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THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

GIFT
of

Prof. Hugh Miller

(V. &L'f^<tn

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(fXti (l/p~f-j£cM^J> iXg^eurzl^

MAN AND THE COSMOS

AN INTRODUCTION TO METAPHYSICS

JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON, Ph.D., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY;

AUTHOR OF "THE FIELD OF PHILOSOPHY," "TYPICAL

MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD," ETC.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

NEW YORK : : MCMXXII : : LONDON

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED 8TATE8 OF AMERICA

TO
MY TEACHERS AND FRIENDS

JACOB GOULD SCHURMAN
JAMES EDWIN CREIGHTON

775

PREFACE

The following work is a systematic consideration of the funda-
mental problems and concepts of philosophical thought in the
light of recent discussion in science and philosophy. The leading
motive of the entire work is the problem of Human Personality.
I have therefore given the largest amount of space to the treat-
ment of the Self. But, since one cannot consider the place of
personality in the universe without being drawn into the funda-
mental problem of metaphysics, namely, that of the structure of
the universe as a whole, I have tried to give just consideration to
the latter problem. Moreover, since philosophy is the thinking
consideration of fundamental questions, one must settle accounts
with the problems of thought and knowledge. I have, therefore,
begun with a comprehensive treatment of these problems.

My theory of knowledge is realistic, but it differs materially
from the standpoints of most of the new realists. I hold that
the true antithesis in theories of knowledge is not between realism
and idealism, but between realism and mentalism or subjectivism.
The great idealistic tradition in metaphysics, from Plato to Hegel,
Bradley, and Bosanquet, is not subjectivistic in theory of knowl-
edge. In the main, I sympathize most with this tradition, although
I have found it necessary to cricitize the concepts of the Absolute,
and the equivocal treatment of Time, Progress, and Personality,
in recent representatives of metaphysical idealism. To me the
dominating note of the great idealistic tradition is the ever renewed
attempt to determine, in the light of reason and of the history
of culture, the humanistic values of experience and the place of
these in the universe. My conception of the meaning of the
universe is dynamic. Therefore the metaphysical standpoint of
the following work might be called Dynamic Idealism, in the sense
that it aims to find in the living universe a home and scope for
humanistic ideals or values. My chief quarrel with pragmatic
humanism is that its humanism is too narrow, and that it tends
to slight the place of order or reason in man and the universe.

But I have no interest in "philosophy as the art of affixing

vii

viii PREFACE

labels," to use J. E. Creighton's happy expression. Labels are
convenient for cataloguing and storing goods for ready access,
but, in the vital, many-sided and global enterprise of thought,
which philosophy is, they are dangerous; perhaps their harmful-
ness outweighs their usefulness. I know no great thinker whose
philosophy is not misrepresented by such labels as "idealistic,"
"realistic," "rationalistic," " empiristic, " etc. I hold no brief
for any "school" or "movement" of thought. I am interested
only in trying to puzzle out such of the meanings of the world
as I can.

The extent of my indebtedness to philosophers past and present
will be obvious to the instructed reader. It would be quite impos-
sible, within the limits of a preface, to make adequate acknowledg-
ment. In general, I have learned much from those whom I have
criticized sharply. I cannot, however, let this opportunity pass
without thanking my former teachers in the Sage School of
Philosophy of Cornell University, alike for their instruction,
example, and continued interest. And to the dear and inspiring
memory of the man to whose instruction and warm personal inter-
est I owe the foundation of my philosophical scholarship and the
encouragement to go on with it, the late William Clark of Trinity
College, Toronto, I here pay my tribute of gratitude and affection.

I am deeply indebted to the thoughtful interest of President
William Oxley Thompson in suggesting, and to the trustees of
the Ohio State University in sanctioning, my relief from routine
duties in order to bring this work to completion.

I am indebted to my colleagues in the Department of Philosophy,
Doctors A. E. Avey, A. R. Chandler, and R. D. Williams, for
their never failing interest, and, especially, for the cheerful
alacrity with which they have relieved me of my teaching duties
in order that I might finish and publish this book. For a number
of stylistic suggestions I am indebted to Doctor Chandler. Doctors
J. E. Creighton, Chandler and Avey have assisted me materially
in proofreading.

I have incorporated portions of articles published, at intervals
during the past twenty years or more, in The Philosophical Review,
The Journal of Philosophy, and The International Journal of
Elh ics. I make acknowledgments to the editors of these periodicals.

Joseph Alexander Leighton

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Introductory — What Is Metaphysics? .... 1

I. The Scope of Metaphysics 1

II. The Method of Metaphysics 6

Appendix: Phenomenology as the Science of Pure

Consciousness 13

BOOK I

THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

II. What is Thinking? 25

Appendix: Existence and Subsistence: Philosophy and

Gegenstandstheorie 39

III. Percepts and Concepts 44

IV. The Criteria of Knowledge 49

V. Knowledge and Reality 68

Appendix: The New Critical Realism .... 94

VI. Appearance and Reality 98

VII. Error 110

VIII. The Final Ground of Knowledge .... 116

BOOK II

THE GENERAL STRUCTURE OF REALITY—
THE CATEGORIES

IX. What Are Categories? 133

X. Likeness and Unlikeness — Identity and Diversity . 137

XL Quantity and Quality 142

XII. Relations 151

XIII. Order 162

XIV. The Particular, The Individual, and the Universal 169
XV. Substance 181

XVI. Change and Causality 191

Appendix: The Knowledge of Activity .... 203
XVII. Individuality, Value and Purpose .... 206

BOOK III

EMPIRICAL EXTSTENTS

XVIII. Space and Time 215

I. Empirical Space and Time 218

II. Conceptual Space and Time 219

III. Physical Space and Time 223

Appendix: Dr. Alexander's Theory of Space-time . 235

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XIX. Physical Reality 238

Appendix: Panjxsychism 248

XX. Life and Mechanism 253

XXI. Evolution, Life and Mind 261

I. The Factors of Organic Evolution . . . 261
II. The Mechanistic Doctrine of Evolution . . 266

III. Evolution and Teleology 272

IV. Life and Matter 276

BOOK IV

PERSONALITY AND ITS VALUES— PHILOSOPHY OF
SELFHOOD AND SOCIETY

XXII.
XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.
XXXIV.

The Problem of Personality 289

The Nature of the Self 299

Appendix: Mr. Bradley's Criticism of the Self . . 312
Consciousness 315

I. The Unity of Consciousness 316

II. Consciousness and Its Objects .... 317
III. The Idealistic Theory of Consciousness . . 329

The Subconscious 334

Multiple Personality 348

Mind and Body 355

I. Dualism 355

II. Psychophysical Parallelism 359

III. Psychophysical Individualism 366

Appendix I: Matter, Energy and Will .... 377
Appendix II: The Origin of the Soul .... 378
Personality and the Cultural Order . . . 382

Personality and Values 395

Ethical Values 414

Feeling and Values 427

The Interrelationships of Values .... 434

The Interpersonal Emotions 445

Moral Freedom 448

Immortality 458

BOOK V
THE ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE ; COSMOLOGY

XXXV.

XXXVI.
XXXVII.

TnE Universal Order .

I. The Spatial and Temporal Order
II. The Ultimate Noetic Order
III. The Cosmic Ground of Values
Appendix: The Meanings of the Infinite
Finite Selves and the Over-self
Immanence and Transcendence
Perfection and Evolution

467
467
475
476
480
486
495
501

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XXXVIII. Optimism and Pessimism— The Problem of Evil . 517

I. Natural Evil 517

II. Moral Evil 52L'

III. Evil and the Idea of a Perfect Being . . . 524

XXXIX. Metaphysics and Religion 536

I. The Methods and Aims of Metaphysics and Re-
ligion 536

II. Is There Immediacy in Religious Knowledge? . 549
III. The Meaning of Faith 555

Postscript 562

Index 565

MAN AND THE COSMOS

CHAPTEK I

INTRODUCTORY : WHAT IS METAPHYSICS ?

I. The Scope of Metaphysics

The origin of the term "metaphysics," ta meta ta physica,
"the [books] after the physics," the title given by an editor to a
collection of writings by Aristotle, does not throw much light on
the scope of the discipline. Probably the editor meant by the
title to indicate that the problems thereof should be taken up after
one had studied natural science. Meta, "after," was later taken to
mean "beyond" or "above," and "metaphysics" the science of
that which transcends physics. In the body of the writings in
question Aristotle calls the study first philosophy, the science of
Jfeing or ontology, and theology. It may be denned, provisionally,
'as the science of the first principles of reality, or the theory of
the structure and meaning of reality as a whole, or the theory of
the nature of the cosmos. Philosophers are not in entire agree-
ment as to the precise scope of the subject. All are agreed that
metaphysics deals with the problems of the structure and meaning
of reality; but some hold that epistemology, the doctrine of the
nature of knowledge and its place in reality, is a separate disci-
pline. Some hold that the problems of the place of values in
reality or of the relationships of existence and value (axiology)
do not belong to metaphysics. If one accepted these distinctions,
philosophical system would consist of three parts — epistemology,
metaphysics, and axiology, or the theory of the place of truth,
goodness and beauty in the universe. I hold that metaphysics
includes all these problems and, therefore, is identical with philo-
sophical system. While it would not be in accord with historic
usage to deny the term "philosopher" to every thinker who has not

2 MAN AND THE COSMOS

achieved a systematic conception of the universe, a cosmology or
metaphysics, a full or well-rounded philosophy is a theory of the
universe. Hence metaphysics is identical in scope with philo-
sophical system. It is the theory of the first principles of reality.
It is impossible to formulate a theory of truth or knowledge with-
out formulating a theory of reality. It is equally impossible to
consider the place of values in reality without raising the entire
problem of the nature and place of personality; and the latter
problem includes all the problems of the relation of the mental and
the physical, of the individual and the universal, of identity and
diversity, causation, substance, space and time, thought and
reality. Since every fundamental problem of philosophy is inter-
locked with all the others, it is, in the end, the most consistent pro-
cedure to recognize that metaphysics and philosophical system
are identical in scope and content.

Of course the term philosophy, as a comprehensive name for
certain studies, now is usually employed to include a number of
subordinate subjects — logic, ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of
religion, social and political philosophy. Until recently it in-
cluded psychology, but the latter is now generally regarded as a
more or less independent discipline. Every science involves
philosophical problems, but the above-mentioned subjects all raise,
in one form or another, the problem of values and thus start meta-
physical questions of central import.

Thus metaphysics is the clearing house for all fundamental
philosophical problems. It is the comprehensive discipline in
which all philosophical issues and theories converge. Indeed,
inasmuch as the special sciences, such as physics, biology, psychol-
ogy, and sociology, set out from unexamined dogmatic assump-
tions and issue, severally, in various uncoordinated results which
require synthesis, in order to yield a consistent world view, to
metaphysics belongs the twofold task of critically examining the
primary assumptions of the sciences and of synthesizing their con-
clusions into a harmonious whole. As a critical inquiry into the
validity, scope and interrelations of the respective fundamental
assumptions and conclusions of the special sciences, metaphysics
is the criticism of the categories, that is, of the chief concepts
which man uses in the ordering and mastering of experience.

But philosophy is not limited to the consideration of the funda-
mental problems of pure science. The affective personal and

WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? 3

interpersonal value attitudes and experiences embodied in moral
and social relations, in aesthetic experience and religion, likewise
involve philosophical problems; especially when these value atti-
tudes and the beliefs that are basic to them come into conflict with
scientific theories. Thus, we find raised the problem of the ulti-
mate relation of existence and value — how far does the course of
reality honor and sustain the values that have their immediate
seat in the life of human personality ? To attempt to thresh out
such problems is to embark on the wide and stormy ocean of meta-
physics.

Metaphysics, the heart of philosophy, seeks by persistent reflec-
■ tion to see things steadily and to see them whole; in Goethe's
words, "Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren resolut zu leben." In other
words, metaphysics seeks a consistent and total interpretation of
experience. It cannot be content with any partial or abstract
view of life and reality. A system of philosophy, or metaphysics,
is a union of a world view and a life view in one harmonious, com-
plete, integral conception. In so far as any man strives to attain,
by rational inquiry, a consistent and comprehensive view of life
and reality, he is a metaphysician. The only differences between
thinking human beings in this regard lie in the persistency, thor-
oughness, and comprehensiveness with which they pursue meta-
physical reflection. It follows, of course, in view of the
fragmentariness and the discordancies of our experiences and the
imperfection of our analysis and synthesis of the meanings of
experience, that metaphysics must remain in this life incomplete.
Only a complete or perfect experience of the universe would bring
to man a complete metaphysics ; and on the other hand, a perfect
experience would abolish the need for metaphysics. It is precisely
the fragmentariness and inconsistency in our actual experience
that drives us into metaphysics. As Mr. Bradley has wittily said,
"Metaphysics consists in finding bad reasons for what we believe
on instinct. But to find these reasons is no less an instinct."

Every special science and every special form of practical
activity interprets the facts of experience from some limited and
one-sided or abstract point of view. Metaphysics aims to correct
these abstractions. For example, the physicist and the chemist
assume the reality of matter, energy, space, motion, time, the uni-
formity of causation, the mathematical equivalence of causes and
effects, the correspondence of the mental categories of number and

4 MAN AND THE COSMOS

magnitude with the facts of nature. They do not inquire
critically how far these assumptions may be warranted, or how
the mind can know that these so-called entities exist independently
of the mind. They do not inquire critically into the relations
between our sense perceptions and matter and energy regarded as
permanent or substantial entities. Even the mathematician usu-
ally assumes the infinitude of space, time and number, without a
critical inquiry as to what infinitude may mean in these relations.
The physicist and the chemist employ the doctrine of the conser-
vation of energy without stopping to ask how this principle is to be
squared with the infinite duration of the universe, the second law
of thermo-dynamics, the apparently creative character of the
evolutional life process, the belief in human personality and free-
dom. A biologist may assume the uniqueness of the life processes
without raising the question how this uniqueness comports with
the mechanistic conception of the universe. Or a biologist may
conduct his inquiries on the assumption that there is no difference
between vital processes and mechanical processes, without stopping
to inquire how the reduction of life to mechanism affects the
position of human thought and human values in the world. A
psychologist may study the conscious behavior of human beings and
the relations of conscious behavior to unconscious behavior. He
may treat the mind as a mere mechanism differing only in com-
plexity from a crystal, for example, summarily dismissing the self
or personality from court in any other sense than that of a physico-
chemical mechanism. A sociologist may assume that the individ-
ual's character and actions are the joint products of the physical
and social environment; ignoring the problems of individuality,
responsibility, freedom and creativeness ; whereas the moral agent,
the teacher, the judge, the social administrator, assumes as his
working hypothesis responsibility and freedom.

When man as a reflective being stops to take stock of the uni-
verse as a whole, of himself as a whole and of his place in the
universe, he cannot be satisfied with jarring assumptions and
doctrines. He must ask himself, "Am I really only a bit of
cunning mechanism which has just chanced to occur as one of the
infinite number of possible permutations and combinations of mass
particles in a blind and meaningless process of things? Is my
belief that I am a self-determining rational agent, an utter illusion ;
and if so, how could this illusion have arisen ? Are the values, in

WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? 5

the seeking and achieving of which I seem to be satisfying the
deepest instincts of my being — the values of knowing and contem-
plating the spectacle of things, of creating and enjoying beauty,
inner harmony and social harmony, the values of adding to the
sum of knowledge and beauty, of the communion of souls in
friendship and love, of loyalty to noble causes, of that communion
with the nature of things which is religion at its highest — are all
these values illusory and transitory by-products of the insensate
mechanism of the universe ?

A man may be a fairly good workman in field or factory or
counting house, he may be a reputable citizen and a decent husband
and father, he may be even a faithful pedestrian worker in science,
without raising these questions. But if he lift his nose from the
grindstone of his daily tasks to ask himself what is the good, what
is the meaning, wherein consist the value and dignity of human
life, he cannot help asking such questions. If he be content with a
treadmill existence all his days, he need not philosophize. But if
he raise the inner eye of thought to contemplate, however inter-
mittently, the nature of his being, the meaning of the sum of things,
and to consider his own place and destiny therein, he thereby
becomes a metaphysician. Hence the perennial interest and justi-
fication of metaphysics. One need not think seriously or
obstinately in regard to the fundamental problems of human exist-
ence ; but, if one wishes reflectively to apprehend the meaning of
human life and its place in the world, one must enter upon the
pathway of metaphysical inquiry. For a whole nest of unques-
tioned assumptions and beliefs is concealed not only in everyday
practical knowledge and religious attitudes, but as well in the pro-
cedures and conclusions of the various sciences. Every science and
every form of practical activity is a special and abstract or one-
sided way of dealing with the field of experience and reality.
Every special science and practical activity involves assumptions
or theories as to the meaning and place of its particular data, con-
cepts and interests in the whole system of reality. Metaphysics
corrects the abstractness and the inconsistency of these special
assumptions and beliefs by aiming at the most complete and most
consistent reflective interpretation of experience in its totality.
Naive thought and belief, and science, which is a more rigorous
analysis of special aspects of naive thought, are fragmentary and
sometimes internally inconsistent in their results. The rational

6 MAN AND THE COSMOS

impulse impels us towards a coherent world view, which shall be
at the same time a coherent life view. The one commonjpresup-
position of rational living and of philosophy- is~tEaTTEe universe is

in Bomftjignsfl a, pnsmns; nn nrdp.rly nr intelligi'Klp. who/lft. Meta-

\ I / "physics asks whether this presupposition be justifiable. In our
quest for a comprehensive and harmonious view we may have to
put up with serious gaps. We may be able to discover only
broken glimpses of thp iiriivprsflT nfrTftry"TriTF;" sinppTFvft^iliiTnfltft
consistence or coherence of reality and its harmony with the gen-

■ ei'ai^tructufe'of human thought are postulates which gain better

■ w^TrarrHh^rmoTe^we^rylo^^

*"lt71heTnelaphyyiTjal~e^erprise is justified. Since" the realm of
" — experience i^aTmany^Eued process, one mustTnot expect to secure
a world view cheaply, and the outline sketch of reality which meta-
physics may afford will doubtless seem colorless and lifeless by
contrast with the vivid hues of concrete experience. "Grau,
theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, und griin des Lebens goldner
Baum." But at least one may hope to attain the satisfaction of
knowing more clearly where one stands in regard both to the trust-
worthiness, the limitations and the implications of human experi-
ence and deed. And no clear or consistent notions are attainable
on these points without metaphysics.

II. The Method of Metaphysics

Metaphysics takes its point of departure from the nature of
human experience as a whole. Its methods are the analysis of
experience in its totality in order to determine its main features
and their interconnections; and the synthesis of the results of
analysis into a consistent and comprehensive conception of the
meanings and implications of experience. Metaphysics can be a
genuine intellectual procedure only in so far as it draws from
actual experience and finds in actual experience the justification
for its constructive work. Experience is always in flux and is
fragmentary. Thought is impelled, when it is thoroughgoing, to
comprehend the flux and to piece out the fragments into a har-
monious whole. Every serious attempt to do this is a metaphysics.
The philosopher is justified, since he is compelled by the urge of
thought, in transcending actual experience in order to render com-
plete and coherent the implications thereof. The problem as to

WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? 7

how far, and in what directions, the philosopher is warranted in
transcending the actual can only be solved by the whole course of
metaphysical inquiry ; but, in view of the impermanence of experi-
ence and the immense difficulties which confront the attempt to
make it consistent in implication, only partial success can be ex-
pected in this undertaking. "All things excellent are as difficult as
they are rare" ; and this most excellent of things is most difficult.
Often the claim is put forward that there is some peculiar
method by which the problems of metaphysics are solved. M.
Bergson has argued for the method of intuition or direct vision of
life as the key to the solution of metaphysical questions, in contrast
with the geometrizing and mechanizing procedure of the intellect.
We shall examine this doctrine fully later on. Suffice it to say now
that vision, feeling or direct experience, without interpretation, is
neither science nor philosophy ; and that any proposal which would
brush aside the tested methods by which the thought of mankind
has advanced steadily, if slowly, is suspect. Fichte and Hegel
employed the dialectic method. Briefly, this consists in finding in
the development and overcoming of oppositions or contradictions
in thought the key to the conception of reality as the absolute and
harmonious and living synthesis in which all oppositions are taken
up and reconciled, all contradictions healed. Undoubtedly the aim
of metaphysics is the resolution of all oppositions, the annulment
of all contradictions in a harmonious totality of insight. But this
ideal does not give to the dialectic method the prerogative of being
the method of philosophy. Its advocates have found their cue in
the development of conscious selfhood and the social and spiritual
development of mankind. To apply the dialectic method to the
interpretation of nature, as well as of human culture, is to assume
that the whole reality is the evolution of selfhood or personality.
It is to assume the fundamental doctrine of metaphysical idealism
or spiritualism. There may be grounds for regarding the develop-
ment of selfhood as the most important clew to the meaning and
purpose of reality. But the philosopher has no right to begin with
such an assumption, nor even to assume that dialectical evolution
furnishes a sufficient key to the nature and destiny of spirit or
personality. We shall find occasion later, in connection with the
study of personality, to consider more fully the meaning and value
of the dialectical method. Suffice it to say now that we cannot
accept it as the method of philosophy or metaphysics, since it is

8 MAN AND THE COSMOS

not relevant to the many other problems which belong to our study.
If we could begin with the proposition that nothing is real except
spirit or conscious selfhood, we might seriously consider whether
we should not proceed wholly by the dialectic method. But we
must begin with the obvious assumption that experience is the basis
of metaphysics ; and it is by no means self-evident that experience
not only is always owned by selves, but is of nothing except selves.
Truly experience implies that I am as an experient, but it does
not necessarily follow that whatever I experience is spirit and
nothing but spirit.

"There is experience," and "I, whatever else I may be, am an
experiencing and thinking being" — such are the inevitable and
indubitable propositions from which the metaphysician must start.
He may doubt everything further — how experience comes to him,
what it signifies, what more he himself is, whether there is any
other self, whether anything is permanent, whether perhaps the
world of his experience is not a dream and he the only dreamer,
but he cannot doubt that he, the experient of the movement, is
having experience and thinking about its meaning. In order to
get forward he must analyze his experience to find what it con-
tains and implies and then put together the results of his analysis.
He must, as Descartes put it, analyze the complex data into the
simplest attainable, begin with the simplest and most obvious, pro-
ceed step by step and make sure that nothing has been omitted.
Intellectual analysis of the data, inductive generalization there-
from, and deductive synthesis checked up by further analysis of
data — such are the elements of genuine intellectual procedure in
every field. And such are the elements of philosophical method.
The only important difference between science and metaphysics,
with regard to method and scope, is this — metaphysics is an analy-
sis of the widest or most general inductions of experience and a
synthesis of these into a coherent system of thought, whereas a
special science limits itself to an analysis and synthesis of some
particular aspect of experience, such as measurable, ponderable
and experimentable physical qualities, or the phenomena of living
matter, or the social behavior of human beings.

In the metaphysical analysis of experience the problem of
knowledge has come, in modern times, to occupy a central and
determining place. The rapid change and increase in special
scientific theory of nature and man, in sharp contrast and often in

WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? 9

contradiction with man's naive and traditional beliefs in regard to
his own nature, vocation and destiny, has made the problem of
truth an acute and critical one for the determination of man's place
in the universe. Consequently I shall approach the other main
problems of metaphysics through the problem of knowledge. It is
impossible to progress rationally in the consideration of the nature
of personality and values, and their place in the world order, and
with the problem of the structure and the meaning of reality as a
whole without settling accounts with the problem of knowledge.
On the other hand knowledge is only one function of personality.
In the actual movement of reflective life it is interwoven with feel-
ings and valuations, with impulses and volitions. The world that
I must start with is the world of my own experience. But I do
not reflect this world passively as a colorless knower, or even
actively grind it into categories like a logical machine. I feel its
sting and sweetness, I react to its impacts and solicitations at the
same time that I try to understand it. No theory of man's nature
and his place in reality can be adequate which treats these various
aspects of the concrete and living movement of individual experi-
ence in isolation from one another, or which elevates one aspect to
a privileged position by ignoring the others. I shall, perforce, for
purposes of discussion, have to isolate knowledge, valuation, and
volition. But the reader is asked to bear in mind that this is an
artificial isolation for purposes of investigation.

Experience, as the primary datum of metaphysics, is always
individual — yours or mme. The individual's experience is the
window through which he views reality, or perhaps better, the point
at which reality acts on him and he reacts on it. Whatever con-
clusion one may reach as to the dependence of the individual
experient and agent on the world (inclusive of the physical order
and other selves) can be valid only if it takes account of the indi-
viduated character of experience.

There are various ways of approach to the central problems of
metaphysics. One might begin from any of the starting points
aforementioned. One might begin with the ultimate problems of
the physical order and of natural science (metaphysics of nature),
or of the mental order and psychology (metaphysics of psychology),
or of ethics, aesthetics and religion (metaphysics of values), or of
the place of knowledge in reality (epistemology). I have chosen to
begin with the latter problems, to proceed from them to the prob-

10 MAN AND THE COSMOS

lems of the general structure of the physical order, then to the
problems of self and of values, or metaphysics of personality and
of society, concluding with the problems of general metaphysics
or cosmology, that is, of the meaning of reality as a whole. I
have dealt with the problems of the philosophy of nature, i.e., of
the metaphysics of physics and biology, only as incidental to the
carrying out of my purpose. I have not aimed at a complete treat-
ment of all metaphysical questions. My aim is rather to discuss
the main problems and theories in the light of the central problems
of personality and values.

I have described the aim of metaphysics to be the attainment
of a synthetic or synoptic interpretation of the meaning of experi-
ence in its wholeness. To me the classical tradition in philosophy
is essentially right in regarding the heart of philosophy to be the
striving for a coherent and adequate conception of reality as a
whole. And such a conception is to be attained by the analytical
interrogation of all the main aspects of human experience and the
synthetic organization into a coherent conception of the results of
analysis. I do not pretend to any acquaintance with a reality that
may exist as such, apart and entirely different from our human
world. The only world concerning which I have any knowledge is
the world of experience that is revealed to and vn human selves.
This world is what it is through the reactions of selves to the com-
mon physical conditions of their existence. As an individual self
I am constrained to recognize that my experience, both active and
passive, is conditioned by qualities of which I must take account.
These qualities are physical. Moreover, inasmuch as I am a social
being, one who experiences and acts only as a member of a com-
munity of selves, I am led to recognize that physical qualities are
objective to the community no less than to me as an individual.
But human feelings and strivings, human values and purposes, hu-
man thoughts and human acts, are just as real parts of the world of
experience as are physical qualities. I hold, therefore, that no phil-
osophical account of the world is complete which ignores the prob-
lems of the meaning and place in reality of human values and pur-
poses, human thoughts and acts. The central problem of philosophy
or metaphysics, the one problem into which all other problems merge,
is the nature of human personality and its place in the universe.

The above conception of the function and method of systematic
philosophy is contested by some members of a vigorous and impor-

WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? 11

tant school of present day thought — the new realists. The writers
of this school by no means agree among themselves. I shall take
Mr. Bertrand Russell as the most vigorous and interesting exponent
of the neorealistic conception. His views are clearly expressed in
his books — Mysticism and Logic and Our Knowledge of the Ex-
ternal World.1 Mr. Russell holds that philosophy has gone astray
hitherto by attempting to find satisfaction for human desires, by
peeking to show that human values have some standing in the
universe; in other words by seeking a cosmical justification of
man's longing for the satisfaction of his desires for happiness and
for some lasting good. This philosophical attitude he calls mysti-
cism. It has resulted in repeated and vain attempts at synthetic
views of reality, in "large untested generalities recommended only
by a certain appeal to the imagination." Mr. Russell would
banish the problem of values from philosophy. The latter must
become ethically neutral; must dissociate itself entirely from
ethics and religion, and align itself with the standpoint and
method of science. The only fruitful method for philosophy is the
logical analysis of familiar but complex things. Let it have done
with the vain question as to the nature of reality as a whole and
confine itself to the logical analysis of such problems as the nature
of thought, of judgment, belief and inference, in the abstract, and
the nature of our knowledge of the external world. Philosophy is
identical with Logic, "the science of the possible/* It is concerned
only with the universal propositions of abstract or symbolic logic,
with logical forms and their relations. Logic, says Mr. Russell,
consists of two parts. "The first part investigates what proposi-
tions are and what forms they may have ; the second part consists
of certain supremely general propositions, which assert the truth
of all propositions of certain forms." 2

In reply I would point out that while philosophy begins with
analysis — the analysis of human experience in its most general
aspects — its goal is a rational synthesis. I contest the view that
the special sciences are purely analytical. They begin with the
analysis of special aspects of the empirical world. But synthesis
goes hand in hand with analysis, in science no less than in philos-
ophy. The aim of biology, physics or chemistry is, by patient

1 See especially Lectures 1 and ii in Our Knowledge of the External World,
and the Essays entitled "Mysticism and Logic," and "On Scientific Method
in Philosophy."

'Our Knowledge of the External World, p. 57.

12 MAN AND THE COSMOS

analysis, to arrive at some wide-reaching generalization which
organizes into a coherent system the facts discovered by analysis.
The synthesis may not be final ; it may require revision, but it is a
fruitful and stimulating instrument for further inquiry no less
than it is a systematic comprehension of already ascertained facts.
Where would biology be to-day without the principle of natural
selection or of adaptation ? Where would physics be without the
principle of gravitation or of the conservation of energy? Or
chemistry without the periodic law ? Is not Einstein's theory of
relativity a vast synthesis which is provoking fresh analyses ? The
progress of every special science involves partial and provisional
syntheses. Philosophy or metaphysics is the endeavor after a
comprehensive synthesis.

Philosophy is not the science of the possible, it is the science
of the real, that is of the actual and the ideal in their relations.
For ideas and ideals are real; values and purposes are real and
efficacious. Man's social, ethical, affectional, aesthetic and religious
valuations are just as good facts, in the empirical sense, as are
inertia, electricity, or light in the physical order ; and the former
order of facts plays an even larger role in human life than the
latter. Any procedure which would rule out from the court of
philosophy the consideration of personal life and its values is very
one-sided. Indeed, all the sciences, in their origin and develop-
ment, are the products of the human quest for the satisfaction of
values. Mathematics and physics, no less than art, poetry and
religion, result from man's insatiable desire to realize his spiritual
life by attuning his personality to the order of the universe. Even
Mr. Russell proclaims the joyous satisfactions of creating and con-
templating the beautiful realm of clear and distinct, well-ordered,
precise, and eternally stable logical entities, in contrast with the
heartless and confused world of brute matter. His science of the
possible, like the world of the musician, affords his spirit a refuge
from this troubled empirical world. It is the creation of a unique
and gifted spirit. It satisfies a desire which is caviar to the
general. He is a logical mystic.

If man and his values are utterly incongruous with the nature
of the universe, as Mr. Russell maintains,3 we are indeed in a
paradoxical situation. Man is that part of nature, that focus in
the natural order, in which the creative energies of nature "come

•See "The Free Man's Worship" in Mysticism and Logic.

WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? 13

alive," as Mr. Bosanquet puts it. In man nature or the universe
comes to valuing and purposive consciousness; in man nature
attains to effective and significant individuality. How then can
man be an utter alien, a homeless excrescence, an unaccountable
eruption, in the universe which has borne him? Either human
nature in its totality is a genuine key to the nature of things, or
the universe is cut in two with a hatchet. In the present work it
will be maintained that human experience means a dynamic and
fruitful intercourse between man and the world, that reality
acquires meaning and value in his life, and conversely, that mean-
ing and value inhere in reality. In order to be just to the full
meaning of human experience microscopic analysis must be taken
up into an imaginative synthesis. The philosopher is required to be
ethically neutral in the sense of being as objective and open-minded
as possible. But experience is not neutral; and as for a neutral
thinker — "there is no such animal," not even Mr. Bertrand Russell.

APPENDIX

PHENOMENOLOGY AS THE SCIENCE OF PURE CONSCIOUSNESS

Professor Edmund Husserl, in a series of works,4 claims to lay
the foundation of philosophy as a strict science and, for the first
time, to formulate the methods and map out the way by which alone
philosophy can proceed on the certain path of science. In view of
this claim (which recalls Kant's similar claim) and of the acute
elaboration and voluminousness of Husserl's work (the works
enumerated total nearly fourteen hundred large octavo pages), it
seems desirable to take some account of it here. Besides his own
immediate disciples and collaborators, Husserl has influenced the
psychologists, Th. Lipps and 0. Kiilpe and his school,5 as well as a
number of other philosophers and psychologists.

4 Logische Untersuchungen, second revised edition, Erster Band und
Zweiter Band, i Teil, 1913; Zweiter Band, ii Teil, 1921: Ideen zu einer
reinen Phanomenologie und phdnomenologischen Philosophie in Jahrbuch fur
Philosophie und phanomenologische Forschung (edited by Husserl in coopera-
tion with M. Geiger, A. Pfander, A. Keinach and M. Scheler), Erster Band,
Teil i, 1913, also Sonderabdruck, 1913; and Philosophie als strenge Wissen-
schaft, in Logos, Vol. I.

8 Cf. the brief but remarkably thorough survey of this psychological move-
ment by E. B. Titchener in the American Journal of Psychology, "Vol. 33, No. i,
pp. 43-84. The whole movement has its source in Franz Brentano, Psychologie
vom empirischen Standpunkte, Band i, 1874. Titchener calls it, happily, ■ ' The
Psychology of Act."

14 MAN AND THE COSMOS

Husserl opens his Logische Untersuchungen6 with a vigorous and
effective polemic against "Psychologism," by which is meant the
standpoint of those who would ground the validity of logical prin-
ciples solely on the mental processes of human beings. This attitude,
argues Husserl, reduces all science to mere subjective empirical prob-
ability and does not afford even a mathematical foundation for a
theory of probability. Pure logic is the exposition of the essences or
universal forms that every theoretical science necessarily possesses.
Thus pure logic is the purely formal (eidetic) science which deals
with the a priori forms which are the ideal presuppositions of all
possible science. But it is not methodology; it is not concerned with
the ideal conditions of the empirical sciences. It deals with the
"universals" or "meanings" of pure thought. It is the "theory of
theories" or theory of knowledge. The objects of thought, whether
actually embodied as are the objects of physical or psychological sci-
ence, or ideal as are the objects of mathematics or ethical valuation,
have a being or validity independent of empirically conditioned psy-
chical processes. Thus Husserl opposes a outrance all forms of sub-
jectivism, mentalism or "phenomenalism" in the usual sense of the
latter term.7 Husserl's epistemological standpoint has some affinities
with the American and English Neo-realists, although I should
expect his metaphysical standpoint to be quite different. There is
even more affinity between Husserl and Meinong's Gegenstands-
theorie.

Husserl's conception of phenomenology is radically different from
that of Hegel. The latter is a culture-psychological interpretation
of the development of mind, in which the epochs in the historical
development of culture are interwoven with the theory of the devel-
opment of the individual mind. In Hegel's own terms, the meaning
of "subjective mind" is interpreted in terms of "objective mind"
(social mind). Phenomenology, for Husserl, is the purely descrip-
tive analysis of vital experience (Erlebniss) from the standpoint of
consciousness in general or pure consciousness. Husserl uniformly
uses the term Erlebniss rather than Erfahrung; I suppose since the
latter term, like its English equivalent, is empiristic and even sen-
sationalists in implication ; it might be "neutral," that is, not imply
a subject; as indeed it does not in Avenarius, James and the neutral
monists who follow him (B. Russell is now to be counted among the

•Hereafter the Logische Untersuchungen will be referred to as L. V. and
the Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie as Ideen.

* M. Scheler has, in the Jahrbuch, Bande i and ii, a very fine treatment
of the problems of ethics — Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die Materiale
Wertethik; A. Pfander in Band iv a fine treatment of logic.

WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? 15

neutral monists; see his Analysis of Mind). The distinction between
the popular sense of experience and the phenomenological sense ia
that in the popular mind experience is not psychical, says Husserl.
While, for sake of brevity, I shall translate "Erlebniss" by "Experi-
ence," let it be borne in mind that Husserl means by it "vital ex-
perience," "consciousness" and that, for him, this implies always a
subject or "pure ego." The relation between the subject of experience
and the empirical self or personality has not, thus far, been discussed
fully by Husserl. I imagine he would be prepared to say that the
self has some sort of enduring reality. I base this surmise on certain
remarks inter alia in the Ideen. While in the L. U. Husserl rejected
the pure ego as a superfluity and regarded the phenomenological
ego as nothing more than the experienced interconnections in the
content of consciousness or empirical unity of consciousness, in the
Ideen he accepts the pure ego as the implicate of all acts. The world
has a presumptive reality, the ego has absolute reality (Ideen, p.
86). By itself the ego is indescribable; nevertheless it is present in
every mental act. But, at the start, phenomonology can leave the
ego out of consideration and begin with the fundamental fact that
"every experience of the stream (of consciousness), that the reflective
look may probe into, has its own unique essence which can be intui-
tively apprehended, a content that can be regarded in its own unique-
ness."

The method of phenomenology is "immanent inspection," the
contemplation of essence (Wesenerschauung) ; it apprehends and
analyzes the data of consciousness by reflective intuition; it is the
universal eidetic science, the science of the forms or essences of pure
consciousness as revealed by an analysis of the acts of the ego. Phe-
nomenology brackets (einhlammert) all empirical data and the special
sciences which deal therewith. It is not concerned with the tran-
scendent or metaphysical reality of the physical or psychical or their
relations. It deals with the immediate and immanent data of pure
consciousness. Like geometry, in the special field of space relations,
phenomenology, as the universal science of thought-forms, cares not
for "existents"; its concern is with essences alone.

Starting from the naive world view phenomenology reduces or
brackets, by elimination (Auschaltung) , the specific individuations
of particular fields of experience and thought, even of mathematics;
what is left is the "absolute or transcendental consciousness" which
is not an empirical reality. Phenomenology describes the essences
or universal forms and connections of pure consciousness. In so doing
it makes use of the eliminated elements as examples, but without
reference to their "reality." Thus it is not concerned with the ques-

16 MAN AND THE COSMOS

tion of the ultimate nature of physical things, animal life, or the
empirical self or with the metaphysical status of values. It abstracts
from the fact that consciousness inhabits animal bodies which are
in interaction with other bodies. It takes account only of phenomenal
time and space, that is, of time and space as forms of consciousness.
It does not, of course, deny that there are cosmic time and space ; but
the problem of the relation between phenomenal and cosmic or
objective time and space belongs to metaphysics, just as do the prob-
lems of the nature of the physical world and the relation of the
physical, the psychical and the value realms. Phenomenology is
logically preliminary to the special sciences as well as to logic, to the
philosophy of values and of culture, and of course, to metaphysics.
Husserl means, by the assertion that phenomenology is the indis-
pensable precondition of philosophy as a science, that its thorough
descriptive analysis must precede all theory of science, ethics, meta-
physics and the philosophy of culture (philosophies of the state,
religion, art, etc.). With especial reference to metaphysics the fol-
lowing statement is significant: "The world is never experienced by
the thinker. Experience is that which means the world; the world
itself is the intended object" (L. TJ., Vol. II, Chap. 2, p. 387).
"Consciousness means beyond the actually experienced" (op. cit., p.
41). "The thing transcends perception" (Ideen, p. 75). "There is
a fundamental difference between being as experience and being as
thing" (Ideen, p. 75). The external object is not immanent in
consciousness. What exist in experience are nuances, adumbrations
or modifications (Abschattungen) of an object. This is true whether
the object be perceived or imagined. If I perceive or imagine my
desk ; in either case, there are an indefinite number of possible nuances
or adumbrations, in which I, or some other person, might see it. The
actual percepts or images are nuances of the real object ("real" in
the phenomenological sense) ; but the object does not differ entirely
from its nuances. In every fulfillment of intention or meaning there
is a becoming intuited (V eranschaulichung) (L. U., Vol. II, Chap.
2, p. 65). "Every perception and imagination is a web of partial
intentions fused into a unity of total intention. The correlate of the
latter is the thing" (L. U., Vol. II, Chap. 2, p. 41). (In this respect
Husserl's doctrine is very like that of the present writer.) This
principle holds true, whatever be the character of the thing which
is apprehended in or through its nuances (Abschattungen) . We must
beware of supposing that the nuances "appear"; they do not appear,
as though they were phenomena of something entirely different behind
them. "The thing-appearance is not the appearing thing. . . . The
appearances do not appear; they are experienced" (L. U., Vol. II,

WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? 17

Chap. 1, p. 350) ; in them, thus far, the thing is experienced. This
is an expressly, almost naively, realistic doctrine.

In the phenomenological analysis of experience the fundamental
distinction is that of the act {AM), matter or meaning-content
(Bedeutungsgehalt) and "object" (Gegenstand).8 The act is always
inte?itional ; alike in cognition, valuation and practical activity. The
act varies in quality; one can think,, represent, imagine, assert, etc.,
the same thing. The act means or intends the "object," whether
theoretical or practical; and it means the "object" through the con-
tent. "Object" is the name for the essential connections (Wesenszu-
sammenhdnge) of consciousness (Ideen, p. 302). In perception, for
example, the percept is not the act; it is meaning-determining but
not meaning-containing (L. U., Vol. II, Chap. 2, p. 15). The act
of knowledge is grounded on the act of perception. Significance lies
in meaning. There is a distinction between imminent and transcend-
ent acts. In immanent acts (that is, in self-observation or intro-
spective analysis of one's own states) the intentional objects belong
to the same stream of experience as the act. In transcendent acts, as
when I interpret the inner life of another self or a physical event, the
act is transcendent since the object transcends my experience-stream.

In short, consciousness is always of something. In the "of" is
contained (1) the act of being conscious; (2) the "object" of which
consciousness is; and (3) the significant content through which one
is conscious of the object.

In the case of experience of things other than the experient's own
inner states, the distinction between the three moments of intentional,
that is, meaning-directed, consciousness is clear and obvious. In the
case of inner experiences it is not always clear, since the content and
the "object" here coincide more closely; although not completely,
since the very intuitive "look within" or introspection discovers a
distinction. Moreover, we can mean the same inner experience or
attitude, the same image valuation volition or affection, by different
contents. I may, at different times, purpose or affirm the same values
in different psychical settings, with varying nuances. Husserl holds
that even the same sensation-content can be apprehended differently
(L. U., Vol. II, Chap. 2, p. 381). An act does not, he explicitly
says, imply an activity of the ego. The term is not to be taken in the
Aristotelian or scholastic sense of actus. From act the thought of
activation is absolutely excluded (L. JJ ., Vol. II, Chap. 21, p. 379).
But he speaks very often as though the act were the expression of
psychical activity. I think the term "act" is an unfortunate one.

8 Wherever object ia in quotation marks herein it is the translation of
Gegenstand.

18 MAN AND THE COSMOS

"Attitude" seems to me a much less misleading term. I would assent
to the doctrine that every cognitive process, including fancy and
imagination, as well as every affection valuation or volition, whether
having external reference or not, is an attitude of the ego. In some
of its attitudes the ego is passive.

Husserl holds that there are intentional "feelings" or "affects,"
but also that there are nonintentional feelings. The latter he prefers
to call affective sensations (Gefuhlsempfijidungen) in contrast with
affective acts (GefiihlsaJcte) (L. JJ ., Vol. II, Chap. 1, pp. 389 ff.).
That not all experiences are intentional is shown by an examination of
sensations and sensation-complexes. For example, the parts of my
present visual field, though components of my experience, are not
intended by me as such. They are not present as such in my con-
sciousness. He doubts whether even every psychical phenomenon is
an "object" of inner consciousness. In all cases the truly immanent
contents that belong to real constituents of the intentional experience
are not "intentional." They are the constitutive factors of the act,
but not the "object" presented in the act; for example, I do not see
color sensation but colored things. When I make appreciations of my
own feelings or attitudes, I do not feel feelings of worth or unworth ;
I estimate definite concrete states of consciousness. Husserl insists
that, if self-observation be impossible, psychology is impossible.
Psychology deals with data of inner experience in their concrete
varied empirical forms; whereas phenomenology deals with their
essential and universal connections, with the "forms" or laws of
inward-directed experience as well as of outward-directed experience.
Phenomenology encompasses the whole natural world and all the ideal
worlds (of mathematics, logic, value- and culture-sciences) as "world-
meaning" through their essential characters of order (Ideen, pp. 302,
303).

Husserl, in the Ideen, Section II, treats, at some length, the gen-
eral problem of the relation of Reason and Reality. This subject also
receives some treatment in the L. U., Vol. II, Chap. 2. An intentional
"object," or object as meant, is called in the Ideen a noema. The
content of a noema is its "sense" or meaning (Sinn). The act of
reason is called a noesis. The distinction is made between assertory
and apodictic evidence and insight. The basis of truth is taken to be
"originary givenness" (originare GegehenTie.it), the assertoric seeing
or insight. All necessity or apodicity in judgments is made to rest, in
the last analysis, on the originary intuition or insight. Mediate or
synthetic judgments rest on immediate or reflectively intuited judg-
ments.

Husserl has not yet discussed in detail the logic of inference, nor

WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? 19

has he indicated whether, and, if so, how, he would formulate a con-
ception of reality as a whole in the metaphysical sense; but it seems
evident, from the general drift of his discussion, as well as from
specific remarks, that whatever has reality must be a possible "object"
(Gegenstand) of conscious meaning. The most natural metaphysical
implication of his theory would be an objective idealism. The world
of things and events presupposes consciousness; its being is the ful-
fillment of the meanings of consciousness. Eoyce's doctrine that
reality is the complete fulfillment of the internal meanings of ideas
would fit into Husserl's theory.

The whole procedure of phenomenology is reflectively intuitive.
There is no use made of induction, except in the sense of the use of
examples to illustrate or body forth intuitive insights; neither dia-
lectic reasoning nor the method of deductive coherence is employed.
The "principle of principles" is this — "Every originary dator intuition
is a justificatory source of knowledge, and everything in the intuition
which offers itself as originary (so to speak in its bodily reality) is
simply to be accepted as it presents itself, but only within the limits
in which it presents itself. This no conceivable theory can make us
doubt" {ldeen, pp. 43, 44). We must see the essential natures and
connections or forms, just as we see that 2 -j- 1 = 1 -{- 2. "Seeing
in general, as the originary dator consciousness of whatever kind, is
the final justificatory source (Rechtsquelle) of all rational assertion"
(ldeen, p. 36).

There are three serious difficulties in the reading of Husserl, quite
apart from the difficulty, to which he himself frequently alludes,
encountered in so thorough and profound an investigation. The
first is the coining of new terminology. (This is not a criticism.)
The second is the overelaboration and repetition, sometimes from
somewhat different angles and sometimes without obvious reasons, of
points of doctrine ; Husserl runs at times into a confusing verbalism.9
The third is that the various partial investigations, covering nearly
1400 printed pages, are nowhere focused together; the work shows a
lack of synthesis or organization. I suppose Husserl would say this
difficulty is unavoidable in laying the first foundations of a scientific
philosophy. On the subjects of "Expression and Meaning," "The
Ideal Unity of Species," "The Doctrine of Whole and Part," and
other subjects, the Logische Untersuchungen contains very valuable
discussions. I cannot quite see, however, that Husserl has founded
a new science which is the exclusive forecourt of philosophy. I think

"Dr. A. U. Chandler's criticism on this score is fully deserved. Cf. his
excellent article — "Professor Husserl's Program of Philosophic Eeform,"
Philosophical Review, Vol. xxvi (1917), pp. 634-648.

20 MAN AND THE COSMOS

he has made some very important contributions to a descriptive
analytic psychology of knowledge and, thus, to logic. The question
whether his procedure is to be called a descriptive psychology of mental
forms or phenomenology seems to me purely terminological. In any
case it contributes important prolegomena to logic. I agree with
Bosanquet's criticism (Implication and Linear Reference, Chap. VII)
that Husserl's complete separation of Logic from Psychology leads,
in principle, to the same divorce of thought and reality to which
psychologism leads. It is doubtless worth while to regard the knowing
and other "intentional" processes in the formal-analytic manner, by
abstraction from, by a "bracketing" of, the concrete details and prob-
lems of the existential sciences. But phenomenology is a peculiarly
"abstract" way of regarding consciousness, and we must not forget
its abstractions; otherwise one will be led, as Husserl is, into hair-
splitting subtleties that at times get nowhere. To paraphrase Lotze,
the knife is sometimes at least being sharpened to cut the empty air.
A theory of knowledge is, in effect and all along the line, a theory
of the meanings of reality in the sense of existence. The one all-
inclusive problem of philosophical system is the interpretation of
existence in its most universal and self-coherent meanings. There can
be omitted from the metaphysics of knowledge special details of the
metaphysics of nature and the metaphysics of mind; but, "without
general metaphysics no theory of knowledge," is to me a first principle
in philosophy. As knowledge, experience means more than it is as
fact. It transcends itself, and that very self-transcendence requires
that, in the analysis of experience, we shall keep in mind both the
existential order, which immediately is experience in its personal and
cosmical interrelations, and the consistent completion of this order by
way of implied principle. I do not yet see how the various isolated
parts of phenomenological inquiry dovetail into a synthetic interpreta-
tion of experience as immediate reality. Nor do I see how phenomen-
ology can become philosophy without transcending itself in a theory
of reality. When it does this it seems to me that many of the
phenomenological analyses will turn out to have been a rather super-
fluous process of overelaborated and abstruse word-technic. Philos-
ophy cannot enter upon the sure road of science by way of
phenomenological abstraction, any more than by way of dialectical
legerdemain. The one sure and safe road for philosophy is to bring
into intimate association, and to organize into the greatest possible
coherence and unity, the main insights of the concrete sciences, prac-
tical life and human evaluation. I do not look, with eager expectancy,
for a better metaphysics founded on phenomenology. We must
remain content with imperfect and approximate world views; to

WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? 21

which, to some extent, the personal equation of the thinker and, to a
greater extent, the spiritual climate of a culture-epoch contribute.
At best a philosophy is the total synthetic reaction of a reflective
open-minded student to the facts of common human experience as
these appear in terms of the "categories," the fundamental modes of
judgment of a whole culture system. The personal equation and the
historical culture attitude enter even into mathematics and physics.
Since the interests which the philosopher would serve and the material
in which he works are much richer and more confusing than those of
the physical or mathematical sciences, it is no counsel of despair, nay
rather an expression of the human value of his subject, that leads a
student of philosophy to recognize the inevitable incompleteness and
one-sidedness of even his own philosophy and to acknowledge that he
cannot think things out in a cell hermetically proof against the culture
in which his spirit lives, moves and has its being.

Perhaps, however, I have done injustice to the originality of the
Husserlian movement. Perhaps it will issue in a truly scientific
philosophy. It may be my own stupidity which prevents me from
discerning in it the primary foundations of scientific metaphysics.

BOOK I
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER II

WHAT IS THINKING ?

One of the classical problems of modern philosophy is the
question of the place of thinking in the real universe and, by
consequence, since knowledge is the product of thinking, the ques-
tion of the place of knowledge in reality. The name epistemology ,
meaning theory of knowledge, is given to inquiries of this sort.

Since my purpose here is systematic, and not historical, I shall
make only such historical references as may be incidental to the
discussion of the problem itself.

The problem is not a simple one. On analysis it breaks up into
the following problems: (1) What is thinking, considered as the
activity by which truth is achieved? (2) What are the marks or
criteria of true thinking, or under what conditions is knowledge
possible? (3) What is the status of truth or knowledge in the
order of reality, or the relation between the knowing mind and the
objects to which knowledge refers ? I shall now discuss these prob-
lems in the order given.

The most elementary act or process of thinking is judgment.
Judgments are expressed or symbolized in propositions. For
example, "this room is cold" is a judgment expressed in the
system of symbols which constitute a proposition in the words of
the English language ; "x = y" is a judgment expressed in a
proposition consisting of algebraic symbols. I shall use the terms
judgment and proposition as equivalent ; since, logically, a proposi-
tion is an expressed judgment. The grammatical treatment of
propositions as sentences does not concern us here.

Judgments are objective in reference. A true judgment is one
that would be true for any percipient and thinker under the same
conditions. This is obviously the case with judgments concerning
the external world or scientific principles. But it is just as true
of judgments concerning the subjective states of individuals. If
it be true that I am now suffering from headache, it is true for all

26 MAN AND THE COSMOS

thinkers in the sense that any one in my position would know it to
be a fact. The objects of judgment are particular facts and factual
relations or connections of particulars.

Actually, as made and held by thinkers, judgments may be
false as well as true. The meaning-content or objective of a judg-
ment is as such neither true nor false. It is simply what it is.1
The meaning of a judgment might be called, as Meinong calls it,
a "supposal." One can entertain meanings or ideas without taking
any attitude towards their truth or falsity; in fact one can have
meaningless images or impossible and contradictory notions. One
can have mere ideas or presentations ( Vorstellungen) and one can
make judgments. Making a judgment is always a "Yes — No"
attitude on the part of the individual making it. He either affirms
a meaning directly, or he affirms a meaning indirectly by denying
its contradictory. To apprehend the meaning of an idea is one
thing; to affirm its truth is another.2 A judgment, in contrast
with mere apprehension, is a belief. Of course it is an inherent
tendency of the human mind to believe every idea presented to it
(this tendency Bain calls "Primitive Credulity") ; still we do
entertain and apprehend the meanings of ideas without assent to,
or dissent from their claim to truth ; indeed, it is a sure mark of
the cultivated mind to be able to entertain a large company of
ideas without believing in them. This raises the question, what is
the distinction and relation between judgment and belief?

There is no fixed usage for the term "belief." Some writers,
such as Sir William Hamilton, make a disjunction of belief and
knowledge; beliefs are those propositions which are accepted as
true on other grounds than empirical or rational evidence; we
believe where we do not know and cannot prove. Others (and the
larger number, I think) make belief the more inclusive term ; in
this sense, all meanings accepted or embraced are beliefs. Inas-
much as the greater part of our knowledge, so-called, consists of
propositions which we believe on grounds that furnish only a

1 1 may call attention here to the important contributions to the psychology
and logic of judgment and meaning made by Brentano, Meinong and Husserl in
German and by Bradley, Bosanquet and Stout in English. Cf. also, the
symposium, "The Meaning of Meaning," at the Oxford International Congress
of Philosophy by Schiller, Russell and others. Russell 's view of meaning is
indicated in his Analysis of Mind. Schiller's paper will be found in Mind N. S.,
Vol. xxx, No. 118.

* Franz Brentano made this distinction very clearly in Psychologie vom
empirischen Standpunkte, Band I, Buch u, Chap. 7, pp. 266 ff.

WHAT IS THINKING? 27

greater or less degree of probability in tbeir favor, and we have
certain knowledge of but few things, I think that I am in harmony
both with the prevailing usage and with the actual situation as to
human knowledge in using the term ''belief to designate the sub-
jective or individual attitude in affirming or accepting the truth
of a judgment or proposition. Subjectively, beliefs are judg-
ments; objectively, true beliefs are true judgments, that is, judg-
ments whose meanings or "objectives" (in Meinong's sense) agree
with the facts. A true belief is the assent of the mind to a true
judgment or its dissent from a false judgment ; a false belief is the
assent of the mind to a false judgment or its dissent from a true
judgment. Thus, for logic and theory of knowledge, the distinc-
tion between belief as a psychical attitude and the objective status
of the content or meaning of the belief is most important. We
must distinguish between two questions : 1. The question of fact —
what motives actually lead individuals to believe in certain proposi-
tions, and to disbelieve in others; 2. The question of right — what
are the objective principles or criteria to which beliefs must con-
form in order to be true, what really makes them true ? The first
question is that of the psychology of belief, a very interesting and
important subject, into which we need not enter here; although it
is worth while to indicate, summarily, the chief grounds which
actually motivate human beliefs. The second question is the
fundamental problem of logic and epistemology ; the problem of
the criteria of truth, which will receive fuller consideration in our
fourth and subsequent chapters. The identification of the second
problem with the first is "psychologism" or "subjectivism" (some-
times called "subjective idealism") in theory of knowledge. If the
enumeration of the motives which actually do lead people to believe
propositions be the only account that can be given of the legitimate
grounds of belief, it is clear that every individual has an equally
good right to believe whatever suits him and there can be no other
criteria of truth than mental habit and feeling. On the other hand,
since, unless we admit right off the bat the absolute authority of
some divine revelation, we can only interrogate human experience
in order to find objective criteria of truth, it is difficult for the
logician or epistemologist to avoid falling into psychologism. As
we shall see more clearly later on, the strength and weakness of
pragmatism lie in its constant appeal to experience and its inability
to avoid subjectivism.

28 MAN AND THE COSMOS

David Hume is the grandfather of all modern subjectivists.
He defined belief as consisting in "a lively idea related to or asso-
ciated with a present impression." He says that it is chiefly the
force, or vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, or steadiness of ideas
which determine belief in them.3 He overlooks the fact that we
may have firm, forcible, vivacious, steady ideas of entities which
we believe to be fictitious; and weak, vague, flickering ideas of
entities which we believe to be real.

If two persons do not mean the same thing by the same prop-
osition, they may have the same belief while thinking that they
disagree, or they may disagree while thinking that they agree.
The real objective or content of a belief is the meaning of the
proposition. What meaning means will engage our attention
frequently. Suffice it to say here that it is a quality or
group of qualities in relation, either existing or derived from
existents (Meinong's "objects" of lower and higher order, re-
spectively).

Belief in propositions may be based on one or more of the
following motives: (1) The influence of tradition and social
suggestion. Man is a highly suggestible, and therefore credulous,
animal. Many of our beliefs are based simply on the authority of
institutions or persons or on mass suggestion. The family, the
church, our associates, prominent and influential persons, or the
opinion of the majority, determine us to believe certain things.
It is the line of least resistance so to do. It is diificult, unpleasant,
sometimes dangerous, not to do so. (2) The desire to believe, "the
will to believe," because the belief in question yields or promises
to yield personal satisfaction ; it promotes some end, satisfies some
desire, holds out the inducement of personal profit or social good.
(Pragmatists have made the most of this motive as the criterion
of truth.) (3) The self-evidence of experience or inference there-
from. I believe in the reality of my physical surroundings, because
I see and touch things; I believe in the multiplication table, be-
cause I see its truth with the eye of the mind. (4) The coherence
or harmony of the belief in question with already accepted beliefs ;
consistency or system in believing. Epistemology, the logic of
belief, is concerned to weigh and estimate all these motives as
logical grounds for believing. To enter upon this subject here

*Cf. Treatise of Human Nature, Part iii, Par. 7.

WHAT IS THINKING? 29

would be to anticipate the work of many of the following chapters.4
I proceed with the subject of the nature of judgment.

What then is judgment? Firstly, a judgment is always the
affirmation or denial of a relation between a subject and a predi-
cate, a "that" and a "what." In the example "this room is cold"
the "that" or subject is "this room," the "what" or predicate is
"cold" ; the relation affirmed is that coldness is a quality of this
room, that is, in some way belongs to or inheres in "this room." A
negatively expressed judgment, be it noted, is always expressly the
denial that a specific relation holds between subject and predicate
and, by implication, the affirmation that the opposite or contra-
dictory predicate inheres in the subject; for example "this room
is not cold" asserts, by implication, that some other quality in the
temperature order belongs to "this room."

Thus far all is plain sailing. No philosopher would disagree
with the above statement. But, when we ask what are subject and
predicate, what are the relations between them and how can they
be related, we immediately become involved in controversy. One
school, the objective or absolute idealists, aver that the subject of
a judgment is always reality in some aspect, form or degree, and
that judgment is the affirmation of a meaning, a universal or "ideal
content," of reality. They aver, further, that this definition
implies, when thought out fully, that reality, the ultimate subject
of all judgments, is a single systematic whole or organized totality
best described as "universal reason" (Hegel), "absolute self"
(Royce), or "absolute experience" (Bradley). Another school,
the logical atomists or neo-realists,5 aver that terms, that is, sub-
jects and predicates, and relations have separate existence (or, in
the case of universals and other relations, subsistence), and may be
joined and separated like counters or marbles. Empiricists would
agree (and where they wouldn't they should) with the objective
idealists that the subject of judgment is always some fragment or
aspect of reality.

Reality is the ultimate subject of all judgment. In order to
avoid misunderstanding, I shall mean by "reality," anything that

Reference may be made to the excellent article by Alexander Mair in
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Beligion and Ethics, Vol. ii, pp. 459-464.

6 Not all logical atomists seem to be neo-realists or vice versa. The logical
atomists insist that logic is the essence of philosophy and they interpret logic
formally.

30 MAN AND THE COSMOS

really exists, whether in the physical world or in minds ; and by a
"truth," any judgment or set of judgments, that is, any intellectual
apprehension, which symbolizes or represents significantly a real
existence. In short, reality = existence, and truth= thought
corresponding with existence.6 False propositions are those which
do not correspond with existence, but have coherent meanings
that might so correspond. Unmeaning propositions are those that
not only do not correspond, but are positively incompatible, with
the nature of existence or reality. For example, it is false that
human beings can live without eating, it is unmeaning to say that
ropes can be made of sand or capital out of debts. Such proposi-
tions have the grammatical form of propositions and, as such, may
be printed or uttered, but they are not logically real or valid
propositions.

Existence or reality clearly includes physical bodies, living
bodies, and minds with all their thoughts, feelings, beliefs and
impulsions. Reality also may include other things, such as

•Being, Keality, Existence and Subsistence.

The lack of agreement among philosophers in regard to the terms used by
them, and the failure to define their terms, are responsible for much confusion
and misunderstanding. I shall use the above terms as follows:

Being includes everything within the universe of discourse — all imaginary,
absurd, and impossible objects of discourse, such as round squares, ropes of
sand, capital made up of debts, dead live men, virtuous rocks, vicious mathe-
matical formulae, as well as all real objects. Since Parmenides there has been
much puzzlement as to how non-being can be thought. Plato asked, ' ' How can
one think that which is not?" and said that non-being must have being if it
can be known. (See especially the Theaetetus and the Sophist). Hegel said
that non-being and being are one and the same. This means, I take it, that
neither non-being, nor being in general or in the abstract, mean anything at all.
Non-being, or that which is not, unless specified, is utterly meaningless; and
being, or that which is, must be always something definite. All real being is
determinate or specific. Impossible and imaginary objects of thought have
mental and psychical being (in minds which think them and on printed pages)
but not real existence. In other words we can form images and ideas of non-
existent and impossible objects; for example: an image of a man made of
green cheese or a round square.

Existence includes whatever really is. I shall use existence and reality as
Bynonymous, and as including all sorts of determinated real beings.

Subsistence. Truths, that is, true judgments and propositions, subsist, or
are valid. They do not exist, for they are the relations which obtain between
existent minds knowing and objects known, when minds correctly apprehend
the nature of other existents, including their own existence as objects of thought
and their relations to one another. (It will be noted that I hold that the nature
of any determinate existent or individual is affected by and affects its relations
to other existents. This doctrine will be argued later.) By saying that truth
or truths subsist I imply a relational conception of truth. There would be no
truths if there were no minds to know.

See Leighton, "The Objects of Knowledge," in The Philosophical Review,
Vol. xvi (1907), pp. 577-587.

WHAT IS THINKING? 31

electrons and disembodied spirits, and all particular existents may
be embraced in one all-inclusive existence or absolute reality. We
are not now concerned with the question, what existence or reality
includes. Every judgment, that is seriously meant, has for its
subject some fragment or aspect of reality; and every judgment
affirms (or denies, and thus implicitly affirms) that the fragment
or aspect of reality which is its subject is qualified by, or in some
way connected with, some other fragment or aspect of reality.
Thus the thinker, in making a judgment, affirms that he has appre-
hended the meaning of a relation between existential data or facts.
To apprehend and comprehend facts m relation is the whole busi-
ness of thinking as such (the psychical motives which impel to
thinking is another question) ; and the relation, if correctly appre-
hended, is a constituent of the whole fact as apprehended and com-
prehended. No one seriously and persistently thinks about rocks,
or birds, or triangles, or the principles of logic, unless he holds that,
in so doing, the subjects of his thinking and the relations of these
subjects really obtain in, or validly signify some aspect of, the
realm of existence or real being.

Every subject of judgment is believed to exist, either as a bit
of sense experience, of internal experience (feeling and reflection),
or to be a valid inference or construction from experience. The
implicit or explicit subject of judgment is always experience,
actual and possible, either in its particular and specific qualities
or in its universal relations, meanings and values.

The work of thought, starting from some item of experience,
is to reconstruct it by setting it in a larger context, to find its mean-
ings; that is, to see it in relation to other items of experience.
Relations or universals, as thought of, are the carriers of all the
meanings and values of experience for the experiencing self ; and,
as existing, are the interconnections of items of experience, by
which their meanings and values are sustained and enhanced.

Thinking functions in the organization and reorganization of
experience, which is at once a process of interpretation and of
reconstruction, through interpretation.

The operation of thinking has two aspects or phases: (1)
analysis or taking apart and (2) synthesis or putting together.
The first step in thinking is judgment. Merely to have an experi-
ence, such as to see a light or color or feel warm is not thinking.
It is mere ideation. But if one say, "Behold, the sunlight," "That

32 MAN AND THE COSMOS

is red," or "I feel warm," these are judgments, and thinking ha9
then begun. "Horse" is a concept, not a judgment, but "there are
horses" is a judgment. It has been proposed to distinguish be-
tween simple apprehension and judgment, the former being mere
awareness of an experience. The terms are, perhaps, ill chosen,
since to apprehend mentally is to think. The distinction is between
simply experiencing, or being sentient (which I take to include
having images or ideas floating in the mind when in a state of
reverie or day dreaming), as well to have sensuous feelings, and
thinking the experience. As soon as one thinks one employs unir
versals. There can be no thinking without universals. In such
cases as "The pencil is here," "here" is a universal, a meaning.
Analysis is the process of discrimination by which universals are
recognized; and synthesis, the process by which universals are
seen to be the connecting principles of things. (By "thing," in
the present connection, I always mean a determinate item of
experience.) A simple qualitative likeness, such as color or
breadth, is a universal, and a likeness cannot be recognized with-
out recognition of unlikeness. Recognition of qualitative likeness
and unlikeness or difference; of numerical identity and diversity;
of more and less of the same kind in number, magnitude and
intensity; of identity and diversity in meanings and universals; of
a regular order or causal sequence in change — such are some of the
elementary ways in which thinking, as at once analytic and syn-
thetic, operates in the ordering of experience. To think is to relate
or order, to relate is to synthesize, but to relate is equally to have
discriminated or analyzed. For items of experience, whether
percepts, images or concepts, as subjects of thought, have signifi-
cant differences only in so far as they have also significant like-
nesses, and vice versa. We neither compare nor separate V2 and
the flavor of champagne because, there being nothing common to
them, there is nothing significantly different between them.

An inference is a combination of judgments. It is the attribu-
tion of a universal to a subject, through the mediation of another
universal. We are not here concerned with the logical problem of
inference, which is the problem as to how from one universal we
have a right to pass to another ; beyond saying that there must be
some identical quality in the universals, if the inference is to be
valid ; the two universals must be grounded in a wider universal.
For example: "Roses are plants; plants are perishable; therefore,

WHAT IS THINKING? 33

roses are perishable" ; means that perishableness is common at
least to roses and other plants, and possibly to other things.

The function of thought then is the interpretation of experience
in terms of universals ; and, through this interpretation, the organ-
ization or ordering of the data of experience into a- more systematic
whole of meaning, in order to arrive at a self-coherent view of
things, a harmonious system of meanings, which can be used and
enjoyed by selves — one that will work in practice and be emotion-
ally satisfying since it grows out of experience, and, being logically
consistent with it, reveals and enhances the significance of the
empirical order. And experience is to be understood here in the
most liberal sense — to include the facts of sense perception, of
moral experience, of interpersonal affection, aesthetic intuition and
religious feeling. The interpretative and organizing function of
thought is relevant to the understanding and coordination of all
these types of experience into more inclusive orders.

The chief forms or categorical ways in which thought functions
in organizing experience are : qualitative likeness and unliJceness,
or sameness and difference; numerical identity and diversity,
unity and plurality; 7 intensive and extensive magnitude (greater,
less and equal in degrees of the same quality) ; temporal sequence
(before, after and simultaneous with) ; causal order, purposive
order, individuality and totality. We shall not discuss here the
metaphysical significance of these categories,8 but it is in place to
point out briefly how they operate in the organization of experi-
ence.

Likeness and unliJceness are first discerned and employed on
the merely qualitative level, that is, before the mind has learned to
formulate and employ, in the field of perception, quantitative units
and measurements. The primary elements of knowledge are
things, that is, complexes of sensory qualities. Like things are
complexes of qualities in which the significant or important like-
nesses in qualities seem to overbalance the differences. Of course
whether things are classified as like or unlike, the same or different

1 The two latter pairs are built up by a clearer thought-development out of
the primitive and vague recognition of likeness and unlikeness; a thing is
identical with, because wholly like, itself; things are different because the
unlikenesses exceed the likenesses or at least prevent the recognition of same-
ness; a unit is a thing that is wholly self -identical ; a plurality is a collection
or series of units.

8 See Book ii.

34 MAN AND THE COSMOS

in kind, is a matter of degree and relative to the interests and
purposes of the classifiers. If a herdsman is counting up all his
live stock, pigs, goats, sheep, cattle and horses are alike in that they
are all live stock ; if he is trading goats for horses, goats and horses
are different. The recognition of degrees of intensity and magni-
tude, in the same quality or in similar things, is the next step, and
it marks the beginning of measurement through number, spatial
extent and weight; one horse is swifter than another, one pig is
bigger and contains more pork than another. Thus there arises
the notion of a unit of quality, which is contained in a given thing
or collection of things a specific number of times; for example,
coldnesses and warmths, brightnesses, lengths, breadths, thick-
nesses, weights, rates of movement. Measurement is, in all cases,
dependent upon the recognition of a unit of quality; even in the
measurement of merely extensive magnitude, for instance the
dimensions of a lumber pile, it is the containing of a qualitative
unit, that is a unit of spatial extent that is in question. The con-
cept of number is the simplest and clearest illustration of the way
in which the mind builds up, from its vague primitive notions of
individuality, likeness and unlikeness, relation and order, a sys-
tematic scheme of thought. The original of the notion of arith-
metical unity is undoubtedly the empirical intuition of individuals
or particulars with determinate characters. Counting begins with
things that, for practical purposes, are units; the individual man
and his digits; other human individuals, animals, and other
natural objects. These are classified by important resemblances
into classes and groups, and then indexed or systematized. A class
is a repetition of like units. A group is a system or order of units,
regarded as interrelated and thus constituting a whole. It is a
one-in-many or many-in-one. The fact that we can only count
individuals, classify them, and arrange them into groups, by a
process involving a temporal sequence gives rise to the notion of
order.

A collection or a group of simultaneously existing things,
whether concrete things or the properties of space, is a reversible
order, whereas a causal sequence is an irreversible order. And
the principle of continuity is primarily that of temporal persistency
of likeness and identity through difference and diversity; that is,
of continuity of existence through succeeding moments of time and
in differing portions of space. The recognition of spatial continu-

WHAT IS THINKING? 35

ity is dependent on the recognition of temporal continuity. At
first there is no distinction made in human thinking between
mechanical and purposive order. When once this distinction
arises, mechanical order becomes the clear case of reversible series
and purposive order that of irreversible series of events.9

The mind abstracts from the empirical qualitative notions of
individuality, classes, and groups the notions of unity, repetition,
class relation, group relation, order, whole part-order, as formal
concepts applicable to all sorts of natural entities or contents.
Thus numerical relations become the parent types of abstract, that
is, contentless categories of unity, plurality, class relation, order,
whole and part. Thus the analytic-synthetic activity of thought
gives rise to the notions of pure discreteness, natural numbers, and
unification of the discrete assemblages or groups of numbers.

Thus, in the manner sketched above, there arise, through the
activity of thought, the primary universale, or categories of think-
ing, by which all experience is organized. The same motives and
methods of thought are at work in the herdsman counting and
manipulating his live stock as in the philosopher trying to conceive
and arrange in a systematic or orderly scheme the whole of em-
pirical existence. The chief differences are the more universal
sweep of the philosopher's interest and outlook and the deeper
penetration of his analysis.

The primary universals, such as the fundamental categories
and the principles of logic, are timelessly valid meanings which get
temporal application in concrete intuitional shape in actual human
knowledge; but which cannot be themselves products of mere
human thinking. These timelessly valid meanings must be the
structural constituents of the universe in so far as it is rational,
elements in the systematic intelligibility or universal reason which
is implied in the coherence of the world order. There are two
kinds of universals, the primary universals or fundamental cate-
gories which are the most fundamental predicates of empirical
reality. Examples of these are likeness, unlikeness, identity,
diversity, systematic unity (identity in difference or individuality
of which selfhood and thinghood are special forms) ; continuity in
change (of which substance and uniformity are special forms) ;
causality (which involves continuity and novelty) ; end and sys-

9 For full discussion of the categorical types above enumerated sea Book ii,
Chaps. 10-17.

36 MAN AND THE COSMOS

tematic totality or wholeness and order (the full meaning of
unity). Secondary universals are general empirical predicates,
intuited by us in interpreting the structure of special classes of
reality or particular fact. They always involve an empirical ele-
ment of sense perception or feeling, and are thus conditioned in
their scope and meaning by particular fact. Examples of these are
whiteness, loudness, bitterness, painfulness, happiness, love. In
short, the secondary universals involve both particular experiences
and the reaction of the thinker thereto. They arise from the inter-
preting activity of thought, and thus presuppose the unconscious
operation of the primary categories. The question as to whether
we immediately apprehend these universals seems to me a purely
psychological one and unimportant for logic and metaphysics. My
own view is that we do immediately apprehend them.

Empirical universals occupy a middle ground between sensory
particulars and the primary categories. Thus we find an ascending
scale of universality or comprehensiveness in knowledge from par-
ticular fact up the most universal and nonempirical principles
employed in the organization of experience. Sensory particulars
are truths of fact, and nonempirical universals are truths of reason.
This distinction, however, cannot be ultimate. It represents our
inability to organize completely the particulars of experience into
an articulated whole or reflective intuition of meaning. Truth of
bare fact and truth of reason represent respectively the beginnings
and the ideal completion of the intuition of reality as a perfected
system of meanings — the two ends of our knowing separated and
connected by a middle region in which our thought works in its
endeavor progressively to grasp reality as a living totality.

The primary universals, which constitute the meanings and
grounds of all cognized relations between particulars, and which,
hence, are the conditions of the grouping of objects into classes, of
their organization into systematic totalities, of the correlation of
events into causal orders or series, are not necessarily expressions
of existential or ontological identity of the things related. If one
say "the same causes are at work here and now as there and then,"
that does not mean numerical identity, but only similarity or like-
ness. The world consists of objects of knowledge that can be
arranged in a great variety of classes, types, groups or orders,
because of the great variety of qualitative and dynamic similarities
which coexist or occur in successive moments of time. (Note

WHAT IS THINKING? 37

Royce's discussion in Ruge's Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical
Sciences, Vol. I, "Logic") For instance, a causal law is a case
of one kind of event being the sine qua non of another kind of
event.

The fundamental postulate of thought is that the elements of
the world are interrelated parts of one whole or system (universe).
This postulate does not imply that these elements are really iden-
tical in stuff or nature. It implies only that the elements are, in
various significant fashions, relevant to each other ; that there are
many kinds or types of similarities of quality, quantity, group or
serial order or relational sequence or appreciable value between
them. Reality may ultimately consist of many dynamic types of
being, existing and operating in manifold types of relationships
rather than one being with many differentiations internal to it.
(If there be only one real being, there is no sense in speaking of
it as one in kind. Kind implies at least two examples.)

I have said that thought aims to group its objects in a sys-
tematic or ordered totality of relationships. It sets before itself
the task of conceiving the world of knowables in a spatial whole or
system of reciprocally related elements, and in a temporal whole
or continuity of dependent sequences. Its goal would be absolutely
achieved if, at any moment, all the not-further-analyzable, and
qualitatively unique, and numerically distinct elements of reality
were grouped as a system of reciprocally dependent factors; and
if the successive temporal phases of the systematic whole could be
seen to imply one another as a completed series seen in a supra-
temporal system of relationships, totus, teres atque rotundus. This
ideal is what Spinoza means by his knowledge sub specie ceter-
nitatis (seeing all things under the form of eternity), Hegel by
"the absolute idea," Bradley and Bosanquet by "the principle of
ground" as the logical nerve or principle of totality of the real,
Royce by his "all-knower." In such a perfect insight all empirical
plurality and all temporal sequences would be transformed into a
system of nontemporal relationships. Bosanquet says that when
causation is thought out, the notion of time vanishes and the
principle of causation becomes the principle of ground. Thus, the
logical ideal of coherence or systematic totality is converted into a
metaphysical criterion of ultimate reality, and the temporal
actuality of human experience is viewed as absorbed into a time-
less or eternal totality of being.

38 MAN AND THE COSMOS

I admit that all real entities or individuals, and all relation-
ships which they sustain, must now, or at any other given moment
of time, be internal to the totality of the real.10 To say this is to
say nothing more than that, in knowing, we are dealing with our
data as parts of the universal order. But this admission settles
nothing as to the relative degrees of independence and self-
determination to be accorded to the individual members of the
total reality. It settles nothing whatever as to the specific char-
acters and degrees of the interrelationships of any two or more
entities. To grasp the ground of the being of any thing, or of the
occurrence of any event, is to gain an insight into the objective
system of relationships or determinate orders in which things and
events live and move and have their being. The moving spring
of every effort towards the unification of knowledge is the faith
that the world is a systematic and intelligible totality ; that it is,
in some considerable degree, one orderly whole, whose successive
phases are at least partially continuous.

But to say this settles nothing as to the precise degree and
manner in which the being of any real entity has its ground
respectively in itself and outside itself, or as to the degree in which
the successive phases of the actual behavior and qualities of any-
thing real could be determined now if one had a complete insight
into the totality of relationships in which real entities at present
stand to one another and as to the degree in which successive phases
of reality are discontinuous or continuous.

If time and change disappear from an interpretation of
reality just in the measure in which that interpretation nears com-
pletion; if, for example, time has no place in complete causal
explanation, then both mechanical-causal explanation and teleo-
logical interpretation of the world process or any bit thereof vanish
or become meaningless and unreal when they reach their fruitions.
In brief, if the logical ideal of knowledge is taken to involve the
absolute monistic and eternalistic conception of reality as a time-
less whole or system, of which the finite temporal individual ele-
ments are illusory and transitory differentiations, then the realm
of experience, from which we set out, in which alone we live and
act and have our being, and the logical activity of thought itself
are illusory guides which lure us to intellectual self-annihilation.

10 On relations see further Book ii, Chap. 12.

WHAT IS THINKING? 39

Knowledge means at once the comprehension of the mutual
relevancies or orderly interdependences of the many distinct
existences, which make up reality, and of the uniqueness of the
being of each existence. It means, at once, the interpretation of
the successive phases of the actual as orderly series or continuous
sequences, and the recognition of the uniqueness of each successive
phase in the life of the universe or of any part thereof.

APPENDIX

existence and subsistence

Philosophy and Gegenstandstheorie

In a series of influential works, the late Professor A. von Meinong
developed what he regarded as a hitherto unworked field in Philos-
ophy— Gegenstandstheorie, Theory of Objects; "Object" being used
in the sense of any object of thought,11 anything that can be mentally
apprehended or intended, including actual and ideal objects, possible
and impossible things. Actual things, such as chairs and tables;
ideal entities, such as geometrical and numerical truths; imaginary
things, such as centaurs and hippogriffs ; impossible and contradictory
entities, such as round squares, sand ropes — are all Gegenstande. All
possible Gegenstande subsist (bestehen) ; one class of them exists,
namely, empirical things. Existents are temporal, they persist in
time. Pure subsistents, such as mathematical principles, are timeless.
Causal relations are not relevant to pure subsistents. There is a
mixed class in which the basis of the subsistent entity is empirical,
and therefore temporal, existence, whereas the subsistent principle of
itself is timeless ; for example, if we say that a certain man resembles
another man who has died, the men are temporal existents; whereas
the resemblance is a timeless truth. Eesemblance and difference are
timeless entities. To say that the difference between red and green
exists at a certain time has scarcely more meaning than to call a
musical tone white or black. The meaning of a judgment (or of a
supposal, Annahme, as in the case of guesses, surmises, fancies) is

M The most important of these writings are: TJeber Gegenstande hoherer
Ordnung, Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, Vol. xxi, 1896; Ueber Gegenstands-
theorie, in TJntersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie, 1914.
TJeber Annahmen, 2d Edition, 1910; and Ueber der Stellung der Gegenstands-
theorie im System der Wissenschaften, 1907; also in the Zeitschrift fur
Philosophic

40 MAN AND THE COSMOS

its "objective." "Supposals" are not mere ideas or images, since a
supposal always involves a tentative yes or no; as in the case of a
guess, a presumption, a surmise. Meinong's discussions of supposals
are a valuable contribution to the psychology of imagination, and
meaning, and therefore to logic. The objective is the meaning-con-
tent (Bedeutungsinhalt) of the act of judgment or supposal, whereas
an object {Objekt not Gegenstand), for Meinong, is always an actual
reality. Thus the objective in any act of thought is gegenstdndliche.
The meanings of judgments (and supposals) are their Sosein, their
nature or "what." Thus many objectives have Sosein, but not Sein;
they have no corresponding existents, no "thats." Meinong's dis-
tinction between Sosein and Sein or existence seems to be the same
as our English-speaking distinction between the "what" and the
"that"; his objective is simply the "what" of our philosophical dis-
course.12 He says that one grasps or apprehends a Gegenstand in its
Sosein or "what"; but what one judges is either its Sein or being or
its further Sosein in relation. Relations and complexes (which result
from reflection upon primary objects of thought) are Gegenstdnde
hbherer Ordnung — "objects" (in his technical sense) "of higher
order." If a superior is necessarily based on an inferior it is
"founded" (fundiert) on the latter. All objects of knowledge are
factual (thatsdchlich) objectives or facts. The term fact is to be
applied not only to empirical existents but to all valid propositions;
for example, to those of mathematics. All facts are known through
evidence, which may be either rational (a priori) or empirical (a
posteriori). All empirical fact is temporally existent. All rational
fact is timelessly subsistent. Whatever can exist must also subsist;
it gains existence when it becomes temporal fact; for example, until
recently a dirigible airship had only subsistent being; now it exists.
Contradictory and impossible "objects" (Gegenstande.) have an extra-
existential subsistence (Aussersein). There are objects that are not
(Es gibt Gegenstdnde das nicht sind) ; for example, a round square
or a p&rpetuum mobile.

Metaphysics, as Meinong conceives its province, is the most com-
prehensive science of empirical existence. It deals with the general
characters and interrelationships of empirical and temporal reality.
Gegenstandstheorie is an a priori companion to metaphysics and an
indispensable prelude to the theory of knowledge. Meinong has made
here important contributions to logic and theory of knowledge. But
I do not agree with all the conclusions drawn from his analysis of
Gegenstande.

13 Cf. particularly, F. H. Bradley's Principles of Logic and Appearance
and Reality, passim.

WHAT IS THINKING? 41

The doctrine that subsistent being is a wider and richer class of
entities than existence and that the latter is a sort of temporal and
empirical specification of the former seems to provide a realm of being
for universals or meanings independent of any mind; it lends sup-
port to the sort of realism which would give to "ideal objects" (Uni-
versals and Values) a super-existential and nonmental being. Mei-
nong himself believes in impersonal values. At this point Logical
Eealism becomes identical with that sort of abstract or impersonal-
istic idealism which confers on pure universals, such as the propo-
sitions of pure logic and mathematics, the universal relationships or
"laws" of reality, and universal values, a super-existential and timeless
being which is imperfectly and intermittently embodied in empirical
and temporally conditioned existents. Abstract principles are ac-
corded a being superior to actual reality. This, of course, is the
sort of logical realism or abstract idealism which is frequently at-
tributed to Plato. It figures prominently, in one disguise or another,
in NeoKantianism (for example, in the Marburger School) and even
in the value-philosophy of the Baden school (Windelband and others).
Indeed, the step is short from the doctrine that universals and values
have an eternally subsistent being to a consciousness in general or a
transcendent Ought as the ultimate reality.

The doctrine that subsistence is some sort of transcendental non-
mental and nonphysical being is based on a misuse of language. It
seems to me to rest on the same fallacy as the Ontological Argument.
Existence is not a predicate to be added to the "what" of any real sub-
ject. Subsistence is not a kind of superior and timeless being.13
There can be no timeless being, except in the sense of endless per-
sistence or endless duration. Even a real God could be timeless only
in the latter sense. Contradictory or impossible objects of thought,
and even imaginary objects of thought, really exist only as images or
symbols in the mind of some individual and in the linguistic or sym-
bolic expressions of that mind. A round square or a rope of sand
are simply unmeaning conjunctions of linguistic symbols — unmean-
ing because they are combinations of contradictory concepts. A cen-
taur is a conjunction of images, which conjunction is not factually
impossible but is empirically unverifiable. A perpetuum mobile is a

uIn patristic theology and mediaeval philosophy subsistence does not mean
super- or extra-existential being. It means real, persistent essential being or
existence, in contrast with nonexistence and contingent existence. In the older
English writers it is used in the same general sense; Baxter, for instance, says
that the three great attributes of God — omnipotence, understanding and will —
those attributes by which he is God, are by some called subsistential. "Sub-
sistential Being ' ' is the equivalent of ' ' Essential Being. ' ' The same general
usage will be found in Sir Thos. Browne, Milton and Cudworth.

42 MAN AND THE COSMOS

vague expression for something incompatible with the empirical con-
ditions of movement. It cannot even be meant or thought through.
Such things have not even pure logical subsistence. If they had they
might be brought into existence. In the last analysis all meanings,
universals, laws, and values are derived by mental activity, through
the process of abstractive construction, from empirical existence. Ex-
istence is prior and superior to subsistence. Nothing is logically possi-
ble, nothing has meaning, that is incompatible with actual existence.
Even the principles of logic and mathematics are but symbolic ex-
pressions for the most general ways in which minds behave. If all
minds were blotted out of existence there would be no logic or mathe-
matics to subsist. The same is true even more obviously of physical
science. The laws of physics do not subsist above nature and they
do not, as such, exist in nature. Nature has a certain texture, certain
observable characteristics (qualities or ways of behaving). Our sci-
entific laws are symbols invented by minds for the description of
these general ways of behaving. Science, indeed all truth, subsists
only in and for thinking minds. Its validity depends, in the last
resort, on the degree of vital correspondence that is possible between
minds and the "nature" of nature as revealed through sense ex-
perience.

Above all things, to talk of values or appreciations as having any
sort of being without valuators or appreciators seems to me sheer
nonsense. If values are not mere figments engendered by human
desire and imagination there must be a vital correspondence between
the fundamental interests of human beings and physical nature. In
short, laws, meanings, values, have no being apart from the feelings
and activities of selves or persons in dynamic interplay with Nature.
In so far as they may be valid or effective, laws and values are the
mental counterparts of the ways in which nature behaves in response
to the demands of human personality.

I have felt it necessary at this point to anticipate, in sketchy
form, a main theme of this work, since it is raised in all its aspects
by the much-touted distinction between subsistence and existence,
with which many so-called realists, as well as idealists who find
refuge in a vicious abstractionism, try to save science and human
values while letting the troublesome and perplexing problem of per-
sonality go hang. This is throwing out the baby with the bath.
Let us not be imposed upon by that vice to which philosophers and
scientists are peculiarly tempted although no one is immune from it —
the vice of setting up abstractions and symbols in the place of con-
crete realities. The only business of systematic philosophy or meta-
physics is to try to understand as fully as possible the world as it is.

WHAT IS THINKING? 43

The world is no "appearance" or illusion ; we are appearances of and
in it, although I hope not illusions; our concepts, laws, universals,
even our so-called universal values, are but appearances engendered
by our minds in interaction with the rest of the cosmos. One ordi-
nary human self is worth more, as a reality, than all the ineffable
values ever conceived by the minds of philosophers. In this respect
a healthy common sense is right. The naive realist is right when he
stubbornly believes, in spite of sophisticated argumentation, that what
he perceives and feels are good realities. Any other starting point
plays into the hands of that sickly illusionism which, in Hindu specu-
lation par excellence, has been the product of auto-hypnotic dream-
ing, of fleeing from the actual instead of wrestling with it in thought
and action.

Reality includes: (1) The particular empirical existents in time
and space. (2) The temporal, spatial, dynamic, vital and whatever
other relations there are which constitute the interplay of particulars
as elements in the cosmos. Unreality includes everything that has
no corresponding fact in the natures or relations of the existing par-
ticulars. It includes impossible, contradictory and unmeaning
images, concepts and propositions, which are so because incompatible
with the actual. Between the actual real and the unreal is the realm
of the possible — of ideas of entities which are not incompatible with
the actual order, but for which no corresponding existents have yet
been found. "The possible is really possible" — this means its exist-
ence is not excluded by the actual.

Hans Driesch, in his Ordnungslehre, distinguishes between the
doctrine of order and metaphysics. The doctrine of order is a sys-
tematic doctrine of the categories. It deals with the forms of ideal
objects of thought (logic and mathematics) as well as with the forms
of interpretation of existential objects; whereas metaphysics is con-
cerned with the relation of knowledge and existence. Thus Ord-
nungslehre is very similar in aim to Gegenstandstheorie and to
Phenomenology as Husserl conceives it. Driesch has since published
a Metaphysics, WvrlclichJceitslehre, which I have not seen.14

14 1 have not aimed above, either to expound Meinong 's views adequately or
to criticise them in detail. I have taken them as a starting point for discussing
the notion of subsistence which plays such a large role in the abstract logical
realism of certain neo-realists ; notably so, for example in E. G. Spaulding's
The New Rationalism. B. Russell expounded and discussed Meinong 's theories
in three articles in Mind, N. S., Vol. xiii, pp. 204 ff., 336 ff., and 509 ff.,
entitled ' ' Meinong 's Theory of Complexes and Assumptions. ' ' As this volume
goes to press I note the first installment of an article on "The Philosophical
Researches of Meinong" by G. Dawes Hicks, in Mind (N. S.) Vol. xxxi, No. 1,
January, 1922, pp. 1-30.

CHAPTEK III

PERCEPTS AND CONCEPTS

Certain thinkers, notably, William James and H. Bergson, who
insist on the validity of immediate perceptual experience as being
the primary datum for philosophy, argue that in the conceptualiz-
ing process the mind is carried, not deeper into, but farther away
from, reality. Percepts are characterized as concrete and dynamic,
continuous with the original and ever varying flow of living
reality; whereas concepts are static, abstract, pale shadows or
skeletons which misrepresent the rich flux of experience, which is
the real stuff of things.

I regard this opposition of perception and conception as erron-
eous. Certainly, all knowledge arises from the determinate data
of experience. Certainly too, all our valid concepts, our most high-
flown theories, must dip back into and be continuous with living
experience. But there is no part of experience, however simple
and dumb it may seem, that does not involve in some degree the
organizing and interpreting activity of thought. The crude per-
ception of a physical thing is an act of synthesis of sense quali-
ties into a recognizable unity. In perceiving a stone, the self
recognizes the existence of a unified complex of sense qualities.
It could not recognize the thinghood of the stone if it could not be
conscious of the unity of its own act in identifying the stone. It
cannot be conscious of its own unity without, at the same time,
recognizing the existence of other units — things and selves. The
self places the stone somewhere in space. This implies the con-
sciousness of relating the self's experience in an order of things in
space. The self recognizes the existence of the stone now and then.
This implies the consciousness of the self and other entities, as
existing through a temporal succession, and of time as the order
in which events occur and exist. The causal relation arises from
recognition of the influences which the self suffers and exerts in
a world of orderly events in time. The categories, in terms of

PERCEPTS AND CONCEPTS 45

which man classifies and organizes the elements of his experiences,
are engendered by the interplay of his conceptualizing intelligence
with the world of sense data. The materials of sense perception
submit to the organizing activity of thought. Through the organ-
ization of the empirical facts the world becomes more articulate
and significant, becomes, in short, a cosmos ; and the self in turn
becomes more fully conscious of its own intelligent nature. The
basic processes of human intelligence must be akin to the structure
of a world thus apprehended, in all its variegated and colorful
data, by the activity of thought. Nature, the experienced world
order, is an orderly whole. The subject becomes a consciously
rational self through its work of organizing, interpreting, evalu-
ating and controlling, the natural order. In finding order or law
and in achieving values in the world, the self is holding intercourse
with the order of reality. No impassable gulf can be admitted to
yawn between experience and thought, perception and conception.
Our concepts work pragmatically. They are significant, because
the intelligence which shapes them is organic to the world and the
world is harmonious with intelligence.

Genuine concepts are not pale and colorless abstracts of prop-
erties common to the objects which concepts at once denote and
connote. A concept is not a generic image, although a generic
image, a composite photograph may furnish the imaginal setting
of a concept. The true concept is a principle of order, a law of a
series, a relating function. The term which expresses the concept
is simply the symbol of the principle of order which is exemplified
in a series of differentiations or particular embodiments of iden-
tical qualities. The true concept of man or justice, for example, is
a functional meaning which signifies an order-series by which
individual entities are members of a group or orderly system.
These concepts do not "mean" that there is a finite number of
personal qualities in men or of acts called "just," which are
included under or ruled by the class concept "man" or "justice."
The concept of man is the function or principle of order which is
expressed differentially in a serial succession of particular indi-
viduals. The concept of justice expresses the rule or law for the
continuous production and recognition of a series of typical acts,
each act unique but with a qualification identical with every other
act of the same character. Thus genuine concepts are the forms
or types of order which express, in mental symbols, the principles

46 MAN AND THE COSMOS

of the behavior and production of ordered series of particulars.
They are laws of series.

Each concept is an individualized law or type for the arrange-
ment, in a series, of an indefinite succession of particulars. If I
have an adequate concept of man or justice, I am thus able, out
of the mass of my experiences, to group and order as they appear ;
or, in the case of concepts of action such as justice, to produce
the new and unique particulars of which these concepts are the
types. The concept then of any type of being symbolizes the law
of behavior of the individual being as member of an order-series
or type. The states of any being of that type function in the
specific typical relations. The biological concept of man expresses
the laws of behavior of the human species as a member of the
ordered series of animal forms. The psychological concept of man
expresses the laws of his behavior as member of the ordered series
of sentient types of life. The ethical and social concept of man
expresses the laws of his behavior as member of well-ordered groups,
namely the social groups. The complete concept of man would
express all the laws of his behavior, all the ways in which human
beings function in the totality of relations in which they live. We
cannot exhaust the individual's existence in terms of his conceptual
relations ; hence there remain facts in our acquaintance with indi-
viduals which we know immediately by experience or direct
acquaintance, and through which we appreciate the individual
directly as this concretion-point of relations. Our inability to
form a perfect concept of an individual is due to the complexity
of the relations in which individuals live and act, and not to any
irreconcilable opposition between immediate experience and
thought. It is possible that a perfect intelligence would possess a
complete concept, or law of behavior, for every individual. The
true function of concepts is to symbolize dynamic relations of the
determinate elements of reality. The genuine concepts are
transcriptions into mental symbols of the ordered or serial char-
acter of a world which has a relational structure. Plato's Ideas,
in their relations to the particulars of sense, were probably in-
tended as ordering concepts in the meaning I have given to the
term. Whether he regarded them as eternally existing and
transcendent types of order, I cannot discuss here.

Since they are functions of order or laws of a series, concepts
are dynamic. It is true, that having acquired, by our own activity,

PERCEPTS AND CONCEPTS 47

or by inheritance from tradition, certain concepts, we may stop
thinking and regard these products of arrested intellectual activity
as absolute and perfect types. Thus, by failing to carry on the
work of thought, our apparatus of concepts may come to fall far
short of the living realities whose nature they should express.
But this defect of our actual conceptual furniture is not due to
any inherent defect in conceptual thinking, but to the arrest
thereof, to our failure to reorganize our symbols and our meanings
and bring them into harmony with the further findings of experi-
ence and with other concepts that arise therefrom. In fact it is
the ordinary naive percepts, which consist so largely of traditional
images and concepts, the products of arrested and ossified thinking,
that are static and inadequate to the flow of experience. The
clodhopper does not perceive what the scientist, the scholar, or the
philosopher perceives, just because what he thinks he perceives is
so largely made up of traditional images and concepts. He per-
ceives what he thinks he perceives because he does not think. For
him physical things are simply inert masses. Fossils are but
curious bits of rock that tell no stories. The earth stands still, the
sun revolves around it. Miracles happen, events shoot forth
mysteriously and without adequate causes. Charms and the evil
eye work; magic stalks abroad. The dead appear to the living.
Organs are repaired and bones are mended by faith. Soothsaying
is a valid form of knowledge. Almost anything may happen, and
all because he implicitly takes as veridical sense perception, a
topsy-turvydom of primitive tradition, of imagery and belief which
chimes in with his own uncriticized desires, hopes and fears. He
does his perceiving with a primitive conceptual outfit. On the
other hand, it is the persistent conceptual activity of thought
which discovers order, continuity and movement, beneath the
apparent disorder, discontinuity and inertia of those crude per-
ceptual experiences which are really made up largely of prehistoric
concepts. It is through conceptual thinking alone that we find in
nature a regular causal succession, continuous evolution, ceaseless
movement beneath the apparently placid surface of things; in
short, in place of chaos, cosmos, an orderly world of elements in
dynamic relations. It is not conceptual thinking, in its fresh
analysis and synthesis of experiences, which dismembers the rich
and concrete flux of living reality, which turns the green and
golden tree of life into gray dead theory. This devastation is

48 MAN AND THE COSMOS

wrought by unthinking perception masquerading in the outworn
garments of primitive imagery and concepts.

James says,1 "Out of this aboriginal sensible muchness atten-
tion carves out objects, which conception then names and identifies
forever — " . . . "Out of time we cut 'days' and 'nights/ 'sum-
mers' and 'winters.' We say what each part of the sense continuum
is and all these abstracted whats are concepts." But "time" is
surely a much more abstract concept than "day" or "night,"
"day" more abstract than the "present" moment. I can form a
much more accurate concept of what the present moment means
than I can of what time means. I can form a concept of "here,"
"now," "individuals" such as myself, "President of the United
States," "King of England," the sun, Mercury, Venus, this solar
system. Indeed all historical sciences, whether it be human his-
tory, historical biology, geology, or astronomy, operate with con-
cepts of individuals. Each individual has its unique character
and place in space and time, but that does not hinder its being
conceived in all sorts of relations of qualities, action, passion, co-
existence and succession, with other individuals. Our most com-
prehensive concepts or categories are formed by putting together
more concrete concepts. It is from "now" and "then," "day"
and "night," "summer" and "winter," that we can form the con-
cept of time. So with space, cause, identity, truth, justice, beauty,
value, relation. These metaphysical concepts or categories sym-
bolize identities of character and behavior which constitute con-
crete individuals members of ordered series.

The consideration of the relation between perception and con-
ception has brought us into the heart of the problem of the indi-
vidual and the universal. Those who argue that thought murders
reality regard the individual as given in perception and the uni-
versal as an abstraction formed by thought from the perceptual
reality. We shall consider fully the relation of the individual and
the universal in a later chapter.2 I may say here, by anticipation,
that the truest, richest, realest individual is the one which implies
or concretes the most universals. The individual is the concretion
of universals. Universals are the relations of individuals.

1 Problems of Philosophy, p. 50.
'Chap. 14.

CHAPTER IV

THE CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE

When one asks "What is truth ?" one must beware of confusing
two different questions. These are: (1) What are the subjective
or psychological marks of truth, how does truth "feel" to the indi-
vidual knower? (2) What are the objective logical criteria or
universal standards for determining the truth of propositions?
Propositions or judgments have two aspects: (1) They are made
or accepted and believed by individuals and thus are mental acts
or attitudes; (2) they are, if true, objective and universal — their
meanings agree with the universal conditions of truth and the
specific character of reality. For example, when the pragmatist
says that "satisfaction" or "satisfactory consequences" is the mark
of true propositions, he is stating only a subjective or psychological
mark of propositions, as believed or held to be true by individuals.

Judgments are beliefs, and the belief attitude involves feeling
or sentiment. Hence Hume says that belief belongs more properly
to the sensitive than to the rational part of our nature and Pascal
that the heart has reasons which the intellect knows not of. If all
beliefs had their motives for being held wholly in feeling there
would be no objective content of truth. All science and philosophy
would be reduced to the subjectivity of the individual "feeler."
But, in fact, while many beliefs, such as, for example, a person's
belief in himself or in his sweetheart or friend, may be based
chiefly on feeling, there are beliefs which are held because of
empirical evidence or logical deduction from such evidence.
These are rational beliefs, based on intellectual judgments.

Here we are concerned with the problem of the objective or
logical criteria of truth, and we shall now examine the principal
theories on this subject. These are: (1) the "copy" or reprer-
sentative theory; (2) the intuitional or immediatist theory; (3)
the coherence theory; and (4) the pragmatic theory. The "copy"
or "representative" theory is sometimes called the agreement or

50 MAN AND THE COSMOS

correspondence theory — mistakenly, I think, since "agreement"
is too vague and all-inclusive a term to designate a specific theory
of truth. We would all agree that our beliefs, to be true, must be
in agreement with reality ; the crucial question is — how this agree-
ment is to be achieved and known. In the copy theory agreement
means that our images, ideas and judgments are true when they
are good copies or representations of reality, just as a portrait of
an absent friend is a good one if it copies his appearance. This
theory has its origin in the fact that the mind, through memory,
forms images of things experienced in the past; and, through
creative imagination and thought, forms images and conceptual
symbols of things not experienced, by the rearrangement of repro-
duced imaginal and conceptual elements ; and the images and con-
ceptual symbols are found to be good or valid representatives, if
they lead to actual experiences that agree with the pointings or
meanings of their imaginal or symbolic representations. Ob-
viously, a great many of our ideas, regarded as meanings, are not
copies or reproductions of empirical things. Scientific and tech-
nical formulae and laws, moral and political concepts and prin-
ciples, mathematical concepts and relations, are not copies but
conceptual symbols of actual and possible experiences or acts and
processes. The mental content in such cases has no necessary
imaginal or pictorial resemblances to that which it symbolizes. A
very important part of valid knowledge thus consists, not of repre-
sentations or copies, but of conventionalized signs or symbols.

The problem of knowledge is a real problem, not an exercise
in hair splitting. For, naively, the human mind assumes offhand
that its images, concepts, and symbols mean, point to, lead toward,
the real things which they stand for. But what common sense
means by the "real things" are just the perceptual objects which
are congeries of sense data, whose character is determined in part
by the structure and reactions of the percipient. It is easy to see
that images and symbols are valid if they correspond with the
sensual data which they mean and promise; but, since the sense
data are themselves variable, what real things do they represent ?
How are we to determine to what extent and in what conditions
our sense data are representations of reality ? How can the per-
cipient transcend his private sense data ? By what criteria can he
determine whether he has, in a given instance, transcended his
private data ?

THE CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE 51

A fatal objection to the copy theory is this: if it means that
every cognitive mental content, whether sensory or ideational, is a
re-presentation of a reality external to and differing from it, then
we have no means of knowing whether the ''idea" is a fair copy of
the reality. Images may be copies of percepts, but what are per-
cepts copies of, if they too are ideas? If we know some things by
direct acquaintance in perception, then all knowledge does not
come by way of copying things in representations. If we do not
know anything by direct acquaintance, then we have no means of
knowing whether any of our so-called copies and symbols of things
and relations are adequately representative of the supposed inde-
pendent realities. Either we can know some parts of reality in
some other way than by our ideas copying or representing them,
or we do not know whether we can know any reality as it really is,
or to what degree our ideas are good copies or symbols of the reality.

The intuitionist or immediatist theory is that knowledge con-
sists in intuiting, in having a direct perception of, reality. The
essentials of the theory are these: I have immediate or direct
acquaintance with external reality in my sense perceptions. I
have immediate or direct acquaintance with internal reality, that
is, with the processes of mind, by introspection or the inner sense.
Just as I know the qualities of objects through sense perception,
so, by inner reflection, I know mental processes, their various con-
tents, and the laws of their connections. The principles of logical
thinking, the principles of ethical, social, aesthetic, and religious
valuations, are known in the same way. It is sometimes objected
to intuitionism that it excludes from the knowing activity all
reflective analyses. This objection is invalid. The claim that one
can know by intuition the nature of physical things and the nature
of mind in no way precludes the possibility or necessity of reflect-
ive analysis of one's intuitions.1

The weakness of intuitionism lies in its incompleteness, in
what it fails to include, rather than in what it positively includes.
Granted that, unless we know some things intuitively, or imme-
diately, we cannot be sure that we know anything ; granted that, if
we are to have any valid knowledge of the external world, we must
have immediate acquaintance with some of its real aspects or quali-

1Cf. N. Lossky, The Intuitive Basis of Knowledge ; a well-developed argu-
ment for intuitivism. All genuine realism in theory of knowledge must admit
that knowledge has an intuitive basis.

52 MAN AND THE COSMOS

ties and relations ; and granted, too, that the logical operations of
the mind, the basic ways of judging, must be known by intro-
spective analysis; intuitionalism still fails to give an adequate
theory of scientific and philosophical inquiry. The variations,
inconsistencies and illusions in our sense perceptions raise the
question — what is the relation of our varying and conflicting ex-
periences and beliefs to the objective order ? A number of some-
what variant perceptions of a thing may be regarded as aspects
of the thing cognizable. What, then, is the relation of these
aspects to the real thing? Scientific analysis is requisite to
answer this question. Furthermore, we cannot rest satisfied with
the enunciation of a series of disconnected judgments in regard to
physical, vital, logical, mathematical, ethical, aesthetic and other
facts and principles. We seek to organize these various series of
facts-in-relation into a harmonious system. Thought seeks con-
sistent or harmonious systems of mathematical, physical, vital,
social, ethical, aesthetic judgments or propositions; and seeks, fur-
ther, to determine how these special systems may be intercon-
nected; as well as to determine how the mind's general norms of
judgment are interwoven with, and give meaning and unity to, the
world of sense experience. The coherence theory is the formula-
tion of this impetus of thought.

The coherence theory of truth is that the ultimate criterion of
truth is the mutual coherence or harmonious organization of judg-
ments into a system. Any single judgment is true only in so far
as it enters as a harmonious element into a more completely
articulated organism or consistent system of judgments. "The
Ideal of Knowledge . . . is 2 a system, not of truths, but of truth."
"The essential nature of thought is a concrete unity, a living indi-
viduality." "Truth, in its essential nature, is that systematic
coherence which is the character of a significant whole. A "sig-
nificant whole" is an organized individual experience, self-
fulfilling and self-fulfilled. Its organization is the process of its
self-fulfillment, and the concrete manifestation of its individual-
ity." The judgmental parts or single truths have no validity in
isolation from the whole, and the whole is in and through the

* Joachim, The Nature of Truth, p. 72.

'Ibid., p. 78. This is the standpoint of F. H. Bradley, B. Bosanquet,
and, in g< n< ral, of the Anglo-American objective idealists.
•Ibid., p. 76.

THE CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE 53

parts. The notions of life, organism, self-fulfilling process bring
us nearest to a conception of that ideal whole, although they are
all inadequate. There can be one and only one significant whole,
one organized individual experience self-fulfilling and self-ful-
filled. Nothing short of absolute individuality, nothing short of
the completely whole experience can satisfy this postulate. Hence
the truth is, from the point of view of human experience, an ideal
which can never, in its completeness, be actual as human experi-
ence. As to the relation of humanly "true" judgments to the ideal
whole or organism of absolute truth, our true judgments are all
partial, abstract or indeterminate truths. No one of them is com-
pletely true when taken by itself. From judgments of particular
fact, such as "this paper is smooth," to universal judgments, such
as "2 plus 2 = 4" or "the law of gravitation is true for all bodies,"
we have an endless series of degrees of truth, degrees of approxima-
tion to the one and complete whole of truth. One true judgment
may be more inclusive of other truths, and therefore, more true,
than another judgment. No judgment, in and by itself, is abso-
lutely true. The degree of truth possessed by any judgment is
measured by its systematic inclusiveness of other subordinate
judgments. A judgment is most true when it is most determinate,
when its background is most vitally articulated as a system of
judgments, into which the judgment in question fits in as a deter-
mining and determined member.5 In the articulate systems of
geometry and number, in the physical doctrine of energy, in a
system of astronomical principles or geological principles, in the
concrete interpretation of social-historical life by a Dante or a
Goethe, or of the Renaissance by a great historian, we have a fair
sample of the truest, because most systematic and determinate,
types of judgments.8

The coherence theory of truth embodies the ideal goal of
science and philosophy. If there be any absolutely normative ideal
of truth this is it. But it is not the only criterion of truth, and
often it is, in practice, useless. A carping critic might say that, if
no truth is wholly true, then the judgment that truth is coherence
is not wholly true. But the advocate of the coherence theory

'Ibid., p. 113.

• The most persuasive expositions of this doctrine are in Bosanquet 's Logic,
especially Vol. II, Chaps. 9 and 10, and The Principle of Individuality and
Value, passim.

54 MAN AND THE COSMOS

might reply that no justification can be asked for a criterion of
truth except that it states what the characteristics are, that, in
varying degrees, actually are manifested in truth. A more serious
objection to the coherence criterion is that, since we do not and
cannot know the absolute totality or organism of truth, since we
cannot possess the one whole and perfect individual system of
experience, we cannot use this criterion to determine the degree of
truth possessed by our various judgments and partial systems of
judgment. We cannot even determine by it the relative validity
of various truths in different partial or finite systems, each of
which may be coherent with other judgments within its own par-
ticular system. I am now immediately certain that I (whatever
"I" may be) am writing in my study. I am certain, in the same
manner, of the general character of my immediate physical sur-
roundings. I am also certain of the truth of some propositions in
mathematics; certain too, of a few values in human relationships,
literature and art; and I regard some historical facts as highly
credible. But I have not the least inkling, perhaps, as to how
these various types of judgment systems, enter, as factors, into the
absolute whole of truth. I may and do hope and believe that,
somehow, all true judgments concerning reality must cohere into
one whole or individual system ; since, otherwise, reality cannot be
a perfectly intelligible order, and hence not a cosmos, a universe
at all. But, since I do not and cannot know this one coherent
whole, in its concrete individuality, I do not know, either that the
ideal of truth is fully honored by reality, or what particular place
any specific finite judgments, or systems of judgments, may occupy
in the perfect whole. Thus the coherence theory, while it expresses
an ideal that guides thought and that, so far as it is applicable, is
absolute, cannot be the only working criterion of truth. On the
other hand, obedience to the ideal of coherence, freedom from con-
tradicl ion in a systematic whole, or harmonious totality, is the most
imperious and inescapable principle that controls thought.

A third objection to the coherence theory is that thought might
build up ideally or formally coherent systems of judgments, in
which each member of the system might fit beautifully into the
articulated whole, while the whole structure was out of touch with
reality or, at best, might be a beautiful system of bare possibilities.
In transcendental geometries, in ultraromantic theories of life,
in the religions illusions of demented persons, and in speculations

THE CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE 55

in regard to the life after death, we find such systems. The reply
to this criticism is that the ideal is not one of formal consistency
of propositions concerning reality in the abstract, but of coherence,
organic wholeness, or harmonious individuality, in experience
regarded as a socially valid system. In short, the coherence theory
means that our judgments must symbolize or be harmonious with
all aspects of reality. Coherence with empirical fact must be our
starting point, and membership in society is a stubborn fact.
Therefore, the coherence theory must presuppose that experience
is in touch with reality. It cannot blow hot and cold. It cannot
start with the faith in the trustworthiness of immediate experience
aud then, by a dialectic use of its criterion, undermine the validity
of immediate experience.7 If it does this it defeats itself. The
objects of belief in judgments are, in the last analysis, not proposi-
tions about reality but reality itself. There is a duality in knowl-
edge. A true judgment or belief is the presence in a mind of a
meaning symbolized, a conscious intent signified, tliat refers, in
right relations, to a reality other than itself; and which, as object
of belief, is existential ly distinct from the judgment itself. True
propositions are always mental but their objects need not be
mental. Hence, even an absolute whole of truth must be a coherent
system of judgments or meanings which constitute a consciousness
or awareness in which these judgments function. Truth then must
be inunanent vn reality. There must be a dynamic commerce
between the knower and the objects of knowledge. Both must be
reciprocally functioning factors in one world.

Pragmatism, or instrumentalism, criticises the coherence
theory as useless in application, and professes, for its own part,
to offer a clear working conception of the dynamic commerce be-
tween ideas and realities, by virtue of which ideas become true, o~"
the reverse. The pragmatist or instrumentalist insists that ideas
are immanent agents, dynamic instruments, in the making and
remaking of experience. The function of ideas is not to copy or
represent particular things, nor is it the function of truth to be an
"ideally" harmonious or coherent mental replica of reality. In-
deed the pragmatist thinks that, since reality is muddy, incoherent
and ever flowing, true ideas can never be parts of one coherent
timeless whole of truth.

1 As Bradley seems to do with respect, especially, to the temporal character
of experience.

56 MAN AND THE COSMOS

The pragmatist says that a true proposition is always one that
leads to satisfactory consequences of some sort to some person or
persons. And, by satisfactory consequences, he means all sorts of
satisfactions. If A believes that B will lend him a thousand
dollars, which he badly needs, on his note, and B actually lends
him the money, then A's belief becomes true, because it has the
anticipated satisfactory consequence. But the belief, pragmat-
ically, is not true until B has actually agreed to loan the sum in
question to A. It is true just in so far, and as soon, as the belief
leads into the expected results. If the law of gravitation becomes
true it will be because the belief in it will have satisfactory con-
sequences and disbelief in it disastrous consequences. If A loves
B and believes that B loves him, and if B reciprocates the affection,
the consequences again are satisfactory and the belief becomes true.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If belief in a theorem
in algebra or geometry will lead to the satisfactory consequence
that it will harmonize with other theorems, and, perhaps, will have
application in engineering, the theorem thus becomes true, but it
was not true until the good consequences ensued.

The pragmatic method starts from the postulate that there is no
difference of truth that doesn't make a difference of fact somewhere ;
and it seeks to determine the meaning of all differences of opinion
by making the discussion hinge, as soon as possible, upon some
practical or particular issue. The principle of pure experience is also
a methodical postulate. Nothing shall be admitted as fact, it says,
except what can be experienced at some definite time by some experi-
ent, and for every feature of fact so experienced, a definite place must
be found somewhere in the final system of reality. In other words,
everything real must be experienceable somewhere, and every kind of
thing experienced must be somewhere real.8

In short, the sole test of the truth of ideas or propositions is
to be found in their practical working values. "By their fruits ye
shall know them." If the fruit is good the ideas become true. If
the fruit is rotten, or produces a stomach ache, the ideas are false.
And by good fruits the pragmatist means future satisfactory
experiences. The pragmatist means, when he substitutes for
static "verity," dynamic "verifiability," "workableness," or "cash
value" in concrete experiences, that the claims to truth on the part

8 William James, A FluraUsHc Universe, p. 372.

THE CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE 57

of ideas and propositions must be tested by the consequences which
they lead to in the way of further experiences, and that the fruitage
of an idea or proposition in concrete empirical value is the only
measure of its truth. Thus he states what is obviously the inductive
method of procedure ; an idea or proposition is a working hypothe-
sis which is to be either corroborated or refuted by future empirical
results.

The pragmatist is clearly right in saying that, in the long run
and taking account of the social and physical relations and effects
of belief, true beliefs are those which will yield solid and lasting
satisfactions; yield experimental and technical satisfactions in
science and industry ; yield practical emotional satisfactions in the
supplying of man's daily wants ; yield satisfactions to the demands
of his aesthetic, intellectual and moral nature.

But the pragmatist has only told us that, if we try to verify our
beliefs, by reference of propositions deduced from them to further
experiences and to further actions and future feelings, either we
shall verify them or we shall not verify them. Verified beliefs are
satisfactory to the believer; refuted beliefs are unsatisfactory;
but unrefuted beliefs may be satisfactory and yet false. A person
may get much enjoyment from illusions and hallucinations ; in fact
most of us do some of the time and some of us all or nearly all of
the time. Human beings are particularly prone to cherishing
illusions in regard to their own abilities, characters and even looks.
These illusions are often very agreeable.

Certainly, we can only know that a proposition is true by find-
ing that it works well in some present or future context of action,
thought, and feeling. But a proposition can only work satisfac-
torily if it be true, that is, if it agree with fact and reason. The
satisfaction that follows from belief in a given proposition depends,
not on the believer's pious belief in it, nor on the psychical proposi-
tion as an entertained mental content but on the truth of the prop-
position. If I believe a proposition, and it has permanently satis-
factory consequences, there must have been some truth in the
proposition, but that truth was determined, not by my belief that
it would have satisfactory results but, by the nature of things
themselves with which my belief happened to agree.

There are several ambiguities lurking in the way of prag-
matism, for it attempts answers to at least three distinct problems.
First is the problem of a method of procedure, the verification of

58 MAN AND THE COSMOS

ideas and propositions. The pragmatic postulate, that differences
in the meanings and applications of ideas must correspond to dif-
ferences of fact somewhere, somehow, and that if ideas have no
differences in empirical consequences thej must really mean the
same thing, is a wholly sound method of procedure, so far as it can
be applied. Indeed, it is just the empirical method. It is true
that the ambiguity lurks in the word "makes" ; most human ideas
do not make the facts or laws to which they correspond, if true.
But ideas, in the shape of purposes and volitions, are dynamic
facts which do alter the relation between other facts, and thus to
some extent remake, or make over real facts. But even the
volitional transformations of reality are subject to the actual struc-
ture of reality as a whole. Volition works successfully within the
narrow limits prescribed by the determinate constitution of reality.
When Thomas Carlyle heard that Margaret Fuller Ossoli, the
transcendentalist, had accepted the universe, he said: "Gad, she'd
better."

The pragmatist assumes, as William James puts it, that
"reality is in the making and awaits a part of its complexion from
the future."

No doubt reality is, to some extent, always in the making, but
the materials, and the ways of successful making, are not created
by human wishes. They belong to the objective order which makes
our ideas either true or false.

The second problem is, in contrast to the statement of a method
of verification, the problem of the criteria of truth. The pragmatic
answer to this problem is that the criterion is satisfactoriness,
agreeableness, good fruits, or cash value. But he neglects to tell
us how we are to know good fruits from bad fruits, genuine cash
from counterfeits, etc., in any other terms than satisfyingness,
agreeableness. James said the criterion is all kinds of satisfac-
tions, affectional, aesthetic, moral and logical. What is the
criterion of genuine and lasting satisfactoriness? How is one to
know when a belief in a theoretical proposition or a practical plan,
which in its inception and embracement is enjoyable, will continue
to yield intellectual or emotional gratification ? "All is not gold
that glitters"; "far off pastures are green"; "things are what they
are, and they will be what they will be." In admitting that con-
sistency or coherence between ideas and beliefs, is the most imperi-
ous claimant of all, James really deviated from pure pragmatism.

THE CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE 59

Later pragmatists or instrumentalists, notably Mr. Dewey, make
value for the furtherance of social welfare and individual happi-
ness the most comprehensive criterion of satisfactoriness or truth.
But while most reasonable human beings agree that the highest
criteria of moral and social principles are social welfare and indi-
vidual happiness, they disagree with regard to what constitutes
social welfare and happiness, just as they disagree as to what
constitutes lasting satisfaction. Moreover, there are many proposi-
tions in symbolic logic, higher mathematics, physics, astronomy,
other sciences, history, art, et cetera, which have no obvious bearing
on social welfare or even on individual happiness. What, for
instance, are the social consequences or satisfactions which make
true Bertrand Russell's philosophy of mathematics, or Einstein's
theory of the relativity of space and time, if they are true ? In
what respect do these things add to the gayety of nations or indi-
viduals ? Must we wait to see how they can be applied in further-
ing democracy, or in industry, to decide whether these theories are
true or not ? Are we to decide whether immortality, spiritualism,
or materialism, are true or false, simply by asking: Which
alternative would probably give most happiness to the largest
number of human beings ? If feelings of satisfaction or happiness
are the most ultimate criteria of the truth of propositions, then
the truest propositions are those for which the majority votes, and
many propositions and values in such fields as higher mathematics,
logic and metaphysics, astral physics, history and art, are neither
true nor false, but insignificant, since only a very small minority
entertain them at all and derive pallid pleasures from them. They
are both practically useless and perhaps unpalatable truths. (I
have very seldom derived any satisfaction from the deliverances of
the comptometer at my bank, but I have invariably found its
results to be annoyingly correct.) We may hope that somehow and
somewhere every true proposition will yield satisfaction, but we do
not know that this is so. The pragmatist says that an idea, to be
true, must make a difference in reality. Certainly it must always
make a difference to us in our relations to other parts of reality
whether our ideas are true. Our ideas, if true, must lead to conse-
quences of some sort; otherwise, they are otiose and unmeaning.
False beliefs also lead to consequences, sometimes agreeable and
sometimes not. But ideas and beliefs can work well in the long
run for the individual and society only if they are in harmony with

60 MAN AND THE COSMOS

e nature of reality as a whole, and provided that the nature of
ility be in harmony with the permanent interests of human
lure. That it is so, we all instinctively assume, but we have no
(olute certainty of the truth of this assumption. It sometimes
Jpens that between two or more inconsistent hypotheses or be-
liefs, the facts do not give us unequivocal grounds for choosing.
Two incompatible ideas may work equally well, affording equally
good satisfactions. The moral standards of him who scorns de-
lights and lives laborious days from a sense of duty and the
unmoral principles of the prudent epicurean, may afford equal
amounts of satisfaction to their respective votaries ; which then is
true ? Pragmatically, it would seem that there can be no preferen-
tial choice between them.

Meanings, to be true, must be in harmony with the actual con-
stitution of reality. The primary postulate of intelligent life is
that reality is responsive to the organizing activity of thought.
Perhaps this postulate gets increasing justification in the progress
of knowledge and conduct ; but, since our interpretations of experi-
ence change and grow, and our experience changes and grows with
the interpretations, it cannot be maintained that any analysis and
conceptual interpretation of experience is complete and final. On
the other hand, many features of human experience are, on the
whole, pretty constant. The elemental qualities of sense data,
human affection, and the structure of thought, are irreducible.
They are, as Mr. Russell says, "hard data." There is no criterion
by which we can determine whether we know reality as it may
exist independently of our sense data, our affectional reactions
thereto, and our conceptual interpretations thereof. We can have
no concern with such an abstractly conceived world as reality in
itself. The structural principles of thought and the valuations
which result from our affectional reactions to sense data are all
interwoven in the texture of what is for us the only actual world.
We form our conceptual pictures of the world by the organization
and interpretation of sense data, of our affectional evaluations, and
of the relations between sense data and our affective life ; through
reflective thinking. In this sense, man, as a perceiving, feeling,
and above all, a rational or thinking being, is the measure of
reality. For we can find no other.

The pragmatist who finds the criterion of reality and truth in
satisfaction, and the speculative idealist who argues that the

THE CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE 61

absolute satisfaction is to be found in the ideal of a strictly
harmonious whole of experience, are not so far apart as at first
blush they seem to be. The greatest difference between them is
that, whereas the speculative idealist holds that his criterion of
satisfaction is eternally real, and a terminus a quo, the pragmatist
regards it as a goal to be indefinitely approximated to; that is,
as a terminus ad quern. For the idealist the strictly harmonious
whole is really here and now, as always. Our business is to de-
cipher it and live by the light of our discovery. For the pragmatist
this ideal harmony of experience is not now real, and our business
is to make it more nearly real. For my own part I do not know
whether reality is now a strictly harmonious whole. If it is not,
we may be able to do something to make it a little more harmoni-
ous, but our first business, as thinkers, is to find out what reality is
like, and that is the whole business of metaphysics. / shall define
reality as including everything which we must take account of in
our thinking and willing. Alike in sense perception, in the in-
tuition of logical relations, and in the appreciations or valuing
reactions of human affection, it is the unavoidableness, the in-
evitableness of the inferences and the acts, their congruence with
one another and their repetition or persistence that constitute their
reality. Sensory data we cannot abolish or pass through as through
a mist. Whatever logical constructions we may set up to account for
the stubborn persistence of the data, the affectional reactions or
evaluations of experience that human beings make, such as desire
and aversion, love and hate, are equally stubborn data. The logical
principles, or fundamental modes of operation of thought, are a
third set of stubborn data. I shall take reality then to include the
most individual and private human feelings, views and valuations,
no less than sensory data and logical principles. I shall take it to
include the relations between these entities, to include those
thought-constructed entities which are logically implicated in the
structure of actual experience. Actuality belongs to the whole
complex of experience, sensory, affectional, reflective, appreciative
and volitional. It includes the particular data and their contexture
of relations. Reality is not merely either subjective or objective,
psychical or physical, sensuously particular or abstractly universal.
It includes and transcends in its totality all of these. It is the
whole of actual experience with its logical structure and implica-
tions. The most comprehensive criterion of truth or knowledge is

62 MAN AND THE COSMOS

this: the truest propositions are those worked out by the most
thoroughgoing analysis of sensory data, affective attitudes and
conative acts, and by the most comprehensive synthesis or organiza-
tion of the results of analysis under the guidance of the intellectual
principles of categorialness, comprehensiveness and consistency.
A proposition is categorial if its data cannot be broken up into
more elementary ones. By comprehensiveness I mean that truth
requires that we should regard the relevancy of propositions to one
another, and by consistency I mean that true propositions cannot
contradict one another.

The third problem involved in James' statement of pragmatism
is this: must every so-called fact, to be recognized as real fact,
be experienceable, that is, be conceivable as under definite assign-
able conditions existing for some actual or hypothetical experient ?
An affirmative answer to this question means this : knowable real-
ity is experienceable reality, and unexperienceable reality is as
good as nonexistent. Now there may be realities which are not and
never will be empirical facts. It cannot be gainsaid that there
may be existent things that are not only beyond the range of all
actual experience, but, as well, beyond the range of all possible
experience. To have insisted on this point is one merit of neo-
realism. On the other hand, all reality that can be matter for
intelligible discussion must be either matter of actual experience
or conceivable as, under definite and assignable conditions, becom-
ing matter of experience. All our scientific and philosophical
doctrines are subject, of course, to the qualification that the whole
field of human experience and its interpretation may be one vast
illusion, may be an original distortion of a real existence whose
character is in some wholly inscrutable fashion different from our
world. But this abstract possibility need not disturb us. Motley
is the garb we wear, and it would be folly to discard or neglect to
repair our own livery because, perchance, we may cut a sorry figure
in the eyes of some unknowable cosmic joker. In science and in
philosophy, as in practical life, we are limited to the world of
human experience and its organization and conceptual extension in
the pursuit of our affectional and logical aims. Anything beyond
the human world, by which we might reinterpret or reconstruct its
character, could affect our world only by becoming an integral part
thereof. Any absolute, into which our human world is absorbed
or transmuted, no one knows how or to what extent, is both prac-

THE CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE 63

tically useless and logically worthless. In this sense all philosophy
must necessarily be humanistic.

Truth is the reflective apprehension and the expression in sym-
bols of the relations, in other words of the theoretical meanings and
the practical values, that constitute the texture of experience.
Even the most abstract and symbolic principles of pure logic and
mathematics derive from and refer back to the texture of experi-
ence. In the various partial systems, which constitute the bodies
of special sciences and particular knowledges, emphasis may fall
principally on the universal relationships as in pure logic and
mathematics; or it may fall chiefly on the significant qualitative
values and special relationships of individual beings and events, as
in history, biography, art, belles lettres. There are, in the total
field of knowledge and conduct, many grades of varying emphasis
on unique fact and universal; but, wherever reality has meaning
and can thus be subject matter of knowledge or intelligent practice,
both must be present and interwoven in some degree. Philosophy's
task is to correct a one-sided emphasis on special types of fact and
special types of relational connections or universals, to see that
justice is done to the integral nature of truth and life. Philos-
ophy's fruit resides in no mystical intuition of a transcendental
order, but in that settled determination to see life steadily and to
see it whole, which alone will deliver men from intellectual provin-
cialism and practical parochialism.

Every specific judgment in regard to existence depends for its
truth on its consistency with actual experience and its consistency
with further experiences. If a judgment clash with a concrete
experience, the meaning of its experiental context has been mis-
conceived. On the other hand there are various sorts of dishar-
monies in actual experience. Hence a judgment or inference
which expresses a disharmony in experience may be true, and a
judgment which expresses a harmony may be false because incon-
sistent with fact. The ultimate ideal of truth, as the significant
and coherent awareness of reality, must not be taken to mean that
reality contains no conflicts, no unreconciled oppositions. It does
not take a professional philosopher to see that conflict and opposition
are cardinal features in the individual life as well as of the social
and cosmic orders. Indeed, the philosopher must beware lest, in
his persistent quest for the intellectual vision of a cosmic order, he
read his own passionate desire for harmony and totality over

64 MAN AND THE COSMOS

hastily into the tangled facts of experience. To do this is to com-
mit what is the philosopher's fallacy par excellence. The agree-
ment of thought with reality does not mean that truth is the reflec-
tion of a completely harmonious experience or perfect world order.
Harmony or self-consistency in thought and feeling is the ideal
standard of our intellectual quest, as of our practical conations, our
aesthetic visions and our religious aspirations. But such harmony
is never our actual and complete possession. Truth, as a human
achievement, is the progressing reflective awareness of the sys-
tematic interrelations of all the qualitative elements of reality.
But actual reality ever remains, for us men, full of problems and
disharmonies. If reality be ultimately a coherent whole, its con-
flicts and discords will somehow enter into it as constituent ele-
ments. The philosopher has a twofold problem on his hands —
what are the ultimate qualitative constituents of reality and what
are their interrelations ?

Actual reality is the whole content of experience. Of this the
interpretative activity of thought is an inexpugnable part. Since
actual reality is never a completely given and harmonious whole
of fact, it is always in part an intellectual problem. A fact may
be a partial answer to a specific problem, but it always starts up
another problem. The fact is always a fragmentary experience
enmeshed in a context of relations. The correspondence test of
truth applies most obviously to the agreement of judgment and
beliefs with immediate experience. A proposition that points to
an immediate experience is proved by comparison with the kind
of experience it points to. The lack of agreement between a
proposition and a concrete experience requires either the revision
or the rejection of the proposition. On the other hand an imme-
diate experience points beyond itself just as truly as a proposition
about immediate experience. Our judgments and beliefs, on the
one hand, and our immediate experiences, on the other hand, must
harmonize, and we can draw no hard and fast line between imme-
diate experiences and their meanings. Moreover, there are many
propositions claiming to be true which lie beyond the range of com-
plete verification in immediate experience. Such are all universal
relations in pure logic and mathematics, many new generalizations
in physical science, alleged facts of history, and ethical and
religious valuations. Into these fields we are led, and through
them we are guided, by the ideal of a harmonious whole of truth

THE CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE 65

and life. Thus, the never completely realized ideal of the har-
monious whole is the very nerve of truth seeking and all practical
endeavor. Thus the specific and concrete agreements of judgments
and beliefs with fact are stages in the realization of the ideal of
significant harmony as the ultimate goal of thought and life.
Guided by this ideal we may rationally believe in the reality of
entities that we never expect to experience directly, because this
belief is logically implied both in the theoretical and practical
continuity of experience. For example, I have never directly ex-
perienced the immediate reality of other personal centers of affect-
ive experience ; but, logically, affectively, and ethically, my world
would be a bedlam without this belief. For similar reasons, I
believe in the physical constituents of the stars and in the dynamic
or spatial or temporal continuity of the physical universe. Per-
sonally I find myself constrained, for similar reasons, to believe in
the continuity of life. Why ? Because without such beliefs actual
experience would be incoherent. Thus sensory and affectional
experiences are never self-complete. They never stand wholly on
their own feet. If they could there would be no need of scientific
theories nor of ethical, philosophical or religious doctrines. More-
over the nonexperienced entities in which we believe also include
entities that we may never expect to see face to face. My belief in
a rational and righteous world order may be valid, though I may
never expect to see face to face the sustainer of this world order.
We believe in these nonexperienced entities, because such belief
is the ultimate consequence of the fundamental working assump-
tion of science and conduct; that reality is a coherent whole in
which the meanings of our actual experience are constituent fac-
tors, although we may not be able to see how the latter enter as
integral elements into an intuition of the whole. This working
assumption is what is meant by the hypothesis of the rationality of
the universe. The inconsistencies in actual experience, and in its
interpretations, impel thought to the reconstruction of experience
and its interpretations. By this continuous reconstruction we
make our knowledge and our conduct more harmonious with reality
— that is, we make the bits of reality which we are more har-
monious with the universe. The adequate interpretation of actual
experience requires that it be enlarged and completed by belief in
a conceptual reality of which the empirical reality is but a partial
aspect. The fuller and more harmonious conceptual reality is a

66 MAN AND THE COSMOS

realm of concrete possibilities, since some of the conditions of its
being are actually present in empirical reality and in the logical,
ethical and aesthetic demands of selves. For example, that one
shall make a valuable discovery in science, aid materially in the
work of social reconstruction, realize a moral ideal, or write a great
drama or novel — all these are concrete or real possibilities, since
some of the conditions of their fulfillment are actual in the em-
pirical world of nature and humanity. Promises and potencies of
future fulfillment of purposes and values must be as real as
empirical fact. The imiverse is a storehouse of determinate possi-
bilities for human thinkers and doers.

The validity of knowledge presupposes (1) that the mind has,
at some points at least, immediate acquaintance with reality ; and
(2) that those parts of reality which do not consist of the individual
mind's acts of knowing exist independently of the individual
mind. One must reject the argument that, since an immediate
acquaintance with actuality is matter for or before conscious
experience, therefore one cannot know anything that does not
exist in some consciousness. This argument interchanges for
"before or present to" and "in" in the sense of "dependent on."
While, on the one hand, the character of the sensory system of the
experient and the structure of his thought is implicated in the
character of the objects experienced and related, on the other hand
it is an assumption wholly without warrant to say that the natures
of the objects experienced must be constituted or even distorted
by being experienced and thought. The human consciousness may
be, to some extent, pellucid. If thinking cannot grasp relations
objective to the thinker the case is hopeless for any knowledge.

To sum up: The pragmatist rightly insists that ideas, to be
true, must somewhere and sometime correspond with facts ; must,
in short, find factual fulfillment. He is wrong when he argues that
those ideas, and those alone, which seem to satisfy the immediate
practical and emotional interests of individuals or social groups
are therefore true ; he is overlooking the stubborn and determinate
character both of the order of brute physical fact and of the order
of psychical and logical fact. The absolute idealist is right in
insisting that the very structure of reason or thought is such that
contradictory propositions cannot be accepted by it and that it is
of the very essence of mind, in all its phases, to seek harmony or
consistency in experience and its interpretations. He is wrong in

THE CRITERIA OF KNOWLEDGE 67

so far as he assumes that an eternal or supertemporal harmony is
the only true reality ; thus discounting the meaning of the actual
discords and conflicts in human experience with the glib and use-
less formula that these discords are all transmuted and absorbed
in the beautiful bliss of the eternal harmony — the formula is
useless until we are told just how the transmutation is to be
wrought.

Truth is the most adequate and consistent agreement of the
meanings, distilled by reflexion from experimental fact, with fact
and with one another.

CHAPTER V

KNOWLEDGE AND EEALITY *

What is the relation of cognition to its objects ? There are two
extreme answers to this question — epistemological monism, and
epistemological dualism. The monist holds that, in every case of
genuine knowing, the state or act of knowing is identical with its
objects. In so far as I am a knower I am identical with what I
know. In perceiving a physical object the thing perceived is
identical with the state of perception. In Berkeley's words, esse
est percipi. Similarly, in imagining or conceiving anything the
mental process must be existentially identical with what is con-
ceived or imagined. It follows that all reality is matter of experi-
ence, content of an experient's mind. The doctrine is identified
with naive realism, the belief that we always know things exactly
as they are. If this means the naivete of the man in the street, I
must demur. So far as I know him, he is not quite so unsophis-
ticated.

Let it be denied that the experient experiences himself. Then
from the premises of epistemological monism, since all reality
is experience, the experient is nonexistent, and experience is a
fatherless and motherless waif; it turns into a neutral world of
pure experience (a, la James) ; then since experience without an
experient is a bit thick it is changed, by the new realists, into a
world of neutral entities which are neither fish, flesh nor fowl. The
good Bishop of Cloyne would turn in his grave at the sight of his
progeny. But the neutral entities are logically descended from
Berkeley. Begin by denying the duality of cognition and its
objects, and the validity of constructing a concept of material sub-
stance since it is not actually experienced, and logically the self

1 This and the following chapters are in part the revised form of a discus-
sion first printed, under the title "Perception and Physical Keality," in The
Philosophical Eeview, Vol. xix, No. i, January, 1910, pp. 1-21.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 69

goes the same way, as Hume the enfant terrible of British men-
talism showed ; then experience or reality ceases to be experience ;
it cannot be matter and there is no mind ; there is nothing left for
it but neutrality.2

Let us take monism as a hypothesis and work it. If the mind
is wholly identical with the objects of its knowing then Berkeley-
anism or "mentalism" follows as the night from day. Whatsoever
exists can exist only as the content of some conscious subject or
experient. If I must believe that a part of my experience-content
exists when I am not experiencing it, then it must exist in and for
some other mind. But, if all that I know be what I experience,
how do I know that any other mind exists ? I do not experience
immediately any other self, and if I did he would be but my idea,
which might not be very satisfactory to him. Berkeley argues that
I know that I do not cause my own ideas or objects of knowledge
to exist, since they come and go, at least to a large extent, inde-
pendently of my will; therefore, they must have an originating
and sustaining cause independent of me. Now, I am immediately
aware of myself as a cause ; therefore the independent cause of my
experience must be another will or self. Certainly I would never
be conscious of myself as willing or as a cause unless there were
obstacles to my desires and purposes. Therefore my consciousness
of willing presupposes the existence of something real independent
of my will ; but this something is not, of necessity, another will.
For instance, I do not have to assume that the inertia of the table
is a case of countervolition. The table does not, in the least,
behave like a self. Moreover, I become conscious of myself as
will, only in conflict and cooperation with centers of resist-
ance and cooperation, which I recognize as being other than
myself and, because of differences in behavior between these
other centers of resistance (some of them can be persuaded,
intimidated or enticed into acting with and for me), I am led to
make a distinction between nonvolitional or physical centers of
inertia and action and other volitional centers. In fact it is not
possible to account for my coming to full self-consciousness at all,

8 The supposed duality between knowledge and its objects has been con-
fused with, and indeed based on, the metaphysical two-substance dualism of
mind and body. The two problems are quite distinct, though related; we shall
not get forward unless we keep them distinct. Our present concern is with the
duality of subject and object in cognition.

70 MAN AND THE COSMOS

except in social relations with other centers of consciousness.
Thus, Berkeley's argument falls to the ground, unless it be first
assumed that other finite centers of volition exist. He assumes,
without proof, the existence of human society. He is a social and
psychical realist and pluralist.

Now, given a society of selves (two will be enough), the
cognitively primary objective or real world is that which appears
to exist in common for these selves. If a physical object is real for
me I must believe that any normal self would perceive its existence,
if placed under the same conditions as I am under. The percep-
tions of an abnormal self, that is, one out of key with the social
normality, would be explained in terms of his deviation from the
normal or social standard. To say that a judgment or a series of
judgments is true, that a concept or law is valid, is to say, in effect,
that other selves, with the same sensory and intellectual make-up,
would recognize it to be true under the same conditions. The
cognized existence of a common or real physical world presupposes
an identity of function, and hence, of structure, in different selves.
On the other hand, if two selves do not perceive quite the same
thing (in the case, say, of color or tone discriminations) they can
discover and recognize the reasons why they do not perceive quite
the same thing. But the possibility of this recognition presupposes
an identity of perceptual and intellectual function in different
selves.

Thus, it is impossible to account for knowledge without pre-
supposing the existence of at least one other self than the knower.
The admission of physical objectivity presupposes the admission
of the reality of society. The cognized objective order is a function
of the social order. And, if one refuses to make the admission and
accepts the logical consequence, solipsistic subjectivism, namely —
that he knows only that he himself exists as a conscious being, the
reply is that, when he says this he announces that there are other
conscious beings. If I say that "I" am the only self that I am
sure really exists, the sentence has meaning only because I sur-
reptitiously assume the existence of other "I" 's. For genetic
psychology clearly shows that the consciousness of the "I" is con-
ditioned by the consciousness of other "I" 's. What sense is there
in affirming my own existence, if there be no one else to recognize
my existence or to challenge my affirmation ? The solipsist forgets
that his own consciousness is relative to, and implies the recog-

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 71

nition of, and by, other selves. The existence of community and
the power of communication are the presuppositions of all human
agreements and disagreements in regard to an objective or real
world.

Furthermore, a considerable part of our knowledge is repre-
sentative or symbolical. When I say, "I know the content of a
certain book," or "I know a certain place other than where I am,"
or "I know the Darwinian theory or the theory of gravitation,"
I mean that I have "ideas" or trains of sentences, pictorial images
and scientific symbols, which I believe to represent the realities in
question. I do not mean that / as knower am the book or the
place or the theory in question. Knowing always involves a duality
— a relation between images, words or symbols with meanings for
some knower and the objects which these images or symbols mean.
To mean, may be to picture, point to, or express by a symbol, a
quality or relation of the thing meant, such as a color, a mode of
behavior, an ethical value. Thus far, the position of epistemo-
logical dualism is correct. The being of knowing is not identical
with the being of the objects of knowledge. The cognitive differ-
ence between sensation and perception, for instance, is that sensa-
tion consists in a sensory process whose setting and relations are
not clearly cognized, whereas a perception is a clear cognition ; the
difference between a dumb feeling and an awareness is that in
dumb feeling we are not aware that we feel.

Naive realism tries to get around the duality of knowing and
its objects by the doctrine that knowing consists in the knower's
ideas copying or representing the objects known. In perception
the knower is not aware of having copies of things in his mind.
Perception is an attitude in which the percipient is immediately
aware of the object perceived. But there are memory-images and
symbols (words and pictures) to represent objects not present to
sense. And there are other knowers, whose acts and words do not
indicate that they perceive things in quite the same way that I do.
There is color blindness ; there are variations in the perceptions of
sizes, shapes, odors, tastes ; there are, in short, many sorts of dif-
ferences between the percepts of different percipients; and even
the same percipient varies from time to time in his perception
of the supposedly same object. If one must assume that the things
perceived are identical with the perception of them, it would fol-
low that there are as many distinct things as there are distinct

72 MAN AND THE COSMOS

percepts.3 Suppose all the people on this half of the earth to
be perceiving a sun simultaneously ; then there would be, perhaps,
800,000,000 suns ; suppose they all shut their eyes for five minutes,
then all these suns would vanish and 800,000,000 new suns
would spring into existence when they opened their eyes again.
But there does seem to be some degree of constancy and order
about the qualities and appearances of the sun. The simplest
hypothesis is that there is one sun, which is perceived by everybody
and that everybody perceives it according to his sensory and mental
equipment and history and position. Such is the view of common
sense. It escapes one difficulty to fall into another. If all our
perceptions are copies of objects, how can we know how good copies
they are, or that they do not wholly misrepresent the originals,
unless we can perceive the originals ? And how can we perceive the
originals, unless our percepts are at least parts or aspects of the
originals.

There is a duality in knowing that cannot be overcome, but,
if it be a dualism, then all knowing, so-called, is reduced to the
status of subjective states. It all may be, as Locke put it, "bare
vision."

But, if we admit an inherent duality in the knowing process,
are we not committed to phenomenalism, all along the line — to the
view that we know, not reality or things in themselves, but only
their phenomena or appearances? Does not the admission that
ideas are representatives or symbols of realities other than them-
selves commit one to the further admission that one cannot say
just what ideas represent and how far and how well they are
representative? Would it not follow that the only way to know
reality would be to transcend reflective knowledge in an immediate
experience, in which the distinction of subject and object in know-
ing would be dissolved in an immediacy, like unto, but higher than,
the immediacy of mere sensation or feeling ? Such is the conclu-
sion that philosophers traveling over such diverse roads as Plotinus,
Fichte, Schelling, F. H. Bradley, William James and Henri
Bergson seem to reach.

Once the epistemological monism of the naive realist is aban-
doned, philosophy seems committed to a phenomenalistic view of
knowledge, from which there is no escape except by way of the

•Hume saw this. Cf. Treatise, Book i, Part iv, Sect. 2.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 73

transcendence of the knowledge relation in some ineffable and
incommunicable experience or mystic intuition. How can know-
ing transcend itself and remain knowing? Must it not die to
live again in some sort of immediate experience, an aboriginal flow
of feeling or self-transcending intuition, if the self is to reach
reality ?

There are various forms and shades of phenomenalism. The
one principle which they have in common is that it is not possible
for the human mind, by reflective knowing, to transcend itself, to
break out of the charmed circle of its own processes and to lay
hold on the real stuff of reality. The chief varieties of phenomen-
alism are: (1) The sensationalistic or impressionistic phenomen-
alism of Hume, J. S. Mill, T. H. Huxley, Ernst Mach, Karl
Pearson, and many scientists.4 (2) The rationalistic phenomen-
alism of Kant and his orthodox followers. (3) Related to the
latter doctrine are the immediatist doctrine of Mr. F. H. Bradley,
the immediatism of William James and the intuitionism of M.
Bergson ; these thinkers, reaching by different routes the conclusion
that conceptualizing or reflective thinking does not acquaint us
with the nature of reality, find reality in an immediate experience,
feeling, or intuition.

1. Hume's >doctrine that we know only our own impressions and
the traces left by them, together with the associational linkages
formed among them, by force of contiguity, repetition and resem-
blance, logically leads to agnostic phenomenalism and solipsism.
We may believe in an external world and other selves, but we have
no rational grounds for such beliefs. Their basis is instinct and
custom. Hume was consistent in holding that we do not know
whether there is any objective reality, much less what it is like.5
He fails, however, to account for the belief in it, as well as for the
fact that our ideas and calculations are, to a large extent, verified
by the course of experience. In fact, like all thoroughpaced
skepticism, Hume's doctrine not only does not account for the suc-

4 The ' ' Transfigured Realism ' ' of Herbert Spencer is a restatement of the
negative or phenomenalistic arguments of Kant ; but Spencer breaks through
the circle of subjectivism with the argument that our immediate consciousness
of force, revealed in the sense of effort, entitles us to conclude to the absolute
reality of force or energy; the ultimate and basic reality is an infinite and
eternal energy from which all things proceed.

B Hume, Treatise, Book i, especially Part iv. Hume, of course, was clear-
sighted enough to see the logical consequence of his own skepticism.

74 MAN AND THE COSMOS

cessful practical working of our postulates or beliefs about reality ;
but, moreover, it does not account for the necessity that the skeptic
is under, like other men, of making such postulations. Why should
a solipsistic skeptic ever take the trouble to state even his negative
theory of knowledge if he is in doubt whether there is any one to
hear him or read him, and especially since he himself only exists
as a passing thought ?

The analysis of perception by psychology, physiology and
physics seems to give foundation for a scientific phenomenalism
such as one finds in Karl Pearson. Perception and conception, it
is said, deal only with appearances, not with things in themselves,
since scientific analysis shows that what we actually sense are
patches of color and shape, sensations of movement, solidity, rough-
ness and smoothness, odors, tastes, heat and cold. These sense
data we group into things, we know not why. These sense data are
produced, or at least conditioned, by nerve processes and other
processes in the sense organs, nerve fibers and the cortical areas of
the cerebrum. The nerve processes in turn are determined by
motions in external media (undulatory vibrations of the electro-
magnetic ether, of air particles, etc.) that have no resemblance to
the sense data. It would follow that when I perceive all I really
know is that I, as this present feeling, am having sensations, or that
the present feeling feels itself. The ego is like a telephone girl
sitting at the exchange and talking and switching, but never having
seen wires, instruments or persons outside; or like a bank teller
receiving and handling currency, but never knowing what it stands
for in the commercial world. Thus we are led to a new form of
solipsism.6 If the girl or the teller know nothing about the tele-
phone system or the currency system, then I fail to see what
meaning they would find in doing their work. The girl would
not know that she was a switch girl if she did not know what
switches were for, and this she could not know without knowing
about real selves at the other end of real wires.

In order to distinguish a patch of color or a feeling of hardness
from a nerve process, and both from an undulatory vibration or a
dance of electrons, it is necessary that we should know what nerve
processes and motions in the ether mean, that is, what they stand

•K. Pearson, Grammar of Science, 3d edition, Chap. 2, "The Facts of
Science. ' '

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 75

for experientially. A nerve process is either an observable fact,
hence socially accessible, or it is a conceptnal construct which has a
social meaning and function. x\n undulation in the ether, or a
dance of electrons, is in the same case. In so far as the physio-
logical conditions of sense perception are observable, that means
that they are verifiable social realities which are conditions of indi-
vidual experiences. Since nerve currents, undulations of the ether
and movements of electrons are not observable facts they are con-
ceptual constructs which have a social function.

It is a fallacy to say that because, forsooth, some kind of
physical motion may be a sine qua non of nerve processes, and
nerve processes a sine qua non of perceptions, therefore perceptions
are mere phenomena and the nerve processes or the physical
motions are the real realities. Thinkers and experients are just
as real as any other factors in this world. That physical motions
are causal conditions of perception is true, that nerve processes are
necessary links in the causal chain is true too ; but it is equally true
that a percipient organism is the centrally necessary condition of
there being a perceived object, and that several like-minded and
like-organed percipients are indispensable conditions for the recog-
nizable existence of a perceived objective world. The primary
solid and enduring world is, not the realm of motions, of colorless,
soundless and odorless mass particles in the void, but the world of
actual and possible social or standardized experience, and inter-
pretation thereof.

It is not even the case that, when I perceive, I see only a patch
of color in my private space 7 and that I suppose my percept to be
private. I never could distinguish my perception from yours,
and suppose anything private about mine, if I did not first believe
that your experience and mine were of a common object existing
in a world of public space. The recognition of a public realm of
objects of experience is, both psychologically and logically, the
condition prerequisite to the recognition of individual variations in
the perception of parts of this world. Variations in perception,
even illusions and hallucinations, refer to the common objective
order of the space-time world. This objective order has a com-
munal existence ; it is the matrix of a world of selves.

TAs Mr. B. Russell supposes, cf. Our Knowledge of the External World,
Lectures iii and iv.

76 MAN AND THE COSMOS

2. Kantian phenomenalism differs from sensationalistic phe-
nomenalism in holding that the world of human experience
is not the world of things in themselves; not merely be-
cause the nature of things is discolored or transformed by-
passing through the disturbing media of human sense organs;
but, more especially, because the mind must first organize
the chaotic sense material into the world of knowledge by
the application of forms of synthetic thinking — space, time and
the categories, such as causality and substantiality — before there
can be any recognition of an objective world. These forms of
synthesis transform the chaotic manifold of the senses into things,
thus introducing into the sense-material various relations of order,
such as unity, causal sequence and interrelation, substantiality.
Kant, like most other philosophers, assumes that he knows that
there are other selves and never explains or justifies that knowl-
edge. In short, he assumes human society without further ado,
and makes the empirically or phenomenally real external world
the world which exists in common for like-minded percipients and
thinkers.

Now, besides the latter assumption which in some form is in-
evitable, Kant makes two gratuitous assumptions. These are: (1)
that sensation, the raw material of our known world of phenomena,
is a chaotic manifold; (2) that the forms of mental synthesis,
which bring order into the chaos, and thus build up a physical
world, do not correspond with the structural character of reality-in-
itself. The second assumption is an inevitable consequence of the
first and vice versa. There seem to have been two motives in
Kant for these assumptions : ( 1 ) the influence of Hume's atomistic
and impressionistic theory of knowledge. (Kant's doctrine of
sensation seems to be derived from Hume's doctrine that our
seeming world is compounded, by the principles of association, out
of atomistic sense-impressions. This accounts for Kant's first
assumption.) (2) The influence of the antinomies or contradic-
tions involved, as Kant thought, in admitting the objective reality
of space, time and causality.

But Humian atomism is psychologically false. There is no
actual state or phase of experience, however primitive, which con-
sists of atomistic sense impressions or particles of color, sound,
shape, size, smell, etc., which are afterwards patched together into

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 77

percepts.8 As for the second assumption, some other and less
violent way can be found to escape the seeming contradiction in
admitting that space, time, and causality represent true aspects
of the real world order.

3. The dialectical phenomenalism of Bradley proceeds, by a
critical analysis of things, qualities, relations, space, time, the
self, and the subject-object relation in knowing and willing, to show
that all these phases of knowing are involved in hopeless contra-
dictions. The ideal of truth and reality is an individual whole,
consistent or harmonious in itself, an all-inclusive, systematic
unity, embracing all finite diversities in one perfect individual
experience. All appearances are present in it and it is present in
all appearances, but in different degrees. The absolute reality
lives in all its appearances, and in it they are all transmuted, in
various degrees, into the harmony of the whole.

We cannot tell what the absolute is like in detail, but we can
know its general features for, in immediate experience or feeling,
especially in love and esthetic feeling, we have experiences which
are one and many, unity-in-diversity. Bradley's phenomenalism
thus differs from other forms in that he holds that, while thought
does not give us a knowledge of reality in detail, it does tell us what
reality must be like as a whole. It gives us the general outlines ;
thus knowledge points beyond itself towards a more perfect whole
into which it is transmuted. Knowledge, in the sense of reflective
thought, is not invalidated in its own sphere. It is incomplete, but
good as far as it goes. Thought is immanent in reality ; it grows
out of immediate experience and its function is to render the latter
more coherent and significant ; but it can never apprehend the true
and harmonious nature of the real, since it is always infected with
duality. Thought divorces the "that" or immediate richness of
sensuous experience and feeling from the "what" or meaning; it
analyzes or breaks up the immediate existence which is concrete
experience, and can never get the parts together into a perfect
whole. The fate of reflective thinking in Mr. Bradley's system
reminds one of Humpty Dumpty. I shall have occasion from time
to time to consider this and other features of Mr. Bradley's doc-
trine and shall not discuss it here.

8 As James Ward has shown, knowledge develops as a progressive differen-
tiation in a continuum of experience. See his article "Psychology" in the
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, and Psychological Principles.

78 MAN AND THE COSMOS

M. Bergson's whole philosophy rests on the contrast between
the functions of intelligence and of intuition.9 Intelligence is
adapted to deal only with the inert, the solid, the homogeneous or
spatialized ; it is at home with matter ; its model of procedure is
geometry, the science of static and homogeneous spatial form.
Keality is flux, duration, interpenetration, the creative movement
of the vital impulse or life urge. The nature of reality is appre-
hended directly by intuition. "By intuition is meant the kind of
intellectual sympathy by which one places oneself within an
object in order to coincide with what is unique in it and conse-
quently inexpressible. ... To analyze is to express a thing as a
function of something other than itself. All analysis is thus a
translation, a development into symbols." 10 Thus analysis does
not tell us what anything really is; to get the real and unique
being or nature of anything we must have resort to intuition. But
we have, or may have, an intuition of one being — our self. There-
fore, in order to find the clue to reality, we must, by an act of
intellectual sympathy or intuition, place ourselves within ourselves.
Metaphysics is possible, that is, first-hand knowledge of reality is
possible, only if symbols can be dispensed with. This can be done
if one begin with intuition of oneself. "No image or concept can
reproduce exactly the original feeling I have of the flow of my own
conscious life. But it is not even necessary that I should attempt
to render it. If a man is incapable of getting for himself the intui-
tion of the constitutive duration of his own being, nothing will
ever give it to him, concepts no more than images. Here the single
aim of the philosopher should be to promote a certain effort, which
in most men is usually fettered by habits of mind more useful to
life." " These habits are the intellectual habits of measuring and
operating on solids. Thus, for M. Bergson, knowledge of reality
is reached at all points by interpreting it in terms derived from
the intuition of oneself as a being which is a continuous creative
advance, a flux in which all its elements interpenetrate; which is
all at once, "variety of qualities, continuity of progress, and unity
of direction." 12

0 The clearest and most concise statement of M. Bergson 's theory of
knowledge will be found in his An Introduction to Metaphysics, translated by
T. E. Tlulme, from which I quote. (There is another translation entitled An
Introduction to a New Philosophy.)

lorbid, p. 7.

u An Introduction to Metaphysics, pp. 15, 16. uIbid., p. 15.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 79

M. Bergson assumes that whatever is real is, in some degree,
like a self, therefore whatsoever kind or degree of knowledge does
not acquaint us with some bit or vortex of psychical flux, some
rudimentary or developed soul, is simply not genuine knowledge.
If reality be mind-energy, then, since I know directly only my own
mind-energy, the intuitive act by which I possess this self-
knowledge is the only kind of knowledge worthy of the name.
Therefore neither geometry nor any science which uses geometry
gives us knowledge ; in order to know reality all I have to do is to
enter within myself by intellectual sympathy; having learned to
know myself, I must dilate or dilute this self-intuition and I shall
know something about everything, since every thing is a bit of
mind-energy or pure duration.

I find in this theory of knowledge Fichte and Schelling
redivivus. Die intellecluelle Anschauung is poetized, dressed up
in an attractive literary garb and furbished out with an array of
scientific facts. I cannot grant the initial assumption that, because
the knower is always an ego or individual, therefore all that he
knows must be known in precisely the same way that he knows that
he has a toothache or is in love ; from which it would follow that
everything really known or knowable must be like the ego. This
is "malicious" philosophy, indeed. It is the "egocentric predica-
ment" with a vengeance. It would seem an easy step, from the
position that all that one knows is like one's ego, to the position
that all that one knows as real is a part of one's ego. M. Bergson's
theory of knowledge escapes none of the difficulties of psychological
idealism or mentalism. It only appears to do so, because he
assumes, in the spirit of physical dynamism or energetics, that the
physical world consists solely of various rates of movement, of
mobilities having a variety of tensions but no things that move;
and because he assumes that our perceptions are condensations and
frozen images of the labile mobilities. I do not understand how
the intellect can have been developed as the most successful instru-
ment for the adjustment of the vital impulse to materiality, if
materiality be itself the frozen images produced by the intellect,
and if this highly successful instrument so grossly distorts and
petrifies the reality to which the individual bits of the vital impulse
must adapt themselves in order to survive and prosper. Either the
material conditions to which the intellect must adapt itself are
presupposed, and the processes of perception and conception are

80 MAN AND THE COSMOS

successful adaptations thereto, and therefore not distortions
thereof; or else perception and conception engender illusions, and
beings who act upon these illusions as true must perish. If intelli-
gence so mangles reality that we can get a true glimpse of the latter
only by looking within our own bosoms, how has it happened that
the most intelligent animals have acquired the greatest powers of
survival ? I do not question the reality of what I see when I look
within myself ; but, if this be the only kind of reality, how comes
it that I survive and grow in physical and mental stature by taking
account of and adapting my life to a kind of thing that, on the face
of it, seems to be quite other than what I find when I look within ?
If there be really no "other" than mind or psychical life in the
universe, why the persistent seeming of an other? Why should
minds grow by adaptation to this other ? Fichte explains the gene-
sis of materiality from the moral vocation of the ego. The physical
world for him exists only as "the sensuous material of our duties,"
the shock or stimulus which is the occasion for the development of
the rational will. But, if the material be only unconscious will,
why should this occasion be necessary ? For Fichte the material
world is engendered by the will as a kind of punching-bag on which
it may get up its muscle by becoming consciously rational. For
M. Bergson the intelligence is developed by the vital impetus as a
successful tool for adaptation to the material conditions of living;
but matter, in turn, appears to be the by-product of the intelligence.
The existence of matter is a condition of the existence of intelli-
gence; but, intelligence, in turn, materializes life. This is per-
plexing. I cannot make out whether dualism is, for M. Bergson,
merely a provisional starting point or an intractable feature of
reality. Certainly he has failed to account for matter, just as
Fichte did. All attempts to explain the genesis of matter are but
idle and pretentious wordplay. Our conceptions of matter may
become more dynamic and ethereal ; but, if we think that we are
deriving it from something immaterial we cheat ourselves with
empty phrases.

I do not deny that our richest states of knowing are Intuitive
Acts, in which we comprehend, in a synoptic insight or vision,
organized or living wholes of data into which the results of dis-
cursive thinking have been absorbed. I do reject the wooden
conception of intelligence which M. Bergson has, and the claim
that instinct is superior to intelligence. It is true that dogs, birds

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 81

and insects do some things in ways that we do not understand ; but,
after all, compared to the animals, man's capacity for adaptation
is indefinitely greater. When M. Bergson speaks of intuition as
being instinct dilated by intelligence I do not know what he means
unless it be immediate experience interpreted by reflective thought ;
if the latter be his meaning it would have been much less mysteri-
ous to have said so, but it would not have sounded like a mystical
oracle.

I pass to a statement of my own theory of the place of knowl-
edge with reference to experience and reality.

Knowing is not an affair external to the objects known. It is
a transaction between a center of feeling, thought and action which
is an immanent member of the real world and other items in the
world. Knowing is a function of a conscious organism, in inter-
play with other dynamic entities, just as walking or eating are.
An adequate account of what knowledge is cannot be given if one
begin with the assumption that the individual, as knower, is shut
up within his own psychical skin and can only get into touch with
the real world by some sort of mortal leap of self-transcendence.
Knowledge does not begin with an introspective examination of
subjective states "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." It
is only the complete failure of belief and expectation that leads to
such a condition of mind. Doubt has cognitive value as the
prelude to gathering oneself together and taking a fresh start at
grasping the meanings of things. The mind is a function of the
world. It is a live focus of reality, an organized center in which
reality comes into active awareness of its own modes of behavior.
Since the percipient organism is an individuated expression of the
world's life, the qualities-in-relation that are cognized in perception
are actual aspects of the real world.

The relation between the qualities perceived and the mind
perceiving them is one of immediate and partial identity. Images
and concepts blend with perception; and images and concepts
represent or stand for possible immediate experiences; actual
knowledge is always a fusion, in varying proportions, of immediacy
and mediacy. To know is to be conscious of, to apprehend in
meanings, the linkages of things. Awareness is awakened, and
developed into increasing awareness, by the stresses, the strains and
conflicts, the urgent problems in the living energies of existence;
and these stresses or problems of living existence are located.

82 MAN AND THE COSMOS

interpreted and resolved through awareness. Truth is the organic
interdependence of subject and object, and this is always the
partial consciousness of a dynamic relational whole or complex.
The real world is a systematic unity of living experients and
experiences. Each is a function of the other. Eliminate either
and the other vanishes into the limbo of the unknowable. Knowl-
edge is that function of the real world operating in thinking organ-
isms by which the organism becomes aware, in increasing detail
and extent, of its own qualities and the qualities of its environment
in their mutual relations — to the end that there may be "more life
and fuller."

Modern epistemology, from Descartes and Locke down through
Kant to those who maintain to-day the possibility of an inde-
pendent science of epistemology, has been vitiated by the covert
"psychologistic" assumption that the business of knowing, all the
way from perception to the finest-spun speculation, is a purely
theoretical or contemplative gazing at, or reflecting of, a reality
different from the knower and set apart from his life. It was
forgotten that a knower shut up within himself would not only
cease to know, he would cease to be. Hegel, of course, broke
through the vicious circle and escaped the artificial maze created by
the false assumption that the mind is shut off from reality other
than itself ; but, owing to the persistent influence of Locke, Hume
and Kant, philosophers have kept on pondering on how to liberate
the knower from the prison cell of his own subjectivity; by this
auto-hypnosis, worthy of the Hindu mystic who reaches Nirvana
by fixation of his gaze on his navel and the repetition of Omi mcmi
padme hum, they have produced a mass of verbiage and brought
philosophy into disrepute with the healthy-minded.

Lately, the biological conception of the constant interplay of
organism and environment, the pragmatic and behavioristic move-
ments and the influence of Bergson and the realistic movement,
have aided in the delivery of philosophy from the impasse of sub-
jectivism. As Hegel truly saw, thought (in the large sense) and
reality must be in principle identical, since thought is a bit of
reality become aware of its relations. This does not mean that the
individual can excogitate the world out of his private conscious-
ness; such an enterprise only reveals the emptiness of his private
selfhood ; it means that knowledge is attained by the individual's
submission to the discipline of the factual order. Since the think-

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 83

ing organism is a product of the world, perception and thinking
are instruments of successful adaptation and enjoyable intercourse
with the environment. But to assume, as Bergson seems to, that
since perception and intelligence are instruments of practice,
therefore they do not reveal the really real, is to betray the influ-
ence of subjectivism; just, as on the other hand, to narrow the
scope of knowing to mere overt action, excluding contemplation
and aesthetic enjoyment, is to take a very parochial view of thought.

Thought does not come at immediate experience from without.
It does not descend upon the latter from a rationalist or a priori
heaven, nor is it born by a mysterious parthenogenesis from a
virgin experience barren of meaning and relational structure. No
bit of the crudest experience is wholly devoid of relations. The
various types of relationship — likeness and difference, identity and
diversity, spatial and numerical relations of order and magnitude,
temporal succession and simultaneity, cause and effect, value and
individuality, the discovery of which is the work of thought — are
already embedded in the texture of immediate experience. The
latter is from the outset of its career implicitly relational or orderly
and significant. If it were not so the foreign importations of
reflective thinking would not result in coherent and workable
meanings, honored by the actual course of experience. There
would be a deadlock between the demands of reflective living and
the actual world of fact. Thought is the self-adjusting function
of conscious individuals by which actual experience is ever being
more fully interpreted, harmonized, and enlarged. Thought shoots
forth at critical points in the lives of selves as an instrument for
their development and self-maintenance.

Thus thought, the interpretative function of personal experi-
ence, and knowledge its product, do not in principle or character
transcend experience. The reflective interpretation of experience
may, and does as matter of fact, often require that thought go
beyond actual experience in the interest of the latter's rational
fulfillment or harmony. But this going beyond immediate and
individuated experience is not a passage into another order of
being. Our conceptual interpolations and extrapolations must be
consistent and continuous with the experienced reality if they are
to have meaning and efficacy.

In perceptual knowing the knower is cognitively one with the
objects of his knowledge, although as practical agent or emotional

84 MAN AND THE COSMOS

center lie may have a very different character and existence from
the objects with which his aims and emotions are connected. We
do not know perceptual reality through the intervention of a
teriium quid in the way of sensations and ideas interpolated, and
constituting a veil hung between our minds and the real objects.
Parts of reality, namely the perceptual reality of the external
world, our own felt existence as selves, and the existence of our
neighbors' bodies, we know directly although but partially ; and in
thus knowing are in immediate communion with them. Other
parts of reality, namely conceptual reality or those logical inter-
polations and completions of empirical reality which constitute
matters of rational belief about reality we believe to exist because
of their consistency and continuity with empirical reality.

For actual experience is a continuum in which the felt existence
of the self who has the experience is central, a single whole with
distinctions and relations internal to it. It is always some sort of
system. It is never, at any stage in the life of the experient and
in the growth of his field of experience, a chaotic manifold of
sensations.13 The central item in the continuum, for the indi-
vidual experient, is his own body. His own skin is usually the
most significant boundary line in his experience, for inside it are
feelings of desire and aversion, restlessness and quiescence, un-
easiness and satisfaction, pleasure and pain. Through the double-
ness of the sensory experiences of his body and the constant union
of these double sense data with affections or feelings, his own body,
and later his psychical selfhood, is cut out from the rest of the
world. It is in terms of behavior or interaction between his own
body, and other bodies, animate and inanimate, that the growing
[ individual learns to discriminate between himself and all other
things, between living and nonliving bodies, and betvjeen persons
'■ or conscious, thinking and willing beings, and things that are not
persons. In early thought we do not find the distinction clearly
drawn between the animate and the inanimate, or between persons
and animate beings that are not persons. Even to-day it is diffi-
cult for the dog lover not to attribute the rudiments of personality
to his dog.

It is not my purpose here to repeat the work of genetic psychol-

" Kant 's conception of the chaotic manifold of sense, an inheritance from
Hume's atomistic impressions, is an epistemological myth. In this respect
James' "pure experience" is a truer concept of crude experience.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 85

ogy in tracing the differentiation, within the continuum of the
individual's experience, into self, other selves, and not-selves.14 It
is clear that the distinctions between these entities have developed
together, and pari passu. The individual can have a clear con-
sciousness of living beings only in so far as at the same time he
has a clear consciousness of nonliving beings. He gains a vivid
sense of the meanings of selfhood and personality in himself only
through the give and take of social intercourse; that is, in so far
as he recognizes other selves and persons, and interprets himself
to himself in terms of their behavior, and themselves to himself in
terms of his own feelings and meanings of which he knows directly.

The objective world of the developed mind is a socialized recon-
struction of the continuum of primitive experience; a differen-
tiating, that is, a contrasting and relating of physical things, other
selves and myself in interaction, interpassion and thus in inter-
communion.

The theory that I make my world by projecting or ejecting my
sensations or ideas out from my head is an epistemological myth.
As James Ward says, if this were true then everything would go
into my head including the head itself. Avenarius says that the
theory of ideas as immediate data existing in heads (which is the
basis of the copy theory of knowledge) is due to man's attempt to
picture to himself how things were present to another self.15 I
have no difficulty in knowing how things of sense are present to
me — they are present in their immediate realness though but par-
tially so. But the other fellow's soul or mind is not one of my
sense data*. In terms of the primitive soul theory, I may think of
his head as containing ideas or images, just like the ideas or images
that I have (in dreaming or reverie) of things not present to sense.
The assumption is that the thing as he sees it is an image which is
part of a series of images which constitute the furniture of his
soul, but which he projects or ejects out into circumambient space.
But the truth is that his experience is a continuum of interacting
and intersuffering factors, a mode of organic behavior to which his

"See, especially, Wm. James, Psychology, Vol. I, Chap. 10; and J. M.
Baldwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations of Mental Development.

18 I think Avenarius' explanation is insufficient. I have the same problem
in connection with my own images of past events or objects not now present
to sense. In the latter cases I assume that my "ideas" or "images" are
mental copies of the reality. One does not need to consider how the othei
man knows to be led to the hypothesis that ideas are copies of things.

86 MAN AND THE COSMOS

own body, is central, just as mine is. His world is immediately
present to him, as mine is to me ; because the relationships between
our bodies and the other elements of our world are organic and
dynamical, and the center of each man's world is the felt locus of
the suffering and enjoyment of the subject or ego himself. Grad-
ually there arises the distinction — still within the whole continuum
of experience — between the psychical centers of energy and
resistance, of feeling, purposive striving, meaning-seeking and
finding (and to seek a meaning is to seek satisfaction of an interest
or feeling just as much as to seek a meal is) ; the physical centers
or clusters of energy ; and, as the intermediating link, the physio-
logical acts and sufferings through which the psychical and the
physical worlds have intercourse. The distinction is always made
in terms of behavior. A sense quality is a mode of behavior ; just
as a self's feeling of pleasure, pain, striving, averting, meaning,
thinking, are modes of behavior. The continuum of the individual
organism's experience is, at all stages of its differentiation and
integration, a system of interacting centers of energy. The in-
animate thing, the living body, the soul or person, is that which
energizes in the unique way which is known as its qualities, or
ways of beliaving in relation to the various other himds of behaving
complexes. The object hitting, pushing, resisting, meeting or fol-
lowing another — these are comparatively simple ways in which
complexes of qualities act and suffer. An object, feeling, observ-
ing, thinking, striving in relation to other like or different objects,
is a comparatively complex mode of behavior, which we call a
self.

But, thus far, we have not taken full account of the fact that
each individual has his own continuum of experience, his own
world. Are not all these private worlds ? Is not each individual,
as experiencing and energizing center, a windowless monad ? No !
for he cannot experience without energizing and he cannot energize
without experiencing other beings. "Private" implies "public."
The only private thing in my world is my body, and even that is
not wholly private. You do not experience my feelings, but you
experience parts of my body as a part of your world. Your
physical world and mine are not wholly identical, for the reason
that you experience the space-whole and the temporal and dynam-
ical sequence from your unique position and the series of unique
moments in your history, and I from mine, likewise. But our

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 87

worlds are not shut off from one another. If they were we could
never recognize each other, communicate or cooperate. Physical
reality is the system of moving complexes of qualities, continuous
with each experience, that we must each take account of in the
satisfaction of his interests. But, in dealing with physical things,
and in satisfying our interests, we must often, to an even greater
degree, take account of social reality — of other selves. The
physical world is the spatial and temporal continuum in which we
meet, act and suffer; that is, our individual experiences are be-
lieved to be similar aspects of the same continuum. The physical
order, in short, is real not for me by myself but for me as a mem-
ber of society. I know myself as a self only by contrast, conflict,
partial agreement and cooperation, with other selves. I know my
own body only in distinction from and interrelation with other
bodies. But, of these other bodies, some are more like mv own in
ways of behaving than they are different from it. I am compelled
to conclude that the latter type of body is associated with a sentient
self. I could not know my bodily self as such except by contrast,
comparison and interrelation with other bodies; but I could not
recognize myself as psychical self except by recognizing other
psychical selves. These exist inferentially for me through my
experience of the behavior of certain bodies. To sum up, it is
impossible that I should know myself, even in my utmost degrees
of privacy, without knowing both another self and a public not-self.
1 1 is impossible that I should know a public, physical realm with-
out recognizing other selves. It is impossible that I should recog-
nize these selves without admitting the existence of bodies that
are not my mere subjective states, and not the subjective states
of some other self.

To sum up, knowledge of myself, of other selves and of a com-
mon physical world in which we meet, fight, cooperate, ignore, or
love one another, and with which we strive or drift, are differen-
tiations in the continuum of primitive experience which develop
together and interdependently. The common or physical aspects
of experience are socially accessible objects, but society is equally
a property of the physical world. Thus self, other-self and
physical nature are distinctions or differentiations within the
objective continuum of experience; which is seen, through
reflective analysis and synthesis, to be a system of interacting
centers of energy, some of which feel the interactions and thus are

88 MAN AND THE COSMOS

feeling centers sufficiently alike to be recognized as having an
identical nature.

The self and the other self have each his own experience ; but
each knows himself in relation to the other ; and the physical world
is primarily the enduring though changing ground of the com-
munity of intercourse and experience between selves; the other
ground is the community of nature in the different selves. Every
self is a unique or private center" of feeling ; but a common world
is recognized because selves recognize that they not only perceive
but feel and act similarly. Feeling is the significance of experi-
ence for a sentient organism.

Is not an immediate acquaintance with other selves just as
necessary an assumption to account for knowledge as an immediate
acquaintance with some aspects of things physical ? Yes : but in
neither case does the immediacy of acquaintance exclude mediacy
in the logical sense. The physical thing, which seems to be a
wholly immediate and present object in sense-perception, is a
blending of actual sensory experiences with memories and inter-
pretations. It is, in large part, a construction of thought. This
construction arises through the fusion of qualities present to
sense with memory-images controlled by interest and association
and with intellectual interpretation controlled by interest.

Just so with our knowledge of other selves. The basis of my
instantaneous recognition of another self is a specific complex of
immediate sense-qualities interwoven with relevant, and some-
times too with accidentally, associated parts of my past experiences
of similar complexes, and previous interpretations thereof ; it may
involve too a novel constructive interpretation, a discovery of some
qualities that I had not previously associated with a self. I am
instantly aware of the other self ; but that awareness is a blend of
qualities present to sense with purposive interpretation, motivated
by my present affections, interests, and aims.

Another self is for me a being like myself of which I must take
account in the fulfillment of my own interests. It evinces by its
sensed behavior, as interpreted by me, purposes that are like my
actual purposes or like other purposes that I might have under
other conditions ; purposes that may cooperate or conflict with my
own deepest interests. I perceive the activities of that complex
of qualities which I call another self, and I read interests and
purposes into those activities. I believe that being to be a self.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 89

because it shows features of behavior analogous to my own be-
havior, actual or possible; which follow hard upon by feelings, in-
terests, aims. It displays intelligent adaptiveness, varied signs of
individuality, even unto dangerous passion. Therefore I say it is
an individual which feels and thinks. I cannot help believing so.
The deepest concords and the most heart-quaking conflicts in our
affectional and purposive lives are engendered by the reinforce-
ment and thwarting of our interests by other centers of action and
resistance in the environment. Therefore our deepest instinct is
to believe that these are selves like unto ourselves. I can only
recognize the presence in another self of that which corresponds to
feelings and purposes that I have, or remember that I have had,
or imagine that I might have. On the other hand, my own indi-
vidual and purposive life is constantly being quickened in feeling
and thought, and stirred to action, by the cross-currents of experi-
ence which play between my self and other selves.

How does the distinction between the physical and the
psychical arise ? How does man come to think of an inner self
at all ? The first distinction made is between one's own bodv and
other bodies, Because of the doubleness of sensory experience
when one part of the organism is in contact with another part of
the same organism, as contrasted with the singleness of sensory
experience when the organism is in contact with an external body,
the percipient's own organism is marked off from all other bodies.
The first division in experience is thus between the bodily self and
the world of not-self. The distinction between the bodily self or
organism and the psychical self is a comparatively late product of
human reflection. In Greek thought, for example, one does not
find it made sharply before Plato. And even then the soul is
identified with the natural life-principle, as it is in Hebrew
thought until shortly before the advent of Jesus. In New Testa-
ment thought the distinction is made between the body, the soul
or natural principle of sentient life, and the spirit or moral per-
sonality. In primitive thought generally the soul is the "double"
of the body, a finer and more subtle material facsimile of the body,
which it can leave and reenter; the soul is a shadow, a mannikin
or image of the bodily self, a bird ; especially it is breath (nephesh,
ruah, anirrm, spiritns, psyche, ihumos, pneuma). There seems
to be no doubt that the belief in the dual nature of the self arose
from a consideration of the phenomena of memory-images in

90 MAN AND THE COSMOS

intimate association with pleasurable and painful feelings.
Dreams of terror and delight, day visions and hallucinations with
strong affective coloring, and so forth — in such states men saw the
forms of the living and the dead, of relatives and strangers, of
friends and enemies. Thus the flux of the conscious life appears
more intimate and variable, freer of the limitations of time and
space, than the stubborn and fairly stable flow of the external
physical processes. Man's ordinary waking memory-images, too,
were recognized as largely independent of the external world in
their goings and comings. The realm of these relatively inde-
pendent and controllable images and the associated affections
becomes the soul or 'psychical self. The development of reason
and conscious self-control brings about a belief in the nonmaterial
or spiritual character of the soul. The subject's own body is then
conceived to be intermediate, in its responsiveness to feeling and
purpose, between the inner purposive procession of images and
affections and the more stubborn external world. The psychical
self is regarded as the inner pulse or continuously felt process
which is dominated by affections, ideas, interests and which can
feel itself as such.

The self-awareness of the qualitatively unique character of the
I inner flux is the condition of full self-consciousness. And, the
| emergence of reflective consciousness or self -consciousness is a
unique event, the expression of a unique principle. The distinc-
tion between the realm of images and the realm of external bodily
perceptions is a stage on the road to the discovery of selfhood.
Intercourse with other selves stimulates the discovery of self. But
these conditions do not account for the manufacture of a self out
of purely physical materials. Only the reality of selfhood accounts
fully for the belief in one's self and other selves.

The validity of knowledge cannot be accounted for on any other
presuppositions than these: (1) that the mind knows some
features of realities immediately; and (2) that some of these
known realities exist independently of the individual's acts of
partially knowing them. One must reject the argument that,
since immediate actuality is matter of conscious experience, there-
fore one can have no knowledge of anything but facts that exist
tn some consciousness. If, on the one hand, the specific nature
of the experient is implicated in the character of the experienced
object, on the other hand it is an assumption without warrant to

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 91

say that the nature of the experienced object must be always dis-
torted by becoming object of experience. Consciousness may be
sometimes pellucid.

The variations in sensory experiences among different ob-
servers, in regard to what is believed to be the same object, and
the variations in the same observer's experiences of what he
believes to be the same object, in different times and situations
and through the avenues of different senses, render absurd the as-
sumption that all percepts of the same object are identical in qual-
ity or existence. It is an old story in philosophy that the varia-
tions and conflicts among sense perceptions, together with the fact
of sensory illusions, require the separation of perception, as ap-
pearance, from the real objects. If the being of things consisted
wholly in being perceived, there would be as many distinct things
as there are differing percepts for all actual percipients. Every
individual would have a world of his own. At every successive
moment in the individual's sensory experiences there would be
a ceaseless succession, an endless number, of differing worlds.
If the table is just what I perceive now and nothing more, then
probably precisely the same table does not exist in any two suc-
cessive perceptions of mine, and the number of successive tables
must be in proportion to the number of observers multiplied into
the number of their percepts. There are as many things as there
are distinct percepts. Things are annihilated and created anew
every moment.16 What then is the one really "real" table ? If it
be a wholly unknown entity, we are impotent to define its relation
to our perceptual tables, and there is no sense in calling it a table.
It might just as well be called the "real" polar bear. The absolute
idealist tells us that the "real" table is the content of an all-
knower's all-inclusive experience. Perhaps it is! Who knows?
But since we are given no information as to the relation between
the multitude of perceptual tables and the absolute's table, we are
no better off than we were when we started. Since the absolute
includes everything, we know not how, it explains nothing. We
need a more modest principle for knowledge — one that does not
treat us with high disdain and that we can use in the day's work.

Any part of the empirical environment, of which a self must
take account in order to know and to act, is a real object. And

" Hume.

92 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the same principle holds good for the individual self's own nature
or character. Any part of its inner or privately experienced
nature of which the self must take account in order to carry out a
purpose, to satisfy an interest, is real. For example, the young
man, setting forth upon the career of a scholar, must take account
of the fact that he cannot help falling in love. He may find that
this fact and its consequences are "harder" facts than the table.
Eeality for us is what we must take into account in our thinking
and acting, and for the satisfaction of our interests.

To come back to the table, the "real" table is a logical con-
struction, an entity or thing necessarily conceived as the active
center or bearer of manifold possible qualities which, in perception
and action, I cannot avoid recognizing. If one say that the table
is simply inert, that it resists and sustains certain of my activities,
I remind him that inertia or resistance means activity counter to
another being's activity (John Locke suggested that the essence of
matter is passive power, but he failed to observe that passive power
is a concept relative to another's activities). The self, both as
knower and agent, is a member of a complex dynamic environment,
the active and passive relationships of whose elements are subject
to continuous change. Differing perceptions are held to refer to
what is existentially the same object, provided there be sufficient
continuity and coherence in the experienced qualities and their
groupings for selves to act on and suffer or perceive the object in
a manner that is continuous and coherent. So long as I and other
selves can carry out similar purposes and get what we agree, in
terms of our conventional linguistic symbols and pictures, to be
continuously similar perceptual reactions we believe that we are
dealing with the same table. In brief, if I am alone, the table is
the same object for me so long as I can do similar things with it
and suffer similar things from it. If you are with me and we
agree, through our media of communication, the table is for both
of us the same. If we disagree completely then either you are
crazy or I am, and some other selves must settle the matter.

Sameness of objects is a socially useful convention ; a standard-
ized object is the "real" object. Thus, in order that it be real in an
intelligible sense, an object does not need to remain absolutely the
same through a lapse of time, or to observers in different situations
and conditions. It is enough if there be recognizable and intelli-
gible continuity and coherence in the qualities s.nd relations

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 93

experienced and logically inferred from the experiences. A real
object is definable as anything which exercises constraint upon us
in our perception, thinking, and willing; and which, in this
capacity has some degree of continuity, empirical coherence, and
social cognizability. Reality as a whole is a vastly complex system
of active centers of qualities in relations of which at any time and
under any circumstances, we perceive, act on, or are conscious of
being acted upon by, only a fragment.

The objects of perception then do not exist, just as they are
at any moment perceived, apart from the act of perception. No
finite object is self-complete. No perception by a finite subject
can be self-complete. Relations are as real as qualities. But, as
partial apprehensions of the actual qualities of the object in some
of its relations to the knower and to other qualities of the environ-
ment, perceptions are thus far valid. The perceptual object is a
true aspect of the real object in dynamic relation to a percipient.

There is empirical continuity between objects immediately
perceived and others related to them in the context of reality.
There is symbolical continuity between representative images and
concepts of objects and these objects as immediately sensed; and
there is logical continuity between objects experienced and other
objects whose existence is implied in actual experience, but which
are not now and may never be objects of any finite self's experi-
ence. For example, if the electron, as defined in the electronic
theory of matter, is the assumption in regard to the ultimate con-
stitution of matter which best agrees with all the facts of imme-
diate experience and with all the other generalizations and
inferences intermediate between the perceptual facts and the con-
ceptual nature of electrons, then the belief in electrons is the
valid belief in regard to the ultimate constitution of matter. If
the belief in the existence of electrons is not the only theory of
the constitution of matter which is a logically coherent consequence
of the empirical character of physical things, then the existence of
electrons remains hypothetical. By contrast, the existence of the
earth's interior or of the other side of the moon is not hypothetical
in this sense. No other belief is consistent with the facts.

Naive realism errs in assuming the complete identity of the
particular object with the content of a single perception, and in
believing that particular objects are cognized as such in isolation
from other objects and without consideration of the percipient's

94 MAN AND THE COSMOS

own individual situation and constitution. In truth we never
know a merely isolated particular object. Knowledge of anything,
however vague and rudimentary, is apprehension of a specific
datum in a relational complex. Social realism, the position of the
writer, admits the distinction between the object as logical con-
struct, that is as rational and public ground for the varying per-
ceptions which refer to it, and the percepts as series of aspects of
the object; and holds to the reality of nonexperienced entities as
logically implied in the continuity and coherence of experience.
It holds that valid knowledge is always in some degree a matter
of the determination of the given or datum of sense in and through
its position and connections in a relational complex. It insists on
the logical structure of reality as a system of meaningful elements
in a totality.

APPENDIX

THE NEW CRITICAL REALISM

Since I have called the doctrine of knowledge expounded in this
work "Critical Realism" it is in order to state briefly wherein it differs
from the ingenious and original doctrine advocated in the volume
Critical Realism by Durant Drake and others. There are several
important differences between the standpoints of the several contribu-
tors to that volume. I have not space to expound or examine these
differences.17 I shall limit my treatment to a brief discussion of the
most characteristic features of the doctrine, especially as expounded
by Professors Drake, Santayana and Strong. All the writers seem
to be agreed in distinguishing three factors in knowledge: (1) the
mental or psychical state; (2) the meaning, intent, "character-com-
plex" or "essence," which is the datum or "given"; (3) the real
object which is not given, but affirmed as the existent which the
datum or essence means, and in genuine knowledge means correctly.
The most original feature of the general doctrine is that the datum
or essence is always a universal, a what, without locus in space or
date in time. The mental state has temporal date and the object
in perception is in space, since an existent must always have a tem-
poral, and may also have a spatial locus. Messrs. Drake, Rogers,
Santayana and Strong deny that the datum is a mental complex,
whereas Messrs. Lovejoy, Pratt and Sellars affirm that the datum is

"See the careful review of the work by Professor E. B. Perry in The
Philosophical Review, Vol. xxx, pp. 393-409.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 95

the "character" of the mental state of the moment; thus for the
latter the datum is the "essence" both of the object known through it
and also of the mental state which is the "vehicle" of the knowledge. I
am unable, on grounds given elsewhere, to admit the reality of essences
which have neither mental nor physical existence. An essence or
universal is cither a concept existing in and for a mind or it is a
physical relation; it may be both, as when one has a correct concept
of a physical relation or "law"; it may be mental in two senses, as
when a mind entertains a concept of value or purpose which actually
functions in minds. An essence which is neither an existing thought
nor a physical law seems to me to have no real being, either in the
heavens above, the earth beneath or the waters under the earth. It
does not even ' " since there is nothing on which it can subsist,

unless one invoke a Platonic realm of ideas (in the traditional sense

If the datum is the "character" of the mental state in knowing

:i the latter is identical with the existent known, and what is
known is a mental state; we are not delivered from mentalism.
Surely a character has no existence except as the character of some
thing. Either the object known is mental or physical or a neutral
entity. 1 have never, to the best of my knowledge and belief, met
a neutral entity. Consequently I do not know what such an one
ept that it cannot be like any thing that I have ever
known.

Furthermore, I am unable to understand how a universal ■
.'" devoid of place or da1 attached to an unperceived object

in such Fashion that through it the latter is identified as owning the
universal in particularized form, here and now or there and then. If
the essence be a universal which does not exist and the particular
object which owns it (or, perhaps, is owned by it) is not in any

ped immediately perceived, how is the connection effected between
them ?

In the case of my knowledge of past events, or of objects not pres-
to sense but believed to exist now, I distinguish between the mental
state which is a momentary existent and the object which the mental

te means or refers to indirectly; but my affirmation of the occur-
rence of past events or of the contemporaneous existence of objects
not perceived is an inference from memory, record and testimony.
In all such cases knowledge is clearly inferential or indirect; and
the mental state of knowing is representative of objects not given;
what is given is the feeling of familiarity with the recognition of
nonpresence to perception which marks the memory state, or belief
in the trustworthiness of record or testimony. The critical realist

96 MAN AND THE COSMOS

doctrine transforms the mental attitude of memory or interpretation
of credible record and testimony into "essence." He inserts the
belief-attitude as a tertium quid between the mental state and the
object not present. In the case of perception I am so naive as to be
unable to find the three factors which the new critical realists find.
I find a consciousness of my mental attitude or act of attention and
the group or "congeries" of sensed qualities which is, for me, the
object. These qualities are not essences or universals or character-
complexes having no locus in space and time. They are particular
or determinate, here-and-now existences. They occupy a given spatial
contour at this moment. I am aware, on reflecting, that I do not
immediately perceive all the qualities which I attribute to the object,
but I know too that I would not attribute any of the qualities to the
object if I were not in the immediate presence of some qualities of
sense. I cannot help regarding these qualities as having a non-
mental existence. My desk, I say, is green. But my friend says that
he sees it gray. What is its real color? I answer that to him it is
gray and to me green, because of the differences in the structures
of our respective visual apparatuses, and these differences are con-
stituent parts of the real world. My friend and I do not see the desk
as having the same color, but we do perceive it as having the same
identical place, contour and texture. If we disagreed in regard to
all these items we would not see the same desk in any sense, and we
could not even disagree in regard to its appearance. There must be
a minimum of agreement in order that there may be disagreement.
For common sense the real desk is the desk as it appears to the
normal percipient under normal, that is, usual conditions. It is
the community of perceptual qualities and reactions that constitutes
the practical test of realness. The objective world of common sense
is the socially accepted series of aspects or appearances of the physical
order to normal percipients. In one sense whatever anybody per-
ceives in an object is real — namely in the presence of that individual
percipient with the sensory and mental equipment and history that
is his. There is no other standard that is final, when dispute arises,
than the agreement or community established through communica-
tion of opinion and similarity of reaction to the object. The doctrine
of essences, given but not existing, distinct from but affirmed of the
object seems to me a superfluous fiction.

What then is the object in the absence of any percipient? It is
the group of qualities or activities which in the presence of percipients
give rise to the perceived qualities. I understand by the physical in
itself just that complex of motions of physical entities which are in-
ferred by science to exist as the nonmental conditions of there being

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY 97

percepts. In this sense our bodies are parts of the physical order.
What these entities are science is continually trying to determine. It
is a scientific question. Philosophy is concerned with it chiefly when
the physicist turns metaphysician d outrance and asserts that there
are no percipient minds and that the physical conditions of percep-
tion explain away the percipient.

Epistemological idealism or mentalism, a better term since ideal-
ism also means the doctrine or belief that the universe is controlled
by ethical or spiritual values, a doctrine which, as will appear later,
has no logical connection with mentalism or even with pan-psyehism,
has been subjected to many criticisms in recent philosophical litera-
ture. I single out for reference — G. E. Moore, "Refutation of Ideal-
ism/' Mind, N. S. 1903, Vol. xii, pp. 433-453 ; the cooperative volume,
The New Realism, especially the essay by R. B. Perry, "A Realistic
Theory of Independence," and the volume by Perry, Present Philo-
sophical Tendencies; finally, the most thoroughgoing critical exami-
nation that I know is Oswald Kuelpe's Die Rcalisierung, Volume I.
Volume II of the latter hits just appeared. It is unnecessary here
to review all the criticisms. I shall have occasion to make further
criticisms of various a ntalism in connection with other

problems. Among the attempts at metaphysical realism may be
mentioned; The New Realism, The New Rationalism by E. G. Spauld-
ing, A Study in Realism by John Laird, and especially the monu-
mental work of S. Alexander, Space, Time and Deity. The present
writer has reviewed the latter work in The Philosophical Review,
Vol. xxx, pp. 282-297.

CHAPTER VI

APPEAKANCE AND REALITY

The only materials that we have for the construction of a
theory of reality are actual experiences plus the funded meanings
of previous experiences. Experiential reality is a duality-in-unity,
consisting of subjects and objects of experience. And the feeling,
thinking and willing of the subject are just as truly matter of experi-
ence as is sense perception. Thus to attempt to construct a theory
of reality and to leave the subject out of consideration is like
attempting to produce the play of Hamlet with the Prince of
Denmark left out. The whole business of metaphysics is just to
determine in outline what must be the general character of a
coherent world order as implied in the meanings of actual experi-
ence. The total concept of reality must include features that go
beyond actual experience, but that are implied in the latter as
principles for interpreting and completing it.

Actual experience is very complex. It includes things and
events in space-time relations, and the subject's own feelings,
thoughts, valuations, purposes and efforts. The feelings, thoughts,
valuations and purposes of the individual subject are not imme-
diately accessible to direct observation by other subjects ; therefore
they are called "subjective," but they are indirectly known through
the behavior of their subjects. Objects experienced in space-time
relations are held to be public or common objects perceivable by
other knowers, and are therefore called physical objects. Experi-
ence is always in process. Subjective states — feelings, images,
judgments, valuations and purposes — change; so do the objects of
public or physical experience. Thus the consideration of all
objects of experience involves temporal relations. It is not so
obvious that all objects of private and individual experience in-
volve spatial relations, although I think that ultimately they do.
But. the discussion of the latter question may be conveniently post-
poned to a later stage in our inquiry. The distinction between

APPEARANCE AND REALITY 99

physical objects and psychical objects is thus equivalent to the
distinction between things perceived as having publicly accessible
sensory qualities ; and desires, enjoyments, sufferings, images,
concepts, valuations and purposes, as contemplated and appre-
ciated or willed by the individual self. The minimal meaning of
a self is that it is a center of feeling, thought and volition, which
can be aware that it feels, thinks, values, and wills.1

How we come to make the distinction between psychical sub-
jects or selves and physical objects has been discussed in the
previous chapter. We saw there the consciousness of being a self
or subject of experience arises through a gradual process of dif-
ferentiation between menial and physical objects and that this
process takes place in social intercourse with other selves as well
as in the individual's direct dealings with nature. The distinction
between the mental and physical is built up through the demands
made, and the responses received, in human intercourse with other
selves and nature. The physical world becomes recognized as the
common and more or less constant medium of human intercourse.
Self, other self and a common world in which self meets its other
and enjoys with and suffers from the other, are the irreducible
elements in man's construction of a universe. Of course, if an
individual insists that his ego is the cosmos one may not be able
to convince him that he is wrong, but one may properly point
out that to thus insist on the identity of his ego with the cosmos
is to perpetrate at once a tautology and a contradiction. For in
making the assertion he is assuming another ego to make it to,
Avhereas the assertion itself denies the existence of another ego.
If he persists in his insistence probably he will finally arrive either
in the mad house or in prison.

The development of experience is triadic. The increase in
content and organization of the individual's experience is, in one
aspect, the integration of his personality, in wealth and harmony
of content and action ; in a second aspect, the corresponding in-

1 One of the principal motives for the behavioristic standpoint in psy-
chology is undoubtedly the desire to get rid of the elusiveness and privacy
of subjectivity, and thus to make piychology an objective science, using the
common physical methods of observation, experiment and measurement that
are employed in the physical sciences. Whether in so doing extreme behavior-
ism in psychology does not throw out the baby with the bath we need not
here consider. This matter will be discussed more fully in Book iv, "Per-
sonality."

100 MAN AND THE COSMOS

tegration of his social relationships; and, in a third aspect, the
integration of the common or physical world. I shall now con-
sider the grounds on which a sharp contrast is set up between
appearance and reality.

If all actual experiences are real what is the place of erroneous
experiences and beliefs — of illusions, hallucinations and all the
errors in regard to fact and theory that one finds in life and his-
tory ? If experiences are real does it not follow that the sun moved
around the earth until the Copernicans persuaded some Europeans
to believe the contrary in spite of appearances, that the earth
and living species were created in six days until evolutionists
succeeded in persuading some people to the contrary belief ? That
things are not really as they seem, that experience is an inconstant,
inconsistent and deceptive flux; and that the real reality must be
some sort of ever-abiding, harmonious and perfect order or being
behind or beyond experience — this is a discovery which seems to
be the very threshold of wisdom. The contrast between the muddy,
tortuous and treacherous stream of experience and the clearness,
fixity, perfect orderliness and reliability of the true reality has
been a main motive in the history of thought from the Vedanta
philosophy of India and the philosophy of Parmenides, the Greek,
down to the present time. All the higher religions assume the
ultimate reality of One in whom is neither variableness nor shadow
of turning. Even those philosophers to-day who, like Mr. F. H.
Bradley and his school, insist that the ultimate reality must be a
perfect experience, argue that all the experiences and beliefs of
the human self are untrustworthy appearances because incon-
sistent, incomplete and in flux. Physical things and their quali-
ties, space and time, motion and change, causation, purposive
activity, and even the self, goodness and truth, are self-contra-
dictory appearances. No one of these things can stand on its own
feet ; every one is transitory, forever seeking to be what it is not
and what it cannot become without passing beyond itself and being
transmuted into something other than it is. Every one of these
aspects of finite experience and belief, from an orange and its
qualities to a self in moral volition and truth seeking, means to
be what it is not and never is what it means to be. No truth is
wholly true, except the truth that no truth is wholly true. Every-
thing in our experience, every category of ordinary thinking, every
practical idea, runs out endlessly, when we examine it analytically,

APPEARANCE AND REALITY 101

into its opposite or other. We can neither think a sensuous thing
as the unity of its qualities nor as different from its qualities.
Motion and change are inconsistent because there must be some-
thing which moves or changes, but if there is then it cannot change
or move without ceasing to be itself. We cannot think causality
or activity without at once asserting that causes and effects
both are and are not continuous. Space and time must be
affirmed to be at once endlessly divisible and extensible and to
involve absolute bounds, beginnings and endings. The self is ever
fluctuating, the boundaries between self and not-self are ever shift-
ing, and the self is thus forever dependent on the not-self. Ideas
and ideals refer to a reality other than themselves and if they were
identical with it they would cease to be ideas and ideals. The
absolute reality must be a perfect individual whole, eternal, utterly
harmonious with itself, the perfect union, in one seamless whole,
of meaning and existence, a coherent and stable organization in
which all that is finite and transitory is absorbed and transmuted.
It must be beyond all the experiences that human beings have and
yet be a perfect experience. It must be beyond all the truth that
human beings can find, all the good that they can will and aspire
to, all the beauty that they can create or imagine. All human
experience, all human vision of truth, beauty and goodness, must
pass into the eternal perfection of a changelessly complete experi-
ence.2 Each of the appearances, if considered as a whole in itself,
is more or less contradictory. Reality is a perfect, systematic
whole, an eternally harmonious individual. On the other hand
reality is present in all the appearances. "Reality, then, being a
systematic whole, can have no being apart from its appearance,
though neither of them taken singly, nor yet the sum of them
thought collectively, can exhaust its contents." 3 "And though no
appearance is the whole of reality, in none of them all does the
whole of reality fail to manifest itself as a whole. The whole is
truly, as a whole, present in each and every part, while yet no
part is the whole." 4 The appearances differ in degrees of sys-
tematic unity, or individuality, and the degree of individuality

1 The best brief statement of the arguments for the above view is per-
haps that of Mr. A. E. Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, Book ii, Chaps. 1-3.
The whole of Mr. Bradley's Appearance and Reality is a brilliant piece of
argumentation for the same doctrine.

* Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, p. 106.

4 Ibid, p. 106.

102 MAN AND THE COSMOS

which any appearance possesses is the measure of its degree of
reality; that is, of the degree in which it manifests or expresses
the character of the whole. The whole, as perfect system, or har-
monious individuality, is present in every part but not equally so.
For example, a constellation of electrons, a sentient organism, and
a well-organized human mind freighted with thoughtful experience
and insight, all have some degree of systematic unity, but the
human mind in question has a much higher degree of individuality
than the constellation of electrons ; and therefore is a much more
adequate manifestation of reality, that is, has a much higher degree
of reality. But all appearances, from the least to the greatest, are
necessary to the perfection of the whole. "In the sense that it is
the same single experience system which appears as a whole and in
its whole nature in every one of the subordinate experience-
systems, they are all alike real, and each is as indispensable as
every other to the existence of the whole. In the sense that the
whole is more exclusively present in one than in another, there is
an infinity of possible degrees of reality and unreality." 5

And the degree of individuality, and therefore, the degree of
reality, which any appearance has, depends: (1) on its richness
of contents or its comprehensiveness; (2) on its degree of internal
unity or harmony. These two features of individuality or reality
are complementary. It follows that we are nearer the final truth
in regard to the nature of the perfect individual whole of reality
when we think of it as an organism than when we think of it as a
mechanical aggregate, and still nearer the final truth when we
think of it as a mind than when we think of it as an organism.
And, if a society be a more comprehensive and better organized
individual whole than a mind, then we would be nearest the final
truth about reality in thinking of it as a perfect society. On the
other hand, from the standpoint of what we may call Bradleyan
idealism the perfect reality could not be a society for the simple
reason that a society, as such, has not and is not a single experience.

I shall now examine critically Mr. Bradley's doctrine. It is
obvious, without a prolonged dialectic, that if any finite thing be
set up as isolated or self-complete, it becomes self-contradictory.
Anything finite is real only in relation to others. Everything
finite is involved in a complex network of relationships. My pen-

ibid., p. 109.

APPEARANCE AND REALITY 103

cil, for instance, is a complex of sense qualities — cylindrical shape,
yellow color, woody texture, specific density, diameter, length, and
spatial position. Every one of these qualities, and therefore all of
them taken together, involve series of relations to other qualities,
from which they differ and which they resemble in various degrees
of kind, extensive and intensive quantity, cohesiveness, density
and duration. My pencil, also, originates and passes away in
teleological and social series of relations. It is quite true that if
we set up space, time, causation, activity, purpose, or even the
self, yes, even truth or goodness, as abstractions existing in and
for themselves, we become involved in self-contradictory state-
ments. The human self is complex, changing, in part dependent
on its own body, on other selves, and on physical bodies for what
it is and becomes. It is equally true that truth is relational in
two senses: (1) it is the relation between a knower and the objects
of his knowing; (2) no single object of knowledge is known or
knowable in isolation. Goodness is relational in two senses: (1) it
is the relation between a human value as willed and the objective
conditions of successful volition (the actual nature of the agent is
a part of the objective conditions) ; (2) no single willed or
accepted value exists in isolation. Certainly, then, the ultimately
real is the whole, and the whole must be some sort of system.
Whether it is one timelesslv perfect individual or harmonious
experience will be discussed later. Suffice it to say now that I do
not so regard the totality of the real, for I cannot form any clear
and consistent conception of reality as one absolute super-rela-
tional, nontemporal harmony of experience not owned by any self ;
and if there be a perfect self it must exist in relation to other
selves ; therefore it cannot be the totality of the real. Reality at its
highest level may be a society of selves, but it cannot be one self.
Everything real must be part of the total universe of reality.
Xo finite thing or event exists or occurs in complete isolation or
self-dependence. The doctrine of extreme pluralism — that reality
consists of an atomistic chaos of independent reals — scarcely merits
extended refutation. Whether anything can exist out of relation
without being known is a vain question. The more we know con-
cerning the behavior of things in our world the clearer it becomes
that "all things in one another's being mingle." The "nature"
of anything cannot be independent of its relations. Many relations
of a thing may be conceived that, from one point of view, or for one

104 MAN AND THE COSMOS

purpose, are practically irrelevant or negligible, but, from otter
points of view, are relevant and important. It may be irrelevant
to me whether a pupil has yellow hair or wears orange neckties, but
if I were his haberdasher or his beloved these considerations might
be very relevant. The assemblage of books, furnishings, writing
materials, sporting tools, etc., in my study have no relevant rela-
tions from the point of view of a logician or a botanist, but from
my point of view or that of the tax assessor their relations to me
or to one another are quite relevant. Nothing can exist absolutely
out of relation or above relation, except the whole universe; but
since, by definition, the universe is the totality of related beings,
to say that it is above relations is only to repeat, in somewhat mis-
leading language, the definition of the universe as the systematic
totality of related entities.

Why should we argue that finite things which are partial
aspects of experiential reality are appearances only, because they
are not self-complete and self-existent ? Does any rational being
suppose that they are? If taken for what they are, finite things
are real though no one of them is absolute nor pretends to be. I
can find no contradiction between an entity being real and being in
relation. Empirical things and persons are not swallowed up and
made to disappear when they are recognized to exist only in spe-
cific relations. It seems to me a perverse attitude to assert that
only a Spinozistic substance, as absolutely self-dependent and self-
existent, can be real. An absolute that climbs up the ladder of
relations and then pulls the ladder up into its superrelational lair
may be forever secure against assault ; but, in so far as we human
beings are concerned, it is unknowable, and we can hold no com-
merce with it. If all relations and finite experiences and attitudes
are transmuted in this absolute, how can all the flames of passion,
chaste and carnal, still burn undisturbed in it ? How can degrees
of reality and value belong, in the absolute, to finite beings and
their experiences ; since, so long as these latter exist, they are in
relation, and are thus infected with contradiction and delusion;
and, when they are considered to have found rest in the absolute,
they have lost their relational character and thus have lost all that
made them what they were? How can the absolute be absolute
and superrelational, if it includes and lives in all its appearances ?
Logically it is as much dependent on the relational and transitory
character of its various finite fragments as the latter are on it,

APPEARANCE AND REALITY 105

The relation between the absolute and its finite parts reminds one
strongly of the economic system of the Scilly islanders who are said
to live by taking in one another's washing. In Mr. Bradley's
dialectics all empirical qualities and relations vanish in the endless
process of a series of incompletable relations, which absorbs all
empirical distinctions and forever chases itself across the stage in
the vain effort to swallow its own tail.

I prefer to say that every fragment and aspect of finite experi-
ence is real when taken in its right relations. I admit that at any
moment we do not know completely the relations of any finite and
empirical reality ; we do not know the total meaning of any reality.
But what we have we have, and it is good for what it is good for
and as far as it will go. The main features of experiential reality
— space, time, causation, activity, novelty, or creative synthesis
producing new results, effective volition based on valuation and
choice ; and therefore both physical change and volitionally initi-
ated change, the organizing activity of life and mental selfhood or
personality — all are real and none are absolute.

The very notion of reality is relative to both our experiences
and our interests or purposes. For us, the absolute reality must
be either that which enables us to adjust our interests to our ex-
periences or that which prevents such adjustment. Thus reality
means experience interpreted in its maximal totality and integrity.
If all human experience be illusion, there is no point in calling it
illusion. It is the only reality we have. A reality which did not
really appear in our experiences would be both useless and mean-
ingless— a non-entity.

The logical and psychological grounds for the distinction be-
tween appearances and reality lie in the so-called errors of the
senses which are really errors of judgment; in the discrepancies
between our beliefs and expectations as arising out of our judg-
ments in regard to past experiences, our traditional and individual
prejudices, the influence of other persons and of our own desires
and fears. In all such cases what we do is to put an actual experi-
ence in the wrong context. Everything that is matter of experience
is real in so far as it is taken for what it is, that is, taken in its
right relations to other items of experience.6 Everything sub-

• The pan-objectivism of the neo-realist is based on exaggeration of this
point.

106 MAN AND THE COSMOS

jective is of course real as matter of experience. Illusion and
hallucination consist in putting experience in the wrong con-
text. If, for example, I assert that there are spots on an immac-
ulate table cover, whereas the spots are in my eye, the spots in
my eye are alarmingly real. My error was in placing these spots
in wrong relations in the systems of experience. Everything real
is determinate. The determinate character of every real entity is
determined by its own nature in relation to the natures of other
entities. Nothing exists out of relation. The whole of reality is
the totality of determinate beings in relations.

There are many varying degrees of individuality in things —
from grains of sand and pebbles through crystals and the whole
scale of living beings to the highest type of human personality.
The existence of an ascending series of individualities is the basis
of the doctrine that there are degrees of reality.7 It is said that
the self, although inconsistent, possesses a higher degree of reality
than anything which is not a self. Goodness and truth are incon-
sistent appearances, but they possess higher degrees of reality, that
is, have more of individuality and harmony, than do evil and error.
The absolute is the perfect individual whole, and hence it mani-
fests itself in some appearances more fully than in others — in a
well-organized human person more fully than in a rat, in the social
moral order of a highly civilized culture more fully than in that
of a tribe of savages, etc. The measure of the degree in which any
appearance manifests the absolute is the degree of its individu-
ality.

The logical basis of the doctrine that the degree of individuality
coincides with the degree of reality is the assumption that indi-
viduality, the supreme standard of value, is the final criterion of
reality ; in short, that the idea of value or perfection is the key to
the nature of reality.8 Now, no doubt the assumption that the
standard of value is the standard of ultimate reality, that the being
of highest value must be most real, is one that the philosopher
inevitably makes.9 If there be an ultimate unity of all other
values — harmonious individuality, eternally perfect whole of

7 Cf. Bradley, Appearance and Beality; and Bosanquet, The Principle of
Individuality and Value, passim.

8 This is the newest form of the ontological argument.

•Every great philosopher from Plato down to Royce has made this as-
sumption.

APPEARANCE AND REALITY 107

meaning, in which all lesser values are integrated — it will be the
most weighty and consequential problem that a philosopher can
engage upon to consider whether this ideal unity of all values be
also the supremely existent or reality. But there are two distinct
questions here: (1) What is the logical or metaphysical structure
of reality? (2) "What are the values of the various forms or
structures of existence? More briefly: what are the general
features of reality, and what values has reality as a whole ? The
principal of harmonious individuality may be the highest criterion
of value. It may be the case that the most comprehensive and
stable organization of content is exemplified in mind and specif-
ically in socialized mind or personality. It may be that social indi-
viduality or personality is the ultimate criterion, source and
sustainer of the intrinsic values of existence. Indeed, I hold that
this is so ; but it seems to me to be introducing confusion of thought
at the beginning of metaphysical inquiry, and in fact to be a beg-
ging of the question, to assume that the final criterion of value is
the only criterion of reality. We may have the right to believe
that only harmoniously organized individuality rich in content is
enduringly real. The most valuable realities may be the most per-
manent, but I do not think we have the right to assume that the
discordant or impermanent or changing are unreal. Everything is
real in so far as it is taken for what it is. The whole of reality
now is no more real than any one of its parts, for every part is
just as necessary to the whole as the whole is to it. If any part,
however insignificant, and ephemeral, become nonexistent the
character of the whole is thereby altered. What right have we then
to say that the whole is eternally the same although its parts are
transitory appearances? Before we can apply our criterion of
value to the nature of reality as a whole we must by logical analysis
determine the general structure of empirical reality.

That reality must honor or sustain the fundamental meanings
and values that are discovered, wrought out and interwoven in the
texture of human experience is the basic postulate of knowledge
and intelligent action. Reality must be shot through with and con-
trolled by the values, theoretical, ethical, aft'ectional, and {esthetic,
which man progressively discovers and realizes, in his manifold
relations in the world totality; in which he is an interpreting,
organizing, and, in some small measure at least, a creative factor.
The fundamental forms of human self-activity, of which thought,

108 MAN AND THE COSMOS

action and feeling are distinguishable but not separable aspects, are
phases of the self-fulfillment of conscious life through the growth
in selves of reflective intercourse with the world which may be
called, indifferently, dynamic thinking or intelligent action.
Knowledge is, though not in any narrowly utilitarian sense, a
scheme or plan of action, by which selves can come into richer,
more harmonious and durable relations with the whole of reality in
which they are consciously dynamic elements; and, through so
coming, can enrich, harmonize and conserve the life of conscious
individuality.

Eoyce argued that ideas are always plans of action, that every
idea demands its own fulfillment; and Dewey has insisted that
thought's function is to serve as an instrument of better adjust-
ment to the environment and of satisfaction of the self's interests.
If the latter term be taken in a sufficiently broad and inclusive
sense we can accept it. The function of thought, the function of
even the most abstract universals, such as mathematical concepts
and philosophical categories, as well as of the most elemental
meanings of experienced objects, such as food and warmth, is to
enable the self to enrich, harmonize and preserve its own being, to
enlarge, deepen and perpetuate the values of experience by finding
and living in the right relations to its physical and social environ-
ment. Only I would insist that an essential part of the higher life
of selfhood consists in those experiences which we call aesthetic
enjoyment, philosophical speculation and contemplation, and re-
ligious devotion, as well as in communion with one's fellows in
friendship and love. For, as we shall see more fully, in later
chapters, the self lives most deeply, not in narrowly practical
activities but in these experiences which bring it into union with
other selves and with the universe.

Thus knowledge or truth is dynamic. All meanings, uni-
versals, wrought out in the process of thinking, are plans of conduct
in the broad sense. Their function is to guide and lead the self,
which has fashioned them to this end, into deeper, richer and more
enduring experiential relations with the rest of reality. The self
which seeks realization is a conscious dynamic center in a dynamic
universe. And, of course, as we shall see more fully in the sequel,
the cognitive and rational self develops and lives in social relations.
Knowledge is the product and the instrument of socialized selfhood
or personality; through it personality enhances its own life in a

APPEARANCE AND REALITY 109

universe in which it is an immanent center, a partial creator and
sustainer of experience. Through the maintenance, enrichment
and harmonization of personality alone does the universe acquire
meaning. In knowledge, thought and the self who thinks do not
transcend themselves or remain shut up within their own skin ; for
the self who thinks is always a dynamic center in the world, a focus
of cosmic forces; and knowledge is nothing else than the unique,
because reflective, creative and universalizing, process or activity
by which selves hold successful converse with the rest of reality.

CHAPTER VII

ERROR

In the present chapter I shall discuss the problem of error in
its metaphysical bearings.

The psychology of error is a very important subject, but to deal
with it in detail would take considerable space and might divert us
from our main purpose.

The self lives in and through opposition, or what the Hegelian
would call "negativity." The oppositions of life are contra-
positives, or counter affirmations, not bare negations of affirmative
positions. In the moral life the bad is not the mere absence of
the good. There could be no moral life without the conflict of
positive opposites. The good is often the enemy of the best. In
aesthetic experience beauty lives by contrast with ugliness ; and
ugliness is not the mere absence of beauty, as common speech
shows in its distinctions between beauty, plainness and ugliness.
In the affectional life "sorrow's crown of sorrows is remembering
happier things" ; and happiness's crown of happiness includes the
memory of old unhappy far-off things. Similarly it is in the
intellectual life. Truth is attained in conflict with error, and
not merely by overcoming ignorance. It is often said that error
is truth in the making. There is a soul of truth in propositions
erroneous, and a soul of error in propositions true. But we must
distinguish between mere ignorance and positive error, else we
shall make shipwreck on the paradox, which Plato brings out in
the Theaetetus and elsewhere — how can one think that which is
not? If I am ignorant and am conscious that I am ignorant I
commit no error. I err only when I believe and affirm a propo-
sition in the absence of adequate empirical and rational grounds.
Judgment involves belief and belief is the voluntary affirmation
of a proposition, or of a complex of propositions. What one
affirms to be true involves at least the volitional act of acknowl-
edgment or acquiescence. It frequently involves the more active
attitude of asserting or proponing judgments. Thus one cannot

110

ERROR 111

be said to know or to claim truth who has not at least rethought
and relived judgments into his own mental texture. Plato's dis-
tinction between having truth and possessing it is relevant here.
Truth is appropriated, no less than found, through personal ac-
tivity. Knowing is, in logical terms, the judgmental activity by
which a thinker affirms that a specific apprehended content of
meaning holds good of reality. A belief is a judgment, that is,
a proposition made or accepted by the will as intellectual act.

The acquisition of truth through the activity of the self, and
the intellectual development of the self through the acquisition
of truth involve error; since it is only by overcoming error that
one achieves truth. We cannot understand what a finite knower
would be like without the possibility of error, any more than we
can understand what a finite moral agent would be like without
the possibility of sin.

Ignorance, I have said, Is not in itself error, but one may err
through ignorance; in other words, if one is ignorant of, or
ignores, hi.- own ignorance, and makes an affirmation he errs. One
may err through failure to define clearly and distinctly what it is
that one seeks to know. For example, I may err in a scientific
investigation because I am ignorant of my ignorance of the pres-
ence of certain disturbing causes. 1 may err because I am igno-
rant of certain defects in my sense organs or in my logical pro-
cesses of analysis and inference. In practical affairs one may err
through ignorance of one's own powers, deficiencies or motives,
or through ignorance of other men in the same respects. One
may err through prejudices, inherited from tradition or acquired
through social suggestion, or through one's own predilections.
One may err through impatience and haste, due to desire, hope,
fear or dogmatic self-assertiveness. If the mind received knowl-
edge by passively reflecting the actual world, if truth were a
mirrorlike reproduction or copying of reality, as representation-
ism assumes, the possibility and fact of error would be unaccount-
able. On the copy theory of truth error would be meaningless.
The mind would keep step with the world and there would be no
contrast possible between truth and error. Thus the fact of error
refutes pure empiricism or sensationalism. It is because the self
develops its mental life in dynamic intercourse with the world
that error is possible. Judging is reflective willing, or the activity
of the individual intellect.

112 MAN AND THE COSMOS

Error, in distinction from the mere absence of knowledge, is
due either to emotional perturbations of the intellect or to the
influence of unthinking habits of acquiescence, the result of man's
tendency to accept, through social suggestion, prevailing habits of
belief. Descartes was right, in part, at least in attributing error
to the influence of the will, in the sense of the emotional and
impulsive tendency in man to over-hasty judgment and absence
of critical discrimination. As Hume wisely said, belief is more
properly the offspring of the sensitive than of the intellectual part
of our nature. Of course one may err from involuntary ignorance.
There is doubtless such a thing as invincible ignorance of one's own
ignorance. There is, however, also voluntary ignorance; igno-
rance due to the unwillingness of the individual to repress the
emotional solicitations to belief or to resist the pressure of social
suggestion.

Thus error, in the full sense, is a denial of the will to know, a
refusal to will the whole truth. Obedience to the will to know
carries with it the duty to doubt, to suspend judgment and repress
the impulse to believe and assert. In the ethics of thought it is a
paramount obligation to cultivate the consciousness of ignorance,
to be skeptical and critical of particular propositions that clamor
for belief. One has heard much of the will to believe. For a
rational being the will to disbelieve, the duty to doubt, constitutes
a greater obligation than the will to believe. In so far as one is
conscious of one's ignorance and fallibility the sting of ignorance
is drawn; the mind is transmuting ignorance into knowledge in
the very process of doubting its own prejudices and prepossessions ;
for the greatest obstacle to the growth and spread of truth probably
does not lie in unavoidable ignorance nor in mental impotence. It
lies chiefly, rather, in mental inertia, in unwillingness to bear the
pangs of doubt, and to undergo the labor of that critical and
skeptical quest without which truth is not gained or possessed.
Man will not will the whole truth because he is emotionallv incited
to accept specific propositions at their face value. To save himself
the labor of rigorous analysis and the pain of resisting his appetites
and desires, his hopes and fears, to gain time and energy for the
satisfaction of desires other than that of clear and coherent think-
ing, man refuses to continue the enterprise of thinking ; that is, of
suspense of belief, rigorous analysis and the weighing of alter-
native possibilities.

ERROR 113

Thus the assertion that one has the whole truth is the denial
of the coherence of truth and experience. This denial has often
brought direful consequences. For example, when the Inquisition
persecuted Galileo in order to maintain what proved to be an
erroneous cosmology, when Calvin caused Servetus to be burned,
and in countless similar instances, the errors committed consisted
in the affirmation of misinterpreted systems containing partial
truths as the whole truth. The willful assertion of a partial truth
as a whole truth or of a belief as final, in the face of its incom-
patibility with observed facts and logical deductions therefrom,
constitutes radical error — the sin against the spirit of truth. In
the face of man's intellectual history it cannot be denied that there
is a voluntary error which arises from the violation of that ethical
obligation to will the whole truth, of which the duty to doubt
specific propositions is the converse. The intrinsic value of truth
is a form of the intrinsic ethical value of rational selfhood. The
true is by no means always the most obvious or pleasantest or most
profitable in speedy returns. The search for truth demands self-
di-cipline and self-abnegation, qualities rarer in institutions and
parties than even in individuals. Here as elsewhere, in the
spiritual life, he that 6eeketh his life shall lose it, and he that
loseth his life shall find it. The recognition of the intrinsic worth
of truth as a living system, into which the individual must pene-
trate by personal activity, and to which he owe3 absolute allegiance
at the cost of abandoning his most cherished prejudices and pas-
sions, is the intuition of a universal spiritual quality in the self.
The recognition of the impersonal and absolute value of truth
impels the self to seek actively the maximal comprehensiveness and
harmony or coherence in experience and in its reflective interpreta-
tion. Coherence in our beliefs is not subservient to any ulterior
end. Reflective thinking presupposes the coherent meaningfulness
of reality; in knowing, the self seeks to make reality its conscious
possession, or vice versa, to remake itself into a center of signifi-
cant awareness of reality. Truth means the reflective organization
of experience, under the guidance of the ideal of a harmonious
intuition or coherent system of meanings, which is the apprehen-
sion of reality as an intelligible whole or cosmos. The particular
facts in nature, history, the social order, or the individual life,
get their meanings through their universalizing connections in
the organic totality of experience. Thus no isolated dafcun is

114 MAN AND THE COSMOS

true. There are no absolutely atomic facts. In this sense there are
degrees of truth — degrees of approximation to the ideal of a com-
pletely articulated system of meanings in which the individual
thinker transcends his private and particular existence and holds
converse with the nature of the world. That the real universe is,
at least in posse, a coherent or intelligible whole is the fundamental
postulate of thought. Thus knowledge moves on from stage to
stage in the unity of reflective life, in so far as it contributes to
the enrichment of the intuition of reality as a harmonious whole
of individual elements.

Emerging first in the urgent pressure of vital needs and appe-
tites, the life of reflective thinking acquires, in the course of social
evolution and individual development, an intrinsic value in propor-
tion as selves take on a more reflective and rational character.
Reflective thinking remains always a function of personal life.
Truth enriches and harmonizes personality. But, in the growth
of reflection, thought ceases to be merely an instrument for reach-
ing extrinsic ends. Thought becomes an integral function of the
self, enriching the contents and transforming the quality of life
itself. No longer merely a means to ulterior ends, reflective
thinking becomes a part of the supreme end — the fulfillment of
personality.

The study of early mythologies and cosmogonies indicates that
disinterested curiosity and delight in the free play of productive
imagination and reasoning must have appeared quite early in the
history of the race. But the successful development of free mental
activity was not possible without a considerable degree of practical
control over nature. Man must first be liberated from the urgent
pressure of hunger, physical discomfort and sex appetite and from
debasing fears before he can do much disinterested thinking. It
is the employment of knowledge as an instrument of practical
utility which removes the hindrances in the way of the free and
disinterested activity of thought. In this respect the development
of knowledge is analogous to the development of art, which has
likewise passed from being a tribal utility to being an intrinsic
form of personal value.

I have said that all activity of thought, over and above that
which is impelled by the pressure of practical needs, arises from
a sense of the intrinsic value of truth for the development of per-
sonality by intellectual union with the universe of reality. Thus

ERROR 115

truth, as a form of intrinsic value, means the realization of spir-
itual personality through contemplation of the universe — the intel-
lectual love of God. He in whom the desire for this contemplative
union with the nature of things has not been awakened is not yet
a full personality. In the urge to know the truth for its own sake
man stands in the presence of an ultimate spiritual quality. On
the other hand, truth does not exist for him who feels no obligation
to seek it for its own sake; just as the good or the beautiful do not
exist for those who feel no desire to seek them for their own sakes.
Truth, goodness and beauty are their own excuses for being.

CHAPTEK VIII

THE FINAL GROUND OF KNOWLEDGE1

It may be well to summarize our main conclusions thus far.
Thinking is not a mirror which passively reflects a world outside ;
valid thoughts are not copies of things. Thought is active in
knowing, no less than in willing. It is obviously the case that
the individual mind in knowing does not create the materials of
knowledge, not even of its own self-knowledge. There are always
determinate data for thought given through immediate experience.
On the other hand, it is a fruitless endeavor to attempt to define
the original data of experience in terms of a so-called pure experi-
ence or an absolute sensible minimum of experience. Sense data or
sensa, as Mr. S. Alexander calls them, are thought data; for per-
ception is implicit or incipient judgment. We can draw no line,
on one side of which are the sensa and on the other side are
judgments. Pure sensations are artificial products of analysis.
There is no such thing as "pure" experience. It is an abstraction.
Actual experience, in its crudest terms, is the reaction of mind to
stimuli, but the most immediate datum is the experience as re-
ceived and categorized by mind. The stimulus is an inferential
or logical construct. Even electrons or ether have meaning only as
organically related to minds perceiving movements, stresses and
strains, attractions and repulsions, colors, etc.

The cognitive value of the entire realm of the unconscious or
not-self depends on the readiness with which the most immediate
experiences, as meeting points of self and not-self, lend themselves
to interpretation and reconstruction in terms of the self's control-
ling interests and categories. (I have said "unconscious or not-
self" because, in so far as a self may know itself, what it knows is
not itself as knowing. I leave in abeyance for the present the
question whether, and how, a self may know itself.) While the

1 This chapter is the revision of an article under the same title which
appeared in The Philosophical Bevietv, Vol. xvii., No. 4, July, 1908, pp. 383-399.

116

THE FINAL GROUND OF KNOWLEDGE 117

external world has a determinate and independent order, this order
is found not to exclude the interpretative influence of thought and
the directive influence of purpose. The self is able to know to
some extent the order of nature and to adjust its own activities
thereto. The most obvious test of knowledge is that, taken by and
large, it works. Moreover, the external world does not dictate
unconditionally to the mind the direction which its thoughts and
purposes shall take. Nor does it determine the rate at which
knowledge shall grow. Human thinking in its theoretical and
practical procedure is self-determining, in the sense that it selects
the data which it shall reconstruct in accordance with its own aims.
The history of science, with its varied rates of procedure in differ-
ent fields and in differeu4" epochs of culture, bears out this truth.
The individuality of every investigator enters into his choice and
manner of work but, still more, every age has its intellectual
fashions and fads.

The responsiveness of the external world to the permanent
categories and changing aims of human thought implies a dynamic
correspondence, an organic interrelationship between mind and
world. Either the development of knowledge is the coming to
awareness in minds, and the expression in mind-made symbols, of
this dynamic community; and, hence, the world of reality is in
some large sense a rational or intelligible system akin in structure,
though on a much vaster scale, to mind ; or else knowledge hangs in
the air, its validity is a mere human prejudice and hence even the
partial successes of knowledge give us no authentic tidings of the
nature of reality.

It is quite the fashion to argue that the standard mind or
social mind is the final test of truth. By this is meant the agree-
ment of different minds under the same conditions. If we cannot
apply the test of universal consent, quod semper, quod ubique ei
ab omnibus, we may rely on the experts, and experts are socially
recognized authorities. The truth of a proposition, then, becomes
a question of its social standing; and, on the other hand, since
men's minds notoriously differ, we must presuppose, when we
apply the test, that we are making reference to the real masters.
I do not question the practical value of this test. The authority of
experts may be the final court of appeal for the laymen. But this
test, after all, has only approximate value. Nobody knows who
the real masters are but the masters themselves and they by no

118 MAN AND THE COSMOS

means always agree. Moreover, the social test rests on a sup-
pressed premise. It presupposes a common rational structure in
all minds and the possibility of a common relation of all minds to
reality. The standard mind or social mind is an abstraction.
Thinking goes on, and truth is known, only in individual minds.
Thus the very recognition of other minds and of an external world
common to minds implies that the individual mind is, potentially
at least, a microcosmic center of valid intercourse with reality.
The self, the other self and their world, must all be elements in a
systematic and intelligible whole. The validity of truth cannot
depend finally upon the cooperative thinking of human society,
since in the latter knowledge is always imperfect and growing
whereas truth, by its very nature, means a reality not created by
the historical and psychological accidents of discovery. The de-
velopment of society, through the growth of knowledge, presup-
poses the same intelligible and systematic order of reality which
the cognitive success of the individual mind presupposes. If the
conditions of the validity of knowledge are not directly implicated
in the movement of the individual's thinking those conditions can-
not be established by averaging individual minds into a standard
social mind.

Doubtless, knowledge of one's neighbors is, at all stages of
human development, of greater practical and emotional interest
than knowledge of nature. But this does not place the former on
a generically different plane from the latter, nor give it a validity
of a higher order. Both kinds of knowledge begin in immediate
experience — perceptions of contact, form, color, movement, etc.,
in the one case; and the feeling of another life and consciousness
in the other case.2 How much in the dark we often are as to our
fellows' motives and ideas, not to mention those of the animals!

In both cases our knowledge requires to be corrected and en-
larged by the same mental processes. Both forms of immediate
experience must be mediated, in order to yield surer practical
guidance and a fuller insight.

When we employ the various logical methods of investigating
and testing the results of thinking, we are not comparing the latter
with something wholly alien to itself. We are testing the adequacy
of our symbols and formulae with reference to the ideal of a self-

2 Lipps neatly distinguishes the immediate experience of external objects
and of other selves as Empfindiing and Einfiihlung respectively.

THE FINAL GROUND OF KNOWLEDGE 119

coherent or wholly systematized experience. Knowledge is intra-
experiential, in the sense that the materials and points of departure
for cognitive thinking are found in immediate experience; and,
again, knowledge involves all along the line a reference to experi-
ence, in the sense that its goal is a complete or perfected experi-
ence, in which every datum is become an element in a harmonious
system. On the other hand, in relation to any actual experience,
cognitive thinking has always a transcendent reference, since this
complete or perfect experience is for us in part only "ideal" or
"possible." We can conceive reality as a systematic and self-
consistent whole only in terms of the structure and functions of a
"possible" perfect experience or transcendental mind; a mind that
transcends in its complete coherence the mind of every finite self
and in which all the data of knowledge are present in their organic
unity. Valid knowledge is the symbol of, and the actual reference
of the individual's thought to a reality, which, whatever the quali-
tative variety and quantitative multiplicity of its elements, must
have those coherences or relationships that are commonly called
"rational."

While truth has for me its point of departure in my experi-
ence, and implies other selves, its ultimate reference must tran-
scend the experience of any finite self. And knowledge is always
the reflective consciousness of some relation or group of relations
between a thinking mind and the systematic whole of a self-
coherent reality in which the mind so thinking is an element.
Reality may have many series of increasingly inclusive systematic
unities, from that of unconscious physical centers of relationship
up to that of an absolute self-luminous unity of "ideal" experience.
If reality in all its forms were not always intelligible, at least in
promise and potency, knowledge could have no absolute validity.
Truth for man is an individual achievement and possession here
and now in a particular mind, and yet it must possess universality
of reference, that is, be timelessly valid for all. How can we
reconcile these attributes of truth ? Kant and his immediate fol-
lowers based the objectivity of truth on the existence of a con-
sciousness or mind common to all individuals, but, in itself, over-
individual and absolutely distinct from the empirical ego. But
they failed to make clear the relation of this universal conscious-
ness (Bewusstsein iiberhaupt) or "transcendental ego" to the indi-
vidualized human consciousness. In Kant's theoretical philosophy

120 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the former seems to be a merely formal unity. And, from one
point of view, the metaphysics of Fichte and Hegel were attempts
simply to bring this notion of a universal mind into more definite
relation with that of the individual mind. We must now consider
this problem.

I have already maintained that thinking selves develop knowl-
edge or attain truth only in community with other members of a
relational system, and that the success of the individual mind in
reaching truth indicates that the world of reality need contain
nothing absolutely impenetrable by mind. Individual minds have
knowledge only as members of an intelligible system of things.
Community of experience and universality, as attributes of truth,
involve a fundamental identity of function, and hence of nature,
in the elements of reality. Hence reality, in its systematic totality
of meaning, must be a rational unity. The total real must have
that intelligible character which is demanded by the place that
human cognitive activity occupies therein. If any knowledge be
valid, then the real universe is an intelligible and systematic
whole, that is, a rational organization. If there be any truth, and
if the real world be a unity, this truth is valid only as an element
in a systematic whole of meaning. This systematic whole must
signify, or define, in terms of meaning and value, that aspect of
reality which exists as the totality of objects of truth.

Truth, we say, is universal and necessary. By these attributes
we obviously mean that any normal mind, placed in the same con-
ditions and having had the same training and antecedent experi-
ence, must recognize the truth, or significant reference to existence,
of the judgment which we have made or accepted. But to appeal
to a normal mind as the standard of recognition for truth is to
assume a common and universal structure and functioning in indi-
vidual minds. This common rational structure is the universal
mind or thinker, the ground of the relational or rational system
which is the ideal of knowledge.

The ultimate subject of reference in valid knowledge, then, is
a systematic cosmic mind. Just in so far as the world is a uni-
verse it must be embodied mind. The reality of this mind is pre-
supposed whenever we test our judgments and theories by refer-
ence, either to the general conditions of valid thinking, or to the
special conditions of actual existence. The test of self-consistency,
that is, of noncontradiction in a system, implies the ultimate

THE FINAL GROUND OF KNOWLEDGE 121

reality of the rational coherent structure which functions in indi-
vidual minds. The tesl of empirical reference to perception, in
entific induction, presupposes the coherence of the physical
world-order with the structure and aims of mind in us. If there
be any truth, the existing objects to which truth makes valid and
aificant reference must possess the specific character which
makes truth valid and Leant. If truth be valid, the elements

of reality which are not in them nsciously significant ideas,

or valid meanings, must conform to valid meanings, that is, to
cognitive acts of reference. In short, ultimate reality is twofold
in nature. It includes, in organic interrelationship, the valid
reality of truth, or of the system of cognitive meanings, and the
existential reality of thought's objects of reference. And the valid
reality of truth as a systematic whole presupposes that all existent
objects, whether physical or psychical, are possible subjects of
cognitive meanings. Ultimate reality, then, must be a duality-in-
unity — cosmic thought whose object is the cosmos.

Indeed, mind or spirit is e--< ntially a self-realizing process
which knows, feels, and acts through "differences," and which
fulfills itself in overcoming differences. In winning truth, mind
affirms its oneness with the "other" or "object" to which truth
refers, as, in winning the good, mind affirms the oneness of its
impulses and character with an ideal end, or as, in experiencing
the beautiful, mind feels its harmony with the object. The
unceasing movement of mind towards conscious self-possession and
self-determination, through that which is other than itself, is the
primal condition of its conscious meaningful life. Did this move-
ment cease, mind must relapse into the unconsciousness of a dead
thing.

Truth, in the specific sense, is always the significant symbol of
relationships of things which belong to some kind of system. Even
the truths of mathematics are but highly generalized signs of rela-
1 ion-hip among real things. Now, relationships that could not be
cognized or felt by some mind would be unmeaning. One who
asserts the existence of relationships inaccessible to any thinking
center is able to do so only because, in thinking this supposed inde-
pendence, he presupposes implicitly some sort of world mind or
objective rational structure, relationships signify intelligible
connections, and the reality of the latter presupposes a constitutive
or sustaining act of intelligence.

122 MAN AND THE COSMOS

There can, then, be no truth or knowledge which does not
obtain in and for some mind. And, if there can be no world of
existents unqualified by truth or meaning, there can be no world
of existents without a world mind. One might, of course, arbi-
trarily assume a reality utterly independent of all mind; but a
reality of this sort would be forever beyond the pale of discussion
and utterly meaningless, since without positive reference to our
experience. Hence, the whole system of psychical and other finite
existences, with whose interactions and interpassions the indi-
vidual knower's experience is inextricably bound up, and on which
in specific cases knowledge seems to depend for the validity of its
meanings, must in turn depend upon a more intimate systematic
unity. The system of individual experiences must have a real
basis for the unity that it depends upon at every moment in its
life and for its continuity from moment to moment in the world's
history. The common basis for thought and knowledge must
transcend alike the individual consciousness and the so-called
"social consciousness," which latter is real only as a set or attitude
of the individual mind. It follows from the principle that nothing
can at once exist and have meaning which does not exist for a
mind, that the single ground of the social system of individual
meanings must be for some mind or center of experience. In a
final analysis the objectivity of truth, the valid reference of knowl-
edge to reality, depends on the reality of a single, systematic
intelligence, which must have a determinate character, since it is
the ground of a determinate system of cognitions.

But, now, the question confronts us: Why need there be any
absolute truth at all ? What right has one to assume that any
knowledge has final validity, that any system of cognitive meanings
is honored by the universe, that things have any ultimate signifi-
cance whatsoever ? These queries might be answered by pointing
to the splendid practical successes of science in giving man control
over the physical world. But this would be only a makeshift
answer. For, again, the objection might be urged that our knowl-
edge is, after all, as yet very limited, is constantly changing, and
the years of human science are infinitesimally few in comparison
with the ageless duration of the universe. Therefore, it is possible
that our fragmentary science, with its ideal of systematic com-
pleteness forever unrealized, is but a happy hit which more or less
successfully fits into the present phase of an ageless, ever changing

THE FINAL GROUND OF KNOWLEDGE 123

chaos. The vaunted fitness of science to the world may be but a
chance coincidence amidst a chaos of innumerable possibilites.
On the ground of a utilitarian success alone, we are not entitled to
assume any final validity in knowledge nor any absolute truth.

It is true, nevertheless, that the skeptic is himself unable to
refrain from assertion or judgment of some sort. In his deepest
doubt there lurks the assumption of a possible knowable truth.
Even when he suspends judgment and refrains from any assertion,
he assumes that he knows enough about the nature of things to
make every more specific assertion futile. In short, to seek truth
is a fundamental impulse of rational human nature, an impulse
from which the most radical skeptic cannot free himself. To
become reflectively aware of any experience is to make judgments,
and to make a judgment is to assume that some reality is intelli-
gible, that some truth is valid. Even the skeptic cannot free him-
self from the rule of the instinct to know. His most radical ques-
tionings presuppose the possibility of an answer. His most con-
sistent attempts to suspend all judgment imply at the least this
judgment about reality, viz., that it is so constituted that no human
judgment can be valid for it, or that there is no means of deter-
mining whether any specific judgment is valid.

In short, to think at all, even in terms of the most radical
skepticism, is to assume the validity of truth. We must seek truth
and promote its recognition, because it is a mode or function of
the common spiritual nature in men. Truth is an end in itself,
since it is an integral pulsation of universal reason in the spirit
of man. In attaining truth the individual thinker is entering into
the universal heritage of mind.

Serious objection may be made to the doctrine that the supreme
cosmic or systematic intelligence, on which truth is made to rest,
has self-consciousness. It may be urged that, however completely
I may organize my experience into knowledge, still my experience
and thought, as finite, are dependent on a "not-self" or "other."
Knowledge seems always to involve both a resemblance or com-
munity of nature between the knowing self and the not-self or
"other," and a duality of being. So far as our insight goes, it
seems, then, that the very condition of a conscious selfhood and,
therefore, of experience and knowledge in general, is the existence
of an element that cannot be comprehended in or absorbed into the
self's thinking. Therefore, it may be said, as soon as one conceives

124 MAN AND THE COSMOS

knowledge to be absolute, one thinks the self as absolutely
coincident with the data of experience. Knowing "self" and
known "object" collapse or coalesce into a higher unity.3 The
objective reference or validity of knowledge in relation to the
materials of experience ceases, since there is no longer any existen-
tially outer object or "other" to which thought can be referred by
the self. Knowledge, when it becomes absolute, fuses wholly with
its object and self -consciousness ceases, or is transmuted into some-
thing else — into some higher, and, by us, inconceivable kind of
experience. It would follow that in this higher state of insight
or experience there can be no longer any cognitive consciousness,
as we human beings understand consciousness, nor any truth as we
conceive truth. The complete union of self and not-self results in
something which may be more than a conscious self, but which
certainly cannot be a self in the sense in which we know the self
reflectively. Hence, the systematic intelligence on which the
whole of knowledge depends cannot be self-conscious and nothing
can be true for it. It may be a perfectly harmonious immediate
experience a la Mr. Bradley, but it cannot be a self.

Now, it must be admitted that, if a self-coherent totality of
truth be real in and for a consciousness, the relation of such a con-
sciousness to some of its objects (that is, to those objects of its
knowledge that are not its own internal and immediate states of
feeling) must differ decidedly from the relation of any human
consciousness to its corresponding objects. For us objects always
remain partially opaque. Truth cannot be a perfect organism,
unless it mean the thorough comprehension by the knower of the
determinate world of objects. A universal knower must, then, as
conscious knower, have a world of "objects" and, as perfect knower,
must wholly penetrate, with an intuitive insight, this world. Such
a knower must be in some sense the ground of his own experience.

' Those who emphasize the ' ' immediate ' ' character of ' ' absolute ' ' in-
sight, as a state in which the distinction of knowing subject and object of
thought is "abolished," "overcome," or "transcended," are fond of citing
emotion and, especially, personal love, as illustrations of what sort this higher
state may be. But the illustrations are hardly satisfactory from their stand-
point. In personal love the distinction between lover and beloved is not
abolished or overcome. Requited love is surely a case of unity-in-duality.
The two persons are, indeed, one, but thereby their distinctive personalities
are enhance*! and enriched to one another, not transmuted into a higher im-
personal unity. Love is, indeed, a good illustration of what knowledge strives
to become without ceasing to be knowledge.

THE FINAL GROUND OF KNOWLEDGE 125

So far as his experience depends on the activities and experiences
of other beings, their experiences must, in turn, somehow depend
on his activity. A world which is the "other" of his thought can-
not have self-existence external to his will. Hence, such a knower
must sustain the world of objects which he knows. The "opposi-
tion" between his thought and its objects, for example, the move-
ments of a material system or the activities of living and conscious
beings, must originate in his own activity. His life can be
"limited" or "determined," only in the sense that he is conscious
as originating an "opposition" through and in which he finds con-
sciousness; in other words, he is conscious as self-determining
activity that constitutes the "other" for his own conscious experi-
ence.

This is a difficult notion that probably no amount of reflection
will make plain to our finite and growing minds. But sun-clear
lucidity is not to be expected in such matters. Moreover, there is
that in the nature of human consciousness which gives us some
inkling of the possible nature of a "higher" consciousness. For
it is not true that knowledge, in all its phases, depends on the
opposition of a wholly external ''other." The impulse to know is
by no means always a compulsion from without, and in self-
knowledge the object is within the knower's thought. The higher
phases of knowledge involve the self-initiative of the knower who
in knowing enlarges his being.

In order to satisfy its demands for reflectivefinsight into the
nature of things, the finite self must seemingly go outside its pres-
ent selfhood. But, indeed, the truer view is that in knowledge, as
in any kind of genuine self-activity, growth in depth, extent, and
organization involves a constant dialectic movement between the
two poles of internally initiated interests and activity and exter-
nally given materials and obstacles. And the goal of this move-
ment is twofold — the internal appropriation or interpretation of
the not-self, and the expansion and enrichment of the self. In this
dialectic process of development through "opposition," the mind
assimilates a seemingly foreign world more and more completely
to itself and enlarges its own being thereby. In knowledge, which
is a special case of this general movement, the "other," which first
appears as a negation of the knowing mind, is progressively over-
come and unified with the mind.

The process of knowledge, and, indeed, of experience as a

126 MAN AND THE COSMOS

whole, is a progressive overcoming of the fundamental antithesis
between self and not-self, which is the nerve of all intellectual
activity, of moral endeavor, aesthetic vision, and religious aspira-
tion. The meaning of the antithesis is that it is there to be over-
come; and the self is potentially infinite, since it can overcome
unceasingly the opposition in question. It does overcome this
opposition, and make it tributory to its own self-fulfillment, in
finding the true, as in willing the good and enjoying the beautiful.

This process of self-realization is illustrated in the social world,
where selves cooperate to win truth and goodness and to embody
the vision of beauty. The farther the social relationships of selves
develop, in the direction of mutual understanding and inclusive
sympathy, the more completely does the single self learn to find
itself in and through other selves. It dies to its narrow selfhood to
live in a larger experience. The primitive savage is so ignorant
and fearful that to him every stranger is an enemy, a point of
absolute "opposition." The cultivated man of the twentieth cen-
tury can appreciate the meaning of a world-literature and cherish
the thought of a universal peace and of a humane social ethics.
He lives through and with others in a vastly wider, richer, and
more harmonious experience than that of the savage. The deeper
and more harmonious a self's experiences become, the more
rationally communicable and sharable do they grow. Progress in
rational self-consciousness is at once a growth in internal self-
enlightenment and in communal experience. A living world of
socially related individual centers tends toward fuller unity-in-
variety. And the "otherness" of its world of things and selves is
a prime condition of the human self's growth in knowledge, as in
goodness and in all the forms of harmonious experience. Without
"opposition," "contrast" or "negativity" to be lived through, there
is no reflective insight and no ethical volition. Now, the growth in
knowledge is simply the explication and the revelation of that com-
munity between the self and its world (of things and selves) which
is implicit from the very outset of mental life.

Object and subject of knowledge, then, are strictly co-relative.
The imperfection and indirection of our human knowledge result
from the finite and growing character of the individual members
of the world system, both as knowers and as known. On the other
hand, if there be a systematic, self-consistent whole of truth, the
mind for which this truth is true must have an insight that wholly

THE FINAL GROUND OF KNOWLEDGE 127

penetrates, while yet it consciously lives in, the contrast of subject-
knower and object-known. Its knowledge, it would seem, can
neither be impelled nor limited by anything that remains stub-
bornly outside the reach of its experience and immediate insight.

A supreme mind, of course, could not be a knower without an
object of knowledge. But, on the other hand, if such a mind be
the ground of truth in its self-consistent totality, that is, if it be
the source and basis of the unity and continuity of cognition in
finite centers of being, then the "objects" of its knowledge cannot
constitute external and stubbornly opaque limits to its world
insight. Every object, for a supreme self, must depend on the
consent of his will or somehow have its basis of existence in his
being. The finite self may possess its own unique experience and
be the proximate initiating center of its own deeds, but its being
and action must be impossible out of relation to the supreme mind
who sustains its life and experience as an element in the whole
system of reality. One could not conceive a supreme mind without
finite centers of experience. Their lives and activities must enter,
as elements, into the unity of its insight. Just as a finite self may
be said to have his experiences sympathetically reproduced by
other finite selves, so by analogy a supreme mind may be said to
apprehend intuitively and in perfect degree the mind of a finite
self without abolishing the latter's unique experience and life.
Mind can give to mind without losing, and take without robbing.
Truth may be shared in common by a multitude of minds and yet
refer to one indivisible object. So a finite self, here and now, will
have this bit of experience or this particular propositional truth as
a unique element in his mental history, but the final validity and
significance of this local and limited experience will depend upon
its relations in and to the whole of the absolute or "ideal" experi-
ence of the supreme mind. The latter may know our experiences
as elements in the systematic meaning of the universe, while our
experiences remain uniquely valid for us.

Of course, it is possible to assert that knowledge is but a
transient episode in an unconscious universe. But, if so, and if
the universe have any coherence, then no knowledge is true, since
there is no absolute whole of truth. If there be no organism of
truth, then the statement that knowledge is an episode in an un-
conscious universe is untrue, and there is no universe except for
one who is willing to make unmeaning assertions.

128 MAN AND THE COSMOS

The "experience" or knowledge possessed by the universal
mind or spirit must, as we have seen, be direct and intuitive, in
contrast with the hindered and piecemeal character of most of our
human knowledge. The Universal Mind must apprehend truth in
its systematic totality, and the absolute truth must be the whole
system of relations and terms which is intuitively perceived or
grasped in a single and continuous act by such a mind.

It would seem to follow that neither the truths of mathematics
nor of perception (the two poles of human knowledge) need exist
for such a mind precisely as they exist for our minds. Obviously
perceptive intelligence in such a mind must grasp every item of
perception in all its relations, and this our minds never do. The
universal mind must be an intuitive intelligence; our minds are
largely discursive in their operations. For example, the proposi-
tion that 2 -f- 2 = 4, or that the three interior angles of a triangle
are together equal to two right angles, need not represent acts of
thought for a perfect intuitive intelligence. Grasping space in its
final truth, in the totality of the real, such a mind does not need
to geometrize. I venture to suggest that the intuitive processes of
the highest genius in science, poetry, art, processes which tran-
scend discursive thinking, give us the best hints of the nature of a
supreme intuitive intelligence at once universal and individual.

While the universal mind is the necessary implicate of the
system of finite existences, sentient and insentient, and cannot be
thought out of relation to these, it cannot be an existent in the
same sense in which finite things exist. Its being must at once
transcend every form of existence and sustain the system of the
finite in its organized totality of meanings or of truth. The ulti-
mate presupposition of truth's reality or validity is a transcendent
mind or "ideal" experience, whose being is the pure actuality of
intuitive thinking or active reason, and whose expression is two-
fold— the validity of knowledge and the system of finite existents
concerning which knowledge is valid.

It is not difficult to see that truths of logical and mathematical
relationships may constitute one unchangeable system of truths,
the object of an absolute thinker's reason. But the case is very
different with the concrete and particular truths of fact in a
developing or evolving world. If the world be really in evolution
the succession of facts and deeds in the world process cannot be, as
such, one eternal and unchangeable system for any thinker. The

THE FINAL GROUND OF KNOWLEDGE 129

knowledge of events and deeds in the world's history must involve
a time sequence. The time process must be real. There may be
at any instant a single, continuous and comprehensive whole of
intuitive insight into the events and relations of the evolving world.
But such a knowledge cannot be eternally unchangeable. The his-
tories of selves and their world must make a difference in the
supreme intuitive experience. The so-called timeless or eternal
truths of logic and mathematics can represent only the structural
skeleton of the world order. On the other hand, if truth implies a
thinker or knower then the truths of fact and deed in the evolving
history of the world must, if the universe be a coherent and intel-
ligible universe, constitute elements in the universal knower's
experience. The latter must be a unitary intuition or systematic
whole of meaning. The world process, inclusive of the histories of
finite selves, must enter into this one concrete living and dynamic
intuition. The world experiencer must manifest his being and
know himself in the total process of temporal reality. All truth
won and error perpetrated by finite selves must be contributory to
his total insight. The world experient must be more than con-
sciousness and more than thought. It must be the self-active whole
of meaning or will-reason which lives and energizes through the
lives of developing selves in an evolving world. Its intuition of its
world of things and selves must depend upon its own originating
and sustaining activity manifested in the world.

BOOK II

THE GENERAL STRUCTURE OF REALITY-
THE CATEGORIES

CHAPTER IX

WHAT ARE CATEGORIES?

Category means a fundamental form of predication or asser-
tion. Every science and every principal form of man's reflective
activity has its guiding categories. For example, we speak of the
categories of physics, of biology, and of natural science in general ;
of the categories of historical or social thought ; of the categories of
literary and artistic interpretation; of the categories of moral,
social and religious thought and practice. Philosophy, regarded as
a criticism of the categories, is the enterprise of determining
what are the fundamental categories for the interpretation of
experience, and of organizing these fundamental categories into a
coherent system. Philosophy inquires whether there are certain
universals, or ultimate forms of predication, which apply to all
types of existence ; how these ultimate forms are related and what
positions and validity the special categories have in the whole
system of the categorial interpretation of experience. For ex-
ample, the categories of identity and diversity, quality and quan-
tity, particularity, individuality and universality, substantiality,
causality and community or reciprocity, are applicable to all sorts
of empirical things; we can apply them all to rocks, plants, ani-
mals, minds or planets. On the other hand the categories of end
and value are not obviously applicable to the interpretation of
physical things ; the applicability of the latter categories seems to
imply the presence of minds or at least of organisms. We shall
now consider the fundamental categories or primary universals.

The primary categories are nonempirical conditions of em-
pirical reality; nonempirical, not in the sense that they are not
found in experience, but in the sense that their meanings and
applications do not depend upon any specific set of empirical
qualities, since they are applicable to every sort of empirical
subject matter. (This, I take it, is what Kant meant when he said
the categories were transcendental conditions of experience. They

133

134 MAN AND THE COSMOS

transcend any experience, since they are presupposed in thinking
all experience.)

The categories are forms both of thought and of things. The
mind is awakened to the use of them by the impact of experience.
They are implicitly present in experience from its very beginning.
Through the reflective organization of experience, the mind finds
the categories in its world as the texture of relations which makes
an ordered or significant experience. Thus, the mind neither
invents the categories in a vacuum nor are they pitchforked into
the mind by the senses. The ordering of experience is one aspect
of a single process, of which the reflective organization of mind is
the other aspect. If there were not a dynamic correspondence, a
constant active intercourse of thought with the rest of reality, the
categories would be a priori cobwebs, fictions spun by the mind out
of its own inwards; and the world experienced would not be a
world but a chaos. In discussing the categories I shall therefore
proceed upon the assumption of an active and successful corre-
spondence of thought and reality. In other words my working
hypothesis is that the more experience is categorized, the fuller
the revelation of the nature of reality and of the correspondent
nature of mind. This hypothesis, of course, implies that uni-
versals are just as real as particulars, since categories are primary
universals. Indeed it implies that reality is a universe or cosmos,
an organic or systematic whole of particulars in relation.1

The most important systematic treatments of the categories in
modern thought are probably still those of Kant and Hegel. The
most thorough and instructive discussion of them in contemporary
literature is, so far as I know, that of Mr. S. Alexander in Space,
Time and Deity. For lack of space and time I shall make but
scant reference to Mr. Alexander's fine work. My own standpoint
is quite different from his, but I wish to say that no one can afford
to consider seriously this subject, which is the very heart of meta-
physics, without weighing carefully Mr. Alexander's treatment of
the categories.

Can we find a clew to the complete ordering of the categories ?
Kant was misguided when he found the clew in the table of the

1 This means, of course, a rejection of the Kantian doctrine of a noumenal
reality distinct from the realm of phenomenal existence and to which the
categories do not apply. In fact Kant failed to keep consistently to this
distinction.

WHAT ARE CATEGORIES? 135

judgment forms of formal logic. His table of the categories is both
redundant and incomplete. For example, categories of quality are
repeated in the categories of modality. Identity and diversity,
universality and particularity, receive no adequate treatment.
Moreover Kant's categories remain functionless and inert in a high
a 'priori vacuum until they are put to work in the schematism of
the imagination. Hegel tried to derive all the categories by the
immanent movement of the dialectic process, which process is for
him the moving spirit of mind and of reality, since reality, as a
whole, is the absolute, all-inclusive mind or individual. The
moving principle is negation or contradiction; thus non-being is
the negation, the complete opposite or contradictory, of being;
therefore empty being is the same as non-being. Being, the thesis,
and non-being, its antithesis, are synthesized in becoming. What
Hegel really meant was that all real being is determinate being.
Non-being is the bare negation of existence. To say that non-being
is the same as being in general is a perverse way of saying that
there is no being which is not some determinate kind of being.
Hegel confuses contrary opposites with counterparts or differents.
Identity and diversity, for instance, or wholeness and partness, or
particularity and universality, are not contradictories but counter-
parts. What Hegel's logic proves up to the hilt is, not that
negativity or contradiction is the moving spring or reality and
thought, but that every determinate being or existent implies an
other. As Plato puts it, being partakes of the "same" and the
"other." These communicate with one another. For example,
yellow is neither spherical nor juicy, but in an orange each of these
qualities, which is an other of the others, communicates with one
another. An orange is not an orange tree ; the tree is an other of
the other, that is, the orange, but the tree and the orange are inter-
dependent existents. Hegel has sufficiently demonstrated that
reality must be a systematic totality of related elements, and not
a chaos or mere aggregate. If the principle of negativity only
means that the nature of any finite existent, when thought out to
the end, implies that any existent exists only in relation to all other
existents, and that the whole of existence is a system of related
beings or elements, we may accept it. But negativity, in this
sense, is not contradiction, and we cannot by its aid derive all
categories from mere being. I shall attempt to show that the
primary categories are interrelated, or communicate with one

136 MAN AND THE COSMOS

another. I shall also try to show that, if we start with the simplest
category, that of quality, there is a development of categories in
pairs which are united in higher categories until we come to the
all-inclusive category, which for me is Order. We are to proceed
from the simplest and poorest, in the sense of the least meaningful
category to the most comprehensive category.

It has become fashionable to say that, whereas particulars
exist, universals subsist. If this distinction means that universals
have a pervasive and permanent sort of being in contrast with the
local and temporary being of the particulars which they relate,
it is useful. If it means that subsistence is some ghostly sort of
being apart from the concrete reality of experience, I can find
neither sense nor use in the distinction. The subsistence of uni-
versals means to me their substantial existence — that they are the
all pervading and ever permanent warp of reality to which
empirical particulars are the woof.

I shall consider, in the following eight chapters, the meanings
of the principal categories of philosophical thinking in their appli-
cations and their mutual relationships. I shall begin with the
simplest categories — those of quality.

CHAPTER X

LIKENESS AND UNLIKENESS, IDENTITY AND DIVEESITY

The qualities of experience, which are the raw material of our
knowledge of reality, the immediate stuff of reality, are given
through the senses. Colors, shapes, massiveness, temperatures,
tastes, smells, kinesthetic qualities, pleasantness and unpleasant-
ness— all these and other qualities are irreducible sensa data or
sense of reality. Other beings with sensory equipments other than
ours would have different data of reality. For example, a dog's
world is doubtless largely made up of smells.

For human beings, then, the immediate stuff of reality consists
only of the qualities sensed and felt. We cannot explain why we
have just these and no more sense qualities ; but the mind no sooner
begins to take note of them than it notes that there are degrees and
kinds of likeness and unlikeness. The various colors, for example,
are alike in that they are colors. So color is a kind. Colors and
sounds are so unlike that they are different kinds, although the
fact of colored audition, if it be a fact, suggests that possibly they
are not absolutely different kinds. However, for the normal mind
the various types of sensation do appear to be different kinds.
Color does not become sound or taste nor vice versa. On the other
hand, a light differs from another light, a sound from another
sound, an acrid taste from another acrid taste, in degree or in-
tensity; thus unlikeness of degree differs from unlikeness of kind.
For the comparison of sense qualities with respect to degrees and
kinds of likeness and unlikeness arise the categories of identity
and diversity, both qualitative and quantitative. From these arise,
in turn, the categories of unity and plurality, wholeness and part-
ness, continuity and discreteness, substance and individuality.

Likeness is partial identity of quality ; that is, generic identity.
A kind or class means more than one instance of a type of existent
which constitutes a kind, by virtue of either a single qualitative
similarity or a complex of similar qualities. Red or green are

137

138 MAN AND THE COSMOS

instances of simple kinds, dog or man of complex kinds. In brief
a simple likeness, such as a color, spatial form, odor or taste, is the
basis of a simple kind ; a complex likeness is made up of a com-
bination of simple likenesses, as for example — orange, apple or
dog. The ultimately simple kinds are based on the not-further
analyzable differences of quality. It is difficult to say what are
simple qualities ; for example, is red really a simple kind or are
all shades of red different simple kinds? When we say that a
thing is in a class by itself we mean that there is only one instance
of the kind, and strictly speaking we are dealing not with an
instance of a kind but with a unique individual.1

The distinction of degrees within the same qualitative or
generic likeness is the work of the category of intensive magnitude.
It has been denied by some that intensive magnitudes, such as
lights, sounds, or pleasures and pains, are commensurable. But
surely we can note and compare differences of intensity ! If one
light is brighter than another and the latter than a third, if one
pleasure is keener than another and the latter than a third, surely
we are measuring lights and pleasures in terms of a qualitatively
identical scale. And that is what we do when we measure lengths
and weights. It is assumed tacitly by those who admit commen-
surability in the latter cases, and deny it in the former, that in the
latter cases alone we have absolute fixity of scale ; but in neither
case do we have absolute fixity. Measures of length and mass vary
too; only they vary less than measures of light or pleasure-pain,
since the data of sight and touch are relatively more constant than
the data of light and affection.

The categories of number and of spatial relationships are
based on the recognition of existential identity and diversity.
Because there are empirically different qualities and complexes of
qualities which occupy distinct positions in space and time (dis-
tinct point-instants) we count, and because distinct particulars or
positions persist or endure together we relate them in space and
we enumerate them. Because qualitatively distinct positions suc-
ceed one another in time we order them ; through superposition we
measure spatial magnitudes; through direction or "sense," in its
mathematical meaning, the recognition of which involves time, we

1 Ultimately, only the whole system of the universe ean be a wholly unique
individual. Such is the absolute in the philosophy of Messrs. Bradley and
Bosanquet.

LIKENESS AND UNLIKENESS 139

recognize spatial relations. A numerical series is a temporal order
of direction regarded as enduring in space. All our most complex
and abstruse theorems in regard to number, magnitude and quan-
tity have their roots in the empirical facts of the occupation of
space in successive moments of time by particular qualities and
complexes of qualities. I have neither the time nor the capacity
to show in detail how this is so, but I may sum up the foregoing
matter as follows. Simple or complex likenesses of qualitative
particulars occupying distinct positions in space and time are the
basis of all generic relations or class universals. The empirical
differences of particulars are the basis of number and quantity.
The empirical relations of simultaneous and successive existents
are the basis of all relating through unity, plurality and totality.

The category of whole and part deserves some mention. The
empirical basis of wholeness is the continuity of our spatial posi-
tions in time ; in other words, the original of wholeness is a spatial
order that endures unchanged in a succession of temporal
moments. We derive partness from the fact that we recognize
distinct qualities and groups of qualities as permanently occupying
distinctive positions in succeeding moments of time. Of course
we distinguish between the wholeness of a spatial continuum and
the wholeness of an organism or mind, since the parts of the
organism and still more of the mind more intimately pervade the
whole than the point-instants of space and time pervade the whole
of space and time. Thus the problem arises as to whether an
organism, a person or a society of persons, are adequately con-
ceived in terms of whole and part. I do not think they are, but
this is a matter for discussion later. I am concerned now only to
insist that the original of the category of whole and part is to be
found in the experience of space-time as a continuum which in-
cludes sensory or qualitative distinctions and relations.2

The category of identity and its correlative diversity are used
in equivocal and misleading senses. We must distinguish between
generic and existential identity. If two particulars were abso-

2 My colleague, Dr. A. R. Chandler, comments as follows: "Taken intro-
spectively, music furnishes simultaneous wholes without spatiality; it fur-
nishes 'sense' as one tone above another in pitch, without temporal succession
or space arrangement. The spatiality comes in through the empathetic kin-
aesthetic sensations and images aroused." I am unable to separate, in my own
introspection, the kinesthetic factors from the pure music; but then I am a
' ' duffer ' ' in regard to music and he may very well be right. If so, there
is an empirical instance of whole-part relation without space or time elements.

140 MAN AND THE COSMOS

lutely identical in quality and duration they would not be two, as
Leibniz pointed out in his principle of the identity of indiscern-
ibles. Existential identity means the same as numerical identity,
and the miuimum meaning of numerical identity is existence in
at least one moment of time at some point in space. Thus, as Mr.
Alexander argues so effectively, reality in its poorest terms consists
at least of point instants or event particles ; that is, of events that
occupy positions in space. Moreover, in order that an existent
may be identified it must exist for at least two moments of time at
a point in space, or in two moments of time occupy two related
points in space. Every position in space occupies time and every
instant of time is located in space. Time and space, as we shall
see later on, are interdependent totalities. They are not class-
universals, in the generally accepted sense of the term, but wholes.
An existent is identical with itself only in so far as it is different
from other existents, and vice versa. As Plato put it, the same
and the other are in communication ; or, as Hegel argued ad
nauseam, the same is the other of the other. In short, all existents
are elements in the systematic totality of being. Reality is a whole
made up of parts in relation ; the parts are the particular existents ;
the relations are the universals by which the particulars have mem-
bership in the whole. Thus the consideration of identity and
diversity leads us into the consideration of particular, universal
and individual, unity and plurality, continuity and discreteness,
substance, causality and reciprocity, and finally into that of the
structure or order of the universe. Before we take up these con-
cepts it is desirable to clear up a confusion in regard to identity
and diversity which is found in the literature of so-called absolute
idealism.

In the writings of Messrs. Bradley, and other idealists I find
a subtle fallacy, which consists in arguing from the interrelated-
ness of all existents to their existential identity. All existents are
determinate and all determination involves relation, but it does not
follow that the relatedness of all existents makes them parts of one
being that is both numerically and qualitatively self-identical.
Suppose we assume that there are an indefinite number of empir-
ically distinct point-instants, that all these are empirically distinct
centers of quality; suppose we assume further that some of these
centers have the qualities of vitality and sentience. Let us grant
further that all our assumed centers are in interaction and inter-

LIKENESS AND UNLIKENESS 141

passion ; in other words that they are interdependent parts of one
whole — the universe. Let us assume further that the highest con-
ception we can frame of a whole is that of a mind or experience,
does it follow that the universe must be one mind or experience ?
Is it not illegitimate to argue from the systematic character of
reality as a whole to the conclusion that reality as a whole is both
generically and numerically one self-identical individual ? I shall
argue later on for the doctrine that the various orders in reality
constitute a hierarchy which probably has its ground in a supreme
principle of order. This position does not imply that all existence
is both qualitatively and numerically one.

The problem of identity and diversity has thus carried us into
the very heart of metaphysics, which is the question of the right
relation of the one and the many — of the universe and its mem-
bers. In recent philosophy this question has taken the form — are
relations and relata independent of one another ? Before I discuss
this question, it is desirable to consider the relations of quantity
and quality.

CHAPTER XI

QUANTITY AND QUALITY

Since our purpose here is to consider the metaphysical relations
of quantity and quality, it is not necessary to enter, at any length,
into the problems of logistic or mathematical philosophy.1

Number and spatial magnitude are the two fundamental forms
of quantity. They originated in man's practical desire to count
his possessions, to measure land, and to weigh things. Number
and magnitude seem, at first blush, to be as different as time and
space. Indeed, the very notion of number involves the recognition
of a temporal series ; counting is stringing together, in the con-
sciousness of an orderly series, discrete moments. The notion of
magnitude involves the simultaneous existence and persistence of
extended parts; a bulk or mass consists of co-existing positions
which resist occupation by anything else. But, we shall see later,
space and time are interdependent aspects of the perceptual world.
The measurement of magnitude involves number, and the enumer-
ation of things involves spatial reference. Indeed, while arithme-
tic and geometry at first may have developed more or less apart
from one another, the progress of higher mathematics has been in
the arithmetizing of geometry. Pythagoras appears to have begun
this work, and, in the course of it, to have discovered the incom-
mensurability, in terms of natural numbers, of the side and the
diagonal of a square. This difficulty led to the invention of irra-
tional numbers. Coordinate geometry and the calculus were two
great steps in the arithmetizing of spatial magnitude and motion
— that is, in the expression of continuous wholes in terms of dis-
crete magnitudes.

Kant said that number arose from the consciousness of the

1 On the latter subject, see : B. Eussell, Introduction to Mathematical Phi-
losophy ; A. N. Whitehead, Introduction to Mathematics; Whitehead and
Eussell, Principles of Mathematics ; L. Couturat, The Algebra of Logic; P.
Natorp, Die Logischen Grundlagen der Exakten Wissenschaften ; H. Poincare,
Science et Methode.

142

QUANTITY AND QUALITY 143

repetition of acts of attention; in other words from counting
things. This idea has been criticized, on the ground that it is
circular, and that number can be considered apart from the act of
enumeration.2 Number is defined by Russell, following Frege, as
follows: "A number is anything which is the number of some
class" ; and, "The number of a class is the class of all classes which
are similar to it"; "similarity consists of one-one correspondence
between the classes"; thus all couples, trios, etc., are in one-one
relation. Number thus is defined in terms of classes and one-one
correspondence. I do not question the value of this definition, but
it presupposes number and implies enumeration and is circular.
For "class" implies individual members or particulars which have
the similarity of being grouped together as sharing in a common
relation. Every definition of number is circular, and we really
define it by pointing to it.

Number is essentially, in origin, a discrete order, or one-in-
many. It involves the consciousness of a succession of acts of
attention. Unity is an abstraction from the recognition of identity
in things and in the self for which things are identical ; plurality
or manyness is an abstraction from the consciousness of a com-
munity of relation among distinct identities, by virtue of which
they can be grouped together into classes. At first one thing was
something which responded in some fashion to a single interest;
things which responded to several interests were several ; several
things which responded to a common interest were one-in-many,
were, in short, a number-group. Thus the notion of number arose
from the recognition of identity and commiuiity or class-relation.
A group is an assemblage of objects bound together by a common
interest for the grouper; whether it be a group of rational, ir-
rational or transfinite numbers, or a group of dogs or sheep, or
a group of things whose only common feature is that they are
owned by the grouper. Thus cardinal number is derived from
ordinal number, and the latter is the abstract or symbolical ex-
pression of the consciousness of the orderly series of thought in
repeating and summating units or identical entities. Enumera-
tion is the conscious synthesis of the series of acts involved in
adding and subtracting units. All operations with numbers imply

*See, B. Kussell, Our Knowledge of the External World, pp. 187-189; and
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, chap. 2; J. W. Young, Fundamental
Concepts of Algebra and Geometry, p. 64 ff.

144 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the judgments: there are particulars or units and there are
identical relations between these. In dealing with pure number
and quantity we abstract almost entirely from the qualitative
heterogeneities of the objects of thought ; I say "almost entirely,"
since there would be no meaning in enumeration, or any other
operation with number, if we did not recognize the distinctness
or particularity of each symbol and its corresponding act of atten-
tion. Just as in determining how many sheep one owns one can
ignore their respective sizes, colors and sexes, whereas for purposes
of breeding or marketing one cannot ignore those differences, so
in purely arithmetical and algebraic operations, one considers
each symbol only as the sign of an act of thought. What cannot
be ignored, if number and numerical operations are to mean any-
thing definite, is that a number is a discrete moment in an order
series. Thus a number series is the most abstract symbolical ex-
pression of a temporal order, just as measurements of spatial mag-
nitude are the most abstract expressions of spatial order. Of
course the symbols which represent the number series can be seen
or thought as existing simultaneously or in space. Whether we
can count without imagining movement in space (M. Bergson says
that we cannot, and Mr. Russell that we can), at any rate we can
apply number to space, and we do measure in time.

The invention of symbols for whole numbers, fractions, nega-
tive, irrational and complex numbers, has made possible notable
advances in number theory, and in the applications of mathematics
to practical problems. Number is objective as an expression of
the objective constitution of thought. The most complex number
series, assemblages and groups, the whole development of modern
number theory, is a beautiful example of the fact that thought
has a determinate constitution. Starting out from specific defi-
nitions and assumptions it finds definite logical consequences to
follow from its starting points. Thus pure mathematics becomes
identical with symbolical or purely formal logic. Its entire su-
perstructure is built on the consequences that follow from the na-
ture of its symbols and assumptions. The universal nature of
thought, to which we must conform if we wish to think logically,
is revealed in pure mathematics which is the play of pure thought
conducted according to the rules of the game.3

1 But when we are told that there are transfinite numbers, or infinite
number in which a part is equal to the whole, or in which the addition or

QUANTITY AND QUALITY 145

A number series that was an absolute continuum would be
as senseless as a sand-rope series ; for the essence of every number
series is that it is a discrete series. In this, the simplest and most
fundamental form of human thinking, is expressed the basic prob-
lem that lies at the heart of all human thinking and intelligent
action — the problem of the relation between the discrete or par-
ticular and the continuous or total. If we ask what is the rela-
tion between identity and diversity, the many and the one, the
particular and the universal, the individual and the social order,
personality and the universe, the changing and the permanent;
we are posing special aspects and phases of the one fundamental
question — how to reconcile discreteness and continuity, individ-
uality and order, in theory, practice, or contemplative vision.
Pythagoras was not so far astray when he said that numbers are
the essences of things. The final question of all philosophical
theory is the meaning of order; the bottom problem of the prac-
tical life of the human person is the true nature of social order;

subtraction of a number makes no difference to the size of the number,
that is to the number of units contained in it we are asked to abandon the
notion of number in its usual meaning. If mathematics be not the science
of number and quantity, then it is high time that some other name were found
for the latter science. Inasmuch as, historically and by general social usage,
mathematics is the science of number and quantity, it seems to me that it
would be much less confusing and misleading to call the new science logistic
or symbolic logic. I am unable to understand a number that is a part of
another number and yet is equal in number to that number of which it is a part.
With all due admiration for the profoundly and ingenuity of Messrs.
Cantor, Dedekind, Russell, et al., it seems to me that their transfinites, in-
finites contained within infinites without number, but in which the containers
and contained are equal because they are in one-one correspondence, their
continuities which are not continuous since number is essentially discrete, have
contributed to obfuscation of thought concerning mathematics and number
and quantity. Numbers have functioned in the history of culture as, discrete
symbolic expressions for discrete series of acts of thought, by which things
of all sorts can be enumerated or added and substracted, by which men can
carry on barter and can better operate on the physical conditions of life;
and which, beyond these practical uses, afford the human mind opportunity
for the development of precise and rigorous habits of thinking. The con-
fusion between the older science of number and quantity and the new theorieB
of the infinite and of a mathematics which dispenses with enumeration and
quantity, and thus becomes a purely abstract and formal logic of terms,
propositions and relations, lends color to Mr. Russell's definition— "Mathe-
matics is the science in which we never know what we are talking about, nor
whether what we say is true" (Mysticism and Logic, p. 75). Mr. Russell identi-
fies mathematics with formal logic. It deals entirely with hypothetical propo-
sitions and sheds no light on the nature of the actual world. "Geometry
throws no light on the nature of space," and, I am tempted to add, the
new infinite throws no light on the nature of number. (See Appendix to
Chap. 35, "On the Infinite.")

146 MAN AND THE COSMOS

in both fields the concept of order is the solution of the question
as to the right relation between the discrete and the continuous,
the individual and the universe; the practical question is insolu-
ble, if the philosophical foundations be ignored. (The chief
trouble with civilization to-day is that neither those who are try-
ing to alter it radically, nor those who wish to return to a "state
of normalcy," have any thought-out philosophy. Until rulers
become philosophers, righteousness will not prevail.)

Quantity is a relation. It depends upon quality, which is
the stuff of reality. Number implies that there are particular
identities, self-identical things, so that each is a unit or contains
the unit. Any number is defined by its place in a number system.
Thus numbers are symbols of sets of logical relations. Spatial
magnitude is the relation of a given spatial configuration or bit
of space to conventionally established units of length, area, volume.
The same holds true of weight and mass. In every case a quantity
is the relation of given simple qualities such as extensity, move-
ment and mass, in a conventionalized system of relations. Every
actual quantity is relative to a system and every system is a con-
vention. All quantitative relations are based on comparisons of
quality; for example, the measurement of lengths and areas pre-
supposes sameness of extensive quality; and empirical extensity
is a simple quality, like color or sound. More and less, in degrees
of intensive magnitude, are simple cases of comparison of differ-
ences in the same quality. Thus two extensive magnitudes are
greater and less, respectively, because they are differences in the
same quality; extensities differ in intensive magnitude, and vice
versa. Spread a color or a sound over a larger area and it be-
comes thinner or weaker in intensity; condense it and it becomes
more intense. Extensity and intensity, the spatial and temporal
factors of experience, are inseparable. But quantity is a relation
of quality. Therefore, only in so far as there is homogeneity of
quality between them can things be measured in the strict sense.
Colors cannot be measured in terms of sound, nor pleasures in
terms of spatial extensity. We may say, figuratively, that one
pleasure is more voluminous than another, but we cannot compare
them in terms of cubic centimeters. Intelligences can be meas-
ured in terms of other intelligences, but not in terms of physical
extent or weight. In so far as spatial extensity is homogeneous
we can compare and measure its parts, by putting one alongside,

QUANTITY AND QUALITY 147

upon, or inside another. This can be done because extensity is
persistent. But we cannot, in the same manner, measure qualities
which are essentially temporal; such as pleasures or psychical
values. In so far as experiential or lived time is heterogeneous
we cannot compare exactly its successive moments. We measure
lived time only by distorting it into rhythmical space-movements ;
thus reducing the heterogeneity of experienced change to the
homogeneity of repeated identical movements in space. Meas-
urement of the living succession of experiences assumes that all
change or duration is a succession of generically identical mo-
ments, which is not true. If the successive moments of experi-
enced duration or change were really identical in character, there
would be no recognition of change. To M. Bergson belongs the
merit of having brought this truth out clearly, in the first two
chapters of Time and Free Will, although it has been known since
Leibniz.

All precise measurement presupposes that the parts of space
measured differ only in relative positions and extents; and
ignores the question whether differences of position and extent
can coexist without further qualitative differences. Empirically
there are no pure positions, areas, lengths and volumes. From
the point of view of concrete experience all measurements must
be regarded as useful fictions; the fundamental positions and
volumes are qualitatively diverse and ever changing. Reality
consists of groupings of unique qualitative positions or event-
particles, and quantitative comparisons are skeletal schemes of
their relations. I do not mean that the relations are unreal, but
that the empirical complexes of qualities are substantive whereas
the relations are transitive. I employ the word "transitive" here
in the sense in which James uses it ; namely, the substantive ele-
ments in experience consist of the resting places of thought,
the relata or transitive elements, consist of the transitions. In
the terminology of the newer logic only those relations are transi-
tive by which one can pass from one term to another through the
mediation of a third ; for example, if A implies B and B implies
C in the same system of relations then the relation is transitive
since A implies C. There is danger of confusion in the use of the
phrase "transitive relation." James uses it as a term of psycho-
logical description for the passage of the mind ; the new logic uses
it as the basis of true inference in place of the Dictum de omni

148 MAN AND THE COSMOS

et nullo. Obviously the latter usage involves the problem of the
metaphysical status of relations, which I consider in Chapters XII
and XIV.

While the extensity-faetor of experiences is the only one that
can be directly measured, since only extensity can be accurately
matched with extensity, the other qualities of experience can be
measured indirectly, by comparison. Even pleasures and pains
and other emotional processes can be compared with respect to
their intensities and durations. Thus, while the intensity of
psychical processes are not measurable in terms of spatial units,
and while as numerical units no two of them need be exactly alike
and therefore they furnish no units of measurement within their
own kind, they are comparable and, thus far, measurable. There
are changes in the qualitative characters of psychical processes
which are in one-one correspondence with quantitative changes
in the stimuli; colors and sounds change in quality with changes
in the rate and amplitude of the motion of their physical occa-
sions ; so do tastes and smells ; pleasures and pains vary with the
intensity factors of the stimuli. The Weber-Fechner law of the
relation between intensity of stimulation and of sense-experience
is an attempt to generalize these facts. Its interpretation is dis-
puted and we need not discuss the point here, beyond saying that
its meaning is probably chiefly physiological, although attention
lowers the threshold of consciousness for sensations. Our very
feeling of personal identity, our central mass of systemic feeling
or coenaesthesis, is changed by the alteration of the fundamental
rhythms of our bodily life, such as the rate of the heartbeat,
breathing, etc. Since the empirical qualities of both our per-
ceptual world and our felt selfhood change with changes in the
velocities of physical stimuli, why not go farther, as a material-
istic metaphysic does, and say that all the qualitative diversities
of the empirical world are nothing but differences in the spatial
configurations and velocities of the motions of mass particles ? To
do this is to reduce the empirical world to variations in the
spatial relations of elements possessing no other qualitative dis-
tinctions than, let us say, differences in electric sign and mass.
This is the ideal of quantitative science, expressed in Lord Kel-
vin's saying: "What we can measure, we can know." On which
I would comment that, from the point of view of totality, meas-
urement gives only the bare bones of reality. The most significant

QUANTITY AND QUALITY 149

and worthful qualities of experience we cannot measure directly,
but we do know them. All differences of quality are not reduci-
ble to differences of extensive and vector quantity. The world
of living experience has many unique and absolute differences of
quality and hence of value — of pleasure, pain, happiness, sorrow,
beauty, grandeur, terror, love, joy.

Experience is the primary reality, and in it we cannot pass
from one order of quality to another without taking account both
of the qualitative complexity of the experient, which is for us
an ultimate or primary fact, as well as of qualitative differences
in the stimuli. Nature apart from the percipient is not of one
quality, or even a few. The percipient is a specific and complex
reactor. Even in the same order, for example, in colors, sounds
or tastes, each discriminable experience is qualitatively unique.
We cannot always say how much of this uniqueness is to be at-
tributed to the percipient and how much to differences in the
stimulating media. And, certainly, in the inner or feeling life
of the percipient each experience is unique ; here, as everywhere,
only differents are comparable. Similarities, comparisons in
degree and kind, are relative and vary, according to the stand-
point and purpose of the comparer.

To reduce all differences of quality to differences of quantity
would be to eliminate all substantive elements from experience,
and, with them, the experient himself. But the human self, the
living experient, is a creative organism, which educes from the
microscopic mechanisms of the physical world, as conceived by
the scientist, all the rich and multiform and tingling variety —
shapes, colors, sounds, tastes, odors, beauties, grandeurs, friend-
linesses and terrors — which it perceives in nature. Walter Pater
says, "Color is a spirit upon things by which they become expres-
sive to the spirit." 4 Every quality that man perceives in nature
is a spirit upon things by which they become expressive to his
spirit. And a nature that is thus expressive to the spirit, and
which we may well believe has many more capacities of expres-
sion to the spirit attuned thereto (as, indeed, we know, in the
case of poet, artist and nature-lover) is not a skeleton or frame-
work of quantitative relations which the spirit of man drapes

* ' ' Essays on the Renaissance, ' ' p. 63, quoted by Mr. Bosanquet, Principle
of Individuality and Value, p. 63.

150 MAN AND THE COSMOS

with hallucinatory garments and endows with an illusory life.
The wealth of empirical qualities which the spirit of man educes
from a nature responsive to his nature must be expressive of a
qualitative wealth and variety of activity and life in a universe
that is richer, not poorer, than nature as man perceives and
images it. Quantity is relation — a relation of order and mag-
nitude among realities that are revealed as energy and life in the
substantive qualities of experience.

CHAPTER XII

KELATIONS

The problem of relations has been a storm center in recent
philosophy. The problem is this : What is the most intelligible or
consistent conception of the relations between things or individua ?
In the language of James, relations are commonly regarded as
the transitive parts of experience and things or existents as the
substantive parts of experience. This is because the recognition
of a relation involves a mental transition from one thing to an-
other. In this mental transition we may misconceive the real
relations between things; but, inasmuch as every judgment in-
volves a twofold relation, namely, the relation of things judged to
be in relation to one another and the relation of the judging mind
to the whole matter of the judgment, there can be truth only in
so far as the second relation is the apprehension of the first
relation. It follows that relations must be just as real as the
things which they relate. Indeed, when we consider relations in
themselves or in abstracto, as universals, they seem much more
permanent than things. Things may come and things may go
but relations go on forever. Aboveness, belowness, greaterness,
equality, beforeness, afterness, causality, wholeness, partness,
paternity, ownership, lovingness, etc. — such universals are rela-
tions which appear to have an eternally subsistent being apart
from the muddy and transitory stuff of empirical existents be-
tween which they hold. In view of the difficulties involved in
forming an intelligible conception of the world as a system or
totality of existents in relation, the easiest solution might appear
to be the doctrine that things or existents and relations are wholly
external to one another — that relations "subsist" eternally, like the
Platonic Ideas in the common version, and that particular
existents come and go, enter into and pass out of relations, without
their natures being changed. Such is the doctrine of logical
pluralism or logical atomism.

151

152 MAN AND THE COSMOS

I shall maintain the doctrine that relations have only a mental
existence apart from things, and that in reality things exist only
in relation and relations are real only between things. In other
words, reality is a systematic whole of existents in multitudinous
relations. A thing is neither the mere sum of its relations nor
something indifferent to its relations. There are relations which
are irrelevant, or extrinsic, as Mr. S. Alexander puts it, to the
nature of the existents, so far as we can see. For example, it is
irrelevant to my nature, so far as I know, just how many particles
of dust there are in the atmosphere of Sirius, if Sirius have an
atmosphere. On the other hand, my family, community, cultural,
and professional relations are very relevant to my nature. In
other such relations, I would be other than I am, and if I were
other than I am, I would be in other such relations. No existent
could exist out of the relations in which it exists and continue
to be itself. All things are related in some way, but not every-
thing equally to everything else. Some relations between existents
are negligible, when we are considering the natures of the exist-
ents, and there are many degrees of relevancy in relations. It
is not very relevant to the nature of my pipe whether it is now
on my desk or in my pocket, but it is relevant to its nature
whether it is often alight and filled with tobacco and in my mouth.
The world contains an indefinite plurality of existents in an in-
definite multitude of relations of varying degrees of intimacy.
There are static relations in space, dynamic relations in space and
time, relations of value between sentient beings and their physical
and social environments, affectional and moral relations between
selves in society, etc. All relevant relations are dynamic, that
is, they involve transactions between the things related. All things
have at least spatial and temporal relations. Such relations may
or may not be relevant to the nature of the things — for instance
I do not know whether the fact that the flavor of champagne and
the square root of minus one are both constituents of this spatial
and temporal world means that they have any relevant relation-
ship, but I do know that there is a relevant relationship between
the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States
and the flavor of champagne — to wit, the flavor of champagne is
vanishing with the champagne.

There are two alternatives to the doctrine that the real world
consists of dynamic things in dynamic relations. These are: (1)

RELATIONS 153

the singularistic or monistic doctrine that all relations are more or
less illusory appearances and that reality consists of one super-
relational being, the absolute; and (2) the pluralistic doctrine that
reality is not a system or cosmos at all, but that it consists of a
collection of various things and various relations that have being
independent of one another ; in short, is a multitude of Leibnizian
monads without the preestablished harmony.

Thus, the problem of relations brings to a head the funda-
mental issue that lives at the roots of all metaphysical questions,
that is basic to the problem of the place of personality in the world
order — in what sense is the world of reality one or a universe?
Is our so-called universe merely an aggregate or collection of
various entities, as the extreme pluralist holds ? Is it ultimately
one being inclusive of everything real, as the extreme singularist
holds ? Or is it a system or order of elements in relation ; and, if
so, in what sort or sorts of ultimate relation? Using the term
"entity" for whatsoever may be a constituent of reality, and the
term "relation" for all sorts of connections between entities, I
shall now discuss this problem.

Modern metaphysical idealism or spiritualism, since Fichte
and Hegel, has for the most part been singularistic or numerically
monistic. Indeed singularistic or monistic idealism goes back to
Spinoza, the first great singularist of modern philosophy. Sin-
gularistic idealism or spiritualism argues that, since everything
finite is, both with respect to its being known and its existence,
related to, and therefore dependent upon, an other-than-itself ;
therefore all finite entities can exist only as members of a single
all-including whole — the many can exist as many only in the one,
the differents or others can be a system only if they are constituents
of the unity. Therefore the only alternative to chaos, the only way
in which we can get a cosmos, is to suppose that the whole system
of real entities is, ultimately regarded, one perfect all-inclusive
being. And the only adequate sample or type of such being is to
be found in a mind, self or personality; or, at least (as Bradley
puts it) a perfect experience. Singularistic idealists are not
agreed as to whether the absolute one can be considered a self-
conscious self or personality. They are agreed that it is of the
nature of mind ; since in Mind is to be found the only true type of
unity-expressing-and-realizing-itself-in-a-system-of-differences, and
maintaining its oneness in the whole related system of mutually

154 MAN AND THE COSMOS

complementary and conditioning finite others.1 I need not ex-
pound this argument further, since I shall recur to it later, in
discussing the nature of consciousness.

The pluralist denies the validity of this argumentation. The
neorealistic pluralist, in particular, calls in question the validity
of the argument from the ubiquity of the knowledge relation (the
egocentric predicament) ; namely, that, since everything known
is in relation to a knower, therefore to say anything about anything
or about everything we must admit that its being is dependent on
a knower or mind. If this argument be invalid, then entities may
be in all sorts of relation without their totalness being dependent
on a mind. If knowing need make no difference to the existence
of the entities known, then the latter may constitute some sort of
universe or system without the system being mind-constituted or
dependent. The relations between things are just as much natural
facts as the empirical qualities of the things. No one type of
relation can be regarded as ultimately constitutive of the char-
acter of the cosmos.

It follows that no one type of finite existence can be regarded
as furnishing an adequate example for interpreting the nature of
the cosmos. In fact, the cosmos cannot have a homogeneous
nature; it must be a plurality of existents with a plurality of
qualities ; it cannot be either one self or experience, or a society of
selves. The neo-realistic pluralisms contentions, if accepted,
negative both singularistic or monistic and personalistic or plural-
istic spiritualism.2 The doctrines of Hegel, Leibniz and Berkeley
are equally untenable. Reality must consist of many kinds of
entity in many kinds of relationship.

The central and critical tenet of extreme pluralism is that
entities and relations are independently real — have being external
to one another. For, once we grant that entities can stand in no
relations without thereby suffering modification, we have com-
mitted ourselves either to a chaotic doctrine of reality or to a line
of reasoning that will land us in some form of singularistic ideal-
ism if we go through to the end. Neither materialism nor dualism

1 Such is the general line of argumentation in Fichte, Hegel, Green,
Bradley, E. Caird, Bosanquet and Boyce. A neat condensation thereof will
be found in M. W. Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, 3d Edi-
tion, pp. 417-456, cf. also Taylor's Elements of Metaphysics, Chap. 2.

2 For reasons which I will state presently, I regard singularistic or mon-
istic personal idealism as a contradictio in adjecto.

RELATIONS 155

can afford us a coherent conception of how the many can be many
entities and yet be elements in one organic or hyperorganic system
— materialism cannot, since it must oscillate between a chaotic
atomism and a continuism in which all differences of quality and
individuality are wiped out; dualism cannot, since, by its very
terms, the universe is cut in two with a hatchet.

The pluralist contends that, fundamentally, there are two kinds
of being, differing with respect to their logical and epistemological
status — concrete entities or particulars, which exist; and univer-
sals or generals, which subsist or are valid. All relations, taken as
such, are universals. Thus, for example, likeness, equality, great-
erness, lessness, wholeness, partness, Tightness, leftness, have sub-
sistent being apart from the concrete existents that are like, equal,
greater, less, whole, part, right, left, in relation to other entities.
The concrete existents may, as known or experienced, enter into
such relations as the above are examples of, and thus be qualified
by the subsistent universals in question; and may in turn make
their exit from the relations, without having their natures modi-
fied thereby. The existents retain, through all the changes and
chances of their mortal lives as known, their existent being;, and
the universals retain their subsistent being, no matter what they
qualify. They suffer no sea change "into something rich and
strange," by becoming or ceasing to be objects of experience.3
Since, then, experience or knowing makes no difference to the
natures of many of its objects, the ground is cut from under all
philosophies that would build up a theory of reality by an analysis
and re-synthesis of the nature of experience, as belonging to an
experient, at the very start. The objective idealist is knocked
clean off his pins. He is left without even one leg to stand on.
(Xeorealistic pluralism harks back to Plato, for its august
parentage. Whether its claim is legitimate I cannot here discuss.)

It is self-evident to me that relations or universals can have no
subsistent (or any other sort of) being, in abstraction or separation
from concrete reality, except as thoughts in some mind. Apart
from concrete physical reality, on the one hand, and minds, on
the other hand, they have not even ghostly subsistence; for there
is nothing for them to subsist on or in. Universals exist in reality

* Professor Spaulding explains how this proposition or thesis is established
by analysis in situ. I have neither the temerity nor the space to state his
explanation. I refer the reader to his The New Rationalism, passim.

156 MAN AND THE COSMOS

only as the texture of connections among concrete entities. They
are simply the ways in which existents resemble and differ, quali-
tatively and quantitatively, act on and suffer from one another.

It is equally self-evident to me that no concrete existent can
exist absolutely out of relation to, and independent of, all others ;
except the whole universe of reality which, by definition or con-
ception being the totality of being, is the self-existent totality of
existents-in-relation, to which all existents-in-relation, and, there-
fore, all entities and relations are internal.

But is it, therefore, necessary to conclude that there must be
one ground or medium of all relations between finite entities ? Is
it not sufficient to suppose that the systematic, coherent or orderly
character of the cosmos (in so far as there is a cosmos, since we do
not know how much cosmos or order there may ultimately be) is
due simply to the fact that the many existents which make up the
universe are in all sorts of relations to one another ? Do we need
any more unity than that of changing, growing and, perhaps in
spots, decaying, immediate rapports between elemental existents ?
Why hypostatize unity? There are all sorts and degrees of
relationship discovered and discoverable in the factual world.
Why not follow the law of parsimony and rest satisfied with these,
thus admitting that our so-called universe is partially a multiverse,
that it is a whole, not in itself, but only for a finite totalizing mind,
a collection only for the collector and not in itself — one subject of
discourse but not one-being-in-itself .

This much seems to me certain — the progress of the mind in
successful knowing and practical activity refute the doctrine that
things and relations are mutually external to, or independent, of,
one another. Cognition and action are transactions of the self, as
a member of a system or cosmos, with other members of the system.
So much stands fast, whatever be the most plausible interpretation
of the nature and meaning of the whole system ; whether it be life,
mind or a system of mass-particles. Relations express and realize
the natures of things, and the natures of things do not exist out of
relations. There is a multiplicity of orders of relation between
things, and there may be a plurality of qualitatively distinct types
of existence, but no thing has any real existence apart from its
relations, and no relations really exist otherwise than as transac-
tions between things. The nature of a thing cannot be conceived
apart from its position and connections in a group, a class, or a

RELATIONS 157

series. The advocate of wholly external relations puts the problem
wrongly when he assumes, if relations are relevant or intrinsic,
that means that the relations somehow or other enter into and bur-
glarize the things, wholly upsetting their internal economy; and
pass out after another disturbance. But there are no locked and
barred things — no windowless monads, to begin with. All exist-
ents are individua, unitary complexes of qualities which exist only
in so far as they function in the totality of the real. The actual
universe is a manifold of individua.

If one begin with the assumption that reality consists of
entities or terms and qualities and relations, with no more con-
nection than a verbal conjunction in the mind of the philosopher,
it will, of course, require a tour de force to get these disconnected
bits of a possible world into some sort of coherent universe. The
only alternative conclusions from such a starting point are, either
that the real world is but an aggregate or chaotic heap of discon-
nected entities (chaotic pluralism), or that relations are unreal and
reality is super-relational (abstract monism). But the initial
assumption begs the whole question as to the nature of reality.
Reality does not consist of absolutely isolated fragments. Em-
pirical reality is always some sort of a whole, consisting of specific
qualities in determinate relations. Epistemologically, things are
undoubtedly constructions out of the raw qualities of sense-experi-
ence; but the latter lends itself to this construction because, onto-
logically, it is a systematic complex of determinate qualities in
specific relations. In empirical reality there is no sound or color
in general, no redness or smoothness in general ; only determinate
colors, sounds, and tactile qualities. There is no equality or in-
equality, no greater or less ; only specific sense-complexes that may
be regarded as equal, unequal, greater and less. The relations
which the mind finds between sense-data are indeed abstractions;
but these abstractions would be meaningless, were not the actual
world a complex of systematically connected sensory data.

While, from our special and limited points of view, there are
relations which seem wholly external, in reality there can be no
absolutely external relations between things. Our intellectual con-
structions approximate in varying degree to the systematic totality
of the real. Our thinking does indeed falsify reality, by ignoring
many of the relations of entities and by misconceiving others.
But thinking would have no motive even for misconstruing rela-

158 MAN AND THE COSMOS

tions, if the world were not a real complex of related things. It
is because of the limitations of our ignorances or our special
interests that many relations seem external. On the other hand,
the supposition that ultimate reality is a super-relational absolute,
and that all our relating activities falsify it, destroys the possibility
of understanding or acting in a world. If there are no real rela-
tions in the ultimate universe it must be an utterly unintelligible
and static one ; incapable of analysis, and to the parts of which no
predicates can be validly attributed.

If there be a universe, then all elements of it are in some rela-
tions to some other elements, but not necessarily all to all. The
universe as a whole is in no relation, since, by hypothesis, it
includes all relations; but this does not preclude a mind, as a
conscious focus of relationships, from truly apprehending its own
relations to other parts of the universe and the relations of other
parts of the universe which it contemplates to one another. The
Spencerian argument that, because thinking is relationing, we
cannot partially know the absolute, is a fallacy. A more serious
argument against the reality of relations is that of which Mr.
Bradley's dialectic is the best known modern instance.

Mr. Bradley argues that we cannot consistently think things
and their qualities — space, time, causality, activity, the self, etc.,
through to the end, because we always become lost in the indef-
inite regress of terms and relations. According to this type of
argument my relation of paternity to my son is inconsistent
appearance, because, in order to render it intelligible, we must
find a relation which relates me to paternity and paternity to my
son, other relations which relate these relations to me and him,
and so on forever. Thus the more persistently I try to think out
the relationship the farther my son and I drift apart. Mr. Brad-
ley's argument is effective against any theory which would set up
things, qualities, causality, space, time, etc., as entities existing by
themselves. He demolishes the pluralistic world of tiny absolutes.
But his conclusion that all determinate existents, including all
specific truths and all qualities of finite beings, must be merged
and transmuted in a super-relational absolute does not follow.
There are mediating or intermediary relationships but, in the last
analysis, all mediating relationships are grounded on immediate
relationships. My relation to my son is a two term and asym-
metrical immediate relationship. To say that A is the grandfather

RELATIONS 159

of C is to state an intermediary relationship which is grounded on
the immediate relations, A is the father of B and B is the father
of C. But there can be no immediate relations unless the terms
related are distinct existents. It is true that we can never com-
plete the apprehension of the relations in which a finite existent
exists. There are two reasons for our inability — first, the enor-
mous complexity and extent of relations; second, since relations
are transactions and all existents are elements in a dynamic uni-
verse, relations change and existents change with them. It does
not follow that our partial knowledge of relations is false because
it is partial, because we do not know all the relationships of the
relata that we do know in the whole system of reality ; for example,
the proposition "my writing paper is now on this desk" is now
absolutely true to me; and for even a cosmic knower it must be
true that this proposition is true for me ; otherwise, he is thus far
a poorer knower than I am. My true apprehension of the rela-
tions of entities are valid for me and as far as they go, because my
position in the whole scheme of things is what it is. The relativity
of my knowing, as compared with cosmic knowledge, does not
invalidate mine since the latter is the apprehension, by a finite
member, and in part, of his own place and relations in the whole.

It remains to add that what we regard as relevant relations,
relations that are significant for the natures and destinies of the
things related, depend on our individual interests, purposes and
situations. Relations that are significant for one individual or
purpose may be insignificant for another. The world is wide and
rich in the natures and relations and points of view of its elements.
But in the long run every apprehended relation that is true and
that works must be grounded in the objective texture of reality.
We search for relations pragmatically and we work them prag-
matically, subject to the structural or textural order of reality.

We may sum up the foregoing as follows : (1) If entities are in
any relation the natures of the entities and the relations cannot be
entirely external to, or independent of, one another. (2) There
are many sorts of relations and degrees of closeness, intimacy, or
relevancy in the relations of entities. Each distinguishable type
of relationship is best called an order, or system. (3) Reality as
a whole may be a universe or total system. Therefore, there may
be an order of orders, a cosmic system which is fundamental to all
the special types of order in the universe. (4) The probable char-

160 MAN AND THE COSMOS

acter of this supreme order canot be determined by epistemological
or dialectical considerations alone. It can be determined only by a
synthesis of the chief aspects of reality, after these aspects have
been determined by a comprehensive analysis of human experiences
and attitudes in their total characters. Specifically, we must
consider both the real logic of sense-experience, the real logic of
values, and the ultimate problem of the relation between the order
of sense-experience and the order of values.

1. The first proposition does not now require extended defense,
since it underlies the entire discussion of knowledge and reality.
To say that any two or more entities are so related that their
natures would be precisely the same as they are in this relation if
they never had been, nor could be, in this relation ; or that if the
relation should absolutely cease the entities would not thereby be
affected in any degree or kind of quality — is to talk nonsense.
The assertion that things can be absolutely the same in and out of
relations seems to be simply an appeal to the thoughtlessness of the
naive. The more we learn to understand and control things, just
by so much do we find that they live only in relations. The plausi-
bility of the assertion that relations need make no difference what-
soever to the terms related by them is due to the fact that many
relations are, for many purposes, negligible or practically irrel-
evant ; or, at least, in our ignorance, we are prone to think so. For
most people's purposes it makes no difference who Ikanaton was ;
but to the Egyptologist it makes a lot of difference, and, if I knew
enough, I might see that it made a great difference to western
civilization. I cannot see that the solution of certain problems in
higher mathematics makes any serious difference to practical life
now, but it may make a great difference to the future of both
engineering and logic. The world is rich and wide in content. It
contains a multitude of things, which no man can number, existing
in multitudinous relations. Many relations that we know some-
thing of, we, for most of our purposes, ignore. Of the significance
of many relations that we glimpse we are ignorant. Of the very
existence of many relations we are in total ignorance. But, either
the universe is in some way a system or order of related entities,
or there is no universe.

2. There are many distinct types of order. The categories of
the philosopher and the scientist are just generic names for the
basic types of order. The whole business of systematic philosophy

RELATIONS 161

or metaphysics is to consider the various types of order and to try
to order them into a comprehensive order system. Mathematics
and logic are the theories of formal or abstract intellectual order.
Metaphysics is the doctrine of concrete or real order — spatial,
temporal, causal (physical, vital and psychological), teleological or
axiological, social orders. Our further discussion will be con-
cerned principally with these orders and their relations.

3. All special types of order must be elements in the total-
order-system of reality — the cosmos. To deny this statement
would be to assert that, while there are various systems of order
in the universe, since these have no relation to one another they
are not in the universe, since there is no universe to contain them.
But we know that the spatial and temporal relations are bound up
with causal and teleological relations. We know that when we pass
from abstract symbolic logic to the logic of reality, we have entered
a realm where all orders and, therefore, all relations and entities
related "in one another's being mingle." It is not possible to sit
down and try to think through to the bitter end any fundamental
problem of reality — for example, the nature of space or time or
causality, or the nature of mechanism in its relation to life, per-
sonality and value, without running into all the other problems.

All special order systems, then, are probably grounded on one
supreme living order. In so far as reality is a cosmos or universe,
and not a chaos, it must be sustained by one ground — a cosmic
order-of-orders. And, since the universe, as we live in it and
know it through living in it, is dynamic, the cosmic principle or
ground of order must be a dynamic or active principle.

4. The final problem of metaphysics is this — what can we say,
specifically, as to the character of the cosmic ground of order?
Book V will be devoted to the consideration of this question.

CHAPTER XIII

OKDER1

Order is the most fundamental and inclusive type of relation.
Indeed, every objective and intrinsic relation depends on an order
— spatial relations on the spatial order, temporal relations on the
temporal order, social relations on the social order, etc. The chief
difference between the meaning of the two notions is that when
one speaks of relation one may have in mind only the principle of
connection between two entities, whereas when one speaks of an
order one definitely implies the whole existential complex, the
particular or individual relata and their relations taken as a whole.
Thus an order means a system of particulars or individuals con-
nected in a regular manner, by contrast with both a collection of
abstract relationships or subsistents and a mere junk heap of
unrelated existents.

The entire realm of experience includes a variety of distinct
types of order. It is the business of the special sciences to deter-
mine, in their respective fields, the basic types of order. It is the
business of metaphysics to survey these various special types of
order and to order them, if possible, into one order system or intel-
ligible cosmos. Every order is a one-in-many, a unity or continuity
in difference, a systematic togetherness. The ultimate order would
be the Ordo Ordinans or supreme order, of which all special orders
would be partial expressions. If, as Spinoza said, the order and
connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of
things, then the ultimate order has a two-faced series of manifesta-
tions. Spinoza's statement oversimplifies the case, as will appear
later when we discuss the mind-body problem. I shall argue that
it is a reasonable hypothesis that the various special orders of

1 The following chapter is a rapid survey, or preliminary sketch, of the
main line of argument and doctrine that will be developed step by step in
the entire remainder of this work. Together with Chapter 35, this chapter
gives the logical key to the whole body of the discussion. The reader should
bear it in mind and return to it in considering the later parts.

162

ORDER 163

existence constitute a hierarchical series, and that the supreme
principle of order is most adequately manifested in the richest type
of finite order. There is, however, another sense in which
Spinoza's statement is true — namely, that order is at once mentally
objective and physically objective; there is a correspondence be-
tween the order of true thinking and thoughtful willing on the one
hand and the order of physical reality, the space-time-motion order,
on the other hand.

In books III, IV and V we shall be concerned with the concrete
characteristics of the various main types of existents and with their
relations to one another as aspects of the cosmos. A rapid survey
of the hierarchy of order series will make a logical transition to
III. Every order involves particulars in relation.

1. Qualitative Order. — The simplest cases of order are perhaps
those of the generic orders of sense qualities. Colors are each and
every one distinct existents, but they form a scale of order; so
with sounds, temperatures, etc. There are orders of intensity ; for
example, degrees of brightness, color saturation, pleasure, pain,
pitch, etc. It may be that the order of qualitative differences
within the same sensory kind is in every case reducible to the order
of intensive magnitude or degree.

2. Spatial Order. — Our three dimensional space involves a
number of orders, such as — points on a line, lines on a surface,
depth, sense or direction, before and behind, straight ahead,
above, below, right and left. Every spatial order involves relations
between particular positions existing simultaneously. The most
familiar instance is the relation of all observed positions to the
observer's position. Positions are the individua of spatial order.
One set of spatial order may be transformed into another, by super-
position, translation, or by imagining the observer translated, in-
verted, etc. The mind can manipulate spatial order in various
ways, as in geometries ; but it must first find spatial order before
it can juggle with it; and transcendental geometries are logical
jugglings of the empirically found spatial order. In brief, spatial
order is given as real in sensory experience and found to be intelli-
gible— that is, intellectually manageable within the limits of its
given nature.

3. Temporal Order. — This again is a simple and unique prop-
erty of experience as lived (Erlebniss is the expressive German
word). It is the irreversible flux or movement of experiences from

104: MAN AND THE COSMOS

past through present toward future.2 Temporal order has thus
one sense or direction. (It seems to be misleading to call it a
"dimension" and to speak of time as a fourth dimension of space.
It would be just as correct to speak of space as the second, third
and fourth directions of time). Space and time involve each other,
since spatial orders imply the simultaneity of points and direc-
tions ; that is, their temporal duration ; and the temporal order of
duration involves the occupation of moments or instants by posi-
tions. I have said that temporal order is single as well as irre-
versible. These statements are questionable. Could it not be said
that temporal order is double — that it has two directions or senses,
from the present backwards to the past and forwards to the future ;
and if this is so may not temporal order be reversible ? Mr. Brad-
ley argues for a variety of time series — one, for instance, in which
death is followed by old age, maturity, youth, childhood, birth,
conception. I can conceive of one finite temporal series as being
the exact repetition of another, but I am unable to conceive of one
infinite temporal series of real events being the precise reverse of
another. Such a supposition would, it seems to me, imply that one
of the series in question is illusory or imaginary, one of Leibniz's
possible worlds. There may be an indefinite multitude of temporal
series, with different rates of velocities, but they must all have
one direction, if experience be not wholly illusory. The empirical
temporal order is one direction, since the past does not grow out
of the present but the present out of the past as the future out of
the present. The temporal order, in the forms of either the per-
duration of a system of relations through a stretch of time or a
definite sequence of distinct events, is basic to all conceptions of
continuity.

Whether it be spatial continuity, numerical continuity, dura-
tional continuity, or causal continuity; in every case the idea of
continuity is that of an order of permanent or regular relations
enduring through a temporal succession. (Compare Chapters
XIV, XVI, XVIII, XXXV, and XXXVII.)

4. Numerical Order arises, as we saw in Chapter XI, from the
location and arrangement of sense qualities in space and time,
but numerical ordering of existents always implies a judgment of
value. If one is counting or measuring things without regard to

2 For Bergson, time is the unique dimension of life. Eeal time is liv-
ingness.

ORDER 165

differences of value the question of order is indifferent. If I am
considering how many books I have, regardless of their contents,
it makes no difference in what order I count them. If I were
arranging them for sale I should do it in the order of their values.
When we arrange things in numerical order; for example, the
batting order of a baseball team, the order of precedence at a social
function, the order of merit on examinations, orders of greatness
in statesmanship or art, we are using ordinal number to express an
order of values. Thus the order of values is implicated in the
ordering of existents. Indeed it is tied up with our simplest
spatial and temporal orderings.

5. Causal Order. — A causal order is an irreversible series in
which the occurrence of one event is an indispensable condition of
the occurrence of the next event. Thus the causal order is a tem-
poral order which involves the idea of the existential dependence
of one event on the immediately precedent events. Existential,
temporal dependence differentiates the causal order from a logical
order of timeless implication (ground and consequent) . The notion
of causal order is thus a more concrete form of the notion of tem-
poral order. The irreversibility of the temporal flux implies that
the preceding instants or moments contain the real conditions of
the present, that a specific complex of qualities in relation is the
condition of a succeeding complex. The maxim, every event must
have a cause, means nothing more than that in the flux of experi-
ence the antecedent is the condition of the coming into existence
of the consequent. The fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc is a
fallacy only because of lack of thorough analysis of repeated obser-
vations. We have really no other ground for asserting a causal
relation than that of immediate contiguity and succession of events
in the spatial and temporal order. The supposed necessity of the
causal order is the universal empirical fact of the one-directional,
irreversible flux of temporal experience.

A causal order, considered as a blind push or inevitable pro-
cession in which each successive moment is made by the rearrange-
ment in space of the factors in the preceding moment, in which one
collocation issues blindly in the next collocation, and in which
there is complete quantitative and qualitative equivalence in the
two collocations, is a mecJianical causal order. There are close
approximations to mechanical causal orders in the realm of inor-
ganic nature; but, since new collocations give rise to new assem-

166 MAN AND THE COSMOS

blages of qualities, it may be doubted whether even the inorganic
realm is wholly mechanical. Indeed, if the second law of thermo-
dynamics be valid, this cannot be the case.

6. Teleological Order is a causal order in which the successive
moments are not the blind and inevitable products of the re-
arrangements of collocations of atoms, but one in which a unity of
plan or meaning pervades and is developed through a series of
moments, which thus constitute not a mere serial sequence of
slightly differing events but a persisting whole which is present in
all its parts and makes of them an organic totality. The teleo-
logical order is a temporal and causal order which unifies its suc-
cessive moments in a trans-temporal totality. Here we begin to
get a clew to a principle of cosmic order or organization that is
temporal and yet permanent, many and yet one, including a suc-
cession of events in a noneventual meaning, causal and yet pur-
posive. It is sometimes said that teleological causality involves
the determination of the present by the future. This is mis-
leading. It involves the unification or continuity of the present
with the past by a plan or meaning which is continuous with and
expands into the future as the latter becomes present. It is in the
organic, mental and social orders that we find teleological order.

7. Organic and Mental Orders. — These I treat together since
it is in the mental-teleological order that the meaning of the or-
ganic order becomes manifest. An organism is a whole in which
the parts cannot exist apart from the whole and the principle of the
whole functions in all the parts. An organism may be regarded as
a machine, since it consists of mechanisms ; but, since it is a self-
running, self-repairing and self-reproducing machine, it is more
than a mere machine. The order of life exhibits a large number
of degrees of organic unity emerging from, supervening upon, and
controlling mechanisms. A mental order — for example, a single
type of purposed human activity, or better still the organized unity
of a whole human life as the continuous fulfillment of a plan or a
meaning — is an order in which the successive steps or moments are
not external to one another and not the blind rearrangement of
similar elements. One moment or act does not placidly dissolve
its elements to be blindly rearranged into the next act. A con-
tinuous plan or meaning embodied in a whole life is an order in
which the particular acts and experiences interpenetrate, since
they are all pervaded and organized by the principle of the whole.

ORDER 167

The past lives in the whole of the present and the present is big
with the future, and past, present and future are phases in the
living unity of a unique and individual life and experience. Per-
haps the supertemporal or "eternal" meaning of life and the
cosmos will be found in the notion of Spiritual Order (see Chap-
ter XXXV).

8. Axiological Order or order of values. The achievement and
conservation of intrinsic values — such as welfare, happiness, love,
beauty, truth — are the determining or unifying and controlling
principles in the teleological order. To discuss the nature of
values and their place in reality at this point would be to anticipate
future chapters. It is sufficient here to point out that the order of
values enters into our ordering in other orders; even ordering
existents spatially, temporally, numerically and causally involves
ordering in terms of values. In the organic and mental orders
values appear explicitly, and in their own right, as determining
principles.

9. Social Order. — This is the richest and most inclusive type
of order. It is par excellence a teleological and axiological order.
Social organization, the institutions of politics, law, morality, edu-
cation, religion, science, art and letters — in short, the whole work
of culture — is a complex of partial orders in which the superindi-
vidual order of society is furthered. It is an old saying that a
man realizes his true being in the social order. The truest indi-
vidual, the fullest personality, is the one who is most nearly
typical, universal, or super-individual in his thinking and his
deeds. As we shall see more fully later on, the social mind is not
an entity which exists as such apart from the minds of the indi-
vidual members of the social order. But the social mind is more
than the mind of any individual as he actually is when taken in
isolation from his fellows. It is not the arithmetical sum of the
minds of the individual members of society. In becoming the
organ of the purposes of society, in making himself the instrument
for the realization of the cultural values of the social order, the
individual is transcending his given individuality. The mind of
a nation, the mind of England, for example, or the spirit of the
church or the university, live and move and have their being in the
members of the social order; but they are more enduringly real
than the individual members regarded as private centers of feeling
and thought. They transform the individuals by giving them

168 MAN AND THE COSMOS

membership in a spiritual order which is not the sum of individual
feelings, thoughts and volitions; for the spirit of a society is one
which binds human souls, past, present and to come, into a living
and enduring unity. This conception of a spiritual order which is
more pervasive and enduring than any individual mind will be
considered more at length later on when we come to discuss the
problem of the ultimate order or cosmic unity.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PARTICULAR, THE UNIVERSAL AND THE INDIVIDUAL

The ''things" of immediate sense experience are discrete com-
plexes of sensory qualities. But these discrete things are all per-
ceived and conceived to be present simultaneously in a continuous
medium, namely space. Common sense means by the continuity
of space that no two portions of space, however minute, are sep-
arated either by no being or by nonspatial being. What common
sense means by empty space is a portion of space in which our
efforts meet with no perceptible resistance ; and in which, through
our senses of sight, touch and movement, we are conscious of no
movement or resistance. So-called empty space is not literally
empty since we perceive light, color and atmosphere in it. It
transmits movements not detected bv the unaided senses : such as
radio-active transformations, electromagnetic tensions and gravita-
tion. The universal space-filling ether is assumed to exist as the
continuous medium for the transmissions of these movements and
forces. As Lord Salisbury said, ether was invented as a subject
for the verb "to undulate." Indeed, it is a postulate of theoretical
thought and of practical activity that there is dynamic continuity
everywhere in the realm of nature. Static continuity is simply
our coarse, in-the-lump way of perceiving dynamical continuity.

On the other hand, physics and chemistry find cogent grounds
for the hypothesis that the concrete things of sense perception are
made up of very minute and imperceptible corpuscles (electrons
in the newest form of the corpuscular hypothesis) which are con-
stant in inertia or mass and in their attractive and repulsive
mutual relations (valence in chemistry). It is impossible to
believe that perceptible matter is absolutely continuous, in view
of its enormous capacity for expansion and contraction. The
phenomena of the expansion and contraction of gases, of solutions
and of osmosis, are impossible to account for on any other hypoth-
esis than that of the granular structure of matter. In the elec-

169

170 MAN AND THE COSMOS

tronic theory of matter the ordinary atom is regarded as built up
out of a core or nucleus of negative electricity with the units of
positive electricity revolving around it. Mass or inertia is present
wherever there is potential energy.

We are not here concerned with the question of the ultimate
structure of physical matter. The granular theory carries out, to
a high degree of refinement, the logical demand for discrete ele-
ments to account for the qualitative discreteness of perceived
things. On the other hand, the physicist finds it impossible to
work out a granular theory without postulating some sort of con-
tinuous medium as carrier of the dynamical relations between the
corpuscles. The ether performs this logical function in present
day physics and thus logically is identical with physical space. If
the ether should be scrapped, some other medium will have to be
invented to take its place. For both common sense thinking and
physical theory, which is a refinement of common sense thinking,
require the recognition of both discreteness, or particularity, and
complexity, in the elements of the world and of continuity or
systematic interrelatedness between these elements. At one time
continuity may be uppermost and at another time discreteness,
according to the problem in hand. If one is bent on microscopic
analysis of sense data, discreteness plays the principal role ; if one
is bent on synthesis, continuity bulks largest. From the ana-
lytical point of view, the discrete elements are substantive and
continuity is transitive. On the other hand, from a comprehensive
or synthetical point of view, continuity is substantive. A ground
of interaction must be as real as the multitude of individual ele-
ments that interact. It is obvious that here we have to do with a
capital phase of the metaphysical problem of singularism and
pluralism, of the one and many. The universe must be some sort
of one-in-many. The acute problem is as to which is more funda-
mental, the manyness of the individual elements, or the oneness of
their ground of interrelation.

The whole problem of discreteness and continuity, pluralism
and singularism, takes on a new turn when we consider the world
as a temporal process. Experienced change is a succession of dis-
crete movements since, as William James puts it: empirical time
comes in drops ; 1 the present moment is a single pulse of experi-

1 Cf. James, Some Problems of Philosophy; especially Chaps. 10 and 11.

THE PARTICULAR, UNIVERSAL, AND INDIVIDUAL 171

ence, in which is fused together a variety of features; any two
successive presents are. more or less discontinuous. What I experi-
enced an hour ago is discontinuous with what I now experience.
When we bring into our purview months and years, the discon-
tinuity becomes more striking. When we take into account cen-
turies and millenniums of history, the discontinuity becomes still
more striking. Temporal or historical series are discrete. All the
past events which one can think of have ceased to exist and no two
of them were absolutely alike, otherwise they would not have been
two but one. The history of a single organism, of the human indi-
vidual, of a nation, of a church, of the evolutionary series of living
organisms, of a planet, of a solar system — all these histories are
discrete series, stories of the development and decay of individual
wholes.

History or development involves novelty — the emergence of
new individuals, their transformation and disappearance. There
would be no meaning in history, evolution, development, if there
were no novelties, no new qualitative syntheses, no emergence of
differing individualities. A temporal or historical world is thus
essentially a world of discreteness, of novelties. If the new were
the same as the old, the effect- identical with the causes, the suc-
cession of individualities a bare repetition, development and decay,
evolution and retrogression, would be equally without meaning.
The distinctions between pasts, presents, and futures would vanish.
On the other hand, the logical and practical demand for continuity
is equally in evidence in our study of the historical world.

Unless there be traceable continuity in the process, there can
be no grasping of sequences or steps as serial. A process that is not
continuous is not one process, but a chaotic procession of discon-
nected episodes. Thus, without reference to continuities of some
description, history and development are meaningless. Through
fragmentary consciousness and meager materials of memory, we
construct a belief in the continuity of our own personalities.
Through fragmentary historical record we construct the continuity
of a nation's life, of a cultural movement, of the life of humanity,
of life on the earth, of the solar system. We trace the development
of the spirit of England as revealed from age to age, of the spirit
of Christianity, of the evolution of life, or the solar system. Thus
the notion of historical continuity is a conceptual construction, not
a matter of immediate experience. Nevertheless, it is motivated

172 MAN AND THE COSMOS

by both practical and theoretical postulates — the theoretical desire
to comprehend the successive steps in the life of any individual
whole as constituting an ordered sequence or series and thus being
an individual whole ; the practical desire to gain, from the ordered
continuity of the past, prevision and control of the future through
the present or at least inspiration and guidance for action.

Finite number is a discrete series, unfolding according to a
perfectly determinate law of production; physical changes have
been, to a considerable extent, shown to be subject to numerical
laws of production. Why not then all historical changes ? The
mechanical-causal postulate is extended in thorough-going fashion
to all fields of history or development, and means that there is a
perfectly determinate law of production for a series of events. All
so-called novelties would then be wholly predetermined. The vari-
ations and individuations in the process of time would be the
inevitable consequences of a perfectly determinate system of laws,
expressing the behavior of an equally determinate number of indi-
vidual units alike in every respect, except for their space relations.
Novelty and individuality would thus be nothing more than the
effect produced on man's mind by the space redistributions in the
arrangements of elements having eternally constant properties of
inertia or mass ; that is, of simply mechanical attraction or repul-
sion.

But our actual world is a historical world, a world of develop-
ing and changing individuals of many descriptions (I use the term
"individual" to include organisms, persons, nations, cultural move-
ments, the system of living beings, the earth, the solar system).
The denial of novelty, of individuality and development, is the
denial of the most characteristic feature of the actual world. In
it there is verifiable continuity, dynamic interrelation, between
successive states. The whole universe is an all-inclusive living
individuality or system. But since there are, and in the measure
in which there are, in the universe, discrete centers of action and
passion, concrete individuals, there are limits to the causal explana-
tion of the qualities and actions of any individual member of the
universe in terms of the rest of the system. The explanation of
the life history of one individual member of the system cannot be
found wholly either in the antecedent phases of the system or in
the simultaneous phase of the system. It must be found in part in
the self-active character of the individual member. In short, there

THE PARTICULAR, UNIVERSAL, AND INDIVIDUAL 173

are two kinds of temporal continuity: (a) the mechanical con-
tinuity which would account for the character and state of every
finite individual as being the mathematical expression of forces
behind and outside that individual ; (b) the teleological continuity
within the life history of an individual (including those individ-
uals which are groups of lesser individuals) as being a unique
self-active member of a larger system. In other words, the actual
historical world is one of creative novelty, of genuine development.
Real history is constituted by the self-development of individuals
in interaction.

It must be admitted then that discreteness, or qualitative
uniqueness, and self -activity or individuality, are just as elemental
features of the world as continuity. Perhaps they are even more
elemental. The universe seems not so much one as it is many —
many individuals of many kinds in many relations.

There appears to be a quarrel between the concrete individ-
uality of actual intuition and the results of analytical science. The
latter tends to evaporate an individual into an aggregation of quali-
tatively poor atoms, brought together and held together by purely
external relations. Psychology dissolves personality into sensa-
tions and impulses or, more recently, into reflex movements, and
these into neurone processes. Bio-chemistry dissolves neurone
processes into reactions of the chemical elements. Physics dis-
solves the chemical elements into constellations of electrons. Thus,
concrete individuals are reduced to an external exemplification of
more elemental qualities; and the latter, in turn, to spatial
arrangements of elements having no qualitative differences except
physical attraction and repulsion. Thus physical or mechanistic
metaphysics reduces all other qualities, and hence all individuali-
ties, to variations in the spatial arrangements of units having only
two qualities — negative signs and plus signs in electricity. The
analytical and generalizing activity of science ends in the elimina-
tion of all individuality. Since individuality thus disappears
before the destroying hand of analytical intelligence, recent phi-
losophers, notably William James and H. Bergson, have argued
that we can know reality only by abandoning intelligence or reason
and laying hold on it through intuition, since it is thus that we ap-
prehend individuality in ourselves and others. This, it seems to
me, is a poor refuge, based on a one-sided conception of the nature
of intelligence or thought. I propose, therefore, to consider here

174 MAN AND THE COSMOS

what the relation of the individual is to the universal from the
point of view of reflection.

Clearly, the individuating interest is everywhere in evidence
in naive thought, action and feeling. In perceiving and interact-
ing with the physical order, in recognizing and holding intercourse
with other selves, man never apprehends a general quality or uni-
versal, a what divorced from an individuated unity of qualities,
or that. It is only in the vague and rough philosophizing which
consists in hypostatizing abstractions and symbols that one ever
falls into the error of thinking that any sort of reality can be an
abstract universal, a bare whainess; such as being in general, color
that is no specific color, justice that is no specific case of justice,
etc. The realities that we recognize and hold intercourse with in
thought and action, that we appreciate in feeling, are always de-
terminate. The selective interests, the specific desires and aims,
which motivate action and thought lead to the individuation of
things. Selective individuating interest is the controlling principle
in human life. The world of his experience responds to man's
individuating interest. It presents to him an ascending series of
individua ; from the bare particularity of the grain of sand or dust,
through the crystal with its individuality of space arrangement,
and the unified complexes of qualities which through their im-
manent organizing principle constitute plants and animals, up to
man himself in which the organizing activity is in part controlled
by conscious purpose.

What then is a true individual ? The particular is frequently
confused with the individual. The former connotes the merely
isolated single object in its bare isolation, the mere that almost
wholly unqualified by relations. The individual is the particular
grasped in a context, and as a unified whole of various qualities-in-
relation ; that is, as a system. To appreciate the individuality of
any object of cognition or feeling one must determine its character
as a whole in terms of universals. One must say what it is. The
bare particular is unmeaning and indescribable, because it is not
grasped as a concrete union of different universals. Its that has
no what, consequently its that is a vanishing point. The true indi-
vidual is a concretion of universals.

A true individual is an internal or immanent unity of diverse
properties, with self-activity which issues in self -maintenance and
self-development. It must have richness or complexity of qualities

THE PARTICULAR, UNIVERSAL, AND INDIVIDUAL 175

and it must, as a unity, own these diverse qualities in some degree
of harmony. Unity-in-diversity and self-developing-activity then
are the indispensable attributes of individuality. Comprehensive-
ness and harmony must both be present. It is evident that we find
these characteristics fully manifest only in conscious beings, that
is, in selves. An immanent dynamic system of self-developing
capacities is just what is meant by the teleological unity of selfhood
or personality. It is true that in the lives of selves fixity of pur-
pose and unity of character may seem to be sacrificed by wide
diversity of interests and activities, as in the dilettante pursuit of
art and letters ; and vice versa, breadth and variety of interests by
concentration and persistence of purpose in one direction, for
example, in the money grubber. But genuine harmony is not
monotony. It is the organization of diversities of action, feeling
and thought. In the end breadth and variety of interest must
bring the richer individuality. True individuality involves in
some degree universality of aim and interest. The self becomes a
universe in little by seeking universality, in the sense of concrete
organization and harmony or maximum comprehensiveness in life
and experience.

The degree of individuality possessed by any being is the
measure of its worth. The principle of individuality or person-
ality is the supreme principle of value. The individual is the
center of reference for interests and valuations or appreciations.
It is very obvious that our vital interests in social life are in indi-
viduals ; in brother and sister, lover and wife, friend and enemy,
colleague and neighbor.

Masses of men interest us only as actual or potential groups of
individual agents. A political speaker or a preacher is interested
in a mass meeting only as a group of individuals who will
react favorably to argument, emotional appeal, and suggestion.
Churches, political parties, social, scientific, and literary move-
ments, are individualities of more comprehensive type inclusive of
a plurality of persons. In art, in the drama, in fiction and history,
the controlling interest is always in the presentation either of the
character of single individuals or of the spiritual and significant
unity of more inclusive systems of individuality. Shakespeare's
Hamlet or Tempest, Goethe's Faust, Dante's Divine Comedy,
Milton's Paradise Lost — these are all types of spiritual individual
wholes. Their universal significance is contained in their spiritual

176 MAN AND THE COSMOS

unity or harmony of feeling and action. The controlling interest
in history is in the individual actor in his unique social and
political relations; Julius Caesar, Napoleon the First, Luther, or
Bismarck; the unique social or spiritual-historical movement,
Roman Imperialism, the French Revolution, the Origins of Chris-
tianity, the Protestant Reformation, the European Renaissance;
the unique fortunes of individual nations, Ancient Greece, Eng-
land, France, the United States. A great work of art, a historical
culture-movement, a political development, a religion, is significant
just because it is a comprehensive unity, a living organization of
spiritual life, a superpersonal life. The general tendencies, laws
or forces, of life and history have actuality only as they are con-
creted in the individual whole, in selves and systems of selves.
In every field the universal has the function of defining and
expressing the relationships of individual elements in individual
systems or complexes. The individual, out of reference to a sys-
tematic whole, becomes a barren and insignificant particular. The
universal not concreted in individuals is nought but an equally
barren abstraction, a mere abstract general notion. To sunder the
what or universal from the that or specific reality is to deprive the
latter of all meaning and value and the former of all existence.
The real is always the significant individual, the immanent unity
of diverse qualities and relations, and the world-whole is the all-
inclusive and richest individuality.

It is often said that thought cannot grasp the individual and
unique, since thought is discursive in operation. It abstracts and
generalizes. It must thus sunder the ivhat from the that. If
therefore the real be individual, thought can never grasp its
essence. We may then, perhaps, feel or intuit reality, but we can
never comprehend it, since to do this we must distill and evaporate
the individual and unique into the general or common. Emotion
and intuition are the sole individuating functions of mind, we are
told, and all intelligent thinking must lag behind them. I cannot
admit this severance of thought and feeling, of intellection and
immediate experience. The development of feeling and volition
is conditioned by the organizing activity of thought. Through
reflection feelings becomes more articulate and significant.
Through thought conation becomes, in place of random impulse,
the persistent and more harmonious development of purposive
volitional unity. Thought does not function in the blue ether, it

THE PARTICULAR, UNIVERSAL, AND INDIVIDUAL 177

does not wing itself through the inane. In all genuine cognitive
thinking there is an intuitive factor. Reflective comprehension
does not descend from heaven upon immediate experience. The
former grows out of the latter and is inextricably interwoven
therewith. I know myself, and I know other selves, through the
constructive interpretation of immediate experience. Instead of
contrasting and separating intelligence and intuition, as Bergson
does, I would maintain that they cannot properly be divorced.
Both in cognition and conation, intelligence and intuition are com-
plementary factors. The great scientist has not less but much more
intuitive insight than the clodhopper. The great poet has not less
but more intuitive vision than the hack writer. The great states-
man has not less but more intuition of the political nature of man
than the ward boss. In every case the more is due to the more
intimate interfusion of reflective intelligence and immediate ex-
perience. As Kant put it, percepts without concepts are blind.
But does not science deliberately abstract from the individual,
and treat it merely as an example of the universal, a junction-point
of concepts or laws ? Matter, motion, energy, ether, natural selec-
tion, gravitation, with their more specific subsidiary formulae —
are not all these categories of science purely abstract general con-
ceptions to which the individual is wholly indifferent ? Is not the
quest for laws of connection and sequence a search for the universal
and a neglect of the particular ? For example, must not history,
in order to become scientific, relinquish the depiction and interpre-
tation of so-called great personalities as creative centers in the
historical life ; cease to regard so-called great creative periods such
as the Periclean age of Greece, the Renaissance and Protestant
Reformation, as having more inherent significance or mental
causality than any other section of history of the same length of
time ; and become "sociological" by showing that all such person-
alities and individual movements are but the inevitable resultants
of universal forces such as economic and climatic factors ? Will
not the history of the future become a deductive science in which
the individual will be viewed and explained simply as a junction
point of sociological laws and formulae ? I am not concerned here
to discuss the proper methods and province of history, but I wish
to point out that the economic, geographical, and climatic factors
in history have themselves individual characters and significance
in relation to the psychical factors. The physical and economic

178 MAN AND THE COSMOS

factors of social life themselves undergo changes which are impli-
cated with the whole mental movement of man in history.

It is true that physics and chemistry operate with (approx-
imately) fixed constants and regard their facts as constellations
of particulars rather than as unitary individuals. The special
sciences may be classified in the order of the ascending concrete-
ness or individuality of their respective subject-matters. Begin-
ning with terrestrial and solar physics the most "abstract" or
general science, we have next chemistry, which deals with more
specific properties of bodies, then biology whose objects have more
determinate or individual character, then psychology whose ob-
jects are the highly individuated bodies in which consciousness
is predominant, then the social and historical sciences of culture
(general history, the comparative study of morals, politics, re-
ligion, and art) which deal with the most concrete and spiritual
types of historical individualities. Finally, we have systematic
ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, and metaphysics, which
are concerned with the ultimate significance of spiritual individu-
ality. This contrast, however, does not mean that physics has
no concern with the individual character of reality and the cul-
ture sciences no concern with generalization. It means rather
that the individual fact of physics is more abstract or poorer in
its qualities and relations than the individual facts of history,
the human social order, the moral life, the aesthetical or religious
experience. The order of the sciences corresponds to the increas-
ing richness and concrete significance and value of their objects.
The world of the physical and biological sciences is too a world
with a determinate individual character and evolution. It is in
reality a historical world of a lower order. For example, the
study of radio-active manifestations and the law of Mendelyeev
suggest that the chemical elements have had a history with a de-
terminate evolution. The second law of thermo-dynamics indi-
cates that the solar energy has a determinate history, a specific
individuality of its own. The various theories of the evolution
of the solar system, of the earth, and of life on the earth, involve
determinate histories of individual wholes of increasing com-
plexity and inclusiveness.2

It is a misconception of science to say that its sole aim is to

2 On the whole subject of history and individuality compare, Heinrieh
Kickert, Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung . Zweite
Auflage.

THE PARTICULAR, UNIVERSAL, AND INDIVIDUAL 179

establish general formulas or laws which shall express the bare
identities of objects whose differences are negligible. The par-
ticular facts of chemistry or biology are not adequately under-
stood, if they are viewed simply as repetitions of similarities in
quality and behavior. This may be the goal of pure mechanics.
But even in mathematical physics the aim is the formulation of
differential equations for motion and other forms of continuous
physical change.

The particular fact when seen in its relations then first be-
comes a scientific fact. Science does not consist in collecting
particulars ; this is but its preliminary spade-work. The inter-
pretation of the particular in the light of universals is the goal
of science. In other words, it is the particular become individ-
ualized, through taking its place in a cognitive system or having
membership in a organized whole. One who has only an "ab-
stract" or "general" notion of energy, or gravitation or electricity
has not a genuinely scientific conception of these things. Recog-
nition of this is expressed in the confession of relative ignorance
when one says, "I have only a general idea of the subject." To
have a scientific concept of anything involves a knowledge of the
varied and determinate modes of behavior of the thing in ques-
tion, that is, the laws of its specific transformations. As Lotze
says, the concept of anything is the law of its states. The truly
scientific concept of energy, for example, is filled in with knowl-
edge of how energy behaves specifically in its different forms and
under varying conditions. The general notion is a short-hand
expression for certain basic qualities of behavior by virtue of
which individuals constitute an ordered group system or series.
The concept man or mammal is not a mere extract of repeated
similars or bare identities in a class of objects. It is a principle
of relation which expresses at once the differentiation of the
group which it designates, from hear but contrasting groups, and
the identity or continuity of features which, as specified in the
individual members of this group, constitute it a significant serial
totality. The universals which define individuals and groups are
the laws of systematic series, functions of thought which express
the order of relations by which individuals are members of more
comprehensive wholes.

A human person becomes not less but more individualized and
significant when he is found to be describable in many relations

180 MAN AND THE COSMOS

or imiversals. To know a man as a worker in a certain field, a
citizen, a husband and father, a lover of poetry and art, a sports-
man, a churchman, a friend, is to know him infinitely better than
simply as a nodding acquaintance or even a business associate.
In place of seeing him as a vague particular or unit, when I come
to know him in all these relations he becomes a more concrete uni-
versal, a truer individual.

There is no doubt that it is the self-intuition of one's own
individuality and one's selective purposive interest that is the
subjective spring of individuation in one's intercourse with the
world. On the other hand, it is equally true to say that one's
intuition of one's own individuality is defined, and one's purposive
activity is determined, through the give and take of social inter-
course by way of action and passion with other individualities.
The development of cognition, conation, and feeling in the self
is the growth of the individual in a world of individuals. Only
as member of a universe of individuals does the single self come
into his own. The progressive definition or determination of the
self is the progressive discovery, through action, thought and feel-
ing, of a world of individuals. The movement towards richer and
more harmonious individuality or personality is, I shall aim to
show more fully later in the discussion, the meaning of the world
process. This meaning is realized through its exemplification in
a multitude of selves which, as individuals in relation, are mem-
bers of a higher individuality or, if you will, of a superindividu-
ality. It would, however, be misleading to say that the ultimate
reality, or the universe in its totality, is an all-inclusive individ-
ual or the absolute individual. That would imply that the rela-
tion of finite selves to the absolute individual is simply that of
parts to the whole. Ultimate reality at its highest level must
be a society of selves or persons, whose ground and pattern, may
be indeed, a supreme individual or self, but whose members, havT
ing relative self-activity are related to that self not as parts of
his being but as offspring of his creative activity, endowed with
the capacity to live in relations to him analogous to their relations
to other finite members of the whole society.

The finite individual is a dependent but active center of
reality, able progressively to harmonize his inner being, and there-
with his relations with other finite members of the ultimate so-
ciety and with the source and ground of the whole.

CHAPTER XV

SUBSTANCE

The most far-reaching distinction made with respect to the data
of experience is between persons and things. This distinction
has grown out of a distinction between living beings and nonliving
things. These distinctions were not made in primitive thinking.
For early man, as for the child, there was no clear separation to
be drawn between inanimate and animate objects ; nor, among
animate objects, between persons and living beings who are not
persons. The primitive philosophy is animistic, or to use Mr.
Marett's term, animaiistic. (Zooism, meaning that all things are
alive is a better term for the primitive world view.) We are not
concerned here with the genetic question how these distinctions
came to be made, nor are we at present concerned with the ques-
tion of their ultimate validity. Our present concern is with the
problem: how are we to think "things" consistently, and this
problem will lead us directly into the problem of substance.

The thing is a determinate complex of qualities. An apple,
for instance, consists of a determinate roundness, redness, texture,
savor, cohering by being present together in one space-time con-
figuration. What we call a "thing" is relative to our interests.
An apple is one thing for the buyer and eater. An apple seed
is a thing for the orchardist. Its cells are things for the botanist.

The unity of the thing is conceived after the analogy of the
unity of the self in recognizing the thing. For, just as the self
is believed to have certain permanent interests and a consequent
unity and continuity of being, known through memory and re-
flection, which unity and continuity persist through varying cir-
cumstance; so a thing is a persisting unity of diverse qualities.
Indeed, the recognition of the unity of diverse qualities which con-
stitutes the thing, is quite dependent upon the unity and continuity
of the self's interest therein and attention thereto. Hence, there
is no logical difference between the problems of the relation of

181

182 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the unity of the thing to the diversity of its qualities and of the
continuity of the thing through the changes in its qualities, and
the problems of the unity of the self amidst the diversity of its
experiences and of the continuity of the self through its chang-
ing experiences.

Ever since Plato, dialecticians have exercised their subtlety
on these problems. It will suffice here to note briefly what the
problems are and how they lead into the problem of substance and
the various solutions thereof.1 First, what is the relation of the
thing to its qualities ? What is the relation of the thinghood of
the apple to its roundness, redness, sweetness, etc. ? If the apple
thing is just roundness plus redness plus sweetness, etc., then the
distinction between the thing and its qualities vanishes. If the
apple thing is not the empirical quality-complex but a substrate
underneath and supporting the qualities, then we must have a
relation to unite the qualities with the thing. But if the relation,
r, is something between the real thing and the empirical qualities,
then we must think a relation r1, to unite r with the thing and
another relation r2 to unite r with the qualities; and there is no
end to this process of assuming relations to relate relations that
are between other relations. Thus, the more thoroughly we try
to think out the relation of the thing-substance or substrate to
its qualities, the wider apart they fly. We have set out upon
the endless regress and we never can get the two terms of our
naive proposition, "the thing is the union of its qualities," together.

Again, redness is not roundness and neither redness nor round-
ness is sweetness; how then can they all cohere in one thing?
Furthermore, the qualities of the thing change ; the apple grows,
ripens, decays, or is eaten and ceases to be an apple; but when
does it cease to be an apple ? In Mr. Bradley's illustration : Sir
John Suckling's silk stockings were darned with black silk yarn
until there was nothing of the original green silk left ; were they
still the same stockings? How can a thing preserve its identity

1For recent discussions of these problems see F. H. Bradley, Appearance
and Reality, especially Chaps. 1, 2, 3, and 8; A. E. Taylor, Elements of Meta-
physics, Book i, Chap. 4; William James; A Pluralistic Universe, Appendix
A, "The Thing and its Relations"; J. Royce; The World and the Individual,
Vol. I, especially Lecture iii; Lotze, Metaphysics, Book i, Chaps. 1, 2, 3, 4;
The Logic of Hegel, translated by Wallace, especially pp. 232 ff . ; also pp. 273
ff. ; Alexander, Space, Time and Deity, Vol. I, Book ii, Chaps. 6 and 10 and
Vol. II, passim.

SUBSTANCE 183

through change of qualities, if it be but the sum of its qualities ?
If it be not the sum of its qualities, is it anything whatsoever?
Briefly, if the thing is idenjtical with its qualities, it is not a thing-
substance and there are no qualities, since there can be no dis-
tinction without relation, no qualities without distinction from
and relation to one another and to the thing which owns them;
no thing without distinction from and relation to its qualities.
On the other hand, if the thing be not identical with its qualities,
then the thing is a meaningless abstraction, an unknown mysteri-
ously supporting the qualities.

The argument that a thing cannot exist as a complex of qual-
ities, since each quality is other than or different from every other,
is a mere quibble, if it be taken to mean anything more than that
the qualities of empirical things are recognized only as discrimi-
nated and related to one another. No determinate quality, and
no group of determinate qualities, is known except in relation to
others. Empirical reality is a system or totality of qualities in
relation. Furthermore, it is impossible to conceive reality as a
whole in any other form than that of a system of determinately
qualified beings in relation. If we are led, when we think out
the logical implications of experience, to the notion of one world
ground or cosmical order, that too can only be conceived as
one ground or order in the sense of being the systematic totality,
the unitary ground, of finite beings in relation. Thus the abso-
lute is nothing more than the totality of the related. Such is the
legitimate argument of the dialectic of experience.

To return to the problem of the thing and its qualities, a
"thing" is a name and a concept for an empirical complex of
qualities. "Apple" is a name for the coherence in one space-
configuration for several moments of time of a complex of sense
qualities, or the persistence in time of the coherence of this complex
in a series of positions. "Apple" is a conceptual name, because
there are several instances of a similar coherence of similar qual-
ities in various places and in various times. These cohering
qualities which are an apple have specific meanings for human
interests and purposes. So long as the qualities persist in a degree
sufficient to satisfy these interests and purposes, we call it the
same thing, and several same things are the same hind of thing.
When the apple ceases to be edible and salable it ceases, for those
purposes, to be an apple. When its seeds cease to function as

184 MAN AND THE COSMOS

seeds, they cease to be seeds. Thus, the continuous unity and
identity of the thing consists in the unity and continuity of its
empirical functions in relation to the . interests and purposes of
men as perceiving, desiring, acting and thinking beings. Hence,
so long as you can treat a thing as the same, for that purpose it is
the same. Thus a "thing" is a teleological or pragmatic con-
struction, by the mind, of the complex data of actual experience.
Ultimate things or substances could only be those which satisfied
the most fundamental and enduring purposes of human thought
and action, or which constituted the final limit to analytic thought.
If there be any purpose in human thought which is most basic
and all-inclusive, and if there be any concept of substance which
satisfies or is the limit of fulfillment of that purpose, this will
be the ultimate concept of being.

The concept of substance has its source in the quest for a
concept of essential being. It was developed to satisfy the de-
mand of thought for a permanent type of being. There are two
correlative notions involved in all concepts of substance: (1) The
notion of a permanent or enduring reality as the ultimate ground
or subject of the ever-changing complexes of empirical qualities.
The incessant alterations in the qualitative complexes which are
empirical things are conceived to be expressions or manifestations
of a being which endures through all its changing expressions.
(2) The notion of a self-subsistent or self-existent reality; of a
reality which, as self-existent or self-caused, is permanent.

Empirical things are always dependent on their others. They
have their transitory existences only as determined by the status
and movement of all other finite beings. Now clearly, perma-
nence and self-existence are correlative notions. Only that which
is self-existent can endure permanently, and that which endures
permanently must be self-existent. When a concept of substance
is formed, the changing complex of empirical qualities are thought
of as its attributes or properties. It is the essence of which they
are the appearances, the reality of which they are the manifesta-
tions; the ultimate subject of all predicates.

The logic of Greek philosophy reveals clearly the motives, and
logically possible points of view, in regard to substance. These
are: substance is one or many in number, and one or more in
kind. In early Greek philosophy substance is conceived to be one
in kind, it is living matter (water, air, fire). Anaxagoras, who

SUBSTANCE 185

is a qualitative as well as a quantitative pluralist, conceives it
to be many in number and many in kind. The atomists, who
are quantitative pluralists but qualitative monists, conceive that
there are many instances of the one kind of substance. Plato's
Ideas are: a plurality of substantial beings and a unifying or
governing principle, the idea of the good. Thus Plato combines
pluralism and singularism. The ideas are the true substances,
but a dubious sort of being is given to matter, so that there is
a dualistic strain in Plato and, more strongly, in Aristotle. Aris-
totle holds that the individual, who is the actual union of form
and matter, the realized entelechy, is the essential being [to ti
en einai] or substance. Thus, for Aristotle, there is a plurality
of real substances. But this plurality has its goal in the seeking
of the individual to become like the one perfect entelechy, the
unmoved mover of all things. Aristotle, like Plato, gives to
matter or potentiality, a quasi self-subsistence.

In modern philosophy Spinoza is both a qualitative monist
(in other words his is a double-aspect theory) and a quantitative
singularist; there is one self -existent all-inclusive being, one sub-
stance or God. For the dualists, Descartes and Locke, there are
two kinds of substance, matter and mind ; for the materialist,
Hobbes, there are two kinds of substance, matter and motion;
for the spiritualist, there is one kind of substance, spirit or mind.
Berkeley and Leibniz are spiritualistic pluralists. For them
reality consists of a plurality of psychical centers or monads;
whatever unity there is in the universe is due to the interaction
of the monads. Berkeley's pluralism ends in an idealistic theism.
Leibniz said that the interaction was only apparent in the in-
terrelations of the monads, which was the consequence of a har-
mony preestablished by God. Later thinkers who start from per-
sonalistic pluralism, such as Lotze and James Ward, have dis-
carded this conception of the windowless monad and admit direct
interaction implying a common ground or medium. Lotze's
pluralism ends in a singularism very like pantheism ; Ward is a
theist. Fichte and Hegel, like Leibniz, attempt to harmonize the
motives of singularistic and pluralistic spiritualism. When the
pluralist regards the interrelations of the many finite centers as
implying an absolute ground, he ceases to be a simon-pure pluralist,
and becomes in some degree a singularist. Indeed, the controversy
between pluralism and singularism is really a question as to where

186 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the emphasis is to be strongest, on the distinctness of the many be-
ings, or on their unity. The singularist tends to slur the unique-
ness and privacy of the finite self and the pluralist emphasizes it.
William James, Howison, McTaggart, F. C. S. Schiller, H. C.
Sturt and others in the volume Personal Idealism; in France,
C. B. Renouvier, Henri Bergson and others; and in Germany,
L. W. Stern are recent exponents of spiritualistic or personalistic
pluralism; Josiah Royce, F. H. Bradley and B. Bosanquet, of
spiritualistic singularism.2 Modern materialists are atomistic or
pluralistic in their emphasis, but the doctrine that the one sub-
stance is the continuous space-filling ether, of which all atoms
are transformations and transitory modifications would be a ma-
terialistic singularism.

We are not concerned here with the question whether all
reality is of one or more than one kind. That question we shall
discuss later on.3 Our present concern is with the logical value
of the notion of substance for an interpretation of reality as a
whole.

The classical criticisms of Locke and Hume on the notion of
substance 4 are presented to-day from a new angle — the notion of
substance is that of a meaningless reduplication of the properties
or attributes which are supposed to inhere in it. If the perma-
nent self-existing substance be not identical with its attributes,
it is nothing conceivable and the relation between it and its at-
tributes is inconceivable. Thus the substance idea is superfluous.
If substance be simply a name for the sum of its attributes it is
then neither permanent nor self-existing. Experience does not
acquaint us with any entity that is absolutely permanent or self-
existent. Experience is a realm of ceaseless flux, and the only
permanencies or invariants that science finds in it are those of
relations of functional interdependence among its data. Sub-

2 It should be added, however, that spiritualistic or idealistic singularists
do not deny a relative reality to the human individual ; but Bradley and Bosan-
quet are very dubious about according to the human person any permanent
place in the cosmic scheme. This is not at all the case with Royce who has
made the bravest attempt of them all to save the individuality and permanent
place of the person in the absolute self. In his later works Royce laid in-
creasing stress on the notion of the absolute as a community of persons. My
own view is nearest to his.

•See Chaps. 21 and 27.

4 See Locke, Essay, Book ii, Chaps. 23 and 24; Hume, Treatise, Book I,
Part iv, Sec. 3-6.

SUBSTANCE 187

stantiality or permanence, says Cassirer,5 "signifies the relative
self-dependence of determinate parts of a functional system ; that,
in comparison with others, prove independent moments." And a
functional relation is a correlation between series of empirical
data. The contents of experience are ever changing, but, in so far
as we are able to find or put law or order in their sequence, and
thus group the changing contents into series, we arrive at the
only sort of permanence and subsistence that scientific thought
can. get and use.6

8 oulrsub stance, conceived as the permanent and self-existing
support of the empirical processes of consciousness, really adds
nothing to our understanding of the actual self. It is only an
embarrassing superfluity. The more closely we scan the actual
history of selves^, the clearer it becomes that the unity and con-
tinuity of the empirical self is that of the fluctuating, interrupted,
and episodic memories, feelings, ideas, and purposes that cor-
respond roughly with the observed bodily processes. If the soul
be unchanging, it does not act for the changing consciousness. If
the soul be simply the relations of functional dependence or order
in the shifting data of consciousness, it is not a soul substance.

Material substance is equally useless as a substrate for empir-
ical physical processes. How is it to be thought of ? Does it pos-
sess only certain so-called primary qualities, mass, figure and mo-

6 Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff, p. 119.

•Professor Spaulding, in The New Rationalism (pp. 29, 38 ff., 70 ff.,
155 ff., etc.), attributes the aberrations of philosophers in hunting for mare's
nests, or in dark places for things that are not there, chiefly to the dominance
of the ancient Greek concept of substance as a "thinglike core" inside the
empirical qualities. Owing to the baneful influence of the Greek philosophers,
the thinglike concepts or corelike concepts of substance and cause have misled
philosophers ever since into thinking of mind and body, spirit and matter,
as thinglike substances and causes and speculating upon their relations. Thus
have arisen the foolish and insoluble riddles of the opposition of spiritualism
or idealism, materialism and dualism. Philosophy can end this endless and
fruitless debate only by emancipating itself from these childlike notions and
conceiving reality simply as a functional system of invariant logical relations
between the varying data of experience. On which charter of freedom and
progress for philosophy I make two observations: 1. Aristotle analyzes oiWa
or substance, which for him means oevng, and finds that it has four principal
meanings, rb rl tjv etvai, or essential being, rb KadbXov or the universal, rb ^hos
ovala or the genus, and rb ivoKelftevov or the substrate. He identifies being or
substance with the individual or self-existent, to 2k6.<jtov, KdOdfrru; this is the
essential being or subject of attributes, not a thinglike core. It is the union
of matter and form. 2. Some entity or entities must be self -existent or perma-
nent; whether minds and bodies, or mind-bodies, or neutral entities, or "an
unearthly ballet of bloodless" relations, this is not the place to consider.

188 MAN AND THE COSMOS

tion. Then how can we account for the secondary qualities : sound,
color, taste, odor, etc. ? How do the primary qualities produce
the secondary qualities? If the latter are subjective, inasmuch
as they are dependent upon the reaction of the percipient organism
to the impact of the primary qualities, then Berkeley's reply is
in point.7 Our knowledge of the primary qualities is equally
dependent upon the reaction of the organism. The primary qual-
ities are only relatively less changeable than the secondary. As
empirical data, the primary and secondary qualities are on the
same level. The primary qualities, supposed to be the attributes
of material substance, are not the primary qualities experienced
by us. They are either primary qualities reduced to microscopic
and imperceptible proportions; or, as in the identification of
matter with ether, everything experiential is stripped away, leav-
ing only the bare notion of a continuous space filled with nothing
conceivable or imaginable.8

Thus material substance is a meaningless abstraction that ac-
counts for nothing. A single neutral substance, conceived as the
underlying identity of mind and matter, in which are pooled, no
one knows how, the attributes of matter-substance, and mind-
substance, is an even more empty and superfluous notion.

If substance be the unknown support of known qualities, it is
a useless notion. The business of knowledge is to establish sys-
tematic correlations of experiential data. Descriptive laws of
qualitative and quantitative similarities and dissimilarities in the
empirical sequences of series, and of correspondences between
series of experiential data, constitute the whole business of science.
In its only useful sense, substance is thus a misleading name for
the never-completed sum of the laws of functional correlation of
experiential data. For the only entities that are permanent are
the universals and values — in short, the relations which we find
or put into the ceaseless processes and which give them connection
or meaning.

And yet, so irrepressible is the hunger of the mind for the
concept of permanent and self-existing entities, that we find sci-

' Cf. Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, and Three Dialogues he-
tween Hylas and Philonous.

8 The real primary qualities are only, to use Loeke 's term, ' l powers ' '
to produce in the moment of perception the experienced primary and secondary
qualities.

SUBSTANCE 189

entists, after driving out substance, smuggle it in again under
other names. The atoms, electrons, ether, etc., of the physicist ;
the elements of the chemist ; the colloids, protoplasms and cells of
the biologist; the sensations, affections, and reflex arcs of the
psychologist are substances; and there is an inveterate tendency
to hypostatize even the more general descriptive formulae of causal
sequence as "laws of nature." Even such tenuous notions as uni-
versals, relations, values, are hypostatized under other names.
The Neo-realist, for example, who would banish substances and
causes, and eviscerate their content into logical "terms" and "rela-
tions" which constitute propositions and propositional functions,
says that these bloodless notions subsist although they do not exist.
He does not tell us what they subsist on. If they subsist on them-
selves, they are simply our old friends the substances masquerad-
ing under other names. A self-subsistent entity is substantive.9

The truth is, as Kant said : we cannot think the changing with-
out the permanent. There must be something which changes and
if change is orderly, that is if it be thinkable, there must be a
ground or grounds for the order of change. Even the perpetual
flux and movement of perceptual experience must be the expres-
sion of the orderly interaction of real entities. Even if change
were illusory, there must be some permanent ground for this uni-
versal illusion. Empirical reality is the way in which things
behave around us and in us. It is the manifestation of a system
of centers of activity or movement. The substantial grounds of
experience must be permanent centers of activity in inter-rela-
tion. This is not the place to consider whether all real beings are
of one kind. The concept of substance as an inert core or passive
support of empirical qualities is certainly useless. I doubt if
any important philosopher ever held it. The true meaning of
substance is that of a system of particular centers of activity. All
motion implies activity.

Since experience is a rich complex of everchanging but orderly
sequences of qualities in multifarious relations of action and pas-
sion, the ground of experience must be the interaction of a plu-
rality of interdependent centers, of dynamic individua. These
are finite, since each receives from the others limits to its self-

9 Of. The New Realism by Perry and others ; Bertrand Eussell 's writings ;
Meinong's writings on Gegenstandstheorie.

190 MAN AND THE COSMOS

activity and thus suffers — that is, is passive. There can be no
determinate changes unless there are determinate beings having
determinate transactions. The changing complexes of experience
express their interaction. Whether all real centers of activity
are reducible to one type (qualitative monism) is a problem that
I shall consider later; whether all finite centers of activity are
parts of one all-inclusive active principle (dynamic singularism) ;
or whether the only unity is that of the system of interacting finite
beings (dynamic pluralism, personalistic and otherwise) ; or
whether the plurality of finite centers which constitute our world
have their ground in one transcendent creative principle (theistic
monism) will be considered later on.10 Here it is sufficient to
say that, since our pluralistic system of interacting individua con-
sists of finite members, strictly speaking, these are not substances.
Only the permanent self-subsistent ground or order of the whole
system is the ultimately substantial or self-subsistent reality. The
substantial is not something that mysteriously abides behind the
whole complex of individua. The substantial reality is either,
just the living order or system of the plurality of finite and inter-
related centers of action and passion, or the transcendent ground
of this order which, as known, is manifesting itself in the whole
systematic order of finite centers.

10 Part v.

CHAPER XVI

CHANGE AND CAUSALITY

In popular thought "cause" means something which produces
something else. The common sense belief is that there is power or
activity in the cause to bring forth the effect. The source of this
belief is, without doubt, the feelings of personal effort or activity
and resistance, which accompany changes produced by us, in our
surroundings and by our surroundings in us.

The quest for causal explanation is the application to chang-
ing experience of the principle of sufficient reason. The causal
principle is an a priori form or category of thought, simply in the
sense that, inasmuch as we do not ourselves act without ground
or reason, we suppose there must be a ground for every change
in the world around us. It was reasonable for primitive man,
who had not an accumulated stock of carefully analyzed observa-
tions in regard to the differences between the modes of behavior
of physical nature and human nature, to suppose that whatever
occurred was produced by some animated being or spirit acting
from felt motives. The scientific notions of attraction and repul-
sion are ghostly relics of animatism. The fundamental distinc-
tion which has been made, as a result of technical control and
scientific analysis, between mechanical causation and final causa-
tion is simply that between unmotivated and motivated causation.
Teleological interpretation of nature is simply the last refinement
of animism or animatism. We still use the same term to designate
changes brought about by inanimate physical agencies and by
persons.

Science has progressed, in exactness of procedure and the suc-
cessful control, through prediction, of natural processes, by ban-
ishing final causes from the study of nature. Positive science does
not ask why anything happens in the physical order, but how it
happens. It is only in social life, in history which is the at-
tempted reproduction of the social life of the past, and in ethical

191

192 MAN AND THE COSMOS

inquiries ; in other words, it is only where we have to do with the
attitudes and desires of persons that we now ask why anything
happens. The precisest possible general description of the orderly
sequence of actual events is the aim of natural science. For it
a cause is a uniform antecedent, without which the type of event
in question does not as a matter of fact occur. While a cause
is a uniform antecedent, that does not imply that causes and
effects may not in part be contemporaneous and reciprocating.

The aim of scientific explanation is to reduce the sequences
of events, as far as possible, to quantitative ratios. Science does
not attempt to reproduce the course of the actual world in all its
bewildering details. It makes conceptual abstractions from the
teeming complexity of fact. Its end is simplification and pre-
cision of statement, for the sake of prevision and control. It is,
therefore, most convenient for science to ignore troublesome ques-
tions as to the natures of causal agencies ; and to confine itself to
the description, in mathematical terms, of the functional relations
of interdependence among the data of experience. In his book,
Erhentniss und Irrtum, Ernst Mach has stated very clearly the
view that the vulgar concepts of cause and effect are useless to
express the functional interrelationships of elements in any com-
plex phenomenon of change. The concept of function expresses
much more completely and precisely the mutual dependence of
elements. All dependences are mutual, and the general permanence
in the changing relations or interdependences among empirical
elements are to be expressed as functional relations or equations
between the elements. For example, in an impersonal complex
ABCD, A may vary inversely with B, C, or D, or directly with
B, inversely with C, etc. The problem of science is to formulate
differential equations for these correlative variations.

Thus, the chief value of causal explanation lies in the formu-
lation of approximate regularities or orders of relation between
qualitatively discontinuous phenomena.1

The following are the chief philosophical problems in regard
to the notion of causation: (1) Is the notion of power or agency
to be banished entirely from our conception of the world, or has
it a legitimate place in philosophy? (2) What is the legitimate

1 On the notion of cause as functional relation see, in addition to Mach
and the references in the previous chapter, K. Pearson, Grammar of Science,
third edition ; also Avenarius, Kritik der reinen Erfahrung.

CHANGE AND CAUSALITY 193

meaning of the postulate of the uniformity of nature? Must like
causes always have like effects ? Or are we to admit a so-called
plurality of causes and effects, which would be to admit absolute
contingency into the heart of things. (3) The problem of con-
tinuity and discreteness or novelty ; in what sense must we admit
the reality of novel events ? (4) How are we to conceive the
totality of causal interrelations ? I shall now take up these prob-
lems in order.

( 1 ) The notion of power or agency cannot be eliminated from
the interpretation of experience without reducing it to a series of
groundless and inert dissolving views. Since there is change,
there is agency. There is a great gain, in simplifying his prob-
lems, for the physical scientist to banish all troublesome questions
as to the nature of force, agent, activity; but clearly our richly
diverse and mobile world is dynamic. Things are doing in it.
Fire is an agent, since it burns my fingers or my house. Elec-
tricity is an agent, since it shocks my nerves or kills me and
propels trolley cars. The quantities for which the differential
equations obtain in mathematical physics are pure quantities with-
out qualities. The world of experience is not a series of equations
or mathematical functions. It is not an unearthly ballet of bloodless
categories. The basic reality is experience, and the mathematical
functions of the exact sciences have but a very shadowy resem-
blance to reality. Since the self is both a doer and a sufferer,
it must suppose, when it suffers or perceives change, that some-
thing acts.

The tendency to shy off from questions as to the real agents
in nature is a consequence of the lingering influence of the doc-
trine of mysterious things-in-themselves behind phenomena. Ac-
tually, tilings are what they do. Substances, if not all sentient,
are at least all agents. Life, for instance, is not a mysterious
entity. It is a generic term for multitudes of individua which
nourish themselves, respond in peculiar ways to stimuli, are sen-
tient and mobile, and reproduce their kind.

The descriptive formulae of science state the uniformities or
orderly relations in the behavior of natural entities. But these
formulae can never embrace or represent adequately the course
of nature in its concrete complexity. Scientific laws are statistical
averages for the modes of behavior of large numbers of individua.
There are individual differences in the qualities even of atoms of

194 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the same chemical substance, as instanced in isomerism and ap-
parent exceptions to the periodic law. The differences between
such minute individua may be explained, as in the electron
theory, through differences in the subindividua. But individual
differences are not gotten rid of; they are only reduced in scale.
And the more complex the type of entity the greater and more
significant the individual differences.

The qualitatively variegated wealth of empirical reality must
have its grounds in a cosmos of diversified centers of activity.
The determinate but ever varying complexes of primary, second-
ary, and tertiary qualities are the joint products of the interaction
of percipient centers with other percipient and with nonpercipient
centers. There can be no single type of causation, to which all
others are reducible. AVhenever similar phenomena, recognized
through memory and record as constituting, together with present
events, a group of objects that are constituted into a group because
of the repetition of qualitative and quantitative similarities occur,
we have a single type of causation. For no actual causal relation
has any further empirical ground than the recognized repetition
of similars. In many cases of causation the repetition is confined
to the recognition of more or less of degree or intensity in quali-
tative similars. In the field of physical and chemical causation
alone, approximate quantitative equivalences in the repetition of
similars are determined. I say "approximate" equivalence; for,
even in the case of the repetition of the physical measurements
or chemical equations, we cannot assert absolute identity. Every
case may have something unique about it. The most we can say
is that, within certain limits, we have found for the repetition of
certain qualitatively similar sequences a mathematical correlation.
The more abstract, that is, the more remote from concrete experi-
ence and consequently the qualitatively poorer the elements and
relations are, with which we deal in formulating causal relations,
the more susceptible these relations are of mathematical statement.
The relations of electrons and ether, conceptual objects endowed
only with abstract spatial and dynamical properties, lend them-
selves readily to abstruse mathematical treatment. They have
been made by the mind for just that purpose. Molecular elements
in chemistry, being only one step removed from empirical com-
binations with perceptible properties, have to be endowed with
valencies, weights, etc.

CHANGE AND CAUSALITY 195

But chemical equations are quite exact, since the molecules
have been made for that purpose. When we take into account, in
physiological and psychophysical causation, the actually observable
results of the interaction of stimulus and sentient organism, we
are dealing with qualities more nearly in their concrete actuality,
and we do not get beyond the approximate quantitative relations
embodied in such principles as the laws of reflex action, the
Weber-Fechner law, etc. In social and historical causation, where
we have to do with the interaction of wholly concrete individuals
and groups of individuals, we are at the farthest remove from
the mathematical equations of abstract mechanics. The so-called
exact laws of nature are exact in the degree in which they deal
with abstract constructions in which the teeming qualitative com-
plexity of the empirical order has been artificially simplified.
These laws are, with reference to actual reality, simply more or
less approximate statistical averages of repetitions of similarities
in the behaviors of individua. In their formulation the qualita-
tive differences of the individua are treated as negligible for the
particular purpose in hand; just as in determining the expecta-
tion of life at various ages, the mortality tables used by insur-
ance companies are sufficiently trustworthy practical guides in
fixing policy rates, provided the statistics on which they are based
are sufficiently wide in range for the multitudinous small varia-
tions in the conditions of health, disease, and death to cancel one
another.2

The chief value of causal correlations in any field lies in the
establishment of an expectation of repetition, of a similarity of
sequence in events, based on the recognition of the repetition of
similar sequences of events in the past. In other words, it con-
sists in finding identical orders of serial dependences among dis-
tinct events. Since every event is distinct from every other, every
event must be the expression of an interaction between at least
two distinct entities. In linking together by the causal relation
similar groups of events we are not explaining away the unique
differences which give to events their distinctness. We are not
accounting for the determinate diversities of the individua, the
interrelations of which are the grounds of the events. A cause,

' Cf. Josiah Royce : The World and the Individual, Vol. IT, Lectures
iv and v; and his "The Mechanical, The Historical, and The Statistical," in
Science, N. S., Vol. 39, pp. 551 ff.

196 MAN AND THE COSMOS

or better, a condition, of a change in one being, does not enter into
that being and make it over into a copy of the being which causes
the change. A cause is never more than an incitement or stimulus,
by which one individual entity or group of entities occasions or
stirs up reaction in another entity or group of entities.

Reality must consist of a plurality of interactive and inter-
patient centers. The orderly characters of the changes that take
place in the history of the world means that these centers consti-
tute a system of entities in reciprocal relationships. These re-
lationships are the laws of the events of the world's history, but
the laws do not fully express the complex individuality of the
world whole, which is the organic, or rather superorganic system,
of relations holding among the indefinite diversity of its indi-
vidual elements. The pluralist regards the cosmical unity as
consisting simply in the mutual relations of its individual mem-
bers— interactive and interpatient. For him mutuality of stimu-
lation and response is the ultimate fact of the world. The singu-
larist or quantitative monist holds that all causal actions and
reactions among the finite elements of reality are simply compen-
satory adjustments among the parts of the one absolute or all-
inclusive being. For him all change consists of internal rear-
rangements in the one reality, and he finds the best analogies for
the unity of the one reality in the relations of the aspects of mind
to one another. The pluralist, on the other hand, finds the best
analogies for a conception of the world whole in the relations of
members of a society to one another. The theist is a pluralist
with reference to the relationships between the finite members
of the world, but he holds that these relationships must have their
original and conserving ground in a transcendent principle of
order. In later chapters I shall discuss these standpoints.? It
will suffice here to point out the differences that result from the
respective emphasis laid on different aspects of the problem.
Pluralists, such as Berkeley, Leibniz, McTaggart, agree that the
world is a cosmos or unitary order. Singularists, such as Spinoza
and Bradley, hold that the finite elements are genuine constit-
uents of the absolute, but in the absolute are absorbed to such
a degree that they appear to lose their distinct individualities.
Theists try to preserve the distinct individuality of finite entities

* Chaps. 35 to 38.

CHANGE AND CAUSALITY 197

and, at the same time postulate a ground of the order of the
world which, as existing in itself and for itself, transcends the
world. Descartes, Berkeley, and Leibniz were theists; perhaps
Hegel was. Representatives of philosophical theism to-day are
James Ward, W. E. Sorley, A. Seth Pringle-Pattison, H. Rash-
dall, and G. H. Howison. Important shades of difference will be
found among representatives of the various views, but I have
not space to deal here with their differences.

(2) What is the meaning of the principle of the uniformity
of nature ? It is, I take it, the postulate that the same causes
or conditions will uniformly give rise to the same effects. This
postulate does not imply that precisely the same causes and the
same effects ever recur. It is a purely hypothetical postulate of
reason, namely — "if absolutely the same causes should recur, ab-
solutely the same effects must follow." As we have seen, the
"laws" of the recurrence of similar conditions, resulting in the
recurrence of similar effects, are statistical approximations to
the actual complexity and variation of the world of events.
The so-called plurality of causes in practice means that what
is for statistical purposes the same kind of event, for ex-
ample death by natural causes, follows from a variety of events:
accidents, old age, disease, overwork, etc. ; but, from the stand-
point of personal relations and perhaps physiologically, no two
cases of death are ever absolutely the same so that the one could
be substituted for the other indefinitely. The supreme tragedy
of our social maladjustments is that the individual is so often
treated merely as what he is not, namely, as a mere figure in
statistics. Possibly there is no absolute repetition in the physical
course of nature; perhaps no two electrons are absolutely alike
in their situations and behaviors. Indeed, what are singled out
as causal relations are simply the most obvious and practically
important repetitions of similarities in events. Our causal de-
scriptions are artificial simplifications of the indefinite variety
of events. Every actual causal explanation is relative; not only
to our meager knowledge of the actual wealth of detail, but as
well to the particular purpose of .our inquiry. For example, one
man is shot by another. From a legal point of view, the cause
was the shooter's intent to kill. From the psychological and moral
point of view, it was the shooter's jealousy of the other's attentions
to his wife. From the physiological point of view, it was the

198 MAN AND THE COSMOS

impact of the bullet which produced hemorrhage. From the
physicist's point of view, it was a problem in mechanics. From a
cosmical point of view, the true cause was the whole state of the
universe immediately antecedent to the shooting. But the latter
explanation is no explanation, inasmuch as it would be useless
for any specific purpose, legal, moral, or medical.

Empirical reality is creative. It brings forth novelties. This
is most obviously true of the lives of individuals, the history of
humanity, the evolutionary order of life. It is also true, if less
noticeable, of the course of physical nature.4 If the second law
of thermodynamics be valid, then the physical universe is actually
an irreversible order which is running down hill in the direction
of absolute quiescence and death, unless some superphysical power
can reverse the gears. From the standpoint of our human ex-
perience terrestrial history has been a creative process. There
may be higher beings than man, but, never having been acquainted
with any of these, I am unable to discuss their characteristics.
It is impossible for us to be other than anthropomorphic in our
standpoints. At most, we can only strive for the most purified
and rational form of anthropomorphism. From this standpoint,
the approximate goal of terrestrial evolution and human history
is a process of creation of individuality and realization of per-
gonal values. The creation or achievement and conservation of
values in human life has gone forward spasmodically and irregu-
larity, not subject to any definite law that we can figure out. All
philosophies of history that have attempted to formulate genetic
theories of progress have failed; from St. Augustine to Herbert
Spencer.

But certainly novelties are produced for good and ill; es-
pecially in the psychical and social orders the principle of creative
synthesis or creative resultants, as Wundt calls it, holds good.
Causes are factors combined to produce results which are not the
arithmetical sum of the qualities of the causes but a new reality.
Procreation is a familiar example of this. All creative mental
work is an example. In brief, we may say that the origin
and development of personalities is the most striking example
of the creative process of the empirical world. This is taken

4 If the chemical elements have arisen through intra-atomic changes, of
which we get glimpses in radio-active transformations; the inorganic order
is a historical, and perhaps a creative, order.

CHANGE AND CAUSALITY 199

by some to imply contingency. If by contingency be meant
only that we cannot predict the effect by adding together
the causes, there is a contingency in the sense of the creation of
new qualities. But, if by contingency be meant that there is ab-
solute chance operating in the world, in other words that literally
the same conditions might eventuate in quite different results,
that some things happen without there being any sufficient ground
why they rather than their opposites should have happened, I am
unable to find any meaning in such a statement. If the assump-
tion be true, our world is a bedlam, and nothing is certainly true,
not even that the world is a bedlam. The only thing for which
no ground can be conceived is the ultimate ground or grounds of
reality. But this is not contingent; it is the ultimate fact. The
question why being was made, if by being we mean the ultimate
reality, is nonsense.

(3) The problem of continuity in causal processes has already
been raised in our previous discussion. A causal series is ob-
viously a series of discrete events. Each event in a chain, in
which each is in turn effect and cause, is distinct and occupies a
period of duration which is wholly or in part before or after an-
other event. On the other hand, it seems irrational to draw any
sharp line of temporal division between causes and effects. When
the causal conditions of any event are complete, is not the event
already there ? Empty time can make no difference, but if change
be absolutely continuous we seem to have no grounds for distin-
guishing events in a causal series; indeed, no grounds for recog-
nizing a temporal succession at all. On the other hand, if change
be not continuous, the causal process must consist of a series of
jumps from one to another event, between which jumps there are
no smooth transitions and therefore the intellectual demand for
continuity is violated.

It is argued that, since the complete presence of the causal
conditions of an event is identical with the effect, and therefore
the time element must be eliminated when the problem of causal
continuity is thoroughly thought out, the causal relation, to be
thoroughly intelligible and consistent, must be the phenomenal
expression of a timeless identity of logical ground and consequent.
Therefore, the notion of a discrete causal series must be replaced
by that of a timeless unitary ground. But this argument seeks to
solve the problem of change by abolishing it, or rather by ignoring

200 MAN AND THE COSMOS

it. Either change is an illusion or it is not. If change be an illu-
sion, either the illusion must be accounted for and then the original
problem is back on our hands in disguised shape or it is unaccount-
able ; and then we have committed intellectual suicide at the very
outset. If it be said that change is not illusory, but is the phenom-
enal expression of a timeless ground, we are simply cheated with
words. The problem remains as to how a timeless ground would
express itself in change.

The dialectical arguments against the reality of discrete
change, drawn from the infinite divisibility of a continuously pro-
jected line, really assume that a temporal series of events is made
up of a naturally endless number of timeless instants; in other
words these arguments really assume the empirical reality of
infinitesimals, which is self-contradictory. Empirical causal
change is not adequately represented by an absolutely continuous
line, thought to be produced indefinitely and therefore indefinitely
divisible. To substitute for empirical change the idea of an indef-
inite succession of timeless instants is at once to assume and deny
real succession.

In the empirical world there is incessant change. What we
happen to single out as causes and effects, from the rich complex
of empirical process, are the critically important events from the
standpoint of our specific purposes. But the only sense in which
causation and change are continuous is that there is no absolute
cessation or beginning in the empirical order ; and, therefore, this
order consists of the continuous interaction or interdependence of
the elements which make up the world. There are critical points
in change; such as, for example, the boiling point of water, the
freezing point, the moment of the fertilization of an ovum, the
moment of birth, the moment of voluntary decisions, the moment
of the declaration of war. Critical points are the results of the
gradual accumulation of small changes, but their actual fruition
constitute creative syntheses or novelties? Causation does not pro-
ceed upon a dead level. Causal continuity involves discreteness,
creativeness. The discrete occurrences which we call causes, or
effects, according to our point of view, are the critical and creative

5 The discussion of the places of minute variations or saltations (muta-
tions) in the genesis of biological species is significant in this connection.
But, logically, the problem is not changed by the degree of the variation. A
novelty does not cease to be such by being small.

CHANGE AND CAUSALITY 201

expressions of the qualitative complexity of interaction and result
in a world which is constituted by the interplay of a multitude of
dynamic individua.

(4) The problem of totality. How is causation to be con-
ceived from the point of view of the cosmos — of things as a whole ?
It is argued that the categories of causation and change cannot be
ultimate points of view, since, if we take them as such, we become
involved in the so-called endless regress of terms and relations,
and thus cannot reach the conception of totality. A temporal
series or order of change is without first or last term, without be-
ginning or end. In our scientific quest for causal explanation
we may stop short with the cosmical star dust or electrons and
the laws of physical motion, simply because we cannot coherently
imagine conditions precedent to these and from which these
emerge. Similarly we are unable to envisage concretely a remote
future ; logically a first cause or a last effect is an absurdity. A
first cause would be a cause for whose existence and activity no
ground could be given, an impassable limit to our understanding,
a nontemporal cause; in other words a cause that is not a cause
in the scientific sense; it would be a temporal event with which
time began, but it is nonsense to talk of a beginning before which
there was nothing. A beginning is a temporal event relative to
antecedent temporal events. Equally nonsensical is it to talk of a
last cause or final end-state. In other words, an event which means
the end of events and of time. Therefore, it is argued, the totality
of causal changes can only be thought of as a nontemporal ground.
The bearing of the problem of change and evolution on the con-
ception of ultimate reality cannot be adequately discussed until
we have developed more fully our conception of ultimate reality
and is therefore reserved for later chapters.6 I may say here,
however, that the only notion of a totality that seems to me tenable
is that of a permanent ground of order which prevades and sus-
tains the whole process of change. In other words, the unity of
the world can be nothing more than the systematical continuity of
the whole dynamical system of interrelated elements. The inter-
activities or reciprocal influences of the world's elements must be
the direct expression of the world ground. The ground of the
world whole may be a continuously active principle of order, of

• Book v, Chaps. 35-37.

202 MAN AND THE COSMOS

which the actual course of the world in all its complex variety and
novelty is the expression.

Thus far we have considered causation chiefly in the sense in
which it is taken in natural science. In this sense it is essentially
a retroactive standpoint, based on the recognized repetition of
similar events. Previsions and predictions of the future depend
for their success on the degree of repetition of similars — in short,
upon the degree of identity between past and future. This, I take
to be the essence of mechanical explanation. In so far as the
career of life, including man's historical career, is the theater for
the repetition of similars, it is a mechanical career. This we say
without thereby implying that the forces and behaviors of human
nature are identical with those of the physical universe. We may
say that mental habits and routines and social habits (such as blind
customs and traditions) are the mechanisms of history. Possibly
the individual life and the social order are chiefly mechanical in
their operations. Certainly they are largely so; but once in a
while man, the individual, and men, the society, rebel against the
mechanical and mechanizing processes; break through the tread-
mill of the past, to find or create something new which shall be
better, which shall have unique meaning and worth. Desire, long-
ing, hope, fear, discontent, rebellion, idealization, purposive striv-
ing, these human attitudes express various facets of the prospective
forward living character of human life. In seeking to build better
mansions for his soul and to build a better soul, man is striving
to determine the present in the light of an imagined better future.
In other words, he seeks to make mechanism subservient to the
realization of new values or the more effective realization of
accepted values. The fulfillment of ambition, of love, the quest
for a better social order, for the salvation of his soul through
religion or art, are ways in which mechanism is subordinated to
purpose and value, means of escaping from the thralldom of his
present by his past through creativity guided by imaginative fore-
shadowings of a better future. The future is a function of the
living present ; but, in so far as man successfully strives to break
through the inherited mechanisms of his past, the vision of a
better future becomes the most potent determining characteristic
of the living present. Thus it is a mistake to say that in seeking
for the country of the future man is sacrificing the real present to
an unreal future. Of course one may do so by living a life of

CHANGE AND CAUSALITY 203

mere dreaming, but the quest for that better country is really the
re-creation of the present by the liberation of his life from the
bondage of mechanical repetition. The limits of the validity of
the mechanical viewpoint are to be found in the scope of life's
creativeness.

In so far as life is creative, creative imagination and pur-
posiveness or teleological activity control the course of change.
In the order of nature and in the order of human life mechanism
and teleology seem to be in incessant conflict. The issue is not
the question of all mechanism versus all teleology, but of the
subordination of mechanism to teleology. Nor does teleological
control of change imply discontinuous and irrational contingency.
The continuity of a well-ordered, intelligently directed human
career, in other words, teleological continuity, is a more compre-
hensive and higher type of continuity than that of a mechanical
repetition. The continuity of a living social institution, of a
cultural movement ; such as a nation, a religion, a historical totality
of intellectual, moral, and aesthetic culture, is a still more com-
prehensive and higher type of continuity than that afforded by
any physical mechanism. Is not then a teleological whole the
highest type of causal and temporal continuity ; and must we not,
if we are to think the world a living whole, conceive the world
ground as a continuing power of organization, a teleological world
order in which mechanical repetition is subservient to the creative-
ness of life ?

The question we have just raised involves a more systematic
consideration of the concepts of individuality, value, and purpose.

APPENDIX

THE KNOWLEDGE OF ACTIVITY

Wherever there is change there is causality, and wherever there
is causality there must be some sort of activity. The original source
of the belief in activity resides in the self's immediate experience of
its own activity. We feel desire, impulse, tension, effort. But the
feeling of effort is not the same as the simple feeling of activity. We
feel effort only when our feeling of inner movement, of the develop-
ment of desire and purpose, is blocked, thwarted, or distracted by
competing interests or external obstacles. Hence, to point to incom-
ing peripheral sensations from the muscles and inward-pointing

204 MAN AND THE COSMOS

sensations of headstrain as the sole sources for our feelings of activity
is beside the mark. The feeling of activity is not exhausted by the
elimination of these sensations. It may be objected that we are not
to take an unanalyzed feeling of being alive and active as a primitive
revelation. No; but the analysis into peripheral and central bodily
processes leaves a remainder — the immediate feeling of consciously
developing movement directed towards an end. This is particularly
evident in rationally directed will-attitudes in which the higher
thought processes are involved. The whole feeling of a self, as living
and developing in its appetitive and purposive life, is identical with
the feeling of self-activity. The feeling of activity is the sense of
the inner development of the conscious and purposive life itself. We
do not infer that we are active because we are alive. We are con-
scious of self-originating process and development with direction, fol-
lowing hard upon desire and interest, or, it may be, precisely con-
temporaneous with these. If cogitans sum is an immediate fact of
introspective experience agens sum is a more catholic statement of
the same inner immediacy. To experience one's life is to experience
activity, since it is to experience self-directed change. To desire and
aim, and to move toward the accomplishment of one's desire and aim,
is to experience the original nature of activity.

If it be objected that, since all ideas are passive, we can have no
idea of activity, I reply that one might as well argue that an idea
of a fat ox must be a fat idea. An idea of a quality or relation does
not have to be the identical quality or relation of which it is a true
idea. If activity is the immediate awareness of the self as consciously
alive one must always have at hand a nascent consciousness of what
it means, even though one cannot draw a picture or diagram of it.

It may be said that all one can really find when one introspects
are kinesthetic sensations in muscles and sensations of headstrain,
and therefore the supposedly spiritual effort of attentive and con-
structive thinking is the reflex of bodily processes. One can only
speak for oneself in regard to the findings of introspection. I do
not find sensations of tension and strain in the head, pointing inward
and backward, to be all that there is when I retrospectively consider
my own processes of intellection and conation. There are times,
when all distracting stimuli being absent and all consciousness of
bodily processes dampened, I have a feeling of unimpeded thought
activity, of the flow and constructive rearrangement of images and
concepts devoid of any sensory elements beyond the vague visual
motor and auditory images of the words which symbolize the concepts
involved. In other words when, at specially favorable times, thought
moves towards its goal without any accompanying sensations of ob-

CHANGE AND CAUSALITY 205

struction, conflict or tension, there is a feeling of unclouded intel-
lectual activity.

The immediate sense of self-activity is the root of our notion of
immanent activity in things. We project activity into other beings
wherever we observe motion and change. When the self, in its ac-
tivities, experiences obstruction, strain, effort, in carrying out its
aims, its immanent activity becomes transeunt activity. Transeunt
activity is the meeting of two or more immanent activities, the rela-
tion of active centers which obstruct or reinforce one another's
activities.

This is not the place to discuss the question whether spiritual
or psychical activity may not be the ghostly mirage of the activities
of nerve-cells or atoms, that is, an illusory epiphenomenon. This
raises the whole question of mechanism and teleology in metaphysics.
I may remark, however, that until we are offered convincing evidence
that the prima facie experience of personal activity is a deception
we are entitled to accept it as a datum. Such evidence has not yet
been forthcoming.7

7 On self -activity see especially James Ward, article ' ' Psychology ' ' ;
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. XXII; William James, A Pluralistic
Universe, Appendix B, "The Experience of Activity"; Ibid., Psychology,
Vol. I, Chap. 11, "Attention," especially pp. 447-454; and Vol. II, Chap.
26, "Will." For criticism of activity see Bradley, Appearance and Beality,
passim.

CHAPTEK XVII

INDIVIDUALITY, VALUE, AND PURPOSE

In Book IV we shall consider in extenso the nature of the
human individual and the place of value and purpose in human
individuality, in society, and in relation to the cosmic order.
Here I shall give only general definitions of these categories and
a summary account of their interrelationships.

An individual is a concrete existent whose determinate nature
is a complex pervaded and controlled by an internal and self-
possessing principle. In so far as a living organism is a unitary
whole whose life activities are controlled by a single principle, it is
an individual. A cell or even an atom may be considered as a
sub-individual or lowest type of individuum. A human self or
mind-body, being a unity that feels, perceives, thinks, and acts as
a single self-possessing, self-maintaining, self-developing whole,
is the highest type of individual in the empirical order. The unity
of the self is primarily a unity of feeling and volition, secondarily
a unity of cognition. I am not ready to admit with Royce that a
self is always constituted by a single plan of action in the sense of
a unity of conscious purpose. It is difficult to find and keep to a
single integrated plan of conscious action in life. I know that I
am a unity of feeling in the sense that all my feelings are mine.
I know too that all my thoughts are my thoughts. I know, like-
wise, that I have never been quite able to subordinate all my
activities into a single plan; that, with reference to action, I am
much at the mercy of circumstances. It seems to me that to say
that a self is constituted by a single plan of action would be to
deny that many selves are selves.

However socialized, as members of the universe, my thoughts,
interests, and aims may become, they are mine. Social ideals and
principles, however impersonal, and universal interests and aims,
have no existence or meaning, except as issuing from and referring
back to the felt unity of the individual self. I cannot admit the

206

INDIVIDUALITY, VALUE, AND PURPOSE 207

inference that Bradley, Bosanquet, and others of the school of
objective idealists make that, as human individuals develop in
rationality, sociality, and value, they transcend their individuali-
ties or personalities. Bosanquet conceives feeling as being just the
difference that a universal content of thought and purpose makes
to us as individuals. Like Hegel, he rather depreciates feeling,
which is the psychical root of personality. He says that where
we are strong we come together; in social work, art, religion, and
science. True, but it is we, as distinct and poignant individualities,
that come together ; and our strength, when we do come together, is
the combined strength of unique persons, of distinct and separate
centers of feeling, thought, and action. The more human persons
learn to think, to feel, to act, together for social and universal
ends, the more individually distinctive and unique do they become.
It is the unorganized, inchoate, undeveloped self that is easily
submerged in the mob consciousness. It is the unthinking or
defective mind that is submerged in the crowd mind. The mob is
made up of selves with little selfhood. The crowd mind is made
up of minds who either have little mentality or whose mentalities
are in a state of suspended animation. The higher,, the better
organized and more rational the self, the more distinctive and
strong the personality. The best organized, the most compre-
hensive, the richest, the most coherent and dynamic type of being
that we can think is a society of free self-determining personalities.
Therefore, the highest and most adequate criterion of value is to
be found in the conception of a society of rational individuals or
persons. It is the highest criterion of value, since one cannot
conceive or imagine anything richer in content and meaning than
a society of integrated selves ; each possessing wealth and harmony
of feeling and rational insight ; each having the power of sustained
action in rational cooperation with all the others, to further
achievement of those ends which promote the spiritual enrichment
and harmonious intercourse of its members one with another; a
society of individuals enjoying and loving nature, and mutually
free intercourse, feeling beauty and seeing meaning in their
inward lives as well as in their outward relations, and successful
in making themselves at home in their physical environments.

Personality or rational individuality is the most comprehensive
criterion of value; since truth is simply the harmonious corre-
spondence of the perceptive and rational powers of the self with

208 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the order of reality; since beauty is the harmonious warmth of
feeling which free contemplation of other lives yields to a self;
since goodness is the harmonious integration of the affective and
active tendencies of a self within itself, with other selves, and with
the universe. Truth, beauty, and goodness are generic expressions
for the chief aspects of the harmonious integration, social integra-
tion, and integration with the universe, on the part of human
persons.

The ultimate ground of values or teleological order can be
nothing other than the cosmic principle which makes possible the
achievement and conservation of personal values. Every sort of
order, whether physical, vital or human, is a system of individuals
or quasi-individuals. A physical order is a system of dynamic
centers of physical qualities or modes of behavior ; a vital order is
a system of organic individuals in dynamic relations to one another
and to their physical conditions of existence; a human or social
order is a system of dynamic relations between human selves. The
orders that exist in nature or in human society increase in sig-
nificance and value just in proportion as their constituent members
increase in wealth of content and in harmony. Social and rational
individuality or personality is the highest and most comprehensive
type of value that we know. Therefore the supreme ground of
values must be a superpersonal order.

But purposiveness seems to be a mark of imperfection, to imply
always an unrealized end, an ideal which is not yet fact or reality.
And the realization of the end involves the use of means or mechan-
isms, which are given independently of the end and which may
not serve as ready instruments for the realization of the end. If
means and end were wholly harmonious there would be no dis-
tinction between them ; they would be timelessly identical. There
would be then no striving and the idea of purpose would be an
unmeaning superfluity. Thus, if the real universe be perfect, it
cannot be a purposive or teleological whole. All values are
eternally realized. On the other hand, if purposive striving have
any real significance, the universe is not perfect. If the universe
be not perfect, the values which purposive activity aims at may be
perpetually doomed to defeat, and even to extinction. In short,
when we attempt to conceive reality as a teleological or significant
whole, we find ourselves confronted by a dilemma — either the
whole is now as always perfect, and purposive activity is a vain

INDIVIDUALITY, VALUE, AND PURPOSE 209

shadow in which men walk; or purposive activity really achieves
new values and then the nature of the whole is imperfect and the
issues of the purposive activity which it contains are uncertain.
Thus we are brought to the problem of the place of significant
history or evolution in ultimate reality — a problem to which we
shall devote a later chapter. At this point I wish to show simply
that the notion of teleology or purposiveness is subordinate to the
notions of value and personality.1

I shall take as my guiding conception the notion that value
is always a quality of spiritual selfhood or personality, regarded
as essentially involving membership in a spiritual community.
Then I think we may see that ceaseless striving for unrealized
ends, endless effort in short, is not the highest mark of value in
an individual or in a communal life. In the enjoyment of beauty
in nature and in art we do not strive, in the contemplative posses-
sion of truth we do not strive, for ulterior ends. In the life of
affection, of love and friendship, we do not strive ; in short, in the
highest, most self-sufficing and selfless activities and experiences
there is no purposive effort to realize as yet unachieved values.
Beauty is its own excuse for being. The contemplation of truth
and the interpersonal life of affection are surely, too, their own
excuses for being. With respect to these inherently worthful
attitudes and experiences, with respect to the selfless contemplation
of beauty, and of rational order, as with respect to unselfish
human affection, we can say with Tennyson:

Our wills are ours, Oh Lord;

Our wills are ours to make them thine.

Since we are finite and imperfect beings living in a world of
change, we never wholly escape from striving and willing, from
setting up ends and devising means ; but, in the possession of the
highest values, of those values which are our most significant and
most real living, we escape from the treadmill process of the
striving will. In the fruition of value, and of personality in and
through value, purposive conation ceases. As Dr. Bosanquet
puts it : "If it (the principle of teleology when applied to cosmic
theory) is to retain a meaning, it must abandon the whole analogy

I I beg to refer particularly to the very fine treatment of the idea of
teleology in Bosanquet 's: The Principle of Individuality and Value,
Lecture iv.

210 MAN AND THE COSMOS

of finite contrivance and selection and must fall back on the char-
acteristics of value which is, apart from sequence in time and from
elected purposes, attached to the nature of a totality which is
Perfection." 2 "In extending the idea of teleology to the universe
as a whole we are turning from the question whether this fact or
that has the appearance of being contrived for a purpose, to the
question whether the totality — contrivance or no contrivance, and
without any suggestion of dividing it into part which is means
and part which is the end — can be apprehended or conceived as
satisfactory, that is, as a supreme value." 3 "And we see again
that the true 'end' or value does not lie in this special relation to
a terminus or a finite purpose, but in a character of perfection,
which may in finite experience be relatively present throughout
a process, or as a persistent result of it, or at the beginning of it,
or at the middle." 4 "The great enemy of all sane idealism is the
notion that the ideal belongs to the future. The ideal is what
we can see in the light of the whole, and the way in which it shapes
the future for us is only an incident — and never the most impor-
tant incident — of our reading of past, present, future in their
unity." 5 "Things are not teleological because they are purposed,
but are purposed because they are teleological." 6 "We can freely
suppose the world plan to be immanent in the whole, including
finite mind and also mechanical nature." 7 "The foundations of
'teleology' — really individuality — in the universe are far too
deeply laid to be explained by, but, still more, to be restricted to,
the intervention of finite consciousness. Everything goes to show
that such consciousness should not be regarded as the source of
teleology, but as itself a manifestation, falling within wider mani-
festations, of the immanent individuality of the real. It is not
teleological, for the reason that as a finite subject of desire and
volition it is 'purposive.' It is what we call purposive because
reality is individual and a whole, and manifests this character
partly in the shortsighted and eclectic aims of finite intelligence,
partly in appearances of a far greater range and scope. The large
scale patterns of history and civilization are not to be found as

2 Ibid., p. 126.
*Ibid., p. 127.
4 Ibid., p. 131.
*lbid., p. 136.
'Ibid., p. 137
1 Ibid., p. 146.

INDIVIDUALITY, VALUE, AND PURPOSE 211

purposes within any single finite consciousness; the definite con-
tinuity and correlation of particular intelligent activities, on which
the teleological character of human life as a whole depends — the
'ways of Providence' — are a fact on the whole of the same order
as the development of the solar system or the appearance of life
upon the surface of the earth. It is impossible to attribute to
finite consciousnesses, as agents, the identity at work within finite
consciousness as a whole. This identity is exhibited in the devel-
opment which springs from the linked action of separate and
successive finite consciousnesses in view of the environment.
Every step of this development, though in itself intelligent and
teleological, is in relation to the whole unconscious ; and the result
is still a 'nature' though a second and higher nature." 8 "And
with the mention of history and the time and place of a man's
birth we come to Teleology above finite consciousness. In history,
or in what is greater than history, the linked development of art
or ideas and religion, the principle of a teleology beyond, though
exhibited in finite consciousness, is clear and unambiguous. It is
not finite consciousness that has planned the great phases of
civilization, which are achieved by the linking of finite minds on
the essential basis of the geological structure of the globe. Each
separate mind reaches but a very little way, and relatively to the
whole of a movement must count as unconscious. You may say
there is intelligence in every step of the connection ; but you cannot
claim as a design of finite intelligence what never presented itself
in that character to any single mind. The leader of a Greek
colony to Ionia in the eighth or ninth century, B.C., was certainly
paving the way for Christianity ; but his relation to it, though in
a higher way of working, was essentially that of a coral insect to
a coral reef. Neither Christianity nor the coral reef were ever any
design of the men or insect who constructed them; they lay
altogether deeper in the roots of things ; and this, as I hold, carries
with it the conclusion which in principle must be accepted about
evolution." 9 In brief, they builded better than they knew.
"Teleology does not come out of the empty mind ; it is the focusing
of external things together until they reveal their internal life." 10
The principle of value then is identical, in the human order

Ibid., pp. 152-153.
Ibid., pp. 154-155.
'Ibid.. r>. 166.

10 Ibid., p. 166,

212 MAN AND THE COSMOS

and in the universe, with the principle of spirituality or person-
ality. And the meaning of the latter is the organized spiritual
harmony which is found and enjoyed in the greater experiences of
life — in an impulse from a vernal wood, in the devotion of comrade
to comrade, of lover to the beloved, of man to God, of the artist
and the art lover to beauty, of the scholar and the thinker to truth,
of men in general to justice and fellowship in the social order.
Teleological interpretation of the universe means really an axio-
Jogical interpretation, an interpretation in terms of value and per- •
sonality. The notions of purposive striving, willing, of ends and
means, are subordinate to the notions of value and personality.

From our standpoint reality at its highest level is a community
of persons, an order of individuals. From this standpoint natural
law or cosmical law has not the position of a legislative principle
imposed upon the constituent individuals which make up the
universal order. The elements of reality are not mere exemplifica-
tions of natural laws. The laws of physics, chemistry, biology,
psychology, sociology, are formulations of the various subordinate
orders, or regular modes of behavior, of individuals in relation.
Natural law is an abstract or partial statement of the order that
does obtain in the relations of individuals ; legal and moral law
of the relations which should but do not always obtain. In both
types a law is an abstract partial statement of an order and of the
relations of individuals as members of an order.

The ultimate problem of philosophy is that of the place of
personality in the cosmical order; the problems of the value of
personality and of the value of existence as a whole are but two
aspects of this fundamental problem. One's conception of the
value of existence must grow out of his conception of the place of
personality in the cosmos; and on one's conception of what per-
sonality is and what nature is depends one's conception of the place
of personality in the cosmos. We shall next consider the nature of
nature, with special regard to the place therein of life and mind,
making no attempt to formulate more than an outline philosophy
of nature. This will furnish a background for a more detailed
consideration of the nature of personality ; then we shall be ready
to face, as best we can, the last riddle of the sphinx — the place of
personality in the cosmos.

BOOK III
EMPIRICAL EXISTENTS

CHAPTER XVIII

SPACE AND TIME

Hitherto we have been considering the more formal or logical
features of reality. Identity and diversity, discreteness and con-
tinuity, individuality and universality, number and quantity,
order, causality and substance, are the most fundamental logical
features of the structure of reality as a whole. Any universe, and
any partial system not a universe, must, in so far as intelligible,
be a system of entities in relation and therefore be discrete and
continuous, individual and universal. Any universe must be an
order of entities in relation and therefore denumerable. For
number is essentially an orderly determination in formal or ab-
stract time, and expresses nothing but the ordered series of enti-
ties. Time is the order of succession or before and after. Space
is the order of simultaneity or coexistence. The concept of num-
ber, we have seen, arises through the analysis and synthesis of
qualitative differences in experience, and the application of number
to things requires the recognition of qualitative likenesses and dif-
ferences. Numerical order and magnitude are the most formal
and abstract ways of discriminating and relating, in terms of dis-
creteness and continuity, the qualitative wealth of empirical
reality. Numbering is the formulation of an order system of rela-
tions for the qualitative complex of empirical reality. It is through
time and space that identity and diversity, the individual and the
universal, number and quantity and the other categories become
concrete. Regularity of space relations is one determinate aspect
of the regularity, or the relation of order, which is the final ground
of number and mathematics. The regular order of temporal suc-
cession is an abstractive construction from experience symbolized by
number series.

In passing from identity and diversity, continuity and dis-
creteness, through number, to space and time, we are following the
order of increasing concreteness or specification in our considera-

215

216 MAN AND THE COSMOS

tion of the structural character of empirical reality, and our next
step, after considering space and time, will be to consider things
and persons. We are not here attempting to deduce concrete
reality from the concepts of identity and diversity, for we have
insisted all along that these formal concepts are built up by the
analytic-synthetic activity of intelligence operative in the organiza-
tion of experience.

Common sense thinks of space and time as substances or real
existents, in which things are contained and events happen. The
Newtonian doctrine of absolute space and absolute time, which
seems to have generally prevailed among physicists up to the
advent of Minkowski and Einstein, is but a mathematical extension
of the common sense view. Empty space and empty time are taken
to exist independently of things and events. Berkeley criticized
severely Newton's doctrine of absolute space, time and motion.1
For Berkeley, of course, space is nothing but the order of coexist-
ence, and time the order of succession, in the ideas of finite spirits.
Liebniz held that space is the order of coexistence among the
activities of the monads, and time the order of succession in the
activities of the monads. In his controversy with Samuel Clarke,
the disciple of Newton, Leibniz argued that Newton's doctrine of
absolute space and time would make God a finite being conditioned
by space and time. I hold that Leibniz's theory is, in principle,
correct and that it has been vindicated by the recent development
of the physical theory of relativity.2 Space and time are relative
to the changes and experiences of finite beings. What may corre-
spond to them in the supreme order of the universe, or in other
words, what may be the ultimate ground of the space and time
orders, I shall consider briefly at the end of this chapter and more
fully in Chapters XXXV and XXXVII.

The chief questions, for philosophy, in regard to space and
time are these: (1) In what sense are space and time real? (2)
Are they relative or absolute? (3) Are they boundless and in-

1 See Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, paragraphs 110-117,
123-132; and Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision.

2 The best, brief treatment of the relativity of space and time in its gen-
eral philosophical and historical aspects that I am acquainted with is Dr. H.
Wildon Carr's, The General Principle of Relativity. On the philosophical
bearings of the Einstein theory I have found two good brochures in German —
Moritz Geiger, Die philosophische Bedeutung der Relativitatstheorie ; Ernst
Cassirer, Zur Einstein 'schen Relativitatstheorie ; both of date 1921.

SPACE AND TIME 217

finitely divisible or Lave they bounds and ultimate elements (points
and instants) ? (4) How are they related? Are they correlative
or independent dimensions ? All these questions are interwoven.
The answer to one implies answers to the others. If, for instance,
as I shall argue, space and time are relative, they are real as
aspects or attributes of existence ; but they cannot be independent
entities. If they are both relative and real, they may be, in some
sense, finite and correlative.

Zeno, the Eleatic, developed the contradictions in regard to
motion and change involved in admitting the reality of space, time,
motion and multiplicity. Since his day philosophers and mathe-
maticians have puzzled their heads over the questions of the
boundlessness of space, the endlessness of time and the existence
of the infinitesimal. Zeno's conclusion from his paradoxes was that
motion, change and multiplicity are illusory. Kant, in his mathe-
matical antimonies, gave a fresh statement of the contradictions
involved in thinking space and time as absolute.3 Kant admitted
the universal empirical validity of physics and mathematics ; so the
only way out of the deadlock for him was to say that space and
time are universal forms of finite experience, but not conditions
of the existence of noumenal realities or things-in-themselves. For
Kant the noumenal entities — God and the free and immortal soul
— are, theoretically, mere hypotheses that give completeness to
thought ; they are regulative ideals. Practically they are postu-
lates of moral faith. But Kant does not attempt to render an
intelligible account of the relation of the spatial-temporal world
of nature to the timeless and spaceless noumena. His idealistic
successors struggled in vain with this problem. F. H. Bradley
shows that, if space and time be taken to exist as such, they are
riddled with contradictions ; therefore they are mere appearances.4
But Mr. Bradley does not explain what place these appearances
have in the timeless and seamless whole of the absolute. M.
Bergson resolves the contradictions by making space and time to be
intellectual distortions of the true reality which is duration or
change ; but he does not seem to find any place for a supertemporal
order.5 Mr. Bertrand Russell finds the solution of Zeno's

* See Critique of Pure Reason, Second Division, Book ii, Chap. 2.

* See Appearance and Reality, Chaps. 4 and 18.

B See Time and Free Will, Chap. 2 ; and Creative Evolution, especially pp.
325-330.

218 MAN AND THE COSMOS

paradoxes in the new mathematical theory of continuity. Space
and time consist of discrete points and instants. These con-
stitute compact infinite series; thus, in any finite portion of
space and interval of time there is an infinite number of
points and instants; between any two points or instants there
is always another; thus, there is no next point to any point
and no next instant to any instant, although there is nothing
between any two points but points and nothing between any
two instants but instants. A finite space is traversed in a
finite time because there is a one-one correspondence between the
infinite series of points and instants which make up, respectively,
the finite stretches of space and time.6 To me this solution is no
solution, since I do not understand either how an actual stretch of
space can be made up of an innumerable number of dimensionless
points or how an actual interval of duration can be made up of an
innumerable number of durationless instants.7

The first step towards a clear understanding of the problems of
space and time is to distinguish between three ideas that are fre-
quently confused : ( 1 ) the spatial and temporal attributes or quali-
ties of our experience (of both sense data and data of introspec-
tion); (2) mathematical or conceptual space and time; (3)
physical space and time. I proceed to discuss the distinctions and
relations between these three sets of ideas. I ask the reader to bear
in mind that while, for brevity of statement, I speak of "empir-
ical," "conceptual" and "physical" space and time, these distinc-
tions refer, not to different entities, but to different modes of
thinking space and time. There can be only one ultimately real
or existent space and time — the physical or cosmical space and
time. I leave, for later consideration, the question of the relation
between "subjective" or "mental" time and cosmical time (Chap-
ter 37).

I. Empirical Space and Time

The spatial and temporal attributes of sensory and introspective
data. All the data of experience have duration or protensity.
They are events, which occur and recur and extend over one
another. They have empirical simultaneity and successiveness.

• See Eussell, Principles of Mathematics, Chap. 42, and Our Knowledge
of the External World, Chap. 5.

'See further Appendix to Chap. 35: "The Infinite."

SPACE AND TIME 219

Some of these data have extensity or voluminousness. The data of
sight, touch, kinsesthesis, taste and smell directly, and of sound indi-
rectly by association, have voluminousness. I think that certain
inward experiences of thought and feeling are devoid of extensive
quality, but certainly our bodily feelings, pleasurable and painful,
seem to have extensity associated with them. So far as concerns
the external world, at least, our data are both extensive and pro-
tensive; the facts of nature are space-time facts. The things we
perceive as extensive coexist and succeed one another ; they endure
and they change. The repetition of empirical data leads us to
believe in the permanence or perduration of objects; a physical
object is a thing that endures 8 or recurs in different event-settings.
Empirical extensions and durations are finite and hetero-
geneous or discrete. No two stretches of experienced duration or
extensity, or perhaps one might better say no two stretches of
extensity-duration, are precisely alike. It is obvious that our
experiences of our durations as living constitute a succession of
heterogeneous specious presents strung together in memory. It is
not so obvious, but it is none the less true, that the extensity quali-
ties of experience are heterogeneous. The extensity quality of
vision is not the same as that of touch, taste, or sound. Even the
tactual qualities yielded by the tip of the finger and the tip of the
tongue in the exploration of a cavity in a tooth are discrepant.
The space of a dream is discontinuous with the space of a waking
experience. I need not multiply instances, from the psychology of
space perception, of the heterogeneity of empirical space qualities.
Similarly, the duration qualities of experience are notoriously
heterogeneous. One lives much faster in one hour than in another.
Suppose fifty people hear a lecture, of which the clock time was one
hour. There may be fifty different experienced durations. One
person may have thought the clock time of the lecture about ten
minutes and another person may have thought it about ten hours.

II. Conceptual Space and Time

How do the concepts of one homogeneous and unchanging
space-whole and of one continuous and evenly flowing time order
arise from the multiplicity of heterogeneous perceptions by indi-

8 See Dr. A. N. "Whitehead 's very striking analysis of nature as duration,
in his Principles of Natural Knovjledge and The Concept of Nature.

220 MAN AND THE COSMOS

vi duals ? I think it is obvious, upon a little examination, that the
mathematical concepts of space and time are the last steps in the
construction, by analytical abstraction and synthesis, of the notion
of a common world order which has its roots in the needs, postu-
lates and conventions of the social life. The individual finds him-
self from the outset, in a social world — a world of interplay be-
tween himself and other selves. He is prone to take every other
center of action and resistance to be a self. He must imagine and
conceive a common space as the theater of interaction between
selves. The other self and himself meet constantly in conflict and
in cooperation. As his field of actual and possible social interplay
is enlarged, just so his concept of the common space whole is
widened. As his social contacts increase in variety, depth and
orderliness, just so his concept of a common space grows in refine-
ment and stability, grows as an instrument of practical and logical
manipulation.

Similarly with time. The individual's consciousness of his
own lived duration is enriched through social interplay. His own
duration overlaps and is overlapped by the durations of other
lives. The sequence of the generations, the rise, persistence and
decay of custom and tradition, at first orally and later by written
record, enlarge his consciousness of duration. The history of his
physical environment is closely interwoven with the history of his
family, tribe, city, state and nation. Thus man's time conscious-
ness is enlarged, until finally the origin and evolution not only of
the human race but of the whole life process is interwoven with
the history of the universe. From the Alcheringa myths of the
central Australian savage down to the latest form of the evolution
theory the notion of the time process keeps step with the develop-
ment of the concepts of social life and order. As a social indi-
vidual man is under the practical necessity of marking off briefer
and longer rhythms of durations. If he were a hermit animal he
would need to take note only of the cruder physiological and sea-
sonal rhythms. But as a social being he must have a time for
everything — a time to eat and sleep, to work and play, to go to
school, to marry, to conduct public affairs, to pray, etc. ; yes, even
to tinker at the social order itself.9 In order that men may co-

8 On the history of the time concept compare the article by James T.
Shotwell : ' ' The Discovery of Time ' ' in the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology
and Scientific Methods, Vol. xii, pp. 197 ff., 253 ff., 309 ff.

SPACE AND TIME 221

operate they must agree upon methods for measuring intervals of
duration. All the methods and standards of time measurement,
from the hour glass and the clepsydra to the apparent diurnal mo-
tion of the fixed stars, consist in closer approximations, by means
of a nearer approach toward an invariant rhythmical movement,
toward an invariant order of succession. Every improved measure
of time is an asymptotical approach, by social convention, to the
ideal limit of an absolute rhythmical movement.

Time is measured in terms of space and space in terms of
time. Strictly speaking, all determinations of space and time must
begin from the "now-here" of the individual. '"Here" is "now,"
and "now" is "here" ; thus the simplest fact of experience is a
space-time fact — "an event particle," as Dr. "Whitehead puts it.
But, for all social purposes, we must assume that the empirical
space of the individual is continuous, respectively, with the spaces
of other coexisting individuals and his time coincident with their
times and continuous with the durations of succeeding individuals
and groups. Thus I believe that the space-time of my here-now
is a component of the one space-time whole of contemporaneous
"nature" and "society" ; and that the duration of my here-now
is a moment in the one continuous temporal order. The space
order is conceived to be reversible and therefore absolutely con-
tinuous, whereas the time order is irreversible and therefore, thus
far, discrete. This difference is due to the fact that there lingers
in our most abstract notion of time a vestige of the experience of
life as a succession of heterogenous specious presents, whereas pure
space is abstract simultaneity. On the other haud empirical space,
like empirical time, involves heterogeneity. The differences be-
tween two nows in an individual or between the contemporaneous
nows of two individuals may be no less a spatial than a temporal
difference. What I feel now may depend on where I am, just as
truly as where I am depends on what I feel. The rawest facts, the
hardest data of experience, arte space-time facts.

Mathematical or pure space and time are conceived to be homo-
geneous, absolutely continuous, infinitely divisible, and, respect-
ively, boundless and endless. There are no heterogeneous heres
and theres, rights and lefts, in pure space ; no discrete nows in the
even flow of pure time. Pure space and time are simply the last
stages in the setting up, by analytic abstraction and synthetic con-
struction and for social purposes, of absolutely homogeneous space

222 MAN AND THE COSMOS

and time. The empirical space and time orders are eviscerated
of all sensuous and dynamic content and are conceived, re-
spectively, as a three dimensional reversible order and a one
directional irreversible order. The order of simultaneous relations
becomes the space of pure geometry. The order of pure succession
becomes the time of arithmetic. A conceived realm of pure posi-
tions and directions, of positions occupied by nothing and of direc-
tions in which nothing moves but pure movement, is of course
logically continuous and boundless, to any extent one pleases.

An order of succession in which nothing succeeds anything else
except pure moments is of course logically continuous and endless,
according to the rules of the logical game. But such a space and
time exist only in the mind of him who thinks them. They are as
absolute as one pleases because there are no inconvenient facts to
mar their absoluteness. An infinite continuous order of dimen-
sionless points has nothing to do with actual space. An infinite
continuous order of timeless instants has nothing to do with actual
time. The development of logically consistent systems of geometry
which set out from definitions and postulates other than those of
Euclidian geometry affords capital illustration of the nonactual
or nonempirical character of pure space; and the paradoxical de-
velopments of number theory, with its transfinites and new
infinites, illustrates the nonactual character of pure time. In the
realm of pure formal logic we have to do simply with highly con-
ventionalized symbols, with nonexistent terms and relations belong-
ing to purely speculative games. I may remark, in passing, that
the traditional metaphysician who develops a camel out of his
inner consciousness would be much more at home among specu-
lative mathematicians than among philosophers of to-day. It is
possible to continue the process of abstractive construction to the
point of developing space theories from which the qualities of
empirical space have vanished, and to construct theories of number
from which quantity has vanished. Indeed these things are being
done.

I do not, of course, mean that the conceptions of one limitless
and continuous space whole and of one evenly flowing and limitless
time are created out of nothing for the satisfaction of social needs.
What I do mean is that the absolute homogeneity, continuity and
limitlessness, of pure space and time are the results of a convenient
abstraction from the heterogeneity and discontinuity of the actual

SPACE AND TIME 223

spatial and temporal orders. All that is local and particular is
thought away and the abstract forms (the Kantian intuitions) of
space and time are set up as real entities.

III. Physical Space and Time

I mean by physical space and time objectively real space and
time, and I propose to show: (1) that they are both correlative
and relative, (2) that they imply a trans-spatial and super-
temporal order.

Whatever be the case with regard to mental durations, it is
certainly true that physical durations are extensive as well as pro-
tensive. In nature time is the soul of which space is the body,
as Dr. Alexander picturesquely puts it.10 The events of nature
endure and pass, but they are never disembodied events. By
abstractive construction there are formed timeless spaces for time
systems ; and, as Dr. Whitehead says, "A point is really an abso-
lute position in the timeless space of a given time system.11 But
dimensionless points and timeless instants are metaphysical non-
entities. Whether the same is true of spaceless duration remains
to be seen. I have already called attention to the fact that our
estimates of space and time are relative to one another and I shall
not labor their correlativity here. Both Dr. Whitehead and Dr.
Alexander have, from different points of approach, abundantly
established the correlativity of space and time. The physical
theory of relativity involves the same conception, but I think it is
unfortunate that Einstein and his disciples speak of time as the
fourth dimension of space, thereby confusing the actual correla-
tivity of space and time with the dubious notions of non-Euclidian
hyperbolic space.12 Space and time are correlated aspects of
nature, but if one of these aspects be more fundamental than
another it is time or duration. Nature is, as Dr. Whitehead puts
it, passage or creative advance. On the other hand, nature is not
passage so swift that mind cannot grasp or think it. The passage
of mind back and forth through the successive and overlapping
events of nature is so much swifter than the passage of nature that

10 See his Space, Time and Deity, passim.

II See his The Concept of Nature, especially Chaps. 3, 4 and 8.

12 1 am unable to attach any definite meaning to a nonuniform space.
Space as a whole cannot bend ; a curved space is a contour or spatial relation
of something spatial, that is, material, not of space itself.

224 MAN AND THE COSMOS

mind is able to identify or recognize, in the recurrences of events,
permanences. The permanences in the qualities and relations of
natural events constitute the objectively real space order. Space,
as a human idea, is the imaginative and conceptual way of cog-
nizing the order of coexistence in the qualities and relations of
nature. Time, as a human idea, is the imaginative and conceptual
way of cognizing the orderly succession in the passage of nature
and its creative advance, and in the passage of human nature and
its creative advance.

The paradoxes of Zeno, the Kantian antimonies, the Bradleyan
doctrine that space and time are mere contradictory appearances
and all theories of a similar character, have their roots in the
assumption that, if space and time are real, they must be absolute
entities. Such notions arise from hypostatizing the abstract con-
structions of pure mathematical space and time. In order to find
a common basis for action and thought, man has assumed that his
systems of reference for estimating motion, velocity, distance and
magnitude are absolute and has set up as metaphysical entities the
mere abstract frameworks of his movements and calculations.

I will not enter here into an extended account of the physical
theory of relativity. The literature on this subject is abundant.13
Moreover, I have no competence to discuss the more recondite
physical and mathematical aspects of the subject. It seems clear,
however, that the result of the famous Michelson-Morley experi-
ment implies that we have no means of finding an absolute stand-
ard for the measurement of movement. All our estimates of move-
ment are relative to our systems of reference. This has long been
recognized to be true for every sort of movement except that of
light, which has a constant velocity of 300,000 kilometers per
second. If I were traveling east in a train going at the rate of
sixty miles per hour and a train should pass in the opposite direc-
tion at the same rate it would for me be going twice as rapidly.
If I were walking toward the back of the car at the rate of four
miles per hour the west bound train would not be going quite as

II See A. Einstein, The Theory of Relativity; A. Eddington, Space, Time
and Gravitation; M. Schlick, Space and Time in Contemporary Physics; C. D.
Broad, "Euclid, Newton and Einstein," in Hiooert Journal, Vol. xviii,
1919-1920, pp. 425-458; and the symposium by Eddington, Eoss, Broad and
Lindemann in Mind, Vol. xxix, pp. 415-444.

A simple introduction to the subject is E. E. Slosson's Easy Lessons in
Einstein.

SPACE AND TIME 225

fast. If the train be moving along the equator, the portion of the
earth over which I am traveling is going westward at the rate of
1000 miles an hour. For an observer outside the earth I would
be traveling west at 940 miles per hour. The earth is traveling
around the sun at the rate of 18.6 miles per second. The solar
system is traveling through space in some direction at an unknown
velocity and at this point our system of reference reaches a limit.
We substitute one system of reference for another until we come
to the end of our tether. I need not multiply examples of the
relativity of our estimates of spatial movement. Inasmuch as we
measure temporal change in terms of spatial movement the rela-
tivity of space measurements carries with it the relativity of time
measurements. We have no means of measuring simultaneity
except the empirical one of simultaneous light signals ; but there
can be no absolute simultaneity for observers transmitting and
receiving signals if they are on different platforms moving rela-
tively to one another, and therefore with different systems of
reference. The apparently constant velocity of light is, according
to Einstein, due to the deformation of the axes of coordination
used by one observer as seen by another. "Thus to an observer in
a system moving relatively and uniformly to us at half the speed
of light our proportions are foreshortened to half what they appear
to us, so that measuring the propagation of light our unit is double
that of his, and his is correspondingly half that of ours. Each
observer, therefore, finds the light propagated at the same velocity
of 300,000 kilometers a second, but the kilometers used by the one
appear to the observer in the rapidly moving system elongated to
double their length, and those used by the observer in the rapidly
moving system appear halved in their proportion to the observer in
the slow moving system." 14

If a passenger in a smoothly traveling train watches a stone
dropped from the train it seems to him to describe a straight line.
For an observer in a position on the bank fixed with reference to
the train the path of the stone is a curve. If two observers at equal
distances from a point on an electric railway see a flash at that
ooint they see it at the same instant, but if two observers equi-
distant on the electric train see the flash it will not be at the same
instant, since, during the propagation of the light, one observer

M Carr, The Principle of Belativity, pp. 134, 135.

226 MAN AND THE COSMOS

will have moved away from it and another towards it. There is no
absolute simultaneity. Two events which are simultaneous for
observers on one system of reference are successive for observers on
another system of reference.15 And we have no absolute system
of reference. From our system of reference on the earth the
firmament appears to be moving and a falling apple appears to
move with it towards rest on the earth. But for an observer at rest
outside our system, and for whom the earth and its surrounding
bodies are rotating, the movement would appear to be that of the
earth towards the apple. We have learned to think of the earth as
moving and the firmament as at rest. But we have no criterion of
a system at absolute rest. Theoretically, it is just as correct to say
that the station and the landscape move past the train as it is to
say that the train moves past them, that the earth moves toward
the apple as that the apple moves toward the earth. The relativity
of space and time measurements to the systems of reference of the
observer means that empirical space and time are really the orders
in which observers perceive and estimate the relations of coexist-
ences and successions in the data of their experience. If there
were no observers in the universe the nonsentient things that were
left might still coexist and succeed one another in certain orders,
but we can form no conception of what these orders might be since
every actual order of coexistence and succession is a perspective
from our own system of reference.

On the other hand, it is an error to infer, from the relativity of
our human estimates of velocity or space-time, that space and time
do not involve anything invariant or absolute; or that they are
merely "phenomenal" in the sense of "unreal." The new theory
of relativity, if I understand its import, is a mathematical method
of transforming sets of equations for one system of reference into
sets for other systems of reference. This method implies the
reality of an invariant order. I cannot find any meaning in the
assertion that space and time are phenomena, unless I am told what
they are phenomena of. To say that space is the appearance of the
intercourse of coexisting real being is just to say that space is the

18 We can conceive an observer moving away from the earth with a speed
in excess of the velocity of light. For him our time order would be reversed.
See Chas. Nordmann, La Mecanique D 'Einstein in Bevue des deux Mondes,
Vol. Ixv, p. 15. Oct. 1921, pp. 925-946.

SPACE AND TIME 227

appearance of an extended world order. The real world has ex-
tensity. Similarly, our part of the universe, at least, is on the
move ; it has a history ; every member of it has a history ; therefore,
time is real.

To say that space and time are correlative is simply to say that
the actual world system is not something which exists without
change. There is no existent that does not traffic with other exist-
ents in time. If there be a God who is more than an otiose abstrac-
tion, who really does deeds, He too must traffic in time.

Is objective physical space a thing, a quality, or a relation ? It
cannot be a thing or substance since, if it were, other things could
not occupy it, since a thing is a center of inertia. The physical
principle that two things cannot occupy the same space simul-
taneously means that whatever occupies space has inertia or mass,
in other words consists of centers of force. But to identify space
with mass or force would be to deprive ourselves of any means of
relating masses. In other words, if we identify space with the
things which occupy it, we have no means left of relating the things
with respect to position, motion, mass. Empirical things are com-
plexes of sense qualities; but abstract space is neither a complex
of sense qualities nor a simple sense quality. It is true that we
speak, in psychological analysis, of visual and kinesthetic spaces,
and of their fusion in the genesis of space perception, but these are
abstractions which presuppose a common notion of spatiality or
extensity. Obviously there is not a single homogeneous spatial
quale possessed in common by all our extensive sensations. If
space were a complex of sense qualities, we should be able to show
how it is generated from simple sense qualities not possessing
extensity attributes. As I have said above, we must distinguish
between extensity and geometrical space. Extensity is an attri-
bute of sense percepts, which is just as irreducible as color, sound,
taste or smell, and is more comprehensive, since the quality of
extensity is found with all the other attributes. A sense percept
is, in Berkeley's words, a congeries of sense qualities ; and one of
these qualities, namely extensity, is always present. The corn-
presence of extensity with other qualities is, together with its
relatively greater susceptibility to precision of treatment, the
reason why science is prone to attempt to account for all other sense
qualities in terms of extensity factors ; but, if extensity is always
present with other sense qualities, it is equally true that some other

228 MAN AND THE COSMOS

sense qualities are always present with extensity; so the attempt
to explain all other qualities as merely variations in extensity is
foredoomed to failure. All sense qualities are equally real. If
one were blind one could not perceive color, but if one were com-
pletely paralyzed one could not perceive extensity since kinesthetic
experience is fundamental in the perception of space. Geometrical
space results from building up, out of the concrete extensities of
sense percepts, a system of abstract relations. Geometrical space
exists only as a mental abstraction, but concrete extensities exist
objectively ; and persist, that is, have duration. Space then must
be a complex of relations. It is the tridimensional and reversible
order of relations between coexisting things. It is the way in
which the system of simultaneously existing entities appear to the
mind. Positions, directions and distances are the persistent rela-
tions between the plurality of existing things. Such relations as
above and below, right and left, east and west, before and behind,
distance and magnitude, imply the existence of the objects thus
related in the specious present or "now" ; and the continuance of
such relations presupposes the temporal continuity of the things
related. Space relations imply the permanence of objects in time
relations. On the other hand, time relations involve space rela-
tions, since the notion of a "now" or specious present implies a
coexisting plurality of entities. Space, then, is the manner or
form in which the reversible relationships or order of a system of
simultaneously existing force centers appears to the finite self.
Empirical or psychological space is a relational complex built up
by the correlation of visual and tactual extension. It is in the
sense that the attribute of extensity belongs to these perceptual
experiences and that the mind can abstract and correlate the ex-
tensity factors that space is native to the mind. Mathematical
space is of empirical origin, but the data from which it is built up
belongs to the sense percepts, and the modes of operation by which
it is built up belong to the mind. Similarly with time.

There is nothing in the origin and use of our space ideas to
justify the assumption of a self-existing entity called space. We do
not need it for any practical or scientific purpose and it is certainly
a stumbling block in the way of metaphysical synthesis.

I do not mean, by saying that space and time are relative, that
we can deduce them from nonspatial and nontemporal relations.
As Dr. Alexander well says, "Relations in Space and Time are

SPACE AND TIME 229

themselves Spaces and Times." 16 I would prefer to say that they
are spatial and temporal relations.

Matter is not in space, as though these were two distinct
entities. Whatever is material is spatial and vice versa. There
can be no empty space. Matter is space, but it is never mere space,
since the concrete extensities which are material endure, move and
change. Thus matter is spatial-temporal. If there are immaterial
entities which are not in space (as Lotze contends in regard to
thought) then they have protensive but not extensive qualities-in-
relation.

Real space then is the order of coexistence or empirical simul-
taneity among bodies or event-particles and systems of event-par-
ticles. Whenever there are bodies there are space relations.
Physical space and time are no more and no less real than bodies,
which are systems of moving particles or event-particles.

Dr. Alexander argues that if time were nothing more than bare
time it would consist of perishing instants. The mere temporality
of time leaves no place for its continuity. Space saves time from
being a mere now. In order that time should linger space must
recur, a point must be repeated in more than one instant.17

Conversely, in order that space may have distinction of parts,
may be more than a mere blank, there must be time. Space is
generated by time. It is the trail of time, the "body" of which
time is the "soul." By itself each consists of elements or parts
which are indistinguishable so long as the elements of the other
are excluded.18 I understand this to be his way of saying that,
whereas we can construct timeless spaces for various time systems,
and can have as many time systems as there are configurations of
movement and as many space and time measurements as there are
systems of reference, the latter are all finite sections of the one
whole of space-time, the one dynamic or moving configuration of
reality. I would say that all finite time systems and space orders
are perspectives of the one cosmic order, which is spatio-dynamic,
or, if you like, is body-soul. The enduring character of the cosmic
order is time and eternity.

In the one cosmical order there is no timeless space, no pure
instantaneity, and no spaceless time or ghostly duration.

M Space, Time and Deity, pp. 165, 166.
■ Ibid., pp. 45-49.
™Ibid., pp. 60, 61, etc.

230 MAN AND THE COSMOS

Where I quarrel with Dr. Alexander is with respect to his
notion that space-time is an adequate description of the whole. It
seems to me that to speak of the whole order of the universe as
space-time is, either to empty reality of everything but its thinnest,
most vacuous and formal aspects, or else it is to import into the
concept of space-time all the empirical and transempirical bits of
sensed qualities, life, mind and the works of mind. If Dr. Alex-
ander means to load his space-time whole with all these qualities,
then it is rich enough to stand for reality as a whole but it is a
very unusual use of terms.

One can conceive that truth and other values, such as affec-
tional and some aesthetic values, for example those of music, are
not spatially conditioned. But I, for one, find it impossible to
conceive a purely nonspatial existence. I can conceive, although
very vaguely, a mind which is not externally bounded and limited
by space, which grasps as a totality what are for us finite minds
the indefiniteness or boundlessness of space relations in one intui-
tive insight; but such a mind would be trans-spatial, not non-
spatial. Thus an over-self might transcend our spatial order, by
grasping as one individual totality the existence of the whole in
which we are limited elements. The increasing power of the
human mind to master and pervade space relations does give us
some positive hint of the possible character of such a space-pene-
trating perfect self.

Time is not a thing, nor a single sensory quality. It is a
relational order of all our experiences. Time is the way or form
in which the continuous succession of events or durations appears
to the finite self. It is the irreversible series or order of events.
Time is not a single sensory quality, since we cannot separate it
from or range it alongside of or fuse it with other sensory quali-
ties. That sensory and affectional qualities of experience change
in time, means that they are in a definite order. To say that
events happen in time is simply to say that they occur in an
irreversible serial order. Temporal order cannot be generated
from any combination of nontemporal entities. The notion of
temporal order is derived from the self's recognition of the suc-
cession of its own discrete experiences or interpenetrating dura-
tions. "Always to perceive the same thing and not to perceive
are the same thing," said Hobbes. Always to perceive the same
thing, if it were possible, would certainly mean not to have any

SPACE AND TIME 231

sense of temporal succession. On the other hand, in order to
recognize the discrete succession of events as a succession, the self
must be conscious of its own continuity through change. The
notion of the irreversible order of temporal events, then, is a
direct derivative of the self's awareness of its own living con-
tinuity through change. The recognition of an objective time
order is due to the self's recognition that it is a self only as a
member of human society and of the universe.

Since a self has his own private experiences of succession and
duration, his own psychical tempo which he projects backwards
and forwards from the specious present or "now," his "now"
contains, in its memories of the past and its expectations of the
future, the experiential basis for all individual estimates of time
and duration. But, just as the individual would never be able
to distinguish and apprehend his own position in space without
reference to the simultaneous positions of other beings, so he would
never be able to apprehend his own present, past, and future
without reference to the presents, pasts, and futures of other
beings. In the present moment the individual can transcend the
present moment. In so far as he identifies himself in thought
with a telluric or cosmic social order, he transcends the temporal
limitations of his own life, entertains the notion of an all-em-
bracing temporal order; but he does not thus become timeless.
He can think truths and other values that are free from temporal
limitations, but he cannot conceive a real existence that has no
positive relation to the temporal order. A cosmic self might not
be limited by time. Time could be in him, not he in time. He
might hold the endless temporal order together in one continuous
insight, as we hold fragments of our duration together in memory.
Thus time to him would not be endless in the sense of stretching
indefinitely and unknowably behind and before him. Since he
would be the unceasingly active and unchanging ground of the
world order, the cosmic temporal order would be the form of his
ceaseless energizing. The past of the whole universe would exist
for him and in him as a function of his immediately present self-
activity. The future of the whole universe would exist for him
and in him, inasmuch as he would be the ground of the whole
system of real possibilities open to the finite members of his uni-
verse.19

"See further Chap. 37: "Perfection and Evolution."

232 MAN AND THE COSMOS

Dr. Whitehead criticizes the conception of a material which is
in space and in time, on the ground that if space and time are
entities independent of material then space-time relations cannot
be attributes of matter. In short, if matter and space-time are in-
dependent of one another, then the physical order cannot be de-
scribed in terms of the spatial and temporal relations of matter.
The criticism is valid against the notion that matter and space-
time are independent entities. But the minimum meaning of
matter is just that it occupies space and changes its contours or
form qualities and its other qualities in space. Physical space is
just the order of the simultaneous contours of matter. Conceive
the systematic relations of material particles as instantaneous and
you have timeless space. Physical time is just the order of change
in the contours and the qualities of matter. Thus matter and
physical space and time are not independent entities. Matter is
spatial because space is material and time is physical because
matter changes. Matter is but a name for the permanent quali-
ties and relations of dynamic and coexisting beings and time is
but a name for the duration and succession of their activities.

The problems of the infinite divisibility and extensibility of
space and time result from taking the formal orders of coexistence
and succession as objectively continuous entities. If what really
exists now, or at any other moment, be a definite assemblage of
individua, the complex spatial relations between these would be
resoluble, if one had sufficient sweep and penetrative power of
analysis, into simple or immediate relations ; and since there must
be a finite number of individua, there must be a finite number
of relations. A cosmic self would not need to count these rela-
tions ; for, by hypothesis, he would be the absolute ground of the
determinate system or order of the relationships between the de-
terminately existing number of individual beings. Space is finite,
since it is but a system of relations between the actual number
of existing finite beings. A human being cannot help imagining
a finite cosmos as bounded by empty space, since he cannot depict
the whole system of coexisting finite beings except as bounded.
He cannot do otherwise since he cannot intuitively grasp at one
blow the whole system; he is a finite member and therefore can
have only an incomplete although progressing grasp of his rela-
tions to the other finite members of the world system. For a
cosmic experient, on the other hand, the whole system in $11 its

SPACE AND TIME 233

details and relations might be continuously present in one space-
transcending insight. Similarly, the succession of events must
be a determinate order. The immediate ground of this determi-
nate order of events must be the interactions and interpassions of
the individual members of the world order. The ultimate ground
must be the world order itself. The infinitude or endlessness of
this world order would be simply the eternal creating and con-
serving self-activity of the world ground. The finite individual
is conditioned by the cosmic temporal order and the cosmic spatial
order, which are to him boundless and endless respectively, since
he is a finite member of the cosmic order. Thus the eternal
world ground would not be conditioned by the temporal order.
He would transcend time, in the sense that the endless succession
of durations in the finite members of the world order would
continuously depend on his sustaining activity.20

What are the relations of the indefinite multitude of individual
space perceptions and time perceptions to the cosmical space and
time orders ? The former must be series of perspectives or points
of view, taken throughout the histories of percipients, of the one
objective or cosmical order of coexistent relationships among finite
existents and of the one cosmical order of succession in the his-
tories of finite existents. My perception of space relations, here
and now, must be a fragmentary, and, therefore, but partially true,
perspective of the real existence now of things in their totality.
I enlarge and improve this perspective, by taking account of more
comprehensive social and physical relationships, but my spatial
perspectives must always remain fragmentary. Individually and
socially these perspectives are good so far as they go, but they
must always remain imperfect. As social beings, the most that
we can do is to attain more comprehensive and harmonious series
of agreeing but fragmentary perspectives of the total system of
reality. Similarly, we can enlarge and render more consistent
our temporal perspectives. Thus, our individual perspectives of
time and duration, enlarged and harmonized through social co-
operation and communion, become relatively less inadequate com-
mon perspectives of the one cosmic temporal order ; but as to how
far the widest sweep of our historical and evolutionary perspec-
tives are valid views of the cosmical temporal order, we may never

20 See further, Chap. ?*

234 MAN AND THE COSMOS

know. The individual's space and time perspectives, as corrected
and enlarged through social communion, attain higher degrees of
truth. But in this matter, as in all matters that deal with ultimate
problems, we must remain content with approximations by slow
degrees to an ultimate truth which in its concreteness and totality
remains always beyond our grasp.

Conceptual or mathematical space and time are, as we have
seen, the results of social thinking, of the cooperative efforts of
the human mind to approximate more closely to the objective
order. The histories of these concepts shows that clearly. The
greater the degree of precision that we can introduce into our
physical standards of time measurement, the closer will be the
approximation of our conception to the presupposed objective
cosmical order; but the degree of such approximation is always
limited by the condition that we must depend upon the data of
our sense organs and the relativity of our systems of reference for
the materials of our judgment. By the use of mathematical
methods we may approximate more closely to the objective order.
From empirical space and time perceptions we form, by social
cooperation and by intellectual construction, more nearly invari-
ant standards of measurement. As Poincare says: "We seek
the invariant laws which are the relations between the crude facts
of nature." The possibility of translating things from one space
order into another implies the existence of an invariant order;
similarly with time. Moreover since, as we have seen, the recog-
nition of a spatial order presupposes the recognition of a temporal
order, the presupposition of our quests for more accurate spatial
and temporal determinations is an absolute invariant order, an
eternal order as the basis of the objective or cosmical temporal
order. The conception of an objective and uniform order of
temporal sequence is the consequence of comparing a num-
ber of ordered series of changes with one another and of es-
tablishing a one-one correspondence between them. For example,
I find a one-one correspondence between the acts of my daily
routine and clock time, and between clock time and sidereal time.
As Natorp remarks:21 "The possibility of objective temporal de-
termination depends upon uniformity and continuity in change
and the objective temporal sequence of events is a logical construc-

21 Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaften, p. 345.

SPACE AND TIME 235

tion of events in one temporal order." But the one temporal
order is the eternal order, which our empirical time determina-
tions presuppose — an absolute and eternal order.22

Every attempt to solve the space-time problem by separating
empirical space-time, dubbed "subjective," from physical space-
time, dubbed "objective" and conceived as an abstract order or set
of mathematical laws, breaks down. Every empirical space-time
is a fragment of the ultimate space-time order seen in perspective
from the view-point of a finite percipient. All the empirical
space-time facts are real; they are fragmentary and momentary
views of the one ultimate order — the Order of the Universe —
which is not space and time added together but one systematic
totality, one dynamic and continuous system. Extensity and
Duration are aspects of the One Order which are distinguishable
in thought but inseparable in fact and reality. The universe is
an order manifested as Space-time, but it is very much more; it
is a living super-organism or community, of which Extensity and
Duration are but poor and formal aspects.

APPENDIX

dr. Alexander's theory of space-time

I cannot undertake here a full critical consideration of Dr. Samuel
Alexander's fascinating theory of space-time as the absolute or ulti-
mate of ultimates in his massive and stimulating work : Space Time
and Deity. I must be content to set my own view in relation to his
by a few critical remarks. Dr. Alexander conceives space-time, or
the endless motion of extended substances or materiality, as the all-
inclusive reality. For him, time is the "soul" or moving principle
of space and space is the "body" of time. Thus the fundamental
reality consists of ever-changing spatial contours. Within this all-
inclusive and ever-moving extensive reality there emerge, by compli-
cation, a series of ascending orders of empirical qualities: first, the
secondary qualities of our empirical order, such as color, sound, tem-
perature, taste and odor; second, by further complication, the vital

22 In addition to the references already given, the following are especially
important: Koyce's discussion in The World and Individual, Vol. II: the
writings of Charles Kenouvier; a valuable discussion will be found in A. O.
Lovejoy's articles: "The Problem of Time in Eecent French Philosophy,"
Philosophical Review 1917, Vol. xxi; and "The Place of the Time Problem
in Contemporary Philosophy," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scien-
tific Methods, 1910, Vol. vii.

236 MAN AND THE COSMOS

qualities or behavior of living matter; third, by a further complica-
tion of vital behavior, the qualities of sentience or feeling and cona-
tion. (Thought or cognition for Dr. Alexander is delayed or sus-
pended conation.) Values, in his system, are not empirical qualities
but products of feeling and conation in interaction with their physical
medium. It is a fair presumption, says Alexander, that, just as
secondary qualities have emerged from primary, vital from secondary
and sentient or mental from vital, by complication, so higher em-
pirical qualities than mind are emerging in the endless movement of
space-time. The divinity of the universe or God in the making, the
God that always is to be but never is, is the emergence of empirical
qualities higher than mind. We cannot know what these are, since
we are only finite minds, but we may infer that finite mind is the
"body" of which God, or the complex of higher qualities in becoming,
is the "soul," just as finite mind is the soul which emerges from
organic bodies and as life is the soul which emerges from a specific
complication of secondary physical qualities. I shall not here discuss
the question whether it is not a radical confusion of counsel to call
Deity the supermental qualities which may be emerging from a
complication of finite minds but never fully emerge; in other words,
whether a God that never is but is always becoming or to be is
properly called God or Deity.

Doctor Alexander seems to me to have shown that in reality the
space-time aspects of the empirical world are inseparable. With
respect to the physical world his saying that time is the soul of
which space is the body is a figurative expression of a profound truth.
I do not think that he succeeds in his attempt to demonstrate that
space without time would have only one dimension; although I do
hold that the recognition of two or more dimensions involves a
temporal element and thus extensity and time are tied up together.
Where I fail completely to follow Dr. Alexander is in his attempted
deduction of the various orders of empirical qualities from pure
space-time. I cannot understand how, by any conjuring trick of the
mind, secondary qualities can be shown to "emerge" from mere space-
time or vital and sentient qualities from secondary physical qualities.
Dr. Alexander denies that his system is a materialism since, in the
cardinal instances of life and mind, these qualities are not caused
by their primary and secondary substrata but emerge by "complica-
tion." Life, in his terminology, is the "enjoyment," in a new simpli-
fication, of a complex of secondary qualities; mind is the enjoyment
of that specific complex of vital qualities which constitutes innerva-
tion, the basis of consciousness. This attempt to distinguish between
emergence and causation and to argue that, since life is the enjoy-

SPACE AND TIME 237

ment by color, sound, et cetera, of itself, therefore life is not the
caused product of material motions; and, because mind is the enjoy-
ment by itself of an innervation complex, therefore mind is not the
caused product of innervation, seems to me a verbal quibble. If life
emerges from a physical order in which there was no life, and mind
from that particular complication of the physical order which is
vitality, then we have a new materialism. In view of the historical
meaning of terms why cheat ourselves with words? In spite of his
protestations, Dr. Alexander's imposing and ingenious attempt to
deduce all the empirical qualities in existence from pure space-time
is materialism. Now, if materialism be the most cogent philosophy,
in other words the philosophy which on empirical and rational
grounds carries the heaviest weight of evidence to our minds, we
ought to accept it. To say why it does not carry this overweight
to me would be to attempt to condense the whole course of the pres-
ent work. In the interests of brevity I must be content to say here
that space-time are two correlative aspects of reality. But reality is
not now and never was pure space-time. Higher orders of empirical
existence and value are not deducible from pure space-time. Space-
time is too abstract, too thin, too mechanical in the geometrical sense,
to constitute the stuff of reality, a primal motion-stuff in which emerge,
by its thickening-up, all the higher orders of existence. Dr. Alex-
ander's space-time, regarded as the primal motion-stuff, seems to me
strangely like the fire of old Heraclitus and the fine fiery essence
of the Stoics. Alexander's space-time is a materialistic absolute
stated in terms of modern kinematics. If mind and life emerge by
a process of blind complication from a physical or kinematical world
in which mind and life were not already operative, then mind and
life are by-products of matter in motion and the latter has the
strange property of condensing or concentrating itself into forms of
existence which do not obey or even respect their parent, since they
do not obviously behave according to the principles of kinematics and
physical dynamics. The issue seems to me clear-cut between Dr.
Alexander's theory and any theory which would be adequate to all
the facts. Life and mind are efficient factors in the universe, and
factors whose modes of behavior are not charted in kinematics. If
it is asserted that life and mind have been produced from space-time,
what we have served up, in the interests of a specious continuity of
doctrine garbed in quasi-mathematical phrase, is the assertion that
an abstract universe of moving extensity has given birth to a hier-
archical series of concrete realities whose significant qualities and
increasing values are entirely other than moving extensities.

CHAPTER XIX

PHYSICAL REALITY

I shall use the term "primary physical reality" to designate
all data of sense. These data, of course, actually exist for selves
only in the moment of experience. In the absence of any percipi-
ent these data exist in the form of possible objects of perception.

I assume that our minds are in our bodies.1 The human body
I assume to be the medium of communication between the mind
and the remainder of physical reality. In the broadest sense of
the term I mean by "physical reality" or "nature" all that is either
experienced, experienceable, or conceived as logically implicated in
experience, by other minds as well as by one's own mind. Thus,
'physical reality is a social reality. Its very recognition as a public
reality implies the recognition of the existence of other selves.
And in turn the recognition of other selves implies the existence
of a public realm of sense perceivables or "sensibilia," inasmuch
as one can know another self only through physical intercommuni-
cation. If there were only one self in the universe, for him there
would be no distinction between mental or subjective and physical
or objective reality.2 Mental or subjective reality, by contrast,
includes everything that is not an actual or possible public sensory
datum; namely all personal feelings, private attitudes and acts.
Of course, we infer from their physical expressions the feelings,
attitudes, and acts of other persons ; but we do not contemplate the
latter in themselves. You and I see the same chair from slichtlv

1 On the relation of mind and body, see Book iv, Chap. 27.

2 If I were the only self in my physical universe, there being no distinc-
tion between mine and any other universe, I could only conclude, when my
expectations were disappointed and my purposes had gone awry, that reality
had changed its character, and not that I had misconceived that character.
The world of illusions in which the insane person lives is due to the derange-
ment of the social relations of the insane ego. The insane ego, because of
his fixed ideas or obsessions, fails to apprehend the qualities and relations of
things and persons that the normal ego apprehends. The genius, on the con-
trary, is one who sees deeper and farther into the qualities and relations of
social experience than does the average person.

238

PHYSICAL REALITY 239

different angles, but we do not see at all one another's personal
feelings and inner attitudes. In the case of universals, such as
logical and mathematical relationships, natural laws, types of
order, and values and ends when these are considered to be ob-
jective realities, we have to do with entities which are common to
the mental and the physical realms ; and this community implies
that the mental and the physical realms are somehow organic to
one another, that they are the twofold and interrelated aspects
of one order. The validity or trueness of universals and values
means that they are constitutive principles of reality as a whole.
They are discovered and formulated gradually and imperfectly
by finite minds; but the latter, in this process of discovery and
formulation, are finding and obeying, and thus developing into
harmony with, the objective constitution of reality.

The nonmental conditions of sense data are brain and sense
organs and qualitatively diverse energies operating in the public
world of space time, such as : undulation of air particles, motions
of physical particles, chemical transformations, molecular and
intra-atomic or electronic energies, possible vibrations of the all-
pervading ether, etc. Why not say that the latter are the primary
and fundamental physical realities, whereas the sensory data are
secondary or derivative? Does not Berkeleyan idealism rest on
the confusion between sensory data and physical realities, between
perceptions and stimuli ? Mr. Bertrand Russell proposes that we
shall define physical realities as the not-perceived entities which
obey the laws of physics and our sensory data as series of aspects
or perspectives of these realities.3 For example, the rim of my
teacup has an indefinite series of shapes, from circular through
a variety of shapes, according to the respective spatial relations
of myself and the cup. What I mean by saying that the cup's
rim is really circular is, that is the shape it has in the position
which is practically most important for me, namely, within easy
reach of my hands. Common sense means by real size, real shape
or other real sense qualities, those sensory appearances which are
most relevant to our most constant practical purposes. Logically
the flattest oval or ellipsoid shape in which the cup's rim appears,
as when we stand it on the edge of the rim, is just as real as the
circular shape it has in my hands. The visual shape of a stick

*Cf. B. Eussell, Our Knowledge of the External World, Chaps. 3 and 4.

240 MAN AND THE COSMOS

which is partly under water is really bent. But the tactual shape
is straight and the visual stick when out of the water corresponds
with the tactual shape in or out of the water, and this correspond-
ence is for practical purposes the most important aspect of the
whole indefinite series of aspects which the thing may present ; so
we call it the real stick. There are mathematical and physical
laws by which we sum up in formulae the relations between whole
series of varying sense data such as the cup's series of shapes.
Why not say then that the real physical object is the conceived
entity that obeys these laws ?

The question at issue here is chiefly a matter of terminology.
In order to avoid the errors of subjectivism or mentalism it seems
best to say that the sensory appearances are the primary realities;
and that the reality of sense data, as due to the organic interde-
pendence of the mind and physical things, involves the construc-
tion, starting from sense perception, of a doctrine as to what kinds
of entities logically must exist in nature independent of sense
perception — in other words a realistic theory of nature. I pro-
ceed to outline my own theory.

When we undertake to account for one sense datum or a series
of sense data, we have to assume an interacting system of things
in motion which give rise to the sensory data — undulating par-
ticles, molecular, atomic or intra-atomic centers of attraction and
repulsion, etc. These we may call, to use Mr. C. D. Broad's happy
phrase, the microscopic mechanisms. These microscopic or rather
ultra-microscopic mechanisms are pulverized or comminuted
macroscopic mechanisms. In other words, they are conceived by
taking the most simple and manageable sense qualities ; extension,
figure, motion, mass, and reducing them to ever minuter propor-
tions. They remain objects of possible perception. If our powers
of sensory discrimination were fine enough they might be per-
ceived. With an ultra-microscope we might see electrons. Actual
sensory things are complexes of sensed qualities existing in spatial
relations. The shape and color of a rose, for instance, are spa-
tially coterminous. The place of one thing excludes another in
so far as the thing is real, that is, has inertia or mass. Thus
space-occupancy and circulation or movement through space are
the most fundamental characteristics of physical things, their
most constant qualities. By "space-occupancy" I mean inertia or
mass and this implies force. Thus the ultimate things of physics

PHYSICAL REALITY 241

are space-occupying centers of force or inertia, since force is the
power to do work and work consists either in moving something
against an obstacle or in resisting movement. A physical thing
is a power to move against another, and a power to resist move-
ment by another. This most stubborn quality of bodies is re-
garded as its primary reality, but logically it is no more primary
than figure, color, or "feel." The ultimate thing, so-called, of
physics is thus a conceptual construct projected behind the sen-
sory things and events in order to explain the changes in the latter.
In short, the things and processes of physical theory — molecules,
atoms, sub-atoms or electrons, undulation, rotation, etc. — are ab-
stract entities denuded of those sensory qualities which do not
lend themselves readily to mathematical treatment, and which
cannot be made very small without seeming to disappear ; such as
color, sound, taste, odor. The "things" of physics are constructed
from those empirical qualities which have relatively greatest con-
stancy, and therefore are most readily susceptible of being made
into mechanical models and having their behaviors formulated in
mathematical terms. The laws of physical relationship are eco-
nomic or shorthand generalizations in regard to the most uniform,
simple, and calculable aspects of sensory data — those aspects which
can be most easily manipulated in mechanical models. As thus
conceived and manipulated, they cannot really exist and they do
not explain the qualitative variety of empirical objects. Since
the percipient, and also the secondary qualities of the objects per-
ceived, are not amenable to mathematical and mechanical treat-
ment they are dropped from the reckoning.

Thus the distinction between primary and secondary qualities,
as being respectively objective and subjective, is invalid ; however
convenient it may be for the physicist. It is convenient for his
purposes, since the space-mass-time-motion aspects of sense data
are those most easily manipulated in mechanical and mathematical
terms; but colors, tastes, sounds, and odors are, experientmlly ',
just as real as shapes, movements and masses. All the sensory
qualities are real, since they belong to a world which consists
of sensory and mental systems and of other systems in organic
interdependence.

The attempt made in "energetic" philosophies of nature to
reduce the physical world to a constellation of dimensionless punc-
tiform centers of force or energy results in the absurdity of saying

242 MAN AND THE COSMOS

— "everything is motion, but there is nothing which moves or is
moved," "all is change but there is nothing which changes." 4

The more thoroughly physical facts, such as heat, electricity,
sound, or light, are analyzed, the clearer it becomes that these
sensory data are due to the interactions of qualitatively different
entities — physical entities, sensory system, and mind. Nature
must consist of things, that is, real entities, which move and act,
impinge on and interpenetrate one another. Certainly the ulti-
mate things must at least be centers of activity; they must be
things which have locations, habitations, and which move in the
space-time order. The conclusion that I draw is that nature
consists of a vast system of centers of activity which I call
individua or monads. There are at least three kinds of these
monads — physical, sentient, and intelligent monads. On the basis
of evidence in hand from their respective modes of behavior, I
am unable to determine whether all vital monads are sentient,
or whether a vital monad is nothing more than a special constella-
tion of physical or chemical-physical monads; but I am not able
to see how the distinctive behavior of vital monads — adaptation,
growth, restitution of lost parts, vicarious functioning, reproduc-
tion, and irritability — can be accounted for in purely physical
and chemical terms. It seems to me probable then that nonliving
and living monads are distinct kinds and possible that all vital
monads are sentient. I think that there is an inherent difference
of kind between merely sentient and rational or intelligent monads.
Thus there are three distinct possible kinds of monads in nature.
So far is the universe from being composed of elements all of the
same kind and differing only quantitatively, that it consists of
a vast multitude of several qualitatively different kinds of ele-
ments interrelated. Nor is nature simply qualitatively dual in

4 This error, from which Leibniz and Boscovich were not free, and of
which there are traces in Ostwald and other energeticists, seems to me to be a
feature of Bergson's philosophy of nature. I am unable to understand or to
follow Bergson's genesis of nature and space from duration and psychical life
conceived as nonspatial. Bergson both presupposes and generates matter from
his 6lan vital. Intellect, he says, has been evolved by the vital impetus as an
instrument by which it may successfully operate upon solid and inert matter
and thus surmount the latter. On the other hand, intellect and matter have
been evolved together; matter thus appears to be a product of the very in-
strument which has been developed to circumvent it. Now, either the vital
impetus must have generated matter, must have set up the obstacle as an
aspect of its play with itself, as Fichte's ego set up the non-ego (Anstoss) ;
or else materiality, which is spatiality, is not an internal product of the vital
impetus, which is pure duration or becoming.

PHYSICAL REALITY 243

its constitution. It is at least triple, possibly quadruple or even
multiple. There is a qualitative multiplicity as well as a quanti-
tative multitude of elements in it.

Nature, in the sense of the whole of reality, consists of a vast
system of interrelated monads, in which there are differences of
kind, as well as indefinite gradations of degrees. Even the ulti-
mate things of physics, whatever they be, cannot be all alike,
though they may all consist of varying combinations of the samo
fundamental qualities. They must have a poor sort of individu-
ality. Vital and sentient monads have still greater diversity in
the combinations of their fundamental qualities. Individuality,
in the sense of uniqueness and distinctness in the combination of
fundamental qualities, increases as we pass from merely sentient
to intelligent monads.

A higher type of monad includes in its service lower types.
Physical monads are, in living organisms, subservient to vital and
sentient monads. Vitality and sentience in turn are subservient
to personality. The human organism is a complex of physico-
chemical and vital monads controlled by an intelligent monad.
The various types of monads, although differing in kind, are
capable of affecting one another. Organisms both affect and are
affected by the qualities of inorganic monads; minds both affect
and in turn are affected by inorganic or vital monads; but, as
nature rises in the scale towards more complex individuality, in
other words towards personality, they have fuller internal unity
of activity and life. The relative power of the governing principle
increases. Thus an intelligent human monad has much more
power of control over the physical environment than the merely
sentient and vital monad which constitutes the being of the lower
animal.

Nature as a whole consists in the organic interplay or inter-
action and intercommunication between the various types of
monads. Thus nature is a vastly diversified system of individua,
with an indefinitely complex and dynamic order of interrelated-
ness in action and passion among its members. It is a concrete
and living totality. Nature truly owns the sensory qualities that
we perceive and, doubtless, many that we do not perceive. It
owns the aesthetic qualities. It owns all the wealth of form and
color, of sound and movement, of taste, of beauty, grandeur, pic-
turesque sublimity, terror, homely friendliness, vitality, and in-

244 MAN AND THE COSMOS

cessant productivity, which we find in it; and doubtless it owns
a vastly greater wealth of living qualities and meanings, which
we could find were we equipped with more and finer, and more
synoptic organs of response.

Man, with all his imperfections, is a living and creative agent,
interpreter and contemplator, who shares, through all the aspects
of his being, in the life of nature, through whose veins and in
whose consciousness the life of nature moves and comes to aware-
ness of itself. What nature might be like in the absence of human
beings to perceive, to act, to enjoy her, we cannot know and we
have no concern with such an unknown "X" ; any more than we
can form any inkling of what selves would be like if there were
no world of physical nature. Man, both as a private and unique
center of feeling and action and as a social being, is an organic
part of nature. The richest, the most harmonious and compre-
hensive meanings of nature are those which are embodied in the
richest, most harmonious and comprehensive psychical and spir-
itual life of man.

The relations between the percipient, his percepts, and the
abstract world of the physicist I conceive to be as follows :

The conditions of sense perception are — (1) the conscious
subject; (2) the sensory system composed of end organs, sensory
nerves and brain; and (3) physical things. The sensory system
is the medium of communication between the subject and the
physical thing. If any part of the sensory system is deranged
the power of perception is deranged; if any part is destroyed
the corresponding power of perception is destroyed. The sensory
system functions as a mechanism of selective condensation or con-
centration of certain aspects of the vastly complicated motions
and qualitative changes in the ceaselessly mobile physical universe,
which thus act as stimuli to the sensory-intellectual system. Thus
the sensory nervous system is a centralizing or focalizing select-
ive synthetic system, corresponding and instrumental to the cen-
tralizing selective and synthetic unity of the mind. Since, in the
moment of perception, the sense percept is identical with the
object perceived and, indeed, is a perspective or aspect of the
object, there must be a fundamental identity of structure and
process between the sensory system and the processes of the physi-
cal order. The organism must be a very complicated and
delicately adjusted system of physical energies. The organ-

PHYSICAL REALITY 245

ism is a condensing and transforming machine, intermediary
between the external world and the mind. Further evidence
of this identity of type between the organism and extra-
organic physical entities I find in the fact that the sensory
system, when no longer in immediate contact with objects, is
able to generate images of them. These images involve all
parts of the sensory system and are nonmental, in the sense that
the mind as cognitive does not produce them. A visual image
involves the eye, the optic nerve, and the brain. The images are
of the same general character as their extraorganic counterparts;
only they are more fleeting, tenuous, and weaker, because of the
much greater fineness, complication, and variety of functions de-
manded of the sensory system than of any part of the physical
world. Any physical object is a particularized bit of physical
structure and process. The percipient's organism is called upon
to be responsive to a vast variety of differences in the structures
and movements of things.

The sensory system need not radically distort the real natures
of physical things. Normally, it condenses or epitomizes them.
It focalizes them for action. Our sense percepts are series of
aspects or views, selected from the multitude of specific aspects
or qualities which things become, in the vastly complicated and
changing relationships of the physical world. ISTo percept is
wholly false or illusory and none is wholly complete. The per-
cipient, we may say, takes a compact succession or series of views
or perspectives of the real things. Because of their similarities
and of their importance for action, the differences between the
successive views in such a series are practically negligible. There-
fore they are consolidated into images which, fused with succeed-
ing sense data, are taken to be the thing in its wholeness for
purposes of behavior. My study chair may be perceived from an
indefinite variety of points of view, but the practically most im-
portant ones are the similar or fairly continuous points of view
which I get as I approach it to sit in it and actually do sit in it.
Therefore, I ignore all the other possible aspects of the chair and
run these into one as being the real chair.

I repeat that in perception the percept is identical with those
partial aspects or perspectives of the real object that are signifi-
cant for human behavior. Apart from the subject the world of
physical objects is the realm of potential perceptions or sense

246 MAN AND THE COSMOS

perceivables. It owns, in posse, all the colors, shapes, sounds,
tastes, temperatures, etc., that are perceived in it, and doubtless
a great many qualities besides. If our sensory systems were dif-
ferent, were more microscopic for example, we should doubtless
find a corresponding wealth of sensory details in the world.

The sense qualities, which constitute physical reality for us,
are grouped as determinate individual things or unitary com-
plexes. But all sense qualities are not equally individuated or
particularized and localized. Some have preeminently the char-
acter of continua, in which the particular things are bathed. Thus
there are very significant differences in the relational or con-
nexional functions of the sensory attributes. In place of the il-
logical and untenable distinction between primary qualities, as
objective, and secondary qualities as subjective, I propose a rela-
tivistic distinction between the sense qualities in terms of their
respective degrees of spatial diffusiveness, pervasiveness, or degree
of localization. Certain sense qualities are apparently all-perva-
sive or universally transmissible. They penetrate or encompass
all particulars. The light that reveals a body and is reflected from
it, absorbed by it, or that passes through it, the gravitational force
that holds bodies together, the electrical undulations that pene-
trate them, the lines and fields of force that irradiate from them
— all these qualities constitute as a body's field of action and
passion the whole universe. With reference to them the particular
thing is but a nodal point or transient center of interference in
the ceaselessly mobile continuum of the universe, a passing con-
centration of intensity and velocity in the endless ebb and flow
in a dynamic world. Other sense qualities, such as colors, odors,
tastes, the "feel" of bodies, are more localized, specialized, static
differentiations. The particular or individuum exists only as part
of the total continuum of the physical universe ; but certain of its
qualities are more fluent and extensive in their relations than
others. All the sense qualities are real, but some embody less of
the thing's particularity and more of its dependence in the dynamic
whole, while others embody more of its particularity and less of
its dependence.

The physicist's world of atoms, electrons, etherial undulations,
the ether continuum, and so forth, is a conceptual construction
devised for his special purposes, which are to calculate and explain
the general phenomena and interrelationships of space, time,

PHYSICAL REALITY 247

mass, motion, energy; and the more specific phenomena and
interrelationships of heat, light, color, sound, electricity. It
furthers these purposes of physics to construct conceptual mechan-
ical and dynamical models that are simpler, finer, and more
rigorous than sense data. The abstract world of the physicist is
a product of the constructive imagination guided by logical postu-
lates and controlled by reference to sense data. The difference
between the poet's world of nature and the physicist's is that the
former is not so closely controlled by sense data and is guided
by the intuitive analogies of feeling rather than by logical postu-
lates. The physicist's world has logical reality; it is valid, but it
may or may not have existential reality. It may be that electrons
and the ether actually exist. I do not know. At present they
are hypothetical extensions and supplementations of empirical
reality, justified by their logical uses. If they really exist they
must have more qualities and a more determinate character than
the physicist needs, for his abstract purposes, to endow them with.
They cannot, if actual, have mere extension, figure, motion, mass.
They must have potential color, sound, temperature, "feel." And
they must be determinate things with some degree of individu-
ality. If the electrons and the ether are experienced by some
beings they are actual realities, not mere logical postulates. If
they are capable of being perceived they are real. For in order
that anything may be existentially real it must be actually per-
ceived or capable of being perceived. It must be a sense per-
ceivable. When you try to count out of the universe all actual
and possible experience and all experients and ask what is left
you can return no intelligible answer.

As to what exists in the physical realm, behind and beyond
actual experience, our answer must be that we do not know and
can only guess. If we should ever become able to say that we
know, which is quite possible, then the behind and beyond would
have ceased to be behind and beyond and would have become parts
of the system of experience.5

5 Since the above chapter was in substance written there has appeared
a very important discussion of the relation between the world of sense and
the world of physics in Bertrand Russell's Our Knowledge of the External
World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy. See lectures iii and iv.
I have adopted from Mr. Russell the happy phrase "series of aspects." His
discussions of time and space are also important. The perusal of Mr. Rus-
sell's book has not led me to modify my views, but it has helped me to clarify
them, I hope.

248 MAN AND THE COSMOS

APPENDIX

PANPSYCHISM

Panpsychism is a higher form of pan-biotism or hylozoism. The
panpsychist holds not only that all nature is alive and, consequently,
that the cleavage we make between the inorganic and the organic
realms is simply due to our inability to recognize the vital processes
in the inorganic realm ; but that the whole of nature is the operation
of a vast system of interrelated centers of experience or of psychical
monads, and that unconscious and nonpsychical matter does not really
exist. In modern philosophy this doctrine, is held, among others,
by Bruno, Leibniz, Berkeley, Eichte, Schopenhauer, Fechner, Lotze,
and Paulsen. More recently it has been advanced by Josiah Eoyce,
C. A. Strong, J. M. E. McTaggart, Mary W. Calkins, James Ward,
and L. W. Stern.6 It is erroneously attributed to William James.
Whether Bergson is a panpsychist I cannot quite make out. Miss
Calkins advances the following arguments on its behalf:

1. The only reality experienced by us is mental, and, since all
reality is experienced, all reality must consist of experients.

2. She points to the growth of the dynamic conception of nature
from the self-activity of Fichte, the will of Schopenhauer, to con-
temporary dynamic or energetic conceptions of nature, as supporting
the doctrine. The value of this argument depends on whether one
is constrained to admit that all force or energy is will force or will
energy. Certainly present-day physicists do not appear to find them-
selves constrained to admit that molecules, atoms or electrons are
centers of volition. I find it easier to conceive that there are some
centers of activity that are not even momentarily conscious, than to
conceive that atoms or electrons feel, desire and strive. They attract
and repel one another, it is true ; but it does not follow that they must
love and hate and sorrow and rejoice. I do not understand why
there should be such striking apparent differences in the behavior
of persons and inanimate things, if things are but rudimentary
persons. It is quite true that our laws of nature may all be only
statistical averages, which leave out of account the indefinitely numer-
ous individualities whose behavior they profess to generalize. But
it does not follow that the individuals are all of the same funda-
mental type, namely persons or psychical monads.

•Eoyce, The World and the Individual, Vol. II.

Ward, The Realm of Ends.

Stern, Person und Sache.

Mary W. Calkins, Philosophical Bevieiv, Vol. 28, pp. 115-146.

PHYSICAL REALITY 249

In order to account for the fact that we do not recognize the
persons or selves that constitute the so-called inanimate realm, Miss
Calkins makes an ingenious classification of relations between selves.
There are, she says, three kinds of relationships between selves: 1.
Intercommunicating relationships which obtain between human
persons. 2. Communicating relationships which obtain between
human persons and animals. I communicate with my dog and he
with me. He obeys my behests and I recognize his deep devotion,
but he does not know what I feel, nor I what he feels. 3. Noncom-
municating relationships obtain between human persons and the lower
animals, plants and inorganic things. But is it not a simpler hy-
pothesis to say that I cannot hold communication with a cabbage or
a rock because there is no one there to communicate with? The
theory that we cannot communicate with these lower persons because
of the differences between our time spans or rates of conscious rhythm
is ingenious, but I do communicate with the dog and the cat whose
time spans must be different from mine, and I simply cannot com-
municate with the cabbage or rock. Since I am unable to communi-
cate with any other mind otherwise than through the medium of his
body and my body, I do not see why I should assume; first, that
both our bodies are made up of a lot of little minds and, second,
that the physical bodies with which I can hold no psychical conver-
sation are likewise made up of little minds.

The argument that in knowledge subject and object are strictly
correlative, and therefore knowledge is unintelligible unless in every
instance the object be another subject, has little or no value. It
depends on the homeopathic dogma that a mind can know only that
which is of the same character as itself. Now, the panpsychist
admits that we know other minds only through their physical ex-
pressions. What point, then, is there in arguing, that I cannot know
your mind unless your body be made up of inferior souls, through
which my mind or superior soul has indirect intercourse with your
mind ? There is no logically significant difference between the prob-
lem as to how my mind can transcend its own subjective states in
knowing another object, whether we state that other object to be a
mind in a body, or a mind ruling a lot of little minds, or a body that
has no mind at all. The panpsychist assumes; first, that in order
that in knowledge a mind may transcend itself the objects of its
knowing must be mental; second, he must then argue further that
the minds which we all believe we know something of, namely other
human minds, are known through the intercourse of the knower's
mind, not directly with the other minds which he knows, but in-
directly, through the medium of bodies which appear to be very

250 MAN AND THE COSMOS

different from the minds which are known by means of them but
which bodies must nevertheless be made up of inferior grades of
minds. The whole argument is perverse, since it starts from an
arbitrary assumption akin to the proposition that he who would drive
fat oxen must himself be fat.

In truth we know finite mind only through its contrast with the
nonmental order. Mind and physical nature are complementary
aspects of the actual world. Their true relation is one of organic
interdependence in the totality of the real. Eeduce either term to
complete identity with the other and both lose their distinctive
meaning. The whole development of knowledge and practice, and,
indeed, the entire evolution of selfhood, has involved this funda-
mental contrast and relation of physical nature and mind.

Panpsychism fails to account for the appearance of physical things
with qualities empirically different from minds, and which yet serve
as instruments for mind's self-expression. Certain specific physical
expressions are taken to be signs of mind. Why should there be any
signs required if panpsychism be true? Why should not bodiless
minds know each other directly?

Our knowledge of other minds is ejective. We eject a mind into
physical complexes wherever there are intelligible signs of mind.

Primitive man, we are told, ejected an anima or soul into every
sort of physical object which arrested his attention. The progress
of positive knowledge has been in the direction of limiting the scope
of this ejective distribution of souls in nature. The differentiation
and integration of experience through science has brought with it
the narrower limitation of the ejective reference of minds to physical
complexes that have close and weighty resemblance to our own bodies.

What do we find in inorganic nature which bears a close analogy
to the unity of a rational mind? Suppose that all bodies are made
up of momentary centers of consciousness, how does the panpsychist
explain the evolution of these into human personalities without as-
suming the continuous unifying or synthetic activity of conscious-
ness, which is rational mind? And, if he does assume this synthetic
unity, what need is there of reducing physical nature to a system
of inferior souls ? Of course it may be said that these low-grade souls
do not evolve into true selves. They always remain different in kind.
But then the argument for panpsychism from the principle of con-
tinuity falls to the ground. There must in either case be novelty
somewhere in the process, and the common sense view that physical
things are not souls is the more consonant with the findings of ex-
perience. Why not admit, as simpler and not less intelligible, that
souls and nonpsychical existents may interact?

PHYSICAL REALITY 251

The argument that the laws of nature are like acquired habits
of mental and bodily behavior seems to me to rest on a rather far-
fetched analogy. The argument on behalf of panpsychism that the
uniformities in physical nature represent very rough and inaccurate
statistical averages which conceal the real complexity, individuality,
and variability of the finite souls which constitute physical nature,
just as our human vital statistics cover up the rich complexity, indi-
viduality, and variability in the social world, is not convincing. Uni-
formity and predictability will be much less easy to find where indi-
viduality is complex and rich. Where there is readily calculable
uniformity which can be applied in technical practices, does not that
indicate the absence of psychical individuality? The fact that the
laws of human behavior are more difficult to discover and formulate
and so much less exact than the laws of the behavior of physical
things seems pretty clearly to indicate that the latter are not im-
mediate manifestations of finite centers of consciousness. This does
not mean that there is no uniformity in human nature, but that it
is uniformity of a different order than the physical. Intermediate
between the two is biological uniformity.

In whatsoever manner psychical individuals may be distributed
outside human ken, nature's controlling meaning is the development
of psychical individuality. Matter is a positive factor in the cosmical
process of organization or personalization. "Inorganic nature," re-
garded as existing independent of perceptual experience, is the ab-
stract conceptual reality of a common world structure, which is taken
to be the permanent and universal condition of perception. This
conceptual reality is reached by elimination of the specific reactions
of percipient organisms. For example, the luminiferous ether is the
remainder of spatial motion required to account for perceptions of
light and color when the specific reactions of the percipient have been
deducted from the total phenomenon. Correlate these deductions
with others derived from electric and magnetic phenomena and one
gets the electro-magnetic theory of light. But these concepts are
derivative, not primary realities. The latter are found in the realm
of immediate experience. Our psychophysical organisms are non-
eliminable elements in the totality of nature. The nonperceptual
physical entity called in to explain perception has only a reality of
the second order, that of logical relation to the primary reality. The
general structures and forces of nature, the "matter," "space,"
"motion" and "body" of common sense, the "mass," "energy," "ether,"
"atom," "electron," etc., of science are symbols of certain universally
experienced and persistent features of perception, which are describ-
able and calculable in fairly simple and precise formulae. The total

252 MAN AND THE COSMOS

reality must be a system or society of interacting and interpatient
beings, together with the general conditions of their social and indi-
vidual lives. The unity of the whole is that of a teleological meaning
whose character is most adequately expressed in personality.

Our next step will be an inquiry into the meaning of life, its
evolution and its relation to mind.

CHAPTER XX

LIFE AND MECHANISM

Life may be described provisionally as the totality of the
peculiar properties manifested by organized matter. They are,
specifically, the following: (1) irritability, the specific kind of
responsiveness to stimuli manifested by living beings; in the
higher animals, at least, and possibly in all organisms, irritability
is accompanied by sensitivity ; (2) tropism, the impulse to turn
towards or away from certain stimuli ; this may be called reflex
action, and instincts are complex reflexes: (3) the power of self-
reparation; (4) the power of adaptation or self -adjustment and
self-development ; (5) the power of self -reproduction with varia-
tion; (6) the higher organisms have the additional power of
memory and of choice among the memory elements reproduced
from past experience ; thus the higher organisms manifest intelli-
gence and will. In short, in the case of man, at least, a living
organism seems to be able to free itself from the blind routine of
mechanical responses to external or innate internal stimuli through
the modification of reflex responses by internal stimuli engendered
by memory and intelligent reflection thereon. Summing up the
characteristics of a living organism in its most developed form,
we may say that an organism is a dynamic unity which adapts
itself to its environment, develops, maintains, repairs and repro-
duces itself ; exhibiting in these processes the powers of sentience,
memory, selection and rearrangement of the elements of its experi-
ence for better adaptation of itself to the environment and of the
environment to itself, and conscious choice in the sense of the
variation of its innate powers of response to satisfy ends or desires
formed by the activity of the intelligence from the matter of
experience.1

1 Professor J. S. Haldane argues persuasively from the physiological ac-
tivities of the organism in maintaining normals; such as alveolar carbon
dioxide pressure, the regulation of the hydrogen ion concentration and the
balance of nutritive substances, that the normals of living organisms are the
expression of what the organism is and that life itself is a unique reality.
See his article "The New Physiology," Science, N. S., Vol. xliv, pp. 621-631.

253

254 MAN AND THE COSMOS

Is there a supermechanical life principle operative in organ-
ized matter ; or are the properties of the living organism, as above
enumerated, nothing but effects of more complicated physico-
chemical mechanisms of the same order as those manifest in the
realm of nonliving matter ? The vitalist maintains, "that me-
chanical formulas do not begin to answer the distinctively biolog-
ical questions. . . . We need new concepts, such as that of the
organism as an historic being, a genuine agent, a concrete indi-
viduality, which has traded with time and has enregistered within
itself past experiences and experiments, and which has its conative
bow ever bent towards the future. We need new concepts, because
there are new facts to describe, which we cannot analyze away into
simpler processes. ... To the biologist the actualities are organ-
isms and their doings, and life is a generalized concept denoting
their peculiar quality." 2 In short, for the vitalist, while life is
resident and operative in matter, life is not mere matter. Life
is a principle which exerts a directive and selective control over
physical energy. The universal tendency of the physical process
to the degradation of energy is resisted by living beings which are
able, within quite narrow limits, of course, to transform and
direct physical energy in their own interests. Thus the individual
organism is more than the physical or chemical sum of its parts.
"Life is not a factorial element in any mechanical calculation of
the work done by a living organism, since life is the managing
director of the work." 3

Vitalism, in the general sense of belief in the uniqueness of
life, does not, properly speaking, mean that the living organism
is in part a pure mechanism ; and that, in addition to its mechan-
ically working parts, there is a nonperceptual and indeterminable
agency at work (an entelechy or psychoid, in Driesch's terms)
which occasionally interferes with the operation of the machine.
A biologist surely can have no use for such a notion. He is a
scientist, and all science presupposes that there is an unequivocal
or determinate sequence in the events with which it deals, in other
words that definite antecedent conditions have definite consequents.
If, as Jennings says,4 Driesch's vitalism means that "two systems

- J. Arthur Thomson, Article "Life and Death," Encyclopedia of Re-
ligion and Ethics, Vol. VIII,

'J. G. Simpson, "Art. Biology," Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.

* Jennings, H. S., "Heredity and Personality," in Science, 1911 and
Science, 1912.

LIFE AND MECHANISM 255

absolutely identical in every physicochemical respect may behave
differently under absolutely identical conditions" the conception
is unscientific. The scientific biologist is concerned to determine
one-one correspondences between physicochemical conditions and
the phenomena of life. The scientist seeks to determine the
"particular go" or "how" of events, and to make his determinations
as exact as possible; but, if there are specific differences between
those types of behavior associated with physicochemical mechan-
isms which are called organic types, and those types of mechanical
behavior that have no accompanying organic phenomena, surely
it is not the province of genuine science to assert dogmatically
that there is nothing in the former complexes which differ in
principle from the latter. A philosophical vitalist can admit that
the life principle is a determinate power which works in specific
fashions, but he contends that it differs uniquely from a non-living
machine, and he makes this contention on good empirical grounds.
He contends that the organism, as a whole, is a machine inhabited
and directed by a principle having just those powers that are
manifested in the phenomena of life, sentience, intelligence and
will. Whether all these phenomena are manifested by all organ-
isms is a question to be settled by empirical evidence.

What does the mechanist mean by saying that every organism
is a machine ? If he means only that every vital process involves
a specific physicochemical process which is in one-one corre-
spondence with it., I do not see why there should be any quarrel
between the mechanist and the vitalist. If he means that there
are no real differences between organic and inorganic processes,
except differences in the complexity of the spatial configurations
of their elements, that is an assumption which not only is far, as
yet, from being proved but does not seem to do justice to the
phenomena of life. As J. Arthur Thomson puts it, "an adequate
idea of life requires a synthesis, and that again is impossible with-
out sympathy. We must use our every-day experience of living-
ness ... to enliven the larger data of biology . . . We must seek
to envisage the variety of life — hundreds of thousands of distinct
individualities or species; the abundance of life — like a river
always tending to overflow its banks ; the diffusion of life — explor-
ing and exploiting every corner of land and sea ; the insurgence of
life — self-assertive, persistent, defiant, continually achieving the
apparently impossible; the cyclical development of life — ever

256 MAN AND THE COSMOS

passing from death, through love, to death ; the intricacy of life —
every cell a microcosm; the subtlety of life — every drop of blood
an index of idiosyncracies ; the interrelatedness of life — with
myriad threads woven into a patterned web; the drama of life —
plot within plot, age after age, with every conceivable illustration
of the twin motives of hunger and love; the flux of life — even
under our short-lived eyes ; the progress of life — slowly creeping
upward through unthinkable time, expressing itself in ever nobler
forms ; the beauty of life — every finished organism an artistic
harmony; the morality of life — spending itself to the death for
other than individual ends; the mentality of life — sometimes
quietly dreaming, sometimes sleep walking, sometimes wide-
awake; and the victory of life — subduing material things to its
will, and in its highest reaches controlling itself towards an in-
creasing purpose." 5

In brief, then, the vitalist argues : ( 1 ) that the daily function
of living bodies by which they maintain through delicate internal
adjustments the normals or equilibria necessary to life cannot be
accounted for in mechanical terms alone; (2) that the patent facts
of organic plasticity manifested in the organism's adaptiveness
and selectiveness are supermechanical ; (3) that the development
of the individual organism cannot be explained as due merely to
a specialized configuration of nonliving physical elements ; (4)
that the evolution of organisms, with its wonderful variability,
adaptiveness, coordination and correlation of parts and organs
and modifications of the environmental conditions, is still less
accountable on merely mechanical terms.

What is a machine ? In the simplest terms a machine is a
humanly devised contrivance for achieving an end. Thus, we
speak of physical machines, of vital machines, such as the
mechanism of digestion or speech or walking, of political and
social and even of literary machinery. In this broad sense any
system of interdependent parts, which when put in operation pro-
duces definite results, is a machine. In this loose sense of the
term there is no incompatability between mechanism and guidance
or direction. In mechanics a machine is an instrument by means
of which we may change the direction and velocity of a given

5 "Life and Death" (Biological) Hastings' Encyclopedia of 'Religion
and Ethics, Vol. VIII.

LIFE AND MECHANISM 257

motion.6 In this special sense a machine is a human contrivance,
depending for its operation upon the utilization of the inanimate
and therefore blindly working forces or motions which exist in
nature independent of the human will. The mechanical concep-
tion of nature, taken on all fours, means that all the operations
of nature result from the blind and inevitable alterations in the
spatial configuration of mass particles. (Since the mass particles
are ever in motion, all natural changes consist in the alteration of
the distribution of the mass particles.) Given a specific distribu-
tion of mass particles, whatever follows therefrom is simply the
blind resultant of the antecedent distribution of moving particles.
The ultimate elements involved are changeless, the laws of motion
are invariant and a quantitative equivalence runs through all the
transformations. The latter conception is expressed in the prin-
ciple of the conservation of energy, energy being regarded as the
ground of motion. Nature, then, is an unimaginably vast and
intricate system of mass units in motion. The entire system at
any moment Y is the necessary mathematical or mechanical
equivalent of the system at the next preceding moment X. All
changes in the system of nature are simply blind and compen-
satory motions in the whole spatial configuration of mass units
which repel and attract one another. The ultimate explanation of
any change is a problem in kinematics, the geometry of motion.
At the present time the prevailing tendency of physics is to find
the ultimates in negatively and positively charged electrical units
— electrons. Mass or inertia is a function of electric repulsion,
and velocity and figure of motion are functions of electrical repul-
sion and attraction. Matter, in all its qualities, as these appear
to our crude senses, is the resultant of the interrelations between
the spatial configurations which we call physical bodies and the
spatial configurations which we call living bodies. The perceptual
qualities which are the bodies of common. sense are the expressions
of the microscopic mechanisms of the percipient organisms and
external bodies in their microscopic intermotions. Images, con-
cepts, feelings and appreciations are the echoes of the microscopic
motions set up within the brain by the impact of microscopic
motions external to the brain. The motions within the brain thus
impelled die down slowly. Hobbes said, "Thought is decaying

1 Century Dictionary.

258 MAN AND THE COSMOS

sense" ; and, we may add, sense is the intermingling of microscopic
impacts and rebounds of mass units at the periphery of the organ-
ism. What the thing is that moves or whether, indeed, there be
a thing that moves, deponent saith not. An electron is a center of
electric charge and is in motion — but what is it that is in motion I
Can a microscopic motion hit another microscopic motion without
there being anything to hit or to be hit ?

The up-to-date form of the mechanistic conception of nature
is a very tenuous and elusive form of materialism. Nothing exists
but matter and nothing happens but blindly pushed and pulled
nonmatter in motion. Matter is force, but force or energy is
motion. An immovable obstacle is a very stable system of micro-
scopic motions — of what ? Answer — of motions. An organism,
whether it be a plant, an oyster or a man, is a fairly stable system
of mechanical motions. Its colloidal constituents consist of chem-
ical elements, and these in turn are systems of electrons, and an
electron is a geometrical moving point — an event particle, as Mr.
A. N. Whitehead calls it, or a point instant, as Mr. Samuel
Alexander calls it. But where is a point and when is an instant ?
A point never seems to be where it is, nor an instant when it is.
The latest form of materialism or mechanism seems to dissolve
the solid world of common sense into a movie film that moves so
rapidly that the distraught spectator can make out no figures in
it. It seems like a rapidly dissolving phantasmagoria of compli-
cated nothings. Like Bergson's real duration it is a present which
is not a present, but is the invisible progress of the past gnawing
into the future (whatever that may mean), and, as it moves with
incredible swiftness, it casts a shadow called space in which we
poor mortals try to stave off vertigo by vainly imagining that we
are somewhat permanent and fairly solid centers of activity in
interaction and interpassion with other centers of activity.

I am an empiricist, and I maintain that, certainly, in the case
of human organisms, and, presumptively, in the case of other
organisms, the living organism is a self-developing, self-adjusting,
self-regulating, self -regenerating, self-reproducing principle which
dwells and operates in a physicochemical machine. The organic
machine is a super-machine, since it is the dwelling place of a
living being. The biotic and psychic whole is greater than the
physical or chemical sum of its parts. It is a living individual
and its microscopic mechanisms are not the same when they

LIFE AND MECHANISM 259

function as parts of the living individual and when they cease
to do so. Nonliving elements are functionally organic to living
beings. Their synthesis in an organism involves the emergence
into patent activity of a vital principle which must have been
latent antecedent to the specific synthesis which manifests the
distinctively vital phenomena. Life is what it does, life is its own
ways of behavior. A living being is the unitary subject, of which
the specific predicates are just the various features of livingness.
Obviously, an organism is the ephemeral product of the forces of
a universe that is sublime and terrible, sublime in its super-
abundant creativeness, terrible to the single organism which it
makes and destroys with such magnificent prodigality. Life does
not arise from the lifeless, since there is no lifeless universe.
Life appears in a vast variety and innumerable succession of indi-
vidual forms, since the most salient character of the universe is
just that it ceaselessly gives birth to living individuals. Life is no
whit robbed of its meaning and place in reality by the admission
that there is a one-one correspondence between every specific vital
phenomenon and a specific physicochemical process. There are
in the universe of realities nonliving elements, but every such
element may be organic or functional to organisms, for the most
concrete and specific character of reality as a whole is just that it
endlessly gives rise to living individuals. The living and the non-
living do not exist apart from one another.

Logically the metaphysical problem of vitalism versus material-
ism or mechanism is simply the most striking form of the more
general problem — whether reality as a whole is most adequately
interpreted in terms of the poorest and most abstract features of
experience, whether in order to understand reality as a whole we
are to rub out all diversity, concreteness, individuality, qualitative
discontinuity and novelty or creativeness; or whether we are to
say that the full meaning of reality can only be garnered by taking
account of the fact that empirically it ever gives rise to a multitude
of multiform individualities, concrete and creative. The mechan-
ical aspect of reality is real, but it is abstract. Living organisms,
in their graduated ascent, are increasingly adequate revelations of
the secret of reality. Livingness is the most significant character-
istic of reality, to which nonlivingness is subservient or instru-
mental. Livingness, in turn, is the basis for the development of
conscious mind. Conscious livingness realizes its fuller selfhood

260 MAN AND THE COSMOS

in the achievement of personality. The organism is the basis of
mind, and mind is the organism capable of becoming at once for
itself and for the universe — enjoying its own growth through the
conscious enjoyment of the universe.

Before we are in a position to appreciate the full meaning of
personality it will be necessary for us to consider more in detail
the relations of life, mind, and evolution. This we shall do in the
next chapter.

CHAPTER XXI

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND

I. The Factors of Organic Evolution

In its simplest and most general form the doctrine of evolution
means that the higher, in the sense of the more complex, organic
forms have ascended from the lower, in the sense of the simpler,
organic forms; and that this ascent has been the result of the
modification of the simpler forms through natural causes. By
"natural causes" is meant causes of the same order as the causes
that are now observed to operate in the origins and life histories
of organisms. If all the qualities and modes of behavior of organ-
isms at present existing, and therefore under observation, can be
accounted for in mechanical terms, it follows that the entire evolu-
tionary ascent of life as well as its primal origin can be accounted
for in mechanical terms. If there are difficulties in the way of the
complete explanation of life as it at present exists, these difficulties
will, of course, be greatly increased, when one surveys the whole
panorama of organic evolution. On the other hand, if there are
no serious difficulties in the way of giving a mechanical explana-
tion of the behavior of existing organisms, the same principles of
explanation will apply to the origin and evolution of life. In
short, the problem of evolution can only be solved by the applica-
tion, to the history of life, of principles derived from an analysis
of empirical livingness.

Evolution may be described in general terms, as Herbert
Spencer describes it, as the change from simple to complex forms
of existence characterized by concomitant processes of differentia-
tion and integration; more briefly, organic evolution means
increasing individuation, or the movement towards fuller selfhood.
W. K. Clifford described it neatly as the tendency of the cosmic
process to personify itself. Increase of individuation or selfhood
involves increased power of association. The richest or most com-
plex individualities, human persons, are capable of and do form

261

262 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the most varied and extensive social organizations. Therefore we
are justified in saying, on empirical grounds, that a society of
rational and free persons is the highest stage of evolution that we
can conceive. To say that the infusoria or the oyster might regard
the movement of life from themselves onward as a retrogression is
just to litter a smart quibble, for it is a fact that a human society
of the type just indicated is the most dominant form of living
organization. It is a foolish objection to raise to the interpreta-
tion of evolution as the progression of life towards the highest
conceivable type of humanity, to say that it is a conceited
anthropomorphism. For science, as well as philosophy, can never
be anything else than an interpretation of human experience by the
instrumentality of human thinking. And the first and last aim of
philosophy is to interpret human experience in its totality, and to
interpret the universe in terms of the totality of human experience.
Let us assume, then, that life first appeared on the earth,
possibly in quite simple forms, as the immediate accompaniment
of a specific chemical complex ; since life, as we know it, manifests
itself only in association with specific chemical configurations.
Whether the simplest organisms are sentient it is impossible to say.
Perhaps sentience is coextensive with organic responsiveness.
Micro-organisms do manifest powers of discrimination and do
use the trial and error methods which, at higher levels of organiza-
tion, are regarded as indubitable signs of intelligence. Professor
H. S. Jennings says, after a most exhaustive examination of the
behavior of certain lower organisms, "So far as objective evidence
goes there is no difference in kind, but a complete continuity
between the behavior of lower and higher organisms" ; * "objective
investigation is as favorable to the view of the general distribution
of consciousness throughout animals as it could well be." 2 "It is,"
says J. Arthur Thomson, "impossible to think of intelligently
controlled behavior evolving from behavior in which mentality was
wholly absent, and it seems clearest to think of all organisms as
psychophysical individualities." 3 Increase in variety, range and
discriminativeness of sensitivity, and the appearance of memory
with its power of enabling the organisms to profit from experience,

1 Jennings, Behavior of the Lower Organisms, p. 335.

2 Ibid., p. 337.

* Thomson, The System of Animate Nature, Vol. I, Lecture vi, p. 219. The
whole lecture is very interesting. Indeed the entire work is a valuable com-
prehensive treatment of the philosophy of biology, to be cordially recommended.

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 263

its power of conscious enregistration, as J. Arthur Thomson so
well puts it, are correlated with the appearance, and increase in
complexity and relative bulk, of the nervous system. It cannot
well be gainsaid that intelligence and memory are, in those animal
forms which most indubitably manifest them, in some sense func-
tions of the nervous system. The big-brained animals are those
that manifest the highest intelligence. In man, the most intelli-
gent biological being, the cerebral cortex contains some 9000
millions of cells. Anatomically his brain is as far in advance of
the brain of a chimpanzee as psychologically his mentality is in
advance of the mentality of a chimpanzee.

But this argumentation auts two ways. If the growth in men-
tality is correlated with the growth in the nervous system, can
there be any mentality where there is no nervous system? How
can paramcecium and stentor (two animalculse studied by Jen-
nings) have sentience if they have no nerve substance ? Perhaps
they are all nerves, as they are all stomachs, hands and feet. But
they have no differentiated nerve-tissues. If the lowest animals
have sentience why not plants ? Was Wordsworth right in his
belief that "every flower enjoys the air it breathes" ? At most the
consciousness of the lowest organisms would be like that of the
body-monad of Leibniz — mens momentanea, sen carens recorda-
tions— momentary and disconnected flashes of sentience. But it is
quite as hard to see how this momentary sentience can be contin-
uous with human reason and be the lineal ancestor thereof, as it
is to see how from a merely physicochemical aggregate sentience
could emerge as a result of "complication," to use the terms
employed by Dr. S. Alexander. The evolutionist works under the
domination of the principle of continuity and seeks to close all the
gaps in the scale of livingness. A saltation, a gap, a breach of
continuity, is stench to his nostrils. Nevertheless, unless he is a
sheer dogmatic materialist, he must admit saltations, discontinu-
ities. If evolution be not a creative process in which novelties
emerge, it is meaningless. Is there not as great a breach of con-
tinuity between the mind of an Aristotle, a Shakespeare, or a
Goethe on the one hand, and the mind of an orang-outang on the
other hand, as there is between the mind of the orang-outang and
the mind of a stentor? Is there not a striking discontinuity
between the Javan or Sumatran jungle and the civilization of
London or New York, a difference due to the difference in the

264 MAN AND THE COSMOS

minds which inhabit them? It is one proposition to admit there
are minds or feelings of some sort wherever there are the sorts of
behavior which seem to imply feeling; quite another proposition
to maintain that the mind of the white man has been evolved from
a mind of the same order as the mind of a stentor. Does it follow
that because we have vegetative needs therefore our minds are
descended from the minds of plants ? If there be real distinction
between organized and unorganized matter, why boggle at admit-
ting a distinction between sentient and insentient, rational and
nonrational organisms ? Either one should go the whole way and
assume that all matter is besouled, and that the besouling only
differs in degree of complication as the configuration of matter
differs in like manner (universal hylozoism or hylopsychism a la
Haeckel) ; or one should face the logical music and admit frankly
that the attempt to make a fetish of the principle of continuity
and explain the highest mentality as a descent or ascent from the
lowest mentality, and this again from a mentality that is not men-
tality but only the "potency" thereof, is a quibble. When we
survey the panorama of organized matter or livingness we find
structural and functional gaps. When we survey the panorama of
behavior, as implying consciousness and intelligence, we find even
greater gaps. The mental differences between two human beings
are much greater than the observable anatomical differences; the
mental differences between an intelligent civilized human being
and a monkey seem to me even greater than the anatomical dif-
ferences.

Why not admit that "mind," as we know it in ourselves, is a
creative infusion in the organic series ; that, while human minds
are descended from other human minds by psychogenesis, human
mind cannot be accounted for as the descendant of infrahuman
mind? Mind is the biggest kind of saltation or "mutation" in
the evolutionary series. It is the most striking instance of a
creative novelty in the history of life. But the story of life is
crowded with such novelties. It seems to me to follow that the
story of evolution is only the spreading out, over an indefinitely
long past, of the creative process, which in childlike fashion our
spiritual ancestors supposed to have taken place in six solar days ;
and that the entire story is the endless creative expression of a
transcendent life which is the source and ground and goal of the
whole process.

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 265

Sentiency is the beginning of consciousness. Evolutionists
who have recognized the impossibility of accounting for conscious-
ness, as a by-product of merely physical agencies, have assumed
that sentiency is a primary factor in evolution. Such is the view,
in one form or another, of E. D. Cope, C. S. Minot, Wilhelm
Wundt, Josiah Royce, H. Bergson, and James Ward. Mr. Cope,
for example, held that matter, force and consciousness were the
primary factors in evolution ; that all reflexes, and in general, all
unconscious physiological activities, are of the same order as
habits, which, originally acquired with conscious effort, become
unconscious as they become automatic. The inorganic realm he
conceived as the field of habit-automatisms acquired long ago.
Quite similar is Wundt's view, except that Wundt interprets
"force," which Cope makes a primary factor in evolution, in terms
of striving or rudimentary volition. Quite similar in this respect
to Wundt's view, is Bergson's doctrine of the vital impetus, which
in turn is akin to the doctrine of LaMarck. This general doctrine
can be traced back through the monads of Leibniz to the en-
telechies of Aristotle. The logical motive for such speculations is
the principle of continuity. If life be a primary factor, whereas
sentience and the higher forms of consciousness have subsequently
come into being as a result of more complex organization of life,
then one has to admit discontinuity or saltation in the evolution
process. Now the supervention, upon simple sentience, of con-
scious memory, generalization from past experience and expecta-
tion of the future; the supervention, upon these qualities, of
reflective analysis and synthesis and of self -consciousness ; the
appearance and development of rationality and sociality, the be-
ginnings and growth of moral systems, of science and religion and
art ; in short the origin and development of the higher intelligence,
social order, and human culture — all these are cases of empirical
discontinuity, of novelties or creative syntheses, in the evolution
process. Certainly, the appearance of social order and culture are
no less striking and significant emergences of qualitative novelties
in the evolution process than the appearance of life or simple
sentience. Either we must admit a transcendent power of creative
synthesis, which functions intermittently in the history of life;
or we must say that the novelties which appear at successive
critical points in the evolution process and which constitute nodes
in the growth of life have been always present potentially or

266 MAN AND THE COSMOS

latently in the life process. But, since it cannot be denied that
significant novelties have appeared, both in the history of man and
in the prehuman history of life, it seems to me that the above two
alternatives really amount to the same thing. To deny that quali-
tatively novel powers and achievements have appeared in the life
process is to deny the facts and, by implication, to assert that all
history, all temporal process, is illusion. History means not the
eternal recurrence of the same, but a constant succession of differ-
ences. "To make history" is to initiate real novelties. The words
of the world-weary skeptic, "There is nothing new under the
sun," are false. To admit significant novelties in the cosmic life
process is to admit a power of creative synthesis. The purport of
the admission for an interpretation of the universe would be the
same, whether one held that this creative principle was immanent
in the simplest forms of life or that it entered organisms and began
to function in them at specific stages in their evolution, as a super-
venient principle granted to the organic individual by the uni-
versal order and entering organisms from a transcendent spring of
creativeness. The principle of continuity would seem to be most
fully satisfied, on naturalistic premises, if one could conceive the
creative principle as fully and adequately immanent in a world of
atoms or of infusoria. This I am unable to do, since then the
world of atoms or infusoria would not be what it appears to be ;
it would be the infinite source and ground of the whole created
order. It would have become what the philosophical religionist
means by "God."

II. The Mechanistic Doctrine of Evolution

Mechanistic metaphysics is materialism. A purely mech-
anistic doctrine of evolution means, briefly, that all the so-called
creative novelties, richer individualities and forms of association
that have emerged in the evolutionary process are nothing but the
blind resultants of the blindly shifting, spatial configurations of
mass particles.

According to the latest form of the atomic theory of matter,
mass-particles are moving points which attract and repel one
another because of their electric charges. If two particles attract
one another it is because they have complementary, that is, positive
and negative, charges. If they repel one another they must have

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 267

the same kinds of charges. The mass and the inertia, which is but
another name for the resistance of a body to motion by the impact
of another body, of a particle or a system of particles are functions
of their electric charge. Thus the electronic theory of matter
reduces all other qualitative diversities in the physical world to
differences in the geometrical patterns of motions due solely to the
attractions and repulsions of electrically charged points. Thus
matter, in the ordinary sense of extended, and therefore divisible,
bodies, is reduced to moving configurations of indivisible points.
It is not unfair to say that, on this view, what common sense
regards as matter consists of nonmatter in motion. The mechan-
istic doctrine of evolution would account for all the qualitative
diversities and novelties of the evolution process, from planetes-
imals to man, as being the blind products of the incessant shifting
in the configurations of electrified points. The laws of evolution
are thus special cases of the laws of physical motion. The prob-
lem of evolution is a vast series of problems in the geometry of
motion.

I regard this mechanical doctrine of evolution as inadequate on
the following grounds:

1. The geometry of motion does not explain how one set of
empirical physical qualities arises, and is transformed into another
set of different qualities. The redistribution of electronic points
may be a necessary condition of the existence of empirical quali-
ties. I do not know, since I do not know whether matter, as it
exists apart from the percipient organism, consists solely of elec-
trified points in motion. If it does so consist the points must
occupy space and move in it; and therefore empty space must be
an objective reality. If there is no empty space then there can be
no ultimately indivisible elements of matter; but I can form no
consistent conception of an absolutely empty space. If all space
be filled with force; if, in other words, space be the whole field
of energy ; then the ultimate physical reality must consist of con-
centration points or nodes of energy and their dynamic interrela-
tions. Then the ultimate physical reality is a system of inter-
related energy centers.

Let us return to the question of the inadequacy of an abstract
kinematical explanation of empirical qualities. For example : the
motions of the electrons which make up the neuro-muscular system
of a violinist produce alterations in the arrangements of the elec-

268 MAN AND THE COSMOS

trons which make up his violin ; these alterations produce altera-
tions in the motions of the electrons which make up my sensory
and central nervous system. I see a violinist playing; I hear a
system of sounds; and I feel emotions; I feel sweet or sad or
stirring "music of humanity"; there are aroused in me compas-
sionate, noble, or stirring thoughts ; perhaps the music sets me off
in a train of speculation. The mechanical theory has explained
the varied and significant empirical qualities of the musical event
and its consequences, by explaining them out of existence. But
the concrete reality is the totality of empirical qualities. Mechan-
ism alone does not account for the actual realm of experience. The
latter is a varied and rich totality of living qualities with their
meanings. It includes the so-called primary and secondary phys-
ical qualities, inextricably interfused with aesthetic and other
affectional qualities and with meanings. A world denuded of all
empirical qualities is not only not the actual world, it is not even
an intelligible explanation of the latter. A percipient and active
organism is a real factor in the constitution of actual nature ; but
a percipient and active organism is a living, feeling, thinking
being. If percipients be illusory epiphenomena, then the world
of pure mechanics is an even more ghostly and unaccountable illu-
sion, since this world is the offspring of the thought of beings who
perceive and think. In order to account for the world as it is,
and to account for its becoming what it is, we must presuppose
living, feeling, thinking beings; in short we must presuppose
psychophysical organisms.

2. If the mechanical theory were an adequate account of
nature, then the processes of the latter should be in general re-
versible. But these processes are irreversible. The second law of
thermodynamics is a generalized statement of the irreversibility of
the physical order. By the exercise of human ingenuity the down-
ward course of physical events is in some degree altered. The
universal process of the degradation of energy is temporarily
arrested. But even this apparent exception is no real exception
to the principle that the entropy of a physical system tends towards
a maximum ; that is, that energy is always passing from available
to unavailable forms. The qualitative changes in nature, includ-
ing all the novelties which arise in the evolutionary process and
all the achievements of human art, seem to be conditioned by this
principle. The energy of the sun's heat is transformed into chem-

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 269

ical energies of plants. Through metabolism and combustion these
make food and fuel, and thus give rise to vital energy in animals
and to industrial energy. Man eats food, and chemical energy is
thus transformed directly into nervous and muscular energy, with-
out passing through the form of physical heat energy, and, thus,
perhaps without being directly subject to the law of entropy.
Thus human energy is applied to arrest the process of degradation
of physical energy, and to turn it into more available channels for
the satisfaction of human wants. Thus man increases his own
power, lengthens his own life, improves the chances of life for his
offspring, multiplies his wants and their satisfactions ; in short he
enlarges and enhances the psychical values of existence ; but always
subject of the irreversible directions of the order of nature, as
expressed in the second law of thermodynamics.

Increase of entropy dogs the footsteps of life, to issue in abso-
lute death, unless we admit the possibility of some creative source
of physical energy beyond our present ken. Such a source would
be beyond the range of the purely mechanical conception of
nature.4

Perhaps the marvelous manifestations of intra-atomic energy
revealed in radioactive transformations give an inkling of how
such a creative source may work. The facts of radioactivity may
require the modification, or limitation of scope, of the second law
of thermodynamics.

3. The law of the conservation of energy is frequently taken
to be the basic principle of nature and to imply the absolute
validity of mechanism. If the sum total of energy in the universe
is constant, then every change in nature can mean only a quanti-
tative alteration of relations among finite constellations of energy;
and the universe must be a huge automatic machine whose parts
may undergo innumerable alterations of position ; but which, as a
whole, preserves its identical character as a fixed quantity. The
law of the conservation of energy proves nothing of the sort. In
the first place, "energy" is a conceptual abstraction. What is
found in concrete nature is an unceasing variety of qualitative
changes, going through more or less definite sequences. In terms
of conventional constants of "work," which means primarily the
ability to move something against gravitational attraction, or

4For example the "sorting demon" of J. Clerk Maxwell's hypothesis is
such an extramechanistic notion.

270 MAN AND THE COSMOS

..gainst some counteracting force, quantitative ratios have been
established as approximately true for many of these transforma-
tions. In making these determinations the physicist abstracts
from the qualitative uniqueness of the concrete empirical processes.
He does not "explain" the actual complexities of the qualitative
changes involved. His energy, which is assumed to be constant, is
a construction of the scientific imagination. He postulates, and
approximately verifies, its constancy only within the limits of
finite and determinable closed systems of physical energy. He
can know nothing of an absolute sum total of energy. The con-
servation of energy is a working hypothesis which works within
given finite mechanical systems.

To say that the sum total of energy in the absolute system of
the universe is constant seems to me unmeaning. If it be a sum
total, then the energy of the universe must be a so much, however
unimaginably great; it must be a finite quantity. A quantity is
relative to a unit, hence the universe must consist of a finite
number of units of energy. But our estimation through units is
relative and, since the universe is relative to nothing else, it can-
not be regarded as a finite quantity. Again, energy is the power
of doing work, and to do work is to move something. Nothing
moves the whole universe from one place to another, and the
universe does not move itself against any obstacle. There seems
to be no meaning in saying that the universe, in the sense of the
absolute totality of things, does work.

Moreover, since any sum total, however great, is a finite quan-
tity, if the universe has existed through indefinite past time, then,
in accordance with the law of the degradation of energy the uni-
verse must long since have completely run down to the state of
maximum entropy, and be now in a state of complete quiescence
and death, all energy having long since passed into forms unavail-
ing for the maintenance of life. Suppose, on the other hand, that
the universe be assumed to have had a beginning in time. Then,
to account for this beginning, one must go behind the principles of
mechanics. And, if one suppose that in its present state it is a
purely mechanical system, then a state must finally come about in
which the universe will be an inert mass of uniform temperature.
Then there will no longer be any work done, and, since energy
means the power of doing work, all energy will have vanished from
our supposed universe.

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 271

In brief, if the working postulates and conceptions of abstract
mechanics and physics be set up as absolute metaphysical dogmas
we run into a series of contradictions. The attempt to turn the
concepts and formulae of physics directly into metaphysics breaks
down. The total universe cannot be a finite system of mechanical
energies, and the laws of mechanics are not adequate expressions
of the total reality. The obvious reason is that the procedure of
mechanics is adapted to deal only with certain highly abstract
aspects of the concrete world, namely, a thought constructed and
conventional realm of pure space, time, motion, and mass.5

Every event in nature is the resultant of an indefinite com-
plexity of determining conditions. In the quest for causal con-
nections as naturalists we rightly ignore this indefinite complexity,
since it would involve us in an endless search. We pick out the
immediate and relatively constant antecedent of the particular
type of event that we desire to account for. This antecedent is
always one that, for the special purpose in hand, we can treat as
the cause. The purpose may be to fix the guilt of a crime, to
determine the conditions of profit in an industry, or to formulate
a mechanical relation in physics or chemistry. The rigid bodies,
the different types of motion, the lines and fields of force, or the
atoms and electrons, of the physicist, are just as truly purposive
constructions as are the "adaptations" and "selective agencies" of
the biologist. And the latter are just as truly purposive construc-
tions as the legal and moral constructions which we employ to
interpret our complex social life.

It is by this method of abstraction and purposive construction
that science arrives at its mechanico-causal formulae. The teem-
ing qualitative diversity of concrete experience is reduced thereby
to identities of relation. The actual bases of these thought-con-
structed identities are incomplete similarities in the sequences of
events. Repetition of resembling cases is the experiential ground
for our causal determinations. Probably no two instances of
causal change are absolutely the same.

0 These concepts as employed in physics are all convenient working ab-
stractions, not accurate pictures of reality. Cf. James Ward, Naturalism and
Agnosticism, passim.

272 MAN AND THE COSMOS

III. Evolution and Teleology

Actual life and experience live in the present and forwards
towards the future, while causal theory explains retrospectively.
It tries to account, for the present, which is real, by the artificial
reconstruction of a past which no longer exists; but the ultimate
value and purpose of all causal explanation is to enable the beings
who make it, and can use it, to use the abstract skeletons of causal
explanation in their present living experience in order to achieve
in the future more satisfactory experience. All retrospection,
from an individual's judgment of his own past to a review of the
history of humanity, of life and the solar system, has its meaning
and value solely in its uses for the enrichment and harmonization
of life and experience, which is life as it feels to living individuals.
Reality is living and prospective. Its historical retrospections
are for the enhancement of its living forward movement. Life is
individuated, and it moves towards increase of individuation and
association. There is, in reality, no static and mechanical nature,
except as a figment of the geometrizing intellect. Living nature
is the forward movement of individuals towards increasing indi-
viduation and association, which is the complement of individua-
tion. Evolution is a living analytic-synthetic or differentiating
/ and integrating process, moving towards more individuation. The
continuity of direction in the whole process can be understood fully
1 in terms akin to what in human life is meant by value-inspired
activity. When a new type of individual has appeared on the
scene, we may, with fair measure of success, find close analogies
to already existing types. Man is a good deal like the anthropoid
ape. It may be true that the aboriginal man was first cousin to
the ape. It may be true that there were apelike men before there
were men, although I do not see by what right anyone can assert
that there were with dogmatic certainty. Man may have appeared
subsequently or prior to, or simultaneously with, the ape. At any
rate, the differences between man and the ape are more significant
for man and more disastrous for the ape than the resemblances of
the two. The fallacy to which the mechanical evolutionist is most
prone is the fallacy which consists in covertly assuming, where
similarities or superficial identities of structure and behavior are
found, that these are the all-important matters, and that the
differences, uniquenesses, novelties are unimportant and therefore

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 273

nonexistent. The differences between truth and error, good and
evil, happiness and unhappiness, success and failure, often turn
on what, viewed quantitatively, are very slight matters; but the
differences, in terms of meaning and consequence, may be tre-
mendous. For life, action and feeling, differences are, as a rule,
more important than resemblances. The same is true for the
interpretation of the evolution process.

The actual world is a dynamic interplay of mutually adaptive
energy centers. It is due, in its present phase, to the interplay in
the past of energy centers ("monads"). The mutual adaptations
of plants and animals and their environments ; the interactions of
organisms ; the influences of soil, water, and climate on organisms ;
the influences of organisms on the soil, water, and probably even
on climate: — all these are cases of dynamic interrelationship that
transcend the categories of mere mechanism. We are not to seek
the evidence for the dominance of livingness and its teleological
efficacy, in the sense of its power of increasing subjugation of
inorganic energies to the maintenance and enhancement of life, in
any partial or special features in the evolution process. The best
evidence for an immanent teleology is to be found in the whole
system of dynamic and organic interrelatedness of the factors in
evolution; and in the presence of a continuous thread or trend
which, interwoven with the stuff of life, in the ceaselessly working
loom of time, displays its pattern more clearly with the movement
of the ages. The pattern is the growth and maintenance of indi-
viduality in association — the trend of the evolution process towards
'personality.

The Darwinians hold that natural selection, of those chance
variations in the structure and functions of organs which fit their
fortunate possessors to survive in the struggle for existence, is the
chief method of organic evolution. Most of them admit other
factors, such as sexual selection; and some of them admit, to a
limited extent, the inheritance of the effects of use and disuse.
Either they do not attempt to account for the origin of variations,
or they assume that the origin, as well as the selection, of variations
is due to the action of the physical environment. The intraorganic
factors are the products of the extraorganic factors. The organism
throughout its history is thus the passively moulded product of
physical forces.

The direct stimulus of the environment alone does not account

274 MAN AND THE COSMOS

for the origin and cumulative persistence of the most significant
variations. Organisms are not copies or replicas of the environ-
ment, for their adaptive responses to external stimuli are very
diversified and often complicated. Moreover, as Bergson has so
effectively pointed out in his discussion of the eyes of the molluscs
and vertebrates, organs differing in structure but similar in func-
tion have been developed along quite divergent lines of evolution.6

An organ such as the eye represents very manifold and complex
delicately adjusted correlations. The whole organism of a higher
mammal is a marvelously complex machine. That these correla-
tions could have resulted from the chance persistence of chance
combinations in the blind permutations and combinations of mass
particles is improbable. A much coarser machine fashioned in
human society implies an end. Why not then the whole infinitely
complex adjustments and correlations of organisms? The very
simplest and most general terms employed in biology — adjustment,
adaptation, variation, selection, use, growth — are teleological or
axiological concepts.

Vital evolution has taken definite directions along certain
main lines. It has passed from the generalized to the specialized,
from the homogeneous to the heterogenous, as Herbert Spencer
put it. Evolution, however, has not been a simple change from
the generalized to the specialized; for intelligence, the ruling
power in human evolution, is the most highly generalized and
supple instrument for the production of specialized adaptations
to be found in the whole of nature. All man's specialization of
organs are tributary to the generic function of intelligence, by
virtue of which the latter is able to fashion and use new inventions,
new specialties. Thus, with the supremacy of intelligence, the
evolution process enters upon a decidedly new phase. Man, the
tool maker, becomes the builder of civilization.

With constancy of external conditions there has taken place
divergence of direction in organic types, but not the indefinite and
chaotic diversity which would not strike out and hold to certain
paths. The persistence of divergent development in a few chan-
nels, at first parallel and then separating more widely, is evidence,
both of an original power of individualized responsiveness to the
external situation, and of a capacity to hold to and enhance the

Bergson, Creative Evolution, Chaps. 1 and 2.

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 275

kinds of response already made. Vital evolution is ortho genetic,
in the general sense that it displays the persistence of specific
directions. That this orthogenesis is not the mechanical result of
the moulding power of the environment seems to be shown by the
varied character of this persistence of direction. Moreover, the
mere fact of variation does not account for the survival and trans-
mission of variations in enhanced degree ; such that they become
important factors in the survival of their possessors. In order that
correlated variations may become useful they must first be there
and persist. What preserves the organism before the variations in
question have become useful weapons in the struggle, and what
enables a succession of generations to add their mites of increase
to these same variations ? Finally, there are many variations
which seem to be without any purely survival value, such as rich
coloration, and a multitude of minor variations in structure and
ornamentation of organisms. Of what survival value are all the
songs, colors, and activities of birds ? Life seems very prodigal
in its manifestations of formative energy.

In man there is still a more abundant outcrop of seemingly
useless variations, such as his play, aesthetic, and speculative im-
pulses. These are doubtless useful, in the long run and in the
highest sense, by enhancing the dignity and value of his social and
spiritual life, but they are without survival value in the physical
struggle for individual existence. If the one ruling principle of
vital evolution be the mechanical moulding of organisms by en-
vironmental forces, these qualities are unaccountable miracles.

Progressive adaptation, by which organisms gain the power in
increasing degree to dominate the environment, is a teleological
principle ; no matter how in detail this adaptation may be achieved.
The details may be susceptible of mechanical statement, may have
become habit mechanisms; but the whole movement is supra-
mechanical. Useful variations originate, doubtless evoked some-
how by the demands of the environment on organisms to maintain
themselves ; but the power of response in a diversity of ways, some
of which are cumulative and persistent, implies teleological activ-
ity in the organism; not a force that works unerringly, but one
that achieves its ends by the trial and error method. Teleology in
this general sense by no means implies conscious design or purpose.
It does imply persistent striving in definite directions towards
individuality, and this striving does eventuate finally, through

276 MAN AND THE COSMOS

specific physico-chemical combinations, in sentient selfhood, in pre-
visional adjustment to and reshaping of the environment. Mech-
anism is everywhere present and nowhere the final interpretation.
There is an immanent cosmic teleology operating in organisms.

IV. Life and Matter

Does vital evolution exhibit the working out of a single pre-
designed plan ? The diversities, wastes, failures, monstrosities of
life negative such an assumption. Bergson has pointed out that
the error of radical finalism is to assume that the whole is given
at one blow as a timeless actuality and that, by consequence, every
step in the process is predetermined. Such a notion makes it
inconceivable why there should be any evolution or any imperfec-
tions in the life process. Why should not the whole order of life
have appeared and continued complete and perfect ? His own
theory seems to be that matter is the negative or obstructive factor
in the evolution of life, an assemblage of obstacles which the life
force must overcome in order to progress. Life is a finite impetus
which must insinuate itself in matter, must compromise and use
evasive and circuitous methods, in order to surmount the obstacles
presented to it by matter. Actual evolution is the result of this
struggle between life and matter. The vital impetus persistently
experiments with ways and means to get itself forward and upward
against the downward pull of matter. On the other hand he some-
times treats matter, that is, spatial extension, as if it were a by-
product of life itself. The dualism is put into the vital impetus.
Thus self-diremption or dialectic is conceived to dwell in the very
heart of life and to move it from within.

This dualistic conception of the relation of life and matter I
find unsatisfactory. Firstly, it seems to imply that the obstruc-
tiveness of matter is the chief cause of individual and racial varia-
tion and of death. Life without matter would then have been one
immense and changeless ocean of being. Its impulse towards
individuality and effort derives from life's being blocked or
hemmed in by matter. Thus the one cosmic soul is fragmented
into the multitude of finite individual souls, each freighted with
a bit of the vital urge (Velan vital). It is really a negative con-
ception of the function of matter. It does not differ, in principle,
from the Platonic-Aristotelian concept of matter as the partially

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 277

hindering condition, which is also the potency of individual exist-
ences. I do not think that death is a triumph of matter over life.
It appears rather to be, in large measure, at least, the result of
the struggle of life with life — of the more complex forms of life
with the simpler. The germ theory of disease supports the latter
view. It may be, however, that normally death, in the higher
organisms, such as man, is but a change of material investiture,
a critical phase of development. The old body, no longer adequate,
may be left to the simpler organisms to use up.

Secondly, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and
sulphur are the direct material potentialities of life. Other chem-
ical substances further life. The physical environment is fitted to
be the theater of vital evolution in a positive sense. It is a plati-
tude to say that the fact that organisms exist and multiply estab-
lishes the fitness of the material environment.

Thirdly, matter is not in itself a sufficient explanation of
variation and individuality; and the increase of individuality is
the meaning of evolution. My own view is that matter is the
positive potentiality of vital organization. Matter in itself prob-
ably consists of simple and relatively unorganized centers of
activity. The forms of individuation intermediate between unor-
ganized matter and living organisms, such as the crystal, represent
the first steps towards organization. Vital evolution is the organ-
ization of more complex individuals from these simpler centers of
activity.

There are three levels of individuation. (1) The mere par-
ticulce or individua of the physical universe. These are the dis-
crete elements of matter — electrons or other unit centers of
physical activity. But physical individua are not true individuals.
They are meeting points of general relations or centers of inter-
ference in the flux of physical forces. Gravitational and electrical
attraction, the lines and fields of force of magnetic and electrical
theory, are phenomena of this general relationship. Physical indi-
vidua are centers of activity, but their centrality is subordinate
and their individuality poor and abstract. They are discrete units
or differentiations in a continuous medium — the ether, or what-
ever may take the place of the ether in order to afford a con-
ceptual basis for the dynamical interrelations of physical elements.
Physical individua are but eddies in the stream of physical
becoming. Their natures are exhausted in their external relation-

278 MAN AND THE COSMOS

ships. They have only being-for-another no being-for-self , no self-
maintaining center of individuality.

(2) The living organism more nearly approaches true indi-
viduality. It has greater complexity and unity of structure and
function than a physical individuum. It has the beginnings of
being-for-self, of self-related and self-maintaining individuality.
Anabolism, self-movement, irritability and sensitivity, are phenom-
ena of individual self -maintenance. Reproduction, and death are
phenomena of relationship and dependence of the individual on
the species and the environment.7 The organism uses the physical
individua which are its components, to develop more individuality.
All its forces and elements are chemical and physical, but its power
of rearrangement and synthesis of these elements shows that it is
a higher and more complex individual unity. It develops highly
differentiated structures which function as an integrated whole.
The essence of the organism is organizing individuality.8 Yet a
mere organism is not a true self. The constituent cells and tissues
are easily thrown off or grafted onto other organisms. The cells
have a relatively large amount of independence. In reproduction
the individual organism shows its dependence on the species or
type. The self-maintaining power of the organism, its organizing
principle of synthesis, seems to stand in a relatively external rela-
tion to its constituent elements. The protozoa are vague and fluid
unities, and even the higher metazoa are communities of individua
which are not wholly merged in the unity of the individual. The
evolution of organisms is a progress in individuation, in that its
successive steps are stages in increasing domination of the en-
vironment, in a change from relative passivity to greater relative
activity and self-assertion. Contrast an amoeba with a civilized
man in this respect. The domination of the environment has been
accomplished through the growth of the sensori-motor system cul-
minating in the development of the cerebral nervous system, the
instrument for the control of more remote environmental relations
in time and space.

(3) Mind alone is capable of full individuality or selfhood.

TC/. Hegel on Life, Wallace's Logic of Hegel, pp. 358 ff.

8 The doctrine that the organism is an individual whole and that life is
eternal is developed in a very interesting fashion in the recent work by
Professor W. E. Bitter, The Unity of the Organism. I am not clear as to
whether he regards consciousness as coeval with the organism or a product of
certain causal interactions between the organism and the environment.

1/ w

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND j 279

It supervenes upon and uses the bodily organism as its locus of
operation. Mind is the most intimate and integrated type of
totality. Its elements have no existence apart from the unity.
Mind is at once capable of very great complexity of structure and
of a corresponding integrity of operation. Whereas, physical indi-
vidua seem but abstract meeting points of general relations or
forces, and whereas, in organisms the balance between the indi-
viduum or principle of synthesis and the dependence of its con-
stituent elements and functions on the relationship to the environ-
ment is so unstable that the organism is ever on the point of
dissolution into physical elements, mind is a creative as well as
irradiating center of relationships, by virtue of which it dominates
not only the immediate environment but controls to a large degree
the more remote environment — the spatial relations in the distance
and the temporal sequences bound up with these more distant
connections. Thus a mind alone has true individuality, has being-
in-and-for-self. It maintains itself by expanding into a fuller
focus for cosmic relationships, and it enriches its being in depth
by union with other minds.

Evolution is the process by which individual "souls" are
fashioned. The successive levels which we have just considered
are the main stages in the making of souls. The relatively bare
individuality of physical force centers is the precondition of the
living organism, which arises through the synthesis of a specific
complex of physical centers. Whether every low-grade organism
is sentient or not it is not possible to say definitely. But certainly
organic irritability or sensitivity is the precondition of sentience.
It is probable that the high tension created by the concentration
and association of avenues and centers of organic irritability
through a nervous system gives rise to sentience. The latter was
at first evanescent, a momentary and fleeting consciousness with-
out memory or reflection It became more definitely organized,
as the sense organs and centers were differentiated and coordinated
with the instinctive motor reactions. As yet there was not a true
self. There was soul, but no self. The biological soul life, once
organized and developing into greater complexity and significance,
as instrument of organic adaptation and domination of the environ-
ment, became a continuous and expanding factor in evolution.
The temporal continuity of psychical life, in the succession of the
generations, is a highly warranted hypothesis, which accounts for

280 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the facts of psychical heredity. The elementary psychical varia-
tions in individuals and species are probably due to the new com-
binations of psychical capacity ever being struck out by conjuga-
tion. This inheritance of psychical unit characters, in the shape
of instinct, impulse, and power of discrimination of the senses,
and the activity and persistence of higher tendencies, which com-
bine through crossing to produce a rich variety of temperaments or
original natures in individuals, I do not doubt to be the natural
basis of the human soul. Everyone who has studied the psychical
resemblances of individuals to their ancestors has collected evi-
dences that personalities, even of the more creative types, may
largely be accounted for by the fortunate combinations of ancestral
qualities which were isolated in their parents, grandparents or
more remote ancestors.9 Goethe's well-known words have often
been cited in this connection :

Vom Vater hab' Ich die Statur
Des Leben's ernstes Fuehren
Vom Mutter chen die Frohnatur
Urn Lust zu fdbulieren.

The case of the "Jukes," a race of degenerates on the one hand,
and the descendants of Jonathan Edwards on the other hand, are
striking evidences in point.10

There is more in the true self or person than an inherited
complex of psychical tendencies. Thus far "Die Theile habt Ihr
i in der Hand, fehlt leider nur das geistige Band." These tend-
encies are fused in the alembic of the "spirit" or principle of
intellectual synthesis, which is the source of memory, analytic
reflection, creative mental synthesis and rational will. The
rational principle, which uses and controls the inherited tendencies
of the biological soul life, cannot be derived from the latter. It
is the creative principle of self-activity which functions in and
through the biological soul and fashions the latter into a person-
ality. This is the moral and rational "spirit" or selfhood.

Souls, then, are indeed fashioned in the creative process of
evolution. Biological souls, through the operation of the "higher"
principle of creative synthesis, become rational selves. Whence is
this creative principle derived? Here one reaches the limits of

9 The Mendelian theory of heredity, of course, supports this view.

10 Walter, Genetics, Chap. 11.

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 281

experience and can only conjecture. The birth, from out the
biological soul, of a rational and moral spirit or person points to
the hypothesis that here one finds in the realm of the finite a
principle which transcends the finite; in the evolution of life the
self-expression of an ultimate spiritual and cosmic power which
transcends the evolutionary process and yet is implicated in every
step thereof. This hypothesis is akin to the view as to the origin
and destiny of spirit advanced by religious and philosophical
geniuses, that the spirit in man is the self-manifestation of the
Divine Spirit, that thus the supreme cosmic spirit imparts himself
in very truth to the soul of man. The "natural" man, that is, the
biological man becomes, through the communication of this Divine
Spark, a moral and rational self. In Leibniz' words spiritual
monads are born by continuous fulgurations from the Divinity.

Friendless was the Mighty Lord of Worlds,

Felt defect — therefore created Spirits

Blessed mirrors of His blessedness,

From the chalice of the world of souls

Foams for Him now infinitude. — Schiller, Friendship.

The evolution process is the striving of a vast multitude of
individual centers with increasing individuation and association,
progressing from blind self -maintenance and reproduction to
rational self-determination. The failures, wastes, blind alleys,
which life so often leads into, result from the fact that the system
of animate nature is an open and developing system of individ-
uated centers capable of effort and progress. If it be asked why
the growth of life must take place in this way, why it should not
be the placid unfolding of a perfectly predetermined plan, the only
answer at hand is that growth through trial and error, and by
effort, is the one way in which we can think the evolution of a
world which brings forth ever enriching individuality, as it is the
one way in which we can think the education of an individual.

In the human order mind becomes the dominant factor in the
life system. It fashions the world of social and historical experi-
ence and tradition. Mind is the parent of language, industrial
advance, the arts, manners, morals, sciences, and religions; by
virtue of these, man's evolution becomes a cultural and purposive
process which creates and maintains enjoyed values, in contrast
with the blind striving, towards value, of subhuman nature. Thus

282 MAN AND THE COSMOS

personality is the end term in the evolutionary process. Thus the
physical order is made the servant of the type of being who seems
to have emerged from its own bosom.

That which makes the evolution process more than a bare suc-
cession of atomic and jarring events is the continuity of its ever
increasing movement towards personality. When one speaks of
the evolution of the stellar cosmos, describe its elements and suc-
cessive features how one may, the total meaning of the process is
that its earlier and more chaotic conditions have eventuated in a
cosmos. Cosmos could hardly have come from apparent chaos
unless there was order or definite tendency at work in the chaos.
What we commonly call chaos is only a different sort or phase of
order.11

The determining factors of organic evolution have full mean-
ing only as contributing elements in a process which is continuous
and significant in what it brings forth. Certain values are at-
tained, and the process passes through these to the achievement of
still richer values. The biologist may disclaim any attempt to pass
judgment on the values achieved in the process of evolution. He
may say that man is not necessarily in any sense of value a higher
animal than an amoeba, but only a more complex organism, with
more structures and functions and hence more troubles. But the
biologist, nevertheless, does and must regard man as better
equipped biologically for adjustment, self-maintenance, and self-
development than an amoeba, and when he pursues, with utter
devotion, his science, he tacitly at least, admits that the life of a
civilized thinking being is of more worth than the life of a jelly-
fish. Biologically man is the highest animal because, in Professor
Sherrington's words, he is best fitted to dominate his environ-
ment.12 This domination becomes in turn the biological basis for
the attainment of the spiritual life, the life of truly human culture
which means the re-creation of the environment under the guid-
ance of humanistic values.

The single thread of continuity or meaning, then, which binds
together the successive stages of evolution is the emergence and
increasing dominance of personal spirit or mind as the true home
of values. Nature is the prelude to culture. Material and vital

11 Cf. Bergson, Creative Evolution, Chap. 3.

12 C. S. Sherrington. The Integrative Action of the Central Nervous
/System.

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 283

evolution are the overtures to man's realization of personality, by
the organization and development of social cultural life. That
the great epic of personality is as yet only imperfectly unfolded
constitutes not a ground for pessimism but for hope. The process
is a slow and severe one, but when man casts his reflective gaze
backwards he may well be cheered and nerved to his great tasks by
the long vista of progress behind him. It is a possibility so remote
and unimaginable that we may intelligently reject it, to suppose
that the entire evolution process, with its eventuation in spiritual
culture, is simply and solely the result of a blind and contingent
rearrangement of mass particles in space. If it is difficult to
conceive that Plato's philosophy or Shakespeare's dramas could
have occurred accidentally by the chance coincidence of the letters
of the Greek or English alphabets, it is vastly more difficult to con-
ceive that the continuity of order, direction, and outcome of the
whole evolutionary process can have been the result of blind chance.
Whereas in human activity purpose means a foreseen and
consciously willed end, in a very large fraction of biological
processes there seems to be no clear evidence of conscious foresight.
Are we then to admit unconscious teleology ? It seems to me that
we must regard unconscious teleology, the unconscious achieve-
ment of values, as playing a very considerable role in nature. The
great bulk of organic functions, such as metabolism, the circulation
and aeration of the blood, the summation of stimuli in the sense
organs and cortical centers, are normally performed without con-
sciousness. These functions are certainly teleological in their
results. There are many instinctive psychical tendencies which
begin without foresight, although they may be accompanied by
consciousness. Such are the self-preservative reactions of anger,
fear, simulation. Again there are the secondarily automatic or
habitual modes of action which are acquired with consciousness,
but are afterwards performed unconsciously; for example, walk-
ing, running, and, in general, operations involving manual skill.
Perhaps, as some genetic psychologists hold,13 all organic move-
ments were originally accompanied by consciousness. At any
rate there is no inherent difficulty in the conception of uncon-
sciously useful and end-realizing activities. Even rational man
often finds that the ends at which he consciously aimed were not

11 Wilhelm Wundt, for example.

284 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the true ends of his activities, and, in failing to achieve his pur-
poses as he planned them, he has accomplished larger and worthier
ends.

The lower animal organisms and plants are probably devoid of
any foresight of the ends of their activities.

The older theories of creative intelligence, which made the
world and wound it up like a perpetual and vastly intricate clock-
work, and which intervened in the world process only on special
occasions to work out some particular aim or make some improve-
ment which has arisen in the Divine Mind as an afterthought
consequent upon an unforeseen derangement of the cosmical ma-
chines, are thoroughly discredited. The notion of a special provi-
dence which, for example, answers prayers for rain or for succor
from natural catastrophes by disturbing the causal sequences of
nature, or which punishes the wickedness of a St. Pierre or a
Messina by an earthquake and volcanic eruption, is incompatible
with the conception of the system of nature as an orderly whole.
The immanent purposiveness of nature consists in the systematic
totality and continuity of life-realizing capacities,14 possessed and
exercised by its individual members. This does not mean that the
entire order of nature may not be the self-expression of a Creative
Activity which transcends nature. Of this, more anon. In the
system of nature only conscious individuals are values-in-them-
selves, since only conscious individuals can become ends-for-
themselves and for one another. The values of natural evolution
are concentrated and summated in persons.

I have already referred to the seeming great waste, useless suf-
fering and purposeless failure strewn by the wayside along the
slow and toilsome pathway of nature's evolution. Why this im-
mense and never wholly eliminated imperfection of the process, if
nature be indeed a value-realizing system ? I shall not here fore-
stall what I shall have to say later in regard to the specific problem
of evil in the life of man. I desire now to point out in regard to
this most general form of the question: 1. Teleology or value-
production has no meaning apart from the striving and self-
activity through which obstacles are surmounted, and apparently
alien and stubborn materials are transmuted into instrumentalities
of achievement. If life be teleological, then life is impossible

14 Cf. Aristotle 's Entelechies.

EVOLUTION, LIFE AND MIND 285

without self -activity and striving against hindrances. 2. A world
of living individuals is unthinkable without conflict and striving.
The self-active elements of this world interact as members in an
inter-related totality, elements in a self-organizing system. In this
each must suffer as well as act, since each is a member of a world,
and has at best only a relative independence. And life, individual-
ity, self-conscious will and reason, can exist only through purposive
striving. A world of feeling and thinking beings without interests
to be satisfied and ends to be willed is surely unintelligible.

Leibniz' question — is this the best of all possible worlds ? —
only serves to throw dust in our eyes. Any other world that may
be imagined will be only a variant of this one. The actual world
is neither the best nor the worst of many possible worlds. Since
it is actual it is the only really possible world. One world at a
time ! If you ask, why this motley world, your question is mean-
ingless. "Motley's the garb we wear." There can be no ulterior
reason why the universe, that is the organized whole of existence,
is as it is. Such a reason would imply an antecedent universe, that
is the existence of something before anything existed, which would
be the nonexistent ground of existence.

BOOK IV

PERSONALITY AND ITS VALUES— PHILOSOPHY
OF SELFHOOD AND SOCIETY

CHAPTER XXII

THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY

Among empirical existents human personality is the richest
monad, the fullest microcosm. It is a vortex in the universal flux.
All the forces of the universe flow through it. It is subject to all
the winds and tides of cosmic weather ; it is bestial and Godlike,
compounded of clay and fire. It rises from the slime and ooze of
the primal world stuff to the contemplation of the stars, to love
stronger than death, to creative imaginings of an ideal world. It
visions values which, could they be realized in society, would make
of mankind a Godlike community. It is racked by pain and driven
by hunger and lust. But it can live and die for loved ones, for
a country, for a cause, for an illusion. It is moved by consuming
greed and can give, asking nothing in return. It lives by bread
but not by bread alone; it can make the earth a shambles or a
garden of peace, justice and friendship. All the counter currents
and conflicts of the universe live in intensified individuation in
the soul of man. Mankind produces a Caligula and a Jesus, a
Caesar Borgia and a St. Francis, a gibbering idiot and a Shakes-
peare. In man, the most complex and contradictory individuation
of the universal forces, lives the best key to the interpretation of
the meaning of the whole ; the best key, since all other keys are
manmade, and man himself is the final clew to all the partial clews
he makes or finds.

In view of the lack of agreement in the use of the terms indi-
viduality, selfhood and personality and the corresponding concrete
terms individual, self and person, I shall now define briefly the
sense in which these terms are used by me. The full significance
of these definitions can only be appreciated by a consideration of
the whole drift of our discussion.

By individual I mean any being that is an indivisible unity of
diverse parts or aspects and, hence, in which the unity and the
diversity are interdependent. An individual can be divided or
disintegrated, but then it ceases to be itself ; it loses its distinctive

289

290 MAN AND THE COSMOS

character as a whole and its individuality cannot be restored. An
organism is an individual ; a machine is not, since its parts can be
assembled, taken apart and reassembled. In a machine parts of
like structure can be substituted at will. This is partially true of
an organism; and indeed, an organism has a mechanical basis;
but, in the latter, the substituted parts must grow into the whole.
In grafting or inserting a part in an organism we are dealing with
colonies of subindividuals. A living cell is a subindividual and
the whole organism a community of subindividuals. Thus indi-
viduality involves living unity-in-diversity or organization, dis-
tinctness and relations. It involves uniqueness of being and life,
but not isolation.

In a broad sense an individual is a self, but I shall usually
confine the application of the term "self" to conscious individuals.

By person I shall mean a well-organized and reflective or
rational individual ; a being that is aware of, and lives consciously
in, its relations ; that realizes its life, and knows itself as such, as
a thinking and self-active self, a responsible center of thought,
valuation and choice; unique and having immediate and, in a
sense, absolute value as just this center of spiritual life, while the
felt content and meaning of this unique life is filled up with sig-
nificant thoughts and deeds of which feeling is the mother-liquor
or matrix. In short, a person, while unique and private in its
inner existence, realizes the worth of true existence through con-
stantly going beyond or transcending its mere selfhood and living
in universal relations to nature, fellowman and God. A person
is a "spirit." It means the same as "soul" in popular usage, when
the implications of popular usage are thought out. A self is an
ego, but a person is more than a mere ego. A person is an indi-
vidual self, but an individual self need not be an actualized person.
A self contains the potentiality of personality.

In recent objective idealism, notably in the works of Messrs.
Royce, Bradley and Bosanquet, the term individuality is used, I
think, in much the same sense as the term personality is here used.
I have departed from their usage, on the ground that my own is
more in harmony with the development of the terminology of
western thought. Through the history of western thought, from
the establishment of Christianity as a doctrinal system, the prevail-
ing tendency in religious, ethical and political thought has been
to use the term personality to designate the qualities or character-

THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 291

istics of the most all-inclusive or most universal, rational and
ethical or spiritual individuality or selfhood. The person is not
merely unique or distinctive, but at once the most deeply inward
self-determining and worthful and the most universal or deeply
and widely related type of selfhood. It is spirit ; and, I may add,
to speak of impersonal "spirit" seems to me to be to talk nonsense.1

I proceed now to consider the nature and relations of selfhood
and its evolution into its highest form, personality.

The following may be taken, by way of introduction, as a gen-
eral characterization of a conscious self: (1) The self is a unity
which persists through changing experiences. However much my
ideas and feelings may vary from time to time, I experience, and,
through memory, am conscious of a continuing thread of self-
identity which binds these changing events of conscious life to-
gether into the life of myself. (2) The self is complex. My self lives
in, attends to, and is controlled by, different ideas and feelings,
and takes different attitudes in work and play, in business life, in
the family circle, in society, and in private meditation. (3) The
self is felt as a unique individuality. In normal life the self-
identities even of lovers or intimate friends are not confused.
Even "two hearts that beat as one, two souls with but a single
thought" remain forever two. Two friends may have similar ideas
and feelings about politics, art, religion and philosophy, but they
do not thereby become one self. Damon and Pythias remain dis-
tinct selves to the end of the chapter. (4) The self lives and is
conscious only in relation to other selves and to physical things.
We can frame no notion of what a self would be which did not
function, as conscious being, in interaction and interpassion with
other selves and with a physical world.

In order to gain a fuller insight into the nature of the self
I shall have recourse to psychological analysis and to the facts
of psychophysiology and psychophysics. I shall, moreover, be

1 Mr. Clement C. J. "Webb in his Gifford Lectures; God and Personality,
Lectures ii and iv, and Divine Personality and Human Life, Lecture
ix, explains the preference of Bosanquet for Individuality over Personality
as the ultimate principle of reality on the two grounds that the juridical and
social associations of the term personality suggest its finitude and that the
ethical notion of complete self -surrender implies the "adjectival" or transi-
tional character of personality. (J. G. Fichte held a similar view.) Both
these grounds are contested by Mr. Webb — rightly, I hold. Lotze held that
only the absolute or God can be the true personality; in human beings it
is imperfect.

292 MAN AND THE COSMOS

particularly concerned to insist that, in order to form an adequate
conception of the self, the latter must be interpreted in terms of its
social and cultural relationships, and as an active center of valua-
tion and volition. The present inquiry might, indeed, be called
Metaphysics and Metasociology.

What is the relation of the present inquiry to psychology?
This question cannot be answered in brief and categorical fashion,
since there is no uniform attitude among psychologists, either as
to whether there is a place in their science for the concept of the
self, or as to what it means in psychology.

In psychology of the structural and analytical type,, which dis-
sects the flux of concrete conscious processes into mental elements
(sensations, images, impulsions, affections and abstract ideas),
considered in abstraction from the owner of these processes, there
is no place for an enduring and unitary self. "Constituent parts
alone roll on." There is no soul. What the naive mind calls the
soul or personality is an ever shifting complex of sensations, per-
ceptions, feelings, images and strivings.

An excellent statement of the standpoint of analytical and
structural psychology is the following. Mind, says Titchener,2 is
"the sum total of human experience considered as dependent upon
the experiencing person. We have said, further, that the phrase
Experiencing person' means the living body, the organized indi-
vidual ; and we have hinted that, for psychological purposes, the
living body may be reduced to the nervous system and its attach-
ments. Mind thus becomes the sum total of human experience
considered as dependent upon a nervous system. And since human
experience is always process, occurrence, and the dependent aspect
of human experience is its mental aspect, we may say, more
shortly, that mind is the sum total of mental process." "The word
'self,' as a psychological rubric, means the particular combination
of talents, temperament, and character that makes up an individual
mind. Self, as a conscious experience, is any complex of mental
processes that means some temporary phase of this combination
and a self-consciousness is a consciousness in which the self, as a
conscious experience, is focal. It has certain fairly constant con-
stituents; organic sensations, a visual perception or idea of the
body, and the verbal ideas of T and {mf." Titchener further

* Textbook of Psychology, p. 16.

THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 293

says : "the mental life as the author has lived it is very intermit-
tently personal." 3

In short, from the standpoint of this type of psychology the
so-called mental self is simply one occasional and variable experi-
ential complex in the total flow of consciousness, and it consists
chiefly of organic sensations. The belief in a unitary and per-
sistent principle of selfhood is either to be regarded as a survival
of the inaccuracies of common sense thinking; or, if it have any
place in more rigorous thinking, that place is in metaphysics.

A psychology which sets out to analyze the concrete mental life
into a complex of sensational and affectional elements, must, as
Hume would say, ask in regard to every concept, including that
of the self — "produce me the corresponding impression !" This is
a legitimate procedure. A philosopher can have no quarrel with
any psychologist's right thus to circumscribe and isolate the area
and method of his investigations, provided only that the psychol-
ogist sticks to his last, and does not assume that his is the only
justifiable procedure in dealing with the self. This type of psy-
chology accepts nothing as a datum which cannot be analyzed out
as a particular element in an empirical conscious complex. It
seeks the sensational, affective and imaginistic elements of mind
and the laws of their coexistence and succession. In the next chap-
ter I shall try to show that a psychology of this type is, by its very
starting point and method, shut out from an adequate conception
of the self.

The functional type of psychology lays stress on the activities
and uses of consciousness in the development and maintenance of
life. The processes of sensation, perception, imagination, judg-
ment, inference, memory, impulse, emotion, and so forth, are re-
garded as instruments for conserving and enhancing the life of the
individual and of the species in their biological and social relation-
ships.4 The mind of man is viewed as a weapon in the struggle
for existence, an instrument of biological adaptation to environ-
ment, engendered in the evolution process through causes still, in
large part, unknown. The evolutionary and functional standpoint
has thrown very valuable light on the place of consciousness in the
natural order. In estimating the biological significance of con-

'Ioid., pp. 544, 545.

4 Win. James, Principles of Psychology; John Dewey, The Influence of
Darwin and Other Essays.

294 MAN AND THE COSMOS

sciousness it must, however, be borne in mind that the life which
consciousness thus serves is the life of mind itself, conscious
and rational life, not mere animal existence. Hence mind is, in
one sense, the end or aim of its own functioning. Conscious life
at its higher levels functions for itself. Being an instrument
which enjoys its own functioning, mind strives to enhance and
conserve the affective values of its own operations as ends-in-them-
selves. To have overlooked this truth is the cardinal error of the
crasser forms of utilitarianism in ethics and social philosophy.

A third type of psychology, which insists on the central impor-
tance of the self for psychological investigation, has been called
"self -psychology." 5 Psychologists of this type insist that con-
scious processes always belong to an individual, and that to ignore
this fundamental principle is to distort the facts with which psy-
chology deals. It will become evident, as we proceed, that the
standpoint of the present work is very close to that of the self-
psychology. Indeed, in so far as the present volume is concerned
with the analysis and description of human nature, its standpoint
is the same as that of a broadly conceived self-psychology. All
structural analysis is analysis of the nature of psychical individ-
uals, and all functional interpretations of mental processes must
have reference to these processes as functions of human indi-
viduality.

Recently, considerable attention has been given to the methods
of determining the psychological variations of individuals, of de-
fining the chief significant types of individuality, and of describing
more accurately the psychical life of individuals in terms of these
variations. The name "differential psychology" is given to this
field. It is as yet only in its infancy, but it stands in the very
closest relation to our present inquiry. In fact, differential psy-
chology is concerned, in its larger aspects, precisely with the em-
pirical groundwork for a philosophy of selves.6

B M. W. Calkins, An Introduction to Psychology, and A First Boole in
Psychology, 1910; "Psychology as Science of Self"; Journal of Philosophy,
Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Vol. v, 1908, pp. 12 ff., 64 ff., 113 ff.
W. Stern, Person und Sache, I; James Ward, article "Psychology," En-
cyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, Vol. XXII; the same author, Psychological
Principles.

• The most systematic treatment, thus far, of individual psychology is
W. Stern's Bifferentielle Psychologie, Leipzig, 1911. See also, W. Dilthey,
Beitrdge sum Studium der Individualitdt. Akad-Ber., Berlin, 1896, pp. 295-

THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 295

Lately a professedly new type of psychology has come into
being calling itself "behaviorism." Psychology is defined as the
science of human and animal behavior. The radical behaviorist
insists that psychology is "a purely objective experimental branch
of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and con-
trol of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its
methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the
readiness with which these lend themselves to introspection in
terms of consciousness." 7 The behaviorist can write a psychology
and never use the terms "consciousness, mental state, mind, content,
introspectively verifiable imagery and the like." 8

If one wishes to reduce psychology to such terms, he ought "to
go the whole hog" and deny the existence of a distinct science of
psychology. It becomes a misleading name for the physiology of
the nervous and muscular systems in their interrelations.

The one differentiating attribute of psychology is that it studies
consciousness, not indeed merely "as such," but as its primary
datum. Certainly, consciousness behaves, and conscious behavior
is a specific kind of behavior. It delays reactions to stimuli and
effects novel junctions between the sensorial system and the motor
or response system of the organism, thus creating novel types of
response.

Psychology must have constant regard to the motor and physi-
cally and socially objective correlations of consciousness. It must
make experimental observations upon human beings and animals.
It must study the behavior of selves in society and solitude, and the
social objectifications of psychophysical process in language, social
customs, institutions and sociopsychical currents. But all these
materials and methods, to yield psychological results, must be
interpreted in terms of their relations to consciousness and mind.
Thus it would not be misleading to define psychology as the science
of human behavior, provided it be understood that distinctly
human behavior is the conduct of selves or persons capable of

335, and my articles "The Study of Individuality," Philosophical Review,
Vol. xi, pp. 565-575, and "The Psychological Self and the Actual Personality"
in the same journal, Vol. xiv, pp. 669-683.

'John B. Watson, Psychological Review, Vol. xx, 1913, pp. 158-177, and
Beliavior, A Textbook of Psychology. For a good brief discussion of "self-
psychology" as behavioristic see M. W. Calkins, "The Truly Psychological
Behaviorism," Psychological Review, Vol. 28, 1921, pp. 1-18.

8 Watson, Psychological Review, Vol. xx, p. 166.

296 MAN AND THE COSMOS

rational reflection, selective evaluation of interests and motives;
and, therefore, of conscious, purposive and deliberately chosen
acts. The extreme behaviorist of to-day regards the self as being
only an elaborate piece of physicochemical mechanism. The latter
view is false to the facts of human nature.9

There is abroad to-day a theory of the sciences which divides
the field of theoretical knowledge into the natural sciences and the
humanistic or social sciences. This division corresponds very well
to the differences in materials and methods in the study of physical
nature and human nature, respectively. But if, starting from this
division, the claim is made that psychology is the basic social or
humanistic science, of which logic, ethics, aesthetics, sociology, his-
tory and the science of religion are branches, we must ask — what
kind of psychology ?

If psychology be defined as the study simply of neuro-muscular
mechanisms, certainly it cannot furnish an adequate groundwork
for logic and ethics; for, from this standpoint, psychology is but
a branch of biology and biology a special division of physics ; thus
the so-called humanistic sciences become branches of physics. But
there can be no science of any sort, no distinction between truth
and error, unless there are norms or rational standards of judg-
ment which are presupposed and used in all systematic inquiry.
If there is to be science, the logical and ethical norms which the
investigator must obey, in order truly to know, must be objectively
valid ; these norms are objective criteria and cannot be mere occa-
sional products of a complex of mechanical causes. If they were
but this, judgments of causal connection would not be objectively
true; they would be mere events on the same level as all sorts of
errors, follies or crimes. Even if psychology be defined as the
analytical and causal science of conscious processes it presupposes
the same norms. In order that truth may be attained by man he
must obey rational and objective criteria of thinking and conduct
(thinking is a species of conduct). If logic and ethics are purely
descriptive sciences of psychophysical events, then there are no
logical and ethical standards. For the psychologist as such can
know nothing of true and false unless he employs the logical

"A more moderate behaviorism is expounded, in H. C. Warren's Human
Psychology. Woodworth's Psychology seems to me to include what is of last-
ing value in the behavioristic standpoint.

THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 297

standards ; just as he can know nothing of good and bad unless he
employs the ethical standards. Thus to make psychology the sole
basis of logic and ethics is to destroy the logical and ethical stand-
ards and to involve in the same ruin psychology and all other
sciences, since all sciences presuppose that there are objectively
valid norms of thinking. Logic, the science of the norms and
methods of correct thinking, is the scientia scientiarum. Ethical
norms are presupposed in science too, since there is an ethics of
thought ; it is the duty of the thinker to obey the norms of thought.

Logical and ethical judgments are judgments of value. Such
judgments are acts of reason,, and reason functions only in per-
sons. These judgments claim objective validity; and this claim,
if allowed, will involve the admission that the rational person, in
making such judgments, is an organ of the ultimate meaning of
reality. In order that we may know what personality is, it is
necessary above all, to take full account of those mental acts of the
self which are embodied or expressed in its logical, ethical, aesthetic
and religious culture systems. In science, the history of morality,
the arts, and religion, we find the best clews to the process and mean-
ing of personality. As creator of intrinsic values and of cultural
systems for the realization of these values, personality reveals a
higher level of reality than is expressed in any system of physical or
even vital forces. Man's cultural and spiritual activity is just as
truly an offspring of the cosmos as is the most enormous star ; and
it is much more significant.

Considerations of the above sort seem to be at the root of the
movement against "psychologism" and for the priority of logic, in
recent German philosophy, in which Husserl, Pfander, Scheler,
Stumpf and others have participated. Th. Lipps and O. Kuelpe
have tried to combine logic and psychology by giving to the latter
a broader and more philosophical character than psychology has
lately taken in America. I regret the present drifting apart of
psychological theory and philosophy as harmful to both. There is,
of course, a multitude of experimental problems which require
division of labor; but, when psychology becomes entirely a
trafficking with physiological reactions and regards the higher and
more complex conscious activities of man as not a legitimate sub-
ject of systematic inquiry by any other means than observations
with physiological instruments on animal and human bodies, there
is all the more need, with this impoverishment of psychology, that

298 MAN AND THE COSMOS

philosophers should cultivate psychology as Wundt, for an illus-
trious example, did in his great work on Folk Psychology.10

1 may add that the "Psychology of Act" of Brentano and his
followers, among whom would be numbered, in varying measure,
all the aforementioned German writers, obviously has very close
affinities with the American and English "self-psychology.77

Psychology may be regarded as a transitional science, one
which occupies a middle ground between the natural and the
humanistic or cultural sciences. Its roots are in biology, its
branches are the empirical social sciences, such as the psychology
of ethics and sociology ; and it culminates in philosophy. In social
psychology and in the comparative psychology of the history of
science, morality, art, and religion, we shall find important data
and principles for a philosophy of personality. From these fields
and from the three philosophical culture sciences or sciences of
intrinsic values — namely, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of
religion — we shall draw most of our data, since we are concerned
with the self, not so much in the sense of a biological organism as,
in the sense of a reflective thinker and agent who is socialized,
moralized, and rationalized through participation in the social-
historical life of culture.

In short, if psychology be regarded as a purely natural causal
science, which is concerned only with the analysis and description
of mental elements and complexes in their dependence on the
nervous system, and which employs only the mechanical or physical
concepts of relation, causation and function, it cannot be regarded
as the chief, much less the sole, basis of the philosophical sciences.
If psychology be regarded as primarily the systematic study of
conscious and purposive individuals, it is the chief basis of philos-
ophy and the humanistic sciences. It is the latter sort of psychol-
ogy which principally interests us and a good part of the present
volume might be classified as a psychology of conscious indi-
viduality.

10 A good deal of valuable work has been done in America in "Social
Psychology" and "Psychology of Religion."

CHAPTER XXIII

THE NATURE OF THE SELF 1

In what sense, if any, can we say that the empirical individual
or personality implies a unique principle, which is one and con-
tinuous throughout the diversities and succession of the indi-
vidual's empirical history? This is the vexatious problem of
personal identity. It is the most central and weighty of all meta-
physical problems, inasmuch as upon its solution, however tenta-
tive, depends one's attitude towards all metaphysical and axio-
logical questions — towards the problems of human freedom, of the
value and destiny of the individual, of the true ends and values of
the social order and of education and culture, and finally of the
meaning and value of the cosmical order. Hence the investigation
of the problem of personal identity is a matter of the utmost prac-
tical consequences. For, as Bishop Berkeley said, "Whatever the
world thinks, he who hath not much meditated upon God, the
human mind, and the summum honum, may possibly make a
thriving earthworm, but will most indubitably make a sorry patriot
and a sorry statesman." To which I add that, from our empirical
standpoint, meditation upon the human mind is the prerequisite
of meditation upon God and the summum honum; or, if you prefer
abstruse language, upon true values and their cosmic status.

Moral judgment and action, the administration of society and
all education proceed upon the covert assumption that the normal
individual is a self-active and responsible social unit. But this
assumption is challenged by biologists, psychologists and sociolo-
gists, as well as by many philosophers, on the ground that it is a
naive popular misconception which is dissipated into the void by
the analysis of human personality. The latter becomes, under the
scientific searchlight, an ever shifting mosaic of biological impul-

1 This chapter and Chapter 28 are expansions of an article ' ' The Psy-
chological Self and the Actual Personality," in The Philosophical Beview,
Vol. xiv, No. 6. November 1905, pp. 669-683.

299

300 MAN AND THE COSMOS

sions and appetites, of neuromuscular habit automatisms inter-
mittently lighted up by sporadic flashes of sentience, of sensations,
feelings and emotions, and of images and ideas, which are all by-
products of nerve processes and are illusorily believed to be efficient
factors in the life of the self. From this standpoint personality is
the changing and passive product of the interaction between the
physical organism and its environment. I have already argued at
sufficient length against the reduction of the mind to a physical
organism or machine. It now remains to inquire what grounds
there are for the belief in a mental or spiritual principle of personal
identity.

The belief in question is challenged chiefly on two kinds of
grounds: (1) a rigorous inspection of the facts of consciousness
does not bring to light any datum corresponding to the so-called
mental self; (2) the many facts of both normal and abnormal
character support the view that the conscious life of the self con-
sists of mere bubbles and surface currents which are produced by
physiological processes in the subterranean depths of the uncon-
scious. In the present and following chapters I shall examine in
order the above two types of consideration.

The naturalistic rejecter of the self argues as follows:
Psychological analysis shows the conscious self to be complex and
ever changing. The analyst never succeeds in tracking that mys-
terious entity, the self-identical self, to its lair. It forever escapes
him, and he is therefore ever disposed to regard it as nonexistent.
What he finds in consciousness is an ever changing variety of
mental elements living in changing relations. The mental ele-
ments may be reduced to two fundamental types — sensations or
sensa (Hume's "Sense Impressions") which are the raw materials
of knowledge; and feeling impulses or affections, which are the
raw materials of emotions, sentiments and acts of will. Each
element has its own unique quality; and the elements vary in
intensity or degree and in duration. Sensations vary in clearness
and distinctness ; affections vary in degrees of pleasantness and
unpleasantness. In the actual mental life the sensory elements of
consciousness are fused together to form percepts, and, by retention
and reproduction, images. From percepts and images arise, by
repeated association and fusion, the vaguer and more generic
images called general ideas or concepts. The affective mental
elements are fused together into more complicated and abstract

THE NATURE OF THE SELF 301

forms, thus giving rise to emotional disposition or sentiments from
which arise volitions. In the actual mental life, of course, the
sensational and affective elements are interwoven at every stage
in their development ; they are distinguishable but not separable
aspects of the organism's awareness.

The feeling of selfhood is a fusion of internal sensations from
the vital organs — chiefly from the visceral, thoracic and cephalic
organs — sensations of respiration, pulse beat, massive sensations in
the stomach, strain of the eye muscles and other head muscles ; all
accompanied by feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness.
William James put the matter neatly when he said, "The 'I think'
which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects is the
'I breathe' which actually does accompany them. . . . Breath,
which was ever the original of 'spirit,' breath moving outward be-
tween the glottis and the nostrils, is, I am persuaded, the essence
out of which philosophers have constructed the entity known to
them as consciousness." 2 But James assumes philosophers able to
construct entities. To take such observations as abolishing the
validity in the belief in a self one ought to explain how the breath
comes to say "I breathe," and thus to construct a theory of itself.
For the breath suddenly to catch its breath and say Bespiro ergo
sum, if there is really no thinking self, is no whit less mysterious
than for a philosopher to say, Cogito ergo sum. In fact it is the
same proposition — in other words breath or blood or visceral
pressure or head strain suddenly turning from a physicochemical
process into a philosopher is a stupendous miracle. Verily,
psychologists are facile at cheating themselves and the public with
words.

In a similar fashion deliberate volition is resolved into a
blindly determined complex or fusion of elemental instincts, emo-
tions and desires, with percepts and images arising in the same
fashion. The process of willing, even in the case of prolonged
deliberation and so-called rational choice, is resolved into a com-
plex feeling of instability or uneasiness due to the conflict of the
emotional dispositions. When this conflict issues finally in the
decision, "I will do this because it is my duty," this conscious
decision is but the illusory by-product of the final stage of the
emotional conflict. It is not explained why an emotional complex

3 William James ' Essays in Radical Empiricism, p. 37.

302 MAN AND THE COSMOS

should thus give rise miraculously to the conscious illusion "I

will."

The rejection of the self, because of failure to find it in an
introspective analysis of consciousness, has never been more clearly
or forcibly put than by Hume. "I desire those philosophers who
pretend that we have an idea of the substance of our minds to
point out the impression that produces it, and tell distinctly after
what manner that impression operates, and from what object it
is derived." 3 "There are some philosophers who imagine we are
at every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self:
that we feel its existence, and its continuance in existence: and
are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its
perfect identity and simplicity. For my part, when I enter most
intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some par-
ticular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or
hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at any time with-
out a perception and can never observe anything but the percep-
tion. But, setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may
venture to affirm of the rest of mankind that they are nothing but
a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each
other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux
and movement." 4 Psychology has made much progress since
Hume's day: nevertheless the above passages state clearly what
must, by the nature of the case, be the result of the attempt to
reduce the "passing moment" in the living process of consciousness
to particular elements and their connections. Mental life is,
when regarded as the empirical continuum of selfhood, indeed in
"perpetual flux and movement"; and the attempt to analyze a
cross-section of it is rendered successful chiefly through the power
of retrospection or memory. We cannot be a certain phase of
conscious process and pulverize it at the same instant. When we
introspectively examine and analyze mental processes we are not
catching the self in the full tide of its life. Atomistic analysis of
the structure of consciousness necessarily involves neglect of the
immediately experienced and fluid continuity of consciousness.
For this analysis transforms the actual unity into artificial and
inert elements. This type of psychological analysis does not find

* Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Book i, Part iv, Section 5.

* Ibid. Book i, Part iv, Section 6.

THE NATURE OF THE SELF 303

the self, since it so completely transforms the actual movement of
consciousness that there is no place for a self in its artificial
mosaic of elements. The real self cannot be one particular element
among the other elements. It cannot be a mere constituent of
itself. The whole cannot be a part of itself. Every attempt to
objectify it in this fashion must fail. One can thus obtain, at
best, only a dead remnant of the self, an object-me never the
subject I. Every step in the analysis of consciousness into a com-
plex of elements presupposes, however, the self to which the ele-
ments belong and which performs the analysis ; but which itself
eludes envisagement as a particular psychical element. The self
is the seer which, unseen, sees. Psychological analysis is a post-
mortem affair, but the self is always present at the inquest. It is
at once corpse, coroner and jury. Naturally, then, the self is not
found in this way. What are found are fragments of the actual
ego, torn from their dynamic context in the process of living
experience ; phases or moments in the life of the real ego precipi-
tated from the living pulse of consciousness.

When I become self-conscious, for example, at the present
moment and analyze this pulse of consciousness, after the manner
of atomistic psychology, I find a vague mass of organic sensations
and sensations from my clothes as the general background, a visual
perception of part of my body filled out by an image of parts of
my body which I do not see, the kinesthetic sensations involved in
writing, a feeling of tension in my forehead, and the idea of the
personal pronoun "I." What is left out in this analysis is the
immediate feeling of selfhood, without which I could not recognize
any of these elements as belonging to me. The organic sensations
are not conscious of themselves as being the self. Not even the
strain sensations in the head or the idea of the personal pronoun
"I" can be said to be the self which recognizes these elements as
constituents of its momentary complex process. This is the very
principle which sustains, directs, and renders intelligible all
analysis of conscious processes. It is the immediate feeling of
selfhood.

It has been asserted that it is a paradoxical and contradictory
assumption to say that a subject can be its own object, a self its
own not-self. The self, in so-called introspection, must split up
into two distinct things, the self observing and the self observed.
But the observed self is no longer self, and thus there is found in

304 MAN AND THE COSMOS

experience no self at all, but only a series of feelings. If one
admit the force of this objection, then so-called introspection can
consist only in one conscious element knowing another conscious
element. Consciousness is thus resolved into a series of elements,
any one of which may know any other. An element of consciousness
A may know another element B, and in turn be known as know-
ing B by a third element C, and so forth. The only unity is what
William James has called the "unity of the passing thought." He
says that we need no other knower than this.5 But to say that
any element in a series knows another element in that series is td
attribute to the element which knows the other element precisely
the unity of consciousness which is meant by a psychical self.
The unity of the passing thought carries in itself the very unity of
the subject, which it is supposed empirically to supplant. A
series of feelings which is aware of itself as a series is just what
I mean by a self.

It is no doubt difficult to observe introspectively one's own
state of mind, when one is engrossed in an object or overmastered
by a strong emotion. Nevertheless one is able to recognize at least
that these experiences are one's own, and, to this extent, be con-
scious of being conscious. Immediately one feels one's experiences
as one's own, immediately one becomes aware of the primal fact
of self-feeling, one becomes self-conscious.

I have said that introspection is almost entirely retrospection.
But, then, retrospection is introspection; the memory-content is
one's own. To catch the fleeing moment on the wing is to arrest
its flight ; but one recognizes the arrested moment as one's own
and can describe it as such. There are great differences of indi-
vidual capacity for self-observation. The average man is not
usually introspective, and many psychologists are not in this
respect gifted above the average. The power of introspection,
however, can be cultivated. The ability to describe their own
mental processes seems to belong peculiarly to mystics and
ecstatics, who have given us very vivid descriptions of their own

•James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 338 ff. No student should
fail to study closely this, the greatest work of descriptive psychology in the
English language; especially Chapter 9, "The Stream of Thought," and
Chapter 10, "The Consciousness of Self." Since I shall frequently criticize
James I wish to say now that I owe as much to him as to any other modern
writer.

THE NATURE OF THE SELF 305

exalted conditions.6 Such are also psychasthenics like Maine de
Biran and Amiel. There are many degrees of self-observation.
In general, self-observation is clearest when it is involuntary. The
deliberate effort to observe one's own state of consciousness usually
results in partial failure. And of course accuracy in the descrip-
tion thereof depends on accuracy of memory for subjective con-
ditions. Here too, there are striking individual differences.

One may call it a paradox, and doubtless it is one of the irre-
ducible paradoxes of experience, that one can in the same instant
and in the same psychical complex be subject and object, / and
me. It is none the less a fact. Instead of allowing misconceptions
of the self drawn from physical metaphors to blind one to the fact,
one who wishes to do justice to the uniqueness of selves in the
system of experience will begin with this fact. Consciousness is
much more complex, variable, and elusive in its contents and
movements than any kind of physical object. Consequently, self-
observation is more difficult than observation of physical things.
This is not a sufficient reason for ignoring or denying the fact that
a self can know itself immediately, or for asserting that the self
which knows is in no degree identical with the self which is known.
They are distinct but not separate.

While the self has immediate self-knowledge in feeling it is
true that the self that is known cannot be the whole self to which
belong the feelings, thoughts and will attributes. The self as
known is distinct from the self as knower and is but a fragmentary
expression of the whole self. The self knows directly but a passing
phase of itself. On the basis of introspection alone one would
not be justified in asserting that all processes of conscious life
must belong to one unitary self or person which is their bearer or
substrate. Not only do sensationalistic "impressionists," such
as Hume, Mach and a crowd of others, deny the need of assuming
a real ego; but even Wundt and many other psychologists reject
the notion of a soul-substance or substrate of conscious life in favor
of the actuality theory. According to the latter, the self is simply
the actuality of conscious process. But does not this view logically

*Cf. the Confessions of St. Augustine, Kousseau's Autobiography,
Goethe's Wahrheit und Dichtung, and the quotations from the writings of
religious mystics and ecstatics in James' The Varieties of Religious Experi-
ence and in Evelyn Underhill 's Mysticism. See also K. Oesterreieh, Die
Phdnomenologie des Ich in ihren Grundproblemen, Band I, Leipzig, 1910, es-
pecially Chap. 9, "Das Problem der SelbstwahrneMimung."

306 MAN AND THE COSMOS

reduce the unity of the self to the passing moment ? What becomes
of all the psychical capacities that are not functioning in the pres-
ent passing moment of the individual's consciousness ? Do these
capacities persist simply as the modifications of nerve structures ?
I shall discuss the latter question more fully in connection with
the mind-body problem. Here I am concerned with the more
general question — have we good grounds for inferring, from the
facts of individual experience, that there may be a continuing
psychical or psychophysical entity — not a passive, blocklike sub-
stance (the travesty of the "soul" or "self" doctrine set up by its
critics) but the enduring active principle or living substrate of the
passing moments of feelings, thoughts, choices, volitions ? I think
we have a good right to do so. I am so old-fashioned that I believe
in the soul and am not frightened by the word "substrate." My
reasons for the belief are as follows: (1) The indubitable facts of
the consciousness of continuing identity, of the unity and con-
tinuity of the individual's experience. (2) The sense of initiative
and responsibility. (3) The results of the activities of persons in
building up, altering and rebuilding the structures of human
civilization — material, social, scientific.

1. (a) The experiential unity of conscious life at every
moment is a fact, though one's attention may not be directed to
it; but, just as now I am not attending to some constituents of
my present experience which are yet recognized to be parts of it
as soon as I attend to them, so I cannot escape the recognition
that all that I experience now constitutes one pulse of my experi-
ence. So far from the complexity, or even the distracteclness, of
my present pulse being evidence against this unity, they are evi-
dences for it. I may say that I cannot completely harmonize my
present conflicting attitudes of mind but, in so doing, I recognize
that they are all mine. I may say that I am distracted by the
complexity and incompatibilities of my present ideas and infer-
ences but, in so doing, I imply that I own them all. Even an
extremely disordered self, a divided self, a so-called multiple or
alternating "personality," implies the unity of the self amidst all
its aberrations.

(b) The continuity of the self, the sense of continuous self-
identity, involves the persistence of something that is continuously
one through change. I remember that I was present last night at
a reception and that I said and heard such and such things. I

THE NATURE OF THE SELF 307

can compare the differences between my attitudes then and now.
I can discuss with my friend what was said and done. The events
of last night are past. They do not exist in the present, but they
are psychically real in the sense that they did exist and that they
are remembered. Memory is a reality, and it does not consist in
the complete re-creation of what then happened. This cannot be,
for my present is not and cannot be the same as my past state. My
ability to recall, identify and date, what then happened, implies
recognition of similarity-in-difference. How could I remember
what has ceased to be as an actual experience, how could I ever
reproduce in a different temporal-spatial setting what I experi-
enced then, unless I were in some manner the same self? If I
were nothing but the passing moment how could I compare the
past and the future with the present passing moment ? For
expectation, no less than memory, involves the actual continuity of
the self. If I were nothing but a passing thought I could never
recognize the passage of moments nor find any meaning in saying
that I am only a passing thought.

Mere association of ideas will not account for memory. My
present ideas of last night's events are new events. They are not
contiguous with the latter in space and time. My recollections
of last night are as much new events in my mental history as are
my perceptual recognitions of old family scenes into which I
enter anew when I return to my boyhood home. There can be no
memory which is not based on the recognition of similarity.
There can be no recognition of similarity without recognition of
difference in experiences. For similarity is not partial identity
of existence. Recognition of similarity presupposes recognition
of difference or diversity. In turn, in order to recognize diversity
of existence, I must have lived through these diversities and have
noted their similarities through their differences, or vice versa.
To attempt to explain memory by the passive association of ideas
is to presuppose, in these associations, precisely what is to be
explained by them. It is to beg the whole question of personal
identity.

What I have said in regard to a simple case of memory applies,
with even more force, to the persistence and activation of powers
or capacities developed in the past but not active now. Expectant
and purposive attitudes are grounded on memory and habit, inter-
woven with native and modified desire and interest. These factors,

308 MAN AND THE COSMOS

in turn, imply the continuity of 'psychophysical dispositions. The
actual self is a more or less organized complex of psychophysical
dispositions. My ego includes now a considerable number of atti-
tudes or incipient acts that are the results of native dispositions
modified by the interaction of my original capacities with environ-
mental conditions. My ego is the living record of my history
since conception. Many of these dispositions are not present in
my clear consciousness ; but they are not inert or inactive. They
are subconscious factors which may come into the field of clear
consciousness at any moment. The ego is a complex unity which
involves many subconscious factors.7 If we take the word "thinks"
in a sufficiently broad sense to include all activities of a mind, a
self, then Descartes was right in saying "The soul always thinks."
A lifelong study of dream life has convinced me that the activity
of the mind never ceases, even in the deepest sleep. Subconscious-
ness, in natural or artificial sleep, is sub-attentive consciousness.

Thus far, I have argued for the self as the unitary and contin-
uous ground, or owner, which is identical with the continuous
complex and varying attitudes of the mind, when these are taken
as a whole. I do not mean that the real self is something which
lies behind or underneath the actual processes of conscious life, like
the machine which projects the moving picture, or like a room
which contains a variety of articles. I do mean that the process
factors of selfhood have no reality apart from the whole and con-
tinuing ego, and, equally, that the ego has no reality apart from
the continuously and varyingly active factors which are the ego in
its concreteness. The actuality theory of the ego is the true theory,
if it be admitted that its actuality includes many persistent factors
that may be at any moment only virtually conscious. The ego is
the living and pulsating unity, not the mechanical sum, of its
dynamic elements.

2. The hypothesis that the self or ego is a real cause is the
most natural explanation of the sense of initiative and responsi-
bility, the feeling of self-determination, and of the whole life
of seeking, of choice and purposiveness ; which characterize the
normal individual. It is sheer dogmatism, not openminded em-
piricism, to say either that the only efficient factors in our world
are purely mechanical and physical ; or that, since all change must

'For further discussion Cf. Chaps. 25, 26 and 27.

THE NATURE OF THE SELF 309

be the effect solely of the rearrangement of spatial elements, there-
fore the ego cannot he a canse. The kind of change which occurs
when a human self makes a critical choice differs fundamentally
from the kind of change which occurs when the breeze scatters a
pile of ashes. To say that a self is a cause is not to imply that it
acts capriciously, but only that the self is an original or unique
determining factor in a process that is, therefore, unique in kind.

3. That selves are unitary and continuous realities and are
unique causal factors is the most reasonable explanation of the
whole work of human civilization. If we consider the develop-
ment and the mutations of cultures, the beginnings, growth and
transformation of cultures, of social and political systems, of lan-
guages, literatures and arts, of morals and religion and of science
and philosophy, we cannot really account for these novel and vigor-
ous eruptions in the order of physical nature except as effects of
the striving of real selves for self-maintenance, self-expression,
self-development.

The self, treated as an object given for inspection, appears to
take on a spatial and bodily character, and the easiest way to
explain its contents is in terms of bodily sensations and affections
with their conditioning nerve-processes. In this respect analytical
psychology carries forward, in a more rigorous fashion, a pro-
cedure which begins in common-sense thinking. The consideration
of the contents of past experience by one innocent of psychological
training involves the quasi-materialization of the self. For the
item of past experience is looked upon as a fixed and persistently
existing fact. Past ideas are regarded as packed away somehow
in the storeroom of the mind. This assumption that ideas are like
physical things or elements is the fundamental error of associa-
tionist psychology. Now, in so far as the self is identified with a
collection of past and present sensations, affections and images, or
"ideas" it is regarded as a quasi-material thing, a "bundle of
impressions." The atomistic psychology of to-day does not regard
the contents of conscious as static entities. It does, how-
ever, regard them as dependent elements, whose permanent sub-
structures or bases are nerve-paths. Its position in regard to the
self is a translation of Hume's psychological atomism into terms
of neural structure and activity. Hume's conclusion in regard
to the nonexistence of the self was a logical deduction from his
starting point. But he looked for the self in the wrong place and

310 MAN AND THE COSMOS

in the wrong way. Contemporary psychologists who, not finding
the self as a permanent core or center of sensations and images,
assert that it does not exist, except as a system of association paths
among the cortical neurones, are, like Hume, looking for the self
in the wrong way and consequently do not find it in the right place.
The actual self lives in attitudes, or active and appreciative
relations to objects. It is an active principle that thinks and thus
affirms or denies in logical judgment ; that chooses and thus selects
and avoids in willing; that feels and thus loves and hates, joys
and sorrows. Alike in judging, in doing, and in feeling, the self
functions as a dynamic center, an active source of judgment, valua-
tion and purpose. It is not a changeless substance which under-
lies the concrete and changing contents of the empirical life, but
a living active unity which has and knows these contents as its
own. "States of consciousness," so-called, are not directly known
as contents isolated from the relation of the self to its world, and
they do not exist as such. Sensations, percepts, images, concepts,
interposed by the philosopher or psychologist between the self and
its world of objects, are artificial products, results of retrospective
analysis obtained by abstraction from the actual relations between
the self and its world. What is directly known is a psychophysical
individual, in active and passive relations with a world of objects;
in other words the self as knower perceiving concrete things, think-
ing concrete objects and their relations; the self as doer and
sufferer, feeling, valuing, and striving to alter objects or its own
relations to them. Of course, I include under "objects" here the
field of other selves.

In the actual movement of life the self is as immediate and
real as the objects of its judgment, valuation and action. I have
maintained that the immediate feeling of selfhood is involved in
all analysis of consciousness, since consciousness is always indi-
viduated. The "concept" of the self, in distinction from the imme-
diate feeling thereof, must be framed in the light of all the aspects
and relationships of the individual. I wish, in conclusion, to
insist that the concept of the self is at least as necessary a factor
in thinking out the meaning of experience in its totality as is the
concept of the world regarded as the totality of all physical
processes and their relations.

The fact that the self is a complex does not invalidate either
its unity or its reality. If it is a specific kind of complex, a com-

THE NATURE OF THE SELF 311

plex which functions as a whole in knowing and willing, in organ-
izing its experiences and realizing values, it is a unique kind of
reality. Any datum which shows, upon the closest inspection,
specificity of function must be admitted to be an elemental con-
stituent of reality. Such data are minds.

Again, the fact that a self or mind appears and operates only
in association with a certain physicochemical complex, which is
therefore the condition of its functioning, in no way destroys its
unique reality. Let us admit that a specific chemical combination
of physical elements is one indispensable condition (a scientific
cause) of the self's functioning. Then the whole psychophysical
self is in part the result of mechanical processes, but it is not
merely mechanical; and a world in which selves appear and
operate is not a purely mechanical world. For it is an elemental
fact that the specific mentality of the self is correlated with a
correspondingly specific physicochemical complex. Selves in their
wholeness are irreducible factors in a process which is not at all
the same kind of process that would have occurred had there been
no selves.

Any attempt to formulate the nature and meaning of the world
process which leaves the unique mentality of selfhood out of ac-
count omits the most significant Saturn of experience. To say that
selves have originated as a result merely of certain very complex
physical processes is to beg the question. The "real" world process
is one which has taken the direction of personalization, which has
resulted in beings that are prima facie agents in the further modi-
fication of the process itself. Therefore, the world process is
inexpugnably qualified by, and must be read in the light of, the
emergence and energizing in it of intelligent value-creating agents.

Summing up this discussion, a self is an organized complex
of physiological energies operating through a determinate mechan-
ism and illuminated by a sentient consciousness which rises,
through its functions of recognitive and selective memory, selective
analysis and synthesis of elements of its experience, to the point of
exercising a considerable measure of control in the valuation, direc-
tion, and organization of its own native tendencies as well as of its
environment. The physiological energies and the sensory-impul-
sive materials of valuation and choice are the complex resultants
of heredity and variation in the organism. Biologically, the self
is a center of individuation for congenital tendencies or disposi-

312 MAN AND THE COSMOS

tions which run back into the remote and undeciphered past of
the race, a meeting point wherein these converging tendencies give
rise to fresh variations.8 But, without the selective analytic and
synthetic principle revealed in conscious activity, the biological
individual would not be a true self.

Culturally, the self is the product of the reaction of the con-
scious organism above described to the environmental factors of
civilization — to language, social and political systems, manners, arts
and sciences, and religions. The ordinary individual is for the most
part passive in his reactions. He modifies inherited culture systems
only in slight degree. The superordinary individual, the leader,
the thinker, the genius, recreates these social culture systems.
The self is thus, for the most part, the product of his somatic and
especially his cerebral inheritance, plus his actual physical en-
vironment, plus his social heritage and atmosphere. The modicum
of originality and self-determination in most selves is small. But
the synthetic spiritual principle is there and operates, and in some
few persons it rises to signal creativity. Even the humblest person
has his own unique flavor of personality. We are not here discuss-
ing the problem of freedom of the will, but it is evident that such
freedom is limited in range and rather rare in its expression, if it
takes place at all. It is at best a power of choice that can be
exercised only among a very limited number of determinate pos-
sibilities, and it is not obvious that, thus far, our theory of the self
logically involves the admission of any indeterminism in the self.
It may be that the activities and possibilities of the spiritual prin-
ciple are just as specifically determined by its "original nature,"
plus physical and social milieus, as are the mechanical activities
of the body.

APPENDIX

mr. bradley's criticism of the self

In his chapters on "The Meanings of Self," and "The Reality of
Self" in Appearance and Reality (Chapters 9 and 10), Mr. Bradley,
after an acute discussion of the various senses of the term "self,"
concludes that the foundation of the self is the inner and changing
core of feeling resting mainly on what is called Coenesthesia ; but this

8 The biological elements of the self may be called Mendelian unit-char-
acters.

THE NATURE OF THE SELF 313

core of feeling is dependent on the not-self and the boundaries be-
tween self-feeling and the not-self are constantly shifting. There
are, however, he thinks, elements in the self which never are not-
self; "elements in the central self -core which are never made objects,
and which practically cannot be" (p. 23 of the first edition). "Selves
exist and are identical in some sense" (p. 104) ; the unity of feeling
never disappears (p. 110). We may reflect upon the unity of feeling
and say that the self as self and as not-self all in one is our object,
but the actual subject is never brought before itself as an object and
hence the subject as it is can never be perceived (p. 111). The so-
called experience of self-activity, if taken to be a revelation of the
nature of the self, is fraudulent (p. 116). The monadic theory of
the self is useless, since, if we admit that the monadic selves are in
relation their independent reality is ruined ; and if we deny that they
are in relations and at the same time assert that there is more than
one monad we have contradicted ourselves, since even plurality and
separateness are relations. Moreover, without relations the monad
is useless, since it is in no relation to the actual process of self-feel-
ing; if it is in relation to the latter it is no longer a monad. Mr.
Bradley concludes that the self, although the highest form of ex-
perience which we have, is not a true form since it gives us only
appearances ; like all other forms of finite existence it carries us away
into a maze of terms and relations (pp. 119, 120).

Mr. Bradley is right in his contentions — (1) that the whole self
can never be object for itself and that there is always an unanalyzable
remainder of self-feeling; (2) that the self exists only in relations;
(3) that the theory of the self as a changeless self -identical monad
is a fictitious monster; (4) that the notion of the self is a reflective
construction. But, when Mr. Bradley substitutes for the self, or
better for a community of selves, the notion of an absolutely harmoni-
ous timeless experience which no experient has, as the Absolute, he is
foisting upon us a more fictitious monster. Experience is a construct
made by abstraction from experients. What can a perfect all-inclus-
ive, timeless experience mean? I cannot see that the reality of my
selfhood is invalidated by my inability ever to make my whole self
an object of perception, any more than I can see that my inability
to perceive now more than a part of my study and a fragment of the
street makes the external world unreal. As to activity I can find no
item of experience that more successfully resists a dissolving analysis
than the activity of purposive thinking. Feelings of muscular effort
may be resoluble into peripheral sensations, but not purposive think-
ing. Moreover, just as the reality of physical energy is legitimately
inferred from physical work done, so the reality of mental energy

314 MAN AND THE COSMOS

is legitimately inferred from mental work done. If Mr. Bradley is
not a self -active thinker how are we to account for his very important
works? For me the self is a dynamic reality living in relations.
Personal identity is variable both in extent and intent, but that per-
sonal identity exists at all evidences the active reality of a self which
is continuous and is a power of synthesis realizing itself in the actual
history of the empirical "me/

CHAPTER XXIV

CONSCIOUSNESS

Strictly speaking, consciousness cannot be defined, since it is
an ultimate or irreducible quality of experience, as belonging to
individuals, and hence, cannot be stated in terms of anything other
than itself. In order to know consciousness one must be capable
of self-consciousness, just as in order to know light or color one
must be able to reflect upon what one sees as well as to see. It
is possible, however, to describe consciousness quite accurately by
certain notes or marks.

In discussing the nature of consciousness it must be borne in
mind that there is no such thing as consciousness in general. Con-
sciousness is the property of an individual organism. Moreover,
to be conscious is to experience something. This chapter might
have been entitled "the nature of experience." I use the terms
consciousness and experience as equivalent. I proceed to state the
notes of consciousness or experience.

1. Consciousness is awareness and always of something more
or less determinate. 2. In man, consciousness includes the possi-
bility of being aware of awareness — self-consciousness. 3. Con-
sciousness has degrees of clearness or vividness. It varies in
intensity. 4. It has duration or temporal order. 5. It has degrees
of expansiveness or inclusiveness. 6. It includes feelings or
affects which are reactions of the subject to stimuli. Feeling
impulses express what the self is dynamically. To be a self is
primarily to feel and act. 7. Thus consciousness involves interest,
desire, valuation, preference and choice. 8. Thus consciousness
is dynamic. The nature of the conscious self, as the striving
towards harmony and continuity of life, is constituted by the
organization, into trains of purposive activity, of its central and
abiding interests, values or selective 'preferences.

315

316 MAN AND THE COSMOS

I. The Unity of Consciousness

The conscious self is a complex unity, a system of systems, a
moving complex made up of many lesser complexes or clusters of
impulses, images, ideas and purposes. A self always consists of
many partial selves, and the degree in which these partial selves
are integrated into one harmonious whole varies. Actually every
self is a quasi-society, more or less harmonious, of partial selves.
Selves consist of partial selves and the individual self consists of
the total relations between bits of selfhood. With the details of
this problem we shall deal more fully later. What sort of complex
unity is then a conscious self? It is a dynamic unity, one which
has its being only in process, in unifying. But so is a material
machine as a going concern. Still more emphatically so is a
biological organism. What are the differences between machines,
organisms and conscious selves?

a. The unity of a machine in operation consists of the ex-
ternal action upon one another of parts juxtaposed in space. It
is true that, through friction, the actions of the parts modify one
another. The wearing down by friction consists in the disintegra-
tion of parts into looser aggregates of particles that were only in
lesser degree external to one another than the parts which they
made up. There are governing parts in a mechanical system,
springs in a watch, for instance, but their action, too, is relatively
external to one another.

b. In a living organism we have a type of system or complex
intermediate between a machine and a conscious self. The life
of the organism seems to pulsate through all the parts and each
part to contribute, by its functioning, to the life of the whole. The
whole pervades all the parts and each part exists as such only in
the whole. The living organism cannot be assembled and taken
apart like an automobile. Each organ is a complex which, in
turn, is an element in the organic complex of the whole. So it has
been customary to describe the unity of self-conscious individuality
as an organic system. But the analogy is not complete. Parts and
by-products of the living organism, such as nails, mucus, hair,
are constantly being transformed into more or less mechanical
aggregates and cast off. Single organs may be removed without
apparently seriously affecting the life of the whole. The organism
is a self-repairing machine, and where it cannot restore a lost part

CONSCIOUSNESS 317

another part may take over the function of the lost organ. On
the other hand, in the conscious self the unity completely inter-
penetrates the parts, and the parts are not parts in a mechanical
sense, since they interpenetrate one another in a transpatial sys-
tem. There are no elements in consciousness except as distinguish-
able aspects of the single unitary pulse of individual experience.
Thus the uniquely systematic character of consciousness is revealed
as completely pervading and living in all its aspects. Whatever
may be the degree in which consciousness may be continuous in
time at any moment, the unity of consciousness is one and inde-
feasible, a system living in and through its elementary and partial
systems. Thus a mental or spiritual unifying process is sui
generis; all other forms of unity and individuality are more or
less external in comparison with it. Consciousness is both syn-
thetic and analytic. In any single phase or moment of its life,
one or another of its features may predominate, but never to the
total exclusion of the others.

II. Consciousness and Its Objects

In book I we considered the relation between thought and its
objects. So I shall only briefly indicate it here. The objects of
awareness may be: sense qualities in the physical world; one's
own feelings and practical ends ; or abstract principles as in logic,
mathematics, metaphysics. In every case awareness is deter-
minate. It is of something specific.

Our further conception of consciousness is to be reached in
terms of its relationships. I have said that consciousness is a
unique property of experience as individuated. In the broadest
sense of this very vague term "experience," all content of experi-
ence is present to conscious subjects and, hence, involves con-
sciousness. My experience of the pencil, the paper, or the desk,
is at least a fact of my consciousness, whatever else it may be. But
the pencil, the paper, or the desk, are not in my consciousness in
the same sense in which they are in actual space. They are present
to my consciousness in that relation which constitutes them objects
of my individual awareness. To have identified this relation of
awareness with the general concept of immediate existence, and
to have argued from this identification that, since everything
known is present to a consciousness, therefore everything existent

318 MAN AND THE COSMOS

is content or matter of consciousness, has been the fallacy of
psychological idealism. The habit of speaking of everything that
one is conscious of as "content" has led to the fallacious notion of
consciousness as a nonspatial container of spatial things. Follow
this notion to its logical conclusion and everything disappears into
one's head, and one's head in turn disappears into a dimensionless
point.

The desk exists for my consciousness now. This does not mean
that the actual desk is nothing but a state of my being conscious.
It does mean that, thus far, my being conscious depends on a rela-
tion of my ego to the desk, which I believe to exist also when I am
not conscious of it. Thus far, my consciousness is relational; it
is the end term in a relation.1 Thus far, to be an object of con-
sciousness is to be in the relation of meaning.2 In order that
there may be consciousness there must be qualities and relations
of objects, which may also exist independent of a subject's con-
sciousness. But consciousness is a very unique or specific kind of
end term in a relation. A single pulse of consciousness is depend-
ent, for its actual constitution, on the awareness of the actual
objects and relations which constitute its data. When I am con-
scious of the desk, my concrete consciousness depends on the rela-
tion of the desk to my ego. Consciousness is always a function
of a self, and a self exists only in relation, just as an object in
space, for instance, exists in relation to another spatial object. A
self is a focalizing center of relationships. Whether I am con-
scious of the spatial relations of objects, such as that of the desk
to the paper, or of social relations such as that of myself to my son,
or of logical relations such as equality, inequality, difference,
identity, contradiction, consistency; in every case there are three
factors; namely (1) the specific objects or object of consciousness,
which may be (a) particular facts either psychical or physical or
(&) relations between particular facts such as causal, class and
quantitative relations, or psychical values; (2) the unique relation
in which the specific objects of consciousness stand to the individ-
ual self who is conscious in these specific relations; and (3) the
attitude of the self which can know itself in these relations. And
it makes no essential difference in the situation whether the objects

1 F. J. E. Woodbridge, The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and
Scientific Methods, Vol. ii, pp. 119-127.
2 Ibid.

CONSCIOUSNESS 319

of one's being conscious are physical objects or processes of one's
own consciousness. In both cases the fundamental relation is the
same — consciousness is the attitudinal relation of awareness of an
ego to its objects which, therefore, need not be conscious.3 This
relation is not a causal relation nor one of reciprocal dependence
of existence, hence the object may exist independent of the aware-
ness by the ego.

If there were nothing to be conscious of, I should not be con-
scious. The converse proposition is not true. To convert "all
consciousness is of objects and their relations" into aall objects
and relations exist only when they are for consciousness" is to
commit an elementary logical fallacy.

There is a sense in which consciousness may be a neutral con-
tinuum. When one is not reflecting upon what it means to have
an experience, or upon the relation between himself as agent of
experience and the surrounding world, his consciousness is a con-
tinuum which seems to consist just of a mosaic of sense-data
occupying a certain spatial field and moving through a certain
temporal flux. A moment ago I sat looking out of my study
window. My then consciousness, as I now recall it, consisted
simply of a visual, auditory, tactual and olfactory field or totum
sensibile. It contained the awareness of the window, fragments
of the room, a bit of the street with vehicles passing along it, the
raucous toots of motor horns, the noises of their engines and
wheels, bits of the houses on the opposite side of the street, the
odors of the street in spring, the incense ascending from my pipe.
My consciousness seemed identical with the aggregate of objects
in its field. It seemed nothing more than the compresence of this
multitude of varied sensory objects. This is the realm of so-called
"pure" or "neutral" experience. In this relation consciousness
appears to add nothing to its objective field of contents but the
colorless compresence of its parts to my awareness. "Pure experi-
ence" is just the limiting case of a passive consciousness of all
sorts of things in a spatio-temporal continuum. Consciousness
seems to add nothing to, and to subtract nothing from, the things.
Its goings and its comings appear to be of no moment to them. It
seems to be an indefinitely extensible and flexible, nonresisting,

* It follows that a feeling or thought is never conscious of itself. Self-
consciousness is the awareness by the thinking self of some part of it own
moving content.

320 MAN AND THE COSMOS

colorless and translucent medium, through which all sorts of things
pass and which changes with the passing of its contents. So far
consciousness seems to be like a bit of pure space.

But let me hear a scream of agony, feel a sudden pain, see a
long lost friend crossing the street, or think of a pressing practical
problem, and the whole situation is immediately altered. I
straightway become a conscious agent, doer, sufferer, planner,
thinker. The lights and shadows of my conscious content change.
I alter the contents and pattern of my presentational continuum.
In short I become actual as an attentive, feeling, conational self.

If consciousness existed in general, apart from individuated
centers, or if it passed through and around these as the daylight
through and around objects, it might never seem more than a
neutral continuum. But consciousness never really exists as a
neutral and impersonal vessel or continuum. There is no such
entity as consciousness. It is always a property of individual
selves, who are at once, and all the time, both cognitive experients
and affectional agents. As experients these agents are recipients
of sensory presentations or percepts; as active or attentive selves
they selectively analyze and reconstruct their presentations; and
as affectional they desire, value, and strive voluntarily.

I agree with James Ward that there are three distinct com-
ponents of the psychical process — attention, feeling, and objects or
presentations — constituting always one concrete mental process.
A mind is an individuated experient which lives in two kinds of
attitudes — (1) receptive and (2) active. In the receptive attitude
the attentive consciousness is incited by external stimuli ; that is,
it is nonvoluntary determined. In the active attitude attentive
consciousness is determined by centrally originated feelings of
which volition is a complex or highly elaborated form. Of course,
these attitudes interplay in the most varied manner. Attention is
a name for the cognitive activity of the conscious individual, by
virtue of which, whether the activity be directed towards an object,
through the self's internally initiated desires and valuations, or
through the arousing impact of environmental stimuli, the
presentation (percept) or representation (image and concept) of
the object is increased in intensity and clearness. Attention is a
specific form of self-activity whose differentia consists in the fact
that by it cognition is enhanced and clarified. Attentive cognition,
desire, and volition are all species of the genus self-activity.

CONSCIOUSNESS 321

James argued that experience is primarily "pure" or "neu-
tral." 4 This pure experience is the stuff of which everything in
the world is composed. Referring to the common distinction made
between the physical and the psychical as two qualitatively dif-
ferent fields, James says, "Experience has no such inner duplicity ;
and the separation of it into consciousness and its content comes
not by way of subtraction but by way of addition." 5 "The same
bit of pure experience is viewed as a physical thing or a conscious
process according to the relations in which it is taken. My pencil
as a part of the system of external space relations is a thing ; as a
part of the continuous flow of my imagery it is a conscious content.
Personal histories are processes of change in time." 6 "A 'mind'
or 'personal consciousness' is the name of a series of experiences
run together by certain definite transitions, and an objective reality
is a series of similar experiences knit by different transitions." 7
Consciousness is thus a function of certain groupings of this pure
experience. This function is simply the taking of certain bits of
experience in certain relations.

I agree with James to the extent that consciousness is a func-
tion of the individual organism. And a conscious individual is a
being-in-relation. It is correct to say that consciousness means
concrete facts of experience taken in certain relations, with specific
transitions, etc. But this is not the whole story. A thing-experi-
ence is not precisely the same thing-experience in different rela-
tions. Relations are essential elements in the texture of thing-
experiences.

Consciousness is not an end term in a relation in the same sense
in which a desk or an algebraic symbol is an end term, nor is
consciousness a continuum like space. Consciousness is a function
of individual centers of cognitive-volitional relationship and of
related elements of experience ; which stand, respectively, in the
relation of being conscious of objects, and of being objects of
consciousness. This may sound like a very pompous platitude;
but it is nevertheless, I think, the statement of the ultimate situa-
tion in regard to cognition.8

* William James, Essays in Radical Empiricism.
8 Ibid., p. 9.
•Ibid., p. 48.
' Ibid., p. 80.

8 The cognitive relationships of consciousness or ''thought" and its various
classes of objects I have already discussed in Book i.

322 MAN AND THE COSMOS

Consciousness then is a function rather than an entity. But
I would insist that it is a function or attitude of a unique kind of
entity in unique relations; namely, a self or subject' Whatever
be the specific character of the things, or relations, or things-in-
relation, which constitute the immediate objects of one's being
cognitively conscious, to such objects there must be added the
uniqueness of the relation which consists in their being for a con-
scious self, in order that justice may be done to the nature of
experience. Experience without the self is like the tragedy of
Hamlet without the Prince.

What does the relating? What makes or sustains the transi-
tions? Of what is consciousness, as thus described, a function?
James's theory seeks to lay the ghosts of the dualisms of mind and
body, of thought and physical things, of immanent experiencing
subject and transcendent object, which have annoyed philosophers
for centuries. But the theory has an artificial simplicity. The
question bobs up once more, what makes the difference between
those relations and transitions in experience which constitute a
personal biography with a consciousness, and those which consti-
tute the same bits of pure experience physical objects? Is it
simply the difference between organized and unorganized material
systems? Is it the difference between those which have nervous
systems and those which have them not? Or is it, perhaps, the
difference due to a specific complexity of nervous system ? When
we raise these questions we are back again with the old problem of
mind and body. The attempt to "side-step" dualism by invoking a
neutral world of pure experience evades the issue. I do not say
that dualism is the last word in this matter. But whether one call
consciousness a function, or something else, it has an "inner
duplicity," which cannot be evaded.

"In order that there should be an experience, it is not suf-
ficient that qualities and relations should be or be there ; it is
likewise necessary that they should be in a recognizable and identi-
fiable synthesis. The synthesis is an actual factor of experience." 9
Consciousness is always individual, and it is capable of becoming
aware of itself as such. We are conscious in relations, and we are
capable of being conscious that we are conscious, as well as con-

•E. B. McGilvray, in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific
Methods, Vol. vi, p. 230.

CONSCIOUSNESS 323

scious of the specific relations in which we are conscious. Any
theory of experience which fails to take due account of the prin-
ciple that it is the ego which makes the transitions and recognizes
the relations, which constitute a "personal" history, is inadequate.
The synthetic function of conscious selfhood remains the central
fact in the world of experience. The individual is an "I," a
subject of experience, which can never be reduced to the particular
and changing contents of his experience. To say "his," or even
"its," experience, implies an ego of some sort. Let one try to
give a circumstantial account of a day's experiences, with all
reference to the conscious self left out, and he will see what tire-
some absurdities the denial of the ego lands him in. James him-
self frequently referred to the fact that personal consciousness is
a continuum; for example, "personal histories are processes of
change in time and the change is one of the things immediately
experienced." 10 "Change in this case means continuous as
opposed to discontinuous transition." "Practically to experience
one's personal continuum is to know the originals of the ideas of
continuity and change." But this implies that the self is a syn-
thetic principle which grasps together a succession of contents, and
knows itself as the active power which does this work. What the
self functions as, namely, as an individual focus of relationships,
and knows itself to function as, is what the self is.

The standpoint of James on this matter of a virginal experi-
ence as the original reality which apparently both antedates and
transcends the dualistic impurity of common-sense thinking is
closely akin to the standpoint of Mach,11 and still more to that
of Avenarius.12 I am not clear as to whether, when we are babies,
who have come "trailing clouds of glory" from the world of pure
experience, we sport in the ocean of pure experience, which later
is falsely bifurcated, as "shades of the prison house begin to close
upon the growing boy," and as to whether the undifferentiated
neutrality is restored by the simple use of the word "neutrality."
Is pure experience what we set out with, or is it what we arrive
at, after having wandered long in the mazes of duality and un-
neutrality ? Or is it both ? I know not. But, since James' dark
hints have been taken up and further developed in the writings

10 James, ibid., pp. 48 and 50.

u Analyse der Empfindungen: translation, Analysis of the Sensations.

13 Der Menschliche Weltbegriff, and Kritik der reinen Erfahrung.

322 MAN AND THE COSMOS

Consciousness then is a function rather than an entity. But
I "would insist that it is a function or attitude of a unique kind of
entity in unique relations; namely, a self or subject.' Whatever
be the specific character of the things, or relations, or things-in-
relation, which constitute the immediate objects of one's being
cognitively conscious, to such objects there must be added the
uniqueness of the relation which consists in their being for a con-
scious self, in order that justice may be done to the nature of
experience. Experience without the self is like the tragedy of
Hamlet without the Prince.

What does the relating? What makes or sustains the transi-
tions? Of what is consciousness, as thus described, a function?
James's theory seeks to lay the ghosts of the dualisms of mind and
body, of thought and physical things, of immanent experiencing
subject and transcendent object, which have annoyed philosophers
for centuries. But the theory has an artificial simplicity. The
question bobs up once more, what makes the difference between
those relations and transitions in experience which constitute a
personal biography with a consciousness, and those which consti-
tute the same bits of pure experience physical objects? Is it
simply the difference between organized and unorganized material
systems ? Is it the difference between those which have nervous
systems and those which have them not? Or is it, perhaps, the
difference due to a specific complexity of nervous system ? When
we raise these questions we are back again with the old problem of
mind and body. The attempt to "side-step" dualism by invoking a
neutral world of pure experience evades the issue. I do not say
that dualism is the last word in this matter. But whether one call
consciousness a function, or something else, it has an "inner
duplicity," which cannot be evaded.

• E. B. McGilvray, in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific
Methods, Vol. vi, p. 230.

CONSCIOUSNESS 323

10 James, ibid., pp. 48 and 50.

u Analyse der Empfindungen: translation, Analysis of the Sensations.

13 Der Menschliche Weltbegriff, and Kritik der reinen Erfahrung.

326 MAN AND THE COSMOS

encing ego in time how is one to account for a present temporal
belief in a nontemporal fact or principle, such as a logical or
mathematical principle, an ethical value or a scientific law ? (4)
How can there be introspection or self-consciousness, how can
awareness of awareness exist, if awareness be simply a selective
response of the nervous system to neutral elements ? Can a search-
light search its own searchings? (5) Neutral monism fails to
give a tenable theory of error. How can there be wrong judg-
ments concerning the relations of neutral elements, if conscious-
ness is only the passively illuminated field, a cross section of
certain complexes of neutral elements in relation? It is a far-
fetched explanation of error to say that the nervous system selects
as real certain relations between elements, which relations are
really unreal. What does this proposition mean ? 17

(6) What does the illuminating? What makes the selective
response ? The organism or the nervous system, we are told. But
these are either mere physical complexes, or they are physical
complexes plus attentive consciousness or mental activity. If they
are the latter we have, not neutral monism, but a duality-in-unity.
If they are the former we have, not neutral monism, but
materialism.

Thus neutral monism is not neutral. It is either a new and
specious name for materialism, or it is a plausible way of glossing
over the duality of subject and object. Either the neutral ele-
ments which compose, by joint action, the nervous system are
just physical elements, or there is a hyper-physical principle of
selective synthesis.

(7) Neutral monism involves psychological atomism (Holt
sees this). But atomism is untrue to the unitary nature of self-
activity and self-feeling. It is really an attempt to revive
Hume's philosophy of the self as a bundle of atomistic "impres-
sions" and their copies. But what does the bundling, the shifting
of the field of illumination ? Hume was more logical. He averred

" I am aware that Holt makes a brave attempt to dispose of these objec-
tions, but to my mind his explanations only reveal the more clearly the arti-
ficiality of the whole procedure of neutral monism. Holt attempts to explain,
in terms of neutral entities, knowledge of the past and future, especially of
the past, and the fact of error. I have not space here to examine his argu-
ments, and I must content myself with inviting the reader to compare the
explanation of knowledge of the past and future and of error given on the
basis of neutral monism, and that given in the present work on the hypothesis
that the conscious self is a temporally active knower and purposive agent.

CONSCIOUSNESS 327

that he did not know. He saw that the nervous system could be
nothing but a bundle of impressions, too. Even a searchlight is a
planned and unitary machine assembled by one who thinks himself
a purposive unifier of physical elements. Someone plays it over
objects for a specific purpose.

Either the light of consciousness is nothing, no one assembles
or works it, and it reveals nothing since there is nothing to reveal ;
or it is a product of the nervous system (materialism) ; or it is
a function of a psychophysical entity (my own view and the view
of all who believe in an ego).

Neutral monism is only a new kind of materialism, parading
in the guise of a multitude of tiny and bloodless logical "entities"
or "absolutes." Paraphrasing Bradley's well-known words, reality
is not an unearthly ballet of bloodless "terms" and "propositions,"
even though these be inconsistently endowed with the power of
generation.18

Another recent attempt to make a novel definition of conscious-
ness is that of moderate or functional behaviorism. Immoderate
behaviorism denies to consciousness any genuinely verifiable func-
tion. Functional behaviorism defines consciousness as the margin
or fringe in adaptive reactions, where instinct and pure habit are
inadequate. The function of the brain is to coordinate responses,
and consciousness is thus a correlation between bodily processes
and changes in the objects. It is the sign of the specific kind of
brain activity that has to do with the correlation of stimulus and
response at points where instinct and pure habit are inadequate.19

Selective determination and redirection of behavior by a future
that is made present in perception (and imagination), "control by

18 In evidence of the justice of my criticism I make the following further
citations and references:

"Its processes (the nervous system) are of a mathematical and neutral
structure, just as much as the path of a ray of light is a function of densities,
temperatures, magnetic deflections, and indices of refraction — neutral entities
all, and unidentifiable with any, even the smoothest atoms of Democritus. ' '
(Holt, The Concept of Conscimisness, p. 255.)

"But just as in the sciences of physics and chemistry these physical
entities are seen on analysis to be aggregates of logical or neutral entities, so
that the physical processes are simply not describable as a movement of
material particles but are strictly mathematical manifolds." (Cf. Holt, op.
cit., Chaps. 7, 11, 12, especially, p. 255.)

19 Taken almost verbatim from Bode, "The Definition of Consciousness,"
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. x (1913), pp.
232-239. See "The Method of Introspection," the same journal and volume,
pp. 85-91 and "Consciousness and Psychology" in Creative Intelligence.

328 MAN AND THE COSMOS

a future that is made present," is what constitutes consciousness.
"A perceived object is a stimulus which controls or directs the
organism by results which have not yet occurred, but which will,
or may, occur in the future; . . . the future is transferred into
the present so as to become effective in the guidance of be-
havior." 20

Clearly this view is right to the extent that attentive conscious-
ness is a concomitant in the making of responses to novel stimuli,
that is, the meeting of new situations by the organism. It is right
in finding a distinctive quale of consciousness to be teleological
adaptation by anticipation, through which the future becomes
operative in the present. But this is not the whole story. This
conception of consciousness is too narrow to cover all the facts.
The functions of consciousness are not exhausted in meeting novel
situations, and controlling behavior by reference to the future.
When I am enjoying a delightful aesthetic experience, an object
in nature or art, or contemplating with satisfaction the symmetry
and harmony of a mathematical construction or the logical struc-
ture of any intellectual system, or "living" in the past with some
significant historical period, event or character, my consciousness,
keen, vivid, and delightful, may have no reference to my own
future behavior or that of anyone else. This pragmatic or instru-
mentalist conception of consciousness errs by taking one impor-
tant function of consciousness and making it the sole function to
the exclusion of other worthful functions. Disinterested contem-
plation and enjoyment of an experience for its own sake can be
called "behavior" only in a very Pickwickian sense ; and yet it is,
for some human beings at least (and I believe for many in one
form or other), one of the most significant and worthful functions
of being conscious. "For to admire an' for to see," although "It
never done no good to me," is, in the words of Kipling's Ulysses
of The Seven /Seas, a joyful and persistent function of conscious-
ness.

The conscious ego is active in the organization of experience.
Even in receiving and recognizing sensations the self is active in
some small degree. It is active, in much higher degree, in organ-
izing, classifying, and connecting causally and teleologically its
rudimentary experiences. In the purposive processes by which

20 Bode, ' ' Consciousness and Psychology, ' ' Creative Intelligence, p. 244.

CONSCIOUSNESS 329

ends are formulated and realized, in both practical and theoretical
life, the conscious activity of the ego is most fully manifested.
In brief, consciousness is the function of selective response,
finding of meanings, and creative purposive synthesis, by which
the psychophysical self is able to effect new arrangements in ex-
perience to meet novel situations in its physical or social environ-
ment or in its own inner psychophysical content ; and thus to
create, maintain and enhance the enjoyed values o*f experience.

III. The Idealistic Theory of Consciousness

Objective idealists such as Fichte, Hegel, Green, Bosanquet
and Royce find in mind or self-conscious individuality at its
highest level a key to the structure of reality. Bosanquet, for
example, finds in mind the true system of oneness in manyness,
of the harmony of sameness and otherness, of self with self, of the
solution of the contradictions in experience. In short, mind is the
true type of dynamic and significant organization of parts into a
living system, of the continuous realization, through the unrest of
negativity and the conquest thereof, of a harmonious whole or
individuality. Thus mind is the key to the structure and meaning
of the entire cosmos. Whether this claim be justified must be left
unquestioned for the present.21

Certainly the idealistic conception of the nature of conscious,
individuality contains a profound truth and must be included in
any philosophy that is to be adequate to the whole meaning of
experience. Self-conscious individuality is dynamic and social,
the self develops in interplay with other selves and with the
physical order. The continuity of the self's life is found in
rational valuation and .purposive activity. This life involves a
dialectic process. Negativity, the practical and theoretical recog-
nition of oppositions or differences between self and not-self (other
selves and the physical order) is a prime condition for the growth
and maintenance of selfhood. The development and maintenance

21 See further, book v, ' ' Cosmology or the General Structure of Eeality. ' '
The following are important references for the idealistic conception of
consciousness: F. H. Bradley Appearance and Eeality, especially chapters 14,
15, 19, 26; J. B. Baillie, The Idealistic Construction of Experience ; B. Bosan-
quet, The Principle of Individuality and Value, especially Lecture vi; J. S.
McKenzie, Elements of Constructive Philosophy, especially Book ii, Chaps. 6,
7, 8, 10 and 11 ; Josiah Boyce, The World and the Individual, Index.

330 MAN AND THE COSMOS

of self-conscious individuality is thus the process of transcending
the actually attained selfhood, the process of ever finding the one
in the other, of overcoming the opposition between self and other ;
which opposition, so far from being an insoluble contradiction, is
rather the play of difference or contrast within the nature of life
and mind itself. Thus mind, regarded as equivalent to self-
consciousness, is a systematic and developing unity which realizes
itself and maintains itself by continually going beyond itself, by
apparently negatiug itself, by dying unto itself in an other than
self. Self and not-self, the individual and its other, have no mean-
ing or existence when sundered from one another. The opposition,
the conflict between self and other, is not the impassable separation
of two absolute, incompatible and different kinds of reality. This
opposition is the prime condition of self-realization through self-
transcendence.

The idealist finds in the stubborn and resisting character which
physical nature presents, a phase of the otherness or negativity by
which the self in transcending its already achieved character
realizes itself. The qualities of brute matter, the struggle for
existence, pain, disease, and death, are incidents necessary to the
development of souls. The dialectic of selfhood is even more
rationally and continuously manifested in man's social life than
in man's relations with physical nature. Every social relation into
which the self enters involves the dialectic, the otherness ; that is,
the interplay of differing beings. Only by overcoming the opposi-
tion between self and the other self in love and marriage, in the
community life, the vocational life, the national life, the religious
life, can personality live and develop. "He that seeketh his life
shall lose it and he that loseth his life shall find it." The self
which tries to evade these relationships, which gives no hostages to
fortune, which buries its one talent in the ground, which takes no
risks, which tries to live like the epicurean wise man, by shutting
itself off as far as possible from all relationships which may dis-
turb its equanimity, thereby shuts itself off from the possibility
of true self-realization. Life is an obstacle race.

This is what Hegel means by the power of negativity as the
moving spirit of life and mind. In maintaining one's physical
well-being, in learning and discovering, in living in social relations
as a member of the family and community, the individual finds
his true selfhood only in going outside of his own selfhood and in

CONSCIOUSNESS 331

discovering his true nature in the other. Spinoza said all deter-
mination is negation or limitation. The objective idealist adds
that all negation involves affirmation. Consequently, only through
negation or limitation is limitation transcended. Logically, all
genuine negative judgments, that is, all that are more than mere
word play, involve correlative affirmative judgments. One can
deny that a specific attribute inheres in a subject only if one be
aware that some other positive attribute incompatible with the
attribute denied inheres in the subject. If I say, for instance,
that to-day is not cold, I imply that it has a positive quality in-
compatible with coldness. If I say that A is not honest, I say by
implication that he has a positive quality incompatible with hon-
esty. On the other hand, affirmative judgments imply correlative
negative judgments. If to-day is warm, it is not cold. If A is a
thief, he is not honest. Reality, as object of thought, must be a
coherent system of differences or correlative individual elements.
Thus affirmation and negation are two sides of the same whole of
judgment. The objective idealist widens the application of this
logical principle to the whole of life. Xegation is a dynamic
quality of conscious life taken as a whole. If reality were a static
and lifeless system, then the power of the negative would be an
illusion. The dynamic quality of negation means that reality has
a living and spiritual character, that it is a concrete system of
interrelated selves. If reality be rational, if it moves through
and by the activity of spirit, negation is an essential phase of
reality; for the power of the negative consists in the continuous
self-differentiation of individuality as a living member of a system
of individuals. Self-conscious individuality can develop only
through conflict, through opposition, which issues in the pro-
founder union and positive growth of selves in social relations. In
the ethical realm the self becomes a spiritual reality, it serves
intrinsic values, only through meeting and overcoming the opposi-
tion between reason and nature, between impulse and the social
ethos, between itself and other selves. It is through the conflict
within its own bosom, which is reflected in the conflict in its social
relations, that the self wins at the same moment internal harmony
and social harmony, and only through this process is ethical per-
sonality developed. Feeling depends for its enlargement and
enrichment, by the attainment of a richer and more comprehensive
harmony, on the fact that in its higher forms it is an experience

332 MAN AND THE COSMOS

of harmony in difference which overcomes and holds in solution
the opposition or contrast of individualities. Such states of feel-
ing are preeminently love and friendship. That these states of
feeling are harmonious and pervasive unions of differences, that
they always hold in concentrated solution the element of negation,
is shown by the intensity and suddenness with which they may pass
into their opposites.

In religion the development of spiritual experience through
the overcoming of opposition reaches its climax. The finite self
becomes conscious of itself as an apparently independent being,
then conscious of its sinfulness, misery and worthlessness as in-
volved in such independence ; it denies itself in the presence of the
absolute and perfect, and in this very self-denial, this humiliation,
this overcoming of selfhood, this dying to live, the finite self be-
comes renewed and uplifted, it becomes one with the infinite and
perfect. And, on the other hand, the absolute self, as concrete living
spirit, must find its own life, as self-expressive activity and love,
in and through the lives of the society of individual and finite
members of reality.

At the outset of its career the self has only being-in-itself. It
is only a potential personality. It becomes an actual personality,
a spiritual individual, through the dialectic by which, in finding
an other than its present desire, passion or aim, in the conflicting
desires within itself, in conflict with physical selves, in the clash
with other wills, it becomes able to identify itself with the other,
to expand itself into union with the other, and thus to attain a
being in-and-for-itself, to return into itself enriched by its self-
alienation and self-denial in its world. The most familiar experi-
ences of the othering or dialectic process are to be found in friend-
ship, love, social and political life, the life of the family. Art,
religion, science, and philosophy are themselves more subliminated
stages in the othering process by which the self, not finding else-
where full satisfaction of the craving for conscious union with the
universe, finds, in the expression of its ideals in sensuous
materials (art), in the imaginative forms of picture thinking
(religion) and finally in the conceptual forms of thought (philos-
ophy) wider and deeper experiences, of its membership in the
universal spiritual order, of its kinship with the complete spirit of
harmonious thought.

Thus the idealistic doctrine of consciousness or experience is

CONSCIOUSNESS 333

turned into a metaphysic or cosmology, by the identification of the
significant features of human experience, as regarded from the
point of view of the dialectic process, with the meaning of reality
as a whole. Whether this identification be legitimate is a question
t6 be considered later. We shall find grounds, as we proceed, for
holding that the idealistic interpretation of experience ignores cer-
tain aspects of the life of selfhood; specifically, that it tends to
merge the individual self in the absolute. The doctrine of the
othering process, the dialectic of life, is a true insight in regard
to the nature of conscious individuality. But it is not the whole
truth. In the measure in which the self grows into full person-
ality, it becomes more self-determining, more an inner focus and
self-moving center of social and cosmic relationships. As the
center of its individuality increases in harmony, so its radii of
relationships are enlarged. The richer and better organized a
selfhood, the more distinctive and central and uniquely character-
istic is its individuality. Therefore, I shall argue later on, the
world of selves cannot be regarded as included in one all-embracing
self.

CHAPTER XXV

THE SUBCONSCIOUS

If we picture the contents of consciousness as a field, like the
field of vision, we may say that this field is not equally illuminated
at all points. Between its vivid center, which may be occupied by
a feeling, a perception, or a plan of action, and the periphery, at
which consciousness ceases, there may be a penumbra, or fringe,
of contents of which one is only dimly aware and with degrees of
dimness. Relative to the vividness of the central content, the
contents which are in the shade have been called "subconscious."
A less equivocal designation for this feature of consciousness would
be subatbentive or vague consciousness. It is not properly called
"subconscious," since there is no break between what one is vividly
conscious of and what one is more dimly aware of. In any pulse
of consciousness all its distinguishable features are parts of the
total state of being conscious.1

The second type of so-called subconscious process consists of
elements of experience that are not actually present as such in con-
sciousness at the moment, but of which the mind may become
aware by attentive memory and discrimination. If, when writing,
I do not attend to the sound of a bell ringing or a clock striking,
and ^an afterwards recall the sound, it is argued that the sound
must, at the time of its occurrence, have entered the field of my
experience as a subconscious content. Again, we take in complex
perceptual and affective experiences as wholes or fused masses,
which experiences we afterwards analyze into their elements. One
can listen to a violin or orchestra as a total musical experience, or
one can analyze the music into its component tones. Similarly,

1 It is very questionable if there is any such thing as wholly inattentive
consciousness. The focal objects of clear consciousness may be shifted with
great rapidity, and, in this shifting, consciousness may carry with it a con-
siderable mass of vague details. I hold that clearness of consciousness is
equivalent to degree of attention ; in other words, that attention is not a
special power or phase of consciousness. The scope and degree of attention
is the scope and degree of consciousness.

334

THE SUBCONSCIOUS 335

one can analyze an object, perceived as a combination of various
sense-qualities, into sensations of form, color, touch, smell, taste.
In the total concrete experience these sensational elements are said
to be subconsciously present. A more tenable explanation of
facts of the first kind is that the past stimuli, which I did not per-
ceive at the moment of receiving them, left traces in my brain ; and
that, before these traces have become too weak, I can shift the
emphasis of my consciousness and thus become aware of the
objects. In the case of fused perceptual experiences the same
principle of explanation holds good. I do not really sensate the
separate sensations as such, unless, by attentive analysis, I shift
the emphasis of my consciousness, and then, for the first time the
separate sensations become discriminated contents of my experi-
ence.

A third and more important type of alleged subconscious
process is that of dissociated or "split-off" ideas and systems of
ideas present in the same body without mutual awareness. Pro-
fessor Morton Prince found in his case of Miss Beauchamp
and others, that there actually coexisted, along with the primary
or dominating consciousness, other active systems of ideas, with
distinctive characters or individualities, of which the primary con-
sciousness was not aware. He finds that these phenomena occur
in the neatest and most precise form and "are best adapted for
experimental study in so-called automatic writing and speech." 2
"The one fundamental principle and criterion of the subconscious
is," he says, "dissociation and coactivity." 3 And the point at issue
he rightly says is this — do ideas ever occur outside the synthesis of
the personal self-co7isciousness under any conditions, whether of
normal or abnormal life ; so that the subject is unaware of these ?
Many investigators agree with him that such ideas do thus occur.
But for whom do those ideas occur ? Who is aware of them,
besides the observer who assumes their existence ? Ideas can exist
only for an individual consciousness. If, then, co-conscious com-
plexes of ideas exist this means that, simultaneously, there must
be associated with one brain several distinct individual centers of
consciousness or "souls." There must be quasi-independent com-
plexes of percepts, images, affections, and purposes, each with a
unity and individuality of its own.

2 Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. ii, pp. 69, 70.
1 Ibid., Vol. ii, p. 78.

336 MAN AND THE COSMOS

The evidence for these co-conscious systems falls under the fol-
lowing rubrics: (1) The multiple personalities discussed in the
next chapter; (2) automatic writing; (3) the anaesthesia and be-
havior of hypnotized subjects who, in the post-hypnotic condition,
have no memory of what occurred to them when in the hypnotic
state; (4) the post-hypnotic fulfillment of suggestions, given while
the subjects are in the hypnotic state. These, it is said, may
extend to blindness, deafness, and general insensibility to another
person's presence; and even to the subject playing the suggested
role of an entirely different individual; (5) the counting of num-
bers, drawing of figures, etc., which have been impressed on an
anaesthetic region of the subject's skin.

It is argued that the intelligence and purposiveness of subjects
observed under these conditions require the assumption of a sub-
conscious self or secondary 'personality to account for them. Now,
it seems to me that the application of the term "personality,"
which properly refers to the maximum of conscious and rational
synthesis in our psychical life, is, in such cases, a misnomer. I
do not find in these cases sufficient evidence of intelligence, rational
integration, and purposiveness, to merit calling them "persons."
Moreover I think it probable that many of these phenomena are
due to simulation. Many of them do not require the invocation
of any different principles than those involved in ordinary physio-
logical automatisms. We do not invoke co-conscious complexes of
ideas to explain walking through crowded streets with our minds
intent on things very remote from our immediate environment,
writing while thinking of something else, or the anaesthesia of the
football or lacrosse player.

There is no line of mystery separating the automatisms and
suggestibility of hypnotized subjects, or even multiple selves, from
normal experience. We are all to a very large extent automata,
and to an equal extent suggestible beings. Our manifestations of
individuality undergo mutation from year to year, from month to
month, and sometimes even from hour to hour. We all play a
variety of roles, at home, in business, in church, in politics, at the
club, on a vacation. In the lives of normal selves single feeling-
impulses and groups or systems of feeling-impulses — love, hate,
anger, lust, passion for adventure, desire to break the monotony
of existence, to run amuck of convention — arise frequently. Ap-
parently they come from nowhere and intrude themselves into the

THE SUBCONSCIOUS 337

humdrum of consciousness, often with surprising suddenness and
strength.

Below the well-defined area of normal conscious life, there is
the ill-defined and teeming region of unconscious tendencies, of
blind impulsions and vague unrests, of biologically determined
instincts and appetites, which seem to be psychical as well as bodily
in character; in short, there seems to be a deep reservoir of uncon-
scious psychical energies, which constitute, to a very large extent,
the spri?igs of our conscious life-activities.

Further, there is the problem as to how our memories, acquired
habits of thought and action, highly specialized knowledge, prac-
tical powers of judgment and technical skill, persist when they are
not in conscious operation? Again, what are we to say of sleep
and dreams ? What becomes of the psychical self in deep and
dreamless sleep ? Is there such a state as absolute suspension of
thought, or does the soul always think, even in dreamless and
profound slumber ? Is the belief that we were wholly unconscious
simply due to the rapid oblivescence and the striking break of
continuity in experience, which takes place on our waking to sur-
roundings that are incongruous with the fairy land of the dreaming
life of slumber ? When one awakens with the solution of a difficult
problem that was left unsolved when one went to sleep, did the
brain think without the mind, did it in short carry on "unconscious
cerebration" ? Or was the mind consciously active in sleep, and
does it simply forget the intermediate steps, when the conclusion
becomes clear at the moment of waking? Or does the mind, re-
freshed by rest, undisturbed by any train of conflicting interests,
and with the last train of predormant conscious activity ready to
be revived, concentrate on the problem, when it awakens ; and, with
enhanced and unimpeded activity, reach a solution so rapidly
that the result seems to come instantaneously and out of the
dark?

Are dreams explicable solely in terms of the psychical contents
and neural stimuli which persist from the day's waking life, from
the internal bodily states such as the condition of the digestive
system or the sexual glands, and from local sense stimuli, such as
those occasioned by lying in an unusual position or the pressure
of some protuberance ? Or must we invoke another factor in the
shape of unconscious psychical energies which have lain dormant
or suppressed during the waking life ?

338 MAN AND THE COSMOS

Professor Sigmimd Freud, in his book Die Traumdeutung,
argues very effectively for the view that dreams are suppressed
wishes, and that most of them go back in origin to the repressed
impulses of childhood and adolescence, notably to the sex impulse,
the most persistently repressed of all man's primary appetites.
Professor Freud's argument supports very strongly, from the facts
of dream life, the doctrine of persistent unconscious psychical
complexes. I have not space to discuss here his general psycho-
logical theory as based on his study of dreams. He distinguishes
three types of psychical life — the conscious, the preconscious which
may become conscious, and the unconscious.

The Freudian theory exaggerates the extent to which the char-
acter of personality is determined by unconscious complexes. In
particular, it greatly exaggerates the influence of suppressed sex
impulses. This is a case of the neuropath's fallacy. Normal per-
sonality is interpreted in terms of data gathered chiefly from
neurotics, especially neurotic women. The grotesque ingenuity
with which Jung, in his book The Unconscious, twists all literature
and religion into expressions of the libido is another instance of
riding a theory, based on human abnormalities, to death. The indi-
vidual whose sex life is a healthy part of a well-balanced person-
ality does not suffer much from suppression complexes. Un-
doubtedly many dreams are the expression of thwarted wishes, but
many others are merely the consequence of the free play of mental
association started by some casual thought or experience of the day
before. However, Freud and his school have brought to attention
two important truths in regard to human personality — 1, that the
character of personality is determined to a great extent by its
unconscious constituents ; 2, that the unconscious, no less than the
conscious, factors of personality are dynamic. Indeed, often the
unconscious is more dvnamic than the conscious.

I shall later argue for the reality of unconscious psychical com-
plexes on more general grounds. While the evidence furnished
by a careful study of dreams does powerfully support the belief
in an unconscious psychical life or energy, this by no means in-
volves the reality of the so-called "subconscious self" in the sense
of a being wiser and more powerful than the conscious self.
Granted that some dreams are the expression of repressed desires,
and that these are chiefly infantile in origin (I am not ready to
admit the lalter proposition to the extent which Professor Freud

THE SUBCONSCIOUS 339

argues for), all that is necessarily implied thereby in regard to the
unconscious is the persistence in the adult of biological impulses
and appetites. The organized rational and moral life of the nor-
mal adult supervenes upon, and is indeed the transformation of,
the primitive biological individuality, through the influences of
cultural training and intellectual activity.

The possibility of "split-off ideas" or "co-conscious ideas" may
be conceded, but their actuality is not established by the evidence
adduced. The purposiveness and intelligence of automatic writ-
ing, posthypnotic suggestions, and so forth, would be equally well
accounted for on the Freudian theory of unconscious psychical
energies. The latter theory does not involve, as does the former,
the assumption that "ideas" can exist either singly or in complexes,
apart from the main stream of consciousness. Coconscious ideas
would be states of consciousness existing apart from any personal
knower. But such a notion is a contradiction in terms. If real,
they would involve at best more than one personal knower in the
same body. Such an assumption is both improbable and super-
fluous. That several mutually independent clusters of ideas exist
in the same living body is very unlikely. Their existence would
involve the absence or suspension of the principle of personal syn-
thesis and memory, without which there can be no consciousness
and no ideas.

We have now to embark upon the quest for the "subconscious
self" in its most mystical form. In support of the reality of the
distinct subconscious self there are cited the cases of sudden in-
spiration, inventive work, improvisations, and creations of men of
genius, who have written great poems, composed great music, or
hit upon world-transforming thoughts, without knowing how or
why they did these things. According to F. W. H. Myers and
others, the subliminal self or subconscious self is the great wonder
worker in the realm of human personality. It is a reservoir of
almost unlimited power, wisdom, and insight. It is not a far cry
from the assertion of the subliminal source of genius and of all
unusual mental achievements to its invocation as the real agent in
automatic writing, prophetic and warning dreams, second sight,
telepathy, and the supposed veridical messages from departed
spirits. Finally, since this subliminal self is unplumbable in its
depths, deathless, and, like Melchisedek, without local habitation
or parentage, why not regard it as our organ of communication

340 MAN AND THE COSMOS

with Deity ; nay, perhaps, as in very truth the absolute cosmic self
speaking in and through our fragmentary selfhoods.4

It behooves us here to walk warily and to keep all our critical
wits about us. There is probably no other psychological and meta-
physical conception which has been used in so many shifting
senses, or that has been made the catch-all for so much pseudo-
science and mythology as that of the "subconscious self."

The concept of the subconscious is properly employed as a
principle of interpretation in the metaphysics of psychology to
designate the psychical substrate and source of consciousness. The
inborn and acquired powers of conscious selfhood seem to involve
the reality of a subconscious psychical energy or life as their sup-
port and ground. The development of congenital capacities, and
the acquisition and retention of new powers of judgment and
action, lead to the hypothesis of neuro-psychical dispositions, in
which these functions and capacities are conserved, when not in
actual conscious use, and grounded when in actual use.5 The only
alternative to this view is the hypothesis that the structure and
processes of the nervous system constitute the sole conditions of
consciousness, and that consciousness arises simply when neural
processes reach a specific degree of intensity and complication.
From this standpoint the enduring or substantial basis of all
mental life consists of neurograms, that is, neural paths, in the
cerebral cortex. Unless one is to regard the central nervous sys-
tem as the sole conservator and condition of operation for all
congenital and acquired psychical capacities, including the most
highly developed powers of trained expert judgment, and of re-
fined and elevated feeling, one must admit the actuality of un-
conscious neuro-psychical dispositions or organized potencies of
conscious life. At any moment in which a cross-section of our
adult conscious life may be envisaged there are many of these
dispositions which show no signs of conscious activity. Either
the powers and achievements of the self, which are not explicitly
in consciousness at the moment of experience, are conserved
simply and solely as structural modifications of nervous tissues

4 See Myers' Human Personality and Its Survival after Death; also
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience.

B On this matter compare G. F. Stout, Manual of Psychology, passim, and
James Ward, article, "Psychology," Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol.
xxii, p. 560.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS 341

and their functioning; or they represent, in addition, functions
of an immaterial or psychical principle of activity which is never
fully represented in the momentary awareness of the self. Both
alternatives present almost equal difficulties for thought. On
the one hand, how shall one conceive all the powers of poet and
artist, all the garnered wisdom of the sage's ripe life, all the
knowledge and expert judgment of the statesman or scientist, as
persisting simply in the structure of the brain? On the other
hand, how shall one conceive an immaterial and unconscious prin-
ciple of psychical activity, when "psychical" is known to us im-
mediately in the form of consciousness alone ?

A final decision between these two hypotheses must depend on
one's general metaphysical theory as to the relation between mind
and brain. I shall argue later that the view which assumes at
once a distinction and an interdependence between mind and brain
is the most defensible hypothesis. If one accept, as I do, this
duality-in-unity, the problem as to how our psychical dispositions
persist becomes the question as to the best way of conceiving the
actuality of mental functions when these are not consciously op-
erative. I find the most satisfactory conception to be that the
mind is a complex principle of activity or psychical energy, no
phase of which is ever wholly in abeyance. "The soul always
thinks." The enduring self is a synthetic principle of activity
which includes more than is in consciousness at any moment and
is the generating principle of consciousness. This principle of
synthesis is immediately known in self-feeling, and inferentially
known as the enduring unifier and sustainer of all capacities to
think and to act which become manifest in the histories of selves.
In part, then, the self is, at any instant, unconscious. It sus-
tains and binds together successive moments in the empirical con-
sciousness. The actual self is a principle of progressive synthesis,
a continuously active power of neuro-psychical organization, which
can never be fully revealed in any single instant of conscious
feeling and activity.

Precisely to what extent the psychical self is dependent upon
the nervous mechanism for the conservation and development of
its powers we cannot say. It evidently depends on neural stimuli
for the materials and occasions on which it reacts with percepts,
images, meanings, volitional acts, and emotions. But it is open
to one to maintain that the results of these reactions persist as

342 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the neuro-psychical dispositions, and that, to this extent, the soul
develops capacities whose conservation is not accounted for in
terms of neural action alone. The unifying and sustaining prin-
ciple of selfhood is active in the successive moments of conscious-
ness, and it persists in sleep and in other states of so-called uncon-
sciousness; but all the specific modifications of the soul, in the
shape of habits, memories, trained powers, are conditioned, in
their development and expression, by modifications of the struc-
ture of the central nervous system.

Accepting, then, the reality of unconscious psychical disposi-
tions, what follows in regard to the subconscious ? It does not
follow that there is a distinct subconscious self in each individual,
more real and enduring than the conscious self. For these endur-
ing dispositions to feel, judge, and act, no matter how multifari-
ous and significant they may be, are yet continuous and inter-
woven with the individual's conscious life. The self is one in its
potentially conscious and its actually conscious life. When I
bring to bear on a problem a trained power of judgment, which
I have not for some time exercised, my conscious life still pre-
serves the continuity of this reawakening function with the domi-
nant purposes and experiences which have preceded that reawak-
ening and which condition the emergence of the new act.

Finally, we must consider, briefly, the mystical doctrine, al-
ready referred to, of a subliminal self; gifted with extraordinary
wisdom, insight, and wonderworking power, and which, neverthe-
less, engages in such trivial exercises as automatic writing, table
rapping and tipping et hoc genus omne. This subconscious self
is held to be the source of mankind's most significant inspirations,
and achievements. It finds its chief support in the dubious and
misty realms of so-called "psychical research."

The "subliminal self" is invoked to explain prophetic and
warning dreams; to account for the messages conveyed by auto-
matic writing and telepathy; to explain the inspirations of poets,
prophets, and revealers ; indeed, to account for all genius and the
supernormal achievements of ordinary persons; finally, as the
organ through which we may hold converse with the spirits of the
departed and with Deity or the all-inclusive cosmic self.

Now, to take up these points in reverse order, I do not under-
stand why, since my waking normal consciousness, humdrum and
commonplace though it be, is the form of psychical activity on

THE SUBCONSCIOUS 343

which I must depend for my general intellectual and moral conduct
in everyday life, the cosmic self and the spirits of the departed
should ignore it and choose to send their messages only through
this mysterious and uncertain realm of subliminal selfhood, which
occasionally makes an eruption into the experience of a few fa-
vored individuals. Surely it is not fair, if there be a moral and
rational economy of reality, that a few individuals, not otherwise
remarkable above their fellows, should enjoy this monopoly of
a private road to God and the spirit world ! Moreover, the char-
acter of the messages hitherto received, their silly inanity and
triviality amounting at times to stupid rot, do not augur well for
the intelligence and sesthetic capacities either of the subliminal
self who serves as receiver and transmitter, or of the senders of
the messages on the other shore of the river Styx. However, let
us suppose that veridical messages have been received from the
dead, by the method of cross-correspondences.6 These messages
purport to come from a conscious person, and to be transmitted
through the medium's organism to another conscious self. All
that these' messages would prove, if we took them at their face
value, would be that the communicating spirit has preserved its
personal consciousness and that a controlling self, the "Rector"
or "Imperator," for example, might communicate through the
brain of a living person. It might be possible that an individual
soul could use several different brains for its communications with
other souls but it is highly improbable that it ever does. The
subliminal self is a superfluous hypothesis in this connection.
It is equally superfluous in the case of telepathy. Let us suppose
that messages are actually conveyed and sensations felt, across
great reaches of space; say that almost instantaneously messages
have been conveyed from India to England or America. These
messages purport to come from conscious selves to other con-
scious selves. The fact that they may be uttered through auto-
matic writing only serves to throw doubt on their genuineness,
since they may, in these cases, be produced by the suggestion of
the operator himself, or of the recipient on the operator, or,

" On this matter see Hibbert Journal, Vol. vii, pp. 241 ff. ; and Proceedings
of the (English) Society for Psychical Research, Vol. xx, pp. 205-275; xxi, pp.
219-391; xxii, pp. 19-416; xxiv, pp. 170-200, 201-253. See also the writings
of Sir Oliver Lodge, and James H. Hyslop ; especially the latter 's Contact with
the Other World. Also Henry Holt, On the Cosmic Relations.

344 MAN AND THE COSMOS

finally may be the genuine results of the reputed transmitter's or
"control's" suggestion. Admitting a genuine telepathic commun-
ication between say India and America, what might we infer?
Several possibilities would be open. Either that minds can some-
times act directly on one another without physical media of com-
munication; or, that there may be an unknown physical medium,
by means of which, if the psychical transmitting and receiving
instruments be properly attuned, the message is conveyed and
taken up with great rapidity. Light and electricity travel very
rapidly and the action of gravitation seems to be instantaneous,
why not the physical medium of telepathy ? The third, and least
intelligible explanation of telepathy is the distinct subliminal self.

Possibly all so-called telepathic phenomena will turn out to
be the results of either; (a) autosuggestion by the medium, as
in the phenomena of hysteria, or (&) hetero-suggestion by which
the recipient of the message influences the medium. The former's
expectancy may be the chief factor in producing the result. "Psy-
chical" individuals have a suspicious way of meeting the demands
of their patrons and friends.

It is extremely difficult to determine what residuum of auto-
matic writing is performed without the cooperation of the writer's
consciousness. Admitting that there is such a residuum, its modus
operandi need not differ, in principle, from the automatisms of
hysterical and disorganized selves; it may be like the secondarily
automatic processes of the normal self, which, when first learned
and practiced, required the cooperation of attentive consciousness ;
but which, when they have been repeated a number of times, come
to be carried out without voluntary attention thereto, and, con-
sequently, without clear consciousness thereof. A very large
fraction of the phenomena of automatic writing is thus the result-
ant of forgotten experiences which arise unbidden, and, without
apparent antecedent grounds, determine the course of the writing.
If automatic writing does really sometimes produce results inex-
plicable by the writer's previous experience, or by the conscious
suggestions of his associates, these results may be due to a super-
normal sensitiveness to the mental contents of some one present.
Thus, admitting the reality of unconscious psychical com-
plexes, it is a misnomer to designate these vague, irregular, shift-
ing psychical complexes, which are expressed in automatic writing,
hypnotic and posthypnotic suggestion, disintegrated individuality,

THE SUBCONSCIOUS 345

and so forth, as true selves or personalities. These phenomena
bear witness, at the most, to temporary, and in some cases, perma-
nent mental dissociation; perhaps conditioned by the dissociation
of the systems of neurones whose normal associations are the im-
mediate physiological basis of our coherent waking consciousness.7

We do not get forward in the work of interpreting the mys-
teries of the psychical self, and its relation to the brain, by hypo-
statizing a second and subliminal self and endowing it with tran-
scendent powers. This type of explanation is on a par with the
explanation of the existence of various species of plants and ani-
mals by saying that God created them, or the relationships of
physical bodies by saying that God holds them together. It is a
clear case of explaining ignotum per ignotius.

The "unconsciousness" with which genius does its work is a
well-worn phrase. The expression is a loose designation for the
swift intuitive energy with which the genius goes forward to his
goal, and for the objectivity of his mental attitude when immersed
in creative work. There is danger of confusion between "unself-
conscious" and unconscious. It does not mean that the conscious
individuality of the genius has no part in his achievements, and
that he must call in the subliminal self to account for them. In-
deed, such a vague and vast subterranean reservoir of psychical
power could have no individuality, no bounds or specific types of
creative life. The genius would have no part or lot as an individual
in his work, and we should not give him any credit or attach to
the fool any contempt or to the wicked any blame. Everything
must be all the same in the subliminal self. If this self is wiser,
better, and more enduring than our conscious selfhood, why does
it not do something to live up to its reputation as prophet, seer,
and general wiseacre ?

If the subliminal self be a real entity it presents a striking
anomaly in the evolution of organisms. It represents a reversal
of the whole course of vital and psychical evolution. The evolu-
tion of animal behavior has been in the direction of increasing
control by intelligent consciousness. And the evolution of con-
sciousness has been in the direction of purposive integration of the
elements of experience and behavior under the control of the in-
tellect. Any theory of personality which would yield control to

T Cf. W. McDougall, Articles on "Hypnotism" and "The Subliminal
Self," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

346 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the subconscious is virtually a demand that we reverse the course
of evolution and dethrone the intellect or reason from the govern-
ing and directing place in the conduct of life. The fact that this
proposal falls in with many irrationalistic tendencies in our social
life to-day does not recommend it to me the more strongly. The
conservation of culture I hold to be bound up with the leadership
of reason.8

The entire evolution of psychical life has been in the direction
of greater mental and rational integration. And we are asked
to believe that persons who suffer frequent lapses from this ra-
tional integration and control are under the guidance of a higher
wisdom, just as savages believed the insane to be inspired. We
are asked to believe that the silly inanities of the automatic writer,
the fairy land and topsy-turvydom of dreams, the "spiritual"
orgies of neurotics, and so forth, are witnesses to the true nature
of the self!

Even an absolute self could be known to me only in two ways ;
either through its direct intercourse with my conscious and reflec-
tive life, or by my inferring it as a hypothesis which harmonizes
and justifies my conception of reality as a whole with special
reference to the meaning of human life. It is a piece of thoroughly
unscientific mysticism to talk of tapping the subconscious in order
to get into contact with the absolute mind. Such a procedure is
like going into a dark cellar to get a look at the sun. Compared
with our finite personalities, an absolute mind must be an intense
and concentrated intuitive consciousness, a super-personality.

Whatever does not enter into, and is not fused with the con-
scious selfhood of man we may consistently relegate to the realm
of the organic or physiological life. Whatever is wholly and per-
sistently unconscious in the psychophysical field properly belongs
to the bodily side of the self.

One must beware of introducing surreptitiously into a con-
sideration of the empirical nature of the individual a metaphys-
ical doctrine which has been fashioned to account for the inter>
relationships of mind and body in terms of a panpsychistic meta-

8 Since these paragraphs were written there has been a great increase
in this tendency, due to the psychic strain, anguish and bereavement wrought
by the World War. One may sympathize deeply with the mental distress of
millions; but that is not a good reason for losing one's head over spiritualism
and telepathy.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS 347

physics. The problem of the relation between the unity of the
self and the facts of growth, alteration, and aberration in the
empirical psychophysical life is rendered n© whit less mysterious
by changing the terms from those of body and mind into those
of conscious self and subconscious self. Indeed, I think the prob-
lem is thereby hopelessly complicated and confused. I may be-
lieve that the physical order does not exist in absolute independ-
ence of mind and purpose, and that in personality is to be found
the best key to the meaning of the world process ; but such a belief
need not, and should not, be based on the hypothesis of the sub-
liminal self.

The subconscious nuances, the various normal and abnormal
complexities, of selfhood, must not blind us to these cardinal
facts: 1. Personality is a continuous principle of conscious and
growing organization of psychophysical impulsions ; spiritual as
well as biotic. 2. The key to the practical growth and the knowl-
edge of personality is to be found, not in the unconscious, but in
the clearest and fullest exercise of reflection and rational willing.
We know the rudiments of personality in our awareness of our
various impulsions as constituent members of our selfhood. The
more persistently we purpose and live in the light of intelligence
the more fully do we become, and know ourselves as becoming,
personalities,

CHAPTER XXVI

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY

There is another class of facts which seem to militate against
the belief in a personal unity of consciousness. These are the
pathological facts of diseased and disintegrated personalities; of
lapse of the sense of individual identity for considerable periods ;
of alternating selves which may exist contemporaneously in the
same individual body ; and of successive selves likewise inhabiting
the same body in succeeding intervals of time.

Of these phenomena of diseased selfhood there are a number
of classic and well-known cases. Such are Professor Binet's
Leonie, with her two additional individual characters which dif-
fered from her ordinary selfhood, and could be induced by sug-
gestion and hypnosis; Professor Janet's Felida, and Dr. Weir
Mitchell's Mary Reynolds; more recently, Dr. Morton Prince's
Miss Beauchamp, who, he states, manifested during the years
in which he studied her case, four well-marked and separate selves,
B I, B II, B III, B IV ; with, at times, still other minor variants.
These selves oscillated in their control of Miss Beauchamp's body
and actions. Although mutually hostile they did not, for the most
part, know, without the intervention of perceptive symbols, what
one another felt and did. In other words, each appeared to be
a private self. They communicated with one another by letter.
At times, two of them struggled for the mastery. Sometimes the
fight was three-cornered. And one of them "Sally" (B II)
claimed to have developed the power of direct intuitive knowledge
of the others. These "selves," as described by Dr. Prince, were
not only distinctive in character, but conflicting and consciously
hostile in their attitudes towards one another. This case then is
a very striking instance of "alternating personality."

A second type is that of "lapse" and "succession" of person-
alities. Typical of these are the cases of the Reverend Ansel
Bourne and the Reverend Thomas C. Hanna, both of whom
wandered away from their homes and occupations, forgot their

348

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY 349

individual identities, and became, for a time, other selves with
somewhat different names and other occupations.1

More extreme instances of the lapse of personal identity are
furnished by the permanent aberrations of insane persons who
have believed themselves to be, for instance, Jesus Christ, Julius
Caesar, or Queen Victoria, or even a Ley den jar charged with
electricity.

If the actual self be thus subject to dissociation, aberration,
and complete loss of the sense of personal identity, can there
really be a persisting unity in human personality? I hold that
such cases do not invalidate our theory of personal identity. The
instances rather enforce, by extreme examples, the principle which
is substantiated by the normal history of selfhood, when consid-
ered in relation to its elemental instincts, and emotions. That
principle is as follows : the empirical self is a complex, imperfect,
and developing organization of experiences and purposes, which
depends upon and increases through the activity of the power
of rational synthesis by which the congenital and modifiable
psychical elements of life are fused into a more unified and en-
during system.

Personality is a dynamic and progressing unity, not a static
and ready-made unity. Personality is an achievement with many
grades and stages. The unity of the empirical self is won by
organizing the physicopsychical elements of individuality. The
pure or formal ego is the power of synthesis, through which this
organization is effected. To speak of alternating and successive
"personalities" is a misnomer, since, when these phenomena of dis-
eased individuality are present, the self is in very unstable equi-
librium, and a genuine personality, in the full sense of the term,
is not in evidence. Special subsystems or clusters of impulses
and feelings have the upper hand, and the self is in a state of
disintegration.

It may be maintained that, in such cases, the individual body
is associated, either contemporaneously or successively, with
several distinct "souls" ; and that, in the case of Miss Beauchamp,
for example, the struggle between B I, B II, B III, and B IV
was a contest for exclusive possession of this body by the several
souls. This theory is a modern restatement of the ancient doc-
tor the Bourne ease see William James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. i,
Chap. 10. For the Hanna case see Sidis and Goodhart, Multiple Personality.

350 MAN AND THE COSMOS

trine of demoniacal possession.2 Now, if this hypothesis afforded
the most probable explanation, one would expect the phenomenon
to be more frequent with human beings than as matter of fact it
is. The hypothesis does not fit well the facts of lapse of identity
or alteration of personality. For many of these cases, such as
that of Ansel Bourne, show a beclouded, but very evident con-
tinuity or sameness in the so-called successive selves. If the souls
are really separate and distinct individualities, it is difficult to
understand why that separateness and distinctness of individu-
ality which belongs to several souls should comport with the
identity or selfsameness of the inhabited body. The great mass
of the facts of psychophysiology point to the truth of the view
that the body is an important contributory factor in the psychical
life of the individual. Indeed, the terms "soul" and "personality"
are used in a very loose and vague sense when applied to path-
ological cases. Finally, the facts are susceptible of a differ-
ent interpretation; one more in harmony with the variegated and
complex character of our normal self-experience, particularly with
the part which is played in normal life by conflicting feelings
and impulses. These pathological cases of self-aberration are
instances in which the power of personal synthesis or organization
is relatively ineffectual against the disintegrative power of certain
partial systems or subsystems of feelings and impulsions, which
have gained an abnormal and overmastering intensity of expres-
sion at the expense of other factors in the life of the self.

In Dr. Prince's account of the Beauchamp case he tells about
his hunt for the real Beauchamp amidst the struggles of B I,
and B IV and the upsetting interventions of the mischief making
"Sally" (B II). He outlines the genesis of Sally, and shows how
she was finally "squeezed out." At first B I the "saint, the
dignified, patient, self-repressing emotional idealist," seemed to
be the normal self ; then, since B IV the "woman," with her vigo-
rous self-assertion, seemed the healthier type, he concluded that
she must be the normal self, and B I must be suppressed. Finally,
the "real" Miss Beauchamp was formed by the synthesis of B I
and B IV and the elimination of B II (Sally or the "Devil").

Now, in regard to this very interesting case, it seems to me
that Dr. Prince's own account bears out the view that the normal

'This is the view advanced by Dr. William McDougall in his work Body
and Mind.

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY 351

or "real" Miss Beauchamp had never existed at all before the
synthesis so skillfully and successfully facilitated by his treatment.
Miss Beauchamp had probably never achieved a relatively stable
and well-organized selfhood since adolescence. Her life had been
the theater of an alternating succession of conflicting impulsions.
The details of her early life are very incomplete but, as given by
Dr. Prince, they bear out this view. The "Dissociation of a Per-
sonality" is the story not of the restoration of an older and dis-
integrated personality, which was once a harmonious and effective
reality, but rather of the organization, one might almost say the
creation, of a personality. Miss B. had never been a well-integrated
personality. Her case was one of arrested development. Her
emotional-volitional condition was a commingling of childhood,
adolescence, and maturity. The Sally self was notably that of
a child.

This case is a striking illustration of the principle that an
actual personality is an organization of ideational, affectional,
anl volitional elements. Her alternating "selves" were composed
of various fragmentary subsystems of feelings and impulsions,
which had become so persistent and were so in conflict with one
another that they could not readily be made to form one harmo-
nious system or permanent self. In popular usage there may
be no great harm in calling each of these groups of impulsions
a self or personality; but in psychology and philosophy such a
usage is very misleading. A true self exists only when there is
a coherent and conscious unity and continuity in the individual's
life and a consequent coherence and continuity in his purposes
and deeds.

So-called alternating and conflicting selves are extreme in-
stances of features that are familiar enough in normal life. The
actual self is never an entirely fixed and unyielding system of
affections and conations. It is more or less fluid and plastic. It
shows a variety of aspects, according to the relations in which it
operates. No one type of attitude, no single line of action, feel-
ing or thought, can be said to express the fullness of a normal
selfhood. A man shows different aspects of his nature or person-
ality in the family, in business, in society, in church, and at
play. Very frequently we are surprised when we see the hard-
headed business man or the sober-minded scholar in his home or
on an outing. We constantly find it necessary to revise our esti-

352 MAN AND THE COSMOS

mates of individual characters. We are quite often surprised at
the suddenly manifested power in ourselves of emotions, interests,
and ideas, that we had supposed dead or vanished. There come
times in the life of every redblooded self, when, under the stress
of some powerful impulse or emotion, such as anger, fear, love,
or rivalry, he is not "himself" even as he had supposed himself
to be from long and intimate acquaintance. Gusts of passion or
long-forgotten cravings sweep over and sometimes submerge the
humdrum work-a-day self.

I have set down these familiar and obvious matters in order
to enforce the principle that the striking cases of disordered per-
sonality differ only in degree and persistence from the ordinary
experiences of the normal self. The empirical self is always a
more or less unified complex of psychical impulsions. The raw
materials of selfhood are specific impulses, desires, emotions, per-
cepts, and images. Those always tend to form some sort of sys-
tem, whether permanent or temporary. In the cases of diseased
personality the controlling principle of rational synthesis is not
effective against the abnormal strength of some subsystem of im-
pulses. That it is possible to integrate the various elements of
the biological individual into a coherent unity of purpose, feeling,
and action, is evidence of the activity of the principle of synthesis
by which the empirical personality is gradually being formed.
The most obvious and common feature of these cases of abnormal
selfhood is the break in the continuity of memory, which is, of
course, the basis of empirical or conscious self-identity. The
conditions would seem to indicate a high degree of nervous in-
stability or disintegration, symptomatic of nerve fatigue and auto-
intoxication. Explanations of such disintegration in terms of the
dissociation of neurone systems in the brain are the most plausible
physiological explanations.

The abnormalities of personal life do not disprove the func-
tional activity in the empirical self of that synthetic principle
which is the source of our feeling of personal identity and the
power which effects the progressive organization, into a rational
self, of the variety of feelings and impulses which constitute the
crude materials of the highest personality.

There are three distinguishable phases of selfhood: (1) The
empirical or actual self; this is the concrete and variable, and
only partially organized, complex of impulsions and emotions,

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY 353

purposes and ideas, which make up our everyday experienced and
observed selfhood. This is the self which others see, but from a
different angle than we see it from. This self may be further
analyzed into the social self, into various social selves in fact —
the business self, the bodily self, the religious self, and so forth.
Of course, these latter selves are but partial aspects of the total
empirical self. (2) The formal self or pure ego. This is the
active and enduring principle of synthesis which organizes the
empirical elements of selfhood into a unity and forms the prin-
ciple of continuity on which memory depends. It is consequently
the basis of the consciousness of personal identity. (3) The ideal
self. This is the self as developing personality; the as yet but
imperfectly realized integration of the self's deepest potencies and
interests. It is the spring of new cognitive, moral, aesthetic and
religious valuations. This is the purposive and dynamic self,
the servant and creator of new values. It is the "ideal self" which
plays such a major role in idealistic metaphysics — in Kant,
Fichte, Hegel, T. H. Green, Bosanquet, Bradley and Royce. In-
asmuch as the pure ego is a mere formal abstraction, and the
empirical ego is a true personality only in the degree in which
ideals are operative in it, the ideal self is a dynamic entity, a
field of real possibilities.

This notion that the ideal self, the possible self, is more
significantly real than the already attained empirical ego is a
favorite idea with the great poets, as well as with the other great
spiritual teachers — with none more so than with Robert Brown-
ing. I have space for but one citation :

Not on the vulgar mass

Called "work," must sentence pass,

Things done, that took the eye and had the price;

O'er which, from level stand,

The low world laid its hand,

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice;

But all, the world's coarse thumb

And finger failed to plumb,

So passed in making up the main account;

All instincts immature,

All purposes unsure,

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount;

354 MAN AND THE COSMOS

Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped;

All I could never be,

All, men ignored in me,

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

— Rabbi Ben Ezra, 23-25.

CHAPTER XXVII

MIND AND BODY

One of the fundamental problems in the metaphysics of per-
sonality is the relation of the individual mind to the body which
it inhabits. Is the body simply an external tool of the real self,
a useful but not indispensable adjunct and instrument of the
true personality ? Or, second, is the body the true reality of which
the mind is a by-product ? Or, third, is the body simply the phe-
nomenal expression of the mind, which alone is truly existent ?
Or, fourth, does the body participate in and contribute to the
essential nature of the self ? These are the four chief alternatives,
represented respectively by dualism, materialism, spiritualism or
mentalism, and psychophysical individualism.

The common-sense theory of the relation of mind and body
is qualitatively dualistic and interactionistic. Mind and body
are thought of as two realities differing in kind, but interacting.
The mind is the "inside self" which feels, thinks, and strives;
the body is the "outside self" through which the inner self com-
municates with the world at large. Common-sense thinking does
not offer any theory as to how these two diverse realities interact.
It represents the Cartesian and Lockian dualism become a tradi-
tion. "Common-sense" always embodies ancient philosophies.
The common-sense view latently contains both dualistic and
monistic elements. Animism or hylozoism survives in modern
popular thinking on this subject.

I. Dualism

Dualism holds that mind and body are two disparate and
separable entities. Each may exist independently of the other.
There are mindless bodies and bodiless minds. Dualism is based,
in the first instance, on the patent contrasts between mind and
body: mind is not extended, cannot be divided, weighed or meas-

355

356 MAN AND THE COSMOS

ured by physical means, knows itself ; that is, it is a self -related,
self-conscious, immaterial unity; body is extended in space, can
be weighed, measured, and divided; is not a unity for itself but
only for another, that is, for a mind. Descartes neatly summed
up the contrast when he said, "the essence of mind is thought,
the essence of body is extension." It is noteworthy that Spinoza
based his doctrine of parallelism on the dualistic theory of Des-
cartes, conceived as rendering unintelligible and impossible the
interaction of mind and body. The parallelistic theory has been
strengthened by the modern doctrine of the absolutely closed and
self-sufficient character of the physical series of causes and effects
considered as energy-content. Every occurrence in nature is to
be explained in terms of the mechanical equivalence of causes and
effects. Nothing but precisely calculable factors can be admitted
into the sequences of physical events. The physiological activi-
ties of the human organism are to be explained in the same way
as other physical processes. When I move my arm to write this
sentence the entire movement and its resultants are just parts of
a mechanical series of transformations of physical energy. My
body is a peculiarly complicated piece of physical mechanism. In
it outgo and intake of energy must be exactly equivalent, and
when outgo begins to increase cumulatively over intake the pro-
cess of decay and death is already setting in. There is thus no
place in the sequence of transformations of physical energies for
the influence of mind.

The absolutely closed and self-complete character of the me-
chanical sequence of causes and effects in the human organism
is held to be a corollary of the principle of the conservation
of energy. Now, as a working method in physical science,
this principle means only that, within the limits of any finite
closed material system, the energy content or sum total of
energy remains constant through all the qualitative transforma-
tions of energy that may take place within the closed system.
The mechanistic conception of the organism, while undoubtedly
a most valuable methodological standpoint in the investigation of
vital processes, has not been fully established as the whole story
about life. But even though it were established, it would not
follow that the physical systems which constitute human bodies
are absolutely closed mechanical systems, or that they have no
other meaning than that which belongs to parts of a world mechan-

MIND AND BODY 357

ism. If the body is a machine, it does not follow that the mind
may not direct the machine. The validity of the principle of the
conservation of energy within the limits of conventionally closed
physical systems of energy, that is, of such systems considered in
abstraction from minds, is not a sufficient warrant for extending
the application of this principle to the concrete totality of the
real universe, which includes minds and their operations. The
physicist abstracts from the concrete world the activities of minds,
and makes the remainder the sole object of his investigations.

The same amount of energy, measured in terms of physical
units, may have very different psychical values. The same
amount of energy, for example, that goes into the writing of this
chapter would, if expended in the fall of a brick on my head,
have, I fondly believe, a very diminished result in terms of human
value. The characteristic culture-feature of applied science, in-
dustry, and the fine arts, is that in these activities the human
mind does direct the course of physical energy to realize enhanced
psychical values, hedonic, ethical, aesthetic, etc. This power of
guidance is the source of the technical progress that makes civi-
lization possible. It is in its power to direct physical energies
into channels that sustain the fruition of human values, that the
mind's creative capacity is seen. This constitutes mind's unique-
ness in the order of nature. The conservation of physical energy
may be the fundamental condition of its direction and application
by mind.

It may be objected that this directivity, by which psychical
values are created and conserved, means the application of energy ;
that this energy of direction must either be drawn from the
constant sum of physical energy in the natural order, or be an
injection ab extra of energy by the mind into the physical system;
and that the latter hypothesis is both inconceivable and contra-
dictory to the principle of the conservation of energy, while the
former hypothesis simply makes the mind an incalculable con-
centration of physical energy. If mind be not a form of physical
energy then it cannot influence the course of physical energy. It
takes energy to alter the direction of energy. The question of
the conceivability or imaginability of the influence of mind on
body I shall discuss later. As to the question of fact, I hold that
there is no fact which has better empirical attestation than the
reciprocal influence of mind and body. In health and disease, in

358 MAN AND THE COSMOS

action and repose, the fact is abundantly and continuously ex-
perienced. The scientist or philosopher who denies the fact, in
the interest of a theory, is so wedded to his own prejudices dressed
up as a priori conceptions that he is blind to the plain facts of
human experience. To say that mental guidance of bodily en-
ergies contradicts the law of the conservation of energy is to beg
the whole question ; it is to assume offhand that the ultimate
system of things in its totality is a closed mechanical system. It
is to assume that the physical universe is a self-existent whole,
and that every so-called psychophysical organism is nothing but
a finite physical machine within the absolute or world machine.

It is in accordance with the apparent facts to say that the
mind is not a form of physical energy; but that it is a unique
kind of activity, which can direct physical energies without add-
ing to or subtracting from the quantities of these. The human
values of the natural process which are extracted, or created, if
you like the term better, by mind are not measurable by physical
standards. Therefore, their appearance, maintenance and aug-
mentation need make no difference at all in the calculable rela-
tions of physical processes. But the appearance, maintenance,
and augmentation of these psychical values makes all the differ-
ence in the world in the humanistic meanings of the sum of
things. The real world is one in which the laws of behavior of
physical things are, in part, at least, subservient to the realization
of psychical values. Any world concept short of this is incom-
plete and inadequate.

But is it not inconceivable that an unextended, imponderable,
immeasurable entity should be able to influence a system of ex-
tended, ponderable, and measurable particles, and vice versa?
If by "inconceivability" be meant that we cannot form a satis-
factory picture or image of the process in question that is true
but inconclusive. One cannot form an adequate picture of how
a living embryo carries in itself the predetermination of the
structures and functions of a developed organism! One cannot
form an adequate picture of how gravitational attraction acts, or
of how radioactive matter goes through all its transformations, or
even of how one atom or electron acts on another ! Our scientific
theories and explanations consist, to a very large extent, in the
interpolation of crude and inadequate pictures or images, to ac-
count for the intermediate or imperceptible steps in processes

MIND AND BODY 359

which, taken in the rough or as wholes, are unquestionable and
familiar. Our scientific, no less than our popular, thinking is
dominated by spatial metaphors.

II. Psychophysical Parallelism

The difficulty of imagining in detail how mind and body can
interact, together with the assumption of the closed and self-
sufficient character of the physical series or sequences of causes
and effects, have led to the revival and extension of the theory of
psychophysical parallelism, which was first enunciated by Spinoza.
This theory is based on an extreme ontological dualism or quali-
tative opposition of mind and body. It seemed a simple and
consistent way out of the difficulties of Cartesian dualism. And,
in its revised and extended forms to-day, it seems to square with
the doctrine of the conservation of energy; and to fit in, as no
other theory does, with the facts and theories of neural physiology
and psychophysics.

As it has been formulated in recent times the theory of psycho-
physical parallelism has confused two, and sometimes three, very
different conceptions. It may be taken in the restricted sense
of psychoneural parallelism, the wider sense of psychophysiolog-
ical parallelism, or in the widest sense of complete psychophysical
parallelism. When the psychologist says that to every mental
^process there corresponds a nerve process ("no psychosis without
neurosis"), he is employing the conception of psychoneural paral-
lelism. It is perhaps true that no mental processes do take place
without corresponding nerve processes of some sort. The evidence
for this assumption is very strong, certainly strong enough to
make it a good working hypothesis in psychology. But a general
correspondence of conscious processes with certain complex neural
processes does not necessarily exclude interdependence. And
there is no conclusive evidence that a mental process corresponds
to every nerve process. Indeed, very little is known about the
character of the elementary nerve processes. If recognitive mem-
ory and the selective utilization of previous experiences to effect
novel combinations are signs of the presence of mind, then there
are many indications that a great part of neural activity is un-
accompanied by conscious mental processes. In man, and still
more in animals, a large part of the physiological activities are

360 MAN AND THE COSMOS

carried on without any accompanying consciousness. Elaborate
activities of metabolism, circulation, growth and decay take place
without any awareness thereof.

The mind seems to function in dependence on the central
nervous system. In the ascending scale of complexity of animal
organization, there is a correspondence between the degree of
organization of the nervous system and its mass relatively to the
mass of the entire organism, and the degree of mental activity.
The more complex and highly integrated the central nervous sys-
tem the richer and more unified and continuous the activity of
consciousness. The facts of comparative physiology and compar-
ative psychology point to a specific integration of the nervous
system as the condition for the functioning of mind in its per-
ceptual and volitional relations to the physical world. The evi-
dence is thus very strong for a limited psychoneural correspond-
ence. But this correspondence cannot be carried out in minute
detail. It is not a perfect parallelism. It is at present supposed
that the neurone is the unit of nervous structure and activity, but
this theory may be supplanted at any moment by another. There
seems to be an integration of elemental nerve processes in the cen-
tral nervous system. But, as a matter of fact, current theories
as to the elementary neural activities and their modes of integra-
tion are based on a supposed analogy between them and the
processes of consciousness. Inasmuch as more is known in regard
to the character of conscious processes than of cortical processes,
there is no warrant for making speculative analogies the basis
for a theory of psychoneural parallelism which is not in accord
with the empirical nature of consciousness itself. The fact that
j nerve activity must reach a specific degree of complication and
i integration before such a conscious process as perception ensues
' is a strong argument against a complete psychoneural paral-
j lelism.1

Mental elements, such as sensations, feeling-impulses, per-
cepts, and memory images, do not really exist apart from the in-
tegrated mind or empirical unity of consciousness, which we
analyze into these artefacts. And there appears to be nothing
in the shape of an elementary nerve process that can be regarded

1 The facts in this connection are formulated in the psychophysical law or
Weber- Wechner law of the relation of stimulus to sensation. See Titchener,
Experimental Psychology, Vol. II, Introduction, etc.

MIND AND BODY 361

as strictly parallel to the activity of attentive self-consciousness.
Precisely the most significant feature of mental series is its re-
flective or double character. We have not only mental series but
awareness thereof as a series, not only consciousness but self-
consciousness. Let us assume, for the purposes of illustration,
that, by the use of a hyper-microscope and a series of mirrors,2
a man might perceive his own brain states and imagine him per-
ceiving the brain state parallel to his perception of his own brain
state. Then parallelism lands one in the absurdity of an infinite
series in which perception forever chases in vain its partner brain
state. My awareness of the perception of my own brain state,
as parallel to the state of consciousness which perceives it, would
involve, in the instant of the perception of the parallel brain state,
another brain state parallel to the perception of the parallelism
between my previous brain state and the brain state itself. Hence,
if parallelism were literally true there could be no such thing under
any conditions as a perception of parallelism, and self-conscious-
ness and continuous memory would be inconceivable.

There is a general correspondence between the integration of
the central nervous system and the unity of the mind. "The inte-
grating power of the nervous system has in fact in the higher ani-
mals, more than in the lower, constructed from a mere collection of
organs and segments, a functional unity, an individual of more
perfected solidarity." 3 This functional unity corresponds with
the psychic unity. From the biological standpoint, the cerebrum
may be regarded as the ganglion of the distance-receptors, and
consciousness as an adjunct to the centers which exercise control
over reflexes. Consciousness is a center of indetermination which
intervenes in reflex activities to enable the organism to adjust
itself to the environment, by reactions involving factors of greatly
increased range in space and time. In the technical language of
the physiologist, consciousness controls the coordination of "dis-
tance receptors" and "consummatory reactions." The cerebrum
is the immediate instrument of this control and hence the imme-
diate basis of consciousness. But this control function of con-
sciousness makes it a difficult and artificial theory, even from a

2 This illustration was suggested to me by a similar one employed from a

different standpoint by Professor C. A. Strong in Why the Mind Has a Body.

*C. S. Sherrington, The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, p. 353.

362 MAN AND THE COSMOS

purely biological standpoint, to regard the processes of mind as
inert concomitants of cerebral functions, as a series of episodical
and mysterious illuminations which, accompanying cerebral activi-
ties, yet neither affect these in any way nor are affected by them.
From the standpoint of a strict psychoneural parallelism mind
or consciousness is both otiose and inexplicable.

Psychophysiological parallelism would mean that to every sort
of physiological functioning there is a corresponding mental
process. The arguments which tell against a literal and detailed
psychoneural parallelism tell with even greater force against this
form. If mental functioning be conditioned by a central nervous
system it follows that there can be no mind where there is not even
a rudimentary nervous system. Of course it is possible that proto-
zoans and even plants have minds. They do not seem to show
clear signs of true memory or of conscious adaptation. They may
possess evanescent sentience like the body monads of Leibniz.
Possibly intelligence or mind is coextensive with life. Possibly
the vital principle is identical with the psychical principle; I do
not see how one can come to a definite conclusion on this point.
The mind may be the more clearly conscious and highly organized
form of the rudimentary intelligence which is the organizing
principle of life ; or it may be a qualitatively different entity. I
incline to the latter view.

The third form of parallelism, psychophysical parallelism, in
the strict sense, is hylopsychism or panpsychism — all matter is
"besouled." It would require the assumption of atoms of mind-
stuff, corresponding with the ultimate units of matter or energy.
It, and indeed all forms of strict parallelism, imply that the more
complex and higher forms of mind are made by the aggregation
or compounding of discrete mental particles; and the principles
of aggregation, in the last analysis, are conceived on the analogy
of the arrangement of mass particles in spatial configurations.
But the unity of a mind and its continuity are of a different order
from any series of merely physical configurations. A mind is not
a mosaic of atoms of mind-stuff. Indeed parallelism is only a trans-
itional hypothesis. When thought out it lands in either — (a.)
materialism or epiphenomenalism ; or (&) Berkeleyan idealism,
spiritualism or mentalism (the doctrine that only minds are real) ;
or (c) agnostic monism, the doctrine of the unknown third;
namely, that the physical and mental in series are diverse mani-

MIND AND BODY 363

festations of one unknown reality, which is neither the sum of
mind and body nor identical with the character of either when
taken by itself.

(a) Materialism regards mind as a product of physiological
activities — an epiphenomenon or reflection thrown up by certain
highly complicated forms of physicochemical process. Material-
ism does not square with the plain facts of experience, and it con-
flicts with fundamental principles of the theory of knowledge.
As we have before argued, it is just as onesided an error to affirm
the independent existence of a physical world out of all relation
to experience and experiencers, but which causes these to exist, as
it is to affirm the existence of minds out of all relation to a physical
world. We can know nothing of the existence or nature of a world
supposed to be out of all relation to percipients. The real objects
of our physical experience consist of the socially accessible or
public realm of perceptions, actual and possible. The real physical
world is not the system of scientific symbols devised by the scien-
tific imagination to facilitate more exact description and calcula-
tion of certain highly general aspects of the perceived physical
order. The primary reality of the world is not to be found in
atoms, electrons, and ether, but in the system of actual and possible
public experience. In this system there are two constant factors
— neither of which is reducible to the other — the percipients for
whose perceiving and relating activities the world exists as a public
realm, and the perceived and understood qualities of this world.
The real world is a system of experiences in relation, which in-
volves and includes experiencers. The world- whole is an organized
totality of objects of awTareness and centers of awareness.

Let it be admitted, as a plausible hypothesis, that the invari-
able condition of conscious functioning is a specific complex of
physicochemical activities. Let it be further admitted that spe-
cific variations in the processes of consciousness may be invariably
conditioned by specific chemical differences. Let it be admitted
that, if our knowledge were only complete enough, the physical
differences between Shakespeare and the grave-digger in Hamlet
would be found to be strictly correlated with the mental differ-
ences. It does not follow that physicochemical forces are the sole
and ultimate reality, and that they suffice to explain mind. To
assert such a consequence would be to ignore the psychical and
spiritual values which, as data of immediate experience, are asso-

364 MAN AND THE COSMOS

ciated with these specific physical differences. The physico-
chemical conditions of conscious and rational activity are unique
conditions, just because of this association. The logic of the
argument, which would ignore the psychical values associated with
certain specific physical activities, is just as bad logic as that which
would deny that psychical processes are conditioned by certain
physical processes. The former are conditioned by the latter, but
there is no good evidence that they are caused by these alone. The
adequate view is one that takes experience in its organic, or rather
superorganic, totality. The key to the interpretation of experience
as a whole lies just in the definite actualities of intelligent appre-
hension and control of physical energies for the production and
maintenance of human values ; this key is found and used in the
harvest of beauty, order, social progress and individual self-fulfill-
ment through science, morals, art and personal relations which
human cultural activity yields. The intellectual, moral and
aesthetic values, distilled from nature by mind, are indubitable
facts of experience. A world which can and does yield these values
is much more than a merely material system. The so-called
opposition between facts and values is really a conflict between
special spheres of values; for example, between the values of a
mechanico-causal explanation and those of a humanistic interpre-
tation of nature. But these conflicts are internal to the whole
realm of factual-worthful experience. All fact has value of some
sort, and all values must belong to the total world of fact.

Selves are implicated in the physical order. Eut just as truly
is the physical order implicated in the lives of selves. It would
not be misleading to say that selves are the offspring of the physical
order, provided this statement be supplemented by the converse
one that the whole meaning of the physical order and of knowledge
thereof includes, as its most significant feature, the formation and
fruition of psychical individuality. The increasing adequacy of
our knowledge of nature is the increasing insight into the rich and
vast individuality of a universe which at its upper level is a
systematic and living whole of finite and progressing individuals.
Man, as intelligent, self-directing individuality, is truly the micro-
cosm. An individual is a maximum unity of diverse and comple-
mentary qualities or powers. The world is a psychophysical
organization ; and the destiny of man, as a psychophysical indi-
vidual, is by knowledge and action consciously to unite himself

MIND AND BODY 365

with the world, and in so doing, at once to reflect the cosmos in his
own being and to expand and harmonize that being. Selves are
centers in which the meaning of the whole process of nature
becomes consciously concentrated. The total process of nature
thus wins a multitudinous awareness and enhancement. Its sig-
nificance is revealed and enriched by its multiplication in new
individuated centers of value. The world of selves is a world of
psychophysical individualities, in which one can read the prevail-
ing tendency and meaning of nature.

(6) A second way of escape from dualistic parallelism is
offered by that form of spiritualism or idealism so persuasively
expounded by Berkeley. I prefer to call this doctrine "mental-
ism" or "idealism," since it assumes that only mental processes
are real. I shall not enter here into an extended critique of men-
talism. In Book I, I have already discussed some of its weaknesses.
The following is a summary of objections to it: (1) If all bodies
are only the effects of the direct action of the Divine Spirit on
finite spirits, on what grounds can one account for the peculiar
warmth and intimacy of the feel of his own body in contrast with
all other bodies? (2) What is the relation between my spirit or
yours and the Divine Spirit ? Are we but thoughts in the Divine
Mind? (3) "Whence arises the contrast between my mind and
my body and between my mind and all other bodies, if all bodies
are but impressions made on my mind by the Divine Mind ? (4)
If bodies have no sort of independent existence why should it be
necessary for me to infer your mental existence and behavior from
a group of sense qualities impressed on my mind by God, but
which, nevertheless, are in many cases very equivocal in the clews
that they give me to your mental attitudes? (5) What is the
relation between your body as it exists for you and as it exists for
me ? It cannot be the same body, since for you it is the sensory
complex caused in your mind by God and for me the quite dif-
ferent sensory complex caused by God in my mind ? In brief,
Berkeleyan idealism raises more difficulties than it solves.

(c) The third ontological hypothesis, agnostic monism, which
asserts that mind and body are the double aspects under which the
unknown substance of things is manifested, fails to explain in any
fashion the concrete relations of mind and body. To say that mind
and body are parallel manifestations of an unknown third some-
thing is to take refuge in a mystery and an abstraction. It is

.366 MAN AND THE COSMOS

simply to re-assert that mind and body are parallel and that the
parallelism is the expression of something — we know not what.

III. Psychophysical Individualism:

The element of truth which is expressed badly in the "double
aspect" or "unknown third" doctrine of mind and body is the
correlativity or functional interdependence of mind and body. A
mind is a different and higher kind of unity than a body, never-
theless there is a functional interdependence between them. What-
ever physiological complex be the indispensable basis of mental
functioning, in our empirical order, whether it be a neurone sys-
tem or, in the case of more rudimentary minds, a simpler system,
the mind and its bodily basis, although distinct, are inseparable.
There are no empirical grounds, barring for the present the con-
sideration of spiritistic phenomena, which give us the least inkling
as to how a mind may function apart from a body. On the other
hand a physiological system which is functionally coordinated
with a mind is ipso facto different in character and results from
one which is not thus coordinated. Whatsoever physiological
system may be immediately organic to a mental self is qualified
by that organicity. Therefore, it is quite as incorrect to say that
the sole causes of mental activity are to be found in the chemical
processes of the body, as it is to say that the mind can function
without a body at all. The actual self is a psychophysical indi-
vidual, in which mental action is conditioned by, and conditions,
bodily action. Some bodily processes seem to give rise solely to
other bodily processes ; but some bodily processes plus mental
processes give rise to other mental processes plus further bodily
processes. An organism and a mind, which is functionally co-
ordinate with it, together constitute a specific or unique kind of
machine which I call a psychophysical individual. The interaction
of mind and body cannot be of the simple type of mechanico-causal
interaction. There are no measurable constants or units of mental
energy; there are no mechanical equivalents for thoughts, pur-
poses, and ideals. Hence, the interaction of mind and body must
be that of reciprocating factors in a single system — an individu-
ality. We have seen that in organisms the sum total of their vital
processes seem to be the expression of what I have called the
principle of organic individuation, the vital principle. Whether

MIND AND BODY 367

the latter principle is to be identified with the individuality of
mind I do not know. Certainly the most concrete, rich and unified
type of individuality, of which we have experience, is the human
individual which is psychophysical. In fact, all our concepts of
individuality, and their application to lower, and conceivably to
higher, individuals than man, are based on either observed or
imagined analogies between the objects to which these concepts are
applied and human individuality. The reflective analysis and the
synthetic extension of self-intuition by the human individual is the
basis of all our applications of the concept of the individual,
whether it be to electrons, atoms, molecules, organisms or to super-
men, angels and God.

The individuation of the bodily organism is the basis for the
progressive realization of the mind's identity-in-difference or indi-
vidual unity. Whether or not there be organisms devoid of senti-
ent souls, the unity of the organism represents, in its successive
ascents towards more complex individuality, the instrumentality
by which the mind finds itself in commerce with the world in its
work of self-organization. Teleological interdependence does not
simply supervene upon mechanism. The latter is everywhere
present and subordinate to the realization of psychical values.
This is what I mean by teleology — that, as a matter of fact and
principle, reality is a living system in which values are constantly
being produced and conserved. In the functional unity of mind
and body we find an empirical example of individual teleological
system.

The real personality is not identical with the body, nor even
with the central nervous system. But the personality is dependent,
for the sensory materials of its inner life, and for its modes of
interaction with the external or physical order, upon the function-
ing of the nervous system. Probably the nervous system and the
whole body are but highly complicated physicochemical systems
for the transformation of the more general forms of physical
energy into physiological energy.

The mind is not a physical substance, but it is conditioned in
its operations by its association with a physical complex. Mind
is not extended in space in the mathematical sense, but it is local-
ized in and holds transactions with the world through a spatial
complex. The deepest source of the difficulty in accepting psycho-
physical interaction lies, as has been effectively shown by Bergson

368 MAN AND THE COSMOS

in his brilliant work Matiere et Memoire, in the artificial and
overdrawn contrast between body as extended in space and mind
as unextended, which found its first clear statement in the
Cartesian philosophy, but which has its roots deep in man's
practical need of isolating and analyzing matter in order to act
upon it. But actual bodies are not purely homogeneous spatial
magnitudes. They are heterogeneous or qualitatively diverse
dynamic complexes. They have finite extensity and finite divisi-
bility. They are specific individuals or clusters of energy-centers.
Pure homogeneous geometrical extension is an intellectual abstrac-
tion from the concrete space world. Actual bodies are concrete
extensities. They are localized dynamic systems of action and
reaction in the total system of forces which constitutes the physical
world.

Physics is gradually establishing, on surer foundations, the
view that mass and spatial magnitude are phenomena of centers of
activity. Physical reality is a vast system of motions going on at
an indefinite variety of rates, and these motions are the expres-
sions of the dynamic interrelations of centers of activity. Whether
or not all energy, mass and inertia can be stated in terms of elec-
tron charges, certainly the triumph of the atomic theory of
electricity has brought increasing evidence for the dynamic theory
of matter. Inertia or impenetrability is the most fundamental
property of matter. The inertia of an electrically charged cor-
I puscle appears to be due to its motion in an electromagnetic field,
and this suggests strongly the theory that the whole of the inertia
or mass of bodies may be due to electricity. "We regard the atom
as built up of units of negative electricity and an equal number
of units of positive electricity." "Mass changes with electric
charge, for example, when a single particle moves in a magnetic
field the mass in the region round about changes. Tubes of force
carry ether and ether has mass. The electric particle, when it
moves, carries along with it its lines of force which grip the ether
and carry some of it along. When an electric particle is moved
the mass of ether has to be moved and the apparent mass of the
particle is increased. The mass of the electrical particle is
resident in every part of space reached by its lines of force. The
electrical body may be said to extend to an infinite distance."
"Wherever there is potential energy there is mass." "We have
confined our attention in this article to the view that the constitu-

MIND AND BODY 369

tion of matter is electrical; we have done so because this view is
more closely in touch with experiment than any other yet ad-
vanced. The units of which matter is built up have been isolated
and detected in the laboratory, and we may hope to discover more
and more of their properties." 4 The electric theory of matter
postulates two factors to explain matter in the ordinary sense.
These are discrete units, the electrons ; and a continuous medium,
the all-pervading ether, an immensely tenuous, but strong and
elastic fluid, capable of sustaining great variations of tension or
stress and strain. From this standpoint the basis of difference
in our sensuous matter are variations in the tension of the ether ;
in other words, variations of stress and strain, and, consequently,
of motions in the ether.5 Lodge surmises that the electron may be
a tension in the ether. I have cited this theory, both because it is
the most plausible theory of matter at the present time, and be-
cause it illustrates two points fundamental to a philosophy of
nature: (1) that any theory of the physical world, to be satis-
factory, must include both discreteness and continuity. Atoms
and electrons must have a medium ; whether this medium be called
ether of space, or space itself, it must be something continuous.
The interaction of things across nothing is unintelligible. If
matter have a granular structure, then there must be a continuous
medium in which these granules interact. There must be lines
and fields of force that irradiate in all directions from them.
(2) The electrical theory of matter, reducing, as it does, the
phenomena of mass or inertia and weight to stresses and strains or
motions and tensions in a universal medium, furnishes a powerful
support, from the field of physical research, for the view that the
physical world as empirical reality is the manifestation of a system
of centers of activity.

In the present connection I desire to emphasize the following
points: (1) Body is to be conceived in terms of activity. It is
a complex of dynamic centers. (2) Actual bodies have concrete
extensities. Extensity in this sense is the expression of tension or
physical activity. Homogeneous and infinitely divisible space is

4 Sir J. J. Thompson, article "Matter," Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed.,
Volume xvii. See also F. Soddy, Matter and Energy; J. J. Thomson, Elec-
tricity and Matter ; and E. Kutherford, Radio-active Transformations.

5 Sir Oliver Lodge, The Ether of Space, especially Chap. 8, ' ' Ether and
Matter."

370 MAN AND THE COSMOS

a conceptual or ideal construction relative to the purposes of
geometry and mechanics. Actual physical space is the order of
inter-relations of simultaneously existing, heterogeneous, centers
of activity. (3) Hence bodies are not infinitely divisible. They
must consist of ultimate centers of activity. (4) All bodies are
elements in the total continuum of physical reality, which is a vast
system of tensions and motions. Motion is detention, that is,
release of a tension. Concrete or real space means the coexistence
and interrelation of centers of activity or dynamic and mobile
elements.

If it is misleading to define body in terms of inert and homo-
geneous space, it is equally misleading to say that mind is unex-
tended. Mind is not static extension, but neither is body. And
mental processes are not nonspatial but trans-spatial. It is time j
that philosophy emancipated itself from the naive distinction be-
tween matter and spirit in terms of the contrast between the
; extended and the unextended. This is a heritage from Greek and
mediaeval thought that we can well dispense with. Visual and
tactual percepts obviously have extensity. Auditory, olfactory,
and other forms of sensation, likewise have extensity or bigness.
C* Moreover it seems to me that affections and emotions likewise have
\ location and extensity. Some are pervasive and spread all over
.0^ the body. Others are narrowly localized, sharp, penetrating, and
L'^so forth. Is the mind, then, which is the center of reference for all
these forms of awareness, nonspatial ? Clearly, I think, the mind
is in the body. It is the conscious unifier and center of tension
of bodily experience. Just what part of the body it commonly
inhabits I am not sure. It seems to be able to expand and pervade
large parts of the whole, and to gather and condense itself into
narrower compass. With the ideal or higher forms of thought-
activity and sentiment we seem to be in the presence of purely
unextended processes. A concept, a judgment concerning abstruse
matters such as the present problem, or a clearly formulated pur-
pose, is a maximum concentration and unification of mental
activity. But even such activities as these are associated with a
concretely extended body which is in relation to other extensive
realities. A purpose or a plan of action are obviously concerned
with the relations of the individual organism to contemporaneously
existing elements of spatial reality. Such thought activities con-
dense the past with reference to the future, but this condensation

MIND AND BODY 371

implies coexistence and interrelation or extensity. Even such
"spiritual" processes as an aesthetic emotion, a moral ideal, a
religious aspiration, or a metaphysical speculation, involve the
relation of the mind to coexisting realities which have relative
mutual independence. Mind, as a center of concentration and
awareness of relationships, has a power of controlling and pene-
trating, of condensing and redirecting, the extensity-f actors or j
spatial tensions of its physical environment to such a degree that 1
we may rightly say that mind is a trans-spatial center of action./
Functioning in space it can become, in increasing measure, thej
master of space.

There is then, an immaterial, dynamic principle in the human
self. Consciousness is not a form of physical energy ; but it is at
once the immediate revelation of a unique kind of energy, the!
energy of thought ; and the intermediate revelation of other forms)
of energy by virtue of being a focal center of awareness, selection,
rearrangement, and chosen reaction. The energy of mind is ex-
pressed in intellection and volition. These cannot really be sep-
arated, since volition involves intellection and intellection is the
activity of the mind in selecting, combining and valuing the
materials of experience. Thus the specific character of the energy
of the mind is most adequately revealed in the rational activity
of synthesis and analysis and in the forms of reflective valuation
which determine choice. Mind -energy, or spiritual activity, is ///j
associated with a physical machine, the body, through which it// p f
receives influences from, and reacts upon, its environment. Thus/ '«■ ^
the mind, although it does not seem to occupy a definite area in
space, is definitely associated with the spatial order in which it
carries on transactions. The mind is the soul of a dynamic con- ^it-
figuration in space. It is trans-spatial, not nonspatial. Similarly
the mind, as we shall see more fully later on, is not nontemporal,
but transtemporal. It endures through time.

Where there is no recognitive memory and selective choice, the
successive phases of physical motion are mere links in an endless
chain. One configuration dies away blindly into its successor. It
is through selective memory that the past lives in the present, not
as fatally determining it, but as reconstructed and employed by
the active mind to illumine the present, and thus to aid in the
conscious direction of activity to fashion the future. Just as there
is no sharp break between past and present, so there is no sharp

372 MAN AND THE COSMOS

break between present and future. The present is the future in
the making. Memory is the unifying function which enables the
individual in the present to control the future by the utilization
of the past in the present. A being devoid of memory can have
the continuity only of a succession of stages, in which the earlier
always completely determine the later. Its moving spring is a
vis a tergo, that is, a physical force. A being with memory,
selectivity and reflection, by transcending its immediate present,
or rather by expanding and transfusing that present from the past,
is able to emancipate itself from the vis a tergo. Its present grows
in content and meaning, and thus its future, as this becomes
present, ceases to be the mere consequence of its past. A being
without memory lives only in space although it exists in time.6
Temporal relations are for it nonexistent. It cannot transcend the
immediate now, and hence, for it there is no now, since a now
has meaning only by contrast with a then and a shall-be. A being
with memory transcends mere spatial relationships. It becomes
a temporal-historical self-determining being. Memory-conscious-
ness is the fundamental condition of selfhood and self-determina-
tion. Space is a function of immediate interaction between indi-
vidua or monads, but time is a function of memory; time-con-
sciousness is the condition of the suspension of the blind and in-
evitable march of temporal predetermination. In this sense to
know time and change, through memory and reflection, is to
transcend mere time and change in transcending mere spatial
coexistence and determination.

In memory we find, then, as Bergson rightly says, a unique
function of spirit.7 It is by virtue of the synthetic or synoptic and

6 Cf. Leibniz ' body-monads, with appetition but without memory.

' My conception of memory is not the same as Bergson 's, however. Mem-
ory in its highest form I conceive to be the result of the synthetic functioning
of the self which gives identity and continuity of meaning to sense images. I
should place much greater stress than he seems to on the function of logical or
synthetic meaning as the distinctive work of memory, in contrast with mere
recollection or routine associative recall.

Significant memory works by the discovery of, and selective emphasis on,
likenesses and unlikenesses, identities and diversities, whole-part relations,
causal relations, teleological relations, etc.; in short by the use of logical cate-
gories. Even in fortuitous chains of association and recall, these logical prin-
ciples operate. The great differences between random and irrelevant memories,
on the one hand, and significance or relevant memories, on the other hand, is
that the latter operate through significant and useful resemblances and dif-
ferences, whereas the former operate through superficial resemblances and
differences and thus carry a burden of useless and smothering detail. A good

MIND AND BODY 373

selective power manifested in memory that the individual ceases
to be a mere blind link in an endless chain of becoming; that he is
able to suspend the fatal operation of that vis a tergo by which
nonmental elements of reality are pushed along, combined and
broken up, made and unmade.

The mind is that sort of unique and active center or focus of
relationships which is able to concentrate and illuminate, with
memory and awareness, the dynamical relations of elements in the
system of physical nature to its own immediate organ — the body;
and, through this relation to its own organism, to interpret extra-
bodily relations of physical and other psychophysical centers to
one another. The mind is also able to be aware of its own aware-
nesses, that is, to be self-conscious. It has temporal continuity
and is aware of this continuity. It is a unity and a unifier which
knows itself as such. Every active center in nature must be in
some degree a unity and a unifier. Mind is peculiarly so, since, by
reason of its bodily organ, it becomes the center of a variety and
range of physical relationships to a degree such as no other thing
in nature is, and since, by reason of memory and reflection, it
becomes a reorganizer or redirector of the sequence of physical 'lu£/
events. The mind is the organism's consciousness of its actual and I /
possible relationships in the dynamic system of reality. Through
consciousness, the organism becomes in part a controlling and an
originating center of relationships. Because it can remember and /

bring to bear on the present situation its past recognition of rela-
tionships within the system of experience, the mind is not tied
down to the treadmill of a mechanical succession. Through it the
organism is freed from the bondage of mere reflex and automatic
activity.

Placed temporally between the incoming stimuli which signify
the action of other elements of reality on the organism, and the
outgoing effectors or motor impulses which signify the reactions

and useful memory has, as its prime condition, a high power of analytic-
synthetic thinking ; it selects and emphasizes relations which become instruments
for recalling relevant experiences, when they are needed. Bergson, it seems to
me, almost ignores this logical character of memory. For him the vital urge
appears to go on more or less blindly creating and accumulating ideas, relevant
and irrelevant; fortuitously rolling itself up like a snowball. There is little or
no logic in it. His conception of memory is too economical; but it seems to be
a natural consequence of the opposition he sets up between intelligence and
intuition. Indeed Bergson 's whole philosophy suffers from a defective logic or
theory of mind.

374 MAN AND THE COSMOS

of the organism to other elements of reality, the mind focuses its
past experience on the present, and thus determines in part the
character and direction of the organism's reactions to the environ-
ment. This determination of future reaction is no blind automatic
reaction or mere reflex. It signifies a redirection of organic
activity, in such ways that the content of individual experience is
further enriched in meaning and scope. Operating between the
organism's past and its future, the mind is able in part to deter-
mine the character of that future, to enhance its life by enlarging
the scope and value of its responses or adjustments. Memory, the
synthetic or unifying function which establishes identity and con-
tinuity of meaning; analytic and generalizing thought, which
distills new meanings by analysis and synthetic reconstruction of
experience; and evaluating and selective choice, are thus the
supreme functions of mind. They are instruments for the enlarge-
ment of insight into the organism's own nature and the nature of
its environment, and thus they are the instruments for the enhance-
ment of psychic values through intelligent action.

The body, considered as a system of sense organs, afferent
nerves and sensory brain centers, is the channel through which the
mind becomes aware of those nearer and more remote environ-
mental relationships which are significant for the life and welfare
of the whole psychophysical individual. Conversely, the body,
considered as a system of motor brain centers, efferent nerves, and
motor organs of expression, is the channel through which mind
effectuates, in terms of its consciously purposive activities, the
meanings and values which it has distilled from its incoming ex-
periences. There can be little doubt that the brain centers, as the
common term in this sensory-reflective-motor arc, supply a vast,
complicated, and plastic system of connections, through which
mind, in its functions of remembering, analyzing, synthetizing,
and recombining the elements of raw experience, is able to suspend
mere reflex or automatic action ; to check the fatal flow of stimulus
into blind reaction, and thus, by giving to consciousness an accu-
mulation or enrichment of sensory materials joined with an
indeterminate complexity of outgoing connections, to enable the
conscious mind to "throw the switches" ; to divert and recombine
in a variety of ways the sensory-motor nerve paths. The synapses
of the dendritic processes of the cortical neurone cells and the
interrelations of the main systems of nerve-fibers seem to give

MIND AND BODY 375

structural support to this view. Physical stimulus — physiological
reaction — physical change due to motor organ — thus would run a
purely reflex activity. Perception — memory — reflection — or anal-
ysis and synthesis — choice — such are the intervening factors of
mind which breaks the fatal chain. The diagram of a volitional
process would run thus : physical stimulus — sensory neural process
— awareness — memory — reflection and choice — motor neural proc-
ess and muscular movement. In the cognitive-volitional arc, mind
is the conscious center for redirection, selective emphasis and
control. The suspension and alteration of tension and direction
in the neural processes is the work of mind.

The self is a trans-spatial center of spatial relationships, and
thus positively related to extensity. Through the sensory system
the mind is brought into receptive cognitive relations with physical
reality. Through the motor system it acts as member of the total
system of things. From the extensity of sensations to the apparent
inextensity of "pure" thought there is a series of degrees of
passage, as M. Bergson would say, from more extensity with less
tension to less extensity with greater tension. I should prefer to
say that there is a passage, by degrees, from a more diffused or
less integrated extensity of motions to a less diffused extensity with
the highest degree of trans-spatial concentration and integration or
unification. Mobile extensity is not eliminated by the higher
thought processes. These processes are unique concentrations or
condensations, into conscious unity, of extensive dynamical trans-
actions. Intensity is not the negation of extensity. It is the
maximum concentration or focalization of extensities, which in
consciousness becomes the basis of the redistribution of extensive
relations in a world of mobile elements. By virtue of its power of
concentration, analysis, and integration, the mind is able to
redirect physical motions so as partly to conquer space in the
transportation of bodies and the intercommunication of minds. By
the anticipatory power of constructive imagination, the mind is
able to project itself even into the interplanetary reaches of cosmic
space, and this projection may be the prelude to still vaster con-
quests of space-restrictions by man. Thus, though associated with
a space-occupying body, and so having a local habitation, the mind
is not determined and restricted as a mere physical thing is deter-
mined and restricted by external space relations. It is able to
internalize, interpret and selectively choose among these space

376 MAN AND THE COSMOS

conditions, and thus, in part control them. But if anyone con-
fesses himself able to conceive reality as spaceless I confess my
inability to follow such a conceptual flight into the inane.

In short, the conscious self is an active center which knows,
evaluates, chooses, purposes, and acts in a physical universe. How
my thought and purpose get translated into physical motions I do
not know. How I perceive colors, sounds, tastes, smells, heat and
cold, I do not fully understand, the physiologists' and psychol-
ogists' explanations notwithstanding. I do not understand how
vibrations of ether or air occasion neural activities, and how these
in turn occasion sensory-motor processes. I have to come back to
the simple and universal fact that man sees with his eyes, hears
with his ears, and smells with his nose. The universality of the
fact, and the success of inferences and activities based thereon,
warrant the belief that the world which man thus perceives, and
which is the only physical world that he does have any immediate
acquaintance with, is truly an integral part of the order of reality ;
although it may very well be the case that man's belief as to the
place of his physical environment in the scheme of things is in part
erroneous, or rather, very imperfectly represents the complete state
of things. In any event any speculation which does not base itself
on the belief in the reality of the physical order, as perceived, is
open from the outset to the gravest suspicion. Our physical order
must be a true part or constituent of the total real.

Similarly, I come back to the simple fact that I understand,
evaluate and plan, choose and act through my body upon the
physical things around me. The fact that we do not fully under-
stand why minds should be conditioned by bodies, and vice versa,
is not sufficient reason for denying that the relationship in ques-
tion does obtain. Throughout the world of experience we find that
life, with all its meanings and interests, involves contrast and
opposition. Is not the contrast and opposition of body and mind,
which yet are functionally interdependent, perhaps just the most
universal marriage of opposites on which depends all the zest and
significance of life ? Here we seem to touch bottom facts of experi-
ence. If mind and body were absolutely identical their seeming
duality or contrast would be a meaningless riddle. If they were
absolutely independent, even though parallel, their mutual isola-
tion and correspondence would be equally an insoluble riddle.
Why should two such fundamental aspects of existence always run

MIND AND BODY 377

abreast but never touch? In such case they would not be two
aspects but two wholly sundered universes. Cleft by an impassable
chasm there would be two worlds — the one a realm of insensate
masses in space — the other a realm of gibbering ghosts. The
assumption of the absolute identity and the utter disconnectedness
of mind and body are equally meaningless. Reality is psycho-
physical individuality.

APPENDIX I

MATTER, ENERGY, AND WILL

The concept of matter is a logical construction to complete our
picture of a world which, empirically, is incomplete and consists of
complexes of sensory qualities or physical things and psychical com-
plexes or experients.

The concept of matter which is advocated in the present work is
the dynamic or energetic view. Mass, impenetrability, space-occu-
pancy, are expressions of the natures and interrelations of centers of
energy.

Will is the consciously directed energy of a psychical agent. In-
deed, as we have previously insisted, all our beliefs in external ener-
gies, physical agencies, are inferences from our personal experiences
of suffering and action in relation to the environment. It does not
follow that physical energies and human will are to be reduced to
a common denominator, or that all energy is really volitional. To
argue that, since we recognize and infer the existence of energy and
activity in the world, only in relation to human actions and suffer-
ings, therefore all activity must necessarily be of the volitional type
is to assume the homeopathic dogma that all that is known must be
like that which knows. It is tantamount to saying that the absurd
principle "he who drives fat oxen must himself be fat" may be ele-
vated into a supreme ontological law. It does not follow that, be-
cause conscious agency can direct physical energies, therefore the
latter must be volitional agencies in disguise.

Empirically there are two kinds of agency, physical and psychical.
It may be that physical energy is the expression of a world will, or
it may be that physical energy is eternal and unoriginated. This
problem we shall discuss when we take up the question of the ulti-
mate unity of things. Certainly, physical energies are powers that
we must take account of in the fulfillment of our human purposes. In
no other fashion do we find grounds for recognizing their existence.
Possibly, the most tenable conception of the ultimate and universal

378 MAN AND THE COSMOS

reality is that, in some mysterious fashion, all physical energies
further the fulfillment of values.

APPENDIX II

THE ORIGIN OF THE SOUL

In the history of thought there are three chief theories of the
origin of the soul, all based on the assumption that the soul is not
an epiphenomenon or by-product of physical processes. These theo-
ries are:

1. Preexistence or metempsychosis.

2. Traducianism and

3. Creationism.

The doctrine of preexistence, metempsychosis or transmigration,
is found, to name only a few of its best known exemplars, in the
Hindu Upanishads, the Buddhist Scriptures, the Pythagoreans,
Orphics and Plato in Ancient Greece, in Bruno, Leibniz, and in
present-day philosophy notably in Dr. J. M. E. McTaggart. Ac-
cording to this doctrine souls are eternal; their number is eternally
fixed, and the birth and death of earthborn individuals are simply
critical phases in the soul's pilgrimage through time. In the form
which Plato gives to the doctrine, in his myths, the rational or spirit-
ual part of the soul enters our world of space and time as a conse-
quence of a fall from the changeless, eternal realm of the eternal
essences or ideas, wages its warfare in this earthly order, and after
death passes upward or downward in the world of its next embodi-
ment in accord with the manner in which it has acquitted itself here.
The supreme evidence of the soul's preexistence and the pledge of
its post-existence. Plato finds in its participation in the ideas, or
essential forms, of logical universals, beauty and goodness. During
its earthly career the soul wakens to a clearer recollection and fuller
possession of the forms of which it had vision, and with which it had
full communion, in the supernal realm.

Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality is probably the
best known expression of this doctrine in English.

The doctrine of preexistence has a perennial attractiveness to
speculative minds. It seems to be the simplest alternative to ma-
terialism; it offers a plausible doctrine to account for the innate or
a priori capacities of the soul — for the logical structure of reason and
the ideals of beauty and goodness which haunt and prick to action
the noblest minds. The Kantian and cognate doctrines of a priorism
are akin to it. Nevertheless, it is surely at variance with the facts

MIND AND BODY 379

of mental heredity and development. If the individual spirit is a
preexistent and eternal reality, why should not the normal self have
more concrete and specific memories of its preexisting states of being ?
Why should one not be able to recollect clearly his personal status
and social relationships of several thousand years ago? Why should
men not come more quickly to agreement in regard to logical, ethical,
moral and, 'in a word, to spiritual, values? If this doctrine be true
then this world is not a "vale of soul making" but simply of soul
reawakening. Then, too, we make no real progress here or hereafter ;
we simply recover what we had previously lost. What the soul pre-
viously possessed clearly, for some mysterious reason becomes ob-
scured here and now.

The traducianist theory is that the souls of offspring are gen-
erated from the souls of their parents, as their bodies are from the
bodies of their parents. Biologists of to-day seem quite generally to
accept the doctrine of the continuity of the germ plasm and the
Mendelian doctrine of heredity, according to which unit characters
persist from generation to generation, and may be combined, disso-
ciated and recombined, as the generations come and go. Thus the
body of a child is not so much the immediate offspring of its parent
body as it is of the germ plasm — a complex of unit characters which
are transmitted through the parent organisms and presumably are
modified during the transmission. (There is much dispute on the
latter point.) Thus the body of a child is the resultant of a combina-
tion of unit characters effected through the reproductive process and
modified by the environment. The soul must be, then, either an
entirely fresh creation, or be the resultant of a new combination of
psychical unit characters transmitted in the germ plasm and combined
through the procreative act. Either the mental or spiritual principle
of creative synthesis is transmitted through the germ plasm, or it
is injected into the fertilized ovum at some stage in the latter's career
by an act of special creation.

The special creation theory of the soul's origin has been widely
accepted. It is difficult to refute such a theory directly, since we
have not the data to say just when and how reason or spirit begins
to function consciously, whether at conception, at some later point
in prenatal life, or after birth. We do know, however, that while
there are critical epochs in the history of the individual reason or
spirit — such is the beginning of self-consciousness, the storm and
stress of adolescence, the wakening of ethical and religious reflection,
the coming to consciousness of ethical, intellectual and other forms
of creative impulse — these crises are the results of long psychical
incubation. The life of reason or spirit is more continuous than at

380 MAN AND THE COSMOS

first blush it appears to be. The facts of mental and moral heredity
tell against the special creation hypothesis.

I conclude, therefore, that the spiritual or rational principle of
creative synthesis, the divine spark in mind, is the endless immanent
potency of the creation of spiritual individuality transmitted and
bursting into actuality generation after generation as an immanent
continuity of spiritual life process. The process of generation is the
creative process, not only in the sense of the creation of new vital
and psychical individuals, by ever varying combinations of the funda-
mental unit characters of man, but, as well, of the continuous crea-
tion of new spiritual individualities. It is a process of continuous
creation, of new centers of creative synthesis, of a higher kind than
the other forms of creative synthesis manifested in the various
grades and stages of cosmic evolution.

In short mental or spiritual individualities working through the
procreative act are the endlessly fecund sources of new mental indi-
vidualities. Tennyson writes:

A soul shall draw from out the vast
And strike his being into bounds 8

Again he writes:

Of that infinite One
Who made thee unconquerably Thyself
Out of this whole world — Self and all in all —
Live thou! and of the grain and husk, the grape
And ivy berry choose; and still depart
From death to death thro life and life, and find
Nearer and ever nearer Him, who wrought
Not matter, nor the finite-infinite
But this main miracle, that thou art thou,
With power on thine own act and on the world.9

Such utterances, like the words of religious seers and philosophers,
express in imaginative form the superlative estimate of value and
meaning as inhering in spiritual individuality or personality. They
formulate, in terms of cosmic origin and relationships, that faith in
the worth and dignity of the human spirit which accompanies every
creative deed and vision in human kind. Can one translate these
utterances into the plain prose of philosophy and square them in any
fashion with the findings of reason?

*In Memoriam. Sixth stanza from the end.
*De Profundis.

MIND AND BODY 381

The spirit or reason or creative imagination is the principle of
creative synthesis, through the operation of which the biological
complex of psychophysical unit characters forming the newborn
individual, becomes a personality; the rational or spiritual self, self-
determining and capable of serving and achieving intrinsic values.
The "spirit," as the principle of rational integration, is evoked into
activity through the urgent needs of redirection and organization of
the native biological tendencies (the natural man). Thus, we may
say, the spiritual principle in man is a principle of supervenient re-
flective integration "granted," as Lotze puts it, by the order of the
universe to a specific vital constellation.

The division of reality into two realms, "natural" and "super-
natural," has its source in an estimation of relative values. If nature
be conceived as an insensate mechanism, or at best an unconscious
vital urge; then the principle of valuation, namely, that the values
of directive and creative thought, of moral insight and volition, of
aesthetic creation and religious communion are the highest and
worthiest functions of man, lead to the assertion that the source of
these values is supernature. In any adequate philosophical sense of
nature, the life of values, the life of spirit, is just as natural as the
bodily life. Indeed the spiritual works are higher and truer because
richer and more adequate expressions of the total meaning of the
real than merely sentient organisms and their works, and higher
still than physicochemical complexes and functions. The personal
spirit and its works furnish our best key to the meaning of the
cosmos, since personality is the most macrocosmic of all finite forms
of existence,

CHAPTER XXVIII

PERSONALITY AND THE CULTURAL ORDER

The natural self, that is, the human being considered simply
as an animal organism, is not a person. He becomes a person only
through development in the medium of a system of social culture
or nurture. Owing to the overweight of biological thinking to-day
in psychology, sociology, and philosophy, and also owing in part
to the grievous wounds that the occidental systems of social culture
have received in the late war, there is grave danger of our minimiz1
ing the significance of social institutions and of the whole social
ethos in the development of personality. Even so-called savages
have closely knit systems of social culture. "The state of nature,"
whether conceived in terms of Hobbes or Rousseau, would be a
condition in which human beings could not be human beings.
Whatsoever genuine progress may have taken place in human
history, has consisted solely in the development of cultural systems
better adapted to the nurture of the qualities which constitute
human personality. A one-sided and unhistorical regard for the
results and methods of natural science leads men to ignore the
fact that natural science can flourish only as an element in a
system of social culture and as ministering to the development of
human personality. Equally, an exclusive regard for the biological
pit from which man has been digged leads psychology to ignore,
and even to deny, the existence of those qualities of personality
which have been engendered in the life of culture, but which can-
not be measured in laboratories or found by anatomical and
physiological study of the genus homo of the Simian group.

The great idealists, Plato, Fichte, Hegel, Royce, and Bosanquet
are great idealists precisely because, in one fashion or another,
they have clearly recognized that it is through participation in the
objective structures of social culture that man rises to the stature
of personality, and therefore, than an adequate philosophical inter-
pretation of experience must accord a central place to the achieve-

382

PERSONALITY AND THE CULTURAL ORDER 383

ments and activities of culture — to the objective mind, to use
Hegel's term — in and through which the subjective mind of the
human animal develops personality. It is in the spirit of the
great idealists, though in my own way, that I wish now to consider
the general features of the interaction between the individual and
cultural systems.1

I will begin by summarizing briefly some commonplaces of
social psychology. The self-development of the individual involves
the direction and control of his congenital impulses by social pat-
terns in action and thought. Under the play of cultural influences
resident in the social system, the individual is awakened to norms
or general standards of conduct and thought. In this way he
becomes socialized, or moralized and rationalized. His activity is
controlled, and his thinking and feeling are shaped, by the typical
social attitudes which are embodied in the customs and institutions
which constitute the cultural system of a society; such as the
institutions of the family, the community, industrial life, the state
and the church ; the prevailing bodies of belief and modes of
valuation in regard to politics, morals, art, education and religion.
Thus persons are developed from human animals, through their
individual assimilation of the current systems of belief and con-
duct, by their reactions to the established types of social judgment
and valuation. As the person develops, if the actual social ethos
be spiritually poverty-stricken or restrictive, he may seek spiritual
sustenance in the richer past, or he may strive to create new values.
But I opine that, if dissatisfied with the spiritual ethos of the
present, the individual strives to create new values by violently
breaking with cultural history and shooting out of the blue, it is
unlikely that he will add greatly to the sum of human culture.

In the process of being socialized, or moralized and rational-
ized, the individual becomes a better organized and more repre-
sentative self, through the better articulation of his congenital

1 The ideas embodied in the present chapter were first stated by me in
a paper read before the American Philosophical Association in December, 1904,
and which appeared in the Philosophical Review for 1905, Vol. xiv, pp. 669-683.
I discussed the subject further in an article entitled "Ethics, Sociology and
Personality, Philosophical Eeview, Vol. xv, pp. 494-510. Prof. G. P. Adam's
Idealism and the Modem Age brings out in a somewhat different way some
of the main points in this attitude. Dr. Florian Znanieeki's Cultural Reality
is an interesting introduction to a philosophy of culture. The German
Kultur-Philosophen, especially Windelband, Bkskert, and Scheler, have con-
tributed important discussions to this matter.

384 MAN AND THE COSMOS

capacities and through the growth of his aims in concreteness and
social reference. All aspects of the self share in the generalization
and articulation of character effected by interpersonal intercourse.
The emotional reactions and will-attitudes of the individual con-
tinue to be uniquely his own ; but, under the influence of the social
reason and social types of action and feeling, individual feeling
gains at once in breadth of range and fineness of organization.
Thus the individual, as self-determining agent, comes to regard his
own individuality as the servant and organ of the intrinsic spirit-
ual values which are the basis of the cultural life — the values of
truth, justice, friendship, fellowship, love, beauty, and holiness.
Thus the individual becomes an integral and cooperant member
of the social system of wills. Thus, as the organ for the expression
and realization of social and ideal values, he takes on a more sig-
nificant, organized, and universal character.

The social occasions for the individual's activity consist in the
various historical systems or complex bodies of thought and con-
duct, in the atmosphere of which he is nurtured and which confront
him with their explicit demands and commands. Viewed as a
totality, these systems constitute the cultural-historical ethos or
spirit of a time, a nation, a community. In law and morals, in
politics, in science, and in religion and art, the individual member
of a given period, nation, and community, finds himself confronted
with more or less coherent group-systems which demand his loyal
obedience or explicit rejection, his allegiance, criticism, or trans-
formation.

These systems grow and change as they get summed up and
modified in and through the actions of successive series of social
groups and of individuals. Illustrations of such systems or his-
torical complexes of ideas lie everywhere at hand in the institu-
tions of contemporary civilization. Such are, for example, the
established average code of customary morality (SittlichJceit) • the
body of authoritative current scientific opinion; codes of social
manners ; the working systems of industrial groups such as trade-
unions, employer's associations, etc. ; political systems of ideas
(democracy, socialism, imperialism, party traditions, etc.) ; sys-
tems of religious doctrine and practice represented by various
churches and sects which, of course, are preeminently embodiments
of historical complexes of ideas, etc. It is through interaction
with these groups of ideas, which we may call partial or elementary

PERSONALITY AND THE CULTURAL ORDER 385

culture systems,2 that the rational activity of the self is mani-
fested. These systems are, in turn, the creations of personal
activities. Human culture is the result and the record of personal
deeds, no less in science and philosophy than in statecraft, morals,
war, industry, and religion. The great creative personalities of
history are the supreme embodiments of a spiritual self-activity,
which every child of civilization, who enters with maturing self-
consciousness into his work, must likewise manifest in some degree.
However uncreative the mass of men may seem to be, each matur-
ing personality appropriates the materials of culture by an indi-
vidual reaction. Education is the process by which the spiritual
or cultural heritage of the race is presented to the individual mind
and assimilated by that mind.

The culture system of music or plastic art may pass over many
an individual's head because he is insensitive to aesthetic values ;
but the systems of individual and social morality and of religion
demand on the part of every member of society some sort of active
attitude. Every man must take some attitude towards the moral
obligations of his station, and, whether the attitude taken be
receptive, critical or hostile, some degree of self-activity is in-
volved. Thus the individual is a unique center of mental reaction
in the historical culture-process of society. In his affirmations and
rejections of cultural types and tendencies in thought, feeling, and
action, he is either actualizing his own spiritual potencies or allow-
ing them to perish of inanition. It is not through the narrow and
circumscribed limits and poverty of contents of passing moments
of consciousness, as revealed by introspection or retrospection, that
we shall gain an adequate conception of the nature of the human
self. What such analysis reveals is frequently but the trivialness,
the insignificance, and meanness of the introspector's own con-
scious processes. What a human personality really means to be,
and sometimes is, can be understood only from an intelligent appre-
ciation of the culture history of humanity. Through the wider
vistas of the comparative history of ethics, politics, science, indus-
try, the arts, philosophy and religion, do we first get a significant
glimpse of man's spiritual nature and powers, as revealed in the
ideals, the values, and deeds wrought into his civilizations ; and as
unceasingly actualizing itself in the movement of spiritual or

*Cf. the treatment of this matter in Encken's Life's Basis and Life's
Ideal and Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt.

386 MAN AND THE COSMOS

cultural history. Culture is at once the socialized creation of
mind, and the instrument for the development of the individual
mind.

The life of the human spirit is a constant dialectical process
of self-transcendence of the given or empirical selfhood, the denial
of the attained self, which is the achievement of a larger and more
integrated selfhood. The fuller and more harmonious spiritual
life is achieved by the individual only in so far as he forgets and
passes beyond his already attained state of being, only in so far as
he contemns and spurns his old self, dies to his past, and thus finds
a more rational, wider, more harmonious selfhood through willing
service and sympathetic participation in the aims and interests of
that spiritual commonwealth of selves whose realization is the true
meaning of the whole movement of human culture.

The first steps in this denial and self-transcendence of the
merely empirical or animal self, which is at the same time the
beginning of the spiritual personality, are taken by participation
in the historical institutions of society — family, community, and
nation ; school, science, and philosophy ; art and letters ; manners,
morals, and religion. The forms and contents of the cultural com-
plexes represented by the above titles have undergone, and are still
undergoing, change. Social culture is subject to constant mutation
in some of its factors and, at times, in all. For example, the
influence of organized dogmatic religion on the average West-
European and American has both narrowed in extent and weak-
ened in intensity since the close of the Middle Ages. Religion has
become much more a matter of individual choice and attitude.
Art probably does not mean in the life of European people to-day
what it meant for the Italians of the Renaissance, and certainly
it plays to-day a very minor and unimportant role in the life of the
United States. There is as yet but little evidence of an awakening
to the cultural and moral significance of beauty amongst us. Con-
trast the place of art in American life with the place it occupied
in Periclean Athens or in the Italy of the Renaissance ! In science
and philosophy the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
otherwise prolific in great ideas, hardly had an inkling of the tre-
mendously significant conceptions of natural evolution and his-
torical development, which to-day pervade all our thinking on
nearly every subject. In the Middle Ages virginity was esteemed
a much higher ethical state than marriage. Contrast the Christian

PERSONALITY AND THE CULTURAL ORDER 387

doctrine of chastity with the ancient Greek ideal of continence or
moderation! To the Greek slavery was a natural institution not
questioned. It is unnecessary further to multiply examples.

Through his stimulation by, and reaction to, the whole his-
torical process of culture the individual enters into the use of the
common heritage of spiritual achievement, and is thereby quick-
ened to the exercise of a rational freedom or self-determination in
the light of the patterns of thought and action supplied by the race.
He is challenged to find and express, by his individual choices and
deeds, the rational meanings and values of life. Thus, by his own
reactions to the cultural stimuli and materials, the externally given
fact and type of conduct and thought become internal and vital, the
institutional becomes personal, the dead past of tradition and
status quo in custom and belief become transformed into a living
present, instinct with meaning and interest. The world of passive
historical fact and social institution becomes a spiritual universe of
present worth.

The literature and philosophy of Greece are but dead encum-
brances on my mind unless I can find in them expressions of emo-
tion, attitudes of will, significant interpretations of the meaning
of human experience and destiny, that quicken and enlarge my
own spiritual insight and shed light on the problems of human life
to-day. The philosophy of a Descartes or a Kant are mere archaeo-
logical lumber, unless they have living contact with and influence
upon the problems of systematic thought to-day. The principles
of social morality proclaimed by the Hebrew prophets are fossils
of a dead and gone stratum of civilization unless they are found
to bear pertinently on living issues of social ethics and religion.
The gospel of Jesus is a worthless survival unless it really in-
terprets, elevates, and directs towards higher levels, the personal
and social aspirations and needs of the human spirit to-day.

On the other hand, through the vital assimilation of these
and other historical achievements and revelations of the ongoing
spiritual life of humanity, the life of the present is lifted out
of its narrow and parochial outlook and delivered from the blind-
ness of action and faith, which comes from seeing the present
only in the light of its own broken and distorted rays. The pres-
ent can never be understood in the light of the present alone. Its
ills can never be diagnosed or cured with the instruments which
itself alone supplies. To interpret the present aright, and to find

388 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the means for its elevation, we must read its problems and tasks
in the light of the universal meanings and values derived from
setting the present in its relations to the past. The personal life
is enlarged and inspired by entrance, through communion with
the past, into the eternal ongoing spiritual life of the race, in
which the scholastic distinctions of past and present are overcome.
A finer and stronger sense of the value of beauty and order comes
to us through assimilation of the Greek spirit. A deeper sense
of the moral foundations of society is generated through assimila-
tion of the prophetic ideals of the Hebrews. A stronger con-
viction of the permanent worth of the spirit in man is aroused by
appropriation of the living content of the Gospel of Jesus.

Into the living present the spiritual past of the race enters
as a dynamic and illuminating factor. Past and present are
fused into a living and continuous whole of spiritual life, from
which issues the future. There is a temporal continuity, a total-
ity of intercommunion, in the successive stages of man's racial-
spiritual history which strongly supports the hypothesis of a time-
transcending spiritual whole, a universal and eternal spiritual
reality into active relation with which the finite individual and
the single historical epoch may enter, drawing from it and con-
tributing to it by their own deeds.

The real personality of man is not the passively molded
product of historical forces and social institutions. Man can
affirm his free personality, by his reactions to these forces and
institutions. Every rationally conscious self is a new and origi-
nal center of reaction and influence in the total complex of social
culture. The acts of the individual are the functioning of a meta-
historical principle in the historical order. While the human per-
son, considered as an empirical center of psychical life, is realized
and expressed only in dependence upon the social-historical sys-
tems of culture, these systems are in turn the resultants of the
mental acts of selves in society. They grow up, and are shaped
and transformed, through the interrelations of selves. These
social-historical systems have life and meaning only in so far as
they are assimilated and affirmed by selves.

They are most strikingly modified, and sometimes wholly
transformed, by the deeds of great historical personalities. The
founder of a new religion finds his point of departure in existing
religious ideas and practices ; but, under his creative hand, these

PERSONALITY AND THE CULTURAL ORDER 389

undergo metamorphosis, usually by way of simplification and
addition; as in the cases of Christianity and Buddhism. A
Copernicus and a Galileo revolutionize current astronomical con-
ceptions. Darwin gives the science of biology an entirely fresh
start. The changes wrought by creative genius are usually less
marked in morals, customs and laws ; here the work of genius takes
effect more slowly but no less certainly. As examples of the
transforming influence of the great personality, consider Confu-
cius and Buddha, Socrates and Plato, Jesus and St. Paul, Mo-
hammed and Luther, in the fields of religion and morals ! In art
and letters consider a few that occur to my mind at random,
Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil, Shakespeare, Raphael,
Michelangelo, Goethe ! Whatever be the precise character of
the influence exerted by the great personality in the movement
of human culture, whether it be mainly critical as in Protagoras,
Hume, and Voltaire; reformatory and re-creative as in Socrates,
Plato, Luther, Kant, and Goethe ; in every case he sets out by his
individual reaction to the whole complex culture system of his
own time or to some element in it. Luther, for example, desired,
while attacking the Roman practice as to the relation of faith and
morals to the Catholic Church, to leave mediaeval theology for the
most part undisturbed and did indeed so leave it. And, of course,
traditional complexes creep back into new movements and pro-
foundly alter their character. Illustrations in abundance will
occur to any reader well-informed in the history of Christianity.

The individual great or small, significant or insignificant, then
is conditioned in ideas and deeds by the historical complexes which
I have called culture systems; and the individual in some degree
adds to, takes away from, or alters, the social heritage of culture.

And every mature human individual, great or small, actual-
izes his personality by assimilating and reacting to the complex
whole of culture systems which is the very atmosphere of his own
life. This whole is constituted by the more or less harmonious
blending of partial culture systems or historical complexes of
ideas in morals, religion, science, and politics.

These systems may sometimes lie in mere juxtaposition in
his mind, or they may be in partial antagonism. For example,
the systems of scientific and theological thought, of ethical ideals
and business practice, by which an individual is influenced, may
be antagonistic to one another. But, in any case, the individual
of human culture, whether it be mainly critical as in Protogoras,

390 MAN AND THE COSMOS

comes to his own as a rational personality only in so far as he
assimilates and reacts to these systems. He attains rational self-
consciousness and becomes an active spirit or person by develop-
ing conscious attitudes towards the various groups of commands,
demands, and solicitations, in the midst of which alone man can
awaken to the life of reason. To take conscious attitudes in these
varied relations of the culture-life is to actualize one's spiritual
selfhood. The attitudes assumed not only vary from man to man,
but in the individual they may be complex and varied. The in-
dividual may wholly reject some of the historical complexes of
ideas presented to him and wholly accept others.

The individual may wholly accept the scientific and wholly
reject the religious systems of ideas of his time (for example
Haeckel and in part Huxley), or he may criticize and sift all.
The individual may be predominantly receptive in all directions
(as the average man is), or critical (Hume, Voltaire), or reforma-
tory and recreative (Socrates, Kant, Goethe). He may be critical
in science and merely receptive in religion and politics, or critical
in politics and merely receptive in science and morals, etc.,
through all the possible combinations. Again, he may with seem-
ing passivity accept and assimilate all uncritically. This the
mass of men seem to do. But even in the latter case, there is in
the mature individual an element of at least partially conscious
reaction in apprehending and assimilating that to which he gives
allegiance. The very process of appropriating into one's own
spirit, of making one's own, the materials of culture is an indi-
vidual reaction. These historical complexes of ideas which I have
called "culture systems," then, are never wholly foreign or ex-
trinsic to the individual spirit. Even in the limiting case of seem-
ing total passivity just mentioned, the actual self is not a mere
creature of traditional and conventional tendencies. And, indeed,
the various partial culture systems and the whole ethos of a period
are vital and potent only in so far as they are absorbed and relived
in the thoughts and deeds of persons. Regarded as merely his-
torical, these systems are but slumbering potentialities of mental
development and spiritual influence. But when they are taken
up into the individual life and give content and direction to this,
they become present, over-historical powers. The general move-
ment of spiritual history has a certain continuity, but, as it is
summed up, relived, and transformed in groups of men and in

PERSONALITY AND THE CULTURAL ORDER 391

individuals, it becomes discrete, and the reactions of each indi-
vidual and group to the culture environment constitute a series
of unique deeds.

Moreover, a historical comparison of the growth, the rise and
modification and fall of culture systems, as well as a comparison
of the will attitudes of living individuals towards the various
culture systems which constitute a general social situation, would
make it plain that, in being assimilated and relived, systems of
ideas are undergoing constant, although often minute and inap-
preciable transformations. Molded and modified as they are
by the assimilative and recreative thought and will attitudes of
individuals, these systems rise and fall, stagnate and grow, and,
in short, undergo constant modification by personal reactions.
"The human beings who live, who have lived, and who are yet to
live, form in themselves one immense system, in which the small-
est movement of each single one is for the most part impercep-
tible, but yet affects by its influence the general unceasing progress.
History is the relation of the fluctuations which occur on a large
scale, from the dissimilarity of the powers of individual men.
Our desire to study history is the longing to know the law of these
fluctuations, and of the distribution of power affecting them."

On a large scale, of course, it is the creative historical person-
alities— founders of religions, moral prophets and reformers,
political innovators, aesthetic creators, scientific discoverers —
who display, in the eyes of all who have eyes to see, this dynamic
and recreative unity of individual life. The preeminent indi-
vidual is the chief originating center in the historical movement
of civilization. Whatever view one may take of the reciprocal
relations between great historical personalities and the masses of
their fellows, no progress can be made towards understanding the
movements of past and present society unless we clearly recognize
that concrete individuals are the creators, bearers, transformers
of the whole process of culture. History has being and actuality
only in so far as it is concentrated in the living activities and
experiences of selves. Hence so-called general tendencies, social
movements, the social consciousness, public opinion, the spirit of
the age, etc., are actual and efficient only in so far as they are
incorporated in the beliefs and deeds of persons.

The contention of the present argument is that what these
« H. Grimm, Life of Michelangelo, Vol. I, p. 62 (Edition of 1898).

392 MAN AND THE COSMOS

great historical personalities do on a large scale every individual
who comes to maturity of life does in some measure, and that
hence the central nature of the human person is actualized and
manifested in his individual reactions as a member of a historical
culture. These reactions are the affirmations of an ultimate prin-
ciple in the self. The personal values which they embody vary
from individual to individual and shift from age to age. But the
historical and the over-historical are fused in the living person-
ality. And if we interpret and compare the evolution of human
attitudes or personal and social valuations according to this
method, we shall arrive at the conception of a cosmic and meta-
historical system of individual spiritual centers which manifests
itself in the historical movement of humanity. For the self is at
once conditioned by and conditions its culture-matrix. In its
active, conditioning aspect, it is a hyper-empirical meta-historical
unity; in its aspect as conditioned and dependent, it is empirical
and historical. In the former respect it is timeless, in the latter
it develops in time; and these two aspects stand in organic re-
lationship in the actual historical life of man. From this stand-
point, the active attitude or dynamic center of personality becomes
an ultimate, a limit to explanation and analysis. The active unity
of the socially and historically significant culture self is a cumu-
lative and creative center in the spiritual evolution of humanity.
It transcends the phenomenal causal order. It cannot be dis-
sected into elements or accounted for in terms of a nexus whose
highest category is that of the mechanical equivalence of cause
and effect. There is in the self an irreducible center of unity not
residing in an inert substance, but consisting of a principle of
actuality or rational spontaneity.

In the actual, historical personality, there is an active or
dynamic unity which is realized and manifested through the as-
similation and transformation of social culture systems. Civiliza-
tion is a spiritual process in which man fashions for himself ever
anew the instruments and materials for the actualization of his
possibilities as person or rational spirit. And the history of cul-
ture is seen from this standpoint to be the record of man's shift-
ing emphasis, in self-discovery and self-affirmation, on the rela-
tive values — hedonic, ethical, intellectual, aesthetic, etc. — of the
various partial systems or groups of ideas which constitute the
spiritual matrix for the growth and movement of selfhood.

PERSONALITY AND THE CULTURAL ORDER 393

Kant made the active synthetizing unity of consciousness,
Beiuusstsein ueberhaupt, the universal formal timeless principle
of knowledge and moral action. This Kantian principle is the
impersonal function of pure thinking and willing, the abstract
and changeless principle of intellectual synthesis. It is the uni-
versal thinker which thinks in all rational finite beings. It is
distinct from the empirical self or actual individual. We only
know that it is, and that without it there could be no knowledge
of a world. How it is related to the empirical self Kant does not
make clear. His disciple Fichte made this universal ego the only
reality. According to him, it manifests itself in the infinite series
of finite egos. What is the relation of our metaphysical or meta-
historical principle of individuality to Kant's doctrine ? I hold
that, while individual minds have a common structure, and a
common or universal principle of rational and spiritual func-
tioning, and thus exhibit an identical nature, this nature is not
existentially identical in all minds, We may say that the prin-
ciple is repeated in each; but each individual is, as an existence,
distinct and unique. The individual is real and his relationships
to the totality of the real are those of a unique center who is
able, as thinking and feeling being, to enter into a manifold
variety of connections with other selves. The unity of the self is
that of a uniquely personal will. The self has a history and is
subject to development from unconscious latency to conscious
actuality. The empirical person results from the interaction of
the synthetic creative principle, which is the root of individuality,
with biological and cultural stimuli and materials. The active
unifier is at first known as a dim and fluctuating self-feeling
present in impulse and desire. The organization of this chaotic
feeling self into a harmonious individuality can take place only
through the concomitant organization of its experience in the vital
interactions with nature and culture. The natural or biological
ego must struggle and suffer, it must deny itself and go out into
the world of external nature and culture in order that it may
come home to itself as a rational unity, an integrated whole of
feeling and insight, of will and thought. The organization of a
significant and coherent world of nature, and a world of social
order — morality, art, religion and philosophy — is at the same time
the development of selves into self-directing harmony and totality
of life. Thus selves come to know themselves and to realize their

394 MAN AND THE COSMOS

spiritual powers as unique centers in which the meanings of the
realm of nature and the cultural values of social history are being
actualized and enjoyed. This process of the actualization of mean-
ings and values through and in the lives of selfhood is one that,
so far as we can see, is unceasing and incomplete as a world
process and yet is forever being fulfilled as the generations come
and go.

The unity of the self is thus a central factor in the organiza-
tion of experience into a cosmos. The implicit unity of the self
becomes distinctly known and effective only in vital relation to
and dependence on the world. On the other hand, it is through
constant activity of selves that the world of experience is organ-
ized and grows in meanings and values; the only vital unity-in-
difference, the only dynamic center of cultural and cosmical re-
lationships and values that we can conceive is that which functions
in persons. The world of our common or rational experience and
thinking, the realm of nature which exists for us as knowers and
doers only by virtue of our cooperation in the social-historical life
of humanity, is a realm of potential personality; the self is the
world discovering and affirming its own meaning — the cosmos
attaining to self-consciousness. Thus selfhood or personality dis-
covers the meaning of the cosmical process; and the only con-
ceivable cosmos is one implicated in, and known through, the
organizing and interpreting activities of selves.

CHAPTER XXIX

PERSONALITY AND VALUES1

Thus far, in our treatment of personality, we have considered
it chiefly from the standpoint of philosophical psychology — in
fine, as the individuated center of experience and the focus of
social relationships. We have now to consider the self as source
and center of reference for values. The most persistent and cen-
tral characteristic of the self is the fact that it evaluates, appre-
ciates, and hence exercises selective preference among its possible
ends and possessions. The root of valuation is feeling or interest.
A colorless knower would not individuate his objects, but a con-
scious individual always individuates and thus selects and values
objects in terms of interest or feeling. All human valuation, then,
is due to the fact that the self is a feeling center. The philos-
opher, no less than the lover or gourmand, selects and rejects his
objects of interest and enjoyment in terms of himself as the
central mass of feeling reacting to these objects. Because we feel
we exercise selective preferences and arrange the activities, enjoy-
ments and relationships which are actual or possible for us, on
a scale of values.2

1 This chapter is the expansion of an article on ' ' Personality and a
Metaphysics of Value" in The International Journal of Ethics, Vol. xxi,
October, 1910, pp. 23-36.

2 The question has been discussed (by Ehrenfels, Meinong, Urban and
others) whether the psychological process of valuation is identical with desire
(Ehrenfels), or the sense of value is given in feelings of value (Wertgefiihle)
that follow on judgments involving the recognition of the existence or non-
existence of objects (Meinong). This is a psychological question which does
not directly concern us here. It seems to me that desire implies value and that
we may desire and value that which we recognize to be nonexistent. I may,
for instance, desire and value for myself a life in which I should have ample
leisure to read and write poetry. I cannot conceive myself valuing anything
and not desiring it. In view, however, of the ambiguities in the use of the
term ' ' desire, ' ' it would be better, perhaps, to say that valuation springs from
interest. If one has no interest in a thing, one does not value it, and vice
versa. One can be interested in things that do not exist, provided one has
desire for such things.

395

396 MAN AND THE COSMOS

We may distinguish between the incipient feelings of value and
the explicit judgment of value. Any agreeable feeling has posi-
tive value, since it satisfies some interest of the self; but an ex-
plicit judgment of value is the reflective assertion that the interest
in question is satisfied. Logically, a judgment of value is of
the same order as a judgment of existence. To say "this is good,
noble, beautiful" is a judgment in the same sense as to say "it is
true, real, cold or red." In judgments of value a universal or
meaning is predicated of a subject. In both judgments of exist-
ence and of value the subject is either a concrete experience or an
intellectual construction therefrom. The same subjects may be
qualified by both types of judgment. For example, "this is a
landscape and a beautiful one." The one important difference
between judgments of value and all other types of judgment is
this — all judgments of value affirm (or affirm by denying) that
objects have agreeable or disagreeable, satisfying or dissatisfying,
qualities-in-relation-to-selves, whereas judgments of existence, that
is, all purely cognized qualities and relationships, may make as-
sertions concerning real existence considered apart from any indi-
vidual self. Valuation is thus always a subject-object relation
and, thus far, is like cognition. But, whereas in pure cognition
the object cognized is assumed to possess as such the cognized
qualities and relations independently of the subject, there would
be no meaning whatsoever in saying that an object had value
apart from a subject. If there be objective character in values,
it cannot be an objectivity that is real apart from all subjects.
There is no "beautiful," there is no "good," but thinking makes
it so. On the other hand, if there are electrons, there are elec-
trons, whether we think so or not. Of course, theoretical judg-
ments have various degrees and kinds of practical value. That is
another question. The values that such judgments have are due
to the interest of selves in them. Psychologically, many cognitive
judgments are made because of some sort of interest. Others are
made involuntarily or perforce.

Practical or value judgments are of two sorts of values: in-
strumental or mediate values, the values possessed by things and
events as means for the attainments of ends beyond themselves;
intrinsic or immediate values, the values which things and rela-
tionships have as ends-in-themselves, as immediately satisfying
to persons. Here we are concerned primarily with intrinsic

PERSONALITY AND VALUES 397

values. But the distinction between instrumental and intrinsic
values is by no means a hard and fast one. The means and the
end cannot be separated. The end justifies the means, provided
the means to the given end do not defeat another equally worthy
end. An end worthy in itself may be nullified by the means
taken for its accomplishment ; for example, if, in order to support
his family, a man sacrifices his integrity. An end not of high
worth in itself may become ennobled by the means ; for example,
the selfless devotion of love and loyalty are noble things even
though the objects be unworthy of the service dedicated to them.
Economic values are purely exchange values, purely instru-
mental. But, if we look upon economic activities from the stand-
point of human well-being, then the center of emphasis shifts and
economic values cease to become merely exchange values. Eco-
nomic wealth is viewed from the standpoint of consumption.3
The gaining of a livelihood may be carried on in a worthy or a
degrading fashion. Earning one's living should be both a con-
tribution to the service of others and a means of realizing one's
own personality. That it is so often not is due to the prevalent
materialism of western civilization — a materialism that is very
patent to oriental thinkers. Thus economic activity should have
both instrumental and intrinsic values. Bodily health and
strength are, from the spiritual standpoint, instrumental values;
but do they not constitute, in part, intrinsic values, in so far as
they may conduce to the happiness and beauty of their posses-
sor, enable him to have time and energy and zest for social service
and the cultivation of letters, the arts or sciences 1 ^Esthetic
values are both instrumental and intrinsic. Plastic art and music
refresh and stimulate the mind of the thinker and at the same
time have value in themselves. Scholarship, scientific investi-
gation, creative work in arts and letters, even teaching, are both
instrumental and intrinsic in value.

I think that, in any society or individual, the separation of
instrumental and intrinsic values is a mark of defect, of failure.
Nothing more clearly evidences the failure of western civilization
than the great gap which separates the industrialist and com-
mercialist (whether employer or employee), and the ruler, from
intelligent and spiritual participation in the values of art, letters,

•See, fox example, J. A. Hobson's Work and Wealth.

398 MAN AND THE COSMOS

science and learning and even religion. Spiritually our civiliza-
tion is maimed, halt and blind.

A classification and survey of values is an important part of
systematic philosophy, only in so far as thereby we may be able
to set in a clearer and fuller light the dynamic idealizing and
purposive tendencies and functions of selves or persons A meta-
physics of values can only be regarded as a special way of formu-
lating a metaphysics of persons.

With this principle in mind I offer here, in outline, a tentative
classification of the most significant and important human valua-
tions. The list is not exhaustive, and I do not claim for the classi-
fication either logical completeness or inherent necessity. I do
not know how one could proceed to satisfy either of these claims.
I found my guiding principles simply by examining the empirical
character and relations of personality. The classification is made
as a means of getting forward with the main contention that the
metaphysics of values must be, in effect, a metaphysics of persons,
and that the final reality and supremacy of values in the world-
order stands or falls with the reality and persistence of persons in
this world-order. I hold that a person is, by the nature of the
case, a more real reality, if the phrase be permissible, than even
the most "over-individual" and "ineffable" value.

The three fundamental relations in which the human person
stands, takes preferential attitudes, and has typical experiences,
are to nature, fellowman, and God or the supreme reality and
unity, however this may be conceived. The classification of in-
trinsic valuing attitudes may then be determined with reference
to these three types of relationship. And, in and for the valu-
ing person, there are three main types of valuing attitudes. These
are: (1) theoretical or truth-attitudes; (2) practical or overt-
action attitudes; (3) immediate emotional or feeling-attitudes.
Each one of these types of valuing attitudes may be differentiated
in each one of the three fundamental relationships of the experi-
encing and attitude-taking self. Further, in each group there will
be a differentiation of values uncontrolled by any single nu-
merical principle. And, since persons do not live and function as
machines or series of compartments, there are complex cross-
valuations. Of these a complete enumeration is not necessary,
or, perhaps, even possible.

In the truth-value attitudes, which have to do with the ac-

PERSONALITY AND VALUES 399

ceptance and interpretation of f act-in-relation, we get : ( 1 ) The
reality of nature in its separate elements and in their connections
as parts of a whole. In knowing the physical world we accept it
as it is, independent of our feelings and desires, and we find
worth in interpreting it and submitting our minds to its leading,
as thus accepted in all the variety of its elemental features and
their connections. Thus we get and value natural science, as a
systematic account of the given world-order. (2) The reality of
our fellowmen. We find an intrinsic worth in knowing the actual
character of human nature as expressed in its deeds and utter-
ances in the living present and in the historical past. A system-
atic and growing knowledge of human nature in all the variety
and interrelatedness of its elements constitutes the psychological,
social, and historical sciences. (3) The reality of God, the Su-
preme Unity of the real. We find a worth in knowing God and
our relations with him, and this knowledge, if there be such, con-
stitutes theology and part of metaphysics. I am not, of course,
here attempting to discuss the question whether there be a God
or supreme unity, and whether there be any science of systematic
theology. It is sufficient for my present purpose that a consid-
erable number of intelligent persons hold that there is a real and
knowable God and value the reality and knowableness of God.
For such persons the being of God and the science which deals
therewith have fact and truth values. And I think that these
values are not the immediate emotional values of religion. A
man may take keen interest and satisfaction in theological inquiry
without having very much personal religious experience. Such,
then, are the chief types of theoretical valuation.

The practical value-attitudes refer to the chief types of overt
action. The respective objects of these valuations may be valued
mediately, because they are means to the conservation and en-
hancement of other values, or they may, in some cases, come to
be valued immediately, or on their own account. Normally, they
are usually mediate values which tend to run into or be fused
with the immediate emotional and theoretical values which they
facilitate. The chief types are: (1) Technology, which com-
prises all the methods and instruments for the adjustment of
human life to the order of nature, and the control of this order
for the conservation and enhancement of human well-being.
These technological instruments comprise all the applied arts from

400 MAN AND THE COSMOS

engineering and everyday physical labor to medicine and hygiene.
(2) The instrumentalities of social order and well-being. These
are the methods and instruments for the regulation of our social
relationships. They include all social customs and civil, political,
and economic laws and arrangements, including the work of ad-
ministration and teaching. In short, the whole machinery of our
social life, when considered as machinery or instrumentality, falls
under this head. (3) The methods and instruments for entering
into right relationships with God. These comprise all forms of
worship, prayer, meditation, and conduct, which may be regarded
as practical means for gaining access to the supreme object of
religion and for communion with Him.

Finally, there are the immediate emotional value-attitudes.
These valuations never subserve any more remote ends. They are
regarded as wholly self-sufficing ; and other values, both theoretical
and practical, are made subservient and instrumental to these.
The chief types are : ( 1 ) The emotional values of nature, namely,
the feelings of beauty, picturesqueness, grandeur, and sublimity
aroused by contemplation of nature. The aesthetic values of nature
represent to the feeling soul, which contemplates the harmoniously
beautiful landscape, the picturesque waterfall, or the sublime
range of snow-clad mountain peaks, a living harmony or unity
of the manifold, a majesty of power or form, self-complete and
self-sufficient. Similarly, the reproductions of nature in art and
literature enhance these feelings by limitation and selection, by
the exclusion of all discordant elements and of all features sug-
gestive of natural incompleteness or lack of harmony and balance.
(2) The emotional values of human fellowship or social life.
Such are the feelings of companionship, comradeship, friendship,
tender emotion, and love. These emotions, and others akin to
them, are distinctively interpersonal emotional values. They run
from the wider and vaguer sentiments of humanity to the nar-
rower and more intense sentiments of the family and romantic
sexual love. Their antitheses are the negative social feelings, the
anti-social social emotions one might call them, since they, too,
depend on interpersonal relationships. I mean such emotions as
hostility, distrust, hatred. Every principal feeling, doubtless,
has its antithesis, and there is a negative aspect to every form of
valuation; but we are now concerned with the primary and posi-
tive aspects of valuation. The sum or, rather, the organic unity

PERSONALITY AND VALUES 401

of the emotional values of interpersonal relationship might be
called the ethical emotional value-attitude of personality. This
would constitute the entire disposition of the person toward other
persons. It is doubtful whether there is, in all persons, such an
ethical unity of disposition, since in many individuals personality
is very imperfectly achieved. The generally recognized moral
values, such as truthfulness, justice, and honesty, are conceptual
generalizations and incipient plans of action in relation to other
persons, which have their root and origin in the ethical emotional
dispositions of persons. Ethical dispositions have a conceptual
or thought aspect, but, primarily, in their immediacy, they are
emotional dispositions or tendencies to act. The degree of unity
and harmony in the ethical disposition is expressed in the degree
of unity which obtains in the interpersonal dispositions or senti-
ments.

Here, too, belong the aesthetic values of social and cultural life.
In art and literature the emotions and deeds of individuals, the
clashing and reconciliation of wills in society with one another
and with nature and fate, are presented to the beholder in ideally
self-complete unities of feeling and action. Art and literature pro-
duce elevation, harmony, and repose of feeling in regard to human
deeds and destinies, by lifting them out of the actual, by isolating
them in a designed unity, and thus eliminating the incomplete-
ness, the reference beyond themselves, and the discords, of the
romantic and tragic episodes of actual life.

(3) Religious emotional values. Communion or felt personal
relationship with God would seem to be the final goal of all re-
ligious thought and practice. Worship, prayer, meditation, are
instruments or means toward the end of fellowship or communion
with God. Inasmuch as the final object of religious value is taken
to be the Supreme Reality and Ultimate Lenity, religious experi-
ence promises to afford the most self-complete, comprehensive, and
satisfying type of emotional value. It is not surprising that re-
ligious devotees have found in it that type of value-experience in
which all other intrinsic human valuations find their union and
consummation. Art performs a similar service for religious emo-
tional valuations and for social emotional valuations. Art lifts
religious emotions out of the imperfect actuality and sets them
forth in their own harmonious unity, self-sufficiency, and self-
completeness.

402 MAN AND THE COSMOS

I have not given a special place in this classification to aes-
thetic values, for the reason that these values do not seem to me
to constitute a single unified type. The aesthetic values are com-
plex and varied, according to their reference to nature, or fellow-
man, or God. All art is an instrument of social expression of
emotions and sentiments. In art we find, besides the reproduction
of the aesthetic feelings engendered by the contemplation of na-
ture, the expression, with a freedom, harmony, and self-complete-
ness, which is lacking in actual life, of the interpersonal emotions
of social life. Creative art, in so far as it deals with human
themes, lends an ideal grace to life, and the life is the life of
men in its social and cultural aspects.

The above classification of values involves, as do all such classi-
fications, the sundering of things that in actual experience are
found together. For example, social and religious values inter-
penetrate. ^Esthetic values are found in close association with
both social and religious emotions and sentiments. Ethical and
religious values are found fused together. In the practical values
control of nature and social control constantly intermingle. In
the theoretical values natural science and humanistic science in-
fluence one another's methods and conceptions, and both influence
theology and religious metaphysics. The manifold interdepend-
ences of nature and human society are reflected in the interpene-
trations of human values; and, if the values of religion and
theology are to be taken as real and intrinsic values, these values,
by the very character of their objects and their modes of expres-
sion, must interpenetrate with the values of the natural order and
of human fellowship.

What, in general, are the relations between the theoretical,
practical, and emotional values ?

The practical value-attitudes are normally instrumental. They
are means to ends. The normal relation between the practical
and the theoretical values is that of instruments to the determin-
ing conditions of their fashioning and operation. The successful
outcome of the activities represented by the values of technology,
law, politics, custom, and morality, depend on their conformity
with reality, or, in other words, with the orders of existence rep-
resented by the theoretical or truth-values. Truth of fact and
truth of law in science are means to practical ends only in the

PERSONALITY AND VALUES 403

sense that they dictate the conditions for the realization of the
practical and emotional values of action.

In the case of the religious values, the success of the modes
of action represented by worship, prayer, and meditation, de-
pends upon the assumed conformity of these actions with the
ultimate reality of God. A man may, indeed, believe in a cer-
tain kind of God because he wants or wills so to believe. To
worship the God whom one craves, and to feel oneself in com-
munion with him, may be the most profoundly satisfying ex-
perience of value that a finite mind can have ; but the continuance
and meaningfulness of this value is possible only if the God is
held to be a reality, not a product of the worshiper's wishes.

The general goal of the activities initiated by the practical
value-attitudes is the enlargement, enrichment, and harmonization
of the immediate emotional values of personality. Inasmuch as
truth-values represent the determining conditions for such emo-
tional or feeling fulfillment, we may say that the ultimate intrinsic
values for personal deed and experience are the reactions of per-
sonal feeling, in which the truth or knowledge which we accept
or discover, and the overt activities in which we engage, whether
with reference to nature, fellowmen, or God, bear their fruits in
a richer, more harmonious, and continuing feeling-experience.
The final intrinsic values of life are the personally possessed
unities of truth and feeling.

If this view seems to reduce truth and reality, which is the
object of truth's reference, to the position of mere handmaids of
emotion, it is to be borne in mind, on the other hand, that the
emotional values of experience are progressively realized and
conserved only in so far as they are the fruits of practices in
harmony with the real constitution and course of the universe.
Emotional experience or feeling, to be permanently and fully
satisfying, must conform to the truth of things. If there were
no real and determinate nature of things, independent of our
transient feelings and wishes, there would be no reason why any
desire or wish, or any number of incompatible desires might not
all be fully satisfied ad libitum. If beggars could be choosers,
we might all ride in automobiles. A false science of nature will
not yield permanently good results in its practical applications.
Laws and moral injunctions will be in vain unless they are in
harmony with the actual constitution of human nature which,

404 MAN AND THE COSMOS

turn, may be revealed in very significant aspects by social cus-
toms law, and morality. Even friendship and love must take
account of the actual individuality of friends and lovers, if these
values would endure.

The immediate emotional values of experience then are not
independent of the truth and reality values. The latter values
yield their appropriate emotional satisfactions, and the former
values, in turn, are sustained and illuminated by the truth values.
Since the immediate unity of the personality is a unity of feeling,
the acts and the truth-attitudes which yield the personal values
of experience do so by being appropriated into and fused with the
personal self-feeling. No purely emotional value is self-sustaining
and no intellectual or theoretical value is without emotional color-
ing. In their immediate reality for the person, all intrinsic
values involve the union, with varying emphasis, of truth and
feeling, or intellection and emotion.

In this work of classification we have been dealing in abstrac-
tions. If we ask what is the ultimate principle for the unification
of values, and what is the final sustaining ground of values, I
think we must answer, to both questions, personality !

Valuations, as incentives to and appraisals of actions, are
simply attitudes of persons, affirmations which enhance and ap-
praise experiences. Anything consciously desired and purposively
sought is thus desired and sought because it represents some
worth for a person either in private or social relations. I have
not, in my classification, included a separate set of "personal
values," because it seems to me that, in the last analysis, all values
are personal facts and attitudes. And the distinction, so fre-
quently drawn, between individual and overindividual values, is
simply a distinction in universality, rationality, and compre-
hensiveness, of content and scope, within the scale of personal
values. A person is a more or less socialized and universalized
individual, and, as such, may be described in terms of his valua-
tions. These are measures of his degree of personalization. The
choice of ends by a more or less rational agent depends on a
series of judgments of value or worth. Theoretical, no less than
practical, activities are guided by the affirmation of a series or
scale of life-values. The history of a man's valuations tells the
story of his judgments on life and of his attitudes in relation to
its varied experiences. In typical and contrasting forms of cul-

PERSONALITY AND VALUES 405

ture, such as those of China and Europe, we find broadly defined
and differing standards of value in regard to science, social life,
art, religion, etc. The history of the mutations of culture can
be compactly expressed in terms of the evolution of valuations.
This would give us a sublimated KulturgeschicMe.

On the other hand, considered as immediate and effective
realities, values are valuations, that is, affirmations and attitudes
which exist and function only in personal centers of experience
and deed. No formal logical and metaphysical principle for
the final unification and cosmical grounding of values can be found
outside the unity of personal attitude and experience. In the
lives of finite persons there are two complementary and mutually
indispensable features : diversity or wealth of content, and internal
harmony of experience. There are, in actual developing persons,
all grades of relationship between the diversity and the harmony
of experiences, but in a sane self neither can be wholly absent.
The growth of unity in diversity in the self can be expressed in
terms of the organization of values in increasing harmony. The
so-called overindividual values are representative of the more
universal and rational intrapersonal and interpersonal attitudes.
The "normative" or "ideal" values of truth-seeking and truth-
knowing, sympathy, justice, love, beauty, holiness and fellowship
with God, are generalized expressions of fundamental attitudes
and contents of spiritual and rational selves. Spiritual selfhood
or personality is actualized precisely through the affirmation and
service, in concrete situations, of these universal standards or
norms. In this sense, our definitions of ideal values and of the
spiritual and rational self, are and must be circular. The person
is the rational unity of conscious life, in and for which values
are realized ; and the person develops in and through the univer-
salizing value-attitudes.

The so-called "absolute" values or overindividual types of
valuation can be nothing other than generalized formulations of
the ways in which persons actually attain self-fulfillment through
the progressive harmonization and universalization of their
actions and experiences. Since there are overindividual types of
intrinsic valuation, this means that persons are conscious indi-
viduals whose vocation it is to unify and rationalize their lives
by finding and affirming certain universal interests and ends
which belong to their deepest and truest selfhood. In other

406 MAN AND THE COSMOS

words, it means that the development of personality takes place
through the effective working, in separate individuals, of certain
common or universal potencies of reason and spirit.

Some philosophers would confine philosophy to the analysis and
description of values as actual functions and processes in experi-
ence, and would drop all questions which might arise in regard to
a metaphysics or ontology of values. If this be what is meant by
defining philosophy as the theory of values, the limitation is, I
think, an impossible one to carry out. Intrinsic values are, indeed,
psychical phenomena and functions and, therefore, susceptible of
a descriptive psychological treatment; nevertheless, by their very
nature, they claim to be more than contingent psychical phenom-
ena, or occasional elements in a phenomenal causal complex of
experience. Philosophy, since it is concerned with the final prob-
lems that arise out of the character of experience as fragmentary
and partially incoherent, cannot be satisfied with an empirical
psychological analysis and description of values. The problem of
truth-value is the central one. For the value of truth is no longer
valid, is no longer an intrinsic value, and has no meaning in con-
trast with error, if truth be no more than an occasional, or even
a frequent, product of a blind and unthinking complex of causal
conditions. If truth be just a causal product in a psychological
series, just one element in the psychical complex of finite experi-
ences, this proposition is no truer than its opposite and there is no
truth. A partially parallel situation obtains in regard to goodness,
beauty, and holiness : although in these cases the situation is some-
what different, for, if there be no intrinsic validity in truth, there
can be no sense in pursuing farther the inquiry as to the reality
and truth of other forms of value.

To say that the problem of values is preeminently the problem
of philosophy, means, then, that the fundamental philosophical
problem is that of the relation of the mind's valuing, purposing,
and attitude-taking in knowing, contemplating, doing, and wor-
shiping, to the course of reality. And, we do not evade meta-
physics, or issue in a new era of thought, for which these questions
will appear juvenile, by talking about values, in abstracto, rather
than about valuing selves.

If all values are real only for subjects, what are we to say of
objectivity in values ? The objectivity of intrinsic values consists
in the basic fact that only through the quest and possession of them

PERSONALITY AND VALUES 407

can the higher life of selfhood be realized. While intrinsic values
can have no actual existence apart from conscious life, and hence
are real only as affirmed and enjoyed by selves, these values have
an objective and constraining character; they possess over-
individual validity. Moral and intellectual values, and I think,
too, though less clearly identifiable, aesthetic and religious values,
are objective structures in the life of personality. The evidence
for this contention is that without the service of values, without
seeking and attaining these, the higher selfhood cannot be realized.
The objective constitution of intrinsic values constrains the indi-
vidual who, if he denies or ignores them, does not become a
rational and moral person. One cannot be a thinker if one ignore
or deny the principles of logical thought. One cannot be a well-
integrated personality if one ignore the moral values of personal
relationship. One cannot be a full-bodied personality if one ignore
the claims of aesthetic values. And the religious values in some
form are simply the most comprehensive expression of the con-
ditions of the harmony of the self with itself and its reconciliation
with the universal order. Thus intrinsic values, as served,
adjudged and enjoyed by selves, are to be regarded as a real
existent order, a hyperphysical, objective structure. The essence
of objective idealism, in contrast with subjective idealism, or
mentalism, is the acceptance by the self of the valid authority and
reality of an objective order of values.

The Platonic idealism was the first thoroughgoing attempt at
a metaphysic of values, and therefore remains the norm and type
of all objective idealism. In Plato intrinsic values, which can be
seen and served by men, are regarded as authentic revelations of
the enduring order or meaning of reality. For Aristotle, too, the
aesthetic-intellectual concept of the pure self-activity of reason
represents the highest value and the supreme reality. Kant's
whole philosophy is controlled by the concept of the moral value
of personality and, in a more consistent fashion, the philosophy of
Fichte. For Hegel the supreme reality is identified with spirit
as the unifying ground of value. For him, the ultimate meaning
of individual experience, history and nature, is the realization,
through social life, art, religion and philosophy, by the finite self
of its own individuality in conscious harmony with the absolute
spirit. Anglo-American objective idealism, especially in Bradley,
Bosanquet and Royce, has a similar purport. Recent philosophy

408 MAN AND THE COSMOS

of values in Germany, as in Windelband, Kickert and Eucken,
seeks too, in the objective and constraining character of spiritual
values, the key to the meaning of reality. All great religious sys-
tems, notably, for instance, historic Christianity, are declarations,
in imaginative pictorial symbols, of the supreme validity and
reality of an objective teleological structure or order of spiritual
values ; by laying hold on, serving and enjoying which, the indi-
vidual alone realizes his true selfhood. And in all these doctrines
of an objective structure of values, the individual is regarded as
a socialized self. Some thinkers who make value the central con-
cept of philosophy have tried to escape the necessity for a meta-
physics of personality by having recourse to a "transcendental
ought" (sollen) as the ultimate ground for the objectivity of
values. How a mere "ought" or "should" can be the objective
ground of anything passes my comprehension. To set up such a
notion is an intellectually vicious abstractionism, of the same order
as that which would ground all the reality, worth of personal life,
in a "consciousness in general" (Bewusstsein iiberhaupt). Pure
universals do not exist and certainly not the most abstract of all
universals, either consciousness or matter or being in general.4
The objective reality of values is that alone of qualities of persons.
Whatever reality values have independent of finite selves they can
possess only as essential qualities of a perfect person or community
of persons. If we recognize that the willing service of certain
values, such as justice, love, truth and beauty, are the conditions
through which our spiritual or personal lives are fulfilled, this
recognition implies that such values inhere in the constitution of
ultimate reality and this implies that reality, at its highest and
most permanent level is spiritual and personal. This position by
no means involves the assumption that we or any other human
beings have already discovered and realized all the values which
existence makes possible. A human person is not merely what he
does, but what he is capable of doing,5 and being. "Persons can-
not be understood by what they have achieved at any given
moment ; their nature is to be realizers of value." 6

4 This procedure is like trying to shoot a tiger by aiming at him in general ;
very ineffective and dangerous hunting.

B Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, p. 190.

c Ibid., p. 240. Cf. many passages in Eobert Browning, especially Cristina
and Eabbi Ben Ezra.

PERSONALITY AND VALUES 409

Indeed the relation between the human person's judgments
and realizations of value and the objective order are analogous to
the relations between his perceptions and scientific theories and
the objective order.

We do not know what the physical order would be like apart
from the conditions of our experience. Color, sound, form, move-
ment, etc., are real in so far as there are percipient selves;
scientific theories of the physical world are valid interpretations
thereof only on the hypothesis that our common perceptions are not
illusory; scientific theories are approximating constructions of
the physical basis of our experience which have value only upon
the assumption that perception is not illusion. Similarly with the
aesthetic qualities and, I will add, with the moral qualities. Logic-
ally all qualities perceived and relations apprehended by us are
on the same footing, although, by reason of the greater variability
and complexity in the aesthetic and moral reactions of individuals,
by reason of the fact that the tertiary qualities 7 attributed to
reality are more shot through by feeling and, in the case of moral
qualities, have more directly to do with interpersonal relations,
there is a greater degree of subjectivity and disagreement in regard
to man's aesthetic and moral interpretations of his world. But the
differences are of "degree" and I shall contend at length in later
chapters, that the aesthetic and moral, yes, and even the religious,
reactions of human personality to its cosmical environment have
as good right to be heard in making up a theory of the ultimate
meaning of reality as have his perceptual data which go by the
name of "primary" and "secondary" qualities.

It is a prejudice, due to the overvaluation of the technical
achievements of western civilization and the apparent superiority
of mathematical and mechanical methods, that condemns aesthetic,
moral and religious valuations as mere subjective imaginings and
gives objectivity solely to mechanical schemes of nature.

If we have the right to say that man's aesthetic, moral and
religious sentiments are genuine data for the interpretation of his
place in the universe it follows therefrom that, since the values
inherent in these sentiments always have lodgment in selves or
persons, the universe is personal or spiritual.

TiEsthetie qualities of nature are called "tertiary" by analogy with the
"primary" and "secondary" qualities of perceptual experience.

410 MAN AND THE COSMOS

We human selves discover values and in their realization
become persons and thereby become richer and more harmonious
finite embodiments of the meaningful and worthful life of the
universe. Beauty, for instance, is its own excuse for being, not
because beauty is truth and truth beauty but because it is true
that beauty is a revelation of the soul of things. The same is true
of justice, love, fellowship. And the most comprehensive religious
value experience — communion with God — is that communion of
the individual person with the cosmic spirit which grows in wealth
and harmony with the growth of personality in insight, love and
wisdom. For the deepest quality in man, that which makes him
a person or spirit in becoming, is the capacity to transcend his
natural or biological selfhood and to take on more universal and
richer spiritual quality. Man is essentially a God-seeker, one who
can become divine. This destiny of spiritual progress through
self-transcendence is the deepest word of the greatest human
thinkers. "Not my will but thine be done." "For me to live is
Christ, and to die is gain." "Forgetting the things which are
behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,
I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling."
"He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life
for my sake shall find it." "Join a whole or make one." (Jesus,
Paul and Goethe.) So too the doctrine of the union of the indi-
vidual soul with the universal soul ; Plato's doctrine of the good ;
Aristotle's contemplative life; the Stoic life in harmony with the
logos ; the mystic's contemplative and ecstatic union with the one.
Through these and other one-sided or partial expressions of the same
principle there shines one fundamental truth — the absolute prin-
ciple of value, the objective ground of all values is personality,
spiritual selfhood in widest commonalty spread. Whatever en-
riches and stabilizes the life of spiritual selfhood and of community
which is the atmosphere in which personality lives and moves and
has its being, has value. The objective reality of all values is the
interdependent life of personality and community.

All values are relative, but not in the sense that no values are
objectively valid. All values are relative in the sense that they
are related to, have their ground in, personality. Some values
are wholly instrumental and others chiefly so. Economic values
are, from our standpoint, purely instrumental ; they serve the life
of personality. Bodily values are chiefly so, since personality is

PERSONALITY AND VALUES 411

essentially spirit, but not wholly so, since body contributes some-
thing directly to spiritual self-fulfillment. The values furthered
by political and technical organizations are chiefly instrumental.
On the other hand in so far as the nation-state, for instance, is the
adequate expression of the soul and culture of a people it tends to
become a genuine spiritual community. But the state, perhaps,
can never be a spiritual community. The family, the group of
friends, the church, are genuine spiritual communities and hence
their values are not purely instrumental. They are means which
become essential parts of the end — since it is in love, fellowship,
and devotion that spiritual personality is realized.

All values are related to persons and thus person-dependent. Is
there a scale of values ? No, for this would imply that the values
of life could be measured mathematically on a common standard.
Personal values constitute a system, a harmonious hyperorganic
whole; for the ideal personality is a harmonious spiritual whole,
in which the principle of the whole lives in each part and each
part lives only as a part of the whole. And the individual person
can be such only as a member of the cosmic spiritual system, since
the interpersonal and the intrapersonal values are interdependent.
One can become a free and rational spirit only through member-
ship in the ideal spiritual community.

Some philosophers who make value the central concept of
philosophy hold that, in place of a metaphysic of selves, philosophy
should aim at a metaphysic of values — that the ultimate goal of
thought is the rational faith in the supremacy of values.8 This,
it seems to me, is to substitute a set of abstractions for concrete
actualities; it is to give way to the temptation to hypostatize
abstract entities, when confronted with the difficulties involved in
establishing on rational grounds a faith in the value and per-
manence of conscious individuality or personality. Values have
no existence as such ; in other words, apart from persons, integrity,
justice, love, happiness, beauty and perfection do not exist. As
Mr. Sorley puts it : "Moral perfection is of supreme value but not
the mere concept of moral perfection." "The subject of values is
always something we describe by a concrete term." "When the
world is judged to be good or bad it is as the environment of per-
sons." Thus when the question is raised whether man has any

8 For instance Rickert, Windelband and Miinsterberg.
i

412 MAN AND THE COSMOS

reasonable right to believe in the supremacy and permanence of
values in the universe, one has only put, in more abstract form,
the question : Has man a right to a rational faith in the supremacy
or permanence of a society of persons in the universe ? Has he a
right to believe that rational individuality grows and endures in
the cosmos and that the ruling order of the cosmos is the continuous
fruition of a commonwealth of persons ?

Beyond the harmonious enrichment and expansion of personal
experience, as at once individual and universal, there is no prin-
ciple discoverable for the unification of values. Values per se,
apart from the attitudes and achievements of selves, have no sub-
stantive existence. The evolution of values is the evolution of
personality. Hence, in affirming and realizing the most universal
values the self is discovering and affirming the conditions of its own
spiritual and rational functioning.

If the so-called absolute values have no self-existence beyond
the interpersonal and intrapersonal affirmations of selves, it follows
that there can be no universal cosmical ground and sustaining
unity of human values, unless there be a cosmical ground for the
lives of finite persons. Logical, ethical, aesthetic, and religious
valuations can have no absolute basis unless personality have an
absolute basis. The ultimate foundation of spiritual values must
reside in a supreme self or nowhere. If personality have a meta-
physical basis of reality, then ideal values may be permanently
valid and effective in the cosmical process ; but the ground of the
permanent validity of values must not be so conceived as to rob
the evolution of finite personalities of all significance.

In brief, the authority and persistence of the intrinsic values
of human experience require the hypothesis of a supreme conscious
unity and ground and conservator of values, that is, of a self who
is the sustainer of all these values which are progressively dis-
covered, affirmed, and realized in the social, ethical, aesthetic,
intellectual and religious experiences of human persons.

If ethical values and other intrinsic values that may be essen-
tial conditions and qualities of personality have a cosmic ground,
that means, translated into more concrete terms, that the life of
personality is rooted and grounded in the nature of the cosmos.
We cannot attempt further discussion of this question of all ques-
tions until we have surveyed more fully the nature of human
values and the general structure of reality.

PERSONALITY AND VALUES 413

I remark, however, by way of conclusion — that the course of
evolution has resulted in the emergence and expansion of person-
ality and its values; that teleological activity, that is, in man,
activity directed toward the achievement and maintenance of
values, is an obvious empirical characteristic of the world order,
and that no doctrine of evolution which is to be adequate to the
facts can escape employing the notions of direction, end, and value.
No matter how human and personal values got into the evolu-
tionary process, they are here, and, probably they are growing in
wealth of content and effectiveness of expression. By whatever
mechanism it may have happened, the evolutionary process has
brought forth human and spiritual values, and it continues to
manifest them to an increasing degree and with a growing wealth
of content. It can hardly have produced them out of nothing and
by chance in a blind chaos. It would seem that a humanistic prin-
ciple, a power not ourselves making for personality, must have
been at work in it all along. If so, the evolutionary process only
fully explains itself in terms of its labor, however slowly and
toilsomely the work may seem to be accomplished, to bring forth
persons and their valuations of their experiences. If the process
of evolution be not capable of some such interpretation I cannot
see that it is explicable at all. For truth, the central determining
value of conscious reflective life, and goodness, beauty, and holi-
ness, the other determining values of personality, by their very
nature claim to be more than occasional precipitations of cosmical
weather. These values, and the conscious spirits in which they
inhere and function, must claim to be continuously valid principles
for the interpretation of reality, and continuously effective prin-
ciples in the evolution of the same reality. Without the recog-
nition of such principles, evolution is unintelligible, since intelli-
gible change involves continuity of direction and of ends. It is
precisely such a progressive continuity of meaning that is afforded
by the hypothesis of the persistent reality and effectiveness of per-
sons and their valuations. If intrinsic values are valid, and if the
world-process has a continuous whole of meaning, then persons
must, no matter when or how they may make their appearance in
the history of the temporal universe, be true manifestations of a
supreme personality, or, if the term be preferred, of a supra-
personality.

CHAPTER XXX

ETHICAL VALUES1

Ethics is the science of the intrinsic values of the individual
life, when considered in its social relations ; it asks, what are the
standards of good conduct that are desirable from the viewpoint
of social well-being. Its business is to determine and interpret
those ends of concerted human striving which are worthy to be
sought on their own account, and to organize them into a har-
monious system of social goods or values. If, therefore, moral
goodness is primarily a quality of persons, if all moral values are
personal values, ethics is a science of personality in a peculiarly
intimate and full sense. We must first consider whether all moral
values are qualities of persons.

The moral judgment is passed, in the first instance, on acts,
but, in its ultimate reference, on conscious agents regarded as self-
determining and responsible centers of volition. Intrinsic moral
quality or value can therefore inhere only in the dispositions and
activities of selves. Material things and processes, wealth, social
institutions, science and art, are not intrinsically or ethically good ;
they are good only with respect to their consequences in the expan-
sion and harmonization of the life of rational selfhood. Kant
expressed this truth finely in his great saying, "There is nothing
in the world, and, indeed, nothing that we can think outside the
same, that we can regard as good without limitation, except the
good will."2 By will Kant means the personal disposition (Ge-
sinnung) to choose and pursue ends with full view of their con-
sequences.

He does not mean a life of "good intentions," with which, as
the popular proverb runs, hell may be paved. The supreme good

1 This chapter is the revision and expansion of an article ' ' Ethics, Sociology
and Personality' ' in The Philosophical Review, Vol. xv, No. 5, September,
1906; pp. 494-510.

aKant, Metaphysics of Morality, Section 1.

414

ETHICAL VALUES 415

is the maximum realization of the capacities for feeling and
activity (including, of course, thought as a form of activity) of
the socialized individual or person. Ultimately there can be no
good which is not affirmed or experienced by selves, and no virtue
which is not the quality of a conscious and free individuality. All
moral values are functions of personality. For example, truthful-
ness is harmony between personal thought and its expression;
temperance or self-control is the subordination and direction of
the sensuous appetites to the wider aesthetic, intellectual, and social
aims of the self ; courage is the power and will to affirm in action
and in suffering the integrity and supremacy of the rational self ;
justice, the all-controlling form of social virtue, is the effective
recognition, by a person or group of persons, of the intrinsic worth
and inalienable rights of personality in other selves; injustice
contradicts the nature of personality, since it is the denial to others
of that worth which we affirm in ourselves ; and when, for example,
we say a man is not just to himself we mean that he is ignoring or
denying the intrinsic dignity of his own rational nature; wisdom
is right judgment in regard to the relative values of specific per-
sonal ends, and in regard to the determination of the right means
for the attainment of these ends; benevolence or active sympathy,
friendship, and love are forms of that interpersonal feeling which,
as we shall show more fully later on, is the very basis and goal
of the richest and most harmonious selfhood.

On the other hand, as we have already seen, persons are social-
ized individuals. Society is an interpersonal mental world.
Hence, moral values are at once individual in origin and enjoy-
ment and social in reference and consequences. To say that my
ethical valuations are social is another way of saying that, as
ethical being, the ends which I value and strive for have to do
with other persons as well as myself. I am a person only in a
world of persons.

Society undergoes historical evolution, and ethical valuations
are both factors in, and resultants of, social evolution. The
specific ethical goods, the virtues, duties, and rights, that are ex-
pressed in moral judgments and that control moral activity, from
period to period and from place to place in the historical world,
undergo change in the cultural evolution of races, nations, and
social groups, and in the moral development of individuals. It
may truly be said that any social group — for example, a church,

416 MAN AND THE COSMOS

college, a labor union, a civic community, a nation, or, on a wider
scale, an epoch of human culture, such as the apostolic age of the
Christian Church or the European Renaissance — is a spiritual
medium for the development of personality. In the moral evolu-
tion of humanity it sometimes happens that the virtues of another
age and race are vices and crimes of to-day and here. Contem-
porary cultural variations in the content of moral judgment, for
example, in Borneo, Japan, China, England, to-day, represent
different levels of moral evolution.

Moral valuations, then, are historically conditioned products;
culture-history, in turn, is the product of personal and interper-
sonal judgments and acts. The significance and validity of ethical
values in the concrete cannot be understood apart from their his-
tory. And to trace the historical evolution of moral values in
detail is a very interesting and important task of culture-history;
for example, from the morals of a primitive tribe to the social
ethics of the Hebrew prophets is a long step, and a considerable
step further it is from the Hebrew ethics of a theocratic society,
in which perfect justice and love should reign, to the rational
individualism of to-day. Here, however, we are concerned only
with the general principles for the interpretation of the evolution
of moral values in society and not with the details of social-moral
evolution. Is there traceable in the evolution of moral values a
well-defined movement towards the recognition of a rational self
or person as the final bearer of values ? What is the relation of
this historical evolution to the development of personality in the
individual ? Are there distinct levels or stages of social-moral
evolution and of individual-moral development ? Both questions
I shall answer in the affirmative. Individual development is an
epitome of social evolution. The moral evolution in society and
the moral development in the individual reciprocally determine
one another.

There are three clearly distinct stages of social-moral evolution
and of individual-moral development. First, is the "customary"
social or "tribal" morality. At this, the lowest level of dis-
tinctively human social order, men obey without question the con-
ventional or customary rules of action of the family, tribe, clan,
or city. The individual shows no critical independence in moral
judgment. His practical consciousness is the echo of accumulated
and consecrated tribal experiences and beliefs as to what conduct

ETHICAL VALUES 417

is obligatory, permissible, or impermissible. Conduct is guided
wholly by social instincts and habits. No one thinks of doing that
which is right in his own eyes. In fact there is as yet no con-
sciousness of anything as being right simply in the individual's
eyes. This first stage, the morality of custom and unwritten law,
is illustrated by the customs of "taboo" in vogue among savage
peoples, and by the morality of peoples in early stages of civiliza-
tion ; for example, by the tribal morality of the early Hebrews and
Greeks, and, to a very considerable extent, of the Chinese to-day.
The social group and not the individual is held responsible. There
is no clear distinction between the group and the individual in the
matter of merit and demerit, or between morals and ceremonials,
or moral and religious observances. Since human civilization is
full of "survivals," one finds many traces of customary morality
among the most advanced peoples. Indeed, one finds in highly
civilized nations many individuals, who, for lack of inborn
capacity or education, never get beyond the customary stage at
all; they are guided and restrained in their actions simply by the
social patterns which they repeat without thought and would not
dare to question.

The passage from the first level to the second level of moral
evolution is brought about by the conflict which ensues between
the desires and ideas of reflective individuals, who are becoming
conscious of themselves as separate and free existences, and the
morality of tribal custom and law. Historical illustrations of this
conflict are to be found in the "sophistical" age of Greek enlighten-
ment, in the Renaissance, the eighteenth century enlightenment,
and again, for the whole of western civilization, at the present
time. A fine literary embodiment of this conflict is the Antigone
of Sophocles. In and through this conflict of the reflective indi-
vidual with traditionary custom, self-conscious rationality is en-
gendered. Conduct first becomes a problem for thought. Without
its "storm and stress," ethical self-consciousness is not born in an
individual life or in a national culture. This stage of critical and
reflective individualism we term the second level of moral devel-
opment.

The third principal level of moral development is that on which
the individual has gained a critical insight into the rationale of
social morality, and consciously identifies his own moral interests
and standards of action with those of society, in so far as the latter

418 MAN AND THE COSMOS

are rational and coherent. At this level the individual becomes
aware of the rational meaning and justification of social or insti-
tutional morals- He finds a spiritual life for himself through
action in harmony with the social reason, that is, with mind
objectified in social and historical institutions. Historically this
stage is exemplified by the political and social philosophy of Plato
and Aristotle, and, in part, by the social teachings of the Hebrew
prophets. Its most comprehensive modern philosophical expres-
sions are the ethics of Kant and Fichte, the Philosophy of Right
of Hegel,3 and the 'works of the English Utilitarians and the
English Hegelians, such as T. H. Green, Mackenzie, Bradley and
Bosanquet.

In the individual life the young man comes to see the necessity
and meaning of "custom" and "law" in family, community, state,
and church. He finds a more stable and rationally ordered inner
life by obeying, and assimilating into his own feeling and will,
social "law" and "principle" as indispensable conditions of social
stability and well-being.

But on the third level there arises the consciousness of the
imperfect rationality and inner inconsistency of the actual social-
moral institutions, in whose formation and growth reason has only
worked imperfectly and intermittently, because hindered by the
partly contingent and blind character of social evolution. There
is now a sense of the failure of the existing and inherited social-
moral institutions and usages wholly to meet the demands of the
growing spirit, unless these institutions are rejuvenated and trans-
formed from within by the insights and deeds of the rational self.

Actual and traditional moral conventions, in custom, law, and
social prejudice, tend to become ossified, and thus to arrest the free
growth of personality. For example, the actual democratic state
falls below the democratic ideal of a citizenship of free persons.
Its working constitution fails to meet new demands of the per-
sonal life.

The actual state, community, church, or family, may retard,
instead of furthering, the inward growth of a spiritual individual-
ity. The community-life may be stagnant and mechanized. The

•It is true that Hegel one-sidedly emphasizes the complete rationality
of social morality as all included in the spirit of the state or political society.
Nietzsche, with his equally one-sided expression of the principle of individual-
istic self-assertion, is the foil to Hegel.

ETHICAL VALUES 419

church may not respond to the higher intellectual and social con-
science. The family may be blind or indifferent to the individual's
spiritual needs. There may arise a clash between the conditions
and usages of existing social ethics, and political life, and the
''infinite" needs of the spirit; or the existing institutions may
simply fail, through arrest and decay, to meet the demands of the
rational spirit in its developing individuality. Such was the case
in Greek life after the period of political decay set in; and the
Stoic and Epicurean ethical theories were attempts to meet the
moral needs of the individual loosened from his ancient social and
political moorings. Such was the case in Judasa and in the Roman
world at large at the beginning of Christianity. Such was the
case, once again, at the period of the Protestant Reformation and
of the Revolution in France. Such in many relations of life
seems to be the case at the present time. The existing confusion
of moral judgments in regard to the ethics of industry and com-
merce, of the family, of political organization, of credal subscrip-
tion in the churches, of nationalism and internationalism, indicate
that the inherited and conventional social standards do not meet
the spiritual needs of individuality, developing under the stress
of a multitude of changing conditions in the economic, political,
intellectual, and religious spheres. Such confusion lays upon the
thinking individual a new and inescapable burden of rational re-
flection and independent choice. To-day the individual is pre-
eminently challenged to stand upon his own feet morally and to
trust for support to his own rational will. The moral personality
must now, as in the days of the Stoics and Jesus, seek its fulfill-
ment and fruition in a spiritual life that goes beyond established
social and moral conventions in the interest of a better social order.
In all advancing civilization the individual has doubtless met this
problem, and the spiritual differences between culture-epochs are
largely due to the varying extent and depth with which the con-
sciousness of the moral life as a personal problem may be felt.

At this third and highest level of moral insight and endeavor
the individual fulfills the demands of the established social order,
in so far as these are not in contradiction with the social and per-
sonal values, in the affirmation of which the thinking self works
out, with reference to his unique situation and inner nature, the
universal principles of a rational and free humanity. At this level
the given customary and institutional system of moral values ceases

420 MAN AND THE COSMOS

to be ultimately authoritative aud determinative. The ideals or
values affirmed by rational self-conscious spirit are indeed social as
well as individual ; but the distinction has now arisen between the
moral life as fact and as problem.

The highest stage in moral evolution is the birth of rational
self-consciousness, in which the individual becomes fully aware, at
once of his moral individuality, as this is defined by his actual
capacities and social situation, and of the universal human and
spiritual values that demand and must win expression through the
medium of this very individuality of nature and uniqueness of
situation.

It is not meant that every individual, or any portion of the
human race which constitutes a continuous unity of cultural evolu-
tion, must of necessity go through all the above-mentioned stages
of moral development, in such fashion that all the stages can be
clearlv marked out. Perhaps only relatively few individuals in
a highly civilized society even to-day with full consciousness reach
the third level. The first level may be so much abbreviated as to
be scarcely distinguishable. China has apparently not yet passed
into the second level,4 whereas Japan is moving towards the recog-
nition of free individuality. The earlier levels persist and cut
into the later in the actual movement of cultural-history. These
three levels represent the immaTient logic of moral evolution. In
the race, and in the individual, morality moves through these
critical phases towards free and rational personality as its im-
manent goal and spiritual principle of interpretation.

Society's moral function is to crystallize into definite institu-
tional form that minimum of rules of conduct which are necessary
to insure the existence and perpetuity of some measure of stable
social order. Society, usually in the comprehensive forms of the
state (with its subordinate forms) and the church, is the con-
server and transmitter of moral tradition and of the economic,
intellectual, legal and political framework of the common life.
But there is in actual society as such no principle of moral dis-
covery and progress. These originate in individuals. There may
be widespread inarticulate moral tendencies and movements at
work in society, for instance, in the Koman Empire at the begin-

* This was written before the Chinese Revolution. Demoralization means
' de-more fation," the disintegration of customary code of morality.

ETHICAL VALUES 421

ning of the Christian era. Indeed, without such ripeness of the
time no new ethical movement could make headway. But the
existence of such tendencies means that many individuals or
groups of individuals have common aspirations and longings that
await articulate expression and satisfaction. And such tendencies
do not become efficient forces in social and ethical progress until
they get definite and powerful expression through creative person-
alities who transcend, by their force in conceiving and applying
an ideal, their own existential state as part of the empirical social
order.

In ethics, as in religion, philosophy, and art, progress emanates
from the actions of great or socially creative personalities. The
mainspring of ethical discovery and progress, then, is an over-
social and ideal force in the individual. Neither goodness nor truth
is furthered or determined by merely counting heads. And this
over-social and ideal principle of personal conduct will enjoin new
social attitudes that, in reference to the existing order, represent
a higher social ideal. But it may also enjoin attitudes that have
no obvious application to any actual social order. It is no doubt
true that the great bulk of our ideas and activities as moral beings
have a direct social reference, and that, practically, it is better that
the social aspects of our actions should be emphasized, since we
are not usually in danger of neglecting those goods which make
the strongest appeals to our private interests. This consideration
does not, however, affect the principle that the free and rational
activity of persons is the highest stage of ethical development.

Personality is the central and determining standard of value in
all moral progress. We cannot fully describe, in set terms, what
it is to be a moral personality in the concrete; but we may define
a moral person as a rational self-determining individual who, by
his own initiative, strives to transcend mere custom or convention
and to lift himself and others into a spiritually richer and more
harmonious life, while faithfully performing the duties of his
station.

A clear evidence that the self-determining individual is the
central principle of value in social evolution may be found in the
general identification of the significance of any great historical
civilization with the work and characters of its outstanding per-
sonalities. In the general mind Moses, Isaiah and the other
prophets, Jesus, Paul, and John stand for the spiritual qualities

422 MAN AND THE COSMOS

of Hebrew civilization. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Homer,
yEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, stand for Greek culture.
Anselm, the great Mystics, Thomas Aquinas, and Dante stand
for mediaBval culture. Petrarch, Leonardo da Vinci, Michel-
angelo, Eaphael and a few others represent the civilization of the
Italian Kenaissance. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, Kidley
and Latimer represent the Protestant Keformation.

These are a few illustrations of the general principle that the
worth and meaning of any great movement of human social evolu-
tion is represented and summed up in its great outstanding per-
sonalities. Social progress and social good are meaningless and
unreal, except in so far as they are concreted in persons. The
respect paid to personality, and the scope allowed for its free
development, are the truest measures of the moral quality of a
culture, the true standards of human progress. The reflective life
of self-determining persons is the only absolutely worthful reality
we know. Therefore Kant rightly says, "Act so as to treat
humanity, whether in thine own person or in the person of another
always as an end and never merely as a means," G and Hegel, "Be
a person."

The moral development of personality is a dialectic movement
or growth through contrast, in which there are two constant terms,
sometimes in opposition and at other times in harmony — the indi-
vidual with his unique feelings, his private desires and interests ;
and the social order with its over-individual demands and sanc-
tions. As a matter of fact the conflict is chiefly between wider
and narrower, deeper and shallower, social interests in which the
individual's life is implicated, not between an atomic or socially
isolated individual and the social order. Normally, there is no
such being as an atomic individual. The individual as a rational
judge of conduct in a critical situation which has a unique char-
acter, as the never-to-be repeated situation of just this person here
and now, transcends the actual moral traditions of society. In
this sense every consciously ethical act of a person which involves
reflection and choice of alternatives has an individual and unique
character. On the other hand the moral life of man is an inter-
personal life. We feel both natural impulses and moral obligations
to promote the welfare of other persons. The great moral leaders

6 Critique of Practical Beason.

ETHICAL VALUES 423

of the race have always rightly insisted that the good life is to he
found in communion with other lives and in devotion to wider
rational and social interests.

This mutual dependence and reciprocal influence of ego and
alter or, more accurately, of the individual's various "selves," in
conduct is the dialectic of the ethical life. Intrinsic ethical goods
are forms of self-realization, and the supreme good is the maximum
organic unity or harmony of personal life functioning in a diver-
sity of activities. Now, it is at once the supreme paradox and the
inescapable law of ethical personality that it finds the highest
values of life in devotion to over-individual ends, whether in the
promotion of the immediate welfare of other persons or of more
impersonal forms of life, such as science, art, industry, the state,
the church, the local community.

In such cases the realization of an intrinsic good involves the
transcendence, in action, by the individual of his present exis-
tential state, and, in this act of self-transcendence, the immanent
presence in him of a rational or universal spirit.

Ethics must, on the one hand, recognize the unique significance
of the person as the source of ideal valuations and of action in
harmony with such valuations ; on the other hand, ethics must take
account of the social institutions or culture forms, which are
created and modified by the historical activity of persons, and
through which these attain rational self-consciousness. The
rational life of selves is bipolar — at once individual and social, in
ever varying relations and proportions. The ethical life is not
a special department of the growth of personality. It is the whole
development of personality in relation with the historical moral
institutions of family and society, state and religion, science and
art.

The highest good is definable only in very general terms as the
greatest possible harmony of intrinsic personal and interpersonal
goods or values ; and intrinsic goods we have already discovered to
be manifold and various. Any disposition or activity which em-
bodies or promotes the functioning of some intrinsic capacity of
a sentient and rational self is ethically good, provided thereby some
more worthful quality is not injured or thwarted. What specific
quality or capacity of a person shall be judged more worthful,
when the simultaneous functioning of two or more tendencies is
incompatible, can only be determined empirically with reference

424 MAN AND THE COSMOS

to the concrete and individual case. The only general criterion
that can be set up is that of the greatest possible harmony, or
balance and proportion, consistent with the least possible suppres-
sion or destruction of any integral personal capacity, and with the
dominance of the universal or rational values of living. The
ethical good is far from being always identical with empirical and
obvious social good. For example, mutual personal service and
intercourse, civic cooperation and social peace are ethical goods;
but the sesthetic and scientific culture of the individual, his critical
freedom and independence of mind, in short, individual self-
reliance in judgment and action, are equally ethical goods. In
ages like our own, inner self-possession and poise, and the intellec-
tual power critically to preserve independence of thought in the
face of the blind tendencies of the social mass, seem particularly
important ethical goods.

Ethical values are affirmations of an ideal selfhood — a spiritual
individual whose fundamental capacities get full play, whose
action is reflectively or rationally autonomous, not blindly and
chaotically impulsive; whose active tendencies work together
toward fuller and richer harmony of insight and feeling. In
specific cases the fullness of activity and harmony of feeling sought
may have primary reference to the self's own internal functioning,
to the harmony of its physical and psychical natures, to the like
condition in other selves ; or to the emotional and active relations
between the self and other selves. In its more comprehensive
ethical insights and deeds, the self transcends all these partial
forms of moral action and feeling. It sees and affirms the rela-
tion of these partial ends as contributory to a more universal or
ideal interpersonal experience, to fullness of action and balance of
feeling in a harmonious totality which overcomes the oppositions
of ego and alter. It is in obedience to overindividual ends or
universal values that the personal life attains self-realization.

The moral person is more than a socialized individual. No
one has attained full consciousness of personality, as the standard
of ethical values, who has not passed beyond the demands of con-
ventional social requirements in his moral insight. Even the
principle of personal service of one's fellows, ennobling though it
be, is of fullest value only when the self who serves recognizes that
moral selfhood requires the independent adventure of serving with
his unique individuality. If the final principle of ethical valua-

ETHICAL VALUES 425

tion be the harmonious development and energizing of personal
capacities to think and feel and do, this end can be served in
society only by him who has found himself as a self-determining
and self-transcending or progressing person, and who sees and
serves the vision of an ideal society of selves, in which the universal
values of justice, self-control, rational insight, wisdom and love
are incarnated. The moral self is more than social, otherwise
society would never rise to higher levels. Moral personality is a
creative principle, by virtue of which the individual is able to go
beyond what he actually is or what other selves actually are.
Moral personality is a spiritual possibility of progress, an ideal
that is more real and effective than the actual, an "ought to be"
that breaks and remakes the "is," a dream which shatters and
reshapes the brute facts of the sensuous and conventional life.
This paradox of the ethical life carries us beyond actual morality
to the metaphysical implications of moral selfhood. It implies the
recognition in the empirical individual of a spiritual power of
action that transcends the actual state of the individual life and
the actual moral status of society. The life of ethical striving
makes men members of a metahistorical order of reality. The
perfected self which ought to be and can be, but which is not yet
empirical fact, is a selfhood that belongs to a transcendent rational
and spiritual order which is nevertheless immanent in the actual
order. Kant was right in his insight that the moral self as the
free servant of duty, the inner law of practical reason, is a member
of the intelligible or noumenal order of reality. Here, at the
limits of the actual, the moral self finds itself en rapport with a
deeper order of reality and one which holds the key to the final
meaning of personality.

The self, to be truly moral, must be more than moral. It must
pass beyond the oppositions of good and bad, of ideal and actual,
to find and live in the ultimate spiritual reality which enables the
good to transform the bad, the ideal to control the actual.

The full interpretation of the meaning of moral personality
thus brings us to the portals of religion and metaphysics.

The moral attitude in man is one of striving towards a state of
perfection, of seeking the far country of the spirit. This attitude
involves, at once, a consciousness of the goal of moral endeavor, a
consciousness of the gap between the personal will and the goal it
seeks, and the persistent resolve to cross that gap. Now, the whole

426 MAN AND THE COSMOS

seriousness and significance of the moral life in man rests on the
faith latent in it, not only that the goal can be attained, not only
that the breach between the "is" and the "ought-to-be" can be
healed ; but that it is already healed, that the good is the supreme
reality, that the "ought-to-be" now and eternally "is."

In short the moral attitude in man strives for a conclusion
which, when reached, would be its own euthanasia, and, moreover,
presupposes that this conclusion is already somehow somewhere
reached. The moral point of view, then, cannot be final. Perfect
goodness can be realized only in a spiritual state which goes
beyond it. In this respect the religious attitude is the full fruition
of the moral attitude. The religious attitude presupposes, not
only that the morally good will be achieved, but that it already
rules in the universe at large ; not only that the right will prevail
but that it must and does now prevail, all appearances to the con-
trary notwithstanding. And, in religious experience, in faith and
communion with God, the individual feels himself to be in contact
with, and in very possession of, this ultimate spiritual reality for
which the good is no longer a far-off divine event but a present and
ever-abiding reality. Nevertheless, while the religious attitude
transcends and completes the moral attitude it does not do so by
abolishing,. the latter; rather the religious attitude absorbs into
itself the moral attitude. The ethical will passes into its fruition
only as it is taken up into the experience of supermoral perfection.
The faith in the supremacy of the moral ideal, the conviction that
the "ought-to-be" really "is," does not render the moral activity of
the finite self of no effect. All that this faith need imply, from the
ethical point of view, is that, in his moral activities, man is work-
ing in harmony with the supreme cosmic meaning. This is the
expression of the insight that a life which has lived through and
transcended its moral struggle, is a richer, more self-complete form
of goodness than one still immersed in the struggle, still fighting with
uncertain issue. In communion with the highest good man tran-
scends the moral point of view. Keligion means, in its highest
forms, the conviction of the final conservation of personal values
in a harmonious experience in which the "ought-to-be" no longer
is the controlling principle, since what ought to be is transcended
and fulfilled in what is. The ultimate reality, which the moral
agent and the philosopher seek, is found as immediate spiritual
experience in all genuine and spiritual religion.

CHAPTER XXXI

FEELING AND VALUES

All feeling is either incipient or completed action. No sharp
line of demarcation can be drawn between affection and conation,
feeling and will. Volition is incited by affection. The raw ma-
terials of action consist of the primal feeling-impulses — the
instincts and desires, and the subjective terminus of action is always
an immediate feeling-state or affection, in which consciousness is
suffused with satisfaction or rent by dissatisfaction, according as
action has proved successful or the reverse. In the life history
of the individual and the race the emotional and appetitive tenden-
cies antedate, in their manifestations, the specifically intellectual,
and in the purposive activities of intelligent life the intellectual
element is continually being made subservient to emotion. Feeling
or affection is, preeminently, the individuating factor of conscious-
ness. The primacy and uniqueness of the self is primarily that of
a felt unity, not a reflectively cognized unity. Whereas perception
and reasoning are regarded as shared and public processes (of ex-
perience), emotion — and, indeed, all affection — is private, un-
shared, exclusive. You and I may agree that we perceive the same
beautiful maiden, but I can never agree that our love for her is the
same. My felt aspirations after knowledge or fame are my own
private experiences. The individual's affections and emotions are
the matrix of his consciousness of selfhood. Moreover, besides
their individuating function in their centers of origin, the ele-
mental emotions are individuating and exclusive in reference.
The object of the emotional reaction is always individualized. No
one fears, hates, loves, or envies things in general. One fears,
hates, loves, or desires always a particular thing or person. The
object of emotion is the object of an exclusive interest. We shall
see, however, that the affectional life is also capable of generaliza-
tion and that the "sentiments" may be regarded as generalized
emotional tendencies. The emotional life takes on ideal values,

427

428 MAN AND THE COSMOS

it acquires social value and meaning, just in so far as it is sub-
limated and transformed into rational attitudes. Indeed, the sense
of general values attributed to objects of direct experience or of
idealizing thought is, perhaps, the most striking case of emotional
Generalization. Just as the "concept" is the "percept" generalized
by the activity of reason, so the "sentiment" is the emotion univer-
salized by reason. Predication through sentiments or judgments
of feeling are the ultimate sources of those appreciations, or
affirmations of value, by which experience finds its final appraisal
and meaning for personality. The history of the felt valuations
that are expressed in the lives of individuals, societies, and culture-
systems may be traced out, and one may find a logic or rationale
in the evolution of these emotional appraisals; but, in the last
resort, for the individuals, societies, and cultures in question, the
appeal in regard to the relative values of activities,, whether per-
taining to scientific, moral and legal, religious, or aesthetic affairs,
or to the intimately personal matters of sex and family, is always
an appeal to judgments of sentiment or feeling.1

Affection or feeling is always the reference of some psychical
content — for instance, a plan of action, an idea of past action or of
a future state of the self, in some practical and social or contem-
plative relation — to the immediate unity of the self's life, and this
reference is always accompanied by pleasure or pain, harmony or
discord.2 But feeling is far from being solely a matter of pleasant-
ness and painfulness, although pleasure and pain are its most
generic attributes. Pleasantness and unpleasantness of feelings
differ qualitatively at various levels of psychic development.
There is a wide range of qualitative diversity, from the sensuous
pleasures of mere touch to the ideal pleasures of logical reasoning,
moral heroism, or philosophical speculation. For example, the
sensuous pleasure of eating plum-pudding and the ideal pleasure
of reading Matthew Arnold's poetry are so different qualitatively
as to be incomparable. The qualitative differences in feeling and,
hence, in pleasantness and unpleasantness, are dependent on the
specific differences of psychic contents and activities, as these are

*In the present work the term "feeling" is always used as equivalent to
1 ' affective consciousness. ' '

2 ' ' Feelings are immediately experienced qualities or determinations of the
ego. They are consequently absolutely subjective." Th. Lipps, Leitfaden der
Psychologie, pp. 16, 17.

FEELING AND VALUES 429

experienced in their relations to the unity of the self. I desire to
act in a certain way — it may be to lead a dance or to lead a political
party. My situation develops in such a manner that the thought
contents presented in my mind engender the feeling of the actual
failure or success of my desire and plan. In such a case the
reaction of the self as a unique feeling center carries with it a
pleasure or pain distinct in quality from that which would follow
on my success or failure in getting invited to a fine dinner or in
writing this chapter. Each activity or thought-content gets its
own specific emotional coloring in relation to the massive central
feeling reaction. Feeling is a function of two variables, the
specific ideational and motor content of consciousness, and the
unique emotional selfhood which has these contents. The presenta-
tional and reflective contents of personal feeling include, of course,
a vast range of experiences — organic sensations of many sorts, such
as visceral and thoracic sensations, sensations of strain, tension,
trembling, coldness, hotness, etc. We are not concerned here with
psychological analysis or physiological explanation of emotions.
From our present standpoint, the affectional or feeling qualities,
which color these psychic contents, are the emotional reactions of
the self. By these reactions the self suffuses its presented contents
with appreciations and values. These emotional reactions express
and differentiate individualities. One man carries out the train
of activities involved in angling with the fly in a cool, deliberate
fashion. His emotional reaction may be deep, but it is placid, or
its exuberance is held in reserve until the "game" is over. Another
explodes emotionally with every variation in his angling fortunes.
In a similar fashion, intellectual contents or "ideas," are
presentations or psychic facts to which the self as central mass of
feeling reacts. The ideas are colored, shot through, sometimes
even completely suffused and transformed, by the emotional re-
action of the self. In this case, just as in the case of overt action,
the intimate and immediate meanings, values, or appreciations,
which ideas get, arise in the central self-feeling, and the differences
in degree and kind of the emotional response which different indi-
viduals make to presented ideas notoriously vary, as every ob-
servant teacher knows well. When the psychic content in idea or
movement is one's own, and is felt as such, it is suffused with feel-
ing of some sort and degree, and the sort and degree of feeling is
the index of one's emotional individuality.

430 MAN AND THE COSMOS

When the element of reflective consciousness is absent from
them the emotional conative tendencies of the self are simple im-
pulses and instincts. Impulse is a single congenital tendency, and
instinct a train of congenital tendencies, to act without conscious
purpose or foresight. In the development of the self's affective
life, thought reacts upon and modifies the elemental feeling-
impulses, instincts, and desires. At the more reflective levels of
personal life, overt action and trains of thought are incited, im-
pelled, and accompanied by feelings or emotional states more
complex, more generalized, and more stable than the rudimentary
impulses and instincts. Under the influence and direction of re-
flective thinking, the elemental feeling-impulses and desires
become more articulated and harmoniously organized. Through
inhibition, organization, and reflective enlargement, they are trans-
formed into more permanent intellectualized emotional disposi-
tions. These idealized and organized emotional tendencies we
have called "sentiments." Their development can be illustrated in
the growth of any feeling. Sexual impulse and crude emotion, for
example, becomes transformed into romantic love and enduring
passion for an individual. Curiosity becomes the stable sentiment
of wonder, the animating spirit of scientist and philosopher.
Mere "organic" sympathy becomes the habitual and intelligent
attitude of the enlightened philanthropist and social worker, the
religious emotion of fear is transformed into reverence and ador-
ation.

At the highest stage, no less than at the crudest, human action
is incited and impelled by feeling ; at the crudest by mere impulse
and appetite, at the highest by ideal sentiments. At first the goal
of action is sensuous satisfaction, at the last it is the harmonious
and highly organized emotional experiences of love, friendship,
fellowship, delight in the discovery or possession of truth, the
joy of communion with God, the pleasure of beauty.

All along the line feeling is fundamental in the self. The
primary sense of the unity of selfhood is in feeling. The basic
relation to other selves (sympathy or antipathy) is a feeling atti-
tude. Every kind of activity is incited by feeling and finds its
fruition in feeling. We are in quest of insight into the nature
of self as rational personality. We shall, therefore, consider only
those types of feeling which seem likely to shed most light on our
object. These are aesthetic emotions, and inter-personal emotions.

FEELING AND VALUES 431

^Esthetic feeling is particularly significant, for it is, par excel-
lence, an intellectualized and organized emotion or sentiment,
and is at once personal and impersonal, individuating and uni-
versal. While all emotion is individuating, in the sense that it
is the expression of the individuality of the subject and refers
to an individualized object, aesthetic feeling is not individualistic,
since it is devoid of self-consciousness or deliberate self-seeking.
The sentiment of beauty aroused by a specific object may be
highly individualized, inasmuch as the beautiful object possesses
a high degree of individuality; but the sentiment itself is the
reverse of individualistic. It is, rather, selfless in its tone.

^Esthetic feeling, at its highest level, is the reference of an
intrinsic or immediate value to certain experienced objects. It
is this judgment of intrinsic value which concerns us in our
inquiry as to the significance of feeling for a philosophy of per-
sonality.

At once there arises the need for distinguishing between the
concrete aesthetic emotion, that is, the individual's pleasure in
enjoying beauty, and the aesthetic appreciation or judgment of
aesthetic value involved in it.3 Our actual aesthetic pleasures in-
clude nonaesthetic factors of purely sensuous origin. An aesthetic
emotion always is pleasurable, but by no means all pleasures are
aesthetic.

In our concrete emotional experiences, aesthetic and non-
aesthetic pleasures may be variously commingled. The pleasure
with which I view an artistically arranged dinner table is a fusion
of a genuine aesthetic sentiment with anticipated gastronomic
delights. Romantic love contains an aesthetic element, but its
pleasureableness is also in part of purely sexual origin.4 The
attempt to separate the nonaesthetic from the aesthetic factors in
an experience which is qualified by the feeling of beauty is with-
out doubt a difficult undertaking. Are pleasures of pure sensation
to be regarded as devoid of all aesthetic quality? Is my delight
in the greenness of a field or the cheerful warmth of the firelight
unaesthetic? When the beloved appears beautiful only to the
lover is the feeling of beauty nonaesthetic or does sexual attrac-
tion create the illusion of beauty? It seems to the writer that,

* On this distinction see Groos, K., Der Msthetisclie Gertuss.
4 So strong is this factor in so-called aesthetic pleasures that some thinkers
have been led by it to trace all aesthetic feeling to a purely sexual origin.

432 MAN AND THE COSMOS

while a sensuous basis is required for aesthetic emotion, sensa-
tion per se is not aesthetic. If the green field is beautiful it is
because it means more than greenness. The beloved one is beauti-
ful because the lover's emotion is more than mere lust. The lover
is transformed into a selfless devotee by the very sentiment which
transfigures the object of his devotion.

It is this mixed and varying composition of so-called aesthetic
emotions that is responsible for the proverb, "Be gustibus non
disputandum." The tastes which vary most widely are probably
the nonaesthetic sensory factors. The aesthetic factors of form —
measure and proportion, organic unity-in-variety or individual
wholeness, rhythm, etc. — are the objective or shareable factors
in aesthetic pleasures. The common recognition that there are
standards of good taste, however difficult to define, is an implicit
admission of aesthetic objectivity. The actual existence of beauti-
ful, picturesque, sublime and tragic objects of enjoyment is recog-
nized. This recognition implies a certain kind of reality in aes-
thetic objects. What, then, is the objective or universally signifi-
cant factor in the aesthetic emotion ?

The objective factor in aesthetic emotion can be determined
only through an examination of the aesthetic judgment itself.
Beautiful objects are regarded as self-existent and socially share-
able objects.

Since we are not dealing with the psychology of beauty here,
we ask, not why are certain objects felt to be beautiful, but, what
kind of judgments are implied in aesthetic feelings, and what is
their meaning for personality? ^Esthetic pleasure is differenti-
ated from nonaesthetic pleasure by its disinterestedness and po-
tential objectivity or universality. The latter is a note of all
aesthetic enjoyment. As Kant rightly saw, enjoyment of beauty
is a disinterested pleasure, a selfless and shareable emotion.
Hence the self attributes the quality of beauty to the object, not
to himself. In this feature of aesthetic feeling lies the first ground
for the objectivity of aesthetic judgment. The normal attitude of
the observer is expressed not thus, "I feel beauty," but thus,
:'The thing is beautiful." Hence the felt beauty is conceived to
be shareable and social, and beautiful objects are forms for the
social expression of emotions. Beauty resides in the expression
of a feeling in sensuous objects, not in purely subjective feeling.
On the other hand, the object qualified as beautiful is always

FEELING AND VALUES 433

individual. ^Esthetic appreciation is intuitive or perceptive. One
may come to enjoy Wagner's operas or Botticelli's paintings or
Browning's poetry the more as a result of study and reflection.
Nevertheless, the aesthetic appreciation of these art forms is, as
direct experience, always intuitive or immediate and nonratioc-
inative. Reason may enter into it, but aesthetic feeling is the
concrete intuition of an individual whole. The aesthetic intui-
tion shares with truth and goodness the quality of having intrinsic
or immanent value. "Beauty is its own excuse for being." "The
beautiful is the self -existent pleasant." (F. H. Bradley.) Beauty,
truth, goodness, love, fellowship with God, seem to be the chief
types of intrinsic spiritual values found in feeling. These values
interpenetrate and share in one another's nature. Mankind has
recognized the beauty of goodness in character, the beauty of
holiness, and even the beauty of truth. Again there is believed
to be a truth in beauty, in goodness, and in religious communion.
The aesthetic judgment, in particular, implies that there is truth
in aesthetic emotion.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF VALUES

It will further our present aim to examine briefly the rela-
tions between the values of beauty, truth, and goodness. The
beauty which we attribute to truth seems to be due to an intel-
lectual pleasure which arises through the discovery of harmony
and proportion in the elements of a thought process, and in its
outcome, viewed as an individual whole. When the movement of
reason proceeds with order and symmetry to a balanced totality
of insight, as in a mathematical theorem, the process and the
result give aesthetic pleasure, because the harmony and consistency
of the factors justify the whole. A bare abstract principle or
law is not beautiful, but a group of concrete facts, or of more
particular truths, seen in the light of a unifying and organizing
principle becomes beautiful in its unity. The vision of unity-in-
variety, that is of concrete individuality, gives rise to aesthetic
feeling. Nevertheless, there is a contrast between the beauties
of knowledge and the purely aesthetic beauty. For the systematic
and harmonious whole of knowledge is never present as a single
intuition. It remains an ideal. Knowledge is always ragged at
the edges. It promises more than it performs. The single truth
or group of truths always point beyond to an uncompleted system
of truth.1 The emotional value of truth is never more than
partial and promissory. The actual attained truth ever points to
its own self-transcendence in the unattained reflective grasp of
reality as a harmonious totality. The object of aesthetic feeling,
on the other hand, for example, Shakespeare's Tempest, Shelley's
Skylark, or Keats' Ode to a Gercian Urn, has an individual self-
completeness and self-sufficiency. In this nearer approach to self-
complete individuality consists the greater emotional fullness of
aesthetic feeling over that accompanying a theoretical cognition.

1 This idea is the source of the philosopher 's quest for the vision of the
whole in thought.

434

THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF VALUES 435

The aesthetic object is more nearly a self-sufficient whole. Simi-
larly, the beauty of goodness consists in the pleasure due to the
supermoral harmony of will and deed, of ideal and achievement.
Beauty exists in character only when the moral struggle is over.2
It is only goodness which has fully attained the end for which
moral obligation exists that is beautiful. Only the harmonious
will is beautiful. When the self has reached this stage it has
transcended the merely moral attitude, and goodness and beauty
have become one. They constitute together a state of harmonious
perfection, the fulfillment of personality.

The claim to truth or objectivity which the aesthetic judgment
makes is shown in the recognition of an obligation on the part of
the observer to conform to certain standards of taste. When we
inquire as to the source of these standards we must have recourse
again to personal experience. For the characteristic of the beauti-
ful object is that it yields disinterested pleasure. Hence, the final
criterion of aesthetic valuation cannot be found in any definition
of the aesthetic object as having an existence independent of human
experience. Here, as elsewhere, the last court of appeal seems to
be the experience of an ideal self. But, since this ideal is realized
only gradually and progressively, and amidst a great variety of
individual characteristics and environmental conditions, the cri-
terion of the aesthetic values and the significance of the aesthetic
experiences, are finally determined by one's notion of the spiritual
vocation of man, that is, by one's conception of the meaning and
destiny of personality.3 This conception may be, in many cases,
only a latent presupposition. Even thus, it is the final determi-
nant of one's aesthetic, as well as of one's specifically moral, valu-
ations. To the man who consciously or unconsciously practices
the theory that mere sensuous pleasure is the end of life, aesthetic
valuation ceases to be aesthetic, and beauty becomes a mere mini-
strant of pleasure. Egoistic hedonism in ethics becomes in
aesthetics the denial of intrinsic beauty. This degradation of art
to an instrument of crass utility or sensuous indulgence has led
fine ethical natures such as Plato and Ruskin, and, still more
one-sidedly, Tolstoi, to judge all art in direct relation to its im-
mediate moral efficacy. But, in truth, the aesthetic life is not

*Cf. Schiller's conception of the " ScMne Seele."

'In this connection Schiller's treatment of the place of art in human life
remains unsurpassed.

436 MAN AND THE COSMOS

subordinate to morality. They are coordinate aspects of the vital
unity of the personal spirit. iEsthetic appreciation is an intrin-
sically worthful function of personality. ^Esthetic endeavor and
enjoyment are ethical goods worthy of pursuit on their own ac-
count. Moreover, as we have already noted, aesthetic creation and
appreciation have a moral side, and beauty is a medium through
which the ideal freedom and activity of the human personality are
expressed in sensuous form. Hence, beauty is an ethical or spirit-
ual force in human life. The creation and appreciation of beauty
are rooted in the movement of persons towards richer and more
harmonious interpersonal experience. The aesthetic object ex-
presses, in a typical and significant individual form, some phase
of personal experience or emotion. Man is essentially social and
must express in some fashion his most inward, full, and intense
feelings. The artist or poet, who may sacrifice health and crea-
ture comfort and live in poverty, in order that he may express in
sensuous form some vision or ideal of beauty, thereby actualizes
one phase of the higher or spiritual nature of man. His efforts
may have a higher moral quality and more worthful ethical con-
sequences than those of a moral reformer. For, in the inward
attitudes and experiences of selves, truth, beauty, love and good-
ness interpenetrate and become one. There is a creative imagi-
native quality akin to the aesthetic quality in every vital theoretic
and practical expression of the spirit. Every expression of spirit-
ual activity, whether in religion, art, or philosophy, is the effect
of the striving of the individual to communicate ideal values
through symbols. All such supreme expressions of the spirit are
compacted of the imagination, and, hence, have an aesthetic char-
acter. In every utterance and deed the spirit employs the sense
world as its instrument and so must express itself in symbolic
pictures and parables.

The aesthetic observer, as lover of beauty, lives over in his
inner experience the vision and feeling of the creator of beauty
in objects. The beautiful object has no existence for him until
there has arisen in the intuition of the observer a sympathetic
reproduction of the ideal feeling embodied in the work of art.
Of course, this does not mean that the observer must reproduce
exactly the mental states of the artist. He may not be able to
relive the technical steps of production at all. But he must possess
in some degree a sympathetic insight into the artist's meaning,

THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF VALUES 437

and be able to recreate in bis own soul in some measure tbe spirit-
ual attitude of tbe author. ^Esthetic enjoyment, so far from
being a merely passive reception of external impressions, is the
active and sympathetic re-creation in the soul of the observer of
a spiritual experience, through the medium of an outer symbol.
In so far as the observer of beauty possesses an aesthetic appre-
ciation he sees into the soul of the artist. He is lifted out of his
narrow selfhood and becomes one with all kindred lovers of
beauty. My appreciation of beauty in painting, in poetry, or in
nature, must always be uniquely my own; but, in so far as this
aesthetic experience is pure and free from low motives, I am
impelled to seek for others to share it. We normally desire that
others shall feel the pure delights that we feel and that their
eyes shall be open to the glories of our own visions. ^Esthetic
appreciation brings a heightening and expansion of life. The self
experiences in it an emotional widening and deepening,

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?

There is an actual muscular and vascular expansion of the
bodily organism in aesthetic feeling.4 There is a trend of bodily
uplift, as well as of spiritual elevation, in the contemplation of
a glorious mountain range.

^Esthetic feeling is over-individual in the sense that through
it we burst the bonds of our narrow empirical individuality and
are carried out into a wider and more harmonious life. ^Esthetic
enjoyment liberates us from the petty interests of our everyday
selves. In the contemplation of beauty and sublimity, whether
in art or in nature, we are freed from the vulgar and the com-
monplace, from the inharmonious clash and jar of actual existence.
We are taken out of our ordinary selves and breathe a larger and
serener atmosphere of harmony and freedom. In the region of
beauty the ideal is not divorced from sense-experience, as it is
in the regions of science and morals. In the feeling of beauty
ideal and actual are present in a living unity of experience.
There is here no conflict between fact and ideal, no disharmony
of achievement and aim. Hence the purity of aesthetic pleasure.

*Cf. K. Groos, "Der Aestlietische Genuss," Funfte Kapitel; Vernon
Lee and J. Anstruther Thomson, Beauty and Ugliness.

438 MAN AND THE COSMOS

No one has better stated these characteristics of aesthetic appre-
ciation than the German poet Schiller in his "Letters on the
^Esthetic Education of the Human Kace." "Beauty is the work
of free contemplation. With it we step into the world of ideas
without having left the world of sense." (25th Letter.) "For Art
is a daughter of freedom and from the necessity of the spirit, not
from the needs of matter, does she receive her prescriptions."
(2d Letter.) "Beauty is Form since we contemplate it, Life
since we feel it. Beauty is at once our state and our deed."
"Beauty shows that passion does not exclude activity, matter,
form, or limitation infinitude — that, consequently man's inevi-
table physical dependence need not abrogate his moral freedom."
(25th Letter.) The unique value for personality of aesthetic
feeling consists in its living and self-sufficient presentation of an
ideal and universal type of experience in the concrete harmony
of an individual whole suffused with emotion. The feeling of
beauty which qualifies our intuition of a painting, a poem, or a
landscape, seems to be complete in itself. It needs neither justi-
fication nor qualification. The experience is a whole, at once in-
dividual and absolute, immediate and self-contained. The feel-
ing of the sublime, on the other hand, seems to suggest more than
it embodies, and so to carry the mind beyond its present experi-
ence. It lacks the self-sufficingness of the feeling of the beautiful
and has a closer kinship with moral feeling. Hence Kant said —
'Two things move me to awe and reverence, the starry heavens
above me and the moral law within me."

^Esthetic feeling, then, is both individual and universal. It
is a single perfect and immediate experience, carrying its value
within itself and, thus, individual and complete. It unites, in
the harmony of an immediate wholeness of feeling, the unity of
thought and the variety of sense-experience, which are every-
where the two poles of the personal life. And the greater the
purity of the aesthetic experience, that is, the more fully inte-
grated it is as just a feeling of beauty, the more clearly does its
universal character stand forth as "disinterested" or selfless, since
it is the embodiment of the ideal or "meaning" of personality.
The aesthetic intuition has a universal or ideal quality, and in
aesthetic theory this side of the experience has been designated
the characteristic in expression. For example, the drama ex-
presses universal or typical aspects of personal character. The

THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF VALUES 439

characters are individuals, they each have a "local habitation and
a name," but they are the embodiment of typical human experi-
ences and situations. Hamlet is the thinker paralyzed by over-
much reflection, in a situation which demands action. Faust is
the typical modern man, freed from all moral and religious tradi-
tions and seeking an absolute, soul-satisfying experience of en-
joyment under the limiting conditions of earthly life.

In Greek Tragedy we have the conflict of ethical institutions,
as of the family and the state in the Antigone, worked out in indi-
viduals. In modern tragedy the persons who are the center of
conflict stand more for themselves. They are no longer merely
the vehicles of struggle between social and ethical institutions.
In Macbeth:, in Hamlet, in Faust, the struggle is chiefly inward
and spiritual. The nature and destiny of personality is itself at
stake, torn as it is by a conflict between emotions and impulses
universally human.5 The modern lyric conveys typical moods of
a soul. Its note is personal. In Wagner's music-dramas we have
the union of dramatic individual characterization with that
yearning for a universal and infinite experience, which music is
so well-fitted to express.

The presence of a universal or over-individual quality in a
concrete and individual intuition is further illustrated in the
love for nature — the passion for the mountains and the sea and
the primeval forest. Nature, as object of aesthetic contemplation,
liberates us from the insignificant details and the harassing com-
monplaces of daily life. In the contemplation of nature we are
carried out into a larger life by which our experiences are enriched
and the conflicting tendencies of our spirits are harmonized.
And this life of nature to which we become united by feeling
is, for us, conscious and quasi-personal. The nature-lover enters
into intimate and direct relations with the spirits of the moun-
tains, the forest and the streams, and, so long as he remains in
the attitude of sympathetic appreciation, these spirits are real
for his experience.

We are now in a position to determine more closely the rela-
tive functions of cognition, morality, and aesthetic emotion in the
organization of personality.

In theoretic cognition the self reconstructs and interprets, in

"See A. C. Bradley, "Hegel's Theory of Tragedy," Eibbert Journal, Vol.
ii, No. 3.

440 MAN AND THE COSMOS

terms of reflective principles, its universe of sense experience.
The self thus reduces chaos to order, variety to identity, discord
to harmony. In so doing the self is finding its rational nature
in the world and thus, in its quest for truth, finding itself in a
larger sense, by going beyond itself as mere sensory organism.
The function of cognition is the organization of experience in
terms of reason, which is, at the same time, the organization of
the rational self, the fulfillment of the rational will. This re-
flective organization of the sense world is achieved at a certain
loss. Cognition ever tends to sublimate the living, thronging
variety of perceptual experience into a bloodless unity and iden-
tity, to transform the world of dynamic and vital change into a
dead and colorless immobility. With progress in the organiza-
tion of cognition the gap seems to widen between the warm mani-
foldness, intensity, and movement of living experience and the
cold sameness, pallidity and inertness of theory. The "univer-
sals" of science, divorced from immediate fact, seem abstract and
unreal.

In moral activity the individual strives to bring his will into
harmony with the rational and social conditions of goodness, and
to reconstruct his own inner world of desire in harmony with
the ideal rational and social values of life. But here, too, the
gulf yawns between the sensuous fact and the ideal principle.
The deed falls short of the aim. The dialectic opposition of ego
and alter, which lives within the self, since the self is a social
being, is never wholly overcome. Sense cannot be quite subli-
mated into spirit by moral endeavor. Struggle and opposition
prove to be ever recurring conditions for the exercise of the moral
will. The beautiful soul, which naturally and spontaneously
utters itself in action that is perfectly good, and whose inner ex-
perience knows no divorce between aspiration and deed, remains
an unrealized ideal. If the beautiful soul were realized fact the
moral and aesthetic would therein coincide. Sensuous impulse and
ideal aims would wholly interpenetrate and fuse together. The
contrast between thought and sense, ideal and actual, would have
collapsed into one immediate and perfect individual whole of
experience and will. The values of truth, goodness, and beauty
would completely coincide.

In the absence of such perfect coincidence, the aesthetic intui-
tion of beauty, in nature, art, and human fellowship, affords to

THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF VALUES 441

us, by way of concrete experiences, forefelt anticipations of an
ultimate harmony of sensuous existence and ideal values, of
"nature" and "reason." For the aesthetic intuition is an indi-
vidual and self-sufficing unity of thought and immediate feeling,
of mind and object, of value and existence. In it the discordances
of experience, are, for the time being at least, overcome. The
aesthetic experience is a self-complete individual whole or harmo-
nious unity-in-difference. It is wholly self-contained and of
purely intrinsic worth. In aesthetic feeling our personalities
are immersed and fulfilled in impersonal experiences. And these
experiences are concrete and individual wholes, felt unities of
the manifold, having a certain universal quality or meaning. The
landscape is a harmonious unity of field, flower, and trees, of
hill and vale, of brook and bank. The picture is a harmonious
unity of colors, forms and human expressions. The poem is a
unity of articulate and rhythmic sounds, feeling, and thought.

In contrast with theoretic cognition, in which the single ele-
ment always stands in a systematic connection, such as that of
a causal interrelation or a syllogism, and this connection again
in other connections, which are never presented as an absolute
and complete system, the aesthetic intuition appears wholly self-
contained and of purely intrinsic worth. The value of the beau-
tiful object lies not in its logical, causal, or economic relations
to some one or something else, not in its suggestion and demand
of a completer whole, but in the direct and individual embodi-
ment, in this single and isolated experience, of the harmony of
fact and value. The lovely mountain cataract fringed with pri-
meval forest is a unity of form, color, sound, and movement, an
interplay of sensuous qualities without purpose or relation to our
work-a-day strivings; hence we feel its beauty. In union with
it we are all liberated from the crass actuality of making a living.

By contrast with the moral volitions the aesthetic intuition
seems complete, since it is a state of perfect fulfillment in which
there is no struggle to reach a goal, no gap between will and
attainment. In the selflessness of devotion to beauty the indi-
vidual will no longer wills anything, but is satisfied and fulfilled
by its unity with the object.

Unity of the manifold or harmony, disinterestedness or self-
lessness, and individual completeness of its objects — such are the
characteristics of the aesthetic experience. One other remains to

442 MAN AND THE COSMOS

be mentioned. The beautiful object may be a creation of art
or of the imagination, and need not stand in any close relation
to the actual world. Beauty need have nothing to do with man's
work-a-day purposes, or appetites. The nature we love is not the
nature of the agriculturist or the lumberman. The novel,
the drama, or lyric poem, are not the stories of deeds and feelings
of actual persons whom we know and with whose fortunes our
own are implicated. Even the "realistic" novel, if a work of art,
portrays a drama of human life complete in itself and cut off
from our personal entanglements. It is just this absence of rela-
tion to and dependence on the actual needs, disagreeable facts,
and ordered cares of our own lives which gives the charm to ob-
jects of aesthetic intuition. In them man is liberated from the
thraldom of the work-a-day and commonplace world of weary
trivialities, cares, and jarring discords.

The aesthetic experience, richer and more self-sufficing than
theoretical cognition and moral activity, seems to afford hints of
how, in a higher harmony of experience, the theoretical and prac-
tical functions of personality might find union and consummation.
Nevertheless, as Hegel said, the limitations and hindrances im-
posed upon them by their sensuous materials prevent the aesthetic
objects from expressing the full life of spirit. Spirit can find
and fulfill itself only through spirit. ^Esthetic feeling is one
specialized form in which may be experienced the unity of the
ideal and actual, the harmony of thought and sense. The ma-
terials of aesthetic expression are not wholly fluid to ideal feel-
ing. The materials in which architecture and sculpture work
offer most resistence to the transparent expression of ideas and
emotions. Architecture can express sublimity, grandeur, aspira-
tion, even grace, but it fails to convey the complex shades and
finer moods of human feeling. Sculpture can convey grace and
beauty of form, even struggle and power and agony in human
fate, but only in arrested immobile shape. It fails to render the
dynamic and complex experiences in the development of human
situations. It conveys no ebb and flow of emotions. The freest
and most ideal arts are poetry and music, in which articulate
and significant rhythmic sounds can express tragic situations,
unfold dramatic movements, and depict evanescent moods of the
soul. Music seems to yield the fullest expression of the infinite
and the cosmic in yearning, pathos, striving, aspiration, consum-

THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF VALUES 443

mation and adoration. But no single type of aesthetic expression
is ever wholly adequate to the rich complexity of personal experi-
ences, volitions and sentiments.

In the first place aesthetic expression and emotion are not
independent of moral experience. The harmony of feeling which
engenders the judgment of beauty is, indeed, not the same as
moral feeling. On the other hand, the most significant and most
permanent types of aesthetic objects — in the fine arts, literature,
and music — always show moral proportion; they are always in
harmony with the moral order of human life. The greatest art
such as the tragedies of Sophocles or Shakespeare, Goethe's Faust,
or Dante's Divine Comedy, are true to the ethical destiny of man
as a spiritual or self-determining being, living in an ethically
ordered Cosmos. The purely aesthetic attitude leaves untouched
the problem of the relations of aesthetic experience to reality. And
yet the highest beauty must be true to the meaning and destiny
of the spirit. Beauty, to be a satisfying object of experience,
must be grounded in the reality of the world order. It must bear
witness to the meaning and destiny of spiritual selfhood. When
we have said this we have raised the whole question as to the
place of personality in the cosmos. This ultimate issue I shall
not discuss at the present juncture. I desire, rather, to insist
here that man cannot satisfy his spirit with beautiful illusions.
The aesthete who cultivates the beautiful, without reference to
its moral proportion and truth, finds his enjoyment turn to Dead
Sea fruit. A world of beautiful illusion, however fair, would
lose its fairness if it were wholly out of harmony with reality.
Indeed, the positive presence of moral truth and the reference to
the nature of reality which are involved in the ideal significance
of beauty are clearly indicated by the over-individual demand for
a selfless devotion, free from utilitarian taint, which beauty makes
upon our intelligent wills. In this respect the desire for and
the devotion to beauty are expressions of an ideal or absolute
value which the personality serves and realizes just through the
contemplation and creation of beauty.

^Esthetic values, then, are not wholly self-sustaining. In art
the ideal is present and is treated as semblance.6 The demand

fl Schein it is called by Schiller and von Hartmann. ^Esthetic feeling can
approve the living only as appearance, the actual only as ideal. Schiller, 26th
Letter.

444 MAN AND THE COSMOS

of the spiritual self for a richer, more human reality can never
rest satisfied with a dream-world, even of beauty. When we are
immersed in aesthetic contemplation we do not raise the question
as to the reality which our intuition symbolizes; but when the
question is once raised, as it must be if beauty be vital for the
furtherance of the spiritual life, the fundamental postulate of
spirit's value to reality necessitates the assumption that experi-
ences so integral to personality as beauty and sublimity must
symbolize a harmony of organization that inheres in the very
constitution of reality. The fuller and completer harmony of
personal consciousness and ultimate reality must transcend the
merely aesthetic attitude. On the other hand, the element of
aesthetic feeling is an integral factor in every intrinsically worth-
ful and creative function of personality. An aesthetic element
interpenetrates all intrinsic personal values. Both knowledge and
ethical conduct involve, in their fulfillment, aesthetic factors. For
they are coordinate manifestations of the undying quest for
harmony, for the ideal unity of the manifold, that runs through
the whole spiritual life. The goal of all theoretical and practical
activity is an individuated harmony of experience, that is, of
immediate feeling suffusing a mediated system in which the
varied contents of experience are taken up and unified into a
rational totality. And so we find aesthetic sentiment entering
into and absorbed in the feeling for nature, in romantic love, in
friendship and in religious devotion.

While, then, aesthetic intuition is a more complete and indi-
vidual whole than either discursive knowledge or moral goodness,
it cannot be said to absorb into itself and transcend these essential
factors in the personal life. iEsthetic intuition does suggest the
formal nature or general character of a more complete, self-sus-
taining and universal intuition or experience, by which the human
spirit may enter into the supreme meaning of reality. And the
lover of beauty may see in the aesthetic insight the suggested out-
lines of a cosmic harmony — of a world life proceeding from and
sustained by the creative intuition of a Supreme Spirit in whom
truth, goodness, and beauty coincide. In the most liberal forms
of religious devotion the reality of this — the unified ideal of per-
sonal values — is presupposed as in religious faith it is affirmed.

THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF VALUES 445

The Interpersonal Emotions

The completest fruition of the feeling-life is found in inter-
personal emotions and sentiments. Sympathy, friendship, sexual
and family love, loyal love of country or a cause, devotion to God,
these are the fullest, richest, most self-sufficing emotional experi-
ences and attitudes of persons. These feelings furnish the strong-
est and most enduring motives to action. They are the most last-
ing incitements to will. And it is in these interpersonal emotions
that man finds his most satisfying and most nearly self-complete
values. The unity of two equal and noble souls in a lasting friend-
ship, the lasting harmony of feeling and will in the devoted love
of man and woman, where the grace and delicate fragrance of
the woman soul is joined to the strength and vigor of the man
soul, the self-sacrificing devotion of mother to child — such are
types of feeling which have all the self-complete individuality and
disinterestedness of aesthetic experience together with a fullness
and a depth beyond all mere aesthetic emotion.

Friendship, love, loyalty and religious devotion are at once
the most universal, the most highly individualizing, and the most
self-complete forms of emotional experience of harmony. They
yield the most highly individuated and concrete kind of knowl-
edge— the sympathetic intuition of other selves. Mankind has,
in calling these attitudes "beautiful," recognized their kinship
with aesthetic feeling. In these interpersonal emotions, for which
we may employ the generic term "love," selves are directly and
immediately unified without dependence on any external condi-
tions of union. Love is the immediate intuition of spirit in spirit,
of self in self. Interpersonal emotion is the completest, concretest
and most highly individuated experience of unity-in-difference,
the harmony of self and other self.

Friendship, love, fellowship, religious adoration and com-
munion, are the most richly significant and intrinsically worthful
types of the over-individual unity and harmony of persons. They
seem to afford the fullest adumbrations of an ideally self-com-
plete experience. In love, friendship, and fellowship, the indi-
vidual self's inner world is expanded and unified by going out-
side itself and living for and in another selfhood. Hence these
feeling-states seem absolutely worthful and self-existent. They
are often imperfect and mutable, and sometimes they seem non-

446 MAN AND THE COSMOS

moral • nevertheless, in their immediate presence and possession
change and imperfection are forgotten and the person seems to
find the perfect and lasting values of experience. Indeed, these
personal relationships are all akin to religious feeling and religion
is, perhaps, simply personal emotion at its highest level of ideal-
ization. The higher emotional states or sentiments — friendship,
love, religious fellowship and adoration — do not involve the merg-
ing of the persons related by them into one another. In these
emotional unities persons are at once differentiated and united.
These higher emotional states are the richest, most concrete, most
highly personalized experiences of identity-in-difference. They
are most concrete, since, while they are states of personal feeling,
this feeling carries in its heart the unique cognition of another
self, and from it there flows spontaneously action to express and
maintain the emotion.

In religious love or devotion this principle of the emotional
unity of opposites, of felt identity-in-difference, seems to hurst
the bonds of finitude and mutation and to touch the perfect and
eternal. Throughout the history of humanity we find that wher-
ever man awakens to even the most vague and intermittent con-
sciousness of the psychic bonds which hold him to his fellow and
which constitute the emotional basis of society, he affirms the
same principle in his relations with the supreme ideal — with the
God conceived as the source and goal of the human ideal. Imper-
fectly conceived, mutable, fruitful of error and crime though
they be, the unifying bonds of personal emotion are ever pro-
jected into and clothe in living form the ideal of the eternal, im-
mutable, and perfect, as somehow one with the temporal, mutable,
and imperfect.

Such being, in general terms, the place of feeling in human
experience and its function in the life of personality, feeling must
inhere in the ultimate reality. The universe must feel; and if
there be a universal spirit whose experience is the unifying cen-
tral life of the cosmos, this spirit must feel, in a manner analogous
to our feeling, and hence must be a self. Only a self can feel and
only a psychic center which feels can be a self. What are for us
pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, indignation, hatred, love, de-
votion, beauty, must somehow enter into his life. And we may
venture to affirm that the highest, most abiding, full and compre-
hensive states of feeling will enter into the absolute feeling with

THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF VALUES 447

the least transformation. What sensuous pleasures and pains can
mean positively for a cosmic or universal self it is impossible to
say ; I have no inkling of what my toothache or hunger may mean
for God. But a noble sorrow, a deep sympathy, a strong friend-
ship, a devoted love, a persistent devotion to justice and truth —
such personal emotions of appreciation that control action and
give worth to living must have a very positive meaning for a
universal self. While we must not forget that we speak anthropo-
pathically we may properly assert that, since human experience
is our only basis for, and human valuation our highest guide to,
the interpretation of reality, the highest and most abiding human
emotions must reveal an essential aspect of the cosmos. Whether
the ultimate reality be one spirit or a society of many spirits, this
reality must be a life of feeling, and human emotion must be a
principal avenue to experiencing ultimate reality. The ultimate
self or society of selves must, then, feel the joys and sufferings
of finite selves; must enjoy the beauties and sublimities of its
universe and of the finite elements thereof; must feel, in some
way, the loves and friendships which bind finite selves into
higher unities. A universe which felt no pain and sorrow, thrilled
with no joy or beauty, and which was insensate to the fellowship
of selves would be less than human. Its experience would be
much poorer and less meaningful than that of a human soul. It
is inconceivable that such a universe should bring forth as its
finest flower, beauty, friendship, love, devotion and admiration
in finite selves, while in its own innermost structure and move-
ment these supreme experiences should have neither place nor
meaning.

CHAPTER XXXIII

MOKAL FREEDOM

It is common in discussions concerning freedom of action to
assume that there is a special faculty in man called the "will/'
and that it is this faculty that is either free or bound. Thus
people speak of training the will, exercising the will, using their
wills, etc. There may be no harm in all this, as a mode of popu-
lar speech, but in psychology and philosophy it is erroneous and
misleading. There is no special faculty of will; the will is the
entire self of the moment, the whole dynamic complex of impul-
sions, sentiments, valuations and thoughts, in action either to
achieve a desired end or to ward off an undesired affect. In brief,
the will is the whole self striving to attain goods and to avoid evils.

The concept of moral freedom must be distinguished from
that of social liberty.1 A man may be morally free and socially
in chains, or vice versa. Furthermore, moral freedom is distinct
from psycho-physical freedom, which is simply the power to ex-
press one's aims through the instrumentality of the body. One
might be morally free and physically bound, through physical
weakness, or through being pinned down, for example, by a weight
that one could not remove.

The problem of moral freedom involves two distinct questions :
(1) self-determination or the ability of the self as a unique being
to will the ends which it values; (2) freedom of choice or
the power of the self to choose between alternative courses of
action. The second question may be put thus — granting self-
determination, does it follow that a self could ever have chosen
differently from what it did ?

Practical moral judgments, as expressed in social responsi-
bility, and in praise and blame, reward and punishment of self

1 Of course no one could "realize" and enjoy moral freedom as a slave.

448

MORAL FREEDOM 449

and other selves, assume at the moment of decision the power of
choosing, at least sometimes, between alternative ends of action.
Unless "the native hue of resolution has been sicklied o'er by the
pale cast of thought" to the point of volitional paralysis, or unless
there has been mental and nervous breakdown, men believe that
they can, in momentous crises, choose freely how they shall act.
Whether Kant's famous argument for freedom, "I ought, therefore
I can," be valid or not, it is certainly a true and pithy expression
of the attitude of a healthy moral consciousness. What this naive
consciousness of freedom really involves is now the question.

The psychological determinist argues that what I may choose
to do at any instant in my career is the strictly determined and
unavoidable resultant of my character and circumstances, taken
in conjunction. I feel that I am free in the degree in which I
am able to express my selfhood or character in my deed. I am
truly a self-determining and self-directing being, in the measure
in which my actual individuality wins expression. But at the
given moment of choice I could not have chosen otherwise than
I actually did. I think that I can choose between two or more
alternatives now before my mind because, up to the instant of
actual choice, I am ignorant of many of the subconscious factors,
in the shape of impulse and habit, that determine the actual course
of my decisions. The psychological determinist holds that our
voluntary actions are not mechanically determined by external
physical causes. But he also holds that every actual volition is
a wholly determined psychical process. I may choose, now, with-
out external physical or social compulsion; but "I," who thus
choose, do so as the joint resultant of many, and chiefly unnoted,
inherited and acquired dispositions to act. It is indeed I who
choose, but my choice is always strictly determined by my con-
genital nature, modified by the educational and environmental
habits and influences which make that nature what it concretely
is now. And my original nature is a perfectly definite datum,
plastic in a limited degree to the molding influences of the social
or psychical environment past and present. As life goes on this
plasticity decreases to the zero point. "You cannot teach an old
dog new tricks." Hence, the belief, at or before the moment of
choice, that I could ever choose at will between two alternatives,
or the after-reflection that I might then have chosen the one which
I did not embrace, is due to my ignorance of my nature as this

450 MAN AND THE COSMOS

displays itself in the succession of my choices. An all-wise psy-
chologist could predict all our reactions and so-called choices
through all time, provided that he were likewise an all-wise
physicist. Our several natures may be unique, in the sense that
they are specific or individual complexes of psychical factors,
but what these natures are they inevitably are, and what they
will be they inevitably will be. The standpoint of psychology,
as of any other special science, is and should be deterministic,
but this standpoint is not necessarily final.

Clearly, then the problem of freedom is the problem of the
ultimate nature of the self or person, and of its place in the
scheme of things. We are here simply approaching the central
problem of our whole treatise from a special angle — that of voli-
tional and moral consciousness.

One conception of freedom may be at once eliminated ; namely
that freedom consists in the power of unmotivated willing, in a
capricious and mysterious capacity for making choices that have
no intelligible relation to past choices, habits, and individual char-
acter. This is the so-called freedom of indifference, liberum ar-
bitrium indifferentice. According to this view in its extreme form
the most humane man might suddenly turn round and commit
the wanton cruelties of a Nero or Caligula, the man with great-
est power of self-control or with a cold temperament might sud-
denly become an utter drunkard or debauchee, and this take place
without any assignable reason. Such a conception of freedom is
both unintelligible and immoral. If it were true to the facts, edu-
cation would be worthless, since effective moral habits would be
impossible of formation and the volitional life of man would be
a chaos. Without some measure of continuity and predictability
in human character society would be reduced to anarchy, and
moral judgment, education and the administration of law would
be without any firm foundations. This theory contradicts the
plain facts of experience, and can find refuge only in ignorance
of human nature.

Education, moral judgment, and the conduct of the general
business of society, all presuppose a high degree of stability and
continuity in human character. Indeed, our social judgments and
practice, our contracts, credits, promises and plans, all assume
that human conduct is to a large extent predictable, when we
know the individual to be a sane and normal self. Whatever sort

MORAL FREEDOM 451

of freedom there may be, it must in any case be compatible with
continuity and stability in character, and with the actual fulfill-
ment of expectations based on character.

Furthermore, freedom of choice can be operative only within
the narrow limits set by one's definite individuality and determi-
nate circumstances. And freedom of choice is limited by moral
freedom. A good man who, by repeated choices of the right al-
ternatives, has formed a strong and steady habit of right decision,
is morally free. We would hardly say that such a one is a slave
to virtue, and yet he is practically incapable of making certain
choices. We should not regard a God who, because of the utter
goodness of his nature, could not do otherwise than always will
the right as less free and less perfect than a God who frequently
willed the worse when he might have willed the better.

That any human volition ever takes place without adequate
motives may be dismissed as a senseless assertion. The spectator,
and even the agent himself, is frequently at a loss to determine
with any degree of definiteness the grounds of volition, but a
fuller self-knowledge will always disclose them. That volition is
determined by the strongest motive is in one sense false and in
another sense a platitude.

If by the "strongest motive" be meant a force which pushes
the self from behind or without, it is a false notion when applied
to volition. A desire or impulse is not a motive to voluntary ac-
tion until it has been identified by the self with its own aims and
interests. Only when the self approves the satisfaction of this
desire has it become a motive. It is only by the reflective reac-
tion of the central principle, which weighs values and affirms
choices, that a vague restlessness or a well-defined impulse becomes
a motive. When desires conflict, that one which becomes the
determining motive is the desire which is identified with the self
as good. Thus, rightly understood, determination by the strong-
est motive means self-determination, for we have no measure of
the meaning and strength of motives except in terms of their
valuation by the self. Motives are not like physical forces which
may converge from various directions outside their common point
of application there to constitute automatically a composite re-
sultant. In voluntary action the resultant, whether simple or
composite, is constituted finally by the reaction of the entire self.
Even the subconscious and unconscious tendencies, which influ-

452 MAN AND THE COSMOS

ence decision and action so much, have no close analogy to external
determination by physical forces. The only analogy in the phys-
ical world to the volitions of a rational self would be that of an
individuated center of force which maintained itself by self-ad-
justment and reaction in a variety of ways to its environment,
and this analogy is a weak one. The physical principle of the
conservation of energy is irrelevant in this field. A self is a
synthetic principle of activity which has the power of forming
new judgments of value.

The problem of freedom comes, then, to this — is the self in all
cases an absolutely fixed and temporally predetermined entity or
not ? Is human individuality the arithmetical sum or chemical
fusion of various psychical and physiological forces, or is it a
unique unity capable of self-determining progress and alteration ?
All the freedom that the moralist needs is that of the self as a
principle of self-determination and self -development, and not a
mere moving point of trains of forces converging from behind and
from without. In short, is there an ultimate spiritual principle
of synthetic judgment in the empirical ego ? If we answer this
question in the affirmative, then freedom of choice means the
power, in definite critical and novel situations, to so evaluate and
determine the sensuous and physiological factors of action that
one thereby makes these factors the instrumentalities for the ex-
pression and fulfillment of the higher values of social and per-
sonal life. If there be an irreducible principle of spiritual indi-
viduality in the self, then we are free whenever, and in the measure
in which, this individuality wins expression. This means a limit
to the analysis and explanation of voluntary action — the limit set
by the inherent nature of spiritual individuality or personality.
We may, after the event, say that a heroic moral decision was the
unavoidable and determinate expression of the individual's nature,
because, in our ex post facto wisdom, we infer the nature of indi-
viduality from the acts which are its expressions and, indeed, its
effectuations. But we cannot, before the event, always determine
with certainty the limits of voluntary action, of moral choice, of
heroic decision, of reformation, conversion, or failure. Doubtless
there must always be specific conditions which arouse or liberate
hitherto obstructed spiritual energy in the self ; the reality of free-
dom means simply the power to put more of one's selfhood into
one's choices and deeds; to value and determine one's motives in

MORAL FREEDOM 453

the light of reason, beauty, justice, and love, as these ideals func-
tion in and through the self-determining personality.

Man is morally free, if his future is not wholly and exactly
predetermined by the past expressions of his character, habits, and
environment. Every critical moral choice must be, in such case,
a new event in the spiritual world. Character cannot be a fixed
quantity. It is rather the changing and developing expression or
actualization, in single deeds and in habitudes of action, of the
creative principle of individuality or personality. The latter is
the source and bearer of the actual self's development. A self is
morally free, if it be sufficiently fluid to be able to break away,
when stimulated by favorable influences, from old habitudes and
to form new and better ones by fresh decisions. There must, of
course, be sufficient reasons for every action. The same self may
act wrongly in one situation and, afterwards, rightly in a similar
situation ; because new influences have incited him to a revaluation
of his standard of action, have altered his sense of relative values,
and a fresh combination of motives leads to a novel self-affirmation.
We cannot act contrary to our natures, but, in moral development
our natures are not rigidly fixed and predetermined quantities,
changeable only from without. The power of self-initiated and
self-directed change, of individual and unique reaction, is the very
root of freedom. It may be, of course, that we cannot predict
every human valuation, choice, and volition, simply because of the
vast complexity of the internal and external components of cona-
tion and the contrasting limitations of our knowledge. On the
other hand, if freedom means anything positive, we could never,
even with the most complete knowledge possible to a spectator,
predict every choice of another self; for the self contains a
uniquely ultimate principle of choice or self-determination, which
is known to another, and even to itself clearly and fully, only as it
reveals itself in new and critical situations. In short, to admit
freedom in the sense of self-determination is to accept the ultimate
reality of a creative principle of individuality as a not further
explicable fact or constituent element in the universe.

On the other hand, it may be admitted that, when a volition is
viewed retrospectively, the antecedent conditions being given to-
gether with the individual character, the individual could not then
have willed otherwise. For, in explaining past choices and actions,
we are not now viewing the volitions in their immediate reality,

454 MAN AND THE COSMOS

and we could not so view them without ourselves being identical
with the agent at the moment of choice. When we are in the midst
of choosing, our volitions cannot be said to be wholly predeter-
mined, since they are still in process, not accomplished facts.
Volitions are not determinate until they have been determined.
The explanation of a choice, a valuation, a voluntary deed, is
always a retrospective procedure which fails to do justice to the
act in its immediate and living actuality as a novel or creative
event in the spiritual order.

Thus, two stages of freedom may be distinguished — abstract or
primary freedom and concrete or realized freedom. By abstract
freedom I mean the possibility of reflective valuation and choice,
and of the development thereby of a well-organized individual
character. This takes place through the functioning of the prin-
ciple of rational individuality within the limits set by the con-
genital equipment of instincts, impulses, and other native capaci-
ties, and within the limits of a specific physical and social environ-
ment. Concrete freedom is the attainment of a more stable,
organized and harmonious individuality through the exercise of
freedom in the primary sense of freedom of choice or self-deter-
mination. To be free in the latter sense is to be a unique center
of spiritual individuality. To become free in the full sense is
to achieve the organization of the congenital tendencies or im-
pulses, instincts, and desires by the spiritual principle. Full free-
dom is complete self-determination through the service of the
intrinsic values of truth, justice, beauty, and love, in the individ-
ualized and concrete forms in which these values alone can be
actual with reference to the unique nature and specific situation
of each self.

Self-determination is a matter of degree. It is proportionate
to the harmonious organization of the self. The more personality
the more freedom. The self which is most capricious and uncer-
tain in its choices and conations is most unfree, has the least degree
of personality. For personality is the harmonious integration of
a self's impulsions to feel and to think and, by consequence, to act.
Since this integration rarely attains completeness, there are many
degrees of freedom. The capacity for further integration is all
the freedom from the chains of the past that is possible or desirable
for a moral agent.

The facts of moral or spiritual new birth through some great

MORAL FREEDOM 455

crisis, as well as of moral disintegration, cannot be gainsaid. In
no case does the seeming suddenness of the critical change imply
that the change has not been the resultant of psychical causes,
slowly incubating in the self. A man may come to himself sud-
denly, and think it was a miraculous event, an act of divine grace.
I do not question his right, in view of the tremendous significance
of the change, to call it such. But changes of this character must
always be the results of the gathering into one focus, and the
spiritual synthesis, of forces that have long been maturing. The
gates of the future are not locked and barred eternally. There
are new creative syntheses in the volitional life, as in other phases
of reality. But spiritual regeneration, as well as degeneration,
has always its causal conditions.

The wars in our members, the inharmonious partial selves that
inhabit our bodies, are conflicting phases of a mind or soul that is
not at unity with itself and therefore not at unity with the uni-
verse. The slave of habit is one in whom have been formed
habitual dispositions of desiring and striving that are in conflict
with the gleams of a richer and more harmonious personality
which he now and then entertains. One may be even a slave of
good habits, by becoming a creature of routine and convention, to
the extent that he loses the capacity for spiritual growth. True
freedom is rational self-realization and self-direction, since reason
is the generalizing, organizing, evaluating, end-determining and
means-finding instrument, by which the native impulsions and
desires are organized into the master sentiments, which are, in
their indiscerptible interpenetration, tire personality as a feeling
and willing being. The popular notion that there is an incom-
patibility between reason and sentiment, as guides to conduct, is
erroneous. Pure reason, if there be such a thing, never moved or
restrained anybody. Crude instinct and emotion unregulated
never developed into a coherent self. It is through the refinement
or sublimation, and the organization, of the connate feeling-life in
the light of reflection that stability, harmony and ordered growth
become qualities of the self; and thus the self becomes a person.

Kant defined free action as action done wholly in obedience to
the law of practical reason, out of reverence for the moral law.
Kant was right in contending that free action is rational action
which takes account of the specific impulses and situation of the
self in the light of a moral universe or system of persons (his

456 MAN AND THE COSMOS

kingdom of ends). He was wrong in failing to recognize fully
that the dynamic materials of all action, and as well the specific
sources of all judgments of value, are the connate impulses and
interests of the self, as these are modified by the social soil and
atmosphere. The moral person is always a concrete organization
of human interests, and this organization is always effected in a
social medium.

Bergson, in his fascinating book, Time and Free 'Will, argues,
somewhat as I have argued, that personal life is a creative process
in which the deeds of the past are not, in the present moment, the
sole condition of the future. Man, says Bergson, lives upon shal-
lower planes of routine most of his time ; but, occasionally, and in
critical moments, his deeper self wells up and overflows and alters
the direction of the routine plane of life ; then is man most free ;
then are his acts least predictable, since each free act is a creative
moment in the history of a personality. Thus the living moment
of willing, in which the self puts into its choice the greatest full-
ness of its psychical being, is a new increment in the growth of
personality. I grant that man is most free when his deeper and
more enduring sentiments or permanent dispositions to feel and
think are most fully expressed, and that in such moments the self
ascends to new heights of personality, wins to higher grades of
self-realization. I grant too, that no one, perhaps not even an
omniscient being, could fully foresee the outcome of such creative
moments. An omniscient being must know all there is to know,
but he cannot know as fact what is not yet fact. If the develop-
ment of personality, and indeed the development of subpersonal
life, be not wholly illusory, then we live in a growing universe.
But I do not think that pure indeterminism follows. The capaci-
ties of selfhood that are being, and that are to be, realized by the
freest volitions are, nevertheless, specific dynamic qualities; not
indeterminate possibilities but determinate possibilities of creative
resultants. The freest act is just the act in which the deepest
nature, or dunamis, of selfhood comes to fruition. If it be, in
serving one's friends, one's country or one's fellows, in devotion to
truth and justice, in the discovery or creation of beauty and
knowledge, in the life of love and loyalty, that man is most free,
as I believe, it is just because in such attitudes and acts man's
deepest and most abiding nature wins expression. There is no
indeterminism, no unearned conation; but there are various planes

MORAL FREEDOM 457

of action, superficial and deeper, conventional and personal, ani-
mal and spiritual. Each type of being is most free when it acts
most in accordance with its true nature ; man, therefore, when he
acts most in accordance with his nature as affectional, social,
rational and creatively imaginative. In brief, man is most unfree
when he is content to live by bread alone, if indeed he be ever thus
content ; most free when he lives most fully as a spirit or person in
and for and through the cosmos of persons.

Every act of genuine freedom means a novel and unique event
in the history of the universe. If there be freedom, then ulti-
mate reality must include change. In the exercise and achieve-
ment of freedom man affirms the absolute or ultimate in himself.
He transcends the world of passive fact and becomes a creative
center of spiritual life. In so far, then, as man is free, the
supreme spirit or ultimate ground of reality seems to be limited
or finite. But this limitation need not constitute an external
limitation on the will of the supreme spirit. The true end of
action for every human self is harmony with the ultimate society
of selves. This harmony is attained only through devotion to those
ideal values which reflect, and are rooted in the nature of, the
supreme unity. The ultimate spiritual unity must thus make
possible the harmony of finite selves; hence the freedom of the
latter may have its ground in an apparent self-limitation of the
supreme self, which is really the self-expression of the latter's con-
crete individualitv. The absoluteness which would be saved to a
supreme self by the denial of human self-initiative would be the
state of an oriental despot without character, friends, or com-
panions. One could not define such a being as spirit at all. An
ultimate spirit or person can be such only in relation to a com-
munity or society of selves, in whose lives and destinies and deeds
his own life and purpose are fulfilled.

CHAPTER XXXIV

IMMOKTALITY

The possibility of the continued existence of the self after
bodily dissolution clearly depends on the nonidentity of the con-
scious or "spiritual" individual with the body. Apart from the
supposed evidence afforded by communications from departed
spirits, the grounds for a credible hope of immortality must be, in
the very nature of the case, indirect. It is a question of empirical
possibility, reinforced by rational probability.

The monistic or identity theory, which regards the mental and
physical series as the two parallel manifestations of one substance,
whose nature is not known to us, is incompatible with personal
immortality. For, whether parallelism be taken in the more
restricted sense of psychoneural, or the more general sense of com-
plete psychophysical, parallelism; in either case it follows that,
when the physiological complex which we call the human body is
disintegrated and dissipated into its chemical constituents, the
psychical self must likewise suffer disintegration into correspond-
ing psychical elements. I have argued that the parallelistic
hypothesis, with its consequent doctrine of a neutral substance as
the underlying identity of mind and body, is not the final truth
in this matter. The self, as an active synthetizing principle, is
an immaterial, rational, or spiritual individual, which is so inti-
mately associated with the body as to form with it a complex
individual whole. The mental self is partially dependent on the
body and perhaps partially independent of it.

From this standpoint individual immortality is possible. Fur-
thermore, the whole world process has probably been making, and
is now making, for the development and self -fulfillment of person-
alities. The ultimate meaning, so far as we human beings can
determine, of the drift of natural and historical evolution seems
to be the production and perfection of reflective and self-active

458

IMMORTALITY 459

individuals. Hence, unless the process of reality, taken in its
totality, to be a discontinuous and incoherent jumble, an incon-
sistent and self-contradictory world, the most rational postulate
in regard to the future is that selves may persist and attain to
higher levels of development under other conditions than the pres-
ent affords. All the meanings and intrinsic values of experience,
all . the truly significant interests and worthful features of the
world process, are concentered in the lives of selves. We cannot
understand what truth or harmonious experience, what self-
coherent reality, what justice and love, what beauty and perfection,
could be or mean apart from the deeds and lives of selves.

If there be continuity, conservation, and enhancement of the
intrinsic values of actual experience, then personalities must be, in
some manner, permanent elements of reality. If the values of con-
scious existence, from the most exact and universal truth to the
most concretely individualized love or interpersonal harmony, be
mere will-o'-the-wisps, delusive phantoms mysteriously and epi-
sodically engendered by the ever shifting complications of the brute
insensate elements of things, there is no ultimate meaning and no
reasonableness in the cosmical process. The philosopher who pro-
poses this alternative to the conservation of values would be, with
his theories, the momentary and meaningless offshoot of an in-
sensate and nonmoral world.

The perduration of the spiritual principle of personality is,
then, a rational postulate for the interpretation of this temporal
and developing world. But, when we attempt to determine more
specifically what immortality may mean we encounter grave, and,
perhaps, insurmountable difficulties. The ordinary man's belief
in personal immortality involves, doubtless, the assumption of the
continued conscious identity of the concrete selfhood in the future
with that selfhood in the past ; in other words, the persistent func-
tioning of memories. The minimal meaning of personal immor-
tality seems to be the continuance and further development of the
individual life through the conservation and increasing fulfillment
of moral and intellectual achievement and of affectional experi-
ences of love and beauty. Unless a self be, in the future, contin-
uous in its power to feel and to know, to serve and enjoy truth,
goodness, beauty and love, in and with the community of other per-
sonal spirits — continuous in the exercise of the powers which it
has used and enjoyed, however imperfectly, in its present existence

460 MAN AND THE COSMOS

that self will have ceased to be. If its powers have been warped

and thwarted here, continued existence would imply the liberation
in the future of the imprisoned powers.

Now, clearly, our memories are the empirical basis of our
feelings of personal continuity, although memory in turn, as I
have previously shown, depends on the functioning of the syn-
thetic principle of selfhood. And memories depend, to a very
great extent at least, on sensory experiences. Even our memories
of the most intimate and sacred feelings of love, friendship,
spiritual achievement, joy and peace, depend in part on sensory
experiences. We cannot recall the persons of our dearest friends
without some recourse to sensory images. Sensory experiences are
all somehow registered in the central nervous system as functional
modifications. When the body, and therewith the nervous system,
have finally disintegrated, does not this whole function of memory,
the empirical basis of personality, disappear ?

Perhaps ! But, on the other hand, there is no proof that the
distilled essence of our physiologically conditioned experiences and
deeds here and now may not be taken up into, and form perduring
functional constituents in, the nonphysical self. No sensory
process, through whatever bodily organ it may come, is a con-
stituent in the life of the actual personality, until it has been
assimilated by synthetic activity into the organization of the con-
scious selfhood. Our perceptual imagery, dependent on eye, ear,
or skin, and on the functioning of the cortical areas, first gets its
meanings and values through the active mental processes of as-
similation, selection, and interpretation. The precondition of all
relevant and useful remembering is the original apprehension of
meanings. In contrast with the mere routine repetition of blind
associative memory, based on mere contiguity, relevant or logical
memory, which reproduces past experiences that have significant
relations to present ideas, emotions, and purposes, is based on the
original apprehension of significant relationships in the parts of
experience to one another and to the self.

Cases of sensory aphasia, for example, so-called psychical
blindness and deafness, wherein the eye and ear with their appro-
priate nerves are intact and the cortical areas of vision and hearing
probably defective, exist without loss of reason or of the sense of
personal identity. Such cases lend support to the hypothesis that
the synthetic meaning-finding principle in the self is independent

IMMORTALITY 461

at least of the functioning of some cortical areas.1 Such patho-
logical cases do not establish the complete independence of the
brain on the part of the synthetic principle. They do support the
validity of the distinction between the principle of significant per-
sonal memory and self-identity, and the neurally conditioned func-
tions of perceptual imagery. The synthetic principle seems able
to function when the sense organs and the cortical areas connected
with them are impaired; in other words when the neural connec-
tions between the sense-organs are broken or deranged. On the
other hand, the sense of personal identity seems to surfer aberra-
tion through neural derangements. It may be that these abnor-
malities of multiple personality and insanity are the results of
derangements in the coordinating mechanisms which connect the
sensory and motor arrangements for the expression of personality.
The synthetic principle then would be the immaterial link or
unifier of sensory experiences and motor activities. One of its
chief functions would be to make and break connections by a
selective emphasis of various materials of sense experience. From
this standpoint the immaterial self is both furthered and hindered
in its activities by the bodily mechanism ; which is its instrument
of expression in the present world ; but a faulty instrument which,
when seriously deranged, impedes or altogether prevents the ex-
pression of the mental self. Xo facts in the physiological and
pathological orders negative the possibility that the mental self,
which is able, by its selective synthetizing power, to organize and
interpret the sensory materials of experience, may also be able,
independently of its present body, to conserve the quintessence of
meanings, values, and powers, which it has distilled from its
material environment in the alembic of its own unique self -activity.

The possibility of personal immortality is open as an object of
rational faith. If no proffered proof therefor is adequate, no
positive disproof is forthcoming.

I cannot regard the so-called communications from departed
persons to the living as having convincing value. The evidence for
these things seems to me thus far insufficient. If sufficient, it

1 Compare the very ingenious use made by Bergson of such cases in his
Matter and Memory, Chap. 2. Also Henry Head, "Aphasia and Kindred Dis-
orders of Speech," Brain, Vol. 43, pt. 2, pp. 87-165. Also Dr. Head on
"Disorders of Symbolic Thinking and Expression," British Journal of
Psychology, General Section, Vol. xi, pt. 2 (1921), pp. 179-193.

462 MAN AND THE COSMOS

would not prove immortality but only continued existence, con-
cerning the value of which I should be, in view of the character
of the communications, very doubtful.

On the other hand, I cannot share the attitude of those
scientists and philosophers who would ignore or pooh-pooh the
investigation of the so-called spiritistic phenomena. I grant that
discouragingly little has thus far been established by such investi-
gations. I grant too, that the messages which have come through
from discarnate spirits, if indeed any veridical tidings have come
through, are, for the most part, of so trivial and commonplace a
character as to shed but little, and that little not a very cheerful,
light on the conditions of existence of discarnate spirits. Never-
theless, if only a few cases of communications were established,
for which no other reasonable explanation could be found than
that they came from discarnate spirits, the hope of immortality
would thereby have received a support more powerful than all the
speculations and reasonings of philosophers. For, the greatest
obstacle to faith in personal immortality is the apparent fact that
the functioning of the individual mind (and we must not forget
that every real mind is an individual mind), is dependent on the
functioning of a nervous system. Strong evidence that a mental
self, which had once been associated with a nervous system, con-
tinues to exist without that nervous system would be strong pre-
sumptive evidence of personal immortality. The objection that
evidence of the continued existence of persons whom one knew in
their earthly lifetimes would not prove the eternal existence of any
self seems to me a quibble. For, if a self can survive the disin-
tegration of an earthly nervous system, that is strong presumptive
grounds for concluding that that self will endure so long as it is
worthy to endure. And who will undertake to say what constitutes
worthiness to endure ? While, then, I am not yet convinced that
the continued existence of discarnate persons has been established
by psychical research, I regard this field as an important area of
investigation. I have not personally engaged upon it, because
my occupation and, in part, my tastes, have not led me to do so.
But it seems to me that scientists and philosophers who neither
engage in it themselves nor admit that it is a legitimate field for
investigation are guilty of an unwarrantable dogmatism and are
the creatures of intellectual prejudices. On the other hand the
pursuit of such inquiries requires such a very unusual combination

IMMORTALITY 463

of critical dispassionateness, mental alertness, power of weighing
evidence, expert knowledge of physics, physiology and psychology,
that I think it is a field into which but few should venture.

I return to general philosophical considerations. The creative
synthetic principle of selfhood must persist. The concrete per-
sonality, that is organized around and by this principle, may per-
sist. But how ? When the avenues of sense and motor expression
are forever closed and the brain has ceased to function, how and
with what heritage from its physiologically conditioned life on
earth does the spiritual individual take its flight ? No one who
has gazed on the dead body of a loved one can doubt that the
mysterious principle which conferred meaning, worth, and beauty
on that tenement of clay has vanished. It is unreasonable that it
shall have vanished into utter nothingness. What then has it taken
with it, from the epoch of its career which is now closed ? Clear
traces of its earthly experiences and deeds, absorbed into or fused
with the conscious unity of the self so as to preserve the sense of
moral and spiritual continuity with that past life ? Or a more
highly integrated and more harmoniously organized individuality
bearing, without continuity of personal memory, the fruitage of
its earthly activities ? I have no new light to shed on this momen-
tous question. I hold, however, that one is justified in believing in
the continuity of personal spirit, as a real possibility.

A self may inhabit, after death, a finer, more ethereal body.
I may add, merely as a personal statement, that I am unable to
form any image or clear concept of the nature and conditions of
existence of a purely disembodied spirit.

The persistence and continued functioning of the spiritual core
of selfhood is a matter of rationally justifiable faith. The degree
and character of continued personal identity must remain, from
the standpoint of philosophy, a matter of conjecture.

Faith in the conservation and enhancement of spiritual values
is a rational faith. Indeed, it is the basis of faith in the reason-
ableness and goodness of the cosmical order itself. If the spiritual
values of human existence at its highest term of development and
achievement do not endure, amidst all the changes and chances of
this mortal universe, there seems to be no stable or coherent mean-
ing in existence. Then the universe is irrational — indeed it is no
universe at all.

Faith in the continuance and enhancement of the intrinsic

464 MAN AND THE COSMOS]

values — faith in truth, in beauty, in friendship, in love and har-
mony of life — in short, faith in reason and the worth of spiritual
life — such faith is only another name for faith in the persistence
of spiritual individuality. For, I repeat, these values are real only
as functions of personal experience and deed. To have faith in the
permanence of intrinsic values is to assume the enduring reality of
selves who know truth, feel beauty, who love and win spiritual
harmony.

On the other hand, this is eternal life here and now — to know
and to live for and in the higher values of the spirit. It is to
empty life of all meaning to suppose that the only value which the
present existence can have is that of a mere preparation for some
future and different state of existence. True immortality does
not consist in a mere continued existence in time, in which the
attainment of genuinely satisfying and lasting values is postponed
to some other and future stage of life. If we take the terms "God"
and "Christ" in a sufficiently inclusive humanistic sense to embrace
the supremacy of all spiritual (that is, of intellectual, aesthetic,
moral and other interpersonal) values, we may say — "This is
eternal life, to know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent."
If this seem to any reader to be unduly stretching the meaning of
historic terms, he can substitute other terms more to his liking. I
think my meaning is plain.

BOOK V
THE ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE— COSMOLOGY

CHAPTER XXXV

UNIVERSAL ORDER

We have now considered the nature and implications of knowl-
edge in general, the general structure of the universe, and the
nature and implications of personality and values. It remains to
gather up our conclusions into a comprehensive conception of the
structure and implications of our world of experience taken as a
whole.

We have seen that the order of the universe must include a
succession of levels of subordinate orders. Reality exhibits a
hierarchy of grades of organization or integration. I shall now
briefly resume the principal steps in the universal order. These
are — (I) the spatial and temporal order; (II) the noetic order;
and (III) the axiological order or order of values.

I. The Spatial and Temporal Order

Thought of crosswise as existing in a temporal instant nature
is conceived as one continuous whole. (Bear in mind that timeless
instants do not exist ; the notion is a limiting conception or abstrac-
tion.) Nature consists of macroscopic spatial configurations.
But, whether we look at nature macroscopically or microscopically,
its configurations are relative to one another. To use Hegelian
language: "Each one is an other of others." However one may
elect to think of the ultimate elements of nature, whether as atoms,
electrons or other punctiform centers of energy, any single element
must be conceived of as the center of an indefinitely vast network
of relationships. The character of a spatial element is defined by
its position and its position determines and is determined by its
relations. It is the ultimate aim of physical science to describe the
qualitied events, which are any empirical chunk of nature, in terms
of the positional alterations of elements. Physical science pre-
supposes that at any instant nature is a continuous spatial whole

467

468 MAN AND THE COSMOS

/of simultaneous events. Simultaneous microscopic events are just
momentary positions in space. The electrons which make up an
atom of hydrogen or helium are a system of momental positions.
Space means essentially the order of relationships between simul-
taneously existing positions. A spatial system, macroscopic or
microscopic, is an order of elements existing simultaneously. But
there are no timeless instants. It is just as true of an atom or
electron as it is of a human being that it continueth not in one
stay. A spatial configuration is a moving configuration, and since
the natures of its elemental particles depend on their positions and
these are changing, geometrical descriptions of nature in terms of
pure spatial relations are fictitious accounts of fictitious char-
acters. An atom or electron is like Zeno's arrow in that it'
is always moving in the place where it is not. Nature is ex-
tended. It has spatial quality but does not occupy space, for
space exists only in the form of abstraction from the dynamic
content of reality. Bergson is right in holding that reality is
duration and that to conceive it as a purely spatial mechanism is
to arrest its actual flow and distort the moving, changing, grow-
ing life of nature into unreal abstractions. As Doctor Whitehead
finely says — "The passage of nature, which is only another
name for the creative force of existence, has no narrow ledge of
definite instantaneous present within which to operate. Its
operative presence, which is now urging nature forward must be
sought for through the whole, in the remotest past as well as in
the narrowest breadth of any present duration. Perhaps also in
the unrealized future. Perhaps also in the future which might be
as well as in the actual future which will be. It is impossible to
meditate on time and the mystery of the creative passage of nature
without an overwhelming emotion at the limitations of human
intelligence." *

Indeed the notion of a point or position in space implies a
relation between this point and at least one other point, and
spatial sense or direction whi^h implies time. And all attempts
to conceive a totality of space involve time, since the synthesis by
which one thinks together finite spaces, say the interstellar spaces,
as parts of one whole, implies time. A space world is a continu-
ous whole and the notion of continuity involves time. The notion

1 The Concept of Nature, p. 73.

UNIVERSAL ORDER 469

of boundless space implies that of endless time. Thus the notion
of a boundless space is a pictorial symbol for the mind's conscious-
ness of its own capacity to repeat indefinitely a well-defined act
of thought. A boundless space means that one can think on indef-
initely imagining one space configuration to be contained in a
larger configuration. A space-whole actually infinite could be con-
ceived to exist only in an endless duration; therefore an actually
infini/te space could never exist at any moment of time. The
ordinary notion of infinite space is that of a vague penumbra which
is thought of as the fringe of our definite perceptions and concep-
tions of spatial order.

Duration or time, the dynamic aspect of nature, is thus more
fundamental to the structure of reality than space, the static'
aspect. As S. Alexander puts it, time is the soul of space and space
is the body of time. Since our conception of reality is dynamical,
for us the soul of anything is its reality of which its body is the
expression. Any bit of space is the trail of action and suffering
on the part of dynamic monads. Space persists because centers of
action and suffering persist, and therefore the relations between
them continue or are repeated. A permanent spatial configuration
is consentaneous with the persistence of a set of dynamical rela-
tions. An actual space, perceived or imagined, is a perspective
or point of view, taken by a percipient, of actual and possible
dynamical transactions between itself and other contemporane-
ously existing reals. Positions or situations involve temporal
simultaneity. A distinction between two positions implies the
duration of the movement of a point from one position to the
other. We become habituated to thinking of the actual or imagined
space complex which we can envisage as not involving time. I
do not, for instance, think of time as being involved in the space-
whole that I take in as I look out of my study window. But, if I
am asked how far it is to yonder tree, I can answer the question
only by estimating the number of successive movements of a yard-
stick or of pacing out the distance. Moreover, the very notion of
distance and of direction in space implies the duration of the
objects, thus spatially related, through finite times. In short, any
set of entities spatially related is a set of entities persisting, that
is, having a duration in time.

It is misleading to speak of time as a fourth dimension of
space. Time is not a dimension. It is becoming. It is change, the

470 MAN AND THE COSMOS

passage of events. As Doctor Whitehead puts it: "There can be
no time apart from space ; and no space apart from time ; and no
space and time apart from the passage of the events of nature.
The isolation of an entity in thought, when we think of it as a bare
'it,' has no counterpart in any corresponding isolation in nature.
Such isolation is merely part of the procedure of intellectual
knowledge." 2 Thus the idea that nature is merely an aggregate
of independent entities each capable of isolation is false.3 A time-
less space is an intellectual abstraction just as a "point" or "in-
stant" is. Space and time spring from a common root. The
ultimate fact of experience is a space-time fact.4 We are aware of
V nature enduring . . . Thus awareness of nature begins in aware-
ness of a whole which is present because this present whole of nature
is "duration." A duration is a "temporal slab of nature."
Nature at a moment exhibits, among other things, the relation of
a three-dimensional space ; this is instantaneous space. The instan-
taneous points of such a space are routes of approximation con-
structed on the same general principle as moments; namely, a
point series is an infinite series of events, every event extended
over all the events subsequent to it in the series ; the whole series
converges towards an ideal of an event of nonextension. An
instantaneous point is better named an "event particle." Event
particles form a four-dimensional manifold which is divided into
.three-dimensional instantaneous spaces which lie within the several
moments. We should speak more accurately in the plural, namely
of "times and spaces" and not of time and space.5 Durations, or
events, which constitute the passage of nature, says Doctor White-
head, extend over one another. For example — "a volume may
be defined as the locus of the event particles in which a moment
intersects an event, provided that the two do intersect." 8 "An
event will be said to occupy the aggregate of event particles which
lie within it." 7 "But there are alternative time systems, and each

• Op. eit., p. 142.

* Op. dt., p. 141.

* Op. cit., p. 132.

6 See A. N. Whitehead in Symposium, "Time, Space, and Material,"
Problems of Science and Philosophy, Publications of Aristotelean Society, 1919,
pp. 44-57; and Mr. Whitehead's An Inquiry into the Principles of Natural
Knowledge, and The Concept of Nature, passim.

• The Concept of Nature, p. 101.

7 Ibid., p. 101.

UNIVERSAL ORDER 471

time system has its own peculiar system of grouped points." 8 A
point is an absolute position in the timeless space of a given time
system. An object, as Doctor Whitehead conceives it, is a factor
in nature which is without passage. We are not directly aware of
objects but we are aware of sameness or repetition of quality in
events. No two events are exactly alike but they may have simi-
larities. "An object is an ingredient in the character of some
event. In fact the character of an event is nothing but the objects
which are ingredient in it and the ways in which those objects
make their ingression into the event. Thus the theory of objects is
the theory of the comparison of events. Events are only com-
parable because they body forth only permanences . . . Objects
are the elements in nature which can be again." 9 But since events
are percipient events or moments of awareness, as Doctor White-
head calls them, and since no two of these can be alike and they are
all transitory durations in nature as the object of sense awareness,
there can be no permanence. Objects or permanences are con-
structed through the recognition of sameness or repetition in the
quality of events. In the case of perceptual objects, such as a
coat with shape, texture and color, Doctor Whitehead says that the
percipient event is the situation of a variety of sense objects due
in this case to the interplay of sense objects of touch and sense
objects of sight. But a sense object brown or woolly is nothing by
itself. It is an abstraction from the perceptual object and the rela-
tive permanences and interdependences, the orderly persistences,
comings and goings of perceptual objects imply that nature is some-
thing more than passage. It is orderly passage. Thus percipient
events, as awareness, and their objects involve a permanent or sub-
stantial order, an ultimate space-time order of which our awareness
of passing events and of the particular objects through the passage
of events are finite perspectives.

Doctor Whitehead states that the continuity of nature in its
passage is due to the fact that durations overlap or extend over one
another and that there are no timeless instants. It follows that
there are in reality no absolute maximal or minimal durations.
The overlapping of finite durations, which is the empirical basis
for the belief in the continuity of nature, implies the permanence

Ibid., p. 106.
Ibid., pp. 143, 144.

472 MAN AND THE COSMOS

of an order to which all finite durations are subject. And since
this order is the order of all durations it must be the timeless order
of temporal events. In brief, unless nature, in the sense of the
space-time world, be a mere collective name for an absolutely dis-
crete and chaotic succession of finite events or durations, it is the
manifestation of a permanent or supertemporal order, an invariant
principle.

Indeed an invariant principle or supertemporal order is im-
plied in all our human standards of time measurement. If we
recognize, as we do, the relativity of our actual standards to some
more nearly invariant standard, this very recognition is a route of
approximation to an implied absolute invariant. We correct our
sensuous estimates of time by the watch, the watch by the astro-
nomical clock, the astronomical clock by large scale sidereal move-
ments which are the closest approximation we can make to an invari-
ant rhythm. And when the astronomer, for example, makes allow-
ance for the slowing up of the velocity of the earth's rotation he is
seeking the closest possible approximation to an invariant order —
to a perfect cosmical rhythm.

Nature is the all-inclusive space-time world. There is no non-
temporal space world or nonspatial temporal world. Space is the
order of interaction among contemporaneously enduring monads.
Space means the permanence or perduration of interacting centers.
Space means that the perduring centers of relationship are a sys-
tem. It implies the unity and continuity of a supertemporal
ground of interaction — a world ground. There can be no inter-
actions without a ground and there can be no permanence or order
unless the ground of interaction be supertemporal. As Lotze
argued : If two elements, A and B, are related in any way, then
either the relation is both relevant to A and B and they are ele-
ments in one system or the relation R is wholly irrelevant to the
being of both A and B and their mutual influence ; then we have
A, B, and B, as atomic entities, but no real A-B-B. The relation
does not really relate. Either the terms, supposed to be related,
fall wholly apart, or we must seek other relations Rx and B2 to
relate R to A and B, respectively, and still further relations to con-
nect A-Ri-R and R-R2-B and so on, indefinitely; or we must
assume a common ground or medium of the interaction of the
simplest elements in the system of reality. We can never get A
and B related in any fashion unless we presuppose the one ground

UNIVERSAL ORDER 473

or medium. Thus, all the relations and entities related can so
exist as parts of the one real being. This argument of Lotze's, the
principle of which is involved in all singularisms from Parmenides
to Spinoza and Bradley, if taken in this form, involves pantheism.
Everything finite is a part of the one.

But may not, as James Ward puts it, the interaction between
finite entities be in the nature of immediate rapport? May not
reality be a pluralistically conceived collection of interactive and
interpatient beings, each one acting directly on others ? It may
possibly, but in this case there would be no intelligible basis for
the orderly or determinate modes of continuous interaction between
the plural reals. Leibniz' monads act in harmony, because there
is a principle or ground of order which so determines them to act.
Whatever be the degree of order or systematic continuity in the
transactions of finite entities, to that same degree there must be a
cosmic principle of order. In so far as there may be contingency
or chance in the course of things, to that same degree there is, of
course, a limit to the principle of order.

Instead of saying that there must be one medium of interaction
between the plural reals, which seems to me a misleading spatial
metaphor that logically involves one in a geometrical and fatalistic
pantheism, a "block universe" type of doctrine, I would hold that
the interrelation of the monads or individua (the finite entities)
has its final ground in a cosmic principle of order, which, in its
own being, transcends these transactions between finite reals. The
cosmic ground of order is thus, not the medium of interaction, but
the source of the properties or laivs of behavior by virtue of which
finite individua interact. It is, I shall try to show more fully in
the sequel, an over-self, a transcendent spiritual unity, or super-
personal community (the latter is my understanding of the doc-
trine of the Trinity). The notion of an over-self or superpersonal
community of life is more than simply the most adequate ground
for the personal and spiritual life of man. It is, logically and
psychologically, the most adequate conceptual basis to account for
the unity and continuity of the universe in its physical and vital
aspects.

Not an all-inclusive or all-containing being, but one perduring
originating and sustaining ground of order, is for me, the ultimate
reality. In the remainder of this chapter I shall try to develop
and illustrate this conception.

474 MAN AND THE COSMOS

The conception of the ether of space among physicists illus-
trates the inescapable necessity of thought to conceive a ground
of interaction. However the electrons may be conceived, the im-
possibility of thinking that forces act across absolutely empty
space, which is nonbeing, or that the ultimate ground of our
physical world can be an indefinite multitude of absolutely discrete
centers of force,ileads inevitably to the hypothesis that macroscopic
matter has its common ground in the relations of microscopic
specks or centers of activity or inertia which are in motion in the
ether. The ether is a perfect fluid through which these microscopic
specks stream without meeting any perceptible resistance. To say
that ether is a perfect fluid is only another way of saying that there
must be a continuous medium or ground of interaction among the
discrete force centers. The extreme tenuity and elasticity of the
ether are the physicist's way of expressing the need for a unitary
conserving principle as the ground of the order of interaction among
atoms and electrons. Thus, the ether is a symbolic concept, which
means that the ultimate ground of all physical activities must be
the conserving self-activity of the supreme cosmical force. As I
understand it, in the Einstein theory of relativity the ether is dis-
pensed with. But if the electron theory or any other theory of
the granular structure of the physical world wins out, it will be
necessary to postulate in some other form an ultimate ground of
order and continuity.

Nature is a system of interactive and interpatient elements.
Each of these elements is a space-time reality; it is spatial as
being a member of the contemporaneous system of nature, and it is
temporal as enduring; it is dynamical inasmuch as it acts and
suffers. The whole continuous system implies a self-conserving
active ground of order. The universe of nature has the crosswise
or simultaneous order of a system of contemporaneously related
elements and the lengthwise order of a continuous or enduring
process. The lengthwise aspect of order is not, as we have seen in
a previous chapter, that of complete qualitative identity in the
successive events which constitute the history of nature. The order
of nature is a creative advance. Nevertheless it is an order and
therefore there must be a supertemporal ground of the history of
nature. This ground must be an everenduring principle of
creative self-activity.

Since all our notions of continuous self-activity are derived

UNIVERSAL ORDER 475

from our immediate experiences thereof in our own impulsive and
purposive efforts, and since the more organized continuity there
is in a center of activity, the more does that center approach to
the type of a personal self, are we not warranted in saying that the
ultimate sustaining active ground of order, of organization and
continuity, for the universe is best conceived after the analogy of
a self?

II. The Ultimate Noetic Oedee

We have already argued at length, in chapters III to VIII, that
all striving towards fuDer truth is guided by the ideal of systematic
wholeness, self-coherence, or organization. We do not possess a
completely harmonious system of truth, and perhaps we never
shall. Our human truths are not falsified by their partial or
fragmentary character, by the fact that we do not know the whole
truth in its harmonious completeness. That, in a general sense, we
can know the whole in outline follows from the fact that there is
an ideal or standard of self-coherence or harmony in a system, by
which we measure our partial truths in their reference to one
another. Thus we fill in progressively the details of that hor-
monious organization of insight which, as ideal and standard, is
ever before us. On the other hand, the true principles of logic,
mathematics, and all other fields, are not made true by the indi-
vidual's thinking nor falsified by the individual's failure to think
them. Truth, for us, is the growing interpretation, and expression
in symbols, of the meanings of reality — of its structure and order.
Our partial grasp of the order of reality must be an approximation,
however imperfect, to the reality itself. Our interpretations of
that order may need, from time to time, radical revision. We
cannot foresee the changes that are yet to come in the creative but
orderly process of the whole but these changes must themselves be
the expression of the fundamental order. Only thus can we think
of universe, totality, cosmic process. There must then be one
objective and intelligible order which corresponds (though we may
not, now or ever, fully know just how in detail this correspondence
works out) to the standard of a self-coherent or harmonious totality.
The organizing and conserving order of the universe throughout
its history must be an active reason or intelligence. In tracing out
the lineaments of the cosmical order on the fields of nature and
human history we are learning, step by step, the character of the

476 MAN AND THE COSMOS

supreme order, and we are realizing our rational individuality by
coming into conscious harmony with that order.

Thus we are led, from a consideration of the spatial and tem-
poral continuity of the world and from a consideration of the
nature of truth, to the notion of a cosmic will or dynamic intelli-
gence as the ground of the world order. Whether this order-power
works in the face of external obstructions is a question we shall
consider later. Before we do so, we shall consider the place of
values and of selves in relation to the supreme order.

III. The Cosmic Ground of Values

Truth is one form of value. But it is basic to all other forms
of value. The validity of all values, which means, in the final
analysis, their cosmic standing, depends on the validity of the
truth-value. Pragmatic and instrumentalist conceptions of truth,
which would reduce it to the position of a tool or instrument to
further values extrinsic to itself — such as emotional satisfactions,
so-called practical ends, and "social welfare" — reduce all values
to mere ephemeral tracings on the shifting sands of the purely
human. Subjectivism is not escaped by appeal to the social, or
even universally human, character of desire and need. Unless
truth have an objective and cosmic reference, humanity is hope-
lessly and forever shut up within its own skin; its deepest and
noblest sentiments are naught but human illusions, vain imagin-
ings, unless the human intellect can somehow lay hold, however
feebly and gropingly, on the nature of things. Whatsoever cosmic
status other values may have, they can have it only as being in
harmony with the real objective order as apprehended by reason.

Goodness is the quality of sentiments (organized dispositions
to feel and act) and of volitions (sentiments in action). Good-
ness appertains only to conscious and intelligent life. Beauty,
whether of nature, art, or personal character, has no meaning and
no existence apart from conscious and intelligent life. The cosmic
status of goodness and beauty depends on the perduration, in the
cosmic order, of conscious and rational life. Truth is the most
comprehensive and fundamental and enduring harmony between
conscious life, as capable of reflection upon the objective condi-
tions of its own being, and the cosmic order. Therefore the
objective and cosmic standing of all values depends on the per-

UNIVERSAL ORDER 477

duration and prosperity of conscious and reflective life. By "pros-
perity" I mean, not merely the conservation of such life but, as
well, its qualitative increase.

Thus, the order of conscious and intelligent life must be the
key to the ruling purport of the cosmos, when we think of this
in terms of values. Thus the supreme principle of order and
continuity may be properly described as an overself, a super-
person, or, perhaps better, a spiritual society or community of
selfhood. It must be much more than a self or person, in the
sense in which we immediately experience and reflectively know
the entities for which these terms stand. Each one of us is an
imperfect spiritual community living in interpersonal or social re-
lations. We can make no hard and fast separation of our intra-
personal and our interpersonal lives. By analogy, I would de-
scribe the supreme ground of values as the perfection of selfhood,
which is, by that very fact, the perfect community or society.

Our hypothesis is incapable of absolute proof, since such proof
would require that we should know the general structure or char-
acter of the total cosmos. It is based on the only kind of argu-
ment which is relevant in this case. If reality be a cosmos, order,
or system, it must have a continuity of structure and meaning.
The realm of intelligible meanings and values cannot be abso-
lutely sundered from the total character of the real. The latter
cannot include, as a part of itself, as an ephemeral by-product of
its blind and insensate ongoing, an order of meanings and values
and of life in which these inhere, but to which the total cosmic
order is utterly alien and hostile. For, if the cosmos as a whole
be a brute insensate procession of merely physical forces, it is
alien and hostile, simply because it is indifferent, to meanings
and values. Such a supposition makes the eruption and the ac-
tivity and continuance of life and its values, for however brief a
moment in the eternities of the cosmic whirl of atoms, the most
unaccountable and stupendous of miracles. It makes life the
momentary by-product of a lifeless world, values and meanings
the momentary fermentations of a meaningless and valueless
cosmos. Since our universe is a part of the cosmos, the meanings
and values of life in our universe must be somehow continuous
with the whole meaning and structure of the cosmos. Of course
we do not and cannot know just what transformations life and
its values undergo in the total order ; but it cannot be transf orma-

478 MAN AND THE COSMOS

tion to the point of extinction of selfhood and its values ; it must
be rather the continuance and increase of these.

The doctrine of absolute or singularistic idealism, that all
finite selves are literally existential elements in the absolute self,
mind, or experient, is based chiefly on the supposed analogy be-
tween mental systems (affective, ideational and volitional com-
plexes) considered as elements in the total organized life of a
human self or person, and the life of a human self considered as
one constituent in the life of the absolute. Just as I am made
up, psychically, of a considerable number of fairly well-organized
and distinct dispositions which, in their interrelations, constitute
my total personality, so the absolute is made up of all finite
selves, human, subhuman and superhuman, organized into a unity.
Just as I am a sort of society, so the absolute is a super-society.

On critical examination this analogy breaks down. In a
normal self the various subsystems or ideational complexes, which
constitute the dynamic content of the personality, have nothing
closely corresponding to the distinctness, privacy and self-determi-
nation of the whole individual in relation to other individuals.
The ideational complexes are distinguishable phases of the self,
not distinct existents. I am an imperfectly organized self, com-
pacted of a variety of impulsive, emotive and ideational factors.
Nevertheless, whatever degree of personality I may be, that I am
as one living whole — private, self-determining and relatively self-
existent. No finite self is included in me nor I in any other, so
far as I know. I have facets to my personality, but, unless my
personality is in a state of disintegration, I am one self.

The diseases of personalities do not support the absolutist's
contention. If there are really two or more selves in one body,
then each of these is a distinct and self-determining personality.
They do not literally share in one another's being. If they did
they would cease to be two. Two friends or lovers, no matter
how close their affinities, do not cease to be two. If they did
the meaning and zest of the whole relationship would disappear.
As a matter of fact a dissociated or diseased self is not an inte-
grated personality at all.10 In it the various complexes oscillate
in control, or some aberrational complex wins the upper hand,
just because of the weakness of the function of nervous and mental

10 Cf. Chaps. 25 and 26.

UNIVERSAL ORDER 479

integration. An absolute self constructed after this analogy would
be a mere aggregate or warring collection of imperfect finite
personalities — not one perfectly unified and all-inclusive self. '

We have no sufficient grounds for supposing that one rational
self can be literally included in another. A universal self, which
includes and synthesizes into a perfect unity the lives of all im-
perfect and changing selves, could not be a self at all. Selves
exist only in relation to other selves. An absolute which includes
and transmutes all finite selves is not a self, and, in the process
of transmutation, the finite selves must lose all that constitutes
selfhood. Thus the singularistic idealist pays a heavy price for
his one — the finite self dissolves into a phantom, and only by doing
violence to the logic of experience can he find his absolute self.

If there be an over-self it must be distinct, in its existence,
from all finite selves and they from it. It must be the creative
or originating and sustaining ground of the order of the cosmos
and of the lives and values of finite personalities, the conservator
of the order of values. I can attach no definite meaning to the
notion of an impersonal all-inclusive spirit, conceived as the suffi-
cient ground of reality and values. Either there is no cosmos,
and no cosmic principle of order or ground of values, or the prin-
ciple and ground is an over-self, a spiritual community, of which
the highest finite personality is our best available adumbration,
however imperfect a foreshadowing it be. If there be no over-
self then finite selves are not only the highest beings in the uni-
verse, but they are higher and worthier beings than the chaos
which has engendered, and will engulf, these paradoxially tragic
beings which are able to rebel against, to judge and condemn, the
insensate welter of physicochemical transformations. A single
human self has more of value in it than an infinite chaos of atoms
or electrons. To talk about meanings and values inhering or
enduring in a so-called universe in which personalities are ac-
counted merely transitory elements is to talk nonsense. Conscious
and rational life must be supreme in an intelligible cosmos.

Monistic Theism — the doctrine that all nature is subordinate
to one spiritual being, from which finite selves are existentially
distinct, but to which they are similar in kind and therefore re-
lated— is a logical doctrine. Dualistic Theism — the doctrine that
there is a recalcitrant factor, a cosmical obstacle to the full real-
ization of values — is likewise a logical doctrine (the problem of

480 MAN AND THE COSMOS

evil will be discussed later). Pantheistic idealism and pantheistic
naturalism are, for different reasons, illogical and inconsistent
theories. Pantheistic idealism, in its attempt to conserve the
meanings and values of selfhood by including all selves in the
absolute self, sacrifices selfhood on the altar of an impersonal
unity, and thereby cuts the roots from under all values.

Pantheistic naturalism invites us to value and worship a uni-
verse of physical and unconscious energies by the application to
these of the misleading honorific adjective "infinite." But, since
all meanings and values must go down to shipwreck and extinction,
if personality be an epiphenomenon, the so-called universe of the
naturalist is unworthy of valuation and reverence. In such case,
if we still must worship, let us worship man. For, weak and
erring though he be, man is worthier than an infinite and eternal
blind whirl of energies, since he alone can feel and think and
will and dream — alone can invent and serve truth, justice, love,
and beauty.

APPENDIX

THE MEANINGS OF THE INFINITE

The word "infinite," like many other philosophical terms, covers
a number of equivocations. The following are its chief meanings :

1. The indefinitely great, that which is greater than any assign-
able quantity, in magnitude, number, duration or intensity. When
people speak of infinite space, force, time, or of one entity as being
infinitely better than another, what they have in mind is inability
to measure. What they really mean is "indefinitely" larger, greater,
longer, better, etc.

2. The second meaning of the infinite is the unlimited, the un-
bounded; for example the absolute boundlessness of space, the abso-
lute endlessness of time, the absolute inexhaustibleness of energy, the
endless duration of life.

3. The infinite as the perfect or self -complete ; as including all
forms of values in the highest degree possible. In this, which is
peculiarly the metaphysical, meaning of the infinite there can be
of course only one infinite, the absolute reality or ground of the
universe in its unity and totality. The infinite in this sense of per-
fection and self-completeness would be wholly self-active and self-
contained; in short perfect in power, knowledge or insight and feel-
ing. There could be for it no opaque facts, no unattainable desires,
no gaps between will and deed, no irresolvable disharmonies.

UNIVERSAL ORDER 481

The infinite as the indefinitely great is nothing actual. It is
simply a misleading expression for vagueness in human thinking
and incapacity to measure or estimate. No matter how vast the
actual magnitude of the space world, of the number of elements in
it, or of the differences of degree in quality, all these things must be
finite in the sense of being definite in quantity, number, and rela-
tion. Nothing that exists in time strictly speaking can be endless.
Anything that may exist endlessly, exists eternally, is a timeless
existence.

Since space is not a kind of separate existence, but the system
of relations between contemporaneous existents, space in itself can-
not be actually boundless nor bounded. The whole of reality can-
not exist in space. Nor can reality actually consist now of innu-
merable entities, for an innumerable number is not a real number.
The real elements of the universe must, at any moment, be a definite
and actual number. The proposition that there actually exists an
id finite number of things is tantamount to saying that the world
is in endless process of change, so that incessantly things come into
being and cease to be. An unreal number or an endless series means
that at any moment there is a finite number of things and a series
that is never to be completed. Since space is the system of relations
between simultaneously existing things, and since the latter must at
any instant be an actual or finite number, space is finite. Since time is
the form of change, the relation of succession and every change and
succession is finite, the actual endlessness or infinitude of time is a
misleading way of asserting the reality of eternal or changeless being.
Whether belief in the reality of eternal being is consistent with the
temporal character of our actual world is a question which I will
discuss fully in Chapter XXXVII.

The "new infinite" of mathematical speculation is frequently put
forward as affording a definite solution of the philosophical problem
of the infinite. I shall discuss this new infinite very briefly, for the
purpose of showing that it does not solve the problem of the actual
infinite in the sense of the reality of self-completeness or perfection.11

The "new infinite" is a new definition of infinity derived from

11 From the large and growing literature on this subject I select for
reference, B. Eussell, Our Knowledge of the External World, Chaps. 6 and 7;
and Mysticism and Logic, pp. 84 ff. ; Eussell and Whitehead, Principles of
Mathematics (see index); L. Couturat, L'Infini Mathematique ; B. Eussell,
Introduction to Mathematical Phisosophy ; Josiah Eoyce, The World and the
Individual, Vol. I, Supplementary Essay; H. Poincare, The Value of Science,
and Science and Method; William James, Some Problems of Philosophy, Chaps.
10 and 11; and my article on "The Infinite New and Old," Philosophical
Beview, Vol. xiii, pp. 497-513; J. S. Mackenzie, Elements of Constructive
Philosophy, Bk. iii, Chap. 3.

482 MAN AND THE COSMOS

the property of number series. All number series are indefinitely
continuable series growing according to perfectly defined laws of
order. Take, for example, the series of positive whole numbers, the
series of even numbers, and the series of numbers which are squares
of the whole numbers :

0, 1, 2, 3, 4 n

0, 2, 4, 6, 8 n

0, 1, 4, 9, 16 n

The other two series are contained in the first series but to every
number in the first series is a corresponding number in the other
series, since all the series are endless. The series are in one-one
correspondence. Thus an infinite whole is one which corresponds to
a proper part of itself. Any class is infinite if its parts are numer-
ically similar to itself. Such groups of series are endlessly self-
representative ; each member of the group represents the whole group
of series adequately. Thus, as Kussell tells us, infinite numbers
differ from finite numbers in two respects. First, an infinite number
is not increased by adding one to it. Given an infinite collection,
any finite collection may be added to or taken away from it without
increasing or diminishing the number of the whole, as in the number
series given above. Second, since all finite numbers are increased
by the addition of one, the principle of mathematical induction
holds good of finite numbers but not of infinite numbers.

The similarity or one-one correspondence between whole and part
in the new infinite solves, it is said, Zeno's paradox of the Achilles
and the other classical problems of the infinitesimal. The path trav-
ersed by the tortoise in a given time is a part of the path traversed
by Achilles in the same time; thus there is a one-one correspondence
between the infinite number of points in each stride of Achilles and
each step of the tortoise; therefore Achilles can overtake the tortoise.
But this explanation assumes, as James pointed out, that an infinite
number of points has in both cases been traversed in finite time,
whereas the real problem is as to how any being can pass through
an infinite number of points in a finite time. The way out of this
difficulty is to say that the finite stretch of time consists in an
infinite number of instants corresponding to the infinite number of
points in the different stretches traversed by Achilles and the tortoise.
But all these instants are timeless. They cannot by addition consti-
tute a finite stretch of time, any more than an infinite number of
zeroes can constitute a positive finite quantity. As James says, whoso
actually traverses a continuum can do so by no process continuous in
the mathematical sense. Be it short or long, each step in the journey

UNIVERSAL ORDER 483

must be occupied in its due order of succession. If the steps are
necessarily infinite in number, their end can never be reached, for
the remainder in this kind of process is just what one cannot neglect.
By the method of one-one correspondence neither Achilles nor the
tortoise would ever get in motion at all. The only solution is to
say with M. Bergson that each step is an indivisible movement and
every real time a finite duration. Mathematical time is a generic
concept for all finite durations, mathematical distance a generic con-
cept for all finite distances, mathematical motion a generic concept
for all finite motions. There are no actual infinitesimals in space,
motion, and time.

The various number series are not equal in numerical magnitude
at any stage in the indefinitely continued operation of enumerating
them. They are never actual infinites. They are endlessly growing
finites; in other words they are perfectly well-defined formulas for
the indefinite continuance of recurrent operations of thought. Writers
such as Dedekind and Royce conceive the positive nature of the
infinite to be the capacity for endless self-representation, of which
number series form striking examples. Imagine a map of a country
situated in a certain part of the country; then to be perfect the map
should contain a map of itself and so on endlessly. But this is a
process of self-representation which can never be completed. Like
the number series, it is a case of the indefinite recurrence of an
operation which can never actually be completed. Dedekind draws
from the mind's power of self-representation the proof that there
actually exist such infinite systems.12 But such an argument, to be
valid, would have to assume that in one's self-consciousness one could
represent wholly and completely the whole series of thoughts possible
through endless time. An omniscient thinker, to be actually infinite
in thought, would have to possess a sun-clear intuition of all possible
objects of thought. Thus the human type of complete self -repre-
sentation would be, in an endless series of self-representations, end-
less in the sense of never-completed; but not an act of intellectual
intuition in which a being should grasp all at once in a single in-
sight all the possible objects of his thoughts and their relationships.
The human mind's power of self-representation is finite in two senses
■ — (1) it never completely and translucently penetrates all the objects
of its thought; (2) at any moment the objects of its actual thought
are but a small selection from the possible objects of thought. A
perfect self-representation would not be a representation at all, but
an intuitive penetration and comprehension of the whole universe of

M See Dedekind: Essays on Number.

484 MAN AND THE COSMOS

not-self in self. The actual infinite, if such there be, must be a being
self-complete and perfect, self-existent, self-contained, self-moving.
Such a being would be infinite in power in the sense that he would
be unhindered and unlimited by any power independent of himself
in its origin and existence; infinite in knowledge in the sense that
there would be no data or facts through which his insight would
not completely penetrate and which would not blend in the totality
of his insight; infinite in goodness in the sense that there would be
in his willing or self-activity no conflict of motives, no opposition
between desire and volition.

There is a distinction between self-completeness and perfection.
A finite being or even a work of art may be perfect after its kind,
but only the infinite universe can be self-complete. If, however, we
take perfection to mean the absence of defect or limitation, no finite
being can attain perfection.

The metaphysical infinite may be conceived theistically, pan-
theistically or pluralistically. For theism God is the one self-com-
plete being who includes all forms of perfection. He has an inner
life which transcends the life of the world. The world is derived
from and dependent upon Him; nothing in it can take place inde-
pendently of His will, but He may by an act of self -limitation endow
finite selves with a limited power to choose and hence to err. From
this standpoint the imperfection in the world, its suffering and evil,
are elements in the divine plan. These defects do not constitute
limitations imposed upon God, but are factors in the order of the
universe which, as the expression of God's perfection, must as a
whole be good, however imperfect its parts.

The pantheistic infinite is the identification of the absolute or
perfect being with the wholly immanent spirit of the universe. God,
the one being absolutely infinite as Spinoza puts it, is identical with
the whole indwelling principle of totality or unity by virtue of which
the universe is a universe and not a mere heap or aggregate of un-
related parts. In other words the infinite is the principle of cosmic
unity, the dens sive natura, of Spinoza. When the pantheist conceives
a cosmic unity as being, not an impersonal principle of unity, but
a personal or superpersonal principle, he has passed beyond pan-
theism. For a self-conscious center essentially transcends, in its
inner life, all others, however intimate its relation to its others.

If the universe be conceived, as it is for example by Mr. J. M.
E. McTaggart,13 as an eternal system or society of finite beings, who
are fundamental differentiations of the absolute, we have an infinite

11 See his Studies in Hegelian Cosmology and Some Problems of Beligion.

UNIVERSAL ORDER 485

which consists of a permanent system of finite beings in relation —
one infinite which is the impersonal unity of a plurality of persons.
Thus we have a synthesis of singularism and pluralism. This
synthesis is the only logical form of pantheism. For either the
infinite, as the principle of cosmic unity, is a self which transcends
all the finite members of whose relations it is the ground, or it is an
impersonal principle of unity. The logic of Spinoza's pantheism or
of Hegel's, if indeed Hegel was a pantheist, requires some such con-
ception as that of Dr. McTaggart.

CHAPTER XXXVI

FINITE SELVES AND THE OVER-SELF

In the previous chapter we rejected the notion that an im-
personal ground of the world could be the ground of personality
and value. We also rejected the notion that the cosmic ground
could be a person which literally contains, as parts of, or elements
in, its experience, all finite selves. We denied that a person could
be a mere fragment of another person. But how can finite per-
sons have any existence of their own, if they are dependent on
the cosmic ground ? And how can the cosmic ground be a unity
if it be not impersonal ? These are problems of exceeding great
importance and difficulty which we must consider.

I have called the cosmic ground an over-self. This means that
while it contains, in a more eminent sense, what we mean by
personality, it must be superpersonal; it must transcend finite
selfhood. Perhaps we shall find the best clue to reconcile the im-
manence of the over-self in nature and man with the transcendence
that must belong to it, if it be not impersonal but superpersonal,
if we suppose that the over-self is the union in higher degree of
what we mean by "Personality" and "Community."

First, a few words on the immanence of spirit in nature.

I remind the reader here of the argument developed in previ-
ous chapters that the aesthetic emotion of kinship with nature
(of which the feelings of beauty, picturesqueness, grandeur and
sublimity, with which one contemplates the varied aspects of
nature as living wholes of individual significance are phases) con-
stitutes an important ground for belief in a spirit immanent in
nature. Since man feels a harmony between himself and nature,
when the latter is perceived as a living and significant whole, the
scientific analysis of nature can do no more than lay bare, at best,
the skeleton of the world. The flesh and blood of nature's living
individuality is apprehended only through the concrete poetic in-
tuition of the nature lover. In the sesthetic emotion man enters
into immediate communion with the spiritual life expressed in

486

FINITE SELVES AND OVER-SELF 487

the natural order. There is no necessary inconsistency between
the scientific conceptions of nature and the intuitions of the
nature lover. Scientific analysis, properly understood, enhances
man's aesthetic relations to nature, since it deepens and clarifies
his immediate sense of nature's meanings. On the other hand,
the aesthetic contemplation of nature clothes the abstract skeleton
of scientific concepts with the rich qualitative variety, individual-
ity, and living harmony of concrete intuition. Perceptual ex-
perience takes on its full meaning only when it is suffused by
aesthetic feeling. The poets are not vain dreamers of subjective
fancies, and there need be no quarrel between science and poetry.
Scientific analysis of nature furnishes the intellectual framework
of a more meaningful and profound poetic integration of nature
in its spiritual character. The total and immediate intuition of
the nature-lover sees the scientific framework filled with life and
value. The aesthetic communion of man with nature is unintel-
ligible on any other hypothesis than that nature, in its individual
forms and its totality, is the self-manifestation of spirit.

But how can an over-self or superperson be conceived to be
immanent in human nature, since the human person seems in
essence to exclude the immanence in it of any other self? Is
there any sense in which it might be said that one personal spirit
is immanent in another without absorbing that other into its inner
being? I think there is. First, let us consider in what sense a
human person can not be a part of an absolute self.

Finite selves are never perfect personalities. We are partly
things and partly persons. As things enmeshed in the system of
the spatial-dynamic world, we are eddies in the physical con-
tinuum, local and temporal centers in the universal motion-system
of the material universe. As things we are insubstantial imper-
manent pseudo-individuals. As things we are transitory modi-
fications of the flowing cosmical energies which are the manifes-
tations of the world will.

Finite selves in their truer and inner being are not mere frag-
ments of a whole, not mere bits of an absolute continuum. In
their inner being they are severally real and unique — self-feeling,
self-determining centers of experience and deed. In this regard
finite selves cannot be mere contents of an infinite and absolute
self. The will of a finite self is not a bit of the absolute will.
The consciousness of a finite self is not a mere content of an ab-

488 MAN AND THE COSMOS

solute consciousness. Nearly all the arguments of the absolute
monist or singularist on this score involve the fallacious assump-
tion that to know anything truly and wholly one must be that
which one knows, that to feel utter sympathy one must be the
person one sympathizes with, that to cooperate in willing, one's
own will must be existentially identical with the will with which
one cooperates ; and, in brief, that to be truly related to anything
one must be part of that to which one is related. It is assumed
that, if the supreme self know and sympathize with my life, or
I with his life, we must really be the same self. I must, then,
as knower, sympathizer, or cooperating will, be part of the su-
preme self, and he must be fragmentary identical with me.

If finite selves are parts of the over:self and nothing more, such
a being in all his knowing knows only himself, in all his willing
wills only himself, in all his love loves only himself. If this were
true then the over-self would not be a person in any sense that
is intelligible to human beings. A self that has no objects of
knowledge but himself cannot be truly self-conscious, since selves
are conscious only in relation to an "other," self or thing. If I
have only my actual self to love I cannot be said truly to love.
If I will nothing but my actual self I do not will anything.

The assumption of the numerical identity, the existential
fusion, of related selves does not hold good in human relationships,
and therefore one cannot understand how it can hold good for
the relationships of the human self to a supreme self. Finite
selves are not lost and merged in one another's lives, by growing
into an understanding and appreciation of one another's experi-
ence. A person does not cease to be individual, by the deepening
and expansion of his insight and his sympathies. My will is not
become identical with your will because we will in harmony. Two
friends do not cease to be two by virtue of the complete reciprocity
of their friendship. Even "two hearts that beat as one, two souls
with but a single thought" do not merge in a higher impersonal
identity. If they did all the zest of their so feeling and thinking
would disappear. Love is an expansion of individuality through
relationship, not a disappearance of individuality.

The actuality and possibility of all sorts of relationships be-
tween selves, as members of a systematic whole, does not imply
that selves are merely elements in an absolute self or impersonal
spirit. If it were so, as the singularistic absolutist asserts, we

FINITE SELVES AND OVER-SELF 489

could be haters, murderers, lovers, saviors, neighbors, mothers-in-
law, and so on through the entire gamut of human relationships,
only because we are all alike parts of the absolute. All our sep-
arate finite experiences would be merged in the all-devouring maw
of the absolute experience, but as to how and what became of
them in the absolute we could have no inkling.

I feel a pain, am in error, tell a lie, fall in love, and so on
through the gamut of human experience. My experiences cannot
enter into an absolute experience as constituent elements thereof
without being altered. If I am really nothing but a part of an
absolute, my finite, erring selfhood has no reality of its own.
My sense of unique selfhood is an illusion. On the other hand,
if one recognize that the finite self is real as such, it may be
known to a supreme knower, both as it is for itself and as it is
for him. I may in some degree know you both as you think you
are and as I think you are in contrast with what you think your-
self to be. If I can know and harmoniously share my friend's
feelings and thoughts without being that friend, surely a supreme
self might know us all without our merging into him !

Since, in the matter of conscious experience, to be is to be
felt or known in some way, if my being be real only in and for
the all-knower, then my being as I am for myself is unreal. But
since to feel is to be as an experient, my conscious being as it -is
for me in my personal feeling must be real in some degree. For
the time being I am as "good" a reality as anything whatsoever.
To make finite selfhood simply a constituent element, existing
no one knows how, in the experience of the absolute self, is to
"de-realize" the finite self, and to put in its place an empty
abstraction. For, if my feelings and purposes, as I have them,
are not real, what actual basis is left for determining the char-
acter of an ultimate reality obtained by merging and losing all
finite selves in an abstract absolute unity? There is no more
ground for assuming the existential oneness of a finite person
and a supreme self than there is for admitting the existential
identity of two finite persons — no ground at all, in short.

Finite selves enter into a great variety of relationships —
spatial and temporal, affectional, volitional, and cognitive. They
may likewise be in a variety of relationships to the supreme self.
They may be ignorant of him, indifferent to him, hostile, friendly
or devoted.

490 MAN AND THE COSMOS

The universe of persons, which alone realizes the mean-
ings and intrinsic values to which the universes of insentient
nature and of organic nature are tributary, is a society of selves.
The supreme self, if such exist, must be the ultimate example and
type of selfhood, the source and sustainer of the intrinsic values
of the society of finite selves, and also the unifier and director of
nature, which is, in turn, the theater for the realization of finite
selfhood. Finite selves may indefinitely progress in their degrees
of inner harmony of will and insight, and proportionately prog-
ress in their harmony with the supreme self. We know and feel
and act with other selves because of a community of character —
a community of spirit, of ideals, and purposes. The ultimate
source of this rational and ethical community of life must be the
supreme source of selfhood. We know nature as the theater and
instrumentality of human social and personal life. It is the
meeting place of selves, the medium of their interactions and
intercommunions. The unity and interconnection of nature with
selves, and of selves with one another, points us to the concep-
tion of the ultimate ground of order as the great other spirit or
over-self, who sustains the order of nature and the order of hu-
manity, and progressively manifests himself as creative source,
in the ascending scale of individualities from the material indi-
viduum or center of physical activity up to the most fully har-
monized rational and social selfhood.

The extreme singularist and the extreme pluralist are alike
guilty of the same fallacy in their treatment of selfhood, that of
assuming that the uniqueness and individuality of a finite self
involves its absolute impenetrability. They conceive the finite
self as a self-enclosed particular. The singularist asserts that, if
the finite self has any independent being it must be wholly im-
pervious to relationships ; and therefore the world is a chaos unless
all so-called finite selves are mere fragments of an absolute self.
If there be more than one ultimately real self there is chaos, says
the monistic absolutist.

The extreme pluralist asserts equally that selves are mutually
impenetrable and that their relations are wholly external, there-
fore selves cannot form an organized whole of communicating
lives. Each one is forever shut up tight in his own skin. Thus
we have Leibniz's "windowless monads" ; and, then, in order to
explain their relations, the artificial and inconsistent, though

FINITE SELVES AND OVER-SELF 491

necessary, hypothesis of a supreme governing monad who is the
ground of the preestablished harmony of activities among the
monads.

In contrast with both these positions, the truer view starts
from the principle that selves, though existentially distinct cen-
ters of feeling and deed, are not shut out from one another's lives
by impenetrable and unscalable walls. The kinds and degrees of
intimacy of relations between selves are various. We cannot
enumerate all the types of mediate, intermediate, and immediate
relationships, not only because these are at any moment so nu-
merous and complex but also because, in a dynamic universe, re-
lationships change and evolve with the evolution of the elements
of reality.

It is passing strange that this erroneous theory of the mutual
impenetrability, the ultimate incommunicability, of selves should
be advanced by some who would justify a religious view of reality.
For the deepest and, philosophically, the most defensible type of
religious life is an enlightened mysticism which finds and feels
the working of the cosmical spirit in the life of inner personal
experience; and in the course of man's spiritual history traces,
by the light of this immediate living presence to the individual
soul, the growing manifestation of that spirit. Such a mysticism
is intellectually justified by its close analogy with the aesthetic
experience and the higher interpersonal emotions. Historically,
it is justified by the part which it has played in the work of
prophets and reformers, in the rejuvenescence and purification of
religions. If its validity cannot be proved to those who have felt
no touch of it, on the other hand, no new discoveries of natural
science or historical criticism can invalidate it. Moreover, the
presumption is that those who have it not at all are deficient or
blind in the matter of a worthful and significant experience, as
are those who have no eyes for the beauties of nature, or no
hearts for friendship and love.

The doctrine of the absolute impenetrability of selves is then
an error. We finite selves are separated by our bodies. We are
kept apart still more by our cross-purposes and conflicting desires,
by our self-will, our stupid blindness and lack of sympathetic and
rational insight. But we are never wholly kept apart. Friends
and lovers do live in and through one another. We do at times
seem to have immediate and vivid insight into one another's inner

492 MAN AND THE COSMOS

li/es. We are able to merge our narrow, blind, egotistical lives
in other lives of sympathetic insight and self-forgetting devotion.
We can and do save ourselves as rational and spiritual persons
by dying to our exclusive and blindly irrational biological self-
hood. Indeed, immediate intuition or insight is the normal man-
ner of knowing another self. We do not first observe the motions
of another body and then, by a deliberate process of inference,
project a mental self into it. This explanation of the way in
which one self knows another is a construction of the psychologist
and epistemologist. Immediate knowledge comes first, differen-
tiation and analysis afterwards. Hound-about inferential knowl-
edge of other selves is intermediate between naive immediate
insight, and the higher insight based on community of ideas and
sentiments amongst peers.

St. John and St. Paul, St. John of the Cross, Meister Eck-
hart and Jacob Boehme, Spinoza, Fichte and Hegel, Shelley,
Wordsworth, Tennyson and Browning, and many another mystical
poet, seer, and philosopher may have been right in affirming the
intercommunicability of selves.

In normal life the tremendous and generally unnoticed influ-
ence of suggestion, the divining by friend and lover of another's
attitude of feeling and thought, the whole swift immediacy of
psychical rapport on which the interest and zest of our intimate
social intercourse so much depend — all point to the intercom-
municability of personal life as an integral part of the goal of
selfhood. No wonder that, hampered as we seem to be by our
bodies, differing as we do in the varied play of our stresses in
language and gestures, with conflicting interests and cross pur-
poses, our lives often seem wholly private and isolated. And yet
probably every self hungers at times to lay itself bare before
some other self, to throw away its masks and be its own naked
reality, however scarred and specked, in the sympathetic presence
of some other loving and forgiving self. As selves grow in ration-
ality of insight, in universality of outlook and aim, in sympathy
and wisdom, they become more and more intercommunicative.

In brief, in the most intimate and significant human relation-
ships, the spirit of one person may be immanent in another with-
out either losing their distinctness. After years of happy wedded
life a man and woman will each show the working of the other's
spirit without either losing their own individuality. Indeed, the

FINITE SELVES AND OVER-SELF 493

better the union the more genial the atmosphere for the develop-
ment of the essential personality. The like is true in deep and
lasting friendships. And are not the spirits of the creative heroes
of the spirit — of poets and sages, of prophets and revealers, of
great lovers of their kind and great lovers of beauty and truth
— immanent in kindred spirits through all time? Are not the
spirits of Plato, Jesus, Gotama, Socrates, Virgil, Shakespeare,
Spinoza, Goethe, alive as immanent in these who are inspired by
them throughout the ages ?

If the above be literal fact, as I believe, then we may carry
the argument on and say — the over-self, the superpersonal spirit
is immanent in humanity in the sense that, as men respond to the
incitements and materials for spiritual development that his ever
energizing life offers to them, they become partial incarnations of
his spirit.

The supreme spirit would then be the conservator of all the
intrinsic values of selfhood — the self for whom all truth is valid,
in whose purposive will perfect goodness is embodied, of whose
creative life beauty is the adequate expression. In the supreme
self the so-called eternal truths, which are adumbrated in our
finite minds by the principles of logic and mathematics, and by
whatever other principles of truth there may be, are the laws of
Operation of his creative thinking. Similarly, the values of good-
ness must be directive principles of his activity. The first prin-
ciples of knowledge are the constitutive logical principles of any
world. Just so the intrinsic ethical values are the conditions of
the life of personality, and the values of beauty and personal
emotion are the conditions of harmonious self-expression and self-
fulfillment.

The over-self cannot be infinite in the sense of being an in-
definite potentiality of any imaginable kind of action, thought,
or feeling. That would be a false infinite. He could not, for
instance, be a cosmical liar or be self-contradictory in his thought
or will. Moreover, if he affirms the reality of other selves, he
must respect that reality. He can do no violence to the ethical
nature of selves. And he can only be a self by finding his own
self-fulfillment and self-satisfaction through the growth of finite
selves in self-fulfillment. A self who was alone in the universe,
or who alone was the universe, would be no genuine self. The
supreme self may not be limited by any externally imposed phys-

494 MAN AND THE COSMOS

ical conditions, but he must be conditioned in his own self-deter-
mining life by his own concrete spiritual nature or character, and
by the character and conditions of the finite selves who are the
members of the universe nearest to himself in nature. Whether
the supreme self calls finite selves into being in time, or whether
these are eternal coexistents with him, is a question not suscep-
tible of dogmatic answer perhaps. I have already indicated that
I believe the evidence to be in favor of the view that finite selves
originate in the world process. Whether any factor independent
of the supreme self is operative in this process is a question to
be discussed in a following chapter.

The over-self must be at once universal and individual. He
must be the most concrete universal, and the most universal indi-
vidual. He is the supreme individual, since his creative thought
or world-detennining volition issues in the formation and susten-
tation of a cosmos or whole which has the determinate character
of a coherent system. In other words, his world is an individual
whole inclusive of many grades of finite individuality. He, as
the ultimate ground of this individual whole, must be the perfect
individual, the final source of all differentiation and unification.
He must be universal, since he is the source of all individuation ;
that is, he determines the position, qualities and relations of each
element in the total system of the real. The distinction and sepa-
ration of the "that" from the "what," the looseness of existence
from content, as Mr. Bradley is always saying, which obtains for
us, because given facts remain partly opaque and disjointed, can-
not exist for him, since there can be for him no "brute" externally
given "thats." He can have no need of our abstract general con-
cepts or laws. These we abstract from the similarities of particu-
lars which in part resist our efforts to comprehend them in their
systematic relations. Thus our concepts or "universals" seem to
stand outside the particulars whose similarities they represent.
We are not able to see how they cohere into a complete system
or cosmos, although insight into the latter is the ideal goal of
knowledge, towards which we do make measurable progress. The
place and character of every particular in the universe must be
translucent to the over-self, since it is defined by his creative
thinking.

The knowledge of his world by the over-self must be direct or
immediate and intuitive. If he could know me only inferentially,

FINITE SELVES AND OVER-SELF 495

his knowledge would be of a piece-meal growing character, always
liable to error and less adequate than my own knowledge of things
and, more especially, of selves. For human knowledge is not, in
its more adequate forms, purely discursive. In knowing things,
and still more in knowing selves, the foundation of thought is
immediate experience. In perception the mind is in immediate
contact with things and the function of discursive reasoning is to
organize, interpret, and illuminate the immediate data of experi-
ence. The goal of thought's activity in the field of perceptual
experience is the achievement of a higher immediacy — a harmoni-
ous and articulated intuition of reality. Reason sets the datum of
sense in its context and relationships. In the knowledge of other
selves the intuitional factor plays a still greater part. Here dis-
cursive thought has a more subordinate role, since knowledge of
persons is fundamentally immediate or intuitive. In the enjoy-
ment of nature and art, in friendship and love, the ratiocinative
factor is more fully absorbed in the intuition which it illuminates
than in our scientific knowledge. It is in these intuitive and
affectional experiences that we most nearly apprehend the per-
fect character of an ideal cognition, one which penetrates with
direct insight the entire system of the finite and takes all the
elements and relationships of the latter up into an immediate
grasp.

Immanence and Transcendence

We have arrived, by a process of cumulative inference, at the
notion of a supreme spiritual community, superpersonal life, or
overself, the absolute reality. We have argued that the physical,
spatial, and temporal world involves a conservingly active ground,
a perduring principle of order; that the nature of truth involves
belief in a supreme systematic thinker or mind; and finally that
the world of persons, considered as the sole bearers of values,
implies an ultimate good, which is the ground for the attainment
and conservation of personality.

The final question is this : Is the absolute ground of existence
and value an impersonal principle that exists solely by virtue of
its immanental activity in nature and humanity, and is it thus
wholly exhausted and contained in its universe ; or is the supreme
principle really an overself or spiritual community which tran-
scends all finite selves and their world ? If it be said that the

496 MAN AND THE COSMOS

supreme community or cosmic self must transcend the world, in
the sense of being outside it in space and before it in time, I reply
that the conception of a universe as a world beginning in time and
created by an external first cause, which initiated its creative
activity at a specific moment in time, is a contradiction. One
would have to suppose a cause, why the first cause began to act
at the particular moment when creation began. Then the first
cause is no longer a first cause, and we are launched out again on
the endless regress of an infinite series of temporal events. If it
be said that this difficulty can be avoided, by the assumption that
time was created with the world, I reply that the statement that
time had a beginning is self-contradictory, since a beginning
implies a time before that beginning ; but a beginning in time is
no beginning and therefore time can have no absolute beginning.
A beginning of beginnings is the beginning of nonsense.

Moreover, the conception of a cause spatially external to that
which it causes or creates, as something outside itself in space,
involves us in all the difficulties with regard to the passage of the
cause into the effect ; in short, in all the difficulties which we have
discussed in dealing with the notion of discrete entities in wholly
external relations. The notion that the universe came into being
at a point in time by the temporal act of an extra-mundane cause
is thus untenable. Creation must be the endless expression of
God's eternal activity and, hence, an eternal process. The world
cannot be spatially outside God, nor God outside the world. But
it does not follow that His character is wholly exhausted by His
continuous expression in the world. In rich and perfect self-
completeness He must transcend the world as it is at any moment.
He cannot be less, and He must be much more, a self than any
finite self. He must transcend in insight, in wealth of content
and harmony, and in the ceaseless self-activity, of His will, all
other selves. The difficulties in regard to transcendence and im-
mance arise, it seems to me, largely from taking these terms in a
physical or material sense. When we say that God transcends the
world, what we properly mean is, not that He is outside of it, but
that, in the quality of His character or nature, in His wealth of
content and harmony of inner spiritual being and action, He
transcends in worth or value all finite selves. He is the absolute
center of values.

I admit the great difficulty in conceiving how a conscious

FINITE SELVES AND OVER-SELF 497

community of being can be uniquely self-conscious, and yet be
the unitary ground of a world of particular things and finite per-
sons. Still we do have inklings of how this may be so. Even a
great representative human individual, such as an Abraham
Lincoln, may, with all his unique and private selfhood, be in a
genuine sense the source and unifier of a nation's will. A Jesus
may be solitary and transcendent in his inner life amidst the
crowd and even amongst his beloved disciples, and yet be the
unifying will of their wills, spirit of their spirits. And the human
spiritual hero fulfills this function just in proportion to the
measure in which he incarnates the universal cosmical will. Of
course there is a fundamental difference between any finite indi-
vidual, as dependent on the supreme will, and that will. But the
difference must be one of degree. Finite selves must be the in-
finitely varied manifestations in time of the universal self. There
must be identity of spirit amidst all the varied forms and degrees
of its manifestations. The overself must indeed be self of our-
selves. Spirit is enriched, not impoverished, by self-impartation.
It lives and grows by giving and spending.

I do not say, then, that the belief in the transcendency or over-
selfhood of the cosmical community has the intellectual cogency
that I attach to the belief in a dynamic and rational principle of
unity. I say only that, if the intrinsic values of persons are really
values, persons are the most significantly worthful realities in the
world. If there be no personal or superpersonal ground for their
lives, the meaning and goal of nature's evolution and humanity's
ceaseless travail seems to turn to nothingness. Therefore faith in
the spiritual character or selfhood of the supreme unity is involved
in the recognition that personal values are the finest fruits of
the process of reality. Such faith is rational, since without it the
whole process of reality, with all its striving and suffering, all its
passion and vision, all its achievements and heroisms, turns to
dust and ashes.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle in the way of conceiving the
union of transcendence and immanence in the Godhead is the
spatial imagery which clutters our thought — immanent is taken to
be "residing spatially inside" ; transcendent to be "living spatially
above or outside of." I do not say that we can expect to free our-
selves completely from these associations, nor that we should ignore
the question of God's relation to the space-order. If "the earth

498 MAN AND THE COSMOS

is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," if "the heavens are his
dwelling place/' then space is neither a limitation of His spirit
nor a distortion of His glory. But I suggest that, if spirit be
trans-spatial and capable of direct communion with other spirit,
the problem becomes somewhat less insoluble. May we not say
that in the whole physical order God is immanent in the sense that
the whole continuing system of physical and vital energies consti-
tute the continuous expression of His creative energizing will,
but is not identical with his will; whereas he is "closer to us
than breathing and nearer than hands and feet" because, while
we are distinct spiritual existents, we are spiritually of the same
nature with Him ? As persons we are existentially distmct mid
inferior, out essentially identical with the Divine. We can com-
mune with Him as with our fellowmen, by virtue of community
of nature ; in fact in spiritual communion with our fellows we do
essentially commune with Him.

The permanent value of the doctrine of the Trinity seems
to me to lie in its attempt to express the fact that God is a perfect
spiritual community, a superpersonality. God the Father is the
eternal creative ground of all reality : God the Son is the eternal
self-impartation or self-manifestation of the eternal ground in the
eternally creative world-process: God the Holy Spirit is the
eternal process of union or communion, by which the eternal
ground is felt and recognized to be forever energizing in the world-
process and, especially, in the historic life of humanity ; by which,
in brief, the Son in His fullest being as the Divine in humanity
is felt to be in union with the Father of all. Thus, through the
doctrine that God is a spiritual community, higher than and yet
verily or in essence present in the human world, justice is done to
the social nature of spirit and to the doctrines of immanence and
transcendence, which otherwise are incompatibles. Only a spirit
or personality, at its highest, can be at once immanent and tran-
scendent ; can at once live and know and love in and through other
spirits and, at the same time, by virtue of the fact that it is a
spiritual center or unity, can transcend the other lives in and
through which it lives and knows and loves. Through the inter-
play of personal spirits, living, moving and having their being in
one another's being and thus, through that deepening communal
life, attaining their own fullness of being, are we furnished with
an adequate clew to the tangled facts of experience. Only thus

FINITE SELVES AND OVER-SELF 499

do we get hints as to how this seemingly disordered world of ours
may be the expression of an eternally perfect order of existence
which is, at the same time, the eternal order of personal value.
Through the discovery of, the contemplation of, and the com-
munion with this order alone, is the fretful stir unprofitable and
the fever of this jarring world laid at rest. Thus do our noisy
years become moments in the being of the eternal silence, where
alone there is j)eace and joy and power for the human spirit to
live out its length of days in the light of the eternal.

I have hitherto employed the terms — "overself," "supreme
spirit," and "supreme spiritual community" — to designate the
supreme reality. I have done so advisedly. Whether one shall call
the supreme being a personality or an individual will depend on
one's conception of these terms. Those who, like Dr. Bosanquet,
regard a person as a finite self existing only in social relations, call
their absolute the one perfect individual, since it is the all-inclusive
and utterly harmonious being. This seems to me an unaccustomed
restriction of the term individual. A finite self, and even an animal
organism, possesses individuality. To me a person is a rational
and social individual, and the supreme person is the perfectly
rational and social individual or self-conscious being. The su-
preme being is the spiritual ground of finite personality, which is
social, and hence is the perfect personality because the perfect
community and vice versa. I regard personality in man as always
imperfect and subject to development ; and the supreme person as
the ground of the development of man as a rational and social and
spiritual individual towards fuller personality. Therefore I
would suggest that God is the perfect personality, because He is
the perfect community. His inmost character or nature must be
expressed most adequately in originating and sustaining the life
of the community of finite selves in and for whom alone values
exist. He must be self-imparting love.

But the supreme spirit cannot be the impersonal or unconscious
spirit of even a perfect community. Imperfect communities have
no effective existence and no live values, except in so far as the
prevailing spirit of the community finds adequate realization in
the actual consciousness of living members thereof. The imper-
sonal spirit of the community is an abstraction. To set up such a
ghostly entity as the supreme principle of unity and value would
mean that there is no real unity and no real ground of values. It

500 MAN AND THE COSMOS

would be to ground the only worthful life in the world on a non-
entity. The supreme reality, if it be at once the ground of the
order of values and of all other orders, must be a self-conscious
spirit. It must be the concrete source and goal of the lives of all
other spirits, the perfect self which ever energizes and manifests
itself in the world, but ever transcends in the harmonious unity
of its interior life its finite manifestations.

Such a conception of a concrete spiritual life at once immanent
in the world and transcending, in the heart of its own being, the
world, is, I take it, what the doctrine of the Trinity has aimed at.
With the relation of any historical person to the establishment of
this doctrine, or with his place in the Trinity, the philosopher is
not concerned. Such questions belong to the history and inter-
pretation of religious experience and faith.

The metaphysical doctrine of the Trinity, although it is basic
to the Catholic theology of Christendom, is, of course, not confined
to the latter. It is the product of the neo-Platonic development
of the logos doctrine. Its logical elements, in barest terms, are the
eternal ground, the creative self -manifestation of that ground (the
logos) and the conscious union of the creative and revealing logos
or Son with the eternal ground or Father. Thus we find in
Plotinus a Trinity of supreme good, intelligence or spirit and
world Soul, and it is the central conception of the metaphysics of
Hegel. A history of the development of the speculative doctrine
of Trinity is much to be desired.1

*For a modern statement of the Christian doctrine see, John Caird, The
Fundamental Ideas of Christianity; for a brief history, see the article, God;
(Biblical and Christian), in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,
Vol. vi. Also the books of C. C. J. Webb, God and Personality, Divine Per-
sonality and Human Life.

CHAPTER XXXVII

PERFECTION AND EVOLUTION1

The universe in its totality is dynamic and alive, and probably
value-realizing. Its meanings are fulfilled in the effectuation of
the values that inhere in personality. We must recognize, of
course, that the whole character of the cosmical System of Values
is not, and cannot be, known to human beings, but this limitation
of our insight does not nullify the probable validity of the hypothe-
sis that the movement towards personalization is the most adequate
description of the world meaning that can be framed by man.

The supreme spiritual community or over-self has been pre-
sented as the organizing and sustaining ground of values. It is
conceived to be the ultimate self-determining Order of Life and
Spirit, which expresses itself in the personalizing process of the
empirical world. In "willing" (the most adequate term we have,
although inadequate to the nature of the cosmical spirit) the lives
of finite selves, with the whole complex of historical processes and
individual histories involved therein, the Over-Self expresses his
own enduring creative meaning.

Now, a world which has a significant and worthful character
must be a realm of growth or evolution. To assume that reality
must be eternally perfect, that it can have no seasons and bear no
fruits, is to assert that ultimate reality is void of all positive rela-
tion to the process of empirical reality and to reduce the latter,
with all its activities and values, to illusion. It is to make of this
serious, zestful and worthful drama of selfhood and community-
life, an empty dream.

It follows that the supreme self cannot be a timeless experi-
ence, an eternal and motionless "now," for which all change and
evolution are unreal phantoms created by the finite mind. I can
find neither meaning nor worth in the conception of an absolute

1 This chapter is the revised form of an article, ' ' Time, Change and Time-
transcendence ' ' in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific
Methods, Vol. v, No. 21, October 8, 1908, pp. 561-570.

501

502 MAN AND THE COSMOS

timeless experience, in which all temporal and relative experiences
and deeds are absorbed into a motionless eternal "Now," a "Nunc
Stems." Such an absolute would be out of all intelligible relation
to our actual experiences, and without any definable value for the
interpretation of our lives.

Since either our temporal world is real, or actual experience is
wholly illusion, we must assume that, for the ultimate ground of
selves and values, there is real succession and growth. The
supreme community of life must experience change and evolution,
for it is essential to the teleological and spiritual character^ of
reality that individuals shall achieve actual development. Reality,
as society of selves, cannot be a static and absolutely closed system.
Within the limits set by the supreme principles of the world-order,
there must be free movement of persons with some degree of self-
determination. This need not be a condition imposed from with-
out upon the universal spiritual community, since it is in this very
world of many differing and developing individuals that the su-
preme meaning and value wins expression. The supreme spirit
may know, with the single and continuous synthetic grasp of his
intuitive insight, all the determinate possibilities of growth open
to finite selves, if he creatively wills their being, and therewith,
the conditions of their growth. He may know the whole range of
activities possible to all beings capable of choice. He may know
the limits of error and evil open to every individual, since these
limits are set by the determinate character of his world and of
each individual in it. In short, he may know that the limits of
"negation" in the finite realm are those of mutual implication and
contrast in a concrete and systematic whole, not those of bare con-
tradiction by which things are forever driven apart.

I employ the term "negation" here in the sense of living and
concrete difference or contrast in an actual system which coheres
through the positive qualities and mutual implications of its mem-
bers, so that all differences in the system are real when their mean-
ings are developed. The world of "morality," "society," or
"truth" is such a system. "Bare" negation, on the other hand, is
contradiction which merely denies the presence of some reality, for
example, "not-good, not-wise," etc. I do not think that bare nega-
tion is ever intelligible. All significant denial involves affirmation.
Spinoza's Omnis determinatio est negatio is a half-truth. The
other half is Omnis negatio est determinatio.

PERFECTION AND EVOLUTION 503

Concrete examples of such individual systems of differences
are: a family, which is and coheres through the differences or
contrasts of husband and wife, child and parent, brother and
sister ; a community or state, the life of which is maintained and
enriched by the specialization of individuality and function of its
members; the body of truth in any well-organized science, etc.
The ultimate standard or ideal criterion of truth, morality, social
life in all its forms, as of reality as a whole, is that of a system of
differences or particulars, constituting by their mutual implica-
tions a universe of individuals which itself is an individual whole
or community.

When Hegel speaks of the "power of the negative," I take it
that he means that reality is a living and individual system or
society of cohering and mutually implicatory individualities. The
dynamic quality of negation or contrast depends on the fact that
the evolution of reality is an evolution of life, intelligence, and
spirit. The power of the negative is that of definition or fulfill-
ment of individuality through differentiation and the synthesis of
differences. If reality at its highest level be "spiritual," only thus
can development take place in it, since all spiritual development
involves the interplay of contrast and organization in the elements
of a totality ; whether that totality be an individual organism or
mind, a social group or a system of ideas. Only if reality were
static, and evolution an illusion, would the power of negation be
meaningless.

The supreme spirit of life can only be the ordering principle
or organizing power of a world in which there takes place, with
every fresh achievement of selves, positive increase of value, and,
with every fundamental failure, loss of value. How then can such
a Community or over-self be conceived as perfect ? Well, if "per-
fection" must exclude any activity of such a self or communal
spirit in a world of imperfect beings, and any sympathetic relation
to development therein, let us admit that the supreme spirit is not
absolute and is imperfect ; but, in this case, judged by the highest
human standards of value, such "imperfection" has more worth
than a static and lifeless perfection. An absolute out of all positive
relation to the world of developing reality is neither a community
of persons nor an over-self. It is simply a motionless mechanism.
Static perfection is death.

Progress, in and through the deeds of a constant succession of

504 MAN AND THE COSMOS

individuals and generations in the continuing life of humanity, its
societies and cultures, must constitute real values in the universe.
Who would deny that the world was made positively richer by the
development of the classic culture of Athens, or of the Christian
religion, of Elizabethan literature, or the art and science of the
seventeenth and nineteenth centuries ? In the process of spiritual
evolution, as well as in its forerunner, vital evolution, there has
been real growth and enrichment. So long, then, as the historical
process keeps up must not the supreme community be imperfect
and subject to growth? Since it participates in the historical
evolution of finite lives and in the enrichment of values in these
lives, must not its own life be continually enhanced thereby ? In
regard to this difficulty I suggest the following considerations : ^

1. Any sort of progress presupposes standards of estimation.
Progress in personal or spiritual values presupposes criteria of.
value, that are not themselves subject to the change and transmuta-
tion which they serve to evaluate. If the True and the Good, in
the realm of finite development, gradually win greater effective-
ness, or have definite meaning, however dimly apprehended this
may be by finite agents, there must be ultimate standards of truth
and goodness to which these finite achievements approximate in
varying degrees. The ultimate values may unceasingly win ex-
pression in a variety of finite realms, but their inherent qualitative
character is not thereby altered. The progressive movement of
finite spirits, in the realization of intellectual, moral, and emo-
tional values, means that there function, in every successive stage
and differing phase of cosmical evolution or individual develop-
ment, permanent intrinsic values. Evolution or progress without
direction, goal, or standard, is a meaningless contradiction in
terms. A value that is solely relative to another value, and so on
indefinitely, is not a true standard of value.

2. Every significant individual life or epoch of historical
culture must have intrinsic worth in itself, and thus be a worthful
element in the dynamic process of reality. It cannot be a mere
link in an endless chain of a "progress" that has no "whence"
and no "whither." Nothing in experience has any intrinsic worth,
unless it bears within its own bosom the power of yielding imme-
diate values for selves. Hence, an endless succession of temporal
stages, each contributory to a possible future value never fully
realized, is without meaning and value. Always the living now

PERFECTION AND EVOLUTION 505

must be laden with intrinsic values. The latter cannot wait to
win perfection at some remote date, or even a dateless perfection.
It must be ever winning perfect self-expression, although the values
that are in the possession of any particular finite self or culture
may seem imperfect. The True, the Good, and the Beautiful may
seem, to any finite insight, imperfect; but the finite self's very
judgment and feeling of imperfection involve the presence in his
experience of the sense of perfect values, as now and ever valid
and effective. He condemns his own partial deed only by the light
of the perfect deed.

3. Progress in individual lives, and in historical stages, in the
attainment of higher values or the fuller possession and wider dis-
tribution of already recognized values, does not necessarily mean
that the ultimate self, or ideal community of persons, as the sus-
taining and effectuating ground of values, must change or progress
in its own "character" or "will." The ultimate ground of values
may maintain itself continuously, as the enduring unity, through-
out all the diversity of its historical relations. As the dynamic
community in which all sundered and fragmentary meanings of
empirical reality are knitted up, the over-self may fully conserve
and express, in the wealth of its self-manifestation, all the intrinsic
values which in the various phases of the empirical order, as taken
in isolation from each other, seem impotent and unfulfilled. Each
element seen by itself alone is not truly seen, and yet each may
contribute to the perfect whole.

The difficulties involved in thinking the relation of a temporal
world to perfection seem to arise in part from making the quanti-
tative view of things a final norm. An increase in the number of
finite selves who win and enjoy the highest values is not an altera-
tion of the intrinsic qualitative character of these values. Indi-
viduality does not mean oddity, and the value of individuality does
not consist in adding something that the universe never had before.
The value of personal individuality consists in its own possession
of, and direction by, universal values.

The relation of a supreme spirit to change and history will per-
haps be made clearer by some general considerations on the nature
of time.

Every idea of time, from the crudest to the most abstract, has
its roots in the present experience. No past has actuality or mean-
ing which is not involved in the living present. A "present" can

506 MAN AND THE COSMOS

not strictly be defined. It eludes the very conditions of precise
definition, since, as soon as one takes the first step towards appre-
hending it in thought, it has already become past. We are all sure
of the present in which we live, as we are sure of our own identity.
The "present" offers the same obstacles to definition that the living
self of our immediate experience offers. In fact, the immediate
consciousness of the present and the immediate sense of selfhood
are the same thing, viewed from different standpoints. Ever flow-
ing on or "becoming," the living self is the experienced interpene-
tration of various qualitatively different phases, of a progress with
heterogeneous aspects and a variety of stages, in which "past,"
"present," and "future" are only relatively and indefinitely dis-
tinguishable.

We can conceive of other beings, possessing minuter or coarser
time-perceptions than ourselves; as having, in relation to an objec-
tive standard of measurement, much longer or shorter ''presents"
than we have, that is, as living in different "tempos." 2 The living
present, which we distinguish from past and future, but which
actually has duration, and, hence, includes past and future in its
own apparent instantaneity, has been called the "specious" present.
It does not contain any sharp delimitation of before and after. It
"becomes," but does not begin or end, and its duration is measured
by the aid of retrospection and in spatial terms. As soon as I
undertake to determine the content and extent of my present, the
present to be so determined has already become past. The actual
present is now the incipient purpose and plan of measuring the
fleeing specious present.

The actually experienced present, then, need contain no def-
inite awareness of change. And yet, the present cannot be a
motionless point or dimensionless line transverse to the direction
of change ; for what then becomes of past and future, and how can
we speak, even retrospectively, of the present as having concrete
reality ? If the present have not breadth, what becomes of time
and change ? In truth, in the actual present the self transcends
discrete change or mutually external time-lapses, through the act
of synthesis by which it grasps a succession as one order. The
so-called timelessness of a self consists in this power of continuous

*C.f. J. Eoyee, The World and the Individual, Vol. II, Lecture iii; also O.
Liebmann, in Zur Analysis der Wirklichlceit, 4th edition.

PERFECTION AND EVOLUTION 507

durational synthesis. When I begin to recite a line or stanza of
poetry there is actually present in my consciousness the feeling of
the continuous movement of meaning of the line, or, perhaps, of
the entire stanza, while I am actually saying a single syllable. Or
I sit down to write a discussion which I have previously thought
out, and, as I proceed, the argument develops out of the nascent
synthetic feeling that I have of the discussion in its entirety. The
actual present, then, is constituted by a progressing synthetic unity
of self-activity involving continuity of interest and meaning.

And the "past" is a reconstruction or revival, determined by
the synthetic continuity of interest in the living flow of actual
experience. A tiresome experience, such as listening to a bore,
which seemed endless while we were undergoing it, shrinks to
almost nothing in our recollection. An experience, unified and
controlled by a strong emotional interest, may be devoid of imme-
diate consciousness of succession and of all explicit reference to
past and future, because its successive features (successive for
retrospective analysis) are fused together or interpenetrate in one
whole of emotional tension, "Dem GliicJclichen schlagt heine
Stunde." In recollection, on the other hand, such an experience
bulks large because of its unity or vital interpenetration with the
actual present.

The actual basis of belief in the past's reality is the living
"now" or "duration" of experience. The past is a reconstruction
made by a thinking self. The possibility of this reconstruction
and, by consequence, the present reality of the past depends on the
filiation of interest and meaning in and with the present synthetic
movement of a self. In this time-spanning synthesis past and pres-
ent are united, and, without it, the past would not now be recog-
nized as having once been real. The basis of all reconstruction of
a past period, for example, in human history, in geology, or in the
history of the solar system, is always an inference based on an
assumed analogy or continuity of mental, moral, or physical
processes then and now. We begin with certain present data —
manuscripts, social ideas, or rock strata — and we interpret these
in terms of a continuity of process. The Periclean age, the
Archaean epoch, the primitive star mist, are all constructed on the
assumption of duration of process or continuity of movement — in
the affairs of men, the formation of earth structure, the chemical
and physical processes of the solar system.

508 MAN AND THE COSMOS

In the same way the future depends on the present. The
future is the present forward-reaching. It is the incipient tension
of developing, and as yet unsatisfied, interests, desires, meanings.
The musical symphony, the operatic phrase, the present aching
yearning of love, the present imperative stress of ambition, emo-
tionally demand their own completion. For the failing old man in
his dotage there is literally no future on this side of the grave.
For him the past and present intertwine and are all, unless the
urge of religious feeling quickens him to project himself into a
life beyond the grave. For the young man, on the contrary, life
is big to infinity because of his strong interests and desires.

Our notion of time, then, is the form into which we project,
from the living present, the continuity of our interests, aims and
values. Psychical time is the shadow cast by the unsatisfied will of
man along the world of cosmic becoming. It is the mark of the in-
complete moving towards completion. And the so-called direction
of time's flow is determined bv the tensions of human interest and
aim. Hence, the movements of history and geography appear as
irreversible series of qualitatively individual acts and never-to-be-
repeated events, in contrast with the reversible character of a
purely mechanical system. The historical development of man-
kind and of the world, as of an individual, constitute series of
qualitatively discrete or unique occurrences. The continuity of
any historical whole, for example, the life of a great man, the his-
tory of England or of Christianity, is dependent on a community
of meanings and values which interpenetrate the succession of
events and constitute them a whole. Every real history is con-
stituted by a spiritual synthesis. Hence the so-called absolute con-
tinuity of time's flow is a misleading metaphor. In so far as the
movement of reality is discrete, actual time is discrete and hetero-
geneous. There are as many perceptual time-series as there are
striving and developing selves. Perceptual time, as the form of
experienced becoming, must be, so far, at least, as imperfect beings
are concerned, coincident in extent with change.

Since the concrete present alone is actual, and the past and
future have reality only as factors in the living present, how can
there be any consciousness of succession ? How can the past be in
the present ? Some writers hold that there can be no direct sense
of transition or succession in experience, and that the past is pres-
ent only in the sense that now a part of the past is represented in

PERFECTION AND EVOLUTION 509

the present as part of the present. They hold that to suppose that
there is transition is to become involved in the antinomies of the
endless regress, since, if the temporal experience be a continuum,
it must be infinitely divisible and hence can contain no actual
"moments." And, if it be not a continuum, then between the past
instant and the present there is a "timeless" gap which cannot be
bridged over. But it is admitted that there are in the present
vague pointings backwards and forwards. Are not these pointings
just what is meant by the sense of durational transition ? I find
in introspection that the past and the future, as factors in the
present, mean for me sometimes feelings of transition. I find also
that I have experiences without feelings of transition, and in which
the past is present simply by way of representation as my present
memory of the past. But I do not think that a static representation
now of a past could really mean a past for me, unless I have been
conscious of transitions in my own experience. Both the sense of
transition and the power of representation of a past experience are
factors in the consciousness of time. Temporal experience is not
a homogeneous continuum like pure space, but it does involve con-
tinuity of meaning and purposive experience. The consciousness
of continuity in a succession of discrete moments, on which the
cognition of change and development depend, would be impossible
without the continuity of the self through change. The partial
identity of the past with the present, by which alone a distinction
and a relation can be recognized in successive experiences, involves
the identity of the self which knows change without and within
itself. The permanence of a self is involved in the consciousness
of time and change, and, in turn, the recognition of time is in-
volved in the consciousness of the self as continuous or self-iden-
tical through change. "Only the permanent changes" and "only
the changing is permanent" may seem paradoxes, when set side
by side. Nevertheless, these propositions, taken together, state the
fundamental conditions of all intelligible experience; and their
roots are in the self, which is continuous or endures in change.
Perceptual time is adjectival. Our actual perceptions have a
temporal aspect, but we do not perceive time-in-itself or physical
time. Whatever reality time seems to have, over and above the
direct consciousness of transition in becoming, is due to its identi-
fication with a common measure of change. Time gets pictured as
the container, of which change in orderly succession is the content,

510 MAN AND THE COSMOS

that is, as a flowing matrix of change. In perceiving and placing
events in the time-order, the self projects and sees in perspective,
from the "now" of immediate experience, its remembered experi-
ences of change, by generalizing the direction and the rise and fall
in tension of its own strivings and satisfactions and ordering them
in a quasi-spatial "form" or vessel.

The "form," "concept," or "notion" of measurable time is, like
that of space, from which, indeed, it is taken, an empty homo-
geneity of movement. "Pure" time is figured as an indefinitely
moving point describing a continuous straight line, or as a circular
movement or as an unceasing rhythm.3 The "change" of actual
experience, on the other hand, is the becoming or development of
qualitative differences in experiences, of a manifold variety of
tendencies that are organically related in manifold ways in the syn-
thesizing movement of a self's life. Every "now" is a discrete
moment or finite element in a process of becoming, whose unity
consists in the synthetic interpenetration of these discrete moments.
We reflectively think our successive experiences as bound together
by the persisting continuity or systematic interrelations of our
interests, purposes, and meanings, and the time of these experi-
ences is synoptically conceived as an abstract "form" constituting
one continuous whole.

In this synoptic, synthetic activity the self transcends its
momentary existential states. Here it reaches beyond the contents
of its immediate experience. And, by reflection on this transcend-
ence of the given and the changing, through which transcendence
the changing gets ordered and dated, the self discovers that it can
go on indefinitely adding together section after section of formal
times, that it can indefinitely conceive finite fleeting "nows" as
strung together; it can, indefinitely, proceed with the process of
analysis or discretion and of synthesis. So arises the ordinary
notion of "infinite" time. This is but an abstract image (com-
monly visual-motor in origin) of the self's consciousness of logical
infinity. In the case of time, as of space, the real infinity involved
is that of the analytic-synthetic activity of thinking. The time of
actual experience is always finite. Infinite Time is the abstract
representation of the mind's power of conceptual analysis and
synthesis of change-experiences. By virtue of this synoptic func-

* Cf. Chap. 18, Space and Time.

PERFECTION AND EVOLUTION 511

tion the mind transcends the finite discreteness of actual succes-
sion and conceives abstract time-series. The true infinite in this
regard is a time-spanning function of the thinking self. So-called
infinite time has no independent reality. And actual finite time
is the form of experiences of change.

We can frame no positive notion of a conscious self for which
change and succession are unreal. On the other hand, the self
maintains a consciousness of its own continuous identity in the
midst of change. The consciousness of identity is just as integral
to experience as the consciousness of change. Moreover, there rise
above the surface of the stream of personally experienced becom-
ing certain uniquely significant, emotional and intellectual experi-
ences, in which seems to inhere the quality of time-transcending
worth or value. In these the self seems to find permanence in the
midst of change.

The continuous identity of the self is marked by striving, feel-
ing and purpose. The self loves and aspires, hopes and plans, etc. ;
and is aware of its own relative continuity of aim, in the growing
consciousness of its persisting interests, in the increasing harmony
of these interests, attained through the systematic organization
and fulfillment of ends.

The more completely the self is able to harmonize its quali-
tatively various interests, and to establish a persistent and develop-
ing system of ends, the more fully does it seem to achieve and
enter upon a life of continuous activity and inward permanence in
"becoming" ; in other words, upon a life in which change means
the growing enhancement of personal values, a life in which the
past is conserved by fusion with the present and the present grows
by interpenetration with the past. Through this unity of synthesis
mere blind change is transcended. The permanence of the self is
constituted by the persistent and growing organization of values.
And the most abiding and self-complete experiences, the emotional
experiences and intellectual insights already referred to, are con-
stituted by the fulfillment of purposes, by the realization of in-
trinsic values. Such are the expression in personal deed, and the
presence in personal insight, of universal principles of worth — of
those spiritual values represented by knowledge, righteousness,
beauty, love. In these experiences the unity of self-consciousness
is one of concrete inner organization, of harmonious synthesis. It
is a reality that at once persists and progresses. In short, the life

512 MAN AND THE COSMOS

of the self progresses or "becomes" as a unity. Our so-called acts
and experiences of time-transcendence are, in every sphere, due to
the continued synthesis, by the self, of a succession and variety of
interests, values, meanings. Our purposes are effected through
temporal processes, that is, series of means. And the principles
which I have called "intrinsic values" are the generalized prin-
ciples of purposive synthesis. The time-transcending quality of
personal values does not mean that these values have had no his-
torical conditions in culture-life and the processes of nature. It
means only that, to the inherent significance of these values, the
causal conditions of their origin are irrelevant. But these values
can be real and effective only in so far as they persist through
change, and, by this effective persistence and cumulative expres-
sion, give a synthetic unity of meaning and direction to the experi-
ences and deeds of selves.

Now, the analogy of our own two-sided experiences entitles us
to conceive an ultimate spiritual unity of meanings and values as
transcending change through the persisting synthetic unity of the
principles by which it controls and sustains a significant or pur-
posive world-movement. The synthetic continuity of the human
self, by virtue of which, in its affirmation and fulfillment of
intrinsic personal values, it functions as a persisting dynamic
unity; for which the external distinctions of past, present and
future are overcome, transcends any formal time-order. If there
be a systematic whole of world-meanings (truth, goodness, love and
beauty) to which our human ideals or principles of intrinsic valua-
tion stand in some positive relation ; then, by analogy, we can con-
ceive change-transcendence that is not negative timelessness.
These absolute values would be, by hypothesis, the ultimate con-
ditions for the progressive fruition of conscious life in finite indi-
viduals. The only admissible form of time-transcendence would
be that of a system of intrinsic values, an effective and controlling
unity of cosmic meanings, that did not originate at any definite
point in the actual series of cosmical changes and that maintain
and, perhaps, increasingly manifest, themselves through series of
changes.

Time-transcendence, then, would mean, not the negation of
change, but the persistence, through change, of an organized unity
of ends that preserves the effective continuity of its purposes
throughout the (from any finite point of view) endless succession

PERFECTION AND EVOLUTION 513

of events. From this point of view we may at least partially
understand how change may really take place, and yet be sub-
ordinated to a unity of changeless or continuously effective mean-
ings or worths which would so control the universe of change. Our
own purposes are but partially fulfilled, and, indeed, but partially
understood by us. Nevertheless, in so far as purpose is continu-
ously fulfilled, the life of mere change is being transmuted into
one of enduring meaning and value. One may conceive a trans-
temporal knower or self as embracing many simultaneous and
successive series of changes in the unity of his conscious activity,
in so far as he grasps and maintains continuously the inner rela-
tionships which bind together these parallel or successive serial
changes; his spirit might be permanently valid in the meanings
which he enabled to be realized in a universe of selves, thus con-
stituting their changing lives the instruments and embodiments of
permanent values.

The persistence or continuity of an organic whole of intrinsic
principles of value, which insures that, in the march of actual
events and the alterations of finite individuals, spiritual values are
realized, is all that can be meant by a timeless spirit or self, as
conserver of intrinsic values. Such a spirit could not be timeless,
in the sense of negating the temporal order ; nor unchangeable, in
the sense of having no positive relation to change. He could tran-
scend all time-series only in the sense of comprehending, in a con-
tinuous organic unity or synthesis of relationships, their meanings.
He could transcend change only in the sense of maintaining a con-
tinuous identity of aim throughout change, and in making the
ceaseless succession of cosmical changes subservient to a systematic
totality of meanings and values. If there be an organic whole of
rational meanings and spiritual values which sustains the entire
cosmic system of lives, and which, consequently, is the ground of
the harmony between the values or meanings of finite psychical
centers, this ultimate organization of meanings is the cosmic
spiritual principle or overself.

In brief, the present alone is immediately and primarily real.
The past has reality only as a function of the present. The future
is real only as the dynamic pointing forward of the present. But
the real present is a living and changing whole. It has bulk and
duration. It is the active unity of a whole of concrete and varied
elements. The presents of finite experients vary in bulk, com-

514 MAN AND THE COSMOS

plexity and duration. All finite presents must be conditioned
elements in the cosmical present, the unity of the living synthetic
"now" of the supreme experient. The ultimate present may be
the concrete self-contained whole of self-activity, on which all finite
and partial presents depend. It may be the continuous synthetic
process, the completely interpenetrating unity in which the past
of the universe lives as a function of the present, and which, by
virtue of its continuous activity, becomes the future. The supreme
self's experience would thus be the immanent unity of the world-
present. Change would take place in the supreme self's world, and
the unity of direction and meaning in change would presuppose the
synthetic or synoptic activity of his individuating thought. His
centralizing or unifying experience would be the unifying prin-
ciple of all times and seasons. Cosmical time would be a function
of his self-active experience.

In place of a dimensionless "eternal" now, the bare negation
of all process, I would put the conception of the concrete, indi-
viduated, time-spanning now, which has self-movement, duration,
and volume. As the synthetic and continuous whole, which grasps
all finite changes in the oneness of his own individual and active
intuition, the supreme spirit would thus transcend time, but he
would not be timeless. He is conceived as not in time, as though
time were an independent entity in which his activity begins,
changes or ends. Time is in him, since it is the form of his con-
tinuous self-activity. His "now" transcends our "nows" but in it,
too, there is variety, breadth, depth, and complexity of texture and
internal self-development. The "presents" of all finite selves
depend upon the unity of the supreme self's present. All succes-
sion and change are either internal to or dependent upon the unity
of his will and insight. Actual time is a function of experience.
Ultimately change and succession must be functions of the supreme
self's activity. They cannot be forces or entities which exist inde-
pendent of or outside of his self-directing life. The changes which
take place in finite selves, and the changes in the physical order,
are not independent of him, since, in sustaining this order of a
community of persons and its values, he wills all the possibilities
of change in this order. Change and development then must be
positively included in his life. He does not change in the sense of
being impelled from without by utterly alien forces, but change
and evolution must be constituent elements in his all-inclusive

PERFECTION AND EVOLUTION 515

experience. There must be succession in him. His present must
be a concrete totality which is the ground of all finite presents ; an
internally coherent organization which comprehends, in a vast span
of attentive or active experience, not only all partial presents, but
as well all of the past that is efficiently actual in the present. For,
I repeat, there is no reality in past or future except in the actuality,
that is, the activity and meaning, of factors in the concrete living
and developing present. Since our presents are, not static lines
without breadth, but dynamic and complex spans of experience, so
God's present cannot be a static and dimensionless "timeless"
instant.

If it be said that to admit change into the heart of ultimate
reality is self-contradictory, I reply that the whole force of this
criticism comes from assuming, to begin with, that absoluteness
and perfection mean changelessness and timelessness. I am unable
to think a changeless universe except as a dead universe. I am
unable to think the ultimate source, and ground, of a living uni-
verse as not including change. There is no contradiction in the
notion of a whole which includes real and significant change.
Such a whole must be an organized and dynamic totality. And
the principle of unity of the whole must apprehend change, must
itself participate in change.

It has frequently been argued that, inasmuch as the finite self
rises above the immediate present in its consciousness of past and
future, in thus being able to survey the course of temporal succes-
sion, it transcends time. But this time-transcendence is purely
formal or logical. It fails to deliver the self from existence in time
and change. The self, which is thus conscious of "before" and
"after," thinks such moments as involved in the incompleteness,
raggedness, and transitional character, of its present duration.
It has, as I have already said, the power of continuously synthe-
sizing successive moments, but this synthesis always grows out of a
concrete present which has finite duration. Such formal timeless-
ness means only that the self is a conscious unity which endures
through some changes. Time is, for the individual self, a function
of experience. The self both changes and knows change through
its own mental duration. Time is a function of selves, but of
things that are not selves as well.

Various attempts are found in the history of speculative
thought, to conceive eternity as a timeless instant, an eternal "now"

516 MAN AND THE COSMOS

Nunc Stans, or as a single instantaneous totality of insight
(Totum Simul), in which all past, present and future events of the
finite are eternally seen together.4 All such attempts are merely
essays at defining the inconceivable by purely negative and empty
concepts. An eternal now, a timeless instant, are simply not nows
or instants that we human beings can give any content to at all.
Mr. Koyce attempts to give concrete meaning to the totum simul
by argument from the analogy of a composer or player who grasps
in an instant the totality of a symphony or a reciter of poetry
to whom the whole poem is in mind in a single instant. But the
composer, player, or reciter does not grasp the symphony or poem
as a completely played symphony or recited poem at any instant.
It takes time or succession for the event wholly to eventuate. As
he proceeds with his composition or recital he is simply conscious
of the continuity of the meaning and phrasing in a succession of
concrete nows.

It is only in the persistence and progress of persons and in the
perduration of their values that we find a genuine clew to an ulti-
mate principle of permanence in change.5

The one eternal order has a temporal quality, but it is not in
time. Time is not a whole which contains it, for time does not
exist as such ; it is an adjectival aspect of the ever-energizing self-
active ground of the order of selves and values. Eternity belongs
to the unvarying self-activity of the supreme spirit. All life, from
the lowest to the highest, from sense to spirit, is rhythmical. In
nutrition, respiration, pulsation, reproduction, thought, feeling, in
the whole individual's history and in the history of humanity, life
moves in rhythms. May we not suppose that the very essence of
time is rhythmical order and that cosmical time is the eternal
rhythm of the supreme spirit and life ?

4 The latest, most interesting and ingenious of these is Koyce 's in The
World and the Individual, Volume II, Lecture iii, "The Temporal and the
Eternal. ' '

6 James Ward, in his Realm of Ends, calls this Axiological Eternity. I
prefer to call it Axiological Permanence or Perduration.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

How can the hypothesis of a supreme spirit of good be squared
with all the brutal accidents, insensate stupidities, fiendish cruel-
ties, unmerited sufferings, and insolently triumphant evil in the
world? If we conceive the cosmic ground to be a superpersonal
spiritual community, must we not admit that it is hindered and
thwarted in the promotion and maintenance of good by a cosmic
principle of disorder or evil. We seem to be confronted here with
a dilemma — either the supreme spiritual order is limited in power
and scope or it is not good in the highest human sense, since it
tolerates evils which the best human wills would abolish, if they
could.

I. Natural Evil

In discussing our problem it is necessary to distinguish between
natural evils, such as bodily pain, disease, death, and natural
catastrophes, and moral evils which are assumed to be the outcome
of man's deliberate volitions. In the final analysis, all moral
evils will perhaps turn out to be the results of human ignorance,
folly, and weakness, by which men are led into greater evils that
they know not of, because of their efforts to avoid bearing the
evils that they know of. But it will conduce to clearness to dis-
cuss first the nature and uses of natural evils without specific
reference to moral evils.

The most obvious forms of natural evil are pain, disease, de-
formity, or physical and mental defects due to the operation of
natural causes. By natural evil, as due to the operation of natural
nonvoluntary causes, I mean those which, so far as we know, could
not be avoided by human foresight and good will; for example,
if two parents have led clean lives and prepared themselves as
fully as possible for parenthood and yet produce a child which
is physically or mentally defective, that is a case of natural evil.

517

518 MAN AND THE COSMOS

The individual who inherits grave defects, or who suffers from
the incidence of uncontrollable physical causes is the subject of
natural evil.

The indictment of the order of nature for its cruelties or its
blind stupidies, as the case may be, has never been drawn in
stronger terms than by John Stuart Mill.1 Since Mill's day the
spread of the evolutionary conception of the living world as the
theater of the unceasing struggle for existence, the scene of endless
and bitter warfare among sentient beings, and of the ceaseless
warfare between sentient beings on the one hand and the blind
course of insentient nature, has deepened and extended our sense
of the suffering and tragedy in the world of life. This sense of
the magnitude of suffering has been enhanced by the daily advices
we get of diseases and catastrophes in the human world.

The pessimist argues that there is more pain than pleasure,
more disease than health, more deformity than normality, in
human life and in the order of nature taken as a whole. There-
fore, he argues, on the whole, the world order is bad ; or at best,
it is not nearly so good as, he can conceive, it might have been.
It were better not to have been born at all. Schopenhauer, the
most brilliant modern exponent of this form of pessimism, which
is the basis of the religion of Gotama Buddha, argues that will
is the essence of individuality ; and endless, or never-to-be-satisfied,
striving is the essence of will. Hence, by its very nature, will is
forever doomed to defeat, and individuality foredoomed through
all eternity to misery. The only way of escaping from the endless
miseries is the extinction of individuality, by the cessation of
desire. Schopenhauer says: "All living is striving, all striving is
suffering, therefore all living is suffering."

The upshot of this form of pessimism is that life is not worth
living, and that those who persist in living and procreating more
of their kind to suffer the same miseries or perhaps greater miser-
ies than themselves, are fools — are, in short, the blind tools of
blind instinct which cheats man with a mirage. Human life is
the endless pursuit of will-o'-the-wisps, or phantoms. The will-to-
live is engaged in a sisyphian task to survive. It were better that
the human race had never come into being. Since it is in being
the next best thing is that it should cease to be as speedily as

1 See the Three Essays on Religion.

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 519

possible, that human beings should cease procreating their kind.
Since the animals live by blind instinct, they cannot escape from
the wheel of endless birth and rebirth. But man, since he has
the power of reflection, may free himself from the thraldom of
the blind will-to-live. Schopenhauer says that the recognition, in
Buddhism and Catholic Christianity, of the superior virtues of
the celibate life is really an indirect recognition of the principle
that the existence of individuals is the root of evil.

This form of pessimism may be called hedonistic or eudcemon-
istic pessimism according as it assumes that the unrealizable good
is the surplusage of pleasure over pain or of happiness over
misery.

We must distinguish between two ideas of psychical good or
value : ( 1 ) The idea that the good consists in the greatest possible
surplusage of pleasurable over painful feeling, regardless of the
qualitative character or organic wholeness of personal feeling.
This is pure Hedonism. (2) The idea that the good consists in
a more or less continuous and growing organic harmony of feeling
or happiness. The latter I define as the relatively permanent
quality of feeling which accompanies the realization of person-
ality. Happiness is the affective index of personal good ; if there
be more misery than happiness in the universe then the good is
defeated in the long run; if the amount of happiness be increas-
ing then the good is winning out; if the amount of happiness be
decreasing steadily then the world is going from bad to worse.

Whether there be more pleasure or pain in the world is insus-
ceptible of proof.2 By the nature of the case, it would be im-
possible, to sum up pains and pleasures and to strike a balance
between them. With respect to the animal world, we are certainly
not in position to assume a preponderance of suffering over satis-
faction. The minds of animals are probably not laden with pain-
ful memories or dread anticipations. Enjoyment of the present
is much more characteristic of animals than the fear of the future.
Their much less highly organized nervous systems would seem to
indicate that they enjoy satisfaction and suffer pain much less
intensely than human beings. With respect to human life, it is

SE. von Hartmann said that this is the best of all possible worlds and
everything in it is a necessary evil. Eedemption consists in a return of the
world to unconsciousness (Philosophy of the Unconscious).

520 MAN AND THE COSMOS

impossible to add together the various satisfactions and dissatis-
factions of individual life and to strike an arithmetical balance
between them. Even more impossible is it to balance up the
diverse and multitudinous satisfactions and dissatisfactions of
the human race. In spite of the constant imminence of suffering
in human life and its frequent incidence, most people do seem to
get many solid satisfactions from life. Granted that many in-
dividuals may seem, to those looking at their lives from without
or even to themselves in pensive moments, not to get much happi-
ness from life, it does not follow that most people find life worth-
less. Even those who suffer much are often not pessimists; in
spite of pain they may have enduring satisfactions. It is not
true that all life is illusory striving. In the purest personal re-
lationships, and in the contemplation of nature, of beauty, and of
truth, we do not strive. Still less is it true that all striving is
suffering. There is satisfaction in successful activity, there is
satisfaction in goalless activity, there is enjoyment of activity for
its own sake, and there is enjoyment in the contemplation of
progress, in the realization of purposes, in the formation of new
purposes as well as in present attainment.

If pleasure be not the highest good, life would not be worth-
less even if there be not in it more pleasure than pain. But life
is more evil than good, if its enduring purposes are not satisfied,
if its highest values are not realized; if happiness, in our sense,
be not, on the whole, attainable. Since the highest measure of
value is the realization of personality in harmony with the uni-
verse, if the order of the universe be not in harmony with the
realization of personality the universe is not a good order. I
cannot accept, as optimistic, the position of those idealists who
say that it makes no difference what becomes of persons, or even
whether they are happy while they exist ; provided that, in some
mysterious and inconceivable fashion values are conserved. I
grant that they are heroic pessimists and I admire their high
courage, but I think they darken counsel. If persons go to wrack
and ruin this world is bad as a whole, although there is good in it.

It does not seem possible to conceive a world order in which
selves should develop into personalities without admitting the real
possibility, and actual incidence, of pain, struggle, and failure.
The cravings of unsatisfied desire, even the sufferings which
come from disease and the blind indifference of the physical forces

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 521

of nature to human weal, are stimuli through which man, in grap-
pling with his environment and in some measure mastering it,
organizes and refines his own elemental impulses and thus develops
his personality. In order to adjust himself to the external con-
ditions of his existence, man must reorganize his own inborn
nature. In subduing external nature he acquires dominion over
himself. He enriches and harmonizes the raw materials of his
own selfhood. Without hunger, sex love, parental feeling, gre-
gariousness, acquisitiveness, self-feeling, constructiveness, and all
the other instincts which clamor within his bosom for self-satis-
faction, man would neither subdue nature nor become a person-
ality. His primal appetites lead him to industry, industry to
science and leisure, science and leisure to greater industrial con-
trol of nature, and to the growth and satisfaction of the finer aims
of art, literature, science, and social life. His desires impel him
to create the family and the community, and to recreate them
again and again as the conditions change. His struggles against
disease and the hostile forces of land and sea and air develop his
powers of thought, action, and social cooperation. Our common
destiny, even though arduous almost beyond endurance, evokes
fellowship, friendship and love stronger than death. Man is thus
able to wrest victory from apparent defeat, to subdue the powers
which seem to be arrayed against him. In this struggle he grows
in spiritual stature and can, even in the worse junctures, conquer
,by the heroism and faith with which he faces apparent defeat.

Thus desire and want, pain and craving, are not necessarily
evil. They are the conditions of the emergence and energizing
of intelligent purpose. They keep body and mind in action; ex-
perience is enlarged, knowledge is organized, purposes are ma-
tured, and personality becomes actual. The savage has fewer
wants, less pain, and duller joys than the highly civilized man.
Culture enhances the sensitiveness to suffering and to joy. Would
anyone exchange for the life of a cultivated man that of an Aus-
tralian bushman?

But human instincts and appetites, human emotions and ca-
pacities, are often found present in the natural man in such dis-
proportionate intensities that moral evil ensues and we shall now
consider this aspect of the problem of evil.

522 MAN AND THE COSMOS

II. Mokal Evil

Moral evil is the outcome of man's unsocial sociableness
(Kant's phrase). In other words all moral evil arises from the
social interactions of individuals. Consider an individual liv-
ing entirely by himself! He would suffer natural pains and enjoy
the natural pleasures of hunger, satisfaction, heat, cold, and of
the seven ages of his life ; but of duty, obligation, fear of punish-
ment, desire for approbation, guilt or sin, he would have no con-
sciousness.3 The natural impulses and desires of man are not
evil in effect. They all have biological values. They are morally
indifferent tendencies of the self, which may be turned to bad or
good account, according to the special circumstances of each case.
The native instincts and impulses become actually good and evil
only when their expression in the individual bears on his relations
to his fellows. Indeed the natural impulses have a positive moral
significance, since their expression is the condition of the existence
of society and of the socialized individual. Without the sex im-
pulse and the parental instinct there would be no family. With-
out gregariousness there would be no larger community. Without
positive self-feeling, rivalry, possessiveness, the creative impulse,
there would be no social progress, and no individual development.
Even pugnacity and fear have social uses. Moral evil arises
when the satisfaction of a specific impulse or desire, in the given
social circumstances, conflicts either with the well-being of other
members of the social group or with the permanent good of the
individual considered as a member of the social group. In other
words, moral evil arises when the individual shirks the effort of
resisting imperious impulses, the satisfaction of which, in the par-
ticular situation and manner, is incompatible with social harmony
and progress, or with the organization of his own selfhood; or
when he shirks the effort of acting in such a way as to promote
the harmony and progress of the community or his own higher
selfhood. Thus moral evil arises from the clash of imperious
impulses and of the inertia of the sentient selfhood, with the
social and rational principles of conduct. In every case, moral
evil is isolating and disintegrating; moral good is harmonizing,
integrating, organizing in effect. Of course, much moral evil is

■ Cf. Eoyce, The World and the Individual, Vol. II, Lecture ix, "The
Struggle with Evil."

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 523

due to the blocking and twisting, during the plastic years, of the
individual's impulses by an evil social environment. We are
just beginning to appreciate how plastic the child is and how po-
tent the environment. It is extremely difficult to draw the line
between individual and social guilt.

Thus I hold that no man chooses a continuous or complete
whole of evil conduct with deliberation and insight into what he
is doing. Choice of evils is confined to particulars, and evil is
chosen not as evil, but because the individual does not realize the
effects of the satisfaction of the particular impulse upon the
organized continuity of his own life and of the lives of other
members of the community. Evil is self-destructive or anarchic
in tendency; consequently, for a self to choose to be wholly and
completely evil would be for it to choose utter self-destruction.
This appears to me a self-contradiction. If the Miltonic Satan
say: "Evil, be thou my good," he is choosing what, from his
standpoint, is not evil. The cult of diabolism which often appears
even in a high civilization is the product of mental aberration and
a symptom of social disease. It may be urged, in objection to
our theory of the social origin and significance of moral evil, that
an individual may do evil to himself alone; may, by some series
of acts or of failure to act, permanently injure his own higher
nature and thus act evilly, even though his evil acts have no social
consequences. To this objection I reply that I cannot think,
much less understand, the higher selfhood or personality except
as involving membership in a spiritual community. It follows
that, to use theological terms, sin considered as an offence against
good is always an act of disloyalty to the ideal of the perfected
spiritual community.4

On the other hand, one may sin primarily against one's own
higher selfhood, be disloyal to one's own personality. It is pos-
sible to exaggerate the social bearings of moral evil and to under-
estimate its individual locus and significance. The ideal com-
munity is one of free persons; therefore, betrayal of one's own
spiritual individuality is social treason. The two aspects are in-
separable. Personality is social, but a spiritual society is a com-
munity of rationally free individuals.

4 In this connection I beg to refer to the profoundly true interpretation
of sin by Eoyce in The Problem of Christianity.

524 MAN AND THE COSMOS

The possibility of moral evil and its consequent actuality
is involved in the very nature of finite selfhood. I cannot con-
ceive a world which is to be a "vale of soul making" that does
not of necessity imply the real possibility of moral evil. It is
an indispensable condition of the development of free personality.
In this sense it is an inevitable fact of the world order. A world
of selves, developing into persons through the organization of
their instinctive natures, in the light of reflective insight and
rational choice, is a world in which moral evil must of necessity
appear. It is then an unavoidable but mitigable feature of a
universe in which a community of rational self-determining per-
sons is realized. Huxley somewhere says that he would rather
be like a perfect clock and turn out automatically unerring results
in thought and conduct than be an erring and sinning individual.
For my own part, I am utterly unable to understand how a uni-
verse of perfect automata could be regarded as more perfect than
a universe of self-determining persons. Furthermore, a universe
of perfect automata is a scientifically impossible notion.

Moral evil is actualized in the social-historical life of civiliza-
tion. Subhuman nature and pure savagery, if such there ever
was in the history of man, can know nothing of the problem and
conflict of good and evil. The so-called opposition of the cosmic
and the moral orders, is an opposition engendered within the
social-historical life of human culture.5 The evils which retard
and thwart the realization of the good are born of the conscious
conflicts of men with one another. The historical process of hu-
manity is a world rife with conflict and suffering, with error
and unreason ; a world which moves slowly and toilsomely towards
some dimly apprehended, and in part unknown, goal.

III. Evil and the Idea of a Peefect Being

Our final and most difficult problem is this — assuming that
there is a supreme and perfect order, the overself or spiritual
community which is the sustaining principle of all human values,
how are we to reconcile this assumption with the existence and
distribution of evil in our world ? I have defined moral evil as
sin against the ideal of the perfect person as a member of the

1 Cf. T. H. Huxley, Romanes Lecture, Evolution and Ethics.

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 525

perfect community, and I have pointed out that moral evil is
always a disintegrating or disorganizing factor in the life of the
individual and of society. By consequence, the more organization
and harmony there is in the lives of persons as members of a
community, the more do persons approximate to the ideal. But,
since we have already argued that the supreme value and ground
of all lesser values must be the supreme existent, we must hold
that the ideal of spiritual perfection is not a mere humanly en-
gendered ideal, that the ideal of the perfect personal community
is not a mere product of human social life, but must rather be at
once the ground and the goal of individual and communal life,
and therefore must be the most real reality. Our present problem,
then, is how to reconcile the evil in the world with the reality
of absolute perfection.

One attempted solution of the problem, which is hinted at
in the Timaeus of Plato, further developed by the Gnostics and
which crops out again in John Stuart Mill, Huxley, H. G. Wells,
and many others, is that the power of God to realize the good is
hindered by some blind irrational matter. Thus, there is an
ultimate or metaphysical dualism between the physical and the
moral orders, between matter and mind or spirit. God is limited
by this blind force external to his will which hampers the realiza-
tion of values.

Since we have already rejected metaphysical dualism, we can-
not accept this solution. ISTo doubt the operation of blind physical
forces and the clamancy of fleshly impulse are the immediate
conditions of much natural and moral evil. But, on the other
hand, the physical basis of human life, its biological groundwork,
is not immoral. It is the raw material of the moral and indeed
of the whole personal life, and, since moral goodness and evil
inhere only in persons, a dualism based on the opposition of the
moral and the physical order is no solution of our problem. Since
man is a part of nature in the fullest sense of the word, his ethical
and other spiritual qualities are natural qualities, offspring of the
whole cosmic order. Indeed, it is inconceivable that an imper-
sonal cosmos could have split itself in two, by giving birth to
beings who can intelligently oppose, condemn, subject, and try to
explain the parent order for having mysteriously engendered in
them qualities or powers which are superior to the order from
which they have sprung. Since the whole of reality is a universe,

526 MAN AND THE COSMOS

if God is limited and thwarted by the universe's order, he too,
like man, must be a by-product of a blind impersonal order; and
his perfection, like man's imperfection and aspiration, must be
an inexplicable and mocking delusion. Either the whole of reality
is more perfect than any one of its finite parts and the defects
of the parts do not mar the perfection of the whole, or man is
the highest being in the universe and is superior to the blind and
stupid mechanical order of which he is a miraculous by-product.

A second form of dualism we may call personalistic, since it
assumes a cosmic personal power of evil, the devil, Satan or
Ahrimanes, who opposes the cosmic personal power of good, God
or Ahuramazda. The earliest form of this ethical or personal-
istic dualism is found in the ancient Persian Religion, from
whence it passed into Judaism and Christianity. In its best forms
this doctrine does not hold to an irresoluble dualism. The devil
is to be conquered, the good is finally to triumph. But it offers
no solution of the origin of evil, except when it boldly admits
that the devil is the creature of God, thus making God responsible
for Satan's doings and misdoings. The doctrine has no empirical
evidence in its favor. If taken literally, it is open to the objection
that it cleaves the universe into two worlds and leaves us with
an irreconcilable dualism on our hands. The ultimate unity
would be a nonmoral principle of fate transcending both God and
the devil and their respective hosts.

If one does not admit the probability either of the existence of
a cosmical devil, or of the existence of an ultimate dualism be-
tween the order of physical nature and the ethical order,6 how is
one to account for the apparently needless prodigality with which
suffering is strewn on man's pathway by powers beyond his con-
trol, and for the flagrant discrepancy that obtains between the
distribution of evil and the ethical merits and demerits of men?
Before entering upon a discussion of this question I desire to
premise that our human categories for classifying our fellows
on scales of moral merits and demerits are at best rather clumsy
and wooden, and are always in danger of being warped by the
Pharisaism which can see the mote in the other man's eye much
more easily than the beam in one's own eye. Perhaps the sun
shines on the good and the evil and the rain descends impartially

•I say advisedly, "probability."

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 527

on the fields of the just and the unjust, not because the Lord of
sun and rain is insensible to moral considerations, but because,
from His higher viewpoint, our hard and fast clear-cut classifi-
cations of our fellows into sheep and goats look rather pedantic
and insignificant.

The synthetic purpose of the world-order, if it have a pur-
pose at all, must be the development of persons in inner individual
harmony and in interpersonal harmony. But such a world-pur-
pose necessarily involves imperfection, struggle, suffering and
conflict. There is this feature common to the rigidly mechanical
conception of reality and to the doctrine that reality is an eternal
absolute, that in both cases all purposive activity is illusory. The
eternal absolute, without seasons, history, or fruits, is just as
worthless to man, just as indifferent to the concrete and passion-
ate significance of human life, as a blind mechanical cosmos.

Any purposive and living world of individuals then necessarily
involves some evil. Physical evil, I have argued, is largely due
to man's ignorance and imperfect adjustment to his environment.
Thus far it is partially remediable, and the effort to remedy it
is productive of a better organization of personality and of society.
Most moral evils, possibly all, are due to lack of a vital self-pos-
sessing insight on the part of men as to their true interests and
goods. That the mechanical operations of the brute forces of
nature work great evil to man cannot be denied. The irrational
and unjust distribution of physical catastrophes and of disease
and suffering suggest that the cosmic will has to struggle in the
face of hindrances which he did not set up. On the other hand,
since we never know the final issue, it may be that the cosmic
will has set up these hindrances as the indispensable conditions
for the development of finite selfhood.

Whether one holds that the cosmic will is conditioned from
without by a blind force, or that he is self-conditioned, in that
the development of a world of individuals can be willed by him
in no other way, the upshot is the same — if the purpose of the
world-order is the development of a world of individuals into full
personality, this pwpose can be accomplished only at the risks
of physical suffering and moral evil.

It is not conceivable that a perfect spirit, aiming at the best,
should have called into being a multitude of sentient and intelli-
gent beings who should be subjected to so much suffering and

528 MAN AND THE COSMOS

failure, if he could have done otherwise. Either the over-self did
not call into being these selves; or he did not establish all the
conditions under which their lives must be developed and enjoyed;
or, if he is the author of all that is and may be, there remains
for us an inscrutable mystery surrounding the lives of sentient
and intelligent individuality, and the things that seem to us to
thwart and even to wreck these lives must really in some fashion,
unknown to us, further them.

In any case the meaning of life is, in part, expressed and real-
ized through the sin, error, and suffering of selves as well as
through their goodness, knowledge, and joy. What then becomes
of the moral and intellectual distinctions of our deeds and lives ?
Do these collapse into the indifference center of an absolute total-
ity, in which all distinctions of moral worth are merged and lost ?
No ! Since the error and sin of finite selves are transitional
factors in their moral growth, these defects and failures must be
real for the supreme experient or oversell The distinctions of
moral value are not obliterated in the whole of reality. Evil is
not a mere empty defect, not mere absence of good. It is, in char-
acter, oppositional to good; just so error is not the mere absence
of truth, nor ugliness the mere absence of beauty; they are op-
positions. Thus, our human values involve contrast and opposi-
tion or negation. As Hegel would say they exist in relation to
an other. The whole spiritual life involves the dialectic process,
the setting up of and the overcoming of opposition. (This is what
Hegel means by the power of the negative or of contradiction.)
But the good transcends the evil, by including and transforming
it, just as the truth transcends error by transforming and includ-
ing what was wrong in the erroneous judgment and as in beauty
the same elements, which in disorder constitute ugliness, are trans-
formed into a harmonious individuality. In error a genuine
datum of knowledge is put in its wrong relations; the error be-
comes truth when the datum is put in its right relations. The
artist takes the same materials of sense that in one arrangement
give rise to ugliness or discord and produces harmony and beauty.
In evil action an impulse or desire is affirmed in the wrong time
or place or too much or too little. The good is harmony, propor-
tion or order, in the expression of impulse, and the satisfaction
of desire.

Thus, the reconciliation of the opposition is not achieved by

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 529

canceling the distinction between the opposites, but by a conquest
in which the positive higher qualities overcome and absorb their
opposite. In error the individual's judgment falls short of re-
ality ; it distorts the latter by failure to grasp the systematic rela-
tionships of facts. In moral evil the individual will assumes an
isolated or particular interest which conflicts with the rational
and social character of the self as an organic whole of interests,
an individual totality, by falling short of its full meaning. The
principle of truth and goodness is the same — wholeness or har-
monious individuality. Evil, thus, is irrational because it is par-
ticularistic and isolating. It is the defect in feeling and conduct
of some more pervasive and harmonizing quality of the universe
of selves. Evil is negation, but it is not bare negation. It is
negation by the exclusive affirmation of a part against, or regard-
less of, the whole in which it properly functions. The positive
moral significance of the part is found in making it into a working
factor in the totality of individual life and social order.

In so far as the individual lives in the light of the harmonious
and total relationships of his own desires and values, he over-
comes the positive defects which constitute evil, by becoming a
cooperative member in the community of persons which is the
goal towards which the whole creation moves. Thus he ceases
to be an isolated bundle of impulsions and becomes an organ for
the fulfillment of the universal values.

We reject the notion that the doctrine of a finite God strug-
gling against obstacles, whether personal or impersonal, to realize
the good which he would, if he could, achieve at one blow,
offers a satisfactory solution of the problem of evil. Such a God
is practically useless and theoretically a contradiction. He would
be a God who is no God, but only a somewhat bigger man. There
would only be some difference in scale, and a difference not de-
terminable, between his weakness in the face of the cosmic coun-
ter-currents and the weakness of man. If man be helpless in
the face of a hostile universe or an indifferent universe, let us
bravely face the music and be done with childish make-beliefs
about pragmatical gods ! If, on the other hand, we have grounds
for the larger belief that the supreme order is an order of values,
why should we boggle at admitting, as we must, that both physical
evil and moral evil are contributory to the perfection of the
whole! Nor can we evade this conclusion by arguing, as some

530 MAN AND THE COSMOS

pluralistic theists do, that God is not responsible for evil, since
he endows man with free will and evil arises because, in the
mysteriousness of his capricious freedom, man wills to do and to
be evil. The problem is only thus evaded by pushing it behind
us, for, if God creates man with a mysterious power of indetermi-
nate and unmotivated choice, surely He is responsible for having
so created him. The only sense in which I can admit human
freedom is that the self, to a limited and varying degree, is a
real and growing center of rational action. True freedom is self-
determination under the guidance of rational ends. The indi-
vidual is responsible for the use of his reason and, thus far,
responsible for his character. Indeed, he is his character, which
is not a physical quantum, but a developing capacity. Since finite
selfhood involves growth, self-development through deliberation,
choice with error, man is responsible for his deeds in so far as
he is responsible for his own growth. But for his original na-
ture with its limitations within and without himself, he is not
responsible. God, then, must be the ultimate ground of the real
possibilities which, in the definitely varying qualities and condi-
tions of human persons, flower into good and evil acts. God or
the cosmic spiritual order is responsible for the fact that evil
can, and, therefore does occur. Evil is inevitable but not irre-
mediable, in part at least.

Why a world of conscious individuals exists to develop by con-
flict, and to perfect themselves by way of error and suffering, is
perhaps a fruitless question for philosophy, which must take the
world as it finds it. According to Christianity the motive of
creation is self -manifesting , self-imparting love, which brings
forth finite spirits as its objects. In this world the birth of con-
scious volition is the beginning of moral evil. Individuals de-
velop from natural and nonmoral beings into the life of reason,
love, and ideal values generally, through social conflict.

In the birth of consciousness and reason, in the development
of the social and moral life, moral evil originates as the offspring
of the very process of reflection which brings forth culture. His-
torically, then, evil is the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and the
evolution of human culture is fruit of the same tree. The evo-
lution of culture, scientific, aesthetic, and religious, is the ovidence
that the good, defined in terms of personal values, is realizing
itself through the struggles of humanity in its historical process.

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 531

Through all its blind confusion, wasteful errors, and dire evils,
human history does, it seems to me, show the working out of
ethical and spiritual values through the instrumentality of indi-
vidual lives cooperating in social groups. Does this imply the
reality of growth in the supreme self ? Such a conclusion seems
unavoidable. The supreme self cannot live in otiose and blessed
contemplation, apart from the world of finite struggling selves.
It must comprehend and take up into its own life all the passion,
struggle, and pathos of man's history. It must transcend, and
yet work through, the elements of "negation" and "finitude" that
pervade the dynamic and developing life of the world of historical
selfhood. The supreme self's experience must grow with the his-
torical progress and personal development of finite selves. The
supreme good must be a living and growing harmony of differ-
ences, a peace won and held through opposition, a communion that
pervades and maintains itself through the developing lives of
many individuals.

In so far as moral evil is actual it seems to hinder the realiza-
tion of ethical values, and thus to subtract from the fullness of the
good. So speculation has been led, in the interest of the vision
of the perfect whole, to argue that this is the best of all possible
worlds. We can conceive worlds that, in some respects, would be
better than this one. Whether, on the whole, these conceivable
worlds might be better than our actual world no man can say;
for no man can compare the actual world as a whole with other
possible total worlds. Leibniz' pyramid of worlds, in his The-
odicy, is a pretty fancy; but a logically vicious argument in that
every possible world is just a partial variant, in some particu-
lars, of the actual world.

The only kind of world we can really think is a world like
our actual world in its general features, with minor variations
introduced in some of its details. All we can say is that suffer-
ing and other forms of evil are inevitable in a living and temporal
universe. In this sense evil in the parts is necessary to the good-
ness of the whole ; but why the evil in the parts should be so
grotesquely distributed, and why there should be so much of it
we do not know. It is impossible, in terms of rational insight
alone, to harmonize the distribution of evil in the world with the
idea that the whole is perfect, or that there is no hindrance to
the will of an omnipotent and benevolent being.

532 MAN AND THE COSMOS

When absolute idealists 7 talk glibly about evil being "illusory
appearance" or mere negation or absence of good they are indulg-
ing in vain babblings, in a word-play which is impertinent in the
face of intense suffering, genuine sorrow or unmerited catastrophe.
They are guilty of the same sort of quibbling as the Christian
Scientists. To say that evil is defect is not to explain it away,
since a defect may be the cause of great suffering. Moreover,
gruesome disease, physical or mental, is not mere defect ; intense
suffering and loneliness and despair are positive states.

When Pope sings "all partial evil universal good" he fails to
consider the question — "good to whom ?" If the whole looks good
to the absolute, but bad to most of the members of his world, then
I say that on the whole the world is bad. It is small comfort to
be told that the world is good as a whole, if one cannot enjoy the
same outlook as the absolute. If finite selves can enjoy the good-
ness of the whole then it is good just in so far as its members have
this enjoyment.

The darkest mystery enveloping the problem of evil is the
unjust distribution of suffering. The connection between physical
evil and moral quality often appears capricious, irrational, and
cruel. The individual suffers for the guilt of others, or for their
unavoidable ignorance; often for his own unavoidable ignorance.
Careless or ignorant of individual desert, nature works out her
nemesis of compensation through the biological and social solidar-
ity of the race. The innocent suffer for the guilty, but to what end ?
And nature often seems to inflict greater penalties for ignorance
than for enlightened sinning! Vicarious suffering is a common
fact. By virtue of the solidarity of the race, and of some mysteri-
ous, though tardily effective, connection between moral evil and
physical suffering, the innocent and the wise must suffer vicari-
ously for the guilty and the ignorant. Careless of the single life,
nature seems to care only that in the long run adjustment be
made. In this way undoubtedly the principle of the good is
served through the solidarity of the race. And the vicarious
sufferings of the good no doubt, as Plato, the Hebrew Deutero-

7 Mr. A. E. Taylor, for example, in Elements of Metaphysics, pp. 395 ff.
This I understand does not represent Mr. Taylor's present view. Cf. Brown-
ing's facile optimism in Abt Vogler. This is the optimism either of a healthy
and happy human animal or of one who cheats himself with words that do not
correspond with facts. Many theologians and philosophers have been guilty
of the same procedure.

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 533

Isaiah, and the New Testament writers have taught, are great
redemptive factors in the spiritual life of mankind. The highest
love is one that redeems through suffering. Nevertheless, we do
not understand why such an apparently unjust method of moral
development and progress should be compatible with the unique
worth and meaning of the individual life. By these considera-
tions of a universal connection of moral evil and suffering the
problem is only pushed one point farther back. If one refuse to
accept an ethical-metaphysical dualism with its unreconciled op-
position of two warring powers of good and evil, or a chaotic
pluralism of powers, one must assume that the relation of the
supreme spirit to the race is not the same as his relation to the
individual. One must assume that the spiritual development of
the individual, through striving and suffering, is a necessary con-
dition for the spiritual elevation of other individuals, and for the
spiritual elevation of the race. But, surely, the individual soul
cannot be a mere means in this spiritual process ! The suffering
of the best must be a step in the spiritual ascent of the sufferer
who thus reaches a higher perfection, and, in so doing, becomes
an instrument in the upward growth of his fellows. The vicari-
ous sufferer must be the crown of the race's progress, and, hence
there must be for him an immortal life brought to full fruition
under other conditions than those of earth. The most worthful
individuality must be conserved. The possibility of the conquest
of evil can become a reality only if the protagonists in the warfare
for human perfection thus win immortality, and, in so doing,
become the instruments by which their fellows may likewise win
it. If suffering, and, especially vicarious suffering, be the means
of victory over evil, then the victory is lost and meaningless unless
the spirits of the victors endure. The supremely good self is
thwarted and ofttimes defeated in the struggle unless his finite
agents are immortal.

In short, while the problem of evil cannot be satisfactorily
solved, and recourse must be had to the postulates of moral faith,
the most satisfactory view is that the process of psychical and
spiritual evolution is a movement that can achieve its ends only
through suffering and moral evil. If one take this view and, at
the same time, hold an ethically monistic conception of ultimate
reality, one must believe that suffering and evil are factors in
the experience of the supreme spirit.

534 MAN AND THE COSMOS

The doctrine of a suffering and self-sacrificing God, of one
who is eternally made perfect through his sympathy and fellow-
ship with erring and sinning humanity, is so far from being out
of harmony with an ethical conception of the universe, that I
should rather maintain that it is the only doctrine of God that
at once squares with the facts of experience and does no violence
to the ethical consciousness of man. In no other aspect of its
teaching does the Christian religion in its original form show
itself truer to the deeper meanings of man's spiritual experience
than in its bold and profound doctrine of a divine redeeming love
that is expressed through suffering, a divine life that is made
perfect through sacrifice, that conquers and is enriched through
overcoming its negation.

The goodness of a supreme self then cannot be the bare nega-
tion of the evil that is in the world. It must be the positive self-
expressing goodness that holds its perfection through companying
and suffering with the evil, and thus transmuting the latter into
an instrument or factor in a positive perfection.

Our main business is not to save the universe, nor to help a
limited deity in his difficulties. Our main business is to save
ourselves by losing ourselves; by finding our true selfhood in
subjection and loyal obedience to the order of spiritual values,
to the all-inclusive and all-transforming ideal of perfection which
is the most real reality. The higher life, the life of the spirit,
consists in the individual's making himself the instrument and
dwelling-place of spiritual integrity; "In Whose will is our
peace," "Whose service is perfect freedom" since it is the ful-
fillment of personality through possession of the spirit of whole-
ness. Wherever and whenever in thought, in selfless volition, or
in selfless affection and contemplation, we put our entire individ-
ualities in the service of objective social and impersonal interests ;
m the service of truth, justice, harmony, order, and progress
towards perfection, wherever and whenever we elect to serve the
ideal of the perfect spiritual community, we transcend evil in
transcending our lower selfhood. It becomes a vanishing, because
transformed, defect. Its discordances pass away in the harmony
which we behold and become.

We cannot so account for the evil of the world as to explain
the beneficence of all forms and amounts of evil. We may hope
and believe

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 535

. . . that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill

*****

. . . That good shall fall
At last — far off — at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

— Tennyson, In Memoriam, 53.

But we cannot prove that it will be so. The most one can say is
that it ought to be so and if the ruling principle of the universe
be spiritual it will be so.

We have but faith : we cannot know ;

For knowledge is of things we see;

And yet we trust it comes from Thee,
A beam in darkness let it grow.

>|S «t- *r» ^> *F

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all

And faintly trust the larger hope.

— In Memoriam, 54.

0 Living will that shalt endure

When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,

Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure,

That we may lift from out of dust

A voice as unto him that hears

A cry above the conquered years
To one that with us works, and trust,

With faith that comes of self-control,

The truths that never can be proved

Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flow from, soul in soul.

— In Memoriam, 130.

CHAPTER XXXIX

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION

I. The Methods and Aims of Metaphysics and Religion

Metaphysics and religion are similar in motive and aim. They
both presuppose the recognition of the incompleteness and inner
discrepancy of the realm of actual experience, of the fragmentari-
ness and disharmony of the actual life. Xeither in the naive
interpretations of actual experience nor in the special sciences can
satisfaction be found for man's desire for integrity, harmony,
completeness, and stability in the world which is the objective
condition of his experience and his desire. In brief, the deepest
need of man as a reflective being is for a coherent and stable
universe, a dependable order with which he can put himself in
harmony. Thus metaphysics and religion are alike in that they
both seek to satisfy the human demand for a comprehensive and
consistent world view, for a doctrine of the true meaning and
value of human life in its relation to the world-whole. The
religious devotee and the philosopher alike endeavor "to live
resolutely in the Whole, the Good, the True." Essential to
both are beliefs in regard to the nature of reality as a whole
and in regard to the place of human values in reality. And
the fundamental difference between ethics or systematic doc-
trines in regard to morality on the one hand, and metaphysics
and religion on the other hand, is that, whereas in the moral
systems we have beliefs in regard to what are the true values
of life, in metaphysics and religion we have doctrines as to the
place of these true values in the total scheme of reality. I
remark, in passing, that the idea frequently broached that the
way to escape from the difficulties of reconciling religious
-mas and scientific dogmas is to make religion undogmatic
or nondoctrinal, to turn it into a system of pure morals or even
morals touched with emotion, is to disembowel religion. While

536

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 537

admitting the significant difference between theology, the sys-
tematic theory of religion, and religion as an actual attitude of
mind, I must insist that a religion which involves no doctrines
or definite beliefs in regard to the nature and meaning of reality
as a whole is no religion for a reasonable being. If morality
touched with emotion be a religion, that can only be because the
emotion with which morality is touched is one of reasonable con-
fidence in, and reverent admiration for, the order of the universe;
and certainly such an emotional attitude cannot exist without a
definite belief as to what really is the order of the universe. Every
religion which has counted for anything in human life has in-
volved quite specific beliefs as to the nature of reality as a whole,
and, more particularly, as to man's place therein. The idea of
God, or, in more abstract terms, of the universal and eternal
reality, is the fundamental concept of religion. A religion which
does not tie the soul of man up with some permanent reality be-
yond the shows of sense is no religion. The de-natured defini-
tions of a religion without a God-idea, which various writers
have offered as a way out of the difficulties in squaring religion
with materialism, do not correspond to any historical or actual
working religion. For example, to identify religion with the
service of unrealized and purely human values, while denying to
these values a cosmic foundation, is a confusion of thought.

If religion and metaphysics arise from similar motives and
have similar objects, wherein do they differ ? In the first place,
for the philosopher they do not differ. For, since a philosopher's
metaphysics is his rationally worked out theory of reality, his
religious attitude must take its color from his doctrine of reality,
just as the religion of a nonphilosophical person must take its
color from theological dogmas which he accepts and believes. In
the second place, the theological dogmas accepted and believed by
the nonphilosophical religionist are traditional forms of meta-
physics which he accepts without critical examination. The theol-
ogy of a church, for example, consists of certain propositions in
regard to God, man, and nature, which involve a certain attitude
of mind and will. These propositions have been formulated in
the past, by certain persons or groups of persons assumed to have
been competent in ability and authority to interpret the revela-
tions as to the ultimate nature of reality and the value and destiny
of the soul made by divinely accredited teachers and revealers.

538 MAN AND THE COSMOS

A church is a social institution established and carried on to
propagate a specific type of conduct based on an accepted type
of religious metaphysics.

A man's reaction to the nature of things as a whole involves
his own nature as a whole. It brings into play his emotional and
will attitudes, no less than his imaginative and conceptual powers.
A religious attitude is the response to the demand of the whole
personality for a perfect and enduring life in which the buffeted
and distraught individual life or group life can find repose and
strength. "Underneath are the everlasting arms." The psychical
complexion of religious experience and attitude varies with in-
dividuals, groups, and epochs of culture. In all cases, however,
the need for a religious faith goes down into the very roots of the
personal and social life — and these roots are the feelings and
emotions in which the self or the group assumes the supremacy
and the permanence of their fundamental valuations of life. Be-
cause of lack of training, inclination, or leisure, and in part too,
because of lack of capacity, the average person does not seriously
attempt to think out for himself a doctrine of ultimate reality and
of values. He takes these, for the most part, second-hand.
Through the influence of suggestion and imitation he accepts the
dogmas of the group in which he is nurtured. If he breaks away
from them, under strong emotional stress, he is very likely to
accept the dogmas of some other group. In the religious attitude
of the average person reflective thinking plays a secondary role.
Social suggestion, imitation, the sentiment of group loyalty, are
the most powerful factors in determining the ordinary man's
religious attitude. The religious group and the individual, as a
member of the group, in order that they may go forward in the
work of realizing the highest values of life, and may find con-
solation for the present loss of values, make a wager of faith.
They take risks because of the interests at stake. The need for ac-
tion, or the need for consolation, is great and urgent, and there
is not time or inclination for an unbiased investigation in this
most difficult and comprehensive of subjects— the problem of the
nature of reality— so the traditional dogma is accepted.

Thus, religious dogmas are accepted because they meet the
urgent needs of the group or the individual; but these needs in
turn have been molded by the influence of the group— the church.
-Now, the fact that an individual wants a certain thing is not

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 539

sufficient evidence either that he will get it or that he ought to
get it. But, if many individuals, and especially in a long suc-
cession of generations, have seemed to want the same things, that
is commonly taken as a reason for the justice of the want and the
likelihood of its satisfaction. It is forgotten that similarity of
wants only proves that we are all made of the same old needy
human nature. It is a fact that the very persistence of a certain
social type of conduct and belief creates a presumption of its cor-
rectness. The history of theology and religion abundantly sub-
stantiate the view that the modifications which they undergo are
determined chiefly by the whole complex of cultural factors oper-
ating in an epoch; and that, by reason of social and mental in-
ertia, once a type has become established, it tends to persist ; for
example, the juristic or substitutionary theories of the atonement
in Saint Augustine and his successors took their color from the
legal theories and practices of the feudal Empire engaged in
trying to maintain itself and keep the peace amidst the welter
of semi-barbarians which it comprehended. Such a theory simply
could not have been originated in the Athens of Socrates and
Plato.

The authority of the group code of conduct and of dogmas is
referred back to its source in a divine revealer. Moses, Jesus,
Mohammed, are regarded in their respective religions as the media
of specific primary revelations. The church becomes the authori-
tative custodian, interpreter and dispenser of the primary revela-
tions, the latter being usually enshrined in sacred oracles. The
church has its constituted authorities for the interpretation of
the oracles. Thus, in this, the most persistent type of religion,
the group organization and the traditions of the group mind, play
the principal part. The individual's spirit is subordinate to the
group spirit. It is only as a loyal member of the group that he
can approach the deity to gain strength or favor from him. Early
morality is tribal custom, and early religion is tribal feeling and
tribal ceremonial which involves tribal welfare. Organized re-
ligion (and most of the phenomena of religion still have to do
with organized or institutional religion) is the centralized expres-
sion of the social bond. All public religious rites, ceremonies, and
obligatory acts, have to do with the sense of social solidarity. The
relationship to the divine is the culminating expression of group-
relationship. Organized religion is thus, from the outset, the

540 MAN AND THE COSMOS

expression and consolidation of social values. It seems to be only
late in the history of religion that the individualistic sense of
private personal relationship to the divine comes into play.1
Even thereafter the authority of social tradition and organization
continue to play the major role in determining the character and
expressions of the religious life. Common worship, common be-
liefs and acts, are normal and most frequent phenomena of reli-
gion. Even the enlightened individual to-day is deeply influenced
in his religious attitude by tradition, early training, and environ-
ment.

On the other hand, just as morality has progressed from
tribal custom to the ethics of free and rational personality, so
religion has progressed; and the highest type of religion is that
which has its roots in the attitudes and evaluations of free per-
sonalities. This is all the more the case when the religious atti-
tudes of free personalities involve a clear sense of the religious
basis of social order, cooperation, fellowship, and loyalty to com-
mon causes. An increasing recognition of personal freedom and
responsibility in matters of religious faith and practice means
spiritual progress, not the decay of religion.

For the second and highest form of religious relation is the
individual's insight, intuition, or act, in which he communes with
the Divine and knows and obeys the Divine Will without any
traditional or social intermediary. The individual feels himself
in some sort of immediate relation to the Divine. I call this
form "mysticism." It has many varieties, from the sensuous
emotionalistic mysticism of the Sufi and of certain Christian
mystics, to the intellectual vision of God of a Plotinus or a
Spinoza, the austere moral visions of the Hebrew prophets, and
the simple ethical or "spiritual" mysticism of Jesus, St. John and
St. Paul The highest type of religion is ethical mysticism. This
is faith in, service of, and communion with the Highest or Perfect
Being regarded as the living and transcendent ground of the
supreme spiritual values— 4n short as the source and sustainer
of moral personality and the ideal social order.

Ethical mysticism has, of course, in the history of religion,
been made the starting point for new religions of authority, based
on the assumption of a static and finished revelation expressed

I^k/jeremSk, ^Z,^^^ °f Isr&e1' the ™k of the »«*»-

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 541

through supernatural events, written down in sacred books, and
conserved by sacred organizations. Thus the fresh and first-hand
vision of new spiritual ideals has been dimmed and even lost. For
all modes of religious experience and expression intermingle in
religious history. Organized Christianity contains elements of
dualistic supernaturalism, of magic and mythmaking, of authority
worship, of emotional and speculative mysticism, of prophetic and
ethical freedom.

Once it is admitted that the authority of the group and its
traditions are not normative for the determination of the doctrine
of reality and of human values, there are only two ways open to
such doctrine — one is the way of unregulated individual senti-
ment and the other is the way of reason. The way of individual
sentiment may satisfy its possessor but it does not, by itself, lead
to any socially valid principles.

The way of reason is metaphysics or rational theology. From
the standpoint of reason the authority of an organized social group
and its traditions cannot be accepted without inquiry, for, in the
first place, there are so many of them and they are discordant;
in the second place, historical inquiry shows that they are the
resultants of a complex of cultural traditions — political, economic,
intellectual, physical, and so forth. The authority of sacred
oracles is subjected similarly to the dissolving power of critical
historical inquiry. Miracles do not authenticate revelation ; for,
first, they are claimed as the authenticating grounds of conflict-
ing religious systems; second, if by miracles be meant especially
divine interpositions which interrupt the order of nature, they are
not in harmony with the tested methods and principles of science ;
and third, if by miracle be meant the manifestation of a higher
law which we do not understand, the argument is an appeal to
ignorance.

No supposed occurrence in the past history of the race can
be accepted, without critical inquiry, as rational authentication
of dogmas concerning the nature of reality. For any assumed
extraordinary occurrence or extraordinary personality could be
accepted as the source of a revelation of the nature of reality, only
if it could be brought into harmony with the interpretation of
present and living experience in the light of reason. To admit
this principle is to admit the superior authority of the rational
interpretation of actual experience and of man's present valua-

542 MAN AND THE COSMOS

tions. As Lessing and Fichte put it, not the historical, only the
metaphysical can save us. This is not to deny that the words
and deeds of great historical personalities may illumine the pres-
ent problems of life and reality. If Plato or Aristotle can still
instruct us in regard to thought, values and reality, so can Jesus or
St. John. But if we cannot accept the doctrines of Plato, in so
far as they are inconsistent with the rational interpretation of our
actual data concerning nature and man, no more can we accept
doctrines or supposed deeds of Jesus that are not in harmony with
such interpretations. The only witness that has any final authority
is the witness of the rational spirit .in its work of interpreting and
organizing the facts of living experience. In short, metaphysics,
as the persistent effort of the human reason to attain a compre-
hensive and coherent insight into the nature of reality as a whole
and the place of human values therein, is the only rational foun-
dation for a religious doctrine of the world. If one abandon
subjection to group suggestion and imitation, submission to the
authority of historical organizations and their traditions, and
decline to become the prey of unregulated emotionalism, the only
way for the attainment of a religious world view that is left
for him is the way of metaphysics.

Special sciences cannot give us a world view for two reasons:
(1) No special science, for example physics, biology, or psychol-
ogy, has for its province the coordination into a harmonious syn-
thesis of the fundamental outlines of a rational conception of the
world. This is the province of metaphysics. (2) With respect
to human values, with regard to the nature of truth, of goodness,
of beauty and love and their interrelations, the special sciences
are neutral; they do not deal with the problem of values. It is
the province of metaphysics to formulate a doctrine of values
and of the place of values in reality.

Religion is essentially a doctrine of values and the place of
values in reality. Eeligion is not concerned directly with the
physical order, but only indirectly with the relation of the physical
order to the order of personal and social values. It will greatly
conduce to the vitality of religion when its representative teachers
abandon, once and for all, the intellectual and spiritual confusion
involved in the intermingling of the exposition and service of
spiritual values with primitive and discredited cosmologies. If
the religionist will leave the interpretation of the genesis of the

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 543

physical order to the sciences, if he will abandon the mistaken
effort to validate religious values in terms of an invalid theory
or dogma concerning nature, and abandon the attempt to authen-
ticate the values of the spirit in terms of physical miracles which
cannot themselves be validated, a great gain will be won. Reli-
gious thought and devotion can then be concentrated upon the
clarification, intensification, and realization of spiritual values.
Let the religionist recognize too that the problem of the relation
of spiritual values to the nature of reality as a whole is one to be
attacked by rational reflection; that is, by philosophy or meta-
physics. Thus, by applying the traditional and organized force
of religious institutions to the spread of rational reflection in
regard to the fundamental problems of human life, he will do
his part in saving humanity from the recrudescence of blind super-
stition, on the one hand ; and from the social and moral confusion
that results from the disintegration of traditional institutions and
beliefs, on the other hand. "Ye shall know the truth and the truth
shall make you free." The truth can be known only through the
exercise of the rational spirit. In this way alone are we made
truly free, even though what we know is the uncertainty of our
knowledge.

The interpretation of the meaning of religion and the de-
termination of its function and validity in the lives of rational
beings is thus a principal task of metaphysics. Thus far, metw-
physics is the philosophy of religion. Indeed, the principal parts
of metaphysics are the philosophy of knowledge, of nature, and
of human personality ; and the philosophy of religion is the culmi-
nating point in the metaphysics of personality.

It is the province of the comparative philosophy of religions
to determine the psychological features of the chief types of
religious attitude and experience in individuals; to consider the
functions of religious institutions (in which are included systems
of religious dogmas or doctrines) in the social history of the
race; to trace the evolution of religion from its beginnings in
animatistic nature worship, through the most significant stages,
from crude polydsemonism to the most elevated forms of ethical
and spiritual religion in which the values of a free personal and
communal life become the central norms for the interpretation
of reality; to weigh the respective values, for man's cultural de-
velopment, of the principal types of religious attitude and expres-

544 MAN AND THE COSMOS

sion. Finally, it is the province of the philosophy of religion, as
metaphysics, to weigh the claims of religion to embody truth as
to the relation of human values to the order of the universe, in
the light of the general principles of the scientific theory of knowl-
edge and cosmology. In particular, the following questions con-
stitute the critical problems for an epistemology and metaphysics
of religion: (1) Is there a specific kind of religious knowledge-
personal intuition and revelation of the divine order as embodied
in the religious genius? If personality be the best clue to the
meaning of the world process; then, since religion involves the
entire personality, it may be that the religious genius is a revealer
of the meaning and vocation of personality in a fuller sense than
the scientific, the practical, or the artistic genius. (Indeed, every
significant religious attitude seems to be a poetry of values cloth-
ing a metaphysical content.) (2) What is the nature, value and
destiny of human personality ? (These are most crucial questions
for the metaphysics of religion.) (3) How are we to conceive
the nature of God and His relation to man? Can we on ra-
tional grounds, and in the light of the various main aspects of
experience, establish a justification for a rational faith in' a
supreme spiritual reality who, as the creative and sustaining
ground of all existence, is the absolute good or ground of spiritual
values ? If we have the right to believe in such a being, what are,
and what may become, the relations of the human spirit to Him ?
What is the relation of the evil in the world to Him ? Finally,
what is the relation of the whole process of natural and human
history to His life and activity? Concerning these problems of
the metaphysics of religion I have already given such answers as
I could. If I were to write other volumes on this subject, they
would consist only in amplifications and illustrations of the views
hereinbefore advanced.

The following remarks may serve to make the foregoing state-
ments clearer. Religion has a social-historical character, since
religious conceptions of value are personal affirmations and experi-
ences, and persons always live in social and historical connections
as members of specific cultures. Because of these social and
cultural influences religion is ever associated with the changing
intellectual, economic, political, and artistic complexions of his-
torical cultures. No religious genius has ever existed who has
not spoken his spiritual message in terms of the mental-social life

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 545

of his own day and generation. Religion is a projection on the
roaring loom of time of a concentration or unified complex
of psychical values. What these values are in content, and what
their status is in relation to the other values of culture, is always
determined by the reaction of the creative personalities, who
found and modify religious traditions, to the cultural complexes
of their own times and places in history. Prophets, founders, and
reformers of religion appear at definite points in the stream of
historical evolution. They occupy determinate situations in the
cultural life of humanity and their individual creativeness is due
to the interplay of a powerful personality, rich in moral sensi-
tiveness and productive imagination, to the cultural and natural
environment. A new religious system thus always arises in the
fullness of time — in other words, when several clashing and rein-
forcing cultural currents are moving in the social life, struggling
and blending together. Hebrew prophetism arose in the moment
of such a crisis in Hebrew social life. Ancient Christianity
arose when richer and more varied cultural currents met and
partially opposed one another, partially blended together in the
much richer stream of Hellenistic-Roman culture, cross-fertilized
with the last and profoundest expression of the spirit of Hebrew
prophetism. Ancient Christianity was a creative spiritual syn-
thesis. The elements which gave rise to it were the powerful
and creative personalities of Jesus, St. John, St. Paul, and others,
the neo-Platonic and Stoic religious philosophies, and the mystery
religions.

The supreme paradox of the religious attitude, of religious
experience and faith, is that, while it is always historically or cul-
turally conditioned, it is essentially faith in the meta-historical or
eternal quality of the values which it sees and serves. There is
no genuine religious attitude, whether of revealer, prophet, mystic,
or humblest worshiper, that does not, to the experient, bear the
quality of lifting his soul and its values and aspirations above
the raging torrent of time. For religion is essentially concerned
with God as the perfect embodiment of the supreme values of
life; and with the relation of the soul of the individual, and of
the group life in which he participates, to a Divine Reality in
which there is neither variableness nor shadow of turning. But
this supreme paradox is not peculiar to religion, in the more
specialized sense of the term. It is the final paradox which per-

546 MAN AND THE COSMOS

vades man's whole spiritual life, which enters into every function
of his soul. Now and here man seeks, finds and contemplates
truth and goodness, but the true and the good must be eternally
valid as the apprehension of reality. Now and here he creates
and enjoys beauty, but beauty must be the revelation to his soul
of the eternal harmony. Now and here he seeks fellowship, jus-
tice, and integrity, but these moral qualities must have a perma-
nent nature, otherwise they would sicken and die to-day. He loves
his fellows, he loves beauty, harmony, and justice. At once he
is gone or the objects of his love have vanished; but they were
eternal values. All that man values, strives for, loves, and serves
seems to disappear in the cruel maw of all-devouring time. In
religion man denies that his cherished values vanish into the dark
backward and abysm of time. In religion he affirms, in the fleeing
moment, the eternity of values. Thus the paradox of religion is
simply the consummate expression of the paradox of life. Re-
ligion sees and feels under the form of eternity. If there be noth-
ing eternal but the restless and relentless passage of all values
out of nothingness through a feeble and vacillating existence into
nothingness again, then all religion is a vain delusion. Then the
first and last word of metaphysical systems must be that of a
mere Nirvana — an eternity of nothingness. Then all is vanity
— including the quest of the scientist for the truth, of the moral-
ist for justice and integrity, of the devotee for love and beauty.
And the proposition that all is vanity and nothingness is vain;
the only remedy for the troubles of man, the ills of society, and
the puzzles of thought, is to cease to think and to live, if live we
must, by instinct alone.

But while we cannot do that and while metaphysics may con-
sist "in finding bad reasons for what we believe in instinct, to
seek those reasons, is no less an instinct," 2 I hope that, without
further explication, I have made it clear that those who contemn
religion and metaphysics put themselves in the ridiculous position
of beings who, while unwilling to give up thinking entirely, are
unwilling to think things through to the end, because it is hard
work. I do not mean that it is everybody's business to think
through these weighty and difficult problems to the end for him-
self, but I do say that he who refuses to give a hearing to those

• F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, Preface.

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 547

who do attempt to think them through, on the ground that the
work is troublesome and yields no quick returns or even obvious
profits in the end, stultifies himself as a thinking being. Every
man to his taste, but let him who is satisfied to be an oyster be
a consistent oyster and live the part, thereby ceasing to pretend
to be a man! If the power of rational reflection be one of the
differentiae of human beings, then he who refuses to carry on this
power to the point where it deals with the highest concerns of
reflective life refuses to be truly human. Most stultifying and
self-contradictory are those who, while blatantly proclaiming the
power of thought to probe, to understand, and to control physical
data, biological data, and sociological data, sneer contemptuously
at metaphysics and theology, because the latter do not enable men
to make bigger machines, and more material goods, to build sky-
scrapers, or to increase dividends.

And those who would reconstruct society and who would heal
the divisions in the body politic without a metaphysics or religion,
simply by collecting economic and sociological data and directing
a new social polity based on such data alone, are attempting to
build on a quicksand. Let philosopher and religionist beware of
hearkening to the clamor that they become practical sociologists,
that they give up speculation and contemplation, and jump into
the hurly-burly of political and economic reconstruction. How
can we reconstruct society unless we have first determined the
goods, the values or ends, which we ought to seek ? And how can
we determine the meanings of good and value without a reasoned
inquiry into the nature, value and destiny of human personality
and its place in the universe ? I hold that even imperfect religion
is a much surer guide to social reconstruction than a crassly posi-
tivistic and utilitarian social polity, based on pseudo-scientific
sociological generalizations.

Inasmuch as religion is the affirmation that the higher values,
that are imagined, worshiped, and served in human existence,
and by which the spirit of man is thus possessed, have a secure
and enduring standing in the nature of reality, metaphysics is,
thus far, simply the method of rational interpretation and justi-
fication of religion. The fact that the religious attitude is pri-
marily, in its popular manifestations, one of feeling and volition,
and only secondarily a reflecting attitude, whereas, the philo-
sophical attitude is one of sustained rational inquiry; must not

548 MAN AND THE COSMOS

blind us to their community of aim: to lay hold on the world,
and to serve the higher spiritual values, to discover, and to live
in and for the transcendent values, by every function of our psy-
chical being. Philosophy, like religion, involves faith in the en-
during values of existence; but philosophy sets the value of ra-
tional comprehension and harmonious organization of all values
in the light of thought in the primary place; whereas religion,
in its traditional and popular manifestations, sets the emotional
and volitional values in the primary place. There is between them
no inevitable incompatibility. The light of reason is not a killing
frost that destroys the emotional and practical values; nor can
the latter values be well served without rational reflection. In-
deed, there is a deeper harmony between higher manifestations of
religion and philosophy : for, as Plato long ago taught, the motive
of both is love — love for the good, the true, and for spiritual
beauty ; for that which abides when all else seems to suffer shock,
for the whole and eternal. If the philosopher's love is directed
chiefly towards ideals or universal values, he must not forget that
these actually live and move and have their being only in persons.
If the religionist live primarily for souls or persons, he must not
forget that souls become persons and gain enduring value and
reality only in so far as they become the embodiments and minis-
trants of ideals or universal values.

Theology, if it is to be distinguished from metaphysics, can
only be the historical and systematic exposition of the doctrines
which are normative in and for a specific historical religious insti-
tution— a church. Theology is thus the offspring of a social and
historical organization or institution. It has its genesis in the
value-experiences, and faith-affirmations, in the cults and polities,
that have arisen and developed in specific and historically con-
tinuous social groups. Thus a universal theology would be iden-
tical with a philosophy or metaphysics of religion. Thus, when
theology ceases to be the purely historical and systematic exposi-
tion of the dogmatic foundations of the value-experiences, and
faith-affirmations, the cults and polities, of specific historical or-
ganizations or churches, and seeks to establish as universally
normative certain interpretations of religious life, it must become
identical with philosophy or metaphysics of religion.

In short, the final account of the claims of religion to involve
a universally significant and valid truth must be taken by a meta-

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 549

physics of human values; in other words, by a rational construc-
tion which will interpret the controlling ideals of man's spiritual
life — truth, beauty, love and all forms of human value — and
organize these into a harmonious system; and which will weigh
the final question as to our right to believe that these values are
at home in the universe.

Religion, as a vital force in society and history and in indi-
vidual lives, is not a by-product of philosophy. It is a native and
bulky factor in man's cultural life. It contributes very weighty
data which metaphysics or philosophy must take into account in
framing a world view. It is as expressions of the creative spirit-
ual development of individuals, peoples, and cultures, that reli-
gions and theologies are taken account of by philosophy ; in other
words, as living documents for the understanding of human ex-
perience, human feeling, volition, and thought, as reactions to the
spectacle and impact of the sum of things. The great historical
theologies, for example, of Saint Paul, Saint John, Origen, Saint
Augustine, Calvin, Schleiermacher, sprang from the interaction
of sensitive and creative personalities with the spiritual currents
of their times. No historical theology can be fully valid for an-
other and a different time. But a theology from the past, like
a philosophy or a social polity, may have considerable value for
the present. Men change, but mankind remains the same; in
other words, while the intellectual and general spiritual climate
undergo secular changes, there are permanent needs, interests, and
values in human nature. Human nature is plastic, modifiable,
but it does not seem to undergo great metamorphoses.

II. Is There Immediacy in Religious Knowledge?

All genuine first-hand religion, whether of the learned or un-
learned, involves the belief in the experience of a personal rela-
tion to the Highest.3 This is true, I hold, even where the Highest
is not conceived as a Person or Personality. Even in Buddhism,
although in its origin it was a religion without God, redemption
or salvation is an immediate or mystical union of the individual
with the absolute — the state of Nirvana. It is, of course, true
that the transcendency, the awful mystery and majesty of God

*Cf. the fine discussion of this matter in C. C. J. Webb's Divine Person-
ality and Human Life, especially Lecture vii.

550 MAN AND THE COSMOS

may be so emphasized, as in some phases of Judaism and Moham-
medanism and, frequently even in Christianity, as to render the
object of worship inaccessible, except by intermediary, to the
devotee. Nevertheless the very heart of religion is union or com-
munion in feeling or immediate experience, and, by consequence
thereof, in will, of the devotee with the Highest. If religious
experience be valid, then the worshiper's claim to know God
immediately, by intuition or insight, must be allowed reasonable.

Such a claim cannot be disallowed by pointing to persons who
have no such experiences or convictions; any more than we can
refute the validity of aesthetic experience by pointing out that
for many people there is no beauty or joy in poetry, music or
painting or even in a sunset or a snow-capped mountain range.
Indeed, one might just as well argue that the color spectrum is
unreal because one is blind. It takes two to make a quarrel or
a love affair ; and it takes two to make a veridical experience, the
experient and the object.

Indeed, all our scientific, as well as our aesthetic, interpreta-
tions are based on immediate experiences. There can be no genu-
ine knowledge of reality except in so far as there are veridical data
of experience. Those who would rule out of court the possibility
of an immediate experience of God, on the ground that all knowl-
edge involves mediation or experience, forget that mediate or
inferential knowledge rests, both in its beginnings and its succes-
sive steps, on immediate experiences and insights. There must
be data of sense before there can begin to be a knowledge of the
physical world. Even in the case of deductive chains of reasoning
each link is based on intuitive self-evidence. There is no opposi-
tion between immediacy and mediation ; rather an interdepend-
ence and constant interplay back and forth. We reflect upon,
analyze and synthesize, our immediate experiences and insights;
and thus, through mediate reasoning, gain more comprehensive
intuitions. I would say that immediate knowledge (in perception
and intuition of self and other selves) is always the basis of knowl-
edge ; mediate reasoning, both inductive and deductive, is the way
to reflective insight or interpretation of the primary immediacies
in knowing ; synthetic intuition is the goal. Reflective insight is
no less rational because it is direct insight ; it is no less intuitional
because it is reflective.

But it is objected that one can know other persons only by

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 551

analogical inference, and if one cannot know a human person
immediately one certainly cannot claim to have an immediate
experience of the Divine. I have already in Book I and Book IV
discussed this matter fully. I have argued that we must assume
the existence of other selves in order to get under way with knowl-
edge and action. There is no escape from solipsism, if one begins
with it. Moreover, one cannot really begin with it. In fact we have
an immediate acquaintance with other selves, just as we have an
immediate experience of physical things. Empathy (Einfiihlung)
is the technical name given to this direct experience of other selves.
My intuition of another self's life is just as direct as, often more
so than, that of my own inner life. Indeed, if one loves another
person, one's "sense" of that person's attitudes and feelings may
have an almost uncanny swiftness and sureness. It is true that
one may be mistaken in regard to the minds of others. It is true
that one's immediate experiences of the presence of another con-
scious life require to be reflected upon and corrected by mediate
reasoning. In principle there is no difference here between the
knowledge of persons and the knowledge of physical things. Im-
mediacy in both cases is the starting-point and goal ; mediation
by discursive inference is the way, and this way is a succession of
immediate or self-evident insights which play back and forth ; the
process of inference is not linear. Objection to the possibility of
immediate communion with the Highest as the heart of religion
may be drawn from the countless aberrations, crudities and illu-
sions with which the history of religion is filled. But, in prin-
ciple, the same objection might be raised in any field. The more
complex and significant the data and problems, the more varying
and imperfect must be the actual knowledge as compared with its
object. Such a trivial and abstract proposition as 2+1=1+2
does not leave us much room for error. But when we come to
the canons of art and letters, to social polity and personal relations,
we have rich fields for partial and erroneous interpretations. Our
individual experiences are partial and our points of view often
very partial. To admit that, in the richest and deepest personal
experiences, man knows the Highest imperfectly and fragmen-
tary, to recognize freely that one's personal experiences of the
Divine are limited and colored by one's own individuality and
culture, is not to confess them illusory. There is a deep but daz-
zling brightness in the Highest, in the Perfect. We may see

552 MAN AND THE COSMOS

through a glass darkly ; but even so, we may see. Moreover, since
it is in personal life, in personal spirit, that the most adequate
embodiment of God can be found, if anywhere; and since no
human life can embody the whole of the Godhead, although a
human life might embody adequately his character and will
towards man (as Christians believe in regard to Jesus) the ex-
perience of the Divine in human life may, while adequate in
principle, be imperfect and growing.

On the other hand, direct experience of the Divine can only
be a value-experience, an experience which is judged to carry a
positive worth for the spirit. Its divinity must reside in its value,
or significance. The claim to a direct experience of any value-
reality transcending the limits of human nature, cannot be allowed
to be conclusive in the court of philosophy. It can be admitted
that a divine significance or worth inheres in the contemplation
of the starry heavens, in the enjoyment of beauty and sublimity
in nature, in the tragedy and comedy of the human lot and, above
all, in the vision and appreciation of human character, of love,
friendship and utter devotion. But this is an immanent divinity
of value. At best it bears witness to the degrees of worth in
which an immanent spiritual life is operative within the limits
of human experience. Thus, for example, to speak in terms of
the only religion of which I have any first-hand knowledge, to say
that God is experienced through Christ could mean only that the
highest and richest values of the spiritual life are experienced
in the Christocentric life, and are mediated through Christ.

To affirm that these values have a transcendent cosmic ground
is to pass beyond the limits of human experience by an act of
faith which has its source in the feeling of supreme value which
attaches itself to the Christian experience. One may believe that
these spiritual values have their source and ground in the tran-
scendent and self-existent principle of things (God the Father) ;
but such a belief transcends the limits of human experience. It
is not hnoivledge in a philosophical or scientific sense.

Furthermore it is, intellectually, a confusion to argue from the
experiential immanence of those higher values in human social
life, which are called Divine because they are the highest values,
that any historical person can be regarded as the sole source of
these values and the sole original and continuing medium of their
revelation. It may be true, for example, that a historical person,

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 553

Jesus of Nazareth, expressed and embodied a new and deeper con-
centration of spiritual values, but it does not follow that the his-
torical Jesus is now the immanent source of higher values. The
Christ of present value-experience cannot be simply the restored
figure of the man Jesus. Only the immanent spirit of God in
humanity which carries forward the realization and experience
of spiritual values can be the living ground of the present experi-
ence of the Highest. It is perhaps a beneficent illusion that
leads religionists to believe that, in realizing a new and deeper
concentration of the spiritual life, they are going back to the
historical Jesus. But it is none the less an illusion.

I do not mean that the attempt to determine more precisely
the historic character and relationships of Jesus is not eminently
worth while; but I note that judgments thereon, the interpreta-
tions of the documents and the person, are conditioned by the
categories of the interpreters' world view or metaphysics. The
historical does not save men ; only the immanent and living spirit
saves them. This conception is in harmony with the deepest wis-
dom of the New Testament. "It is expedient for you that I go
away ; for if I go not away the Comforter will not come." "But
when he the Comforter is come he will lead you into all the truth."
"The truth shall make you free." "The words I speak unto you
are spirit and truth." "I determined not to know Christ after
the flesh."

On the other hand, in religion and morals, as indeed in all
that appertains to the culture of the human spirit, it is not in the
passing moment of civilization, not in the ever-fleeing present,
that the spirit can find the sufficing materials and patterns for
its nurture. It is in the historical or time-spanning realities of
cultural systems, of objective and enduring spiritual structures,
that the "spirit," as something much more concrete and rich than
a mere biological self, lives; and it is on these realities that the
spirit is nourished. The spirit comes to its own only by living
within what Hegel called "Objective Mind" ; in other words, by
participation in the continuing though changing life of historical
cultures — in the intellectual structures embodied in science and
philosophy; in the ethical structures embodied in moral, political
and other social institutions (of which educational institutions
are of chief importance) ; in the aesthetic structures embodied
in letters and the fine arts; finally, in the religious structures

554 MAN AND THE COSMOS

embodied in the whole tradition and spirit of organized religion.
(It is, I trust, needless to say that these culture systems are not
bits of a mosaic which as a whole constitutes the culture of an
epoch ; they interfuse ; the culture of an epoch has a living unity
with diverse facets.)

I have already discussed this aspect of spiritual life more
fully, especially in Chapter XXVIII. It may suffice to say here
that, when I say that historical tradition alone is an insufficient
ground for living religion, I mean that the historical tradition
must be assimilated, relived and tested by present conceptions and
needs in order to have valid meaning and to prove effective now.
Man, as a spirit, is a historical being ; he spans time ; but history
must make good with the living by lifting his spirit above the din
and confusion of the exiguous present, by freeing him from the
"all-too-human" of the parsing moment ; it must serve as the lib-
erator of the spirit, not its shackler. The conservative who would
bind the living wholly to tradition chokes the spirit and blocks
progress ; the radical who would throw tradition to the dogs tries
to fly in a vacuum. The liberal is he who uses the traditions of
the elders for the enrichment and expansion of the living present.

So it is in religion. To be more specific: The members of
a Christian culture cannot live fruitfully and fully, if unregardful
of their great traditions ; nor can they live at all if the traditions
become iron bonds ; the life and thought of the founders of Chris-
tianity continue to be fountain-heads of faith and conduct, in so
far as they can be brought into a harmonious synthesis with the
ethical and intellectual and aesthetic interests and concepts of the
living present. If the past cannot serve the needs of the present
it is dead and gone. For example, the validity of the Christian
view of life and the world can no longer be established in terms
either of Greek metaphysics or Mediaeval cosmology or Roman
law and feudal polity. The Christian view must come to terms
with the science, metaphysics, social psychology and ethics of
the present time; otherwise it will simply cease to interest in-
telligent persons.

In brief, the claim is admissible that men can have a direct
experience of the Divine in the sense of the Highest values, if
we recognize the immanence of the Supreme Spirit in the world
and, specifically, in human life. In this sense we may say that,
while the over-self must be superpersonal in that he must tran-

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 555

scend the limitations of human personality and oversocial in that
he must transcend the limitations of human society, social per-
sonality must have its ground in him. It is much less untrue to
say that he is a superpersonal community than to say that he is
merely the impersonal spiritual bond of human society. He must
transcend and include whatever is of worth in social personality.
It is not within the province of a treatise on general meta-
physics to consider in detail the problems of the philosophy of
religion. What I have written above I have done with the intent
to indicate: 1. The points of contact and relation between meta-
physics and religion and the logical position of the interpretation
of religion in terms of philosophy — what used to be called natural
theology. For the latter study, in the proper sense, is no longer
an attempt to prove the existence of God by arguments drawn from
the evidences of design in nature; as philosophy or metaphysics
of religion it is human theology — the enterprise of considering
the place and value of religion as an experience and attitude of
universal humanity. 2. I have insisted that the philosopher must
treat the facts and implications of religious experience with the
same respect that he accords to the facts and principles of the
physical and vital orders, if he is to construct an adequate world
view. Religious experience in the individual and religion as a
form of social culture are both interwoven with arts and morals,
economics and politics ; in short with the whole social order. The
philosophy of religion is not merely a part of, it is, in a sense, the
culmination of the philosophy of culture.

III. The Meaning of Faith

Faith, in its general sense, includes two psychical factors:
(1) The sentiment or affective-volitional attitude of trust or con-
fidence; (2) the ideational attitude which supplies the content,
the image or concept, of the object of faith. One cannot believe
without having some idea of that in which he believes.

Faith is the attitude of personal trust or confidence. "Faith is
akin to faithfulness and implies faithfulness in the object." 4
One is willing to act or to repose if one has faith; one is ready
to risk one's personal fortunes on the venture of faith. Loyalty,
obedience, trustfulness are different nuances of the faith-attitude.

4 Hoffding, Philosophy of Religion, p. 117.

556 MAN AND THE COSMOS

A faith is a strongly held belief — a belief on which one will stake
something valuable. Faith is always directed towards the future.
It is the strong presumption that conditions which now obtain
(although one does not fully see them) will issue in results favor-
able to values or interests in which one has a stake. Thus faith
is dynamic, forward looking. In a wholly static universe there
would be no occasion for faith. Faith is indeed the conscious
form of the vital impetus (L'elan vital).

Faith and hope are closely related. A strong hope or expecta-
tion is a faith. A weak faith means a vacillating hope; but the
chief distinction between faith and hope is that faith is a voli-
tional or active attitude of a person, whereas hope need not in-
volve any active volitional attitude. I may hope that a certain
thing will come to pass and yet doubt, whereas, if I have faith
my doubts are at or near the vanishing point and I am ready to
act. Of course, one may act without hope or as a "forlorn hope" ;
and so without faith.

Faith is a nearly constant condition of human action. Every
day we go about our business with faith in the institutions of our
country, in our friends and colleagues, in our families, in our
own powers, and in the order of nature. Faith in the possibilities
of human nature is the presumption upon which most workers
for the good of humankind proceed. We live forwards and we
must always proceed upon the assumption, at least, that things
can be made better. The complete loss of faith would paralyze
action. Even the most critical scientist, scholar or philosopher
works upon the assumption that there is a true or intelligible
order of things which can be discovered by patient effort ; the
artist has faith in the value of beauty ; the good man has faith in
the supreme power of integrity and justice. Without faith human
life suffers from creeping paralysis. Indeed, faith is essentially
a moral act, an expression of the essential will; it is the deep
of the believer's ethical character calling to the deep of a postu-
lated kindred character, the affirmation of the spiritual quality
of the self.

Faith is always personal or quasi-personal in reference. Even
faith in beauty, in abstract truth, or in the order of nature,
implies that these things further human values. Faith in God
is trust in the good will towards personal life of the highest
reality.

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 557

Faith is frequently set up as antithetical to knowledge or
sight. And it is true that where we have certain knowledge, as
that 2 + 2 = 4, we do not require faith. Faith, I have said, is
directed towards the future and implies that its objective will be
realized — that the present unknown conditions of its realization
are nevertheless effectively real. But faith is not blind, except
when the faithful is blinded by passion. A man may have faith
in a worthless woman or friend, because blinded by affection. But
a reasonable faith is based on a combination of probability and
interest. I have faith in my friend, because he has proved him-
self my friend; in the order of nature, because it has stood thus
far; faith in my country, because of its achievements and prom-
ises; faith in myself, because of my knowledge of my powers;
faith in all these things, because I need them in the business of
living. Thus, faith is an anticipation or forecast of fuller knowl-
edge, based on the union in various degrees of partial knowledge
and human need. Faith is compacted by productive imagination
out of experienced fact and its interpretation quickened by
interest.

I will conclude with a brief indication of the interrelation-
ships of personal valuation and religious faith. Faith in God is
the global or integral presupposition or postulate of the attain-
ability of true goods by the spirit. Faith is the expression of
man's growing and dynamic spirit. If the world were utterly
unintelligible or indifferent to man faith would be wholly an il-
lusion and science and practical cultural progress delusions.
Faith in God is simply the completion, the rounding out, of all
lesser or partial faiths. I may remark that the scientific attitude
implies a reverence for fact, for truth, that is in quality not dif-
ferent from religious reverence. Faith in God may be based on
several or all of the following grounds:

1. The well-nigh universal tendency in mankind to believe
in a supreme power or powers, "the determiner of destiny," as
Mr. J. B. Pratt puts it. In view of the illusory beliefs that have
been universally held this motive alone will not weigh heavily
with intelligent persons.

2. The continuous and widespread existence and influence of
religious institutions as factors in culture. This proves no more
than that organized religion and the beliefs on which it is based
have been important factors in every civilization thus far.

558 MAN AND THE COSMOS

3. The fact that those who conspicuously have had faith in
God seem to have received thereby unity, peace and strength of
mind and to have been enabled to live vigorously and happily.
This is the pragmatic argument from the fruits of belief. Against
it may be set forth the evil fruits of superstition and fanaticism
and the fact that some persons have lived vigorously and happily
without belief in a God.

4. The reasonable appeal of the teachings and personalities
of prophets and revealers. This ground is relative to the individ-
uality and culture of the recipient. Its real strength depends on
its harmony with the next two grounds.

5. The synoptic consideration of the order of nature and of
human life, when this leads to the conclusion that it is reasonable
to believe in a Supreme Cosmic Order that makes for goodness
(in the inclusive sense of all values).

6. Personal experience of the harmonizing and strength-giving
power of faith — immediate experience of the Divine. This is
sufficient for him who has it. I may add that only the fifth and

* sixth grounds seem to me really convincing to a thinking person.
Of course, if, on these latter grounds, one is convinced of the
reasonableness and value of faith in God, the other grounds rein-
force his faith. And they play into one another.

The problem of the place of values in reality is the taproot of
religion.5 "The feeling which is determined by the fate of values
in the struggle for existence is the religious feeling. It is de-
termined, then, by the relation of values to reality. This relation,
as it manifests itself to men, determines the value which they
assign to existence. Religious judgments, therefore, are second-
ary judgments of value; in comparison with the primary judg-
ments of value in which the first two groups of values find ex-
pression they are derivative.6 The two other groups are (1) the
values connected with self-assertion; and (2) the values connected
with the service of transindividual interests, such as the ethical,
aesthetic and intellectual life. Hoffding calls the religious feeling
cosmic vital feeling. I call it cosmopersonal feeling, since I hold
that it always involves the place of personality in the cosmos.

6 Cf. the very fine discussion of the psychology of religious experience and
faith in Hoffding 's Philosophy of Religion, especially Part iii, ' ' Psychological
Philosophy of Eeligion. "

•Hoffding, op. cit., p. 107.

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 559

Hoffding conceives the fundamental essence of religion to be faith
in the conservation of values; but, since all values have actual
being only in persons, the conservation of values means the con-
servation of personal spirit. How can values be conserved or
enhanced, if the actuality in which alone value lives be not con-
served or enhanced? / would say, then, that the feeling which
is determined by man's fundamental convictions as to the place
of personality in the cosmos is the religious feeling, and religious
faith is the act of trust of confidence that the universal order will
conserve and further the life of personal spirits. Anything less
than this is an emasculation of religion.

There is involved in the question of the progress and continu-
ance of rational spirit in individual form, in other words, of per-
sonality in the universe, the fate of all the cherished creations,
discoveries and evaluations of the human mind — of truth in sci-
ence, of beauty in the enjoyment of nature and art and of beauty,
harmony, integrity and justice in human life.

No thinking person can be indifferent to the religious problem,
since with it are tied up all other spiritual issues. Indeed, the
seeming indifference or even active hostility of many persons to
religion is due rather to the failure of conventional religion to
find a home and sustenance for the higher spiritual values. A
religious faith that does not find welcome for all beauty and that
is not open to the spirit of free science is the foe of human prog-
ress and sins against the spirit of religion. When the gods arrive
the half-gods must go. Genuine religion involves faith in the
existence and accessibility, through worship, of a value-reality that
transcends the facts of external nature and of purely immanent
human culture. The attitude of worship or devotion is the reli-
gious attitude in its fullness. Its object is the transcendent inter-
fusion of reality and value. Faith asserts the reality and su-
premacy of the Highest — the perfectly Holy — as the fulfillment
of what is aimed at in the highest spiritual value-attitudes of
personality.

What is the Holiest? That in which now and always the Spirits,
Ever more deeply feel, are ever more fully at one.

— Goethe.

God, the object of faith and worship, transcends and includes,
in his concrete livingness, the true, the beautiful and the good,

560 MAN AND THE COSMOS

which are partially glimpsed, served and enjoyed by personal
spirits. Eeligious faith is strong only where man has a strong
sense of the value of the personal spirit as supreme over imper-
sonal things and forces. No one can worship force or life without
personalizing them.

Faith is not a mere act of will. It is the supreme expression
of man's entire personality. It is implied in all vigorous willing.

There are, as Hoffding points out, with fine understanding,
certain broad types of faith, as well as minor individual nuances.
These broad types conform to the prevalent need of interest.
They correspond to temperamental differences in persons and also
to secular changes in the spiritual climates of human civilization.
The chief of these types seem to be:

1. Faith in an attainable perfect peace; satisfying the need
for deliverance from the "slings and arrows of outrageous for-
tune," of escape from the turmoil, the wretchedness and empti-
ness of the world — world-fleeing faith. "Come unto me all ye
that are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest." Ex-
tinction of desire, the abnegation of individuality in Christian,
Vedantic and Buddhistic mysticism and monasticism are good
examples of this type.

2. Faith in the opportunity for self-development or self-real-
ization, for the unfolding and exercise of one's powers. "I am
come that ye might have life and have it more abundantly." This
is the highest Greek ideal, as expressed partially in Plato and
more fully in Aristotle. It is the prevailing ideal in modern
ethics — in Shaftesbury, Joseph Butler, Goethe, Schleiermacher,
T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley. Hoffding puts "confident boldness"
as a distinct type and cites Luther's expression thereof — "God is
that whereat a man may provide himself with all good and find
a refuge in all need; to have a god therefore is nothing else but
to believe in him and to trust him from the heart." This is
scarcely a distinct type of faith, it is rather the expression of a
vigorous faith.

3. Faith as the satisfaction of the desire for aesthetic and
contemplative union with the universe. This is peculiarly the
type of faith which appeals to reflective and contemplative na-
tures— to philosophers, especially speculative mystics, and to
philosophical poets. It is found among speculative thinkers in
all cultures— in the Upanishads, in Plato, Plotinus, in the

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 561

Mediaeval mystics and scholastic philosophers, in J. Boehme, in
Spinoza, Novalis, Fichte, Hegel, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Emer-
son and Walt Whitman.

Taken by itself each of these types is one-sided. In the uni-
versal religion place must be found for them all; for all are
phases in the life of personality ; the attainment of inner harmony
and peace is a condition of self-realization, and union with the
universal order is a part of it. But the most inclusive conception
is the fulfillment of personality, for in this is included both action
and contemplation, both peace and striving, both self-denial and
self-assertion; for it is the realization of spiritual individuality
in the service and enjoyment by the unique self of the lasting
values of life. The universal religion is faith in the enduring
reality of personal spirit; the doctrine of the value-content of
personality belongs to ethics, the comprehensive theory of values.
Religion is faith in the cosmical status of personality. The norms
of religion are ethical; in plain words, the value of a religious
faith is tested by the adequacy of its ideal of personality.

In conclusion, if we seem to have reduced religion to a merely
human process, so that religion appears to be only the psychical
reaction of leading individuals, and of social groups who follow
their lead, to the tangled mass of human experiences, let it be
remembered that the only sort of objectivity that will stand the
test of philosophical criticism is the objectivity of a universal
reason, universal moral nature and a universal spiritual insight
and faith, working themselves out through the endless wealth of
human individualities and cultural groups. The devotees of
special sciences are apt to fall into the naively realistic attitude
that they are dealing with things in themselves and eliminating
human reactions. One principal use of philosophy is to remind
the man in the street and the scientific dogmatist that every
theory, every dogma, in science, social polity, and religion, is
anthropomorphic. Human thought and conduct have concern
only with a world of human experience. Philosophy delivers us
from our individual caves, from the idols of the market-place and
the forum, it delivers us from petty idiosyncrasies, from class and
group provincialism, by delivering us into deeper understanding
of and sympathy with the universally human.

562 MAN AND THE COSMOS

POSTSCRIPT

The doctrine of personality developed in the foregoing work im-
plies a social philosophy whose guiding principle is that personality
is developed through the active and free participation of the self in
the life of the objective spirit, which is embodied in social institutions
or culture systems — economic, civic, educational, scientific, aesthetic
and religious — directed towards the cultivation of personality. I
hope to present some applications of this doctrine in a volume of
essays on social philosophy.

In the meantime I venture to say that the fundamental problem
of West-European and American society to-day is the readjustment
of mechanistic industrialism and democracy to the native and inex-
pugnable craving of man for personality. In every department of
our social life the pressure of mechanism on personality increases.
Emerson would be appalled at the extent to which his words : "Things
are in the saddle and ride mankind" have become a literal statement
of the plight of our civilization. "Getting and spending we lay waste
our powers." The marvelous progress, during the past hundred
years, of mechanical science and industry, should have freed man's
spiritual energies for a much more extensive and intensive cultiva-
tion of fine living. One might have expected a widespread cultivation
of liberal imagination and spiritual feeling; flowering in a finer
and freer fellowship of noble minds quickened to a more lively ap-
preciation and enjoyment of nature, art, letters, science and philos-
ophy, in a life of urbane social intercourse.

Instead of all this machines have enthralled the western mind.
The two general obsessions seem to be the enjoyment of rapid motion
nowhither, and the possession of more means of material comfort.
Western man has developed machinery to do his bidding, but he
tends to become the slave of his own machines and of his own body
and its animal appetites, which are the only parts of him that mere
machinery will serve. Everything fine in our industrial democracy
is being endangered by mass impulses, mass appetites, mass imagery
and quantity production to feed the mediocre mass soul. The stand-
ards of education, thought, scholarship, taste, and character are low.
In fact it can scarcely be said that any standards obtain general rec-
ognition. There is little reverence for the past or for the finer things
in life; there is widespread lack of moral courage, of mental sanity
and rational self-control, of self-reliant spiritual character. We may
be going fast towards a thoroughly mechanistic barbarism, varied by
anarchical outbursts of primitive impulses.

It is common to lay our present troubles to the Great War. The

METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION 563

War cured no social ill, except, perhaps, overweening militarism and
imperialism! On the other hand, the War was the outbreak of a
malignant growth that had been long developing within the body of
western civilization. It exaggerated the ills of prewar civilization —
material repletion with spiritual emptiness, neuroticism, perverted
eroticism, practical materialism, social conflict breeding an irrational
radicalism and an equally irrational reactionism, the vulgarization
of life.

The widespread irrationalism, the cult of crude impulse, the proc-
lamation of a raw and sensuous egotism, the bitter illusionism and
skepticism of our younger so-called "realists" in literature as to the
possibility of any worthy and satisfactory values in life, the loss
of any guiding ideals of conduct, and the decay of religion as a
form of social control, coupled with the widespread hunger for a
new religion — all these things are symptoms of the more or less
blind reaction and craving of the human soul in the face of the ad-
vancing tide of practical and theoretical materialism. There is that
in man which must and does revolt against his being treated as a
mobile self-feeding and self-propagating machine.

I am in hearty sympathy with every desire and effort of men for
finer, richer and more harmonious lives. I am in opposition to the
superstitions of materialistic industrialism and crude egalitarian
democracy. A finer civilization, a richer and happier life for man,
will not be brought to pass merely by increase of material production,
by industrialism alone; even though the distribution of the product
be more nearly equalized through mass control; indeed, if these su-
perstitions continue to grow our civilization will go to smash. The
"stand-pat" capitalist and the materialistic socialist or radical are
in the same boat, spiritually. Their standards of life are the same.
It is, between them, merely a question of whether the big animals
who have been ruling the herd shall have most of the provender, or
whether the little animals shall have what has hitherto been the lion's
share.

What the western world needs is that (without the recrudescence
of hereditary class-culture), the principle of spiritual aristocracy, or
the leadership of the finer values of reasonableness — self-discipline,
cultivated imagination and devotion to the things of the spirit — shall
be recognized as the standard and guide. Western society must, if
it is to be saved, gladly follow the leadership of those who are dedi-
cated to the service of the higher values. Only a fuller development
and application of the ethical and other spiritual insights of the creative
mind, to education and social administration, can bring healing
to the nations. We need, in addition to the application of the prin-

564 MAN AND THE COSMOS

ciples of a liberal and humane ethics, a simpler and more universal
religion of the spirit, a religion freed from the encumbering baggage
of discredited cosmologies and dualistic ethics.7 I have not referred
to the thought of India or China in this connection, because it is
not clear to me whether these forms of spiritual culture have any
important positive contributions to make to our spiritual life. But
India and China at least furnish great examples of how a rich life
may be lived without the material comforts and industrial madness
of the west.

Probably the present disillusionment at the failures of industrialism
and democracy is, in part, the effect of the collapse of the too high-
pitched hopes of the nineteeth century. Perhaps the relative amount
and power of creative and directive thought in Western civilization
is as great as, or even greater than, in any previous time. To over-
praise the past and to depreciate unduly the present is a fallacy to
which the middle-aged and the old are always prone.

Over against the diseases of Western industrialism can be set, as
grounds for optimism, the increasing interest in education, notably
in the liberal education of adults as well as of youth, the vigorous
activity in all lines of intellectual enquiry and the spread of the
scientific temper of mind; finally, the earnestness with which tradi-
tional forms of moral and legal custom, as well as the forms and
methods of traditional religion, are being challenged and subjected to
a penetrating scrutiny.

Western society stands on the threshold of a new epoch; it is the
more necessary to insist that only through a substanial increase in
the proportion of well-balanced individuals, combining stability of
character with well-furnished, open and searching intellects, can the
new epoch become a glorious one in the record of humanity. Social
machinery, however cunningly elaborated, is not only worthless; it
is a positive hindrance to the best life, unless it be subordinated to
the development of spiritual individuals. The paramount duty of
the present and the great hope for the future lies in the education
of the individual.

T I may refer to two articles of mine — ' ' Democracy and Intellectual Dis-
tinction" in School and Society, Vol. v (1917) pp. 421-430, and "The Functions
of the Faculty in the Administration of a University" in the same journal,
Vol. xii (1920), pp. 449-458, reprinted in the volume Educational Problems in
College and University published by the University of Michigan; also "Phil-
osophy and the Crisis in Civilization, ' ' in The Field of PMlosophy, 3rd edition.

INDEX

Absolute, the, 139, 478, 479, 527.

Absolutes, the pluralistic world of
tiny, 158.

Act, mental, 17ff., 310.

Activity, the knowledge of, 203-205.

Adams, G. P., 383.

Aesthetic feeling, 437, 438, 441, 442.

Aesthetic values, 400, 401-402, 403,
410, 430-433, 435-437; and cog-
nition, 439, 440, 441, 444; and
morality, 440, 441, 443, 444.

Aesthetic view of nature, 486, 487.

Aesthetics, 2, 9.

Ahrimanes, 526.

Ahura-mazda, 526.

Alcheringa myth, 220.

Alexander, S., 97; on categories, 134,
140, 152, 182, 223, 228, 229, 230,
235-237; theory of space and time,
235-237, 258, 263, 469.

Analysis, 6.

Ancient Christianity, 545.

Animatism or animism, 181.

Anaxagoras, 184ff.

Anschauung, die intellectuelle, 79.

Antigone of Sophocles, 417, 439.

Appearance and reality, 98-109;
Bradley's doctrine of, 100-103.

Aristotle, 1, 185, 265, 284, 407, 410,
418, 540, 560.

Aspects, percepts as, 245-247.

Atomism and atomists, 185, 186;
Humian, 76.

Atomism, logical, 151.

Attitude, mental, 18, 310.

Augustine, St., 305, 539, 549.

Automatisms, 336, 344, 345.
Avenarius, R., 14, 85, 192, 323.
Axiological order, 167; eternity or

permanence, 516.
Axiology, 1.

Baillie, J. B., 329.

Baldwin, J. M., 85.

Beauchamp, the case of Miss, 348-

351.
Beauty, 208; truth and goodness,

434^44, 445-447.
Behavior as basis of knowing, 85ff .
Behaviorism in psychology, 99, 295,

296; moderate behaviorism and

consciousness, 327-329.
Being, 30, 155, 184ff.; existent, 155,

subsistent, 155.
Belief , 26ff .
Benevolence, 415.
Bergson, H., 7, 44, 45, 72, 78ff., 82,

144, 147, 177, 186, 217, 242, 248,

258, 265, 274, 276, 282, 372, 373,

456, 461, 483.
Berkeley, 68, 69, 70, 154, 188, 196,

197, 227, 365.
Binet, A., 348.
Bode, B., 327, 328.
Body as dynamic system, 369, 370.
Boehme, J., 492, 561.
Bosanquet, B., 13, 20, 26, 29, 52, 53,

106, 154, 186, 207; quoted, 209,

210, 211; 329, 353, 382, 407, 418,

499.
Boscovich, 242.
Bradley, A. C, 438.

565

566

INDEX

Bradley, F. H., 3, 26, 29, 40, 52, 72,
73, 77, 100-103, 106, 124, 140,
154, 158, 182, 186, 196, 205, 207,
217, 224, 312, 314, 327, 329, 353,
407, 418, 433, 473, 560.

Brentano, F., 13, 26, 298.

Browning, R., 408, 492, 532

Bruno, G., 248, 378.

Buddha, 389. See also Gotama.

Buddhism, 389, 509, 518.

Buddhistic mysticism, 560.

Butler, Jos., 560.

Byron, quoted, 437.

Caird, E., 154.

Caird, J., 500.

Calkins, M. W., 154, 248ff., 294, 295.

Calvin, J., 549.

Cantor, G., 145.

Carlyle, T., 58.

Carr, H. W., 216, 225.

Cassirer, E., 187, 216.

Categorialness, 62.

Categories, the system of, 133-212.

Categories, what are? 38ff., 133-136;
Alexander on/134; Hegel on, 134ff . ;
Kant on, 134ff.

Catholic Christianity, 519.

Causal order, 33ff., 165.

Causality, 37ff.; and novelty, 198-
201; and purpose, 202, 203; and
the problem of singularism and
pluralism, 196-197; change and,
191-205.

Causation and power or agency, 193-
197; totality, 201-205; conti-
nuity, 199-201; mechanical and
final, 191ff.; uniformity, 197-199.

Causes, plurality of, 197.

Chandler, A. R., 19, 139.

Change, and causality, 191-205.

Chaos, 153, 282.

Characteristic, the, in expression,
438, 439.

Christ, 552, 553. See also Jesus.

Christian Church, 416.

Christian culture, 554.

Christian experience, 552; view of
life, 554.

Christian mysticism, 560.

Christian scientists, 532.

Christianity, 389, 526, 530, 554.

Christocentric, 552.

Clarke, Samuel, 216.

Clifford, W. K., 261.

Co-conscious, the, 336, 339.

Coherence theory of truth, 52-55,
64-67.

Comforter, the, 553.

Community, and personality, 207,
209; God or Overself as ground of ,
495-500.

Complexes and relations, 40.

Comprehensiveness, as criterion of
truth, 63.

Concepts, and percepts, 44-48; as
dynamic, 46ff.

Confucius, 389.

Consciousness, 315-333; and experi-
ence, 315; and its objects, 317-329;
and moderate behaviorism, 327-
329; and negativity 329-333;
as a neutral continuum, 319-320;
and neutral Monism, 324-327; and
" pure experience," 321-324; de-
scription of, 315; dialectic of, 329-
333; idealistic theory of, 329-333;
in general or pure, 14ff . ; relational
theory of, 317-319;

Conservation of energy, 257, 269-
271, 356, 357.

Consistency, 62. See also Coherence.

Continuity, 35, 36; and causation,
199-201; and discreteness, 145,
170ff.

Continuum, consciousness as a, 319,
320.

Cope, E. D., 265.

INDEX

567

Copernicus, 389.

Cosmos, 153, 161, 477, 494.

Courage, 415.

Couturat, L., 142, 481.

Creationism, as theory of the origin

of the soul, 378, 379, 380.
Creative advance, nature as, 223.
Creativeness, 198-201, 202, 203.
Creative process, 264-266.
Creative synthesis, 265, 381, 455.
Creighton, J. E., viii.
Cultural order and personality, 383-

393.
Culture and philosophy, 7, 21, 297,

312, 330-333, 382-393, 404, 405,

415-423, 503-507, 538-540, 553,

554; 562-564. •
Culture, present problems of western,

562-564.
Culture systems, 383-392.

Dante, 175.

Darwin, C, 389.

Darwinian theory, 71, 273.

Dedekind, R., 145, 483.

Descartes, 8, 82, 112, 185, 197, 308,
387.

Determinism. See Freedom.

Deutero-Isaiah, 532, 549.

Development, and novelty, 170ff.,
197-203.

Devil. See Satan and Ahrimanes.

Dewey, John, 59, 108, 293.

Dialectic, method, 7ff., 77, 100ff.;
as valid principle, 121, 125, 126; of
conscious life as a whole, 329-333;
See also Negation and Negativity.

Differential psychology, 294.

Dilthey, W., 294.

Discreteness, and continuity, 35,
36, 145; in development and evo-
lution, 170ff.

Dispositions, neuropsychical or psy-
chophysical, 308, 337. 338. 340.

Diversity, 33, 35.

Divine, the, 540, 551, 552, 554. See
also God, the Overself, the Cosmic
Ground of Values, the Supreme
Spirit, the Supreme Spiritual Com-
munity, Super-person, the Univer-
sal Order, the Trinity.

Divine Comedy of Dante, 443.

Double-aspect theory, 185. See also
Psychophysical parallelism.

Drake, D., 94.

Dreams, and the libido, 338.

Driesch, H., 43, 254, 255.

Dualism, epistemological, 72.

Dualism in mind-body relation, 355-
359.

Duality in knowledge, 55.

Duration and time, 230, 231.

Duties, 415.

Ego, 15ff., 290, 323. See also Indi-
vidual, Individuality, Mind, Per-
son, Personality, Self, Spirit and
Soul.

Ehrenfels, C. von, 395.

Einstein, A., 12, 216, 224, 225.

Electrons, 93, 169ff., 257, 267, 368,
369.

Emerson, R. W., 561.

Energeticists, theory of physical
reality, 241, 242.

Energy, 269ff.

Energy centers, 267, 273.

Enlightenment, the, 417.

Entities, 156, 159, 163, 188ff., neu-
tral, 324-327.

Epicureans, 419.

Epistemology, 1.

Erlebniss, 14ff.

Error, 110-115; and ignorance, 111,
112; and personality, 114, 115;
as denial of will to know the whole
truth, 112-114.

Essence and appearance, 184.

568

INDEX

Essences, universal, as objects of
knowledge, 94-97.

Essential being, 185.

Eternal " now," the, 515, 516.

Eternity. See Time-transcendence.

Ether, 169ff., 247, 369, 469, 474.

Ethical values, 400, 414-426; and
aesthetic values, 440, 441, 443,
444; and personality, 414, 415,
421-423, 424; and social life, 418-
421; evolution of, 416-420; ulti-
mate place in human life, 445-447.

Ethics, 2, 9, 414-426.

Eucken, R., 385, 408.

Euripides, 417.

European renaissance, 416, 417.

Event particles, 140, 218, 221, 229,
258, 470.

Evil, and Christian religion, 531, 534;
mystery of, 532-535; and im-
mortality, 533; and the idea of a
perfect being, 524-535; an inev-
itable factor in the making of per-
sonal spirits, 527-535; doctrine of
finite God — no solution of problem
of, 529, 530; dualistic theories of,
525-527; function of natural, 520,
521; hedonistic pessimism and the
problem of, 518-520; moral, 522-
524; natural, 517-521; not bare
negation, 528, 529; problem of,
517-535; social origin of moral,
522-524.

Evolution, and adaption, 275, 276;
and personality, 273-285; ortho-
genetic, 274, 275.

Evolution, life, and mind, 261-285.

Evolution, and novelty or discrete-
ness, 170ff.; and perfection, 501-
516.

Evolution, a process of soul-making,
282-285; and perfection, 501-516;
and teleology, 272-276, 283-285.
See also Organic Evolution.

Existence, 20; definition of, 30.

Existence, finite, 154.

Existence and value, 2ff., 12ff.

Existents, 39, 40, 43, 153ff.,
159.

Experience, 6ff.; and consciousness,
315; and phenomenology, 15ff.;
and reality, 81ff., 105ff.; as a con-
tinuum, 84ff .

Extensity and space, 227, 228.

Extrinsic relations, 152.

Ezekiel, 540.

Faith and knowledge, 557; grounds
of, 557, 558; kinds of, 560, 561;
meaning of, 555-561; religious,
557, 558, 559. ■

Faust, 438, 439.

Fechner, G. T., 248.

Feeling, aesthetic, 431-433; and the
self, 430; and the universe, 446,
447; and values, 427-433; as indi-
vidualing and valuing attitude;
427-430.

Fichte, J. G., 7, 72, 120, 154, 185,
242, 248, 291, 353, 382, 393, 407,
418, 492, 540, 561.

Freedom and the cosmic order, 456,
457.

Freedom and determinism, 449, 450,
451; and the future, 453, 456, 457;
and the past, 453, 454; as self-
determination, 448, 451-453; of
choice, 448; of indifference, 450;
moral, 448-457.

Frege, G., 143.

Freud, S., 337, 338, 339.

Friendship, 415.

Functional psychology, 293, 294.

Galileo, 389.

Gegenstandstheorie, 39-43 ; Gegenstand

or " object," 39ff., 17, 39, 40.
Geiger, M., 13, 216.

INDEX

569

God, 185, 266, 299, 298, 399, 400, 401,

402, 403, 464, 484, 496, 500, 525-

535, 544, 552, 553, 558.
Goethe, 175, 280, 305, 390, 410, 558

(quoted), 560.
Good, the highest, 423.
Goodness, 208; beauty and truth,

434-444, 445-447. See also Ethical

Values and Values.
Goods, ethical, 415ff., 451.
Gotama, 493, 518. See also Buddha.
Granular or corpuscular theory of

matter, 169ff.
Greek ideal of life, 560.
Greek, metaphysics, 554 ; tragedy, 439.
Green, T. H., 154, 353, 418, 560.
Grimm, H., 391.
Groos, K., 431, 437.
Ground, principle of, 37ff.

Haeckel, E., 390.
Haldane, J. S., 252.
Hallucinations. See Illusions.
Hamilton, Sir Wm., 28.
Hamlet, 322, 363, 439.
Happiness, 519.
Hartmann, E. von, 443, 518.
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion

and Ethics, 256, 500.
Head, Dr. H., 461.
Hebrew prophets, 387, 388, 416, 540,

545; social life, 545.
Hedonism, 519.
Hegel, G. W. F., 7, 14, 82, 120; on

categories, 134ff., 140, 154, 182,

185, 197, 207, 278, 330, 382, 407,

418, 485, 492, 503, 528, 553, 561.
Hellenistic-Roman culture, 545.
Herbart, 325.
Hicks, G. Dawes, 43, 324.
Highest, the, 549, 550, 551, 552. See

also Divine, God, etc.
Historical continuity, 171-173, 176-

178.

Historical culture and the living
present, 387, 388; and great per-
sonalities, 388, 389, 390, 391; and
the metahistoric realm, 392; and
the ordinary individual, 391,
392.

History, 170ff.; and individuality,
176ff.; and novelty, 172ff.

Hobson, J. A., 397.

Hoffding, H., 555, 560.

Holt, E. B., 324, 325, 326, 327.

Holt, H., 343.

Howison, G. H., 186, 197.

Hume, David, 28, 69, 73ff., 76, 82,
112, 186, 300, 302, 309, 310, 389,
390.

Husserl, Ed., phenomenology, 13-21,
297.

Huxley, T. H., 73, 390, 524, 525.

Hyslop, J. H., 343.

Idealism, objective, and theory of
consciousness, 329-333.

Idealism, subjective, or Berkeleyan,
239.

Idealists, absolute, 532.

Idealists, objective, 29; theory of
consciousness in, 329-333.

Ideas as plans of action, 108.

Identity, and diversity, 33, 35; 137-
141; generic and existential,
139ff.

Identity-theory, 458. See also Mon-
ism, Agnostic, and Neutral.

Ignorance not same as error, 111,112.

Illusions and hallucinations, 106.

Immanence and transcendence, of
God or Overself , 495-500.

Immanence of spirit in nature, 486,
487.

Immanent inspection, 15ff.

Immediacy, and history, 553-555;
in knowledge, 51, 52, 124; in re-
ligious knowledge, 550-553.

570

INDEX

Immortality, 458-464; a postulate
based on values of personality, 459,
463, 464; and psychical research,
460-463; difficulty in admitting
continuity of memory orkconscious-
ness of identity, 460, 461, 463;
parallelism and, 459; possible, 459.

Individual, definition of, 206; 289,
290; rational, as criterion of value,
207.

Individual, and universal, 48, 169-
180; science and the, 177-179; the
true, I74ff.

Individualism, ethical, 417ff.

Individuality as criterion of reality
and value, 101-103, 106-108; and
freedom, 454; and order, 145, 209;
and reality, 212; and science, 173,
251; and values, 434-447; con-
cept of, in objective idealism, 290,
329-333; value and purpose, 206-
212.

Individuation, 180, 278-283. See also
Personality and Self.

Individuum, individua, 151, 157,
189ff., 194ff.; relations between the
three kinds of, 243; three kinds of,
242.

Infinite, the meanings of the, 480-
485.

Inheritance of acquired characteris-
tics, 273, 379.

Instrumentalism. See Pragmatism.

Intensive magnitude, 138.

Interrelationships of values, 434-447.

Introspection, difficulties of, 302-
305.

Intuition, 1 ; aesthetic experience as,
433, 444.

Intuitionism as theory of truth, 51,
52; intuitive acts, 80. See also
Immediacy.

Intuitive insight of the over-self,
494, 495.

James, Wm., 14, 44, 48, 56, 58, 62,
69, 72, 84, 147, 151, 170, 182, 186,
205, 248, 293, 301, 304, 305, 321,
322, 323, 349, 481, 482.

Janet, Pierre, 348.

Jennings, H. S., 254, 262, 263.

Jeremiah, 540.

Jesus, 89, 387, 388, 389, 410, 419, 464,
493, 539, 540, 542, 552, 553. See
Christ.

Joachim, H. H., on truth, 52, 53.

Judaism, 526, 550.

Judgment, 25ff., 29ff., 49, 55.

Jung, C. G., 338.

Justice, 415.

Kant, I., 76, 82, 84, 119ff.; "on cate-
gories, 134ff.; 176, 189; on space
and time, 217, 224; 353, 387, 389,
390, 393, 414, 418, 449, 450.

Keats, J., 434

Kelvin, Lord, 148.

Kinds, 137ff.

Kipling, R., 328.

Knowledge and reality, 68-94; Ex-
perience and reality, 81-94; final
ground of, 116-129; presupposi-
tions of validity of, 90; problem
of, 9, 25ff.; theory of, Book I.

Kuelpe, O., 13, 97, 297.

Kidturgeschichte, 405.

Laird, John, 97.

Lamarck, 265.

Lee, V., and Thomson, J. Anstruther,

437.
Leibniz, G. W., 154, 185, 196, 197,

216, 242, 248, 265, 281, 285, 372,

378, 473, 531.
Leighton, J. A., 30, 60, 116, 295, 299,

383, 395, 481, 501, 564.
Lessing, G. E., 542.
Libido, the, 338.
Liebmann, O., 506.
Life, evolution and mind, 261-285.

INDEX

571

Life and matter, 276-285.

Life and mechanism, 253-260.

Life, properties of, 253, 254, 255, 256,
258, 259, 278, 283, 284; super-
mechanical, 258-260.

Likeness and unlikeness, 33, 35, 137—
141; degrees and kinds of, 137.
See also Identity and Diversity.

Lipps, Th., 13, 118, 297, 428.

Locke, J., 82, 92, 185, 186, 188.

Lodge, 0., 343, 369.

Logic, 2, 296, 297.

Lossky, N., 51.

Lotze, R. H., 20, 179, 182, 185, 229,
248, 381, 472, 473.

Love, 415, 436, 445,446,447,530,534.

Lovejoy, A. O., 94.

Luther, M., 389.

Macbeth, 439.

Mach, Ernst, 73, 192, 323.

Machine, definition of, 256-258.

Magnitude, intensive and extensive,
33ff.

Mair, Alex., 29.

Mass particles, 257.

Materialism, 185, 186.

Material substance, 187, 188.

Mathematics, 128, 142, 144, 145.

Matter, energy and will, 377, 378.

Matter, organization and individual-
ity, 250, 251, 277ff.

Matter and personality, 251.

Maxwell, J. Clerk, 269.

McDougall, W., 345, 350.

McGilvary, E. B., 322.

McKenzie, J. S., 329, 418, 481.

McTaggart, J. M. E., 186, 196, 248,
378, 484, 485.

Meaning, 17ff., 26, 29.

Meaning-content, 40.

Measurement, 33ff.

Mechanism and life, 253-260, 266-
269, 272-276.

Mechanistic doctrine of evolution
stated, 260, 261; criticized, 267-
271.

Mechanistic theory of life, 255, 266-
271.

Mediaeval cosmology, 554.

Mediaeval mystics, 561.

Mediation, in knowledge, 51, 52, 88,
550-552. See also Immediacy.

Meinong, A. von, 14, 26, 27, 28, 39-
43, 189, 395.

Meister, Eckhart, 492.

Mendelian theory, 280.

Mentalism, 69.

Mental, order, 166.

Metaphysics and phenomenology,
13-21; metaphysics and religion,
536-561; differences in methods,
537-541; methods and aims com-
pared, 536-549; similarity in aims,
536, 537.

Metaphysics and theology, 541-544,
547-549.

Metaphysics and metasociology,
292.

Metempsychosis, 378, 379.

Michelangelo, 389.

Michelson-Morley experiment, 224.

Mill, J. S., 73, 518, 525.

Milton, John, 175.

Mind and body, 355-381; dualistic
theory of, 355-359; psychoneural
parallelism, 359-362; psychophys-
ical individualism, 366-377; psy-
chophysical parallelism, 359-366;
psychophysiological parallelism,
362.

Mind as directive, 357-359.

Mind energy, 79.

Mind, life, evolution and, 261-285;
its place in evolution, 261-265, 278-
283.

Mind and physical substance, 367-
369.

572

INDEX

Minkowski, 216.

Minot, C. S., 265.

Mitchell, Weir, 348.

Mohammed, 389, 539.

Mohammedanism, 550.

Monad. See Individuum.

Monism, agnostic, 365, 366.

Monism, epistemological, 68-70;
mind-body theories of, or qualita-
tive, 185, 190. See also Material-
ism, Spiritualism and Identity-
theory.

Monism, neutral, 324-327.

Montague, W. P., 324.

Moore, G. E., 97.

Moral evil. See Evil.

Moral freedom. See Freedom.

Moses, 539.

Multiple personality, 348-354.

Multiverse, 156.

Munsterberg, H., 411.

Mysticism, Buddhistic, Christian,
492, 540, 560; ethical, 540; of
Upanishads, 560; sufi, 540; ve-
dantic, 560.

Mysticism in philosophy and poetry,
540, 560, 561.

Mysticism, religious, 491, 492, 540,
545, 546.

Mystics, mediaeval, 561.

Natorp, P., 142, 234ff.

Natural, evil. See Evil.

Natural selection, 273.

Nature, 243, 244, 247, 472, 474, 486,
487; and spirit, 486, 487; mechan-
ical conception of, 257.

Negation. See Negativity.

Negativity, 124; and perfection,
502, 503; consciousness and per-
sonality, 329-333.

Neo-Kantianism, 41.

Neo-platonic philosophy, 545.

Neo-realism, llff., 41, 97, 155ff., 187,
189,324-327. See Neutral; Monism.

Neo-realists, 14, 28, 188.

Neuropsychical disposition, 340.

Neutral monism, theory of conscious-
ness in, 324-327. See also Pure
experience.

New Testament writers, 533, 553.

Newton, Sir I., 216.

Nietzsche, Fr., 418.

Nirvana, 82, 549.

Noetic order, the ultimate, 475, 476.

Non-being, 30.

Nordmann, Chas., 226.

Not-self, in knowledge, 116.

Novalis, 561.

Novelty and causation, 198-201;
in history, 172ff .

" Now," eternal, 515, 516; the, 505-
516; the time-spanning, 514, 515.

Number, 138, 142-147; and order,
138, 139; 145, 146; and space,
147fT.; and time, 146; as one-in-
many, or discrete and continuous,
143-145; definition of, 143.

Numerical, order, 164, 165.

Nunc stans, 516.

" Object " as Gegenstand, 17ff.

Objectives, 40.

Objects of perception, 91-94; of
thought, 14, 40ff.

Oesterreich, K., 305.

Ontology, 1.

Optimism and pessimism, the prob-
lem of evil, 517-535.

Order, 38ff., 162-168; and number,
138 139, 145, 146; concept as
principal of, 45ff.; numerical, 164
165; causal, 165, 166; teleological
166; organic and mental, 166
axiological, 167; social, 167, 168
qualitative, 163; spatial, 163
temporal, 163, 164.

INDEX

573

Order, doctrine ot(0rdnungskhre),43.

Order of the universe, 235. See also
Universal Order.

Organic evolution, factors of, 261-
266; and individuation, 261-263;
and mind, 263-266; and novelty,
265, 266; and sentiency, 265;
mechanistic doctrine of, 260-271.
See also Evolution.

Origen, 549.

Orphics, 378.

Ostwald, W., 242.

Ought, transcendental, 41.

Overself and personality, 479, 480;
and the individual, 493-495; 473-
479; as conserver of values of self-
hood, 493 ; as immanent and trans-
cendent, 495-500; as ground of
the perfect community, 493, 494;
495-500; finite selves and, 486-
500.

Pan-objectivism, 105.

Panpsychism, 248-252; arguments
against, 249-251, 362, 363; argu-
ments for, 248, 249.

Pantheism, 185, 481.

Parmenides, 100, 473.

Particular, individual and universal,
169-180.

Pater, W., 149.

Paulsen, Fr., 248.

Pearson, Karl, 73, 74, 192.

Perception, 90ff .

Percepts, and concepts, 44-48.

Perfection, and evolution, 501-516;
and progress, 503-510; and the
reality of the temporal, 502, 503;
the problem, 501, 502.

Perfection and teleology, 208, 501-
516.

Perry, R. B., 94, 97, 189, 324, 325.

Persian religion, 526.

Person, definition of, 290.

Person, and science, 179ff .

Personal idealism, 186.

Personalistic or pluralistic idealism
or spiritualism, 186, 190.

Personalities, alternating, 348, 349-
352; successive, 348, 349.

Personality and body, 367.

Personality and the evolutionary
process, 261, 273ff.

Personality, and truth, 108, 109;
as criterion of value, 207, 208, 209,
211, 212; multiple, 348-354. See
also Individuality, Self, Soul and
Spirit.

Personality, and civilization, 385ff.;
and psychology, 292-297; and
the cultural order, 382-393; as
microcosm, 289; mechanism and
western civilization, 562-564; prob-
lem of, 289-298.

Personality and values, 395-413.

Perspectives, 233, 245, 469.

Pfander, A., 13, 14, 297.

Phenomenalism, 14, 72, 81 ; in Berg-
son, 78-81; in Bradley, 77; in
Hume, 73ff.; in Kant, 76, 77; in
Karl Pearson, 74, 75.

Physical and the psychical, rise of
distinction between, 89.

Physical reality, 238-252; and per-
ception, 245, 246; and sensory
data, 239; and the aesthetic qual-
ities, 243-244; and the distinc-
tion between primary and second-
ary qualities, 241 ; and the micro-
scopic mechanisms of physics,
240, 241; and the physicists world
of atoms and electrons, 246, 247;
and the sensory system, 244, 245;
is a social reality, 239; consists of
individua in relations, 240-243.

Plato, 89, 106, 140, 155, 185, 378,
382, 389, 410, 418, 435, 493, 525,
539, 540, 560.

574

INDEX

Plotinus, 72, 500, 560.

Pluralism, 154ff., 170, 185, 190, 485,

490.
Pluralistic concepts of substance,

184-186.
Poincare, H., 142, 234, 481.
Point-instants, 138, 140, 218, 258.
Pope, A., 532.
Possible, the realm of the, 11,

43.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc, fallacy of,

165.
Pragmatism or instrumentalism, 55-

63.
Pratt, J. B., 94, 557.
Pre-conscious, the, 338.
Pre-existence theory of the soul, 378,

379, 380, 381.
Present, past and future, 506-516.
Primary qualities, 187, 188; and

secondary qualities, 241, 268.
Prince, M., 335, 340, 350, 351.
Principle of sufficient reason, 191.
Pringle-Pattison, A. Seth, 197.
Problem of personality, 289-298.
Progress and perfection, 504-510.
Psychological analysis, limitations

of, 302, 303.
Psychophysical dispositions, 308, 337,

338.
Psychophysical individualism, 366-

377.
Psychophysical parallelism, 359-366;

and materialism, 362, 363-365;

and spiritualism or Berkeleyan

idealism, 365.
Psychologism, 14, 27, 297.
Psychology, and philosophy, 298.
Psychology, 2, 9; and culture, 291,

292, 297, 298; and problem of per-
sonality or selfhood, 292-298;

logic and ethics, 296, 297; place

of, in system of the sciences, 298;

various types of, 293-296.

Pure experience, and consciousness,

321-324.
Purpose, and reality, 105. See also

Individuality, Teleology and

Value.
Purposive Order, 33ff., 209ff., 511ft.
Pythagoras, 378.

Quality, 137-138; and quantity,
142-150; qualities, the thing and
its, 181-184; qualitative order,
163. See also Primary, Second-
ary and Tertiary Qualities.

Quantity, and quality, 142-150; as
relation, 146-149, 150.

Raphael, 389.

Rashdall, H., 197.

Realism, critical, 94-97.

Realism, naive, 69, 71, 72; social,
70, 84; " transfigured," 73.

Reality, 20, 29, 30ff., 43; and knowl-
edge, 68-97; and appearance, 98-
109; and experience, 6ff., 81ff.,
105ff.; distinction between phys-
ical and mental, 238, 239; logical
and existential, 247; as prospec-
tive, 272ff. See also Perfection
and Evolution.

Reinach, A., 13.

Relations and Relationships, 31, 32,
37ff., 39, 41, 43, 63, 77, 103ff.,
121f.m., 138ff., 146ff.; 151-161;
and universals, 151; as dynamic,
152; the singularistic theory of,
153, 154; the pluralistic theory of,
154, 155; as transitive, 151; imme-
diate and mediate, 156, 157; not
external to their terms, 156-161,
summary of theory of, 159-161.

Relativity of space and time, 224-
228.

Relevant and irrelevant relations, 1,
37, 152, 159.

INDEX

575

Religion, and history, 541-543, 544,
545; as group-reaction, 538-540;
as mystical or metahistorical in-
sight, 540, 545, 546; as total reac-
tion of individual, 537, 538; de-
velopment of, 540, 541; philoso-
phy of, 2, 9, 543, 544.

Religion, metaphysics and, 536-561.

Religious faith, 555-561; grounds
of, 557, 558; kinds of, 560, 561.

Religious values, 401, 402, 403, 410,
425, 426.

Renouvier, C. B., 186.

Retrospection, and introspection,
304.

Rickert, H., 178, 383, 408, 411.

Rights, 415.

Ritter, W. E., 278.

Rogers, A. K., 94.

Royce, Josiah, 29, 106, 108, 182,
186, 195, 248, 329, 353, 382, 407,
481, 483, 506, 516, 522, 523.

Ruge, A., 37.

Ruskin, J., 435.

Russell, Bertrand, llff., 43, 59, 60,
75, 142, 143, 144, 145, 189, 216,
218, 239, 247, 324, 325, 481, 482.

Russell and Whitehead, 481.

Rutherford, E., 369.

Saint John, 492, 540, 542, 545,

549.
Saint John of the Cross, 492.
Saint Paul, 389, 410, 492, 540, 545,

549.
Salisbury, Lord, 169.
Santayana, G., 94.
Satan, 523, 526.
Satisfaction, as criterion of truth,

58-61.
Scheler, M., 13, 14, 297, 383.
Schelling, F. W. J., 72.
Schiller, Frederick, 281, 435, 438,

443.

Schiller, F. C. S., 26, 186.
Schleiermacher, F. E. D., 549, 560.
Schlick, M., 224.
Schopenhauer, A., 248, 518, 519.
Secondary qualities, 188; and primary

qualities, 241.
Self-realization of mind, in knowl-
edge, moral endeavor, aesthetic
vision, and religion, 125.

Self, and atomistic psychology, 309,
310; and the physical organism,
311; as cause, 308, 309; as living
in attitudes and appreciations,
310; Mr. Bradley on the, 312-314.
Self, as ultimate unity, 153. See
also Individual, Individuality,
Mind; Person, Personality, Soul
and Spirit.

Self, subliminal, 339-344, 345-347.

Self, definition of, 291; the soul and
spirit, in knowledge, 84ff., 99ff.

Self, and psychophysical dispositions,
307, 308; and time, 220-221, 230,
231; as knower and as known,
303, 305-308; continuity of, in
memory, 306, 307; denial of
reality of, 300-303; immediately
known, 303-305; problem of, 299;
the nature of, 299-314.

Selfhood, three phases of, 352-354.

Self-psychology, 294.

Selves, community of, 69, 70, 99, 120,
126, 382ff., 415ff., 489-491; finite
as real, 489-491.

Selves, finite and the Overself, 486-
500.

Sense data, 136, 239ff .

Sense qualities, 239ff .

Sensory appearances, the primary
physical realities, 240, 244, 245.

Sentiments and values, 428-430.

Series, concept as law of, 45ff.

Sexual selection, 273.

Shaftesbury, 560.

576

INDEX

Shakespeare, 175, 374, 363, 389, 434,
493.

Shelley, P. B., 434, 492.

Sherrington, C. S., 282, 361.

Shotwell, James T., 220.

Sidis and Goodheart, 349.

Simpson, J. G., 254.

Singularism, 153ff., 170, 185, 190,
472, 473, 478, 479, 485, 488, 490.

Singularistic concepts of substance,
184-186.

Skepticism, 122, 123.

Social mind, as test of truth, 117, 118.

Social order, and objective order, 70,
167, 168.

Social philosophy, 2.

Social psychology, 383, 384.

Society, and reality, 86ff . ; and space
and time, 220, 221, 222; of free
persons the goalof evolution, 262ff .,
490. See also Community.

Socrates, 389, 390, 493, 539.

Soddy, F., 369.

Sophistical age in Greece, 417.

Sophocles, 417.

Sorley, W. R., 197, 408, 411.

Soul, origin of idea of, 89, 90, 378,
381; creationist theory of, 379-
381; pre-existence theory of, 378,
379; traducianist theory of, 379.

Soul, or spirit, as principle of creative
synthesis, 381.

Soul-substance, 187.

Space, a complex of relations, 228;
and existence, 230, 233; and num-
ber, 147ff.; and perception, 75;
discontinuity of empirical, 219;
the " body " of time, 229, 235.

Space and time, 215-237; and math-
ematical theory of continuity, 217,
218; antinomies of, 217; as con-
ceptual relations, 219-223; as
concretions of the categories, 215,
216 •. as correlative aspects of na-

ture, 223-227; as empirical attri-
butes of sensory data, 218, 219;
as perspectives of the one cosmic
order, 235, 237 ; as physical or ob-
jectively real, 223-235; as real
relations, 226, 227; solution of
antinomies of, 232, 233; the rela-
tion of matter to, 229, 232; whether
absolute or relative, 216.

Space, time and deity, 236.

Space, time and invariance, 234, 235.

Space, time and the cosmic order,
229, 235.

Space, time, life, and mind, 236.

Spaulding, E. G., 43, 155, 186.

Spencer, Herbert, 73, 261, 274.

Spinoza, 37, 185, 196, 359, 473, 484,
492, 502, 540, 561.

Spirit as person, 290, 291.

Spirit, as dynamic, organizing prin-
ciple of body, 369, 370; or soul,
as principle of creative synthesis,
280, 381.

Spiritism, 343, 460-463.

Spiritual order, 167; 476-480; 486-
500, 503, 513-516, 525-535.

Spiritualism, spiritualist, 153ff., 185.
See also Idealism and Idealists.

Stern, L. W., 186, 248.

Stout, G. F., 26, 340.

Sturt, H. C. 186.

Strong, C. A., 94, 248, 361.

Structural psychology, 292, 293.

Subconscious, the, 334-337; and
ideas, 339; as the unconscious,
337; automatisms and suggesti-
bility as, 336; dreams and the, 337,
338; meaning of, 334; memories as,
337; summary view of, 347; three
types of, 334, 335.

Subjectivism, 27ff.

Subliminal Self, 339-344, 345-347.

Subsistence, and subsistents, 39ff.

Subsistents, 39, 42.

INDEX

577

Sub specie, aeternitatis, 37.
Substance, 36; criticism of category

of, 186-188; definition of, 184;

problem of, 180-190; singularistic

and pluralistic concepts of, 184-

186; value of, 189, 190.
Substantial, the, 190.
Sufi-mysticism, 540.
Suggestibility, 333ff.
Supposals (Annahmen), 39ff.
Supreme self or mind, 127-129; and

evolution, 128, 129.
Supreme spirit or spiritual com-

munitv, 477, 479, 493, 494, 496,

497, 498, 501, 502, 503, 504, 505,

516, 525, 531, 534, 554.
Synthesis, 6.
System or coherent wholeness in

knowledge, 84ff., 120, 121, 127-

129.

Taylor, A. E., on appearance and
reality, 101, 102, 154, 182, 532.

Teleological activity, 413.

Teleological order, 166.

Teleology, 198, 202, 203, 208-212
252, 255, 256, 272-276, 278-285,
367. See also Individuality, Pur-
pose and Value.

Telepathy, 343, 344.

Temperance, 415.

Temporal order, 33ff., 163, 164, 230,
231, 232; and the trans-temporal,
233-235, 505-516; purpose and
values and the, 511-513.

Tennyson, A., 380 (quoted), 492, 535
(quoted), 561.

Tertiary qualities, 409.

Theism, 185, 479, 480. -See also
God, Universal Mind, Universal
Order, Overself, Supreme Spirit,
Trinity.

Theology, 1, and metaphysics, 541-
544, 547-549.

Thing, as substance, 181, 184; and
its qualities, problem of, 182-184.

Things, 33ff.

Things, 157, 240ff.

Thinking, what is?, problems of,
25f.; nature of, 31ff.

Thomson, J. Arthur, 254, 255-256,
262, 263.

Thomson, J. J., 369.

Thought and experience, 82ff.

Time, the " soul " of space, 235, 239;
and the Cosmic Self, 231; a social
concept of, 220, 221; the form of
succession or duration, 230.

Time and space, 215-237.

Timelessness, logical, 515.

Time-transcendence, 511-516.

Titchener, E. B., 13, 292, 360.

Tolstoi, L., 435.

Totality, 36.

Totum simul, 516.

Traducianism, 378, 379.

Transcendence. See Immanence.

Transcendental mind as ground of
truth, 119-129; as conscious, 123.

Trans-spatial, mind as, 230, 371.

Trans-temporal, mind as, 371. See
also Time- transcendence.

Trinity, the doctrine of the, 473,
495-500.

Truth, beauty and goodness, 434,
447.

Truth, and error, 110-115; and
reality, 116-129, 208; coherence
theory of, 52-55; definition of, 63-
67; intuitional theory of, 51, 52;
pragmatic or instrumentalists the-
ory of, 55-63; problem of, 27ff.;
criteria of, 49-67; copy theory of,
49-51.

Truthfulness, 415.

Unconscious, the, 337, 341, 342, 344,
345; dispositions, 337, 338.

578

INDEX

Underhill, Eveiyn, 305.

Uniformity, 36.

Units, 34.

Universal mind, the, 128, See also
God, Overself, Universal Order.

Universal order, the, 235, 467-485;
and absolute idealism, 478; and
goodness, 476-478; as cosmic
ground of values, 476-480; as in-
variant order, 469-475; as spatial
and temporal, 467-475; interaction
of physical elements in, 467-469,
472-475; passage of nature and,
468, 469-471; ultimate noetic
order, 475, 476.

Universals, 31ff, 35ff., 41; and rela-
tions, 151, 155ff.; the particular
and the individual, 169-180.

Unlikeness, 33, 35.

Upanishads, 378, 560.

Urban, W. M., 395.

Value, and purposiveness, 209ff.;
and values, 3ff., 9, 10ff., 41, 42,
364, 365.

Values, and feeling, 395; and per-
sonality, 395-413; and the self,
395, 396; immediate and mediate,
396-398.

Values, absolute or over-individual,
405-407; aesthetic, 400, 401, 402,
403, 410; and history, 405; and
persons, 404, 405, 411, 413, 414,
415, 421, 423, 424, 425, 426; and
the cosmic order, 412, 413, 476-
480, 511-513; classification of,
398; economic, 397, 398; emo-

tional, 400-402; ethical, 400, 414-
426; feeling of and judgment of,
396; metaphysics of, 411-413; ob-
jectivity of, 408-410; practical,
399, 400; relations between main
types of, 402, 403, 434-447; rela-
tivity of, 410, 411; religious, 401,
402, 403, 410, 425, 426; truth,
398, 399.

Vedanta philosophy, 100, 560.

Virtues, 415.

Wagner, Richard, 438.

Walter, H., 280.

Ward, James, 85, 185, 197, 205, 248,

265, 271, 294, 320, 340, 473,

516.
Warren, H. C, 296.
Watson, J. B., 295.
Webb, C. C. J., 291, 500, 549.
Wells, H. G., 525.
Whitehead, A. N, 142, 219, 223, 232,

258, 468, 470, 471.
Whitman, Walt, 561.
Whole and part relation, 139.
" Will to believe," 28.
Windelband, W., 41, 408, 411.
Woodbridge, F. J. E., 318.
Woodworth, R. S., 296.
Wordsworth, Wm, 378, 492.
Wundt, W., 265, 283.

Young, J. W , 143.

Zeno, the eleatic, 217, 224.
Znaniecki, Fl., 383.
Zooism, 181.

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