvliine books, which are said to have foretold the Romans
the fate of their State, and which they unfortunately lost,
partly owing to misapplied economy.

All prophecies that foretell the unavoidable fate of a nation,
which nevertheless is held to arise from its own fault, and
therefore produced by its free luill, are not only useless — the
presupposition being that the fate cannot be escaped — but
also absurd, since in their unconditioned destiny {decretum
ahsolutimi) they postulate ^ mechanism of freedom the concep-
tion whereof contradicts itself.

Probably the height of absurdity or deception in prophecy
was reached when a lunatic was regarded as a seer (of invis-
ible things) — as though a spirit had taken the place of his
soul, which for that time had absented itself from its home in
his body, and was speaking through him, whereupon the poor
soul-invalid, or perhaps a mere epileptic, was taken for an ener-
grt«?2enou (possessed) ; and if the demon was regarded as one
of the good-natured kind, he was called b}^ the Greek a Mantes^
and his interpreter a prophet. Every kind of stupidity has
been exhausted in order to bring within our reach the future,
the prevision whereof so much interests us ; mere skipping all
the steps that might lead us to its cognition by the Avay of
the understanding and experience. curas Hominum f

No prophesying science is so certain, and yet so far reaching
as that of astronomy, Avhich predicts the revolutions of the
heavenly bodies in infinity. But even this was not sufficient to
prevent the accession of a mysticism, which did not make
dej^endent, as reason demands, the numbers of the world-
epochs from events, but, on the contrary, made events depend-
ent upon certain numbers ; and thus turned chronology itself,
so necessary a condition of history, into a fable.
XIV — 11

162 TJie Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy.

Goncerning Involuntary Imaginations in a Healthy Condition ^

or Dreams.

§ 35. It does not come within the province of a ^ra^7?^a^^c*a7
anthropoh:)gy to inquire what sleep, dreams, somnambulism
(which includes loud speaking in sleep) may be ; for we cannot
deduce from these phenomena any rules of onr condition in
dreaming, since those rules apply only to the waking person,
who does not desire to dream, but wishes thoughtlessly to sleep.
Again, that was a cruel saying, and utterly opposed to experi-
ence, which is attriliuted to the Greek emperor who condemned
a man to death that had been reported as having had a dream
wherein he'murdered the emperor : " Well, he would not have
dreamedHt, if he had not thought about it while awake."

Dreaming seems to appertain to sleeping so necessarily that
to sleep and to die would be one and the same, if dreaming
were not added as a natural, thouo;h involuntarv, ao;itation of
the internal vital organs by the power of imngination.

Thus, I well remember, have I, being a boy, tired out by
play, laid me down to sleep, and in the moment of dropping
off to sleep was quickly awakened by a dream, as if I had
fallen into the water, and, near drowning, was being turned
around in a circle : but all in order to fall soon asleep again,
and more quietly — probably because the activity of the chest-
muscles in breathing, which depends altogether upon the will,
relaxes, and must therefore (the movement of the heart being
checked by the stoppage of the breath) be revived by the
imagination of the dream. To this we may also count the
beneficial eifect of dreams in the so-called nightmares (incu-
bus). For without this terrible imagination of a monster that
oppresses us, and the exertion of all our muscular power to
change our position, the stoppage of the blood would soon
put an end to our life. This seems to be the reason why
nature has so arranged matters that most of our dreams, involve
difficulties and dangerous circumstances, since such pictures
excite the forces of our soul more than dreams wherein every
thing happens according to our desire. We often dream that

Antliropology . 163

we cannot lift ourselves on our feet, or that we have lost our-
selves, or stopjDed in the middle of a sermon, or through for-
getfulness put on a nightcap instead of a wig on entering a
large assembly, or that we can fly in the air like a bird, or
burst out in iovful lauohter without knowing why. But it
will probably remain a mystery forever, how it happens that
in our dreams we are often transported back to long vanished
times, and speak with people long since dead ; and that,
although w^e are tempted to look upon the whole occurrence
as a dream, we nevertheless feel ourselves compelled to con-
sider the dream an actuality. But we may probably accept it
as certain that there can be no sleep without dreaming, and
that a person who thinks he has not dreamed, has only for-
gotten his dream.

Ooncerning the Designatory Faculti/ (Faculty Signatrix).

§ 36. The faculty of cognizing the present, as a means of con-
necting the representation of the foreseen with that of the past,
is called the desio-natorv faculty. The act of the mind in
effecting this connection is the affixing of a sign (signatio),
also called sio-nalizino;, and the hioher deo-ree whereof is named
distinction.

Forms of things, so far as they serve only as a means of
obtaining representations through conceptions, are symbols,
and coijnition by means thereof is called symbolic or figurative
(speciosa). Letters or hieroglyphics are not exactly sym-
bols ; for they may also I)e merely mediate, indirect signs,
signifying nothing in themselves, but leading to contempla-
tons, and therebj'to conceptions, only by means of association.
Hence symbolical cognition must be opposed not to intuitive,
but to discursive cognition, in which latter the sign (character)
accompanies the conception only as a custodian (custos), for
the purpose of reproducing it at some future time. Hence
symbolical cognition is opposed, as said before, not to intui-
tive cognition, which arises from sensuous contemplation,
but to intellectual cognition, which arises from conceptions.
Symbols are mere means of the understanding, and this they are

164 Tlie Journal of Specidative Philosophy .

only indirectly, by an analogy with certain contemplations to
Avhich the conceptions thereof can be applied, in order to give
them significance through the representation of an object.

Persons Avho can express themselves only symbolical^ have
not as yet many conceptions of the understanding, and the
much admired and vivid expressiveness in the speeches of sav-
ages — often also in those of the so-called sages of an uncul-
tured people — is nothing but a poverty of conceptions, and
hence also of words whereby to express them. Thus, when
the American savage savs : " Let us bury the tomahawk !" he
means, " Let us make peace !" Indeed, the ancient songs and
epics, from those of Homer to those of Ossian, or from those
of an Orpheus to those of the Prophets, owe the brilliancy of
their execution solely to the lack of means whereby to express
their conceptions.

To make out the actual, sensually perceptible phenomena of
the world to be the mere SA'mbols of a spiritual world remain-
ing behind concealed, as Swedenborg does, is an absnrdity."
But to distinguish, in the representation of the (.'onceptions that
})elong to morality, which constitutes the essence of religion,
and that therefore appertain to pure reason (which concep-
tions are (jailed ideas), the symbolical from the intellectual
part — church-service from religion — and thus to separate
the perhaps, temporarily useful and necessarj'^ hull from the
sul)ject-matter itself — this is enlightenment ; since otherwise
an idtal (of pure, practical reason) would be exchanged for
an idol, and the o'bject aimed at would thus be missed.
It is undeniable that all the people of the earth have begun
with this exchana'ino-, and that if Ave wish to ascertain what
their teachers have really thought in writing their holy books,
we must interpret them not S3'mbolically, but literally, since it
would be dishonest to misinterpret their words. But if we
have in view not merel}' the trutlifulness of the teacher, but
also, and mainly, the truth of the doctrine, we must interpret
that doctrine as a merely symbolical mode of representation,
to accompany those practical ideas by certain established forms
and usages : since otherwise the spiritual meaning, which
constitutes the chief end in view, would become lost.

Anthrr/pology. 165

§ 37. We may divide signs into arbitrary ( artificial), natural,
and miraculous signs.

A. Amono-st the first-named class of siirns are: 1. Ges-
tures (mimics also, since they are partly natural). 2. Letters
(signs for speech). 3. JVotes (signs for tones). 4. Ciphers
(signs agreed upon between certain persons, and only for
the use of the eye). 5. Crest (signs of hereditary rank).
6. Uniform and livery (signs of service). 7. Orders (signs
of honor and merit). 8. Brands (signs of disgrace). We
must also count in the signs of pauses, interrogations, ex-
clamations, etc., used in writing.

All language is the expression of thoughts by signs, and, vice
versa, the best mode of expressing thoughts by signs is that
afforded by language — this greatest means of all to understand
one's self and make one's self understood by others. To think
is to speak with one's self (the Otaheite Indians call thinking
speech in the belly), and hence also, to hear one's self in-
wardly (through the' reproductive power of imagination). To
the deaf and dumb, his speech is a feeling of the movement
of his lips, tongue and jaw ; and it is scarcely possible to
imagine that, in speaking, he does anything else than to carry on
a \)\'Ay with his bodilv feelinos. he havino: really no concen-
tions or thoughts. But even persons Avho can speak and hear
do not alwa3^s understand themselves or others; and it is
mainly due to a deficiency in the faculty of designation, or to
a faulty use thereof (people taking signs for things, or vice
versa), that men are often so tar apart in their notions (espe-
cially in matters appertaining to reason) though they are
agreed in their speech. This is made apparent only by acci-
dent, namely, when each one acts on his own notions.

B. So far as the natural sio-ns are concerned, the relatif)n ot
the signs to the designated thinas is, in res^ard to time, either
demonstrative, or recollective, or prognostic.

The beat of our pulse makes known to the doctor the pres-
ent feverish condition of the patient, even as smoke indicates
a fire. The reagents discover to the chemist the matters con-
cealed in water, even as the weathercock shows the direction of
the wind. But whether a blush betravs consciousness of "uilt.

166 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

or rather a tender feeling of honor, or mereh' the indignity felt
at an insulting proposition, it is in certain instances impos-
sible to sa3\

Tombstones and mausoleums are sions of our remembrance
•of the dead. In the same class of signs, or as tokens of the
perpetual memory of the past power of a king, we may count
the pyramids. Layers of shells in districts far removed from the
seas, or the holes of the pholads in the high Alps, or volcanic
remnants where at present there are no eruptions, show us the
iincient condition of the world, and form the basis of an
arcJiOiology of nature — to be sure, not so vivid as the scars
of a warrior. The ruins of Palnnra, Baalbec, and Persepolis
are speaking memorials of the art condition of ancient States^
mid sad mementoes of the chanoe of all thinos.

Prognostical signs interest more than all others, because in
the series of changes the present is only a moment, and the
motive which determines our action desires the present only
for the sake of the future (06 futura consequentia) , and calls
particular attention to it. In regard to future events in the
world, we have the surest prognosis in astronomy ; but this
becomes childish and phantastic when the stellar configurations,
conjunctions, and changes of planetary position are represented
as allegorical characters written on the pages of the sky, tell-
ing of the impending fates of men, as in the astrologia judi-
ciaria.

The natural prognostic signs of an impending illness or cure
or those, like ihoi fades liippoeratica , of approaching death, are
phenomena which, based upon long and frequent experience,
serve also — when apprehended in their connection, as cause
or ertect — to guide the physician in directing a cure. Of
such a kind are the so-called critical days. But the auguries
and haruspices, instituted by the Romans for political pur-
poses, were a superstition sanctioned by the State to direct
the people in periods of danger.

G. So far as miraculous signs are concerned (events, in the
nature of tilings, turned topsy-turv^y), the}^ consist — if we ex-
cept those that nowadays no one thinks important any more,
such as the birth of monstrosities amongst men, or cattle — of

AntJirojiologij . 167

the following: Signs and wonders in the heavens, comets,
meteors, auroras ; nay, even eclipses of the sun and moon ;
especially when such signs crowd together, or perhaps even
are accompanied by war, pestilence, etc., in which cases they
seem to the terrified mob as announcing the approaching day
of judgment and the end of the world.

Appendix.

A curious instance of the manner in which the power of
imafjination plays with man in substitutino; sis^ns for thino-s —
as if the former had an inner reality of their own, and as if
the latter adjusted themselves to the former — deserves
special mention here. Since we cannot divide the course of
the moon, according to its four phases (new moon, first quar-
ter, full moon, and last quarter), more exactly into round
numbers than by giving it twenty-eight daj^s (the Arabs on
that account dividing the zodiac into the twenty-eight houses
of the moon), of which one quarter makes seven days, the
number seven has obtained a vast mj^stical importance, to
which even the creation of the world has been forced to con-
form ; especially since the Ptolemaic system taught also seven
planets, just as seven tones were put into the gamut, seven
simple colors in the rainbow, and seven was said to ])e the
number of the metals. Thus there arose the graduated years
(7 -|- 7, and 9 also being a mystical number with the Hin-
doos, 7 -f- 9, as likewise 9 + ^')' '^^ the end of which human
life was said to be in great danger ; and the seventy year-weeks
of the Jews (four hundred and ninety years) constitute really,
in Jewish Christian chronology, not only the divisions of the
most important changes in its history — from the call of God
to Abraham to the birth of Christ — but determine alsd a
priori, and with minute exactness the limits of those divisions ;
just as if chronology ought not to conform itself to history,
but history to chronology.

But even in other matters it becomes a habit to make things
dependent upon numbers. A doctor, to whom his i)atient
sends a fee by his servant, and who, on opening the package.

168 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

finds $11 therein, will l)egiii to suspect that the servant has
appropriated $1. For why, he will argue, is the dozen not
full? A person who buys porcelain things at an auction will
bid less if the dozen is not full ; and if he bids on a lot of
thirteen plates, he will value the thirteenth only as a guaran-
tee that if one of the dozen should break he will be able to
replace it. But why should this number have a special prefer-
ence, since we do not invite guests to dinner by the dozen?
A man left to his cousin, in his will, eleven silver spoons, and
added: "He knows best why I do not bequeath him the
twelfth." The young good-for-nothing, namely, had at one
time, W'hen dining with his cousin, secretly slipped a spoon into
his pocket; which the cousin observed well enough, but said
nothing about at the time, so as not to disgrace the reprobate.
Now, when the will was opened and read, every one could
easily guess the meaning of the testator, but solely through
the accepted prejudice that only a dozen is a round number.

The twelve signs of the zodiac (in analogy with which num-
ber the twelve jurymen in England seem to have been hit upon)
have also received such a mystictd significance. In Italy, Ger-
many, and elsewhere also, perhajDS, it is considered ominous
to have thirteen guests at the dinner-table, it being supposed
that in such a case one of them, whoever it may be, must die
within the year ; and at a table to which twelve judges have
been invited, the thirteenth who chances to be amongst them
is sure to be the criminal, who will be put on trial. I was
present once myself at such an occasion, when the lady of the
house noticed this mishap, and quietly beckoned her son to
leave the table and dine in another room, so as not to disturb
the cheerfulness of the guests.

But even the mere size of the numbers, when one has enough
of the thinii;s which thev desiijnate, excites astonishment from
the simple fact that they do not by chance fill a division of
numbers made on the decimal principle, and hence in itself
altogether arbitrary. Thus, the emperor of China is said to
have a fleet of nine thousand nine hundred and ninetA-nine
ships; and we ask ourselves secretly, why not one more?
althouo;h the answer miaht well be : because nine thousand

Rapliael and Michael Angela. 169

nine hundred and ninety-nine are enough for his use. But our
question had, in point of fact, not the usefuhiess of the fleet
in view, but originated solely in a sort of numeral mysticism.
The matter is worse still, though by no means unusual, when
somebody, by economizing or cheating, has at last succeeded
in accumulating a fortune of $90,000 in cash, and has now no
rest until he has $100,000 in full, although he does not need
them ; and in the elFort, perhaps, if he does not get the gallows,
at least merits it.

To what childish tricks does a man condescend, even in his
mature age, if he allows himself to be directed by the guiding-
threads of sensuousness. Let us now see, in the next division
of our work, how much or how little better he will act, when
he follows his path by the light of the understanding.

KAPHAEL AND MICHAEL ANGELO.

[translated from the GERMAN OF HERMANN GRIMM. BY IDA M. ELIOT.]

Raphael, as w^ell as Michael Angelo, stood like a prince in con-
trast to the popes and Medici. But Raphael lived like a prince ;
had money, dependents, and a magnificient palace, which Bra-
mante had built for him. Michael Angelo was treated like a
prince ; for, though the charms of brilliancy and of personal
loveliness which surrounded Raphael did not belong to him, yet
the independence of his behavior, together with the perfect
mastery of ever}' thing that pertained to his art, gave to him
as much importance as if he himself constituted the whole
kingdom.

When Raphael died Michael Angelo stood alone, without the
shadow of a rival. We know very little about him at t)his
time. In the year 1527, standing on the threshold of age, he
appears again, and after the events that then drew him from his
retirement, he lived through a long range of years, seeming
really endless when we see how every one around dies and
changes, while he alone survives.

Leo X. was succeeded, after a short reign of another pope,

170 ^he Journal of Speculative Philosopliy .

by Clement VII., another of the Medici. Without an}^ true
instinct for the political condition of the country, without
firmness to keep to a resolution after it was formed, without
any feeling for the dignity of the Papacy when the interest
of his family was at stake, he brought matters to such a
point that Ave see him one day on the height of the castle of
St. Angelo looking down in powerless rage as the soldiers of
Charles V., Spanish and German, practised against defenceless
Rome all the cruelties which were in the power of that army,
whose savage conduct formed a terrible exception even to those
times.

When thinking of the cruelty towards the inhabitants of
the city, one almost forgets the injury which art suffered
then. Golden and silver ornaments were melted ; monuments
standing in the public places broken to pieces ; collections
robbed, and every thing that was movable carried off ; fires
were built in those rooms of the Vatican which had been
painted by Raphael , and the soldiers cut out the eyes of the
figures. When Titian came to Rome, twenty years later — then
only thirt}^ years after Raphael's death — and saw the restored
painting, he asked what bungler had been at work there.
Since that day to this, three hundred years have passed.

Clement at first defended himself with the rest of his people.
Benvenuto Cellini gives a vivid account of what took place in
the castle of St. Angelo. There is a terrible moment, when the
people crowd together, and the first foes break in like wolves.
He tells how, throughout, there is a general scene of death and
destruction ; how the pope stands near him on the battlement
of the castle, and Benvenuto directs his shot against the im-
perial troops ; how he is obliged secretly to break the jewels
from the pope's crown, and to sew them into the garments of
the Hol}^ Father. The gold is melted into a lump in a blast
furnace, which was quickly built. Now the necessaries of life
begin to fail. Their alh^, the Duke of Urbino, appears in the
distance, and goes away without accomplishing anything. All
hope vanishes. The pope yields himself a prisoner. The
Spaniards tear down the standard of the pope, and raise the
colors of their emperor.

Raphael and Michael Angela. 171

During these events Michael Angelo was in Florence, which
was ruled in the name of the pope by the cardinal of Cortona, —
a prelate who was hated by the citizens. The dissatisfaction
was so universal that all longed for an opportunity to break
away trom him. Even before Rome had fallen, there was an
insurrection in Florence, which the Medici were able this time
to subdue. The disturbance lasted two days. The David of
Michael Angelo was injured on this occasion. It stood where
it now stands, before the palace of the Signoria, in which the
insuroents were defending themselves. A bench thrown down
from above hit it in such a way that one arm broke off and fell
in three pieces. No one took any notice of it, and the pieces
lay in the square, which was filled with soldiers, until two
boys, Francesco Salviati and Georgio Vasari, — both of them
famous ariists in later years, — slipped by the sentinels and
carried the pieces safely home. Years after, the Duke Cosmo
had the broken arm fastened to the statue with copper bands.

This first disturbance of the citizens was scarcely quieted
when the news came of the fall of Rome. There was now
nothing worth holding in Florence. The Medici left the city,
and the old republic was restored.

But it was not long before the pope and emperor were
friends ; that is, Clement yielded to that power whose suprem-
acy in Italy had been resisted by himself and his predecessors.
He cared for Florence only. Rome held the second place ;
Florence was the principal thought. He was somewhat in the
condition of a man who neglects duty and honor out of con-
sideration for his wife and children. He gave up the indepen-
dence of the papacy, and made sure of the possession of
Florence. The same army that had laid Rome waste, and then
had gone south towards Naples, was now recalled and pressed
into the service of the pope, in Tuscany. Now begins 'the
struo-ole whose end was the end of Florentine freedom.

The reinstating of the Medici in the city was not exactly like
the restoration of a legitimate ruling family. The Medici
were at first citizens, like many others ; they never belonged to
the highest class. Their influence had changed from an impar-
tial, benevolent protection, into a pow^erful management of

172 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

affairs, and at last they assumed the outward marks of a
princely house, and by this showed their superiority to the
rest of that class which orjoinallv had the same rank. It was
a usurpation. Only two circumstances were in their favor:
First, they had ruled for a century brilliantly and without hin-
drance, and a great proportion of the citizens depended upon
them ; second, as soon as the highest authority was removed,
the parties in the city would not be held in balance, and
threatened to destroy each other. But it was in the interest
of Charles V. to have in Tuscany an established princely house
dependent upon him, instead of an excitable, independent
republic, whose sympathy for hated France seemed to be ine-
radicable. For the emperor, the destruction of Florentine free-
dom was a necessary act. The most thoughtful citizens felt
this from the first, and tried to negotiate with him while their
relations were still friendly. But they were under the control
of an excited, heedless party, who would hear of no agreement,
and who souo-ht to defend themselves to the death.

Michael Angelo belonged to this party. He who was first
known through the favor of the Medici, who had kept with them
and worked for them, now shook off all associations and stood
on the side of their enemies. The struggle lasted tliree years.
All arts of persuasion, treachery, and force were at times
attempted, but they were all noticing but oil thrown upon the
fire. There is such a confusion of passions here presented to
us, such an intermingling of characteristics whose tendencies
we can trace out, that these three years of the Florentine
republic form one of the richest chapters of history. Those
nations whose conflicts caused the important events in ancient
history are now dead and gone, but these occurrences are
more closely connected with our own times, and fill us with
partisan sympathy. It seems as if we could see the things
happen. Florence, that was never destroyed or buried, never
wholly conquered, now stands as firm as it stood then, and
the sight of its buildings involuntarily makes one reflect upon
what it has experienced. But this concerns only the external
view ; far more important to us than the outward appearance
of tliose times is the spiritual meaning of the conflicts which

Raphael and Michael Angela. 173

are not yet ended, and which may perhaps in the fntnre break
out with more bitterness than we of to-day are inclined to
imagine.

There is nothing on the earth more touching than a peo-
ple that is defending its freedom. Every other loss seems
small in comparison. A lost freedom makes every other sor-
row lose its force ; no deprivation is worthy of name when
that is mentioned. This is what makes the destruction of
Carthage the most terrible event in ancient history, the
destruction of Troy the most touching in the realm of poetry.
For this reason there is so much significance in the German
wars which were fought for freedom, because this is the only
nation which has lost and then regained it ; all others have
perished when that Avas gone.

One might say that in Florence the Italian was fighting
against Italy. But it was not so. The Italians who were
defending the city were the old Florentines, who stood
upon their own national character ; those attacking the city
belonged to the new Italjs which had already reconciled itself
to dependence upon the Spanish emperor and his treacherous
policy, by whose means art and science and religion were
destroyed. Italy was ruined by Spanish influence; and who
knows how many other countries might have been involved in
their ruin in the course of the following centuries, if England
and North' Germany had not offered the resistance for which
now, at last, they are beginning to reap their reward? Flor-
ence was occupied by merchants and trades-people. The
aristocracy of the city consisted of the great banking firms,
who, having immense wealth, advanced money to the kings of
Eno-land and France. The real nobleman who controlled the
city of Venice, and who everywhere in Italy played the most
important parts in the cities and in the country, had entirely
vanished from Florence. Either he must leave the city or
join himself to a guild, to which he must be subordinate. So
it came about that the city educated no youthful warriors and
no great generals, and when it had a war to carry on, was
obliged to depend upon hired troops. But through money it
could control the nol)ility of Italy, who made the business of

174 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

carrjing on war a regular means of livelihood. A war was
undertaken then just as now we start the builduig of a rail-
road. Whoever was the richest man in Florence had the
greatest number of adherents among the citizens, and received
the most consideration.

When the conflicts between the native nobilitv and the
citizens had ended with the victory of tlie latter, these quar-
relled among themselves, and the jealousies between the rich,
who wished to rule alone, and the poor, who desired their
share in the government, took the place of the former strife,
now ended. Here the Medici found the soil upon which they
laid the foundation of their power. They made themselves
necessary to l)oth ])arties, through their riches. They not
only did good service to individual citizens where there
was want of money, but they helped the State in her foreign
policy, by standing upon the best footing with the princes
of Europe. If any thing was to be accomplished in Lyons,
Milan, or Venice, people turned to the Medici ; if one wanted
a loan, they lent generously ; if one wished them to accept
State offices, they refused. On the other hand, through mar-
riage they bound the noblest families to further their inter-
est, favored art and education, and mingled socially with the
crowd at public festivals. They did not rule ; they merely
gave good advice. They began to be feared, and were exiled ;
but the people voluntarily recalled them, and at last they could
not be spared. Then, when under Lorenzo, — the one who pro-
tected Michael Angelo in his youth, — not only Tuscany, but all
Italy, was brought into peace and prosperity, the power and
position of his family became so firmly rooted in Florence
that his antagonists gave up all hope.

Lorenzo died in the year 1492, and left three sons, the eldest
of whom succeeded him in his rule, — a haughty, knightly char-
acter, who was much more concerned about his own proud
person than about conducting the affairs of state, which were
complicated and very difficult to manage. The other aristocrats,
who were all of as good birth, and who were no lower in rank,
soon felt themselves hurt, and joined with the people in
disapproval. Piero perceived this, and being forced to take

RapJiael and Michael Angela . 175

some measures, at once made an attempt to become duke of
Florence. The way which he took to accomplish this end
brought the city into the most dangerous situation, although
it brought him power.

At this time Venice was the most powerful State in Italy,
perhaps in Europe; The Venetians held the same position
which to-day the English hold. In opposition to them, Lo-
renzo de Medici, the duke of Milan, and the king of Naples
formed a league, and these three States together against the
fourth, strongest of all, held the balance of power in Italy.
As soon as Lorenzo died, hostilities broke out between Milan
and Naples. Piero de Medici took the side of the king, while
the duke of Milan allied himself to France, and invited to
Italy Charles VIII., a young, ambitious prince, whose house
formerly laid claim to Naples.

Charles made every effort to gain Piero d'e Medici to his
side, but Piero acted shamefully. The people, ever since their
early history, had been inclined towards the French ; but Piero
did not wish to break with Naples, and refused Charles's pro-
posal. Then the king of France entered Tuscany as an enemy,
and was everywhere victorious. Finally Piero changed his
policy, and threw himself at the feet of the French. Without
being conquered, he evacuated the fortresses, and hoped by
this extreme humiliation to gain from Charles that favor which
would now be useless to him if shown by Naples. But his
reckoning was false. His behavior embittered the people ;
the nobility rebelled, Piero was forced to flee, Charles recog-
nized the republic in its new form, and the attempts of the
Medici to be again reinstated in power were fruitless. Michael
Angelo, at that time twenty j^ears of age, had left the city
before the catastrophe, having been warned, Condivi says, by
threatening dreams. He soon returned, however, and was, an
ardent defender of the new order of things.

At the same time with the political revolution, another one
began in behalf of morality and religion, guided by Savonarola,
a monk born in Ferrara, who, as prior of the cloister of San
Marco, had within a few years grown very powerful and influ-
ential, and now was the soul of the ruling party.

176 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

From the first he preached against the Uiwlessness that had
fallen upon Italy. Vices of the worst kind had at that time
penetrated all classes of society, that of the clergy above all.
The most horrible crimes had become so common that they
excited little attention and were regarded as only ordinary occur-
rences. Opposition to such a state of things ; a feeling that
they must make it different ; a foreboding of some change to
be brought about by force, — all these thoughts filled the minds
of the people. Even during the last part of Lorenzo's life,
Savonarola had urged repentance and a total change in the
mode of life, warning the people of Florence that a divine
punishment was imminent.

Now, when the French reall}^ came and behaved like demons,
his prophecies seemed fulfilled in an astonishing manner, and
Savonarola's party had the ascendancy over the aristocratic
party, which, without the Medici, wished to rule in the Medi-
cian fashion. This supremacy was held for four j'^ears, main-
tained by the man Avhose life and works, and finally whose
death, are grand and imposing.

He was the soul of the State. His sermons gave the tone
to pul)lic utterances. His fame filled Italy and all Europe.
The manners of the Florentines improved through his influ-
ence ; the city endured bravely pestilence, war, and famine ;
and the religious enthusiasm of the people was so deep and
penetrating that it increased from year to year, and indeed
seemed to chano-e the character of the inhabitants.

When the reaction came, when Savonarola was defeated by
the machinations of the aristocratic party, and was burned by
Pope Alexander, the republic still stood, and the party of the
unfortunate man held fast to their faith in the truth of his
doctrines and his prophecies. In their belief, the destruction
of Rome in the year 1527, thirty years after his death, was
only the fulfilment of a judgment Avhich had been foreseen
and foretold years before. Let us here give a summary of
events : In 1492, Lorenzo died ; in 1494, Piero w^as driven out ;
in 1512, the Medici family again established their power; this
was a short time before Giovanni de Medici became pope, under
the name of Leo X. Under him and under Clement VIL, his

Raphael and Michael Angela . 177

nephew, Florence was under the control of the Medici, until
in 1527 it rebelled foi- the last time. Michael Angelo was at
that time over fifty years of age.

I called him a friend of the family. Strictly speaking, how-
ever, the old Lorenzo was the onl}^ one whom he knew well.
When Piero succeeded, he left the palace in which he had been
living ; and when Piero was driven oft', he stood upon good
terms with a distant branch of the family, who, had been
banished, and now returned to the city. Afterward Michael
Angelo's friend and patron was Soderini, who, until 1512,
ruled the city as Gonfalonier for life, and who was especially
opposed to the Medici. During the papacy of Leo X. he
stayed ver}^ little in Rome, and made nothing of importance
for him ; but when Clement VII. employed him, since he was
the greatest artist of his time, it was true that the commissions
which he received were less honor to him than his accej^tance
of them was' to those who gave them. He was a free man, and
chose the side on which he would fioht, without beino- bound
either way.

In the year 1527, as in 1494, the aristocrats, 1)}' whom the
revolution was begun, wished to hold the reins alone and as
before, they were again overpowered by the whole body of
citizens. There were at that time a great many men who had
seen and heard Savonarola. Tiiey insisted that it should be
then as before, — the former strict moral' codes should be
renewed, processions instituted, the old form of government,
the consilio, restored. Michael Angelo was one of the mem-
bers of the state commission on military aft*airs. He at once
urged the fortification of the city. Capponi, the first of the
three Gonfalonieri who had guided the helm durinir the first
three 3'ears of the republic, opposed it. There was no danger
at hand, and the fortification would be a dangerous demoA-
stration. Capponi l)elonged to the aristocrats, but he wished
to rule so that he should suit all parties. This was the very
thing that had caused Soderini's failure. Capponi was a fol-
lower of Savonarola in reference to the freedom of the city
and the consilio, but he wished no alliance with France ; while
this alliance formed the chief article of creed with the party
XIV— 12

178 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

who were opposed to the aristocrats. When, in opposition to
his efforts, the league was formed with France, and the forti-
fication of the city carried on, he secretly entered into com-
munication with the, pope, and tried to prevent Michael
Angelo in his work. It was Capponi's belief that the united
power of emperor and pope could not be resisted, and all that
there remained to do was to make the most favorable terms.
This was the utmost that could be done. He resisted every thing
that looked like forcible opposition. AVhile Michael Angelo
was directino- the i3ublic buildino's in Pisa and Leo-horn, and,
acting under the commission of the State, was examining the
fortilications of Ferrara, Capponi stopped the works of de-
fence which had been begun in Florence, and even sent off
the materials that had been collected. This could not last.
Capponi was deposed; Carducci, his successor, executed
with enerofv the wishes of the French iDartv. Circumstances
now made moi'e immediate action necessarv. Soon things
reached such a point that Florence, deserted by Venice and
France, was thrown upon her own resources, opposed to a
pope who would hazard every thing to bring the city into his
power, and to an emperor who, at that time, was the most
powerful prince in Europe. It need not be asked who would
be the victor in this conflict, but onlv how Ions: it would last
and what it would cost. Clement paid the army before the
city with his own money. The longer the Florentines defended
themselves, so much the longer his payments must continue ;
besides, so much the poorer was the city itself, which lost
through the war enormous sums of money.

When Michael Anoelo came back from Ferrara, thinijs were
not so bad. They were hoping for help from France and
Venice ; they tried, by evading the pope, to make the emperor
inclined to enter into direct neo-otiations ; thev had confidence
in Malatesta Baglioni, who, in the name of the king of France,
as general of the republic, commanded an imposing army.
Michael Angelo urged with all his might the fortification of San
Miniato, a hill directly before the city, towards the south, on
whose summit lay a magnificent old church. Michael Angelo
was one of those men who can be employed for any thing when

RapliaeJ and Michael Angela. 11^

the time needs a man. He was painter, scnlptor, poet, archi-
tect ; he made for himself the iron tools with Avhich he worked
in marble ; he himself qnarried the blocks at Carrara ; contrived
the scaffolding \i\)on which he [)ainted the ceiling of the Sis-
tine, and planned the machines with which he moved his
statues. Now he built fortifications, and contrived shields for
the tower of San Miniato, which the imperial cannon had made
their target. And in the midst of this disturbance he painted
his Leda with the Swan, and privately worked on at the figures
for the tomb of the Medici in the sacristy of San Lorenzo. In
him the interests of art and politics were so united that he
made his art of use against his enemies, from whom he was
defending his fatherland.

Meanwhile the Spanish troops, under Philibert of Orange^
had come nearer to Florence. Perugia lies half-way towards
Rome. Here Malatesta Baglioni should have opposed him.
The latter, however, who laid claim to the supreme power in
Peruoia, drew back after he had concluded an ao;reement with
the pope by which the city should be spared. Next the
Spaniards ought to have been checked at Arezzo, half-way
between Peruo-ia and Florence, l)ut here also the o-arrison fell
back upon Florence without making any resistance. Then the
citv was oblio-ed to defend itself.

There were plenty of soldiers — foreign mercenaries as well
as armed citizens — but food was scarce, for the avaricious
Signoria understood matters too late to repeal the heavy duty
upon grain. Now they brought in whatever could be pro-
cured, completed the fortifications, exiled suspected citizens or
imprisoned them, destroyed all houses outside the city, and
prepared themselves for the worst. By pestilence, religious
fanaticism, and the secret feeling; that at last there was an end
to the long-cherished hope that help might come unexpectediy
from outside, the inhabitants had risen to a degree of energy
which displayed itself in the most obstinately disputed struggle.

If Florence had been besieged and at last taken by storm ,^
.its fate might perhaps have been more destructive to the lives
of men and the works of art, but it would have seemed simple
and natural, like some phenomenon of nature whose disastrous

180 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

effects are fearful, but not criminal. But here shameful treason
appeared, whose invisible nets were drawn around the victim
more and more closely, till at last, powerless, it was delivered
into the hands of the enemy. Treason had become so com-
mon at that time that it is mentioned by Macchiavelli, without
comment, as one of the customary state expedients, and that
whenever it was practised the principle was never questioned.
One pitied the victim, but the way and manner of the fall was
not considered any thing extraordinary. Malatesta Baglioni's
method of working is therefore no terrible exception, for
which no one was prepared ; on the contrary, his treacherous
course was from the beginning thouo'ht of and considered
possible. The act in this case was fearful onl}" on account of
the tragic scene which it caused.

Baglioni laid claim to Perugia. When, in the name of
the king of France, he was employed as the first general for
Florence, and undertook to carry on the war with his troops,
the pope was so badly off that the whole affair seemed to Bag-
lioni very advantageous in reference to his position in Perugia.
But when, after the reconciliation between pope and emperor,
other relations were entered into, Baglioni would have lost
with the fall of Florence his city, his troops, — in short, every-
thing that he possessed. It behooved him to guard his own
interest in case of a fall, which was posssible, and very soon
seen to be inevitable.

The pope met his endeavors half-way. Clement was in
quite as critical a condition as his opponent. Not o\\\y was he
obliged to pay with his own money the imperial troops now
before Florence, but he had made additional ao-reements with
the Prince of Orange, who commanded them ; he had promised
him the hand of the young Catherine de Medici, who was then
held prisoner by the rebels in Florence. When he did that,
he knew very well that Orange intended to take Florence as a
princedom for himself. It never entered the mind of a
Medici to resign this city. He thought of ways and means
to let the city be besieged by Orange, without allowing it to
come into his power. It is now evident that Clement had an
understandins: with Ba2:lioni that he should defend Florence

Raphael and Michael Angela. 181

against the prince, and see tliat no Spaniard entered the city,
but at the same time he should prevent the Florentines from
goinii' out to attack Orans^e, lest the attack mio-ht be successful,
and destroy the besieging army. Thus the struggle would go
on for a long time, the republican government would be
divided, and finally, without being conquered, by capitulation
the city would again fall into the hands of the pope. Then
it would have been Baglioni who kept the city for liim. Bag-
lioni was safe in either case. If help should come from outside,
he M'ould appear to the city as a most fortunate defender, as a
true savior in its extreme need ; if things should happen as
the pope hoped and expected, then the Medici would be deeply
indel)ted to him.

His problem was therefore a ver}^ complicated one, and it is
difficult to tell in individual instances whether he acted a traitor's
part or not ; onl}^ the result could show. The Florentines
knew these things as well and better than we know them now.
They observed Baglioni, and drew their conclusions. But the
generaFs position was so favorable to him that at first it was
not possible to be sure of the meaning of his acts. He always
had some means at hand to explain every thing in the best w^ay to
the government ; and when, finalh^ he was not able to do this,
the time had passed when the city was in a condition to protect
herself from him.

Michael Angelo was among those who instinctively saw
through the false oame of the man. As a member of the
highest military authorit}^ he saw more than many others.
He felt that the retreat from Peruoia was the first treacherous
step of Baglioni' s. Now Arezzo was suddenly given up. Bag-
lioni threw himself and his troops into the city. A frightful
insurrection of the citizens foHowed this turn in affiairs. Every
thino- seemed lost ; a revolt of the lower classes in favor of the
Medici was expected. Man}' citizens left the city, and among
the fugitives was Michael Angelo.

He had stated his views positively before the assembled Sig-
noria. They would not listen to him. He was even accused
of fear. He went away angry. He saw Florence in the power
of the traitor ; he saw the dangerous disposition of the people ;

182 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

should the Medici enter victoriously it was all over with him.
Overwhelmed with vexation and despair, he determined to do
what many had done, — save himself, and leave his fatherland to
the ruin into which it seemed blindly to plunge. In a few days,
he thought, the Spaniards would be in the city, as in the year
1512, and the people would open their doors to them as
l^efore.

With two friends, he mounted his horse. He carried with
Mm 12,000 gold scudi, which had been melted down. No one
was allowed to leave the citv. Thev refused him at the oate,
but the guard recognized him : " It is Michael Angelo, one of
the nine," They let him go l)y. He took the road towards
the north, — towards the mountains, — and reached Venice,
truly the only place where he could go.

Two sonnets on Dante which are among his poems seem to
belong to this time ; perhaps he wrote them on the way, or in
Venice, where he lived in retirement, and avoided tokens of
distinction from the Doge and the whole nobility.

" Ungrateful fatherland," one of the sonnets ends, " weaver
of thine own fate, to thy destruction ; for those who are the most
perfect, thou preparest the heaviest sorrow. Among a thou-
sand instances, I mention only this, that his shameful exile is
without comparison, and that there never was a greater man
than he upon the earth." ^

' In "William Hazlitt's translation (Bohn's Library) these two sonnets are versi-
fied as follows : —

"He from the world into the blind abyss
Descended, and beheld the realms of woe:
Then to the seat of everlasting bliss,
And God's own throne, led by his thought sublime.
Alive he soared, and to our nether clime
Bringing a steady light, to us below
Kevealing the secrets of eternity.
Ill did his thankless countrymen repay
The fine desire ; that which the good and great
So often from the insensate manj' meet.
That evil guerdon did our Dante find.
6ut gladly would I, to be such as he,
Por his hard exile and calamity
Porego the happiest fortunes of mankind."

RapTtael and Michael Angela. 183

He loved Dante. He knew by heart whole poems of his.
Even in the time of Pope Leo, the Florentines wished to have
within their walls the ashes of the great exile. They appealed
to the pope, and Michael Angelo's name is found under the
petition. " I, Michael Angelo, the sculptor, also petition your
Holiness, and I pledge myself to execute a monument worthy
of the divine poet, and to put it in the city in a place honor-
able to him." Nothing came of all of this, because in Ravenna
it was said that the ashes of Dante could not be found. Now,
like Dante, he was himself an exile who wandered in a strange
land. He seemed to compare his own situation with that of
the great poet, and to console himself with the similarity of
their fate.

Michael Angelo had been a few days in Venice when he re-
pented of the step he had taken. He determined to return.
Florence, which he had considered the pre}^ of its enemies,
had from the pitiful confusion in which he left it l)een roused
to heroic energy. The citizens had solemnly sworn to conquer
or to die. No more treaty or compromise. A heart-rending
document has been preserved to us, which represented the
feeling of the people ; that is a dispatch of the Venetian am-
bassador in Florence, which was sent to Venice shortly after
Michael Angelo's flight. It is quite probable that it was shown
to him there. Every word must have fallen on his heart like
a burning tear. His only desire then was to be again in Flor-
ence, and take part in the glory of his fatherland.

"How shall we speak of him, for our blind eyes
Are all unequal to his dazzling rays?
Easier it is to blame his enemies
Than for the tongue to tell his lightest praise.
For us did he explore the realms of woe ;
And at his coming did high heaven expand
Her lofty gates, to whom his native land
Refused to open hers. Yet shalt thou know,
Ungrateful city, in thine own despite,
That thou hast fostered best thy Dante's fame ;
For virtue, when oppressed, appears more bright,
And brighter therefore shall liis glory be.
Suffering, of all mankind, most wrongfully ;
Since in the world there lives no greater name."

184 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

The dispatch siiys that the citizens had burned all the suburbs,
destroyed all gardens outside the walls, procured food, raised
money ; promised exiles, without exception, that they shotild
have full possession of their former rights if they would return
within a month, and six hundred had already returned. All
the inhabitants were armed, and they had sworn rather to cut
to pieces their own fathers than to give up their freedom on
unworthy conditions. And then the ambassador tells of the
reproaches which are uttered against his own government, that
promised freely, but gave no help. Indeed, the Venetians had
no thouoht of assisting Florence in her death-struirs'le.
Michael Ano-elo knew this very well when he ao-ain left Venice.
There could be no doubt in his mind as to the result of the
war. The hope of aid from the republic and from France was
a vain one. At that time there was not any one who offered
defiance to the emperor ; he was even on his way to Bologna,
where he met Clement, and where the Florentines tried for the
last time to neootiate with him. Titian also left Venice at
this time ; but while Michael Angelo went towards ruin, he
turned to Bologna, where he took part in all the festivities and
formed one of the celebrities who increased the splendor of
the whole court. What a contrast !

We know how Michael Anijelo effected his return. Through
the Florentine ambassador at Ferrara, he humbl}^ entreated per-
mission again to enter Florence. The people there longed to
have him back again ; but now that he begged to come, they put
themselves on their dignity. Perhaps but for that the Signoria
would have j'ielded some points on their side, but as it was
they said he must endure a fine and loss of position. He did
not oppose any thing, yielded to all, and was immediately
reinstated in his old place.

Michael Angelo returned in November, 1529 ; in the next
Auoust the citv fell. Malatesta's treachery of;ive the final
blow. Till the last moment they had hoped for help from the
king of France. They knew ver}^ well that his help would be
almost a miracle ; and yet in spite of that, when in July, 1530,
the news came that Francis I. had taken to Bordeaux the
children who had been left at Madrid, thev rang the bells and

Raphael aiid Michael Angela. 185

held a joyous mass in order to thunk God for the favorable
event. The citizens had no more wood to kindle festive fires.
They began to eat the rats, when cats and dogs had been
devoured. Oil and bran were not to be seen. Pestilence
decimated the city. Eight thousand citizens and more than
tv/ice as many foreign soldiers had perished. On the Gth of
August the gates Avere opened to the victor. A capitula-
tion was concluded on toleralily favorable terms, and in it
a universal amnesty proclaimed. But there is not any con-
tract which can secure protection to a conquered party. The
Medici took revenge with bloodj^ hands. The leaders of the
State, of whom they were suspicious, were executed. This was
the fate intended for Michael Ano-elo. Search was made for
him, but he kept concealed. According to the common tradi-
tion, he was in the house of a friend ; according to a tradition pre-
served in the Buonarotti family, he was in a tower of the Church
San Niccolo, beyond the Arno. Here he waited until the
first wrath of his former protector had passed away. The pope
desired his death. Besides the fact that Michael Angelo was
one of the most active rebels, his enemies now accused him of
having suggested to the people that the palace of the Medici
should be levelled to the o-round. That was evidentlv a lie.
The anger of the pope cooled off. He reniQmbered what an
artist Michael Anoelo was. At last he went so fiir as to
promise him a full pardon and his former income if he would
only come forward and continue the work on the family mon-
ument.

Then Michael Angelo left his hiding-place, and quietly went
back to his work. He gave himself no recreation ; he ate and
drank but little, and had sleepless nights, and suffered from
dizziness and headache. His friends feared that he would die if
this went on any longer. '

A verse written by him at this time shows the gloomy con-
dition of his mind. He had completed the figure of Night, — a
woman's form half-sitting, half-ljing. We remember Homer's
expression, " Sleep relaxed his limbs," when we look at
this beautiful figure sunk in quiet slumber. The right leg is
drawn up a little ; the arm rests upon it ; and the face, Avith the

186 The Journal of SpeAmlative PhiJosophy .

eyes shut, leans against the back of the closed hand. A braid
of hair falls over the neck and shoulder down upon the l)reast.
It is wholly nude.

According to the custom in Italy, people fastened all kinds
of complimentar}^ poetry to the statue, when publicly exhibited.
One of the verses reads : " Night, which thou seest sJeeping in
such a charming position, was carved in this marble by an angel,
(angelo). She is alive ; she merely sleeps ; Avaken her if thou
dost not believe it, and she will speak." Michael Angelo let the
work itself reply, and wrote below the wonderful verse which
begins, " Grato me'e il sonno piu Vesser di sasso,'^ whose trans-
lation into metre is not possible for me. " Well for me that I
sleep ; better still that I am of stone, while dishonor and shame
endure in the' land ; to see nothing, to hear nothing, is the
happiest fate ; therefore wake me not, pray, but speak softly."

He dared to sa}^ this in public. He dared venture to refuse
his assistance in buildino- the new citadel of Florence, when
requested by the Grand Duke Alexander, whose vindictive dis-
position he knew. True, he was again in Rome when he did
it, but the arm of the prince could have reached him there ;
for what he refused to Alexander he refused to the pope as
well. Michael Anselo must have held a remarkable relation
toward Clement. He worked with covered head in his pres-
ence ; he refused oftener than was necessary to appear at
court ; the pope dared not sit down in his presence, for the
artist would immediately have done the same. And once, when
without the wish or knowledoe of the artist he took a view of
one of his works which was just begun, Michael Angelo
remained on his scaffolding, and threw down, as if by chance,
a board whose fall had nearly injured the pope. He could
not endure to have outsiders look upon his works before they
were done ; and that may be the reason of the anger which he
felt when Bramante secretly opened to Raphael the room where
he painted. When he carved the David, he had a board parti-
tion made around the marble block, and the eyes of no one
rested upon the work until he showed it to all the people.
Vasari tells how he himself came to see him one night, and
found him at work. By a contrivance of his own, Michael

Rapliael and Michael Angelo. 187

Aniielo managed to fasten a light into the top of his hat, and
worked on in that way. When Vasari entered, and naturally
wished to see upon what the artist, who was at that time a
famous master, was at work, suddenly Michael Angelo put out
the light, and went on speaking in the dark.

The furious passion into which he fell at times, as into a tit
of madness, inliuenced to a great extent his outwar(^ life, fie
always tried, however, to make amends for the wrong he
did at such times, and he continually encountered men who
would not let themselves })e put out by his actions. Those
were times when human life was held cheaper than now. Peo-
ple would rather be armed with sword and dagger than have
pistols or a rifle in their hands, and very often this means of
self-defence was necessary. Every walk through the dark
streets of a citv durino; the niii'ht mioht give rise to a quarrel ;
every journey was a little campaign on one's own account,
undertaken against an unexpected attack. The wars, great and
small, filled the country with people whose business was to carry
arms. The citizens defended their walls and their rights ;
merchants resisted by force of arms all highwaymen, or on
the sea all attacks from pirates ; for at that time an incessant
conflict was waged alon<r the coasts of the Mediterranean.
So, every one shaped his own life in unrestrained freedom ;
there was no established conventionality, in accordance with
which the lives of thousands or hundreds of thousands were
all spent in the same routine, Avhile only the chief among
them was obliged to do the planning.

In Cellini's life we have a most vivid account of how things
were at that time; Vasari's "Lives of the Painters" also
shows a great number of adventurous expeditions. Every
interest was touched ; people gave way to every feeling ; every
passion easily found expression ; and so, taken in reference to
the whole, Michael Angelo's character stands less alone in its
reckless disregard of circumstances. Still it was fortunate for
him that he met princes who knew how to appreciate the man.
Beneath the hardness of his manners lay the most tender gen-
tleness. When he was going to Bologna in 1506, to be recon-
ciled to the pope, Piero Soderini, who from 1502 to 1512 ruled

188 The Journal of Speculative Philosop)hy .

the city as Gonfalonier, gave him a letter, in which he wrote :
" If one is fair-spoken to him, one can gain every thing from
him ; one must show love for him, and prove one's good will,
and he will accomplish things which will fill the minds of all
those who see him, with astonishment." At that time Michael
Angelo was thirty-two years old ; how much more sensitive
must he have been now, when a man of fifty-six. People
knew that with him there was no compromise, and were satis-
fied with whatever he did, so as not to lose his wonderful art.
In order to show what was ascribed to him, I will tell one of
those anecdotes about whose value I have already spoken.
When he was modelling a Christ, in his enthusiasm about the
work, he insisted upon having his model nailed to the cross, that
he might better perceive the expression of pain. That would
never have been attributed to Raphael, But then his poems
show that the tenderness, the deep sensitiveness of his spirit
were no fable. They sprang from his soul as the snow-drops
grow under the snow which conceals, while it protects from the
frost. His pride and his ambition were only the expression of
his aspiration to be worthy of himself. Raphael strove for the
cardinal's hat as a child reaches out for o-okl and diamonds :
but I believe Clement would have been cautious about oflerino-
this honor to Michael Angelo, who, perhaps, would not have
refused it in the gentlest way. There are some natures which
are great on account of what the}^ attain ; others, through what
they refuse. One could not approach him with presents ; he
would not give up the least part of his independence. Only
in rare cases did he make an exception. Once, when he liad
admired a splendid Arabian horse belonging to the Cardinal
Hippolytus de Medici, and it was sent to him as a present, he
conquered his objection and accepted it.

Being reconciled to the pope, he went to Rome, made one
visit to Florence afterwards, and then never went there again.
The next letter for the vear 1532 is dated at Rome, and written
to Sebastian del Piombo, the famous painter, who worked as
well with his left as his right hand, and for w^lioni, before this
time, he had made a sketch for a picture that would rival some
of Raphael's work. The letter speaks al)Out the monument of

Raphael and Michael Angela. 189

Pope Julias, of money matters, and of blocks of marble. The
next, without date, sets forth in a comprehensive account every
thino" that Michael Ano;elo had to suft'er durino- the whole affair.
It is a long piece of writing, and the original, as we have
it, is not in the author's hand ; indeed, according to Dr.
Guhl's opinion, in which other authorities agree, it was not
even composed by him. According to Vasari's and Condivi's
statements, it must have been foro-ed. Guhl asks if it is at all
probable that, at the time when Michael Angelo was wholly
enoTossed with his last misfortune — the accusation of dis-
honesty — he would all at once write a full account of what had
taken place long before. The letter itself, indeed, is of mod-
erate length, but the copious postscript reaches l)ack into past
times, and contains the strongest expressions about the plottings
which sought from the very beginning to hinder his progress.
It ends with the remark about Raphael already quoted : that
w^iatever Raphael knew about architecture he had learned
from him.

This endino- seems too severe to even Herr von Neumont,
whom we must thank for making the letter known in Germany.^
I think that these words could have come from no one except
Michael Angelo.

Pope Clement died in 1534. Paul III., his successor,
adopted all his projects in art, as Clement had carried on those
of Leo X., and Leo those of Pope Julius. Still the comple-
tion of the monum.ent was far in the distance. Trouble of all
kinds befel the artist as a consequence of the work. Clement
died, there was a new pope, and Michael Angelo's enemies
hoped that they could influence him against the artist. Michael
Ano-elo thinks it is necessary for his new master to know that
while he is worried with the burden of this affair unexplained,
he cannot paint quietly. At that time he was working oil his
great picture of the Last Judgment.

He has finished his letter, and has expressed himself as
briefly as possible, when the thought comes over him of the

1 He published it in 1834, in a little pamphlet which appeared at Cotta. The
original is printed in Harford's book. Herr von Neumont defends its genuineness.

190 The Journal of Si^eculative Philosopliy .

long- list of grievances which he has suffered unjustly. The
pope must understand the whole thing from the beginning.
He writes a postscript, tries very hard to represent every thing
clearly and in proper order, and getting excited with the thought
of these past events, he grows more and more angry, till at last,
Avith bold words, he says that the jealousy of Raphael and Bra-
mante was the cause of all the trouble, and declares openly
that what Raphael knew of architecture he owed to him and no
one else. He could sa}^ that then, since on the one hand
Raphael's fame as a painter stood firm, while on the other hand it
was long ago acknowledged that the alterations which he made
to Bramante's plans of St. Peter's were not any improvement.

If Michael Angelo wrote the letter, it is not certain that he
sent it off. It may have been found among his papers and
copied. He may have shown it to some one, who copied it
without his knowledge, while he himself destroyed the original.
If it came from the pen of a partisan, who wished by this to
vindicate Michael Angelo, he would have had tact and reserve
enough not to have forged such expressions ; for in the opinion
of mankind generally they must tend to the injury of the
great master, rather than be a help to his cause.

The trouble was not at all ended by this letter ; it con-
tinued just the same, and more letters were written about it.
These, together with the explanations of the editor, form the
successive acts of a suit, which one follows with eagerness into
its minutest details. This suit embittered the life of the
artist, and increased the sadness which the fate of his native
city had brought upon him. Added to this, his father, wlio
had lived to an old a^e, died at this time, and his brother
followed in the same year, leaving children to be cared for.
And, besides, he had a misunderstanding with Sebastian del
Pionil)o, his old friend, to whom he was never again reconciled.
The cause of their difference shows how excited Michael
Angelo was, and how he was preparing for himself the fate of
so manv j>reat men constituted like him, — that of enterino;
upon a doubting, gloomy old age, alone, and without friends.

The Science of Education. 191

THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION.

[a paraphrase of dr. KARL ROSENKRANZ'S " PEDAGOGICS AS A SYSTEM,"
WITH ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS. BY ANNA C. BRACKETT.]

SECOND PART.

The Special Ele^nenls of Education.

§ 51, Education is the development of the theoretical and
practical Reason which is inliorn in the liunKin being. Its
end is to be accomplished by the labor which transforms a
condition, existent at first only as an ideal, into a fixed habit,
and changes the natural individuality into a glorified humanity.
When the youth stands, so to speak, on his own feet, he is
emancipated from education, and education then finds its
limit. The special elements which may be said to make up
education are the life, the cognition, and the Avill of man.
Without the first, the real nature of the soul can never be
made really to appear ; without cognition, he can have no gen-
uine will — i.e., one of which he is conscious; and without
will, no self-assurance, either of life or of cognition. It must
not be forgotten that these three so-called elements are not to
be held apart in the active Avork of education ; for they are insep-
arable and continually interwoven the one with the other. But
none the less do they determine their respective consequences,
and sometimes one, sometimes another has the supremacy. In
infancy, up to the fifth or sixth year, the physical develop-
ment, or mere living, is the main consideration ; the next
period, that of childhood, is the time of acquiring knowledge,
in which the child takes possession of the theory of the AV\)rld
as it is handed down — a tradition of the past, such as man
has made it through his experience and insight ; and finally,
the period of youth must pave the way to a practical activity,
the character of which the self-determination of the will must
decide.

§ 52. We may, then, divide the elements of Pedagogics into

192 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

three sections: (Ij the physical, (2) the intellectual, (3) the
practical. (The words " orthobiotics," "didactics," and
" pragmatics" might be used to characterize them.)

Esthetic training is only an element of the intellectual,
as social, moral, and religious training are elements of the
practical. But because these latter elements relate to exter-
nal things (affairs of the world), the name pragmatics, is appro-
priate. In so far as education touches on the principles which
underlie ethics, politics, and religion, it concurs with those
sciences, but it is distinguished from them in the capacity
which it imparts for solving the problems presented by the
others.

The scientific order of topics must be established through
the fact that the earlier, as the more abstract, constitute the con-
dition of their presupposed end and aim, and the later because
the more concrete constitute the ground of the former, and
consequently their final cause, or the end for which they exist ;
just as in human beings, life in the order of time comes before
cognition, and cognition before will, although life really pre-
supposes cognition, and cognition will.

FIRST DIVISION.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION, OR ORTHOBIOTICS.

§ 53. Only when we rightly comprehend the process of
life may we know how to live aright. Life, the " circle of
eternal change," is constantly transforming the inorganic into
the oi'o-anic, and after using it, returnino; it ao;ain to the realm of
the inoro-anic. Whatever it does not assimilate of that which it
has taken in simply as a stimulant, and whatever has become
dead, it separates from itself and rejects. The organism is in
perfect health when it accomplishes this double task of or-
oanizino- and disoroanizino-. On the comprehension of this
single fact all laws of physical health or of hygiene are based.
This idea of the essence of life is expressed by Goethe in his
Faust, where he sees the golden buckets perpetually rising

The Science of Education. 193

and sinking.^ When the equilibruini of the upward and down-
ward motion is disturbed, we have disease. When the motion
ceases we have death, in which the whole organism becomes
inoro-anic, and the " dust returns to dust."

§ 54. It follows from this that not only in the organism as
a whole, but in every organ, and every part of every organ,
this restless change of the inorganic to the organic is going on.
Every cell has its own history, and this history is only the
same as that of the whole of which it forms a part. Activity
is then not inimical to the organism, but is the appointed
means by which the progressive and retrogressive metamor-
phoses must be carried out. In order that the process may
go on harmoniously, or, in other words, that the body may be
healthy, the whole organism, and every part of it in its own
way, must have its period of producti\'^ activity and then
also its period of rest in which it finds renewal of strength for
another period of activity. Thus we have waking and sleep,
inspiration and expiration of air. Periodicity is the law of
life. When we understand the relative antagonism (their stage
of tension) of the different organs, and their cycles of activity,
we shall hold the secret of the constant self-renewal of life. This
thought finds expression in the old fairy stories of " The
Search after the Fountain of Youth." And the figure of the
fountain, with its rising; and fallins; waters, doubtless finds its
origin in the dim comprehension of the endless double move-
ment, or periodicity of life.

§ 55. When to any organ, or to the whole organism, not suf-
ficient time is allowed for it to withdraw into itself and to
repair waste, we are conscious of fatigue. While the other
organs all rest, liowever, one special organ may, as if sep-
arated from them, sustain a long-continued effort of activity
even to the point of fatigue,, without injury — as, e.g., the lungs
in talking while all the other members are at rest. But, on
the other hand, it is not well to talk and run at the same time.

1 Faust; Part I., Scene I. "How all weaves itself into the Whole! Each
works and lives in the other ! How the heavenly influences ascend and descend,
and reach each other the golden buckets ! "

XIV— 13

194 The Jonvnal of Speculative Philosophy .

The idea that the body may be preserved in a healthy state
longer by sparing it — i.e., by inactivity — is an error wiiich
springs from a false and mechanical conception of life. It is
just as foolish to imagine that health depends on the abundance
and excellence of food, for without the power of assimilating
the food taken, nourishment of whatever kind does more harm
than good ; all real strength develops from activity alone.

§ 58. Physical education, according as it relates to the re-
pairing, the muscular, or the emotional activities, is divided
into (1) diatetics, (2) gymnastics, (3) sexual education.
In the direct activity of life these all interact with each other,
but for our purposes we are obliged to speak of them as if
they worked independently. Moreover, in the development
of the human being, they come into maturity of development
in a certain order: nutrition, muscular arowth, sexual ma-
turity. But Pedagogics can treat of these only as they are
found in the infant, the child, and the youth; for with the
arrival of mature life, education is over.

First Chapter.

Diatetics.

§ 57. By diatetics we mean the art of repairing the constant
w^aste of the system, and, in childhood, of also building it up to
its full form and size. Since in reality each organism has its
own way of doing this, the diatetical practice must vary
somewhat with sex, age, temperament, occupation, and cir-
cumstances. The science of Pedagogics has then, in this de-
partment, only to enunciate general principles. If we go into
details, we fall into triviality. Nothing can be of more impor-
tance for the whole life than the way in which the phvsical
education is managed in the very first stages of development.
So generally is this fact accepted, that almost every nation has
its own distinct system, which has been careful!}^ elaborated.
Many of these systems, no doubt, are characterized by gross
errors, and widely differ as to time, place, and character, and
yet tliey all have a justification for their peculiar form.

The Science of Education. 195

§ 58. The best food for the infant in the first months of its
life is its mother's milk. The emph)vment of another nurse^
if a general custom, as in France, is highly objectionable,
since with the milk the child is likely to imbibe to some ex-
tent his physical and ethical nature. The milk of an animal
can never supply the place to a child of that of its own mother.
In Walter Scott's story of The Fair Maid of Perth, Eachim
is represented as timorous by nature, haviug been nourished
by a white doe after the death of his mother,

§ 59. When the teeth make their appearance, it is a sign that
the child is ready for solid food ; and yet, till the second teeth
appear, light, half-solid food and vegetables should constitute
the principal part of the diet.

§ 60. When the second teeth have come, then the organism
demands both vegetable and animal food. Too much meat is,,
doubtless, harmful. But it is an error to suppose that man
was intended to eat vegetables alone, and that, as some have
said, the adoption of animal food is a sign of his degeneracy.

The Hindoos, who live principally on a vegetable diet, are
not at all, as has been asserted, a mild and gentle race. A
glance into their stories, especially their erotic poetry, proves
them to be quite as passionate as any other people.

§ (il. Man is an omnivorous being. Children have, there-
fore, a natural desire to taste of every thing. With them, eat-
ing and drinkiug have still a poetic side, and there is a pleas-
ure in them which is not wholly the mere pleasure of taste.
Their proclivity to taste of everything should not, therefore,
be harshly censured, unless it is associated with disobedience,
or pursued in a clandestine manner, or when it betrays cun-
nino; and o-reediness.

§ 62. Children need much sleep, because they are growing
and changing so fast. In later years, waking and sleeping
must be regulated, and yet not too exactly.

§ 63. The clothing of children should follow the form of
the body, and should be large enough to give them free room
for the unfettered movement of every limb in play.

The Germans do more rationally for children in the matter
of sleep and of dress than in that of food, which they often

196 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

make too rich, and accompany with cofi'ee, tea, etc. The
clothing should be not only suitable in shape and size, it must
also be made of simple and inexpensive material, so that the
child may not be hampered in his play by the constant anxiety
that a spot or a rent may cause fault to be found with him.
If we foster in the child's mind too much thought about his
clothes, we tend to produce either a narrow-mindedness, which
treats affairs of the moment with too much respect and con-
cerns itself with little things, or an empty vanity. Vanity
is often produced by dressing children in a maimer that
attracts attention. (No one can fail to remark the peculiar
healthful gayety of German children, and to contrast it with
the different appearance of American cliildrcn. It is undoubt-
edly true that the climate has much to do with this result, but
it is also true that we may learn much from that nation in our
way of treating children. Already we import their children's
story-books, to the infinite delight of the little ones, and
copies of their children's ])ictures are appropriated constantly
by our children's magazines and picture-books. It is to be
greatly desired that we should adopt the very sensible custom
which prevails in Gernumy, of giving to each child its own lit-
tle bed to sleep in, no matter how many ma}^ be required ; and,
in general, we shall not go far astray if we follow the Germans
in their treatment of their happy children.)

§ 64. Cleanliness is a virtue to which children should be
trained, not only for the sake of their physical health, but also
because it has a decided moral inlluence. Cleanliness will not
have things deprived of their distinctive and individual char-
acter, and become again a part of original chaos. It is only a
form of order which remands all thino-s, dirt included, to their
own places, and will not endure to have things mixed and
confused. All adaptation in dress comes from this same prin-
ciple. When ever}^ thing is in its proper place, all dressing
will be suitable to the occasion and to the wearer, and the era
of good taste in dress will have come. Dirt itself, as Lord
Palmerston so wittily said, is nothing but " matter out of
place." Cleanliness would hold every individual thing strictly
to its differences from other thino-s, and for the reason that it

The Science of Education. 197

makes pure air, cleanliness of his own body, of his clothing, and
of all his surroundings really necessary to mau, it develops in
him the feeling for the proper limitations of all existent
things. (Emerson says : " Therefore is space and therefore is
time, that men may know that things are not huddled and
lumped, but sundered and divisible." He might have said,
" Therefore is cleanliness.")

Second Chapter.

Gymnastics.

§ 65. Gymnastics is the art of cultivating in a rational
manner the muscular system. The activity of the voluntary
muscles, which are under the control of the brain, in dis-
tinction from the involuntar}^, which are under the control
of the spinal cord, renders [)ossible the connection of man
with the external world, and acts in a reflex manner back
upon the involuntary or automatic muscles for the purposes
of repair and sensation. Because the activity of muscle-tibre
consists in the change from contraction to expansion, and the
reverse, gymnastics must use a constant change of movements
which shall not only make tense, but relax the muscles that
are to be exercised.

§ ^(i. The gymnastic art among any people will alwaj'S
bear a certain relation to its art of war. So Ions; as fiohtino-
consists mainly of personal, hand-to-hand encounters of two
combatants, so long will gymnastics turn its chief effort
towards the development of the greatest possible amount of
individual strength and dexterity. But after the invention
of fire-arms of long ranoe has chano:ed the whole idea
of war, the individual becomes only one member of a body^
the army, the division, or the regiment, and emerges from
this position into his individuality again only occasionally,
as in sharpshooting, in the onset, or in the retreat. Modern
gymnastics, as an art, can never be the same as the ancient
art, for this very reason : that because of the loss of the
individual man in the sreneral mass of combatants, the matter

198 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy/.

of personal bravery is not of so mnch importance as formerly.
The same essential difference between ancient and modern
gymnastics, would result from the subjective, or internal
character of the modern spirit. It is impossible for us, in
modern times, to devote so much thought to the care of the
T:)ody and to the reverential admiration of its beauty as did
the Greeks.

The Turners' Unions and Turners' Halls in Germany be-
longed to the period of intense political enthusiasm in the
German youth, and had a political significance. Now they
have comeback again to their place as an instrument of educa-
tion, and seem in great cities to be of much importance. In
mountainous countries, and in country life generally, a definite
gymnastic drill is of much less importance, for much and
varied exercise is of necessity a constant part of the daily life
of every one.

The constant opportunity and the impulse to recreation
helps in the same direction. In cities, on the contrary, there
is not free space enough either in houses or yards for children
to romp to their heart's and body's content. For this reason
a gymnasium is here useful, so that they may have compan-
ionship in their plays. For girls this exercise is less necessary.
Dancing may take its place, and systematic exercise should be
used only where there is a tendency to some Aveakness or de-
formity. They are not to become Amazons. On the other
hand, boys need the feeling of comradeship. It is true they
find this in some measure in school, but they are not there
perfectly on an equality, because the standing is determined to
some extent by his intellectual abilit3^ The academic youth
cannot hope to win any great preeminence in the gymnastic
hall, and running, climbing, leaping, and lifting do not inter-
est him very much as he grows older. H-e takes a far more
lively interest in exercises which have a military character. In
Germany the gymnastic art is very closely united with the art
of war.

(The German idea of a woman's whole duty — to knit, to
sew, and to obey implicitly — is perhaps accountable for what
Eosenkranz here says of exercise as regards girls. We, how-

Jhe Science of Education. 199

ever, who know that the most frequent direct cause of debility
and suffering in our 3'oung women is simply and solely a want of
muscular strength, may be pardoned for dissenting from his
opinion, and for suggesting that dancing is not a sufficient
equivalent for the more violent games of their brothers. We
do not fear to render them Amazons by giving them more
genuine and systematic exercise, both physically and intel-
lectually. )

§ 67. The main idea of gymnastics, and indeed of all exer-
cise, is to give the mind control over its natural impulses, to
make it master of the body which it inhabits, and of itself.
Strenijth and dexterity must combine to o:ive us a sense
of mastership. Strength by itself produces the athelete,
dexterity by itself the acrobat. Pedagogics must avoid both
these extremes. Neither must it l)ase its teaching of gym-
nastics on the idea of utility — as, e. g., that man might save his
life by swimming, should he fall into the water, and hence
swimmino; should be tauiiht, etc.

The main thought must be always to enable the soul to
take full and perfect possession of the organism, so as not to
have the body form a limit or fetter to its action in its dealings
with the external world. We are to give it a perfect instru-
ment in the body, in so far as our care may do so. Then we
are to teach it to use that instrument, and exercise it in that
use till it is complete master thereof.

( What is said about the impropriety of making athletes and
acro])ats may with justice be also applied to what is called
*' vocal gymnastics;" whence it comes that we have too
often vocal athletes and acrobats in our graduates, and few
readers who can read at sight, without difficulty or hesitation,
and with appreciation or enjoyment, one page of good
English.) .

§ 68. There are all grades of gymnastic exercises, from the
simple to the most complex, constituting a system. At ffrst
sight, there seems to be so much arbitrariness in these
things that it is always very satisfactory to the mind to detect
some rational system in them. Thus we have movements
(a) of the lower extremities, (6) of the upper, (c) of the

200 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

whole body, with corresponding movements, alternately, of the
upper and of the lower extremities. We thus have leg, arm,
and trunk movements.

§ 69. (1) The first set of movements, those of the legs and
feet, are of prime importance, because upon them depends the
carriage of the whole body. They are (a) walking, {b) run-
ning, (c) leaping; and each of these, also, may have varieties.
We may have high and low leaping, and running may be
distinguished as to whether it is to be a short and rapid, or a
slow and long-continued movement. We may also walk on
stilts, or run on skates. We may leap with a pole, or with-
out one. Dancing is only an artistic and graceful combina-
tion of these movements.

§ 70. (2) The second set comprises the arm movements,
which are about the same as the preceding, being {a) lifting,
(h) swinging; (c) throwing. The use of horizontal poles and
bars, as well as climbing and dragging, belong to lifting.
Under throwing, come quoit and ball-playing and bowling.
These movements are distinguished from each other not only
quantitatively, but qualitatively ; as, for instance, running is not
merel}^ rapid walking ; it is a different kind of movement from
walking, as the position of the extended and contracted muscles
is different.

§ 71. (3) The third set of exercises, those of the trunk,
differ from the other two, which should precede it, in that they
bring the body into contact with an object in itself capable of
active resistance, which it has to subdue. This object may be
an element (water), an animal, or a human being ; and thus we
have (rt) swimming, (h) riding, (c) fighting in single combat.
In swimming we have the elastic fluid, water, to overcome by
means of arm and leg movements. This may be made very
difficult by a strong current, or by rough Avater, and yet we
always have here to strive against an inanimate object. On
the contrary, in horseback riding we have to deal with
something that has a self of its own, and the contest challenges
not our strength alone, but also our skill and courage. The
motion is therefore very complex, and the rider must be able
to exercise either or all of these qualities at need. But his

The Science of Education. 201

attention must not be wholly given to his horse, for he has to
observe also the road, and indeed every thing around him. One
of the o;i"eatest advanta2:es of horseback ridino; to the over-
worked student or the business man lies doubtlessly in the
mental effort. It is impossible for him to go on revolving in
his mind the problems or the thoughts which have so wearied
or perplexed him. His whole attention is incessantly de-
manded for the management of his horse, for the observation
of the road, which changes its character with every step, and
with the objects, far or near, which are likely to attract the
attention of the animal he rides. Much good, doubtless, results
from the exercise of the muscles of the trunk, which are not in
any other motion called into such active play, but much also
from the unavoidable distraction of the mind from the ordinary
routine of thought, which is the thing most needed. When
the object which we are to subdue, instead of being an animal, is
a man like ourselves, as in single combat, we have exercise both
of body and mind pushed to its highest power. We have then
to oppose an intelligence which is equal to our own, and no
lono^er the intellio-ence of an unreasonino; animal. Sinsle com-
bat is the truly chivalrous exercise ; and this also, as in the old
chivalry time, may be combined with horsemanship.

In single combat we find also a qualitative distinction, and
this of three kinds: (a) boxing and wrestling, (h) fighting
with canes or clubs, and (c) rapier and sword fencing. The
Greeks carried wrestling to its highest pitch of excellence.
Amono; the British, a nation of sailors, boxing is still retained
as a national custom. Fencins; with a cane or stick is much
in use amono; the French artisan class. The cane is a sort of
refined club. When the sword or rapier makes its appearance,
we come to mortal combat. The southern European excels
in the use of the rapier; the Germans in that of the sword.
The appearance of the pistol marks the degeneracy of the art
of single combat, as it makes the weak man equal to the
strono;, and there is therefore no more incentive to train the
body to strength in order to overcome an enemy. (The trained
intelligence, the quick eye, the steady hand, the wary thought
to perceive and to take advantage of an opportunity — these

202 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

are the qualities which the invention of gunpowder set up
above strength and brute force. The Greek nation, and we
may say Greek mythology and art, would have been impos-
sible with gunpowder ; the American nation impossible with-
out it. )

Third Chapter.
Sexual Education.

fThis chapter is designed for parents rather than for teachers,
and is hence not paraphrased here. A few observations are,
however, in place.] Great care is necessary at the period of
youth that a rational system of food and exercise be main-
tained. But the ijeneral fault is in the omission of this care in
preceding years. One cannot neglect due precautions for
many years, and then hope to repair the damage caused, by ex-
treme care for one or two years.

Special care is necessary that the brain be not overworked
in early years, and a morbid excitation of the whole nervous
system therebj^ induced. We desire to repress any tendency
to the rapid development of the nervous system. Above all,
is the reading of the child to be carefully watched and
guarded. Nothins; can be worse food for a child than what are

called sensational romances. That the reading of such tends
to enfeeble and enervate the whole thinking power is a fact
which properly belongs to the intellectual side of our question
not yet reached, and uniy be here merely mentioned. But the
effect on the phj^sical condition of the youth, of such carelessly
written sensational stories, mostly of the French type, and
full of sensuous, if not sensual suggestions, is a point not often
enough considered. The teacher cannot, perhaps, except indi-
rectly, prevent the reading of such trash at home. But every
influence which he can brino; to bear towards the formation of a
purer and more correct taste, he should never omit. Where
there is a public library in the town, he should make himself
acquainted with its contents, and give the children direct help
in their selection of books.

The Science of Education. 203

This is an external means. But he should never forget that
every iufluence which he can bring to bear in his daily work
to make science pleasant and attractive, and every lesson
which he gives in tlie use of pure, correct English, free from
exao-o-eration, from slano- and from mannerism, o;oes far to
render such miserable and pernicious trash distasteful even to
the child himself.

Every example of thorough work, every pleasure that comes
from the solving of a problem or the acquisition of a new
fact, is so much fortification against the advances of the enemy ;
while all shallow half work, all pretence or show tend to
create an appetite in the child's mind which shall demand such
food.

The true teacher should always have in his mind these far-
away and subtle effects of his teaching ; not present good or
pleasure either for himself or his pupil, but the far-off good —
the distant development. That idea would free him from the
notion, too common in our day, that the success or failure of
his efforts is to be tested b}^ any adroitly contrived system of
examinations ; or still worse, exhibitions. His success can
alone be tested by the future lives of his pupils — by their
love for, or dislike of, new knowledge. His success will be
marked by their active growth through all their lives ; his fail-
ure, by their early arrested development.

204 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

AES POETIC A ET HUMANA.

BY JOHN ALBEE.

Dost thou, beloved, see

That even poesy

Hath rites like thine and mine?
Dost thou its harmonies
Observe, and how there lies

Along the builded line

The touch, the frequent ties

The muses love to twine?

See, at the very end
The loving words must blend
In cording rhymes, and kiss.
Their meaning not to miss,
Ere they onward flow
Some other mood to show.

So do our hearts rehearse,
In earnest or in play.

The self-same pulse like verse,
And lips seal what lips say.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAMS.

BY JULIA H, GULLIVER.

Among the most perplexing, and at the same time the most inter-
esting problems of Psychology are those connected with the state of
the mind in sleep.

For many centuries the phenomena of the mind, as they appear in
our waking state have been the battle-ground of the antagonistic
schools. The scholarly research and accnrate thinking even of the
present day have been insufficient to settle these questions be3'ond
dispute. The difficulties which attend the analysis of our waking
states must needs be great, inasmuch as the solution of them has so
divided and perplexed the scholarly world. But in the psychology
of sleep all these difficulties are immensely increased. There seems

The Psycliologi/ of Dreains. 205

to be little in common between the vigorous muscular movements,
the clear perception, the logical reasoning of the day, and the lassi-
tude, the wild visions, the strange vagaries of the niglit. All reason-
ing from analogy between the two states might, therefore, appear
to be out of the question.

If, however, the phenomena of dreams are absolutely sui generis,
we find ourselves in still greater perplexity. Instead of the direct
testimon}' of consciousness, we must depend for our data upon the
memory — a treacherous guide, even in our waking states, while its
reports from the dream-world are often so vague and untrustwortliy
as to be wellnigh useless.

In f iill view of these difficulties, we must proceed with unusual care
in our inductive processes, and draw sharply the line between the
known and the conjectural.

For a large proportion of the embarrassments under whicli philoso-
pliy is constantly laboring, a careless use of language is responsible.
It will therefore be to our advantage to discover what men com-
monly mean when they talk about sleep and dreams, and by careful
investigation to determine how far these terms are used correctly
and how far erroneousl}'. Referring to Webster, we find sleep defined
as "a natural and healthy, but temporary and periodical suspension
of the functions of the organs of sense, as well as those of the volun-
tary and rational soul ; that state of the animal in which the senses
are more or less unaffected by external objects, and the fancy or
fantasy only is active." Dreams, according to the same authority,
are " the states or acts of the soul during sleep." The definition of
dreams is doubtless true in a scientific, as well as a practical point of
view. Whether or no, the definition of sleep is equally correct,
future discussion will tend to show. •

However dissimilar the two states of wakefulness and sleep may
appear to be at first sight, there are some facts in general psychology
which are suggestive and pertinent to our subject.

First. Psychology and physiology are closely linked. Mind and
body act and react on each other. In its ordinary action, we know
nothing of the soul save in connection with a material organism.

Second. In rare cases, such as the trance and mesmeric sleep, the
mind seems to be freed, to a certain degree, from its bodily restraints,
and to act according to independent laws of its own.

Third. It is generally true that greater energy is manifested by
one faculty than by another. The quantum of intellectual activity
at any given time is seldom equally distributed among all the mental

20(5 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

powers. If undue prominence is given to any one of tlie functions
of the mind, the others suffer in consequence. An excessive!}' re-
tentive memory checks the inventive powers. A good imitator is
rarely' a good originator. A too vivid imagination, a strong emotion,
renders impossible cool judgment and logical reasoning.

Besides these general preliminary statements, there are some well-
established facts in regard to sleep itself, and also dreams, which
deserve careful attention. In sleep we know, —

First. That the senses do not fall to sleep simultaneously, but one
after the other ; nor are they always completely dormant. Often they
are as sensitive as during wakefulness. The senses of hearing and
touch are especially excitable.

Second. We know that the blood tends to leave the brain, to stim-
ulate the digestive organs. As a consequence, the activity of the
brain is diminished, while the process of digestion is carried on with
increased rapidity and intensity. ^^ Sornnus, labor visceribus," said
Hippocrates, and his words are substantiated by modern science.
Respecting dreams we may assert, —

First. That the sources of dreams are many, and that they vary at
different times and with different individuals. These exciting causes
may be divided into two general classes, namely, physical and men-
tal. Physical stimulations come from the organs of sense, the
internal bodily organs, and the encephalic region. Mental stimula-
tions arise in the mind itself. These are often to be traced to ideas
lately i-eceived, or to those recalled from the past ; but sometimes
appear to be originated b}- the mind while in sleep.

Second. That dreams are characterized by a lack of voluntary at-
tention, and oftentimes by a predominating influence of memory and
imagination.

Let us now consider, a little more in detail, what is involved in
these preliminary statements, in order to discover what conclusions
we are justified in deducing from them. We have found tliat the
sleep of the sense-organs is often incomplete, and that ihe impres-
sions made upon them are frequently the causes of dreams. That
these impressions are a more fruitful source of dreams than is gen-
erally supposed, many illustrations go to prove.

It will be needful to adduce only enough facts to show tliat all
the senses may be active in sleep, although not necessarih' at the
same time, or in the same degree. M. Maury, whose experiments
have thrown much light on the subject, caused himself to be tickled,
while asleep, on the lips and inside of the nostrils. He dreamed

The Psychology of Dreams. 207

that a mask of pitch was appHed to his face, and then roughly torn
off, taking with it the skin of his Ups and nose.

A pair of tweezers was held at a little distance from his ear, and
struck with a pair of scissors. He dreamed he heard the ringing of
bells.

A bottle of eau de Cologne was held to his nose. He dreamed
that he was in a perfumer's shop.

Dr. Hammond tells of a young lady who had contracted the habit
of going to sleep with her thumb in her mouth. One night she tried
covering the offending thumb with extract of aloes, but in the
morning woke to find it in her mouth, as usual. During the night,
however, she had dreamed that she was in a ship of wormwood,
where it was impossible to breathe without tasting the bitterness.
Not only are the senses of touch, hearing, smell, and taste some-
times active in sleep, but even the sense of sight is not altogether
dormant. Another case is related by Dr. Hammond, where a fire on
the hearth, kindling into a bright blaze, caused a sleeper to suppose
that he was in heaven, and was dazzled by -the brilliancy of every
thing about him.

In somnambulism the variations of sense-activity are most re-
markable. The sense of touch is often unnaturally sensitive. Maine
de Biran mentions a somnambulist who distinguished different kinds
of money simply by feeling of them. Another somnambulist,
named Negretti, a servant, who frequently rose in his sleep, set the
table, and performed other duties, was unable to discern any thing
by the sense of taste. Cabbage, seasoned with strong pepper, was
eaten by him with as much apparent relish as the most delicately pre-
pared salad.

Whatever may be the effect of sleep on the external organs, the
workings of the vital organs continue without interruption, and even,
as we have alread}' remarked, with an intensified activity. Here we
have an unfailing source of dream material. In the beating of the
heart, in the rising and falling of the lungs, in the performance of the
other vital functions, is to be found the best example which nature
gives of motion that never ceases. Those who have drained the life-
blood dry in the restless pursuit of perpetual motion, have thus un-
wittingly destroj-ed the only approximation to it which the}' could
hope to discover. Da}' and night, silently and unceasingly, these
processes go on, and will go on till death. One conclusion, then,
inevitably follows from these considerations, namely, that for the
body perfect sleep is impossible. We have only to keep in remem-

208 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

brance the fact, laid down as one of our fundamental principles, in
reo-ard to the close correlation which subsists between the mental and
physical forces, to be brought to another and far more important con-
clusion : that these incessant movements of the internal organs make
perfect sleep fully as impossible for the mind as for the body. As
Leibnitz remarks, "a state without thought in the soul, and an ab-
solute repose in the body, seem to me equally contrary to nature, and
without example in the world. I hold, likewise, that something
passes in the soul which corresponds to the circulation of the blood
and to all the movements of the internal organs." To the same
purport Lemoine saysc^ '*A11 principal writers agree that certain
movements of the internal organs, imperceptible during wakefulness,
become perceptible in the midst of the silence of the outside world,
and, at each instance, new disturbances come to furnish materials
for new visions." Or, to quote Maine de Biran : " Because each of
these impressions [received immediately from the internal organs]
can move S3'mpatheticall3^ the brain, and awake an image propor-
tional to the affection, one sees that all sleep must be filled with
dreams."

That the mind is incessantly active in sleep is also maintained by
Hamilton, Kailt, Jouffroy, and other eminent philosophers.

There are those who believe that dreams are confined to the
moments of transition from wakefulness to deep sleep, and con-
versely ; and that deep sleep is dreamless. The oul^^ reason of any
weight given for this opinion is that dreams of deep sleep are not
remembered. That we have no remembrance of dreams, however,
is no evidence that we have not dreamed. Witness the somnambu-
list, the most vivid of dreamers, who is utterly unconscious, on awak-
ening, of what has passed in his sleep. Witness also the mutterings
and tossings of a person who evidently dreams, yet has no recollec-
tion of his dream. If we are still in doubt, let us endeavor at the
end of a day to recall every thought which has passed through our
minds during the da}'. If this is impossible, how absurd is it to sup-
pose that the memory can and ought to retain all the fleeting fancies
of our dreams. Forgetf ulness of dreams, therefore, is no proof that
the}' have not occurred.

When we come to consider that, beside ceaseless ph3-sical excita-
tions, there are many and effective causes of mental action to be

1 See Du Sommeil, by Albert Lemoine. To this essaj' a large indebtedness is
acknowledged throughout the present discussion.

The PsycJiologi/ of Dreams. 209

found in the mind's own workings, we shall be confirmed in the
opinion that in sleep the soul never remits its activity. Let us next
inquire whether this ceaseless activity is also a conscious activity.

There are certain phenomena of sleep, let us remark lu this con-
nection, which seem to show that there is a subconscious activity.
For example, the fact that a nurse will wake at fixed hours during
the night to give medicine to a patient, and yet sleep soundly be-
tween times, appears to indicate a subconscious calculation of the lapse
of time. The question now l)efore us is whether tliere is a conscious,
as well as a subconscious activity in dreams. If by consciousness
we mean an accurate and lucid knowledge of all the thought-processes
involved in dreams, the answer is emphatically in the negative. If it
means, however, a certain idea, however confused, of what we do,
and think, and suffer, then the acts of the soul are always conscious
acts. The fact that we retain a knowledge of our personal identity
through sleep is a sufficient proof of this. We have only to appeal
to our consciousness to know that we who wake in the morning are
the same persons who went to sleep the evening before and have been
sleeping during the night. When Leibnitz says, '' It is not exactly
memory which makes the same man, but it is at least, memory which
makes the same ej/o," he does not mean that we must be able to
recall at evening all the mental processes of the day, nor that in the
morning we must recollect all the dreams of the night, in order that
we may know our own identity. He simply means that a single act
of thought is no thought ; that there must alwaj^s be a comparison of
two things in order that thought may be possible ; and, since a single
act of consciousness refers to the present only, that memory is essen-
tial in order that the changing states of the ego may be contrasted
and compared. The one thing necessary to a consciousness of self
is tliat the acts of consciousness form one unbroken chain, each being
united with that which precedes and that which follows. It matters
not how frail and gossamer-like this chain ma}^ be, provided that no
link l)e wanting. Consciousness of self, then, implies conscious men-
tal activity which is never intei'rupted. It may be well to note here
that some of the vagaries of dreams would seem to show that' we
may occasionally lose a knowledge of our own identity while dream-
ing, although we are always clearly conscious of it on awakening.
For example. Dr. Macnish dreamed tliat he was riding on his own
back, without knowing whether he vvas the carried or the caiTier.
Again, he saw twenty resemblances to himself in different parts of
the room. "I could not ascertain,'" he says, '■'• which of them was-

XIV — 14

210 77^6 Journal of Speculative P/rilosop/ij/.

myself niul wliieli my <U)iible." Here we have a solulion of the
difHculty. His anxiety nnd effort to discover which was himself,
were his own anxiety and effort. He was still himself; he was still
carrying- on conscious thought-processes, wiiich he knew were his
own. To come back to the main point in hand, however; not only
is tliere activity, and incessant activity, on the part of the mind in
sleep, but, for reasons now given, we believe this to be a conscious
activity as well. Yet, let it be distinctly observed that, thus far,
only a i)assive activity (to use a [)ara(loxical expression) has been
maintained to subsist on the part of the intellectual faculties in sleep.
Leibnitz's idcM. that sleep is filled with '•'little perceptions and con-
fused sentiments," expresses all tliat has been proved, provided it be
luiderstood that these " percei)tions and sentiments " never cease to
be in consciousness.

It is one thing to concede that the mind is never wholly stupified
by sleep, and quite another thing to acknowledge that it is active in
all its powers. To this conclusion, nevertheless, we may be led by
future discussion.

In pushing our inquiries farther, then, concerning the nature of
the soul's activity in slee|), it will l)e necessary for us to consider, in
detail, the various mental faculties as they appear in dreams.

At the outset, let us ask whether there be any one faculty rather
than another which constitutes the ego, awake or asleep. What the
mind is in itself we cannot know, since we know it only as it is mani-
fested to us. What is its fundamental manifestation may be discov-
ered. Descartes supposed it was to be found in the thougiit-processes.
Modern philosophy refers it to the will, and with moi'e reason. Sleep
is defined by Maine de Biran as the temporary suspension of the will.
Only a moment's reflection is necessary, however, to convince us of
the falsit}' of this position. It may be true, as many assert, that the
action of the will on the bodily organs is interrupted in sleep. But
this fact is due to the inertia of the body, and not to that of the mind.
We have, all of us, dreamed of walking, running, or flying. It matters
not that our bodies have been lying immobile during the dream. The
suggestion has been given by the mind ; the will has decreed. It is
owing to a bodily rather than a mental inactivity that the usual result
has not followed. None would be so foolish as to maintain that a
pai'alytic had lost the power of willing, simply because his deadened
members refused to obey his commands. Yet those who deny the
will's action in sleep have no better grounds for their assumption.
But stop a moment, expostulates Dr. Hammond ; we do not ivill any

The Psychology of Dvecnns. 211

action in sleep. We imagine we do, and that is all. As an example
of this he tells of a dream of his own, wherein he supposed that he
was hanging over the Q(\ge of a precipice, and that, in spite of the
most strenuous exertion of the will, he was forced to cast himself
over the brink into the chasm below. In commenting on this, lie
says: "'The imaginarj' volition was to refrain from ciawling over a
precipice which did not exist, and over which, therefore, I was not
hanging. The volition was just as imaginary as all the other circum-
stances of the dream." In like manner it miglit be said that a man
who imagines that he sees a robber in his room at night, and who
therefore seizes his pistol, takes aim, and fires, has not designed to
kill or disable the supposed thief, since in reality it was no thief, but
only a shadow, at which he has fired. In addition to the arguments
already adduced to show that the will is active in sleep, Dugald
Stewart adds very pertinently the following: "If it were necessary
that volition should l)e suspended before we fall asleep, it would be
impossible for us, by our own efforts, to hasten the moments of rest.
The very supposition of such efforts is absurd, for it implies a con-
tinued will to suspend the acts of the will."

Continuing our investigation, let us next consider the reason, as it
is manifested in dreams. Reason is a faculty ; reasoning is a process.
Many will acknowledge the presence of the latter in dreams, while
they utterly deny the action of the former. "•Reasoning," remarks
Dr. Clarke, "may be good or bad, logical or illogical, sound or
absurd. There is no contradiction in saying that a dreamer reasons,
but does not use his reason." It would be nearer the truth to sa}^
that the reason remains in dreams, but the will no longer controls it.
While awake, the attention is concentrated by an act of the will on
a given subject. Tiiis subject is the mind's voluntary choice, and
b}' a careful comparison of the given data, the mind is enabled to
reach correct and reasonable conclusions. In sleep, all this is
changed. The voluntary attention necessar}' to compare dreams
with each other and with the reality is lacking. Not only this, but
the subject-matter of dreams, instead of being chosen bv the mind,
is introduced regardless of law, or order, or rational connection.
So rapidly does one scene shift into another that the wildest confusion
and the most absurd combinations result. In dreams, the mind's
activity rather than its somnolence is manifested in its earnest endeav-
ors to fit together the disconnected bits of thought which are pre-
sented to it. To be sure, these mental mosaics are often incongruous,
and even gi-otesque. But erratic thinking is by no means confined

212 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy.

to sleep. On tlie contrary, we shall hope to show that the vagaries
of our waking moments are to be compared not unjustly to the wan-
derings of our dreams. Fenelon, speaking of reason, says: "This
sun of truth leaves no shadow ; it shines upon us in the night as well
as in the da}^ ; it is a day without a shadow ; it is only the eyes of
the sick which are closed to its light ; and yet no man is so diseased,
or so blind, that he walks no more in the faint glimmering of some
dim light shed upon him by this interior sun of the consciousness."
Few words are required to show that the process of reasoning is
sometimes carried on in dreams as logically and accurately as during
wakefulness. As Cabanis remarks : " Really the mind can continue
its researches in sleep ; it can be conducted by a certain train of rea-
soning to ideas it had not." There are a number of well-known
examples to prove this. Franklin said that he was enabled to solve
man}' a political problem in his sleep, which he had labored over in
vain while awake. Condorcet frequently fell asleep in the midst of
the most abstruse calculations, and woke to find that the thought-
processes had gone on while he slept, and that the desired results had
been obtained. Condillac gave a like testimony in regard to the work-
ings of his mind in sleep. Many other like illustrations could be
instanced, but those here cited are sufficient to show that incoherency
is not the necessary characteristic of dreams. It is probable that if
we alwaj's knew the data on which our reasoning in sleep depended,
many of our dreams which now seem ridiculous would prove to be
rational thought-processes. The logic of the mind asleep is precisely
the same as the logic of the mind awake. The trouble arises from
the material with which it has to deal, and not from its method of
handling that material. This peculiarity of dream psychology brings
out with startling emphasis the danger of reasoning from false
premises. Once grant fundamental principles which are not true,
says its warning, and it is impossible to predict into what insanities
your system, logically carried out, will lead you. The workings of
conscience in sleep admit of an explanation similar to that just given.
Many assert that the moral sense is entirely lacking in dreams, and
numberless cases can be quoted which appear to sustain this opinion.
For example. Miss Cobbe, in Macmillan' s Magazine^ November, 1870,
says that one of the most benevolent of men, Mr. Richard Napier,
dreamed "that he ran his best friend through the bodj^ and ever
after recalled tlie extreme gratification he had experienced on seeing
the point of his sword come out through the shoulders of his
beloved companion." Inasmuch, however, as the conscience is noth-

The PsycJiology of Dreams. 213

ing more or less than the judgment exercised in respect to questions
of right and wrong, it is probable that the judgments of our sleep
would be found to be regulated by the same principles as the judg-
ments of our waking moments, provided we knew with equal cer-
tainty in both cases the data upon which we base those judgments.

Some time ago the writer had a most vivid dream, which illustrates
several noteworthy points, but especiall}^ the fact that reasoning
processes are carried on in dreams.

I dreamed that I was in the remotest corner of a deserted house,
which stood alone, apart from all others, emptv and desolate. The
room where 1 stood was a small one, lighted b}^ a single candle, which,
however, was all-sufficient to disclose the bodies of the dead laid out
on all sides of me. A shuddering horror took hold upon me, and I
thought it was only by a strong effort of the will that I retaiued my
self-control. Whether my greatest fear was of men or ghosts, I can-
not say. I was in deadly terror of both. I was possessed with the
idea that there were thieves lurking about the place. "But, after
all," I reasoned, "there is little danger of that; for this is the best
place of concealment in the whole house. If robbers were hiding on
the premises, I should have found them here." No sooner had I rid
myself of this idea than another suggested itself. The house was
swarming with spectres and ghostly phantoms. At any moment they
might come gliding in at the door. But again my reason came to my
aid, and I argued: "If there are ghosts here, I shall not see them ;
for, even were they present, being ghosts and having no substance,
the}' would present no surface from which the light could be reflected
to my eye." Is it not manifest that I went through processes of
reasoning, and sensible reasoning, too, in this dream, and also that I
put forth a strong exertion of the will ? Notice also two other points
illustrated by this dream: —

First. That, in the process I went through to prove to myself that
I should not see any spectres, my mind seemed to leap to its conclu-
sion without thinking out the separate words, as I was obliged to do
on awakening and trying to recall my dream ; showing the rapidity
with which the mind works in sleep, and also throwing light pn the
vexed question as to whether it is possible to think without words.
This dream shows also \evy clearly an instinct of emotional harmony,
which some writers believe to be prominent in dreams, and to form
an important feature in producing the unit}^ they often manifest.

Thus far in our analysis, we have been passing through a " debat-
iible land" of antagonistic criticism. Now, however, that we are

214 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

ready to consider the faculties of memory and imagination, we find
that the divergent pathways have all merged into one, so plain and
indubitable that it can be rapidly traversed. That these two faculties
often occupy a prominent place in dreams is indisputable. Frequently,
the powers of the mind which rule with iron sway during the daj^ ax*e
deposed at night, and forced to walk obediently in the rear, follow-
ing these two gaj' leaders like monarchs in chains. The fact that
the mind is left so largely to its own resources, and has so little, com-
paratively speaking, to distract its attention, explains not only the
A'ividness and tendency to exaggeration in dreams, but also the prom-
inence of imagination and memory. A good illustration of the
creative imagination in sleep is Tartini's " La Sonate du Diable,"
and also Coleridge's " Kubla Khan." both of which were composed
in a dream. The opening lines of the latter are as follows : —

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea."

So vivid and ingenious is this imaginative power that one feels like
echoing the words of Caliban, when he says : —

— " In dreaming,
The clouds, methought, would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon nie ; that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again."

Dr. Macnish tells a remarkable story, which he vouches for in
every particular, showing that in dreams the memory can sometimes
recall that which is sought for in vain during the waking hours. He
saj^s that a Mr. R., of Bowland, was prosecuted for a considerable
sum of money, the accumulated arrears of a tithe. Mr. R. was
strongly impressed with the idea that his father, who was then dead,
had during his lifetime purchased thesL' lands from the tituhir. and
that therefore the present prosecution was groundless. After dili-
gent search, however, he could find no evidence to support his claim,
and accordingly determined to make the best compromise he could.
With this resolution he went to bed, and dreamed that his father
appeared to liim, and told him in whose hands were the papers relat-
ing to the purchasing of the land in question. On awakening, Mr.
R. went to the person named, and found the papers as described. Dr.
Macnish thinks, and his opinion is a reasonable one, that this dream

The PKjjcholocpj of Dreams. 215

was a mere recapitulation of information which Mr. R. had really
received from his father during his lifetime, but which he had entirely
forgotten until it was recalled Iw his dream. There is something
startling in the power manifested by the memory in dreams, suggest-
ing as it does, that forgetfulness is impossible, and that every thought
and deed remains forever in remembrance, readv at some future day
to bear its terrible witness for or against us.

From the investigation of dream psychology which we have now
made, only one conclusion is possible, namely, that sleep is a func-
tion of the body., and not of (he soul. What, then, it may be asked, is
the difference between the state of the mind in sleep and its state in
wakefulness? To which we would reply, there is no essential differ-
ence. But it will be very justly urged, if the mind is consciously
active in sleep as well as in wakefulness, why is it not also conscious
of the fact that it is dreaming? Why does it accept as reality the
wild visions of sleep? For tlie very reason that sleep pertains to the
body and not to the mind. To think, to feel, to will, are acts of the
soul. Hence it recognizes them even in dreaming. To sleep is the
part of the physical organs. With them it begins and ends. Nor is
there any sign by whicii the mind is informed of the condition of the
body.

iSlill the question arises, if wakefulness and sleep show no essen-
tial differences, why do we find the one characterized by all that is
reasonable and possible, the other by all that is al)surd and incon-
gruous? This statement we have already called in question, in dis-
covering that all the mental phenomena of our waking moments occur
also in sleep. The falsity of such a distinction will appear still more
clearly if we can shovv that the converse is equally true, namely,
that all the mental phenomena of sleep occur during wakefulness.
There are two kinds of error common in dreams, illusions and hallu-
cinations. Lemioine defines an illusion as a wrong interpretation of
a sensation made by an external object; an hallucination occurs,
according to the same authority, when the mind assigns to an exter-
nal object a sensation produced by an internal distuibance. Illusions
are by no means confined to sleep, but are of frequent occurrence
during wakefulness. Witness the following instance related by
Dr. Luke, in his l)ook entitled •'Mind and Body:" ''During the
conflagration at the Crystal Palace, in the winter of 1866-7, when
the animals were destroj'ed by fire, it was supposed that the chim-
panzee had succeeded in escaping from his cage. Attracted to the
roof, with this expectation in full force, men saw the unhappy animal

216 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

holding on to it, and writhing in agony to get astride one of tlie iron
ribs. It need not be said that its struggles were watched b}' those
below with breathless suspense, and, as the newspapers informed us,
with 'sickening dread; ' and all this feeling was thrown away upon
a tattered piece of blind, so torn as to resemble, to the eye of fancy,
the body, arms, and legs of an ape." Hallucinatioas are more rare
during wakefuhiess, because one sense may be used to correct an-
other. For example, if we feel, when awake, a stricture at the
throat produced by internal inflammation, yet momentarily assign it
to some external cause, by simply raising the hand we discover our
mistake; nor find it necessary, after the fashion of a sleeping brain,
to account for the feeling by supposing that we are suffering death by
hanging. Nevertheless, to quote the words of Dr. Elam : ''In a
state of iiealth and mental soundness, senses may be so imposed
upon, with or without existing objects, that in some instances it
requires the exercise of all the reasoning and anal3^tic faculties to
correct the impression ; and in others these impressions are so strong
that no suspicion of unreality ever appears to attach to them, nor can
the subject of them be persuaded of their unreality."

" It is a well-known physiological law," he further remarks, " that
whatever impressions can be produced upon the organs of the senses
by external agency can also be produced subjectively by internal
changes." Dr. Clarke dwells on this in his book on "Visions."
Speaking of the angular gyrus, that part of the visual appaiatus
which forms the cerebral terminus, and where sight is perfected, he
says: "Whatever report the angular gyrus sends to the mind is
accepted as true. Were it apt to act by itself, unstimulated by the
eye, we should be unable to distinguish orthopia (objective) from
pseudopia (subjective). Now and then the angular gyrus does act
independently, and the result is amazing and confounding." Again
he says: "Vivid ideal pictures, painted by strong emotion or intense
Yolitional effort on the organic structure of the frontal lobes, react on
the visual \ientre of the hemispheres, and lead to the formation there
of visual cell-groups more or less perfect in character. These, in
turn, visually excite the lobes, and so, by action and reaction, add
vividness and accuracy to the ideal representation." This, be it
remarked, exactly describes what takes place in sleep. It is what
Lemoine expresses in simpler language when he says: "I see a
phantom in sleep. Its sight terrifies. I fear lest it advance,
pursue, speak, menace me witli death. Immediately, it does
advance, pursues, etc. Thus one fear augments the other.

The Psychology of Dreams. 217

A continufil reaction of organ on mind, and mind on organ is
taking place." But to illustrate the point in question, as to whether
hallucinations occur during wakefulness as well as sleep, the case of
Goethe can be quoted, who could produce, at will, subjective copies
of pictures and various works of art which he had seen. . Shake-
speare, in his own inimitable way, shows how the senses may be
imposed upon. Macbeth, intent on the murder of Duncan, says of
the dagger : —

— "I have thee not, and yet
I see thee still. Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind; a false creation?
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest.
I see thee still.

There's no such thing;
It is the bloody business, which informs thus to mine eyes."

Hallucinations are by no means confined to those pertaining to
the sense of sight. It is a well-known fact that, after the amputa-
tion of a limb, the patient continually refers the pain he suffers to
the amputated part. In some cases the sensation has been so strong
that the diseased member has been actually dug up to see if some-
thing was not torturing it. From all of which it appears that error
is not peculiar to sleep, any more than reasonableness is peculiar to
our waking states.

We do not mean to deny that wildness and misrule are more com-
mon at night than during the day. But we maintain that this is for
the very reason that the mind obeys the same laws in sleep as in
wakefulness. Accustomed to accept as trustworthy the testimony of
the senses, it continues to do so even in sleep ; utterly unconscious
and without warning of the somnolent condition of the bodily organ-
ism. Is it aii}^ wonder that it becomes confused, that it constantly
mistakes the false for the true ? So far as the vagaries of dreams
are due to the mental rather than the physical condition, they are to
be fully accounted for by the fact insisted on as a fundamental prin-
ciple, and dwelt upon in different parts of this discussion, that volun-
tary attention is always lacking in dreams, and tliat frequently mem-
ory, and especially imagination, predominate over the other faculties.
"Attention," says Maury, "instead of dominating the images which
present themselves, is itself dominated b}' them." Under these cir-
cumstances, it is natural to suppose that the judgment and reason
should be frequentl}' in abej^ance, since we have already seen that if

218 2Vie Journal of Speculative Philosopit ij .

undue prominence is given to any one of the functions of the mind,
either during vvakefuhiess or sleep, the others must suffer in conse-
quence.

Finally, it maj^ be urged, if the position here maintained is a just
one, how can there be any recuperative power in sleep? What chance
is there for brain relaxation, if the mental processes continue at night
as well as during the day? This brings out a very important point.
While we believe, and have tried fully to demonstrate, that the activ-
it}^ of the mind in sleep is the same in kind as the activit}' of the
mind awake, we also believe that, generally speaking, it is very much
less in degree. Moreover, repose does not necessitate the cessation
of all mental activity. The brain wearies when the mind is forced
to keep its attention fixed on a given subject for any length of time.
It is restraint, not action, which fatigues. It is change, rather than
stupefaction, which refreshes. Just as during the day, after long and
concentrated mental effort, we ol)tain rest in allowing the mind to
wander at will ; so in sleep, only much more perfectly, the thoughts,
given loose rein, rove on in unrestrained vagrancy, and thus the
tired brain finds repose.

So far is it from being true that the mind is deprived of any of its
faculties in sleep, that it seems at times to [)ossess even a super-
natural power. In the brilliant imagination, the accurate and far-
reaching memory, the marvellous rapidity of thought, and the tire-
less activity which goes on and on, while the wearied body lies stui^e-
fied and inert, we catch glimpses of what the underlying soul may
be, when, freed from the material organism which fetters it, it shall
enter upon a new and independent existence.

"Dormientiuin aninii maxime deelaiaiit tliviintateni suaiij."

Laivs of Crenfioii — Ultimate Science. 219

LAW8 OF CREATION — ULTIMATE SCIENCE.

BY TIIERON GRAY.

Some journalist has derisively said that "every writer nowadays
has a theory of creation to ventilate." It is truly a marked fact
that creation is coming to lie a common theme, and it is a fact
fraught witli too much weiglit to be thus disposed of by the flippant
pen of popular journalism.

There are conclusions forced u[)on the minds of thoughtful persons
in this connection, that are vital and impressive. First, this general
attempt to speak the important word as to Ci'eation imi)lies a pre-
vailing sense that it has not yet been spoken. Second, it implies that
it is the leading word to all correct thought and activity, and ought
to be consistently uttered. Thirdly, it implies that the time has
come for amplest hearing of that word, as also for amplest utter-
ance.

The very fact that the spohenmen of the I'ace are so largely pressed
with one endeavor is a symptom that the race is big with the mighty
burden, and is painfully laboring for deliverance. And although
I'elief and satisfaction cannot be found in stammering incoherent utter-
ances, 3'et th^se efforts are not to be despised on account of their
inefficiency, but rather they are worthy of a measure of respect,
because of their worthy aim. The commanding impression is that
Creation is the one great reality that embraces and carries us all,
from first to last ; and it is felt that the truth of that verity, con-
sistently rendered as comprehensive law, is that which of all realities
is most needful to the mind of man. For the difference between
knowledge and ignorance here is the difference between scientific
navigation from port to port, with craft all perfectly rigged and
manned, and that of ignorant, disorderly drift, mainly at the com-
mand of wind, wave, and tide. In plain words, a good understand-
ing of Creative Order, as determined by supreme law, anchors fira^iy
in fundamental knowledge. It gives that knowledge of the origin,
develoi)ment, and destiny of the race that is requisite to ail scien-
tific jirogress — to systems of human culture and discipline that
carry the race steadily onwai-d and upward to its destined goal. The
progress of the race in knowledge and power is sure, by the normal
ruling of the Divine Providence ; but with the intelligent concurrence

220 The Journal of Specidative Philosophy.

of man, through a definite knowledge of creative law, movement
will be dii'ect and peaceful, where otherwise it were indirect and con-
flicting. For scientific method is always easy and sure, compared
with experimental uncertainty.

Knowledge such as is here contemplated, — that is, knowledge of
comprehensive creative law, — can onl}' be derived from certain ruling
principles clearly seen to be necessary and sufficient for the occasion.

These principles may be brietl}' indicated, but need to be largely
explicated and applied, in solution of the various problems that inter-
est current thought, in order to exhibit their real nature and practical
worth as commanding creative law.

Let me try to briefly state or outline them : —

First term : That which involves all in chaotic indistinction — as,
Creative Mind, and Substance given.

Second term : That which projects or definitely unfolds all in
specific detail and contrariet}^ of forms — as, Creative Operation in
developing creaturely form.

Tliird term : That which embraces and truly relates or associates
all in most effective power and harmony — as, Creative End: crea-
turely form consummated in Divine Man.

The fii'st gives the principle of creative Simplism — the unknown
one.

The second gives the y^rinciple of the Complex in creation — the
known manifold.

The third gives the principle of the Composite in creation — revealed
fulness in the practical unity of the simple and multiform.

The first is equivalent to monotone ; the second, to diversity in
discordance ; the third, to diversity in harmony. The first were
painfull}^ impressive ; the second, full of distracting conflicts ; and
the third, of peace and delight in perfect order.

Without the first, as an elementary principle in creation, there
were no possible base or foundation for an unfolding process. With-
ont the second, there were no means of intelligent discrimination
of characteristic; forms. Without the third, there were no possible
opening to composure and rest in orderly wholeness of mind, thought,
and things. So, it is seen, no one of these factors of creative law
can be spared from the series v/itliout annulling the elements of com-
plete order ; nor can aught be added thereto to make the sclieme more
ample or perfect. Neither minus nor plus is possible, to enhance the
quantitative or qualitative significance of this comprehensive sum-
mary. Hence the conclusion is inevitable that the three elementary

Laws of Creation — Ultimate Science. 221

principles thus named, or tlieir equivalent under other terms of similar
significance, compose the full scale of creative law, and give the
clew, when consistently applied, to the solution of the various puz-
zling problems that engage our attention.

As to all themes that come under mental survey, these three-fold
elements may not readily ap[)ear ; but that they invarial)ly exist, and
will be made to appear in any comprehensive explication of the
theme, is very certain. Regarding this subject of creation, for
instance, the first term — Creative Being — is cognizable by neither
human sense nor reason, and hence is liable to be denied ; at least,
until human sense and reason are illumined by wisdom, either as
sophial intuition, sophial reflection, or sophial science. Indeed,
sense and reason are sure to den}-, without the higher light, in an}' of
these forms.

The wisdom form, as the faculty above sense and reason, is the
only avenue b}' which the lower can be opened to the realities of the
Highest, that were otherwise totally obscure to their vision. But
if sense and reason remain closed to the light of wisdom in its three
degrees, and thence deny that there is any first term to the creative
series, that cannot nullify' the truth of the Creative Time, which we
have shown to be an essential and all-pervading verity.

Human reason may be impressed with sense by the sense or intui-
tion of wisdom, and thence affirm the Divine Being as essential l^asic
term ; or it may be impressed with various reflex deductions of wis-
dom, and thence not only affirm, but partially explicate the necessary
truths thereof ; or it may be distinctly informed of the compre-
hending fulness of the truth as a science of wisdom, and thence be
able to affirm, explicate, and apply it as the only "Light of life; "
but if that reason remains untouched by any of these forms of wis-
dom, it is wholly in the dark as to supremest realities, and can only
doulit and deny.

Philosophic idealism seems to be overshadowed by benighted human
reason, and so it regards the first term of the creative series as
mere "abstraction," or "naught." The light of Christian science
is needed to dissipate the fogs and mists of such nescience as to ^he
basic term. Let us try to impress our thought more distinctly :

In our scale of numeric symbolism, it will do to let the symbol
" naught" (0) stand as the root-term, without practical power. Yet
we know that it represents that unit of inherent, numeric power,
as an Eternal Providence, without which actual enumeration could
never take place as the boon it is to human experience. And while

222 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

to careless thought it counts for ''abstraction" or "naught," to
clear insight it stands for the infinite potentiality of enumeration.
And "in the fulness of time," when the actual scale of numeric
power is fully unfolded in tlie units 1-9, this ci|)lier-symbol vindi-
cates its significance and power in a composite terra before unknown
(10). Here, as the underived root-term (J)) ^ allied loith the lowest
of the derived (1), it augments tlie power of that one in nine-fold
degree ; that is, to the full extent, in power, of the developing series.
Thus, l-{-9=10; equivalent to l-[-0=10.

Thus the infinite potentialit3' of numeric power, symbolized as
" naught," is actuall3'^ the all and onli/ reality ; and, in the end of the
series, becomes actually incarnated or embodied in its own proper
form as tlie fulness of power in tliis form.

Tills is all simpl}' the imagery or analogue of the truth of Creation,
that comprehends (1) God as Creative P^ssence in Divine Being,
(2) as Creative Operation in human existence, (3) as Creative End
in the composing fulness of Divine Natural Man.

So, a true conception of Creation sees the very first term as all-
comprehending Being, or generative Life, iiivoloiiig generatiA^e process
in creaturely form, and generated result in created form. And it
also sees this trine principle bearing rule as the law of the evolu-
tionaiT process in the luitnral humanity^ and the law of true organi-
zation and activity in the Divine Humanity.

We thus see where tlie voice of wisdom, as ultimate science, leads
us. Where mere rationalism, or even philosophical idealism, finds only
"negation," " abstraction," or "idea" as the prior term to known
mind, thought, and things, this science sees eternal triune substance,
or God, as essential Life, Activity, and Form. It never allows the
dominance of sense and reason, though it ministers to them of its
own supreme light through all the forms of rational analogy and sen-
sory symbols. It fuses the simplicity of sense and the complexities
of reason in the synthesis or composite fulness of eternal reality. It
perfectly serves the needs of sense and reason by taking what it sees
theologically , or of God, and delivering it to reason analogically, and
to sense symbologicaUy. Reason can take and apply the essential
truth when it is presented rationally {by force of related reality, lohich
it has come to experience^, for it knows only by relation — its own
form. And sense can be instructed only through its own form — the
sensory symbolization of the truths of wisdom.

Human wisdom, will, or Divinest affection comes to true illumina-
tion as to the Highest through Divine revelation — direct infiux

Laivs of (Jveation — Ultimate Science. 223

through such affections, duly quaUfied — and it may communicate its
Hglit to reason bj- analogies of science, and to sense by objective form
or sensible symbol. Sense may confusedly perceive of itself, and
reason ma}'^ generalize partially, and discordantly cognize of itself ;
but onl}' amplest wisdom can synthetize, or accordantly and fully
cognize, and thence duly illumine both sense and reason by conform-
ing the lohole truth to their scope of vision.

Hence all that rational science can do, from its special fields of
survey, is to criticise and protest as to falsities or perversions that
arise under the guise of theology. It were as absurd to suppose that
the specialist in science can discover and announce the truths of uni-
versal scietice — the science of tlieology — as to suppose that moon-
light can illumine the sun. The lower can typify, illustrate, or
analogically render the higlier when that lower is illumined by the
higher, and not before. Then it can only illustrate. It can never
illiuuine the higher. How absurd, therefore, ever^^ pretence of
rational science to determine as to the ruling- truths of theoloo-v —
as to Creative Being, Creative Operation, and Creative End — God's
Being, generative activity in the realms of human experience, and
destined fruition to such activity in Divine Order, supreme and con-
stant in liuman affairs. This is the prerogative of theology alone.
And a scientific tlieology will cover and explicate the wliole truth of
Divine Being, Operation, and End, as thus indicated.

The sole value of the criticisms of the rationalists as to matters of
theology is that they tend to clear the ground of a mass of unseemly
rubbish which has long been gathering there — men of straw, and
other cumbersome forms — and thus open the way for the heat and
light of Central Sun to fall on that ground and cause new and living-
forms to spring forth. Not only rationalistic science, but rationalistic
philosophy has a mission in this direction. Neither are affirraative of
real truth in highest realms, but both are serviceable as image-
breakers. Iconoclastic thought goes naturally before integral
thought, the partial and insufficient — mainly useful to tear down —
before the universal and efficient, competent to affirm and build up.

Philosophic idealism tries to affirm the ripened fruit of human
thought ; but fruition can only counterpoise initial seed, or first
fruit given. When that given seed or first term is only " negation "
" abstraction," or '" idea," tliat vanishes into nothingness, thus giving
no hold for human heart, head, or feet; only " negation " can come
of it as fruition. So much is clear. Nothing comes of nothing.

To Christian science — a scientific theology, as knowledge derived

. 224 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

in the revealed incarnate Divinity — God, the Creator, is distinctly
known as the infinite personality of love, wisdom, and power; not
merely "idea," "abstraction," "negation," but the veriest S^ih-
stance or Being. This science abhors and repudiates every notion of
mere unrelieved simplism even. It knows no absolute one in heaven
above or earth below. In every atom it sees form in community of
matter, action in the special form, and function in the universal. In
every distinct form is seen an anchorage in a common element or
genus, action in that form according to its own nature, and in some
way utility to related forms which it acts upon. Sense may know it
only as simple one, and reason as discordantly related, one; but high-
est vision knows it as essentially composite or unitary, functioning
in and by the universal; distinctly knows it as a triunity of form;
and thus, in some measure, an image of Creative Being.

Any form of knowing or science that reaches above mere sensory
knowing (animalit}^) must analyze and measurably synthetize, else
it will make a poor show as science. How, therefore, can there be
analysis and synthesis essential to amplest science, if all tliat is or
can be of experienced mind, thought, and things is derived in absolute
one, and that one is only " idea," " abstraction," " nothing? "

How can " sul)lation " of that one occur when there is only
" idea," " abstraction," or " naught " to " sublate? "

In this creative series we are forced to conclude tliat the factor
termed " abstraction " or " negation" is that sublimest of all realities,
which does not appear in and by sense or reason — does not appear
by mere animal and human faculty — but only by the full revelations
of Divine Wisdom. Then it necessarily appears under the form
of wisdom — -the composite form, trinity -iii-tinity ; for wisdom is
Divine Substance, Divine Force, and Divine Form. By it "the
worlds are made." It is vital substance that generatively acts by its
force, and divinely organizes by its form.

Creation consisting, then, (1) of a principle of simple unity or gen-
eral term given, (2) a principle of complexity and ijontrariety in
the manifold derived, and (3) of a principle of composite unity in
the organic derived, we have a three-fold principle of Creative Law,
as the comprehending order of all mind, all thought, and all things;
which, duly formulated and explicated, constitutes a Science of Crea-
tion, ample to assume human thought and regulate human conduct to
the utmost.

While by the rule of such science we see that basic one is the all
and only verity, we see that without due translation, " sublation," or

Educational Psychology. 225

a going forth, it is entirely unknown or inappreciable to the mere
human understanding; and not then is it truly known till it is
formed, embodied, or composed in a sufficing final term. This is not
only true as verified Christian science — the science of creation —
but also as to all the minor drapery or imagery of the outward inves-
titure, which is a seamless robe to a jierfect form, and can never be
parted, though it be doomed to rudest hawking in the hands of the
crucifiers.

Let, therefore, this era of science put on its majestic crown in
supreme Christian science. At least, let Christian disciples come to
a clear understanding here. Then, when assailed by the pompous
thrusts of free-lance, the3' will show a defensive armory invulnerable
to its rude assaults, that will not only turn that lance, but break it
at the hilt.

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY.

[outlines of a system, by WM. T. HARRIS.]

I.

What beings can be educated ; the plant has reaction against its surroundings in the
form of nutrition; tlie animal has reaction in tlie form of nutrition and feeling; Aris-
totle calls the life of the plant the " nutritive soul," and the life of the animal the " sen-
sitive soul."

The life of the plant is a continual reproduction of new individuals — a process of
going out of one individual into another— so that the particular individual loses its
identity, although the identity of the species is preserved.

That which is dependent upon external circumstances, and is only
a circumstance itself, is not capable of education. Only a "self"
can be educated; and a "self" is a conscious unity — a "self-ac-
tivity," a being which is through itself, and not one that is made by
surrounding conditions.

Again, in order that a being possess a capacity for education, it
must have the ability to realize within itself what belongs to its
species or race.

If an acorn could develop itself so that it could realize, not only
its own possibility as an oak, but its entire species, and all the varie-
ties of oaks within itself, and without losing its particular individu-
ality, it would possess the capacity for education. But an acorn,
in reality, cannot develop its possibility without the destruction of its
own individuality. The acorn vanishes in the oak tree, and the crop
XIV— 15

226 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

of acorns which succeeds is not again the same acorn, except in kind
or species. ''The species lives, but the individual dies," in the
vegetable world.

So it is in the animal world. The brute lives his particular life,
unable to develop within himself the form of his entire species, and
still less the form of all animal life. And yet the animal possesses
self-activity in the powers of locomotion, sense-perception, feeling,
emotion, and other elementary shapes. Both animal and plant react
against surroundings, and possess more or less power to assimilate
what is foreign to them. The plant takes moisture and elementary
inorganic substances, and converts them into nutrition wherewith to
build its cellular growth. The animal has not only this power of
nutrition, which assimilates its surroundings, but also the power of
feeling, which is a wonderful faculty. Feeling reproduces within the
organism of the animal the external condition ; it is an ideal repro-
duction of the surroundings. The environment of the plant may be
seized upon and appropriated in the form of sap, or in the form of
carbonic acid, for the nourishment of that plant ; but there is no
ideal reproduction of the environment in the form of feeling, as in
the animal.

In the activity of feeling, the animal transcends his material, cor-
poreal limits — lives beyond .his mere body, and participates in the
existence of all nature. He reproduces within himself the external.
Such being the nature of the activity of feeling, which forms the dis-
tinguishing attribute that divides animals from plants, the question
meets us at the outset, "Why is not-the animal capable of educa-
tion? Why can he not realize within himself his entire species or
race, as man can? "

In order to settle this fundamental question, we must study care-
fully the scope and limits of this activity, which we have termed
-"Feeling," and which is known under many names — as, sensation,
sensibility, sensitivity, sense-perception, intuition, and others.

Education aims to develop the mind as intellect and will. It must
know what it is to develop, and learn to distinguish higher or more
complete stages of intellect and will from^those which are rudimen-
tary.

Again, the discussion of mind begins properly with the first or
most undeveloped manifestation — at the stage where it is common
to brutes and human beings. Hence we may begin our study of
educational psychology at this point where the distinction between
animal and plant appears, and where the question of the capacity for
education arises.

Educational PsycJiologij. 227

When we understand the rehition of feeUng or sensibiUt}' to the
higlier manifestations of mind, we shall see in what consists a capacity
for education, and we shall learn many essentials in regard to the
matter and method, the ivhat and the koto of education.

A general surve}' of the world discovers that tliere is inter-action
among its parts. This is the verdict of science, as the systematic
form of human experience. In the form of gravitation we under-
stand that each bod}' depends upon every other bod}', and the
annihilation of a particle of matter in a body would cause a change
in that bod}^ which would affect every other body in the physical
universe. Even gravitation, therefore, is a manifestation of the whole
universe in each part of it, although it is not a manifestation which
exists /o?" that part, because the part does not Tcnoiv it.

There are other forms wherein the whole manifests itself in
each part of it — as, for example, in the phenomena of light, heat,
and possibly in magnetism and electricit}'. These forms of mani-
festation of the external world upon an individual object are de-
structive to the individuality of the object. If the nature of a thing
is stamped upon it from without, it is an element only, and not a self;
it is dependent, and belongs to that on which it depends. It does
not possess itself, but belongs to that which makes it, and which
gives evidence of ownership by continually modifying it.

But the plant, as we just now said, has some degree of self-activity,
and is not altogether made by the totality of external conditions.
The growth of the plant is through assimilation of external sub-
stances. It reacts against its surroundings and digests them, and
-grows through the nutrition thus formed.

All beings that cannot react against surroundings and modify
them, lack individuality. Individualit}' begins with this power of
reaction and modification of external surroundings. Even the power
of cohesion is a rudimentary^ form of reaction and of special Indi-
vid ualit}'.

In the case of the plant, the reaction is real., but not also ideal.
The plant acts upon its food, and digests it, or assimilates it, and
imposes its /orm on that which it draws within its organism. It does
not, however, reproduce within itself the externality as that exter-
nal exists for itself. It does not form within itself an idea, or even
a feeling of that which is external to it. Its participation in the
€xternal world is only that of real modification of it or through it ;
-either the plant digests the external, or the external limits it, and
prevents its growth, so that where one begins the other ceases.
-Hence it is that the elements — the matter of which the plant is

228 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

composed, that which it has assimilated even — still retain a large
degree of foreign power or force — a large degree of externality
which liie plant has not been able to annul or to digest. The plant-
activity subdues its food, changes its sha[)e and its place, subordi-
nates it to its use ; but what the matter brings with it, and still re-
tains of the world beyond the plant, does not exist for the plant; the
plant cannot read or interpret the rest of the universe from that
small poition of it which it has taken up within its own organism.
And yet the histor}' of the universe is impressed on each particle
of matter, as well within the plant as outside of it, and it could be
understood were there capacities for recognizing it.

The reaction of the life of the plant upon the external world is not
sufficient to constitute a fixed, abiding individuality. With each
accretion there is some change of particular individuality. Every
growth to a plant is by the sprouting out of new individuals — new
plants — a ceaseless multiplication of individuals, and not the preserva-
tion of the same indisidual. The species is preserved, but not the
particnhu- individual. Each limb, each twig, even each leaf is a new
individual, which grows out from the previous giowth as the first
sprout giew from the seed. Each i)art furnishes a soil for the next.
When a [ilant no longer sends out new individuals, we say it is dead.
The life of the plant is only a life of nutrition.

Aristotle called veoetable life ''■the nutritive soul," and the life of
the animal the "■feeling," or sensitive soul. Nutrition is only an
activity of preservation of the general form in new individuals, it is
only the life of the species, and not the life of the permanent individual.

Therefoi'e we see that in the vegetable world we do not possess a
being that can be educated — -for no individual of it can realize within
itself the species; its realization of the species is a continual process
of going out of itself in new individuals, but no activity of return to
itself, so as to preserve the identity of an individual.

II.

Feeling is a unity of the parts of an organism everywhere present in it: feeling is also
an ideal ri'iiroduction of the external surroundings; feeling is therefore a synthesis of
the internal and external. Aristotle joins locomotion and desire to feeling, as correlates;
how desire is a more explicit recognition of the unity of the external and internal than
the first form of feeling is; feeling reproduces the external without destroying its exter-
nality, while nutrition receives the external only after it has destroyed its individuality
and assimilated it; desire is the side of feeling that unfolds into will.

With feeling or sensibility we come to a being that reacts on the
external world in a far higher manner, and realizes a more wonderful
form of individuality.

Educational Psijclwlogy. 229

The animal possesses, in coraraon with tlie plant, a process of assim-
ilation and nutrition. Moreover, he possesses a capacity to fed.
Through /ee/t//{y, or sensation, all of the parts of his extended organ-
ism are united in one centre. He is one individual, and not a bundle
of separate individuals, as a plant is. With feeling, likewise, are joined
locomotion and desire. For these are counterparts of feeling. He
feels — i.e., lives as one indivisible unit}' throughout his organism
and controls it, and moves the parts of his body. Desire is more than
mere feeling. Mere feeling alone is the perception of the external
within the being, hence an ideal reproduction of the external world.
In feeling, the animal exists not only within himself, but also passes
over his limit, and has for object the reality of the external world
that limits him. Hence it is the perception of his finiteness — his
limits are his defects, his needs, wants, inadequateness — his sep-
aration from the world as a whole. In feeling, the animal perceives
his separation from the rest of the world, and also his union with it.
Feeling expands into desire when the external world, or some portion
of it, is seen as ideally belonging to the limited unity of the animal
being. It is beyond the limit, and ought to be assimilated within the
limited individuality of the animal.

Mere feeJitig^ when attentively considered, is found to contain
these wonderful features of self-activity: it reproduces for itself the
external world that limits it; it makes for itself an ideal ol)ject, which
includes its own self and its not-self at the same time. It is a higher
form than mere nutrition ; for nutrition destroys the nature of such
externality as it receives into itself, while feeling preserves the
external in its foreign individuality.

But through feeling the animal ascends to desire., and sees the
independent externality as an object for its acquisition, and through
locomotion it is enabled to seize and ajjpropriate it in a degree which
the plant did not possess.

III.

The various forms of feeling — its specialization: (a) touch, the feeling of mere limits,
the indifferent external indeiiendence of the organism and its surroundings; (6) taste,
the feeling of the external object when it is undergoing dissolution by assimjlation ;
(c) smell, the feeling of chemical dissolution in general ; (rf) hearing, the feeling of the
resistance of bodies against attacks: sound being vibration caused by elastic reaction
against attacks on coliesion; (e) seeing, the feeling of objects in their independence,
without dissolution or attack ; plant life, nutrition, a process in which the individuality is
not preserved either in time or in space ; animal life, as feeling, preserves its individu-
ality as regards space, but not as regards time.

Having noted these important characteristics of the lower orders of
life, and found that reaction from the part against the whole — from

230 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

the internal against tlie external — belongs to plant life and animat
life, we may now briefly mention the ways in which feeling is par-
ticularized. In the lower animals it is only the feeling of touch ; in
higher organisms it becomes also localized as seeing, hearing, taste,
and smell. These forms of sense-perception constitute a scale (as it
were) of feeling. With touch, there is reproduction of externality,
but the ideality of the reproduction is not so complete as in the other
forms. With taste, the feeling cognizes the external object as
undergoing dissolution, and assimilation within its own organism.
We taste only what we are beginning to destroy by the first process
of assimilation — that of eating. In smell, we perceive chemical
dissolution of bodies. In seeing and hearing, we have the forms of
ideal sensibility. Hearing perceives the attack made on the indi-
viduality of an external thing, and its reaction in vibrations, which
reveal to us its internal nature — its cohesion, etc. In seeing, we
have the highest form of sense-perception as the perception of things^
in their external independence — not as being destroj'ed chemically^
like the objects of taste and smell ; not as being attacked and resist-
ing, like the objects which are known through the ear ; not as mere
limits to our organism, as in the sense of touch.

Sense-perception, as the developed realization of the activity of
feeling, belongs to the animal creation, including man as an animal.

We have not yet, therefore, answered the question of capacity for
education, so far as it concerns a discrimination between man and
the brute. We have only arrived at the conclusion that the vege-
table world does not possess the capacity for education, because its-
individual specimens are no complete individuals, but only transi-
tory phases manifesting the species by continual reproduction of
new individuals which are as incomplete as the old ones. Plant life
does not possess that self-activity which returns into itself in the
same individual — if we may so express it; it goes out of one indi-
vidual into another perpetually. Its identity is that of the species,
but not of the individual.

How is it with the animal — with the being which possesses sensi-
bility, or feeling? This question recurs. In feeling there is a reac-
tion, just as in the plant. This reaction is, however, in an ideal
form — the reproduction of the external without assimilation of it —
and especially is this the case in the sense of sight, though it is true
of all forms of sensation to a less degree.

But all forms of sensibility are limited and special ; they refer only
to the present, in its forms of here and noiv. The animal cannot feel
what is not here and now. Even seeing is limited to what is present

Educational Psychology. 231

before it. When we reflect upon the significance of this limitation
of sense-perception, we shall find that we need some higher form of
self-activity still before we can realize the species in the individual —
i.e., before we can obtain the true individual — the permanent
individuality.

The defect in plant life was, that thei'e was neither identity of
individuality in space nor identity in time. The growth of the
plant destroyed the individuality of the seed with which we began,
so that it was evanescent in time ; it served only as the starting-point
for new individualities, which likewise, in turn, served again the same
purpose ; and so its growth in space was a departure from itself as
individual.

The animal is a preservation of individuality as regards space. He
I'eturns into himself in the form of feeling or sensibiliti/ ; but as re-
gards time, it is not so — feeling being limited to the present. With-
out a higher activity than feeling, there is no continuity of individu-
ality in the animal an}'^ more than in the plant. Each new moment
is a new beginning to a being that has feeling, but not memory.

Thus the individuality of mere feeling, although a far more perfect
realization of individuality than that found in plant life, is yet,
after all, not a continuous individuality for itself, but only for the
species.

In spite of the ideal self-activity which appertains to feeling, even
in sense-perception, only the species lives in the animal and th^
individual dies, unless there be higher forms of activity.

IV.

Representation is the next form above sense-perception. The lowest phase of repre-
sentation is recollection, which simply repeats for itself a former sense-perception or
series of sense-perceptions; in representation tlie mind is free as regards external
impressions ; it does not require the presence of the object, but recalls it without its own
time and jilace ; fancy and imagination are next higher than recollection, because the
mind not only recalls images, but makes new combinations of them, or creates them
altogether; attention is the appearance of the will in the intellect; with attention begins
the separation of the transient from tlie variable in perception; memory is the highest
form of repi-esentation ; memory deals with general forms — not mere images of expe-
rience, but general types of objects of perception ; memory, in this sense, is productive as
well as reproductive ; with memory arises language. '

Here we pass over to the consideration of higher forms of intellect
and will.

While mere sensation, as such, acts only in the presence of the
object — reproducing (ideally), it is true, the external object, the
faculty of representation is a higher form of self-activity (or of

232 The Journal of Speculative Philosoiiiliy .

reaction against surrounding conditions), because it can recall, at its
own pleasure, the ideal object. Here is the beginning of emancipation
from the limitations of time.

The self-activity of representation can summon before it the object
that is no longer present to it. Hence its activity is now^ a double one,
for it can seize not only what is now and here immediately before it,
but it can compare this present object with the past, and identify or
distinguish between the two. Thus recollection or representation may
become memory.

As memory, the mind achieves a form of activity far above that of
sense-perception or mere recollection. It must be noted carefully
that mere recollection or representation, although it holds fast the per-
ception in time (making it permanent), does not necessarily constitute
an activity completely emancipated from time, nor indeed very far
advanced towards it. It is only the beginning of such emancipation.
For mere recollection stands in the presence of the special object of
sense-perception ; although the object is no longer present to the
senses (or to mere feeling), yet the image is present to the repre-
sentative perception, and is just as much a particular here and now as
the object of sense-perception. There intervenes a new activity on
the part of the soul before it arrives at memory. Recollection is not
memory, but it is the activity which grows into it by the aid of the
activity of attention.

The special characteristics of objects of the senses are allowed to
drop away, in so far as they are unessential and merely circumstantial,
and gradually there arises in the mind the type — the general form —
of the object perceived. This general form is the object of memory.
Memory deals therefore with what is general, and a type, rather than
with what is directl}' recollected or perceived.

The activit}' by which the mind ascends from sense-perception to
memory is the activity of attention. Here we have the appearance
of the will in intellectual activity. Attention is the control of per-
ception by means of the will. The senses shall no longer passively
receive and report what is before them, but the}' shall choose some
definite point of observation, and neglect all the rest.

Here, in the act of attention we find abstraction^ and the greater
attainment of freedom by the mind. Tiie mind abstracts its view
from the many things before it, and concentrates on one point.

Educators have for many ages noted that the habit of attention is
the first step in intellectual education. With it we have found the
point of separation between the animal intellect and the human.

Educational Psi/cJiology. 233

Not attention simply — like that with which the cat watches by the
hole of a mouse — but attention which arrives at results of abstrac-
tion, is the distinguishing characteristic of educative beings.

Attention abstracts from some things before it and concentrates
on others. Through attention grows the capacity to discriminate
between the special, particular object and its general type. Gener-
alization arises, but not what is usually called generalization — only a
more elementary form of it. Memory, as the highest form of repre-
sentation — -distinguishing it from mere recollection, which repro-
duces onl}' what has been perceived — such memory deals with the
general forms of objects, their continuity in time. Such activity of
memory, therefore, does not reproduce mere images, but only the
concepts or general ideas of things, and therefore it belongs to the
stage of mind that uses language.

Language marks the arrival at the stage of thought — at the stage of the perception
of universals — hence at the possibility of education; language Axes the general types
which the productive memory forms ; each one of these types, indicated by a word,
stands for a possible infinite of sense-perceptions or recollections; the word tree stands
for all the trees that exist, and for all that have existed or will exist. Animals do not
create for themselves a new world of general types, but deal only with the first world
of particular objects; hence they are lost in the variety and multiplicity of continuous
succession and difference. Man's sense-perception is with memory; hence always
a recognition of the object as not wholly new, but only as an example of what he
is mostly familiar with. Intellectual education has for its object the cultivation of
reflection; reflection is the Platonic "Reminiscence," which retraces the unconscious
processes of thought.

Lano-uag^e is the means of distinguishing between the bi'ute and
the human — between the animal soul, which has continuity only in
the species (which pervades its being in the form of instinct), and the
human, soul, which is immortal, and possessed of a capacit}^ to be
educated.

There is no language until the mind can perceive general types
of existence ; mere proper names nor mei'e exclamations or cries
do not constitute language. All words that belong to language are
significative — they ' ' expi'ess " or " mean ' ' something — hence ^they
are conventional symbols, and not mere individual designations.
Language arises only through common consent, and is not an inven-
tion of one individual. It is a product of individuals acting togetJier
as a community, and hence implies the ascent of the individual into
the species. Unless an individual could ascend into the species he
could not understand language. To know words and their meaning

234 Tlie Jotirnal of Speculative Philosophy.

is an acUvity of divine significance ; it denotes the formation of
universals in the mind — the ascent above the here and now of the
senses, and above the representation of mere images, to the activity
which grasps together the general conception of objects, and thus
reaches beyond what is transient and variable.

Doubtless the nobler species of animals possess not only sense-
perception, but a considerable degree of the power of representation.
They are not only able to recollect, but to imagine or fancy to some
extent, as is evidenced by their dreams. But that animals do not
generalize sufficiently to form for themselves a new objective world
of types and general concepts, we have a sufficient evidence in the
fact that they do not use words, or invent conventional symbols.
With the activity of the symbol-making form of representation ^
which we have named Memory, and whose evidence is the invention
and use of language, the true form of individuality is attained, and
each individual human being, as mind, may be said to be the entire
species. Inasmuch as he can form universals in his mind, he can
realize the most abstract thought : and he is conscious. Conscious-
ness begins when one can seize the pure universal in the presence of
immediate objects here and now.

The sense-perception of the mere animal, therefore, differs from
that of the human being in this: —

The human being knows himself as subject that sees the object,
while the animal sees the object, but does not separate himself, as
universal, from the special act of seeing. To know that I am I, is
to know the most general of objects, and to carry out abstraction
to its ver}^ last degree ; and yet this is what all human beings do,
young or old, savage or civilized. The savage invents and uses
language — an act of the species, but which the species cannot do
without the participation of the individual.

It should be carefully noted that this activity of generalization
which produces language, and characterizes the human from the
brute, is not the generalization of the activity of thought, so-called.

It is the preparation for thought. These general types of things
are the things which thought deals with. Thought does not deal
with mere immediate objects of the senses; it deals rather with the
objects which are indicated by words — i.e., general objects.

Some writers would have us suppose that we do not arrive at gen-
eral notions except by the process of classification and abstraction,
in the mechanical manner that they lay down for this purpose. The
fact is that the mind has arrived at these general ideas in the process

Educational Psychology. 235

of learning language. In infanc^^ most children have learned such
words as is, existence^ being, nothing, motion, cause, change, I, you,
he, etc., etc.

But the point is not the mere arrival at these ideas. Education
does not concern itself with that ; it does not concern itself with
children who have not yet learned to talk — that is left for the nur-
sery.

It is the process of becoming conscious of these ideas by reflec-
tion, with which we have to concern ourselves in education. Reflec-
tion is everywhere the object of education. Even when the school
undertakes to teach pupils the correct method of observation — how
to use the senses, as in " object-lessons " —it all means reflective
observation, conscious use of the senses ; it would put this in the
place of the naive spontaneity which characterizes the first stages of
sense-perception.

We must not underrate these precepts of pedagogy because we
find that they are not what it claims for them — i.e., they are not
methods of first discovery, and of arrival at principles, but only
methods of reflection, and of recognizing what we have already
learned. We see that Plato's " Reminiscence" was a true form of
statement for the perception of truths of reflection. The first know-
ing is utterly unconscious of its own method ; the second or scientific
form of knowing, which education develops, is a knowing in which
the mind knows its method. Hence it is a knowing which knows its
own necessity and universality.

VI.

Education presupposes the stage of mind reached in productive memory ; it deals with
reflection; four stages of reflection: (a) sensuous ideas perceive things; (6) abstract
ideas perceive forces or elements of a process; (c) concrete idea perceives one process,
a pantheistic first principle, persistent force; {d) absolute idea perceives a conscious
first principle, absolute person.

We have considered in our psychological study thus far the forms
of life and cognition, contrasting the phase of nutrition with that of
feeling, or sensibility. We have seen the various forms of feeling in
sense-perception, and the various forms of representation as the
second phase of intellectual activity — the forms of recollection,
fancy, imagination, attention, and memory. We draw the line
between the animals capable of education and those not capable of
it, at the point of memory defined — not as recollection, but as the
faculty of general ideas or conceptions, to which the significant words
of language correspond.

236 Uie Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

With the arrival at language, we arrive at education in the human
sense of the term ; with the arrival at language, we ai'rive at the view
of the world at wliich thouglil as a mental process begins. As sense-
perception has before it a world of present objects, so thought has
before it a world of general concepts, which language has defined
and fixed.

It is true that few persons are aware that language stands for a
world of general ideas, and that reflection has to do with this world of
universals. Hence it is, too, that so much of the so-called science of
education is very crude and impractical. Much of it is materialistic,
and does not recognize the self-activit}^ of mind ; but makes it out to
be a correlation of physical energies — derived from the transmuta-
tion of food by the process of digestion, and then by the brain con-
verted into thought.

Let us consider now the psychology of thinking, or reflection, and
at first in its most inadequate forms. As a human process, tlie know-
ing is always a knowing by universals — a re-cognition, and not sim-
ple apprehension, such as the animals, or such as beings have that
do not use language. The process of development of stages of
thought begins with sensuous ideas, which perceive mere individual,
concrete, real objects, as it supposes. In conceiving these, it uses
language and thinks general ideas, l)ut it does not know it, nor is it
conscious of the relations involved in such objects. This is the first
stage of reflection. The world exists for it as an innumerable con-
geries of things, each one independent of the other, and possessing
self-existence. It is the stand-point from which atomism would l)e
adopted as the philosophic system. Ask it wliat the ultimate prin-
ciple of existence is, and it would reply, " Atoms."

But this view of the world is a very unstable one, and requires
very little reflection to overturn it, and bring one to the next basis —
that of abstract ideas. When the mind looks carefully at the world
of things, it finds that there is dependence and interdependence. Each
. object is related to something else, and changes when that changes.
Each object is a part of a process that is going on. The process
produced it, and the process will destroy it — nay, it is destroying it
now, while we look at it. We find, therefore, that things are not the
true beings which we thought them to be, but processes are the
reality. Science takes this attitude, and studies out the history of
each thing in its rise and its disappearance, and it calls this history
the truth. This stage of thinking does not believe in atoms or in
things; it believes in forces and processes — "abstract ideas" —

Educational Psychology. 237

because they are negative, and cannot be seen by the senses. Tliis
is tiie dynamic stand-point in philosophy.

Reflection knows that these abstract ideas possess more truth, more
reality, than the "things" of sense-perception; the force is more
real than the thing, because it outlasts a thing, — it causes things to
originate, and to change, and disappear.

This stage of abstract ideas or of negative powers or forces finally
becomes convinced of the essential unity of all processes and of all
forces ; it sets up the doctrine of the correlation of forces, and
believes that persistent force is the ultimate truth, the fundamental
reality of the world. This we mny call a concrete idea, for it sets
up a principle which is the origin of all things and forces, and also
the destroyer of all things, and hence more real than the world of
things and forces; and because this idea, when carefully thought
out, proves to be the idea of self-determination — self-activity.

Persistent force, as taught us b3" the scientific men of our da}', is
the sole ultimate principle, and as such it gives rise to all existence
by its self-activity, for there is nothing else for it to act upon. It
causes all origins, all changes, and all evanescence. It gives rise to
the particular forces — heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc. —
which in their turn cause the evanescent forms which sense-percep-
tion sees as "things."

We have described three phases : —

I. Sensuous Ideas perceive " things."

II. Abstract Ideas perceive "forces."

III. Concrete Idea perceives "persistent force."

In this progress from one phase of reflection to another, the intel-
lect advances to a deeper and truer reality ^ at each step.

' Hume, in his famous sketch of the Human Understanding, makes all the percep-
tions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds : impressions
and ideas. " The difference between them consists in the degrees of force and
liveliness with which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our
thought and consciousness. Those perceptions which enter with the most force
and violence we may name impressions, and under this name include all our sen-
sations, passions, and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul.
By ideas, I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning." " The
identity which we ascribe to the mind of man is onl3- a fictitious one."

From this we see that his stand-point is that of "sensuous ideas," the first stage
of reflection. The second or third stage of reflection, if consistent, would not ad-
mit the reality to be the object of sense-impressions, and the abstract ideas to
be only "faint images." One who holds, like Herbert Spencer, that persistent

238 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosoph y .

Sense-ideas which look upon the world as a world of independent
objects, do not cognize the world truly. The next step, abstract
ideas, cognizes the world as a process of forces, and " things" are
seen to be mere temporary equilibria in the interaction of forces ;
*' each thing is a bundle of forces." But the concrete idea of the
Persistent force sees a deeper and more permanent reality underly-
ing particular forces. It is one ultimate force. In it all multiplicity
of existences has vanished, and yet it is the source of all particular
existence.

This view of the world, on the stand-point of concrete idea, is
pantheistic. It makes out a one supreme principle which originates
and destroys all particular existences, all finite beings. It is the
stand-point of Orientalism, or of the Asiatic thought. Buddhism
and Brahminism have reached it, and not transcended it. It is a
necessar}^ stage of reflection in the mind, just as much as the stand-
point of the first stage of reflection, which regards the world as com-
posed of a multiplicity of independent things ; or the stand-point of
the second stage of reflection, which looks upon the world as a col-
lection of relative existences in a state of process.

The final stand-point of the intellect is that in which it perceives
the highest principle to be a self-determining or self-active Being,
self-conscious, and creator of a world which manifests him. A logical
investigation of the principle of " persistent force " would prove that
this principle of Personal Being is presupposed as its true form. Since
the "■ persistent force" is the sole and ultimate reality, it originates
all other reality only by self-activity, and thus is self-determined.
Self-determination implies self-consciousness as the true form of its
existence.

These four forms of thinking, which we have arbitrarily called sen-
suous^ abstract, concrete, and absolute ideas, correspond to four views
of the world : (1) as a congeries of independent things; (2) as a
play of forces; (3) as the evanescent appearance of a negative
essential power ; (4) as the creation of a Personal Creator, who makes

force is the ultimate reality — " the sole truth, which transcends experience by
underlying it" — ought to hold that the generalization which reaches the idea of
unity of force is the truest and most adequate of thoughts. And yet Herbert
Spencer holds substantially the doctrine of Hume, in the words: "We must
predicate nothing of objects too great or too multitudinous to be mentally repre-
sented, or we must make our predications by means of extremely inadequate
xepresentations of such objects — mere sj'mbols of them." (Page 27 of "First
Principles.")

Educational Psychology . 239

it the theatre of the development of conscious beings in his image.
Each step upward in ideas arrives at a more adequate idea of the true
reality. Force is more real than thing; persistent force than particu-
lar forces ; Absolute Pei'son is more real than the force or forces
which he creates.

This final form of thinking is the only form which is consistent with
the theory of education. Each individual should ascend by education
into participation — conscious participation — in the life of the species.
Institutions — family, societ}', state, church — all are instrumentalities
by which the humble individual may avail himself of the help of the
race, and live over in himself its life. The highest stage of thinking
is the stage of insight. It sees the world as explained by the prin-
ciple of Absolute Person. It finds the world of institutions a world
in harmony with such a principle.

240 The Journal of Speculative Philosojphy .

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

SENTENCES IN PROSE AND VERSE.

SELECTION BY W. E. CHANNING.

We dip't in all
That treats of whatsoever is : tlie state,
The total chronicles of man, the mind.
The morals, something of the frame, the rock,
The star, the bird, the flsh, the shell, the flower,
Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest.

— Tennyson.

Economy of thought depends on executive talent. — Anon.

Providence, who looks out for man, cannot be bribed to the least
disclosure. Nature is not only mystic, but curious, — -a. child's toy
and a Prospero's wand at the same moment. i

In human society an effort is made to throw propert}' into a
common stock. Tlie phrase must be compreliensible to the least
informed. Each agrees to forego a portion of his personalities, and
unite upon a basis of general common-sense, which is the abstract
nature of men. The student alone strives to preserve some part of
his original thought, as a metre for the race in its average mediocrity,

I accuse each morning of monotony, but the morning accuses me
of far more.

The sun gleamed with a peculiar beauty from the broad, green
leaves of Indian corn, as if nature said: I am pleased with my son's
industry, and will gild this plant with a double radiance as a reward.

Life is forever repeated. Each new day the old experience asks
the old unanswered question.

Temperament enters fully into the system of illusions, and shuts

us in a prison of glass whence we cannot see. — Emerson.

"A new commandment," said the smiling muse,
"I give my darling son, — Thou shalt not preach."
Luther, Fox, Behmen, Swedenborg grew pale,
And, in the instant, rosier clouds upbore
Hafiz and Shakespeare with their happy choirs.

— Id.

Notes and Discussions. 241

Montaigne was sensible to literaiy hypocrisy, as he says he never
corrects bis writing ; while it is true that be did this, through several
editions, even to the light turns of expression.

The individual needs to master all that enters into bis experience,
even despair, humiliation, or failure, and make it whole ; thus be
becomes wholesome.

The extremely objective man is a tradesman in mind. Facts
should dance before us like a dream, to set us thinking.

The poet cannot judge truly as to the place for bis verses; the
opinion of indifferent readers classes them as wretched or divine.

Love bangs suspended by a hair ; it will suddenly revive like a
lichen, after it seemed dead, and visit us with its painful delights,
while character acts with irresistible force on certain natures when
combined with beauty.

If his genius wer5 not so great be would be more popular. He
places himself where the ra3's of intelligence fall, and collects them
in a focus. Like Christ's, fond men should compose bis story.

Our admiration for persons no more makes them sympathetic to us
than that for the landscape ; a longing for the beautiful need not
force its prison-wall.

This man who muses on his way across the fields, who tries to
catch each scent of the breeze, or by the margin of the lake sits and
gazes long into the waters, loves to recall the blessings of such
existence in verse.

Jung Stilling's was a simple, ideal story, not heroic. He was a
gland of tears — a little pressing caused them to flow bountifully.
There is a soft, agreeable piety there.

We have been entertained at a magnificent repast, and cannot
recall the name of a single dish. As I lay on the shore of the pond,
and saw the blue waters freshly dancing, I dreamed of their beaut}'.

It requires livelong patience to grow moderatel}^ tolerant of inevit-
able disagreement.

Occasional poems, — the first and most genuine of all kinds of
poetry. — Goethe.

A debris of broken vows and issues waiting settlement crumble
into rubbish in the minds of the feebly resolving. Like an apple-
tree, the mind should be sometimes scraped to get relief from these
rusty scales.

XIV— 16

242 The Journal of 8])eculative Philosophy.

A man may be celebrated for his lack of celebrity ; his success
may consist in an abundance of failures, if combined with unfathom-
able self-assurance and unbounded self-deceit.

The public is a mirage which shines before the Sahara of some
authors' lives, and flatters them with the promise of visionary palm-
trees and murmurs of sweet water.

In his early youth, St. Simon's servant awoke him each morning
with these words: "Levezvous, monsieur le comte, vous avez de
grand choses a faire."

It seems too great a happiness to have a friend, ever to prove true.
We know we have so many and such oppressive defects, it seems
impossible there should live any who can dare excuse and accept
them.

The old opiate, the juice of honey flowing through the character,
and a man's hands become lead by his side. The farmer's vision is
in the ends of his fingers, the muscles of his back, the breadth of his
shoulders. Thought is but a light, fantastic cloud, contrasted with
the heavy clods whereon he treads in company with his cart-horse.

Anxiety, which is the trick of wearing out with care, never wears
itself out.

It is most ungracious not to pay the tax-bill cheerfully, when we
know how much safety and convenience we purchase with a few
shillings.

The difference in the degrees of nervous sensibilit}' are incom-
putable. Strong nerves are at once a push and a prison. The
coarse can never comprehend the fine ; the latter have travelled over
the whole route.

The fruits of experience are green ; we never knew the trait that
ruled all these years.

Men with each other are like weights in the scales of a balance.
We see them testing their pounds ; nothing is so rare as an equi-
librium.

Montaigne was an avalanche of reading and reflection, which
descended in the form of essays. Landor sometimes pleases himself
with the dry pedantrj^ of scholars, which is the thirst of literature,
and parches the mouths of the vulgar.

The miserable are made happy at times by constancy and patience.
— Cicero.

He was one of those unexpressed characters whose force is an

JSTotes and Discussiojis . 243

untried mystery to themselves. Such persons are capable of sudden
and unpredicted expansions.

Some depth unknown, some inner life untried,
Some tliirst unslaked, some hunger which no food
Gathered from earthly thorn, or by the knife
In gorj- shambles stricken, can allay,
Man hopes for, or endeavors against hope.

— Scott IVeaj- of the World],

Conversation with certain persons is a game of ball ; your thoughts
squarely rebounding from the tenacious surface, the brain soon
grows weary of pitching and catching.

We may regard painful and depressing trains of thought and eras
of stagnation like the moments we wait at the doors of the theatre,
before the play begins.

The inferiority of most men does not consist in themselves, but in
their opinion of themselves.

Distant mountains are delicious ethereal magnets. They attract us
by their beautifully blue, permanent promise. The ocean-distance
also fills us with a strange delight. Those far receding horizons, —
amid the low islands, — that long, glimmering reach of shining sand
so far away, — they send us an answer of sweetness.

Friendship is that priceless jewel we most guard as the richest
of all earthly possessions, — even God has somewhat incomputable.

The cultivated man is he who is least the egotist. We hope even
to reach here a bonhomie of expression when we shall no longer be
constrained to light our torch at another's, but furnish some sparks
for ourselves.

In 3^on woodchuck's skull, did form precede function, or function
form, — that wariness, those powers of digging, the scent that a
sweet apple is relishing, his fear of man and dog, ^ — -whence came
and where have gone ?

How easy it is to make a descent upon those shallower than our-
selves, — we pour ourselves into the hollows without effort.

. Persevere in any course, good or evil, and you .cannot fail to find
your purpose partially accomplished. Doing a thing twice makes it
a kind of second-nature.

If we cannot be great, let us strive at least to be complete in our
small orbit. Some little States perfectly governed far surpass the
looseness of graver nations. Who cannot admire a fine seal-ring?

244 The Journal of Speculative Philosopliy .

We may put it down for certain we shall be dull every afternoon.
The morning is sufficient to spend the plumes of an angel.

The light is there, and the colors surround us, but if we have
nothing correspondent in our own e3es, the outward appearance will
not avail us. — Goethe.

Chaucer, as the portrait of a comfortable English time, seems like
a delicious peach. The mouth of the reader waters for such sweet
ages. His quaintness may be parth' put on, as cabinet-makers design
old styles of furniture, the better to show the peculiar veins of their
wood.

At the creation of man, all things of divine order were collated
into him. — Sicedenborg.

In the tectonic art and that of the currier all things are asserted
on account of the better or the worse ; but mathematics does not
pay attention to things good and evil. — Aristip}nis.

Like the day, each man's constitution obeys the order of the day.
A few clear, brilliant moments are called the morning ; in these
Goethe found his charming, suushiny songs.

He tried to create the savage in the civilized ; but he was rather
near the latter than the former in trying that.

If Ufe were any worse, we should so hate it, it would not be worth
the living ; if it were any the better, it would be so precious we should
never know how to have done with it.

Lively feeling of a situation, and power to express it, constitute
the poet. — Goethe.

Nature was only created for the purpose of clothing what is spir-
itual, and of presenting it correspondently in the ultimate of order. —
Sivedenborg.

THE IDEAS OF THE PURE REASON.

I saw in dreams a constellation strange,
Thwarting the night; its big stars seemed to range
Northward across the Zenith, and to keep
Calm footing along Heaven's ridge-pole high,
While round the pole the sullen Bear did creep
And dizzily the wheeling spheres went by.
They from their watch-towers in the topmost sky
Looked down upon the rest,
Nor eastward swerved, nor west.
Though Procj-on's candle dipped below the verge.
And the great twins of Leda 'gan decline

Notes and Discussions. 245

Toward the horizon line,

And prone Orion, sprawling headlong, urge

His flight into the far Pacific surge.

I heard a voice which said: "Those wonders bright

Are hung not on the hinges of the night;

But set to vaster harmonies, they run

Straight on, and turn not with the turning sphere.

Nor make an orbit about any sun.

No glass can track the courses that they steer,

By what dark paths they vanish and appear.

The starry flocks that still

Are climbing Heaven's hill

Will pasture westward down its sloping lawn ;

But yon wild herd of planets — who can say

Through what far flelds they stray ;

Ai'ound what focus their ellipse is drawn ;

Whose shining makes their transcendental dawn?"

I told my vision to a learned man.

Who said : " On no celestial globe or plan

Can those unset, unrisen stars be found.

How might such uncomputed motions be

Among the ordered spheres? Heaven's clock is wound

To keep one time. Idle our dreams, and we,

Blown by the wind, as the light family

Of leaves." But still I dream.

And still those planets seem

Through Heaven their high, unbending course to take ;

And a voice cries: "Freedom and Truth are we,

And Immortality :

God is our sun." And though the morning break

Across my soul still plays their shimmering wake.

Henry A. Beers.
New Haven, January, 1880.

AN ORIENTAL MYSTIC.

The name of Dsclielaleddin Rumi is familiar to lovers of Persian
poetry. He lived in the thirteenth century, and belonged to that
sect of Mohammedan mystics called Sufis ; whose doctrines, under
various forms, permeated Oriental poetry and philosophy. The
Sufists looked upon the soul as an emanation from Deity to be ab-
sorbed into its source, and regarded that absorption as the sole aim
of life, attainable only by contemplation. They concentrated every
faculty inward, and sought to identif}' themselves so closely with God
as to lose "each atom of separate being," swallowed up in an all-
embracing unity.

246 The Journal oj Speculative Philosophy.

Dschelaleddin has been called "the greatest mystic poet of the
■whole Orient." He wrote a Divan, containing thirty thousand coup-
lets, and the " Mesnavi," containing forty thousand. The following
■extract from the former, translated by Riickert into German, illus-
trates the recurrence of the same rhyme, characteristic of Persian
poetry : —

" Mit deiner Seele hat sich meine

Gemischt, wie Wasser mit deni Weine.
Wer kann den Wein vom Wasser trennen,

War dich und mich aus dem Vereine?
Du bist mein grosses leh geworden,

Und nie mehr will ich sein dies kleine.
Du hast mein Wesen angenommen,

SoUt' ich nicht nehmen an das deine?
Auf ewig hast du mich bejahet,

Dass ich dich ewig nie verneine."

The rhj'me is repeated through twelve additional couplets. I
would fain render it into English verse, but give instead a prose ver-
sion : —

"My soul has mixed with Thine, as water with wine. Who can
separate wine from water, or Thee from me ? Thou hast become my
great Self, and never more shall I be this little self. Thou hast re-
ceived into Thine my being ; shall I not' receive Thine into mine?
For ever hast Thou affirmed me, that I may never deny Thee."

The " Mesnavi," Rumi's greatest work, is regarded by Mohamme-
dans as surpassing all others in the depth and fervor of its mystical
piety. Portions of it have been translated into German by the Orien-
tal scholar, Georg Rosen. It opens with the song of the flute,
whose melting, melancholy music inspired the dervishes in their
mystic dances. Its notes are complaints, — complaints on account of
its separation from the reed-grown ponds ; and thus it is the picture
of enlightened man, whose life is also a complaint on account of its
separation from Divinity ; the sundering of a part from the whole,
for which it longs, until individuality is annihilated, and the pure
spirit is reabsorbed into the great unity. Legends and narratives,
mystical and allegorical, interwoven with ascetic doctrines and philo-
sophical teachings, make up the book. One of the principal stories
is that of a Jewish king who reigned in the early part of the Christian
€ra. This king consulted his vizier as to what meays he should em-
ploy to root out the Christian faith. The vizier thereupon was hypo-
<!riticall3^ converted to Christianit}^ and by his assumed piety so
gained the confidence of the Christians that he was appointed spirit-

JVotes and Discussions. 247

ual chief ovei* the twelve tribes into which they were divided. He
then taught to each different dogmas. To one he said, "Victory
over self is the only basis of reconciliation to God." To another,
"Renunciation is of no avail, good works alone can save thee." To
a third he declared that '" attention to external rites was chiefly neces-
sary." In a fourth he inculcated the duty of resignation. To a fifth
he said, "Let man recognize his weakness, and God's omnipotence
is revealed." To a sixth, " Call thyself not weak, or thou mistakest
Ood's mercy ; for thy power flows from His power, and is part of that
which created every thing."

Having disseminated contradictory doctrines, he I'etired to a her-
mit's cell, whence all entreaties to draw him forth were vain. He
secluded himself, fasting for forty days, and then summoned the
twelve princes of the twelve tribes to separate interviews, and ap-
pointed each his immediate successor. His purpose accomplished,
the seeds of dissension sown in the very midst of the Christians, he
died a willing sacrifice. Ethical precepts and reflections are inter-
spersed through the narrative. The poet dwells upon the idea that
the selfishness of the individual stands in the way of that perfect
purity of thought essential to the comprehension of Divinity. To be
buried in God, man must forget himself ; must give up self-love to be
reunited to the primitive substance. Renounce thyself if thou
wouldst perceive the truly Existent under the play of external
phenomena. Nature's multiplicity is confusing, but faith looks up-
ward steadily, and perceives beneath the transient the eternally abid-
ing. God is everywhere.

"I am what is, and is not. I
Am — if thou dost know it,
Say it, O Docaelaleddin — I am
The Soul in nil!"

The poet likens divine knowledge to a sea ; an element clear in it-
self, but resisting all formation. The world of forms is a succession
of waves, each moment appearing and disappearing. The individual
being is tossed hither and thither, until, abstracted from sensuous per-
ception, he sinks into its depths.

Remote from the light of the senses and of the understanding,
says the poet, the light of reason radiates from the light of the Lord.

In a dark night thou seest not color ; it is the darkness that makes
known to thee the light.

Out of the sea of thought plunges the sound, the word, and back
to the sea it returns ; thought reabsorbs its sense. As the All is lost
in the Lord, so is the Form lost in the Formless that bore it.

248 Tlie Journal of SiJeculative Philosophy .

The universe passes away, changes its garment each moment, but
■who perceives its renewal ? Like a river, life flows uninterrupted and
even ; like the course of a s])ark swung around, that circles and
curves through the air ; like a line that is seen in quick flight ; a
series of points, of vanishing moments.

The earth is true ; corn springs up where corn is sowed. But its
fidelity rests on that of the sun, and it is God's thought that ani-
mates all. Like a senseless stone is he who comprehends this not ;
like a crystal filled with light is he to whom it is clear. There is no
alchemy equal to God's alchemy. I would praise Him — yet praise
implies separate existence ; he who praises stands outside of the
Being praised.

The soul is a bird shut up in the cage of the body, longing for
freedom. The poet exhorts the soul to look with the glance of love
unselfishly into the world, the pure mirror wherein God is revealed
and, confounded with His glory, to sing as the lark sings at early
dawn.

Death is welcomed as an escape from the bondage of the senses.

" While 3'our dim eyes but see through
The haze of earth's sadness,
My frame, doomed to mix with
The mouldering clod,
I am treading the courts of the
Seventh heaven in gladness.
And basking unveiled in the
Vision of God."

Death ends the trouble of life, but life shudders at its approach ; it
sees the dark hand, and not the clear cup which death offers. Thus,
says the poet, a heart shudders at the approach of love ; for where
love awakes, selfishness dies. Let it die, he adds, if thou wouldst
breathe freely. He alone is free who hath conquered self.

As ice at heart is the same as water, and proceeds therefrom, so
out of the ethereal light of Divinity is formed this external universe,
which can only exist separately because the rays of heavenly glory
do not penetrate it wholly. The blue horizon overarches it in mourn-
ful remembrance of its severance from God. (Blue, with the Per-
sians, is the color of mourning.) Cling not, O soul, to this world of
change, but recognize the changeless that underlies it. The sun's
rays are many, but its light is one.

Filled with this mystic sense of oneness, the poet loses sight of
every distinction. Limit is swallowed up in the illimitable. "Noth-
ing seems every thing, and ever}- thing seems nothing." Pantheism
is the result.

St. Louis, Mo.

N'otes and Discussions. 249

" Nothing is the mirroi-, and the
World the image in it;
God the shower is, who

Shows the vision every minute."

Ellex M. Mitchell.

MIND vs. MATTER.

The conflict between Idealism and Materialism ever and anon
breaks out in some new quarter, but the casus belli through all the
ages remains the same. The riddle of the sphinx was solved in the
schools of Greece ; the intellectual man is no longer an inexplicable
enigma. Berkeley raised an iconoclastic hand against those material
forms before which the grossest idolaters, until the present day,
have continued to worship. An incestuous alliance with these same
materialistic notions has been formed by his professed followers ;
and modern idealism, like the mythological king of Thebes, is now
banished from its own stronghold. Realism has fallen completel;^
into the hands of the materialist ; and, in its captivity, too hastily
concedes that tlie Berkeleyan distinctions Ijetween mind and matter
w&s a " mere logomachy " — a " metaphysical abstraction."

Thus the breach which the "ideal bishop" opened is made the
butt of ridicule ; but whether his distinctions be real or unreal, an
impartial history testifies that Berkelej^anism possessed a strength
which its strongest antagonists dare not encounter. It was a breach
which the extravagant speculations of ideal pantheism could not
bridge over; a bottomless pit, which the "corporeal substance" —
the rubbish of materialism — has not been able to fill up. "In
itself," as Huxley, in his lecture on the Physical Basis of Life, con-
cedes "it is of little moment whether we express the phenomena
of matter in the terms of spirit, or the phenomena of spirit in the
terms of matter; " though this materialistic terminology (to reverse
his own argument and turn it against him) would be " utterl}^ barren,
and lead to nothing but obscurity and confusion of idea," if, accord-
ing to the irresistible logic of Berkeleyanism, there is no such thing
as " matter." "

To avoid confusion, we must use the terminology of Idealism, and
must base all our argument for spiritual existences wholly upon the
data furnished by an idealistic S3^stem. Physiological facts can be
used to prove nothing about a distinct spirituality from the stand-
point of a materialistic empiricism ; thus, the mind cannot be known
as distinct, as other than corporeal substance. The dead Monism of

250 The Journal of Speculative Philosoj^hy .

the materialist allows no a priori distinction between the phenomena
of mind and the phenomena of matter ; mind and matter are one —
not in the paradoxical sense of Berkeleyanism, but according to the
Huxleyan idea. The riddle of the sphinx has been answered, but the
sphinx itself remains, as the representative of the materialistic notion.

The distinction between mind and matter is very vital to the
foundation of all theological science. Idealistic realism, the recog-
nized patron of that spirituality which theology demands, is held in
durance by materialistic notions of mind and mental phenomena ;
and its ph3'siological arguments, upon which so much stress has been
lately laid, prove nothing unless the (fallacia j^etitionis principii)
postulate »of mind vs. matter is first allowed. It will attempt in vain
to convince sceptical gainsayers until it stands wholly outside of an
atheistic materialism.

If the synthetic a priori judgments of idealism are denied, while
those of materialism are accepted, no deductions from physiological
data will be irrefragible evidence in support of immaterial or psy-
chical existence. There must be direct inferences from the phe-
nomena of mind, referred to mind itself, supported by an idealistic
philosophj^, which alone can logically prove these inferences to be
valid. Not only will Berkeleyanism accomplish this, but the more
powerful S3'stem of idealistic realism, if uncorrupted, would possess
the strength, without the weakness, of Berkeley's system.

J. E. B.

Roanoke College, Salem, Va., December 6, 1879.

AHNUNG.

[In the Ph(edrus of Plato, the soul is Weened to a chariot drawn by two ivinged steeds, the one
white and the other black. The %chite horse symbolizes spirit, the black represents the sense.
Reason is the charioteer. The embodied soul has reminiscences of its former soarings to the
surface of the outer sphere of the sensible universe, where it caught glimpses of the perfect
types, or ideas, of all created things.}

Sometimes the tired reason drops the reins —

The shining reins of the immortal car.

Then quick as thought the vvliite steed spreads his wings :

As leaps the lightning through the summer sky.

So heavenward speeds the ethereal spirit-steed,

And seems a flash of silver-dust and fire.

And now is seen the realm of radiant types.

The perfect patterns of all earthly things.

This is the home of the soul,

In vision and revery seen ;
Oft through the gates of the morn

Flashes its diamond sheen.

Notes and Discussions. 251

All that is beautiful here

Catches its radiance thence ;
Streams through the tangle of stars,

The lustre resplendent, intense.

Dustless the rose there, the leixf —

Delicate, pure, and serene,
Sleeping in silence as deep

As that of the soul in a dream.

But while the enraptured reason thrills with joy,

And fain would stand forever gazing there.

Spreads his black wings the frightened steed of sense,

Takes in his teeth the bit of aery gold.

And, ere the heavenly light has wholly ceased

To sift its silver o'er his raven plumes.

Lies grovelling and panting on the ground.
Plato, thy fine, ideal eye here pierced
The veil. Thy symbol adumbrates the truth.

Burns through the world that appears,

Tliat of the actual, real ;
Holiness, friendship, and love.

Sweetly its presence reveal.

Over the hearse-cloth and shroud

Roses and violets fling;
Where is thy victory, grave.

Where, O death, is thy sting?

William Sloan Kennedy.
Cambridge, Mass., December 21, 1879.

THE CONCORD SUMMER SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY.

July and August, 1880. — The Concord Summek School will open
for ;i second terra on Monday, July 12, 1880, at 9 A. M., and will
continue five weeks. The lectures will be arranged in courses of five
or three, in pairs, and by single lectures ; and in each week there
will be eleven. They will be given morning and evening, except Sat-
ui-day evenings, on the six secular days (in the morning at 9 o'clock,
and in the evening at 7:30), at the Hillside Chapel., near the Orchaixi
House. The list of lecturers and subjects will be found on the fol-
lowing page.

The terms will be $3 for each of the five weeks ; but each regular
student will be required to pay at least $10 for the terra, which will
permit him to attend during three weeks. The fees for all the courses
will be $15. Board raa}' be obtained in the village at fi'om $6 to $12
a week, — so that students may estimate their necessary expenses for

252 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

the whole terra fit $50. Single tickets at fifty cents each, will be
issued for the convenience of visitors, and these may be bought at
the shop of H. L. Whitcomb, in Concord, after July 1, 1880, in
packages of twelve for $4.50, of six for $2.50, and of three for $1.25.
It is expected that the applications for course tickets will exceed the
number which can be issued. Any one to whom this circular is sent
can now engage tickets by making application at once, and send-
ing with the application $5 as a guaranty. For those who make this
deposit, tickets will be reserved till the first day of July, 1880, and
can then be obtained by payment of the balance due. Course tickets
at $15 will entitle the holders to reserved seats, and $10 tickets will
entitle to a choice of seats after the course-ticket holders have been
assigned seats.

All students should be registered on or before July 1, 1880, at the
oflflce of the Secretary, in Concord. No preliminary examinations
are required, and no limitation of age, sex, or residence in Concord
will be prescribed ; but it is recommended that persons under eigh-
teen years should not present themselves as students, and that those
who take all the courses should reside in the town durino- the term.
The Concord Public Library of 16,000 volumes, will be open every
day for the use of residents. Students coming and going daily dur-
ing the term, may reach Concord from Boston by the Fitchburg
Eailroad, or the Middlesex Central; from Lowell, Andover, etc., by
the Lowell and Framingham Railroad ; from Southern ]\Iiddlesex
and Worcester Counties by the same road. The Orchard Hous6
stands on the Lexington road, east of Concord village, adjoining the
Wayside estate, formerly the residence of Mr. Hawthorne.

S. H. Emery, Jr., Director.

F. B. Sanborn, Secretary.
CoNCOEB, April 26, 1880.

LIST OF LECTURERS AND SUBJECTS.

Mr. A. Bronson Alcott, Five Lectures on Mysticism. Mr. Alcott will also
deliver the Salutatory and Valedictory, and will have general charge of the con-
versations of the School.

Dr. H. K. Jois"ES, Five Lectures on The Platonic Philosophy, and five on Plat-
onism, in its Relation to Modern Civilization, viz. : 1. Platoyiic Philosophy ; Cos-
mologic and Theologic Outlines. 2. Tlie Platonic Psychology ; The Daemon o;f
Socrates. 3. The Tivo Worlds, and the Twofold Consciousness; The Sensible^
and the Intelligible. 4. The Eternity of the Soul, and its Preexistence. 5. The
Immortality and the Mortality of the Soul; Personality and Individuality;
Metem-psychosis. 6. The Psychic Body and the Material Body of Man. 7. Edu-
cation and Discipline of Man ; The Uses of the World we Live in. 8. The Phil-
osophy of Law. 9. The Philosophy of Prayer, aiid the "Prayer Gauge." 10.
Spiritualism, Ancient and Modern.

Notes and Discussions.

253

Prof. W. T. Harris, Five Lectures on Speculative Philosophij, viz. : 1. Phil-
osophic Knowing. 2. Philosophic First Principles. 3. Philosophy and Immor-
tality. 4. Philosophy and Religion. 5. Philosophy and Art, Five Lectures on
The History of Philosophy, viz. : L Plato. 2. Aristotle. 3. Kant. 4. Fichte.
5. Hegel.

liev. J. S. Kidney, D. D., Tliree Lectures on TAe Philosophy of the Beautiful
and the Sublime.

Mr. Denton J. Smder, Five Lectures on Shakespeare. \. Philosophy of
Shakespearean Criticis?n. 2. The Shakespearean World. 3. Principles of Cha?--
acterizationin Shakespeare. 4. Organism, of the Individual Drama. 5. Organism
of the Universal I}rama.

Eev. W. H. Channing, Four Lectures on Oriental and Mystical Philosophy.
\. Historical Mysticism. 2. Man'' s Fourfold Being. 3. True Buddhism. 4. Mod-
ern Pessimism.

Mrs. E. D. Cheney, Two Lectures. 1. Color. 2. Early American Art.

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, A Lecture on Modern Society.

Mr. John Albee, Two Lectures. L Figu7-ative Language. 2. The Literary
AH.

Mr. F. B. Sanborn, Two Lectures on The Philosopihy of Charity.

Dr. Elisha Mulford, Two Lectures. 1. The Personality of God. 2. Prece-
dent Relations of Religion and Philosophy to Christianity.

Mr. H. G. O. Blake, I'eadings from Thoreau's Manuscripts.

Prof. Benjamin Peirce, A Lecture.

Kev. Dr. Bartol, A Lecture — The (Quandary.

Prof. Andrew P. Peabody, A Lecture — Conscience and Consciousness.

Mr. H. W. Emerson, A Lecture.

Kev. Dr. F. H. Hedge, A Lecture.

Prof. G. H. HowisoN, A Lecture.

Mr. D. A. Wasson, A Lecture.

PROGRAMME OF LECTURES,

JULY, 1880. 2'2d, 9 A.M. Mr. Snider.

12th, 9 A. M. Mr. Alcott 7.30 P. M. Prof. Harris

(Salutatory). '2:3d, 9 A.M. Dr. Jones.

7.30 P.M. Prof. Harris 7.30 P.M. Rev. W. H.

1.3th, 9 A. M. Mrs. Che- Channing.

ney. 24th, 9 A. M. Prof. Harris

7.30P.M. Rev. W. H. 2(!th,9 A.M. Dr. Jones.

Channing. 7.30 P.M. Rev. W. H.

11th, 9 A. M. Mrs. Che- Channing.

ney. 27th, 9 A. M. Mr. Alcott.

7.30 P.M. Mr. Alcott. 7.30 P.M. Prof. Harris

15th, 9 A. M. Mr. Wasson. 28th, 9 A. M. Kev. W. H.

7.30 P.M. Prof. Howi- Channing.

■ sou. \ 7.30 P. M. Mr. Albee.

16th, 9 A.M. Mr. Wasson. : 29th, 9 A.M. Mrs. Howe.

7.30 P. M. Mr. Snider. | 7.30 P. M. Prof. Harris

17th, 9 A. M. Mr. Snider. \ 30th, 9 A. M. Dr. Jones.

19th, 9 A. M. Dr. Jones, i 7.30 P. M. Dr. Kidney.

7.30 P. M. Mr. Snider. , 31st, 9 A. M. Prof. Peirce

20th, 9 A. M. Mr. Alcott. | August, 1880.

7.30 P. M. Prof. Harris. | 2d, 9 A. M. Dr. Jones.

21st, 9 A. M. Dr. Jones. 7.30 P. M. Mr. Albee.

7.30 P. M. Mr. Snider. 3d, 9 A. M. Mr. Alcott.

7.30 P. M.

4tli,9 A. M.

7.30 P. M.

5th, 9 A. M.

7.30 P. M.

6th, 9 A. M.

7..30 P. M.

7th, 9 A. M.

9th, 9 A. M.

7.30 P. M.

10th, 9 A. M.

7.30 P. M.

11th, 9 A. M.

7..30 P. M.

12th, 9 A. M.

7.30 P. M.

13th, 9 A.M.

7.30 P. M.

son.

Uth, 9 A. M.

body.

11 A. M.

Prof. Harris
Dr. Jones.
Dr. Kidney.
Dr. Mulford
Prof. Harris
Dr. Jones.
Dr. Kidney.
Dr. Mulford
Dr. Jones.
Dr. Hedge.
Mr. Alcott.
Prof. Harris
Dr. Jones.
Mr. Blake,
Mr. Sanborn
Prof. Harris
Dr. Bartol.
Mr. Emer-

Prof. Pea-

Mr. Alcott

(Valedictory).

254 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy .

BOOK NOTICE.

Delphic Days. By D. J. Snider. St. Louis, Mo. : 1880.

The canons of criticism require constant extension to keep pace with the con-
stant new forms of the poetic imagination. AVe ought not to harden them, but
struggle to keep them flexible and almost fluid, as it were like watei-, which at
once buoys and surrounds the noble vessel launched upon it. An open, well-
endowed, and sj'mpathetic mind is the best criterion, — the best critic of new
attempts. There is a certain soul in us, to which poetry, of whatever kind or
form, must make its appeal. This has been formulated into many definitions —
some as poetical as the best verse — and into ars poetica and abstract dogmas. But
more than all these, perhaps, we are educated and fitted to read and pronounce
upon new poetry by as much old poetry, that has steadfastly held the ear of the
world, as we happen to have read. There is not likely to be any verse so strangely
new that we do not somewhere hear the echo of the most ancient muse. The
lineage of the poets has never lapsed, though often disappearing. Their race is
united by ties tender and heroic; and many a merest trifling keepsake as well.
They pass on the pcean to beauty, nature, the gods, valor, and virtue ; and with it
they transmit the flute, the harp, the identical note, the choice phrase, the honeyed
word.

All these help us for whom they sing to know the authentic song, and also to
detect what new string has been added to the modern lyre. The smooth maga-
zine versicles cannot deceive us. We know their excuse for being, and why they
are printed. They have not the poor merit of novelties or reproductions. We
do not apply any tests to them ; we bespeak them kindly, because written by our
friends.

In the heart of the lover of poetry, there is always the prophecy of a new poet.
As he knows the elder bards, he is better able to recognize the younger ; and lie is
ever on the alert for a freshly-inspired word. He may make mistakes, but they
are those of magnanimity. For there is something to him more engaging, even in
the defeated poetical enterprise, than in all other success.

We cannot in the space allowed us give any adequate account of Delphic Days,
or the grounds of our admiration of the poem as a whole. Having little acquaint-
ance with the author's previous work, aud no prejudice, we have read Delphic
Days with a single mind and freedom to permit it to make its own impression,
and have found a new sense of intellectual pleasure. Taking ourselves at our
present state of culture, we must ask and answer the question, does this poem give
us delight? Does it move us into its own world? Does it, itself, move freely, con.
sciously, and triumphantly in an ideal world of its own creation? We must
answer aflirmatively to these tests, reserving only a few minor, and, mostly, verbal
restrictions.

Booh Notices. 255

The demand unconsciously insisted upon to-day, that a man shall be a specialist,
and having done one kind of work, shall not venture into new fields, has, on its
own merits no weight with us ; and, i-n as far as it pertains to this author, we
clearly perceive how happily and well his studies in criticism, and in the litera-
tures of Greece and Rome, may have qualified him, and led up to the power of
construction, conception, and even inspiration of this poem. Cahokia need not
be astonished because its schoolmaster turns out to be a poet. Already in one of
its pedagogues, Europe discovered for it a philosopher. Some wild destiny often
intervenes to give a man a name and place for work, through which only he is
endeavoring to pierce his way, which he uses by necessity as a foundation, but
which a blind public calls his topmost stone. "We suppose many citizens of Am-
sterdam died believing Spinoza a maker of spectacle glasses.

We understand the author of Delphic Days spent much time among the scenes
he describes, having first equipped himself with the modern Greek tongue. In
ancient Greece he was already at home. He has combined and reproduced the
two with distinctness and beauty. And he has blended with them the modern,
romantic, subjective spirit, so that artistically nothing is absent which belongs to
the manner and the matter required for such attempts. There is scarcely in
Goethe or Landor a more natural afiiliation with the antique than in Delphic
Days. Study will go far toward this aptitude — this assumption of remote and
ancient life ; but also some genuine relationship and sympathy must give the
color, the tone, the deep internal oneness, which alone can move the reader into
the same realm. As we are so moved in reading Delphic Days, we hesitate not in
believing the author to have these accomplishments, and these gifts. All are cen-
tered in the artistic ability to reproduce and endow with appropriate form, that
image of Greece, ancient and modern, which the susceptible mind bodies forth in
many a mood, in the presence of the actual object. The form is elegiac verse,
which, in a measure, helps the illusion wrought by the subject itself — the hexa-
meter, whose long flow is deliciously ended in music and sense by the following
pentameter line : We could read them forever for nothing but their rhythmical
cadence !

We have long believed hexameter to be, for English poetry, the verse of the
future. Grand as blank verse is in its higher flight, the moment it descends at all,
it becomes little else than essentially prosaic. Hexameter can continue to produce
poetical efi'ect through the whole scale. And we believe in it as one means of im-
proving our language, and giving to it more versatility and amplitude for poetical
themes. Another argument we must not omit in its tavor — every fool can't write
it. It is flnely varied by the pentameter, as in elegiac, and we shall invent or
adopt other variations when it is more freely used.

This poem, as far as we remember,' is the largest attempt in our literature in
elegiac meter. It is evidently, in its structure, the result of long studies, and per-
fect familiarity with Latin and German models. It cannot be written or read by
counting of syllables, or application of classical, or any strict rules of quantity :
it tnust be read by accent; then its music will be apparent. Then it will be seen
to be not precisely an imitation of classic elegiac, but a rendering of the general
spirit and rhythmical efi'ect of that form of verse. It is peculiarly adapted to
subjects where the continuity required is not dramatic nor historical, but an assem-
blage of incidents, thoughts, and emotions, only loosely bound in some general con-
ception.

What, then, is the manner and the meaning which we must next look for, after

256 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

becoming fomiliar with the measure, once ridding ourselves of all mental resist-
ance toward the author and the book? Here we must leave the reader to answer
for himself, just where, possibly, he expects us to tell what we find. We have
sufficiently intimated, in a general manner, our own impressions. It seemed
more necessary- to us to clear the way to a right appreciation, to remove some
accidental obstructions, than to employ description and praise ; approval will then
have some force and sweetness.

It would be a wrong to poetry of this order to attempt to redact it into its liter-
ary elements and summarize its contents. It contains too delicate a flower to be
so handled.

Its three books, "Delphi," " The Olives," and "Elpinike," are each one divided
into numbers of twenty or thirty lines. (We say nothing of the titles of sub-
divisions because they seem to us to mar, with an unmeaning diminutive, the
general form.)

Each numbered division embodies, completes in itself, some little history, out-
ward or interior, some description or scenery, some sentiment or reflection, contrast
or likeness of the ancient and modern ages, of the Mississippi and Castalia; and
the thread which binds them is the depth, adequacy, and integrity of the poet's
mood.

He is drawn to Greece by all that captivates the imagination. At the same time
he remains the modern, with the longing soul of the northern man. Greece her-
self satisfies him momentarily — he longs to transplant her by the banks of his own
restless river; but he lays at her feet the reward of his transient happiness, with
the prayer that her beauty may at length lead him into the calm of a life devoted
to philosophj'^ and poetry.

" Nov can I censure this heart for being the captive of beaut.y;
Let it siug on in its bauds till it shall sing itself free."

John Albee.

ERRATA.

The reader of Dr. Stirling's article will please note carefully the following
corrections, made in the author's revision of the proof-sheets:

Page 258. line 7, for will read shall.

" 259, bottom line, for there read here. •

•• 262, line 2, msQrtjuHt l)efore because.

" 2t)2, " 29, insert foot-note relating to the word perception., as follows :
"It is fair to own that Hegel (see " Secret of Plegel," I, 329)
seems to make einfachheit of self-reference the chai'acter-
istic of a hegriff- — not that this at all helps the matter liere.
Blue, too, was probably in Hegel's mind as a one blue
color, as there is a one space; but tliere are only particu-
lar lilue colors, if only a single notion blue."
Page 262, line 33, for fact read truth.

" 265, " 19, for' 155 read 185.

" 268, third line from the bottom, insert is before strucTc.

" 269, line 30, for completely read competently.

" 271, '' 1, for consciousness read consciousnesses.

'• 271, " 22, for accord read accordance.

'■ 271, " 28, for sense — intellect read sense-intellect.

•• 272. '• 29, after word insert ima,(jination.

•' 272, in next to last line, for this gift j-ead the gift.

" 273, line 4, for empiric rend enipirie.

" 273, '• 9, read whatever is ah which is indip'creufh/ also ha, etc.

•• 273, " 10, for ah veaAfact.

" 273, " "is, ms&vt as a^tev sense-forms.

" 273, " 32, for there read their^

" 274, " 30, insert the affections before theutselves.

" 278, " 5, insert after him {see TI, 138).

" 280, " 4, for times read time.

'• 280, •' 27, for is read implies.

" 282, insert 2. before the third paragraph.

" 283, line 31, read after considered, the successions itnplied iroidd he only
of indiff'erent units, hut only in one direction; whereas
the ohjective successums under ciew are not of indifferent
Knits, and one of them may he in two directions.

" 284, line 9, insert S. before the second paragraph.

" 284, " 16, for any read one.

THE JOURNAL

OF

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.

YoL. XIV.] July, 1880. [No. 3.

CRITICISM OF KANT'S MAIN PRINCIPLES."

BY J. HIJT0HI80K STIRLING.

In late articles of mine {Causality^ Hume and Kant j Scho-
jienhauer and Kant), sometliin2: seemed suggested perhaps, which,
it true, could not be denied (in appearance, at least), fundamentally
and fatally to object to the position of Kant, especially so far as
that position was regarded in its own self-avowed principal de-
sign. The subject, however, still lying daily in my mind, a variety
of new lights gradually arose in it, till the general bearing on the
very center of the entire Kantian system took more and more shape.
If now, then, in the present paper, I follow, to some extent, the
forms of the previous ones, I hope to add, at the same time, not

' This, though so far independent in itself, is the paper to which I refer {J. Sp. Ph.,
January, 1880) as interrupted by Mr. Caird's letter (/. Sp. Ph., April, 1879). The wliole
first piirt must be unc'erstood to have been, at that moment, complete as it stands —
discounting only an inconsiderable- change in a note or two. And, in that reference, I
may remark here, that it may be expected of me that I should say something in re-
joinder to Mr. Caird's lust article in this Journal. On grounds, however, as well per-
Bonal as general, I conceive myself to be now dispensed from this ; and I have not read
more than the first line that is written there. I am quite willing, at the same time, to
undertake any further duty that may, in that reference, be brought home to me, espe-
cially in the interests of science. But that I leave for the future.

XIV— 17

258 The Joutmal of Speculative Philosophy.

only elucidation and support, but more or less of complete exten-
sion as well.

In accordance with the plan of procedure indicated, then, I
desire to remind my readers that the first point in regard to which
I polemically animadverted upon Kant related to the schema. The
motive of the schematism at all is to find a medium, a tertium
qidd, in which a prior^i form will coalesce with a posteriori mat-
ter; and the realizing power is the faculty to which Kant in the
course of his exposition has advanced. The function oi judgment.,
namely, is to subsume cases under rules. In this, transcendental
judgment will diifer from general judgment, as having before it,
in addition to the rules themselves, or the conditions to rules (the
categories), a certain transcendental matter (as condition to cases),
namely, time and space. It will be the business of transcendental
judgment, that is, to subsume the transcendental matter under the
transcendental rules; or it will simply develop these rules, or these
conditions to rules, with tlie help of said matter. Now, this shall
be the schematism, and shall constitute the medium required.

The categories, then, as rules, or conditions to rules, will, ob-
viously, be the first consideration. They are taken in their four
general classes — quantity, quality, relation, and modality. Towards
their development, again, the matter to be subsumed under them
will be the contents of pure or formal perception, time and space.
Further, if we consider that time, as form of inner sense, is a de-
gree nearer the central unity of apperception than space, which is
only the form of outer sense — if we consider, indeed, that space
itself is only conceivable or perceivable in time, we shall see that
it is with this latter we must begin. It is the subsumption of time
under the conditions of the categories which will give origin to
such element as shall mediate the many of special sense to the
unity of apperception. In strictness one would expect, where
materials of this nature are concerned, some manipulation of space
— at least, in the second place, and before reference to special sense.
One cannot see, however, that Kant has taken it so. Space has
some slight mention under quantity ; but is afterwards, we may say,
wholly neglected. This neglect is noticed by Ueberweg, who, how-
ever, like the rest (Hegel, Erdmann, Schwegler), has, perhaps, not
looked quite close enough at the schematism generally. For, on
the whole, we may say of all of these, that they seem to have taken

Criticism of Kanfs Main Pi^inGijples. 259

it for granted that the onlj material Kant had in view for his
schematism was the pure forms of sense and, in ultimate instance,
time.

Hegel, for his part, takes but slight notice of the schematism
anywhere at all. In Glauben und Wissen we find time and
space so mentioned that they may be assumed to have been re-
garded as the matter of the schematism. In the History of
Philosophy, again, he accords the theme (XY,, 516) no more than
half a dozen sentences. These praise what is implied in the idea
of the transcendental imagination, but complain that Kant, in
blindness to his own import, merely joins together understanding
and sense, " as two difierent particular things, in an external, su-
perficial fashion, like a stick and a bone bj a string: thus, for
example, the category of substance becomes in the schema a per-
manent substrate in time ; that is to say, it is put into unity with
the form of pure perception." In another sentence he says, too :
" The 5(?-^6ma/^6-m of pure understanding, the transcendental imag-
ination, it is, that determines the pure perception in accordance
with the category, and in this way makes transition to experience."
In the "Encyclopaedia," lastly, he seems to have considered it
enough to refer to sense on the M'hole as under influence of the
categories, at the same time that the pure forms of perception are
named. So far Hegel, though perfunctory, and in his perf unctori-
ness incomplete, may be regarded as not verbally incorrect. There
are a few other points, however, in which, in Kant's reference,
Hegel seems to fail here ; and we are, consequently, led to distrust
even those noticed. For example, Kant proposes to prove that
time and space are, first, not objects of special sense, but a priori
in the mind; and, second, that they are, nevertheless and notwith-
standing, not notions (conceptions), but perceptions. In behoof
of the latter proposition he argues that space and time are not
universals with particulars under them (most probably Kant's only
meaning for " Bestandtheile "), as the genus mammal, say with
lions, bears, whales, men, and what not, under it. On the con-
trary, they are singular entities, whose subordinate parts are not
under, but in them, are simply limitations of themselves, are in
this way simply themselves — spaces and space, times and time (in
which sense, obviously, space and time have parts, have " Bestand-
theile "). There Hegel understands Kant to say, " Space and time

260 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

are no general notions of relations of things, but pure perceptions;
for we can conceive space only as a single such ; it has not Be-
standtheile" (TFIF., XV., 510).

Tiicse words (put in inverted commas as an actual quotation
from Kant) Hegel follows up by others of his own, thus: "Just so
is it situated with time again. The abstract concejjtion Tree, for
example, is in its actuality a number of individual, separate trees;
but spaces are not such particulars, or even not parts (Theile) ; on
the contrary, there remains a one direct continuity, and, therefore,
a simple unity." One sees here that Hegel has taken the more
probable logical or metaphj'sical, rather than the chemical or phy-
sical, interpretation of the word Bestandtheile. Kant's space, he
thinks, is not like the abstract notion Tree, a whole of generaliza-
tion with individuals under it, "Spaces," he says, "are not such
particulars;" and he is quite right so far: spaces are not to space
what actual trees are to the notion Tree. But it is just this saying
that spaces are not as trees, which, perhaps, leads him wrong (or
it is there, at all events, that his error lies). These trees are reals:
spaces, then, as contrasted with trees, he would seem to have been
misled to think, are not such reals. " Spaces," he says, " are not
such Besondere {i. e., as individual, separate trees), or even not
parts (Theile) ; on the contrary, there remains a one direct con-
tinuity, and, therefore, a simple unity." The general understand-
ing of Kant, then, that on Hegel's part comes out here, is evidently
a very confused and muddled one (and this is confirmed, as we
shall see, by the words that follow). Space is undoubtedly to
Kant " a one direct continuity, a simple unity ;" but it is also to
him, and just for that reason, a thing that has parts, Theile, though
not Bestandtheile in the sense of logical parts. Kant's own words
are these : " We can represent to ourselves only a single space,
and, M'hen we speak of several spaces, we understand thereby only
parts {Theile) of one and the same sole space, which parts (Theile)
also cannot precede the one space that contains them all, as though
they were its Bestandtheile, rendering its composition possible,
but are only thought in it" — its complex of parts "only rests on
limitations." Space to Kant, in short, though only an a jjriori
spectrum from within, is, for all that, and even so, an actual per-
ceptive object (exactly as it is to us), whose parts are, like parts
of other perceptive objects, in it, limitations of it, and not logical

Griticism of Kanfs Main Principles. 261

parts of a logical whole.* Kant dwells on oneness in regard to
space only that he may accentuate the fact of its perceptivity as
against its conceptivity, so to speak ; and it is with the same pur-
pose he calls attention to the peculiar nature of its parts: they
are in it, limitations of it. Though he would have us regard the
source and (so to say) substance of the object space in a different
way from the usual one, he would, after that, have us to consider
the object itself as quite the common one. And his work would
have no meaning else. To him, as to us, come from where it ma}'',
and be in itself what it may, space is at last but the same general
element, topically receptive of phenomena, on which phenomena
themselves it has no influence whatever further than that they
must present themselves in the general terms of its bare extension
— a necessity to him again only as it is to us. Li that extension,
things will still have all their own powers, whether necessary or
contingent. We have quite the same reason that Kant had to
insist on an all-embracing one space ; and Kant, in point of fact,
no more insisted on any such than we ourselves do.

Hegel, then, as it would seem, while hazy about this oneness,
is evidently quite wrong about these parts. " Spaces are not
parts," he says, while Kant himself, even to the letter, assigns
"parts" to space; nor is it to him any prejudice to this that
these parts are " limitations." Euclid's squares and triangles,
though limitations, are surely parts of space ; and as they are
to us, so they were not " by the estimation of a hair" different
to Kant.

Hegel's words immediately following those already quoted are
these : " Perception has always only something individual (Ein-
zelnes) before it ; but space or time is always only a one (Eines),
and therefore a priori.'''' From this it appears that an object of
perception (which is an experience a posteriori) being only an
Einzelnes, space or time is tXifdveiovQ ou\y a priori • because, as
objects, each is only an Eines ! Eines and Einzelnes, usually very
much the same thing, are here in such polar opposition that, the
one is a priori simply because the other is a posteriori ! Time
and space are to Kant a priori because they are not derived from

' The reader will see that I very much prefer to think Kant used the word Be-
standtheile only in a logical sense.

262 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

special sense ; but they are to him also not a bit the less percep-
tions, and not conceptions, because of the nature of their parts.
One wonders how Hegel could, of such articulate simplicity, make
such an inarticulate jumble. One is apt to suspect, indeed, that
it is not Hegel but only the reporting editor that is at fault here.
Yet, even as we think this, we are immediately staggered by the
very next sentence. " We might reply to Kant," says Hegel (as
though Kant had used that wonderful Einzelnes-Eines argument),
" the nature of space and time is certainly that of an abstract uni-
versal ; but there is equally also a one Blue." After such a pro-
pos as this, there can be no conclusion but that Hegel himself,
however he may have been reported, has certainly understood
very badly the arguments in hand. Passing over the fact that
Kant's object is to prove precisely the reverse of what Hegel
affirms (namely, that space and time are not abstract universals),
and ju>-t for this reason that Hegel here may be allowed in fairness
to mean by " abstract universal," not a notion, but that abstract
universal of pej'ception wliich Kant's space really is, we will re-
mark only this : Hegel's Blue now is quite as was his Tree before ;
abstract notions both, they have actual individuals logically under
them ; and that was accurately and literally the reason why,
spaces being to space in a very ditferent relation, space itself was
also something very diiferent from such abstract conceptions as
Tree in general or Bhie in general. In short, Blue, a genus, a no-
tion, a conception (that is blue as blue, not any particular actual
blue shade), even as Tree is a genus, a notion, a conception, is
surely a very odd thing to object to Kant when he is proving space
not to be a genus, a notion, a conception, but, on the contrary, a
perception.

With all this, there can be no doubt, nevertheless, but that
Hegel perfectly understood what, in actual fact, time and space
were to Kant. The one or two pages which immediately precede
those quoted from leave this unmistakable. In fact, we there
find Hegel to understand Kant's space and time so well that he
laughs at them. " As a priori,^'' he says, " space and time are
universal and necessary ; that is, we find them so, but that, lirst
of all, they must be there the presentments they are, follows not."
I give Hegel's thought, and it is thorough and hits. But he con-
tinues : " They are certainly basally implied, but even so as an

Criticism of Kanfs Main Princijples. 263

external universal. Kant, however, puts the thing before him
somewhat in this way. There are out there things in themselves,
but without time and space ; consciousness comes now, and has
time and space already in it, as the possibility of experience, jnst
as, for eating, it has teeth and a mouth, etc, as conditions of eating.
The things that get eaten have not themselves teeth or a mouth ;
and, as it perpetrates eating on things, so it perpetrates on them
space and time ; as it puts things between mouth and teeth, so
into space and time." This is the genuine Hegel, and there is not
one word in it but, like a shot, lodges. But, letting that be, we
must see also, from these and other such expressions in the same
neighborhood, that when Hegel calls Kant's time and space " ab-
stract perceptions," " external universals," he has before him pre-
cisely the same entities which I name " spectra," " optical mi-
rages," " expansible discs," " cones of projection," etc. If as
much as that be obvious, however, I think it will be equally ob-
vious, from the previous discussion, that, say at least as reported,
Hegel has made a muddle and a mull of much of Kant's relative
argumentation.

It is this consideration that leads to any mistrust of Hegel's
perfunctory remarks on the schematism, verbally correct though
they may be passed to be. Such expressions, for example, as " the
category of substance becomes in the schema a permanent sub-
strate in time, that is to say, it is put into unity with the form of
pure perception," or " the schematism^ of pure understanding, the
transcendental imagination, it is, that determines the pure percep-
tion in accordance with the category " — such expressions, I say,
being allowed a certain amplitude of scope, cannot be regarded
as inaccurate. The category of substance does become in the
schema a permanent substrate in time, or it is put into unity with
time. It is true also that the schematism is determination of pure
perception in accordance with the category. Still, we have here
only the categories with time and space before us, whereas the
truth is that Kant, in addition to these, postulates, for certain cat-
egories, another element which is the medium of connection be-
tween the two former elements. That element, as we shall see
again, is what we may call a certain generate oi empirical instruc-
tion. In short, Hegel's state of mind on the matter is probably
complete in the words which introduce the latter quotation above :

264 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

*' In the mind, in self-consciousness, there are categories and pure
perceptions ; the schematism'''' it is that connects these.

Erdmann {Gnmdriss, second edition, II., 314, sqq.), in regard to
the mediation between a 2>^^^ori and a posteriori^ says : " Time
was universal form a priori like the categories; but, on the other
side, it was form of sense ; and tiierefore the determinations of
time have reallj^ this required mediating character." This is hia
ruling throughout : " the schemata are determinations of time; "
and from this it is doubly plain to hinj, as he wittily and suggest-
ively adds, that the categories are applied only to the temporal.
He conceived Kant also to have come upon time in this function,
in consequence of Hume having maintained, " That we infer the
propter hoc from \\\q post hoc.'''' It is " scarcely doubtful," he says,
that Kant's " atteiitiou " was thus "directed" to " the relations
of time as such media." But this is doubtful. The phrase is not
Hume's, if a deduction from Hume. Kant was led by Hume's
question as to the source of a particular necessity, to the question
of the nature and source of necessity in general. A system of pure
reason, in direct consequence, soon rose around him, whose func-
tion was to infect contingent sensation with necessary notion ; but
it was the uhi of both notion and sensation — one's own inner sub-
ject, namely — that led him to place time and space there too, and
to see that, holding of both, they were the necessary media or
vehicles of both. At the same time it is to be acknowledged that,
if Kant read the long discussion of " the ideas of time and space"
in the Treatise of Humian Nature^ it was quite natural that, al-
ready influenced by Hume in regard to the subjectivity of knowl-
edge, etc., he should have been further led by those very ideas to
his own ideal theory in regard of pure perception. But the chance
is that Kant did not read this ; otherwise he would not have said
Hume failed to think of mathematics. Erdmann's mere phrase,
nevertheless, "' inference of the propter hoc from the 'post hoc^^
seems to have been gladly caught up by Mr. Caird, as directly
relevant to Hume and inversely to Kant: it constitutes, as we
may indeed say, the "brief" of his whole relative industry.

Ueberweg, carefulest and loyalest, perhaps, of all Kant's stu-
dents, hardly sees the need of the schematism at all, inasmuch as
the action of pure sense upon special sense seems itself already
sufficient preparation of the latter towards the categories {Grund-

Criticism of Kanfs Main Principles. 265

•
riss, third edition, III., 193). It is here, too, where he remarks

that, if a schematism at all be necessary, then space seems to be
in capacity and nnder obligation to yield such on precisely the
same grounds as time. It is quite coherent, then, that Ueberweg
regards the schemata as no more than determinations of time. It
is the same with Schwegler. He, too (Handb., 222), finds " qual-
ity of time " to be source of the schemata. In the categories of
relation, howevei% he brings things too into reference. In fact,
with all of them the truth is probal)lv this. They all regard time
alone as the schema, but may stray right in reporting.

Now, Kant himself, as we indicated at starting, did undoubted-
ly begin work with no other idea. The schematism at first, or
from the first, and for long, was, professedly, a system of forms
due to the amalgamation of pare intellect with pure sense (of
categories on the one hand, with time on the other). Incident-
al admissions of as mu(;h repeatedly occur. He bases all, in his
preface to the K. of P. E., for example (II., 674), on " space, time,
and the elementary notions of the understanding;" or he ex-
pressly tells us (XL, 135), that " the categoi-ies, to have an object,
require a pure perception, and time and space are that." Such,
we may say, is the very show of the general face, indeed. In the
schematism itself, namely, the reference to time is perpetual, is
express; and if things themselves are also somewhat confusingly
(say) mentioned, that may be only Kant's vague, loose way ; and
they were better perhaps left out — the rather, indeed, that he him-
self almost seems to advise as much. In substance, for example,
his very argument, his very reason for the empirical substrate is
this. '' Time runs itself not otf, but things in time run them-
selves oflf: to time, then, which is itself unchangeable, there corre-
sponds what is unchangeable in existence, i. e., substance." One
is apt to find such statement enough, and to reject accordingly
any traffic with a substrate as superfluous. Time itself suffices —
time itself in relation of whole to its vicissitude of parts : it is un-
necessary to taint our elements by any empirical reference at all.
Then time alone is spoken of in modality, time alone is enough
for quantity ; and, even in quality, the mere generate of filling in
time cannot be regarded as more than time.

But we have to see that all this is, as has been already inti-
mated, probably otherwise in Kant — in the end.

266 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Kant, though not a stylist (and he is not, simply, the worse for
that), is, when there is a plain story before him (as in the Prac-
tical Kritih, the Anthropologic^ the latter half of the great Kritih
and much else), always such plain, sensible writer as 'one likes to
meet. That is, it is all very well, when one's brain is idle, to read
humming words, as in a Henry Thomas Buckle ; but, on the
whole, one reads with undisturbed satisfaction only the men who
speak ; one is apt to look back, indeed, on the humming of the
others as only a hum. Rosenkranz is a stylist himself — speaks
always in the happiest, living, new metaphors ; and he has this
in his Metaphysih (p. 395) : " We say, for example, that Kant
writes a naive reality of style (einen sachlich naiven Styl), Fichte
a rhetorically imposing style. They both proceed logically. In
divisions, definitions, reasoned conclusions, in endeavor to be clear,
neither of them fails. But Kant shows as a man who, before all
things, will come to a clear understanding with himself, and, this
accomplished, gives himself the greatest pains to be intelligible to
his reader." Now, this is the general truth of Kant's writing ; he
is no hummer, as (in his Essays) even Hume largely is (Rosen-
kranz talks too of Hume's " rather redselige " Essays), but he
always sees something, and what he sees he would say. De Quin-
cey laughs at Kant's style, and compares his sentences to an
ancient stage-coach with its endless boots, boxes, pockets, and
other receptacles, but in definite result De Quincey is himself
(though with splendid natural endowment) only a stylist, and is
not to be trusted. The center of Kant's system, however, is his
answer to Hume ; and that is his discussion of time, space, and the
categories, or as I call it, his theory of perception. Now, that is
not the plain, sensible story, of a plain, sensible man, who has only
a plain, sensible fact before him. On the contrary, as a whole,
it is entangled, contradictory, and perplexed, almost to despair.
Kant does, indeed, endeavor to make himself" deutlich (intelligi-
ble) "to his reader in it : that, indeed, he endeavors over much,
and never seems anywhere to trust his own success, or allow him-
self anywhere to come to any end. And the reason really is that,
in that business, he has not come '•'' aufs Peine (to a clear under-
standing) " with himself. The Prolegomena^ to be sure, are there
in its support; but the final explanations that come forward from
these, though deciding for ia clearer and more settled theory, only

Criticisra of Kanfs Main Principles. 26T

deepen our sense of irreclaimable vice in the earlier statement.
Passing over that the whole business starts from an entirely false
and inadmissible premiss — that, namely, of presupposing: 1. That
we know only our own states of sensation in a time and space
which are merely mirages within ourselves (whereas we perceive
actual independent external things, in an actual independent
external space, and in an actual independent external time) ; 2.
That that knowledge, consequently, is (so far) only contingent
(whereas it brings with it its own intelligible principles of neces-
sity) ; and, 3. That, in further consequence (as having regard to
said contingency), principles of necessity must lie in each subject,
to be added, by each from within, to the contingent sensations as
they present themselves within, and that thus only is there a ruled
and regulated context of objective experience realized (whereas
such ruled and regulated context of objective experience is, so to
speak, not artificially, but naturally realized, and in this way, that
a perfectly real and rational external universe is presented to a
perfectly real and rational subject, capable, consequently, of sim-
ply perceiving what is simply presented) — passing over, I say,
this wholly false and inadmissible premiss, or these wholly false
and inadmissible premises (though, surely, as much as that will be
enough for the most of us), the artificial construction itself, with
its categories, schemata, and what not, is but one long jumble of,
as it were, successive Vids of explanation that only end in an im-
broglio of contradiction, helpless and hopeless.

As regards the schematism, now, in particular — and the sche-
matism, instead of being superfluous, is precisely the indispensa-
ble and necessary worh (the putting together, namely, of the
whole system of internal necessity, and the explaining, as well, of
ho\^ this system acts in reception of the actual aflections of special
sense) — I think it requires but due attention to discover that, as
has been intimated, Kant, in the course of it, found himself com-
pelled to change front more than once, and that his position in
the end was very difi'erent from what it was. in the beginning.
And it is, perhaps, precisely what concerns time that will' best
demonstrate this. It is very tempting to be perfunctory here, as
seemed the case with those expounders of Kant, or, as we have
also suggested, to see in Kant himself hints towards his own
purer and more consistent restriction to the a priori materials

268 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

alone ; but, neitlier in the one way nor tlie other, have we the
truth so. Tlie truth varies with Kant himself; as said, it was not
with him in the beginning as it was in the end.

One cannot help thinking, namely, we say, that, in the first
instance, Kant intended pure perception and the categories to be
alone adequate to the schemata, and that into these schemata,
then, the affections of special sense should at once enter. Both,
as one saw, were pure or a priori ; and both lay together in the
mind. But, thougli both, as a p>fiori, lay thus together in the
mind, the one was a form of intellect, and the other was still a
form of sense. It should be the action between these two forms,
then — the action of the a priori of intellect upon the a priori of
sense — that should give rise to all the necessary chequers for the
reception of special^ or a posteriori sense. In point of fact, how-
ever, at least as I believe, Kant found himself, after a variety of
changes, whose traces he did not always efface, compelled in the
end to have recourse, for construction of his schema, to what we
have named empirical instruction. In order that his machinery
might act, that is, he was obliged to postulate certain general
rules, forms, or types of actual empirical fact, which were the
schemata, and alone were the schemata he pretended to construct
out of the unities of the categories and the tnanies of time. But
in that way he simply presupposed all that he made believe to
deduce. That is, it was precisely these sense-schemata con-
tained the whole problem, and these he assumed. That is to say,
his whole machinery of time, space, and the categories, event-
ually, took wnngs to itself and rose into the air — with dust
enough !

What is a schema? Evidently, in Kant's mind, it is a rule of
synthesis (constr:iction) to a whole class or kind of images (pic-
tures). It is not an image ; it is a general type for an indefinite
variety of individual images. In that sense, it is a surrogate, a
substitute; it is a representative of others. To Kant's first inten-
tion, further, it is a species, an eflSgies, a figura (but quite gen-
eral), in the a priori sensuous element, of its companion a p>riori
intellectual element. The mere ratio of the one (the intellectual)
struck into a bodily shape (still indefinite enough) in the other
(the sensuous) : it is, as it were, the reflec;tion of the lamp above in
the stream below. These words of Reinhold, one of Kant's most

Criticism, of Kant 8 Main Principles. 269

literal students {Versuch einer neuen Theorie^ etc., p. 466) — "The
categories figured in their precise relation to (or in tlieir precise
connection with) the universal Form of the perceptions (hare
time) are called schemata" — surely only echo Kant's primary
intention here. This primary intention was, one cannot help
thinking, this, to prove that the intellectual relation named cate-
gory becomes, on its entering the element of time, projected, not
indeed into an image (})icture) of itself, but into a schema, a rule
of synthesis (construction), towards a whole class of images, even
as the notion triangle is not and cannot be a one image, but is
only such schema, such rule of synthesis, towards quite an indefi-
nite number of images, acute-angled, obtuse-angled, right-angled,
scalene, etc. Hegel's ex[)ression that we have seen already,
though ap])arently for another purpose and in connection with
other views, comes up to this, lie says, " substance becomes in
the schema a permanent substrate in time ; i. e., it is put into
unity with time." That is as much as to say, the star substance,
fallen into reflection in the sea, time, becomes a scliema. And just
this Kant himselt seems to mean by such words as these (129) :
'"'' Numerus est quaniitas phcBnomenon, sensatio realitas phceno-
menon, constans et perdurahile rerum suhstantia phodnomenon^''
etc. These imply, evidently, what- relates to appearance, to show.
Quantity, reflected into time, becomes the phsenomenon of its
own self, i. (?., the temporal show, type, or schema of its own self.
So of sensation, substance, and the rest.

This, as we have seen some reason to believe, is the universal
understanding, and this, as we have now also som.e reason to sus-
pect, is, probably, Kant's own first understanding of the term
schema. My theory, further, however, is that Kant found this
insufficient — that he found it impossible, so to speak, completely
to realize any category (unless quantity) out of pure perception
(time and space) alone. For quality, he found himself compelled
to take for granted (as a priori) the universal of the empirical
function, the universal of the empirical faculty (sensation) itself,
what we may call the generate of the actual empirical tilling of
time. And so far (as more than once said) we experience no
check. What he is compelled to assume at last for the categories
of relation, however, is something quite beyond time, or even any
allowable universal of function — rules, that is, of such empirical

■270 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

constitution or processes of things themselves in time, as it were
onlj possible to know from the things themselves, empirically,
that is, or a posteriori. To assume these rules, then, as a priori
was simply to assume the entire case, and leave nothing to be
explained.

As likely to prove satisfactory to the reader, in illustration of
what has been said, I shall now make a few extracts from the K.
of P. R. (pretty well in the order in which in the schematism they
come to hand); and I do not think any one, who understands the
first two pages of § 24 of the Deduction., will fail to understand
what they amount to. These two pages (II., 745) suggest, pretty
well completely, Kant's new scheme of perception : the nature and
order of the various syntheses as regards self-consciousness, im-
agination, and the categories can hardly be missed there. Multi-
ples of pure intellect (which are at the same time unities), multi-
ples of pure sense, multiples of special sense (as I catalogue them)
are all capable of being realized from these two pages, and in their
order, as well as in the mode in which, by imagination, they are
reduced into a single objective consciousness in pure apperception
(which is the pure ego, the pure self-consciousness). The very
first words of the schematism are these : —

" In all subsuraptions of an object under a notion, the perception of the
former must be homogeneous with the latter; that is, the notion must contain
what is perceived in the object to be subsumed under it; for that is just what
the expression means: an object is contained under a notion." P. 122.

Now, if M^e take this rule of Kant's own, and apply it to the
schematism as standard in estimation of his own acts, we shall
readily realize results which have been already named. That is,
we shall find that we are disposed to accept the requisite of homo-
geneity (but with grades) for some categories, but to deny it for
others.

" Now, it is clear that we must have a third something which, being homo-
geneous on one side with the category, and on the other with the sensible im-
pression, shall render possible the adhibition of the former to the latter. This
mediating element must be pure (free from anything empirical), and yet on the
one side intellectual and on the other sensible : any such is the transcendental
schema.

" The notion of understanding (category) contains pure synthetic unity of a
many in general. Time, as the formal condition of the many of inner sense,

Criticisin of Kant^s Main Principles. 271

consequently of the connection of all consciousness, contains a raany (multiple,
manifold, complex) a priori in pure perception. Now, a transcendental deter-
mination of time is homogeneous with the category (which functions unity to
it), so far as it is universal and rests on a rule a jmori. On the other side,
again, it is homogeueous with the sensible impression, so far as time is con-
tained or implied in every empirical perception of a many of sense. Hence
an application of the category to impressions of sense will be possible by means
of the transcendental determination of time, which, as the schema of the notion
of understanding (category), mediates the subsumption of the impressions of
sense under the category." P. 128.

" We shall call this formal and pure condition of sense to which the function
of the category is addressed (restricted) the schema of this category, and the
action of understanding on or with these schemata the schematism of pure
understanding. The schema in itself is always only a product of imagination ;
but a schema is to be distinguished from an image (picture), for the synthesis
of imagination aims at no individual perception, but only at a certain unity as
in determination of sense. If I set down five points the one after the other

thus , these points will be an image of the number five. On the other

hand, should I think of a number in general, which is neither five nor a hun-
dred nor any number, but may be five or a hundred or any number, then this
thinking, this thought which I so have, is rather the conception of a method to
bring a many, in accord with a certain notion, into an image, than an image
itself. This conception, now, of a general process of imagination to procure a
notion its image, I call the schema to this notion." P. 124, seq.

So far, there cannot be a doubt but that we are ordered to re-
gard the schema as a result wholly a priori, of categories as mucli
a iwiori, and of time alone no less a priori. As such middle form
of pure sense — intellect — it mediates special sense, so to speak, into
eclipse in apperception. As for the word restringirt (restricted
as above) there is nothing special, or new, or that calls for expla-
nation in the restriction it implies. I suppose most people easily
apprehend that " without objects notions are void," and all the
more easily when these words concern Kant's notions and Kant's
objects, in which regard, as we all know from the first, if the
former without the latter are empty, the latter, for their part again,
without the former are blind.'

' The allusion here is to Kant's " restringiren," and, of course, it is easy to un-
derstand that, if anything acts under conditious, it is so far restricted. Over this simple
conception, however, Mr. Caird, as usual, contrives to stumble. Transelementation is
the result, with its strangely muflBed voice, apparently from the midst of a somnambu-
listic dream. Translations of Kant, I fear, have much to answer for ? " Successive
synthesis of productive imagination " is to Kant the agent of perception, the agent of

272 The Journal of Sj)eculatwe Philosophy.

So far, tlien, to repeat, we may hold ourselves safe to affirm
there is not a thought in Kant's mind of anght but pure intellect
and pure sense ; any trace of empirical ingredient or quasi-em-
pirical ingredient does not appear ; for, I suppose, no one will ask us
to see in the terms '' determination of time '' or '' formal condition
of sense " any grasping foi'ward to what we have called the em-
pirical instruction of certain empirical universalia or generalia,
which, though eni})irical, should, as universals, be capable of being
allowably named a priori. A schema is certainly a recii)e or rule
of a priori synthesis ; and it is difficult to see any room in it even
for empirical suggestion. It is a " pure synthesis," " under a cate-
gory," "produced by imagination;" it "concerns" at the same
time " the determination of inner sense according to conditions of
its form (time)," etc. These words occur p. 126, and they cer-
tainly justify Reinhold fcr aitributing the schema to the hestimmte
Beziehung of the categories on " die hlosse Zeit " (the specific action
of the categories on bare lime, for Beziehung means ujore than mere
reference or relation ; it has the active sense in it of acting on, or
of drawing into connection with : So and so '•''hat die TJniversitat
hezogen^^).

On page 127, we have the schemata of relation. That of
substance is " the persistence of reality in time," " the conception
of reality as a substrate in empirical time generally, which re-
mains unchanged while all else changes." The schema of cause is
" the reale, which being, something else always ensues ;" it " consists
in the succession oi a many, so far as said succession has been sub-

knowledge (II., 105-115). So far it cannot be called restrictive. Restriction, in fact,
is not due to it ia its function, but to the conditions (of sense and understanding)
vphich it must obey. (Kant occasionally uses the word when, properly, it is under-
standing ho. means.) Erdmann tells \xs {Grundr., II., 422) that Fichte rightly con-
ceived " imagination " as understood by Kant to be simply " the action proper of the
ego." That is to the same effect as I have just said. Imagination to Kant, in fact,
is, as medium of reception for the contributions of sense on the one hand, and the
contributions of understanding on the other, so also the vehicle of mediation between
both (p. 112). Mr. Caird, for his part again, looks (p. 4:^9) rather a|>prehensively at im-
agination as " that power cf dealing freely, or even arbitrarily, with the data of experi-
ence, which is the distinguishing giit of imaginative natures,"' and he solemnly warns
us, as though from behind the veil of the very temple of Kant, to " remember the dan-
ger that accompanies this gilt!" If this is interpretation of Kant, surely, also, it is
* 'most exquisite fooling."

Criticism of Kanfs Main Principles. 273

jected to a rule." The schema of reciprocity is " the being at the
same time of the determinations of substances in each other's re-
gard mutually, according to a general rule." And, in all of them,
"we find ourselves at once transported into the realm of Empiric.
In the case of substance words follow, indeed, that would, as already-
indicated, make time itself the substrate; but in causality and re-
ciprocity the empirical element is literal and bare. No modus of
time whatever is A B where B is out of A ; and no modus of time
•whatever is A B C D which may be as well D C B A, etc. The
empirical A B is the entire ])roblem ; and no trafHc of imagination,
throuiih categories, with time alone will ever even lind it. Nav,
no traliic of imagination with time alone will ever find there any
dimmest picture (image) of the very notion, said notion, that is,
being even granted. Nevertheless, though time as time has not
the smallest influence on such facts, the schemata are (p. 128) still
called determinations of time : they refer to '• time range^ time-con-
tent., time-order., and time-imiolex.^'' They are still said to (p. 129)
"realize the categories." Much later, indeed, in his letter to
Tieftrunk (XI., 185) we find Kant saying, as we have seen already,
that the " categories," " to have an object," must get "' an a priori
perception," " and that time and space are." Now, not only is it
impossible to find in time itself as time any perception of cause
and effect, but Kant himself again and again, and very strongly,
asserts the same thing {e. g.^ 778). No ; if these words (XI., 186)
shadow out the one general process, " the thought-forms (cate-
gories) can have sense-forms (schemata) put under them to give
them sense and meaning," then it must be said that for the cate-
gories of relation, at least, no such sense-forms are required, or, as
Kant actually names, can be found in time itself.

But I shall now quote some of those passages which seem
decidedly to involve the empirical reference :

"Even space and time would be without sense aad meaning were there
necessary application not shown in regard of empirical objects.'' P. 137.

" Change affects not time itself, but only things in time, just as contempora-
neousness is not a determination of time itself, for time's parts are not at the
same time, but after one another.

" Through permanence of substrate only does existence in successive parts of
time get a magnitude, which we call duration. For, in the mere succession,
existence is always going and coming, and has never the smallest magnitude."
P. 157.

XIV— 18

274 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

"The postulate of the possibility of things demands, therefore, that any
notion of these agree with the formal conditions of an experience in general.
This latter, namely, the objective form of experience in general, involves all
synthesis which is required for the perception of objects. A notion, such as
implies a synthesis, is to be reckoned void and to refer itself to no object, unless
its synthesis belongs to experience, either as borrowed from it (and then it is
an empirical notion), or else as such that experience in general (the form of
one) rests on it as a condition a priori (and then it is a pure notion, which per-
tains to experience, nevertheless, because its object can only be found there).
For, where will you get the character of the possibility of an object which has
been thought by means of a synthetic a priori notion, unless in the synthesis
which constitutes the form of the empirical coguition of objects ? " P. 184.

And here I will parenthetically remark this. It is always to
be nnderstood that, by an experience in general, or an experience
at all, we are not to think of an absolute experience, an exj)erience
as such. Passing over that such an idea is ahsohitely reynote from
Kant, we may say that Kant cannot mean that, for his own pre-
suppositions forbid. His presuppositions, namely, are such that
they are quite compatible with a plurality of experiences. In
point of fact, Kant actually names two experiences : one (" intuitus
derivativus "), such as ours, confined to phenomena of sense ; and
another (" intuitus originarius "), such as that of the Supreme
Being, addressed to noumena of intellect. It is the presupposed
necessary restriction, then, oiour experience that similarly restricts
his notion of what he calls the possibility of an experience in
general. That presupposed necessary restriction is this, that we
know only, and can know only, our own subjective affections
within, any reference to things in themselves without, which
might cause these affections (sensations), being effectually pre-
scinded and precluded even by themselves. Kant's possibility of
experience means, then, always the possibility of this seeming ob-
jective external experience of ours, on or with such never-doubted
necessary presupposition. Evidently, sensations, the whole matter
of experience, being only within, the very time and space in which
they are disposed must also be within, and the appearance of per-
ceptive objects in a context of necessary relation, which thoy then
assume, must also be due to principles within, the primary prin-
ciples of self-consciousness, namely, which we call categories. But
what is so alhided to as a priori (all elements but that of sensa-
tion), must, as opposed to this matter of sensation, be evidently

Criticism of Kanth Main Principles. 275

form., or a system of forms. This system of forms, now, would
be the formal conditions a priori of the possibility of such ah
experience as ours. That now is, on the whole, all that Kant
means by his phrase the possibility of experience. The only
question that interposes is this : Does not Kant find himself
obliged to extend his purview oi a priori principles beyond those
just named (cateojories and time), which are undeniably (on his
theory, that is) wholly a priori, to others which are only quasi
a priori f This question (as indicated) we are disposed, notwith-
standing the expounders of Kant, notwithstanding so much in
Kant himself, to answer in the affirmative. We hold, in short,
that Kant's schemata are not productions of a simple amalgama-
tion of the pure forms of sense (space and time) with the pure
forms of the intellect (categories), as is generally believed, but are
largely indebted to a presumption of experience — an arbitrary
assumption of certain principles as a priori which are only ex post
facto results of empirical generalization — so to speak, a cognition
called ^ra^ which is in eifect and possibility only a cognition j?05z5.
And this we believe even the immediately preceding quotation to
imply, but we shall now follow it up by others which (with those
that forego) will probably set the matter at rest :

"And now Ave shall show the extensive use and influence of this postulate
of possibility. Should I conceive a thing that persists unchanged, in such man-
ner that all t'.iat changes attaches merely to its temporary states, I could never
know, from such mere notion, that such a thing were itself possible. Or I
conceive something such that, on its being, something else infallibly always
follows. This conception itself, of course, may he thought without contradic-
tion. But whether such peculiarity (causation, namely) is to be met with in
any possible thing cannot be thereby judged. Lastly, I can conceive several
things (substances) such that the state of the one involves a consequence in the
state of the other, and mce versa ; but whether such relation can attach to any
actual things, can, from these conceptions (which comprise a mere arbitrary
synthesis) not at all be gathered. Only by tliis, then, that these conceptions
«|>r^or^ express the relations of the j3e?rfph'o?is in all cases of experience, do
we attain to the knowledge of their objective reality, that is, of their^ trans-
cendental truth, and that, too, certainly in independence of experience, but
not, nevertheless, in independence of all reference to the form of an experience
in general, and to the synthetic unity in which alone objects are capable of
being empirically cognized." P. 185 seq.

" As regards reality, it is of itself evident that, without calling in the aid of
experience, we cannot possibly think any such in concreto ; for reality refers

276 Tlce Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

only to sensation as matter of experience and not to the form of relation, with
which latter, of course, we might constructively jilay." P. 187.

"And so the possibility of continuous magnitudes, nay, of magnitudes at all,
is, because the notions they imply are synthetic notions, never evident from the
notions themselves, but only from these notions when they are considered as
formal conditions of the determination of objects in experience at all; and
where should we seek for objects which should correspond to notions, if not
in experience, by which alone are objects given ? — albeit that we are certainly
quite well able to discover and characterize the possibility of things, w-ithout
just premising experience itself, by merely referring to the formal conditions
under which generally objects are determined in experience ; where, conse-
quently, the reference is completely a priori., though only in respect of expe-
rience, and within its limits." P. 187 seq.

" We may get to know the existence of a certain thing, even before percep-
tion of it, and so comparatively a priori, if only it cohere with certain percep-
tions according to the principles of their empirical connection." P. 188.

" The object of a notion cannot otlierwise be given than in perception ; and,
although a pure perception is still possible a priori, even before the object, yet
this same pure perception can get its object (consequently objective validity)
only through the empirical perception of which it (the pure) is the mere form.

" Although all these principles, and the conception of the object with which
mathematical science is occupied, are generated in the mind completely a pjri-
ori, they would still mean nothing at all, were we not always able to exhibit
their meaning by example of empirical objects." P. 199.

" That this is the case with all the categories, and the principles derived from
them, is clear from this, that we cannot even define a single one of them
without at once stooping to conditions of sense." P. 200.

" The categories can have definite meaning only by means of the general con-
ditions of sense.

"The categories require, in addition to the pure notion of understanding,
determinations of their application to sense in general (schemata)." P. 203.

" Should this condition (schema) fail, then all subsumption vanishes." P.
205.

"But it is still more remarkable that, in order to understand the possibility
of things as in agreement with the categories, and demonstrate, consequently,
the ohjective validity of the latter, we stand in need, not of mere perceptions,
but always even of external perceptions. ... In order, as correspondent to
the notion substance, to bring forward something permanent in perception (and
thereby exhibit the objective reality of said notion), we require a perception
in space (matter). ... In order to exhibit change, as that perception which
corresponds fo causality, we must, by way of example, point to motion as
change in space. . . . How it is possible that, in consequence of a given state,
another state of the same thing, and oppo.*ed to the former, toUows, not only no
reason can make comprehensible to itself without example, but no reason can,
even without an actual perception, make intelligible to itself . . . Lastly, the
category of reciprocity, so far as regards its possibility, is utterly incompre-

Criticism of Kanfs Main Principles. 277

hensible by mere reason ; it is impo.'^sible to conceive the objective reality of
this notion without a perception, and that, too, of something external in space."
778 sq.

These passages (with the many others they may suggest) will
make plain what I mean by empirical instruction on Kant's part.
Kant, undoubtedly, had it in mind at last that there was a neces-
sity to refer to actual outer experience tor the very possibility of
such notions as substance, cause, reci])rocity — nay, that there was
a necessity to refer to an experience that can only be subsequent^
even in the case of quantity and quality — this, at the very moment
that he named every such reference a priori. In fact, I should
say that, finally, the relative state otf Kant's mind on all the cate-
gories might if it had been fairly explicit to its own self, have
been put pretty well thus:

Preliminarily, modality is to be eliminated from consideration
here. Objectively, it has no contents but those of the other three
categorical classes. It is but a result of reflection on these in
regard of one another as they bear on the relation of evidence to
the mind : they are, in fact, in that relation, the exhaustive three
grades. P(jssibility relates to formal conditions (pure perception
— quantity) ; actuality relates to the material conditions (sensation
— quality) ; and necessity relates to conditions of connection in
products of the others (relation). But, modality eliminated, the
other three remain.

Quantity, singularly pure, seems to require no schema for which
time and space alone were not enough. JSTe vert hel ess, there is
reference even so — to thiiigs in zawic-form (dimensions).

Quality shows an empirical element at once. It involves refer-
ence to sensation, to the filling of time as mere tilling, or, as we
may otherwise express it, to the universal of the mere function,
the universal of the bare faculty itself. This, then, involves an
advance in depth empiricall3^ As we had the generate of sense-
form before, so now we have the generate of %Q\\%Q-matter .

Relation points to a degree of empiricism that is deeper still.
Now it is that the empirical instruction definitely comes in, and
would add to the generate of empirical function or faculty certain
generalia of the actual interconnection of things — generalia, at the
same time, which are utterly impossible to be even conceived by
us till actual experience has extended them to us.

278 The Journal of Specalatlve Philosophy.

The three empirical references, then, still postulated by Kant,
though not quite consciously, perhaps, are respectively a generate
of empirical form, a generate of empirical matter, and a generate
of empirical connection. Of course, form, matter, and connection,
as such, were perfectly present to him : what we presume to add
in each case is the reference to an empirical generate.

In short, I am disposed on the whole to believe that no one
now can have any doubt on the matter. What I call, relatively,
an assumption of empirical instruction on Kant's part must be
granted. Nor less is it a necessity to be granted that this instruc-
tion — make it as general as you please — ever so general, never so
general — will still remain empirical always and never a priori.
In a word, there is not one single schema whose origin is not
a posterim'i, and nothing more nor less than a posteriori. All of
them, in short, are due at last to empirical instruction — in grades.
This is the ultimate and delinitive truth here, and we shall now,
in conclusion on this head, illustrate and confirm it by applying
the principles we have won, in test of that one category which,
in itself the most important of them all, is also the soul and center
of the entire construction, the fons et origo of the whole huge
industry. That is, in the light of these principles, we shall review
the fact, 1. Negatively, that time alone is not possibly a schema
for causality ; 2. Affirmatively, that this schema postulates a cer-
tain empirical rule; and, 3, That this rule cannot coherently be
granted.

1. For we must begin so. In order to attain to a complete dis-
cussion we must start with what, even as from Kant, is the uni-
versally accredited position. And that is that, for production of
a schema to causality, time, or a determination of time, is, in some
way, to be subsumed (as representative type of what many or mul-
tiple of things is called cause and effect) under a correspondent
category. It is but natural, then, that, in obedience to Kant's
own prescript, we should seek in time itself for that determination
which were, in the case in hand, the " third something — homoge-
neous on the one side with the category " (here antecedent and
consequent), "and on the other side with the sensible impression"
(here any emj)irical example of cause and effect). Any such
" third," however, as type, whether on the one hand of antecedent
and consequent, or on the other of cause and effect, is not to be

Criticism of Kant's Main Prmoiples. 279

found in the plurality of time, arrange it as you may, or regard it
from what point of view you may. The tick, tick, tick of a clock
is the accurate representative of the single succession (plnrality) of
time : a flux of units in which certainly there is no return, but in
which, at the same time, all of the units are only, so to speak,
bodily after one another, and never bodily through one another.
Now, the blot on this paper is not only bodily after the drop of
ink op my pen, but, actually and in very truth, bodily through it.
Empty time, then, evidently contains no type of such peculiar suc-
cession as that of cause and effect. It is sufficiently tempting, how-
ever, to turn here to that necessity in the succession of time where-
by access (say) from a first moment of time to a third moment of
time is possible only through the intervening second. The A B
of causality is irreversible, one thinks ; but so is the A B of time.
The consideration here indeed proves a snare into which it is but
too easy to fall. Nevertheless, it is as inapplicable, inapposite, and
out of place, as anything called aroirov in Plato.

It requires indeed but a single reflection to demonstrate this.
If, namely, it is the necessity of the A B of time that causes the
necessity of the A B of causality — that is, if the causal A B is irre-
versible because the A B of time itself is irreversible — then plainly
such a succession as a reversible one at all were a downright im-
possibility ; casuality, contingency would cease, an important falla-
cy fail, post hoc disappear, and an omnipotent propter hoc alone
reign. Nay, in that event it is quite uncertain that a single other
of even Kant's own categories would be left. The succession of
quantity must be taken in time, the succession of quality must be
taken in time, the succession of substance and accident must be
taken in time, the succession of reciprocity must be taken in time,
why, even all the successions of modality must be taken in time:
must we, then, say, as the A B of time is irreversible, so every
A B of things is similarly irreversible, and all the above succes-
sions are but examples of the succession of cause and effect {prop-
ter hoc) 1 This has been said ; but I fancy the sayer of it will
remain as single as the Herostratus that burned the Ephesian
Temple of Diana, and because, it may be, of no dissimilar feat.'

' More than two thousand vears ago Aristotle told us, again and again, all about both
Vac propter and the post. At 1065 a, for example, we hear of the universal, the general,

280 The Jour Mil of Speculative Philosophy.

But we have to see that there are expressions of Kant's which
seem to assert not only that there is a determination of time cor-
respondent to cause and effect, but even that the necessity between
the successive units of times enters into and forms part of the ne-
cessity that exists between the units constitutive of causality. In
discussing causality, for example, he says this: "As, now, it is a
necessary law of our sensibility, consequently o. formal condition
of all perceptions, that the preceding necessarily determines the
succeeding time (seeing that I cannot reach the latter otherwise
than through the former) ; so it is also an indispensable law of the
empirical apprehension of series in time, that the phenomena of
the past determine all the existences in the future, and that these
latter, as events, do not take place unless so far as those former
determine for them their existence in time, that is, establish it
accordino; to a rule." What I translate there "all existences"
occur^ in WW., II., 169, and is evidently a misprint. Jenes
Daseyn, that is, ought to be Jedes Vaseyn, as is proved by said
Daseyn being immediately referred to as diese Begebenheitfin.
Another passage similar to the above is to be found at page 165 :

and tlie casual. Nay, Aristotle actually takes the pains there to prove by demonstra-
tion tliat the " Post " eawnoi be the" Propter." Erdmann significantly intimates also (II.,
409) that "without succession causality is not thinkable." Very curiously, Mr. Cuird's
whole work is simply to invert this, and say, "Without causality succession is unthink-
able." That, in fact, shall be Kant's reply to Hume ; or that, in a word, shall be the
entire outcome of Kant's enormous labor ! And yet justice must be done Mr. Caird too.
It is really true that without causality succession is unthinkable ; things, that is, being
thought of, and not mere time itself. Succession in things is a change in things, and
there is no change without a cause. And our results now are certainly sufficiently re-
markable. Hume asks, Why do we say there is no change without a cause ? and, accord-
ing to Mr. Caird, Kant answers, We do say there is no change without a cause ! It would
be a strange contradiction to Mr. Caird's single strong proposition — would it not — to
assert that, in ultimate instance, to Kant's mind, no succession involved causality, or
that, in ultimate instance, no succession could, in consistency, involve to Kant's mind
causality ? And yet that would be true too. Ice follows frost, heat the sun, water gravity,
a ship the current, etc., etc. Now, all these things were to Kant, just as they were to
Hume, not relations of ideas, but matters of fact, and, consequently, contingeiit — that is,
causeless ! Cause, or the necessity of the order in these contingent facts, was but a gov-
ernment stamp he himself stuck upon them — a stamp b<jrrowed from the analogy of hia
own mental function called antecedent and consequent. Thus, then, every succession was,
in consistency for Kant, in its own self, necessarily causeless! I say — again in consis-
tency, or on his own principles — be could not even stick the stamp on, unless the facts
themselves so ordered him.

Criticism of Kanfs Main Principles. 2S1

" From the succeeding: time-point tliere is no going back to the
preceding one, though the former refers itself to some one that pre-
cedes ; irom a given time, again, the progression to the determi-
nately following time is a necessary one."

Xow, when we consider such words as these alone, it is suffi-
ciently natural to think that they point to time itself as consti-
tuting, in its own series, if not the whole schema of causality, then
the most important element towards it. It is possible, however,
that what seems to be said of time itself is in realit}' said only of
things in time, and of such things, moreover, as are alone in place
in a discussion (as here) under the second analogy — events, namely.
In point of fact, what is said in the last of the above extracts about
the impossibility of going back from following to preceding time,
is not said of time itself, but of something (actual event) in time.
And as regards the other, however strongly it may seem to speak of
time alone, it means, for all that, really nothing, and refers to noth-
ing, but the things themselves that are in time. We may confident-
ly decide, then, that, however peculiar Kant's own words may be,
there is no actual evidence that he ever expected to find his schema
of causality in the succession of time itself. He says (II., 48), the
notion of change does not count among the a priori data of pure
perception ; " for time itself changes not, but only something that is
in time." Similar words (p. 157) are these: " TF<?cA5e? affects not
time itself, but only the Erscheinungen in time." Nay, he actually
tells us that to be able to use the mere succession of time for any
such schema, we should require another time in which to see time.
"Would you attribute to time itself one event after another, you
must think another time in which this succession were possible."
Here, plainly, it is understood that the time which is to be con-
ceived as in time would only occupy the place of things in time.
I add that quite unmistakable light in this reference is to be found
on pages 148, 174, and 778.

I have said elsewhere, that Schopenhauer seems to attribute to
the succession of time itself some portion of the causal efficacy :
one moment, he says, is "parent" of the other. It is certain
that Mr. Caird adopts this view. "The different elements of
the manifold of the events are determined in relation to each
other in the same way as the different moments in time are
determined in relation to each other; but it is obvious that the

282 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

moments of time are so determined in relation to each other
that we can onlj put them into one order, i. e., that we can pro-
ceed from the previous to the subsequent moment, but not vice
versa^' It throws light liere to perceive that Mr. Caird follows
this up by like expression in regard to the succeeding analogy.
" The same argument may be applied," he says, " to coexistence
in space, and the principle of reciprocity — the parts of space are
necessarily represented as reciprocally determining each other,"
etc. As of space then, so of objects in space. N^evertheless, as
there is in reality no ground for assuming Kant to mix up the
succession of time in his schema of causality, there is not even
the appearance of a ground for mixing up the extension of space
in his schema of reciprocity. The word Raum occurs only twice,
I think, in the relative exposition. Time, again, is repeated in
every second line even there, and, so far as words go, might still
be mistaken for an agent in the schema. Kant, however, only
thinks of things, and neither of space nor yet time, as such. The
agent on which he leans is only the " relation of influence."
What he has in view is merely a " dynamic reciprocity, without
which even the local {communio spatii) could never be empiri-
cally perceived : it is easy to be observed in our experiences, that
only the continuous influences in all places of space can lead our
sense from one object to another" (771, 179). Influence of object
on object, then, is here the thought ; and, instead of saying, as of
space so of objects, we ought to invert the phrase and say, as of
objects so of space ; the latter is even perceived only through the
former.

The conclusion, then, so far, is that time alone is not the
schema; and it is no objection to this conclusion that this schema,
whatever it be, must be in time. That is granted. The schema
must appear in time, and must dispose itself according to the
succession of time ; but, even in obeying this succession, the 7'ule
of the schema is not that succession, and is not determined by
that succession, but is something quite else.

With regard to the second, or atfirmative proposition, that an
empirical reference is involved in the schema, that is not difiicult
to exhibit. '' The schema of the cause and the causality of a
thing in general is the reale^ on which, whenever it is, something
else always ensues. It consists therefore in the succession of the

Criticistn of Kant'S Main Principles. 283

multiple of parts in the object, in so far as that succession is sub-
jected to a rule." This passage, easily found (127) like the sub-
sequent ones, is Kant's own express definition of the schema in
regard. We see that, so far as time is concerned, this schema is a
succession ; but no influence of time goes further than that. All
else concerns a reale ; and a fixed rule of the parts of that reale
— a rule which is in time, but not prescribed by time. The
very succession referred to is not that of time, but of the parts
of the sensuous impression. The schema in question, Kant
sajs, again (128), "is the relation of the sensuous perceptions,
the one to the other, in all time (that is, according to a rule
of time-determination)." That evidently is to the same effect.
Time is spoken of, but it is only the vehicle or medium in which ;
there is no hint whatever of time determining a rule : on the con-
trary, it is the rule determines time. " The universal proposition
of the analogies of experience (152) is: all sense-presentations
stand, as regards their existence, a priori un^er rules of the deter-
mination of their relation, the one to the other, in one time."
And here we see that Kant by " all time " and " one time" means
quite the same thing — accordance with a "rule of time-determina-
tion ; " but there is no thought in either phrase of an all or whole
of a " one all-embracing time." The rule here, in effect, is a rule
of relative existence in one and the same time j and one can at
once realize the meaning by referring to either of the special cate-
gories implied. In causality the rule is of the existence of a B
necessarily due to the existence of an A in a time common to both ;
while in reciprocity, again, the rule is of an A B, in which there is
a relation of transition at once from A to B and from B to A in
the same time. Once more the question is only of things, though
necessarily disposed in the extension of time. Were that exten-
sion alone considered, the succession implied would be an indif-
ferent one, and only in one direction ; whereas the objective
succession under view is not indifferent, and may be in two
directions. " Properly the schema is only the phenomenon or the
sensible notion of an object in agreement with the categouy."
Evidentl}^, then, that schema or sensible effigies must, as concerns
relation, refer to connections of things., that is, to a certain fore-
cast of rules affecting objects in time ; but not themselves (the
rules) from time. I have already argued the point that in the

284 TTie Journal of SjpecttZative Philosophy.

realization of the niachinerj of relation certain quasi a priori
conditions of all experience have been postulated; and not ob-
scurely in Kant we may say the necessity of that empirical in-
struction is emphatically enforced. In particular we may refer
here to the section an noumena and phenomena as well as the
general remark that follows the postulates. We draw into con-
sideration now the third proposition that the postulated rule can-
not coherently be granted.

The schema of causality is " the reale on which, w^ienever it
is, something else always ensues;" it is a "rule" which deter-
mines succession in the parts of impression, Now, where are we
to get this absolutely empirical rule which shall yet at the same
time be absolutely non-empirical ? Neither the matter nor the
form (function) of pure perception will yield it. Time has simply
succession ; it has no type of the necessary step from antecedent
to consequent, of any thing out of another. Pure perception has
reallj', for matter, nothing submitted to it but the pure side-by-
eide of space, and the pure after-one-another of time — units that
are to one another simply as the books on the shelf, in the one
case, and the ticks of a clock in the other. In form, again, it has
no universal of function that will typify a fixed order. Neither
is there in sensation any succession but that of degrees in filling;
and such succession is also manifestly inadequate. Now, these
faculties are the only faculties of sense, and, if we cannot get from
them what empirical element is in request as quasi a priori uni-
versal, it is impossible to imagine where else we are to look for it.
There is nothing left Kant now but (as we have seen) the bold
postulate of a general empirical fact. And what is that but a
simple assumption of the whole case, a simply presupposing and
taking for granted of all that is to be proved or explained ? " The
reale, on which, whenever it is, something else always ensues,' ac-
cording to a universal rule." It is quite evident that no a priori^
either of time or space, either of pure perception or (so to say)
pure sensation, is ever adequate to as much as that. And just as
little is it possible to grant that any such peculiarly specific em-
pirical fact can be allowably used as an a priori principle. Kant
makes no concealment here; he is quite open in declaring (II.,
776, III., 75 seq.) that the categories of substance, causality, and
reciprocity would be all vacuous and consequently null, were there

Criticism of Kant 8 Main Principles. 285

not va eacli case an actual " perception " to give it filling, function,
and purpose. But such perception it is evidently impossible to
grant. One thing out of another, one thing together with another :
these are particular facts of particular perception, and thev cannot
be generalized into any a priori universal whatever. Kant does
not even generalize in such cases: he only asserts. To him there
are, and there must be, such universalia allowable to postulate in
experience ; for to him they are indispensable for the realization
of his categories, at the same time that, to his own persuasion, he
is immovably shut in, whether as regards sensation or time and
space, to the interior of his own subject.

Eeaders of Kant do not generally take home the full signifi-
cance of such things. Tliey are apt to regard them vaguely and
mistily as things wliicli Kant is to be understood to have proved.
But that is not so. Kant does not mean us to suppose his theory
of causality cducluded in the schema, but only begun. And yet
the empirical instruction necessary to the schema — the schema
itself — is already the whole of causality. Kant is quite unable to
get his categorical rule of necessity between antecedent and conse-
quent into action, unless we grant him first of all an empirical rule
of necessity between one thing and another ; and it is precisely
this latter rule which Hume, which everybody else agrees to hold
up as the enriie problem in dispute. AYhen I ask you to explain
why I believe the efi'ect necessarily follows the cause, and you
present me with the presupposition of a " reaU on which, whenever
it is, something else always ensues," you simply return me my
own question. And as it is with causality, so it is with the rest.

This, then, is the teaching of our illustrative application, namely,
that neither time empty nor time filled can present an adequate
schema to causality ; that what in Kant appears as in point of fact
that schema is but the postulate of an empirical rule; and that
that rule, while it at once assumes the whole problem it pretends
to resolve, cannot, whether for that reason or its flagrantly em-
pirical origin, be for a moment granted. The general conclusion
on the question of the schemata as a whole (which is now termi-
nated), we have expressed already.

{The conclusion of (his criticism follows in the October number.)

286 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ATOMIC COLLISION AND NON-COLLISION ; OR, THE
CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS STATES OF
MATTER. A NEW THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

BY PATTON SPENOE.

Coijsciousness seems to stand abruptly apart from the world of
matter and its phenomena. Not only has science failed to find
a connecting link which shall bind into a continuous chain the
phenomena of the conscious and the unconscious universe, but it
has not yet conceived of any possible means by which the chain
can be made continuous even in thought or imagination. Yet
the philosophy of the day poses itself on the oneness of things ;
and the science of the day seeks rest in a verification of the philo-
sophical conception of the continuity of the phenomena of matter
and mind. Consciousness, by its seemingly wide and abrupt
separation from matter and its modes, has ever been a standing
obscuration of all our prophetic glimpses of this cosmical onenessj
a mockery of all human efiforts to trace the chain of unbroken
continuity in the phenomena of nature, and a persistent, irreduci-
ble, defiant assertion of the duality of the cosmos. Nevertheless,
for reasons which will more fully appear as we proceed, we still
believe in the oneness of things — we still believe that matter is
the unitary constituent of the universe, and that states of con-
sciousness and of unconsciousness are but other names for states
of matter.

In the evolution of the earth, there was, of course, a time when
consciousness did not exist ; and, however much we may endeavor
to evade the difliculty of explaining its origin by pleading the
gradations from inorganic to organic nature and thence to the
animal, yet the fact is undeniable, that all that part of nature
which lies on one side of an indefinite period of time in the past
must have been wholly unconscious, while, on this side of the
line, there has been a continuous succession of consciousness; or,
if we limit our vision to the present order of things, we find that
everything below a certain undefined type of organic structure is

Atomic Collision and Non- Collision. 287

wholly unconscious, while everything above that type is conscious.
Now, science does not explain how, in the order of evolution in
the past, or in the order of reproduction and growth in the present,
the unconscious becomes the conscious ; moreover, no basic fact
has been brought to light indicating an ultimate sameness between
the unconscious and the conscious, and thus pointing to the possi-
bility that the latter may be only a modification of the former.

Thus far, therefore, consciousness has no scientific genesis. By
the scientific genesis of consciousness we mean its established pro-
cedure from something which existed before it, the nature of that
something, and the method of that procedure. The difficulty of
discovering its genesis is so great that men even of the highest
scientific attainments and tendencies are tempted to fall back upon
the theological explanation of the fact, and say that it has no
genesis, but is a special creation. I shall not pretend to say
whether science will ever admit a special creation. But I can
safely say that science can never admit a special creation of any'
thing so long as we can show that it had, or that it probably has,
or that it possibly may have, a genesis.

Science gives us no reason for the existence of consciousness.
Yet consciousness exists, and has its historical beginnings, and
must have had its paleontological beginning. If science cannot
justify the existence of consciousness, I believe it is because its
essential nature has not been understood ; and hence the term has
been limited to that phase of it which is associated with animal
life, regardless of the necessary inference that its appearance in
connection with the- animal organization could have been possible
only because of its preexistence in some other, disguised form,
under the name of unconsciousness, in vegetable and in inorganic
matter, in the same manner that light may be said to exist in the
invisible rays of the solar spectrum.

In the investigation of consciousness, we can make no assured
progress until we shall have discovered a state — a state of some-
thins; — in the true sense of the term. On the other hand, when
we shall have discovered a state — a state of anything, whether we
call it a state of matter, or of spirit, or of neither, so long as it is
a state in the true sense of the term — we have found the basic
fact of consciousness, the fact which makes consciousness possible,
the fact which links the miscalled unconscious to the conscious,

288 TTie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the fact which justifies the existence of consciousness, becomes the
key to its genesis and its modifications, and enables us to un-
derstand the meaning of the unconscious in the true sense of that
term.

Let us, in thought, reduce matter to its simplest conceivable
form — that of an atom. Now, so long as that atom of matter
remains at rest, it is in what may be called a negative state. I do
not mean that it is not in motion, and is, on that account, in a
negative state ; for, in the sense in which we use the word state,
and in the sense in which we think it should always be used,
neither motion nor rest, as such, is a state of matter. Motion and
rest, as such, merely consist in a change and a non-change in the
relative position of matter to matter, and are, therefore, phenom-
ena of relation only, and have nothing to do with the state or
states of the matter thus at rest or in motion. But, when I say
that the atom of matter, when nt i-est, is in a negative state, I
Biniply mean that nothing is happening to the matter itself, con-
sidered apart from all other matter and from all its relations to
other matter. If, on the other hand, we suppose the same atom
of matter to be in motion, it is equally in a negative state, because
the motion does not affect the matter of the atom in any way, but
merely changes its relation to other matter. Therefore, whether
the atom is at rest or in motion, it is equally in a negative state ;
because nothing is happening to the matter which constitutes it.

If, now, we suppose two such atoms in the negative state (either
both in motion, or one at rest and the other in motion) to meet
each other, something happens to both of them at the moment of
the collision. Of course, I do not mean that the motion of both
is changed ; but I mean that something happens to the matter
itself which constitutes the atoms — something which is neither
motion nor rest, but, nevertheless, something which is different
from the nothing that was happening before the collision. This
also is, strictly speaking, a state of matter, which, being the very
opposite of what we have denominated the negative state, may be
called the positive state.

If I am asked, what is the physical nature of that something
which happens to matter at the moment of atomic collision, I
reply, that, not having as yet determined what matter, in itself,
really is, I cannot now answer ; nor is it necessary that such a

Atomic Collision and N on- Collision. 289

question should be answered at present, the obvious and important
fact being, that matter is susceptible of two states, which are just
the opposite of each other — two states which are related to each
other as affirmation and negation. Now, it is a law of affirmations
and negations that they mutually explain and interpret each other;
and that, without both, neither could be conceivable. It is thus
that light interprets or explains darkness, and darkness light; and
this kind of an interpretation of the one by the other is just as
complete and valid to him who is totally ignorant of the physics,
physiology, and psychology of light as it is to him who is familiar
with those aspects of the subject. To all minds, in the last appeal
to consciousness, darkness is the absence of light, and light is that
which displaces darkness. We know fully as much as that, per-
haps, about the two states of matter. We know that the negative
state is the absence of the positive, and the positive state is that
which displaces the negative; and this becomes a conscious reali-
zation, as in the case of light and darkness, when we ascertain, as
I think we shall, that the positive is the conscious state of matter,
while the negative is the unconscious state of matter. When this
shall be ascertained, it will be evident that, in the act of atomic
collision, matter runs into consciousness, loses its material aspect,
and can no longer be described in the terms of matter. Tlius, at
this early stage of our discussion, our final conclusion is foreshad-
owed, namely, that matter and consciousness are in their ulti-
mates the same.

The negative state of matter, being the absence of — the nega-
tion of — the positive state, is, of course, not susceptible of de-
grees. On the other hand, the positive state, being induced by
the collision of matter with matter, must be variable, the de-
grees of variation being dependent upon the rapidity and the rela-
tive direction of the motion of the colliding atoms. Having once
admitted that the positive state is induced by the collision of mov-
ing matter, we are compelled to go a step farther, and admit that
the varying degrees of the velocity, and the varying relative dii*ec-
tion of the motion of the moving matter, at the moment of cblli-
sion, must induce varying degrees of the positive state, running
downwards approximately to the negative state, and upwards in-
definitely from the negative.

^_ In the positive and the negative states of matter we have the
XIY— 19

290 The Journal of S])eculative Philosophy.

conscious and the unconscious universe — the negative being the
unconscious and the positive the conscious. I, of course, use the
terra conscious in a wider sense than that which is usually given
it, as I embrace under that term all the degrees of the positive
state of matter, including, not only human and animal conscious-
ness, as is generally done, but also including all degrees of the
positive below that of human and animal consciousness, as well as
all degrees above it. The positive or conscious states of matter
may, therefore, be divided into three classes (each class contain-
ing, of course, many degrees) : namely, the sub-conscious, the con-
scious, and the supra -conscious. The conscious embraces all
degrees of human and animal consciousness ; the sub-conscious
embraces all degrees below human and animal consciousness; and
the supra-conscious embraces all degrees above human and animal
consciousness. The states of matter, therefore, form an unbroken
series, consisting of the unconscious, the sub-conscious, the con-
scious, and the supra-conscious, which are shaded off into each
other through countless degrees.

The following considerations give us conj&dence in the forego-
ing theory of consciousness.

1st. Having found that matter is susceptible of a state, in the
true sense of the term, I decline to search any farther for con-
sciousness, but take it for granted that that state is the conscious
state. Were I now to search for consciousness in some substance
other than matter, I could only hope to find what I have already
found; that is, something wliich is susceptible of a state; and
that state I would have to call the conscious state, just as I have
already done in regard to the state of matter. If I am not satisfied
to call the state of matter a state of consciousness, I "could be no
better satisfied in calling the state of the other substance a state
of consciousness. And so I must continue my search indefi-
nitely, always finding states, and always unwilling to recognize
the true value of my findings. Therefore, I can only bring this
chase after the ultimate conscious substance to an end, by at last
imagining that I have finally reached a substance which does not
need another substance to be conscious of its states, because, in
that ultimate, hypothetical substance, state and consciousness are
synonymous — are one and the same thing, and hence need no me-
diator. I would thus travel in a circle, and end where I began.

Atomic Collision and Non- Collision. 291

Therefore, as this oneness of state with consciousness is the ulti-
mate fact which all theories must reach, and which no theory can
evade, and as I have found a state in matter, there also I must
recognize consciousness to be.

2d. Spencer has endeavored to show " that something of the
same order as that which we call a nervous shock is the ultimate
unit of consciousness. ... A unit of consciousness being the cor-
relative of a rhythmical motion of a material unit or of groups of
such units." The italics are mine. Now, the " nervous shock " of
Spencer, as " the correlative of a rhythmical motion of a material
unit or of groups of such units," is utterly barren and unfruitful
until we engraft upon it the positive state of the material unit or
groups of units as developed by atomic collision. We have seen
that mere motion cannot raise matter out of the negative state
which it is in when at rest ; and what is said of matter in this
respect must be equally true of spirit or substance of the mind,
supposing for the moment that there is such a thing. Matter
merely in motion, like matter at rest, amounts to nothing; it is
suffering nothing and doing nothing. But we cannot possibly
conceive of matter except as being either at rest or in motion, or as
being in collision ; and if matter, whether at rest or in motion, is in
a negative state, existing as though it did not exist, the real phe-
nomenon — the real outcome of the universe of matter and motion
— the thing accomplished, and the only thing accomplished, is
collision — the awakening of matter into its positive state. If
this is true of inorganic matter, it must be equally true of organic
matter. In the nervous system of man and of animals, there
must be either atomic rest, which amounts to nothing, or atomic
motion, which also amounts to nothing; or there must be atomic
collision, which does accomplish something — does induce a state
of matter which is the essence of Spencer's " nervous shock," and
without which that nervous shock, like mere motion and rest,
would amount to nothing. Therefore, the unit of consciousness
(human and animal) is that positive state of nervous atoms v/hich
is induced by their collision, not by tiieir mere motion. But it is
evident that this unit of human and animal consciousness can dif-
fer in quality and degree only, not in kind, from the positive
state of the atoms of inorganic bodies. If the positive state, in
any of its degrees, is consciousness, it is consciousness in all of

292 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

them, extending down through the sub-conscious, and up through
the supra-conscious.

3d. Consciousness, as an unquestionable fact, is legitimately
within the domain of science ; but, the only thing that science can
do with it is, to ascertain its relations. What is it related to ?
The prevailing theory is that consciousness and motion are so in-
timately related that no other fact or phenomenon can stand be-
tween them ; that, whether consciousness be regarded as a state of
spirit or as a state of matter, its immediate forerunner — its causal
antecedent — is a mode of motion in either a material or a spirit-
ual substance. We have already seen, however, that mere motion
does not, and cannot, induce a state or constitute a state of matter
at all different from the state which it is in when at rest. What-
ever the immediate causal antecedent of consciousness may be,
therefore, we can say, with confidence, that it is not, and cannot
be, motion, spiritual or material. Between consciousness and
motion there always stands, and ajways must stand, that other
phenomenon, atomic collision. Atomic collision, therefore, is the
invariable antecedent and the inevitable antece<lent of conscious-
ness, and intervenes between motion and consciousness. Hence,
if the question be, whether motion or collision is the causal ante-
cedent of consciousness, we are compelled to say that it is collision.
Moreover, as we know of no phenomenon which stands between
collision and consciousness, and as we cannot conceive of either the
possibility or the necessity of any intermediate phenomenon be-
tween them, we are equally compelled to say that atomic collision
and consciousness are related as cause and effect.

4th. The following double dilemma has constantly presented
itself to-the psychologist. While, on the one hand, it has seemed
evident that matter cannot act upon mind, nor mind upon matter,
on the other hand, it has seemed equally evident that matter must
act upon mind, and mind upon matter. In other words, mind
and matter are said to be so different from each other that they
cannot act upon each other; yet mind seems to be constantly
moving matter, and matter constantly moving mind. The theory
of mind or of consciousness here presented encounters no such
dilemma. This will be better understood by the reader after he
shall have perused the sixth argument of this discussion, from
which it will be seen that consciousness does necessarily move

Atoinic Collision and Non-Collision. 293

matter, and is the only thing that can move matter. With regard
to the other part of the double dilemma, it is evident, from what
has already been said, that mind or consciousness is a state of
matter which is induced by matter.

5th. The mind is a compound of related elements. But how can
states of consciousness be related, and in what does that relation
consist ? Aside from the theory of consciousness here presented,
there is but one other which we are called upon to consider,
namely : that consciousness is a mode of motion in either matter
or spirit ? According to this theory, if a sensation is a mode of
motion, a perception must be two or more related modes of motion.
But how can modes of motion be related ? A mere relation of
proximity cannot cause modes of motion to affect each other.
This is true physically as well as mentally. Proximate atoms or
bodies in motion do not modify each other's motion simply by
being proximate ; and we may hear a sound and see a light, both
at the same time, yet the two sensations do not modify each other
unless they are related through something more than proximity
and simultaneousness. There is but one other way in which modes
of motion can be related, namely : by an arreat, increase, or re-
tardation of each other. An arrest of each other would cause un-
consciousness, if we suppose consciousness to be a mode of motion.
An increase or a retardation of each other would still leave them
simple and independent of each other, and not blended into com-
pound motions as sensations are blended into perceptions; and,
hence, that increase or retardation of the motions would, in the
case of sensations or of any other states of consciousness, merely
increase or diminish their intensity, still leaving them separate
and unchanged in quality. Probe this question as we may, we
finally come to a point where, in order to conceive- of states of
consciousness as related to each other, and therefore as modifying
each other, we must conceive of them as interpenetrating each
other in time and space, that is, as located in the same ultimate
part of whatever is regarded as the substance of the mind, and as
existing simultaneously in that part. Such a conception, however,
is incompatible with a conception of a state of consciousness as a
mode of motion. The motion of an atom, or of a molecule, or of
a mass of matter, however often it may be changed in direction or
in velocity, always remains simple — never becomes compound.

294 The Journal of Speculatkie Philosophy.

In the light of the theory here presented, the above difficulties
disappear ; and the relation between two or more states of con-
sciousness, in such a manner as to modify each other, not merely
in degree but in quality, becomes not only a phenomenon which
can be conceived of and understood, but one which, it is perceived,
must also be inevitable. For example, if the atoms A and B col-
lide at the same moment with the atom C, the state into which G
is thrown by the double collision cannot be the same as that which
would be induced by a collision with either ^ or ^ alone, but is
necessarily a modification of both such states, and partakes of the
nature of both. The simultaneous interpenetration of states is
complete. If two nervous molecules, each composed of many
atoms, collide, there would be, simultaneously with the molecular
collision, a collision of the atoms of each molecule among them-
selves, so that each atom would simultaneously collide with several
others at varying angles and with varying degrees of intensity ;
and hence each atom would be thrown into a compound state, the
resultant of the modifications of the several atomic collisions upon
each other. A single collision of two such nervous molecules in
the sensorium would induce that positive state which may be re-
garded as the unit of consciousness* (human and animal), cor-
responding to Spencer's " nervous shock." If, however, the two
molecules, as the result of that vibratory motion into which they
are thrown by a corresponding vibratory motion reaching them
from an organ of sensation, collide again and again with great
rapidity, the superimposed and interpenetrating states thus awak-
ened so modify each other that the unit of consciousness — the
"nervous shock" — is converted into a compound state of con-
sciousness — a sensation ; a simple noise, for instance, is converted
into a tone. In the same way, the more complex composition of
the higher mental phenomena may be explained by the mutual
modifications of superimposed and interpenetrating but less com-
plex states of consciousness.

6th. It is a question which has agitated the ages, whether there

* With the understanding, however, that this unit of consciousness is not simple but
compound, and yields, to an ultimate analysis, its affirmative and its negative elements,
as I have endeavored to show in an article entitled, "Time and Space considered as
Negations," published in this Journal, October, 1879.

Atomic Collision and JV on- Collision. 295

is outside of the mind anything that resembles those states of con-
sciousness called sensations and perceptions. I believe that the
highest expression of thought of the present day upon that ques-
tion is, that our states of consciousness are only symbols of the
realities, not necessarily bearing any more resemblance to tlie
realities than the algebraic x does to the unknown quantity which
it represents, I do not propose here to take up the consideration
of that difficult subject, the perception of external objects; but I
wish merely to show the reader how it is possible for the theory
of consciousness here presented to shake his conviction, as it cer-
tainly has shaken mine very recently, in the truth of the prevalent
doctrine that our states of consciousness are merely symbols of
realities ; and how it may possibly prove to be the long-sought
reconciliation between the subjective and the objective.

If a ray from the sun creates in me a sensation of light, the
fact may be expressed as well, perhaps better, by saying that it
produces in me a state of conscious illumination. But as the con-
sciousness and the illumination are one and the same thing, the
expression of the fact may be simplified by saying that the ray
from the sun produces in me a state of illumination ; and if that
simple sensation be abstracted from all other actual and possible,
associated states of consciousness, so that it remains as the sum
total of the in(lividual mind, then we may correctly say that that
individual mind, thus reduced to its simplest form, is an illumina-
tion. At one end of the ray from the sun, the inner cerebral end,
we therefore find matter in a positive state, matter in a state of
consciousness, matter in that state of consciousness called illumi-
nation, matter in a state of illumination, Now, if, from that inner
cerebral end of the ray, where we find matter in a state of illumi-
nation, we follow that ray towards the sun, we find all along its
line, from the brain through the nerves, the special senses, and
the ether to the sun itself, a continuous chain of undulations with
their inevitable atomic collisions, which are of the same character,
though not necessarily of the same degree or quality as those in
the brain itself — in other words, a chain of atoms in positive states
— states of consciousness which we have no reason for believing
are different in kind from those of the brain-atoms, and which
therefore are states of conscious illumination. Illumination, there-
fore, as a conscious state, is an all-pervading state of matter, not

296 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

peculiar to the animal organization, but existing in the animal
organization simply because that organization is matter, and, as
such, is susceptible of the states of matter.

Of course, if we admit the correctness of the above illustration,
we must accept its legitimate consequences, and say, that all sensa-
tions are localized, modified manifestations of all-pervading states
of matter. This general conclusion pushes us to another, still more
general and comprehensive. Force, like light, heat, sound, etc., is
a sensation — a state of consciousness, under any theory of con-
sciousness ; and under the theory here presented, if it is a state of
consciousness, it is not limited to the nervous tissue, but is a state
present in colli<Sing matter wherever it exists. This conclusion
drives us one step farther, and brings us face to face with the fol-
lowing ultimate fact. All sensations, in their final analysis, are
phenomena of resistance, involving force, therefore, as their men-
tal constituent ; hence, that state of consciousness which we call
force is identical with sensation in all its forms, and through sensa-
tion it is identified with the positive state of matter in all its vari-
ous dee-rees and their modifications whether of the sub-conscious,
the conscious, or the supra-conscious. Consciousness and force,
then, are identical, all-pervading states of matter.

The identity of the positive or conscious state of matter with
force may be reached by a somewhat different method. It is evi-
dent that no theory of aggregates or clusters of atoms, whether
forming vibrating molecules or revolving vortices, can enable us
to evade the consideration of what must necessarily happen to the
ultimate atom. The law of the atom must govern its compounds ;
and the fate of the atom must decide the fate of the molecule and
of the vortex. Let us, then, suppose that two atoms move towards
each other, on the same line, with equal velocities, and collide.
Being unparticled and indivisible, as atoms must be supposed to
be, they are necessarily non elastic, for the reason that elasticity
is merely the phenomenon of atoms, molecules, or particles, recov-
ering the relative positions out of which they had been forced ;
and in a simple atom there being no related elements, there are
no relative positions to be lust or recovered. The two colliding
atoms, then, being non-elastic, would simply neutralize each other's
motion ; and instead of the law of the continuity of motion we
should have the law of motion annihilating its equivalent of mo-

Atomic Collision and N on- Collision. 297

tion. Therefore the ultimate and speedy result of that molecular
vibration, which is the life of the universe, would be the collision
of the atoms which make up masses, organic and inorganic, solid,
liquid, and gaseous, suns, planets, and satellites, and hence the an-
nihilation of all their atomic motion — all their life. Therefore the
law of the continuity of motion constrains us to suppose that the pos-
itive state of matter which atomic collision induces is a state of
force which compels the colliding atoms to rebound from each other
with a velocity equal to that which they had before the collision.

7th. Within the last few years, the phenomena of unconscious
cerebration have risen from comparative obscurity and neglect,
and have taken a position in the front rank as subjects of the
greatest interest and importance, demanding an explanation, and
threatening some of the cherished convictions of modern psycholo-
gists. The very term, unconscious cerebration, carries with it, of
course, a theory of the nature of the phenomenon itself — a theory
which was the outo;rowth of the current idea, that there can be no
mind without consciousness (human or animal consciousness). To
have called the phenomenon unconscious thought would have
seemed absurd, as absurd as to have called it unconscious con-
sciousness. To save the current idea, therefore, it was called
cerebration — physical action, not mental action — a brain activity
without thought, but, nevertheless, an activity which may be sub-
sequently reproduced in connection with consciousness or thought ;
or, without being reproduced, may modify subsequent kindred
mental action or thouo-ht in the same mind.

The few isolated facts which are ordinarily relied upon to prove
that there is such a thing as unconscious cerebration are but as a
drop to a boundless ocean of similar facts. When this subject
shall have been pro[)erly unfolded, it will be seen that the pheno-
mena of consciousness (human and animal), even within the limited
sphere of the nervous system, are related as an iniinitesimally
small part to a vast aggregate of unconscious cerebrations (sub-
conscious, and perhaps supra-conscious states) which form the
bulk and body of all mental phenomena. But the impoftant
point in this connection is the fact, so clearly demonstrated by
the acknowledged phenomena of unconscious cerebration, that the
unconscious (the sub-conscious, and perhaps the supra-conscious)
modifies the conscious (human and animal), and that the two hecome

298 The Journal of &j)eculatwe PJdlosophy.

hlended into compound states, thus proclaiming their sameness or
kinship, and showing that mind runs down deeper into matter
than is generally supposed.

In conclusion, we have shown that the positive states of matter
induced by atomic collision are states of consciousness. We have
also identified force with consciousness. Therefore, matter and
consciousness are the all of things. Have we still on our hands,
then, an irreconcilable duality — the duality of matter and con-
sciousness — or is it possible for us to reduce one of them to the
other ; and, if so, which one shall we retain as the universal, cos-
mical constituent ?

If there is anything which we positively know, or which we
know positively is, it is our states of consciousness. Conscious-
ness, then, as an ultimate fact cannot be surrendered. Therefore,
the only remaining question is : Must we, or can we, surrender
matter as a separate ultimate? I shall not, in this connection,
amplify the answer to this question, but shall simply present it in
the following condensed form :

What is matter? As we have already shown, matter is that
something whose modifications are states of consciousness. But
if the ultimates of matter are not already ultimates of conscious-
ness, no modification of the former ultimates can convert them
into the latter; or, in other words, ultimates are non-convertible
into each other. Moreover, in the act of atomic collision, matter
and consciousness, the thing modified and its modification, are
causally and efliciently related. But there can be no causal or
efficient relation between things unless they are in their ultimates
the same. Hence matter and consciousness, in their ultimates,
are the same ; and the modification and the thing modified are,
in the last analysis, reduced to states of consciousness, or, what
amounts to the same thing, consciousness; and, therefore, con-
sciousness is the ultimate, unitary cosmical constituent. In the col-
lision of forces or states of consciousness, one becomes matter to
the other. To every individual, matter is all those forces or states
of consciousness which impinge upon his consciousness in such a
way as to make him realize them as something separate and apart
from himself If, in this article, I have seemingly used the word
matter in a different acceptation, it was provisionally only, until
this, my final conclusion, could be reached.

Anthropology. 299

ANTHROPOLOGY.

TBAN8LATED FBOM THE GERMAN OF IMMANTTEL KANT, BY A. E. KROEGEE.

PART I.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL DIDACTIC,

Concerning the inanner in which to recognize the Internal as well

as the External of Man.

BOOK I. CONCERNING THE FACULTY OF COGNITION.

Concerning the Intellectual Faculty, in so far as it is based on

the Understanding.

§38. The understanding, as signifying the faculty to think (or
to represent to itself somewhat by means of conceptions), is also
called — in distinguishment from sensuousness, which is called the
lower — i\\e, upper faculty of cognition, and this, because the faculty
of contemplations — whether real or empirical — involves only the
particular in the objects, whereas the faculty of conceptions con-
tains the general of the representations, under which the mani-
fold of sensuous contemplations must be subsumed, in order to
produce unity in the cognition of any object.

Hence the power of the understanding is assuredly far more
aristocratic than the power of sensuousness, with which even
beings without understanding, as animals, etc., can get along by
means of instinct, if absolutely necessary, even as nations drift
along without a head; whereas a head (chief) without followers
(understanding without sensuousness) cannot accomplish anything
at all. Hence, there is between the two no dispute of rank, even
though the one may be entitled the lower and the other the upper
faculty of understanding.

The word Understanding is, however, taken also in a peculiar
signification, seeing that it is subordinated — as one of the members
of the classification — with two other faculties, to the understand-
ing in its general signiticance: in which case the upper faculty of

300 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

cognition consists — materialiter., i. e., not for itself alone, but in
regard to the cognition of things — of Understanding, Faculty of
Judgment, and Reason. And now let us institute observations
concerning man ; how one man is different from the other in the
gift of these talents, or their accustomed use or abuse, firstly in
the case of a healthy mind, but next in the case of a disease of the
mind.

Anthropological Comparison of the three Upper Faculties of Cog-
nition with each other.

§ 39. A correct understanding is not that which glitters by the
multitudinousness of its conceptions so much, as rather contain-
ing the faculty and ability to arrive at a cognition of the object in
hand and its truth. Many men have many conceptions or notions
in their heads, all of which will ultimately approximate to what
we have thought of them before, but yet will never arrive to full
agreement with the object in its determinations ; he may have
conceptions of great extent even of already existing conceptions :
the correct understanding which attains to all the conceptions of
all common cognition is called common sense. He calls out with
Juvenal's watchman. Quod sapio satis est mihi, non ego euro —
esse quod Arcesilas aerumnosique Solones. It is, of course, under-
stood that the natural gifts of a straight and correct understand-
ing will always proceed modestly in relation to the extent of its
presumptive knowledge and to the person gifted w^ith it.

§ 40. If the word Understanding signifies the faculty of cogni-
tion under rules and hence under conceptions in general, so that
it embraces the whole upper faculty of cognition, we must not
conceive it as embracing those rules in accordance to which nature
guides man in his conduct, even as it rules in the animals that are
compelled by a natural instinct, but as embracing those only
which he himself nnakes.

Whatever man learns and thus intrusts to memory he accom-
plishes only mechanically (in accordance with the laws of the re-
productive power of imagination) and without any understanding.
A lacquey, who has merely to dress up a compliment according to
an established formula, needs no understanding ; that is to say,
he need not think for himself; but he needs think for himself"

Anthropology. 301

when in the absence of his master his house arrangements have to
be taken care of, in which event many rules of conduct not liter-
ally to be prescribed might become necessary.

A correct understanding, 2i practiced power of judgment, and a
thorough power of reason, constitute the whole extent of the intel-
lectual power of cognition, especially in so far as it is also judged in
regard to its applicability to practical purposes.

A correct understanding is what is usually called common sense,
in 80 far as it involves applicahility of the conceptions to the pur-
poses of their use. Now, even as the sufficiency {stifficientia) and
precision (prcecisio) when united constitute the applicahility (or
adeqtiateness), that is, the quality of the conception — neither more
nor less than the object needs — [conceptus rem adcequans) a correct
understanding is the first and foremost of the intellectual facul-
ties, because with the least means it effects its purpose.

Cunning — the brain for intrigue — is often considered a pro-
found, though abused, power of the understanding ; but in truth
it is only the mode of thinking of very shallow minds, and
very different from that sagacity of which it assumes the appear-
ance. You can deceive an open-hearted man only once ; and
this grows afterwards to be very obstructive to the designs of the
cunning.

The house servant, or the servant of the state, who stands under
proper orders, needs only common sense (understanding) ; the offi-
cer, to whom only the general rule is prescribed, it being left to
his own discretion what to do in a special case, needs power of
judgment ; the general, who has to overlook the possible cases and
determine the rule whereby they are to be governed, must possess
reason. The talents required for these various occupations are of
very different kinds. " Many a one glitters in the second rank,
who would be invisible in the first one " {tel hrille au second rang
qui s' eclipse au premier).

Simply to argue is not to have understanding, and to put forth,
like Christina of Sweden, maxims against which their own actions
stand in opposition, is irrational. It is in these cases as with the
answer which the Earl of Rochester gave to King Charles II.,
when the latter, finding him in a reflective attitude, asked him :
"What are you so profoundly cogitating?" Answer: "I am
making Tour Majesty's epitaph." Question : " How does it read ? "

302 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Answer : " Here lies King Charles 11., who in his lifetime said

many wise things, but never did a wise one."

To keep silent in company, and only now and then to drop a

very general judgment, looks as if the person were very sensible ;

even as a certain degree of coarseness passes for (old German)

honesty.

Remark.

Now, the natural understanding can, by culture, be enriched
with many conceptions and furnished with rules of conduct ; but
the second intellectual faculty, namely, that of analysis, or oi dis-
tinguishing whether a certain special case comes under a certain
rule or not, the power of judgment (jtidicium), csinnot be taught,
but only practiced. Hence its growth is called ripening, and
itself is designated as that understanding which does not come
before years. This is easily understood, indeed ; for teaching is
accomplished by a communication of rules. If it were, therefore,
possible to establish rules for the faculty of Judgment, there would
have to be general rules, according to which we might be able to
decide whether a special case falls under a certain rule ; but this
would give a retrogressive search ad infinitum. This, then, is
the understanding of which men say that it does not come before
years, which is based on one's own long experience, and the judg-
ment whereof the French Republic expects to gain from the House
of the so-called Elders.

This faculty, which concerns itself only with that which is
practicable, proper, and appropriate for the technical, sesthetical,
and practical power of judgment, is not so glittering as that faculty
which aims to extend the boundaries of reason ; for it simply ac-
companies common sense, and forms the connecting-link between
it and reason.

§ 41. Now, if the understanding is the faculty of establishing
rules, the power of judgment, the faculty of discovering whether
a particular case comes under a particular rule, then reason is the
faculty to deduce the particular from the general, and hence to
represent the latter according to principles and as being necessary.
Hence we can also interpret it as the faculty to judge and, in a
practical aspect, to act, according to principles. For every moral
judgment, and hence also for judgments respecting religion, man
needs reason, and cannot base himself on dogmas and established

Anthroj)ology. 303

habits. Ideas are conceptions of reason that can find no corre-
sponding object in experience. They are neither contemplations,
as tliose of time and space, nor feelings (such as the pnrsuit-of-
happiness doctrine seeks), both of which belong to sensuousness ;
but conceptions of a perfection which we may always approximate,
but can never fully attain.

Casiddry^ without sound reason, is a use of reason which misses
the final purpose of reasoning, partly from impotence, partly from
losing sight of the true point of view. To rave with reason
signifies to act according to principles in regard to the form of
one's thoughts, but in regard to the substance or the purpose to
apply the means just the reverse of those principles.

Subalterns must not argue, because often the principle accord-
ing to which they should act must be concealed from them, or, at
least, remain unknown to them ; but the commander (general)
must have reason, because it is impossible to give him instructions
for every possible case. But it is unjust to require that the so-
called layman Qaicus) should not make use of his own reason in
matters of religion, but should obey the salaried Glergyman (cleri-
kus), hence another's reason, since those matters must be held as
matters of morals ; because in moral matters each individual must
be responsible for his own doing and not doing, and the clergy-
man will not, nor even can, undertake to account therefor at his
own risk. But in these cases people are very apt to find more
safety for their person in this, that they renounce all their own
power of reason, and passively and obediently submit to the estab-
lished dogmas of saintly men. This they do not so much because
they feel their incapacity as regards insight, for the essential ele-
ment of all religion is, after all, morality, which soon becomes
revealed of itself to every man ; but they do it out of cunning
partly, in order that they miglit put the blame on others, in case
a mistake may have been made, but chiefly in order that they
may happily escape the essential thing, change of heart (which is
a much more difficult matter than the mode of worship).

Wisdom, as the idea of the legitimately perfect practical Jise of
reason, is too much to require of man ; but even in the smallest de-
gree it cannot be imparted by another: man must produce it out
of himself. The rule to attain wisdom separates into three max-
ims, that lead to it : 1. Self thinking ; 2. In communicating with

304 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

other men to think yourself in their place ; 3. Always to think
in harmony with yourself. The age wherein man attains com-
plete possession and use of his reason may be determined about as
follows : In regard to \i\s> proficiency — of his artistic faculty, what-
ever may be the object — in the twentieth year ; in regard to his
sagacity (ability to use other men for his own purposes) in the
fortieth year ; finally, in regard to his wisdom, in the sixtieth
year. But in the latter epoch it is more negative, that is, more
inclined to see all the follies of the first-mentioned two faculties.
One may now say: "It is a shame that we must die just when
we have first learned how to live well ;" and when even this judg-
ment is rare, since the desire to live grows all the stronger the
less value it has in working as well as in enjoying.

§ 42. Even as the faculty of discovering the particular to be
subsumed under the general — the rule — h .Q2l\e6. power of judg-
ment ; so the faculty to find out the general for the particular is
called wit {ingenium). The former faculty makes it its object to
discover the differences between the manif )ld, the partly identical ;
the second to find the identity of the manifold and partly different.

The preeminent talent in both cases is this : To observe and
note even the minutest similarities or dissimilarities. The fac-
ulty necessary for this is called sharpsightedness {acumen), and
remarks of that kind are called suhtilities, which, if they neverthe-
less do not further cognition, are termed pure quihhling, or mere
arguing {vance argutationes), which, though they may not be
called untrue, may still be held as involving a useless expendi-
ture of the understanding in general.

Hence, sharpsightedness is confined not only to the power of
judgment, but also pertains to wit ; the only difierence being,
that in the first case special attention is paid to exactness (cognitio
exacta), in the second case to the richness of the productive mine
— whence wit is also called exuberant ; and even as nature in the
production of fiowers seems rather to indulge in play, whereas in
the production of fruits she seems to carry on business, thus the
talent shown in wit is held lower in rank (according to the pur-
poses of reason) than that which appertains to the power of judg-
ment. Common sense claims neither wit nor sharpsightedness,
which indeed would furnish a sort of luxury of brains, whereas
common sense limits itself to the real need.

Raphael and Michael Angelo. 305

KAPHAEL KED MICHAEL ANGELO.

TEANSLATED FEOM THE GERMAN OF HERMANN GRIMM, BY IDA M. ELIOT.

After finishing the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, he took
up again his other art, for the sake of the monument, and in the
followino; years we find a new element which renders his life less
sad. He learned to know Yittoria Colonna, the woman who was
at that time the most renowned princess in Italy. Besides letters
and poems which passed between the two, we have the account of
an eye-witness who saw them together and heard them talk.

About the year 1540 Francesco d'Ollanda, a portrait painter in
the service of the King of Portugal, visited Italy, and was ac-
quainted with Michael Angelo as well as Yittoria. The manu-
script containing the account of his journey, written to the King,
was discovered in Lisbon by Count Raczynsky, and extracts were
published in Portugal in a book on art. From this French version
I translate a few fragments into German.

" While I was thus spending my time in Rome," writes Fran-
cesco, " one day I visited Messer Lattantio Tollomei, who, through
the friendly mediation of Bosio, Secretary to the Pope, had made
me acquainted with Michael Angelo. Lattantio stands in high
esteem, not only on account of his native nobility, but because he
is nephew to the Pope. He was not at home, but had left word
that he would wait for me at Monte Cavallo, in the church of San
Silvestro, where he, with the Marchioness of Pescara, was listening
to a lecture on Paul's Epistles. This Marchioness of Pescara-
Yittoria Colonna, sister of Ascanius Colonna, is one of the most
celebrated ladies in all Italy or Europe, in other words, in the
whole world. The purity of her character, her beauty, her knowl-
edge of the ancient languages, her intellect — in a word, all the
virtues which adorn a woman and may be mentioned in her praise,
cause her to take this high position. Since the death of her hus-
band she lives in modest retirement. Having satisfied her desire
for splendor during her former brilliant life, now she gives herself
up wholly to the love of Divine things and to doing good, comes
as a help to poor women, and lives as an example of true Cliristian
XIY— 20

306 The Journal of Speculative Philosopliy.

piety. I owe mj acquaintance with her also to the goodness of
Lattantio, one of her warmest friends.

" She begged me to be seated, and when the reading and ex-
planations were finished, she turned towards me and Lattantio.
' I may be mistaken,' she said, ' but it seems to me as if the Master
Francesco would more willingly have heard Michael Angelo speak
upon painting than Fra Antonio give a reading.'

" That vexed me. ' My lady,' I said, ' your Excellency must
needs assume that I understand only what concerns the art of
painting. True it would be very pleasant to me to hear Michael
Angelo speak, but if one is to talk about the passages from Paul
I prefer Fra Antonio.'"

Here I interrupt the account. His memoirs seem to be a natu-
ral and certainly truthful account of his experiences, and the style
of the recorded conversation is not dull, although a little prolix —
a style not peculiar to him, but universally adopted and admired
at that time. We have numerous " raggionamenti " from the
Italy and a great many conversations from the Germany of that
time. To-day one addresses the public directly, but at that time
it was the custom to personify the public, and then write out the
controversy. The arguments of the learned schools, the oral dis-
cussions taking place in every station of life, the model of the
Platonic Dialogues, all these, taken together, gave to literature this
form as a very common one. If, then, our Portuguese describes
details in a circumstantial manner, and takes pleasure in empha-
sizing little points, it may not be so much owing to his acute
power of observation and his good memory as it is the result of
skill acquired in the use of that literary form. "What he writes
must not be considered as a short-hand report, but the events de-
scribed are certainly not false or altered.

His own character is shown with considerable clearness. Un-
consciously he states things so that they make him appear in a
favorable light. One learns him by seeing what vexes him and
about what things he gives sharp answers. He often says with
emphasis that he could have become acquainted with many cele-
brated people, had he so wished. Notwithstanding this, he takes
great care to tell us whenever he did meet any noted person. He
shows himself to be one of those good-hearted, narrow-minded,
but sensitive natures, who, perhaps, most of all, enjoy life, and

Raphael and Michael Angela. 307

know how to satisfy their vanity in an innocent and open
fasliion.

Thus he had been at once touched by Yittoria's remark. " ' Don't
be disturbed by that,' broke in Lattantio ; ' the Marchioness cer-
tainly did not mean to say that, because one understands painting,
for that reason he can understand nothing else : we, in Italy,
place art too high to think so. But perhaps what the Marchioness
said was suggested by her intention of procuring for us, besides
the enjoyment already obtained, another delight — that of hearing
Michael Angelo speak.'

'' ' If that was so,' I answered, ' then her Excellency has vouch-
safed me no unusual favor, for I know too well that she is accus-
tomed to give much more than one has dared to ask.'

'' The Marchioness smiled. She called one of her people, and
turning to me, said, ' One must enjoy giving to him who knows
how to be grateful, but to-day I shall have, in giving, no less joy
than Francesco will have in receiving.'

" ' Go,' she said, to the servant, ' into Michael Angelo's house,
and tell him that I and Messer Lattantio are here, that it is beauti-
fully cool here in the church, and that we are sitting quite alone
with the doors closed. Ask him whether he would not like to
spend a little of bis valuable time with us here, so that we might
be so much the gainers. But do not say a single word about
Master Francesco's being here.'

" I admired the way in which the Marchioness knew how to
manage details so gracefully, and whispered this remark to Lat-
tantio. She asked what we were saying to each other.

" ' Oh,' said Lattantio, ' he merel_y remarked how wisely your
Excellency always managed, as, for example, in sending this mes-
sage. For while Francesco knows only too well that Michael
Angelo belongs more to him than to me, yet, before they have met,
Michael Angelo will do his best to avoid him. They may not be
able to separate after they become acquainted.'

"'I know Michael Angelo too well,' said the Marchioness, 'for
me not to have known this. Meanwhile, how shall we manage to
persuade him to talk about painting when we succeed in getting
him here ? '

" Fra Aml)ro8io, from Siena, one of the most celebrated min-
isters of the Pope, had until now spoken no word. ' I think that

308 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy.

is worthy of consideration,' he said. ' Michael Ang-elo knows that
the gentleman from Spain is an artist, and will hardly agree to
speak about his art. I believe it would be best for the gentleman
to hide himself somewhere so that he could listen,'

" ' It would perhaps be harder than you think to hide the " gen-
tleman from Spain " away from Michael Angelo's sight,' I an-
swered the reverend man, a little bitterly. ' For, even were I
hidden, he would still perceive my presence even better than you
through your glasses can see me standing here. Only wait until
he comes, and see if I have not spoken truly.'

" The Marchioness and Lattantio laughed, but for my part I did
not join, nor did Ambrosio, who might have learned from this
that he would find in me more than a mere painter.

" After a few moments of silence there was a knock at the door.
Every one feared that it was some one else than the Master, who
lived quite under Monte Cavallo. Luckily, however, the servant
of the Marchioness met him close by San Silvestro. Michael
Angelo was going to the springs, and came through the Esquiline
street, talking with his color-grinder, Urbino. So he fell right into
the trap, and it was he who knocked at the door,

" The Marchioness rose to receive him. She remained standing
for awhile, then she begged him to be seated between herself and
Messer Lattantio. Then she began to speak. Unconsciously she
added dignity to those whom she addressed and to the place where
she was. With an art that cannot be described nor imitated she
spoke of one thing after another. She did it with as much ear-
nestness as grace. She merely touched upon painting, so that after-
wards she could draw the great artist more securely. She managed
like a general who does not try to storm the fortress, but attempts
to take it by surprise. But Michael Angelo saw the ruse, and
guarded his walls by well-posted sentinels. He knew how to
neutralize her attacks by every kind of counter-action, but at last
she conquered, and truly, I do not know who could have held out
any longer,

" ' It is a known fact,' she said, ' that one is always wholly con-
quered if one dares to attack Michael Angelo in his own kingdom
— that of finesse. And you see, Messer Lattantio, there is only
one way of conquering and silencing him — one must speak of law-
suits or of painting,'

Raphael and Michael Angelo. 309

" Suddenly he turned upon me with astonishment. ' Pardon
me, Meister Francesco, for not havinfi; seen you before. I saw no
one except the Marchioness. But since God ordains that you are
here, then come to my aid as a colleague.'

" ' You give too good an excuse for me not to pardon you,' I
answered. ' But it seems as if the Marchioness with one and the
same- light has produced two very different effects, as the rays of
the sun at the same time harden one thing and melt another.
The sight of her has made you blind for me, but I see and hear
jou only because I see the Marchioness. Besides, I know that a
man of taste must feel himself so occupied when in the presence
of her Excellency that he has no thoughts left for a neighbor. And
since it is so, I shall not now feel constrained to follow the advice
of a certain priest.'

" The company laughed again at this reply. Fra Ambrosio
rose, took leave of the Marchioness, greeted us, and went away.
He remained one of my best friends afterwards."

Here ends the first chapter of the account.

I will make one remark before I begin the second. The
Marchioness had said that one must speak with Michael Angelo
either of painting or of lawsuits. The word lawsuit throws a
significant light upon the letter from the artist to Pope Paul III.,
in which he sets forth in detail all the wrongs he has suffered
from the beginning. He was one of those geniuses who, on ac-
count of their intellectual wealth, are cut off from practical affairs,
are led to make a thousand promises through their good nature,
and are imposed upon by people. All at once they see what they
have come to, grow angry, and insist upon their rights. Their
neglect of practical matters is now very troublesome to them.
Everything ought to be as they have planned it, but strict jus-
tice will not permit it. Michael Angelo confessed openly in one
of his letters that, unfortunately, he had followed no method in
his affairs. The very ones who look with horror upon every law-
suit at such times are the most eager to employ courts, so as to
appear as innocent in the eyes of the business world as they know
they are to themselves. That letter which people have considered
as the production of some unknown defender is nothing but the
outbreak of feelings excited in this way.

We have a charming description of the Marchioness, who was

310 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

very conscious of her influence over Michael Angelo, and who ex-
ercised this power in the most graceful manner. The friendship
between these two is well known in history. Yittoria was of an
age when love and friendship need not be in opposition in a wo-
man's heart, and in hers they united in forming a feeling which
was equally removed from coldness and from passion. But both
reverence and passionate devotion speak from the poems which
Michael Angelo wrote to her. Her letters to him are still in ex-
istence, unprinted, at Florence, in possession of the Buonarotti
family. He complained that he was separated from her, and
wrote altogether too often, she thought ; so she asked him once
to write less often. She said that his letters caused her to be late
at the evening service in the chapel of St. Catherine, and they
must keep him in the morning from beginning his work at St.
Peter's.

Throughout her letter there > is expressed such confidence in
her friend, and such high appreciation of his love, that this re-
pulse meant to him no real discouragement, nor a desire for his
departure.

Yittoria never came to Rome or to the neighborhood without
going to see him, and often she came merely to see him. He
openly declared what he owed to her; that she had entirely
changed and transformed him.

Yittoria Colonna was born in the year 1490. In 1509 she
married the Marquis of Pescara, who often was obliged to leave
her when he went to war. When alone, she longed for his pres-
ence, and in this way her first sonnets were written. They had
no children. In 1525 he died. She came to Rome, and was
there during the troubles of the following year, which were harder
for her to bear because her own family, that of the Colonnas, were
the most to blame in this affair. She entered the cloister of San
Silvestro, where she wrote many of her poems, but she soon left
it. In 1536 she became acquainted with Miciiael Angelo.

She was at that time forty -six years old ; Michael Angelo was
sixty-two. While he was a man whose youth was not affected by
his years, so, on the other hand, Yittoria Colonna's beauty seems
to have been imperishable. There are many portraits which bear
her name, but not one of them has sufficiently authentic proof to
be considered genuine. Her soft hair must have had a reddish

Rajpliael and Michael Angelo. 311

golden tinge. Poems which were written in her honor praise her
beauty. In addition to this, let us imagine the beautiful figure,
the queenly bearing, and the renown which was bestowed on her
poems and her family. These were somewhat veiled by her giv-
ing up a life in the world, although she had none of that false be-
lief 'that devotion to God requires that beauty and worth should
be despised. Thinking of these things, we may imagine a woman
at whose death a man like Michael Angelo might well lose con-
trol of himself through grief. Condivi describes how he stood at
her deathbed in despair. She died in 1547. Afterwards, in his
old age, he said that he repented of nothing more than that he did
not at that time kiss her brow, instead of merely kissing her
hands. Yittoria's death was as terrible a blow to him in his age
as the fall of Florence was in his younger days.

Very few of his poems show evidence that they were written
to Yittoria. But in a great many the sentiment is a proof that
they were written while he was thinking of her. From her let-
ters it appears that he sent to her at Yiterbo the sonnet beginning

" Oarico d'anni e di peccati pieno."

It seems to me very natural that her name should not be men-
tioned in the deepest, most passionate verses. He loved her with
his whole soul. . It has been believed that, if the facts could be
given, his relation towards her would be found to be a more ideal
one — that he felt for her a so-called spiritual love, springing up
from a sort of religions union of their hearts. It seems to me the
nature of the man is opposed to this. Goethe in his old age was
still roused (by the beauty of a maiden) into passionate feeling,
which he poured forth in glowing lines. Michael Angelo's poems,
in which he complains of Love because she has seized upon him
so powerfully in his old age, need no artistic explanation ; they
cannot be transposed from the earth to the region of the clouds.
He loved Yittoria; she forbade him to tell her so, but at the
same time she did not hide the fact that she could never lay
aside the veil which she had assumed at the death of her husband.
If we suppose that the relation between them was different, a
great many of his poems are unintelligible, while, taken naturally,
they express his feeling very clearly.

I will quote one that has always touched me, not because it

312 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

expresses a passionate longing, but because it gives, in a calm and
resigned tone, the most tender and spiritual flattery which could be
given only in this way. He must have been talking with Yittoria
about age, and how beauty passes with years. As a consolation,
he sent her this sonnet. [This is in Symond's collection, headed
" A Prayer to Nature."]

" That thy great beauty on our earth may be
Shrined in a lady softer and more kind,
I call on Nature to collect and bind
All those delights the slow years steal from thee,
And save them to restore the radiancy
Of thy bright face in some fair form designed
By Heaven; and may Love ever bear in mind
To mould her heart of grace and courtesy ;
I call on Nature, too, to keep my sighs,
My scattered tears to take and recombine,
And give to him who loves that fair again.
More happy he, perchance, shall move those eyes
To mercy by the griefs wherewith I pine,
Nor lose the kindness that from me is ta'en."

Another sonnet I refer to Yittoria. [In Symond's translation
this sonnet is referred to Toniraaso de' Cavalieri.]

" With your fair eyes a charming light I see.
For which my own blind eyes would peer in vain ;
Stayed by your feet the burden I sustain.
Which my lame feet find all too strong for me ;
Wingless, upon your pinions forth I fly —
Heavenward your spirit stirretli me to strain ;
E'en as you will, I blush and blanch again —
Freeze in the sun, burn 'neath a frosty sky.
Your will includes and is the lord of mine ;
Life to my thoughts within your heart is given ;
My words begin to breathe upon your breath.
Like to the moon am I that cannot shine
Alone — for lo ! our eyes see naught in heaven
Save what the living sun illumineth."

Michael Angelo's poems were not published while he lived,
except a few, of which his friends gained possession. I will quote
only one more line. He carved a crucifix for Yittoria, and sent it
to her with the words written :

" Non ci si pensa quanto sangue costa."

Rajyhael and Michael Angela. 313

Among her poems I have found nothing which could have been
dedicated to Michael Angelo.

JSTow let us go on with Francesco's story.

" The Marchioness spoke : ' His Holiness has had the goodness
to allow me to build a nunnery. I wish to have it erected near
thi? place, on the slope of Monte Cavallo, where the ruins of the
portico stand, from which, according to the story, Nero looked
down upon the burning city. The steps of holy women ought to
wipe out the last traces of the bad man. I do not know, Michael
Angelo, in what proportions I shall erect the building, nor upon
which side would be the best entrance. Would it be impossible
to combine our new edifice with the old remains still standing
there, so that these might do us good service ? ' ' Certainly,' he
answered, 'the ruined portico might be used as a bell-tower!'
He answered so seriously, and with such conviction, that Messer
Lattantio could not help remarking upon it. The great artist
continued: 'Your Excellency can build a cloister in that place
very satisfactorily, and when we leave here we can make a little
detour that way ; perhaps, when on the very spot, some useful sug-
gestion may occur to us.'

'"I had not the courage to propose it to you,' said Yittoria,
*but I see that the saying of our Lord, deponit potentes et exalta-
mt htimiles, is always true. Besides, you have the serviceable
habit of giving us generously of your wisdom, while others are
lavish of their ignorance. For this reason your friends hold your
character in higher esteem than your works, and those who have
not learned to know you personally prize what is of the least value
only — your works. For my part, it seems to me worthy of the
highest praise that you finish your works with such excellence,
avoid useless talk, and refuse the requests of many princes who
desire to possess something from your hand, so that, by concen-
trating your efforts, one perfect work is brought into existence.'

" ' Madonna,' answered Michael Angelo, ' you give me more
praise than I deserve, perhaps. But, since you have led me to the
subject, permit me, in my own name, and in that of other^ artists
whose character is like mine, as Meister Francesco, to lay before
you a complaint against a portion of the public. Atnong numer-
ous false rumors which are spread concerning the lives of cele-
brated masters, there is none that is so willingly believed as that

314 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

these men are eccentric in their behavior, and, if one tries to make
their acquaintance, are repelling and uncompanionable. And yet
these masters are only quite natural in their behavior. Silly men,
however, not to mention a few who judge more reasonably,
consider them fanciful and capricious. Nothing js farther from
the character of a true artist than such a reproach. I agree that
certain peculiarities of the painter can be developed only where
painting abounds ; that is, in the few countries like Italy, where
it is in its most perfect state ; but idle people are wholly unfair
when they expect that an artist who is absorbed in his work will
spend his valuable time in empty compliments on their account.
Few enough paint conscientiously, but the people who blame a
man because his hio-hest aim is to finish his work in the most care-
ful manner, neglect their duty in a higher degree than those
artists who give themselves no trouble about 'their work. Great
artists at times indulge in such behavior that it is useless to at-
tempt to do anything with them ; but it is not because they are
proud, but because they seldom meet with a true appreciation on
the part of others, or because they will not lower their superior
minds by useless talk with people who have nothing to do, and
who only drag them out of their deep train of reflections. I can
assure your Excellency that even his Holiness is tiresome to me
when he comes with the question of why I do not go oftener to
the Vatican. When it is about some unimportant matter, I be-
lieve I can help him more by staying at home than by appearing
in his presence. Then I tell him, without circumlocution, that I
prefer to work for him in my own way to standing by him all day
long, as so many others do.'

" ' Happy Micliael Angelo ! ' I exclaimed ; ' of all princes the
popes alone look upon this sin with indulgent eye.'

" ' The very sins which princes should pardon first of all,' he
continued ; then, after a pause, he added, ' 1 may say, indeed, that
the important things which have occupied me have gained for me
such liberty that, in conversation with the Pope, unconsciously I
have put on my felt hat and gone on talking quite unconcernedly.
This was not sutticient to make him punish me; on the contrary,
he let me live as 1 chose, and it was at these very times that my
mind was the most eager to serve him. Should any one be foolish
enough to place himself in solitude with his art, and, because he

Rajpliael and Michael Angela. 315

finds pleasure in being alone, should <>ive up his friends and turn
all the world against him, then they would have the right to find
fault with him. I, however, act. in this way from my natural
feeling, and because I am forced to it by my work, or because my
character cannot endure formal courtesy, so that it would be the
greatest injustice not to allow me to do as I choose, especially as
I desire nothing from any one else. Why does the world demand
that one should be interested in her empty pastimes ? Does she
not know that there are sciences which take such complete hold
of a man that not the least part of his being is able to give itself
up to these ways of killing time? If he has nothing to do, like
you, then, for ail me, he may die the death, if he does not observe
your etiquette and ceremonies. But you seek him out only to do
yourselves an honor, and it gives you the greatest pleasure that he
is a man to whom popes and emperors give orders, I say that an
artist who cares more for the demands of an ignorant people than
for those of his art, whose personal conduct has no peculiarity or
oddity, or who has a very slight reputation in that line, will never
be a superior nature. Clumsy, ordinary men can be found in
abundance, without using any lantern, on every street corner
throughout the world.'

" Here Michael Angelo was silent, and the Marchioness rejoined,
' If the friends of whom you speak were in the least like those
friends of antiquity, the evil could be better borne. When Apelles
was lying ill, in the midst of poverty, Agesilas visited him secretly
and put some money under his pillow. His old servant stood
aghast when she found the money, but he said, laughing, " No
one but Agesilas can have done this, and you need not be aston-
ished at it.' "

Let me insert here that Michael Angelo was not rich, though
not the opposite. He always had a great many orders, and re-
ceived large sums of money. For his Last Judgment alone he
had a yearly payment of two thousand scudi.

" Next, Lattantio told us his ideas. ' Great painters,' he said,
' would exchange places with no other human beings. I|i their
superiority they were satisfied with the small sum which they
gained from their art. The genius of a great painter knows how
empty are the lives and pleasures of the rich, who consider that
they alone are powerful. Their names will go out of the world

316 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

with them, without their having had any intimation of those things
which are the worthiest for men to know and to care for. Such
men have never really lived. However much they have heaped
together treasures, the genius gains for himself an undying name
through his works. The world's fortune is not worth wishing for,
as a whole or in part, and the reason that genius has respect for
itself is because it breaks through the way which would not open
for the desires of commonplace spirits, because they would not at
all be able to perceive it. A ruler may well be less proud of the
possession of his kingdom than an artist of the power of represent-
ing a single one of the created works of God. It is no easier for
the ruler to conquer a formidable enemy than for the artist to
execute a work which entirely corresponds to his idea. When the
Emperor Maximilian pardoned a painter condemned to death, he
said these memorable words : ' I can make counts and dukes ; God
alone can create a distinguished artist.'

" ' Give me some advice, Messer Lattantio,' said the Mar-
chioness, when he ended. ' Shall I ask Michael Angelo to clear
up my thoughts a little in regard to painting ? For, in order to
prove to us that great men are reasonable and not governed by
whims and fancies, it is to be hoped that he will play us at this
time no trick, as he has formerly done.'

" ' Madonna,' answered Lattantio, ' Master Michael Angelo
ought always to make an exception in favor of your Excellency,
and freely give to us those thoughts which he so rightly keeps
hidden from the world.'

" ' Your Excellency,' replied Michael Angelo, ' has but to com-
mand. Whatever seems to you worthy shall be laid at your feet.
I am all obedience.'

" Smiling, Yittoria continued, ' Since we are now on such
matters, I should like to know what you think of art in the Neth-
erlands, for it seems to me to be on a more devout path than
ours.' "

" Now Michael Angelo began to express his ideas. All that he
said was beautiful and just ; but, since the book of the Count
Raczynsky is to be had everywhere, I shall quote only a few sen-
tences.

" ' Good painting,' he said, ' is noble and devout in itself, for
nothing can with more power elevate or excite a pure soul to

Baphael and Michael Angelo. 317

piety than the laborious striving after finished representation. It
touclies the divine and is one with it. Good painting is only a
copy of its perfections, a shadow of its painting, a music, a melody ;
and only a very profound intelligence can always feel how great
this work is. For this reason it is so seldom attained and so sel-
ddm brought to view,' "

He now spoke of painting in different countries, and the works
of art in Italy. Every word is striking, and the reading of the
whole account, from which I have quoted here a few fragments
only, would certainly be very useful to the lover of art. His last
sentence, I think, is particularly fine. The Marchioness, as will
be seen more clearly from what follows, in spite of the loftiness of
her views, has insisted upon considering the subject of painting
quite like an amateur. To her a devout picture is one which
represents a holy subject: to him it is one which was painted
when the artist devoutly yielded himself to the beauty of nature.
" Only an artist can feel where piety is to be found. He may
paint a flower in the hand of Mary with the same divine reverence
that he paints her face, and he who pictures the suffering Christ,
with eyes distorted by grief and forehead marked with swollen
veins, is often infinitely farther off' from the divine than he who
knows how to give to a modest portrait of a child the breath of
innocence which he has recognized and felt."

A trace of the childlike is found in everything that Michael
Angelo does. In this he is like Beethoven, who, obstinate as a
lion, would sufi'er no opposition, and yet quietly resigned himself
to fate, which treated him so harshly.

He expresses in his poems sorrow for a wasted life. Many
times he renews his laments over years past unused, and he ends
one of the many sonnets in which he pours out his despair with
the proverb, repeated for ages by the wisest spirits, " He is the
happiest whose death follows nearest to his birth."

"Ah, woe is me, alas! when I revolve
My years gone by, wearied, I find not one
"Wherein to call a single day my own.
Fallacious hopes, desires as vain, and thoughts
Of love compounded and of love's woes —
(No mortal joy has novelty for me),
Make up the sum : I know — I feel 'tis so,

318 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Thus have I ever strayed from Truth and Good :
Where'er I go, shifting from right to left,
Denser the shades, less bright the sun appears,
And I, iniirm and worn, am nigh to fall."

He may have written this after Vittoria's death. We feel that
now he was entirely alone. But, while that thought lay deep in
his consciousness, he was still the old master among artists, and
carried on his works with power. These were extended over a
wider field than ever. In 1540 Pietro di San Gallo died, and to
Michael Angelo was given the chief direction of the building of St.
Peter's. At first he made the excuse that he was no architect, but
finally, when the Pope commanded, instead of requesting him, he
accepted the office. Dr. G-ulil gives the letters written on the sub-
ject. In them Michael Angelo does full justice to his old enemy
Bramante. Besides this occupation, besides his painting, besides
his sculpture, he is occupied whenever there is any building going
on. Gates, churches, bridges, fortresses, palaces, must be erected
according to his specifications.

Cosmo de Medici, Grand-duke of Tuscany, who tried in vain to
persuade the great man to return to his fatherland, never attempted
any important building without submitting the plans to him.
Once, in the year 1555, after the death of Julius III., who had
succeeded Paul HI. in 1549, when Marcellus was elected, Michael
Angelo seems to have been inclined to exchange Pome for Flor-
ence, but he changed his plans soon after, on the death of the
Pope, and the election of Paul IV. He remained at the head of
the works which were begun, and in the following year was
obliged to fortify Rome for the Pope, because an attack from the
French was feared. When the French army really drew near,
Michael Angelo fled into the mountains of Spoleto, where, accord-
ing to his letter to Vasari, he had a great deal of pleasure, but at
the same time great inconvenience and heavy expenses.

To speak of his works might have some significance for me
were I writing in Rome or Florence, or for a public who is famil-
iar with those cities ; I am so myself only in a very small degree.
But, from Yasari's account alone, he who has no idea of the im-
portance of these cities in themselves, or of their flourishing con-
dition at the time of Michael Angelo, may at least understand
that his activity far surpassed the limits within which now a great

Hap/iael and Michael Angela. 319

painter or arcliitect moves. We might make a sort of comparison
between his work and that of a great English engineer of the
present day. !Now it is the highest aim of architects who buihl
and construct to use material in accordance with its capabilities,
and, in grand simplicity, to build enormous structures; but in
those days the material received essential modifications from the
mind of the builder. Those buildings seem to us like an ap-
proach towards a colossal sportiveness. But the time will return
when one will work in the same way. Then beauty, splendor,
and tasteful grandeur were desirable things. The palaces were
adorned with grand fagades, the decorations were on an extrava-
gant scale. Cosmo had his whole palace, which had been painted
by Yasari, copied to the most minute details, and sent to Rome for
Michael Angelo to look at it, and say that it was all right. When
the Grand-duke himself came to Rome, he visited Michael Angelo,
and had a personal interview, for during the last of his life his
extreme age prevented the great man from going to Florence.

Cosmo loved and honored him, although his vanity may have
had some share in this. When a pnnce presented Goethe with an
order, when, in our day, Humboldt receives a decoration, the
honor is the same on both sides. We have testimony enough of
the lofty height upon which Michael Angelo was placed. But
envy and hostility dogged his footsteps. Under Paul IV., Piero
Ligorio was one of those engaged at work on St. Peter's. He
said publicly that Michael Angelo had become childish, and so
the latter wished to stop his work and go to Florence. We have
a letter written in 1560 to Cardinal di Carpi, in which the gray-
haired old man of eighty-six years complains of the remark as
implying that he was not doing his duty, and, in the most bitter
terms, begs for his discharge. He did not possess the calmness of
Goethe, who was always followed by the scorn and envy of incom-
petent men ; but Goethe did not stand upon the plane on which
he stood. Goethe represented confidentially, as it were, the Ger-
man literature and culture of his time, with the air of a man who
stands outside of the thing. Michael Angelo represented gen-
uine art as opposed to pope and world, was always occupied by
practical work, and was continually surrounded by a circle of
new pupils, who were bound to him by love, as he was to them.
He knew exactly for himself how high he stood. He had proved

320 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

it. The Popes, the Emperor, the King of France, the Sultan,
Venice, Florence, all wished to claim him for their own. He
always succeeded, but he knew the price which had been paid to
give him this place. All art formed around him, and felt in him
its centre of life; with the most unsellish love he gave himself up
to men ; he had the courage, and will, and power to grant what
was asked of him. Now, when a few, whom he had surpassed
and looked beyond, threw stones in the way of him who had
pushed rocks from the path — not to keep him back, but merely to
make themselves noticed for a moment — wdien this made him very
indignant for the time, then we lind his anger very natural, and
in accordance with his fiery, impetuous temper.

I wish to mention two more letters only. In 1556 he writes to
Yasari about the death of Urbino, who, when a young man, had
entered his service during the hard days of Florence, and had re-
mained with him. Cellini also speaks of him, and of his violent
devotion to his master. He mentions this in speaking of the use-
less mission to Michael Angelo, whom he was to allure to Flor-
ence on Cosmo's business. Michael Angelo was overwhelmed
with grief at the death of this man. Although he himself was
old and weak, he took care of Urbino, and passed whole nights
with his clothes on, sitting by the side of his sick-bed.

" I have had him with me for twenty-six years," writes Mi-
chael Angelo, '' and have found him a man of inestimable fidelity.
And now, when I had made him rich, and had hoped to find in him
the staff and protector of my old age, the only hope I have left to
me is that I shall see him again in Paradise. And God has
shown me that this must happen, by means of the blessed death
which He let him die, for what troubled him most was not that he
should die, but that he must leave me behind in a treacherous
world, with so many troubles. The best part of myself has in-
deed gone with him, and there is nothing left except an endless
sorrow."

The other letter is written in the year following to Urbino's
widow. She had thought herself very much injured by some of
his arrangements, and he wrote to satisfy her. He enters into
the details of her household affairs in the simplest manner, and
puts himself at her point of view, so that she must understand him.
He was godfather to her two sons. He wrote as follows :

Rajphael and Michael Angelo. 321

" I saw very well that you were angry with me, but I did not
tnow the reason. From your last letter I think I have discovered
the cause. When you sent me the cheese, you wrote at the same
time that you wanted to send other things, but the handkerchiefs
were not yet ready. I, wishing that you should not be at any ex-
pense on my account, answered you that you ought not to send
me anything more, but rather ask something from me, and in that
way give me pleasure, for you might know, and indeed you have
proofs of it with you, how much I care still for the blessed Urbino,
although he is dead, and how dear to me is everything that belonged
to him.

" You wish to come here or to send little Michael Angelo to me ;
as to this, I must write you exactly how things are. I cannot
indeed, advise you to bring Michael Angelo here, for there is no
woman in the house nor even any housekeeping, and as the child
is still young some misfortune or difficulty might arise. The
Duke of Florence, however, a few months ago, urged very strongly
that I should return to Florence, where he offered me the great-
est inducements. I asked permission to delay awhile, that I might
arrange everything here, and leave the building of St. Peter's in
good hands, so I may, perhaps, stay here the whole summer to put
all my affairs in order, as also, to put your mone}^ here into bonds.
In the autumn, then, I shall return to Florence to stay, for I am old,
and have no time to come again to Rome. I shall settle matters
with you then, and if you will let me have Michael Angelo I will
cherish him with a deeper love than even the son of my nephew,
Leonardo, and will teach him everything that his father would wish
him to know. Yesterday, March 27, I received your last letter."

It is said that his letters are mere jottings, but this one has,
most of all of them, unconstrained expression. He wrote just as
he thought, one thing after another, without any regularly ar-
ranged order. Whenever he intended to express an opinion, he
did it simply and in a straightforward manner, often so near
the truth that it gave offence to people. He looked very sharply,
and judged in the same way that he looked. "It is indeed a
pity to see thy piety," he remarked to a sculptor. " Tell thy father
that the living figures which he makes are better than the paint-
ed ones," was the message sent to Francesco Francia through his
son, a beautiful youth. " Titian has a good color, but he can-
XIY— 21

322 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

not draw," he said without hesitation, when the Yenetian was in
Rome, and he had visited him. On the other hand, when before
the great bronze doors of Ghiberti he exclaimed, " These doors
are worthy of being the doors of Paradise." Petty men who
strove to rival him were conquered in the most pitiless manner ;
he treated the greatest and the least with the same harshness that
he used towards himself, for he criticised his own works in the
most unsparing fashion. All this sharpness of judging might
have been counteracted by his noble character, by his unselfish-
ness, by his conscientious disregard of external honor ; but there
was sometliing more — he spoke the truth not only without reserve,
but he often gave to his sentences an ironical meaning; he made
men feel that he was superior to them, not only in art but in mind ;
that no one can forgive. In this way throughout his life he drew
upon himself so much hatred. For one who is injured always re-
curs in his wounded pride to the offending word, and does not
consider the meaning of the whole, or whether merely the thing,
and not the person, was criticised. And, what was worst of all, his
remarks were not witty nonsense that one could forget, but truths
which struck a man down. If he said, " You understand nothing ot
paintings," he destroyed him. He allowed no trifling in his art.
When he was painting the Last Judgment, and wanted some of his
pupils to help him, he made a division into those who could help
him and those who did not know enough. These last he sent off.
Finally, he sent them all aw^ay together, and painted alone. He
had but one thought — that was his work.

Althougli his character was earnest, although he acknowledged
an ideal, and, indeed, carried it so far that he would seldom, if
ever, make a portrait, because copying a person seemed to him
very poor work — still he had not the nature of a gloomy philoso-
pher. He seems to have shown another side which was quite nat-
ural ; he took pleasure in singing, violin playing, and gay com-
pany, laughed heartily at what was comic, and often in talking
used good-natured wit, as well as irony. His character has some-
thing quite German in it ; he had humor, a word hardly under-
stood by the Romans, which suits him exactly in many respects.
In one of his sonnets he describes with quiet amusement how he
painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel while lying on his back,
and what a comical figure he made. We have a stanza of eight

Rajjhael and Michael Angelo. 323

lines from him, containing an ironical declaration of love, in which
he represents, by means of all possible comparisons, how the loved
one stays in his heart and cannot come forth. The Rape of Gany-
mede is quite naive, as if some innocent old painter in Germany
had painted it. An eagle is bearing the boy aloft, and is already
high up in the air, but on the earth sits his faithful dog, who looks
np to the sky after him and piteously howls in astonishment and
pain. Vasari tells a number of little anecdotes about him, whose
only point is in their harmless fancy, and from which we caTi see
very plainly that Michael Angelo led a life that was simple and
natural, somewhat like that which one understands by the expres-
sion a " real artist life " in Munich or Diisseldorf. But he was, be-
sides, a man who recognized no superior except the Pope, and he
treated even him almost like an equal. He might have said, like
Diogenes, " Stand aside out of my sunshine," and the one to
whom he said it would have stepped aside as if the request were
quite a usual one. He always found natures that could under-
stand him.

His century was great and youthful. If we consider his long
life, the number and extent of his works, his outward circum-
stances and his private life, the beginning and the end of his
career, then we must say that he appears equipped for a powerful
career, and he found a field worthy of his steps, men who loved
and understood him, princes who honored and employed him,
events by means of which every part of his mind was cultivated.
It is a rare good fortune when a great genius lives in such an
eventful time; if to-day a man were born with the same talents,
wdth the same eager power, he would find nothing the same that
Michael Angelo found it. No one knows, indeed, what will hap-
pen and what might happen. If one reasons in this way, one thinks
in parallels. We say sometimes, if Beethoven had lived in other
times, had met other men, perhaps he would have developed more
freely ; his depth of soul might not have been greater, but his
mind would not have been so often distracted and pained by the
poverty of his life. By poverty I do net mean any lack of nMoney.
It is a current opinion that the rarity of great geniuses is owing
to a mistaken political economy, and that one ought to assist peo-
ple into geniuses ; as if a bulltiuch could be changed into a night-
ingale by good food.

324 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.''

In regard to Beethoven I call it poverty, because he knew no
Lorenzo, no Julius, no Vittoria Colonna, because the princes
towards whom he turned never responded to him, because his con-
certs were hardly applauded, while Rossini roused the public to
great enthusiasm. The great Michael Angelo, or, as he was gen-
erally called, the divine Michael Angelo, experienced no such fate;
— his bark never turned into narrow channels, where it must pass
with difficulty or might be obliged to remain stationary ; he had
from the first the wide sea before him, sailed under full canvas,
encountered storms, to be sure, but remained always in the open
ocean, and passed far ahead of every one that followed in the wake
which his keel made as it cut deep through the water.

But one thing was denied to him — the feeling of satisfaction
which many a man in poorer circumstances often has in large
measure. In spite of all that he received, he felt the emptiness
and the vexation of human life ; he longed, like all great minds, for
that freedom which is granted man only in his youth, before he
feels the slavery of existence. Raphael knew nothing of this
longing ; life was not revealed to him. Heaven and earth met
before his eyes, and he walked over the ground as if on clouds.
A shadow never rested on the spirit of his creations, even when
he was painting something horrible. It appears on the canvas,
sharp and horrible, but always like a play or drama, just as the
tragedies of Shakespeare always remain mere plays.

On a picture that Marcanton has engraved from a drawing of
his, we see the plague, il morbetto. Stretched lifeless, with swollen
features, a woman- is lying on the ground. A naked child has
crawled to her, and stretches toward her breast. A man is bend-
ing down over her ; with one hand he holds his nostrils, with the
other he is taking away the child. Behind them a figure is sit-
ting, with head supported on the right hand, while the left one is
thrown on top the head — that is all one sees ; but it seems as if
Death were waiting impatiently. A statue of Mercury separates
the picture into two parts : the interior of a house and the street.
In the house it is dark, and a man is holding a torch low down to
light it up. On the ground are three young calves, lying together,
dead. A living one has come near them, smelling around with
outstretched head ; he drives it away. In the background an old
man is stretched out, dying ; two nuns are going near him.

Rayhael and Michael Angela. 325

I never see the picture without a sort of shudder, but the ideal-
ism of the conception prevents any feeling of disgust, although
the disgusting is represented. One feels that the artist surmounts
everything. He saw or heard of the Plague, in imagination the
scenes rose before his eyes, he put them on paper, and what he
reprteented was the truth. Wherever he looks, he sees forms: he
commands, they appear to him, and he paints them. Happiness
and beauty, splendor and luxury surrounded him ; that is the air
which breathes around his works ; but, besides, he represented the
most mournful and frightful. He did not work like Michael Angelo
on stern forms in whose very smiles there was that deep melan-
choly which spoke to the artist's heart of the lost freedom of his
fatherland.

Both together, they represent their century : Raphael, the
youthful courage, the abundance, the sunny springtime of its life ;
Michael Angelo, the gloomy thoughts which slumbered under all,
the dark powers which, warmed in the depths of the earth, at first
merely made the gardens above bloom, but gradually burned them
to a barren waste. Raphael lived, as it were, on horseback, and
died before the death of the roses whose fragrance intoxicated him.
Michael Angelo went on foot with republican simplicity through
his ninety years. Both were great men ; whoever sees their
works and hears of their lives, feels himself even to-dav warmed
by the fire of their souls and consoled by their happiness and
misfortunes.

The story is that Michael Angelo was almost blind in his last
years ; that he caused himself to be led to his works that he might
feel them with his hands. But, long before, he had written a
sonnet in which he says that neither painting nor carving in mar-
ble gives him any satisfaction now; that to be happy he must
remain absorbed in the thought of Divine things. Here are verses
by him, in which his thoughts become a prayer in the translation
of J. A. Symonds.

" Oh, make me see Thee, Lord, where'er I go 1

If mortal beauty sets my soul on fire, *

That flame when near to Thine must needs expire,
And 1 with love of only Thee shall glow.
Dear Lord, Thy help I seek against this woe,
These torments that my spirit vex and tire ;

326 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Thou only with new strength canst reinspire

My will, my sense, my courage faint and low.
Thou gavest me on earth this soul divine ;

And Thou within this body weak and frail

Didst prison it — how sadly there to live I
How can I make its lot less vile than mine?

Without Thee, Lord, all goodness seems to fail.

To alter Fate is God's prerogative."

He died in Rome in 1564. His will was very concise. " I
leave my soul to God, my bodj" to the earth, and my property to
my nearest relatives." In his house in Florence is preserved a
letter, in which Daniel da Yolterra writes to Michael Angelo's
nephew that he must come to Rome as soon as convenient. In a
postscript he be^s him to lose no time, but travel directly through.
Michael Angelo himself has written his name below, although, on
account of trembling, he could not finish the Buonarotti.

He died on February 17. His body was taken to Florence,
and buried there with ceremotiy. Yasari was commissioned to
design his monument. He lies in Santa Croce, where, near him,
are the monuments of Dante, Macchiavelli, Galileo, and Alfieri.
The year in wjiich he died was that of Shakespeare's birth.

Notes and Discussions, 327

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

COLERIDGE'S ''ANCIENT MARINER:'

Those who regard the "Ancient Mariner" as an exhibition of
unconscious genius — a mere product of exuberant fancy, weird and
thrilHng in its eifect, exquisite in its versification, but without final
end or aim — have but a faint comprehension of the deep, subtile, and
peculiar mind from which it emanated. He who could say of him-
self : "I am by the law of my nature a reasoner. I can take no
interest whatever in hearing or saying anything merely as a fact —
merely as having happened. I must refer it to something within me
before I can regard it with any curiosity or care. I require a reason
why the thing is at all, and why it is there and then rather than else-
where or at another time ;" who, at a very premature age, even before
his fifteenth year, was deeply interested in metaphysics ; and who
owned that the faults of language observable in his juvenile poems
were mostly owing to the effort he made and was always making to
give a poetic coloring to abstract and metaphysical truths, was of
all men, least likely, in the prime of his poetical period, to write a
mere musical farrago, which, whatever may be said of its rhyme,
if taken literally, can scarcely be accredited with a superabundance
of reason.

Coleridge had already written a number of his minor poems, be-
sides contributing largely in prose to the " Watchman," which he
edited, and had acquired some reputation as a lecturer, when, in
1796, he made the acquaintance of, and shortly after formed a close
friendship with, the poet Wordsworth. It was at the beginning of
the career of each, and the influence which they exerted upon one
another is incalculable. During the following year they entered into
an agreement to publish a volume of their joint works, each engag-
ing to treat his subjects after the style which had already become
peculiar to him. Wordsworth was to seek to give interest to what is
common and usual ; in other words, to treat those subjects which are
generally considered as more especially belonging to prose; Coleridge
was to give to the weird and improbable a charm which was to spring
from the truth of the feeling rather than from the truth of the inci-

328 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

dent portrayed. The volume appeared in 1798, and contained, among
other poems by Coleridge, the subject of our sketch.

That the poem fully meets the demand which the author made
upon himself will scarely be questioned. The feeling is undoubt-
edly true. We are convinced that, under the circumstances, one
could not have felt otherwise or suffered less than did the Mariner ;
but the circumstance, or rather the cause of the train of circum-
stances, is so slight (a man kills an albatross — a bird — and for that
act he and all his comrades — a whole ship's crew — suffer the most
unspeakable horrors of body and of mind which he, the offender, alone
survives) that it could never, despite its almost unapproachable
rhythm, exert the fascination it does if we did not feel that the thin
tissue of its fable concealed a deeper meaning; that the whole poem
is merely a symbol, which is all that a work of art can ever be, of a
higher truth.

Only a short time before the ''Ancient Mariner" was written,
Wordsworth read Coleridge some cantos of his then unedited poem
upon the growth of an individual mind (" The Prelude "). Coleridge
was enthusiastic in its praise, and besought him to continue and ex-
pand it, making, at the same time, some suggestions as to how it
should be done. We quote Coleridge's account, to be found in his
"Table Talk": "Then the plan laid out and I believe partly sug-
gested by me was, that Wordsworth should assume the station of a
man in mental repose — one whose principles were made up and i^re-
pared to deliver upon authority a system of philosophy. He was to
treat man as man — a subject of eye, ear, touch, and taste — in con-
tact with external nature, and informing the senses from the mind,
and not compounding a mind out of the senses; then he was to de-
scribe the pastoral and other states of society, assuming something
of the Juvenalian spirit as he approached the high civilization of
cities and towns, and opening a melancholy picture of the present
state of degeneracy and vice; thence he was to infer and reveal the
]n-0( f of and necessity for the whole state of man and society, being
subject to and illustrative of a redemptive process in operation, shoAv-
ing how this idea reconciled all the anomalies, and promised future
glory and restoration. Something of this sort was, I think, agreed
on. It is, in substance, what I have been all my life doing in my
system of philosophy."

Wordsworth never executed the project, but we believe Coleridge
did in a measure. The thought, in its passage through the alembic
of his fervid imagination, took upon itself something of a personal

Notes and Discussions. 329

character, and he has given us the development, not of the race, but
of the individual; he has shown us the "macrocosm in the micro-
cosm." What all his life he labored to execute, and for which, for
lack of constructive ability, all his genius and all his labor availed
him naught — to erect a system of Christian philosophy — we believe
he accomplished in his twenty-fifth year, when he wrote the "Ancient
Mariner. "

It was the author's intention, in our opinion, to present the Fall
from the innocence of ignorance, from the immediacy of natural
faith ; and the return, through the mediation of sin and doubt, to
conscious virtue and belief. Regarded in this light, the poem may
be said to have a two-fold character : it may be considered either in
a universal or in a particular sense — the Ancient Mariner may repre-
sent Life or a life. In either case he offers to the passer-by, selected
on account of his fitness to hear, his receptivity, a view of the
"terrible discipline of culture" through which man must pass in
order to reach self-consciousness and self-determination.

" It is an ancient mariner, and he stoppeth one of three." Not to
all men is it given to behold the solution of life's deepest problem :
" Many are called, but few are chosen." But him to whom, even
for a moment, the Eternal Verities are once unveiled, the wedding-
feast — the pleasure and profit of mere worldly existence— calls in
vain. Strive as he may, "he cannot choose but hear" the voice of
his own soul.

"The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared." Man, with all his
weakness and all his power, with all his potentialities for good and
evil, commences the voyage of life. The journey is bravely begun,
childhood and youth pass brightly and cheerily, till, " over the mast
at noon," maturity is reached. No specific time is intended. The
terms childhood and youth apply to the period of unconsciousness,
of the utter indifference of the Me and Not-me ; when the Me be-
gins to be conscious of its existence through the pressure upon it of
the Not-me, maturity is reached, at whatever age. It is not our inten-
tion to dwell upon the consummate art which the poem displays, but
we find it difficult altogether to avoid calling attention to the beauty,
especially when it also represents the adequacy of its form, Mark,
at this point, how significant is the pause which allows time to pre-
sent the final relinquishment on the part of the wedding-guest of all
thought of escape ; whatever interruption he makes henceforth is in
the interest of the narrative, and betrays its control over him ; he no
longer seeks to retard or dismiss it. A point of departure is also

330 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

reached, the preparation is complete, and the motive may now make
itself felt. It is the tightening of the belt as the race begins.

"And now the storm-blast came." The world, with its buffets,
its sorrow, and care, its wild-beast struggle for mere existence, con-
fronts him. In his horror and fear, he looks wildly around in search
of such sympathy and comfort from his fellows as he needs and
thinks he shall surely find, only to discover each chased by the same in-
exorable necessity, and powerless or too utterly lost in his own affairs
to afford him aid. Balked of human help he "grows wondrous
cold," and is about to perish when faith in a higher than human
sympathy — the albatross — crosses his path to save and bless him.
For a time the bird brings peace, but only for a time. In a wanton
moment, scarce knowing what he does, he strikes the blow by which
he loses sight and consciousness of the spiritual — the true sin against
the Holy Ghost, which, if persisted in, shall not be forgiven.

Why does he kill the bird ? This is the question of questions. It
is the problem of Original Sin. Man is, by nature, evil, and his first
conscious, merely natural act, is necessarily a sin against the spiritual.
He is then in a state of negation. Spirit is too strong not to resist
the natural impulse, and thereon commences the battle between good
and evil, which must either end in the putting under foot of the
natural, in the negating of the negation, or man dies like the beasts
that perish. The conflict is the appointed task of man. Each man
must of himself work out his own redemption ; he must himself
prepare the way for that regeneration which is the promised victory
over sin and death.

At first the nature of the man recoils before this daring act of the
will. "Ah, wretch! said they, the bird to slay." But when the
mist and fog of ignorance and unconsciousness disappear at the ap-
proach of the glorious sun of knowledge which now arises, "nor
dim, nor red, like God's own head," all fear is forgotten, and in a
burst of exultation the cry changes : "'Twas right, said they, such
birds to slay, that bring the fog and mist." Man has now become
as a god, knowing good and evil, and the ship rushes blithely on.
Suddenly its course is stayed: "The breeze dropt down, the sails
dropt down, 'twas sad as sad could be." Knowledge is not sufficient ;
man must not only know, but do. He has lost view of the spiritual,
and the natural alone cannot content him. He has lost his faith,
and with it hope and the power to labor, for the right faith of man
not only brings him tranquillity, but helps him to do his work.

A fearful calm follows : life is at a standstill. To add to his

Notes and Discussions. 331

misery, he beholds on all sides aspirations, hopes, endeavors, and
beliefs ; but none which he can make his own. He is isolated and
despairing. "There is water, water everywhere, nor any drop to
drink." The world around him seems content with a happiness
which holds no charm for him. Its pursuit of fame, of wealth, of
pleasure, does not allure him. It appears to hold no thought of a
conflict such as is wasting him ; it lives at ease, encompassed, as he
thinks, with wonders and terrors. He grows to distrust its fair out-
side ; the evil within him drives him to see evil in all without him ;
the world is the shadow of himself, and as such he fears and suspects
it. "The very deep did rot." "Yea, slimy things with legs did
crawl upon the slimy sea." Still, even this madness has its lucid in-
tervals. ' ' Some in dreams assured were of the spirit that plagued
us so ;" and there are times when he has a glimpse that his torment
is not a useless and vain torture ; that there can be no victory with-
out a battle. He has an intuition of the two elements which are at
war within him ; he feels that there will be no peace until the spiritual
conquers. But he has no power and sees no means by which to assist
himself. He is sunk and lost in self — mere finite subjectivity. He
makes one effort, but it is in the wrong direction : he will conform to
the world and its law. The cross — the emblem of true and living faith
— is removed from his neck, and the albatross — the dead faith of
creeds and rituals — takes its place.

There is, there can be, no peace in a mere outward conformance
to customs that are dead to us ; there may be stillness, but there is
no serenity. Nothing has changed ; the ship is still becalmed ; all
is weariness and distaste. "There passed a weary time, a weary
time." The "glazed and weary eye" wanders listlessly toward the
west ; the moody and miserable mind of man peers hopelessly and
indifferently into the future, and sees a "something in the sky."
He watches it, carelessly at first, then more and more eagerly, until
at last it assumes proportion and a shape. The final stage of his
" temptation in the wilderness " is reached. At last he has discovered
a solution to his problem : he will negate the spiritual ; he will fall
down and worship the evil one, and he will be saved, and all the
glory of the world shall be given unto him. The thought fills him
with a horrible joy, and he calls up his whole being to rejoic^ in the
promised deliverance. His cry, " A sail, a sail ! " is answered by a
" grin " of joy. " The western wave was all aflame," the future now
is glorious with earthly promise, "when the strange shape drove
suddenly betwixt us and the sun."

332 The Jotirnal of Speculative Philosophy.

With horror he discovers that it is only a skeleton bark. No
kindly, helpful hands are extended from its side to aid him ; the
only companion of Unbelief is Death — here and hereafter. The
game has been played ; Unbelief has won the will of man ; Death
claims his other faculties, and darkness and fear envelope him. To
doubt the All is to doubt himself, and this, the worst of unbeliefs,
now fastens upon him. '' One after one, by the star-dogged moon,"
every aspiration and noble desire, every power and every purpose,
"with heavy thump, a lifeless lump," drops down and perishes, only
turning ere they die to curse his negligence to use, or worse, his
abuse of them.

''Alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea!" The
suffering soul of man in the wide expanse, in the crowded immensity
of the world, is isolated by its agony in that Gethsemane where the
best beloved are left behind, and the bare spirit goes up alone to
meet and wrestle with its Maker. And oh ! the horror, the shrink-
ing, the bloody sweat of it all ! The grace and beauty of life have
departed, and only a sickening sense of guilt and wretchedness, of
bitter self-loathing and self-disgust remains : " A thousand, thousand
slimy things lived on ; and so did I."

" I looked ujjon the rotting sea " — the world which is his shadow,
upon which he has projected his Me — " and drew my eyes away ! "
''I looked upon the rotting deck" — his own inner consciousness —
''and there the dead men lay." "I looked to Heaven," but his un-
belief has closed that to his prayer. "I closed my lids and kejot
them closed," but he cannot shut out the view, "for the sky and
the sea, the sea and the sky " — doubt of all around and of all above
him — "lay like a load on my weary eye, and the dead" — doubt in
himself — "were at my feet!" The talent which the lord of the
country gave to his laborer to keep for him has been returned, and
he hears the well-earned sentence : " Take, therefore, the talent from
him, and cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness." The
lowest deep is reached. On this plane there is no more to suffer or
to know. Hell is sounded.

This is the culmination of the poem ; no higher point, no greater
misery is possible. It has been gradually, but powerfully and tem-
pestuously, working up to its climax, and now the change is marked,
truly and unmistakably, by the altered movement. Hitherto the
transitions have all been sudden, the epithets harsh, and the tone
hard and rebellious. The stars have "rushed out;" the breeze
"dropt down;" "at one stride" came the dark. We have had

Notes and Discussions. 333

*' glittering eyes" and ''bright" eyes and looks that were "fire;"
the '' blocdy sun," the "broad and burning sun." The moon has
been "horned" and "star-dogged." Now :

" The moving moon went up the sky,
^ And nowhere did abide ;

Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside."

The wild tempest of passion and revolt has raged itself out ; the
warring elements have become quiet from sheer exhaustion. Wrapped
in this momentary calm, man now finds time to look away from self
and cast his eyes outward. '' Beyond the shadow of the ship, I
watched the water-snakes." Now that his desire for the earthly has
perished, the world is transfigured. All its horror, its wickedness,
its coldness, have vanished. It is no longer a "den of lies;" no
longer a "charnel-house," for over and through it rushes the eternal
stream of life, and power, and purpose. His hard destiny has crushed
out of him all warm and hopeful life, but at the same time it has
purified him of all particularity. " Within the shadow of the ship,
I watched their rich attire." Gradually he grows to feel himself a
part of this transcendent movement, and, as the persuasion gains
upon him, each particular aim and thought, each selfish purpose and
desire, seems poorer and more trivial to his view, till, in a rush of love
and humility, he bows his stubborn head ; " I blessed them unaware."
" The self -same moment I could pray." The first renunciation of
self has been accomplished, and now heaven and its glory open upon
his adoring gaze. In his worship, man renounces his particular aims
and interests ; appealing to the Absolute as absolute, he becomes
conscious of their union and his subordination. With the knowledge
that the subjective and objective will are one, he attains his freedom :
" The albatross fell off, and sank like lead into the sea."

■ He no longer feels himself a being lonely and aj^art. He has
united himself with the All — making the union his own act by ac-
cepting and agreeing with it, by becoming conscious of it — he feels
that he is free, because he feels that the necessity, too, is his. In this
full confidence he dismisses every private fear and anxiety, and sinks
into a healing repose : "The gentle sleep from heaven, that slid into
my soul." But contemplation, even of the Highest, is not the true
destiny of man. His slumber calms and soothes him, but it is of
short duration — the need for action soon returns. He awakes to find
that the time, which had seemed to be passing so eventlessly, has not

334 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

been lost. During its wise silence ''the great rain of his strength,
which sweepeth away ill-set foundations," has been falling, and it
has brought him strength and comfort ; he is still wretched and self-
distrustful, but he has gained power and patience to endure. He
has east himself into the stream of being, and he is now irresistibly
floated onward : " The loud wind never reached the ship, but now
the ship moved on." The great and triumphant effort has been
made. Man has willed, purely and decidedly, the good ; and now
the stream of goodness flows in upon him.

The dead faculties are aroused by the same impulse : " Beneath
the lightning and the moon, the dead men gave a groan." They
perform their accustomed tasks, but in an unconscious way : "They
raised their limbs like lifeless tools." The old activity, the old sen-
tient volition has not returned ; "'Twas not those souls that fled in
pain, that to their corses came again, but a troop of spirits blest."

In his abrogation of self, man has entirely sunk all individuality ;
practical effort is abandoned, and he lives in the theoretical alone.
From an unconscious immersion in the objective, he passed over into
the particular phase, in which he went so far as to deny it — the ob-
jective — all validity. In this process he attained a consciousness
which assisted in his restoration. He knows noAv that the objective
and subjective are one, but knows it only in such a way that the ob-
jective is that one, and that in it the subjective is absorbed. His
return is into the realm of Abstract Universality, an universality
which subjugates the individual and denies all his personal aims.
But God himself as Absolute Subjectivity involves the element of
particularity, and, therefore, the particular or personal part of man,
although on the merely natural side a something to be denied or
overcome, on the spiritual or spiritualized natural is a something to
be preserved and -honored : "It is in the world that spirit is to be
realized."

The power of the spirit, which "under the keel, nine fathoms
deep," had "made the ship to go," has brought him thus far ; it is
now time to supplement grace by works : " The sails at noon left off
their tune, and the ship stood still also." The new insight which
recalls him to the world seems for a moment to loosen the band which
binds him to the spiritual. But spirit is itself that band, and "in a
moment she 'gan stir, with short uneasy motion."

Now the old movement, on an advanced plane, is duplicated ; he
passes over into the antithesis again. But this is a concreter phase ;
a conflict is unavoidable, because it is the sphere of the negative, but

Notes and Discussions. 335

the old spirit of revolt is cancelled. Man now is not only willing
but anxious to do his work ; he is only uncertain as to what that
work may be, and whether he is worthy to perform it. Tossed back-
ward and forward by conflicting emotions, and finally overcome by
their violence, he sinks into a lethargy. The body is inactive, but
th3 soul is not asleep. It is a council chamber in which a debate is
being carried on between doubt (not the old doubt of all things, but
doubt of himself, his right to recognition, knowing himself to be
chief among guilty sinners, he doubts his call to "preach Christ and
him crucified ") and the new insight which teaches him that to every
man to whom the power is given belongs the right, to every man who
has won the victory the triumph is due : "I heard, and in my soul
discerned, two voices in the air."

The first voice asks : " Is it he ? Is this the man ?" — who killed
the albatross. Is it he who has cast aside, who has destroyed his
natural faith, and thus estranged the unconscious spirit of childlike
humility and ignorance : "The spirit who bideth by himself in the
land of mist aiid snow ; " is it for him who has suffered all the misery
of doubt and denial, who has barely been rescued from utter de-
struction, to imagine that he has any worth in himself — that his
subjectivity has any claim to personality ?

The second voice answers : "The man hath penance done." The
sin is condoned, for it has been cancelled. Man turned away from
the spiritual, it is true ; but he has returned, richer and better for the
lapse, for it has won him consciousness — " And penance more will do."
Sin is no positive thing ; it is the disharmony, the drawing apart,
the sundering of the attributes of the human soul — pure negativity.
Every negative action is followed by its own punishment ; the doer
is surrounded by the atmosphere of his deed ; and until "the mortal
puts on immortality" man's life is bound to be a succession of pen-
ances. Innocence is effortless ; it is spontaneity ; virtue is a perpet-
ual struggle. The great distinction between the wicked and the
righteous lies in the fact that the fallen human will is in absolute
bondage and helplessness, while the righteous man, by his continual
struggle, is able to negate his negativity as it arises, to perform for
himself the function of negative unity — he is freely self-determined.

" What makes the ship drive on so fast — what is the ocean
doing ?" But why is this man being now so irresistibly floated on-
ward — what part has the world in his progress ? The last question
is answered first : "Still as a slave before his lord, the ocean hath
no blast." "His great, bright eye most silently up to the moon is

336 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

cast." Far above all finite differences and determinations, the eter-
nally Positive gazes down upon the world which he at the same time
fills and governs — of which he is at once process and product — gra-
ciously looking upon his reflection; but seeing no sin, and hiding
nis face from the wicked because they are not — to him ; forever ac-
complishing the purpose which he forever designs — the realization of
himself in the self -consciousness of the "creature." The first voice
asks again : " But why drives on the ship so fast, without or wave or
wind ?" '' The air is cut away before and closes from behind." In
the realm of the merely natural, God's freedom is shown in the law
of necessity. In the world of spirit man's freedom is God's necessity.
When man strives with a single heart to attain truth, by the necessity
of his nature, God must will that he shall succeed.

''Fly, brother, fiy." "For slow and slow that ship must go when
the mariner's trance is abated." Between the theoretical and the
practical — the thought, the creation of the intellect and the actual
performance — how wide, how well-nigh impassable a gulf !

"I woke." "The dead men stood together." One more back-
ward glance which takes in the whole of the wasted past, and then
"this sj)ell was snapt, once more I viewed the ocean green." He is
done now and forever with all enervating regret ; he leaves to the
past its dead ; the present claims him. He ceases to think of what
he has been, and tries to resolve what he shall be ; but, still "in fear
and dread," the new path is all untried, and his past errors have de-
prived him of confidence. "Soon there breathed a wind o'er me :"
tribulation has taught him patience, and "patience worketh experi-
ence, and experience hope.^'

"Oh, dream of joy!" "Is this mine own countree ?" The true
self-return of human activity is accomplished. Freed from all pre-
possessions, he returns into himself, prepared to start anew in his cir-
cling movement. He has returned from whence he started, but with
what a rich cargo of experience ! As he nears his home, as he looks
more closely into his own consciousness, he discerns the true meaning
of the conflict in which he has been engaged. "Each corse, lay
flat, lifeless and flat." Known now in its true relation, as the blank
page on which spirit writes its history, the power of the natural is at
an end. " A man all light, a seraph man, on every corse there stood."
Man no longer supposes himself to be possessed of single and par-
ticular faculties, attributes, and powers, for he sees that spirit informs
them all with its unity. The soul of man emits its own light, and
serves him as "signals to the land."

Notes and Discussions. 337

''But soon I heard the dash of oars, I saw a boat appear." The
Hermit — the new faith which is no longer blind, but blessed with in-
sight, which is now belief — comes to " wash away the albatross's
blood." As the "skiff-boat" nears the ship the "lights, so many
and fair," disappear. Spirit is only visible in the moment of activ-
ity. To the outer world the nature of the regenerated man looks
"warped;" his faculties "thin and sere." The inner struggle has
marred the outer man for those who see no beauty save in perfection
of form and delicacy of tint.

" The boat came close beneath the ship, and straight a sound was
heard." The time has come for man to make an objective assertion
of personality. He is equal to the moment. He allows all finite
things to fall away. " The ship went down like lead," and the in-
finite, the soul — the essential part of man — rises alone to the surface :
" Like one who hath been seven days drowned, my body lay afloat."
He has died to the world, and been born anew even in this life. To
mere sensuous knowing and finite understanding, the Pilot and the
Pilot's boy, the change is superhuman ; they cannot fathom it, and
the appearance fills them with terror : "The pilot shrieked and fell
down in a fit." "The pilot's boy who now doth crazy go." But
the true faith — the Hermit — which is Eeason, investigates. He
asks : " What manner of man art thou ?"

"And now, all in my own countree, I stood on the firm land."
The circle is complete, he has found himself, the return through the
object to subject is accomplished. He has hearkened to the lesson :
Neither shall ye say, lo here ! or lo there ! for behold, the kingdom
of God is within you."

"At an uncertain hour that agony returns." The necessity for
negation of the finite may often return, but man has now learned
the potent spell, and the old depths of misery need never again be
sounded. "I pass like night from land to land; I have strange
powers of speech." Go now whithersoever he must, he will never
again leave his home, for he carries it with him — he is at home with
himself. He has ceased to regard inaction as the highest good ;
ceased to distrust his own worth ; ceased to struggle with his destiny.
He accepts the work and the place appointed him ; and, in fulfilling
all necessary actions at the same time that he abrogates all merely
selfish interests, feels that he commands the universe. In acknowl-
edging necessity he affirms his freedom.

"0, wedding-guest ! this soul hath been alone on a wide, wide
sea." Wrapped in finite selfhood, he saw nothing of the beauty and
XIV— 22

338 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

glory around and above him, and, faint with self-weariness, his
heavy gaze saw not the ineffable image within. Tried seven times
by fire, all particularity now has vanished, and he has been given to
feel the bliss which flows from the union of each with all, and all
■with each. "'Tis sweeter far to me to walk together to the kirk,"
"And all together pray." He has found that prayer — the soliloquy
of the beholding soul when its unity with God has become apparent,
and by which that unity is perpetuated — is the only happiness.

*'He prayeth best who loveth best." He rises most nearly to the
height of that union who comprehends it, whether he, through belief
and love and lowly listening feels it, or, by the piercing power of
reason, knows it. " For, the dear God who loveth us. He made and
loveth all." The subjective in absorbing all — in making it its own —
in loving it — becomes all. Subject and Object in one — true Universal.

"A sordid, solitary thing,

'Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart,

Through courts and cities the smooth Savage roams,

Feeling himself, his own low Self, the whole ;

"When he by sacred sympathy might make

The whole one Self! Self that no alien knows!

Self, far diffused as fancy's wing can travel!

Self, spreading still ! Oblivious of its own,

Yet all of all possessing ! this is Faith !

This the Messiah's destined victory."*

Geeteude Gaeeigues.

St. Loms, January, 1880.

* Coleridge. '' ReVgious J/wsw^'s."— Written December 24, 1794.

AT TEOEEAU'S CAIRN, WALDEN WOODS, 1879.

No more shall summer's heat or winter's cold,

Nor autumn plague, nor rule of greedy gold

Show thee heroic in an alien world ;

Thy track above men's earth-bound minds was hurled,

As some stars roll tlieir circuit out of sight;

Their course we see not, but we see the light.

For all the customs of our social state

Which easy homage gain and tix our fate,

Thy finer spirit felt a native dread ;

Yet questioned it no furtiier than there led

Some certain lamp to light the daily life.

But thought ran on beyond the narrow strife,

Foretelling wiser days and more benign;

In those shall sound no greater name than thine.

John Albee.
Newcastle, N. II., September 17, 1879.

Notes and Discussions. 339

SENTENCES IN PROSE AND VERSE.

SELECTED BY WILLIAM ELLEET OHANNTNG.

II.

We deal with the best possible people, assured we shall never ad-
mire them, while a little flavoring of human nature would render
them attractive. They are like store or green-house fruit — any old
apple, wild, is better, especially for cooking. It may be asked that
what Employment, Art, or Science soever a man strongly inclines
unto, if he continues therein and becomes fixed, he shall obtain a
proper Genius, which will mightily assist him in that art. — Try on
[On Dreams],

One of the dreadful figures of the village is the sexton, old, ex-
tremely bent (almost humpbacked, in fact), with a great brown wig,
dirty and clouded with snuff ; he looks like death taking stock.

When autumn comes every one but the poet runs to gather his
harvest. To him, the whole year is an autumn with melancholy
winds.

Men scatter and waste angelic susceptibilities on poor and barren
places. They cast themselves away on the hopeless opportunity, yet
as the farmer's skill, the careful culture of the interior is in planting
wisely, and laying up good seed to sow again.

Amid the plain faces of each village nature plants one child of in-
credible beauty, to convince us that her powers are not asserted, and
that, in spite of all our prose, she can anew create the Venus. In
the worst of months, there is one serene, sunny day.

If we reach no practical results in life, we shall one day reach the
end, which will perhaps be a kind of result if we know it.

The fortunate man is not therefore wise nor happy. The true
meaning of fortune is, that which occurs fortuitously.

To associate with famous people is taxed enormously. We must
not only beg alms of them, but of their fortieth cousins, who crave
their penny — the great man tows a fleet of skiffs to George's banks.

We may be impatient as moralists, because we are too good or are
not good enough ; if writers, because no one will read our works ;

340 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

if parents, because our children were ill-constructed ; if friendly, be-
cause our friend withdraws. To finish these pieces is the plan of the
novice. Nature cannot hurry, nor can take time half enough to ac-
complish her everlasting stint, which she ever begins newly.

It is singular that we have not, each of us, human nature enough,
such as it is, in ourselves, to prevent us from craving it so madly in
our opposites.

Looking at the scarred trunk of the pine, and the delicately
graceful sprays of the bending birches, the aboriginal trees, we yet
have no dream of their origins, grounded so mysteriously in the
occult. Nature provokes us forever to enter her beautiful provinces
and cooperate with her — endless suggestion and nothing revealed.
The wheelwright chips up the butt of an oak to fashion his hub for
the farmer's dung-cart.

The Bible — that is, the hooh ; a somewhat exclusive title in the
face of many Bodleians.

No profession is sweet to its professor ; each one hates his trade
and task.

Man has been endlessly waved aside by nature. She made him and
gave him eyes to see her, and then forgot she had such a pretty baby.
And so he asks forever, "Mother, who art thou?" She has also
forgotten to answer his question.

Just these low, triste fields ; just this cold, reserved, prudent
world ; not Italy, not Arabia, not Persepolis for us.

In spite of what we can do, or can resolve to do, we cannot over-
step the ineradicable thread across life's threshold, spun by tempera-
ment and training — that transparent line is the brick wall of our
state prison.

Man is a pretty, contracted beast, without a satisfaction or a
moment of learned friendship, one joy in memory, one hope in the
present, or a gleam of knowledge about the future ; his very teeth
are artificial, and credited like his eating-house ticket.

An art of itself, thin and naked, in reality a mere insipid thing,
unless it be clad and seasoned with some other learning — an art
always hungry, always starving, and like Mice feeding on stolen
Gates. Yet I know not with what boldness in the midst of trifles
and fables, like Tithonus Grasshoppers, the Lycian Frogs, the Myr-
midon Emmets, promising to themselves immortal fame and glory.
— Cornelius Agrippa [of poetry'].

Notes and Discussions. 341

How ridiculous appear the doings of others, how wise and ad-
mirably disposed our own ; they are fools, brainless ; we are so wise
and witty — our very apologies are worshipful.

A perfectly homely landscape, seamed with toppling walls, seamed
with mossy apple trees ; everywhere a cold, brown grass over the dry
fields. If the sun shines, it shines without warmth ; if it sets in
gold, it gilds the shingle of wretches. The woods are not at all pic-
turesque, the birds that fly through them faintly colored, and from
the low, wet dells where the smoky maples lean in their bareness, a
cold, despairing damp rises, grave-like and clammy. Nor are the
poverty-stricken uplands better, with a few gray stones everywhere
split up into little rude fields. The farmers and their men are a cold,
selfish, taciturn flock, conversant alone with their homely arts, and
hating and spiteful to their superiors in fortune. No building par-
takes of the meanest beauty, the ho^^ses are slight shelters of board,
cold and unfurnished as the hearts of their inhabitants, and guarded
by savage, half- starved dogs, who growl and snap at the legs of way-
farers, as if they owed them an indulgence.

A lie on the lij)s of beauty is sweeter than a decalogue of truths
from a homely mouth.

Life is a tendency. That only which lies behind it and which it
foreshadows has a questionable value. We perceive a kind of force,
and credit it with a relation to something that is better than the
performance. Some additional interest arises, possibly, from a low
probability of future development.

There are men who live by their good days, or can distinguish
them from those commonly bad. J. H. said, "I am growing old
very fast, and plainly perceive it ; in twenty days I am now unable
to get those four or five good days I once had."

We should work over our writing, as the smith works his bar of
iron.

It matters not how much fanciful expression and store of learning
you have appropriated or inherited, without you also possess that
certain constructive ability which can just put it in order. Your
exquisite seal bears no impression, because it wants a ring. Haw-
thorne's ability as a writer and his literary success came almost
wholly of his constructive power — his mind was a sort of cellar.

To see the thin, new moon, and a glittering evening star, hung
close above the orange ring of the shadowy horizon, and the ada-

342 The Journal of Sj)eGulative Philosophy.

mantine blue of the low mountain, so clear and ricli, the mirror of
repose.

When we observe what dreaded tjTants, emperors, and rulers have
accomplished, when we fairly measure the repute of poets, the culture
of artists, the methods of science, the frantic loves of youth, the black-
ness of palsied age, we might be more content with our own weak-
ness, or believe a little less in the majesty of the race we so pride
ourselves upon.

No matter how narrow our sphere, how wide our failures, we
should resolve to accept these crosses in good temper, seeing we have
inherited them, and cannot add to our available stock.

We can never exhaust thought nor the sea. We can possess neither
in full, yet both may command our admiration, and we may sail on
the surface of both.

Fertile wit, complicating fancy, streams 6f learning, love of creat-
ing, and enough experiments, may all fall like lead in the mud for
lack of a little art to serve as wings. Good intentions will not fly
a kite.

Raphael was a cunning servant of the arts and religion of his time,
but his force as an artist over-ruled that unartistic element, and was
equal to floating Greek mythology in a Christian tub.

The difference in talent is greater than the difference in its rewards.
Society never ceases grumbling at its own performances, and its first
creations are classes — a tax or a tyrant its racy bon houche.

Hawthorne had a soft, brocaded-silk side in his character, which
no contact with sharps or flats could wrinkle, but slyly rustled on.
At the time he was at the height of his fortune his parasites would
come and "sit upon him," until he was pressed into the politics of
despair.

" It would be well," say progressive religionists, '' to contrive a
new and adequate mythology from that of the nations pell-mell, as a
compensatory allowance to the Procrustes-bed of the Jews. Children
might still say the Lord's Prayer, which is sufficiently omnivorous."

We present the reverse of the Christian scheme : " Love thyself
first ; second, thy neighbor. Man is the little God ; so found thy
salvation on him. God has no existence save through man."

To some it may seem unpleasing that the whole universe cannot
help a man to a thought or perception more than he brought with

Notes and Discussions. 343

him originally fastened, as Prometheus was, to his sandstone ledge.
Still, amid the snows of age, he hears the wail of the pitying unhelp-
ful chorus, his last time-worn lullaby.

John Sterling had an excellent literary working talent, even if
his manner surpasses his matter. He would have loved to be a pagan,
bat the dullness of the English liturgy crowded it out.

Keats's letters discover a kindly disposition for a poet. A driving,
drifting, unmoored nature, with a partial exploration in the world
around or within. He was a prospective madman, and died some-
what madly, though otherwise fatally diseased, of that yellow rattle-
snake. — Gifford.

The poverty of a man's circumstance exfoliates from the poverty
of his understanding. Day by day our possessions contract ; to-mor-
row, we are bankrupts.

ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY.

TBANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF F. W. J. VON 80HELLING, BY ELLA 8. MORGAN.
[the TWELFTH " ACADEMIC LECTURE."]

Particular phenomena and forms, which can be cognized only
by experience, are necessarily preceded by that through which they
are, namely, by matter or substance. Empiricism knows them only
as bodies, that is, as matter with variable form ; and even conceives
ultimate matter, if it refers to it at all, as an indeterminate number
of bodies of unchangeable form, which are therefore called atoms.
Hence empiricism has no knowledge of the first unity, out of which
everything in nature proceeds, and into which all returns.

In order to reach the essence of matter we must avoid the image
of every particular form of it ; for instance, every conception of
matter as so-called inorganic or organic, because matter in itself is
only the common source of these different forms. Considered ab-
solutely it is the act of eternal self-contemplation of the absolute, in
so far as it makes itself objective and real in this act. To show this
being-in-itself of matter, as well as the way in which particular
things with the determinations of phenomena proceed out of Jt, is the
province of philosophy.

Of the former (the being-in-itself of matter) I have spoken at length
in the preceding lectures, and will therefore confine myself to the
latter. The idea of every particular thing is simply one, and the

344 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

one idea is sufficient to the becoming of an infinite number of things
of the same kind — its infinite capacity not being exhausted by any
amount of realization. Since the first law of the absolute is that it
is indivisible, the particularity of ideas cannot consist in a negation
of other ideas, but consists in this, namely, that all is imaged in each
in accordance with its particular form. This order in the world of
ideas must be taken as the archetype of the knowledge of things of
the visible world. Here, also, the first forms will be unities which
contain within themselves all other forms as particulars, and produce
them. Hence, for this reason, they themselves will appear as uni-
versals. The way in whicli they pass over into extension and fill
space must be derived from the eternal form of the reflection of
unity in multiplicity, which in the ideas are one with the contrary
(as shown), but which in phenomena are differentiated. The first
and universal type of space-contents is necessarily, that just as the
sensuous unities proceed as ideas out of the absolute as center, so as
phenomena they are born from a common central point, or — since
each idea is itself productive and may be a center — from common
central points, and, like their types, are dependent and indei^endent
at the same time.

Next to the construqtion of matter, therefore, the knowledge of
the creation of the world and its laws is the first and greatest in
physics. It is well known that what the mathematical theory of
nature has accomplished, since the time when Kepler's divine genius
announced the laws known as Kepler's laws, is that it attempted a
construction of nature entirely empirical in principle. It may be
accepted as a general rule, that everything in any given construction
which is not pure universal form can have neither scientific value
nor truth. The basis from which the centrifugal motion of celestial
bodies is derived is no necessary form ; it is an empirical fact. The
Newtonian force of attraction, although, for the consideration which
adheres to the standpoint of reflection, it may be a necessary pre-
sumption, is for the reason which knows only absolute relations, and
hence also for construction, of no importance. The reasons for
Kepler's laws may be seen, without any empirical addition, from the
theory of ideas and the two unities which in themselves form one
unity, and by reason of which every being while absolute in itself is
at the same time in the absolute, and vice versa.

Physical astronomy, or the science of the particular qualities and
relations of the heavenly bodies, rests, as to its great principles, en-
tirely upon general views, and, with regard to the planetary system

Notes and Discussions. 345

especially, it depends upon the harmony which exists between the
latter and the products of the earth.

The celestial body resembles the idea, whose copy it is, in this,
that the former like the latter is productive and brings forth all forms
of the universe out of itself. Matter, although as phenomenon it is
the body of the universe, again differentiates itself into soul and
body. The body of matter consists of isolated particular things in
which the unity is wholly lost in multiplicity and extension, and
which therefore appear as inorganic.

The pure historical presentation of inorganic forms has been made
a special branch of knowledge, instinctively avoiding any appeal to
internal, qualitative determinations. When the specific differences of
matter itself have once been comprehended quantitatively, and there
is the possibility of presenting it by means of mere changes of form
as a metamorphosis of one and the same substance, then the way is
opened to an historical construction of the system of bodies, a de-
cided beginning having already been made through Steffens's ideas.

Geology, which should have the same idea in reference to the whole
earth, should not exclude any of its products, and should demonstrate
the genesis of everything in historical continuity and predetermined
change. Since the real side of science must always be historical (be-
cause outside of science there is nothing which rests originally and
only on truth, except history), so geology in the completeness of the
highest development, as history of nature itself, for which the earth
is only the middle and starting point, would be the true integration
and pure objective presentation of the science of nature, to which
experimental physics forms but the transition and the means.

As physical things are the body of matter, so the soul which is
reflected in it is the light. Through its relation to the difference,
and as immediate idea of the same, the ideal itself becomes finite and
appears subordinately in extension as an ideal, which describes space
but does not fill it. Hence, in the phenomenon itself it is the ideal,
but not the whole ideal of the act of subject become object (since it
leaves the one phase outside itself in the corporeal), it is the mere
relative ideal.

The knowledge of light is like the knowledge of matter, is in-
deed one with it, since both exist only in contrast one with thp other
(can be truly comprehended as the subjective and objective side).
Since this spirit of nature has gone away from physics, its life in all
its members is extinguished, for there is no possible transition from
universal to organic nature. The Newtonian theory of optics is the

346 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

greatest proof of the possibility of a whole structure being made up of
wrong conclusions, all parts of which were based on experience and ex-
periment — as if it were not more or less consciously the existing theory
which arbitrarily determines the meaning and the result of experi-
ments. Unless a rare but happy instinct or a general schematism
gained through construction directs the natural order, experiment,
which may teach particular things but can never give a complete
view, is regarded as the infallible principle of the knowledge of
nature.

The germ of the earth is unfolded only by the light. For matter
must become form and pass into particularity in order that light, as
being and universal somewhat, may appear.

The universal form of the particularization of body is that through
which they are identical and mutually dependent. From the rela-
tions to this universal form, which is the reflection of unity in differ-
ence, must be inferred all specific difference of matter.

The procedure from identity is, in respect to all things, imme-
diately and at the same time an aspiration toward unity, which is
their ideal side, that which animates them.

To represent the essence of living phenomena of bodies is, next to
the objects we have already pointed out, the highest and only object
of physics, even when conceived with the ordinary limitation and
separation from the science of organic nature.

Those phenomena, as the expressions of activity essentially inher-
ent in bodies, have been called dynamic, just as the including whole
of the same according to their different determined forms is called
the dynamic process.

It is necessary that these forms should be confined to a certain circle
and conform to a general type. Only when in possession of such a cir-
cle can one be certain neither to overlook a necessary link nor to mis-
take appearances which are essentially one. With regard to the multi-
plicity and unity of these forms ordinary experimental physics is in
the greatest uncertainty, so that every new kind of phenomenon be-
comes a reason for the adoption of a new principle, differing from all
others, inferring one form from another ad libihim.

If we measure the current theories and mode of explanation of
those phenomena in general by the standard already determined, in
none of them do we find a necessary and universal form, but all are
accidental. For there is no necessity that there should exist such
imponderable fluids as are supposed, and it is wholly accidental that
these should be so constituted that their homogeneous elements repel

Notes and Discussions. 347

and their heterogeneous elements attract each other, as is assumed
in explanation of magnetic and electric phenomena. If the world is
made up of these hypothetical elements, we get the following image
of its constitution : First, in the pores of coarser matter we find air,
in the pores of the air we find heat, in the pores of the latter the
electric fluid, which again includes the magnetic fluid, and this again
contains the aether within its spaces. At the same time these diiler-
ent fluids, contained one within another, do not disturb each other,
and each manifests itself after its kind according to the pleasure of
the physicist, without any admixture with the others, and each finds
its place again without any complication with the rest.

This explanation, besides the fact that it has no scientific value,
is not even capable of being perceived empirically.

From the Kantian construction of matter was next developed a
higher view directed against the material consideration of phenom-
ena, but, in everything which it advanced in opposition, itself re-
mained upon too low a standard. The two forces of attraction and
repulsion, as Kant defined them, are mere formal factors, conceptions
of the understanding found by analysis, which give no ideas adequate
to the life and diversity of matter. These are not to be discovered in the
relation of these forces, which Kant knew only as a mere arithmetical
relation. The followers of Kant and the physicists who attempted
an application of his theories, confined themselves to a negative atti-
tude toward the dynamic view, as in regard to light they thought
they had announced a higher theory than when they described it as
altogether immaterial, which then agreed, it is true, with every other
mechanical hypothesis — for instance, those of Euler and others.

The common error which lay at the basis of all these views is the
conception of matter as pure reality. The universal subject-objec-
tivity of things, and especially of matter, must be scientifically re-
stored before these forms, in which its inmost life expresses itself, can
be understood.

The being of everything in identity as the universal soul, and the
tendency to reunite with it when it is placed outside of the unity, is
the universal ground of living phenomena, as has been already indi-
cated in the preceding lectures. The particular forms of activity are
none of them accidental forms of matter, but are the original, inborn,
and necessary forms. For, as the unity of the idea in being expands
to three dimensions, so life and activity express themselves in the
same type and through three forms, which accordingly are just as
necessarily mherent in the being of matter. By means of this con-

348 The Journal of Sj>eculatwe Philosophy.

struction it is not only certain that there are only these three forms
of the living motion of bodies, but the universal law is found for all
particular determinations of the same, from which they can be seen
as equally necessary.

I here confine myself to the chemical process, because the science
of its phenomena has been made a special branch of natural science.

In modern times, the relation of physics to chemistry has ended
almost in a complete subordination of the former to the latter. The
key to the explanation of natural phenomena, even the higher forms,
magnetism, electricity, etc., should be given in chemistry, and the
more all explanation of Nature has been brought back to chemistry,
the more it has lost all means of comprehending its own phenomena
from the early beginnings of science, when the conception of the
inner unity of all things lay nearer the human spirit. The chemis-
try of the present day has retained several figurative expressions, such
as affinity, etc. , which, however, far from being the intimation of an
idea, have become only sanctuaries of ignorance. The supreme prin-
ciple and the extreme limit of all knowledge have become more and
more things to be recognized by weight (gravity), and those potent
inborn spirits of nature which produce indestructible qualities have
become mere matter which could be caught and held in vessels.

I do not deny that modern chemistry has enriched us with many
facts, although it is still to be desired that this new world had been
discovered from the beginning by a higher organ, and it is a ridicu-
lous conceit that the stringing together of those facts, held together
by the unmeaning words matter, attraction, etc., forms a theory,
for they have not an idea of quality, of combination, of analysis, etc.

It may be advantageous to treat chemistry separately from physics,
but it must then be considered as a mere experimental art, with no
pretension to science. The construction of chemical phenomena
does not belong to a special science, but to a general, comprehensive
science of Nature, in which it is I'ecognized as one manner of mani-
festation of the universal life of Nature, not as phenomena of a
peculiar law of conformity, independent of the connection of the
whole.

The presentation of the general dynamic process which takes place
in the world system, and with respect to the whole earth, is meteor-
ology in the broadest sense, and is so far a part of physical astron-
omy as the general changes of the earth can be comprehended only
through its relation to the general world system.

With regard to mechanics, of which a large part is accepted in

Notes and Discussions. 349

physics, it belongs to applied mathematics ; but the universal type of
its forms, expressed as purely objective, is prescribed by physics ;
they are as it were the dead forms of the dynamic process.

The province of the latter physics in its ordinary separation is
limited to the sphere of the general antithesis between light and
matter or gravity. The absolute science of Nature comprehends in
one and the same whole as well these phenomena of separated uni-
ties as those of the higher organic world, through whose products
the entire subject-objectivation manifests itself in its two sides at
one and the same time.

A NEW WORE ON KANT.

Professor John Watson, of Queen's University, Kingston, Canada,
has a new book in press, entitled, '^Kant and his English Critics,"
which will appear, it is expected, about the first of next year from
the press of M. Macehose, of Glasgow. The book will defend the
Critical Philosophy against Empirical Psychology, and will contain
a criticism of the latter in its main features, showing, however, that
Kant's theory must be freed from certain unwarrantable assumptions
which destroy its unity. Our readers are fully familiar with the vig-
orous thought of Professor Watson, and will welcome a treatise from
him on a theme so important.

350 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

BOOKS EECEIVED.

Die untcr Philonis Werken stehende Schrift ueber die Unzerstoerbarkeit des Weltalls,
nach ihrer ursprucnglichea Anordnung wiederhergestellt und ins Deutsche Uebertragen
von Jacob Bernays. Aus den Abhandlungen der Koenigl.-Academie der Wissenscbaften
zu Berlin. 1876.

The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. Edited by J. S. Jewell, M. D. January,
1877. (New series.) Vol. ii., No. 1. Chicago.

[In this number Dr. George M. Beard presented a new theory of trance, and its bear-
ings on human testimony, and the editors reviewed at some length Herbert Spencer's
"Psychology" and David Feirier's "The Function of the Brain."]

A Brief on the Doctrine of the Conservation of Forces. By Thomas H. Music, of
the Missouri Bar. Published by the Author. Mexico, Mo. 1878.

[" The aim of this little pamphlet is not to trace out and define the boundaries of the
doctrine, but to demonstrate that it is but of partial and limited application — neither
broad enough nor well enough established to form a safe basis for any philosophical
system. ... I think that I have shown that in both plant and animal life there are
principles of a higher order than any form of force, and which are not transformations
or correlations of force ; and, indeed, for which no correlations can be found in
physics."]

Mechanical Conversion of Motion. By George Bruce Halsted. (Reprint from Van
Nostraud's Magazine. 1878.)

Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der aelteren deutschen Philosophic. II. Nicolaus
von Cues.

Oration pronounced before the Massachusetts Council of Deliberation. By Rev.
William R. Alger. Boston, June 28, 1878. " The Points of Permanent Miraculousness
in Human Life." Boston : Rand, Avery & Co. 1878.

The Atomic Hypothesis from its inception till the present time. By H. E. Robinson.
Maryville, Mo. 1873.

The Penn Monthly. September, 1877. (Contains an article concerning Pre-Exist-
ence.) Philadelphia : J. II. Coates & Co.

I. Address before the Iowa State Bar Association, at Des Moines, May 17, 1877. By
G. F. Magoun, D. D., President of Iowa College. (On The Claims of the Legal Profes-
sion to general respect in civilized society.)

II. The Source of American Education, Popular and Religious. (By the same Author.)
Reprinted from the New Englander for July, 1877.

Books Received. 351

Eeligion and Science ; the Psychclogical Easis of Religion, considered from the
standpoint of Phrenology. A Prize Essay. (Being No. 1 of Science Tracts.) By
Francis Gerry Fairfield. New York : S. II. Wells & Co. 1877.

The Theory of Unconscious Intelligence as opposed to Theism. By Professor G. S.
Morris, M. A. Being a paper read before the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society
of Great Britain. To which is added the discussion thereon. London : Ilardwicke &
Bogue.

Live Questions in Psychology and lletaphysics. By Professor W. D, Wilson. New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1877. (Being six lectures delivered to the classes at Cornell
University, on sensation, consciousness, volition, insight, the test of truth, real causes.)

The Eeligion of God and the Scientific Philosophy. By Joachim Kaspary.

Humanitarian. People's edition. Price one shilling. London: The Freethought
Pubhshing Company. 1877.

The Best Reading : Hints on the Selection of Books ; on the Formation of Libraries,
Public and Private ; on Courses of Reading, etc. With a Classified Bibliography
for easy reference. Fourth revised and enlarged edition, continued to August, 1876, with
the addition of select lists of the best French, German, Spanish, and Italian Literature.
Edited by Frederic Beecher Perkins. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1877.

Rede zum Geburtsfeste des Hoechstseligen Grossherzogs Karl Friedrich von Baden
und zur akadcmischcn Preisvertheilung, am 22. November, 1877, von Dr. J. C. Blunt-
Bchll. Ueber die Eintheilung in Facultiiten. Heidelberg: J. Iloerning. 1877.

Materialism and Pedagogy. By Professor W. H. Wynn, A. M., Ames, Iowa. (Re-
print from the Quarterly Review of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.)

Vierteljahrsschrift fuer Wissenschaftliche Philosophic unter Mitwirkung, von C.
Goering, M. Ileinze, and W. Wundt, herausgegeben von R. Avenarius. I. Jahrgang_
Erstes Heft. Leipzig : Fues's Vcrlag (R. Rcisland). 1876.

[Contains articles on the relation of Philosophy to Science (by Fr. Paulsen); on
English Logic of the present time (by A. Riehl) ; on the Cosmological Problem (by W.
Wundt) ; on the life of the Cephalopoda (by J. Kollmann) ; notice of new books.]

What was He ? or Jesus in the Light of the Nineteenth Century. By William
Denton. Wellesley, near Boston. 1877.

Cholera ; the Laws of its Occurrence, Non-Occurrence, and its Nature. By C.
Spiuzig, M. D. St. Louis, Mo. 1877.

The Theological Systems of To-day. Are they True ? Read this and convince your-
self of their Falsity. Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co. 1878.

Revista Europca. Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Lettere ed Arti. 1869-1878.
Nuova seric. Anno IX. Editore Signor Carlo Pancrazj, 6 Via del Casteliaccio, Firenze.

Die Wahrheit wird Euch frei machen. I. " Eine Betrachtung ueber sehr wichtige
Entweder-Oder." II. " Ueber Einige Sophismen, welche die Nichtsnutzigkeit des allge-
meinen Wahlrcchts beweisen sollen." By Moritz Mueller, Sr. Pforzheim. 1^78.

The Watscka Wonder; a startling and instructive Psychological Study, and well
authenticated instance of Angelic Visitation. A narrative of the leading Phenomena
occurring in the case of Mary Lurancy Vennum. By E. W. Stevens. With comments
by Physicians. Chicago : Religio-Philosophical Publishing House. 1878.

352 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Lectures on the Unknown God of Herbert Spencer, and the " Promise and Potency "
of Professor Tyndall. By Rev. George T. Ladd. Milwaukee : I. L. Hauser & Co.

Physiological Metaphysics ; or, the Apotheosis of Science by Suicide. A Philosophi-
cal Meditation. By Noah Porter, D. D. (Reprint from the Princeton Review.)

A Criticism of the Critical Philosophy : A Reply to Professor Mahaffy. By James
McCosh, D. D. (Reprint from the Princeton Review.)

The Schools of Forestry and Industrial Schools of Europe, with other Papers. By
B. G. Northrop, Secretary of the Connecticut Board of Education. New York : The
Orange Judd Company. 1878.

Le Opere di Benedetto Castiglia e la Fase Definitiva della Scienze. Recensione di
Giuseppe Stocchi. (Estratto dalla Gazzetta di Mantova.) Mantova. 1876.

An Account of the Department of Philosophy in the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology. Boston: Lockwood, Brooks & Co. 1877.

[A very noteworthy " account." A pamphlet of 72 pages of fine print, giving (a) a
history of operations, {b) thesis by graduates, (c) work by advanced special students,
1876-'77. The summaries, analysis, conspectuses, and critical discussions in it are of
great value, and all testify to the great loss which the department of the "Philosophy
of Science " of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has sustained by the depart-
ure of Professor George U. Howison, the author of this pamphlet.]

How Shall we Keep Sunday ? An Answer in Four Parts : I. Sunday in the Bible ;
II. Sunday in Church History ; III. Sunday in the Massachusetts Laws ; IV. The
Working-man's Sunday. By Charles K. Whipple, Minot J. Savage, Charles E. Pratt,
William C. Gannett, respectively. Boston : Free Religious Association. 1877.

Science : Her Martyrdom and Victory, a Sermon in Treville Street Chapel, August
19, 1877, during the assembly in Plymouth of the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science. By William Sharman. London : E. T. Whitfield.

American Education Analyzed ; or, a Synoptical Disquisition on the Quality, Culture,
Development, Rank, and Government of Man, with addendum describing the order of
men to select for office. By Charles Edward Pickett. San Francisco. 1877.

Die Forschunsc nach der Materie. Von Johannes Huber. Miinchen : Theodor Acker-
mann. 1877.

Naturwissenschaft, Naturphilosophie und Philosophic der Liebe. Herausgegeben
von A. F. Entlcutncr. Miinchen: Theodor Ackermann. 1877.

The Origin of the Will. By E. D. Cope. (Reprinted from the Penn Monthly for
June, 1877.) Philadelphia. 1877.

Bi-Metalism : With each Metal a Legal Tender, and freely coinable only in proportion
to its value. By H. D. Barrows. Los Angeles. 1876.

'" Darwinism and Morality. By John Watson, M. A., Queen's College, Kingston, Canada.
(Reprint from The Canadian Monthly for May, 1876.)

Philosophic und Theologie. Von Dr. Leonhard Rabus, Professor der Philosophic
am Kcenigl.-Lyceum zu Speicr. (Beigabe zu dem Jahresberichte der k. bayer.
Studienanstalt. Speier. 1876.

Modern Metaphysicians : Arnold Ruge ; the Philosophy of Humanism. Part I. and
Part n. (Reprint from the British Controversialist, 1870.) By James Hutchison
Stirling, LL. D.

THE JOURNAL

OF

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.

YoL. XIY.] OcTOBEE, 1880. [No. 4.

CEITICISM OF KANT'S MAIN PKINCIPLES.'

BY J. HUTCHISON STIRLING.

If we suppose it to result (from the foregoing *) that Kant's sche-
mata, as simply so many self-deceptions, must be held to vanish,
we may suppose, aUo, that Kant himself — seeing that, for recep-
tion of the contributions of special sense, there can now no longer
be question of any a jpi^iori system of forms, half-sensuous and half-
intellectual — would admit his whole transcendental enterprise to
have failed. In view of Kant's own perfect honesty, we may
really allow ourselves to suppose this. It does not follow, how-
ever, that others (Sir W. Hamilton, for instance), who opine Kant's
causality to be just a separate and peculiar mental principle, would
be disposed to sympathize with as much. They know nothing of
the schematism ; for them the categories alone exist ; and they
have no thought but to place these in direct contact with sense.
We may safely assume their possible contention to be insufficient,
however, and Kant's conjectural admission to be alone tenable.

My second main objection, now, to the Kantian theory of per-
ception concerns the empirical facts which, through the schema,

^ The reference is to the preceding portion of this article published in the July (1880)
number of this Journal. — [Ed.

XIV— 23

354 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

are to be subsumed under the catej^orv, into self-consciousness. I
assert that these facts — what to Kant are the Erscheinungen — al-
ready possess, and must possess, and bv Kant (especially in the case
of causality) are admitted to possess, that very necessity (of order
or otherwise), which alone it is the business and the use of the
category to bestow. Kant, to be sure, names this necessity only
"subjective," and still thinks it necessary to call in his peculiar
" epigenesis " in order that it may become " objective." The verbal
distinction, however, nowise eti'aces the actual facts; and these are
such that, on Kant's own terms, his ^/genesis is a A?//;ergenesis that
explains nothing. There are twelve categories for the subsurap-
tion into consciousness of (to say so) as many sense-successions.
The latter, it is to be conceived, differing as the former differ, are
respectively to be subsumed, each under each. Those are the rules
(II., 139) ; these are the cases. One form of judgment is deter-
mined rather than another (III., ^^) ; and the grounds of deter-
mination are the e^npirical circumstances (II., '737). No sense-
succession but must blow its particular category's own whistle,
ring that category's own bell.

We shall take the categories in their order now, and examine
them as they come ; only, we shall omit modality as before ; do
little more than briefly indicate in regard to the rest ; and reserve
our main discussion for causality alone. For we consider always
that causality is in every way the decisive and the master category,
as well as this, that what objection founds on the empirical facts
was, in our first article, scarcely more than suggested ; it was only
touched upon.

But we shall advert, first, for a moment to what Kant calls pure
perception, space and time. This, too, is an essential part of his
doctrine ; and without it, also, that doctrine goes at once to the
ground. Kant will have it that space (time likewise) is not an in-
dependent entity there in itself and on its own account without
us, but a form from within which we throw into things, not they
into us ; and his arguments are excellent. Nevertheless, they are
inadequate and erroneous. Space is involved in every special case
of external perception; but it does not follow that therefore it is
not a cognition acquired from without, but only an a priori form
projected from within. Suppose actual external bodies in an actual
external space really to exist, then sight tutored by touch, or touch

Criticism of Kaufs Main PrincijDles. 355

tutored bj sight, is perfectly adequate to bring us, otherwise con-
stituted as we are, to a complete perception of them in the usual
understanding of the word. In fact, there is no doubt at all, that
space and the bodies in space are precisely such actualities; and
just as little that the cognition or perception of them is so acquired.
As for the apodictic evidence of the relations of space which is
the burden of Kant's other argument here, it is not necessary to
have recourse to an a priori source for that either. Indeed, how
can mere a priori explain necessity? It may be that (though not
yet proved) the a posteriori cannot be necessary, but it does not
follow thence that the a priori must be necessary. The light of
evidence is as much wanted in the latter case as in the former, and
the mere position by no means extends it. The truth is that the
apodictic evidence of the relations of space issues from the very
nature of space, and not from its position, whether a priori or a
posteriori (though the latter is undoubtedly the fact). Space,
namely, is the generate or common universal of all forms of ex-
ternality as forms of externality ; and, all relations that belong to
it, it imposes upon them. Further, space itself is externality as
externality; and, simply as being such, all its relations bring with
them the very necessity of externality as externality. These re-
lations, in a word, are cousequencGS from the very notion of ex-
ternality as externality; and as such consequences they necessarily
share in all the necessities of their primitive and parent notion
as a thought that tnust he thought. Having said this on space,
special reference to time is not called for; and what has been
said will, generally, suffice for the present. We return to the
categories.

And what, on the whole, is to be said here is this. The use of
the categories at all is to account for the fact of necessity and ob-
jectivity being in existence. But the expedient is supererogatory
and gratuitous. Necessity and objectivity as much are, or are as
much given, as the contributions of special sense are, or as the
contributions of special sense are given. As special sense is there,
they are there ; and we have simply to receive them, or we have
simply to apprehend them.

To refer specially, the whole result of the category of quantity
is the axiom, " All perceptions are extensive magnitudes." Kant,
indeed, talks of axioms (in the plural) here, and calls this proposi-

356 The Journal of Speculatme Philosophy.

tion only the " principle " of such. But, axiom or principle, it
stands alone as tlie result of the category of quantity. He also
exemplities it by such an object as a house. Now, Kant would
grant that a house has in this respect no advantage over any one
of its component stones, or, as it may be, bricks. Before 1 can
apprehend that stone as a stone, or that brick as a brick, am I to
suppose, then, that a mysterious spectrum from within my own
mind must, first of all, throw itself, fusingly, into it? That is ac-
curately, and fully, and truly, Kant's supposition. Common sense
says at once No. That stone, that brick, is really as much its
own in its quantity as it is its own in its weight or hardness. That
stone or that brick has really its quantity in externality to me,
and in independence of rae, as it has its solidity in externality to
me, and in independence of me. The objection that the color,
heat, etc., are in me and not in the object is really inapplicable.
The true theory of perception finds the primary qualities in the
object, and correctly ascribes the secondary qualities to the same
object as their cause. I really am so endowed that I come to ap-
prehend the stone or the brick, and truly to apprehend the stone
or the brick, as the red or gray, large or small, rough or smooth
thing it is out there in space, absolutely on its own account, and
quite independent of me. It is not I that give it its quantity. On
the contrary, I have to take its quantity simply as it itself gives
it me. Kant, of course, never assumed to give the stone or brick
its special quantity, but only its general quantity, or its capability
of manifesting quantity at all. That question of special quantity
(a difiiculty in the Kantian scheme that I hav3 not yiet seen han-
dled) — that question of special quantity, I do not boggle at; I
take only what quantity Kant allows me, and I say the stone or
the brick brings with it that quantity quite in the same way as it
brings with it that hardne-s, solidity, etc. Of course, fully to dis-
cuss this, one would require to be agreed as regards the theory of
perception as perception. That, plainly, we cannot posibly assume
here. But still, in independence of every theory, I can assert that,
whatever quality I gat from the st(tne as the stone, or tlie brick
as the brick, quite in the same way 1 get from it its quantity also.
The supposition of a special faculty (or category) within me to
give me that quality, or whatever else it may be named, is gratu-
itous and idle.

Criticism of Kanfs Main Principles. 357

And as much as tliis we can say, not generally only, but on
Kant's own terras. Space, for example, being on those terms
quantity itself, pure quantity, and in a priori possession, or native
clutch of the mind, to what end still postulate a faculty of quan-
tity ? Why endow us, not only Math an innate object^ but actually
with an innate notion of it, as though the one being given, and
given to a mind, the other were not, even so, a necessary and irre-
sistible consequence ? Is it possible that a mind can have the self
of an object without at the same time the notion of it ? Did we
possess the object a posteriori^ Kant would have no hesitation in
styling its notion a derivative ; why should a priori possession
make any difference in this respect ? It is still an object there for
inspection of the mind, which, indeed, as having it in its own
direct naked clutch, ought all the more readily to come to the
notion of it. Kant says himself (T54), "just the same synthetic
unity which space is, has, abstraction being made from the forrrh
of space, its seat in the mind, and is the category of the synthesis
of the homogeneous ; " and the question is, why so unnecessarily
supererogate ? One can see pretty plainly, too, that, once in space,
the stone or the brick possesses synthesis of the homogeneous in
its own right ; each is but a synthesis of the homogeneous. And
one wonders how, for recognition of this, one requires, over and
above the usual perceptive agencies, a special category.

As regards the category of quality, it promises us a positive
" antici})ation " of actual sense-percteption. Accordingly one lays
one's self out for something very definite this time, for some actual
object, or, at least, for some smallest spang or spangle of an actual
object. It is disappointing, then, instead of that to receive only
this, " sensation has degree." Surely, we think, if the possession
of an actual special a priori faculty can tell us no more than that,
it is there for very little purpose. On Kant's own terms, indeed,
seeing that he allows us sensation in time, we cannot see how, for
the cognition in question, more should be required. We have
already there all the elements that can possibly be wanted to con-
vey it.

If quantity and quality seem thus of undeniably empirical origin,
it is not otherwise with substance or with reciprocity. When I
think of a certain waterfall that is sometimes large and sometimes
small, sometimes gray and sometimes brown, sometimes with stones

368 The Journal of Sjoeculative Philosojphy.

in it and sometimes with leaves, it does not seem to me that, be-
sides observation and comparison, I require a special faculty to
enable me to think of the fall of water as permanent element,
while the others incidentally vary. Ao;ain, the sun, moon, and
earth mutually interact, and I am aware of it. I understand all
the consequent variety of light, and shade, and form. But then I
could evidently learn that from the things themselves ; there is no
occasion that I should be taught it beforehand. It is, once more,
not I that give it to them, but they that give it to me. It is of
themselves that sun, and moon, and earth act and react on each
other. They did so in the time of Thales, tliousands of years be-
fore I was born ; and they did so in the time of Menes, thousands
of years before Thales was born. Beyond all doubt, indeed, they
did so even before Adam ; and beyond all doubt, also, they might
continue to do so were the last son of Adam dead. It is common
knowledge that Kant, or, let alone Kant, Berkeley, would conceive
himself free to use this very same language. We know that, and
the grounds of it. But the question is, not what he might or would
say (any man may say what he likes), but could he consistently
say so, or are the grounds sufficient ? The word ideal by which
he would rescue his consistency is precisely his inconsistency ; for
the qualities, powers, or what-not in regard are really in the em-
pirical facts from these facts themselves, and not ideally from us.

Once again, the grounds of determination (what category shall
act, that is) are the empirical circumstances themselves (737), and
that, too, on Kant's own terms. This we have to see now finally
in regard to causality.

We say here at once, then, that the grounds of determination,
the whistle that calls, the bell that rings, with the result of the
one category causality starting up and asserting itself — these
already are necessity, and this necessity is wholly independent of
the category itself. The category itself ca?i act -only when it finds
a sense-succession to suit — a sense-succession, namely, that is
already " subjected to a rule," " a reale, on which, whenever it is,
something else ahvays ensues." Is this to explain the necessity
that is present in causality, then ? Even for action of his objective
necessity, Kant is obliged to presuppose and postulate a no less
stringent subjective necessity ; and it is expected of us as well to
accept one necessity in explanation of another as to admit that the

Criticism of Kant's Main Principles. 359

name subjective wholly vitiates tlie one, while the name objective
as completely establishes the other.

The probability is, as I have said, that Kant, though he worked
for long in good faith, and quite blind to this difficulty, did, in
the end, awake to it. "Like pain under an opiate," it lies un-
easily in his consciousness all through the second analogy, in which
he seems perpetually turning back, as it were, to reassure his own
seK by repetition of the assertion that necessity cannot lie in what
is a posteriori, and must be given to it by what is a priori. And
yet " the reale, on which, whenever it is, something else always
ensues," that is to be the bell that rings in the category — an a
posteriori necessity that is itself a necessity to the a priori ! Kant
tells us (III., 6) that Hume's question was, " How can we think
something so constituted that, if it be given, something else must
thereby also be necessarily given?" To answer this question,
then, Kant's very tirst step is to assume a " reale on which, when-
ever it is, something else always ensues according to a general
rule: " Kant's very first step is to assume the problem ! And for
this assumption the only reason offered is, that the assumption is
simply necessary; we must assume "conditions of all possible ex-
perience." Should we ask further, indeed, as to the reason why
we must so assume, there can be no answer but, To fill the cate-
gory — the category would be empty else — if the explanation is to
explain, the assumption is to be assumed.

Kant's exclusive work has been already described. Roused to
curiosity, he inquired into the possibility of an element of neces-
sity being still present to a world which, in validity, substance,
and place, is only contingent and subjective. Now, strange as it
may seem, it is even his success in this inquiry that has caused his
failure. Not, of course, that the success could really be success,
if the failure is really failure. "I tried, therefore, first or all," he
says (III., 9), " whether Hume's objection could not be made gen-
eral, and soon found that the notion of cause and effect is, by a
great deal, not the only one by means of which the understanding
thinks a priori for itself connections in things, rather that<meta-
physic out and out consists of such." That is, he speedily got
into the center of the vast and majestic fane which he saw rise
around him for reason — pure reason, organically distributed, or-
ganically complete — and almost directly lost sight of causality it-

360 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

self. lie pleased himself with dreams of system — dreams of an
absolute system, guaranteed by an absolute architectonic prin-
ciple. Absorbed in such dreams, then, it was not wonderful that
he was long of coming to see that it was the very first piece of all
in his machinery that would not shut into it. The relation was
such a speciiie one, that it obstinately remained impracticable to
any a priori., whether of time, or function, or general rule, at the
same time that its facts were of such a nature that they asserted
their own autonomy, and refused to merge themselves in a foreign
dominion, of however splendid a name, of which plainly they
stood in no need. But if uneasy conscience or consciousness, on
Kant's part, only led to never-ending assertion and assertion in
the KritlTc, we must acknowledge quite wakeful attempts at rem-
edy in the Prolegomena.

The two judgments are what is most direct and express in this
reference. " Empirical judgments, so far as they have objective
validity, are," it is said (III., 58), ^''judgments of experience ^ " but
those, again, that are only subjectively valid, I name mere judg-
ments of sensible perception. The latter require no pure notion of
understanding (category), but only the logical connection of the per-
ception in a thinking subject. The former, however, besides the
presentations of sensible perception, require always further special
notions originally generated in the imder standing., which just make
it that the judgment of experience is objectively valid.'''' JS^ow, we
have only to be able fairly to realize the full scope of every mo-
ment in this one passage, to be able thoroughly to understand,
also, Kant's whole categorical scheme, or, as I name it, theory of
perception. We have to consider, first, our apprehension of sensi-
ble impression. To that we are always passive; it is a material
a posteriori., and we have always to wait for it. It is also always
in apprehension a breadth or multiple of parts ; or, so long as it is
only sensuous, it is merely, so to speak, a blur of parts of impres-
sion within us, which parts present as yet no fixed order in them-
selves, but are only, so far, an indifferent succession. That they
should, however, be a succession in my internal faculty of sensa-
tion, in my internal apprehension, presupposes time. This is the
second movement. My sense-faculty, besides being able to feel, is
only able to feel in time., which (time) is simply a law, a form at-
tached from the first to my faculty of internal sense, as space

Criticism of Kant^s Main Principles. 361

again is a form, or spectrum, or potential disc, attached from the
first to my faculty of external sense. I can only have sensations
within, and the time and space into which they are received are
necessarily also within, are but original appendicles of my own
faculties within. But, further now, a third consideration is that
the empirical breadth — the multiple constituted by my received
impressions of sense — is a variety : all impressions and all groups
of impressions are not alike. All grouping or connecting of im-
pressions in apprehension is, however, always in the first instance
subjective merely.^ It is, in the fourth place, only in conse-
quence of the multiple in the subjective cognition being subsumed
under a category that it becomes objectively valid ; tliat is, an ob-
ject in actual experience. Kant goes on to explain " that all our
judgments (cognitions) are first of all mere judgments (cognitions)
of sensible perception, and that, so far, they concern only our-
selves, only each one's individual subject: it is only afterwards
that we give them a new nexus (in the judgment or cognition of
experience), the nexus to an object, namely, in that we will them
to be valid, not only occasionally, and not only for us, but
always, and for everybody." What causes the impressions in us
is utterly unknown, and never asked for by us: what is an object
to us is the blur of special sense received into, and further manip-
ulated by, our own internal a priori conditions of a possible expe-
rience, which conditions are sensuous for the reception, and intel-
lectual for the further manipulation.

Kant now proceeds to some illustrations. That the room is
warm, sugar sweet, wormwood bitter, these he calls judgments
only subjectively valid. And he admits that, referring to formed
objects (room, sugar, wormwood), they are not good examples of
his own first mere subjective impressions that are there in prepa-
ratio7i for objects, even such objects as room, sugar, and worm-
wood themselves ; but he uses them only to make intelligible
what he means by a subjective validity. Such mere feelings
(bitterness, sweetness, etc.), are not only subjective at first — they

' In liis letter to Tieftrunk (XT., 184), Kant denies that combination can, as such, be
perceived, unless preceded by a category ; but, on his own showing, the sun rising, a
stone warms, which is itself a combination, and a combination whose '' Wahrgenom"
menseyn" or " Angenommenseyn" must, even in his eyes, necessarily precede action
of the very category !

362 The Journal of Speonlatme Philosophy.

are subjective at first and last, and no category whatever could
make objects of them. But very different is the case when cer-
tain subjective impressions, united in the judgment of sensible per-
ception, are finally raised into the judgment of experience. The
atnios[)here is elastic. The judgment " sugar is sweet" is mine — ■
it may not be yours, or his, or anybody else's — it may not be even
mine at all times ; but the judgment " the air is elastic " is a judg-
ment valid, not only for me, and for me at certain times, but
valid always, and not always for me only, but always for every-
body : the former as a subjective judgment, the latter objective.

By way of reason for this remarkable difierence in facts of ex-
perience that seem at first sight situated alike, Kant points out
that subjective judgments "express only a relation of two sensa-
tions to the same subject, namely myself, and that, too, only in my
state of perception for the time," while objective judgments " con-
nect two sensations with each other, and this connection stands
under a condition which makes it universally valid." He furtiier
distinctly implies also that even the subjective state in the one
case differs from the subjective state in the other. There is an
always and a not for me only in the latter case that is not in the
former, though hoth are subjective. Of course, Kant so mixes up
the two states (which are hoih present in the objective process), in
such manner that we cannot assert him explicitly to admit as
much as that. Still, as much as that is really implied in the very
evidence of the sense-impressions themselves. This is a very in-^
teresting point, and one regrets that, once coming up to it, Kant
should have been contented to handle it with such a half conscious-
ness. He is aware that the judgment, sugar is sweet, connects
two impressions with my subject, while the contrasting judgment
again, " the air is elastic," connects two impressions with each
other. He is also aware, but more dimly perhaps, that the impres-
sions in the one case convey, even subjectively, very different evi-
dence from what they convey in the other. The latter point he
would probably have slurred over with the remark that empirical
matter certainly differs from empirical matter, and we must just
take it as it comes. The former point, too, we may say, though
there is a difierence between the facts (in the one case two sensa-
tions related to me, in the other related to each other) and their
evidence, he leaves even so. Just such is the constitution of the

Criticism of Kanfs Main Principles. 363

different impressions made on me. One can see, however, that
both points are very worthy of inquiry. It is, in fact, considera-
tion of the one point, the difference of evidence while even still
in the mere state of subjective impression, that leads me to object
to Kant the indispensable dictation, the imperative necessity, of
the simple impressions in every case of causality.

Again, the other point is equally interesting. The impression
room is followed in me by the impression warmth, and the im-
pression fire is followed by the impression warm room. Why
should these two caces, apparently so very much alike, be at the
same time so very different that the one founds an objective judg-
ment and the other only a subjective one ? They are both cases
of causality. The room is as much cause of warmth in me as the
fire is cause of warmth in the room. The rationale is really that
mentioned, but not followed out by Kant. The room is only
warm to me, and it is, at the same time, not always warm to me.
The fire, again, warms not me (at least that relation apart for the
nonce) but the room ; and the fire is found always to warm the room.

We see hei'e, then, a door opened to the element of difference
in the sense-successions themselves. Not all impressions, but only
some certain ones, are calculated to become in the end objects,
■while others, differently constituted, remain, and must remain,
subjective. Of course, Kant (737) postulates empirical difference
for his different categories and cases quite as we may do. Still
we object that, at least for long, he remained blind to the full
significance of what we may call empirical dictation, especially in
causality. We object this generally, and, in particular, we regret
that, brought up to such a difference as between sugar-sweetness
and air-elasticity, he w^as not arrested by it, but only mentioned
and did not stop to investigate so striking a fact. One almost
feels, in fact, from the bare premises, that no satisfactory general
theory, such as Kant proposed, could be constructed, did it omit
to show what difference of validity lay in the mere difference of
impression. The perception of this neglect on the part of Kant
opens for us, as said, a wide door of remark — so wide a door, in-
deed, that, had Kant seen it, it might have given exit — exit, name-
ly, into a whole infinite, absolute, external universe. For it is by
due inspection of our various materials of sensation and percep-
tion that externality as externality is seen to be a fact.

364: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

But we must confine ourselves here to what influence the
neglect in question exercised on the fortunes of Kant in reference
to causality. And that was that he ignored or did not explicitly
recognize this, that the sense-impressions, which were adapted for
action of the category of causality, already contained in them-
selves^ and actually manifested, a certain order, which order was
the signal, clew, or cue, on hint of which it was that the category
struck in — on hint of which it was only that the category could
strike in. It is here, I say, that, despite his subjective judgment,
we are to find the precise distinction, contact with the edge of
which is Kant's fatality. This edge, as I have said, Kant only
missed seeing for long because he had shut himself into the whole
■problem. This whole problem, namely, rose so very soon com-
plete around him that he speedily lost sight of the specialty he
started with. Still, it is to be suspected that this edge showed at
last to Kant. Suddenly, to his horror (we may surmise) he found
that causality would not tuck in and comport itself like the rest.
The cause lay in the order of the sense-impressions. In quan-
tity and quality, for example, no exact order, so far as sense was
concerned, occurred to give pause ; but here such order was a
necessary one ; for, plainly, unless there was an order A B, the
category of causality, which was a necessary A B of antecedent
and consequent, would not find its analogous sense-multiple to
subsume — the rule would not find its case. All through the re-
spective portion of the Kritik of Pure Reason, Kant, according
to our theory, had uneasily rather felt than seen this difficulty ;
and so it is that he keeps on asserting and asserting, in every
paragraph and in every sentence of his second analogy, that no
mere sense-order can contain necessity, that such validity can be
due, and must be due, only to the action of an intellectual prin-
ciple from within. In the Prolegomena, again, the difficulty,
perhaps, is not now only felt ; it appears to be seen also, and it is
attempted to be set aside (as said) by the word " subjective."
There shall be now, namely, even in the sense-element, already a
certain fixed order ; but this order shall be subjective only, and it
shall still be the category makes it objective. It is this he would
seem to seek to bring out when he contrasts the propositions, the
room is warm, sugar sweet, wormwood bitter, with the other
proposition that the air is elastic. Merely so mentioned, it is

Criticism of KomGs Main Principles. 365

something of a difficulty precisely to see how the elasticity of the
air fits into the problem of causality. But what Kant means,
doubtless, is the ordinary experiment or experiments that estab-
lish the proposition. I compress a bag of air, and it yields into a
dint; I cease to compress, and the dint fills up. The elasticity of
the air is the causal antecedent to which the change in both cases
is to be ascribed. The difierenee we see here is, as already pointed
out, that, in the three propositions, the nexus referred wholly to a
feeling in ourselves; whereas in the fourth proposition, on the
contrary, the nexus has no mere feeling under it, but is now
figured as between object and object — a dint follows compression,
etc. Here, plainly, is more than any mere feeling in the mind :
here are sense-impressions that come to me always in a certain
fixed relation among their own selves. What we call A in that
relation is always first, what we call B, again, is always second ; or
the order is always an apprehended fixed AB, that even to my own
apprehension is absolutely irreversible. Of course, our question is,
What is the use of your epigenesis of a fixed order where a fixed
order already is ? In fact, does not the whole proposal of this vast
and laborious epigenesis on your part originate in the mere assump-
tion of an absolute absence of fixed order from the facts of sense,
till said epigenesis should descend upon them ? Of course, also, we
cannot wonder that Kant, who has his whole triumphant edifice
to save, should answer, Do not you see that, though the order is
fixed and I grant perception in act to he aware of the fact of it, or
to assume the fact of it (his "Wahrnehmen" or " Annehmen"),
nevertheless, it is still in sense, wholly within, an afi'air of mere
empirical sensation, and can, consequently, be no more than sub-
jective, and, as subjective, contingent ? And do not you see,
further, that it is only another element from within, an intellec-
tual element this time, a category, a single mesh in that wonderful
a priori net (which I let into the unity of apjierception as its sys-
tematic many of distriliution) — do you not see that it is only such
mesh can collect and focus that empirical, contingent, a posteriori
many of sense into the unity and necessity of an object th^t is no
longer mine, but, so to speak, its own, and, consequently, every-
body's? Despite this answer, I hold Kant to remain uneasy and
but half reassured. It is impossible to conceive that he did not
say to himself, How, after all, am I myself to understand this

366 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

sense-necessity ? Or how am I to say that, what must evidently
be somehow known, even in consciousness, as a fixed and irre-
versible order of sense-succession, if any cm'respondent category is
to be momd to act — how am I to say that this order, though fixed
and irreversible, is still subjective and contingent, that is, reversi-
ble and unfixed ? Again, this order, whatever it is, must, even in
sense, be known : there is machinery provided for it, and, if this
machinery is to act, tt must necessarily become somehow aware of
that on which it is to act. How, then, am I to say that an order
that is fixed and irreversible comes to be known in sense and to
sense ? In fact, if there be already this fixed order beforehand,
how can I say that it is the category alone gives it ? How do I
" perceive or assume " that the heat of the stone always follows
the light of the sun, before I can say, the sun warms the stone?
Am I to say that only after several consciousnesses of the con-
joined sensations my category acts? In that case, suppose I am
asked again. How many consciousnesses do you say are necessary ?
"Will one, or two, or three, or a dozen — in short, how many of them
will be sufficient ? Does that number hold also in all other exam-
ples of the due empirical order? If not, why not? Let the re-
quired number be what it may also, must it not always terminate
in a single conviction ? Is not that single conviction this, that the
heat always follows, never precedes, never can precede, the light?
Is not that what you mean by the "logical" connection in the
subject, through comparison of the two states, etc., while all is still
sensuous, and the category has not yet even stirred ? — and is it
enough to call that an example of only a subjective and " hy-
pothetical " judgment ? The order is a mental conviction on per-
ception of certain facts — subjective, if you like, but still a convic-
tion due to the facts which 7nust precede conviction due to the
category ; to these facts and that con viction what can a category
that is something foreign to them, something else, and something
from elsewhere, add, whether as regards insight into the facts, or
certainty and assurance in the (first) conviction ? To say subjec-
tive then and objective now, is it not only so much phrase ? And
" hypothetical " — how were facts, in such an order, in such a con-
viction, only hypothetical then? — or how are they categorical now
that nothing, really nothing but words, has been at all added ?
Until conviction (your own " Wahrnehmen " or " Annehmen "), is

Criticism of ICanfs Main Principles. 367

there not absence of every cue, clew, hint, motive, or reason, for
the category to stir ? Is it not that conviction that, so to speak,
draws string and brings the category, the epigenesis, down ? But,
once having that conviction, can you honestly say that more, that
the category, that the epigenesis, is required ?

To my mind, Kant must have been long uneasy under such or
similar self-questionings, and could only comfort or reassure him-
self by glancing again at that " whole of pure reason," and the
need that lay for it in a matter of cognition that was only (his
mistake) internal affection. That last consideration we must
allow to have remained with him always, without a shadow of
misgiving ; and, allowing him that, we must allow him also suffi-
cient justification for standing by his colors to the last. Had it
not remained with him, it is just possible, so honest was he, that
he would have renounced his epigenesis ; as, surely, it is credible
to everybody that, had he never entertained the one, he would
never have thought of the other. Facts of sense are, as mere facts
of sense, under every supposition, contingent; but, the moment
they are allowed to concern an absolute independent world without,
it is understood also how they may bring with them their own
principles of nexus. When the dissolving sugar disappears in the
water-glass, what is perceived, so far as sensation is concerned (on
the retina of the ej'e), is only a white disappearing in a gray.
Nevertheless, when objectively perceived, what is before me is a
case of causality, and consequently of necessity. But it is not I —
it is not any machinery of mine that has made, of a mere change
of color, all these objective connections. There was no order in
the colors that acted as a string to bring down upon them an
epigenesis — a whole fixed system of arrangement from within me.
Any arrangement that comes to be discovered belongs to the
things themselves, of which the colors on my retina are mere
signs. Any necessity, too, is theirs, and not mine. The necessity
that is present, in fact, can, in many cases, be put into pound
weights and absolute figures. The culvert that yields to a tor-
rent is equal to so many hundred-weights, but the torrent is equal
to so many more, and hence the yielding — the stoop of the bal-
ance. Imagination is imagination, of course, and must be allowed
to say sugar and water, stones and mortar, etc., may change; but,
despite imagination, the nature of things is once for all so. They

368 The Jo^irnal of Speculative Philosophy.

themselves are arranged according to substance and accident,
cause and effect, reciprocity, etc. When I perceive them, I per-
ceive also these. These are not only in me to be drawn down
upon them. They are also in them. The world is once for all so
made — once for all so made, but still a system of reason. I may,
as well, think their necessity ; but no thinking of mine can add a
necessity to the facts which is not already in them. They may,
indeed, not only be imagined to change, but actually change ;
there is contingency in the world ; but the result is only a proof
in place. You will not change the facts by changing the cate-
gory, but you will change the category if you change the facts.
So it is that Kant's theory can never come up to the facts of the
case. Suppose the necessity we come to be aware of in the facts
of sense were only hypothetical so far, it could not, any farther,
be made categorical by supervention of a category. Such super-
vention could bring no new element to the facts as facts, it could
not attach any further character to them that would not be ex-
trinsic and adventitious. Any addition, in truth, beyond the
facts would be simply illusion : is it for that, for mere deception,
that we are to be endowed with such complicated categorical
schema ? If we are to have truth, then, the category must only
agree with, it must not exceed the facts. The necessity of the
category, consequently, is but a repetition of the necessity of the
facts themselves. And that is the truth. The necessity is there —
there in the facts, and not borrowed from me. Even on Kant's
showing, the necessity is already there ; for it is recognition of
that necessity that rings the bell for the category. Turn the stop-
cock right, and you lower the gas; left, and you raise it. It is
vain to say I only saw a hypothetical necessity in the facts, until
I let down my category upon them ; it is vain to say they will he
BO and so, only so long as / regard them as so and so. All lies in
facts, and my regard is simply beside them.

We can even fancy Hume shaking his head at Kant, and re-
fusing to take from his hand what he held out to him in it as
"voucher." That you hold out, Hume might have said, is some-
thing you call category; but, as quite adventitious and alien, I
cannot conceive what new force it can lend to the facts, unless,
just as in my own case, one of imagination. For this is evident,
the law must either be in the facts, or in the category : if in the

Criticism of Kant'S Main Principles. 369

facts, the category is idle ; if in the category, the law is fictitious,
alien, and external, as only imjmted to the facts. Or to take it in
another way — in all cases of cause and effect, I allow that there is
an inference made by the mind of necessary connection. Voucher
for this Zcan find none but, philosophically, custom, and, naturally,,
instinct. I admit now that custom is not adequate to the apodictic
necessity which I allow myself to be present ; but what would
you substitute for it, what voucher do you propose in its stead ?,
The order in the facts of sense themselves is, for the most part,,
allowed by you to be already necessary. To show the voucher I
want, then, it would be enough to show how we know as much as
that. That how would be already the tie in the facts, and the
consequent step in the mind of which I speak. Further, to admit
(which, of course, in words you do not always, but which, for
action of your category, you simply must) that necessity, and then
to allege, as cause or voucher of it, a necessity which only follows
it, a necessity which is in the second instance only when the other
necessity precedes it in the first — this is sim])ly to perpetrate an
example of the preposterous proper. But, again, suppose we
assume you to regard, as you sometimes do, the nexus in the facts
of sense as only a " usual one," ' how are we to understand you
overbid ray proposition then (custom) ? My proposition then,
of course, is what I now give up, the effect of what is " usual,"
namely, on the association of ideas — a principle which, perfectly
natural certainly, but merely contingent, can be made apodictic
only by imagination. Mine, then, being a fiction of the imagina-
tion, can the voucher you ofier be called anything else than a
fiction of the understanding ? Rather, as I exalt " usual " into
"apodictic" by the imagination, you so exalt it, not by under-
standing, but by an imputation of the understanding. Trusting
to a certain analogy in the facts, you arbitrarily impose upon
them the logical relation of antecedent and consequent ; without

' Kant usually talks very strongly of the order of causal Erscheinungen (even as
Erscheinungen) being irreversible. Every many of sense, he says (II., 168) is a succes-
sion; and it is only when he " perceives " (wahrnimmt) or previously assumes (oder
voraus annimmt) that the order in the succession is one fixed by a rule, that he knows
that he has before him an event (Begebenheit). Nevertheless (III., 62), a note rules
that, however often we — and others — may have recognized the sun to warm the stone,
the conjunction of perceptions remains only a " usual " one till the category acts.

XIY— 24

3Y0 The Journal of 8])eculative Philosophy.

any authority or guarantee whatever for either assumption or sub-
sumption. No ; I cannot see that (as you make it in that case)
this mere reflection from a category on to my " usual " at all vin-
dicates the latter into that grounded and substantial validity
which an answer to the problem requires. The action of the cate-
gory cannot be else than a mere reflection ; it only lends a validity
which the contingency, the mere usualness of the facts, forbids it
fully, and legitimately, and assuredly to impart. The question is,
" what is the warrant of the apodictic necessity that seems to be
present in all cases of causality ? My warrant may prove incom-
petent, but it is at least domestic. Whereas your warrant — epi-
genesis, or reflection (on hint of analogy) from another sphere — is
at once incompetent and foreign. Syngenesis or engenesis is the
only supposition adequate to the facts : epig&n.Q'&vs, is in very name
a fiction.

We may turn now to a word on Kant's own sense of the diffi-
culties here. Yarious passages are to be found, for instance,
which actually seem to admit, on his part, a certain unsatisfactori-
ness as concerns the categories of relation. He talks of these,
indeed (II., 140), as "in themselves only contingent," as wanting
"the immediate evidence" of the mathematical categories, as
possessing their character of an a priori necessity only "mediately
and indirectly " and " under condition of empirical thinking in
an experience." This empirical condition seems, from page 168
(see preceding note), to be the becoming aware of the empirical
rule. All objects, he tells us there, are, as syntheses of impressions,
so many successions in time, " but so sbon^" he says, " as he per-
ceives or assumes that in the succession there is a reference to the
preceding state of things, out of which the immediate impression
follows according to a rule " — then he knows that he has an event
before him. We are told (p. 203) that the categories act " only
by means of a universal condition of sense,''^ and (p. 202) that
consequently the category of causality would be empty " were the
time left out in which something ensues on something else accord-
ing to a rule." The power of the empirical element is signalized
on page Y37 too : " whether I can be empirically conscious of the
sense-multiple as at the same time, or in succession, depends on
circumstances or empirical conditions." He never forgets, how-
ever, even in these connections, to insist on the ultimate necessity

Criticism of Kanfs Main Principles. 371

and objectivity as duetto the category. On page 87 we learn that
the notion of causality can never be inductively acquired, for
what is usual can never amount to what is necessary, and the
notion itself implies the necessity of an absolutely universal rule:
*' the effect does not merely attach itself to the cause, but it is
occasioned by it and follows from it ; " the cause (p. 185) is " some-
thing so constituted, that when it is, something else always and
infallibly ensues on it." Such expressions contrast rather with
the " usual " of the note just seen.

But, as might only be expected, it is in the Prolegomena^ and
not in the Kritih, that we are to find positive evidence of Kant
vacillating as in presence of a difficulty which he is at length
aware of. The two judgments (as commented on hefore) come at
once in proof here. In that work he explains (p. Q^) that the
"logical conjunction," to which he refers as preceding the
category, and as taking place in the sense-materials alone, is the
process of comparison by which a character of generality, even so
far, is added ; the category only follows. Page 75, he says : " It is
possible that there should be found in perception a rule of rela-
tion which prescribes that on a certain presentation of sense
another (but not vice versa) should always follow." The necessity
or universality, then, attributed to the facts, even in anticipation
of the category, is in the above passages conspicuous. And we
have just seen how Kant elsewhere seems to regard that neces-
sary universal as no more than a " usual !" That is what the
note on page 62 intimates of the subjective judgment in the case
of the stone and the sun : " It is a mere judgment of perception,
and contains no necessity, let me have ever so often experienced
it, and let others have ever so often experienced it ; the percep-
tions find themselves only usually so connected." When we
compare these utterances, the vacillation they imply must be quite
unmistakable ; a nexus which was constant and infallible, etc., is
now only " usual." But we have only to point to Kant's own
reasoning (II., 87, and 728) to learn that what was only lisual could
be no cue or clew or hint to a necessity that was apodictic. The
notion of a cause, he' says, " absolutely demands that something
A should be of such a nature that another something B follows
out of it necessarily and according to an ahsolutely universal rule.
It is quite evident, indeed, that whatever, on these grounds, Kant

372 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

urges against Hume's proposed explanation of causality, by the
effect of custom, can, on the very same grounds^ be urged against
the order-clew in the subjective perceptions that Kant figures to
precede action of the category, being anything less than abeady
itself necessity, seeing that it is to be the pi'ecise cue and clew to
necessity. Kant objects to Hume that, were necessity allowed to
his mere custom, such necessity were only falsely angediehtet ; and
we, in the same way, can object to Kant that were his " subjective
necessity " only a " usual," or were it only subjective in the sense
of being only supposed, and not absolutely felt and known in
consciousness as simply necessary, it could never pretend to be
what it must pretend to be — an infallible cue and clew to his
" objective necessity." As no subjective necessity, arising from
frequency of association, could be allowed Hume as enough in
explanation of an objective necessity, so nothing less than neces-
sity of conviction, pure and simple, can be allowed Kant subjec-
tively to precede application of his category objectively ; in
which case, evidently, the category at all were a piece superflu-
ous. In fact, the necessity of Kant's category is quite as much
angediehtet as the necessity of Hume's custom : it is quite as
adventitious.

Enough now, on this head, whether as regards reasoning or
quotation, has been probably accomplished ; and, before pro-
ceeding to what are contemplated as the concluding considerations
of this essay, I shall turn for a moment to a small point that is
suggested in reference to Schopenhauer. This point concerns
Schopenhauer's perpetually vaunted, but feeble and futile, theory
of objectivity. That is to the effect that we perceive only our
own internal affections, but we project them, as objects, into a
time and space of our own, by virtue of our single category —
causality. The affection, that is, being assumed as cause of its
own self, becomes apparently projected, as an apparently inde-
pendent object. How insufficient this is will appear at once, if
we but consider, in this reference, the illustrations which we have
just seen from Kant. The w^armth of the room, the sweetness of
the sugar, the bitterness of the wormwood, are certainly affec-
tions ; but they remain such, and cannot possibly be projected as
causes of their own selves. It is true we conceive the warmth to
be objectively in the room, the sweetness objectively in the sugar,

Criticisin of Kanfs Main Principles. 373

and the bitterness objectively in the wormwood ; but still the room
is the room — it is not warmth projected as cause of warmth; the
sugar is sugar — it is not sweetness projected as its own cause ; and
so with wormwood and bitterness respectively. Room, sugar,
wormwood, are even other sensations ; they are not those of
warmth, sweetness, and bitterness. They are, in fact, not only
other sensations, but groups of such. ]^ow, in Schopenhauer's
theory, there is no provision for the reference of one affection
to any other than its own self ; and less, if possible, is there any
provision in it for projecting a variety of sensations into groups
of such in a new region of objectivity. With sensations of
color, taste, etc., and the single category of causality, it is im-
possible to conceive of the objective construction of groups. Kant
was well aware of that ; he, for his part, took care to have his
mathematical categories in order to present us with objects at
once sensible and, so to speak, stereoscopic, and also his dynamical
categories in order to connect these objects, as well existentially
the one to the other, as likewise in relative union to our faculties
themselves. Kant's construction may show, in the end, as but an
impregnation of the air on a bare mistake ; but it was a construc-
tion, and no mere random toss. Kant had reflected on what must
go to make up a theory ; it is difficult to see that Schopenhauer
ever reflected at all ; he dealt only in discontinuous and precipi-
tate projpos.

In disputing any position, it is always not only fair, but an
absolute requisite for success, to set that position accurately in
the light in which it was seen by its own promoter. Now, Kant's
own most general word in this reference is his adduction of the
standpoint of Copernicus. Borrowed from Hume (as I show else-
where), it (p. 670) is to this effect : " Copernicus, not getting on
well in explaining the movements of the heavens on the assump-
tion that the entire starry host turned round the spectator, tried
whether it would not succeed better with him if he supposed the
spectator to turn and the stars to remain at rest." This, he inti-
mates, is what in his own sphere he himself has attempted. If
perception is to adapt itself to the object (this is the burden of his
further remark), then all knowledge must be waited for, tnust he
a posteriori, and cannot be a priori j but an a priori knowledge
becomes quite possible in idea, should the object have to adapt itself

3Y4 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

to the perception (because then, plainly, the conditions to which it
must adapt itself being discovered, would amount to a priori ele-
ments of actual perception). This, then, is the single Kantian point
of issue, and if we withdraw it we withdraw at once all. ^ow,
there is no question but that this point is withdrawn. Let our
perception be submitted as it may to sensational signs, it is quite
certain that it attains at last to a knowledge of an independent
external universe which is in itself a rational system for our exploit-
ation. So far, then, it is quite certain that Kant's idealism, like
all subjective idealism, of what name soever, must perish or has
perished. But still it is of interest to see how, even on its own
terms, the system is inadequate and fails. That is, we shall grant
the new Copernican position, with all that accompanies it, and let
its own principles decide. Things, then, are only our own affec-
tions illusively alienated into the world which we fancy ourselves
to perceive as external, independent, and its own. Still affection,
or what we call sensation, is a thing wholly of its own kind, and
independent of us. We cannot prescribe it, we cannot dictate to
it, we must take it as we find it, and absolutely as we find it ; as
such, we cannot even modify it — receive it into, or dispose it in,
whatever peculiar conditions of our own we may. We can say
of it, then, only that it is as it is : for, so far as depends upon us,
it might be infinitely difierent ; it brings no principle of necessity
with it. But such principles are : there is a ruled and regulated
context of experience. Kay, such principles micst be ; for, all
knowledge else being contingent, there could not possibly be any
ruled and regulated context — anything we could call experience
at all. These principles, then, are Kant's transcendental prin-
ciples; or we may define them principles unavoidable in actual
experience, and sufficiently verified by experience, but yet of a
validity that, as universal and necessary, transcends, and cannot
be derived from experience. This is a very accurate definition,
and Kant thinks himself to occupy in what it indicates a position
absolutely impregnable, whether as regards what is necessary or
as reo-ards what is contino-ent. We hold, of course, Kant to be
wholly mistaken, and the two elements not to be separated in that
way, the one from the other, like so much oil and water, but to be
equally proper to, and inseparable from, the concrete, even as
form and matter are. Kant, however, under pressure of his own

Criticism of Kant^s Main Principles. 375

other supposition, was forced to discover a whole system of neces-
sity within us that should cause an objective stringing together of
the subjective sensations, to add itself to these as tliey came
into us. That system was the furnishing of self-consciousness
with twelve different functions of unity, to whose action on
special sensation in the elements of time and space the whole said
ruled and regulated context of experience was to be attributed.
And now to apply, how all that lay before Kant's mind as an
answer to Hume we may probably realize in this way. The
rising of the sun and the warming of a stone are simply two con-
tingent sensations, and as such tiiey will always be contingent;
nevertheless, I view them as necessary, because, all unconsciously,
I have reduced them into a form within me. This form origi-
nates within me, as I say, all unconsciously. I have a certain
logical function of judgment which is called antecedent and con-
sequent. Now, that being a priori in my mind, and finding a
priori in my mind a spectrum of the succession of time, can-
not help amalgamating with a certain modus of that spectrum,
which modus is in strict analogy with said logical function, and
must attract it. This form within me, thus instinctively and un-
consciously produced, at once seizes (through analogy) on such a
succession as rising sun and warming stone, and raises it into the
felt necessity of the intellectual function, at the same time that
its own elements, as such, can only be regarded as contingent.

This is, undoubtedly, the gist of Kant's answer to Hume,
and to the very quick of it. Neverthebss, it contains nothing
that in the foregoing has not been met, and I am not requii'ed to
repeat, whether as regards the one element or the other. I will
only say this :

It is quite untrue that the schema is an a priori form there
already in the mind, an a priori product, on the one hand, of an
a priori category and, on the other, of a priori time. There is
not any one schema under any one category due in any way or
ways whatever to time at all. To talk of time even in any
approach to this connection is simply Andichtung^ simply^ false
and groundless imputation. Under quantity, the schema is not
any reference to time, but a glance at general objective form.
Under quality, the schema is not any reference to time, but a
glance at general objective matter. Under relation the schema is

376 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

not any reference to time, but a glance at several general objective
connections. And of all these glances there is not one that is not
merely empirical. In the three categories of relation, in especial,
there is simply an assumption from experience of all that in ex-
perience the system is there to explain. In fact the whole credit
of this a jpriori system is derived from the traffic with time — a
traffic that, though a constant repetition of words in cur ears, has
not a vestige of foundation in fact. Only this traffic has been so
deluding, and the enormous construction so imposingly laid out,
with specious distinction after specious distinction, and plausible
name after plausible name, that it was no wonder the brave, good,
true, clear-minded, fertile-minded Kant took in, not the whole
world (for we are " mostly fools "), but his own honest and per-
fectly transparent self. And having said this, we need not say
what may be similarly said of the categories themselves, or any
other of the main Kantian presuppositions. They are all alike —
baseless contrivances (ingenious enough, laborious enough) towards
the impossible realization of an equally baseless assumption.

KANT'S PRINCIPLES OF JUDGMENT.*

BY JOHN WATSOlf.

Still following the lead of formal logic, Kant, after considering
the pure conceptions, goes on to consider the pure judgments of
the understanding, or the fundamental propositions which formu-
late the unity of individual objects and the unity of their mutual
connection. These judgments or propositions embody the last
result of the investigation into the problem of critical philosophy
in its positive aspect, viz. : How are synthetic judgments a jpriori
possible ? The materials for the final answer have already been
given in the JEsthetic^ taken along with the Deduction and Sche-
matism of the categories, and little remains except to show in detail
how the elements implied in real knowledge are joined together

* This article forms one of the chapters in a forthcoming work on " Kant's Theory of

Knowledge."

Kanfs PrinGiples of Judgment. 377

in a system constituting the known world. Kant, however, after
his manner, goes over the old ground again, and shows, but now
more in detail, on the one hand that the opposition of intelli-
gence and nature, from which the dogmatist starts, cannot explain
the actual facts of our knowledge; and, on the otlier hand, that
w'e may explain knowledge when we recognize the constructive
power of intelligence in nature. By a roundabout road he has
come back to the problem, Hume's statement of which " roused
him from his dogmatic slumber," but he has come back enriched
with the spoils of a large conquest of new territory. Not only has
the single question as to the application to real objects of the law
of causality expanded into the comprehensive question as to the
fundamental laws of nature as a whole, but tiie point of view
from which the relations of intelligence and nature are contem-
plated has been completely changed. IS'o longer does philosophy
perplex itself with the irrational problem. How do we come to
know objects existing as they are known beyond the confines of
our knowledge? but occupies itself with the rational and soluble
problem as to the elements involved in our knowledge of objects
standing in the closest relations to our intelligence.

Even in our ordinary consciousness, in which we do not think
of questioning the independent reality of the world as we know
it, we draw a rough distinction between objects immediately per-
ceived and the relations connecting them witi»>jeach other. Things,
with their distinctive properties, seem to lie spread out before
us in space, and by simply opening our eyes we apparently appre-
hend them as they are. On the other hand, we regard these ob-
jects as continuing to exist even when we do not perceive them,
and as acting and reacting upon each other. Thus, although in
an unreflective or half-unconscious way, we draw a distinction in
our ordinary every-day consciousness between individual objects
and their relation to one another. Moreover, the separate parts of
individual objects and the degrees of intensity they display we
also recognize, and we count and measure them. Corresponding
to this broad distinction between objects and their relations, we
have respectively the mathematical and physical sciences. Mathe-
matics, abstracting, in the iirst place, from objects in space and
-,.time, fixes upon the relations of space and time themselves, and,
after dealing with these abstractions, it goes on to apply the re-

378 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

suits thus reached to individual objects. The physical sciences,
borrowing from mathematics its results, proceed to inquire into
the connections of objects with each other. Thus, mathematics
and physics deal respectively with the spatial and temporal rela-
tions of individual objects, and with their dynamical relations.
It is at this point that critical philosophy begins its task. In the
science of mathematics, on the one hand, and in the physical sci-
ences, on the other hand, our knowledge of nature is systematized ;
and the problem of philosophy is to show what are the essential

, conditions of such systematic knowledge. Assuming the results
of mathematics and physics to be true, the question still remains,
whether nature, regarded either as a complex of individual objects,

>or as a system of laws, is independent of the activity of thought.
This problem neither of those sciences has taken any notice of.
The mathematician goes on making his ideal constructions with-
out for a moment questioning tlie necessary truth of the conclu-
sions he reaches, and therefore without attempting to show from
the nature of knowledge how we can know them to be true. The
physicist assumes that matter is real, and that it is endowed with
forces of attraction and repulsion, expressible in mathematical
symbols, but it is no part of his task to justify that assumption.
But philosophy, aiming to explain the inner nature of knowledge,
cannot evade the double problem : lirst, what justifies the suppo-

> sition that mathematical propositions are necessarily true, and are
applicable to the individual objects we perceive? and, secondly,
wliat justifies us in assuming that there are real substances, real
connections, and real coexistences ? Now, looking more particu-
larly at the nature of that which is known in relation to knowl-
edge, we may farther divide the known world, as perceived, into
concrete objects and the spatial and temporal determinations of
such objects. We may, in other words, ask what is implied in
the ordinary experience of individual things, and in the fact that
we can count or measure them ; as well as what is implied in the
scientific application of quantity to such objects, and in the rules
of quantity considered by themselves. As a complete theory of
knowledge must explain the possibility of the various kinds of
knowledge which we undoubtedly possess, it must be shown how
we come to know individual objects, and to apply quantitative
relations to them. Philosophy has therefore at once to justify

KanCs Principles of Judgment. 379

the universality and necessity of mathematical propositions, and
to explain by what right mathematics is applied to individual
tilings. The possibility of mathematics, regarded simply as a
science determining the relations of space and time, has been ex-
plained in the JEsthetic, where it was pointed out that space and
time are a priori forms of perception. The general result of
the ^Esthetic is to show : (1) that the demonstrative character of
mathematical judgments arises from the fact that these rest upon
specifications of the forms of space and time, which belong to
the constitution of our perceptive faculty, and (2) that mathe-
matical judgments are not mere aujilyses of preexisting concep-
tions of numbers, figures, etc., but are synthetical judgments rest-
ing upon the active construction of numbers and figures them-
selves. But the elements of knowledge implied in mathematical
propositions, and in their application to individual objects, can
only now be completely set forth. For in these there are implied,
not only the forms of space and time, but certain pure concep-
tions or categories. It should be observed that the question as to
the application of mathematics has nothing to do with our reasons
for determining special objects by mathematical formulae; we are
not asking, for example, how we can determine the distance of the
sun from the earth, but simply how we are entitled to apply the
category of quantity to any object whatever in space. In answer-
ing this question, philosophy abstracts in the meantime from the
actual relations of things to each other, as well as from the con-
crete properties of things, and from the specific determinations of
space and time. It has to point out what is implied in the knowl-
edge of any individual object of perception ; but it does not seek
to determine what are the specific differences of objects. These
differences may be summarily expressed by the term " manifold,"
and, as this manifold involves a relation to our perceptive faculty,
it may be called the "manifold of sense." The meaning of the
term "manifold" therefore varies, according as we are referring
to the properties of individual things, to their spatial and tem-
poral relations, or to the determinations of space and time them-
selves. In considering the principles which justify the applica-
tion of mathematics to phenomena, Kant uses the term in all
these senses, but in no case does he mean by it more than what
may be called isolated points of perception, that is, mere differ-

380 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ences taken in abstraction from their unity. From the point of
view, then, of the critical philosophy, the objects of perception are
not real external objects, but merely the sensible, spatial, or tem-
poral parts out of which objects are put together. The manifold,
e. ^., of a house are the spatial parts or the sensible units, which,
together, make it an object, and mark it out in space; the mani-
fold of a line are the parts or points, by the successive construc-
tion of which the line is determined. This mere manifold, which
■. is really only an abstract element in known objects, is all that is
due to perception ; the unity of the manifold is contributed en-
tirely by the understanding. •

Turning now to the relations of objects, as distinguished from
objects themselves, we can see that our problem is somewhat
changed. So far we have supposed real things to be known ; now
we must inquire what justification there is for that assumption.
Granting that we can prov^e all objects in space and time to have
extensive and intensive quantity, we must still ask on what ground
we affirm that there are real substances, real sequences, and real
coexistences. There can be no doubt that, in our ordinary con-
sciousness, we have the conceptions of substance, cause, and reci-
procity ; but philosophy must be able to show that these concep-
tions have an application to real objects. Our question, then, is
-as to the possibility of ultimate rules or principles of judgment,
which are at the same time fundamental laws of nature. In
those universal principles, which the scientific man assumes in all
his investigations, and which form the prolegomena to scientific
treatises, we have indeed a body of universal truths ; but they
are limited in their application to external nature. Our aim is,
on the other hand, to discover and prove the objective validity of
the principles which underlie nature in general, as including both
external and internal objects; or, what is the same thing, to show
that there are synthetical judgments belonging to the constitution
of our intelligence, which account, and alone account, for the ex-
istence and connection of real objects.

In accordance with the distinction of individual objects and the
relations of individual objects, the principles of judgment natu-
rally separate into two groups, which we may distinguish respec-
tively as the mathematical and the dynamical principles. Fol-
lowing the clue of the categories, we find that these groups again

Kanfs Principles of Judgment. 381

subdivide into two sets of propositions. Mathematical principles
prove (1) that individual perceptions, whether these are simple
determinations of space and time, or concrete objects, are exten-
sive quanta, and (2) that in their content individual objects have
intensive quantity or degree. In the dynamical princii)les it is
shown (1) that there are real substances, real sequences, and real
coexistences, and (2) that the subjective criteria of knowledge are
the possibility, the actuality, or the necessity of the objects exist-
ing in our consciousness.

From what has been said, it will be easily understood why Kant
divides the principles of judgment into two classes, the mathe-
matical and the dynamical. The former are not mathematical
propositions, but philosophical propositions, formulating the pro-
cess by which the axioms and definitions of mathematics are
known and applied to concrete objects. For the method of phi-
losophy is quite distinct from the method of mathematics. The
mathematician immediately constructs the lines, points, and
figures with which liis science deals, and only in that construc-
tion does he obtain a conception of them. The proposition that
a straight line is the shortest distance between two points is not
obtained by the analysis of the conception of a straight line, but
from the actual construction of it as an individual perception.
The axioms and definitions of mathematics are, therefore, imme-
diately verified in the perception or contemplation of the objects
to which they refer. Philosophy, on the other hand, must show
how there can be conceptions which yet apply to perceptions ;
how, for example, we are justified in saying that there is a real
connection between events. Any direct reference to immediate
perception is here inadmissible, for from such perception no uni-
versal proposition can be derived. The two principles, that " all
perceptions are extensive quanta" and that "the real in all
phenomena has intensive quantity or degree," are called mathe-
matical, because they justify the assumption that the axioms and
definitions of mathematics are necessary, and, at the same time,
because they account for the application of mathematics t© indi-
vidual things. As to the first point, the axioms in mathematics
rest upon the immediate perception of the object constructed by
the determination of space and time. And, while the necessary
truth of such axioms admits of no doubt, philosophy, having un-

382 . The Journal of Speculative PJiilosojyhy.

dertaken the task of showing the relation of intelligence to all its
objects, must be able to point out what in the constitution of in-
telligence gives them their binding force. The axioms of percep-
tion, therefore, express in the form of a proposition the supreme
condition under which mathematical axioms stand ; showing that,
unless the mind, in constructing the pure perceptions on which
those axioms rest, possessed the function or category of quantity,
there could be no necessity in a mathematical proposition. "Even
the judgments of pure mathematics in their simplest, axioms are
not exempt from this condition [the condition that synthetical
judgments stand under a pure conception of the understanding].
The principle that a straight line is the shortest distance between
two points presupposes that the line is subsumed under the con-
ception of quantit}', which certainly is no mere perception, but
has its seat in the understandino- alone." Besides showino; the
possibility of mathematical propositions, the axioms of percej)tion
and anticipations of observation justify the application of mathe-
matics to known objects. A complete theory of knowledge must
evidently explain why the ideal constructions of the mathema-
tician hold good of actual objects in the real world, for the propo-
sitions of mathematics might be true in themselves, and yet might
have only the coherence of a well-arranged sj-stem of fictions.
In showing how there can be a knowledge of the laws of nature,
we must, therefore, explain what justifies the scientific man in
making free use of the conclusions of mathematics. ITow, there
is a distinction between the way in which we establish the truth
of the mathematical and the dynamical principles respectively.
In both cases we have to show that the pure conceptions of the
understanding apply to real objects. But, in the case of the
mathematical principles, we deal directly with individual objects
as immediately presented to us, without making any inquiry into
the connection of these objects with each other, or into their re-
lations to a knowing subject. This is the reason why the cate-
gories of quantity and quality, unlike those of relation and mo-
dality, have no correlates. Talking individual perceptions just as
they stand, without seeking for any law binding them together,
we necessarily exclude all relation. To prove the mathematical
j)rinciples, we must show that they rest upon, and presuppose, the
categories of quantity and quality ; but this we can do simply

Kanfs Principles of Judgment. 383

from the contemplation of the immediate determinations of
space and time ; and hence the evidence for them may be said
to be direct or intuitive. And as these principles, in referring
to immediate unrelated objects of perception, show how the
parts of the object are put together, they may be called constitu-
tive, in distinction from the dynamical principles, which, as bind-
ing together concrete objects already constituted as concrete, may
properly be called regulative. Every object of perception must
conform to the mathematical principles, since these show what are
the essential conditions without which there could be no indi-
vidual objects for ns. The dynamical principles, again, are not
principles of dynamics, such as Kewton's three laws of motion ;
for these, while they are necessarily true, do not reach the uni-
versality of principles of judgment, but apply only to corporeal
existences. The dynamical principles are so called because they
express the ultimate conditions, without which there could be no
science of nature at all. The Analogies and Postulates are dy-
namical, because they show how we can account for the relations
of objects to each other, or to the subject knowing them. Thus,
when- it is said that matter has repulsive and attractive forces, it
is evidently presupposed that one material object acts upon an-
other, and hence that there is a causal connection between them.
The justification of this assumption of real connection is the task
of philosophy. ]^ow, this cannot be done by directly bringing
the immediate objects of perception under the categories of rela-
tion and modality. For the dynamical principles do not hold
good of perceptions simply as such, but involve the connection or
relation of such perceptions. Hence they cannot, like mathe-
matical principles, be directly proved. The mere fact that indi-
vidual objects, to be known at all, must be known as in space and
time, shows that they must conform to the nature of space and
time, and must therefore admit of the application of mathematical
formulas to them ; but it does not show that they must be con-
nected with each other. Hence, in the proof of the dynamical
principles, it is necessary to show that real objects are something
more than immediate perceptions, that real events cannot be
immediately apprehended, and that the coexistence of real objects
is not accounted for, if we suppose them to be directly perceived
or contemplated. The real existence, therefore, of known objects.

384 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

which it was not necessary to inquire into in the proof of the
mathematical principles, comes directl}^ to the front in the inves-
tigation of the reality and connection of objects.

The first step toward a full comprehension of the Principles of
Judgment is to realize with perfect clearness that Kant does not,
in the fashion of a dogmatic philosopher, separate absolutely be-
tween nature and intelligence, things and thoughts, sense and
understanding. Unless we put ourselves at the right point of
view, and make perfectly clear to ourselves the necessary rela-
tivity of the known woi'ld and the world of knowledge, the rea-
soning of Kant must seem weak, irrelevant, and inconclusive.

^ That Dr. Stirling has not done so seems to me plain from the
fact that he supposes those principles to be abstract rules, which
are externally applied to knowledge independentlj^ supplied by
the senses. The net result of the Esthetic, as I understand
Dr. Stirling, to say is, that space and time, together with the ob-
jects contained in them, are not realities without, but ideas
within. And from the Analytic, taken in conjunction with the
yEsthetie, we further learn that sense gives us a knowledge of
individual facts or objects, but only in the arbitrary order of a
mere succession in time; while the understanding brings those
facts or objects under the categories, and so makes necessary or
objective what before was merely arbitrary or subjective. On
the one side, therefore, we have the " manifold of sense," a term
which is applied not to " a simple presentation alone, but even to
such compound presentations as the phenomena in any case of cau-
sality;" on the other side we have the rule of judgment, under
which the manifold is subsumed. And Dr. Stirling objects, with
manifest force and conclusiveness, that this account of the rela-
tions of sense and understanding is untrue, and the proofs of the
various principles utterly inconclusive, since no rule of judgment
could possibly make any succession of perceptions necessary, un-
less there w^ere already necessity in the perceptions themselves.

;, I accept unreservedly this criticism of Kant's theory, as inter-
preted by Dr. Stirling. If sense gives us a knowledge of real
objects, facts, or events, it is perfectly superfluous, and worse than
superfluous, to bring in the faculty of thought to do that which
has been done already. First to attribute knowledge to one
faculty, and then to introduce a new faculty to explain it over

Kanfs Principles of Judgment. 385

again, is sure evidence of tlie failure of a pliilosophical theory to
accomplish the end for which it was designed. But I cannot
believe Kant to have blundered in this fashion. The vigorous
blows which Dr. Stirling believes himself to be showering upon
Kant', really fall only upon a simulacrum which he has fashioned ^
for himself out of Kant's words read in a wrong sense. It is as
well at least that it should be distinctly understood that, in accept-
ing Dr. Stirling's interjpretation of Kant's theory of knowledge,
we at the same time commit ourselves to his radical condemnation
of it. For my own part, I must decline to follow Dr. Stirling
either in his interpretation or in his condemnation.

It is not, as I venture to think, a fair representation of the
Esthetic to say that it merely makes space and time, and the
objects in them, ideas within the mind, instead of actual realities
without the mind. I lind it difficult to attach a precise meaning
to such language as, that " we know an actual outer space, an
actual outer time, and actual outer objects, all of which are . . .
things in themselves, and very fairly perceived by us in their own
qualities." This may mean that space and time, together with
individual objects and events, are completely independent in their
own nature of all relation to intelligence. It may be, in short,
an acceptance of the common-sense realism which one is accus-
tomed to associate with the name of Dr. Reid. In that case, I
prefer Kant to Dr. Stirling. But if the meaning is, as I am fain
to think, tliat space, time, and concrete things are not dependent
for their reality upon us, although they are relative to intelligence,
I do not understand why Kant should be so strongly rebuked for
making space and time forms of perception instead of sensible
things. One may surely reject the subjectivity of space and time,
and yet see in the Esthetic a great advance on previous systems.
A theory may have in it an alloy that lessens its absolute value,
and may yet contain a good deal of genuine gold. Kant's view of
space and time, were it only for the necessity it lays upon us of
conceiving the problem of knowledge from an entirely new point
of view, and of seeking for a theory truer than itself, possesses
an importance difficult to over-estimate. I do not see how any
one who has undergone the revolution in his ordinary way of
thinking, which the critical philosophy, when thoroughly assimi-
lated, inevitably effects, can any longer be contented simply to
XIY— 25

386 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

announce that space and time are realities, without feeling him-
self called upon to explain at the same time what relation they
bear to intelligence. Ordinary realism, and its offspring, psycho-
logical idealism, have received their death-blow at Kant's hands,
and no attempt to resuscitate them can be of any avail. Kant
himself, at least, was firmly convinced that, in maintaining space
and time to be forms of our intelligence on its perceptive side, he
was initiating a reform of supreme importance in philosophy.
Dr. Stirling speaks of Kant's doctrine of the external world
exactly as if it were identical with the sensationalism of such
thinkers as Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer. But it is surely one
thing to say that space and time are given to us in feelings set up
in us by an object lying beyond consciousness, and another thing
to say that they belong to the very constitution of our intelligence
in so far as it is perceptive. If space and time are forms of per-
ception, we can no longer go on asking how a world of objects lying
beyond the mind gets, in some mysterious way, into the mind.
Kant never, in his philosophical theory, makes any attempt to
prove the special facts of our ordinary knowledge, or the special
laws of the natural sciences ; these he simply assumes as data
which it is no business of his to establish. But, although he
leaves the concrete world just as it was before, he does not leave
the philosophical theory commonly put forward to ex^Dlain it just
as it was. From the critical point of view, things can no longer
be regarded as unintelligible abstractions, as they must be in any
theory which, by extruding them from the inner circle of knowl-
edge, virtually makes them unknowable ; being brought into relation
with our intelligence, there is no barrier to their being known and
comprehended. I cannot see that it is doing Kant justice simply

^ to say that space and time, and the objects filling them, which
before were without the mind, are by him brought within the
mind. He certainly holds them to be " within," but they are

;> within, not as transient feelings, but as permanent and unchange-
able constituents of knowledge, belonging to the very nature of
human intelligence. Omit the " human," and we have a view of
the external world which is consistent with its reality in the only
intelligible meaning of the term, and which yet denies space and
time to be subjective any more than objective. Kant here, as
always, is greater than he was himself aware of, and that seems to

Kanfs Principles of Judgment. 387

me criticism of a very imsympatlietic and uniiistructive sort which
closely scans the mere outward form of his theory, and fails to see
behind the form an idea rich in suggestiveness and far-reaching
in its issues.

Dr. Stirling's appreciation of the Esthetic seems to me to be
inadequate ; his view of the relations of sense and understanding,
as expounded in the Analytic, I regard as a complete inversion of '
the true view. The objects of sense fall completely apart from
the forms of thought. A broad distinction is drawn between per-
ceptions and judgments about perceptions, and sense is supposed
to have completed its work before thought begins to operate.
The Critique we must, therefore, regard as a Phenomenology,
tracing the successive phases through which our knowledge passes
on its way to necessary truth. All our knowledge is at first
simply an immediate apprehension of special facts, coming to us
without order or connection ; and only afterwards, when thought
brings into play its schematized categories, is necessity imposed
upon our perceptions. I maintain, on the contrary, that sense
does not give a knowledge of individual objects, facts, or events;
that of itself it gives us no knowledge whatever; and that under-
standing does not externally impose necessity upon perceptions,
but is essential to the actual constitution of known objects, facts,
or events. The Critique I therefore regard, not as a Phenome-
nology, but as a Metaphysic, i. e., as a systematic account of the
logically distinguishable, but not the less real, elements that
together make up our knowledge in its completeness. The im-
portance of the issue at stake may perhaps excuse the repetition of
some points I have already tried to explain.

The Critique may almost be said to part into two independent
halves, in the first of which Kant speaks from the ordinary or
uncritical point of view, and in the second of which he advances
to the critical, or purely philosophical point of view. This im-
plicit division arises partly from the fact that, as Kant never
attempts to prove a single qualitative fact or special law of nature,
in referring to the data which he has to explain, he natiarally
speaks in the language of everyday life, and, therefore, seems to
be accepting the common-sense view of things ; but it partly
arises also from his accepting the account of the process of knowl-
edge given in formal logic as true outside of the sphere of phi-

388 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

losophy proper. According to the ordinary conception of our
knowledge of things, sense immediately reveals to us actual objects
lying outside of our consciousness, and passively taken up into
it. In speaking of the facts demanding philosophical explana-
tion, Kant does not, as he might have done, deny this assump-
tion at the very threshold of his inquiry, but seeks gradually
to undermine it by shoveing the conclusions to which it leads.
Moreover, Kant's own theory of knowledge harmonizes with the
ordinary view in these two points : (1) that sense or feeling sup-
plies to us all the concrete element in our knowledge of ex-
ternal objects, and (2) that it also reveals to us the particular
feelings belonging to ourselves as individuals. N^ot withstanding
this partial agreement, however, the divergence of criticism and
dogmatism is radical and complete. For it is one thing to say
that sense contributes the concrete element in knowledge, and
>quite a different thing to say that it gives us a knowledge of con-
crete objects. The latter statement is only true of sense, under-
stood in the loose and popular meaning of the term, as when we
speak of " sensible objects," or the " world of sense." Taken
simply as an expression of the fact that we have a knowledge
of external objects apparently by immediate appreliension of
them, such language may be allowed to pass ; but, in the philo-
sophical meaning of the term, sense is a name for the particular,
not for the individual. This follows directly from Kant's concep-
tion of space and time as forms of perception, not realities per-
ceived. So long as these forms were supposed to be actual real-
ities existing in themselves, apart from any relation to us, it
seemed correct enough to say that by sense we directly receive
into our minds at once individual objects, and the space and time
in which they are contained. But, if space and time are not real-
ities without our consciousness, but potential forms coming into
existence for consciousness on occasion of knowledge, it is evident
that our view of the relation of objects to knowledge must be
radically changed, and therefore our view of that which belongs
to sense as distinguished from thought. Things which exist be-
yond our consciousness cannot be contained in space and time,
which exist only within consciousness. The distinction of the inner
from the outer world is no longer a distinction of ideas within
the mind, and material or actual realities without the mind ; in-

KanCs Principles of Judgment. 389

ternal feelings and external objects are alike within consciousness,
being logically distinguishable, but not really separable. The con-
trast of internal and external objects arises, so far as sense is con-
cerned, from the fact that external objects are informed by space
as well as by time, while our internal life passes in time alone ;
but otherwise our perceptions, and what we know as objects of
perception, are composed of the same elements. Knowledge al-
ways comes to us in successive apprehensions ; and this is true,
whether we look at our feelings as in time, or at known objects
as in space. Now, as sense is the faculty by which we imme-
diately contemplate the particular taken by itself, it contributes
a mere "manifold," which is not yet an individual object, but
only the sensuous material for such an object. On the inter-
nal side we have a series of feelings, perpetually coming and go-
ing, and, therefore, destitute of universality, unity, or connection.
Isolate this mere series, as the dogmatist does, from objects in
space, and these feelings are not knowable even as a series. On
the other hand, separate the external from the internal, and the
former becomes unknowable and unintelligible. This is the sum
of the Refutation of Idealism. Sense, therefore, while it contrib-
utes the particulars implied in our actual knowledge of objects,
cannot of itself give us any knowledge whatever. "We might as
well claim that, from the mere form of space or time, we can know
definite objects as hold that the special senses reveal to us con-
crete things. The dogmatist makes the problem of knowledge
very easy for himself by assuming that we immediately appre-
hend actual objects ; the actuality he assumes, and the knowledge
of actuality he figures to himself as a direct glance of sense. But,
now that sense is seen to be capable of supplying only a series of
unconnected particulars, a new mode of explanation must be
adopted. The actuality of things must be explained, and not
simply assumed ; and the manner in which the mere particularity
of sense becomes for us the knowledge of individual objects must
be shown. The individualitv of things, so far as sense is con-
cerned, vanishes with their supposed independence of our intelli-
gence, and we are left, by the progress of philosophical reflection,
with a mere "manifold of sense," an unconnected congeries of
particulars, entirely destitute of unity, connection, or system. To
explain our actual knowledge of objects and of their connections

390 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

witli each other, we require to produce the universal element
belonging to our intelligence, by the action of which on the par-
ticulars of sense real knowledge takes place. We have discovered
the faculty of diflPerences ; we must now show what is the faculty
of unity, and how it produces the various kinds of unity which
we can see to be implied in our actual knowledge.

It will be evident from what has been said how Dr. Stirling
has been led to suppose that Kant regards sense as giving us a
knowledge of individual objects or facts. Unless we resolutely
keep before our minds the fact that the Critique is an analysis
of the logical constituents of our actual knowledge, and not on
account of the temporal stages, by which the individual and the
race advance to knowledge of the highest kind, we shall inev-
itably confuse the popular with tlie critical point of view. When
he is leading up to his own theory, and simply stating the facts he
has to explain, or when he is criticising the dogmatic theory of
his predecessors, Kant naturally speaks as if sense immediately
reveals to us special objects or events. From the philosophical
> point of view, however, sense he conceives of as the faculty w^hich
supplies to us the isolated differences which thought puts together
and unites into individual objects or connections of objects. The
" manifold of sense " is, therefore, simply that element in knowl-
edge which supplies the particular differences of known objects.
And these differences, of course, vary with the special aspect of
the known world w^hich at the time is sought to be explained. In
the Axioms of Perception, for example, in which Kant is seeking
to show that individual objects in space and time are necessarily
extensive quanta^ the special fact of knowledge to be explained
is the apprehension of objects as made up of parts forming in-
dividual aggregates. These parts Kant regards as directly per-
ceived or contemplated. The " manifold " may be the parts of
a line, the parts of any geometrical figure, or even particular
figures regarded as constituents of more complex perceptions ;
or, again, it may be the parts of individual objects in space.
But in all of these cases the particulars, as dae to sense, are,
when taken by themselves, mere abstractions ; they are, in fact,
not even known as particulars apart from the synthetic activity
of imagination, as guided by the category of quantity. To have
a knowledge of the parts of a line, or the parts of a house, as

K(m£s Prvnciples of Judgment. 391

parts, is to know at the same time the combination of those
parts. But the combination takes place for us only through
the act by which we successively determine space to particular
parts, and in that determination combine them. Thus, in the
knowledge of the line, there are implied both the particular ele-
ment of sense and the universal element of thought. We do not
first perceive the line and then apply the category, but, in per- ^
ceiving the line, we apply the category. And, as in all recognition
of objects in space we necessarily determine the particulars of
sense through the schema, as silently guided by the categor}^, we
may express this condition of our knowledge in the proposition,
" All percepts are extensive quanta.''^ This proposition, there-
fore, rests upon a discrimination of the elements which we are
compelled to distinguish in explaining how we know any individual
object to be a unity of parts ; it is not a proposition which we
acquire by reflection before we know objects to be extensive
quanta. Observing that all external objects which we can pos-
sibly know must be in space, and having seen space to be a neces-
sary form of thought, we can say axiomatical ly that eve7^y percept
is an extensive quantum / but this proposition is not one which
jprecedes the knowledge of objects as quanta.^ but one which is re-
quired to explain the fact of such knowledge. On Dr. Stirling's
view, sense gives us a knowledge of individual objects as extended,
and thought " varnishes " this knowledge with necessity. How
Kant could possibly suppose sense to give us the perception ot
things in space, without at the same time determining these as
extensive quanta. I am unable to understand. But, in truth,
Kant makes no such supposition ; what he holds is that spatial
objects are known as extensive quanta in the act by which the
productive imagination determines their parts successively, under
control of the category of quantity. The necessity is implied
in our actual knowledge, and philosophical reflection merely
shows it to be there.

The "manifold," again, assumes a different aspect when Kant
goes on to deal with the dynamical principles. Here the question
is no longer in regard to the quantitative parts of external objects,
but in regard to the philosophical justification of the permanence,
the causal connection, and the mutual influence of these objects.
In our ordinary and scientific knowledge we take it for granted

392 The Journal of Speculatwe Philosophy.

that we know real objects, whicli do not pass away with the mo-
ment, but persist or are permanent. Permanence, in fact, is
the mark by which we ordinarily distinguish actual existences from
passing feelings or creations of the imagination. To show philo-
sophically how this assumption is justiiied from the nature of our
intelligence is the object of the First Analogy of Experience.
]^ow, the ordinary explanation of the permanence or actuality of
an external object is, that we simply see, apprehend, or observe
the object, and immediately know it to be permanent. But the
consequence of this assumption, as the psychological idealist has
seen, is that the actual object itself is not apprehended or perceived
at all. So far as the theory can show, we have indeed a conscious-
ness of ideas or feelings supposed to represent actual objects, but
we do not really come in contact with those objects tiiemselves.
Kant, taking up the problem at this stage, points out what is
really implied in a series of feelings or ideas, and from this he
shows the necessity of the action of thought on sense for the
knowledge of actual objects as permanent. The " manifold " here
is individual objects regarded simply as revealed in the direct
glance of sense. If we immediately apprehend or perceive objects
to be permanent, we cannot have more before us than separate
percepts, coming the one after the other. I open my eyes and see
a house ; I move my eyes and see a tree, then a mountain, etc. ;
but T cannot, as is usually supposed, see the house, tree, moun-
tain, etc., to be permanent substances. At each successive mo-
ment a fresh presentation of sense comes before me ; and, as im-
mediate apprehension does not go beyond the moment, I can say
nothing about objects when they are not actually present. Thus,
the ordinary explanation of the permanence of things really re-
duces actual objects to successive alFections or feelings, coming and
going like the phantasms of a dream. They are a mere " mani-
fold of sense," a number of unrelated feelings, really incapable of
revealing to us any actual or permanent thing. The true expla-
>nation of the fact that we have a knowledge of permanent exter-
nal things or substances must bring in an element quite distinct
from sense, and this is the element of thouo-ht. The mere isolated
particulars of sense never could give us a knowledge of actual
objects; only thought in conjunction with the manifold of sense
can do so. Kant, then, does not, as Dr. Stirling supposes, hold

Kaufs Principles of Judgment. 393

that sense first gives us a knowledge of actual things, while
thought comes after and makes this special knowledge universal
and necessary. On the contrary, he argues that if we are to ex-
plain the actual fact that we do have a knowledge of permanent
things, we must not say that sense gives us a knowledge of real
substances, but, on the contrary, that it supplies only the particu-
lar differences of things, leaving to thought, in conjunction with
the imagination, the combination or unification of those difi'er-
ences. Kant simply shows, by an inquiry into the mental condi-
tions, without which a o-iven kind of knowledge would be im-
possible, what are the logicallj^ distinguishable elements in that
knowledge ; and to convert such purely metaphysical distinctions
into temporal phases in the development of our knowledge is to
turn his theory upside down.

A proper comprehension of the way in which criticism trans-
forms the dogmatic or psychological conception of the nature of
sense makes the corresponding transformation of the ordinary
view of the nature of thought easily intelligible. As sense sup-
plies the particular element in knowledge, so thought reduces the
particular to unity. From the dogmatic point of view, judgment
is always a process of analysis. Kant does not deny that analyti-
cal judgments are valuable within their own sphere, but he denies
that they in any way enable us to solve the problem of philosophy.
For such judgments, valuable as they are in bringing clearly before
our minds what we already know in an obscure and half-uncon-
scious way, cannot explain the process by which we obtain a
knowledge of actual things and their connections. The analysis
of such pure conceptions as substance and cause can never estab-
lish the application of these conceptions to real objects, but only
brings out explicitly what we mean when we speak of substances
or causes. Analytical judgments thus fall outside of the domain
of philosophy proper. They rest upon the purely formal principle
of contradiction. If we but express in the predicate what is
implied in the subject, and do not attach to the subject a predi-
cate inconsistent with it, we conform to the only condition de-
manded by the analytic judgment. The afiirmative proposition,
"Body is extended," satisfies this condition, since "extension " is
an attribute implied in the conception of "body;" the negative
proposition, "Body is not immaterial," is a correct analytical

394 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

judgment, since it merely excludes from the conception of body
an attribute contradictory of it. We can thus see wherein the
essential vice of the dogmatic theory of judgment consists. The
dogmatist supposes we may establish the objective application of
a conception by simply showing that a given judgment is not self-
contradictory. Wolff, e. g., thought he could prove the conception
of causality to be true of real things, because that conception,
when analyzed, yields the judgment, " Whatever is contingent
has a cause." But the judgment is purely analytical, only ex-
pressing explicitly what is implicit in the conception of the "con-
tingent." How, then, are we to account for the application of con-
ceptions to real things ? How, in other words, can we show that
there are judgments which are synthetical, and yet rest upon con-
ceptions ? This question, insoluble on the dogmatic method, may
be answered by the critical method.

We have seen that sense can only contribute the particular
element in knowledge, and that the universal element is supplied
by thought. A conception, therefore, on which a synthetical

> judgment is to rest can be nothing but a pure universal, having in
it no concrete element. In all thinking which yields real knowl-

> edge the particulars of sense must be reduced to unity by being
referred to a single supreme self, for, on any other supposition,
there would be no unity in our knowledge as a whole. It is
nothing to the point that we may not, in our ordinary conscious-
ness, be aware that the self is the supreme condition of any real
knowledge. It is enough if we can show that in all knowledge^of
reality the " I " must be present, and must manifest its presence
in the actual fact of knowledge. Certainly, if we take the self
apart from its activity, as manifested in knowing, we cannot get
beyond the merely analytical judgment, 1 = 1; but, when we seek
to explain actual knowledge, we are compelled to see that, were

>there no identical " I," expressing its activity in uniting the par-
ticulars of sense, we could have no connected knowledge. The
" I think," or " I unite," is, however, but the general expression
of the condition of any real knowledge. But, as all knowing is
definite knowing, or the thinking of the real world in specific ways,
to intelligence as thinking there must belong universal forms or
functions of unity, enabling ns to reduce the manifold of sense to
definite nnity, order, and system. How do we know that to

Kanfs Principles of Judgment. 395

thoiifflit there belono; such forms or functions ? We know it from
the fact that in our actual knowledge, the reality of which no one
doubts, we do form real judgments. The fact that there are such-
judgments we do not seek to prove ; our object is simply to show
what the constitution of our thought must be on supposition of
such judgments. Now, if the self is the supreme condition of
unity, and the categories the forms potentially capable of reduc-
ing the special manifold of sense to specific unities, we can see
how real judgments are possible, and what will be their character.
A real judgment must be the act by which the categories, as pure
uuiversals, come together with the manifold of sense. One other
point, however, must be mentioned in order to complete our ac-
count of the conditions of real knowledge. All our knowledge
comes to us in successive acts, and hence real judgments must
operate upon the manifold of sense under the form of time. We
must, therefore, explain how actual knowledge is possible, in ac-
cordance with the fact that we know real objects and their con-
nection in a series of cognitions. Accordingly, it will be our aim,
in setting forth the various classes of real judgments, to point out
how the manifold of sense is related to the schemata or general
determinations of time.

I have endeavored, in the account just given of the relations of
thought and sense, to emphasize the view which I take of the ^
Critique, that it is an exposition of the constituent elements which
we may logically distinguish in knowledge, not on account of
the order in which our knowledge is developed in time. In every
recognition of an external object as an extensive or intensive
quantity, we bring into operation the categories of quantity and
quality respectively, and this we do in the act by which we suc-
cessively combine the particulars of sense. In our actual knowl-
edge of a given substance, a given connection of events, or given
objects as mutually influencing each other, we connect the mani-
fold of sense under the silent guidance of the categories of sub-
stance, cause, and reciprocity, and connect them according to
tbeir respective schemata. And when we express what is implied
in any of these actual cognitions, we are able to state the prin-
ciple in a universal form, because the categories, as belonging to
the very nature of our thinking intelligence, necessarily combine
tbe manifold always in the same way. The principles of judg-

396 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ment are therefore at once '^'h\\o&o'^\r\c,2l propositions and ultimate
laws of nature. Just as a mathematical judgment is a proposition
belonging to the science of mathematics, and at the same time a
law manifested in the particular object to which the proposition
refers; just as any scientific proposition goes to form the body of
the science to which it belongs, and yet formulates a law to which
all facts of a certain kind must conform ; so the philosophical
judgment that "all percepts are extensive quanta,^'' or that "in
all changes of phenomena substance is permanent," is not only a
proposition belonging to the science of philosophy, but a law
or principle manifested in our actual knowledge. When Kant
speaks of bringing phenomena under a rule of the understanding,
he does not mean that -wejirst know the phenomena in question,
and then bring them under the rule, but he means that, unless
they were brought under the rule in the act of knowing them, they
could not be known as real in the particular way which at the
time we have under consideration. When, indeed, we Tejiect
upon our knowledge, we express the act by which thought unites
the manifold of sense in the form of a rule or proposition ; but
our reflection does not create the rule, but only recognizes it.
Had not the rule been silently employed in the actual process of
knowing the real object or connection, we should never discover
it. Did Kant really mean to say that we first know real facts by
sense, and afterwards subsume them under conceptions, his po-
lemic against dogmatism would be a huge ignoratio elenchi j for,
on this interpretation of his theory, the facts known by sense fall
completely apart from the conceptions supposed to reduce them
to unity, and the possibility of real judgments becomes inexjDlica-
ble. So miserable a failure in his explanation of knowledge I
refuse to attribute to Kant. His real view is that thinking in-
•telligence either constitutes objects as such, or connects objects
with each other, by oi)erating upon the detached manifold of
sense. In the apprehension of a house, e. </., I must have not only
the separate impressions coming to me as my eye runs over it, but
I must put together its spatial parts in the act of generating them ;
and, as the parts are j)ut together under the guidance of the cate-
gory of quantity, in apprehending the house I at the same time
know it as an extensive quantum.

Kant makes no attempt to connect together the various princi-

Kanfs Principles of Judgment. 397

pies of judgment ; on the contrary, lie regards each as independ-
ent and complete in itself. And it is easy to understand why he
takes this view. Starting as he does from the notion of knowl-
edge as completed, and embodied more especially in the mathe-
matical and physical sciences, he naturally seeks only to demon-
strate that such knowledge is inconceivable, if we persist in mak-
ing an absolute separation of intelligence and nature, instead of
conceiving of nature as constituted in its universal aspect by neces-
sary forms of perception and of thought. In seeking to explain
the demonstrative certainty of mathematical propositions, and their
application to individual objects, and in seeking to show what
are the universal laws of nature, he simply takes up one aspect
of knowledge after another and points out the intellectual ele-
ments involved in each. Dealing, not with the temporal origin of
knowledge, but with the logical constituents involved in it, he sets
the various elements of knowledge apart by themselves, and com-
bines them in a system, the form of which is chiefly due to his
own external reflection. But while Kant does not so much render
the " very form and pressure " of thought, as simply place its ele-
ments side by side; and wliile he is very far from tracing out, in
all its delicate completeness, " the diamond net" with which intel-
ligence envelops the particulars of sense, his presentation of the
various principles of judgment follows half unconsciously, and ap-
proximates closely to the natural order of logical evolution. It is
well also to observe that, although he speaks of those principles as
the highest laws of knowledge, and therefore of nature as a whole,
Kant really concentrates his attention on external nature ; in fact,
he has expressly pointed out that the rules of the understanding
are only verifiable in relation to objects in space, as contrasted
with the succession of mental states in time. On the other hand,
he virtually assumes space to be already determined, and only
seeks to show how its parts can become known to us successively.
In the first principle, formulating the axioms of perception, he ab-
stracts from all the concrete wealth of the universe, and from all
the connections of things, and limits himself to the question as to
how space and objects in space are known as in time. And the
answer he gives naturally is, that every individual object of per-
ception is an extensive quantum, known to us in the successive
addition of units, as guided by the unseen influence of the category

398 TTie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of quantity. In what other way the external object may be de-
termined, Kant does not here inquire, but confines himself to the
proof of the proposition, that no external object is knowable at all
without being known as an extensive quantum. His next step is
to ask whether in the knowledge of external objects there is any
universal and necessary characteristic ; and he finds that while we
cannot anticipate the special properties of things, since these are
perpetually'changing on us, we can anticipate that all objects capa-
ble of being known at all must have intensive quantity or degree.

> So far the question has not been raised as to what constitutes the
reality, the connection and the mutual influence of objects. But
this question is foi'ced upon us the moment we make afiirmations
in regard to the relations of objects. We can no longer refer to
our perceptions in proof of the reality of our knowledge. We
have therefore to show by what right we assume objects to be per-
manent and actually connected. In the three Analogies of Ex-
perience this question is taken up, and it is proved, first, that the
knowledge of real objects involves the application of the category
of substance to the manifold of sense through the schema of the
permanent ; secondly, that the knowledge of real sequences can

> only be explained, if we presuppose the schema of order in time,
as limiting the category to the particular determinations of sensible
perception ; and lastly, that the knowledge of real external ob-
jects, as mutually influencing each other, implies the schema of
coexistence in time, as standing under the category of reciprocity.
In the Postulates of Empirical Thought, Kant, having now con-
sidered external objects as such, and external objects as related to
each other, raises the question as to the relation of external things
to our thought of them. And the subjective criteria of knowl-
edge he finds to lie in the possibility, the actuality and the neces-
sity of our ideas. The final result of the whole investigation is to
revei'se completely the ordinary conception of the relations of intel-
ligence and nature. The world of real things is not, as dogmatic
philosophy had wrongly assumed, an independent congeries of
real things externally taken up into our minds, but a system of

^ objects constituted for us by the activity of our intelligence act-
ing on the particulars of sense.

Philosophic Outlines. 399

PHILOSOPHIC OUTLINES— COSMOLOGIC, TPIEO-
LOGIC, AND PSYCHOLOGIC.

BY H. K. JONES.

The empirical sciences generalize and systematize facts, par-
ticulars, comprising as tlieir principle the immediate formal and
onaterial causes. Philosophy divests the empirical particular of
its separateness, and establishes its character and reason in the
cause, efficient andjinal of all things.

Science is empirical, doxastic, demonstrative ; philosophy is
speculative and dialectic. And so philosophy is not a science,
either of physics or of metaphysics ; neither of mathematics nor
of politics, nor of ethics, nor of logic, nor of theology, nor of psy-
chology, nor of cosmology — but a science of sciences, it speculates
and judges all these in their respective grounds and final reasons.

Thus philosophy and empirical science may be deemed predica-
ments respectively of primary and secondary causation. They
are accordingly correlate and reciprocally interrelated. The cor-
poreal frame of science is physical, inanimate. That of philosophy
is spiritual, psychical, animate — fountained in the supreme idea,
which contains within itself the unities and essences of all things,
as effects depending from their causes.

The idea of the soul is not a thought, nor a mere thinking ma-
chine ; but an entity self-conscious — a living form with a think-
ing faculty. And, in the cognition of true being, the factor of
sentience is logically prior, and the act of thought posterior.
Jove himself is a royal soul with a regal intellect.

True philosophy realizes the contact of the spiritual affection
or sentience with living ideas, and so hints and glimpses of the
first cause are beheld and contemplated, and they generate in the
attentive soul knowledges divine. Man thinks and feels. Con-
ventionally, science is predicated of the processes of abstract
thought ; philosophy of the concrete processes of the thinking
and sentient faculties of the soul. The blood of science is water,
the blood of philosophy is the wine of life. Science is inductive

400 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy.

in its method — philosopliy is deductive in its method. It is
deemed expedient to outline discursively the point of view and
the method somewhat characteristic of the proposed course of dis-
cussions.

Caste is an idea, a principle universal in the mental generations
of man. The Oriental quaternary castehood still frames the social
fabrique, whether individually or collectively considered. Man,
in the social g-enesis of this planet, is ever intellectual, moral, mer-
cenary, and desidcrative. His motives are science, heroism, re-
ward, and sensuality. In the Platonic idiom we predicate of the
social order — the servile class, and the mercenary class, and the
auxiliary class, and the guardian class. In the Oriental idiom,
the Sudra, the Yaisya, the Kshatrya, and the Brahman.

(1.) Those who through life employ sense without intellect are
conversant only with sensibles — esteem sensibles the firsts and
the lasts of things — apprehend that whatever among sensibles
is painful is evil^ and whatever among them is pleasant is good.
And their life endeavor is to avoid the one, and to procure
as much as possible of the other. This life is • depraved in sen-
sibles, and is therefore full of servitude, and is the remotest from
God, the true good — these souls issue from the foot of Brahma.

(2.) The mercenary caste, those who traffic in affairs, opining
that magnitade and parvitude of soul are mensurable by corpo-
real bulk of things, and that the massing of worldly riches and
honors and power is the chief good. And in this phantasy they
toil from the cradle to the grave — these souls, these soul forces,
these social forces are the mercenaries, the Yaisya caste, and these
issue from the thigh of Brahma.

(3.) The auxiliaries, the military class, the forces of the
social moralities and heroic virtues, the social will forces of the
church and the state, constitutive of the civil institutions, admin-
istrative of the laws, and defensive and protective of the common
weal — this is the Kshatrya caste. These issue from the arm of
Brahma.

(4.) The guardians, the governors, the intellectual social forces,
intellectual soul forces, mind exalted to the intelligible, the su-
pernatural consciousness, to the sphere of the pure thought, to
the sphere of ideas, the sphere of universals, exempted of the
image of sense in the cognition of true entity, the true sacerdotal

PhilosophiG Outlines. 401

order, mind in the transcendency of ideas and principles — these
forces issue from the mouth of Brahma, and in this meru, this
golden mountain of the gods, in this seat of Jupiter Olympus, in
this Zion, the mountain of our King, this summit of the beauty
and the joy of the whole earth, must we establish our observa-
tory, would we adequately survey the broad fields or fathom the
golden mines of the Platonic philosophy. This mental eminency
must we achieve and occupy, rightly to estimate and identify and
unify all systems of philosophic thought.

These four orders of the social forces are generalized as two,
because the mercenary and the epithumetic are unified in the
irrational corporeal, while the moral and intellectual are unified
in the rational, the spiritual. And hence the natural man and
the spiritiial man. He in whom desire leads and mercenariness
ministers is natural, earthy, and he in whom intelligence leads, and
will and conscience minister, is the spiritital man^ the divine man.
History is comprehended in its permanent and transient fac-
tors. Each of the historic generations, or greater social cycles,
requires, as the fruition of its gymnastics, the solution of its life
problems, universal and particular, and the thought which is ade-
quate to this constitutes its philosophy. And philosophy has
hence its two factors, the permanent and transient, in that it is
comprehensive of universals and of particulars as its extremes.

On the one hand, humanity is free, through all its geons, and
herein lies the permanent factor^ which threads into unity the
philosophic systems of the world — that speech and discourse of
things which transcend a\\ patois and idiom of particular systems
and faiths and times, in which we are face to face in personal dis-
course and fraternity with all that is^ and therefore with all that
hasheen or sJiall he — a fraternity with the angels of God, and all
the great ages, in whose light are dissipated, as mists and fog be-
fore the sun, the partial conceptions of universal history.

On the other hand, humanity \s> protean^ through the perpetual
mutations of the temporal forms. And in this term of the philo-
sophic triad is grounded the necessarily unstable, yet, may be,
adequate thought which speculates the differentiating insignia of
the social fabrique of the difierent ages, and herein lies the tran-
sient factor of philosophy ; and this., when exclusively assumed, is
the ground and material for all the illiberal and contentious con-
XIY— 26

402 The Journal of Sj)ecuiatwe Philosophy.

ceit of narrow minds. That humanity renders social manners
and institutions the most different and even opposite in their
forms, vehicular and instrumental of the same common ends, cul-
ture in wisdom and virtue, is inconceivable to the illiberal con-
ceit, and therefore conclude the egotisms, " None, ere our time
and manners, can have achieved philosophy."

A philosophising endeavor which assumes exclusive validity of
the transient elements of the world will begin with subjecting all
systems of philosophy and of faith to the crucible of unbelief, and
end with predicating truth of nature only, and of physics, and
sensible and conventional forms.

In the last quarter century there has culminated this period
of unbelief, immanent in the lifetime of every generation. The
public spirit is irreverent, undevout. It rates nature's phenomena
as the ultimate verities, rather than the disclosures of the truth
concealed behind them. Its trust is in physics and matter, its
thought rejects the immaterial and the supernatural as unsub-
stantial and unknowable, and unavailable for the uses of the
practical life. Human society has a very limited endurance, con-
sistently with the public morality and religion, of this abstract
realistic thought.

Philosophy, the handmaiden of religion and the servant of all,
must from this time relumine for this generation the problems
of man's existence. The mind of this country is in the dawn of
the Christian philosophy, the epoch of the idealities of the Chris-
tian dispensation ; and whether we discourse in the modern or
more ancient dialect of things, the prime indication of the age
seems to be the cognition and identification of the supernatural,
its relations and correlations with the natural, its identification
as a factor in all life and in all human history and experience,
and science and philosophy, its manifestation in nature and in
the physical constitution of man, and in the social institutions,
the family, the State, and the Church.

In the prevailing thought and science, or reputed sciences of
our current time, this theme is reputed " tey^ra incognita^'' ab-
stract, abstruse, foreign and unrelated to the practical interests
of humanity and the world. On the other hand, it is esteemed
by some as most concrete, most practical, most immanent in the
life of the world, most identifiable, and most eminently ^nciwaJZd.

Philosophic Outlines. 403

In this latter appreciation must be found the dignity and
adaptedness of this theme — indeed, its indispensableness as a key —
to the aim and range and method of the Platonic philosophy,
whose aim and range is the comprehension of the existence of
man as a being of the supernatural order, and therefore eternal
and immortal ; while in the former appreciation are grounded a
public opinion and a popular science which find neither voice
nor speech in man, nor in nature, nor in the universe of any other
entity than nature's physics, with her mechanics and chemistries;
and from this witness the public ear hath scarce ever heard that
there is a spirit.

We hear much in our day (indeed we hear almost nothing
more) of natural forces and natu7'al latv, with a quasi-disavowal,
if not an absolute repudiation, of will forces in nature, and intelli-
gence in nature, in the world of sensibles, as well as in the con-
stitution of man ; and, owing to reasons accessible to philosophy,
there is a dominant tendency in our current scientific thinking
to what may be denominated physical and realistic abstraction, the
cognition and verification of a physics without a metaphysics, a
natural without a supernatural, a sensible without an intelli-
gible, a material without a spiritual, a real without an ideal, a
lower world without an upper world, and, consequently, a natural
order without an intelligible order, natural law without mind, nat-
ural forces without will forces, and a kosmos without a logos.
And the end of this contemplation, scientifically and historically
judged, must be the identification of nature, physics, matter, as
the absolute and the only. And even already, as noticed above,
in the name, and prudence, and modesty of science, we are en-
joined from this ground, that all else, the realm of the intelli-
gible, the supernatural, the ideal is not merely the " terra incog-
nita,^^ but even the very unknowaMe, because non-extant.

It may be fairly questioned whether a true science of nature
ever was, or ever can be achieved, without the connate science
of the supernatural. It may be fairly questioned whether the
plaudits of genius in the pursuit of the abstract natural sciences,
arrogated by modern civilization, may not entitle us to a very
dubious reputation. And, indeed, it is scarcely questionable
that a culture of this order, an exclusive trust in and use of the
abstract knowledge of those secrets of nature which empower and

404 TTie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

arm mankind unto a mere terrestrial giantliood, shall not ulti-
timately yield fruits conjoint with the causes and processes of
social and moral insanity, and dissolution and decay.

A prime element in all philosophical process is the clear dis-
cernment of the correlatedness of cause and effect, that through-
out the realms of mind and of nature they are related in discrete,
and not in continuous degree, so that in all things cause is utterly
exempted of its eifects. The cause cannot become the effect of
itself, nor can the effect become the cause of itself. And this is
especially maintained and manifested in the relations of mind and
matter. Mind cannot become matter, and matter cannot become
mind. Mind is supereminent, native in the prerogative of causa-
tion, and matter distino-uished only in the subordination of effects.
The law, therefore, of mind is liberty, and the law of matter is
necessity.

The forms of mind and the forms of matter are the two factors
of the universe. The forms of mind produce. The forms of
matter are the produced. The^e. producing powers are the super-
natural. These produced forms are the natural. There is no-
thing in the physical and material processes that can form the
honeycomb. Some power acting from without this chain of pro-
cesses has constrained this result. Matter by no physical law ever
gets itself moved into this shape.

The steam-engine is a material shape, but nature by no physi-
cal process ever moved matter into this shape. Some master
power standing outside the chain of her processes has wrought in
her chambers. An idea in the mind of man has through his will
produced this form. There is nowhere else than in the world of
mind a power capable of this production. Matter by any natural
law or physical process never moved itself into this shape. The
cause is the supernatural form in the mind. The effect is the
natural form. The one is the producer. The other is the pro-
duced.

And now mark. Ideas rule. All works of all arts are ideas
realized, produced into material shape, adumbrated in material
effigy. No artist or artisan lays hand to the artificial realization,
except from the preexisting form in the mind. If the ideal form
be poor and indistinct, his production must be poor. If the ideal
be exalted in excellence, then shall the ^production be informed

Philosophic Outlines. 405

and animate with beauty and dignity and power. Bat, in all her
adyta, nature has no such secret ; no law or process which ever
moved matter into the form of the Phidian statue. This form
and this power have their fountain in the mind and will of man,
a true supernatural power, since by its own force it pervades the
sphere of nature, and dominates her processes of cause and effect,
so as to bring to pass what would never come to pass within her
domain from her own internal action. Matter has no capability
to move itself into such shapes.

But what of the corporeal frame of animated nature? and chief
of the corporeal frame of man — the masterpiece ? This, again, is a
natural body — a material shape. It is a production and has a
prodticer. It is an effect, and must have a producing cause.
Should the materialist, or the scientist, or the philosopher, discover
lying upon yonder plain this tenement, void of its tenant, would
lie predicate and reason, concerning its cause and history, that it
had never tenanted another order of entity than nature's mechan-
ics and chemistries ? No, he must agree with all mankind that
this form had been tenanted and used by that order of entity
which thinks, and feels, and wills, and acts, and loves, and hates,
and hopes, and fears, and that desires, and restrains, and limits
desire. For there are reasons and principles compelling the be-
lief of man that nature has no such secret in her laboratory, no
such production known to her laws, her dynamics and chemis-
tries. This form of a human body never oozed up out of the
ground, but a power above nature — a supernatural power — hath
wrought within her chambers, appropriating her laboratory, her
alembics, and retorts, and chemicals, and her square and compass,
and her ropes and pulleys — a master workman, appropriating
her implements and materials to his own ideal aims by the force
of his own will, constrainino; her instrumentalities and methods to
the production of that which would never come to pass within her
domain from her own free internal action.

Matter does not think, matter does not feel. Matter is not self-
moving unto predilected forms. The other factor in nat^ire's
workings is an entity that thinks and feels, and is self moved, and
moves upon and in matter, manipulating it into shapes instrumen-
tal of its own ideal aims and ends. This entity is mind, soul,
man, daemon, angel, deity. And so man is seen bearing in hand

406 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

to-daj his primeval commission — to siibdue the earth and have
dominion over it.

Man is not a material being, nor yet a physical being. Physics
and matter are his subordinates, his means, and instruments in
time. But from these he subsists not at all. He is a plant of celes-
tial genus :

" Onr birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And Cometh from afar.

" Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness.
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, which is our home.

" Heaven lies about us in our infancy,
Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy.

" The yonth who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is nature's priest.
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended.

" At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."

Man is an entity of the supernatural order. No physical forces
or material forms can ever become component of mind, or of men-
tal processes. These natures are diverse, and not related in con-
tinuous degree. And the lower nature cannot become the higher
nature, nor intrude itself into its sphere. Universally, matter is
the not-me — the otherness to mind.

Man appropriates the material elements, forces, and forms to the
subsistence of his corporeal nature — like to like — and so must nur-
ture himself with the knowledges of truth and the participations
of good divine. In nature he finds provision for his gymnastics ;
in the heavens, provision for his subsistence. And of man there ia
a physical body, and there is a spiritual body, and the spiritual
body is the true human body, and the natural corporeality is its

Philosophic Outlines, 407

effigj', and only when and where this true body abides, there
only can this material Q^2,j be manifest ; and whenever this true,
this essential human form takes itself away, then and therefrom
its effigy — the material frame — the apparition, must disappear.
" I heard this day that none doth build a stately habitation but
he tiiat means to dwell therein." And, so long as the tenant
abides, the tenement is maintained.

If the man, the supernatural, abide within the material habi-
tation for a hundred years, it presents a certain identical form,
common to the race and peculiar to the individual, denominated
the human form. But let that part of the man that thinks, and
feels, and wills, and moves of itself orderly unto rational ends and
aims, but depart, and in a day, a month, that material habitation
is but a formless mass of rubbish. What was it that demonstrated
human form for a hundred years ? Was it the material part that
cannot of itself, when constituted, maintain its form for a day ? or
does the truth here stand forth, that human form is a predicate of
the soul alone, and not in any true sense of the material body of
a man ? " Forma mentis eterna." Says an eminent physiologist,
the material body is the organ hy which we act upon the material
world.

So much appears in the nature and constitution of man con-
cerning the supernatural and the natural, the mental and the
material, the spiritual body and the natural body. And now of
this supernatural, may and ought we to predicate hnowledge —
science"? Do we know anything of man's thoughts and opinions,
of his reasonings and judgments, of his conscience, his motives, his
will, and his passions, and affections, and desires, and deeds ? Do
we not know as much at least about them as we do about nature's
physics and mechanics and chemistries % Do we not know as much
about mind as we do about matter % Says Mr. Stewart : " Of all the
truths we know, the existence of mind is the most certain. Even
the system of Berkeley concerning the non-existence of matter is
far more conceivable than that nothing but matter exists in the
universe. To what function of matter can that principle be
likened by which we love and fear, and are excited by enthusiasm
and elevated by hope, or sunk in despair? "

Then there may be, and should be, and is, a science, a knowing
of the supernatural, as well as a science of the natural, and it is a

408 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

science which in the order of the universe underlies and fountains
all material science, and it is plainly the original of which the
latter is the derivation. This science is, therefore, that true know-
inp; of the supernatural and its logical process of manifesting and
*' bringing clearly to light the spiritual unity of the vvorld, not as
contradictory of the material unity, but as underlying it and
being the source from which it depends. And a natural without
a supernatural is mere sense without the reason — a kosmos with-
out a logos."

And now from this plain of observation let us transfer the view
to the planet — the great globe — the habitation of the race, with
all its intelligible orders, and their relations with its physical and
material economies and sensible forms. And hereof let it be pro-
posed, that there is a natural world, and inferentially, that there
is a supernatural world, a world of natural substance, and a world
of spiritual substance, a world of natural forms, and a world of men-
tal or spiritual forms, and that these worlds are correlates, i. e., a
natural world cannot exist without a spiritual world, and a spiritual
world cannot exist without a natural world, any more than a human
body can exist without a man, or a man without a human body.

Of the relations of the intelligible and the sensible worlds, says
the Duke of Argyle, " We know of mind only as itself and as
nothing else. The difference between it and all other things
seems infinite and immeasurable. The difficulty of distinguishing
mind and matter arises, in part at least, not from any misconcep-
tion as to what mind is (for of this our knowledge is direct), but
to a misconception of what matter is, and what the forces are
which we call material forces. Close analysis of the phenomena
of nature, and of our own ideas in regard to them, has already
prepared us to believe that those forces which work in matter?
and produce in us the impressions from which we derive our con-
ceptions of it, are themselves immaterial, and can be traced run-
ning up into a region where they are lost in the light oi mind.
The Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body sanctions
and endorses the notion that there is some deep connection be-
tween spirit and form which is essential, and which cannot be
finally sundered, even in the divorce of death."

And now, in these two correlated worlds oF mind and matter,
in the macrocosm as in the microcosmic constitution of man, mind

Philosophic Outlines. 409

moves matter — "mens agitat molem" — mind is the moving cause
in matter. As mind moves in nature, matter is moved, and
" mens omnibus una," mind through and in all things is OTie and
the same. The psychic form is the parent of the physical pro-
cesses, and the prototype of the natural body, and without a super-
natural there could be no natural form. Were there no life forms
in the supernatural sphere, there would be no sensible forms in
nature. The supernatural is the sphere of causes, therefore the
physical is the sphere of effects. But what are these life forms
from which all material shapes are said to depend ?

" Tliere are, indeed, many and wonderful regions in the earth,
and it is itself neither of such a kind nor of such a magnitude as
is supposed by those who are accustomed to speak of the earth, as
I have been persuaded by a certain person." Whereupon Sim-
mias said : " How mean you, Socrates ? For I, too, have heard
many things about the earth, not, however, those things which
have obtained your belief. I would therefore gladly hear them."
'' Indeed, Simmias, the art of Glaucus does not seem to me to be
required to relate what these things are ; that they are true, how-
ever, appears to me more than the art of Glaucus can prove, and
besides, I should probably not be able to do it, and, even if I did
know how, what remains to me of life, Simmias, seems insufficient
for the length of the subject.

"However, the idea of the eai'th, such as I am persuaded it is,
and the different regions in it, nothing hinders me from telling.
I am persuaded, then," said he, " in the first place, that it is of a
spherical form," and, as respects its material aspects: " Yet fur-
ther," said he, "that it is immensely great, and that we who in-
habit some small portion of it, from the Kiver Phasis to the Pillar
of Hercules, dwell abont the sea like ants or frogs about a marsh ;
and tliat many others elsewhere dwell in many similar places, for
tluit there are everywhere about the earth many low regions of
various forms and sizes, into which there is a confluence of water,
mist, and air. But that the pure earth (the essential earth itself)
is situated in the pure heavens (in which are the stars), and -^hich
most persons who are accustomed to speak about such things call
ether.

" That we are ignorant, then, that we dwell in its low regions,
and imagine that we inhabit the upper parts of the earth, just as

410 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

if any one dwelling in the bottom of the sea should think that he
dwelt on the sea, and, beholding the sun and the other stars through
the water, should imagine that the sea was the heavens ; but
through sloth and weakness should never have reached the sur-
face of the sea, nor, having emerged and risen up from the sea to
this region, have seen how much more pure and beautiful it is
than the place where he is, nor has even heard of it from any one
else who has seen it. This, then, is the very condition in which
we are ; for, dwelling in the lowest regions of the earth, we think
that we dwell above it. But tliis is because, by reason of our weak-
ness and sloth, we are unable to reach to the aerial summit. Since,
if any one could arrive at this summit, or, becoming winged, could
fly up thither, on emerging from hence he would see, just as with
us, fishes emerging fi'om the sea — behold what is here — so any one
would behold the things there. And, if his nature were able to
endure the contemplation, he would know that that is the true
heaven, and the true light, and the true earth.'''' . . . And, again :
"In that earth all things that grow, grow in a manner propor-
tioned to its nature — trees, flowers, and fruits ; and, again, in like
manner, its mountains and stones possess in the same proportion
smoothness, transparency, and more beautiful colors, of which the
well-known stones here that are so highly prized are but the ex-
uvise, such as sardin stones, jasper, and emerald, and all of that
kind. But there, there is nothing subsists that is not of this char-
acter, and even more beautiful than these.

"And that earth is adorned with all these; and, moreover, with
gold and silver, and other things of the kind, so that to behold it
is a sight for the blessed. Tliere are also many other animals, and
men upon it, some dwelling in mid-earth, others about the air as
we do about the sea, and others in islands which the air flows
around, and, in one word, what water and the sea are to us for
our necessities the air is to them, and what air is to us, that ether
is to them.

" But their seasons are of such a temperament that they are free
from disease, and they surpass us in sight, and hearing, and smell-
ing, and everything of this kind, as much as air excels water, and
ether air in purity. Moreover, they have abodes, and temples of
the gods, in which gods really dwell, and voices, and oracles, and
actual visions of the gods, and such like intercourse with them.

Philosophic Outlines. 411

The sun, too, and the moon and stars, are seen by them such as
they really are. And their felicity in other respects is corre-
spondent with these thinjn^s."

The planet, as the man, has a natural sphere and a supernatural
sphere. Its natural sphere is constituted of material forms, and
its supernatural sphere is constituted of intelligible forms. There
is a world of sensible forms, and there is a world of intelligible
forms, and the material world, universally and particularly, de-
pends from the supernatural world, and that is a sphere of essen-
tial forms, of which nature's forms are the phenomena and effigy.
And those essential entities are in the truest sense organic. There
are mountains and valleys, and rivers and seas, and precious
stones, and gold and silver, and trees, and flowers and fruits, and
there are animals, and men and women, and heroes and heroines,
and angels and daemons, celestial and infernal ; and that sphere
is the supernatural factor of the planet. Abstract it from physics,
and nature will as universally collapse and disappear as the ma-
terial body of man when his spirit departs from it. Matter has in
and of itself no capability and no predilection for moving itself
into these shapes of nature.

And are there any other people, any other intelligible order,
occupying this planet besides those mortals that are manifest to our
senses in this low-down mortal plain ? And do we run the planet ?
And do we single-handed and alone keep this ball in motion ?
Where, and in what relation to it and to us, may be those whom
the many thousands of ages have garnered hence, who like our-
selves have trooped through this valley and have passed on? Are
they anywhere, and have they any business in it? Do they at all
belong to the scheme and movement of the world ? Sings an
American poet : " Oh ! I believe, of all those billions of men and
women that tilled the unnamed lands, every one exists this hour,
here or elsewhere, invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he
or she grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, be-
came loved, sinned in life.

" I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen, world
counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world.

" I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit
as much as we belong to it, and as all will henceforth belong to
it."

412 The Journal of Speoidative Philosophy.

Let us see what we can see. Either the visible inhabitants of
this mortal plain arbitrate and predetermine historic eventualities
according to the predilection of the mind and will of man ; or else,
on the other hand, the curriculum and processes of history are
arbitrated and projected by some higher cause, of whose ends
man here is the servant.

One day a nation was born, and angels sat in the council of the
Most High, and they commissioned the nation to the high preroga-
tive and service of standard-bearer of universal empire, and they
fashioned and delivered by the hands of their servants this stone,
to be made the head of the corner : " The Creator has endowed
all men with certain unalienable rights (rights that may not there-
fore be alienated by the hand of man), among which are life, lib-
erty, and the pursuit of happiness." The years passed by and the
nation forgot. And in its oblivion it dreamed and said : We run
the planet, we are the builders, and we like not, and we reject this
old corner-stone. This is a mere " o-litteringgeneralitv," "a mere
rhetorical flourish." This, rather, shall be the head of the corner :
^' The black man has no rights which the white man is bound to
respect."

And behold ! At midnight, in the night when the nation slept
this sleep, and dreamt this vain dream, there appeared in the hori-
zon a sign and a wonder, appearing at first no bigger than the
hand of a man. John Brown appeared in Harper's Ferry with a
dozen and a half of comrades, all unarmed. In the measures
of human estimation, this was a most insignificant transaction.
He was adjudged guilty of insurrection and revolt and rebellion
against the laws and governments of the States and of the IS'ation,
and they took him and they hung him. And this was deemed,
and in all ordinary instances would have proved, a settler of the
business ; and, overladen with dishonor and shame, his name should
have become a reproach and a hissing through tiie land. And yet
nothing of this consequence happened. From the hour of his ex-
ecution the repose of the nation ceased. The earth shook from
Maine to Florida, and from JS^ew York to San Francisco. His
name entered the rostrum, and the press, and the pulpit, and the
ballot-box, and was heard on every tongue. One part of the
nation agreed he was a malefactor ; the other part agreed he was
infatuate ; for even his friends admitted it to be quite inutile and

Philosophic Outlines. 413

incredible, therefore, tliat a man in his senses should lay down his
life for B, principle.

But what is the reason the nation could not sleep any more
from that day to this ? Let us see what we can see. This little
drama of Harper's Ferry is a drama of three acts.

First Act: Proclamation of a national revolution having for
its end the equality of all men before the law — the very unveiling
of that old corner-stone which the builders had rejected.

Second Act: This revolution to be effected by force of arms,
and not by moral suasions, as many quacks had said and sung.

Third Act: These arms to be the arms of the National Gov-
ernment, and not the arms of agitators and desperadoes, as the
many shrieked and feared.

These were precisely the three most heinous heresies in the
category of the national execrations — precisely the measures this
nation had not even the firstlings of, neither in heart nor in mind,
neither will nor hand, to do. And so tlie nation affirmed, with
one accord, we will not. And so Mr. Lincoln, the true mouth-
piece of the nation's mind, proclaimed, from time to time. We
make no war with the peculiar institution of the States. All we
ask is your allegiance — the Union as it was, and the Constitution
as it is. And for which boon we proffer, as oar part of the bar-
gain, to submit to the last disgrace and humiliation — the use of
our patriot soldiery to capture fugitive slaves and return them to
their bellisrerent masters. And so we warred with Bull Eun
disasters, and Manassas' contemptuous defiance and counterfeit
campaigns, and Chickahominy graveyards, as the fruits of our
arms. And we offered a bonus for an antiiem to celebrate and
inspire our cause, and there were hundreds of unrewarded com-
petitors for the prize, when at last the earth was caused to open
her mouth, and a song was put into her mouth : "John Brown's
body lies a-mouldering in the ground, but his soul is marching on."
And from a hundred fields of battle the cannon echoed and the
mountains and hills reverberated, and the rivers and the fountains
and the valleys chanted "" John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in
the ground, but his soul is marching on." And Vicksburg fell,
and Richmond fell, and the chains fell from off the limbs of mil-
lions of slaves, and the oligarchic confederacy collapsed as a bub-
ble. And now mark. From the day of John Brown's entrance

414 The Journal of Speculatwe Philosophy.

into Harper's Ferry to this day, this great nation, with all its civil
and military resources, has been devoted to the one business — the
enactment of the drama epitomized in that event — prosecuting a
revohition having for its end the equality of all men before the
law. And this by force of arms, and by the arms of the Federal
Government — and, mark well, not because this nation had the mind
to do it, or the will to do it, as was before said, but because some
power above took it by the nape of the neck and put it right along,
of necessity, to this business, which was framed and delivered into
its hands from the councils of the Eternal.

Yerily, the visible inhabitants of this planet do not run the
planet. They do not predilect and arbitrate the social destinies
and the temporal eventualities of history. These all have their
parentage in the unseen powers, and here is manifest the super-
natural facto?' in the history of the state.

And now, furthermore and finally, each and every generation
of mind, constituting the great measures of history, has its foun-
tain and form in its idea of divinity. And this is contained in a
special incarnation and its dispensation. And from this idea and
fountain all their distinctive social institutions of Church and
State, their sciences, and arts, and laws, and manners and customs
have their type and determination.

Divinity epitomizes unto man its own nature, through the mir-
acle of the incarnation, which is called the manifestation of Deity.
And this is the seed of the succeeding mental generation, and
essential history is ever a stream flowing from this fountain, and
is not a mere social and successive order of temporal eventualities.
And of these fountains of social genesis and history, Kreeshna,
and Zoroaster, and Osiris, and Apollo, and Odin are examples.
These are historic instances and forms of the Name given under
the Heaven whereby mankind is lighted and lifted up.

The divine mediatorship is a univei'sal. Neither the origin
nor the subsistence of the order of human souls, in this alien
order of physical nature, is effected without this. And therefore,
so long as the race of man exists on this sublunary abode, so long
and so perpetually must have been and must still be exercised this
mediatorial function.

Myth is the idiom of mysticism — the very technique of discourse
of subjects of the supernatural order, and a universal element in

PhilosojpJiic Outlines. 415

history. And it never is nor was the inane drivel and childish
babble of a puerile age. But mystic habiliment is the native in-
vesture of mystic subject — of true entity. And k true mythology
— a science of myth — will discover in this mythic inco/rnate medi-
atorship^ of all the generations of earth, the very connective link,
the very pneumogastric nerve, between the supernatural and the
natural orders, without which the natural order has no possible
subsistence.

Said Kreeshna to a very ancient discipleship : " I am the Lord
of all created beings, having command over my own nature. I
am made evident by my own power; and as often as there is a
decline of virtue, and an insurrection of vice and injustice in the
world, I make myself evident ; and thus I appear from age to age
for the destruction of wickedness, for the preservation of justice,
and for the establishment of virtue."

In Egypt, one day. Ostitis was born, and a voice came into the
world with him, saying, " The Lord of all things is now born."
And the Temple of Ammon reechoed with a loud voice, " Osiris,
the great and good king, is now born." And he drew mankind by
laws, and arts, and worship, from a beggarly and beastly life.
He was the manifestation of divine love and wisdom unto men ;
he was betrayed and put to death by the malice of the evil one;
he was buried and rose again ; he went into the world of the good
daemons, whence he was the helper of his discipleship on earth,
and was the judge of the dead. He finally ascended back to the
sphere of the gods from which he came out.

One day, in the Friendly Isle, Apollo was born. Earth smiled,
and the goddesses shouted aloud for joy. His food was the nectar
and ambrosia of the gods. He announced his mission to be, " To
declare to men the will of Jove." He walked upon the ground,
and it became covered with golden flowers ; he was the god of
the arts of use and beauty; he was the power of healing, and so
vanquished the great earth-serpent — bestial sense in the souls of
men. He built the temple again among men, and as a blazing
star descended into it, and abode in it. He was exalted unto the
heavens. Thence he was the oracle and the prophet, and he was
the shepherd and the physician, and he was the lawgiver and the
king of men, and

416 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

" To him all Nature's tribes their difference owe,
And changing seasons from his music flow;
Since to his care the figured seal's consigned,
Which stamps the world with forms of every kind."

And, says Plato : " There remaineth to hirn — the Delphian Apollo
— the greatest, noblest, and most important social institutions —
the erection of temples, sacrifices, and other services of the gods,
and likewise the rites of the dead. Such things as these, indeed,
we neither know ourselves, nor, in founding the State, would we
intrust them to any other, if we be wise; nor would we employ
any other interpreter than that of the country, for surely this god,
being the natural interpreter to all men about such matters, he in-
terprets to them sitting in the middle, and, as it were, navel of
the earth ; " the divine mediator to that generation between God
and man.

One time Odin came down out of Asagard — the home and city
of the gods. He vanquished the enmity of earth ; he led man-
kind from barbaric unto rural and civic arts, and to conquest in
the battle of life; he established in the mind of man two king-
doms — manheim and godheim — the principles and powers of the
kingdoms of nature and of the supernatural. He ascended into
godheim, whence he often manifested himself to his friends, whom
he inspired and led to victory in their earthly conflicts and strng-
gles. He finally disappeared from godheim and went back to
Asao-ard, from which he came out.

One day, not long ago, a child was born in Bethlehem of Ju-
dea, and they called his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted
is, " God with us" And behold ! there came wise men from the
East, saying, " Where is he that is born king of the Jews, for we
have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him ?"
And when they saw the star, that it stood over the child, they
rejoiced with exceeding great joy. He announced that he came
down from heaven to declare the counsels, and to do the will of
his Father, that he might enlighten and raise up the race of mor-
tal mould. He organized a terrestrial order of apostles and dis-
ciples. " He was crucified, dead, and buried ; he descended into
Hades ; the third day he rose from the dead ; he ascended into
heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Al-
mighty. From thence he judgeth the living and the dead." And

Philosoj)hic Outlines. 417

he leadetli and helpeth this generation unto all victory and
acliieveineut.

And so in Kreeslma, and Zoroaster, and Osiris, and Apollo,
and Odin, and Jesns Christ, was the Logos that illuminates the
world and lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And
so the annals of all the generations — from China and India,
through Persia, and Chaldea, and Egypt, and Greece, and Scan-
dinavia, and Christendom — their religions, their sciences, their arts,
their philosophy, their architecture, their poesy, their music, their
painting, their sculpture — all of every age — establish their hy-
parxis in the mythic fountains, in the incarnations and oracles of
the dispensation.

Says Mr. Emerson : " 'Tis certain that worship stands in some
commanding relation to the health of man, and to his highest
powers, so as to be in some manner the source of intellect. All
the great ages have been ages of belief — I mean when there was
any extraordinary power of performance, when great national
movements began, when arts appeared, when heroes existed, when
poems were made, the human soul was in earnest, and had fixed
its thonghts on spiritual verities., with as strict a grasp as that of
the hands on the sword, or the pencil, or the trowel."

In Scripture dialect, Jesus was the son of a carpenter — he was
the young mechanic. This foretokens and portends a mechanical
generation ; mind in the science and use of the mechanical powers.
I met one day a college friend who had resided in India a quarter
of a century. We were recounting together the marvellous achieve-
ments in Christian mechanics during that period. As an instance
I related the event of the then past year ; how that, when the
great continental belt, the Pacific Railroad, was consummated in
the interior of the continent, the strokes of the hammer that drove
the last nail were heard in the great cities of the two seaboards !
" Yes," said he, " and we heard it in Bombay." And no greater
miracle did any historic faith of the world ever work by the hand
of man. And in the late World's Exposition it is noteworthy
that the unprecedented and unparalleled mechanical invention
and construction characterized exclusively the Christian nations.
Let us briefly advert to the fountain, and see what we can see.

One day, when he was come nigh to Jerusalem, Jesus sent
two of his disciples to a place where they should find an ass tied,
XIY— 2Y

418 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

whereon never man sat, saying to them, Loose him and bring him
to me, and, if any man say anght, tell him the master hath need
of him. And they brought the ass, and they spread garments
upon him, and Jesus sat upon him. And they cast their garments
and the branches of the trees in the way, and the multitudes that
went before, and they that followed, cried, "Hosanna! blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ! Hosanna in the
highest ! "

And it came to pass in the processes of the Christian generations,
as they neared the ends and fulfilments of the dispensation, that
certain two discipleships, Religious Faith and Natural Science^
were sent forth in the earth by the Master to the region where
the mechanical earth powers were hitherto tied up — a beast of
work whereon never man sat. And they loosed these earth forces,
and they have brought them unto the service of the Master in his
kingdom of a Christian manhood. And behold ! the fire and the
water and the lightning and the light obey and become organic
and serving entities. And now the Christian man bids these pow-
ers move his machinery, grind and prepare his food, and spin and
weave his raiment, and print and carry his thought, and scatter
the seeds of universal education and religion and freedom through-
out the habitations of men — and they do it ! He builds him a
huge palace upon the waters, fills it with tons of notions, and bids
the water and the fire move it to this point and to that, through a
continent, across seas and vast oceans — and they do it ! And
when Nature's road is out of the way, he mounts his servant upor
wheels, and again, at the nod of his master, away he darts with
huo-e burdens, taken from the backs of beasts and men, across
mountain, plain, and river, woodland and prairie, with scarce no-
tice to the buffalo and the wild man to clear the track.

But again, he wants a more fleet messenger, to go on errands ;
and he calls down the lightning of heaven, bids it go, exchange
thought and sympathy, and carry tidings between the ends of the
earth — and it does it !

But the steam factory and the steamboat and the steamship and
the steam-car and the steam-press and the telegraph and the pho-
tograph and the world expositions, however wonderful as facts, as
results, are lost to the view in their ominous significance of the
eternal appearing and operation of the supernatural powers, through

Philosophic Outlines. 419

the instrumentality of the lowest principles of nature. And that
the eternal Son of God again descended into our world is a cause
whose effects must follow, a prophecy which the characteristic
events of this present age are explaining. Behold ! what manner
of man is his discipleship of this day, that even the water and the
fire and the light and the lightning obey and serve him? And as
his dialectic vision shall be further opened toward the supernatu-
ral, and his scientific intelligence more opened toward nature,
who may dream or guess what and how many servants in Nature's
realm yet wait the bidding of this young master ? Already, in-
deed, upon the instrumentality of organized science, that "colt
whereon never man sat before," the discipleship of this generation
is realizing a triumphal procession into its Jerusalem of marvellous
fulfilments.

Hear the summary, as condensed in the comprehension of the
Great Napoleon. Said he: "I know men, and I tell you that
Jesus is not a man. The religion of Christ is a mystery which
subsists by its own force, and proceeds from a mind which is not a
human mind. We find in it a marked individuality, which orig-
inated a train of words and maxims and events distinctively its
own. Jesus borrowed nothing from our knowledge. He exhibited
in himself a perfect example of his precepts. Jesus is not a phi-
losopher ; his proofs are miracles and he came into the world to
reveal the mysteries of heaven and the laws of the spirit. Alex-
ander, Csesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires ; but
upon what did we rest the creations of our genius 'i Upon force.
Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon love. And at this
hour millions of men would die for him.

" It was not a day or a battle which achieved the triumph of his
cause in the world. No. It was a long war, a contest of centu-
ries, begun by the apostles, and then continued by the floods of
Christian generations. In this war, all the kings and potentates
of the earth were on one side. On the other, I see no ariny, but a
mysterious force — some men, scattered here and there in all parts
of the world, and who have no other rallying point than one com-
mon faith in the mysteries of the cross. I die before my time, and
my body will be given back to the earth, to become the food for
worms. Such is the fate of him who has been called the great
Napoleon. What an abyss between my deep miseries and the

420 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy.

eternal kingdom of Christ, which is proclaimed, loved, and adored,
and which is extending over the whole earth. Call you this dy-
ing ? Is it not living, rather ? "

No; the divinity of this dispensation is not dead. And it is
precisely because this divinity, who now sitteth aloft, delivered
aforetime the curriculum of this generation, and, as Prophet, Priest,
and King leads from on high this mortal race unto its fulfilments,
that they that have an eye to see may see, exalted in the heaven,
the God of the faith and the God of the country ; and not a vola-
tile thing of sense or imagination, but a presence manifesting it-
self in the forms of social thought and deed. Over religion, philos-
ophy, politics, science, art, broods a mighty world-spirit whose
name is Christian. And there is to be seen, visible in all terres-
trial things — not in this nor in that ism— not in this nor in that
carcass where the eagles are gathered together — but in the diffusion
of a distinctive increment of heat and light into the universal mind,
manifest as the lightning that shineth out of the East even unto the
West — there is to be seen, by those that have the goodly prospect,
establishing itself through the lapse of the centuries, upon the ves-
tiges of the former times and taiths, an invincible empire, united,
homogeneous, and all-powerful to fulfil its destinies and its im-
pulses, embracing within its broad arms the men of ever}- nation,
creed, and clime. And all the combined hosts of earth, hierarchs,
and autocrats, and sham democracies cannot move a printing-
press, or construct a railroad, or plant a telegraph post, or stir the
deep waters of the public mind, or lash its shoals into commotion,
except as the servants and instruments of this empire. Here is
manifest the supernatural factor in the Church, The God of the
dispensation rules, and therefore men may work and trust.

And this factor is a universal in history. There never was a
human country without a god. There never was a historic faith
that wrought miracles in the earth by the hand of man without a
god, Man does not previde ; man does not provide. Man does
not frame and project the curricula of the terrestrial generations ;
man does not arbitrate the social destinies of the race. Therefore
it still gets truly said that the idea of divinity threads and unifies
the annals of universal history.

N(jtes and Discussions. 421

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL ELEMENT IN SHELLEY.

BY GEOEGE 8PEN0EE BOWER.

The century in which we live has, according to Mr. Freeman,
originated a fresh instrument of research, a new point of departure
for the acquisition of knowledge, a sort of third Eenaissance of the
human intellect. This instrument he believes to exist in the Com-
parative Method as applied to different branches of inquiry. We see
now, to a greater extent than formerly, that the principles of law,
religion, politics, art, or philosophy, characteristic of a given people
in a given age, are not final, but must be collated with those existing
in other countries at the same epoch, or those existing at other
epochs in the same country, if we would determine the grand ele-
ments of truth which underlie the various modes of its manifesta-
tion, and disengage the central mass of what is rational and eternal
from the outlying margin of the merely temporary and conventional.

Another tendency of mind, necessarily related to the above and
proceeding on parallel lines with it, is the tendency to regard the
genius of a great man in connection with precedent conditions and
the past history of human endeavor, as well as in its isolation and
heaven-derived strength ; to see how such men are, in a manner,
necessitated by the previous progress of humanity toward the attain-
ment and realization of truth ; and in what sense they mark a step
forward on the well-beaten road. And not only so, but the minds
of such men are considered also in their relation to contemporary
influences, and are thus recognized as being intricate and complex
totalities, with many other elements entering into their composition
than the particular ones assigned to them in each case by popular
opinion and speech, which, as it necessarily cannot spend time over
a multitude of names, labels them once for all poetic, philosophic,
critical, or statesmanlike, and has done with it. We see a great
spirit as it is constituted by the delicate balance and interdependence
of several different faculties, each with its bearing on the others,
and each, moreover, having its point of contact with corresponding

422 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy.

spheres of contemporary intellectual actiyity. A really transcendent
genius, of whatever cast, cannot — except for purposes of convenience
and brevity of expression — be enclosed within a stereotyped category,
or characterized in terms of a stereotyped definition. Words must
expand themselves beyond such limits if they are to become adequate
to the elasticity of the mind whose inmost workings they wish to
expound — if they are to satisfy the demands of philosophical accuracy
and completeness. Can we understand Plato or Bacon by calling
them philosophers ? Shakespeare, Dante, or Goethe by calling them
poets ? Were not the former — though from different standpoints —
as much poets as philosophers, and the latter — also from different
standpoints — as much philosophers as poets ? ' Such spirits as these
are complicated organisms, and must be judged as such. To dissect
their wholeness, to disturb the existing harmony of parts and corre-
lation of faculties — still more, to sever one faculty from its organic
connection with the rest, and to describe it as being the life itself —
this is to deprive these spirits, in our attempted explanation of them,
of all that which makes them what they are.

In the productions of a really great mind there exist implicit many
other elements than those which have procured for that mind its
special designation in popular speech — elements which it is the task
of criticism to render explicit. The true Master-spirit, the Finished
Scholar, as Fichte would call him (meaning by the term a good deal
more than is ordinarily meant), is one who exhibits — must, by
the nature of him, exhibit — not only knowledge, but also Love of
Wisdom ; and not only Love of Wisdom, but also Power of Making ;
who is always, in fact, Man of Science, Philosopher, and Poet in
one — and this by whatever distinctive appellation he may be known
to the world. And thus it is that in any poetry which deserves the
name — and such all would consider Shelley's to be — it is not unrea-
sonable, and may perhaps be instructive, to seek out evidences of
the more strictly speculative and philosophical side of its author's
genius.

1 Wr. Masson, in his " Essay on Shakespeare and Goethe " (" English Poets," pp.
1-3V), brings out the deeply philosophical element in the mind of the former. He says
on p. 13, after objecting to such phrases as " William the Calm," "WiUiam the Cheer-
ful," etc., when regarded as expressing the whole or even any considerable part of
Shakespeare's mind, " If we were to select that designation which would, as we think,
express Shakespeare in his most intimate and private relations to man and nature, we
ehould rather say William the Meditative, William the Metaphysical, or WilUam the
Melancholy." See the whole essay.

Notes and Discussions. 423

It is, indeed, sometimes objected that it is wrong and ridicvilous
to expect philosophical doctrine, moralizing rhetoric, or didactic
purposes from poetry or productions of art. It is urged that the
poet or the artist ought simply to interpret and combine and add
coloring to whatsoever inward emotions and sympathies and enthusi-
asms of mind come within the range of his experience, or that of liis
country and age ; or to translate tlie phenomena of outward Nature
as affecting mind : and, in either case, to idealize and unify tlie
otherwise chaotic fragments around him with sole reference to the
beautiful, the simple, or the harmonious as standards ; and that,
therefore, it is not his province to strike attitudes as a pedagogue, or
a dogmatizer, a preacher, or for the good of society. As Shelley
himself says, in" Peter Bell the Third" —

" their station,
Is to delight, not pose."

Such is the principle on which Mr. Austin vigorously insists in
an essay which appeared a few months ago in the "Contemporary
Eeview." The principle itself is perfectly sound, and is approved
by such excellent critics as Goethe ' and De Quincey ; but when Mr.
Austin goes on to found on that principle his objection to all at-
tempts — such as that of Mr. Stopford Brooke, whom he selects for
special condemnation — to find in poetic works and unearth there-
from latent elements of theology, philosophy, or morals, he appears
to me to be confusing two separate things. Poetry must not con-
sciously strive to make itself useful, to give pleasure, to produce
moral effects, or to inculcate definite views on questions of meta-
physics — all this is outside the proper aim and intention of the poet.
So much is quite true ; but surely it is not to be denied that all the
above are (unintended, no doubt, but none the less actual) results of
the poetical, as of most other forms of composition ; though none
would wish the author of such poetry to distort himself, and tran-
scend his legitimate sphere, in the conscious endeavor to realize these
results. So that neither is Mr. Stopford Brooke to be blamed for
finding theology in Wordsworth, nor Conington for extracting the
idea of the "Glorification of Labor" from Virgil's "Georgics," nor
Plato for seeing moral lessons in Homer, and denouncing them,
moreover, as bad moral lessons, nor, lastly — to come down t© our

' The reader will remember a fine passage in " Wilhelm Meister," where he protests
agaiust the " lightly moving, all-conceiving spirit of the poet " being chained to a ken-
nel, like a house-dog, or made to plough, like an ox.

424 . The Jouymal of Speculative Philosophy.

present subject — is it unreasonable or extravagant to attempt to
evolve from Shelley's works those philosophical principles, which it
would have been ridiculous in him to have consciously endeavored
to inculcate by their means ; just as it would have been ridiculous in
Wordsworth, Virgil, or Homer to have proposed to themselves, as
their several objects, the writing of treatises on divinity, farming,
and ethics respectively.'

But, apart from this necessity in criticism of studying a great
mind in all its aspects, and in all its relations to the various objects
of thought, I would further claim consideration for my subject by
drawing attention more particularly to the specially close relation-
ship and mutual implication of Poetry and Philosophy, and to the
many intellectual features which they possess in common. The
" old quarrel " between the two no longer exists. Men see now, as
they did not see in Plato's time, that the one is to a great extent in-
volved in the other ; that while Poetry reposes very frequently on —
if not developed, at all events, inchoate — principles of philosophy,
Philosophy, on the other side, when of a constructive and not a
merely negative and skeptical character, breathes aspirations which
fairly entitle her, in some of her moods, to enter the legitimate do-
main of TToiTjaig or Creation. It is the object of both to pierce be-
neath and behind the outward veil — the " schein " — of the phenom-
enal world to the inwardness and reality of things ; or, if the less
sombre of the twin sisters loves to linger awhile and hold converse
with Nature in the outer courts of the temple, and on the lowest
flights of steps, it is only because she knows that these are in truth
nothing but encircling courts and ascending steps, and that she
must mount upward and onward through the shrine, which is redo-
lent of a far deeper and more spiritual incense than they, to the altar
itself of Ideal Beauty. She uses Nature's forms merely as the firm
setting — the solid background — to the airy phantasms of her own
conjuring. Philosophy endeavors to draw by main force. Poetry to
lure by her enticements, the Earth-spirit from behind her lovely but
(in itself) illegible vesture of Space, and the Spirit of the Time from
behind the dial-face of recorded history ; but both are products of a
common root. Each is ever whisj)ering to herself, half in tremulous
awe, and half in tumultous rapture, that now at length —

6 x^V^fi-^Q ovket' ek KaXv/Lt/idruv earai SedopK^a^

' Shelley himself frequently expresses his horror of consciously didactic poetry.
See especially his preface to the " Prom. Unbound," vol. I., p. 26*7, ed. Mrs. Shelley ;
also, " Defence of Poetry," p. 18.

Notes and Discussions. 425

and that the secret of the universe will be laid open to view. Each
(as regards the history both of the race and the individual) is born
of wonder, of reverence toward the boundless expanse of the world
around us, and the bottomless profundity of the world within us.
They act alternately as vehicles for expressing one another. The
poet is often, perhaps without being specially conscious of it, work-
ing ou.t the severest problems of morals and metaphysics ; the meta-
physician, in his desperate endeavors to break down the barrier
which divides him from the sanctuary of Truth, often uses language
which kindles — cannot but kindle — into the ruddy flame of imagina-
tive inspiration, and employs himself on ideas which finally land
him in a region far beyond that where the mere discursive exercise
of the understanding would be of any avail.*

Hence only is it that we can explain the significance and true
value of the well-known " intellectual midwifery " practised by Soc-
rates. He saw men burning with thought which could not find
vent in the channels of ordinary language. Now, if the subject of
such philosophic emotion happened to be a man of lively genius, a
Plato, for instance, he solved the difficulty by finding an extraordi-
nary language, burst forth into ecstatic song, and became, in fact, a
mystic — I use the word in no bad sense — and a poet. The ordinary
souls, however, felt what they could not put into words — they were
vexed with " the pain of a great idea ; " and it was for this malady
of thought that Socrates offered his services. The gifted spirits did
not need them ; but it was this blind yearning in the commoner in-
tellects of essentially poetic impulses, without the means of poetic
expression, which the great psychological doctor pitied and sought
to alleviate. In both these orders of mind, however, honestly and
earnestly grappling with philosophical problems, arises that creative
longing (incipient, indeed, in the one class, and only fully devel-
oped and self-conscious in the other, but equally existing in both),
which is usually considered proper to poetry alone as distinct from
philosophy. In reality, however, both Poetry and Philosophy are
aspirations toward the Infinite through the Finite, toward the Meta-
physical (Behind- or Beyond-the-Physical) through the Physical,
toward the Supernatural through the Natural. Plato's description
of the philosophic life — 6fj,olo)aig tw Oem — will also apply to that of
the true poet. He, as much as the philosopher, seeks the general in
the parti 3ular, the spiritual in the material, the ideal in the reality,

1 On this see a fine passage in ShelleyN " Defence of Poetry," pp. 11, 12; also p. 55.

426 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the permanent in the variable and evanescent. Both abjure the
accidents and specialities of life, or, so far as they come in contact
with them, employ them not so much for their own sakes as in the
way of incarnations, symbols, or illustrative examples of what is
neither special nor accidental.

These considerations may suffice by way of reply to a not impos-
sible question of the reader's on seeing the heading of this essay :
"What have Poetry and Philosophy to do with one another ? " Dis-
missing, however, for the present the general question of the close
kinship and constant interaction existing between these two great
forms of intellectual movement, we have, as to the present subject
of inquiry, independent evidence that Shelley's mental habits and
tastes led him originally in the direction of metaphysical study quite
as much as in that of poetry. As to the question of fact, it will be
sufficient to quote the following distinct statement of Mrs. Shelley,
who says (in the preface to vol. I. of the '' Essays, Letters from
Abroad, Prose Fragments, etc."), alluding to the detached thoughts
on metaphysical questions contained in that collection : —

" The fragments of metaphysics will be highly prized by a meta-
physician. Such a one is aware how difficult it is to strip bare the
internal nature of man, to divest it of prejudice, of the mistakes
engendered by familiarity, and by language, which has become one
with certain ideas, and those very ideas erroneous." (The above
remark, by the way, illustrates our position that the poet and the
philosopher are, at least, supplementary the one to the other. The
latter gives us the eternal properties of thought disengaged from
adventitious accretions ; the former holds up to our view the embod-
ied energies of pure passion disenthralled from qualification by trivi-
ality and custom.) "Had not Shelley deserted metaphysics for
poetry in his youth, and had he not been lost to us early, so that all
his vaster projects were wrecked with him in the waves, he would
have presented the world with a complete theory of mind ; a theory
to which Berkeley, Coleridge, and Kant ' would have contributed \

• Is there any evidence of Shelley's having studied Kant in the original, or of his
having become seriously acquainted with his doctrines through Coleridge ? The above
words almost seem to imply, but do not necessarily imply, that he had done one or the
other. He first refers to Kant in " Peter Bell the Third : " " The Devil then sent to
Leipsic fair, For Born's translation of Kant's book ; A world of words, tail foremost,
Where "... etc. There are no traces, however, of a Kantian influence in his po-
etical writings. Indeed, it is antecedently improbable, as I shall endeavor to point out
that a mind constituted as Shelley's was, could have had any sympathy with the dualistic
attitude of Kant.

Notes and Discussions. 427

but more simple, inexpugnable, and entire than the systems of these
writers. . . . These intense meditations on his own nature thrilled
him with pain. Thought kindled imagination . . . etc."

In these last words we see how his philosophy merged in his
poetry, yet without being lost or swallowed up in it ; in fact, it was
this oneness of his ratiocinative thought and his creative fancy,
which combined to produce that peculiar intellectual quality which
stands out so conspicuously in his life, and his life's work —

" in alto intelleto un puro core,
Frotto senile in sol giovenil flore;
E in aspetto pensoso, aninia lieta."

The fact of his philosophical tastes being thus beyond all question,
let us now consider the particular direction which these tastes took.
Every philosopher, it has been said, is either a Platonist or an
Aristotelian. We may perhaps exj^ress the distinction more appro-
priately in modern phraseology, if we say that every man is either a
believer in some one of the diSerent forms assumed by dualism, the
system, that is, which divides existence (using that form in its widest
possible signification) into two separate worlds of nature and of
spirit, of outward and of inward, of objects and of ideas, and sets
these two worlds over against one another as alien and irreconcil-
able, and not mutually commutable or expressible, the one in terms
of the other ; or else he holds to the reduction of all kinds of exist-
ence, both in the sensible and the intelligible universe, to some one
element, whether that element be thought, which chokes itself with
matter, or matter which gives the "promise and potency" of
thought ; that is, he gives in his adherence to monism in one or
other of its shapes. It was ably pointed out in an article on Kant's
philosophy, which appeared in the June number of "Macmillan's
Magazine," that it is generally the practical and analytical mind
which devotes itself to the former type, while the creative, imagina-
tive, synthetic orders of intellect usually take up enthusiastically
with the latter. It is obvious which system Shelley, the most deli-
cately imaginative of all imaginative poets, jnust have made his own,
if he was not to abdicate every prerogative, and mutilate every char-
acteristic feature of his genius. He never could have believed in
any form of dualism. It is almost equally obvious that, of the two
kinds of monism alluded to above, he must ultimately have adopted
that which conceives mind as always prior to nature, as constructing
its own world, and as finding itself, and itself only, in material phe-

428 The Journal of Sjyeculative Philosojphy.

nomena. I say "ultimately," because Shelley did, as will be seen,
find a temporary resting-place in materialism, but, as might be sup-
posed, did not derive satisfaction from it for more than a very brief
period. But the two forms of monism were the two opinions be-
tween which he for a moment halted : he never doubted as to the
relative merits of monism itself and dualism. He gives dramatic
expression in a magnificent passage in the " Hellas " to the conflict
between dualism and common sense, on the one hand, in the person
of Mahmud, and monism and inspiration, on the other, as repre-
sented by Ahasuerus, in a manner which leaves little doubt as to the
side on which he himself stood. The passage is, perhaps, in all his
works, the most purely philosophical in language, and at the same
time directly expressive of the particular views on such questions
which he always held in the maturity of his powers. On both
grounds it is well worthy of being quoted in full : —

Mahmud. Thou art an adept in the diiferent lore
Of Greek and Frank philosophy. . . .

Thy spirit is present in the past, and sees
The birth of this old world in all its cycles
Of desolation and of loveline"S3 ;
And when man was not, and how man became
The monarch and the slave of this low sphere,
And all its narrow circles — it is much,
I honor thee, and would be what thou art
Were I not what I am ; ... .
Ahasuerus. Sultan ! talk no more

Of thee and me, the future and the past ;
But look on that which cannot change — the One,
The unborn, and the undying. Earth and ocean.
Space, and the isles of life or light that gem
The sapphire floods of interstellar air.
The firmament pavillioned on Chaos,
With all its cressets of immortal tire.
Whose outwall, bastioned impregnably
Against tlie escape of boldest thoughts, repels them
As Calpe the Atlantic clouds — this Whole
Of suns, and worlds, and men, and beasts, and flowers,
With all the silent and tempestuous workings
By which they have been, are, or cease to be,
Is but a vision ; all that it inherits
Are motes of a sick eye, bubbles, and dreams;
Thought is its cradle, and its grave, nor less

Notes and Discussions. 429

The future and the past are idle shadows

Of thought's eternal flight ' — they have no being ;

Naught is but that it feels itself to be.

Mahmud. What meanest thou ? thy words stream like a tempest
i Of dazzling mist within my brain — they shake

^The earth on which I stand, and hang like night

On heaven above me. What can they avail ?

They cast on all things, surest, brightest, best,

Doubt, insecurity, astonishment.

Ahasuerus. Mistake me not! All is contained in each.
Dodona's forest to an acorn's cup
Is that which has been, or will be, to that
Which is — the absent to the present. Thought
Alone, and its quick elements, Will, Passion,
Reason, Imagination, cannot die ;
They are what that which they regard appears,
The stuff whence mutability can weave
All that it hath dominion o'er — worlds, worms.
Empires, and superstitions. What has thought
To do with time, or place, or circumstance?

In this splendid rliapsody, this hymnic glorification of the might
and majesty of creative thought, we have Shelley's quasi-formal ex-
position of the poetic side of the philosophy which claimed his al-
legiance, namely, idealism ; we have the reasoned tenets of Berkeley,
clothed, not in syllogisms, but in language " transmuted by the
secret alchemy" of inspiration to such "potable gold" as flows fresh
from the inmost depths of Plato's eagle spirit — such words as burn
with ruder glare and less restrained vigor in Neo-Platonic mysticism —
such figures as gleam for us once more out of darkness in that des-
perate struggle of abstract thought to find an opening for itself from
out of the cavern of common speech in which it is enchained, and to
turn the ''idola" of its prison into its vehicles and instruments,
which characterizes the efforts of a Fichte, a Hegel, or a Coleridge.
The indirect influence of Shelley's metaphysics on the general tone
of his productions will be considered below ; meanwhile, for their
direct manifestation and exposition, could we desire anything finer ?

' Shelley constantly insists on the eternity of Thought in his poetry : cp. in the
same drama ; —

" Based on the crystalline sea
Of thought and its eternity."

(Vol. II., p. 153, of Mrs. Shelley's edition.)

430 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Could Plato himself have chanted a nobler poean to the eternal idea
of the good, or to the imperishable and all-pervading energy of reason
and her children ?

There can be no doubt, then, of Shelley's rejection of dualism, of
which step, indeed — besides that we might almost conclude on a
priori grounds that it would have been an absolutely ,necessary one
for a man of his intellectual calibre — we have evidence enough not
only in the above passage, but also in other plain declarations
scattered throughout his prose works. He speaks, for instance, in
the short fragment " On Life " (" Essays, Letters from Abroad, etc.,"
ed. Mrs. Shelley, vol. I., page 225), of "the shocking absurdities of
the popular philosophy of mind and matter, its fatal consequences
in morals, and their violent dogmatism concerning the source of all
things," where it is plain from the context that he is alluding to the
common-sense or dualistic theory of the universe. Nor does an ex-
amination of the subtler tones and influences in his poetry lead us to
suppose that he ever entertained for a moment a belief in the sepa-
rate action of matter and mind as independent co-factors in the
building up of the intelligible world.

But though Shelley's consistent rejection of Dualism is beyond
question, as also is his equally consistent adoption of Monism, in some
form or other, through all periods of his literary career ; when we
come to ask which of the two main forms of the latter it was that
he accepted, here the case is different, and we find that his attitude
is not always the same.

Shelley began by believing in Materialism. This, however, was
only a temporary stage ; and, even while he did hold the tenets of
that system, he held them in such a way, and with such qualifica-
tions, as to show that his real bent was towards Immaterial sm, or
Intellectualism, his passage to which was not long in being brought
about. Materialism, I have said, could not hold a man of Shelley's
vivid imagination in bondage for long. We may distinguish two
main types of it, a lower and a higher, each of which Shelley aban-
doned in turn, beginning at the lower, or French type, which pro-
duced no influence on his poetry. The other kind — the Baconian — left
its mark on " Queen Mab,"and other very early pieces. With regard
to the former — the crude realism of Condorcet, D'Alembert, Diderot,
and other analysts of the French Revolution — Mrs. Shelley says, in
her "Editor's Notes to 'Queen Mab :'" "His readings were not
always well chosen" {sc, about 1810); "among them were the
works of the French philosophers. As far as metaphysical argument

Notes and Discussions. 431

went, he temporarily became a convert." This lasted but for a very-
short time. It is evident that such almost brutal realism, if once
seriously believed in, would, whatever else it might do, kill poetry
outright. It was this chemical analysis "usque ad atomiim," this
dissection of nature's unity, this spirit which revels in the slavish
task of grinding the most ethereal beauty into elemental dust grains
indistinguishable from one another, and

" Viewing all objects UBremittino-ly
t. In disannexion, dead and spiritless,
And still dividing, and dividing still,
Breaks down all grandeur" —

which has excited the heartfelt abhorrence, in different times and
countries, alike of Wordsworth, of Coleridge, of Keats, of Schiller,
of Carlyle, of Plato,' and of all true poets. Any one who could
imagine Shelley in his poetic character seriously accepting the princi-
jDles and procedure of a Condorcet or Helvetius, could picture to him-
self Hobbes or Gassendi wi'iting lyric odes.

Enough, then, of this philoso})hy. Its bestial unsightliness could
never have been allied with " The Witch Poesy ; " and though, in
the notes to "Queen Mab," Shelley makes profuse quotations from
Bailly's "Lettres sur les Sciences 4 Voltaire," Cabanis's "Eapports
du Physique et du Moral de I'Homme," and Baron d'Holbach's
*' Systeme de la Nature " (of which last, indeed, he had at one time
projected a translation), and works of a similar character ; yet the
poem itself, immature as it was, presented beauties which far tran-
scended the sphere of the exercise of the French scalpel, and indeed
must have done so, if it was to be a poem at all. A man, we say, is
often better than his theories ; and it is clear in this case that the
poet was better than his annotations ; though even in one of his
notes he writes : "This negation " {sc. of the Deity) "must be un-
derstood solely to affect a creative deity. The hypothesis of a per-
vading spirit, co-eternal with the universe, remains unshaken."

The last sentence seems to give us a notion of the kind of transi-
tion stage in his opinions by which Shelley escaped from French ma-
terialism to a somewhat higher and more etherealized doctrine, a sort
of semi-material pantheism. "Queen Mab" was written in 1810.
But, during 1814 and 1815, on turning to the list of books wliich

' In Plato's case, it was the poet in him more than the philosopher which cried out
against " the brood of hard and repellent men, who will understand nothing but what
they can grip in their hands " (Theoetetis).

432 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Shelley recorded as having been read by him in those years ("Edi-
tor's note on the Early Poems ;" Mrs. Shelley's ed., vol. II.), we find
that those of them that related to philosophy were of a decidedly
higher character than the productions of the French Encyclopedie,
which he had studied in 1810. They included, for instance, " Locke
on the Human Understanding," Bacon's "Novum Organon," and
Eousseau's " Reveries d'un Solitaire." It will be seen that he had
not yet attained to idealism, though he was working up to it ; * but
that he had definitely abandoned the French philosophy for some-
thing higher. Indeed, in the "Defence of Poetry" (vol. I., of "Es-
says, Letters, etc.," p. 42) he animadverts somewhat severely on the
moral doctrines which were the inevitable issue of, or were inseparably
bound up with, the corresponding metaphysical creed of the analyti-
cal philosophers. "Their exertions," he writes, "are of the highest
value, so long as they confine their administration of the concerns of
the inferior powers of our nature within the limits due to the supe-
rior ones. But while the skeptic destroys gross superstitions, let him
spare to deface, as some of the French writers have defaced, the eter-
nal truths charactered upon the imaginations of men." He might
have applied to the Encyclopedic the words he elsewhere applies to

slavery —

" Thou frost of the world's prime,

KiUing its flowers, and leaving its thorns bare! "

But what was this "something higher," by means of which Shelley
bridged over the chasm which divided the lower Materialism of 1810
from the Idealism which he finally made his own ? It is difficult to
determine it within other than very vague limits, as Shelley, even
while he adhered to it, which was only for a short period in his men-
tal development, had not — nor, indeed, was it to be expected of a
poet — formulated it to himself with any precision. But we may
easily conjecture, from the general tenor of his productions at about
this time, what, in its broad outlines, it must have been, and how
it gave him a stepping-stone to Berkeleianism. The French Mate-
rialism (or perhaps, more strictly, sensationalism), allied as it was to
the exclusively analytical and skeptical instinct, was death to the
synthetic action of the spirit " of imagination all compact ; " but
we can easily enough conceive another kind of materialism — a mate-
rialism in a somewhat stricter sense — which would give room to the
poet for his revels in the realm of fancy, without enabling him to

' He had begun to study Berkeley, at the instance of Southey, as early as 1812, ac-
cording to Mr. W. M. Rossetti (introductory Memoir of Shelley, p. 167).

Notes and Discussions. 433

rise at once thereby to the highest platform from which Thought can
view the world, and herself in the world. It is a theory not without
grandeur, though a false one, which regards the successive flights and
gradations from ascidians to the most complex organisms, from sense
to the loftiest imagination, from barbarism to the most intricate civ-
ilization, from atoms and ether to the most variegated livery of the
visible universe, from animal appetite to the most heroic morality,
as being one and all nothing but different illustrative aspects of the
grand serial evolution of all existences from the primal vXrj, or from
the formless and unfeatured void. It is a view of life and things
' which is often laid hold of by one of those natures which plunge
enthusiastically into scientific pursuits without being corrupted by
them, or rendered utterly one-sided — natures which always retain in
their composition some not inconsiderable tincture of poetry, and are
struck with reverential awe in the face of the spectral abstraction of
matter which they have invoked from the vasty deep, not seeing,
however, that, after all, it is an abstraction, and, as such, is born of
that which should primarily claim their allegiance — " the mother
of all we know " — namely, Thought. It is a view which recommends
itself to a Thales in ancient or a Tyndall in modern times. It was
adopted conspicuously by Bacon, in whose works, perhaps, it was
that Shelley came upon that sort of reconciliation of philosophy
with poetry which he could not find in the coarse sneers of a D'Hol-
bach. We can easily understand that this gave him, at all events, a
resting-place not incompatible with magnificence of creation and
dalliance amid the richest fancies ; and also how the doctrines of
Physical Development and Physical Pantheism, peculiar to such a sys-
tem, would in his mind gradually and necessarily shade off into the
parallel doctrines issuing from immaterialism, namely those of what
we may call Intellectual Development and Intellectual Pantheism,
and how he would thus be brought definitely within the sphere of
the attraction of idealism. Even in ''Queen Mab,"' as I hinted
above, the encyclopaedic dissecting tendency almost disappears (in
the poem itself, as distinct from Shelley's commentary thereon) be-
fore the Baconian conception of Nature, a conception which, it is

' I would especially refer to the following passages, as expressing a mental attitude
which ascribes to Nature the grandest and most poetic attributes, and leaves less to the
action of mind (contrast with Shelley's later utterances from 1815-1822). The refer-
ences are to Mr. W. M. Rossetti's edition, vol. I. : (1) Pp. 20, 21 ; " Spirit of Nature "—
" symmetry ; " (2) pp. 39, 40, " Spirit of Nature "— " strength ; " (3) p. 41, " These are
my Empire " — " reality ; " (4) p. 53, " Happy Earth " — " perfectness."

XIY— 28

434 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy.

true, gives more weight to the external than to the internal, which
inclines to refer and conform spirit to matter rather tlian matter to
spirit, which, in Bacon's own words, "doth buckle and bow the
mind unto the nature of things," rather than " submitteth the shows
of things to the desires of the mind ; " but one which at the same
time sees the march of natural causes and the gradual and fruitful
multiplication of energies with the eye of poetry.

It is noticeable, too, that at this period (1814, 1815) Shelley was
studying these very philosophers whom, in the "Defence of Poetry,"
he pronounces to be, in the true sense of the term, poets. He says
(on page 11 of that treatise), " Lord Bacon was a poet," and refers
particularly to his " Filum Labyrinthi," and his "Essay on Death ; "
and on page 44 (note) he remarks : " Rousseau was essentially a
poet. The others " (he alludes to Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire),
" even Voltaire, were essentially reasoners," and adds that the world
could have dispensed with the latter, useful as they were, but never
with the former. This rejection of the "mere reasoners," in com-
parison with such "poets" as Bacon, and, in a less degree, Rousseau
(to whom he joins, on page 11, Plato), when we consider that the
reasoners mentioned are all, except Locke, French, either by nation-
ality or in mental characteristics, serves to show us, when taken to-
gether with a passage on French skepticism, quoted a page or two
back, that Shelley's dissatisfaction with them was due, not so much
to the fact that they referred everything to matter, as to the fact
that they did so in such a way as to leave no room for the poet in
which to exercise his creative energy, no place for the sole of his
foot, no solitary crag for his winged spirit to "mue her mighty
youth, and kindle her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam." It
was in Bacon, and men of his stamp, that Shelley found that synop-
tical grasp of things, in their entirety and yet in their interconnec-
tion, which imagination so dearly loves ; and, finally, after once
having accepted him as a refuge from what, as being destructive to
fancy, he loathed, he was insensibly led on to that higher monistic
system, to wit, idealism or intellectualism, which he never after-
wards abandoned. How may we conjecture this next step to have
been accomplished ?

For a poetic mind to pass over from the notion of the consecutive
evolution of all kinds of existence out of the primeval atom of mat-
ter, to the analogous notion of the consecutive evolution of all kinds
of existences from the primeval idea — the simplest germ of thought —
is quite natural. Matter, say the adherents of the former theory, gives

Notes and Discussions. 435

"the promise and potency" of all forms of life, motion, and even
thought itself. Thought reposes on sense, sense on motion, and mo-
tion presupposes matter. Is, then, matter really the prius to thought ?
How is this any more explicable than to say that thought is prior in
time, as it is in dignity, to matter — that matter could never have ex-
isted but as determined by intelligence ? The latter view is at least as
conceivable as the former ; and when such considerations were clearly
established to the mind of a man like Shelley, we can easily imagine
that, if he still doubted between the two, his poetic predilections
would definitely turn the balance in favor of idealism. He would
naturally and necessarily replace material pantheism by what I have
called an intellectualized doctrine of pantheism, and material evolu-
tion by intellectual evolution. He would transfer his worship and
allegiance from Nature to the intelligence for which alone Nature is
possible, and which in phenomena finds only what she herself has
put there. Instead of the doctrine of the flux of external phenom-
ena, he would adopt the doctrine of intellectual flux, which regards
all things as ultimately thoughts, and all such particular thoughts
as manifestations of tlie successive qualifications issuing from the
process of thought itself. * Thus in this triple theory of intellectual
evolution, pantheism, and flux of existences, he would find as much
breadth and as grand an aspect of the universe, at least as much
truth, and — for the poet — infinitely more depth and meaning than in
the correlative doctrines of material evolution, pantheism, and flux
of phenomena. It was, however, not without value to him to have
held for a short time previously the corresponding material tenets, as
these, by their largeness of grasp, conducted him gradually to a view
of things which he possibly might not have attained without some
such convenient stepping-stone ^ —

" For speculation turns not to itself
Till it hath travelled, and is married there
Where it may see itself."

I am aware that it would be quite ridiculous to suppose that

' Shelley's lines (in the little poem called " Love's Philosophy ") : " Nothing in, this
world is simple ; all things by a law divine in one another's being mingle," is an echo of
either of the two parallel doctrines of "the flux of things " to which I have referred.

"^ It is interesting to know (from the extracts from Williams's diary, given in Mr. Gar-
nett's article in the " Fortnightly Review," for June) that Shelley was a student of Spi-
noza's work, and meditated — and partially executed — a translation of his " Tractatus
Ethico-politicus."

436 The Journal of Speculati've Philosophy.

any sucli precisely formulated process as the above took place in
Shelley's mind ; it is merely suggested that, whether consciously
or unconsciously, he worked out something like it, and that so,
after having tried a lower and a higher, a more analytic and a
more constructive system of materialism, he was finally landed in
the truer type of monism known as the immaterial or intellect-
ual philosophy. For the truth of such a hypothesis I would ap-
peal to the reader to carefully examine his poetical works in their
chronological order. As regards direct statements of the change
in his metaphysical views, which came over him in about the
year 1815 (when his study of Berkeley, commenced in 1812, had
definitely borne fruit), I may quote the following passage from the
"Essay on Life" (in "Essays, Letters, etc.," voL I., p. 226), written
at that time : —

"It is a decision against which all our persuasions struggle, and
we must be long convicted before we can be convinced that the solid
universe of things is 'such stuif as dreams are made of.' The shock-
ing absurdities of the popular philosophy, . . . etc., [the next
words have been quoted above] . . . had early conducted me to
materialism. This materialism is a reducing ' system to young and
superficial minds.' ['Quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore' of 1810 !]
It allows its disciples to talk, and dispenses them from thinking.
But I was discontented with such a view of things as it afl'orded ;
man is a being of high aspirations, 'looking both before and after,^
whose ' thoughts wander through eternity,' disclaiming alliance with
transience and decay ; incapable of imagining to himself annihila-
tion ; existing but in the future and the past ; being, not what he is,
but what he has been and shall be. Whatever may be his true and
final destination, there is a spirit in him at enmity with nothingness
and dissolution. This is the character of all life and being. Each is
at once the centre and the circumference ; the point to which all
things are referred, and the line in which all things are contained.
Such contemplations as these materislism and the popular philoso-
phy of mind and matter \sc. Dualism] alike forbid ; they are only
consistent with the intellectual system."

On p. 242 of the same volume, he says : —

" By considering all knowledge as bounded by perception" [this
last word is evidently used in a larger sense than the ordinary one.
It was the unconscious use of " percipere" by Berkeley in this wider
meaning, as almost="intelligere," which gave a good deal of its
plausibility to his ^system], "whose operations maybe indefinitely

Notes cmd Discussions. 437

combined,' we arrive at a conception of Nature inexpressibly more
magnificent, simple, and true than accords with the ordinary sys-
tems of complicated and partial consideration,"

Shelley, then, had now come to believe in the world of nature and
of spirit as both existing solely for universal mind ; but he did not
believe in a Personal God. It may be asked : why did he not, like his
master, Berkeley, take this further step ? The fact is that, though
Shelley called himself, and Mrs. Shelley called him, a Berkeleian, in
reality he was never a thorough-going disciple of Berkeley, though he
was nearer to being so than to anything else. Berkeley's Personal
God was too much of a " Deus et machina " to attract Shelley. On
the contrary, it probably repelled him as a pedagogic device "for the
refutation of atheism," as unbecoming tlie resolute earnestness and
dignity of the true philosophic search for truth — in fact, as one of
those "pitiful sophisms" (as he says on one occasion of the current
proofs of the immortality of the soul) "which disgrace the cause."
Moreover, Shelley's personal hostility to all creeds and dogmas, and
the influences which the bitter conflicts of his youth had left behind
on his delicately strung imagination, were certainly not without
their share in determining him to stop short at this point.

But in another respect, yet ultimately from the same causes, he
went beyond Berkeley. The latter attributed something to the
"percipere" of individual minds, but a great deal more to the action
on those minds of a Personal Deity. The two together gave the
"esse." Now, Shelley eliminated the latter element ; consequently,
to produce the same result he had to attach vastly more importance,
and ascribe a far more extensive influence, to the creative work of
singular minds, and ultimately to that of the universal but imper-
sonal mind, to which he, in the last resort, referred the former. It
is true that he says sometimes in his prose works, " mind cannot
create ; it can only perceive ; " but, in the first place, in all such
passages the word "perceive" is used in the enlarged sense men-
tioned above ; and, secondly, to determine his real beliefs we must
look not so much to their direct exposition as to their indirect influ-

^ This sentiment is reflected in " Peter Bell the Third " (Mrs. Shelley's edition, vol.
II., p. 392) :—

" Yet his was individual mind,
And new-created all he saw
In a new manner, and refined
Those new creations, and combined
Them, by a master-spirit's law."

438 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ence on the tone of his poetry, whence it will be apparent that he
attributed far more to the active and constructive operations of indi-
vidual minds than was possible to a rigidly consistent Berkeleian.
Berkeley, indeed, marked off such intellectual activity in particular
minds from their supposed passivity in the reception of influences
from external phenomena, and totally denied the existence of the
latter. So far Shelley followed him ; but then Berkeley went fur-
ther, and affirmed, which Shelley did not, the existence of another
kind of passivity in particular minds as distinct from their activity,
a passivity, namely, in regard to the ideas imparted ''ab extra" by
the Deity.

What would have happened had Shelley lived to attain old age —
the calm old age of Goethe, for instance — we cannot tell ; but we
may conjecture that, after emerging from the same youth-period of
** storm and stress," and the same stages of, first, doubt, and then a
grand catholic Nature-worship, in his mental growth, which the
German poet had passed through, he would finally, like him, have
learned to attach their proper value to these and other sides and
aspects of life, and would have brought his well-buffeted vessel into
a haven of assured, though quiet and temperate, conviction — convic-
tion protected against assault from without no less than purified from
dogma within. But all this is mere conjecture. Before passing on
to facts concerning Shelley's idealistic tenets, I subjoin (hoping that
it will not be considered too pedantic) a tabular exposition of what
my view is of the stages in his philosophical development, as already
determined.

Philosophy divides itself into two main branches, viz. :

I I

Dualism (rejected by Shelley absolutely). Monism.

Materialism (lower type). Immaterialism (higher type).

I 1

I I . I . . I, . .

French Materialism ^ Baconiaji or Modified Berkeleianism. Pure Berkeleianism

(I). Spinozistic (Universal Mind with- (I^)-

Materialism "^ out Personal God. In-

(II). tellectual Pantheism.)

(HI).

It will be seen from the above table, taken in conjunction with the
pages preceding it, that Shelley adopted (I) up to about 1810. He

' Or more properly, perhaps. Sensationalism. ^ Scarcely strict Materialism at all.

Notes and Discussions. 439

then abandoned it for (II), to which he adhered till about 1812 or
so, when he began gradually to incline toward (III), which he defi-
nitely adopted in 1815, and retained till 1822, the year of his death.
(IV) He never reached at all.

Such, then, or something like it, was the genesis in Shelley's mind
of the metaphysical creed which he finally adopted. We may take a
somewhat modified Berkeleianism as the ultimate expression of his
most matured thoughts on philosophical questions (as is evident from
the poet's more considered utterances as to his beliefs in the last years
of his life, as well as from the statements of Mrs. Shelley'), and,
what is of more importance, as ruling by far the larger and better
part of his poetry. And here I may quote one or two passages from
both Shelley himself and Mrs. Shelley, by way of showing the con-
sistency with which — after having once thoroughly solved his pre-
liminary doubts — he advocated and held fast to his system up to the
end ; after which I will conclude by noticing, from a consideration
of his poetical works themselves, the nature and extent of the influ-
ence which that system exerted on them.

The first passage is from Mrs. Shelley's preface to her edition of
the *' Essays, Letters from Abroad, etc." (vol. I., p. xii.) : —

" Shelley was a disciple of the Immaterial Philosophy of Berkeley.
This theory gave unity and grandeur to his ideas, while it opened a
wide field for his imagination. The creation, such as it was perceived
by his mind — a unit in immensity, was slight and narrow compared
with the interminable forms of thought that might exist beyond, to
be perceived perhaps hereafter by his own mind ; or which are per-
ceptible to other minds that fill the universe, not of space in the
material sense, but of infinity in the immaterial one."

These remarks had immediate reference to Shelley's incomplete
" Essay on Life." In this fragment, which we may assign to 1815,
he himself says (p. 225 of the same volume) : —

" The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life,
which, though startling to the apprehension, is, in fact, that which
the habitual sense of its repeated combinations has extinguished in
us. It strips, as it were, the painted curtain from this scene of
things. I confess that I am one of those who are unable to refuse
their assent to the conclusions of those philosophers who assert that
nothing exists but as it is perceived."

* Cp. Mr. W. M. Rossetti ("Introductory Memoir of Shelley," pp. 165-168), who
was among the first, after Mrs. Shelley, to notice the influence of Immaterialism in
Shelley's poetry.

440 The Journal of Sjoeculative Philosophy.

Again (pp. 328, 229) :—

" The view of life presented by the most refined deductions of
the Intellectual Philosophy is that of unity. . . . The diiference is
merely nominal between those two classes of thought which are vul-
garly distinguished by the names of ideas and external objects. Pur-
suing the same thread of reasoning, the existence of distinct individual
minds, similar to that which is employed in now questioning its own
nature, is likewise found to be a delusion. The words, '/, Tou,
They,' are not signs of any actual difference subsisting hetiueen the
assemblage of thoughts thus indicated, but are merely marks to denote
the different modifications of the one mind."

Here we have a distinct enunciation of the doctrine of the uni-
versal, but impersonal, mind which marked off Shelley's immaterial-
ism from that of Berkeley.' The two passages, then, just quoted,
when taken together, show that Shelley held the modified Berkelei-
anism, which has been already described, in 1815, which year marked
the first term in his best period. He died in 1822. If, now, we
take a passage from the "Defence of Poetry," written in 1821,
expressing exactly the same views, and showing, moreover, indirectly
how those views fell in with his poetic instincts, we shall see that he
kept true to intellectualism during the last seven years of his life,
the years when he produced all his finest works — " Alastor," " Mont
Blanc," "Laon and Cythna" ('' The Eevolt of Islam"), "Julian
and Maddalo," "Prometheus Unbound," "Cenci," "Epipsychi-
dion," "The Witch of Atlas," "The Sensitive Plant," "Hellas,"
and " Adonais." In that treatise (Vol. I. of "Essays, Letters, etc.,"
p. 51) he writes :

" All things exist as they are perceived ; at least in relation to the
percipient. ' The mind is its own place, and of itself can make a
heaven or hell, a hell of heaven. ' But poetry defeats the curse which
binds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions.
And whether it spreads its own figured curtain or withdraws life's
dark veil from before the scene of things, it equally creates for us a
being within our being. It makes us the inhabitaiits of a world to
which the familiar world is a chaos. It reproduces the common
universe of which we are portions and percipients, and it purges

^ He concludes the fragment with a curious sentence. While freely admitting that
existence =thought, which again implies mind, he yet says : " It is infinitely improbable
that the cause of mind, that is, of existence, is similar to mind." Does this mean that
he had not yet quite purged himself of the higher or Baconian Materialism, from
which, at about this period (181.")\ his passage to Idealism would have been made?

Notes and Discussions. 441

from our inward sight the film of familiarity which obscures from
us the wonder of our being. It compels us to feel that which we
perceive, and to imagine that which we know. It creates anew the
universe, after it has been annihilated in our minds by the recurrence
of impressions blunted by reiteration. It justifies the b6ld and true
words of Tasso : ' Non merita nome cli Creator e, se non Iddio ed il
Poeta.'"

It is, perhaps, worth mentioning, before passing on to the main
thread of the argument, that, though Shelley was certainly well
acquainted with Berkeley's works (as has been already seen), yet it
seems to have been through the "Academical Questions" of Sir Wil-
liam Drummond, a faithful follower of the Intellectualist school,
that he made his most rapid and searching approaches towards Ber-
keleianism. He had read this treatise before writing " Queen Mab "
(1810), and even after he had begun to read Berkeley (1812) ; he
refers to his co-disciple Drummond more often than to their common
master. In the " Essay on Life " (1815), for instance, he writes : —

" Perhaps the most clear and vigorous statement of the Intellectual
system is to be found in Sir William Drummond's ' Academical
Questions.' After such an exposition, it would be idle to translate
into other words what would only lose its energy and fitness by the
change. Examined point by point, and word byword, the most dis-
criminating intellects have been able to discern no train of thoughts
in the process of reasoning which does not conduct inevitably to the
conclusion which has been stated."

Again, in 1817, in his preface to "The Eevolt of Islam," after
having characterized "metaphysics and inquiries into moral and
political science," as having in his day become " little else than vain
attempts to revive exploded superstitions" — hinting, no doubt, at
what he elsewhere calls the " popular philosophy" — that is, Dualism
— he adds, in a note : "I ought to except SirW. Drummond's 'Aca-
demical Questions,' a volume of very acute and powerful criticism"
("Shelley's Works," ed. Mrs. Shelley, vol. I., p. 64).' In "Peter

^ It is curious to compare these statements of the last period of his philosophical
development with a notice of Sir W. Drummond in his first period — the period of
"Queen Mab." In one of the notes to that poem we find the following: " Had this
author, instead of inveighing against the guilt and absurdity of Atheism, demonstrated
its falsehood, his conduct would have been more suited to the modesty of the skeptic
and the toleration of the philosopher" (Rossetti's ed. of Shelley, vol. I., p. 74). This
is the language of the poet in his early days of French philosophizing and dogmatic
Atheism. He saw in Drummond then only the impugner of Atheism and Materialism,
and, in that character, regarded him as expressing views inconsistent with the skepticism

442 The Journal of Speculative Philosojjhy.

Bell the Third " (written in 1819), he again just refers to Drummond
in the lines,

"I looked on them [«c. five thousand pages of German
psychologies] nine several days,
And then I saw that they were bad ;
A friend, too, spoke in their dispraise —
He never read them : in amaze,

I found Sir William Drummond had."

As to the special character and merits of Sir "W". Drummond's
work in philosophy, I cannot speak for myself, as I have been un-
able to procure a copy of it. The treatise to which Shelley alludes
appeared in 1805, and was of sufficient importance to attract the
attention of Lord Jeffrey, who wrote an article on it, where he says
("Essays," vol. III., p. 351) : ''though it gave a violent headache,
in less than an hour, to the most intrepid logician of our fraternity,
he could not help reading on till he came to the end of the volume."
He then proceeds : —

" Mr. Drummond begins with the doctrine of Locke ; and exposes,
we think, very successfully, the futility of that celebrated author's
definition of substance, as ' one Tc7ioius not wliat ' support of such
qualities as are capable of producing simple ideas in us. Having
thus discarded substance in general from the list of existences, Mr.
Drummond proceeds to do as much for the particular substance
called matter, and all its qualities. In this chapter, accordingly, he
avows himself to be a determined Idealist. . . . His reasoning upon
this subject" (viz., primary qualities being on the same footing as
secondary) " coincides with that of Bishop Berkeley. . .' etc."

So much for one main source — as far as books could constitute
such a source — of Shelley's Immaterialism. And now as to the
general coloring of his poetry attributable to that system of philoso-
phy. First of all, I propose to instance one or two characteristic
passages (all belonging to the period 1815-'22), where he has intro-
duced or probably reflected — of course in a more or less imaginative
form, and with all the illuminative hues with which he knew so well
how to enrich his thought — his peculiar metaphysical doctrines. ^

which he seems to have thought that, as a Berkeleian, Drummond should have alone
maintained. It required further and deeper study to enable Shelley to see the eon-
Btructive elements and fertility for poetic uses in Intellectualism. At that period he
certainly had not arrived at such a view.

' In one or two cases, indeed, he was on the verge of sacrificing poetry to philosophy.
Mr. W. M. Rossetti truly says, in his introductory " Memoir of Shelley : " " In Shelley

Notes and Discussions. 443

Apart from tlie long passage quoted above from the " Hellas," we
have, in the " Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," as it were, the religious
and a3sthetical counterpart to the merely ratiocinative side of intel-
lectualism. Shelley here appears no longer as the mere lay believer
in the articles of his creed, but as the high-priest and rapt votary of
the divinity Jwhich it recognizes in her loveliest aspects as — not
sensuous, but — ideal, intellectual beauty. In "Alastor" and "Epi-
psychidion " the poet represented himself in the character of one
who prosecutes the bootless quest of that perfect union of loveliness
of form with transcendent intelligence which can be realized only
to lose its ideality, or, if it retains the latter, is seen for an instant,
only to vanish away the next "par levibus ventis, volucrique simil-
lima somno." In a similar strain, he cries out, in the "Hymn to
Intellectual Beauty:" —

" I vowed that I would dedicate my powers

To thee and thine : have I not kept the vow ?

With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours
Eacli from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned bowers

Of studious zeal or love's delight

Outwatched with me the envious night :
They know that never joy illumed my brow,
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free

This woi-ld from its dark slavery,

That thou, O awful loveliness,
Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express."

In these lines speaks the adherent of Immaterialism, but of an
immaterialism richly dight in poetry's coat of many colors. With
less of imaginative addition, the opening verses of "Mont Blanc"
speak for themselves : —

"The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid Avaves
(Now dark — now glittering — now reflecting gloom —
No\v lending splendor, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters), with a sound but half its own ..." etc.

the predominant quality of all is the ideal . . . this tinges most of his work, and at
times even blemishes it. He was himself particularly attached to the metaphysical ele-
ment in his poetry, which is of course one great constituent of his idealism." He also
speaks of "a peccant element of unrealism, a slippery hold upon the human" charac-
terizing his narrative poems. Shelley himself thought that his powers were too raeta
physical and abstract to allow of his succeeding in tragedy. But here he formed a
too low estimate of himself, as " The Cenci " alone shows.

444 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Shelley concludes the poem, addressing the mountain : —

'•And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind's imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy? "

This last has a decided ring of idealism in it. So, too, have the
following lines from the " The SensitiYC Plant : " indeed, in their
insistance on the eternity of thought, and on the transcience of
everything else, except as existing in and treasured by thought, they
almost remind us of Fichte or Hegel : —

" .... In this life
Of error, ignorance, and strife,
Where nothing is, but all things seem.
And we the shadows of the dream.

" It is a modest creed, and yet
Pleasant, if one considers it.
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.

" That garden sweet, that lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odors there,
In truth have never passed away :
'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed ; not they."

So much, then, by way of instancing in certain parts of Shelley's
works the more immediate reflection of his idealistic philosophy.
Now let us consider the influence which that philosophy exerted on
his poetic moods, and in determining the forms and language and
metaphoric clothing assumed by his imagination. And this latter is
really the more important point to investigate ; for, just as the vivid-
ness and practical efficacy of a man's theoretical beliefs on questions
of morality is better seen in his daily life and works than in isolated
and formal professions of faith, so the real hold a particular system
of metaphysics has on the mind of a poet is better seen in his general
conception of the scope of his art, in his use of the instruments of
creative energy, and in his way of dealing with concretes and abstrac-
tions, as traced in the main tenor of his productions, than in selected
passages comprising, so to sj)eak, official subscriptions to the articles
of his doctrine.

Neither Shelley himself nor his best critic, Mrs. Shelley, were in
any doubt as to the general effect produced on his imagination by
the philosophy of Immaterialism. ''The unity and grandeur"

I^otes and Discussions. 445

which, in Mrs. Shelley's words/ it "gave to his ideas," and "the
wide field for his imagination," are results ascribed to it in quite as
emphatic language by the poet himself (in a passage already quoted
— "Essays, Letters, etc.," vol. I., p. 242). Mrs. Shelley again, in
her note on the "Pronietheus Unbound," writes : —

" It requires a mind as subtle and penetrating as his own to
understand the mystic meanings scattered throughout the poem.
They elude the ordinary reader by their abstraction and delicacy of
distinction ; but they are far from vague. It was his design to write
prose metaphysical essays on the nature of man, ivliicli would have
served to explain much of what is obscure in his poetry ; a few scat-
tered fragments of observations and remarks alone remain. He con-
sidered these philosophical views of mind and nature to he institict
tvith the intensest spirit of poetry."

Indeed, the kind of stamp which Intellectualism would leave on
the writings of a man of Shelley's nature would not be difficult to
surmise from a priori considerations. A system of immaterial phi-
losophy gives less importance to the external, as such, than to the
internal, to the phenomenal than to the spiritual, to the objective
than to the subjective. In matter it sees nothing but the vesture
and outward efilorescence of some product of mind ; while in every
affection of mind — in the waking vision, the vivid dream, the appar-
ently lawless flight of fancy — it sees a supreme reality. In a con-
crete object it sees only the shrine of an abstract idea ; in an abstract
idea, on the other hand, it sees the only true existence and the only
true divinity. It idealizes and humanizes the material ; and the
ideal it personifies and clothes with the definite outlines of individ-
uality. To the adherent of such views as these the work of poetry
would appear only as a richer and higher exercise of the same faculty
which, from the strictly metaphysical side of Idealism, is occupied,
as has been said, in "substantializing relations and bringing sub-
stances into relation."

Now, this twofold use of imagination is just that for which Shelley
is most conspicuous. Every poem that he wrote during his best
period illustrates one or both of these two modes in which creative

' Passa,Q;c quoted above from the preface to the " Essays, Letters from Abroa?d, etc."
The question has been sometimes raised as to Mrs. Shelley's capability of appreciating
her husband's powers. I may take this opportunity of remarking that it certainly
seems to me that, notwithstanding all that has been written on Shelley since, no better
account of the salient features in his genius is to be found than in the prefaces and
notes written by her to his different works.

446 The Journal of Speculative Philomphy.

thought may exercise itself upon its object, namely, on the one hand,
bodying forth and materializing ideas ; on the other, spiritualizing
phenomena, whether of material nature, physical forces, or human
action. I do not, of course, mean to deny that every good poet per-
forms this double function more or less constantly ; but Shelley does
so to an almost preternatural degree — a degree which, taken together
with what we know of his unfailing taste for philosophical pursuits,
leads us to suppose that his metaphysics, if they did not create the
particular paths along which his fancy travelled, gave them, at all
events, a (so to speak) theoretical justification.

The latter of these two correlative tendencies of imagination — ten-
dencies which are largely supported by, if they do not issue from, a
spec^^lative doctrine of idealism — is not unf requently noticed by Mrs.
Shelley. She says, for instance (Shelley's " Poetical Works," L,
372) : " Shelley loved to idealize the real — to gift the mechanism of
the material universe with a soul and a voice. " When, however, she
adds, "More popular poets clothe the ideal with familiar and sensi-
ble imagery," implying that Shelley did not do so to any great ex-
tent, she forgot that the same cast of mind which sees in the variable
phenomenon only the unchanging ideal is, for the very same reason,
so enamored of the creations of phantasy, and so possessed with the
conviction of their eternal self-subsistence, that it is ever seeking to
relieve itself from its tortures in the endeavor to embody them in
substantial and yet communicable shapes. " To clothe them in
familiar and sensible imagery ; " there is indeed the difficulty — a
difficulty great in proportion to the vaporous delicacy of the con-
ceived ideal. It was the hopelessness of attaining to a perfect repre-
sentation of siich ideals, without destroying and dissolving them as
such, which inspired those sublimest poems, "The Alastor" and
"The Epipsychidion." But that Shelley had an ardent love for
ideal forms issuing fresh from the clear wells of inspiration within,
as well as those to be discovered lurking and latent under realities
without ; and wished, moreover, not only in the domain of art, but
also in that of practical morality (both of which are built on the
eternal contradiction between the perfect constructions of speculative
reason and imagination, on the one side, and the limited human pos-
sibilities of action and unlimited human frailties, on the other), to
impress these forms, as nearly as possible in their pristine purity, on
surrounding facts — is elsewhere, though indirectly, recognized by
Mrs. Shelley. In the preface to her edition. of her husband's poeti-
cal works (vol. L, p. xi.), she says : " He loved to idealize reality ;

Notes and Discussions. 447

and this is a taste shared by few. We are willing to have onr pass-
ing whims exalted into passions, for this gratifies our vanity ; but
few of VIS understand or sympathize with the endeavor to ally the love
of abstract beauty and adoration of abstract good . . . with our
sympathies with our hindT

Shelley's attitude towards the ideal must therefore be looked at
from two points of view. It is the first of these — the idealization of
the else meaningless and incoherent phenomena of Nature — which is
perhaps too prominently insisted on by Mrs. Shelley ; it is the sec-
ond, the substantializing creations of thought, which is, certainly,
too prominently insisted on by Macaulay ; ' but we cannot form a
true estimate of Shelley's poetry without recognizing the equal exist-
ence and mutual interaction of both these mental forces in his genius.

Shelley's idealization of Nature was one which takes no heed of
special facts or phenomena except as material on which to beget
the forms of abstract beauty. He views the shifting flux of things
with complete indifference as to those things for their own sakes ;
and looks not so much at, as through, the sensuous shapes which
Matter presents to him : —

" Nor much heeds he what things they be,
For from them create he can
Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality."

His works teem with examples of Mr. Ruskin's '' Pathetic Fallacy "
— which so-called fallacy, however, is all that distinguishes mental
painting or sculpture from mere mental photography — of events or
phenomena, selected, combined, added to, and embellished, in such
a way as to form nothing but the setting for the clearer display of
some gem-like radiancy of thought or emotion. They abound in
what Mr. Stirling (''Secret of Hegel," Preface, p. xlvi.) notices as

* He writes : — " The strong imagination of Shelley made him an idolater in his own
despite. Out of the most indefinite terms of a hard, cold, dark, metaphysical system,
he made a gorgeous Pantheon, full of beautiful, majestic, and life-like forms. . . . The
Spirit of Beauty, the Principle of Good, the Principle of Evil, when he treated of them,
ceased to be abstractions. They took shape and color. They were no longer mere
words. . . . As there can be no stronger sign of a mind destitute of the poetical faculty,
than the . . . tendency to turn images into abstractions, ... so there can be no stronger
sign of a mind truly poetical than a disposition to reverse the process, and to make indi-
vidualities out of generalities." This passage is a good instance of Macaulay's inca-
pacity to look at things from more than one side. He insists on one element in Shelley's
genius very properly ; but then he is not content without not only ignoring, but denying
the other.

448 The Journal of Sjyeculative PJdlosojjhy.

instances of Vorstellungen or picture-thoughts, midway between tlie
absolutely abstract conceptions of philosophy and the concrete figures
and "idola fori" in ordinary use. Every energy of Nature is trans-
mitted by him, and bathed in "that light which never was on sea or
shore." It would be idle to begin quoting here : instances will occur
to the reader in the most lavish abundance, or, at all events, may
easily enough be found by opening Shelley at almost any page.

It will be of more interest to dwell a little before concluding on
the correlative aspect (described above) of the domination exercised
by idealism on such a fervent fancy as was that of Shelley to start
with. The externalizing of imagination-born forms is to the spirit-
ualizing of given phenomena as concave to convex of one and the
same curve, as obverse to reverse of one and the same coin. The lat-
ter has been noticed again and again in Shelley's j^oetry ; the former
not so often, and is perhaps less obvious.

Other poets, of course in abundance, had personified ideas and
ideal relations "ante Agamemnona ; " but none of them had done so
with the boldness and constancy and sweet wantonness of Shelley.
Setting aside such poems as the "Prometheus Unbound," the "Hel-
las," and "The Revolt of Islam," which form a sort of trilogy, re-
garded as presenting embodiments of one sublime central idea, viz.,
the perfectibility of man by means of reason and will alone — an idea
which, by the way, brings him near several philosophers of different
schools who have discussed the accidental character of evil, and the
possibility of effecting its gradual evanescence by human means' —
even setting aside these, we find that in most of his other poetry, at
all events from 1815 to 1822, Shelley, with his grand, imaginative
audacity, never hesitates to objectify and individualize conceptions
which, from their excessive abstractness and airy elasticity, would
cause any other poet to shrink from confining them within form or
outlines, and to relegate them in despair to the cold limbo of pure,

' E. g., Kant, J. S. Mill. For Shelley's belief that evil in human things is an accident
that might be expelled by the united will of mankind, vid. Mrs. Shelley's note on " Pro-
metheus Unbound " (vol. I., p. 370, of " Poetical Works "). In " The Revolt of Islam"
the influence of Godwin is perceptible. Shelley, like Schopenhauer, regarded the Ego
as confronting and warring against existing facts ; and, like him, he believed that evil
could be eliminated. But, as might be expected, their conceptions of the method of
effecting this were diametrically opposite. Schopenhauer wished to reduce activity, life,
subjectiveness, will, to the Nirwana of the impersonal and objective ; thus would be en-
sured a " divine tranquillity without one pleasure and without one pain." Shelley, on
the contrary, said : " Let every personality express itself to the utmost, and elevate to
its ownp latform the discordant facts of existence."

JV^otes and Discussions. 449

colorless intelligence. In the ''Alastor," for instance, "Silence, too
enamored of that voice, locks its mute music in her rugged cell."
And, besides Silence, we have a whole legion of abstractions anthro-
pomorphized elsewhere, such as Hope, Mutability, Misery, etc. A
very subtle emotional process is objectified in the words, 'Ho hope
till Hope creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates." Of
this sublimely paradoxical way of making that which is negative
positive, of transforming what appears to others as shadow into sub-
stance — of giving Silence its ''mute music," and Hope the power of
"creating from its own wreck,"' — we have another still bolder
instance in the "Fragment on Misery." The poet calls on personified
Misery to ie happy : —

" Come, be happy! Sit near me,
Sliadow-vested Misery.
Coy, unwilling, silent bride,
Mourning in thy robe of pride.
Desolation — deified !"

Nor is he afraid of pursuing the metaphor to its extremest

issues : —

" Kiss me — oh ! thy lips are cold ;
Bound my neck thine arms enfold —
They are soft, but chill and dead ;
And tliy tears upon my head
Burn like points of frozen lead.

" Hasten to the bridal bed —
Underneath the grave 'tis spread ;
In darkness may our love be hid,
Oblivion be our coverlid —
We may rest and none forbid.

" Clasp me till our hearts be grown
Like two shadows into one ;
Till this dreadful transport may
Like a vapor pass away
In the sleep that lasts alway.

" We may dream in that long sleep.
That we are not those who weep;
Even as Pleasure dreams of thee,
Life-deserting Misery,
Thou mayest dream of her with me."

- Cj). a somewhat similar expression hi the " Prometheus : " —

"... the killaby
Of winds that die
On the bosom of their own harmonv."

XIY— 29

450 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

It is scarcely conceivable that the force of imagination could go fur-
ther in incarnating the most negative abstractions. Similarly, Mu-
tability, the negation of Permanence, is often personified, and not only
personified, but regarded as itself permanent, and the only perma-
nent : —

" Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow ;
Naught may endure but mutability." ^

In the ''Prometheus Unbound" even Echoes, which are to voice
as shadow to substance, are given a positive existence, and aj^pear,
calling on Asia and Panthea to follow : —

Echoes (unseen.)
"Echoes we: listen!
We cannot stay :
As dew-stars glisten,
Then fade away."

Thus we have constant Inconstancy, musical Silence, happy Mis-
ery, and Echo with underived voice. Such is the kind of way in
which Shelley revels in substantializing the negative and personify-
ing the ideal and abstract. Anything related to Thought, Sound,
Space, or Time he loves to clothe with a more or less definite indi-
viduality. Every one remembers Shelley's beautiful pictures of the
"Hungry Hours," the " Stray Hours," etc. One in particular of
these, which is singularly grand, and comes, like so many other
of his best images, from the " Prometheus," may be mentioned here.
At the beginning of the fourth act is introduced " A Train of Dark
Forms and Shadows," who are introduced singing : —

"Here, oh ! here:

We bear the bier,
Of the Father of many a cancelled year !

Spectres we,

Of the dead Hours be,
We bear Time to his tomb in Eternity." ^

' Cp. The two Odes to Mutability, a conception frequently personified in Shelley's
works.

' Other conceptions anthropomorphized in Shelley are Thought (" by the snake Memory
stung " — Adonais), Death, who " blushes to annihilation" (Adonais), Dream, (P. Unb.),
Oppression, Loveliness, Science " with cloedal wings," Spirit of Night, Love, Breath,
Wisdom, Eternity, Shame, " Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions, and Veiled
Destinies, Splendors and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations of hopes and fears, and
twilight Phantasies, and Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, and Pleasure, blind with
tears " {cp. " happy Misery "), Incarnate April, Frost the Anatomy, Moon of Love, Eter-
nity, etc. The " Prometheus," in particular, unfolds before us a whole phantasma-
goria! pageantry of abstractions.

Notes and Discussions. 451

It would, of course, be ridicu.lously fanciful to suppose that the
above-mentioned tendencies of Shelley's genius are to be laid, even
to any considerable degree, to the credit of his metaphysical system.
That system only afforded him, as I said above, a reasoned back-
grourd for the uses of imagination which he indulged — afforded him
a legitimation or '^ deduction" (as Kant would call it) for what
might otherwise have appeared to him to be merely the lawless aber-
rations of creative power. One who firmly believed in the reality
(in the highest and truest sense) of everything created or combined
by mental faculties, could never be ashamed of following the mazes
of Thought to their utmost bound, and would never shrink from
tasting to the full "the feasts of beautiful discourse" {" eorcdoeig
7]aXC)v Xoycjdv,^^ Plato).

But there were, no doubt, several other and more important
elements which went to the forming of Shelley's poetry. Just as a
stage in the intellectual development of a nation cannot be fully
understood without tracing back to their sources both of the two
distinct streams, the intellectual and the social, which unite to pro-
duce it (take, for instance, the jiessimism of Lucretius in Rome, or
of Schopenhauer in Germany ; in either case we find a double ex-
planation of the origin of the system, the one consisting in an ac-
count of the previous successive stages in the evolution of philo-
soj)liical principles, the other in an account of the gradual growth
of social forces and conditions), so the direction assumed by the
imaginative energy of such a poet as Shelley cannot be entirely com-
prehended without taking into consideration both the intellectual
habits and moral tendencies attributable to his personality, and also
the spirit of his time ; either of which was, no doubt, an ingredient
in his composition as a poet of at least as much importance as the
particular philosojjhical views which he entertained.

In the first place, the intellectual, and more especially, the poetic
atmosphere which he breathed, and in the midst of which he moved
and had his being, was decidedly favorable to the growth of the
particular faculties mainly exercised by him. " While with the
Greeks," it has been said ("Guesses at Truth," first series, p. 98),
"the unseen world was the world of shadows, in the great works of
modern times there is a more or less conscious feeling that the, out-
ward world of the eye is the world of shadows, that the tangled web
of life is to be swept away, and that the invisible world is the only
abode of true, living realities." It was the object of the school
ushered in by Wordsworth to learn to reverence in Nature, mainly

452 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy

and primarily, "the Divine Ideal which underlies all appearance"
(Fichte), and Shelley could not have been unmoved by such influ-
ences. (At the beginning of his last and best period, 1815-1822, he
wrote his lament over Wordsworth, beginning " Poet of Nature,"
etc. ; "0 there are spirits in the air," was addressed in thought to
Coleridge * at about the same time. )

As to his personal characteristics, every one has heard of his abnor-
mally acute sensibility and impulsive temperament. In the different
lives of him which have been written, we are constantly having
stories of his vivid dreams, which he could not persuade himself loere
dreams, and which often drove him from his room with cries of hor-
ror ; ^ nay, more, of his waking visions, of the reality of which he
used to be equally convinced. This nervous intensity of imagina-
tion, giving all the force of positive existence to every long-pondered
creation of his mind, to every

" incommunicable dream
And twilight phantasm, and deep noonday thought,"

must have worked with his philosophy to produce the kind of poetry
it did. Bearing in mind these passionate susceptibilities of his —
moral as well as intellectual — we can, moreover, explain, without
having much recourse to his metaphysical doctrines, the passionate
and generous spirit which would at one time "sadly blame the Jar-
ring and inexplicable frame of this wrong world," and at another
would declaim with fiery vigor against "the harsh and grating cry
of tyrants and of foes," ' which was ever dissatisfied with the seem-
ingly immobile and unplastic facts of his social environment, and
which yet always believed against experience, and hoped against
hope, that Man — even " cruel, cold, formal Man" — could and would,
by willing it, emancipate himself from inveterate i^rejudice and self-

' Cp. the fine description of Coleridge in Shelley's " Letter to Maria Gisborne " (vol.
III., p. 53, in Mrs. Shelley's ed.).

^ In the vividness of his dreams, Shelley reminds us of Coleridge, De Quincey, and
Blake. In " Essays, Letters, etc.," vol. I., pp. 248-'51, he gives some account of the
phenomena of dreams, and is beginning to recount one which occurred in his own ex-
perience, when, as he afterward wrote, he was obliged to leave off through being over-
come " by thrilling horror."

^ Was Wordsworth, a poet more at ease with circumstances and his fellows, thinking
of these words when he spoke of his " hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of hu-
manity, not harsh nor grating, though of ample power to chasten or subdue ? " At any
rate, in these two passages, the different characters of the two poets are well ex-
pressed.

Notes and Discussions. 453

ishness, from "old custom" and ''legal crime," and stand forth
once more in purified rejuvenescence.' His energies were always
devoted to stamping, as far as he could, the things and circumstances
around him with the impress of an ideal — an ideal which, since it
was very truth and reality to him, he wished to see externalized, and
thus become equally so to others. The untiring zeal in endeavoring
to imprint such ideals on the face of the actual conditions of exist-
ence, which we see reflected in such poems as the "Hellas" and the
"Prometheus," the "passion for reforming the world,"'* which he
so fearlessly avowed ; these, no doubt, came from his moral character ;
but in the construction of " the beautiful idealisms of moral excel-
lence," with which, as he says, it was his "purpose to familiarize
the more select classes of poetical readers," it is not perhaps extrava-
gant to attribute something to the working upon his imagination of
the speculative principles of Idealism.

Thus both intellectual and social environment, and personal ten-
dencies of sentiment and character, largely assisted the philosophy of
Shelley in determining the cast of his poetry ; but we must not any
the more lose sight of this last factor as a distinctly important one,
especially when we remember that Shelley was within an ace of
becoming a metaphysician pure and simple ; ' that, even as it was,
he was throughout his life "philosophy's accepted guest," and that
he himself regarded metaphysical studies as an element in the train-

' Shelley's tone, though pessimistic at times (e. ^., in both the two beautiful pieces
on " Mutability "), is in general distinctly optimistic as to the possible future of the
human race. See the concluding choruses of the " Prometheus Unbound," and, above
all, the soft, halcyon verses of prophecy and hope which conclude the " Ilellas," and
lull to rest the fierce discords of the opening of the drama.

* Shelley's preface to the " Prometheus Unbound." He somewhat bitterly alludes to
the many disappointments which await the earnest reformer, in the lines at the close of
the third part of " Peter Bell the Third : " " And some few, like we know who, damned
— but God alone knows why — to believe their minds are given to make this ugly hell
a heaven ; in which faith they live and die." The second part of Shelley's " Defence of
Poetry," which unfortunately he did not write, was to have contained " a defence of the
attempt to idealize the modern forms of manners and opinions, and compel them into a
subordination to the imaginative and creative faculty." Here we see a meeting point
of his moral character with his idealism.

^ According to Mrs. Shelley (editor's note on " The Revolt of Islam "), " Shelley pos-
sessed two remarkable qualities of intellect — a brilliant imagination, and a logical ex-
actness of reason. His inclinations led him (he fancied) almost alike to poetry and
metaphysical discussions, ... he said that he deliberated at one time whether he
should so devote himself to poetry or metaphysics." Cp. also editor's note on the
"Cenci"(ii., 116).

454 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ing — though not of course the making — of a poet (vid. his preface to
'' The Eevolt of Islam").

In examining the philosophical element in the writings of a poet,
"we accustom ourselves, on the one hand, to regard the poetic mind
as not "of imagination all compact," but as a whole which very
various forces combine to build up ; and, on the other hand, to
notice the special bond which unites poetry and philosophy as corre-
lative and interdependent factors in constituting the best possible
view of the universe, as it exists for human thought. When once
we perceive the mutual interaction of Poetry and Philosophy at every
stage in the intellectual growth of all nations, we begin to detect the
philosopher in Schiller, Wordsworth, Sophocles, and Shakespeare,
as well as the poet in Kant, Spinoza, Plato, or Bacon ; and we
understand both orders of mind the better for being able to do so.

Thus it is that Shelley is a particularly favorable subject of study —
because, as has been pointed out, in him the poetic afflatus and the
metaphysical impulse were so evenly and harmoniously balanced and
interblended. Shelley would have been in many respects a dialecti-
cian — a " ovvoTTLKog " — after Plato's own heart. We set Schiller over
against Kant, and Shakespeare over against Bacon, sometimes, to
explain one another ; but to explain Shelley the philosopher, we
resort to Shelley the poet, and to interpret Shelley the poet, we
appeal to Shelley the philosopher. We must not, certainly, in con-
sidering the character of his poetry, forget either the acute sensibil-
ity and passionate devotion to ideas, which was given him by nature,
or the times and circumstances and literary surroundings amid which
he lived : —

" By solemn vision and bright silver dream
His infancy was nurtured. Every sight
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses."

All this we must take into consideration in estimating his work ;
but the words which immediately succeed the above in the " Alastor "
we must also remember, if we would read him aright as a poet ; we
must recognize that throughout his life, apart from these other in-
fluences,

" The fountains of divine philosophy
Fled not his thirsting lips."

It is this latter aspect of his genius that I have endeavored to
bring prominently forward in these pages.

Books Received. 455

BOOKS KECEIYED.

As Regards Protoplasm. By James Hutchison Stirling. New and improved edition,
completed by addition of Part II. in reference to Mr. Huxley's Second Issue, and of Pref-
ace, in reply to Mr. Huxley in " Yeast." London: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1872.

The Old Faith and the New. I. and II. By J. Hutchison Stirling. (A review of
Dr. Strauss's Book, published in The Athenaeum, June 21, 1873.

Strauss's Relations to Hegel and to the Church. By Robert Bell. (Reprint from
the Theological Review, April, 1877.)

Life's Mystery. (From " Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics." By
William Thomas Thornton. London: McMillan & Co. 1873.) Edited by Richard
Randolph. Philadelphia: Henry Longstreth. 1873.

The New Faith of Strauss. By Henry B. Smith, LL. D. (Reprinted from Presby-
terian Quarterly and Princeton Review, April, 1874.)

A Thesis on the Dual Constitution of Man ; or, Neuro-Psychology. By S. S. Laws,
A.M., M. D. (Reprint from Archives of Electrology and Neurology, November, 1875.)
New York. 1875.

Essays on Modes of Government and Instruction of Boys. By Robert D. Allen,
Superintendent of the Kentucky Military Institute, Farmdale, Ky.

The Ethics of Spiritualism ; a System of Moral Philosophy, founded on Evolution
and the Continuity of Man's Existence beyond the Grave. By Hudson Tuttle. Chi-
cago: Religio-Philosophical Publishing House. 1878.

Zur Philosophic der Astronomic. Von Johannes Huber. Miinchen : Theodor Acker-
mann. 1878.

Das Gedachtniss. Von Johannes Huber. Miinchen : Theodor Ackermann. 1878.

Giacomo Barzellotti. II Pessimismo dcllo Schopenhauer. Firenze Tipografia di
G. Barbara. 1878.

Boletin de la Institucion libre de Ensenanza. Aiio I, Num. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Marzo,
Abril, Mayo, Junio, 1877. Madrid: [Educational Journal of Spain].

The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. [Being a reprint from the Methodist Quarterly
Review (vol. xxvii.) of a review of B. P. Bowne's Examination of Spencer's First
Princijjles.]

Six Years of Educational Work in Birmingham. An Address delivered to the Bir-
mingham School Board. By the Chairman, Joseph Chamberlain, Esq., M.P., November
2, 1876. Birmingham.

456 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

National Educational League. Report of the Executive Committee, presented at the
Eighth Annual Meeting held in the Offices of the League, 17 Ann Street, Birmingham, on
Wednesday, November 8, 1876.

Robertson of Brighton. By Edwin D. Mead, Boston, Mass. (Reprint from the New
Englander for July, 1877.)

Education the Need of the South. A Paper read before the American Social Science
Association at its Meeting held at Saratoga, September, 1877. By Dexter A. Hawkins,
A. M., of the New York Bar. New York. 1878.

The Perception of Color. By G. Stanley Hall. (From the Proceedings of the Amer-
ican Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. xiii.) Presented March 14, 1878.

Neurology and the Human Soul. By Professor W. H. Wynn, Ph. D., State Agricul-
tural College, Ames, Iowa. (Reprint from the Lutheran Quarterly.) Gettysburg. 1878.

Erinnerungs Stabe aus dem Leben des Dr. Karl Weinholtz. Rostock. Verlag des
Verfassers. 1878.

[In the second of these birthday poems, the doctor alludes pleasantly to the Journal
of Speculative Philosophy for October, 1877, which came by post on his birthday.]

Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der aeltem deutschen Philosophic. I. Johann Kepler.
Von Rudolf Eucken.

Deutscher Wahrschatz von Karl Weinholtz (Theilc I-IV.) Rostock. 1872.

[A poetic psychology : I., is the Introduction ; II., the Doctrine of Sense-Perception
(" Sinn ") ; III, the Doctrine of the Understanding (Verstand); IV., the Reason (Ver-
nunf t). ]

Deutscher Tanzwart von Karl Weinholtz. 1872.

Treatise on Politics as a Science. By Charles Reemelin. Cincinnati : Robert Clarke
& Co. 1875.

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