Full text of "Mind"
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
ABERDEEN :
A. KINU AM) CO., TYPE MUSIC, CLASSICAL, AND GENERAL PRINTERS,
CLARK'S COURT, 2, UPPERKIRKGATE.
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
EDITED BY
GEORGE GROOM ROBERTSON,
FROFESSOR IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
VOL. II.-i877.
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON
AND 20 SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH,
1877.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
ARTICLES.
PAGE
BAIN, A. Education as a Science . . . . 1, 294
Life of James Mill (concluded) . . . .519
BARRATT, A. The * Suppression ' of Egoism . . . .167
Ethics and Politics 453
DARWIN, C. Biographical Sketch of an Infant . . . 285
DAVIES, W. G. The Veracity of Consciousness ... 64
EDITOR English Thought in the 18th Century . . . 352
HENDERSON, J. S. Lord Amberley's Metaphysics ... 55
JEVOXS, W. S. ' Cram ' 193
LAND, J. P. X. Kant's Space and Modern Mathematics . . 38
LEWES, G. H. Consciousness and Unconsciousness . . .156
LINDSAY, T. M. Recent Hegelian Contributions to English
Philosophy 476
MACVICAR, J. G. The so-called Antinomy of Reason . .186
MURPHY, J. J. Fundamental Logic 47
D, C. On some Principles of Logic 336
RIBOT. T. Philosophy in France . . . . . .366
S IDG WICK, H. Hedonism and Ultimate Good . . . .27
THOMPSON, I). G. Knowledge and Belief .... 309
TRAVIS, H. An Introspective Investigation .... 22
TYLOR, E. B. Mr. Spencer's Principles of Sociology . . 141
VEITCH, J. Philosophy in the Scottish Universities . 74, 207
VERDON, R, Forgetfulness 437
WUNDT, W. Philosophy in Germany ... . 493
CRITICAL NOTICES.
ADAMSON, R. Fleming's Vocab ulary of Plt!k>j>lii/ . . 98
Simcox's Natural Laic 552
BAIN, A. Sully's Pessimism 558
EDITOR. Ferrier's Functions of lite Bruin .... 92
v i Contents.
PAGE
EDITOR. Maudsley's Physiology of Mind
Shute's Discourse on Truth
SIDGWICK, H. J. Grote's Moral Ideals .
SIMON, D. W. Frohschammer's Phantasie ah Grundprincip
des Wdtprocesses ....
SULLY, J. Fechner's Vorschule der Msthetik .
Janet's Causes Finales
Allen's Physiological ^Esthetics . . . .387
REPORTS.
Beard. Trance 568
Galton. Study of Types of Character . . . . . 573
Goltz. Tlie Functions of the Cerebrum .... 108,247
Hollis. Localisation of Function in the Cerebral Cortex . . 250
Langlois. Sleep 571
Lubbock. The Habits of Ants 251
Romanes. Evolution of Nerves and Nervo-systems . . .565
Sully. Tlie Laws of Dream-Fancy Ill
Taine. The Acquisition of Language "by Children (translated) . 252
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
Allen, G. Mr. Sully on 'Physiological ^Esthetics' . . .574
Bain, A. ' Existence and Descartes' Cog ito ' . . . .259
Bradley, F. H.Mr. Sidgwiclc on ' Ethical Studies' (with roply) 122
Davics, W. G. ' Cogito ergo sum ' . . . . . .412
WitoT.TheLof/icof'If 264
Flint, R. Distinctions between Thought and Feeling . .112
Green, T. H. Hedonism and Ultimate Good . . . .266
vV Hodgson, S. H. Kant's Analytic and Synthetic Judgments . 118
Lingard, J. T. Dr. Carpenters Theory of Attention . . 272
in, A. Mr. Hodgson on ' Cogito ergo sum ' (with reply) . 126
Some questionable Propositions in Ferrier's 'Insti-
tutes' 402
M'Cosh, J. Elements involved in Emotions . . . .413
Pollock, F. Hap2nness or Welfare 269
No. 5.] [January, 1877.
iMIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
I. EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE.
" r HK scientific treatment of any art consists partly in applying
th I'linHples furnished by the several sciences involved, as
elu inidtil laws to agriculture ; and partly in enforcing, through-
oui tlao, discussion, the utmost precision and rigour in the
siiii! -mw-nt, deduction and proof of the various maxims or rules
that make up the art.
l.ntli fecundity in the thoughts and clearness in the directions
should attest the worth of the scientific method.
DEFINITIONS OF THE SCOPE OF EDUCATION.
First, let me quote the definition embodied in the ideal of the
founders of the Prussian National System. It is given shortly as
" the harmonious and equable evolution of the human powers " ;
at more length, in the words of Stein, " by a method based on
the nature of the mind, every power of the soul to be unfolded,
every crude principle of life stirred up and nourished, all one-
sided culture avoided, and. the impulses on which the strength
and worth of men rest, carefully attended to". (Donaldson's
Lectures on Education, p. 38.) This definition, which is pointed
against narrowness generally, may have had special reference to
the many omissions in the schooling of the foregone times : the
leaving out of such things as bodily or muscular training ;
training in the senses or observation ; training in art or refine-
1
2 Education as a Science.
merit. It farther insinuates that hitherto the professed teacher
may not have done much even for the intellect, for the higher
moral training, nor for the training with a view to happiness or
en joyinent.
Acting on this ideal, not only would the educator put
more pressure altogether on the susceptibilities of his pupils :
he would also avoid over-doing any one branch ; he would con-
sider proportion in the things to be taught. To be all language,
all observation, all abstract science, all fine art, all bodily ex-
pertness, all lofty sentiment, all theology, would not be accepted
as a proper outcome of any trainer's work.
The Prussian definition, good so far, does not readily accommo-
date itself to such circumstances as these : namely, the superior
aptitude of individuals for some things rather than for others i
the advantage to society of pre-eminent fitness for special
functions, although gained by a one-sided development ; the
difficulty of reconciling the ' whole man ' with himself ; the
limited means of the educator, which imposes the necessity of
selection according to relative importance.
Although by no means easy, it is yet possible to make
allowance for these various considerations, under the theory of
harmonious development; but after the operation is accomplished,
the doubt will arise whether much is gained by' using that
theory as the defining fact of education.
In the very remarkable article on Education contributed by
James Mill to the. Encyclopaedia Britannica, the end of Education
is stated to be '{to render the individual, as much as possible,
an instrument of happiness, first to himself, and next to other
beings "3 This, however, should be given as an amended
answer to the first question of the Westminster Catechism
" What is the chief end of man ? " The utmost that we could
expect of the educator, who is not everybody, is to contribute
his part to the promotion of human happiness in the order
stated. No doubt the definition goes more completely to the
root of the matter than the German formula. It does not
trouble itself with the harmony, the many-sidedness, the whole-
ness, of the individual development ; it would admit these just
as might be requisite for securing the final end.
James Mill is not singular in his over-grasping view of the
subject. The most usual sub-division of Education is into
Physical, Intellectual, Moral, Eeligious, Technical. Now when
we enquire into the meaning of Physical Education, we find
it to mean the rearing of a healthy human being, by all the
arts and devices of nursing, feeding, clothing and general
:nen. Mill includes this subject in his article, ad Mr.
Herbert Spencer devotes a very interesting chapter to it
Education as a Science. 3
in his work on Education. It seems to me, however, that
this department may be kept quite separate, important though
it be. It does not at all depend upon the principles and con-
siderations that the educator, properly so called, has in view in
the carrying on of his work. The discussion of the subject
does not in any way help us in educational matters, as most
commonly understood ; nor does it derive any illumination from
being placed side by side with the arts of the recognised teacher.
The fact of bodily health or vigour is a leading postulate in
bodily or mental training, but the trainer does not take upon
himself to lay down the rules of hygiene.
The inadvertence, for so I regard it, of coupling the Art of
Health with Education is easily disposed of, and does not land
us in any arduous controversies. Very different is another
aspect of these definitions : that wherein the end of Education
is propounded as the promotion of human happiness, human
virtue, human perfection. Probably the qualification will at
once be conceded, that Education is but one of the means, a
single contributing agency to the all-including end. Neverthe-
less, the openings for difference of opinion as to what constitutes
.happiness, virtue or perfection, are very wide. Moreover, the
discussion has its proper place in Ethics and in Theology, and
if brought into the field of Education, should be received under
protest.
Before entering upon the consideration of this difficulty, the
greatest of all, I will advert to some of the other views of
Education that seem to err on the side of taking in too much.
Here, I may quote from the younger Mill, who, like his fatiM-r,
and unlike the generality of theorists, starts more wientijico
with a definition. Education, according to him, " inclinh -s
whatever we do for ourselves, and whatever is done for us by
others, for the express purpose of bringing us nearer to the
perfection of our nature ; in its largest acceptation, it comprehends
even the indirect effects produced on character and 011 the
human faculties by things of which the direct purposes are
different; by laws, by forms of government, by the industrial
arts, by modes of social life ; nay even by physical facts not
dependent on the human will ; by climate, soil, and local
position". He admits, however, that this is a very wide view
of the subject, and for his own immediate purpose advances a
narrower view, namely " the culture wliich each generation
purposely gives to those who are to be its successors, in order
to qualify them for at least keeping up, and, if possible, for
raising, the improvement which has been attained". (Ina/uyund
Address at St. Andrews, p. 4.)
Besides involving the dispute as to what constitutes 'perfection/
4 Education as a Science.
the first and larger statement is, I think, too wide for the most
comprehensive Philosophy of Education. The influences
exerted on the human character by climate and geographical
position, by arts, laws, government and modes of social life,
constitute a very interesting department of Sociology, and have
their place there and nowhere else. What we do for ourselves,
and what others do for us, to bring us nearer to the perfection
of our nature, may be education in a precise sense of the word,
and it may not. I do not see the propriety of including under
the subject the direct operation of rewards and punishments.
No doubt we do something to educate ourselves, and society
does something to educate us, in a sufficiently proper acceptation
of the word ; but the ordinary influence of society, in the
dispensing of punishment and reward, is not the essential fact
of Education, as I propose to regard it, although an adjunct to
some of its legitimate functions.
Mill's narrower expression of the scope of the subject is not
exactly erroneous ; the moulding of each generation by the one
preceding is not improperly described as an education. It is,
however, grandiose rather than scientific. Nothing is to be
got out of it. It does not give the lead to the subsequent
exposition.
I find in the article ' Education,' in Chambers's Encyclopaedia,
a definition to the following effect : " In the widest sense of the
word a man is educated, either for good or for evil, by everything
that he experiences from the cradle to the grave [say, rather,
' formed,' ' made,' ' influenced ']. But in the more limited and
usual sense, the term education is confined to the efforts
made, of set purpose, to train men in a particular way the
efforts of the grown-up part of the community to inform the
intellect and mould the character of the young [rather too much
stress on the fact of influence from without] ; and more
especially to the labours of professional educators or school-
masters." The concluding clause is the nearest to the point
the arts and methods employed by the schoolmaster ; for,
although he is not alone in the work that he is expressly devoted
to, yet he it is that typifies the process in its greatest singleness
and purity. If by any investigations, inventions or discussions,
we can improve his art to the ideal pitch, we shall have done
nearly all that can be required of a science and art of Education.
I return to the greater difficulty namely, the question what
is the end of all teaching ; or, if the end be human happiness
and perfection, what definite guidance does this furnish to the
educator? I have already remarked that the enquiry is ac-
knowledged to belong to other departments ; and, if in these
departments clear and unanimous answers have not been
Education as a Science. 5
arrived at, the educationist is not bound to make good the
deficiency.
For this emergency, there is one thing obvious, another less
obvious ; the two together exhausting the resources of the
educator.
The obvious thing is to fix upon whatever matters people are
agreed upon. Of .such the number is considerable, and the
instances important. They make the universal topics of the
schools.
The less obvious thing is, with reference to matters not agreed
upon, that the educator should set forth at what cost these
doubtful acquisitions would have to be made ; for the cost must
be at least one element in the decision respecting them. Who-
ever knows most about Education, is best able to say how far
its appliances can cope with such aims as softening the manners,
securing self-renunciation, bringing about the balanced action of
all the powers, training the whole man, and so forth.
We shall see that one part of the science of Education
consists in giving the ultimate analysis of all complex growths.
It is on such an analysis that the cost can be calculated ; and by
means of this, we can best observe whether contradictory
demands are made upon the educator.
What we have been drifting to, in our search for an aim, is
the work of the school. This may want a little more paring
and rounding to give it scientific form, but it is the thing most
calculated to fix and steady our vision at the outset.
Now in the success of the schoolmaster's work, the first and
central fact is the plastic property of the mind itself. On this
depends the acquisition not simply of knowledge but of every-
thing that can be called an acquisition. The most patent
display of the power consists in memory for knowledge
imparted. In this view the leading enquiry in the art of Educa-
tion is how to strengthen memory. We are therefore led to
take account of the several mental aptitudes that either directly
or indirectly enter into the retentive function. In other words,
we must draw upon the science of the human mind for what-
ever that science contains respecting the conditions of memory.
Although memory, acquisition, retentiveness, depends mainly
upon one unique property of the intellect, which accordingly
demands to. be scrutinised with the utmost care, there are
various other properties, intellectual and emotional, that aid in
the general result, and to each of these regard must be had, in a
S< -ii'iice of Education.
We have thus obtained the clue to one prime division of the
subject the purely psychological part. Of no less consequence
(3 Education as a Science.
is another department at present without a name an inquiry
into the proper or natural order of the different subjects,
grounded on their relative simplicity or complexity, and their
mutual dependence. It is necessary to success in Education
that a subject should not be presented to the pupil, until all
the preparatory subjects have been mastered. This is obvious
enough in certain cases: arithmetic is taken before algebra,
geometry before trigonometry, inorganic chemistry before
organic; but in many cases, the proper order is obscured by
circumstances, and is an affair of very delicate consideration.
I may call this the Analytic or Logical department of the
theory of Education.
It is a part of scientific method to take strict account of
leading terms, by a thorough and exhaustive enquiry into the
meanings of all such. The settlement of many questions rela-
ting to education is embarrassed by the vagueness of the single
term 'discipline'.
Farther, it ought to be pointed out, as specially applicable to
our present subject, that the best attainable knowledge on any-
thing is due to a combination of general principles obtained
from the sciences, with well conducted observations and experi-
ments made in actual practice. On every great question there
should be a convergence of both lights. The technical expres-
sion for this is the union of the Deductive and Inductive
Methods. The deductions are to be obtained apart, in their
own way, and with all attainable precision. The inductions are
the maxims of practice, purified, in the first instance, by wide
comparison and by the requisite precautions.
I thus propose to remove from the Science of Education
matters belonging to much wider departments of human conduct,
and to concentrate the view upon what exclusively pertains to
Education the means of building up the acquired powers of
human beings. The communication of knowledge is the ready
type of the process, but the training operation enters into parts
of the mind not intellectual the activities and the emotions ;
the same forces, however, being at work.
Education does not embrace the 'employment of all our
intellectual functions. There is a different art for directing the
faculties in productive labour, as in the professions, in the
original investigations of the man of science, or the creations of
the artist. The principles of the human mind are applicable to
both departments, but although the two come into occasional
contact, they are so far distinct that there is an advantage in
viewing them separately. In the practical treatise of Locke,
entitled The Conduct of the Understanding, acquisition, pro-
duction, and invention are handled promiscuously.
Education as a Science.
BEARINGS OF PHYSIOLOGY.
The science of Physiology, coupled with the accummulated
empirical observations of past ages, is the reference in finding
out how to rear living beings to the full maturity of their
physical powers. This, as we have said, is quite distinct from
the process of Education.
The art of Education assumes a certain average physical health,
and does not enquire into the means of keeping up or increasing
that average. Its point of contact with physiology and hygiene
is narrowed to the plastic or acquisitive function of the brain
the property of fixing or connecting the nervous connections
that underlie memory, habit and acquired power.
But as physiology now stands, we soon come to the end of
its applications to the husbanding of the plastic faculty. The
enquiry must proceed upon our direct experience in the work of
education, with an occasional check or caution from the
established physiological laws. Still, it would be a forgetting
of mercies to undervalue the results accruing to education from
the physiological doctrine of the physical basis of memory.
On this subject, physiology teaches the general fact that
memory reposes upon a nervous property or power, sustained
like every other physical power by nutrition, and having its
alternations of exercise and rest. It also informs us that, like
every other function, the plasticity may be stunted by inaction,
and impaired by over-exertion.
As far as pure physiology is concerned, I invite everybody to
reflect on one circumstance in particular. The human body is
a great aggregate of organs or interests muscles, digestion,
respiration, senses, brain. When fatigue overtakes it, the organs
generally suffer ; when renovation has set in, the organs gene-
rally are invigorated. This is the first and most obvious
consequence. It has next to be qualified by the remark that
human beings are unequally constituted as regards the various
functions ; some being strong in muscle, others in stomach,
others in brain. In all such persons the general invigoration is
unequally shown ; the favoured organs receive a share pro-
portioned to their respective capitals : to him that hath shall be
given. Still more pertinent is the farther qualification, that the
organ that happens to be most active at the time receives more
than its share ; to exercise the several organs unequally is to
nourish them unequally.
To come to the point as regards our immediate object. To
increase the plastic property of the mind, you must nourish the
brain. You naturally expect that this result will ensue when
the body generally is nourished : and so it will, if there be no
8 Education as a Science.
exorbitant demands on the part of other organs, giving them
such a preference as to leave very little for the organ of the
mind. If the muscles or the digestion are unduly drawn upon,
the brain will not respond to the drafts made upon it. Obversely,
if the brain is constituted by nature, or excited by stimulation,
so as to absorb the lion's share of the nutriment, the opposite
results will appear ; the mental functions will be exalted, and
the other interests more or less impoverished. This is the situa-
tion for an abundant display of mental force.
But we must farther distinguish the mental functions them-
selves; for these are very different and mutually exclusive.
Great refinement in the subdivisions is not necessary for the
illustration. The broadest contrast is the emotional and the
intellectual feeling as pleasure, pain or excitement, and feeling
as knowledge. These two in extreme manifestation are hostile
to each other : under extreme emotional excitement the intellect
suffers ; under great intellectual exertion the emotions subside
(with limitations unnecessary for our purpose).
But Intellect in the largest sense is not identical with the
retentive or plastic .operation. The laws of this peculiar phase
of our intelligence are best obtained by studying it as a purely
mental fact. Yet there is a physiological way of looking at it
that is strongly confirmative of our psychological observations.
On the physical or physiological side, memory or acquisition is
a series of new nervous growths, the establishment of a number
of beaten tracks in certain lines of the cerebral substance. Now
the presumption is, that as regards the claim for nourishment
this is the most costly of all the processes of the intelligence.
To exercise a power once acquired should be a far easier thing,
much less expensive, than to build up a new acquirement. We
may be in sufficiently good condition for the one, while wholly
out of condition for the other Indeed success in acquirement,
looking at it from the physiological probabilities, should be the
work of rare, choice and happy moments : times when cerebral
vigour is both abundant and well-directed.
BEARINGS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
The largest chapter in the Science of Education must be the
following out of all the psychological laws that bear directly or
indirectly upon the process of mental acquirement. Every
branch of Psychology will be found available; but more
especially the Psychology of the Intellect. Of the three great
functions of the Intellect, in the ultimate analysis Discrim-
ination, Agreement, Eetentiveness the last is the most
completely identified with the educative process ; but the others
enter in as constituents in a way peculiar to each. I will
Education as a Science. 9
select, for my present paper, DISCRIMINATION and KETENTIVE-
XESS ; and will endeavour to extract from the discussion of
these great intellectual functions everything that they appear
to yield for the ends of the educator. Although I can impart
no novelty to the general statement of these functions, it is
possible to make some unhackneyed remarks on their educational
consequences.
Discrimination.
Mind starts from Discrimination. The consciousness of
difference is the beginning of every intellectual exercise. To
encounter a new impression is to be aware of change : if the
heat of a room increases ten degrees, we are awakened to the
circumstance by a change of feeling ; if we have no change of
feeling, no altered consciousness, the outward fact is lost upon
us ; we take no notice of it, we are said not to know it.
Our intelligence is, therefore, absolutely limited by our power
of discrimination. The other functions of intellect, the
Retentive power, for example, are not called into play, until we
have first discriminated a number of things. If we did not
originally feel the difference between light and dark, black and
white, red and yellow, there would be no visible scenes for us
to remember: with the amplest endowment of Retentiveness,
the outer world could not enter into our recollection; the blank
of sensation is a blank of memory.
Yet farther. The minuteness or delicacy of the feeling of
difference is the measure of the variety and multitude of our
primary impressions, and, therefore, of our stirred-up recollections.
He that hears only twelve discriminated notes on the musical
scale, has his remembrances of sounds bounded by these ; he
that feels a hundred sensible differences, has his ideas or
recollections of sounds multiplied in the same proportion. The
retentive power works up to the height of the discriminative
power ; it can do no more. Things are not remembered if they
have not first been discriminated.
We have by nature a certain power of discrimination in each
department of our sensibility. We can from the outset dis-
criminate, more or less delicately, sights, sounds, touches, smells,
tastes ; and, in each sense, some persons much more than others.
Tins is the deepest foundation of disparity of intellectual
character, as well as of variety in likings and pursuits. If, from
the beginning, one man can interpolate five shades of discrimina-
tion of colour where another can feel but one transition, the
careers of the two men are foreshadowed and will be widely
apart.
To observe this native inequality is important in predestining
10 Education as a Science.
the child to this or that line of special training. For the actual
work of teaching, it is of more consequence to note the ways
and means of quickening and increasing the discriminating
aptitude. Bearing in mind the fact that until a difference is
felt between two things intelligence has not yet made the first
step, the teacher is bound to consider the circumstances or
conditions favourable and unfavourable to the exercise.
(1.) It is not peculiar to discrimination, but is common to
every mental function, to lay down, as a first condition, mental
vigour, freshness and wakefulness. In a low state of the
mental forces, in languor, or drowsiness, differences cannot be
felt. That the mind should be alive, awake, in full force and
exercise, is necessary for every kind of mental work. The
teacher needs to quicken the mental alertness by artificial
means, when there is a dormancy of mere indolence. He has to
waken the pupil from the state significantly named indifference,
the state where differing impressions fail to be recognised as
distinct.
(2.) The mind may be fresh and alive, but its energies may
be taking the wrong direction. There is a well-known antithesis
or opposition between the emotional and the intellectual
activities, leading to a certain incompatibility of the two.
Under emotional excitement, the intellectual energies are
enfeebled in amount, and enslaved to the reigning emotion. It
is in the quieter states of mind that discrimination, in common
with other intellectual powers, works to advantage. I will
afterwards discuss more minutely the very delicate matter of
the management of the various emotions in the work of
teaching.
(3.) It must not be forgotten that intellectual exercises are in
themselves essentially insipid, unattractive, indifferent. As
exertion, they impart a certain small degree of the delight that
always attends the healthy action of an exuberant faculty ; but
this supposes their later developments, and is not a marked
peculiarity in the child's commencing career. The first circum-
stance that gives an interest to discrimination is pleasurable
or painful stimulus. Something must hang on a difference
before the mind is made energetically awake to it. A thoroughly
uninteresting difference is not an object of attention to any one.
the transitions from cold to hot, dark to light, strain to relief,
nger to repletion, silence to sound, are all more or less
nteresting, and all more or less impressive. But then they are
vehement and sensational. It is necessary in order to the
mushing of the intelligence, that smaller and less sensational
itions should be felt ; the intellectual nature is characterised
by requiring the least amount of emotional flash in order to
Education' as a Science. 11
impress a difference. A loud and furious demonstration will
certainly compel attention and end in the feeling of difference,
but the cost is too great to be often repeated.
(4.) The great practical aid to the discovery and the reten-
tion of difference is immediate succession or, what comes to the
same thing, close juxta-position. A rapid transition makes
evident a difference that would not be felt after an interval,
still less if anything else were allowed to occupy the mind in the
meantime. __ This fact is sufficiently obvious, and is turned to
account in easy cases ; but is far from thoroughly worked out
by the teacher and the expositor. Any trifling diversion will
suffice to blind us to its importance.
We compare two notes by sounding them in close succession ;
two shades of colour by placing them side by side ; two weights
by holding them in the two hands, and attending to the two
feelings by turns. These are the plain instances. The com-
parison of forms leads to complications, and we cease to attempt
the same kind of comparison. For mere length we lay the two
things alongside ; so for an angle. For number, we can place
two groups in contiguous rows three by the side of four or five
and observe the surplus.
Mere size is an affair of simple juxta-position. Form, ir-
respective of size, is less approachable. A triangle and a
quadrangle are compared by counting the sides, and resolving
the difference of form into the simpler element of difference of
number. A right-angled, an acute-angled, an isosceles triangle,
must be compared by the juxta-position of angles. A circle
and an oval are represented by the alternatives of curvature
and diameters; in the one the curvature uniform, and the
diameters equal, in the other, the curvature varying and the
diameters unequal. The difference between a close and an open
curve is palpable enough.
The geometrical forms are thus resolvable into very simple
bases of comparison : and the teacher must analyse them in the
manner now stated. For the irregular and capricious forms, the
elementary conceptions are still the same lineal size, number,
angular size, curvature but the mode of guiding the attention
may be various. Sometimes there is a strong and overpowering
similarity, with a small and unconspicuous difference ; as in our
ciphers (compare 3 and 5), and in the letters of our alphabet
(C, G), and still more in the, Hebrew alphabet. For such com-
parisons, the difference, such as it is, needs to be very clearly
drawn or even exaggerated. Another method is to have
models of the same size to lay over one another, so as to bring
out the difference through the juxta-position. By a distinct
effort, the teacher calls on the learner to view, with single-
12 Education as a Science.
minded attention, the differing circumstance, and afterwards to
reproduce it by his own hand. One express lesson consists in
asking the pupil what are the ciphers, or the letters, that are
nearly alike, and what are the points of difference.
The higher arts of comparison to impress difference are best
illustrated when both differences and agreements have to be
noted. They would have to be resumed after the discussion of
the intellectual force of Agreement or Similarity. The chief
stress of the present explanation lies in regarding Discrimina-
tion as the necessary prelude of every intellectual impression,
as the basis of our stored-up knowledge, or memory. Agree-
ment is pre-supposed likewise; but there is not the same
necessity, nor is it expedient, to follow out the workings of
Agreement, before considering the plastic power of the intellect.
The Retentive Faculty.
This is the faculty that most of all concerns us in the work of
Education. On it rests the possibility of mental growths or
capabilities not given by nature.
Every impression made upon us, if sufficient to awaken con-
sciousness at the time, has a certain permanence ; it can persist
after the original ceases to work ; and it can be restored after-
wards as an idea or remembered impression. The bursting out
of a flame arouses our attention, gives a strong visible impres-
sion, and becomes an idea or deposit of memory. It is thought
of afterwards without being actually seen.
It is not often that one single occurrence leaves a permanent
and recoverable idea; usually, we need several repetitions for
the purpose. The process of fixing the impression occupies a
certain length of time ; either we must prolong the first shock,
or renew it on several successive occasions. This is the first
law of Memory, Retention or Acquisition : " Practice makes
perfect " ; " Exercise is the means of strengthening a faculty,"
and so forth. The good old rule of the schoolmaster is simply
to make the pupil repeat, rehearse, or persist at, a lesson, until
it is learnt.
All improvement in the art of teaching consists in having
trd to the various circumstances that facilitate acquirement,
or lessen the number of repetitions for a given effect. Much is
il-lc in the way of economising the plastic power of the
human system; and when we have pushed this economy to the
utmost, we have made perfect the Art of Education in one lead-
ing <i<'i>artment. It is thus necessary that the consideration of
all the known conditions that favour or impede the plastic
growth of the system, should be searching and minute.
Al though some philosophers have taught that all minds are
Education as a Science. 13
nearly equal in regard to facility of acquirement, a schoolmaster
that would say so, must be of the very rudest type. The in-
equality of different minds in imbibing lessons, under the very
same circumstances, is a glaring fact ; and is one of the obstacles
encountered in teaching numbers together, that is, classes. It
is a difficulty that needs a great deal of practical tact or
management, and is not met by any educational theory.
The different kinds of acquirements vary in minor circum-
stances which are important to be noticed after exhausting the
general or pervading conditions. The greatest contrast is
between what belongs to Intelligence, and what belongs to the
Feelings and the WilL The more strictly Intellectual depart-
ment comprises Mechanical Art, Language, the Sensible World,
the Sciences, Fine Art ; and to each of these heads may attach
specialities not hard to assign.
General circumstances favouring Eetentiveness.
(1.) The Physical condition. This has been already touched
upon, both in the review of Physiology, and in the remarks on
Discrimination. It includes general health, vigour and fresh-
ness at the moment, together with the farther indispensable
proviso, that the nutrition, instead of being drafted off to
strengthen the mere physical functions, is allowed to run in
good measure to the brain.
In the view of mental efficiency, the muscular system, the
digestive system, and the various organic interests, are to be
exercised up to the point that conduces to the maximum of
general vigour in the system, and no farther. They may be
carried farther in the interest of sensual enjoyment", but that is
not now before us. Hence a man must exercise his muscles,
must feed himself liberally and give time to digestion to do its
work, must rest adequately all for the greatest energy of the
mind, and for the trying work of education in particular. Nor
is it so very difficult, in the present state of physiological and
medical knowledge, to assign the reasonable proportions in all
these matters, for a given case.
Everything tends to show that, in the mere physical point of
view, the making of impressions on the brain, although never
remitted during all our waking moments, is exceedingly unequal
at different times. We must be well aware that there are
moments when we are incapable of receiving any lasting im-
pressions, and there are moments when we are unusually
susceptible. The difference is not one wholly resolvable into
more meatal energy on the whole; we may have a considerable
reserve of force for other mental acts, as the performance of
routine offices, and not much for retaining new impressions ; we
14 Education as a Science.
are capable of reading, talking, writing, and of taking an interest
in the exercises ; we may indulge emotions, and carry out pur-
suits, and yet not be in a state for storing the memory, or
amassing knowledge. Even the incidents that we take part
in sometimes fail to be remembered" beyond a very short time.
What, then, is there so very remarkable and unique in the
physical support of the plastic property of the brain ? What
are the moments when it is at the plenitude of its efficiency ?
What are the things that especially nourish and conserve it ?
Although there is still wanting a careful study of this whole
subject, the patent facts appear to justify us in asserting, that
the plastic or retentive function is the very highest energy
of the brain, the consummation of nervous activity. To
drive home a new experience, to make an impression self-
sustaining and recoverable, uses up (we are to suppose) more
brain force than any other kind of mental exercise. The
moments of susceptibility to the storing up of knowledge, the
engraving of habits and acquisitions, are thus the moments of
the maximum of unexpended force. The circumstances need to
be such as to prepare the way for the highest manifestation of
cerebral energy ; including the perfect freshness of the system,
and the absence of everything that would speedily impair it.
To illustrate this position, I may refer to the kind of mental
work that appears to be second in its demand on the energy of
the brain. The exercise of mental constructiveness the
solving of new problems, the applying of rules to new cases, the
intellectual labour of the more arduous professions, as the law,
where a certain amount of novelty attends every case that
occurs demands no little mental strain, and is easy according to
the brain vigour of the moment. Still, these are exercises that
can be performed with lower degrees of power ; we are capable
of such professional work in moments when our memory would
in t take in new and lasting impressions. In old age, when we
cease to be educable in any fresh endowment, we can still
perform these constructive exercises ; we can grapple with new
questions, invent new arguments and illustrations, decide what
should be done in original emergencies.
The constructive energy has all degrees, from the highest
Mights of invention^ and imagination down to the point where
construction shades off into literal repetition of what has formerly
ii done. The preacher in composing a fresh discourse puts
i more or less of constructiveness: in repeating prayers and
formularies, in reading from book, there is only reminiscence.
This is the third and least exigent form of mental energy; it is
-iU-, in the very lowest states of cerebral vigour. When
acquisition is fruitless, construction is possible; when a slight
Education as a Science. 15
departure from the old routine passes the might of the intelli-
gence, literal reminiscence may operate.
Another mode of mental energy that we are equal to, when
the freshness of our susceptibility to new growths has gone off,
is searching and noting. This needs a certain strain of atten-
tion ; it is not possible in the very lowest tide of the nervous
flow ; but it may be carried on with all but the smallest degrees
of brain power. When the scholar or the man of science ceases
ta trust his memory implicitly for retaining new facts that occur
in his reading, observation or reflection, he can still keep a
watch for them, and enter them in his notes. So in the hours
of the day when memory is less to be trusted, useful study may
still be maintained by the help of the memorandum and the
note-book.
The indulgence of the emotions (when not violent or exces-
sive) is about the least expensive of our mental exercises, and
may go on when we are unfit for any of the higher intellectual
moods, least of all for the crowning work of storing up new
knowledge or new aptitudes. There are degrees here also ; but,
speaking generally, to love or to hate, to dominate or to worship,
although impossible in the lowest depths of debility, are within
the scope of the inferior grades of nervous power.
From this estimate of comparative outlay, we may judge what
are the times and seasons and circumstances most favourable to
acquirement. It may be assumed that in the early part of the
day the total energy of the system is at its height, and that
towards evening it flags; hence morning is the season of improve-
ment. For two or three hours after the first meal, the strength
is probably at the highest ; total remission for another hour or
tovo, and a second meal, (with physical exercise when the
labour has been sedentary), prepare for a second display of
vigour, although presumably not equal to the first ; when the
edge of this is worn off', there may, after a pause, be another
bout of application, but far inferior in result to the first or even
to the second. No severe strain should be attempted in this
last stage ; not much stress should be placed on the available
plasticity of the system, although the constructive and routine
efforts may still be kept up.
The regular course of the day may be interfered with by
exceptional circumstances, but these only confirm the rule. If
we have lain idle or inactive for the early hours, we may of
course be fresher in the evening, but the late application will
not make up for the loss of the early hours ; the nervous energy
will gradually subside as the day advances however little
exertion we may make. Again, we may at any time determine
an outburst of nervous energy by persistent exercise and by
16 Education as a Science.
stimulation, which draws blood to the brain, without regard to
circumstances and seasons, but this is wasteful in itself and
disturbing to the healthy functions.
As a general rule, the system is at its greatest vigour in the
cold season of the year ; and most work is done in winter.
Summer studies are comparatively unproductive.
The review of the varying plasticity in the different stages of
life might be conducted on the same plan of estimating the col-
lective forces of the system, and the share of these available for
brain work, but other circumstances have to be taken into the
account, and I do not enter upon the question here.
There are many details in the economy of the plastic power
that have a physical as well as a mental aspect. Such are those
relating to the strain and remission of the Attention, to the
pauses and alternations during the times of drill, to the modera-
ting of the nervous excitement, and other matters. These should
all find a place under the head of the Eetentive function. It is
expedient now to take up the consideration of the subject from
the purely mental side.
(2.) The one circumstance that sums up all the mental aids to
plasticity is CONCENTRATION. A certain expenditure of nervous
power is involved in every adhesion, every act of impressing the
memory, every communicated bias ; and the more the better.
This supposes, however, that we should withdraw the forces, for
the time, from every other competing exercise ; and especially,
that we should redeem all wasting expenditure for the purpose
in view.
It is requisite, therefore, that the circumstances leading to the
concentration of the mind should be well understood. We
assume that there is power available for the occasion, and we
seek to turn it into the proper channel. Now there is no doubt
that the will is the chief intervening influence, and the chief
stimulants of the will are, as we know, pleasure and pain. This
is the rough view of the case. A little more precision is attain-
able through our psychological knowledge.
And first, the Will itself as an operating or directing power,
that is to say, the moving of the organs in a given way under a
motive, is a growth or culture ; it is very imperfect at first, and
improves by usage. A child of twelve months cannot by any
inducement be prompted readily to clap its hands, to point with
its forefinger, to touch the tip of its nose, to move its left
shoulder forward. The most elementary acts of the will, the
alphabet of all the higher acquisitions, have first to be learned
in a way of their own ; and until they have attained a sufficient
advancement, so as to be amenable to the spur of a motive, the
teacher has nothing to go upon.
Education as a Science. 17
I have elsewhere described this early process, as I conceive it,
in giving an account of the development of the Will. In the
practice of education, it is a matter of importance as showing at
what time mechanical instruction is possible, and what impedes
its progress at the outset, notwithstanding the abundance of
plasticity in the brain itself. The disciplining of the organs
to follow directions would seem to be the proper province of
the Infant school.
Coming now to the influences of concentration, we assign the
first place to intrinsic charm, or pleasure in the act itself. The
law of the Will, in its side of greatest potency, is that Pleasure
sustains the movement that brings it. The whole force of the
mind at the moment goes with the pleasure-giving exercise.
The harvest of immediate pleasure stimulates our most intense
exertions, if exertion serves to prolong the blessing. So it is
with the deepening of an impression, the confirming of a bent
or bias, the associating of a couple or a sequence of acts ; a
coinciding burst of joy awakens the attention and thus leads to
an enduring stamp on the mental framework.
The engraining efficiency of the pleasurable motive requires
not only that we should not be carried off into an accustomed
routine of voluntary activities, such as to give to the forces another
direction, as when we pace too and fro in a flower garden; but also
that the pleasure should not be intense and tumultuous. The law
of the mutual exclusion of great pleasure and great intellectual
exertion forbids the employment of too much excitement of
any kind, when we aim at the most exacting of all mental
results the forming of new adhesive growths. A gentle
pleasure that for the time contents us, there being no great
temptation at hand, is the best foster-mother of our efforts at
learning. Still better, if it be a growing pleasure; a small
beginning, with steady increase, never too absorbing, is the best
of all stimulants to mental power. In order to have a yet
wider compass of stimulation, without objectionable extremes,
we might begin on the negative side, that is, in pain or priva-
tion, to be gradually remitted in the course of the studious
exercise, giving place at last to the exhilaration of a waxing
pleasure. All the great teachers from Socrates downwards
seem to recognise the necessity of putting the learner into a
state of pain to begin with ; a fact that we are by no means to
exult over, although we may have to admit the stern truth that
is in it. The influence of pain, however, takes a wider range
than here supposed, as will be seen under our next head.
A moderate exhilaration and cheerfulness growing out of the
act of learning itself is certainly the most genial, the most
effectual means of cementing the unions that we desire to form
2
18 Education as a Science.
in the mind. This is meant when we speak of the learner
having a taste for his pursuit, having the heart in it, learning
con, amore. The fact is perfectly well known ; the error, in
connection with it, lies in dictating or enjoining this state of
mind on everybody in every situation, as if it could be
commanded by a wish, or as if it were not itself an expensive
endowment. The brain cannot yield an exceptional pleasure
without charging for it.
Next to pleasure in the actual, as a concentrating motive, is
pleasure in prospect, as in learning what is to bring us some
future gratification. The stimulus has the inferiority attaching
to the idea of pleasure as compared with the reality. Still it
may be of various degrees, and may rise to a considerable pitch
of force. Parents often reward their children with coins for
success in their lessons ; the conception of the pleasure in this
case is nearly equal to a present tremor of sense-delight. On
the other hand, the promises of fortune and distinction, after a
long interval of years, have seldom much influence in con-
centrating the mind towards a particular study.
Let us now view the operation of Pain. By the law of the
will, pain repels us from the thing that causes it. A
painful study repels us, just as an agreeable one attracts and
detains us. The only way that pain can operate is when it is
attached to neglect, or to the want of mental concentration in a
given subject ; we then find pleasure, by comparison, in sticking
to our task. This is the theory of punishing the want of applica-
tion. It is in every way inferior to the other motives ; and this
inferiority should be always kept in view in employing it, as
every teacher often must with the generality of scholars. Pain
is a waste of brain-power ; while the work of the learner needs
the very highest form of this power. Punishment works at a
heavy percentage of deduction, which is still greater as it
passes into the well-defined form of terror. Every one has
experienced cases where severity has rendered a pupil utterly
incapable of the work prescribed.
Discarding all a priori theories as to whether the human
mind can be led on to study by an ingenious system of plea-
surable attractions, we are safe to affirm that if the physical
conditions are properly regarded, if the work is within the
compass of the pupil's faculties, and if a fair amount of
assistance is rendered in the way of intelligible direction, although
some sort of pain will frequently be necessary, it ought not to
be so great as to damp the spirits and waste the plastic energy.
The line of remark is exactly the same for pain in prospect,
with allowance for the difference between reality and the idea.
It is well when prospective pain has the power of a motive,
Education as a Science. 19
because the future bad consequences of neglect are so various
and so considerable, as to save the resort to any other. But
since the young mind in general is weak in the sense of futurity,
whether for good or for evil, only very near, very intelligible
and very certain pains can take the place of presently acting
deterrents.
In the study of the human mind, we need, for many purposes,
to draw a subtle distinction between feeling as Pleasure or
Pain, and feeling as Excitement not necessarily pleasurable or
painful. This subtlety cannot be dispensed with in our present
subject. There is a form of mental concentration that is pro-
perly termed excitement, and is not properly termed pleasurable
or painful excitement. A loud or sudden shock, a rapid whirl-
ing movement, stirs, wakens or excites us ; it may also give us,
pleasure or pain, but it may be perfectly neutral : and even
when there is pleasure or pain, there is an influence apart from,
what would belong to pleasure or pain, as such. A state of
excitement seizes hold of the mind for the time being and shuts
out other mental occupations ; we are engrossed with the
subject that brought on the state, and are not amenable to
extraneous influences, until that has subsided. Hence, excite-
ment is pre-eminently a means of making an impression, of
stamping an idea in the mind : it is strictly an intellectual
stimulus. There is still the proviso (under the general law of
incompatibility of the two opposite moods) that the excitement
must not be violent and wasting. In well-understood modera-
tion, excitement is identical with attention, mental engrossment,
the concentration of the forces upon the plastic or cementing
operation, the rendering permanent as a recollection what lies
in the focus of the blaze. Excitement, so denned, is worthless
as an end, but is valuable as a means ; and that means is the
furtherance of our mental improvement by driving home some
useful concatenation of ideas.
Another subtlety remains a distinction within a distinction.
After contrasting feeling as excitement with feeling as pleasure
or pain, we must separate the useful from the useless or even
pernicious modes of excitement. The useful excitement is what
is narrowed and confined to the subject to be impressed ; the
useless, and worse than useless, excitement is what spreads far
and wide, and embraces nothing in particular. It is easy to get
up the last species of excitement the vague, scattered, and
tumultuous mode but this is not of avail for any set purpose ;
it may be counted rather as a distracting agency than as a
means of calling forth and concentrating the attention upon an
exercise.
The true excitement for the purpose in view is what grows
20 Education as a Science.
out of the very subject itself, surrounding and adhering to that
subject. Now for this kind of excitement, the recipe is con-
tinuous application of the mind in perfect surrounding still-
ness. Eestrain all other solicitation of the senses, keep the
attention upon the one act to be learnt; and, by the law of
nervous and mental persistence, the currents of the brain will
become gradually stronger and stronger, until they have reached
the point when they do no more good for the time. This is
the ideal of concentration by neutral excitement.
The enemy of such happy neutrality is pleasure from with-
out ; and the youthful mind cannot resist the distraction of a
present pleasure, or even the scent of a far-off pleasure. The
schoolroom is purposely screened off from the view of what is
going on outside; while all internal incidents that hold out
pleasurable diversion are carefully restrained, at least during the
crisis of a difficult lesson. A touch of pain, or apprehension, if
only slight, is not unfavourable to the concentration.
A very important observation remains, namely, that relation-
ship of ^Retention to Discrimination which was stated in intro-
ducing the function of Discrimination. The consideration of this
relationship illustrates with still greater point the true character
of the excitement that concentrates and does not distract nor
dissipate the energies. The moment of a delicate discrimination
is the moment when the intellectual force is dominant ; emotion
spurns nice distinctions, and incapacitates the mind for feeling
them. The quiescence and stillness of the emotions enables the
mind to give its full energies to the intellectual processes
generally ; and of these, the fundamental is perception of differ-
ence. Now the more mental force we can throw into the act
of noting a difference, the better is that difference felt, and
the better it is impressed. The same act that favours discrimina-
tion, favours retention. The two cannot be kept separate. No
law of the intellect appears to be more certain than the law that
connects our discriminating power with our retentive power.
In whatever class of subjects our discrimination is great
colours, forms, tunes, tastes in that class our retention is great.
Whenever the attention can be concentrated on a subject in
such a way as to make us feel all its delicate lineaments, which
is another way of stating the sense of differences, through that
very circumstance a great impression is made on the memory ;
there is no more favourable moment for engraving a recollection.
The perfection of neutral excitement, therefore, is typified by
the intense rousing of the forces in an act or a series of acts of
discrimination. If by any means we can succeed in this, we
are sure that the other intellectual consequences will follow.
It is a rare and difficult attainment in volatile years : the con-
Education as a Science. 21
ditions, positive and negative, for its highest consummation
cannot readily be commanded. Yet we should clearly compre-
hend what these conditions are ; and the foregoing attempt has
been made to seize and embody them.
Pleasure and pain, besides acting in their own character, that
is, directing the voluntary actions, have a power as mere excite-
ment, or as wakening up the mental blaze, during which all
mental acts, including the impressing of the memory, are more
effective. The distinction must still be drawn between concen-
trated and diffused excitement, between excitement in, and
excitement away from, the work to be done. Pleasure is the
most favourable adjunct, if not too great. Pain is the more
stimulating or exciting ; under a painful smart the forces are
very rapidly quickened for all purposes, until we reach the
point of wasteful dissipation. This brings us round again to the
ISocratic position, the preparing of the learner's mind by the
torpedo or the gad-fly.
The full compass of the operation of the painful stimulant is
well shown in some of our most familiar experiences as learners.
In committing a lesson to memory, we con it a number of times
by the book : w r e then try without the book. We fail utterly,
and are slightly pained by the failure. We go back to the book,
and try once more without it. We still fail, but strain the
memory to recover the lost trains. The pains of failure and the
act of straining stimulate the forces; the attention is roused
seriously and energetically. The next reference to the book
finds us far more receptive of the impression to be made ; the
weak links are now re-inforced with avidity, and the next trial
shows the value of the discipline that has been undergone.
One remark more will close the view of the conditions of
plasticity. It is that Discrimination and Retentiveness have a
common support in rapidity and sharpness of transition. A
sharp and sudden change is commonly said to make a strong
impression: the fact implied concerns discrimination and reten-
tion alike. Vague, shadowy, ill-defined boundaries fail to be
discriminated, and the subjects of them are not remembered.
The educator finds great scope for his art in this consideration
also.
A. BAIN.
II.AN INTROSPECTIVE INVESTIGATION.
I commenced more than twenty years ago an introspective
investigation in reference to a disputed point in mental science
whether or not man is a personal agent in the forming or
producing of his will-to-act, or, as some call it, his act of will.
" I never yet caught myself," says Jonathan Edwards (in his
Dissertation concerning Liberty and Necessity, p. 171), " in the act
of making a volition, if this mean anything more than having a
volition, or being the subject of it. If any man be conscious
that he makes his own volitions, he is doubtless conscious of
two distinct acts in this ; one the act made by himself, another
the act making or by which he makes the act made. Now will
any man profess to the world, that he is or ever has been con-
scious of these distinct acts ? " (The italics are in the original.)
The volition the will-to-act is here spoken of, first as a mental
state, of which man is " the subject," and then as a mental act,
the act by which man makes his acts.
In common with Jonathan Edwards, and wdth many others,
I had never yet caught myself making a volition, and therefore
I did not believe that man has any " power efficiently to cause
a volition in himself," or to form his will-to-act, or his determi-
nation (p. 170). My opinion upon this point was very plainly
stated by Mr. J. S. Mill, when, in his Logic, he said that
our will-to-act is " given us, not by any efforts of ours, but by
circumstances which we cannot help " ; and when, speaking of
the idea that man has a " power over his volitions," in his Exa-
mination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, he said, " in
common with one-half of the psychological world, I am wholly
ignorant of my possessing any such power ".
I desired to ascertain, if I could, what it could be which caused
the common belief that man is a personal agent in the forming
of his determinations. What I believed upon this point was, that
our will-to-act is the effect of the strongest motive-feeling, and
that our motive-feelings and their relative strength, upon every
occasion, are effects of conditions within us and external to us
at the time ; and that, therefore, our motive -feelings and our
will-to-act are formed " for us, and not by us". I was persuaded
into this belief, with no little difficulty, some twenty years before,
being then more than twenty years of age, and having until
then believed vaguely, as persons do w r ho have never thought
particularly upon the subject, and as many do who have
thought particularly upon it, that our will-to-act is made by
ourselves. During the intervening more than twenty years I
often discussed the subject, verbally and in writing, and my
belief that man is not a personal agent in the forming of hi&
An Introspective Investigation. 23
determinations was confirmed by the knowledge that many dis-
tinguished writers upon mental science were of the same opinion,
and hy the inability of the opponents of this view to point out
the mental facts by which they were made conscious, as they
said, that this opinion is not correct. But I was often disap-
pointed to find that I was not able to convince the opponents of
this opinion that they were in error in denying it. They said
they were conscious they perceived irrespectively that they
did something in the forming of their determinations ; they were
conscious of a nisus or effort. And when I pointed out to them
that our motive-feelings and their relative strength are dependent
upon internal and external conditions, I was told by some of them
that they felt that they themselves produced the preponderance
of the motive-feeling from which they acted. But I asked them
in vain to describe or point out to me what they did, or how they
produced the final preponderance of the motive-feeling. They
could only say that they were conscious of a nisus or effort in
willing, or in the forming of their will-to-act. And from writers
upon the subject I could not obtain any more information upon
this point. I therefore at last set to work to try to ascertain
what there could be in their mental experience to excite in them
what I believed to be the illusory idea that they did something
in the forming of their determinations.
I. Knowing that the desired information could only be ob-
tained by examining into the facts of the subject, and that I
could only examine the facts of the subject, directly, by observ-
ing my own mental experience, I began to ask myself, " What
do we do in willing, or what is there in willing, to account for
the supposed consciousness of effort in connection with it ? "
I found that the will to do an act, in the strict sense of the
term, is the mental fact which immediately precedes an act.
It is not a wish or a desire ; because we may have a wish or a
desire to do an act, and not have a will to do it. And it is
not any other feeling or emotion which is not immediately fol-
lowed by the act to which it has reference. The will to do an
act is always followed immediately by the act. We cannot do
an act (we cannot move a finger, for instance) without having a
will to do it; and we cannot have a will to do an act (to move
our finger, for instance), and not do it. And to will to do an
act is to have a will to do it ; as to desire to do an act is to have
a desire to do it. The will-to-act, therefore, is a mental state ;
it is not an " act of will". We do not do a will to do an act ;
we have it. There is no action, therefore no nisus or effort
in willing. Voluntary nisus or effort is preceded by a will to
make it ; and to confound the effort with the will to make it,
and to imagine that a will-to-act is an act of will, is a funda-
mental mistake.
24 An Introspective Investigation.
II. My next question was, " What is a will-to-act?" Looking
again into the facts of my mental experience, I found, first,
that to have a will-to-act we must have a thought of the act
which we have a will to do. But I found that a thought of an
act is not a will to do it. In the will-to-act, therefore, there must
be the thought and something more. What is this something
more ? It must be emotion. What is this emotion, and how
shall we describe it ? It is the kind of emotion which we feel
when we have a strong impulse to do an act. And therefore
we may call it impulsive emotion. As a desire to do an act, for
instance, is a thought of the act, combined with the emotion of
desire ; and as in joy, hope, fear, &c., we have a thought in con-
junction with the peculiar emotion of these feelings ; so in a
will to do an act we have a thought of the act willed, in con-
junction with emotion. If we carefully observe the combination
of thought and feeling which immediately precedes an act (or
rather, if we carefully recollect it for the transition from the
will-to-act to the act is so instantaneous that we have no time
to observe the will-to-act we can only recollect it), we may
perceive distinctly that it is so. And we may perceive that a
will to do an act is a decisive impulse to do it, and that what is
commonly called an impulse, which is not followed by the act,
is an indecisive impulse. In the will-to-act, therefore, the im-
pulsive emotion is stronger than it is in the indecisive impulse.
I had thus obtained a second step in the investigation. I had
ascertained decisively, by distinctly tracing the facts of the
subject, first, that a will-to-act is the mental state which is the
immediate mental antecedent of action, and that it is not an
" act of will "; and secondly, that it is a combination of thought
and emotion, and that it is a decisive impulse to do an act.
III. The next question to be asked of the facts of our mental
experience was, " What is mental action ? " We do not do our
sensations, or our thoughts, or our emotions, or our volitions ; and
what more is there for us to do in our mental operations ? What
do we do, for instance, when we attend ? We are told by some
philosophers that we do nothing when we attend to a thought
that " to have an interesting idea and to attend to it are the
same". But we are conscious we perceive introspect! vely
that we do something, that we are not passive in attending to a
thought, however passive we may be at times in having thoughts.
And we are told by other philosophers that attention is a mental
act, but they do not tell us what we do in attending. If we
observe carefully the mental facts which occur in us when we
attend to a thought, we find that, when we do so, we keep up the
thought to which we are said to attend. Attention, then, is not
simply a mental act it is an active mental operation, in which
An Introspective Investigation. 25
we have thoughts and keep them up ; as looking (the mental
part of it) is an active mental operation, in which we have per-
ceptions of sight and keep them up. What we do, then, in
attending, and in other active mental operations, is, that we
keep up thoughts or perceptions. It is here, then, if anywhere,
that we shall find the nisus of which the philosophers are con-
scious who say that we are personal agents in the forming of
our determinations, or that we produce the preponderance of the
motive-feeling, or the impulse, which becomes decisive.
IV. I had next to ascertain whether by keeping up thoughts
we can in any way assist in the forming of our will-to-act, or in
producing the preponderance of one impulse over another, and
whether, therefore, there is the personal agency, or effort, in the
forming of our determinations, of which some philosophers say
they are. conscious, but of which, if they are so, their conscious-
ness is so vague or dim that they are unable to point out the
facts of the mental process. And I therefore sought to ascertain
what is the effect of keeping up a thought. And I found that
when we keep up a thought it becomes clearer or more distinct ;
as when we keep up a perception of sight, by looking at an
object, the perception becomes clearer or more distinct. And
that as the thought is kept up the emotion which is connected
with it becomes stronger. And that when one thought is kept
up other thoughts are kept down, more or less, and the emotion
connected with them is also kept down. This is what is done,
by instinct more than by intelligent intention, when men en-
deavour to " drive away sorrow ". They drive away the
thoughts with which their emotion of sorrow is connected,
by keeping up other thoughts ; and they succeed or do not
succeed in producing the desired effect, as they persevere and
are successful, or not, in their endeavours to keep away or to
modify the thoughts by which their grief is excited, and as
their endeavours are well or ill directed.
V. Applying the facts which had now been clearly ascer-
tained, in tracing the mental process by which our volitions are
produced, I found that when there are more impulses than one,
as when we are in doubt whether we will do this act or that, we
may, and in many cases we do, increase the strength of one of
the impulses by keeping up the thought which is the intellectual
part of it. This is what we do when we successfully resist a
temptation of any kind. In cases in which we merely form a
choice by ascertaining, so far as we are able to do so, the course of
action which will be the most beneficial, it is still by obtaining
and keeping up the thoughts or the perceptions by which we
are conscious of the advantages and the disadvantages of the
acts under consideration that we obtain the decisive impulse, or
26 An Introspective Investigation.
are personal agents in the forming of it. In such a simple case,
for instance, as in choosing an orange from a heap, we look first
at one orange and then at another, until we find one which
appears to us to be the best. And we thus form the determina-
tion to take that particular orange. It is evident, therefore,
when we know the facts of the subject, that it is a mistake to
suppose that our will-to-act is in all cases " given us without
any efforts of ours ". And if " we never yet caught ourselves in
the act of making a volition," it was not because we never did
make one it was because our ideas of the mental facts of the
case were so vague and erroneous that it was impossible that we
should know what we were doing when we did so. In some
cases, it is true, the forming of the decisive impulse is so instan-
taneous that our will to act may truly be said to be " given us
without any effort of ours ". As when, for instance, one orange
is offered to us and we take it. But even in such a case, there
is often a rapid keeping up of various thoughts before we decide.
And in very many cases we attend carefully to various con-
siderations before our decision is produced, and are therefore
distinctly personal agents in the forming of it.
The instinctive consciousness of the difference between form-
ing a choice or a determination, and having a choice or a deter-
mination when it has been formed, is shown in the common
language of men. To " elect," to " determine," to " decide " upon
a course of action, is to form an election, a determination, a
decision, a will-to-act. To " prefer " is to have a preference.
But the vagueness of the instinctive consciousness is shown by the
use of same word in both senses. To " choose," for instance, may
mean either to form a choice, or to have a choice or preference
when it has been formed. And the verb to " will," though it
can only be used correctly in the sense of having a will-to-act,
is often used in the active sense, or as if to will to do an act
were to do an " act of will " as in the quotation above from
Jonathan Edwards.
We have a curious illustration of the vague consciousness of
effort in the forming of our determinations, while in theory the
occurrence of effort is denied, in a remark of Mr. Mill, in his
Logic, when he says that " even in yielding to his temptations a
person may know that he could resist". But to "resist" a
temptation is to do something in the forming of our determina-
tion. Mr. Mill's explanation that in such a case " there would
not be required a stronger desire than the individual knows
himself to be capable of feeling!' is no description of what takes
place when we "resist" a temptation. When we resist a
temptation we do something to produce in ourselves the pre-
ponderating impulse to refrain from doing what we are tempted
Hedonism and Ultimate Good. 27
to do. And nothing of this kind could occur if our will to act
were at all times " given us without any efforts of ours ".
VI. We have thus obtained the object of our introspective
investigation. And the result turns out to be the reverse of
that which was looked for. It is, however, a result which may
be said to be scientifically certain ; for it has been obtained by
the process of observing and re-observing the facts of the sub-
ject, and its correctness is guaranteed by the facts, which may
be observed again and again, and have been so observed until
what may be called complete practical verification has been
obtained. While these facts were viewed and spoken of in
the confused and erroneous manner in which in various ways
they have been viewed and spoken of by philosophers and by
mankind in general, it was impossible that the mental process
by which we form determinations should be ascertained. It was
by obtaining step by step, and by slow degrees, correct and clear
perceptions of the nature of the mental facts which occur in this
process, that the process was analysed. And now that it is
analysed, the facts of it are seen to be extremely simple, although
they appeared mysterious and inscrutable before as all facts
are while they are not understood and cannot be pointed out.
Many highly important consequences follow from the correct
view of the subject which has thus been obtained, and many
comments upon it may be made. But the consideration of these
must be reserved. In the meantime, the reader has now before
him, so far, in a short compass, the result of years of careful in-
vestigation.
HENRY TRAVIS.
III. HEDONISM AND ULTIMATE GOOD.
IT has often been observed that systematic enquiry into the
nature of the Supreme End of human action, the Bomim or Sum-
mum Bonum, belongs almost exclusively to ancient ethical specu-
lation ; and that in modern ethics its place is supplied by an in-
vestigation of the fundamental Moral Laws, or Imperatives of
the Practical Eeason. While the ancients appear as chiefly
endeavouring to determine the proper ultimate object of rational
pursuit, the moderns are chiefly occupied in discussing the
basis and validity of a received code of rules, for the most part
restrictive rather than directive of human effort. But though
this difference has frequently been noticed, I am not aware that
any distinct explanation of it has ever been offered : while again
there are many s ; gns that ethical speculation in England has
reached a point at which this old question as to the nature of
28 Hedonism and Ultimate Good.
Ultimate Good again presents itself as fundamental. If these
si< T ns are not misleading, it will be interesting to ascertain, from
a comparison between ancient and modem thought, how far the
speculative excursion which has ended in conveying us back to
the old problem has brought us to face it from a new point of
view, and under new conditions.
When we compare the Greek investigation of Ultimate Good
with our own, we find an important difference in the very form
of the fundamental question. What we, as moralists, are
naturally led to seek, is the true account of general good ; for
most of us almost unhesitatingly assume that moral action, as
such, must have relation to universal ends. But for the Greek
moralist, the primary question as naturally and inevitably took
an egoistic form.* The Good which he studied was ' good for
himself/ or for any other individual philosophic soul, enquiring
after the true way of life. This difference is sufficiently obvious
and has been noticed by more than one writer; but it has
perhaps been somewhat obscured for modern readers by the
antithetical fact, to which more attention has been drawn, that
the political speculation of Greece differs from our own pre-
cisely in its non-individualistic character. There is really no
contradiction between the assumption in ethics of the agent's
private good as the ultimate determinant of rational action ;
and the assumption in politics of the good of the state without
regard to any ' natural rights ' of its component parts as the
ultimate end and standard of right political organisation.
Indeed it would not be difficult to show that the two assump-
tions naturally belong to the same stage in the development of
practical philosophy. Still they have somewhat tended to
confuse each other, through that blending of politics with ethics
in philosophical discussion which characterises the period from
Socrates to Aristotle ; and the confusion has been further
increased by the analogy between the Individual and the State,
which forms the basis of Plato's most famous treatise. This
very analogy, however, when carefully examined, brings out
most strikingly the characteristic which it, at first, tends to
obscure ; for the individual man being considered as a polity of
impulses, his good is made to consist essentially in the due
ordering of the internal relations of this polity, and is only
secondarily and indirectly realised in the relations of this
complex individual to other men. And in Aristotle's detailed
* This statement requires some qualification in so far as it concerns
Plato, on account of his peculiar ontology. Still this does not so much
affect the question Plato asked, as the answer he gave to it, and even
that only to a limited extent ; not (e. g.} in the Philebus, where the
a<ya6W investigated is just the av6pw7rivov a^nObv of Aristotle.
Hedonism and Ultimate Good. 29
analysis of the moral ideal of his age, the fundamental egoism
of the form in which it is conceived is continually illustrated,
in striking contrast to the modern tendency to regard " the
scope and object of ethics as altogether social ".* The limits
of Aristotle's Liberality are not determined by any consider-
ation of its effect on the welfare of its recipients, but by an
intuitive sense of the noble and graceful quality of expenditure
that is free without being too lavish; and his Courageous warrior
is not commended as devoting himself for his country, but as
attaining for himself, even amid pains and death, the peculiar
KctiCov of a courageous act.
No doubt we must bear in mind that this egoism is chiefly
formal. The orthodox moralist, from Prodicus to Chrysippus,
in recommending the preference of Virtue to Pleasure, is
substantially recommending the sacrifice of individual inclina-
tions to social claims ; and the explicit u communis utilitas
nostrte anteponenda" of later Stoicism, (which in this respect
forms a transition from the ancient point of view to the
modern), is no doubt implicit in the practical teaching of earlier
schools. Still the effect of the egoistic form is very clearly seen
in the actual course of ethical discussion. It rendered it
absolutely necessary for the orthodox moralist to settle the
relation of the individual's virtue to his Pleasure and Pain. A
modern moralist may leave this undetermined. He cannot of
course overlook the paramount influence of pleasure and pain,
in the actual determination of human actions ; and he must be
aware that the obtaining of future pleasure and the avoiding of
future pain constitute at least the chief part of the common
notion of ' happiness/ ' interest,' ' good on the whole/ or
whatever else we call the end which a prudent man, as such,
has in view. But he may regard the discussion of this as
bearing on the Sanctions of morality, not Morality itself ; that
is not on the theory of what duty is, but on the practical
question how a man is to be made to do his duty. The Greek,
however, who regarded the determination of the individual's good
as supplying the fundamental principle on which the whole code
of rules for reasonable conduct must ultimately depend, was
obliged at the outset to consider the popular view that this good
was Pleasure. He either, with the Cyrenaics and Epicureans,
accepted this view unreservedly, and held Virtue to be valuable
merely as a means to the enjoyment of the virtuous agent ; or,
with Zeno, he rejected it altogether, and maintained the intrinsic
valuelessness of pleasute ; or with Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato
in his soberer moods, he argued the inseparable connection of
the best and really pleasantest pleasure with the exercise of
*c/. MIND III., p. 341.
30 Hedonism and Ultimate Good.
virtue. The first position was offensive to the moral conscious-
ness ; the third imposed on it the necessity of proving what
could never be really proved without either dialectical tricks or
assumptions obviously transcending experience ; and it was not
surprising that the chief part of the moral earnestness of ancient
society was ultimately enlisted on the side of the second alter-
native. Still the inhuman severity of the paradox that ' pleasure
and pain are indifferent to the wise man/ never failed to have a
repellent effect ; and the imaginary rack on which an imaginary
sage had to be maintained in perfect happiness, was at any rate
a dangerous instrument of dialectical torment for the actual
philosopher.
Christianity extricated the moral consciousness from this
dilemma between base subserviency and inhuman indifference
to the feelings of the moral agent. It compromised the long
conflict between Virtue and Pleasure, by transferring to another
world the fullest realisation of both ; thus enabling orthodox
morality to assert itself, as reasonable and natural, without
denying the concurrent reasonableness and naturalness of the
individual's desire for bliss without alloy. Hence when in-
dependent ethical speculation recommences in England after the
Middle Ages, we find that the dualism if I may so say of the
Practical Reason, which Butler afterwards formulated, is really
implicit in all the orthodox replies to Hobbes. It is not denied
in these replies that man's ' natural good ' is pleasure, or that
the self-love which seeks the agent's greatest happiness is a
rational principle of action ; they are only concerned to maintain
the independent reasonableness of Conscience, and the objective
validity of moral rules derived from a quite other source than
the calculations of self-interest. Thus, for example, though in
Cumberland's view the ultimate end and rational basis of the
moral code is " commune bonum omnium ration alium," the
obligation of the code on each individual " rational " is imposed
" sub pcena felicitatis amittendae aut propter spem ejusdem
acquirendoe". And even Clarke, who is often thought to have
carried his argument for the independence of morality up to the
point of paradox, is yet after all found to make only the very
moderate claim " that Virtue deserves to be chosen for its own
sake, and Vice to be avoided, though a man was sure of his own
particular neither to gain nor lose anything by the practice of
either". But since in the actual world " the practice of vice is
accompanied with great temptations, and allurement of pleasure
and profit, and the practice of virtue is often attended with
great calamity, losses, and sometimes with death itself, this
alters the question," and, in fact, Clarke is of opinion, not only
that men under these circumstances will not always prefer
Hedonism and Ultimate Good. 31
Virtue to Vice, but also that " it is not very reasonably to be
expected that they should ". Butler, however, was the first to
give with perfect precision the differentia of what we may call
broadly the modern view of Ethics, in stating " reasonable
self-love and conscience" as the " two chief or superior princi-
ples in the nature of man " ; whereas it was a fundamental
assumption of all the schools of philosophy that sprang from
Socrates, that there is one naturally " chief or superior principle"
in every rational being which impels him to seek his own true
good.
It is true that, when any attempt is made to relieve Ethics of
its dependence on religion, the old difficulty as to the relation
of Virtue to Happiness recurs ; but it is no longer in the form
of a dispute as to the true nature of the object of rational
desire, but rather as the problem of reconciling the desire for
one's own Good good being more or less explicitly understood
to be pleasure, enjoyment, satisfaction, agreeable feeling of some
kind with the performance of what reason dictates as Duty.
This problem presents itself to most minds as of the very
profoundest importance ; and I cannot understand how any
moralist can turn aside from it, or treat it with indifference.
But I quite admit that its solution is not an essential pre-requi-
site of the construction of a moral code.
On what other principles, then, is this construction to be
attempted ? It appears to me that on this question there is far
more substantial agreement among English moralists than is com-
monly supposed ; and that the fundamental intuitions of con-
science or the practical reason on which one school have always
laid stress, are merely the expression in different aspects or
relations of that ideal subordination of individual impulses to
universal ends on which alone Utilitarianism, as a system of
ethics, can rationally rest. Thus the essence of Justice or
E<|uity, in so far as it is absolutely obligatory, is that different
individuals are not to be treated differently, except on grounds
of universal application : which grounds, again, are given in the
principle of Rational Benevolence, that sets before each man the
good of all others as an object of pursuit no less worthy than
his own ; while, again, other time-honoured virtues seem to be
fitly explained as special manifestations of impartial benevolence
under various normal circumstances of human life, or else as
habits and dispositions indispensable to the maintenance of
rational behaviour under the seductive force of various non-
rational impulses. I admit that there are other rules which our
common moral sense when first interrogated seems to enunciate
as absolutely binding ; but I contend that careful and systematic
reflection on this very Common Sense, as expressed in the
32 Hedonism and Ultimate Good.
habitual moral judgments of ordinary men, results in exhibit-
ing the real subordination of these rules to the fundamental
principles above given. Then, further, this method of syste-
matising particular virtues and duties receives very strong
support from a comparative study of the history of morality ;
as the variations in the moral code of different societies at
different stages correspond, at least generally, to differences in
the actual or believed tendencies of certain kinds of conduct to
promote the good of society. While, again, the account given
by our evolutionists of the pre-historic condition of the moral
faculty, which represents it as derived aboriginally from the
social instincts, is entirely in harmony with this view. This
convergence of several distinct arguments has had, I think, a
considerable effect on contemporary thought ; and probably a
large majority of reflective persons are now prepared to accept
' Common Good ' as the ultimate end for which moral rules
exist, and the standard by which they are to be co-ordinated
and their qualifications and mutual limitations determined.
There remains, no doubt, some difference of view between the
converging lines of speculation, as to the whole or community
of which the good is to be sought ; since from one point of view
we should state the end, in Cumberland's phrase, as the " Common
Good of Rational or Conscious Beings " ; while from another it
will be rather the good of the particular race of animals to
which we belong. But this difference is easily reduced to
latency in the idea of the Good of Humanity, and I do not
propose at present to dwell upon it.
But neglecting this, and fixing our attention on the notion of
Good, we have to ask whether this is less problematical in the
case of humanity generally than Socrates found it to be in the
case of the individual man. Have we not, after all, been simply
brought round to the point from which ethical speculation
started in Europe ? If we try to define the Good, how shall we
avoid revolving again through the old controversies ?
A little reflection will show that we have, at any rate, got rid
of one of the competing answers to the old question. We can-
not now explain the general Good to consist in general Virtue ;
that is in the general fulfilment of the prohibitions and prescrip-
tions of Common Sense morality. This would obviously involve
us in a logical circle ; as we have just settled that the ultimate
standard for determining these prohibitions and prescriptions is
just this general good.
Thus Pleasure, the other " competitor for the Aristeia," as Plato
says, is left without any rival of equally ancient prestige, and in
a far better position relatively to ordinary morality. For (1)
to regard Virtue merely as a means to the agent's private pleasure
Hedonism and Ultimate Good. 33
was undoubtedly offensive to the common moral consciousness of
mankind. But no similar offence is given by the explanation
of the Virtues as various forms and applications of Eational
Benevolence, or auxiliary habits (as Courage, Temperance, &c.),
necessary to the sustained and effective exercise of Eational
Benevolence, amid the various temptations and dangers of
human life ; while the exercise of Benevolence has always been
chiefly understood to mean giving pleasure to others and avert-
ing pain from them. And (2) we saw that when Self-love was
once clearly distinguished from Conscience, it was naturally
understood to mean desire for one's own pleasure ; accordingly
the interpretation of ' one's own good ' which was peculiar in
ancient thought to the Cyrenaic and Epicurean heresies, is
adopted among the moderns, not only by opponents of inde-
pendent and intuitive morality from Hobbes to Bentham, but
also by the most prominent and approved writers of the Intui-
tional School. Indeed, to many of these latter it never seems
to have occurred that this notion can have any other interpreta-
tion.* If, then, when any one hypothetically concentrates his
attention on himself, good is naturally and almost inevitably
conceived to be pleasure, it does not appear how the good of
any number of human beings, however organised into a com-
munity, can be essentially different.
This, then, appears to me to be, in outline, the case for modern
Utilitarianism or Universalistic Hedonism, as a study of the
history of ethical thought presents it to us. I must now
notice briefly the rival doctrines as to the nature of Good
which seem to be chiefly maintained at the present time. It
appears that Hedonism is attacked from two different points
of view, which we may, perhaps, without offence, distinguish
as Materialistic and Idealistic ; each claiming to substitute an
objective standard for the subjective criterion of 'amount of agree-
able feeling'. I use ' Materialistic ' to denote the view which
considers individual men and human societies as Organisms, the
condition and functioning of which can be ascertained by external
observation, and pronounced good or bad without reference to the
series of pleasurable or painful feelings whicli accompany such
functioning. We thus seem to obtain a notion of Well-being or
Welfare which may be substituted for Happiness as the ultimate
end and standard of right action. Perhaps the notion may be
more clearly explained by saying that it is obtained by extending
to a race or a community of animals the idea of Health, as com-
monly attributed to an individual man. In an article in MIND,
No. I., I mentioned that this view was incidentally adopted- by
Mr. Darwin in his chapter on the Moral Sense in his Descent of
* Of. Stewart, Philosophy of the Active and Moral I'owers, B. II., c. 1.
3
34 Hedonism and Ultimate Good.
Man ; and it seems to have been enthusiastically accepted and
more fully developed by some of Mr. Darwin's disciples, among
whom I may count Mr. Pollock, who replied to my article in
No. III. of this journal. I have studied Mr. Pollock's courteous
and carefully written answer, and am still unable to see exactly
how he deals with the following dilemma. Either this notion
of Well-being is entirely resolvable into ' conditions tending to
preservation,' or it includes something more. If the latter be
admitted, we have to ask what is this something more which
distinguishes well-being from mere being. In one place, Mr.
Pollock seems to say that it is something at present undefmable :
to which I can only answer, in Aristotle's words, that if we
cannot get even a proximate definition of it, we shall be " as
archers without a mark, rather unlikely to attain the needful ".
If, however, he falls back on the former alternative, as certainly
other writers of his school seem disposed to do, and says that
well-being is merely " Being with the promise of future being,"
he surely comes into irreconcileable conflict with common sense.
I do not wish to exaggerate this conflict. I admit that the
most important part of the function of morality consists in
maintaining habits and sentiments which seem necessary to the
continued existence, in full numbers, of a society of human
beings under actual circumstances ; and that this part may
easily be regarded as the whole, if w T e consider morality merely
as a code of restrictive regulations the aspect which has been
most prominent in modern times. But this maintenance of
preservative habits and sentiments surely does not exhaust our
ideal of good or desirable human life. We are not content witli
mere Being, however secured in continuance, for ourselves or
for those we love or, in so far as we are philanthropists, for
humanity generally. What we demand more, may be expressed
by the general notion of Culture ; and though some part of
what is included in this notion may fairly be interpreted as
Preservative Tendencies, there is surely much that cannot
possibly be so interpreted. If the Hedonistic view of Culture,
as consisting in the development of susceptibilities for refined
pleasure of various kinds, be rejected, it must be in favour of
what I have called the Idealistic view : in which we regard
the ideal objects on the realisation of which our most refined
pleasures depend Knowledge, or Beauty in its different forms, or
a certain ideal of human relations (whether thought of as
Freedom or otherwise) as constituting in themselves ultimate
Good, apart from the pleasures which depend upon their pursuit
and attainment. I do not propose at present to criticise this
view, chiefly because I am not acquainted with any philoso-
phical exposition of it sufficiently coherent and systematic
Hedonism and Ultimate Good. 35
to invite criticism ; though it seems to be pretty widely accepted
among cultivated persons, and more or less definitely suggested
in the anti-hedonistic arguments of certain philosophical writers.
But it may be well to define clearly the manner in which
Hedonism, as I conceive it, deals with this view.
The Hedonistic argument against the assumption of ' objec-
tive ' ultimate ends, just as that against particular moral rules
of absolute validity, seems to me to consist necessarily of two
parts. It appeals to the immediate intuition of reflective
persons ; and secondly to the results of a comprehensive com-
parison of the ordinary judgments of mankind. The second
argument comes in rather by way of confirmation of the first^
and obviously cannot be made completely cogent ; since, as
above stated, several cultivated persons do habitually judge that
certain ideal goods are ends independently of the pleasure
derived from them. But we may urge not only that all these
ideal goods are productive of pleasure in various ways ; but also
that they seem to obtain the commendation of Common Sense,
roughly speaking, in proportion to the degree of this productive-
ness. This seems obviously true of Beauty ; and will hardly be
denied in respect of any kind of social ideal, for it is surely para-
doxical to maintain that any degree of Freedom, or any form of
social order would be desirable even if it tended to impair,
instead of promoting, the general happiness. The case of
Knowledge is rather more complex ; but certainly Common
Sense is most impressed with the value of knowledge, when its
' fruitf ulness ' has been demonstrated. It is, however, aware
that experience has frequently shown how knowledge, long
fruitless, may become unexpectedly fruitful, and how light m;iv
be shed on one part of the field of knowledge from another
apparently remote : and even if any particular branch of scien-
tific pursuit could be shown to be devoid of even this indirect
utility, it would still deserve some respect on utilitarian grounds ;
both as furnishing to the enquirer the refined and innocent
pleasures of curiosity, and because the intellectual disposition
which it exhibits and sustains, is likely on the whole to produce
fruitful knowledge. Still in cases approximating to this latter^
Common Sense is somewhat disposed to complain of the
misdirection of valuable effort ; so that the meed of honour
commonly paid to Science seems to be graduated, though perhaps
unconsciously, by a tolerably exact utilitarian scale. Certainly
the moment the legitimacy of any branch of scientific enquiry
is seriously disputed, as in the recent case of vivisection, the
controversy on both sides is conducted on an avowedly utili-
tarian basis. Nor does it really make against Hedonism that
knowledge and other ideal ends are often most energetically
36 Hedonism and Ultimate Good.
pursued by persons who do not think of the resulting happiness ;
if, as experience seems to show, both the concentration of effort
needed for success, and the disposition most favourable to
enjoyment, are promoted by this limitation of aim. Nor, finally,
need the Hedonist be surprised that the enthusiasm of these
pursuits should occasionally prompt to the affirmation that their
ends are worthy to be chosen per se, even if the pursuits should
result in a balance of pain over pleasure. He is only concerned
to maintain that, when in a mood of calm reflection we distin-
guish these ideal objects from the feelings inseparably connected
with them, it is the quality of these latter which we see to be
the ultimate end of rational desire.
This last proposition I do not find exactly denied, in the
terms in which I have stated it ; but an answer is made to it by
some writers, which, if valid at all, is certainly conclusive,
though indirect. It is said, for example, by Mr. Green* that
" pleasure as feeling, in distinction from its conditions which are
not feelings, cannot be conceived " ; and therefore, of course,
cannot be taken as an end of rational action. Whatever
plausibility this argument possesses, seems to depend on that
ambiguity in the term ' conceive/ which has caused so much
confusion in recent philosophical debate. To adopt an old
comparison, Mr. Green's proposition is neither more nor less
true than the statement that an angle cannot be ' conceived '
apart from its sides. That is, we cannot form the notion of an
angle without the notion of sides containing it ; but this does not
hinder us from apprehending with perfect definiteness the
magnitude of any angle as greater, equal, or less than that of
any other, without any comparison of the pairs of containing
sides. Similarly, we cannot form the notion of any pleasure
existing apart from some " conditions which are not feelings " ;
but we can perfectly well compare a pleasure felt under any
given conditions with any other, however otherwise conditioned,
and pronounce it equal or unequal ; and we surely require no
more than this to enable us to take ' amount of pleasure ' as
our standard for deciding between alternatives of conduct.
Mr. Green, however has another argument against the ' great-
est happiness' doctrine, which it will be desirable briefly to
notice ; especially since it also supplies the heavy artillery in an
elaborate attack on Hedonism in Mr. Bradley's Ethical Studies
(noticed in the last number of this journal). I will give it in
Mr. Green's words taken from the passage quoted above :
* I quote this sentence from Mr. Green's Introduction to the YoL II. of
Hume's Trcntisc on Humdn Nature, p. 9 ; but I have found the same argu-,
inent used in almost the same words by other writers of the same school.
Of. (e.g.} Prof. Caird in Academy, June 12, 1874.
Hedonism and Ultimate Good. 37
"Happiness 'in its full extent,' as 'the utmost pleasure we are
capable of,' is an unreal abstraction, if ever there was one. It is
curious that those who are most forward to deny the reality of uni-
versals in that sense in which they are the condition of all reality,
viz., as relations, should yet, having pronounced these to be mere names,
be found ascribing reality to a universal, which cannot, without
contradiction, be supposed more than a name. Does this ' happiness
in its full extent' mean the ' aggregate of possible enjoyment,' of
which modem utilitarians tell us 1 Such a phrase simply represents
the vain attempt to get a definite by addition of indefinites. It has no
more meaning than ' the greatest possible quantity of time ' would
have. Pleasant feelings are not quantities that can be added. Each
is over before the next begins, and the man who has been pleased a
million times is not really better off has no more of the supposed
chief good in possession than the man who has only been pleased a
thousand times. When we speak of pleasures, then, as forming a
possible whole, we cannot mean pleasures as feelings."
We may admit that if any one supposed that his 'greatest
happiness ' was something that could be possessed all at once,
it would be important to explain to him that it was composed of
elements which could only be had successively. But I must
confess myself quite unable to see how it thereby becomes
impossible for him to aim at it. The paradoxical character of
Mr. Green's argument cannot be better shown than by taking
the very analogy which he selects to enforce it. In what sense
is it true that ' greatest possible quantity of time ' has no
meaning ? Since when has it been not merely wrong but
logically impossible to make prolongation of life an end of
voluntary effort ? And what is 'length of days,' but 'the greatest
possible quantity of time' relatively to the individual looking for-
ward ? If it is only meant that we cannot have time by itself,
without some filling of time, this is of course true; just as it is true
that we cannot have pleasure without the conditions on which
it depends. But because Time is an abstraction, it is not there-
fore unreal, nor incapable of furnishing an end of action ; we
can aim at living as long as possible, without any regard to
the manner of our living ; and if we turn out centenarians, we
shall commonly be thought to have succeeded in our aim. A
fortiori we can aim at living as pleasantly as possible, without
any regard to the inseparable concomitants of our 'greatest
possible happiness.' Mr. Green seems to assume that because
the parts of Time, and of whatever has Time for its fundamental
form, must exist successively, it is therefore illegitimate to
conceive them as parts at all ; that a ' happy week,' or a
' miserable month/ is something " which cannot without contra-
diction be supposed more than a name," merely because we
cannot have a happy week all in one moment ! Surely this is
38 Kant's Space and Modern Matlicmatics.
as singular a metaphysical whim as ever entered into the head
of a scholastic philosopher.
I have selected these two arguments for discussion, because
they are of a kind that admits of summary treatment. They
are either completely cogent or totally valueless ; and it does
not require many words to enable the reader to decide which
view to take. The case is different with other anti-hedonistic
topics, such as the difficulties of estimating the amount of pleasure
or pain, comparing the amount of different pleasures, &c. It is,
on the one hand, impossible not to allow a certain weight to
such objections : on the other hand, they hardly even claim to
be decisive ; and, in fact, seem rather directed against the prac-
ticability of .constructing a Hedonistic Calculus, than against the
truth of the Hedonistic doctrine as to the nature of Ultimate
Good.
H. SIDGWICK.
IV. KANT'S SPACE AND MODERN MATHEMATICS.
The remarkable modern speculations concerning non-Euclidean
sorts of space, of which Prof. Helmholtz gave some account in
No. III. of MIND, are likely to be hailed as one of the chief
difficulties with which the Kantian theory of space will have to
deal. " If we can imagine such spaces of other softs," that
learned writer tells us, "it cannot be maintained that the
axioms of geometry are necessary consequences of an a priuri
transcendental' form of intuition, as Kant thought ".
Before attempting to answer this argument, let me briefly
point out a fundamental error that appears to hinder many
adepts of positive science from realising the true nature of
problems belonging to the theory of knowledge, or critical
metaphysics.
In our wanderings on the border between science and
philosophy w r e are apt to forget that it is impossible to move
on both sides of the boundary line at once, and that whoever
crosses it shifts his problem as well as his method. In physics
(taking the word in its widest sense) we must adopt a standard
of truth, which in philosophy is the very thing to be settled.
When a sufficient amount of accurate observation has been
digested by correct reasoning, we hold the result to be the
adequate expression of real existence. We admit a real
world, independent of all appearance to anybody's sense or
reason, and take for its exact counterpart the world that offers
itself to the mens sana in corpore sano after exhausting all
the means of research at the command of mankind. Science
Kant's Space and Modern Mathematics. 39
has no suspicion of a distinction between 'objectivity' and
' reality'.
Of course the object of science is not altogether the same
with that of popular belief. In every-day life we consider as
real objects such things as appear to our senses, corrected by
reasoning in the rough, as the blue firmament, the earth at rest,
&c. In science the real object is what appears to be to the
experienced mind attaining the very limit of its powers, and
sensible phenomena sink into mere signs of the presence of
certain objects. By interpretation of these signs the real
object is attained. And if many a theory of the present day
will probably be modified by ulterior investigation, still we are
moving towards the end of representing the real object as it is.
Yet the real object of science has so much at least in com-
mon with that of ordinary life as is wanted for the purposes of
measuring and calculation. It retains the space and time, the
motion and, to a certain extent, even the matter and force of
popular belief. It is not the object of pure thought, evolved
from principles presupposed by necessity in every act of
tlii nking, but of thought as applied to data of sense. However
simplified by abstraction, it always bears the traces of its
sensible origin.
In geometry proper, or constructive geometry (including
stereometry), a great many qualities of things are disregarded,
while it only attends to the space in which bodies appear to
exist and move. But, however shorn of qualities, its object is
imagined as something to a certain extent analogous to what we
see and touch. Hence its teachings may be assisted by diagrams
and models, not mere conventional signs like those of arith-
metic or logic. Because it takes from sense-intuition only the
very first data, which are the same whatever part of our experi-
ence we proceed from, it assumes the aspect of a purely deductive
science like arithmetic. Nevertheless its empirical basis may
be shown by its inability to construct, for instance, an aggregate
of four dimensions. Its real object is that of physics and of
common life, considered exclusively as to the metrical propor-
tions of figures imaginable in its space. To demand logical
proof for genuine geometrical axioms is a mistake, because every
proof must proceed from some ultimate premisses, which in this
case must concern space. There are no data about space either
in logic or arithmetic, but only in our sense-intuition, and
precisely the data expressed in those axioms.
The algebraical geometry of modern science is algebra, a
more general form of arithmetic, a series of speculations con-
cerning quantities. Its sole connection with geometry is the
understanding that the quantities it considers are meant as
40 Kant's Space and Modern Mathematics.
quantities of geometrical data; but this understanding is not
embodied in the algebraical symbols themselves. As we learn
from Prof. Helmholtz (I.e. p. 309), time as well as a line may
be regarded here as an aggregate of one dimension, and the
system of colours as an aggregate of three dimensions. The
formulae and their analysis remain the same whether the aggre-
gates be assumed to be spatial ones or of a different nature.
Hence it is possible to pursue the chain of inference far beyond
the limits of any geometrical interpretation, and even, by vary-
ing the premisses in which we express certain geometrical data,
to prepare formulae that would apply to spaces foreign to our
experience, provided any such could be conceived by the human
imagination. The proof in this case is entirely logical : sup-
posing certain relations of quantities, certain other relations
must be admitted also, or there would be an end to all our
thinking. However, the link between such a system of infer-
ences and its application to qualities of either objective or
assumed space is not comprehended in the system itself, but
supplied from without, and it remains to be seen how much of
the algebraical system will bear translation into geometry.
Now, when we aim at a theory of knowledge and enter into
discussion with such thinkers as Berkeley, Hume or Kant, we
find ourselves on a ground quite different from that of either
physics or geometry. The notions of ' objectivity ' and
' reality/ hitherto equivalent, must be carefully kept asunder,
or else it becomes impossible even to understand the questions
at issue. We must be prepared to examine opinions like these :
that there is nothing real except mind, whereas space and bodies
are merely its object ; or that besides mind there is a reality,
impressing it so as to produce an object wholly dissimilar from
the reality itself. Again, if admitting impressions from without,
we may have to enquire in how far the object is dependent on
these and on. the constitution of the mind respectively. If it
were established beyond all doubt that the ' object ' and the
' real ' are one and the same, all examination of such questions
and theories would become an empty ceremony, and the para-
doxes of Idealism absurdities unworthy of our notice. But as
things are now, results of scientific research involving that as-
sumption cannot be rightly employed as evidence against philoso-
phical tenets that disclaim its validity.
For a scientific man fresh from physiology of the senses, it is
hard to keep in mind that the perceiving, imagining and think-
ing ' subject ' of philosophy is not altogether the same as that
with which he had to deal in his former pursuits. There he
considered it as a unity of body and mind, one of a class of
objects in the World we observe. Here it is nothing more titan
Kant's Space and Modern Mathematics. 41
the correlative of every object whatever, the observer and
thinker opposed to them all. Unaccustomed to this kind of
abstraction, the student of nature speedily rounds it off into the
full anthropos of physiology, not being aware that he has crossed
the fatal border; and much of the reasoning current in his own
domain is no longer acceptable as lawful tender.
From geometry proper, there is an easy transit into meta-
physics, by the road of analytical geometry, which science has
but a conventional connection with the data of intuition, and
merges into pure arithmetic. In order to determine the rela-
tions between construction and analysis, some will attempt to
reduce the latter to an abstraction from the sensible object like
geometry, while others try to explain the foundations of
geometry as necessities of thought unassisted by the senses.
Both theories belong to the province of Philosophy ; but from
the familiar intercourse between mathematics and natural
science, it is evident that Science has a great chance of being
called in as arbiter and usurping the office without suspicion.
In the present case, the first question is whether any sort of
space besides the space of Euclid be capable of being imagined.
More than three dimensions, it is allowed, we are quite unable
to represent. But we are told of spherical and pseudospherical
space, and non-Euclideans exert all their powers to legitimate
these as space by making them imaginable. We do not find
that they succeed in this, unless the notion of imaginability
be stretched far beyond what Kantians and others understand
by the word. To be sure, it is easy to imagine a spherical
surface as a construction in Euclid's space ; but we vainly
attempt to get an intuition of a solid standing in the same
relation to that surface as our own solids stand to the plane. A
pseudospherical surface we may imagine ; but then it is bounded
by one or two edges. Nor is it of any avail to draw (as we are
told) a piece from the edge back to the middle, and then continue
it. This very operation betrays that the continuity of such a sur-
face beyond the edge is not imaginable. We may cloak our per-
plexity by special phrases, saying that only limited strips of the
surface can be " connectedly represented in our space," while it
may yet be "thought of as infinitely continued in all direc-
tions". The former is just w r hat is commonly understood by
being 'imagined,' whereas being 'thought of does not imply
imagination any more than in the case of, say, V 1. And
when we are assured that Beltrami has rendered relations in
pseudospherical space of three dimensions imaginable by a
process which substitutes straight lines for curves, planes for
curved surfaces, and points on the surface of a finite sphere for
42 Kant's Space and Modern Mathematics.
infinitely distant points, we might as well believe that a cone is
rendered sufficiently imaginable to a pupil by merely showing
its projection upon a plane as a circle or a triangle. Just the
characteristic features of the thing we are to imagine must be
done away with, and all we are able to grasp with our intuition
is a translation of that thing into something else. As to the
image in a convex mirror, referred to by Prof. Helmholtz in
his article, we do not mentally contrast it with our objective
world in Euclidean space, but only with the habitual
aspect of that world as seen from a given point of view.
In the latter also things appear to contract as they retire
to a distance. Only we have learned to conceive the objec-
tive space as one in which we ourselves are able to move
in all directions and shift our point of view at pleasure. So
with some practice we actually see those things not growing
smaller, but moving away from the place where we may happen
to be. The world in the mirror offers itself as a novel aspect of
the same world, needing a larger amount of practice for its
interpretation, because complicated by unwonted circumstances.
As a form of the objective world, which remains the same from
whatever point we inspect it, we can imagine, not any space in
which motion implies flattening or change of form of any kind,
but only the space known from our sense-experience, the space
of Euclid. All other 'space' contrived by human ingenuity
may be an aggregate with fictitious properties and a consistent
algebraical analysis of its own, but space it is called only by
courtesy.
Even admitting for a moment that our mind is capable of
imagining different sorts of space, it might still be maintained
that the only possible form of actual intuition for a mind like
ours, as affected by real things outside of it, is Euclidean space.
When we hold the origin of our geometrical axioms to be em-
pirical, it does not follow that a real space must be assumed as
being transported in some way through organs of sense into the
percipient mind. Of experience itself there are different ex-
planations, as far as explanations go. Granted that I take
my ' flat space ' from my perceptions, and these are forced upon
me by something not myself, variety of perceptions ought to
originate in a variety of outward impulses. But then percep-
tion may be, for aught I know, wholly dissimilar in nature from
both the impulse and that which produced the impulse, as the
perception of red or blue is believed to be the effect of certain
undulations in the optic nerve, produced in their turn by the
waves termed light, and yet not to be compared with either.
Our intuition of space may be empirical without a real space to
correspond, provided there be any reality whatever compelling the
Kant's Space and Modern Mathematics. 43
mind to exert its native powers in constructing space as we
know it, which the mind would not do unless so compelled. In
that case space, Euclid's space, would remain a form of intuition,
a priori and transcendental.
We read that " geometrical axioms must vary according to
the kind of space inhabited ". Why this must be, one cannot
understand, unless it be proved first, which is not proved at all,
that space as represented by a sentient being is necessarily a
copy of a space in which it lives and moves. Even if we
suppose that the subject resides in a real space, and that its
intuitions of space depend entirely on what it perceives, the
question remains, how much of its perception is due to the
constitution of the subject itself, and how much to impressions
from the outer world ? Also, what is the relation between those
impressions and the spatial arrangement of that world ? The
space represented on the faith of perception might yet be
different from the real space. Nay, on the popular empirical
ground taken by physiology, the proposition is a disputable one.
Dr. Mises (Prof. Fechner), in one of his witty paradoxes of
thirty years ago, reprinted last year in his Kleine Schriften,
supposed reasoning beings of two dimensions only, like the men
we see in the camera obscura, who move together with the
plane which they inhabit through a third dimension, and per-
ceive that movement only as a continued series of changes in
their superficial universe. By analogy he started the hypothesis
of a fourth dimension through which we might be moving our-
selves. Now we know that analytical geometry is ready to
grapple with any number of dimensions,* though they can never
be imagined. These plane-people of Mises are quite as imagin-
able as the sphere-dwellers of Prof. Helmholtz. They would
really exist in a space of three dimensions, inhabiting two of
them and moving through the third, yet perceiving but two of
them as dimensions. So would the sphere-dwellers ; for the
surface of a sphere means either nothing at all, or the boundary
of a solid of three dimensions. Only in their case the third
dimension would influence their intuition by preventing them,
for instance, from ever gathering experience of parallel lines and
geometrical similarity between figures of different size.-f- How-
ever, as our mathematicians succeed in explaining properties of
spaces unknown to our experience, even of those of four and
* Of. the Ausdehnungtlelm of Hermann Grassmann.
t Unless, indeed, they were small enough to perceive only a very
limited portion of their surface, which might easily impress them as flat,
as our earth did the first Greek philosophers. We need not stop to
inquire whether we ourselves ever get sen* e- experience of undoubtedly
parallel lines. Nevertheless such are constructible out of primary
elements supplied by sense-intuition.
44 Kant's Space and Modern Mathematics.
more dimensions, there is no reason to deny the same faculty
to our imaginary surface-men. As all straightest lines on a
sphere end by meeting somewhere, why should they not for
once suppose a different surface, on which straightest lines
might be drawn in any direction so as to retain the same
distance to infinity, and, reasoning on this and a few more sup-
positions, discover the analytical geometry of the plane ? Com-
bining this with their original spherical theorems, some genius
among them might conceive the bold hypothesis of a third
dimension, and demonstrate that actual observations are per-
fectly explained by it. Henceforth there would be a double set
of geometrical axioms ; one the same as ours, belonging to
science, and another resulting from experience in a spherical
surface only, belonging to daily life. The latter would express
the ' object ' of sense-intuition ; the former, ' reality,' incapable of
being represented in empirical space, but perfectly capable of
being thought of and admitted by the learned as real, albeit
different from the space inhabited.
The ' rigidity ' ascribed to geometrical figures is hardly to be
considered as a physical quality. A physical solid, say an india-
rubber ball, may be thought of as being flattened to a spheroid
or a disc, and still retain its identity, because the matter remains
the same. It would be perfectly rigid in a physical sense, if its
form were unchangeable by any external force whatever. But
a geometrical sphere is the same only as long as both its form
and size remain what they are. The rigidity is not resistance
against force, but simple identity with itself. We might con-
ceive a spheroid of the same volume, and an unbroken series of
spheroids between it and the sphere ; so by analogy with the
physical body we might say that the sphere was gradually
flattened to the ultimate form in the series. Still in the geo-
metrical sense there would be no identity between the sphere
and any of the spheroids, because here matter is wanting, but
only a successive substitution of something else instead of the
primitive figure. If we apply one sphere to another, and find
out their congruence or the reverse, the meaning is not that a
physically rigid body is to be transported through all the inter-
vening parts of space. The purpose is answered as well by
mentally cancelling the old sphere, and constructing a new one
on the same principle and with the same radius, so that its
centre coincide with that of the sphere to be compared with it.
In the case of mechanical science deciding that two bodies
must have varied in the same sense during such an operation,
the inference would be that the consequences of geometrical
application of figures to each other can never be verified by
actual experience on physical bodies for that reason, to say
Kant's Space and Modern Mathematics. 45
nothing of their impenetrability. But geometry would declare
bodies liable to vary, to be different from its own solids. Of
course, its own abstract notions of space and figure may be
supplemented at pleasure by taking into account time of move-
ment, or a concept of matter just sufficient to distinguish a
filled part of space from an empty one. In the former case we
come to phoronomy, in the latter to mixed geometrical specula-
tions about bodies capable of contractions and distensions.
Such speculations are as lawful as what most people understand
by geometry, and it appears that physicists find them useful
for their ulterior purposes. Only they must not be confounded
with the doctrine of space and its measures, in which a solid is
simply a part of space of a certain form and size, a surface the
boundary between such parts and so on. These parts of space
it would be absurd to consider as changeable, whatever experi-
ence may affirm concerning physical bodies that move< in space.
It is certainly true in one sense, that the axioms of geometry
"merely define what qualities and deportment a body must
have to be recognised as rigid ". But this regards geometry as
applicable to bodies or material things ; its own solids are not
meant either to have or to lack physical rigidity.
Nevertheless geometrical axioms are synthetic propositions,
because they are not to be deduced by pure logic from the de-
finition of their subject-terms, but are found by intuition of the
space offered to us as a form of our objective world. As far as we
know, that world audits space could be quite different from what
they are, were it not for sense-experience which supplies the first
elements of construction, and reflection which constructs figures
and examines them as if actually seen. The axioms of geometiy
proper are discoveries resulting from the contemplation of objec-
tive space by itself; as soon as we add the empirical elements
of movement, properly so called, of bodies filling space, &c., we
stand upon another ground.
To conclude these observations, the Kantian theory of space, 1
as defined by Prof. Helmholtz himself, contains three distinct
assertions :
(.) Space is a form of intuition : any conception of ours must
be imaginable to be what we call space. [This is admitted by
the opponents ; only non-Euclideans try to make imaginable
that which is not so in the sense required for argumentation in
this case.]
(6.) Space is a form a priori : a native form of our perceptive
faculty, not a datum passively received from without. [The
opponents attempt to refute this by proving the empirical origin
of our notions of space. Between this proof and the refutation
46 Kant's Space and Modern Mathematics.
of Kant's assertion there is wanting the proof that empirical
knowledge is acquired by simple importation or by counterfeit,
and not by peculiar operations of the mind solicited by varied
impulses from an unknown reality.]
(c.) Space is a transcendental form : belonging to our own object
by some necessity arising from the unknown constitution of our
mind ; but not therefore belonging to the real world as well.
[The opponents overlook the distinction between ' objectivity '
and ' reality/ and reason, as they would do in physical science,
on the tacit supposition of the two being identical, and Kant's
assertion disproved beforehand.]
After this, the final propositions of the article in question
would have to be modified as follows :
(1.) The axioms of geometry, taken by themselves out of all
connection with mechanical propositions, represent no relations
of physical objects. When strictly isolated, if we regard them
with Kant as forms of intuition transcendentally given, they con-
tribute a form into which any empirical content whatever will fit,
and which therefore does not in any way limit or determine be-
forehand the mature of that content. In other words, axioms con-
cerning parts of space do not determine the deportment of bodies
filling such parts at a given moment. We may admit that this
would hold true if the axioms given were those of spherical or
pseudospherical geometry ; however, the (possibly transcendental)
form of intuition actually given is that analysed in Euclid's
axioms.
(2.) As soon as certain principles of mechanics are conjoined
with the axioms of geometry, we obtain a system of propositions
which has full objective or physical import, and which can be
verified or overturned by fresh sense-observations, as from
sense-experience it can be inferred. If such a system were to
be taken as a transcendental form of intuition and thought,
there must be assumed a constancy of laws determining the
relations between the mind's objects and the impulses which it
receives from an unknown reality.
J. P. K LAND.
LEYDEN, Sept. 30, 1876.
V._ FUNDAMENTAL LOGIC.
AT least three distinct views are possible of the relation
between logic and mathematics. Mathematics may be regarded
as a special application of logic ; or logic may be regarded as
a branch of mathematics * ; or the two may be regarded as co-
ordinate sciences.
I regard the ordinary logic as a co-ordinate science with
mathematics : but I further maintain that the ordinary logic
on the one hand, and mathematics on the other, are two sepa-
rate developments of a simpler logic than any which has been
usually recognised.
It appears to be admitted by all, that the fundamental rela-
tion in mathematics is equality ; and it appears to be generally
thought that the fundamental relation corresponding to this in
the ordinary logic is identity. I dispute this latter position.
I maintain that the fundamental relation of the ordinary logic
is not identity, but co-existence. But mathematics, or the logic
of equality, and the ordinary logic, or the logic of co-existence,
both rest on the simplest and most elementary logic, which is
that of identity.
John Stuart Mill is the only writer known to me who has
clearly seen that the ordinary logic rests not on identity but on
co-existence. His system is, in substance, an application of the
principles of the ordinary logic to the actual work of discovery
and proof; and, seeing that the axioms of identity and contra-
diction are by themselves able to carry the reasoner but a little
way, he proposes as the canon of his logic the axiom that
" things which co-exist with the same thing co-exist with each
other". His treatment of formal logic is, however, unsatisfac-
tory, t>r at least incomplete, and I must say a few words in
defence of the position that the syllogistic reasoning of the
ordinary logic really depends on this axiom.
The relations with which the ordinary logic deals are those
of the inclusion of one class in another, and of individuals in
classes; and when it is reconstructed by treating propositions
as equations, the relations with which it deals are those of the
total or partial identity of classes.
For my present purpose it will be best to instance a case of
* Mr. Venn, in his very lucid exposition of Boole's Logical System in
MIND No. IV., says (p. 480) : " The prevalent notion about Boole pro-
bably is, that he regarded Logic as a branch of Mathematics ; that, in
fact, he simply applied mathematical rules to logical problems. This
is a very natural mistake." If it is a mistake, Boole is himself answer-
able for it. The full-length title of his great work is An Investigation of
ike Laws of Thought, on which are founded the mathematical theories of
Logic and Probabilities.
48 Fundamental Logic.
total identity. In the ordinary logic, as modified by ' quanti-
fying the predicate/ the following would be regarded as a
proposition of total identity : " The things having inertia are
the same as the things having gravity." But it may be much
better stated as a proposition of co-existence, thus : " Inertia
and gravity always co-exist." I do not lay any stress on the
evident truth that the latter mode of expression appears much
more natural; but I say that the proposition, though it may
with perfect accuracy be stated as one of identity, is essentially
and primarily one of co-existence. Inertia is in no sense iden-
tical with gravity.
All propositions asserting the inclusion of one class within
another, may in like manner be shown to be really propositions
asserting co-existence. Thus the proposition, " Chlorine is an
imperfect gas," according to the view of the ordinary logic,
asserts that " The species chlorine is included in the class of
imperfect gases ". But if we make no postulate as to the exis-
tence of such a class, and state the proposition in its utmost
possible simplicity, it becomes the following : " With the
differentia of chlorine (consisting in its colour and its chemical
reactions) the (physical) properties of an imperfect gas co-exist."
In Boole's and Jevons's logical systems, propositions are
written as mathematical equations, and the co-existence of
qualities is symbolised by the combination of terms. If we
call inertia x and gravity y, the identity of the things having
inertia and those having gravity is asserted by the equation,
x = y : but if we interpret x and y to mean, not the things
having the qualities, but the qualities themselves, then the
copula = will mean not identity but co-existence, and the
equation will assert the invariable co-existence of the qualities.
In Jevons's notation,* which for its purpose appears abso-
lutely perfect, if x means chlorine and y an imperfect gas, then
the equation x = xy asserts that chlorine is an imperfect gas.
If, further, z means freely soluble in water, the equation y = yz
asserts that imperfect gases are freely soluble in water ; and the
syllogism whereby, from these two premisses, we infer that
chlorine is freely soluble in water, is expressed as follows :
x = xy ; y = yz ; therefore, x = xyz = xz.
Boole appears to recognise the existence of no simpler logic
than that of co-existence, for he begins his system by stating
the laws of the combination of terms. He uses 1 as the symbol
for " all," and 1 a; is consequently his expression for whatever is
* See his Principles of Science. Jevons, however, uses the capitals
A, B, nnd C, where I follow Boole in using the small italics x, y, and z.
I prefer to make logical equations look as like mathematical ones as
possible.
Fundamental Logic. 49
not-#. In logic, as in mathematics, the equation \x = x is thus
true of all values of x. He places at the commencement of his
system the two following equations, which are his expressions of
the laws of identity and contradiction: x 2 = x, anda; (1 x) = 0.
The first of these asserts that, if a term be combined with itself,
the result is the same as if it remained uncombined : thus,
" heavy, heavy things " are the same as " heavy things". The
second asserts that a term and its negative cannot be combined :
thus, things which are at once heavy and not heavy cannot
exist. These two equations, which in logic are true of all
terms whatever, are in mathematics true only of terms having
the values of 1 and 0.
Boole (Laws of Thought, pp. 49, 50) calls attention to the fact,
that these equations, expressing the fundamental laws of thought,
are equations of the second degree. This is so surprising a
result, that it ought to excite a suspicion, not indeed of the
accuracy of Boole's expression of these laws, but of the truth of
the assumption that they are what is simplest and most elemen-
tary in logic. I maintain that there is a more elementary logic
than Boole's : a logic in which there are no combined terms, and
consequently no equations except those of the first degree ; no
operations except addition and subtraction ; no interpretation of
the copula except simple identity ; and of which the axioms are
true not only in logic but in mathematics.
In what follows I must request the reader to bear in mind
that the word identity is used in the sense not only of total but
of partial identity, so as to include the relation of a part to
the whole.
When expressed in language, the propositions and syllogisms
of the logic of identity are similar in form to those of the old
logic. The old logic deals chiefly with such cases as the inclu-
sion of class within class ; but the same or similar forms will
express the inclusion of a part in the whole, or of a constituent
in the compound. The following are examples : " The anther is
a part of the flower ; the flower is a part of the tree ; therefore,
the anther is a part of the tree." " Hydrogen is a constituent of
water ; water is a constituent of albumen ; therefore, hydrogen
is a constituent of albumen." It may be thought that the
distinction between propositions of co-existence and of identity
is one of interpretation only, and does not belong to formal
logic; and in fact this distinction, so far as I am aware, has
not been seen till now ; the purpose of this paper is to insist
on it. In proof of the really logical nature of the distinction,
it is to be observed that, though propositions of co-existence
may no doubt be stated as propositions of identity, the converse
is not true propositions of identity cannot be stated as propo-
4
50 Fundamental Logic.
sitions of co-existence. The two syllogisms last stated have
propositions of partial identity for their premisses and their
conclusions, and none of these can be stated as propositions of
co-existence; and the forms of proposition and syllogism by
which, as we have seen, Jevons so admirably expresses the logic
of co-existence, cannot, without an unwarrantable strain on
their meaning, be made to express the logic of simple identity.
There is another peculiarity of the logic of co-existence
which confirms me in the belief that it is fundamentally distinct
from that of mere identity. Sir William Hamilton has shown,
though I believe he was not the first to discover, the double
interpretation, in extension and in comprehension (or intension),
which the terms of the ordinary logic admit of. The extension
and the comprehension of the meaning of terms, or, in other
words, the denotation and the connotation of class-names, vary
inversely as each other that is to say, the number of species
included in a class is greater as the number of attributes con-
noted by the name of the class is less. Thus, if the syllogism
above-stated respecting chlorine is interpreted in extension, its
meaning will be : " Chlorine is one of the class of imperfect
gases ; imperfect gases are part of the class of substances freely
soluble in water; therefore,chlorine is one of the class of substances
freely soluble in water." But if interpreted in comprehension,
its meaning will be : " The properties of chlorine include those
of imperfect gases ; the properties of imperfect gases include
those of substances freely soluble in water ; therefore, the pro-
perties of chlorine include those of substances freely soluble in
water."
When we interpret terms and propositions in comprehension,
we are really treating them as belonging to the logic of co-
existence ; when we interpret them in extension, we are treating
them as belonging to the logic of identity.
Now, in the logic of identity, no interpretation in compre-
hension is possible ; its terms and propositions are interpretable
in extension only. This will be made evident by referring to
either of the two syllogisms already given as examples of that
logic.
Moreover, in propositions asserting the inclusion of class
within class, which I regard as really propositions of co-exis-
tence, we have seen that the more species a name denotes, the
fewer attributes it connotes. But this is reversed in propositions
asserting the inclusion of a part in the whole, which I regard
as really propositions of mere identity ; the name of the whole
connotes more attributes than the name of the part. The tree
has a greater variety of attributes than the anther, and the
compound than the element.
Fundamental Logic. 51
The distinctness of the logic of co-existence from that of
identity seems to be proved by these two closely-connected
facts, that propositions of co-existence may be stated as propo-
sitions of identity, but not the converse ; and that propositions
of co-existence may be interpreted either in extension or in
comprehension, but propositions of identity can be interpreted
in extension only.
It has not, I think, been sufficiently noticed, that proposi-
tions are possible respecting a class which do not make any
assertion respecting the members of the class. For instance:
Insects are the largest class of animals Birds are the most
sharply defined class of animals.
The laws of identity and contradiction are fundamental in
logic, and, so far as they can be expressed without combined
terms, they may be expressed by the equations x = x ; an I
x x = 0. To these it has been usual to add, as a third and
co-ordinate law, that of excluded middle, or, to use Jevons's
much better phrase, the law of duality. This law, as generally
stated, is that every thing must either possess or not possess
any given property ; but this statement belongs to the logic of
co-existence ; in the logic of identity its statement is, that any
total of which x is a part consists of the sum of x and not-.' ;
and, 1 being the symbol for " all," it may be expressed by the
equation 1 = x + (1x). When thus stated, it is seen to be,
riot a co-ordinate law with the two preceding, but a corollary
from them. This, I think, agrees with Boole's view.
There are, however, two other laws which appear to be co-
ordinate axioms with those of identity and contradiction. One
is that two negatives form an affirmative or positive : this law
may be expressed by the equation ( x) = x, or what is per-
haps a better expression, as not suggesting that a negative term
can have any independent meaning, x (y z) x - - y + z.
The other is the law that the order in which addition takes
place is indifferent : it may be expressed by the equation
(x + y) + z = (y + z) + x. This is the form of the equations
of chemical transformation, as will be seen if y is taken to mean
oxygen and x and z two oxidisable substances. Such equations
really belong to the logic of identity, assuming, however, the
physical truths that matter can neither be created nor destroyed,
;r.:d that every compound may be resolved back into its elements.
Perhaps we ought to enumerate yet another law, to the effect
that an equation may be read either way, so that, if x = ?/, it is
equally true that y = x. It is not unlikely, however, that the
statement here made of the laws of the logic of identity may be
found to admit of improvement.
52 Fundamental Logic.
It will be observed that all these laws are true, not only in
the logic of identity, but also in the logic of co-existence and
of equality, that is to say in the ordinary logic and in mathe-
matics.
It is worth while to show that a complete though very simple
symbolic method is possible in the logic of identity, without
any combination of terms, and with no operations except
addition and subtraction.
I propose to express the proposition " all x is y" or " x is a
part of y" by the equation x = y p, p being so much of y as
is not x : and the parallel expression for " no x is y" is x =
C 1 y*)p = i y p-
We will speak first of conversion. The problem of logical
conversion may be thus stated in its utmost possible generality :
Having described x in terms of y t to describe y in terms of .'/'.
The affirmative proposition " all x is y" or x = y p, is con-
verted by simply transposing p, when it becomes x + p = ?/.
The negative proposition, " no x is y" or x = 1 y >, is
converted by subtracting both sides of the equation from unity
and transposing p, when we get 1 x p = y.
The forms of syllogism may be expressed with equal facility.
An ordinary syllogism will read thus : x = y p; y ~z <? ;
therefore, x = z q p : or, by transposing p and q,x + p = y t
y 4- q = z ; therefore, x + p 4- q = z.
If we assign to these symbols the same meaning that we
assigned when speaking of interpretation in comprehension, this
syllogism will mean, " Chlorine is one of the class of imperfect
gases ; imperfect gases are part of the class of substances freely
soluble in water ; therefore, chlorine is one of the class of sub-
stances freely soluble in water " :
Chlorine = x = x
Imperfect gases = y = x + p.
Substances freely soluble in water = z = x + p + q.
But if we interpret the same syllogism in comprehension, and
use Jevons's notation accordingly, as explained above, then
Chlorine =x = xyz
Imperfect gases =y= yz
Substances freely soluble in water = z = z
The increasing number of letters in the one notation shows the
increased magnitude of the classes, while the decreasing number
of letters in the other shows the decreased number of attributes
in their description : thus, we may almost say, showing to the
eye how extension and comprehension vary inversely as each
other.
Fundamental Logic. 53
"We have now to see how the transition is made from the
logic of identity to the ordinary logic and to mathematics.
A glance at the algebraic form of syllogism given above for
the logic of identity, will show its canon to be that things
identical with the same thing are identical with each other : or,
in other words, that identical terms may be substituted for each
other. This is not a distinct axiom, but an immediate corollary
of the principle of identity. The axioms that things which are
equal to the same thing are equal to each other, and that things
which co-exist with the same thing co-exist with each other, are
also corollaries from the same. In order to make this clear, we
have to state the following definitions : (1) Similars are things
concerning which the same predications can be made ; in other
words, similars are things whereof the symbols may be substi-
tuted for each other.* (2) Equality is similarity of magnitude.
(3) Co-existence is identity of position either in space or in time.
From these definitions, the truth of the reasoning x = y ;
y = z ; therefore, x = z, follows without any other axiom being
needed than that of identity ; and this is equally true, whether
the copula = is taken to mean identity, co-existence, or equality.
The only distinction between the subject-matter of logic and
that of mathematics appears to be that the copula, which in
mathematics means equality, in logic means either identity or
co-existence.
In the notation which I have proposed for the logic of iden-
tity, we have seen that there are no operations except addition
and subtraction, and these have exactly the same meaning as in
mathematics. But in the logic of co-existence there is another
operation on the symbols, namely combination, symbolising the
co-existence of qualities, to which there is nothing in mathe-
matics precisely analogous. This appears to support the view
that the logic of identity is the fundamental logic.
The following are the principal points which I have endea-
voured to bring out in this paper.
The ordinary logic is not primarily a logic of identity, but
of co-existence ; but the logic of co-existence and mathe-
matics, which is the logic of equality, rest on a more elementary
logic of identity.
In this logic there is no combination of terms, and no opera-
tion except addition and subtraction.
The axioms of this logic are true also in the logic of co-
existence and in mathematics. The fundamental axioms of
Boole's logic of co-existence, a; 2 = x, and x (1 - x) = 0, are 011
* See Jevons's Substitution of Similars. He states the definition, how-
ever, as au axiom, that " what is true of a thing is true of its like ".
54 ! Fundamental Logic.
the contrary inapplicable to the logic of identity, and are not
generally true in mathematics.
Propositions of co-existence may be reduced to the form of
propositions of identity, but the converse is not true.
The terms and propositions of the logic of co-existence may
be interpreted in either extension or comprehension, but those
of the logic of identity in extension only.
I have, in conclusion, to make a few remarks on the " logic
of relatives ". This will probably be found to be an extension
of the logic of co-existence. The combination of logical terms,
symbolising co-existence, is analogous, though not closely so, to
the combination of mathematical terms, symbolising multiplica-
tion; at least such an analogy is implied throughout Boole's
system. It will probably be found that the relation of x to y
in logic may be appropriately symbolised by ; and that rela-
./
tion in logic is to ratio in mathematics, what co-existence in
logic is to multiplication in mathematics.
We have seen that in Boole's system 1 is the symbol for " all,"
or " universe " ; so that the equation 1x = x is true in logic, as in
ry*
mathematics, for all values of x. The equation = x is also
true in mathematics for all values of x. Is it so in logic ? and
if so, what is its interpretation ? I venture to suggest that it
is true in logic, and that it is the logical expression of the truth
of the relativity of knowledge that is to say, as I understand
it, the truth that only relations can be the objects of knowledge.
If relation in logic is analogous to ratio in mathematics, the
3"
expression-^- means the relation of x to the universe, and the
equation in question means that, for all purposes of knowledge,
a tiling is identical with its relation to the universe ; including,
as part of the universe, the mind which knows the relation.
Another indication of the same or a kindred truth is afforded
by the fact, that the same symbol may either be interpreted in
comprehension to mean a quality, or in extension to mean the
things having the quality. This may be regarded as an expres-
sion of the truth, that for all purposes of knowledge a thing
is identical with the sum total of its qualities.
I make these suggestions with much diffidence, and the more
so because I am inclined to dread mixing up metaphysics with
logic ; nevertheless, I think them worth making.
It will be perceived that I adhere to the doctrine of the
" quantification of the predicate " ; and I have to add, that I
Lord Amberley' s Metaphysics. 55
regard the science of logic as primarily conversant neither with
names nor with concepts, but with things. This view of the
subject of logical science is the justification I offer for what
will to some appear an illegitimate treatment of the inclusion
of a part in the whole as a similar though not identical case to
the inclusion of a species in the class.
It is in my opinion a profound error to think that logic
depends on psychology. It is a misleading expression to call
the laws of logic the laws of thought. No doubt they are so,
but only in the same sense in which any truths whereof the
contrary is unthinkable may be called laws of thought. The
laws of logic, unlike the laws of the association of ideas, do
not depend on the structure of the mind they are laws of
thought because they are laws of the universe.
JOSEPH JOHN MURPHY.
VI. LOED AMBEPvLEY'S METAPHYSICS*
THE only portion of the late Lord Amberley's Analysis of
Religious Belief which is of special interest to the student of
philosophy, is the Second Book, which, treats of "The lleligious
Sentiment Itself". This occupies little more than a hundred
pages of the thousand or so of which the work is composed ;
and all that is of peculiar value in it might have been com-
pressed within narrower limits. A few pages will be sufficient
to show what it amounts to, and what is its significance for us
at the present time. I do not express any opinion upon the value
of his collection of data. It is sufficiently complete to supply
a basis for the analysis of the religious sentiment into its
"ultimate elements," though it may be that it was scarcely
needed for that purpose. The " ultimate elements " which Lord
Amberley finds are the components of the religious sentiment
may be discovered by every individual for himself, if he will
only question his consciousness when turned upon religion.
Lord Amberley, as the result of his elaborate investigations,
finds that all religions have certain features in common. They
are all concerned with consecrated actions and consecrated
places, and nearly all have to do with consecrated persons and
a consecrated class. These are assumed to be the means, or
media, through which man communicates with God. But as
religions also imply that God addresses man, there are means
* An Analysis of Religious Belief, by Viscount AMBERLEY, 2 vols., 1876.
Trubner & Co.
56 Lord Amberley' s Metaphysics.
of communication " downwards " as well as " upwards " ; and
the Deity makes Himself known by means of holy events, holy
places, holy objects, a holy class (who perform the ceremonies
of religion with peculiar efficacy), holy men (who have authority
to teach infallible truth), and holy books, written by persons
inspired to write as He desires them to do. Now, although the
fact that rival religions exhibit the same phenomena may be
used as an argument to prove that they are all false equally,
since they may be said to cancel each other, yet comparative
religion suggests to us another procedure. Since everywhere,
at all times, there is the manifestation, under however great
variety of forms, of the religious sentiment, must there not be
an element of truth in what is thus the universal possession of
man? Is there, amid the variety of religions, any universal
faith ? and if there be, does it indicate any objective reality cor-
responding with itself, or is it merely a phantom the play of our
misleading imaginations ? This is the philosophical question
Lord Amberley deals with. He finds three fundamental pos-
tulates in the religious idea: "First, that of a hyperphysical
power in the universe ; secondly, that of a hyperphysical entity
in man ; thirdly, that of a relation between the two," or, ex-
pressed in other terms, the objective and the subjective elements
in religion, and their co-relation; and he examines these to
ascertain whether they are "a necessary and therefore per-
manent portion of our mental furniture," and, if they are,
whether we must conclude that they indicate more than their
existence in the human mind whether they point to a reality
which is outside and independent of man.
So far as we have gone, there seems no necessity in analysing
the religious idea for any wide induction of religious phenomena;
for the idea is present to every one. The foundations so
laboriously dug by Lord Amberley are certainly not essential
as a propaedeutic to an analysis of the religious idea into the
ultimate elements of an objective cosmic cause, a subjective
spiritual entity, and the co-relation of these two factors. There
is a great work waiting to be done in comparative religion, and
Lord Amberley's example may prove useful in leading the way ;
but if it is to accomplish anything of importance, it must be
undertaken for wider ends than to furnish the materials for an
analysis that may be as effectively performed without them.
Under " The Objective Element," indeed, Lord Amberley re-
capitulates what he had said in the body of the work regard-
ing the conceptions of Deity entertained by different races at
different periods, and finds that, with the lapse of time and the
progress of the human race, man's conception of God has
become more spiritual and more humane. This fact, which is
Lord Atnberleys Metaphysics. 57
testified to by the history of Christianity in the idea of the
successive ages or dispensations of the three Persons of the
Trinity, might have supplied food for reflection ; but all Lord
Amberley takes out of his historical survey is " that religion
everywhere contains, as its most essential ingredient, the concep-
tion of an unknown power ". This power is not perceived by
the senses, nor can its nature be defined by the intellect, which
only acts through comparison and classification ; must we then
accept it as a real existence, or is it a figment of the human
brain ?
To help in answering this question, which raises the point of
the validity of our mental deliverances, Lord Amberley enters
on a brief examination of the various theories of the universe,
held by different classes of thinkers. Without the conception
of some power as an objective reality, it is hard to see how
there can be any consistent and stable idea of anything. The
various points of view may be generally classified as Eealism
and Idealism, and the former may be distinguished into Crude
and Metaphysical Eealism, whilst we divide the latter into
Moderate and Extreme Idealism. Lord Amberley accepts en-
tirely no one of these views, but attributes to each of them a
certain element of truth. The outcome of his examination is
that there is an unknown Power, Origin, or Cause, external to
us the same conclusion as we are shut up to in dealing with
Eeligion. " Philosophy or Eeasoned Thought," says Lord Arn-
berley, " and Science or Eeasoned Observation, have both led us
to admit, as a fundamental principle, the necessary existence of
an unknown, inconceivable, and omnipresent Power, whose
operations are ever in progress before our eyes, but whose
nature is, and can never cease to be, an impenetrable mystery.
And this is the cardinal truth of all religion. From all sides,
then, by every mode of contemplation, we are forced upon the
same irresistible conclusion." Of course we have not trans-
cended the subjective sphere ; for we have only found that the
belief in this objective cause is necessary to us that is to say,
that we cannot help believing it ; and if our minds are records
of stages of illusion (as Yon Hartmann has maintained), it
may have none but this subjective existence. Lord Amberley
will not listen to this conclusion. He believes in the objective
reality of what is subjectively affirmed to be necessary, and he
does so on the old grounds held by those who tested necessary
truths by their necessity and universality. He claims that the
fundamental postulate of religion is true, because wherever human
intelligence has reached the stage above the lowest savagery, it
always does, and cannot but (owing to the conditions of thought)
take possession of the mind ; and that whenever it has done
58 Lord Amberley'' s Metaphysics.
so, it retains ' its place for ever. " It persists, in spite of every
attempt to do without it, and the highest philosophy is com-
pelled to give it the place of honour in the forefront of its
teaching." But all words or terms by which we seek to
designate this ultimate reality are only symbols, and though
with the progress of the human race the symbolism has become
more comprehensive, it remains symbolism still.
" Name ist Schall und Rauch,
Umnebelnd Himmelsgluth."
" All that we can say is, that while we know nothing but that
which our senses perceive or our minds understand, we feel that
tli ere is something more. Both the world without and the
world within, both that which is perceived and that which
perceives, require an origin beyond themselves. Both compel
us to look, as their common source, to a Being alike unknown
and unknowable, whose nature is shrouded in a mystery no eye
can pierce, and no intellect can fathom." *
Lord Amberley deals cursorily with the subjective element.
He shows the universality of the belief in an entity in man,
which, though working through, is distinct from, his body, and
then, in a brief analysis, suggests the impossibility of resolving
the phenomena of consciousness into matter or terms of heat or
motion. The gulf between that which feels, perceives, thinks
and reasons, and that which is felt, perceived and reasoned on,
is so great that no community of nature between them has been,
or probably can be, discovered. Whether or not the distinction
between them is ultimate in the nature of things, it is ultimate
in the order of thought and in reference to us. What, then, of
the relations between the unknowable cause and the unknown
entity we call consciousness ? As the religious sentiment in
the mind of man perceives its object, the Ultimate Being, so
that Being is conceived as making itself known to the mind of
man through the religious sentiment. A reciprocal relation is
thus established ; the Unknowable causing a peculiar intuition,
the mind of man receiving it. " And this," says Lord Amberley,
" is the grain of fact at the foundation of the numerous state-
ments of religious men that they have felt themselves inspired
* Those who are curious in such matters may be interested at seeing
an analogous view put in similar words by David Hume. In the
Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, Hume puts into the mouth of
Bemea these words : "The question is not concerning the Being, but
the Nature of God," which is "altogether incomprehensible and un-
known to us ". The essence, attributes, manner of existence, and nature
of duration of the Supreme " are covered in a deep cloud from human
curiosity; it is profaneness to attempt penetrating through these sacred
obscurities. And next to the impiety of denying his existence, is the
temerity of prying into his nature and essence, decrees and attributes."
Lord Amberley's Metaphysics 59
by God, that He speaks to them and speaks through them, that
they enter into communion with Him in prayer, and obey His
influence during their lives." These feelings are not all illusion,
however fanciful and unreal the forms they mostly assume.
There is a real communion between the objective ultimate and
the subjective ultimate, for the latter is the medium through
which the former acts. Further, our analysis of perception
whatever the theory to which it leads us leaves us with con-
sciousness as the one reality directly and indirectly known by
us to exist, and nothing is conceivable as existent except
under the conditions of consciousness. It is impossible for us
to conceive existence except as co-relative to some consciousness ;
and this consideration leads Lord Amberley to the further
inference that our affirmation of the existence of the unknown
cause implies tjiat it is akin to consciousness, since conscious-
ness is " the ultimate substance of the mind, from which alone
our conception of absolute existence is derived ". Therefore the
two Ultimates are in some unknown sense alike, though the
likeness cannot consist in any analogy to those thoughts, feel-
ings, and conscious moods which in man are constantly flit-
ting and varying. It must have a deeper root beyond our
ken ; and the Unknown Cause which is thus near and like to
us, must include our consciousness as the source from which
that has come ; for we cannot think of two ultimate causes
one of nature, and the other of thought one of the outer, and
the other of the inner world. We are, then, as produced by or
emanating from the universal fount of being, in the relation to
it of a part to the whole ; and in it we live, and move, and have
our being. Consequently in all our actions, even when we
deem ourselves to be most free, we are the agents of the
Universal Cause. We feel as if we were reservoirs of individual
force ; but the force is not ours but its, and our conditional and
qualified independence does not therefore contradict the great
scientific law of the persistence of force, since all tilings are
rooted in the one universal force. The distinction between
mind and matter, feeling or thought, and that which is felt or
thought about, though real and to our consciousness absolute,
is not absolute in the nature of things, seeing that all things are
one in the Ultimate Being, and there is " one law, one faith,
one element," while all things are moving towards " one far off
divine event ". There is no real distinction between the uni-
versal life manifested in the inanimate forces of our system, and
the fragmentary life which comes to light in animated creatures.
All things are one, and all things are the same. All things
have been and are being educed in the majestic order of
universal evolution, and we are able to see how it is that we
60 Lord Aniberleifs Metaphysics.
cannot comprehend that of which we are parts ; " for the part
cannot comprehend the whole it can only feel that there is a
whole".
The God which (who ?) is thus the object of worship for
religion, as of acceptance by the philosopher, is not, it is scarcely
necessary to say, a personal being. Lord Amberley is as candid
on this point as upon others. The "dim figure of an incon-
ceivable and all-embracing ultimate existence " is not reconcil-
able with the idea of either the abstract Divinity of the
pure Deist, or the self-communicative Divinity worshipped by
Christians as the Three in One. Consequently to Lord Am-
berley, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost represent successive stages
of illusion through which the human mind has passed. To
him, the impersonal is the highest ; for all efforts to represent
God as a person he declares to be mere " hankerings after an
incarnation of an idea which does not by its nature admit of
representation by incarnate forms ". Religion, however, he con-
tends, does not lose its object because it becomes an unknown
and unknowable Power, or Force, or Cause, or however we may
name it. On the contrary, instead of being fitful and occasional,
Eeligion is found to be in everything and everywhere. Men
are always, and not at merely exceptional times, the agents and
organs of the mighty soul of the universe, and religion <; becomes
a calm, all-pervading sentiment, shown (if it be shown at all) in
the general beauty and spirituality of the character, not in the
stated exercises of a rigorous piety, or in the passionate out-
bursts of an enthusiastic fervour". With the loss of a personal
God, we also lose the faith in an individual immortality, in resign-
ing which Lord Amberley is forced to admit he surrenders " a balm
for the wounded spirit, for which it would be hard to find an
equivalent in all the repertories of science, and in all the
treasures of philosophy ". Progress from a lower to a higher
stage, however, (he says) necessarily involves loss ; and if we
are deprived of the hope of rejoining those who have gone before
us, when life's fitful fever is over, we find in the very fact that
our all of life is here incentives to duty, and motives to ever-
deepening sympathy with our fellow-men, which point onwards
to the brighter time when to minister to humanity shall be the
glad service of all, and when the consolations of the new
religion will surpass in strength and perfection all those
offered by the old. Pious resignation to whatever comes,
helpful alacrity in doing all duty in the present for the sake
of our brethren of mankind, calm, self-confident, because fear-
less facing of the future where all must be well, seeing that
progress is the law of life these are some of the consolations,
as they are the fruits, of the new faith, which claims to
Lord Amlerleys Metaphysics. 61
have a scientific basis and to be able to justify itself against
sceptics and cavillers, because it only aims at making men wiser
and better, more courageous and more enlightened.
In reflecting upon the outcome of Lord Amberley's meta-
physics, it becomes plain that there is a good deal more in it
than has a right to be there. His Absolute, which is the
source whence all things have come, and the fount to which
presumably they return after the process of evolution is com-
pleted, is akin to, but is not, and has not, consciousness. Either,
then, this Absolute is not the highest of existences, since it is
non-conscious ; or consciousness ia not the highest mode of
being. We have seen, however, that Lord Amberley felt under
irresistible compulsion to treat consciousness as " the one reality
which is known to exist " ; and in consequence to attribute
some sort of vague kinship with consciousness to his Absolute.
But vagueness here can least of all be permitted. Personality is
the nerve of consciousness, the indispensable and essential con-
stituent and co-relative of thought. Existence is only conceivable
in conneotion with the antithesis of subject and object which is
the root-form of consciousness. It is idle to talk of the " sub-
stance of consciousness" as if it were something different from
consciousness itself a kind of substratum in which that
inheres. We know the substance, and it is consciousness we
cannot transcend this ultimate, which is to us the measure of
all things, while itself is measured by none. If all explanation be
translation into terms of thought, the only Absolute we can
think of, or attribute existence to, is God as Absolute Ego the
nature of whose personality is inconceivable by us, but who must
be the source of thought, of consciousness, and whose inclusion of
all thought within His own being does not exclude the conscious-
ness of Himself. It is impossible for us to give any defiuiteness
to that feeling of a universal presence which religion supplies,
unless we attribute to it (whatever more it has) the highest
thought by which alone we are able to construe existence.
Feeling or sensation is our ultimate, so far as we are affected by
anything ; and our analysis of that which excites feeling, forces
us to attribute to its cause a mode of existence not inferior to
the effect produced. It is a mere assumption which we cannot
even make intelligible to ourselves that the conscious may
have flowed from that which is non-conscious that there can
be in the effect what has never been in the cause.
If it be objected that in all this we are accepting the deli-
verance of subjective thought as a valid ground for affirm-
ing objective existence, the obvious answer is that it could not
lie with Lord Amberley to make such an objection. If con-
sciousness be the ultimate of existence to us, and the Unknow-
62 Lord Amberleys Metaphysics.
able be akin to consciousness, we are driven to the conclusion
that the Unknowable whatever else it includes does include
thought and feeling as the essence of consciousness. Lord
Amberley, we have seen, is compelled to accept the reality of
the existence of an objective something which corresponds in
some way to the subjective feeling that reveals it. He treats
as self-contradictory and as the parent of universal scepticism,
which would sweep away thought and being alike, the assertions
of those who deny the validity of what are felt to be the
necessary deliverances of thought. Thought, then, is ultimate
to him, the one unassailable foundation of certainty and
knowledge ; and having accepted that, he cannot refuse to be
bound by the consequences : one of which is that the unknow-
able cosmic Cause is to be represented as including within itself,
though we know not how, active self-conscious Personality.
That he does so, even when he seems most to avoid it, can be
proved from the ideals he cherished regarding the future. Lord
Amberley's faith in time was great. He believed in the brighter
future to which he is always pointing us onwards. He be-
lieved in the progressive education of the human race, and its
final advance to an ethical condition when men would partici-
pate in a nobler state of existence than any before experienced.
This advance, this progress, was not and could not be the result
of man's fitful and unaided efforts only ; for man was in all
things, and mostly here, the agent of a higher power. It must
be regulated and controlled, then, by that higher power which
is working towards the highest conceivable ends. What does
this process, this progress from a lower to a higher, from the
barrenness and poverty of even such beginnings as we are able
to trace back to, imply ? We may be unwilling to use the
term purpose, in particular, ethical or moral purpose ; but where
there is process that involves such progress as justifies the faith
that good, if not the highest good, is to be the final goal of ill, is
there not an attribution of intelligence, of thought ; and of
intelligence and thought that are distinctly moral to the ulti-
mate being ? Good for its own sake is presumably the end to
which all things have been working from the beginning ; and
whatever seeming defeats may have been, are partial and tem-
porary the process is not interrupted, the evolution goes on to
its fulfilment. What higher conception can we have of a moral
world-order than this ; and, where it is cherished, is there not a
faith in something higher than a mere force outside of ourselves ?
It is a power outside of us which makes for righteousness, and
involves the best results of intelligence and moral freedom.
But there is more than this in Lord Amberley's Absolute
Force, which is everywhere working in and through all for the
Lord Aniberleys Metaphysics. 63
general good of all. With Mr. Herbert Spencer probably from
him Lord Amberley accepts the Unknowable as the Ultimate ;
and repeatedly speaks of it as an Unknowable Power, Force, or
Cause. He has not by the use of these expressions escaped the
necessity of interpreting the phenomena of the universe in the
terms of thought and feeling ; for the Force, Power, or Cause,
which is steadily at work through the ages, bringing order out of
chaos, good out of evil, the higher and better out of the lower and
worse, is as much an " incarnation " adapted to human ways and
weaknesses as the idea of a personal God. We cannot evade the
necessity, try how we may, of adopting the thought of man
as the final measure of the universe; since all things are in-
telligible to us in the last resort only as expressed in terms of
thought and feeling. When we ask what the Unknowable
involves, we find that what it has lost in definiteness, it has not
really gained in comprehensiveness ; and we are driven, if we
would include under it the elements given as actual factors in
our conception of it, to attribute to it powers and qualities that
are only conceivable under their human manifestations.
The education of the human race, we have seen, is tacitly
assumed by Lord Amberley as one of these factors. The Power
in which we live, and move and have our being, acts on men in
such a manner that they are guided towards higher levels of
thought and experience. There is actual contact between the
objective element and the subjective entity, with the result of
elevating even the individual, regarded individually. But it is
impossible for us, in trying to fix our estimate of what the
Power is which is thus over and through all, to leave out of
account the instruction regarding its acts and effects offered us
by the processes of history. History implies the idea of
Providence, as nature suggests that of Fate. The Power revealed
by nature as Fate, is exalted into Providence when we take his-
tory as our guide ; and the forces which were blind before,
now become impregnated with moral purpose. Comparative
religion cannot neglect this latter side of experience, in order
to give exclusive attention to the other ; especially if, as Lord
Amberley does, we accept the idea of the unity of origin of
nature and man. There is an arbitrary and capricious selection
of the kind of experience which alone we allow to determine
our views in regard to the Unknowable, when we exclude
the experiences of individuals and of nations, in so far as they
are evidently due to influences higher than lie within the
range of the action of the senses and the understanding. Com-
parative religion cannot proceed in this manner. It is bound to
accept, as the materials with which to work, the whole rich and
varied freight of phenomena in the spheres both of nature and
64 The Veracity of Consciousness.
of history, and to learn from them what they have to teach
regarding the Power which is so much more than a Nature-
force, since the highest testimony regarding its character is
derived from the region of moral purpose and spiritual sensi-
bility.
Thankful to Lord Amberley for what he has done (though
with faltering step he has only trodden the path in which others
before him have made steadier progress), the chief value of his
work for us of the present time seems to me to be that he takes
us to a point where we cannot possibly rest.
J. SCOT HENDERSON.
VII. THE VEEACITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
A point more vital than any in philosophy is the veracity of
the mind's revealing. But there are two ways of regarding this
veracity. The one is, with such inquirers as Reid and his im-
mediate followers, seeing that the primary deliverances are
irresistible and necessarily acted upon by all men, to deem it
" metaphysical lunacy," even in philosophy, to question their
truthfulness; the other, with Descartes and his school, while
admitting that in practice all men must have similar funda-
mental beliefs, to hold that these beliefs are not, in philosophy,
to be accepted as final, save in so far as they repel 'all doubt.
Those having the former tendency, the Natural Realists, contend
that the primary declarations possess both a subjective and an
objective veracity; while those who have the latter tendency,
the Idealists, with a bent of mind amounting to semi-scepticism,
maintain that such declarations simply possess subjective veracity.
In this paper, an endeavour is made to uphold Natural
Realism, or the Common Sense doctrine, which, let it be under-
stood, is, as here treated, not to be confounded with crude com-
mon sense. The former, as herein discussed, adheres as rigidly
to the full critical method as does the doctrine of Descartes,
of Berkeley, of Kant or of Fichte. There seems to be but one
true method for philosophy to observe, and that is, first, to take
note of our practical beliefs, then, to resolve these into their
primary elements, to test the truthfulness of these by comparing
them with each other, and finally by applying to them the ulti-
mate law of contradiction.
But when we arrive at the primary elements of knowing as
thus discriminated we are confronted by the fact, plain to Reid,
for example, as stars shining in the night, that it is impossible
either to prove or to disprove the integrity of consciousness as
The Veracity of Consciousness. 65
an ultimate source of evidence. For it must be very clear that,
unless there is already a truthful revealing power, the attempted
proof or disproof must be quite worthless, the proof must beg
the veracity it would prove, and the disproof the veracity it
would disprove. In the last resort, then, we must, in a certain
sense, as Hamilton states, " perforce philosophically admit that
belief is* the primary condition of reason, and not reason the
ultimate ground of belief. We are compelled to surrender the
proud Intellige ut credas of Abelard, to content ourselves with
the Crede ut iutelligas of Anselm."
True, demonstration must ultimately repose on primary data ;
but when reason is opposed to belief as above, are we to under-
stand by it demonstration simply ? Not exactly, but rather
that judicial act of mind which weighs all kinds of evidence
whether intuitional or inferential.
Philosophy is entirely the result of the more dependent, the
more comprehensive, the superior, the judicial intellect insist-
ing that the evidence in full shall satisfy its final craving for
certainty. This judicial function of the mind exercises the
final decision, sits in ultimate judgment upon the evidence, and
either accepts it as satisfactory, or rejects it as doubtful. Autho-
rity, according to the law of Evolution, does not increase the nearer
we approach the foundations of knowing. On the contrary, it
is on the authority of our judicial thinking we finally conclude
as to the value of all evidence. It must be very manifest that
if we were restricted to our spontaneous or unspeculative think-
ing, the idea, either with the sceptic of questioning, or with the
natural realist of vindicating, its integrity, could no more have
occurred to the human mind than the thought of immortality
can be presented to the intelligence of the elephant or the dog.
In philosophy, therefore, all that passes for truth must be veri-
fied by that ultimate criticism, on the existence of which
philosophy depends.
If, as Terrier contends, philosophy must be reasoned out
from the beginning, this beginning though it cannot be reasoned
out, yet may be reasoned upon with the view of satisfying
ultimate criticism as to the degree of veracity of which it is
possessed. How is this effected ? In the history of modern
philosophy two attempts to solve this question occur to our recol-
lection as of leading importance : the one is that of Descartes ;
the other that of Hamilton.
Descartes, it is well known, made doubt the starting point
of his speculative inquiry ; and what fully stood this trial, he
discovered, was the fact that he existed as a thinking, doubting,
agent. Cogito that fact I cannot doubt, therefore, so far I
exist. My consciousness of my existence as a conscious agent
5
66 The Veracity of Consciousness.
is to me beyond the reach of doubt. Wherefore, consciousness
Descartes pronounced to be the basis of certitude. But con-
sciousness, it is too well known, is also the source of much error
and deception. How are we to distinguish true from false
declarations of consciousness ? Descartes saw that doubt is
the criterion. It is a mistake to hold that consciousness in
general is the basis of certitude. All that Descartes can be
understood to claim, consistently with his doubt-test, is that
that message of consciousness which does not admit of being
questioned is the foundation of truth, that perception which is
so clear and obvious as to subdue all scepticism.
But again simply to state that doubt is the test of the
veracity of consciousness is about as indefinite as to say that con-
sciousness is the basis of certitude. We need to know what
kind of doubt serves this purpose. The doubt-test as applied
by Descartes does not keep him from falling into error, and
from framing fanciful hypotheses. Leibniz developed this
doubt-test into fuller proportions, but, in practice, it still fails
to exclude error. The law of contradiction still awaits its fully
explicit utterance.
There is indeed a large amount of truth in what J. S. Mill holds
in regard to the inconceivableness of the contradictory as the test
of necessary truth. Many beliefs firmly stood their ground for
a time when thus tested which have since been clearly proved
erroneous. The doubt-test could not have been effectual when
it thus failed to shake baseless beliefs ; it merely served to mea-
sure the force and obstinacy with which such beliefs cling to the
mind. A proposition may, from the absence of counter evidence
to the person who entertains it, appear true beyond contradiction,
which, at a later period, turns out to be false. We need, there-
fore, a more stringent test of truth in philosophy than that af-
forded by the law of contradiction, the doubt-test, as hitherto
understood. This deficiency we shall later on endeavour to supply.
The other instance of a test applied to the truthfulness of our
primary beliefs is that to which Hamilton has recourse.
The beginning from which it is contended philosophy must be
reasoned out cannot derive additional validity from any prior
source, more especially when it has successfully passed the
final examination. But the beginnings of knowing are many
and, being co-equal in authority, they admit of being compareid
with each other in order to discover whether they contradict
and by contradicting invalidate each other's authority. Were
they to do so, their mendacity, so Hamilton declares, would be
proved. This, however, as Mr. Herbert Spencer points out, is a
strange assertion for Hamilton to make ; for, as shown above,
any attempt either to prove or to disprove the veracity of our
The Veracity of Consciousness. 67
primary beliefs must take that veracity for granted. To state,
therefore, as Hamilton does, that were our primary beliefs in
conflict with each other their mendacity would be proved, com-
pletely begs the question. At the same time, such conflict, if
existing, would have the effect of making absolute scepticism
the goal of philosophical inquiry. As might be anticipated,
however, the results obtained by the mutual comparing of our
primary convictions is most favourable to the truth of Natural
Eealism, for it is found that such convictions, far from being in
a state of conflict with each other, form a most happy family.
Of this fact we shall presently have to greet the happy signi-
ficance.
But let it not be thought that this is the only test which
Hamilton recognises of the honesty of our primary beliefs. As
a natural realist he contends for the objective validity of such
beliefs ; and it is in vindication of them in this respect alone thtit
he applies the forementioned test. In relation to the subjective
validity of our fundamental beliefs, he adopts the Cartesian
doubt-test.
It is highly necessary to have a clear notion of the distinction
which subsists between the subjective and the objective report
of consciousness. Let us call knowing a revelation. It first of
all reveals its own existence as possessed of certain qualities,
that is, the knowing reveals itself to itself, and is, in this sense,
an object to itself. But here knowing and the object are identi-
cal, and this is the only case in which we are justified in de-
claring that knowing and its object are one and the same. Here
the declaration is clear arid forcible to the effect that the know-
ing knows nothing but itself.* In the instance of an external
object, however, the declaration is equally clear and forcible to
the effect that the knowing does not simply disclose its own
existence, but also the existence of something which does not
dwell in the mind at all. So far as knowing merely reveals its
own existence, we have the facts of the process ; so far as these
facts reveal the existence of something external to themselves,
we have to deal with the objective veracity of consciousness.
If these facts be compared to an African traveller narrating his
adventures, there cannot be a doubt that the traveller exists, and
that he declares his exploits to be of such and such a nature.
* It needs to be explained that knowing does not, at the outset,
reflectively kndw itself , i.e., know itself in such a manner that the psycho-
logist experiences no difficulty in describing its several processes ; en
the contrary, at first, it only knows itself to that extent which is indis-
pensable to its existence as knowing. Those who like Comte deny the
possibility of such a science as psychology are blind to the fact that
knowing quoad nos underlies everything, and that our objective world
is knowing to a greater extent at least than it is not-knowing.
68 The Veracity of Consciousness.
But is Ins narrative true ? As to the facts of consciousness,
certain of them report those that relate to the primary qualities
that objects non-identical with these facts exist. There can
be no more doubt of the existence of this declaration than there
can be of the existence of the traveller and his narrative. But
what about the truthfulness of this declaration ? The object in
this instance not being identical, says consciousness, with con-
sciousness, the declaration is not self-verifying as in the instance
in which consciousness and object are one and the same. In
the one case, the mind reveals that something exists, and that
something is the revealing itself ; in the other case, the mind
reveals that something exists, and that something is not the reveal-
ing itself; so in the latter case the knowing is not self- verifying ;
and out of this fact emerges the great problem of philosophy, to
wit, Are primary declarations of consciousness when not self-
verifying truthful beyond the possibility of doubt ? This, which
has been called the cardinal question of philosophy, is the secret
to be won ; care, however, being taken that it be better under-
stood than it was by Eeid and his more immediate followers :
practical must not be confounded with speculative conviction,
for the former does not necessitate the latter. To cite a memor-
able instance of this fact In outward perception as relating to the
primary qualities, the declaration is most clear to the effect that
there is an external world existing independently of the perci-
pient, and, in practice, we are forced by our constitution to place
implicit reliance in this declaration. This, however, is only
practical conviction, and constitutional, irresistible, unchange-
able, and universal though it be, it is not, as respects its veracity,
considered by all to be beyond the reach of doubt. We lay the
more stress on this distinction, because Eeid and his imme-
diate followers seem wilfully to shut their eyes to it, and
to argue with the "vulgar" that if a man in the character
of a philosopher, cannot trust his senses, he should, to be
consistent, fall, heedless of their warning, into the fire, or leap
over a precipice.
It has already been mentioned -that Hamilton's guarantee
applies solely to the objective trustworthiness of our original
beliefs. The subjective integrity of these, he reckons to
be placed far beyond the range of scepticism. " The facts
of consciousness as mere phenomena," he affirms, " are by
the unanimous confession of Sceptics and Idealists, ancient and
modern, placed high above the reach of question." Descartes
could not 'doubt that in so far as he was conscious he existed.
Hume never brought his scepticism to bear upon the existence
of impressions and ideas ; and J. S. Mill affirms that there is no
appeal from the human faculties generally. Here, then, in the
TJie Veracity of Consciousness. 69
very centre of our intelligent being is a stronghold of certainty
which ever did and ever will continue to prove impregnable.
The subjective veracity of consciousness being, therefore, criticism-
proof, the problem remaining to be solved relates merely to the ob-
jective veracity of consciousness when it affirms the existence of
the primary qualities. Hamilton did much to establish this objec-
tive veracity, yet after all his efforts, he has to make the admis-
sion that to suppose the mendacity of the non-self-verifying is not
self-annihilating, as is the supposition that the self-verifying
is mendacious. " The Idealist," he remarks, " in denying
the existence of an external world as more than a subjective
phenomenon of the internal does not advance a doctrine ab
iniiio null, as a scepticism would be which denied the pheno-
mena of the internal world itself." After an admission of this
kind, it is not surprising that such a luminary as Terrier should
arise in the firmament of Scottish metaphysics, and^that he should
affirm " My philosophy is Scottish to the very core, it is national
in every fibre and articulation of its frame ". Now the peculiarity
of the present exposition consists in holding, in opposition to
Hamilton, that the idealist, in denying the objective integrity
of the primary conviction relative to the independent existence
of the non-ego, does advance a tenet ab initio null.
It is an admitted law in respect to the primary judgments as
revealing themselves, the self- verify ing, that they cannot have
their veracity called in question without involving a direct
subversio principii. Now an objective primary declaration must
have its basis in. a subjective declaration. Thus, the declaration
that the primary qualities have an esse which is not percipi does, at
all events, exist as a declaration, as a phenomenon, that is to say,
a base. But is this base, moreover, a truthful objective deliver-
ance ? The idealist says it is not. The csse of the primary qualities,
as of every other quality, he maintains, is percipi. Now this
is a statement, observe, in regard to the nature of the self-veri-
fying itself, and is in direct contradiction to what the self-
verifying reveals of itself, namely, that the esse of the primary
qualities is not a constituent part of the self-verifying, is not
percipi. This negativing by idealism of a self-verifying deli-
verance proves it to be, not merely a " baseless paradox," but a
subversio principii.
By way of illustrating the doctrine here advanced, let us
enter into a criticism of Ferrier's views as conveyed to us in
The Institutes of Mctaphysic. Terrier strongly insists that the
primary data of consciousness, even as explicated, criticised
and vindicated by Hamilton, are natural inadvertences ; that
philosophy assumes and must assume that man does not natu-
rally think aright, but must be taught to do so ; that truth does
70 The Veracity of Consciousness.
not come to him spontaneously, but must be brought to him
by his own exertions; that philosophy must be reasoned out
irom the beginning. Yes, from the beginning certainly, if it is
to be reasoned out at all, but what is this beginning, and how
does it in the ultimate judicial scrutiny certify us of its
integrity? Terrier's datum is this: "Along with whatever
any intelligence knows, it must, as the ground or condition
of knowledge, have some cognisance of itself." In further
explanation of this principle, Ferrier states " that the object
of knowledge, whatever it may be, is always something more
than what is naturally or usually regarded as the object.
It always is and must be the object plus subject, thing or
thought mecum. Self is an integral and essential part of every
object of cognition." Yes, of every self- verifying object, of
the object that is identical with knowing. But there is an
object which is non-identical with the knowing, so says the
knowing itself, and if this assertion cannot be doubted without
the doubt being self-contradictory, what then ?
The most obvious objection to which Terrier's first principle
lies open is that which has been urged with so much feeling by
Eeid and similar inquirers it is in contradiction to the very
clear and universal belief that objects proper exist. Here, then,
are two declarations of consciousness in fierce antagonism to
each other, and one of them constitutional, irresistible and un-
changeable. But is it not highly improbable that there should
be an unavoidable feud between two states of mind ? " Nature,"
as Hume confesses, " is always too strong for principle ; "
and Ficlite admits that " How evident soever may be the
demonstration that every object of consciousness is only
illusion and dream, I am unable to believe it." Here we have,
for the philosopher, then, as a cruel and monstrous necessity,
a mind divided against itself. blissful ignorance of the many,
if this be the result of knowing philosophy !
But seeing that our primary beliefs cannot be extinguished
even when proved, as held by some, to be natural inadvertences,
how conies it to pass that so much reliance is placed by the
idealist on what gives them the lie ? The reply to this query
will most likely be as follows. The subjective authority of
consciousness is more to be respected than its objective autho-
rity. Ferrier's datum is a subjective disclosure, a fact of con-
sciousness ; whereas, the objective deliverance which it negatives
is of lower authority, and only to be accepted as a phenomenon.
Now, mark well that such antagonism as is here indicated exists
neither between any objective deliverance and its base ; nor, as
Hamilton has shown, by means of the test noticed above, be-
tween any primary belief and its fellow. Where, then, seeingr
The Veracity of Consciousness. 71
that Ferrier's first principle possesses neither of these peaceable
characteristics, are we to seek for its origin ?
When data purporting to describe laws of mind are mutu-
ally contradictory, it is more reasonable to conclude that some
of them must be faulty, than that the mind should be cruelly
divided against itself ; and, indeed, when the several data are
minutely examined it is found that, as " God made the country
but man made the town," so the primary data of consciousness
are the inherited mental groundwork of all mankind, while
other data are acquired by observation and experiment, and
frequently by anticipation. The one forms Nature's capital ;
the other, the acquired possessions which necessarily imply the
pre-existence of such capital. Now acquired data are frequently
found wanting when weighed in the balance of exact inquiry.
This being the case, there is but one sound conclusion at which
to arrive, namely, that the acquired data are more likely
to be at fault than the fundamental and universal assur-
ances of the mind. This rule is set at nought by Terrier, who
argues that philosophy assumes and must assume that man does
not naturally think aright, but must be taught to do so ; which
is as much as to say that Nature's declaration as to the inde-
pendent existence of the primary qualities is to be corrected by
an acquired datum ; for, as has been shown, a self- verifying
declaration, or a subjective fact of consciousness, Terrier's datum
is not. Where, then, is its origin to be sought ?
In order to answer this question, it is needful briefly to refer
to the " ideal hypothesis ". Keid slew this hybrid obstruction to
the truth, and thus bodily made a clearance of it. Its ghost,
however, still remains to haunt and bewilder the mind of meta-
physicians ; and it is now high time, if Philosophy is to take
her fitting place in popular regard, that this ghost should be
laid for evermore. The essential feature of the ideal hypothesis,
it need not be stated, is holding that the mind cognises external
objects through a medium or tertium quid. Now the idealist
pretends successfully to have proved that such medium is the
only object of cognition. With him, the representing object of
Descartes and of Locke is made to displace the represented
object, and is constituted the only object. An object is neces-
sarily retained, but instead of admitting it to be external, not in
the mind, as Eeid and consciousness declare, it is held to be
simply a modification of our subjectivity Being is merely a
phase of Knowing.
This view, for the reasons herein adduced, we feel convinced,
is erroneous. No object proper forms a constituent part of the
fact of consciousness of that which is self-verifying of that
which declares that an object proper is not per dpi of that
72 The Veracity of Consciousness.
which cannot be thought mendacious without such thought
being self-subversive.
In further explanation of this problem it is desirable to state
that when we know the qualities of the material self in correla-
tion with those of the not-self, the consciousness is double,
forming one whole, the two parts of which are similar indeed,
but distinguishable. Thus, when in touch we feel the organism
as resisted over an extended surface, we also feel that it is re-
sisted by a co-extended resisting externality. This fact seems to
have led to the notion that in touch, an impression is made as
by a seal upon wax, and that the impression thus made reveals
the existence of the external object by corresponding with it.
But this is the representative doctrine, which is not proof against
scepticism. According to that hypothesis one part of the double
process only is immediately known, and serves to suggest to the
imagination that which makes the impression. This is not the
doctrine of a double consciousness in perception ; according to
which doctrine both parts of the double consciousness simultan-
eously exist forming a single act of knowing, a relation between
ego and non-ego.
It has to be explained that the double consciousness of which
we are treating exists solely in the case of touch and the
motor sense, the perception of the primary qualities. In the
case of the other senses, consciousness is single. Colour does
not involve a co-extended colour, nor sound a corresponding
sound. In these instances, the external cause of the sensation
is not directly known, it is inferred. The object of touch and
the motor sense being perceived at one and the same mo-
ment as we experience sensation's of colour, sound, scent, an
association is formed between the latter and the former, and
the inference comes to be made that the exciting causes of the
latter issue from the objects revealed by the double consciousness,
these objects being the substratum to which the secondary
qualities or external excitants of the single consciousness are, by
inference, attributed.
The conclusion which has now been arrived at is this : While
the single consciousness (regarded as a primary deliverance)
reveals simply its own existence as the self-verifying, the
double consciousness (regarded as a primary deliverance) di-
rectly and clearly reveals the existence of the non-self-verifying.
Then the self-verifying base of the double consciousness declares
that the non-ego is not a constituent part of such base, is not
percipi; and to negative this subjective declaration, as idealism
seeks to do, is to commit a subversio principii.
There is one other point which it is highly desirous to notice.
In the Order of Evolution, the Category of Difference is prior to
The Veracity of Consciousness. 73
the Category of Eesemblance. It is the condition of a general
notion that it must be founded on the similarity to each other
of individual cognitions. Discrimination, or the cognition of
objects as mutually differing in individuality or number, is prior
to the cognition of the same objects as mutually resembling.
Now idealism is founded on a complete violation of this order.
Let us select for criticism, as an illustration of this statement,
the view expressed by J. S. Mill in the following words :
" There is not the slightest reason for believing that what we call
the sensible qualities of the object are a type of anything in-
herent in itself, or bear any affinity to its own nature. A cause
does not, as such, resemble its effects ; an east wind is not like
the feeling of cold, nor heat like the steam of boiling water ; why
then should matter resemble our sensations ? why should the
inmost nature of fire or water resemble the impressions made
by these objects upon our senses ? And if not on the principle
of resemblance, on what other principle can the manner in which
objects affect us through our senses afford us any insight into
the inherent nature of those objects ? It may, therefore, safely
be laid down as a truth both obvious in itself, and admitted by
all whom it is at present necessary to take into consideration,
that, of the outward world, we know and can know absolutely
nothing, except the sensations which we experience from it."
We submit that the argument by which Mill here supports
his position is fallacious. When an organ of sense is excited
into activity, and this excitation is continued by the afferent
nerves to the related sense-centres, and so on till the final
result is reached the revealing, by the double consciousness,
of the primary qualities as external to the organism, what
meaning can there be in the intimation that unless this revealing
resembles the object proper, we can have no knowledge of such
object ? The judgment which determines the existence of
resemblance or non-resemblance involves prior knowing, know-
ing, which, in the Order of Evolution is at the root of all other.
The consequence is, that whenever an attempt has been made
to explain the primitive act of knowing a petitio principii has
been committed ; for these explanations are all based on the
supposition (or the denial) that something in the mind resembles
the external object, and thus alone reveals its existence. To
assert, therefore, that we can know nothing of non-self-verifying
objects because our knowing bears no resemblance to them is
on a par with saying that we cannot learn the alphabet because
we have not learnt to read. The double consciousness reveals
to us that non-self-verifying objects exist, namely, the extended
ego in relation with the co-extended non-ego, and the resisting
ego in relation with the counter-resisting non-ego. To ask how
74 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
it does this is to seek an explanation of the inexplicable, to
seek a beginning beyond the beginning ; and to ask whether
the double consciousness can in philosophy be relied upon
is to raise the question which in this contribution has been
answered in the affirmative. Indeed, when we behold in man
a series of nervous systems, one evolved out of the other, a
complete microcosm ; when we turn our thoughts to the dif-
erent grades of the animal and the vegetable kingdoms, each
higher grade implying the pre-existence of a lower in speciality
and dignity ; when we turn our thoughts to the several geolo-
gical eras, to the sedimentary strata, still further back to the
rocks of eruption, further back still to the nebular period of
planetary formation, how can we, with so able an interpreter of
the Order of Evolution as Mr. Herbert Spencer, avoid coming to
the conclusion that idealism is, as we have attempted to demon-
strate, a doctrine db initio null.
W. G. DAVIES.
VIIL PHILOSOPHY IN THE SCOTTISH
UNIVEKSITIES. (I.)
SOME people, both south and north of the Tweed, are found
in these days not unfrequently to talk and write as if the
Universities of Scotland were simply large Public Schools of
the English type, and of rather an inferior sort. They look to
the school-subjects that are taught Latin, Greek, and Mathe-
matics and disregard, or have a very vague idea of, any other
kind of instruction given in them. The discussions about the
Scottish Universities are thus very apt to take a one-sided
course, and to be restricted to questions regarding the degree
of classical preparation with which students enter or ought to
enter them. All through those discussions there is little per-
ception or recognition of the fact that these Universities have been
from their foundation and throughout their history seminaries
of Mental Philosophy, of Logic, Psychology, Metaphysics, and
Ethics. This holds especially true of the three oldest of them
St. Andrews, Glasgow,- and Aberdeen. In these, the first
constituted Faculty was that of Arts ; it was the fundamental
Faculty in them and in all the medieval Universities, and it
was made up of the three departments of Logic, Physics, and
Ethics. Even the Physics of that day included reference to
the phenomena of Mind ; and in some of the Universities we
find, until very lately, Pneumatology as a part of what is now
known as Natural Philosophy. Greek, Latin, and Mathematics,
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 75
came gradually to be added to the Faculty of Arts. Greek
was first known in Scotland, and first taught in the Univer-
sities of Glasgow, Aberdeen, and St. Andrews, about the
middle of the 16th century. The learned, zealous, and
vigorous Andrew Melville introduced the teaching of Greek
into the University of Glasgow in 1574, and into that of
St. Andrews a few years later. There is, however, some pro-
bability that Greek was known and taught in Aberdeen a
quarter of a century even before this date, for Greek orations
were made in that University before James V. and his Queen
in 1541. The teaching of Latin as a language was not a part
of the University curriculum until after the decline of learning
in Scotland which followed the lieformation. From the founda-
tion of the older Universities, a knowledge of Latin was im-
perative on the Intrant or Bajan student (Bee jaune, Yellow
Neb), such an amount of knowledge, at least, as enabled him
to follow the expositions of the Regents. We find in Glasgow
statutory prohibitions even of the use of the vernacular among
the students, and the requirement of Latin in their ordinary
intercourse.* A student was further interdicted from having a
servant in the college, or bringing in a friend, "nisi scholasticum
sermonem callentem ". The institution of the Latin Chairs
in the Universities in Edinburgh, 1583, St. Andrews, 1G20,
Glasgow, 1637 may be said to correspond with a continuous
decline in the school-teaching of the language.f The Chair
of Litcrce Humaniores was chiefly valuable as showing a recog-
nition of the new spirit and studies of the Reformation period.
There were disputes shortly after the foundation of these
Chairs between the Colleges and the teachers of the remaining
higher class Grammar Schools, as to the limits of their respec-
tive provinces.
Philosophy, especially Dialectic, was thus the characteristic
study of the Scottish student from the foundation of the Uni-
versities. In the olden times, as now, it was his strong and
cultivated faculty. During the latter part of the fifteenth,
through the whole of the sixteenth, and the greater part of the
seventeenth centuries, the errant ' Scot abroad ' was known as
much in the disputations of the continental Universities for
his skill in dialectic, learned at his native Schools, as he was
famous for his readiness and courage in following a military
leader native or foreign a Douglas or a Gustavus Adolphus
to the battle-fields of France, and the wars of ' Hie Germanie '.
* Munimenta Alrnce Universitatis Glasguensis, II., 41, temp. Jac. V.
t The Humanity Chair in Aberdeen was not instituted until 1839.
Was this because the teaching of the Grammar School was so good that
a Chair was not required in the University ?
76 Philosophy in the 'Scottish Universities.
As Erasmus said of the mediaeval Scots, "dialecticis argutiis
sibi blandiuntur ". Among those ' kniglit-errants ' of the
schools, we have several distinguished names. A short list
of the most prominent of them is not without interest. In the
15th century, Scotland sent from its native Universities to those
especially of France, as Eegent teachers of Philosophy, Thomas
Otterburne, Henry Leighton, Robert Fleming, Thomas Mushet,
Umfrid Hume, James Martin. In the 16th century, we have
the well-known Hector Boece, the ' first doctor ' or teaching
Eegent of Aberdeen, recalled from the Sorbonne by Bishop
Elphinstone, to help the young University. John Major, George
Lockhart, and William Gregory, of the College of Montacute,
are all distinguished names, and taught with great success in
the University of Paris. Gregory afterwards went, as Professor
of Philosophy, to Toulouse, where he died in 1527. Arch-
deacon Bellenden and Eichard Moryson, who taught abroad,
were Aristotelians reputed second to none in their time. Early
in the 17th century, we have George Eglisemmus (Eglesham),
John Walker (Vigilantius), and, greatest of all, the three names
of Eobert Balfour, Mark Duncan, and William Chalmers.
Eglesham, Walker, and Balfour, were all of St. Andrews.
Eglesham was Professor of Philosophy at Leyden, and is the
author of Animadversiones in Aristotelis Logicam. Walker
was Professor of Philosophy at Nimes, and is the author of
Prefationes in Aristotelem. Eobert Balfour, of Fife extraction,
was long Eector (Principal) of Bordeaux, and wrote Com-
mentaria in Universam Logicam, in Physicam et Ethicam Aris-
tofelis, commentaries which, for ability and learning, are in the
first rank. Mark Duncan was Professor at Saumur. His
Institutio Logica appeared there in 1612. It was a w r ork of the
very highest repute, and is even now of great value. William
Chalmers of Anjou is the author of Disputationes Philosophies,
and Introductio ad Logicam. Gilbert Jack of Marischal College,
Aberdeen, was Professor of Philosophy in Leyden. Even the
famous Burgersdick, who succeeded him, did nothing more than
sustain the reputation of his predecessor. Jack was distinguished
alike in Medicine and Philosophy. Bayle speaks of him as one
of the subtlest Peripatetics of the age. He was the author of
Primce Philosophic Institutions, Leyden, 1616. Walter Donald-
son, also of Aberdeen, was Principal of Sedan, and gave to the
world, in 1612, at Frankfort, his Synopsis Locorum Communium.
Then there is the name of David Buchanan, Eegent in Paris,
author of the Historia Animce Humance, 1636, and L'Histoire
de la Conscience, ] 638. The tendency to philosophical study
which had been encouraged by the native Universities and
grew to maturity abroad, re-acted on these Universities in turn ;
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 77
and in the middle of the 17th century, we have the distin-
guished name of Eobert Baron of Aberdeen, one of the
' Doctors ' who stood by Laud and the Service-book, a
metaphysician of wide continental reputation. By the side
of Baron, and even superior to him in originality, we must
place George Dalgarno, also of Aberdeen, the now well-known
author of the Ars Signorum, vulgo Character Universalis et
Lingua Ph ilosophica, London, 1661. Afterwards, Bishop Wilkins
took up the humble Aberdonian's idea, and made for himself a
name in his time.
In this connection I need not at present do more than refer
to the number and succession of original works contributed to
the literature of Philosophy by the occupants of philosophical
chairs in the Scottish Universities, since the old system of
Regenting was superseded by that of the Professoriate in the
first quarter of the last century. There is not a single Univer-
sity which cannot point to a name of some distinction in this
walk of literature, and the philosophical writings thus originating
have so many features of method and matter in common such
a general consensus in the development of doctrine that
they have appropriately been regarded as forming a distinctive
school of philosophical opinion. Those interested in the ' Kn-
dowment of Research ' might fairly be called upon to study
the philosophical literature of the last hundred and fifty years
which has emanated from the Scottish Universities. The views
of some of them regarding the province within which research
may profitably be conducted, might probably receive, some en-
largement. It might also be suggested that teaching and
research are by no means incompatible, rather mutually helpful.
In the Universities of Scotland at the present day, after all
the changes of constitution which they have undergone during
four hundred years, the subject of Mental Philosophy occupies,
if not an exclusive, at least a very prominent place in the
curriculum of Arts. For the degree of Master of Arts, this
department constitutes, as I shall afterwards show, a proportion
of requirements such as is not found in Oxford, Cambridge, or
Trinity College, Dublin. The teaching of Mental Philosophy is
addressed to a class of students of an age considerably higher as
a rule than that of those who undergo the classical training.
The Scottish Universities must, therefore, be judged as well by
the relative merits of Mental Philosophy as a study and a disci-
pline, and by the way in which it is taught, as by any compari-
son of them with Universities which aim exclusively, or even
mainly, at reaching a high standard in classics and mathema-
tics. Any criticism of the Scottish University system, or pro-
posed reform of it, which ignores or under-estimates the historical
78 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
and the actual place of Mental Philosophy as an essential part
of its discipline, is neither intelligent nor just.
In seeking to deal briefly with the course of Philosophy in
the Universities of Scotland, and the arrangements that have
been and now are in use for the teaching of it, reference must
be made to the changes of constitution which those Universities
have undergone, to the bearing of these changes on philosophical
instruction and to the progress of philosophical thought in the
Universities during the last four hundred years. It may
possibly be found that a review of those points has some
little instruction for us, now that a Eoyal Commission is dealing
with institutions, which have their roots deep in the past, and
which have grown up and been modified so as in the main to
suit the national requirements.
-The Scottish Universities were originally connected with the
Universities of the Continent, and their system of study. Al-
though the neighbouring English Universities were in existence,
they had no influence on the framework of those in Scotland ;
and while there is frequent reference to the constitution and
usages of Bologna, Paris, and Louvain in the records of the
Scottish Universities, there is none to Oxford or Cambridge.
The bright promise for Scotland which arose with David I. in
1124, had been darkened by the death of Alexander III. in 1286.
In the comparatively peaceful time before the death of Alexander,
John Baliol and his wife Devorgilla, the parents of King John,
had founded a college in Oxford, between 1263-68, with some
view to students from Scotland. And we find at least two
names of Scotsmen of historic and legendary mark who studied
at Oxford about this period. The one is Michael Scott, the
reputed ' Magus,' but really an able mathematician and learned
commentator on Aristotle. The other is his contemporary,
Joannes de Sacrobosco (Halywoode), whose treatise De Sphcera
Mundi was afterwards for long a text-book in the Scottish
Universities. Both of these, however, completed their studies
in Paris. The War of Independence which followed left no
leisure for the pursuits of learning. In it were destroyed or
crippled nearly all the abbeys and religious houses of the country
especially of the Lowlands which alone, by means of the
schools attached to them, had kept up any degree of learning
and culture in the country. The struggle between the Anglo-
Scot of the Lowlands and the Anglo-Norman of England the
spirit of individualism striving with that of feudal domination
which continued for many centuries onwards rendered it
almost impossible for the Scottish student, if indeed he existed
in those days, to repair to the neighbouring Universities of
England. Usually the northern aspirant after learning who
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 79
dared to brave the perils of a journey to Oxford, and the treat-
ment he met with there after he reached it, needed a special
safe-conduct from the English king. It was under such a safe-
conduct that John Barbour, the afterwards famous Archdeacon,
went to Oxford along with three students from Scotland. The
journeys thither were thus, doubtless, few and far between.
Usually it was a continental University, and especially that of
Paris, to which the future Scottish ecclesiastic or lawyer had
recourse. France during the Middle Ages was the natural ally
of Scotland. As early as the time of .Robert Bruce, when his
nephew Eandolph Murray was in Paris negotiating a renewal of
the Sco'to-French alliance, the patriotic Bishop of Moray, appre-
ciating the wants of the youth of his country, founded in the
University of Paris a College known as the Scots' College. This
and another College in the same University, that of Montacu^e,
were the favourite resort of the Scottish student down to 1411,
the date of the foundation of the oldest Scottish University,
that of St. Andrews. For Scotsmen to repair to the University
of Paris, both as students and Regents, was common even for
generations afterwards. The Scottish student was as familiar
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with the streets and
alleys of Paris, as he now is with those of Edinburgh or Glasgow.
The names and labours in Philosophy in the University of Paris,
in the early part of the sixteenth century, of John Major, " dis-
ceptator acutissirnus," George Lockhart, and William Gregory,
throw a lustre over the expiring day of Scholasticism.
The wave of continental learning at length reached the shores
of remote Scotland, and one century the fifteenth witnessed
the foundation of the three oldest Scottish Universities St.
Andrews first, as we have said, in 1411, Glasgow in 1450-1, and
University and King's College, Aberdeen, in 1494. Marischal
College and University, Aberdeen, was founded by George
Keith, Earl Marischal, about a century later, in 1593. The two
Colleges and Universities of Aberdeen were fused into one in
1860. Edinburgh, the creation of James VI., rose after the
Reformation in 1582. It cannot be said at any period of its
history to represent the model of the old European Univer-
sity. It never participated in the mediaeval organisation ; it
rose and it has won its fame and displayed its usefulness
as, what without disparagement may be named, a ' teaching
institution ' in the more modern period of the Scottish Univer-
sities. These, with the exception of Edinburgh, are a legacy to
the nation of the churchmen of the fifteenth century. That
they contributed to the overthrow of that Church which pro-
duced them, there can be little doubt. Until that fifteenth
century, the education and upbringing of the future Scottish
80 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
ecclesiastic and lawyer was foreign; he became associated in
feeling and culture with the great ecclesiastical and academical
unity of Europe ; a;id it is probable that, but for the institution
of the native Universities and the substitution of home influence
and associations for foreign training, the Scottish Reformation
an ecclesiastical revolution would not have been carried through
with so little upheaval of society as it was.
Those of the Universities of Scotland which were founded
before the Reformation, viz., St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aber-
deen, thus carry us back to the continental Universities of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In their earlier constitution,
they recall a foreign model, and in their subjects and manner
of teaching, they resemble the typical European University of
the Middle Ages. They were avowedly instituted as a part of
that great system of continental education, the head of which
was the Pope, and whose charter and license was a Papal Bull.
They were incorporated members of the great educational con-
federation of the Catholic world ; and their graduates had conse-
quently the privileges of continental graduates ; they were free,
as it was termed, of all the Universities of Europe. It was this
which made it easy for the Scottish students and Regents to flock
over Europe, and to pass restlessly from University to University.
" Sedem saepius commutavit " was said of George Buchanan.
It might have been said with equal truth of most Scottish
Regents and Professors abroad. The degree or license to teach,
the ready command of Latin, and the quick wit in dialectical
disputation, were all the poor Scottish scholar cared or needed to
carry with him from home. They were his passport through the
Universities of Europe, and they enabled him to work his way
to the highest offices of teaching in those seats of learning.
The two great Universities of Bologna and Paris the former
going back to a very remote time, the latter dating from the
twelfth century were the general models of the Scottish Uni-
versities. Directly, however, the exact constitution and most
of the arrangements in them were borrowed from Louvain.
And we know how Paris and Louvain arose. The oldest edu-
cational influence in Western Europe was a portion of the
logical treatises of Aristotle, translated by Boethius in the sixth
century. The Cloister-Schools of Charlemagne in the ninth
century rendered them directly available for purposes of educa-
tion, and those treatises, along with some sprinkling of ISTeo-
Platonism, afforded nearly all the intellectual nutriment of
Western Europe down to the twelfth century. In this century,
through the crusades, and especially intercourse with the Uni-
versities of Spain, the parts of the Organon not before known
to Western Europe and the other works of Aristotle psycho-
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 81
logical, physical, and metaphysical came within reach of the
cloister scholar in the form of Latin translations from the Arabic.
" Solus Aristotelis nodosa volumina novit
Corduba."
The scholars of Constantinople also contributed certain trans-
lations from the Greek originals. Out of this addition to the
scant treasures of learning arose, about 1142, shortly after the
time of Abelard's teaching, the beginnings of the second epoch
of Scholasticism. This is generally described as the fullest de-
velopment of the application of the dialectic method to theology ;
but in truth it was, through this application and the views
opened up in connection with it, a laborious working out of
thought to questions about reality of the deepest human interest.
To the possession at first of those portions of the Organon
known before and up to the time of Abelard, and to the
additions made in the twelfth century, we owe, in a great
measure, the foundation of most of the continental Universities,
especially Paris and Louvain ; and with the gradual discovery
and spread of the Aristotelic MSS. in Europe, grew up the
subjects of teaching in the Faculty of Arts the fundamental
Faculty of the mediaeval Universities, for to pass through it was
regarded as indispensable -to the study of law and theology.
Further in this twelfth century, the awakening intellect of
Europe was deeply interested by the discovery of the long lost
Pandects of Justinian. The same century was enriched by the
publication of the Decretals of Gratian, and the Sentences of
Peter Lombard. The study of those treatises soon came to
be eagerly pursued in an age deeply occupied with civil and
ecclesiastical organisation and theological dogma. They gradu-
ally came to be the subjects or text-books of instruction. In
the absence of printing, the books could not be spread over
Europe ; learners must come together from different nations to
hear them read and expounded ; hence teachers at common
centres became incorporated, and there thus arose over Europe
the mediaeval Universities, and in these the four Faculties of
Arts, Civil Law, Canon Law, and Theology. The Faculty of
Arts had for its aim instruction in the Aristotelic treatises ;
Civil Law had for its subject the Pandects of Justinian ; Canon
Law dealt with the Decretals of Gratian ; Theology taught, as its
Bible 1 , the Sentences of Peter Lombard. The pabaliim of the
mediaeval University was thus books, and its teachers were in
the main ' Eeaders,' whose obligation and duty it was
originally fixed by oath faithfully to expound the books, the
quodlibeta, prescribed by the annual committee of the Univer-
sity presided over by the Quodlibetarius.
This necessary historical sketch suggests two points for our
6
82 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
notice. The one is the method of instruction in the Scottish
Universities during these early centuries, and the other is the
material of instruction.
In theory, as is now generally acknowledged, every Master of
Arts was privileged to teach in the University. There was
even a period of two years after graduation of necessary regent-
ing. This was ultimately compounded for by the payment of
a fine. In the Italian Universities, before 1400, and in some of
the more western Universities, the practice of graduate teaching
had ceased, if, indeed, it ever was in general force. In Glasgow
and Aberdeen we find the salaried Eegent in existence from the
foundation of each University. There seems to be no evidence
of free graduate teaching in the Scottisli Universities. Salaried
Eegents, or Eegents having Church benefices, were the earliest
academical instructors. These were followed by unbeneficed
Eegents, who depended on the voluntary offerings of t&e
students. It was indeed owing to a provision of endowment
for the Eegents in Arts that the Faculty came alone to be fully
constituted in the Scottish Universities. Neither Civil Law
nor Canon Law appears ever to have reached the maturity of a
Faculty. In the pre-Eeformation Universities St. Andrews,
Glasgow, and Aberdeen and in Edinburgh during the seven-
teenth century, the practice of teaching by Eegents prevailed.
The system implied that the same teacher carried on his
students from the first year of their course to its close a period
of three years and a half when they were presented for the
degree of Master of Arts, having previously taken those of
Bachelor and Licentiate in Arts. One Eegent, therefore, in-
structed the same class of students in all the departments of
academical study.
Eegenting was essentially a method of teaching by means of
approved books. The Eegent read, expounded, and dictated to
the student, who was called upon to write carefully and at full
length the dictata of the Master. On these he was examined
and exercised, chiefly by means of the practice of disputation.
This, in its most public form, was known as ' determining '.
It took place in presence of the whole University. The meeting
was presided over by one of the Masters, who proposed the
questions, in Ethics or Metaphysics. The youthful students
of Logic (juvenes Logicse studiosi) showed their proficiency in
the art by there and then giving their opinions on the question.
The system had the advantage of a close personal supervision
of the student by the master, who was thus able to study and
influence the character of those under him, as well as watch
their intellectual progress. And so far as classical learning was
concerned, there can be no doubt that it issued in accurate
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 83
scholarship. Through the regenting system in the Universities
and the high standard of teaching in the Granynar Schools of
the country, Scotland, especially during the sixteenth century,
produced men whose Latin scholarship was as high as any in
Europe, and not to be paralleled at the time by any in Eng-
land. The names of George Buchanan, Florence Wilson, Henry
Scrimger, Arthur Johnston, and several others testify to this.
In Philosophy, however, the system of regenting cannot be
said to have acted so well. The teaching of Philosophy by
means of approved books is better than none ; but it is not a
good arrangement. Its tendency is to make little demand
either on the research or the power of active thought of the
teacher, and thus to repress originality. However much it may
conduce to accuracy in the mastery of the books, it is not likely
to promote the habit of original speculation either in master or
pupil, or to lead to progress in philosophical science. The
system, accordingly, though greatly fostering dialectic skill in
the mediaeval student, proved generally barren in respect of
original works in Philosophy. It certainly produced very able
and learned treatises particularly in Logic, and in dogmatic and
polemical Theology. The names of Major, Lockhart, Mark
Duncan, and Robert Balfour, alone testify to this, though it
should be remembered, that these men were not products ex-
clusively of the Scottish Universities, having passed into the
wider circle of European thought, and being frequently teachers
of Philosophy exclusively in fact, Philosophical Professors.
In Scotland, the regenting system continued witli some slight
breaks and attempts at reform, until the first quarter of the
last century, and even later. In St. Andrews, the system was
exchanged for that of the Professoriate at the union of the
Colleges there in 1747. In Aberdeen, it lasted down to 1754.
In Glasgow, a Professoriate was instituted in 1577. The Eegent
Morton carried out the ideas of Melville ; but regenting was
resumed in 1642. The professorial system was finally consti-
tuted there in 1727. The Edinburgh regenting gave place to
the professoriate in 1708.
The first point in the professorial system, as compared with
that of the Regents, is the restriction of the teaching of the
Professor to a definite subject one out of the many which
each Regent was called upon to teach. This leads to a con-
centration of energy on the part of the Professor, to a fuller
and more consecutive study of his subject, and it avoids the
distraction arising from the necessity of mastering, in probably
a general way, several subjects of instruction.
The second point is, that there is no restriction in the teach-
ing to specific books. The Professor is left free to arrange and
84 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
develop his subject as he chooses, and to contribute, if he can,
to its progress- in his lectures. He is thus able to give a
comprehensive and systematic view of the various points of
his subject, as opposed to that afforded by an ill-assorted
congeries of books. The greater concentration upon the de-
partment of which he treats, the freer spirit of research and
independent thought thus engendered, have certainly left
their mark on Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. Since
the institution of the Professoriate, upwards of one hundred
and fifty years ago, there has arisen (as said above) in Scotland,
and most of all in the Universities, a course of independent philo-
sophical thought continuous, yet with a common character and
tendency so marked as to entitle it to the name of a school,
and to make it influential in other countries, as, for example,
in France and the United States of America. In this particular,
the contrast between the comparative barrenness of the three
hundred years of the system of Regenting and the productive-
ness of the Professoriate does not admit of dispute ; and it
might be added that, so far as the discipline of the student in
Philosophy is concerned, there can be nothing more influential
than a lucid lecture and the following, from day to day, of a
clear, orderly, and consecutive train of thinking.
It is not my purpose to make any invidious comparison
between the English and Scottish Universities; but I may
point in this connection to the retention, almost exclusively, of
the tutorial or regenting system alike in Oxford and Cambridge.
As has been said, " down to the present day the College tutor
at Oxford and Cambridge is theoretically instructor in all sub-
jects, however heterogeneous and dissimilar ".* If, instead of
theoretically, we read actually, for the tutor is not de jure the
instructor the common or public instructor of the University
this statement is indisputable. We may add that the English
system retains also the material of book-teaching for the Degree,
which was a main feature of the old regenting arrangement.
It would not be straining an inference if we were to connect as
an effect with these two causes, the admitted absence of original
thought in the form of contributions to the progress and the
literature of Philosophy in the history of those Universities.!
The system of the Tutor or Regent is one that must always be
dependent for its pabulum its thoughts, in a word on sources
extraneous to itself ; and it is likely to be wholly satisfied with
* Westminster Review, No. xcviii., p. 342.
t Of late, in both Universities, there have been signs of awakening
original power in Philosophy. It has no. root, however, in any fore-
going thought in either University ; its inspiration is entirely foreign,
and it is the outcome of individual force, not of the system.
.Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 85
tin's supply. What will 'pass' men for the Degree^ or get
them Honours, is the goal of its ambition. It looks simply to
what ' pays ' in the form of University imprimatur.
But a very important question arises, affecting the history
alike of Philosophy and Theology in Scotland, viz., What
were the materials of this system of Eegenting ? What were
the books and treatises, the ideas of which were constantly,
persistently, and even authoritatively impressed on the youth
of the country for nearly three hundred years ?
The ancient record of the Faculty of Arts in Glasgow gives
us an interesting glimpse into the subjects of instruction in
Philosophy at an early period after the constitution of the
University, in the reign of James II. In ' the old art of Logic,'
the ordinary treatises were "Liber Universalium Porphyrii,
liber Praedicamentorum Aristotelis, duo libri peri Hermeneias "
[Ilepl ( EpfjLrjvia<;, in a Latin translation] ; in ' the new Logic ',
" Duo libri Prior um [Analyticorum], duo Posteriorum [Analyti-
corum], quatuor ad Minus Topicorum, scilicet primus, secundus,
sextus et octavus, duo Elenchorum". In ' Philosophy,' they were
"Octo libri Physicorum, tres de Coelo et Mundo, duo de Genera-
tione et Corruptione, tres libri de Anima, De Sensu et Sensato,
De Memoria et Kemmiscentia, De Somno et Vigilia, septem
libri Metaphysicae ".* Among the extraordinary books, with
regard to some of which the Faculty might exercise discretion
in the examination, there are : The text of Peter Hispanus
" cum Syncathegorematicis, tractatus de Distribucionibus, liber
Gfilberti] Po[rretani] Sex Principiorum " ; in Philosophy, " Tres
libri Metheorologicorum, tractatus de Sphaera sine dispensacione,
sex libri Ethicorum, si legantur perspectiva, algorismus et prin-
cipia geometric," &c.f
A scrutiny of the list indicates exactly the progress of
Philosophy in Europe at the time. The Veins Logica here
referred to comprised the Isagoge of Porphyry and those portions
of the Orgn.non of Aristotle which were known and studied in
Western Europe up to the middle of the twelfth century (about
1 142). They were all that were known even to Abelard, at least
in his days of lecturing ; and they were known to him only in the
Latin translations of Boethius. They referred mainly to Terms
and to the Predicables, to Definition, Division, and Classifica-
tion, and certain grammatical analyses. The Nova Logica was
an advance' on the old, and eagerly hailed by the scholars of
Europe. It represented the other parts of what was afterwards
named the Organon, recently brought to Western Europe as
translations into Latin from the Arabic of the Moorish Univer.
* Munimenta, II., 25, temp. Jac. II.
t Munimenta, II. , p. 26.
86 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
si ties of Spain, and partly also from Syria and the East. To
the theory of Terms and Classification, it added the valuable
principles of Syllogistic and Demonstration, and a theory of
Fallacies. These were properly regarded as parts of Logic, or
the Science of Method the Instrumental Science and marked
off from ' Philosophy,' which comprised Physics, Astronomy,
and what we should now call Psychology, and Metaphysics. The
whole works of Aristotle were thus comprehended in the
curriculum of study, a body of thought and knowledge which
was not within the reach of any one in Western Europe until
the time of Alexander de Hales (1245), and which was not
spread over the continent until the period of the writings of
Albertus Magnus (d. 1280).
The reference to the text of Petrus Hispanus with the Syn-
categorematics is also significant. The text is, of course, the Sum-
midae Logicales, a work of the thirteenth century. It is divided
into seven tractates, the first six of which may be regarded as
representing both the 'old' and the 'new' Logic; while the seventh
section or tractate, on the properties of Terms, contained an
addition to these in the shape chiefly of grammatical discussions,
and was known as Loyica Modernorum, or Modern Logic, as
opposed to the Logica Awtiqua, which included both the Loyica
Veins and the Logica Nova. For the close student of the de-
velopment of Philosophy and Theology in the Middle Ages and
we are now in great measure the heirs of the language and the
discussions of that epoch these points, small as they appear,
are of deep interest. The grammatical discussions introduced
into Logic by Hispanus indicated the new nominalistic tendency
a protest against an abstract notionalism which, developed
subsequently through Duns Scotus and William of Occam, led
to the severance of Philosophy and Theology. This meant the
setting up of a portion of knowledge, that regarding the Trinity,
the Incarnation, Immortality, &c., as truths of Faith indemon-
strable by Reason ; and this led to new efforts to bring
Philosophy and Theology into unity. As Nominalism naturally
resulted in sense-impression as the last criterion of reality and
truth, the question at once arose as to wh ether these truths of
Faith had any warrant but that of dogmatic authority whether
they were to be regarded as having a scientific or philosophical
basis. We can readily see here the forecasting of that Modern
Philosophy and Theology which began with Descartes.
The Organon and the other works of Aristotle continued to
be the staple of instruction in the Universities of Scotland, all
through this and the succeeding century. In fact, the prevail-
ing influence of Aristotle continued through the whole time of
the Regents down to the final institution of the Professoriate at
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 87
the commencement of last century. But it gradually ceased
to be exclusive. Up to the period of the Scottish Reformation
it was absolutely dominant, and its power was only partially
broken by that event. The Universities themselves with which
Aristotle and the old Church were associated, suffered greatly
both before and after 1560. Indeed, the type of the old
medieval University may be said to have ceased to exist in
Scotland after the Eeformation. The system of regenting as
opposed to the professoriate was nearly all that remained of the
old organisation. When Glasgow and Aberdeen were restored,
there was a considerable change for the better in the subjects of
instruction. Through the influence of Andrew Melville and
Arbuthnot, a new life was breathed into Glasgow, St. Andrews,
and Aberdeen. Melville inspired Arbuthnot ; and Melville
may be taken as the type of the new spirit of the time. He
represented the new religion, the reviving classical culture, know-
ing Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and while he was alive to the
new influences in Philosophy, he was considerate enough to
recognise the value of the old. Into Glasgow, in 1574, he intro-
duced Greek, and in " Morall Philosophic " he taught besides the
Logic of the time, the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle, the
new Dialectic of Kamus, the Rhetoric of Talaeus, the Offices and
Tusculans of Cicero, and certain of the Dialogues of Plato.*
Henceforward, Philosophy in the Scottish Universities meant
a greater breadth of study and culture. We see the begin-
ning of those sesthetical inquiries which afterwards resulted
in such books as Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, and the
writings of Gerard, Hutcheson, and Blair. James Melville,
who continued the teaching of his uncle in Glasgow, tells us
that he himself was the first Regent in Scotland who read
Aristotle in the original. Up to that period, 1575, the philo-
sopher was known only in the translations of Boethius, and
in the Latin versions from the Arabic and partly from the
Greek of the scholars of Constantinople. After the time of
James Melville, we find express injunctions for the reading of
Aristotle in the original, and its viva voce exposition by the
Eegents. The influence of Melville and Arbuthnot on Glas-
gow and Aberdeen was felt in those Universities for the best
part of half a century ; but there can be no doubt that the
Scottish Reformation was not favourable to the progress of
letters or philosophy either in the Universities or the country.
The leaders of the Reformation were learned alike in Classics
and in Scholastic Philosophy. But their successors gradually
narrowed to a form of religious thought, which set authority
as high as the old Church itself, and re-acted badly on the cul-
* See James Melville's Diary, p. 38.
88 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
ture of the times. The Universities were ' purged ' of all ad-
herents of the old faith, and manj; cultured men were sacrificed,
probably as a rough necessity, to The cause of civil liberty. Yet,
had the scheme of Knox been carried out, and any considerable
part of the endowments of the old Church been given to the
Universities at the Eeformation, letters and philosophy would
have suffered but little in the long run. As it was, the lands of
the Church which were truly national property, the offerings of
the piety and the fears of four centuries, were appropriated under
the convenient process of ' Commendation,' by a rapacious and
illiterate baronage to their own purposes, in a self-constituted
Parliament. The only endowments of the Eegents, while acting
as teachers, had been their Church benefices ; and as these were
no longer available, the University offices fell in emolument and
in attraction for capable instructors.
Then in the succeeding century, during the time of Charles
I., there arose those civil and theological contentions under
which neither letters nor philosophy could be expected to
thrive. Yet to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster (1643),
where the theological debates culminated, and fermenting ideas
were crystallised, Scotland sent its fair proportion of able and
learned men. There Henderson and Gillespie showed, as Euther-
furd did at home, that the characteristic tendency of Scholastic
Philosophy the application of Dialectic to Theology was still
vital in Scotland. For the fervid zeal which inspired the great
and subtle debaters of the period from 1638, through the West-
minster epoch, and down even to the Eevolution of 1688, the
Covenanters, the Engagers, the Eemonstrants, the Eesolutioners,
was pointed to a sharp edge by the Dialectic of Aristotle, as
it had been learned in the Universities of the country. Nor
can it be disputed that the theological formulas, adopted by the
Scottish Church and Estates of the time, show evident marks of
the application to Christian doctrines of the dominant and
somewhat verbal metaphysics of the age.
In the General Assembly of 1639, in which the Covenant
was re-affirmed and the covenanting party was for a second
time triumphant, it was resolved that " all masters of Univer-
sities, Colleges, and Schools, all scholars at the passing of
their Degrees, &c., subscribe the same".* This was pretty
thoroughly carried out by a Commission of Visitation between
1639 and 1642, which was employed to ascertain " how the
doctrine is used by their Masters and Eegents, and if the same
be correspondent to the Confession of Faith and Acts of this
Kirk ". But in truth each dominant party and government in
turn applied its test to the Universities ; and there was a
* Peterkin's Records, p. 208. Burton's History of Scotland, VII., p. 81.
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 89
similar ' purgation ' and deprivation from office of the teaching
Masters, by means of the test of the Assurance and Confession
of Faith, under William and Mary, as under the party of 1639.
Both the Church and the Parliament sought to control the
subjects and matter of teaching especially in Philosophy.
There was no doubt a profession of consulting with the Masters
as to course and subjects of study ; but the real power lay with
the General Assembly and the Estates. They reserved the
right, real or assumed, of final judgment and determination both
as to subjects and doctrines of Philosophy.
The Commission of Visitation of the General Assembly, of
date 3rd August, 1640, recommended, on the suggestion of the
Masters of the University of Glasgow, " that, the first year,
beside the Greek tongue, there be a compend of Logic taught ;
the second year, beside the ordinary task (i.e., Logic), Tlepl
'Eppriveias be taught, with the elements of Arithmetic; the
third year, with what used to be taught (i.e., Ethics), that the
fifth and sixth Books of Aristotle's Ethics be gone through,
with a compend of Metaphysics, and that Arithmetic be pro-
ceeded with, and Geometry taught ; the fourth year, with the
ordinary task (i.e., Physics), Aristotle's book De Anima ".*
In 1647-48 the Universities, feeling apparently the incon-
venience of the power, nearly absolute, which the Assembly of
the Church assumed over them, and put sharply into practice,
formed themselves into a sort of common University Court for
the country, to which each University sent commissioners.
They met at Edinburgh, and, among other points, resolved that
" it was found expedient to communicat to the Generall Assem-
blie no more of our Universitie afaires, but such as concerned
religion, or that had some evident ecclesiastick relatione ". The
same commissioners adopted measures for promoting a corres-
pondence among them, and a uniform course of study. On
the 30th August, 1647, they resolved as follows : " It is fund
necessar that there be a cursus philosophicus drawn up by the
four Universities and printed, to the end that the unprofitable
arid noxious paines in writeing be shunned ; and that each
Universitie contribute thair travellis thairto, and it is to be
thocht upon, against the month of March ensewing, viz., that
St. Andrews tak the Metaphsiciks ; that Glasgow tak the
Logieks ; Aberdine the Ethicis and Mathematickis ; and Edin-
burgh the Physicks ".
Nothing seems to have come of this proposal at this time, or for
some years afterwards. The thirteen years of civil and ecclesias-
tical struggles which followed marked by the execution of the
King, the battle of Preston, the death of Montrose, the battles
* Muiiimejita, I., p. 454.
90 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
of Dunbar and Worcester turned men's minds from Cursus
Philosophici to matters of another sort. Shortly after the Kes-
toration, in 1664, the idea of a common course of Philosophy
was revived. After various negotiations between the Commis-
sioners of Parliament and those of the Universities, a final
agreement was come to in 1695. But the Commissioners of
the Universities were resolved that none of the compends
should be of foreign origin. They tell the Commissioners of
Parliament : " It is altogether dishonourable to the Univer-
sities, and the famed learning of the natione, that a course of
Philosophy shall be made the standard and course by authority
established, which non belonging to any of the Universities
have composed ".* They further criticise very sharply the
existing books and systems of Logic and Philosophy. The
existing courses of Philosophy are either not intended and
suited for students, or they are in themselves objectionable.
" The course that runs fairest is Philosophia Vetus et Nova,-(-
which is done by a popish author, and smells rank of that
religion ; but therein the Logicks are barren, and nothing of
the Topics, the Metaphysicks barren, the Ethicks erroneous,
and the Physicks too prolix." Neither the Logic of Derodon
nor of Burgersdick is to their mind. " Henry Moor's Ethicks "
cannot be admitted. They are " grossly Arminian, particularly
in his opinion de libero arbitrw". The Determinationcs and Pneu-
matologia of De Frize [Vries] are too short. Le Clerc is " merely
scepticall and Socinian ". " For Cartesius, Eohault, and others of
his gang, beside what may be said against their doctrine, they all
labour under this inconvenience that they give not any sufficient
account of the other hypotheses, and of the old philosophy,
which must not be ejected." J
Accordingly, the University of St. Andrews was appointed
to draw up the " Logicks and General Metaphysicks " ; to
Edinburgh was assigned the " Pneumatologia or Special Meta-
physics " ; to Glasgow was given the " General and Special
Ethics," including Economics and Politics ; the two Colleges of
Aberdeen had charge of the " General and Special Physicks ".
The treatises were completed and given in to the Commissioners
of Parliament in 1697, who were to have the power of revising
and adjusting them. Two of the treatises at least were printed
in London in 1701. The one prepared by Edinburgh is entitled
An Introduction to Metaphysicks (pp. 56) ; the other by St.
* Printed in Munimenta, Un. Glas., II., 530.
t This, I presume, is the Philosophia Vetus et Nova ad usum Scholae
accommodata in regia Burguridia oliin pertractata. Parisiis, 1681.
In four volumes.
| Printed in Mun., Un. Olas., II., 531.
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 91
Andrews, An Introduction to Logicks (pp. 56). The former,
like the metaphysical digests of the period, does little more
than arrange and define a series of notions. It contains, how-
ever, some acute remarks, especially on the terms Finite, In-
finite, and Indefinite. The logical compend is based chiefly on
the Logic of Port Royal. It is fresher and abler than the
corresponding tractate on Metaphysics, and discusses well the
accepted doctrines regarding Propositions, especially the rules
of Quantity and Conversion. After 1701, nothing more is
heard of the project ; and it had no practical effect on the
course of philosophical teaching in the Universities. It failed,
a^ it deserved to do.
These opinions and compends may be taken as the last word
of the Regenting system, and of the older philosophical teaching
of the Scottish Universities. This system had given a high
dialectic culture, and led to accuracy, precision and consecution of
thought. That the sensibility was not largely cultivated, or the
imagination enriched, was no inherent fault of the system itself.
The branches of studies which should have provided for these
important purposes, were either not existent, or they were not
fully recognised. It accomplished at least what was its proper
aim : that it was too exclusive, was to be charged to the general
arrangements of the Universities. Its defect as a system of
thought was that it had gone chiefly in one groove of study
a circle without forward progress. Advance of theory upon
theory there was none ; and many of the philosophical
questions of deepest human interest liad been left really un-
touched. The first half of the eighteenth century witnessed
the introduction of the Professoriate, and with it there arose a
freer, larger, more philosophical spirit. Ethics obtained a scien-
tific basis and treatment at the hands of Gerschom Carmichael
and Hutcheson ; and Psychology and Metaphysics assumed a
new form in the writings of Reid. This modern period must,
however, be left for another opportunity of discussion.
JOHN VEITGH.
(To le continued.)
IX. CRITICAL NOTICES.
The Functions of the Drain. By DAVID FERRIER M.D., F.R S. With
numerous illustrations. London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1876.
Ix this eagerly looked for work Dr. Ferrier gives a systematic expo-
sition of his own experiments on the functions of the brain, with a
critical digest of the results of inquiry into the cerebro-spinal system
generally. Struck, as every one must be, with the discrepancy and
even glaring contradiction among the results obtained by different
inquirers, he yet contends that by carefully directed experiments on
animals the foundations of a sure knowledge of the brain-functions
can be laid. Accordingly, though he allows that much still remains
to be done, he does not hesitate to put forward a body of results,
original and collated, which are by no means wanting in definiteness.
The book as a whole cannot but enhance Dr. Ferrier's reputation as
an investigator of remarkable acuteness and power. While following
with great pertinacity his own very engrossing line of enquiry, he
has managed to keep his eye upon the work of contemporary investi-
gators at home and abroad, at least such as bears most directly upon
his own. He has, moreover, by intelligent psychological study, fitted
himself to probe questions which the most accomplished physiologists
that are nothing more are apt to pass by or misunderstand. His
physiological results have been obtained with great skill, and, what-
ever may be said against his interpretations, they are at once clearly
conceived and forcibly argued. It is little to say of both that
they must henceforth be reckoned with, by psychologists as well as
physiologists, for any doctrine of brain in relation to mind.
The first three chapters, dealing with the structure of the brain and
spinal cord and the functions of the cord and medulla oblongata,
contain nothing particularly new, and may be passed over with ihe
single remark that the author by decisively rejecting the notion that
up to the medulla there is anything but " non-sentient, non-intelligent,
reflex mechanism," enables the reader to anticipate with some pro-
bability his view of the working of higher centres short of the highest.
He does, in fact, as the occasion arises, conclude of each higher centre
in succession that there is no evidence of its action having a subjective
phase till we come to the cortical substance of the brain itself, where
the subjective concomitant seems too apparently present for any
argument to be thought needful. It should, however, be noted that
in his arguments he takes little or no account of the view that there
are unconscious and semi-conscious states that may still be called
mental or subjective, and are presumed to be in relation with the
neural processes of lower centres. In so doing he might, doubtless,
plead the example of not a few psychologists ; still one could wish that
a view which has received not a little support from physiologists had
been considered by the way.
When he reaches the mesencephalon (corpora quadrigemina with
pons) and cerebellum, Dr. Ferrier is first called to compare the varied
researches of others with original (not merely testing) experiments of
Critical Notices. 93
his own. The centres just named are in relation not only with the
multitude of efferent nerves ending under the skin or in deeper-seated
parts, but also with the visual and auditory nerves of special sense : and
there is given (in ch. iv.) a very careful and distinct account of the
variety of impressions that are received and transformed into compli-
cated motor impulses after removal of the cerebrum in animals. It is
true that, as the grade of animal life is higher, the action of the lower
centres is less independent, and the disturbance of their function on
removal of the hemispheres is greater. Still the evidence forthcoming
from experiments on animals, supported as they are by clinical obser-
vations on man, leaves little doubt that the mesencephalon and cere-
bellum are specially involved in the three great motor functions of
equilibration, co-ordination of locomotion and instinctive expression
of feeling. Dr. Ferrier's own experiments, by electrical irritation of the
optic lobes in animals, seem to establish that the corpora quadrigemina
(with the pons) are concerned in all these functions, but more especi-
ally the last two. The cerebellum, by the same means, appears as the
great centre of equilibration, dependent as this function is on the
reception of extremely varied impressions, tactile, visual and auditory
(from the semi-circular canals). At the same time, the cerebellum is
not so exclusively possessed of this function as that the cerebral
hemispheres do not participate in it, and thus equilibration may be
maintained in spite of cerebellar decay, especially when this is gradual
There is no evidence (any more than for still lower centres) that the
cerebellum, great and developed as the organ is, has for itself aught to
do with conscious sensation or voluntary emotion. Neither has it any
relation (as was supposed) to the sexual function.
Passing now to the cerebral hemispheres, the treatment of which
occupies two- thirds of the whole work, Dr. Ferrier first explains the
methods which, as practised by Hitzig and himself, may be said to
have opened a new era in the history of brain-investigations. He
sufficiently justifies his own method of faradisation by the side of
Hitzig's galvanisation, and then defends their joint conclusions
against the objections urged by various later experimenters. The
defence is too perfunctory considering the eminence of some of the
objectors, Hermann not being noticed at all and Dr. Burdon Sanderson
being only partially met; and this is the more to be regretted, because the
original position is one for which not a little can be said. When it is
uniformly found that electrical stimulation of contiguous small areas of
the cortical substance results in perfectly distinct movements of
limbs, &c., it seems impossible to doubt that the areas (or some of
them more exactly determined by a supplementary process) are quite
specially concerned in the actuation of the movements ; and they may
not improperly be called motor centres, as the ultimate seats whence
the different motor impulses proceed, if none higher can be assigned
in the whole nervous system and it is not denied that centrifugal
fibres conduct downwards from them to lower centres, and so to the
muscles. It is the fact, too, as Dr. Ferrier does not fail to urge, that
such an interpretation of the experimental phenomena only bears out
94 Critical Notices.
the clinical conclusions previously forced upon Dr. Hughlings Jack-
son in his protracted study of localised convulsive movements in man.
We need have no hesitation, then, at least in taking the experiments
as a clue to the resolution of the functions of an organ which else in
its complexity quite baffles scientific analysis, and may now proceed
to see how far Dr. Ferrier's methods carry him.
He first offers a simple record of the results of electrical irritation
applied to the hemispheres and to the basal ganglia (corpora striata
and optic thalami) in a great variety of animals from monkeys to frogs
and fishes. The irritation, it is now well-known, as applied at differ-
ent parts, more or less definitely limited in each animal and homolo-
gous in the various kinds, results in movements special or general, or
in nothing at all that is manifest. Then arises the question of inter-
pretation. Movements, as Dr. Ferrier says, " may be the result of
some conscious modification incapable of being expressed in physic-
logical terms, or they may be reflex, or they may be truly motor in
the sense of being caused by excitation of a region in direct connec-
tion with the motor parts of the cms cerebri." To decide then, in each
case, what is the real character of the movements determined from ex-
citable areas, or to judge what may be the function of the regions that
are not excitable, other experimental light is wanted. Dr. Ferrier
accordingly resorts next to localised extirpation (chiefly by cautery),
and in order to have results, as nearly as may be, applicable to the
human brain, he operates chiefly on monkeys with brains approxi-
mating to the human type.
He finds, then, from both processes together, that while there is a
region that may be described generally as bounding the fissure of
Rolando (more particularly the ascending frontal and parietal convolu-
tions with the postero-parietal lobule), the destruction of which causes
complete motor paralysis of the other side of the body without loss of
sensation, there are other regions the destruction of w r hich causes loss
of sensation without affecting the powers of movement. These
latter areas, or sensory centres as Dr. Ferrier calls them, lie for sight
and hearing (angular gyrus and temporo-sphenoidal convolution respec-
tively) just behind the great motor region .; for taste and smell (appa-
rently together at the base of the temporo-sphenoidal lobe) below the
others ; and for touch (hippocampal region) on the inferior convoluted
surface where it turns inwards. The "sensory centres" with the more
forward " motor centres " occupy the whole median region of the
brain, corresponding with the areas excitable under electrisation.
Behind are the occipital lobes bounding the hemispheres backwards,
and these yield no positive result upon stimulation, but destruction of
them appears to Dr. Ferrier to involve the loss of organic or systemic
sensibility. On the other hand the extreme frontal convolutions,
which also are not excitable by electrical stimulation, appear when
destroyed to carry with them the power of attentive and intelligent
observation or the controlling functions of intelligence. As for the
basal ganglia, the optic thalami prove to contain the upward paths of
sensory impressions, and the corpora striata the downward paths of
Critical Notices. 95
motor impulses ; and the two are so connected as to have a certain
independent action, apart from the hemispheres, especially in animals
lower than the monkey ; but they are in no case sensory and motor
centres like the convolutions.
In this summary statement, which seeks to bring together the
salient points of Dr. Terrier's view of the different parts of the brain,
it is the doctrine of definite sensory (and motor) centres that most
calls for remark. His view of the basal ganglia needs to be strength-
ened by farther research, anatomical and physiological, though it seems
not improbable, founded as it is on original experiments and acute
criticism of extant results. As regards the functions of the occipital
and frontal lobes, his views require much more elaboration before
their psychological import can be seriously estimated : indeed he does
little more than throw out a suggestion as to the occipital lobes, one
too that is contradicted, or at least not supported, in a striking instance
to which he very fairly gives prominence ; while his supposition as to
the working of the frontal lobes has none of the precision that marks
the corresponding doctrine of Attention (to which he refers) advanced
in Wundt's Physiologische Psycholoyie. But there is certainly no
want of definiteness in his assertions respecting the sensory and motor
centres lying between the two uncertain regions. Neither, it must be
said, is his method of procedure in determining which of the excitable
areas are properly motor, and which are only indirectly motor (thence,
by inference, sensory), at all wanting in circumspectness. If it is the
case that the motor powers remain intact when any part of the brain
except a certain region is destroyed, and that they vanish when this
region is destroyed and this only ; again, within this region, that
particular movements are maintained or lost as certain deh'nite areas
and these only are left intact or destroyed ; while, once more, direct
electrical stimulation of the same region and its included areas results
always in the very movements, general and special, that are lost by their
destruction ; one does not see how the conclusion is to be avoided that
this region and the areas within it are the true centres whence move-
ments generally and the particular included movements are, as move-
ments, originated. What meaning is there else in the notion of
* centre ' applied to the brain, when (as before said) there is
nothing higher upon which the cortical substance is dependent ? Take
now a particular area lying just behind. Let it be found that
stimulation of this results in certain movements involved in the nor-
mal working of a particular organ of sense say the ear. Let it then
be found that, this area and this area only being destroyed, complete
deafness ensues, but the animal retains all its other senses and its
powers of movement unimpaired. Again the conclusion is inevitable
that here is a part of the brain which is, to say the least, involved in
the sense of hearing as no other part can be, and which may even,
with some show of propriety, be called a centre for hearing because
there is no higher seat in the cortical substance to which the
sound-impressions are carried as they are carried to this one. Of
course it should only be after a most varied series of experiments that
96 Critical Notices.
any scientific mind could dream of making such an exclusive state-
ment, the circumstances that have to be eliminated being extremely
perplexing, whether as arising from the fact that there are two
hemispheres with a supplementary if not compensatory action in each
as regards the other, or from the fact that presence or absence of
sensation can after all only be inferred from motor re-actions as
present or absent. But a candid reader will hardly deny to Dr. Ferrier
the credit of having been fully aware of the experimental difficulties,
and of having at once honestly and skilfully faced them. What then
is to be made of his assertions 1 Does he prove his case either at all
or in the sense for which he contends 1
The very definiteness of the view that extreme simplicity which
will make its fortune is in truth what most arouses suspicion. Not
only do other inquirers find direct experimental evidence that the
cerebral functions are involved with one another over the hemispheres
in the most intricate fashion, but it also seems clear on a variety of
grounds that the brain cannot be the simple aggregate that Dr. Fer-
rier suggests. ]n the way of direct evidence we have, for example,
Goltz declaring, on the strength of new and careful experiments, that
removal of any considerable portion of the cortex in dogs is uniformly
and permanently attended by reduced skin-sensibility, impaired vision,
and weakened muscularity on the opposite side of the body.* If this
be so, either there is no special localisation of motor and sensory func-
tions, but they are mixed up over the cortex, or at least the different
localised areas are much less independent than they have seemed to
Dr. Ferrier in the ardour of new discovery. One cannot indeed, in
hesitating to go all lengths with Dr. Ferrier, straightway adopt the
former alternative and refuse to go with him at all, as Goltz seems
to do. His experiments are much too exact and varied to be over-
turned by a different class of experiments not as yet equally varied or
exact : they can be refuted experimentally, one would think, only by
some inquirer who will perform them all over again and show r that
they have been at every step misrepresented or misinterpreted by Dr.
Ferrier. And this is hardly to be expected, more especially as there
is no intrinsic improbability rather the reverse in the view, that
impressions received by any organ of sense are all carried up first to
a particular region of the cortical substance before they are brought
into relation with other impressions and with motor impulses, or are
otherwise elaborated in the brain. It may well be that there are
special sensory regions in the brain-cortex, and that Dr. Ferrier has
given the first rough indication of their locality. But even apart
from conflicting evidence, seeing what the brain is, and the work it
* Dr. Ferrier has a supplementary note (to chap, ix.) upon Goltz's ex-
periments and makes light of them, partly on the ground that Goltz
was evidently unacquainted with his researches on the brains of monkeys
as already published in abstract (Proc. Hoy. Soc., 162) early in 1875. It
certainly lessens the value of Goltz's paper (reported on infra, p. 108)
that he makes no reference to Dr. Ferrier's later researches, but that
these " satisfactorily account for the phenomena," described by Goltz
is more than can be allowed.
Critical Notices. 97
has to do, one must gravely doubt whether there are such sensory
centres as Dr. Ferrier supposes.
Let it be granted that destruction of the hippocampal region in one
hemisphere abolishes tactile sensibility in the opposite side of the body.
It is not therefore proved that only touch is thereby affected, or that
all tactile representations are blotted out of mental being, as Dr.
Ferrier conceives of his " sensory centre" (chap. xi. passim). Peri-
pheral impressions may be utterly prevented from coming into con-
sciousness by the cortical lesion ; but it does not follow that the last
act of the nervous process involved in a conscious sensation of touch
is naturally consummated there and nowhere else in the brain, or that
in all that region there is no work done but such as (subjectively) we
call touch. On the one hand, the cortical substance is thick and his-
tologically by no means uniform in the direction of its thickness : what
may be transacted in or through the hippocampal area besides what
there happens for touch, Dr. Ferrier's experiments do nothing to tell,
except only that other sense-impressions are not there directly cut off.
On the other hand, touch (especially if understood, as Dr. Ferrier un-
derstands it, to cover besides skin-sensibility of every kind all that
others mean by the muscular sense) is a function so extremely wide,
being commensurate with the whole of objective knowledge presenta-
tive and representative, that to think of it as localised in one single
convolution of the whole brain is almost ludicrous. Even to suppose
that all tactile impressions, coming by such a multitude of nerves, pass
first to this one place is a considerable draft on belief. But assuredly
the whole work of touch is not so transacced there as that the area can
with any propriety be called the exclusive centre of the sense. And
the like must be said of the other all-pervading sense of sight which
Dr. Ferrier would locate in the angular gyms as a definite centre ; as
also of the sense of hearing, related as this is, through being involved
in speech, to all that is most general in knowledge.
On the whole, then, it seems impossible to allow that Dr. Ferrier
has done more than take a first step towards discovering the relation
of different parts in the brain ; nor is it possible to say thus far that
much psychological insight is likely to be gained upon the new line of
inquiry. Certainly, although he gives us in chap. xi. a view of " the
hemispheres considered psychologically " which is much above the
level of common physiological opinion, it does not appear to depend
specially upon his own investigations. And that we are now put in
the way to obtain a truly scientific phrenology, embodying what was
true in the old phrenological doctrine (the notion of definite organ for
definite function) but based, as that was not, upon exact anatomical
and physiological inquiry in relation to exact psychological analysis
this, which is becoming a fond conviction with many, is, to say the
least, a very premature hope. In some respects, the old phrenology
was itself more scientific than that which would now be substi-
tuted for it. The ' faculties ' it supposed were, many of them, such
as might well be conceived to be distinctively organised in the brain ;
though psychological analysis had little difficulty in proving them to
7
98 Critical Notices.
be not ultimate functions but only varied aggregates of the true ele-
ments of psychical life. Far otherwise is it with the elements them-
selves, among which there need be no scruple to rank the various
kinds of sensation. Differentiated as the organs of the senses are at
the periphery, and distinct as the nervous channels of each must be till
the convolutions are reached, sensations themselves as conscious states
(each sort appearing at the presentative, representative, and re-repre-
sentative stages, and all being liable to be associated or fused in every
possible variety) can neither be supposed to be consummated at their
first cortical station, nor be either traced or thought likely to be traced
farther by any experimental means yet devised.
No space is left to deal with the many other points of psychological
interest raised in Dr. Ferrier's important work ; chief among them
being his treatment of the so-called Muscular Sense, where he takes
ground very decidedly against those who attach the consciousness of
activity directly to the outgoing of motor impulse from the brain, apart
from any backward report (by afferent nerves) of its effect in the
muscles. I do not think he overthrows this doctrine, or by any means
establishes the contrary one, which he advances in chap, ix., and then
not seldom surrenders at the most critical junctures in chap. xi. But
there is not a little force in some of his objections to the doctrine, and
both these and the new light he throws upon the subject by experi-
ment deserve the most careful consideration. This it may be possible
to give on some future occasion, and the rather because the subject has
become one of the first importance in the psychology of the present
day. EDITOR.
The Vocabulary of Philosophy, Mental, Moral, and Metaphysical ;
with Quotations and References for the use of Students. By
WILLIAM FLEMING, D.D., late Professor of Moral Philosophy in
the University of Glasgow. Third Edition. Edited by HENRY
CALDERWOOD, LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the
University of Edinburgh. London : Griffin & Co., 1876.
Professor Calderwood in a prefatory note says, " The fact that the
Vocabulary of Philosophy by the late Professor Fleming soon passed
through two editions, shows that it has supplied a want felt by those
entering upon philosophic study ". It would be difficult for any one
who had carefully inspected the work to understand what philosophic
want it can possibly have supplied. Vocabularies of Philosophy are
generally of little value. From the very nature of the subjects which
must be dealt with, absolute definiteness of statement is not to be
expected. In small compass controverted questions cannot be handled
to any purpose ; and, as to quotations, it is unfortunately the fact
that great writers seldom or never so arrange their doctrines as to
render it easy for a vocabulary-maker to extract leading passages.
The consequence of course is that the quotations are generally taken
from abridgments or inferior compendia, while it is at the option of
the compiler to insert passages which flatly contradict one another.
Critical Notices. 99
There seem then to be objections to any Vocabulary of Philosophy
but, waiving them, it is undeniable that the compilation of a vocabu-
lary which shall be of real service to students requires great care and
rare qualities in the compiler. Such a work should at least be
thoroughly accurate both in the all-important respect of philosophic
doctrine and in the minor respect of references whether to books or
authors. It should, further, be careful to give the definition of any
peculiar term in the words of its author, and should rigidly exclude
obsolete or unnecessary terms. In all these indispensable qualifica-
tions the present Vocabulary is singularly deficient. It is full of
inaccurate references and misprints ; it is absurdly wrong in the state-
ment of some historical facts and philosophical doctrines ; it seldom
or never quotes a peculiar definition in the words of its author ; and
it includes a multitude of terms that have no significance whatsoever
in philosophy. These are heavy charges and can only be substantiated
by detailed reference. The following are some of the principal
blunders that have come under my notice : many more might be
added under each head.
I. Misprints or minor Errors : P. 6, Dobrisch ; p. 28, Tyler ; p.
29, Sematologia; p. 31, Kant's Antinomies badly stated; p. 50,
Trendelenburg Notce in Arist. (and the note from Trendelenburg
wrongly translated) ; p. 59, Bain's [Bacon's] Works ; p. 66, Caenes-
thesis ; p. 69, "Whatley ; Eosencranz ; p. 84, Savary ; p. 93, Bouvier ;
Jaques; p. 103, privity; p. 213, Nov. Or<j I. ch. [aph.] ; p. 262,
Burke Defence \ Vindication] of Natural Society ; p. 322, Baden,
Pervill [Baden Powell] ; p. 334, Abailaird ; p. 391, universality, par-
ticularita; p. 441, Mackintosh's View, fyc. ; p. 474, Critique du Judg-
ment ; p. 479, Stoeudlin, Hist, des Opinions, $c., [Staudlin, Geschichte
fyc.] ; Tisset ; p. 498, Boeham [Boehme]. Let these few instances
suffice by way of sample.
II. Errors due to Dr. Fleming :
P. 27. " Analytics is the title which in the second century was
given to a portion of the Organon or Logic of Aristotle." Which
second century 1 Does not Aristotle refer to the Analytics by name 1
P. 27. " Animism is the doctrine of the anima mundi as held by
by Stahl." Can Stahl's Animism be identified with the doctrine of
an anima mundi ?
P. 41. "In the third century Porphyry wrote Eiffa^w^, or an
Introduction to Logic." Is Introduction to Logic the title of Por-
phyry's Isagoge ?
P. 51. "The other form of Atheism in ancient times was that of
Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, who accounted for all things by
the different, transformations of the one element of water." Did all
three hold the same principle, water] Can they fairly be called
Atheists 1
P. 53. The article Atomism is one of the worst in the volume. (1)
The theory is stated as if due to Leucippus : " Leucippus con-
sidered the basis of all bodies to consist of extremely fine particles."
(2) The followers of Epicurus are said to have been the first to call
100 Critical Notices.
these particles atoms. Is this correct 1 (See Arist. Phys. Ausc. 2G5,
b. 29.) (3) Epicurus is said to have added nothing to the doctrine
of Leucippus and Democritus.
P. 70. Category is nearly as bad as Atomism. The explanation of
what the Categories are is simply ludicrous, while the historical
notices are most inaccurate. To take only the latter : (1) The Stoic
Categories are wrongly given. (2) Descartes is said to have two
Categories, the absolute and the relative. (3) The Port Royal Logic
is said to establish seven Categories. On what this assertion is based
I cannot tell. The seven mentioned in the Port Royal Logic (I. c. 3)
are referred to "some philosophers," and are treated with ridicule
rather than approbation. (4) Kant's Categories are said to be well
known and are enumerated as follows Quantity, Quality, Relation,
Modality. Nothing more is said, but the Editor adds a passage from
the Kritilfj which apparently is thought to be a definition of the
Categories.
P. 118. We are told that "Aristotle gave the title of Organon to
his Logic ". Did he do anything of the sort ?
P. 131. Dialectic is a bad article, bad in every way. How can
students learn anything from a book which gives them the following 1
" The &.ia\cKTucrj of Plato was the method of analysis by means of
language, and comprised the field which his successor Aristotle separated
into two, viz., A<\6/cT/rjJ Logic, the enquiry concerning Method ; and
2o0/o, Metaphysics, the enquiry concerning being."
P. 132. We are told that "Aristotle says there are two kinds
Sia\eK7tKwv Xo'^oji', viz., 'Evwyiaiy^ KUI 2f\\o7/0yio's' ". To the best of
my knowledge Aristotle does not say so, and I should be glad to see
the opinion extracted from the passages here referred to, viz., Top. I.
10, and An. Pr. II. 23.
P. 235. Can any one understand the following explanation of what
Kant meant by Immanent 1 " We make an immanent and valid use
of the forms of the understanding, when we conceive of the matter
furnished by the senses, according to our notions of time and space."
What Prof. Fleming understood by this it would be hard to conjec-
ture.
P. 282. Logic is mangled to a frightful extent. To go over all the
errors contained in the article would be wearisome. We are told
" The word logica was early used in Latin ; while ?} \o<ytKr) and TO
Xory/voV were late in coming into use in Greek. Aristotle did not use
either of them ". On the following page we have the sentence : " At
the beginning of the prior analytics Aristotle has laid it down that
' the object of logic is demonstration ' ". Both pieces of historical
information are inaccurate ; how they are to be reconciled, supposing
they were correct, is hard to see.
P. 334. Universalia in re is said to be the watchword of the
Conceptualists.
P. 359. " Sir W. Hamilton employs perception to denote the
faculty, and percept the individual act of perceiving." Is this to be
found in Hamilton ?
Critical Notices. 101
P. 375. The following brilliant definition of Fetichism is given.
It is " the worship of anything that strikes the imagination and gives
the notion of great power, which prevails in Africa and among savage
nations in general ". If this be so, I fear we must come under the
wide category of " savage nations in general ".
P. 401. Surely the Scottish student might expect to have an
accurate account of the Quantification of the Predicate. There is not
a word in the article to explain Avhat is peculiar in the doctrine ; we
get only the old rules for the distribution of the predicate in affirma-
tive and negative propositions, while it is vaguely said: "The Quanti-
fication of the Predicate is much insisted on by Sir W. Hamilton,
Lects. on Logic, i."
The above are for the most part positive errors. For specimens of
absurdity the reader may be referred to the heads :
(1) Catalepsy where appears the following naive piece of criticism:
" The paradox of Berkeley may be confuted in two ways : first, by
a reductio ad dbsurdum ; second, etc." Surely this is better than the
1 grin '. If Berkeley's doctrine can be reduced to absurdity, no
further refutation is necessary. The second argument, it may be
mentioned, is a fine example of ianoratio elenchi.
(2) Parthenogenesis which runs verbatim thus: "Parthenogenesis,
or the successive production of procreating individuals from a single
ovum, is the title of a work by Richard Owen, F.R.S., Lond., 1849 ".
(3) Scholastic where a new cause is pointed out for the fall of
scholasticism. " The taking of Constantinople by the Turks, the
invention of printing, and the progress of the Reformation, put an
end to the scholastic philosophy. Philosophy was no longer confined
to the schools and to preelections. The press became a most extensive
lecturer, and many embraced the opportunities offered of extending
knowledge."
(4) Stoic ; (5) Suicide.
III. Xo care is taken to give explanations of particular terms in
the words of their authors. This is particularly noticeable in the cases
of Leibniz and Kant. On the words Apperception and Monad, why
is the student given Dr. Reid's account, and not referred to Leibniz
himself 1 ? For Kantian phraseology, Hay wood is generally quoted.
Surely a Vocabulary published in 1876 ought never to refer the
student to a book which was bad even for the time at which it was
written, and which is now completely set aside by other works. If
Kant himself is not to be consulted, there are very fair lexicons to
his works published in Germany. It should be added that it is no
uncommon practice with Dr. Fleming to give in French the Latin or
German titles of philosophical works. The reason is perhaps not far
to seek, but for the student English would be decidedly preferable, if
the originals must not be given,
IV. Of useless or obsolete words, the following may be taken as
specimens : Adage, Adept, Adoration, Adscititious, Affinity, Apologue,
Apology, Apophthegm, Autocrasy, Blasphemy, Brocard, Chrematistics,
Civility, Consanguinity, Divorce, Economics, Gnome, Metaphor, Me-
1 02 Critical Notices.
tonymy, Monogamy, Palsetiology, Parable, Paradox, Philosomatist,
Proverb, Sciolist, Sciomachy, Zoonomy.
It cannot be said that the errors are in all cases due to Dr. Fleming.
The Editor himself is too often at fault. I do not think that any
Kantian scholar would accept the account given (p. 72) of Kant's
doctrine of Cause ; certainly he could not accept the explanations of
the important terms Constitutive (p. 110), and Regulative (p. 418).
Constitutive, according to Prof. Calderwood, " is applied to knowledge
verified in experience, knowledge whose object is found in the
concrete ". I venture to say that no such doctrine is to be found in
Kant, and that such an opinion is wholly foreign to the Kantian
system. It is too much to be told that " space and time are only
mental forms regulative of the mind in its use of the sensory," and to
be referred to a passage in the Kritik which emphatically states that
they are not regulative, but constitutive. And what is to be made of
this statement (p. 504) ? " In Kant's sense, transcendental applies to
the conditions of our knowledge, which transcend experience, which
are a priori, and not derived from sensative (sic) reflection." I )ialectic
(p. 130) is defined in a most arbitrary way, in a way for which there
is not the slightest warrant. Spinoza's Ethics is called a Dialectic.
German philosophers are credited with a view of Logic (p. 282) which
a large proportion of them would reject : a clause is introduced into the
definition of Miracle (p. 307) which is certainly open to question ;
and I doubt if Utilitarians would quietly accept the dogma (p. 343)
that their moral theory involves necessitarianism.
If students are to have a Vocabulanj of Philosophy, such a work
ought to be drawn up with the utmost care. It is utterly worthless,
worse than useless, if it be inaccurate and slovenly like this one.
ROBERT ADAMSON.
Vorschule der JEsthetik, von GUSTAV THBODOR FECHNER, Leipzig,
1876.
The announcement in the year 1871 of a contribution to experimental
aesthetics from the pen of the author of the classic Elemente der
Psychophysik excited, as the present writer well remembers, a good
deal of curiosity in Germany. A people trained in an exclusively
metaphysical discussion of art-problems might naturally be a little
puzzled at the application to the subject of a method so thoroughly
positive and exact as that unfolded in the Elemente. This essay in
inductive aesthetics was a very modest one, being confined to the
testing, by means of a convergence among distinct methods of observa-
tion and experiment, of Zeising's law of the Golden Section (namely
that the division of a linear magnitude into two parts according to the
formula - = - is the one beautiful proportion for the eye).
o a -f- o
This law and its experimental verification are re-discussed in the
present work. Fechner concludes that the Golden Section has a
Critical Notices. 103
special value though not the unique rank among visual proportions
claimed for it by Zeising. Whatever significance the thoughtful
reader may have been disposed to give to this result, he could not
but be impressed by the excellence and promise of the method thus
introduced into the region of aesthetic discussion.
In the two volumes of the present work Fechner has carried on his
aesthetic researches to a much further point. The book does not
profess to be a systematic treatment of aesthetics, but, as its title
(borrowed from Jean Paul) suggests, to prepare the way for such a
systematic construction. The aim of the writer is well set forth in
the first two chapters. He defines his method of inquiry as that
which works from below upwards, whereas in the prevailing
German system of aesthetics the direction is exactly reversed. He
does not wish to exclude the latter mode of construction, he merely
contends that here as in physics the employment of the method from
below is " one of the most essential pre-conditions " of a construction
from above. With respect to the fundamental conceptions of aesthetic
phenomena, Fechner is quite clear in referring all value in beauty and
in art to a pleasurable effect, and he seeks to connect the idea of
aesthetic worth with that of good in general interpreted by a strictly
hedonistic, or, as he calls it, eudagmonistic formula. This part of the
work will probably interest English readers not so much on account
of its intrinsic qualities of clearness, penetration, and grasp of subject,
as because it expresses the unqualified adoption of a theory of life so
familiar in our own literature by a leading representative of contem-
porary German thought.
After thus paving the way for his researches, Fechner at once
enters upon his main problem, namely, the determination of general
aesthetic laws or principles. He clearly recognises that such laws if
attainable at all must be capable of being brought under psychological
principles. He begins by formulating six leading principles as a first
instalment to a science of aesthetics. The first is named the principle
of the " aesthetic threshold " or " lower limit," the second that of
" aesthetic support " or " intensification ". Then follow three laws
which may be classed together as the highest formal principles,
namely, that of "the unifying connection of the manifold," of
" truth," and of " clearness ". Lastly, we have a sixth aesthetic law
under the name of the principle of " association ".
The first of these, which might be termed the principle of a liminal
aesthetic intensity, is merely an application to the particular effects of
pleasure of a universal law of sensibility which the author has fully
expounded in his Psycliophys-ik. It finds an expression for the
familiar fact that conditions which are of a quality to produce a
pleasurable impression fail to do so if they are not at the same time
of a certain quantity. Yet though a stimulus may be " below the
threshold," if it is combined with other stimuli also pleasurable it
may contribute an appreciable element to the result. This fact is
expressed in the second principle of aesthetic support which is thus
stated : " From these non-conflicting concurrences of conditions of
104 Critical Notices.
pleasure which of themselves effect very little, there arises a greater,
often a much greater, pleasurable result than corresponds to the
pleasure-value of the single conditions, or than could be explained as
the sum of the single effects. More than this, through a combination
of this kind a positive result of pleasure may be reached when the
factors are singly too weak to pass the threshold."
It seems probable that this second law might be regarded as a
necessary consequence from the first, by supposing that the combina-
tion of different sets of pleasurable conditions is equivalent to additions
of intensity in one and the same set of conditions. Fechner makes
most important use of this second principle in explaining the whole
aesthetic effect of an object. More especially he points out that in
the case of painting, and still more in that of poetry, elements of
sensuous impression which of themselves would afford us but little
if any appreciable delight may, by co-operating with the many
associated ideas called up by the object, contribute a distinctly recog-
nisable ingredient of pleasure.
In his third principle, that of the unification of the manifold (to
which the following principles are very closely related), the writer is
dealing with a more familiar proposition in aesthetics. Yet he
manages to introduce considerable freshness into the exposition of it.
What is more, he gives much greater precision to the principle by
determining the extent to which each of its opposite aspects unity
and variety may be emphasised to the neglect of the other, the most
pleasurable ratio of the unity to the diversity, and the several modes
in which each factor may be secured.
The treatment of the sixth principle, that of association, will
interest English readers chiefly as placing the influence of association
much nearer the point assigned to it by our own writers than where
German aestheticians usually leave it. The author, not without
reason, accuses his countrymen (with one or two exceptions, as Lotze)
of almost wholly overlooking the part played by this " indirect
factor " in aesthetic intuition. He illustrates the effect of association
by a number of very interesting examples, travelling through the
principal regions of art-impression as colour, visual form and tone,
and devotes special sections to its influence in landscape and its
bearing on the relation between painting and poetry. This part of
the exposition is very attractive reading, showing the author's know-
ledge of art no less than his psychological insight. It is appropriately
supplemented by a chapter devoted to an illustration of the influence
of the direct or non-associative factor in the impression of music and
of the visual arts.
The remaining chapters of the first volume deal with the experi-
mental methods already spoken of, with the place of the idea of
fitness in aesthetic appreciation, with the source of pleasure in witty
comparisons, riddles, &c., and finally with taste, its varieties, and the
laws of its development. The discussion of this last subject is
particularly instructive. The conditions which favour the develop-
ment of taste are carefully laid down, and a very creditable attempt
Critical Notices. 105
is made to define good and bad taste in relation to the eudsemonist's
standard of value. This chapter may perhaps savour a little of an
inclination to subordinate art to a purely ethical conception of life.
Yet the idea is well reasoned and forcibly expressed.
The larger part of the second volume is devoted to the consideration
of a number of art-problems which admit of treatment by means of the
fundamental conception of art and the principles already defined. In
this application of his theoretic premisses to circumscribed regions of
art-discussion, the author is no less happy than in the construction of
the principles themselves. He shows a very intimate acquaintance
both with the points most ardently disputed among art-critics, and
with the details of art itself, more especially perhaps those of the
visual arts. In the opening chapter Fechner raises the question how
far a work of art is to be estimated and criticised by help of a fixed
conception of art, and makes the important distinction that, though
the critic may reason safely from a conception of the function of art
as a whole, he cannot safely reason from a notion of what a particular
art has to achieve. The one aim of all artistic production is an
immediate and adequate pleasurable impression, and even if " a work
of art were to be produced which could not be brought altogether
under any one of the separate arts, nevertheless so far as it satisfied
the general aim of art, one would have to see in it nothing but a
gain." Other rules for the guidance of criticism, no less valuable, are
arrived at by a similar method.
The bearing of clear and scientific ideas of art on the practical
problems which engage artists and their critics is well illustrated in a
chapter which deals with the dispute between the assertors of the
supreme value of form, and those who lay stress on the content or
matter of art. Here the various possible meanings of form and
matter in relation to art are carefully distinguished, with a view to
define the problem. The antithesis is shown to be at best a rough
and incomplete one, and ill-fitted for an adequate critical view of a
work of art. Moreover, as might be expected, each of the opposed
views is regarded as one-sided and misleading. The careful manner
in which both form and matter are defined and analysed into their
respective elements of pleasure with a view to assign each its right
place in art, can only be understood by a reference to the chapter
itself.
After disposing of the dispute between the champions of form and
of content, Fechner deals with the other vexed question in practical
aesthetics, that between realism and idealism. Has art to aim at a
faithful portraiture of nature, or at a representation of an ideal which
transcends nature 1 Here again the author is able by help of his
leading conceptions of art to expose the one-sidedness of each of the
rival views. The antagonism is bridged over and reconciled simply
by a careful and thoroughly scientific discussion of the sources of
value both in the imitation of nature and in ideal beauty. In other
words, art has to seek truth and to seek ideality just because, and
only so far as, each of these is a condition of a total pure and lofty
106 Critical Notices.
pleasure. The investigation of the psychological grounds of the value
of truth and imitation deserves the special attention of the reader.
It is a very valuable contribution to a scientific settlement of art-
problems.* On the other hand, the conception of ideality in art,
together with its precise value, is closely examined. Also, Fechner
discusses the different modes of deviating from nature, which he
reduces to three, namely, Idealisation, Symbolisation, and Stylisation,
or conformity to the ends of good style. The ambiguity attaching to
these terms is well set in light, and a very successful attempt is made
to give them a precise connotation, and so to arrive at their proper
value as functions of art. The result of this long and interesting
investigation seems to be that according to a hedonistic conception of
art, truth according to nature must be ranked much higher than is
commonly the case in contemporary art. Fechner will probably be
accused by many of having a decided bias to realism ; yet his argu-
ment seems to me perfectly impartial and on the whole thoroughly
convincing.
We must pass over certain chapters that invite delay, among which
is one on the Sublime not unprovocative of some adverse criticism, to
dwell on " a second series " of aesthetic principles too briefly ex-
pounded at the close of the work. These consist, like the first series,
of laws which have a bearing on pleasure in general quite as much as
on art-pleasure. They are psychological conditions of pleasure defined
in relation to the peculiar effects of art. First of all come three
principles relating to the best order of impressions, namely, that of
aesthetic contrast, of aesthetic sequence, and of aesthetic reconcilia-
tion. The meaning of contrast as something over and above the
result of the single contrasting impressions is well defined, and its
conditions laid down. The obvious but aesthetically important
observation is made that among sequent impressions the effect of
contrast can show itself only in the consequent not in the antecedent.
With this proposition there connects itself a second, namely, that a
sequence in a positive direction, that is from maximum pain to maxi-
mum pleasure, is attended with a secondary pleasure, the result of con-
trast, while one in a negative direction (from pleasure to pain), is
accompanied by a secondary pain : hence the aesthetic law that
impressions should proceed in a positive direction. The value of the
final reconciling impression, which is formulated under the third
principle, is closely connected with this second. Here, however,
Fechner seems for a moment to be forsaken by his customary com-
prehensiveness of view, since he makes no reference to the rather
obvious consideration that the concluding impression, say of a tragedy,
owes its importance not only to the effect of contrast and to its being
* The present writer will perhaps be forgiven for expressing his
pleasure at seeing his own line of investigation almost exactly repro-
duced by such an authority in method as Fechner. The reader will find
that Fechner' s treatment of this question, more particularly the deter-
mination of the value of imitation as a source of pleasure in art, follows,
unconsciously as it seems, the path roughly traced in the last Essay in
Sensation and Intuition.
Critical Notices. 107
anticipated throughout a part of the previous impressions, but also to
its being the impression which survives most vividly as an idea, and
so most distinctly colours the after-recollection of the whole chain of
impressions.
Next to these principles we have a number of others relating to the
intensity and duration of pleasurable impressions, namely, the duration
required for the full rise of an impression, the effects of repetition and
exercise in improving an impression, the blunting result of undue
prolongation and of too frequent repetition of impressions, the effects
of habituation in producing a recurring want or desire, and the limit
imposed on pleasure through the nerve's liability to exhaustion and
the attending sense of fatigue or satiety. These principles are given
as psychological truths, and not fashioned into special aesthetic laws.
Moreover, they are touched on much too lightly to be of very much
value, though the author succeeds in showing the way in which these
several influences cross and modify one another. In another chapter
we have, with somewhat more fulness of exposition, the important
conditions of a certain amount of persistence and of change in the
kind of mental activity, as well as a certain quantity of activity and
change of degree in activity. Here Fechner teaches that, quite apart
from the pleasurable character of the occupation, a certain amount of
persistence in an activity once commenced tends to be agreeable,
whereas beyond certain limits change becomes desirable. Also an
activity is at an advantage when it has a sufficient but not excessive
quantity or intensity, and a certain amount of change in the degree of
activity is desirable.
After these principles follow others relating to the effects of the
manifestation of pleasure and pain, and of what Fechner calls " the
secondary pleasure and pain of representation ". The " primary
pleasure of representation " is that which flows from the act of
representation itself, as a perception of unity, the secondary is that
which follows from a representation of a pleasure, as another's enjoy-
ment, our own past or future happiness. The conditions which limit
and complicate the fundamental effect of ideas of pleasure and pain,
namely, that to perceive or conceive pleasure is pleasurable, and so
with pain, are set forth clearly and with sufficient fulness. Passing
over a chapter on the principle of the aesthetic mean, which formu-
lates the familiar truth that a medium average magnitude in objects,
such as experience has rendered customary, is most pleasing, we
arrive at a chapter which discusses the question how far all the
conditions of pleasure can be reduced to one principle. Fechner
thinks that as yet this is impossible except in a very hypothetical
way. He is decidedly opposed to basing all pleasure on quantity of
nervous energy, and the argument by which he seeks to refute this
theory seems to me to be quite conclusive. He then briefly shadows
forth the idea worked out in his Einiye Idcen zur Schopfungs- und
Kntwicklungsr/e&chichte, that all pleasure may repose on harmonious
relations of form in the single nervous process or the combining
processes, and that this harmonious relation is but a part of those
stable arrangements which are the end of nature as a whole.
108 Reports.
To conclude, one may safely guarantee the reader no ordinary
pleasure in perusing a discussion marked alike by so much scientific
impartiality and insight, as well as general appreciation of the aims and
possibilities of art. His only regret will probably be that so much
that is deeply interesting is touched with a seemingly hurried hand
that lacks time to linger and do justice. Yet we must be grateful for
all that Fechner's large experience and ripe thought have here given
us, not murmur at what is wanting. To show the reader what
Fechner's style is like, and that he is not altogether unworthy as
a philosophic critic to follow his countryman Leasing, I cannot do
better than conclude by making one short quotation. Arguing
against the common tendency of artists at present to idealise or
prettify all their figures, he writes :
" In the wedding of a peasant girl, the bride may be represented as
a pretty woman ; for why exact from a painter to paint a marriage
with an ugly rather that with a pretty bride 1 One would rather
marry a pretty girl, one would rather paint such a one, and see her
when painted. Where no interest attaches to a scene, it should not
be painted at all, and for the most part the interest in a scene cul-
minates in a person as a centre of relations. l^ow if the bride
is pretty, not only she herself but all her surroundings gain in
interest and charm. When however the peasant girl looks not only
pretty but also fine, when the bridesmaids and the women looking on
are all pretty, or at least have interesting faces, we have no longer a
peasant wedding but only the masquerade of one, and all the relations
lose in interest and charm through the feeling of unreality."
JAMES SULLY.
X. EEPORTS.
Functions of the Cerebrum. In Pfliiger's Archiv xiii. 1, Prof.
Goltz of Strassburg gives an account (pp. 43) of an elaborate series
of experiments he has recently conducted (with his assistant, Dr.
Gergens) on the effects of extirpation in the region of the cerebral
hemispheres. The special object of the research was to determine
how far and in what way there ensues a compensation of function
after the removal of parts of the hemispheres. Among previous
inquirers the difference of opinion on these points is notorious.
While Flourens went so far as to suppose that the least remnant of
the cerebrum might suffice for the discharge of the functions of the
whole mass, Carville and Duret maintain that the compensation is
limited to parts of the same hemisphere, and Soltmann contrariwise
declares that loss of the function of one part is made up at the cor-
responding part of the other hemisphere. Hitzig, again, differs from
them all. Ascribing absolutely special functions to quite limited
areas of the cortical substance, and these different for the two hemi-
spheres, he can only suppose that restoration of lost function (which
supervenes often with great rapidity) is due to the presence of some
Reports. 109
unsuspected relic of the original area ; thus denying symmetrical
compensation between the hemispheres, and denying all but the most
strictly limited compensation within the same hemisphere.
Goltz confined his research to dogs, and practised a new mode of
experiment (detailed at length in the paper) whereby he avoids exces-
sive hemorrhage, and can maintain an animal alive for months. It
consists in washing out by a strong jet of water part after part of
the cortical substance, the animal all the while being under chloro-
form ; the greater blood-vessels thus escape rupture, and the animal
recovers very quickly from each operation. In this way Goltz has
been able to get rid gradually of the whole cortex of one hemi-
sphere and keep the animal alive comfortably for weeks afterwards,
while the effects, immediate and remoter, were under observation.
These he disposes under three heads : disturbances of (1) Sensation,
(2) Vision, (3) Movements. The degree of disturbance increased with
the size of the area extirpated, but its character did not, as far as
appeared, depend on locality, there being no difference whether the
operation took place within Hitzig's ' excitable ' region or far back
behind it.
(1) By Sensation is meant the skin-sensibility in all its phases, for
Goltz does not allow the distinction that Schiff and other physiologists
would make out between sense of pain and sense of contact or pres-
sure in the skin. This general skin-sensibility almost all inquirers
have believed to be unaffected by destruction of the cerebral convo-
lutions, though it is allowed to be temporarily disturbed by the
operation. Goltz, on the other hand, finds that after partial or total
extirpation of one hemisphere the animal never (at least as far as he
has yet gone) recovers full tactile sensibility on the opposite side of
the body, where just after the operation it appears wholly lost. The
sensibility may often seem to have returned from the general de-
meanour of the animal, but careful experiment with pressure of
weights shows that the skin on the side affected remains comparatively
insensitive. This was clearly manifest everywhere except only on
the side of the tongue.
(2) The effect upon Sight is distinctly marked, though it is peculiar.
It is known that complete extirpation of both hemispheres (in frogs)
does not prevent the performance of suitable movements upon visual
impressions, and partial destruction of one hemisphere has commonly
been supposed to have none but a temporary effect on vision (of the
opposite eye). Goltz finds a permanent effect of a serious kind. The
initial total blindness of the (opposite) eye, it is true, passes quickly
away, and this happens even if the whole cortex of the one hemi-
sphere has been destroyed ; wherefore it must be supposed that each
eye communicates with both hemispheres. But at the same time,
the experiments seem to prove that the sight of the opposite eye is
never quite recovered, if the whole or any considerable part of one
hemisphere is destroyed. The animal is able after a time with this one
eye to guide its movements well enough, and with the help of its other
senses it manages to hold its own among its fellows, but the character-
110 Reports.
istic emotional effects accompanying vision, e.g., the fury dogs show at
sight of strange objects, or fear on being held out of a window at a
distance from the ground, remain quite absent. Goltz supposes that
the sense of colour becomes faint and confused, also that the judg-
ment of distance, &c., is affected; the animal's experience becoming
something like ours in a mist. To note the effect of hemispherical
destruction upon one eye, Goltz wholly removed the other eye, and
his experiments strike one as well varied and carefully made. He
does not seem, however, to have varied the experiment in one way
that would have been useful leaving both eyes intact but affecting
each equally through the corresponding (opposite) hemisphere.
(3) Movements, as such, are seriously affected, but it is necessary
here also to distinguish between mere passing effects and such as
remain. The initial muscular helplessness on the side affected by the
hemispherical lesion is after a short time so far made good that noth-
ing unusual might be remarked, but it is easy to see when the animal
is on a slippery footing that there is real weakness on one side. It is
also found that the animal never uses the front paw on this side for
any of the many uses to which it would naturally be put. So in
dogs that are trained to present either paw at command, the power
of presenting one is lost, and though this may after small destruction
be slowly regained, it is lost altogether if this destruction be carried
far : one and the same paw is then always presented, whatever the
demand. Similar weakness is shown in all the muscles of the same
side (except the tongue) \ nor, if the destruction is considerable in
extent, does it matter whereabout in the hemisphere it is. Some of
the phenomena seem due to the general loss of sensibility noted under
(1), but the inability, in spite of evident effort, to present the paw
asked for, points to a real break between the organ of the will and
the nerves that execute special volition. This must be so, although
the muscles of the limbs, &c., are found to work effectively enough
in the regular mechanical functions of walking, running, &c. As
regards the one whole side of the body, it seems that there is a
weakening of all the efferent processes under the control of the organ
of conscious volition, because this organ, in as far as it is still present,
appears to be connected with that side by less convenient channels
than it is with the other side.
Goltz is thereby led to reject the theories of all his predecessors,
and he believes that they in truth dispose of one another. Hitzig
(and Ferrier, to whom he just refers) he especially charges with
neglecting the difference between transitory and permanent effects :
the permanent effects, as far as they are established, are of a kind not
to be reconciled with the assumption of definite localised motor
centres, however the limits of these be construed. Goltz's own view
is that the restoration of function, after greater or less destruction of
the hemisphere, is due to the cerebellum (which normally contributes
to the action of the hemisphere) recovering from the stoppage tempo-
rarily caused by the operation and resuming its previous action. Thus
is explained the fact that it is the mechanical movements of walking,
Reports. Ill
&c., which are chiefly recovered, these being the ones to which the
cerebellum and related parts mostly contribute. But how as to the
temporary stoppage of function ? Here Goltz adduces a great number
of facts and considerations to show that in all cases where higher
centres are violently excited there is an inhibitory effect upon lower
centres ; but, if the higher centres be cut off from the lower ones,
the inhibitory effect arising from the wound gradually passes away
and the lower centres recover their normal function. It is such an
inhibitory influence then that the cerebellum, &c., suffer from the
cerebral lesion. Not till it passes away and these have begun again
to function normally, can it be seen what is the actual loss from the
hemispherical destruction. That this is very real appears from the
experiments detailed above ; and that it is ever compensated there is
no reason to suppose. A new growth of brain-substance to supply
the gap made does not take place in the higher animals ; though what
remains of the original cortex tends to spread out into the space
left free.
Goltz promises to deal with the psychical effects of his experiments
in another paper, but his present communication has no small psycho-
logical import in as far as it indicates the wide-spread character
practically the omnipresence over the hemispheres of the nervous
connections involved in touch, sight, and movements. As far as it
goes, the research bears decidedly against the views of Hitzig and
Ferrier, especially as now developed by the latter. And it is not less
but rather more decisive that the AiLsfallserscheinangen (as Goltz
calls them) or permanent deficiencies of function are demonstrated
always supposing them really established in dogs whose lower motor
centres (as Dr. Ferrier argues, Functions of the Brain, p. 73) are
much more independent of the hemispheres than in monkeys.
EDITOR.
The Laws of Dream-Fancy. In the November number of the
Cornhill Magazine the present writer has endeavoured to carry the
physiological explanation of dream-phenomena as far as can be done
in the present state of the science. Three problems arise in connection
with the subject: (1) Whence come the vividness and apparent
reality of dream-images 1 (2) What are the sources of stimulation
from which the various contents of our dreams are derived 1 (3)
What gives to our dream-combinations their peculiar form and order 1
(1) The reality of dream-images is accounted for through the absence
of what M. Taine calls the ' corrective ' of a present sensation. It is
possible also that absolutely as well as relatively our dream-images
are more lively than our waking imaginative representations. (2)
The sources of .dream-excitation have been investigated on the psy-
chological side by Hartley, on the physiological by Maury, Wundt,
and others. They may be divided into peripheral and central. The
former include (a) objective sensations, properly so called (as illus-
trated by M. Maury's interesting experiments), (b) subjective sensa-
tions, together with (c) the feelings arising from the position and
112 Notes and Discussions.
condition of the muscles, and not least (d) those connected with the
several organic processes. The central stimulations, again, may be
divided into (a) the direct, which appear to arise immediately from
some unknown influence excited by the contents of the blood-vessels
on particular tracts of the brain, and (b) the indirect, or those effected
through acquired cerebral connections or the bonds of mental associa-
tion. (3) As to the form of dream-combinations, the least perfect
and passive dreams owe their peculiar incongruity to the number and
variety of the wholly disconnected sources of stimulation which
simultaneously supply images to consciousness. More particularly
the various degrees of irritability of the cerebral elements at the time
serve very much to complicate and confuse the grouping of images
and to explain why the ordinary paths of association traversed in
waking hours are so seldom followed. In the case of the more
elaborate and closely connected dreams, much of the verisimilitude
arises from the action of organic dispositions or general tendencies of
association which serve as so many rough forms of dream-thought.
Such a general disposition would account for our attributing some
kind of words and actions to the image of a man or woman which
presents itself, though what the particular words are to be depends on
the co-operation of the several existing causes already spoken of.
Hence the mixture of a general reasonableness with a particular incon-
gruity which marks so many of these dreams. Next to these in-
fluences, one must reckon the play of attention under the sway either
of an impulse for rational unity, or of a dominant emotional tone
somehow excited at the time, which tends to harmonise all inflowing
images with itself. In the act of fixing attention on the internal
imagery of our dreams we unconsciously modify it, selecting, adapting
and fusing according to the pre-existent ideas or emotional tone. The
emotional key which dominates so many of our dreams is fed by the
effect of previous images and still more largely by the pleasurable and
painful organic sensations of the time. The essay concludes with an
attempt to explain, by a number of influences already touched on, the
power of gradual exaggeration into which dreaming is apt to fall, also
what the Germans (as Schemer and Volkelt) call the symbolic
function of dreams, and lastly our usual non-recognition of the bodily
sources of dream-impressions.
JAMES SULLY.
XL NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
On some alleged distinctions between Thought and Feeling. In
noticing the Psychology of Brentano in MIND, No. I., I dissented from
his explanation of the difficulty of distinguishing in a satisfactory manner
the ultimate generic facts of consciousness, and affirmed that the main
cause of the failure of the distinctions which had been attempted to
be drawn was not the impossibility of inner perception becoming
inner observation, but the immense variety of forms in which the
ultimate facts of consciousness manifest themselves. I referred in
Notes and Discussions. 113
illustration to the distinctions between Thought and Feeling laid
down in Fleming's Manual of Moral Philosophy, Pt. I., Introd., ch.
iii. I believe that Fleming has there brought together all the distinc-
tions that are currently recognised as discriminating the intellect
from the sensitivity, and that by indicating how superficial and unten-
able most, if not all, of them are. I shall show the necessity for a new
and more thorough investigation of the relationship of these two great
provinces of mind.
The first of the distinctions laid down by Fleming is, that " In
cognitions, or the phenomena of intellect, there is a dualism which is
not implied in feelings, or the phenomena of sensitivity. To know
there must be an object of knowledge, and the object known is different
from the object knowing. To feel is merely to experience a modifi-
cation of self. A state of feeling is subjective and one. An act of
knowing involves the antithesis of subject and object." Now, is this
distinction tenable ? It seems to me that it is not. Feeling no less
than thinking is a fact of consciousness, a form of consciousness, and
all consciousness involves a dualism. That is its primary condition.
An absolute unity in consciousness is inconceivable. The terms of
the relation may even in cognition be self and a modification of self ;
the object is not necessarily apart from or out of the Ego. But
wherever there is consciousness there is relation, and wherever there
is relation there is dualism, and to say that feeling involves no distinc-
tion of self and its modification is simply to deny that feeling is a
form of consciousness. We can no more feel without feeling that we
feel than we can know without knowing that we know. Feeling is
not a something independent of that dualism which is the necessary
condition of consciousness but a something superadded to it. It is
not a something absolutely one. Were it so, it could not be a mental
fact at all. If in any sense a unity, it is a unity which involves a
dualism, which depends on a dualism for its very existence.
The second distinction laid down is, that " Cognitions are character-
ised as true or false ; feelings as pleasurable or painful, agreeable or
disagreeable". This is supported by a quotation from Reid which
states merely that feelings cannot be expressed in propositions do
not affirm or deny, are not true or false, like judgments, have not
the qualities which distinguish judgments from all other acts of mind.
But that certainly says nothing for Fleming's distinction. Judgments
are one thing ; cognitions are another. Judgments are only a kind of
cognitions, and it is not correct to predicate of the genus, cognition,
what is true merely of the species, judgment. Reid says the qualities
of true or false distinguish judgments from all other acts of mind. If
so, they distinguish them from a great many kinds of cognitions, from
all varieties of simple apprehensions, and thus distinguishing judg-
ments from other cognitions, it is manifestly impossible that they can
distinguish these latter cognitions from feelings. It is, further, cer-
tainly not to be assumed that feelings are pleasant or painful, agreeable
or disagreeable, seeing that many psychologists have held that, owing
either to feebleness of impression or of the contact and counteraction
8
114 Notes and Discussions.
of pleasure and pain in an equal degree, they may be indifferent, and
Prof. Bain has argued that emotion may exist even as excitement not
pleasurable or painful.
The third distinction laid down is, that " Cognitions are permanent,
invariable, and uniform, while feelings are fugitive and variable, and
differ, not only in different individuals, but in the same individuals at
different times". This is likewise quite untenable as a general dis-
tinction. There is a little truth in it but there is more error. Know-
ledge in the form of science may be, at least comparatively, "permanent,
invariable, and uniform," but the cognitions of the individual are
certainly not always so. Opinions like tastes are various. What
seems true to one does not seem true to another, just as what pleases
one does not please another. What seems true now may hot seem
true to the same person hereafter ; and what seems false to him now
may come hereafter to appear to him true. Perhaps cognitions are as
a general rule more permanent than feelings. But that is all that can
be said. Some feelings are more permanent than some cognitions.
Nothing about us is more permanent than some of our feelings, some
of our cognitions. This distinction, like the previous one, ignores the
essential fact that feeling is not to be discriminated from thought by
contrasting it only with some special form of thought, and especially
not by contrasting it with the higher forms of thought. It is a dis-
tinction which may hold between feeling and scientific demonstration
but it will hold equally between many kinds of thought and such
demonstration. Fancy and imagination are exercises of intellect but
they are as little permanent, invariable, and uniform, they are as essen-
tially variable as any feelings can possibly be. Fleming has even gone
further astray. " Knowledge may admit of increase, but not of vari-
ation. It may alter in amount, but not in nature. What is true now,
remains a truth for ever. What is true to one, is true to all. It is
the fixed and certain nature of knowledge which is the ground of all
progress and improvement. But Feeling is unstable." In writing
thus he obviously forgot that he had nothing to do in the investiga-
tion on which he had entered either with knowledge in itself or with
truth in itself, but merely with the act or exercise of intellect called
kno\ving or cognition. The question is, How does the mental state
termed feeling differ from the mental state termed knowing, how
does emotive experience differ from intellectual action 1 It is not
how does feeling differ from truth, which is a something independent
of the mind, nor how does emotive experience differ from knowledge,
which is the reward of intellectual exertion, and a reward even which
it may fail to attain. Apart, however, from this, the distinction, as I
have indicated, breaks down. It is no distinction between thought as
such and feeling as such.
The next distinction attempted to be drawn is, that " The opera-
tions of the intellect are confirmed, while the exercise of the sensitivity
is weakened, by familiarity and reflection ". It is a distinction still
less tenable, if possible, than the preceding ones. Pass in review the
different principles of action, the appetites, emotions, desires, affections,
Notes and Discussions. 115
and passions, and it will be found that with few exceptions they are
intensified and confirmed by indulgence, and that the exceptions can
be accounted for. Mere passive impressions weaken and deaden the
intellect as well as the sensitivity, and real indulgence intensifies the
sensitivity no less than it strengthens the intellect. Fleming admits
that " the feelings connected with the affections of country, and kin-
dred, and friendship, " are confirmed by being long cherished, but
accounts for it on the ground that " the elements which go to consti-
tute these affections partake more of the intellect than of the sensiti-
vity". The admission is, however, inadequate and the explanation
incorrect. The fact admitted is just as true of the grossest and most
brutal passions as of the honourable and generous affections mentioned.
Does the drunkard's passion for strong drink not grow in intensity
and strength with indulgence 1 And is his infatuated desire one the
elements of which partake more of the intellect than of the sensiti-
vity 1 The mere feeling accompanying its gratification may decrease,
but the desire for gratification increases, and desire is a form of the
sensitivity, just as much as the feeling. This distinction takes no
note of that. The two previous ones erred by taking a species of
of cognition, the highest kind of cognition, for the entire genus,
cognition ; this one errs by taking a species of feeling, the lowest *
stage of feeling, or feeling proper, for the entire genus, feeling.
The fifth alleged distinction is, that " Cognitions are more firmly
retained, and more easily and fully recalled and revived, than feel-
ings ". " An object of sense perceived," says Fleming in illustration,
"a relation discerned, a conclusion come to, can be reproduced and
represented to the mind, and made the means of increasing our
knowledge. Feelings often pass away without leaving any trace
behind them. When they are revived, it is very much in virtue of
their being connected with cognitions. And they are revived in a
form much less vivid than when first experienced." Now, it must
again be remarked, that while we have to contrast feelings with
cognitions we have not to contrast them with objects of sense per-
ceived, relations discerned, or even conclusions come to, but only
with the perceiving, discerning, concluding. But, apart from the
inaccuracy which there is in what Fleming says from overlooking
this, it is obvious that, even if all that he says were true, it would
only be the statement of a difference not of nature but of degree.
That is not, however, what it is presented as being, and it is not what
is required. Thoughts differ from thoughts, feelings from feelings, in
the same way in which thoughts and feelings are here said to diffi r.
Some thoughts are much more firmly retained and more easily and
fully recalled and reviewed than other thoughts, some feelings than
other feelings. What thus distinguishes thoughts from thoughts,
feelings from feelings, cannot distinguish thoughts from feelings. It
is only, in fact, a distinction of nature that can have any relevancy
or worth. The question is not one of more or less but of kind.
Even as expressive of a difference of degree, what is said, if it hold,
holds only in a very loose and general way. If feelings often pass
116 Notes and Discussions.
away without leaving any trace behind them, so do thoughts. Tt is
.our feelings, it may be even contended, which leave most trace behind
them. And certainly there are feelings, I cannot but think, which
exert a far more potent influence in determining what thoughts and
emotions shall be experienced by us, a far more potent influence on
the laws of association, than, perhaps, any cognitions. The influence
of our general dispositions and tempers, and even of our varying
moods of mind, in originating and directing, in shaping and colouring
our trains of thought, is so vast and manifest that all observers of
human nature have had their attention drawn to it. Hence, if it be
true that " when feelings are revived, it is very much in virtue of
their being connected with cognitions," it is equally true that when
cognitions are revived, it is very much in virtue of their being con-
nected with feelings. And there is nothing exceptional in feelings
being " revived in a form much less vivid than wheii m first experienced".
The memory of a thing is never so vivid as the perception of it.
Perception and memory, however, are both cognitive acts.
The sixth distinction laid down is, that " The intellect can enter-
tain opposite ideas at the same time; but the sensibility cannot at
the same time experience contrary feelings. The knowledge of con-
traries is one. He who knows what motion is, knows also what rest
is ; and the contrariety between them does not prevent us from think-
ing of them at the same time, but has the effect of bringing them
into our thoughts together. But we cannot, at the same time, feel
joy and grief, love and hatred ; one feeling displaces another,
feelings succeed one another rather than co-exist." This likewise,
even if true, tells us little or nothing as to the distinction between
thought and feeling. To say that two contrary thoughts may come
together but that two contrary feelings cannot, gives us almost no
information as to wherein the contrariety of any one thought to any
one feeling consists. But there is a more serious objection. It is
only in abstract thought that contraries are known as one. In any
single direct cognition, in perception, for instance, or internal intui-
tion, contraries unite no more than they do in feelings. It is as
impossible to have a perception of contraries at the same time as to
have a sensation of them. There are, then, since perception belongs to
the intellect and sensation to the sensitivity, a cognition and a feeling
which this distinction is utterly incapable of discriminating. It does
not enable us to distinguish every form of feeling from every form of
cognition. There is another objection. If simple feelings are com-
pared to simple cognitions, contraries will, as has just been stated, be
found united in neither ; but if complex feelings are compared with
complex thoughts they may be found in both. It is contrary to the
commonest experience to say that " the sensitivity cannot at the same
time experience contrary feelings". There can be pleasure commingled
with pain. There can be joy in the midst of sorrow. It is what
poets without number since Homer, and philosophers since Plato have
described. Children are both frightened and fascinated when listen-
ing to a ghost-story ; the more ' tear-compelling ' a tragedy or novel
Notes and Discussions. 123
to solve the problem of individuality in general ; and in particular
that of the origin of the Self in time, and the beginning of volition.
But so far as I have said anything, I will endeavour to show that it
is not incoherent, as soon as objections against it are distinctly formu-
lated. I can not do so before. However, 1 may say that -I have no
quarrel with Determinism if only that view will leave off regarding
the Self as a collection, and volitions as ' resultants ' or compositions
of forces, and will either reform or cease to apply its category of cause
and effect. The problem, as Mr. Sidgwick states it, on p. 46 of his
Methods of Ethics, I consider to involve a false alternative.
(2) The fact that when I speak of self-realisation " we naturally
think of the realisation or development into act of each one of the
potentialities constituting the definite formed character of each indi-
vidual " is not surprising, until we have learnt that there are other
views than those which appear in the Met hex Is of Ethics (p. 72 foil.).
And this we very soon do if we proceed. I have written at some
length on the good and bad selves (Essay VII.) ; and on p. 146, 1 have
repudiated distinctly Mr. Sidgwick's understanding of the term. I
thought that I had left no doubt that characters might be pirtly bad,
and that this was not what I meant by self-realisation, as = end.
(3) " We may at least say that a term which equally denotes the
fulfilment of any of my desires by some one else and my own accom-
plishment of my duty, will hardly avail us much in a definition of the
Highest Good." Perhaps. But I emphatically repudiate the doctrine
that the mere bringing about by some one else of anything desired by
me is my self-realisation. If the reviewer wishes the reader and my-
self to believe that I put this forward, he owes us a reference. If it
be meant as a dedttction from my premisses, he owes us an argument.
He has given us neither ; and as I think, nothing but a sheer misun-
derstanding.
(4) Mr. Sidgwick must be aware that I have endeavoured to define
self-realisation, as = end. He proceeds to remark, " the question then
is whether we gain anything by calling the object of our search ' the
true whole which is to realise the true self ' ". I think we do : but
then I have not left the matter here as my reviewer seems to indicate.
That point of view is reached on p. 67, and the whole remainder of
the discussion down to p. 74 is quietly ignored by him. I call parti-
cular attention to this.
The passage on Hedonism which follows I will take hereafter.
(5) I do not know whether in what is said about Kant there is an
objection to my views, nor, if so, what that is ; but when the reviewer
says of me, " he accepts a merely relative universality as a sufficient
criterion of goodness," I must remark that this is what I do not say.
I say relative and absolute, (p. 174) ; and this appears even from my
reviewer's next page.
(6) " Mr. Bradley, I think, has not clearly distinguished this view
from his own ; and the effectiveness of his argument against Individu-
alism depends chiefly on the non-distinction." The view is "the old
doctrine . . . that the individual man is essentially a social
124 Notes and Discussions.
being ". But (a) if my view is partly the same as another, what is
that against it? (b) If Mr. Sidgwick will point out confusion, I will
admit it or answer it. I cannot do either until he does, (c) At any
rate, "that the individual man is essentially a social being" ? my view,
and is not my reviewer's. If it be " a vague and barren ethical com-
monplace," yet in his book he must be taken to deny it, for he finds
the end, and, I suppose, the essence of man by examining a supposed
" single sentient conscious being" (p. 374).
(7) " He allows . . . even that * open and direct outrage on the
standing moral institutions which make society and human life
what it is,' may be 'justified on the plea of overpowering moral neces-
sity'." Here I must earnestly beg the reader to consult the context in
my book (pp. 204-5). I cannot ask for space to quote it. The ques-
tion I was discussing was the extent to which in theory we must hold
that collisions may proceed (c/. p. 142). On p. 143 I distinctly denied
that ' moral theory' is ' meant to influence practice' (c/. p. 205 foot-note^.
And I do think this ought not to have been ignored.
(8) My reviewer continues " But here he plainly comes into
conflict with ; unsophisticated common sense * : and surely, if that
authority be thus found fcdstis in uno, it must be at least fallibilis In
omnibus : and thus we have still to seek for some criterion of the
validity of its dictates ". First, I must ask for a reference for
' unsophisticated common sense '. It is given as a quotation from
me, but I do not recognise it. Next, I have maintained that I do
not really come into collision with common morality, but, when
understood, am at one with it (p. 204, cf. 142-3). And my reasoned
exposition, ignored by the reviewer, may stand I hope against his
" plainly ". Thirdly, he argues, What is falsus in uno is falUWt*
in omnibus. The falseness in this one thing I deny. Next, if I
admitted it, I should like to see the steps by which the conclusion
follows. Next, I have never hinted that the moral consciousness is
not fallible in particulars. Mr. Sidgwick really should give references
for what he attributes to me. Next, I deny that it is fallible in all
points. Lastly, even if it were false throughout, I say we have not " to
seek for some criterion of the validity of its dictates " ; for none is
possible.
This is all I think it necessary to say in answer to that which my
reviewer has urged against the doctrine I have put forward. The
rest which I have not noticed, I must not be taken to admit. And
now, seeing that a large part of my book was directed against
Hedonism in general, and one or two pages even against Mr. Sidgwick
in particular, I naturally hoped for some discussion of the matter.
This is all I can find. " The notion of Maximum Pleasure is certainly
sufficient for systematising conduct, as it gives us a universally appli-
ca'^le standard for selecting and regulating our activities. But it does
not give us an end which can ever be realised as a whole, in Mr.
Bradley's sense, that is, all at once : for obviously there is and can be
no moment at which a ' greatest possible sum of pleasures ' can be
enjoyed."
Notes and Discussions. 125
First, as was said above, the reviewer ignores my interpretation of
self-realisation. Next, he suggests that my argument against Hedon-
ism is that pleasures cannot be enjoyed all at once. True, that is an
argument; but is it possible that Mr. Sidgvvick can really believe
that in other respects Maximum Pleasure answers to my conception
of the end ? This is so wholly at variance with the doctrine I hold
that I confess I was not prepared for it. Thirdly, that the notion of
Maximum Pleasure can systematise conduct and give a standard, is a
proposition I have formally contested. Mr. Sidgwick not only gives
me an assertion for an answer, but by the way he introduces the
assertion suggests to the reader that I believe it myself.
I can find no other defence of his opinions but the (unsupported)
charge against me that I use rhetoric for argument, and that my
apprehension of the views which I assail " is always rather super-
ficial and sometimes even unintelligent ". Those views I think
should be securely founded, if they are to bear being defended in
this way.
F. H. BRADLEY.
[Mr. Bradley seems to be under a strange impression that, while
professing to write a critical notice of his views on ethics, I have been
or ought to have been defending my own. I entertain quite a different
notion of a reviewer's " station and duties". In criticising his book (or
any other) I put out of sight my own doctrines, in so far as I am
conscious of them as peculiar to myself : and pass my judgments from a
point of view which I expect iny readers generally to share with me.
Hence the references in his reply to my opinions would be quite
irrelevant, even if he understood those opinions somewhat better than
he does. I passed lightly over his attack on Hedonism in Essay III. for
the simple reason which I gave that I thought it less interesting and
important than other parts of his work. Much of it, as he must be
perfectly aware, either has no bearing on Hedonism as I conceive it,
or emphasises defects which I have myself pointed out : the rest consists
chiefly of familiar anti-hedonistic commonplaces : the freshest argu-
ment I could find was one with whicli I had made acquaintance
some years ago in Mr. Green's Introduction to Hume. This, as stated
by Mr. Green, I have taken occasion to answer in the course of an
article in the present number of this journal. The attack on my book
appended to Essay III., though not uninstructive to myself, is far too full
of misunderstandings to be profitable for discussion. It is criticism of
the kind that invites explanation rather than defence : such explanation
I proposed to give in its proper place which was certainly not my
notice of Mr. Bradley.
On the special points which he raises, the very briefest reply will
suffice.
(1) (2) (3) He scarcely attempts to answer my charge of 'want of
clear coherence' in his exposition of 'Self. He does not deny that
the ' self ' presented in Essay I. is dropped without explanation when
we pass to 'Essay II., and other accounts are given of the same] notion.
Among them is the statement that "all we can desire is self"; from
which I drew the immediate inference that the fulfilment of any desire
is a kind of self-realisation : if he did riot intend this inference, pp. 61, 62
are confusing and somewhat irrelevant.
(4) The discussion on 'finite' and 'infinite* (pp 68-73) is a part of
the metaphysics of which, in general terms, I notified my omission. I
126 Notes and Dismissions.
thought, and think still, that it was comparatively unimportant to the
ethical discussion. A critical notice does not profess to be a table of
contents.
(5) He misunderstands iny 'relative universality'. I say that the
social organism, of which the individual in Essay V. is explained to be
essentially a part, is a relative and not an absolute whole. That is, it is
not the universe : and we have no reason to identify its will granting
this to be real and cognisable with the universal or Divine Will to
which our wills should conform.
(6) I did not absurdly complain that he combined in his positive
doctrine the common view of society as a natural organism with his
peculiar view of this organism as possessing a reasonable will : I
criticised him for not distinguishing them in his polemic against
Individualism. The result of the non-distinction is that much of this
polemical argument as far as I can trace it through its folds of
rhetoric is directed against an individualism which will find no
defenders : the individualism, namely, to which the ' Social Compact,'
belongs, and to which Utilitarianism long since gave the coup de grace.
(7) (8) I still maintain that the non-theoretical unreflective person
who is exalted in Essay V. as furnishing the moral standard will be
considerably startled to find his encomiast justifying, with whatever
qualifications, " open and direct outrage on the standing moral institu-
tions which make society and human life what it is ". He will regard
Mr. Bradley as almost a "thinker," and at least "on the threshold of
immorality". And I doubt whether he will be quite consoled by
learning that this justification is not " meant to influence practice " :
though I admit that the consolation is well adapted to the average
philosophical capacity of the non-theoretical person.
But I need not press this point : because Mr. Bradley, as I under-
stand, admits the possibility of a conflict between common sense and
his private moral consciousness; and is prepared, in case of such
conflict, to rely entirely on his own particular moral intuition, allowing
no appeal to any express principle or external standard. If this be so,
his apparent reference to an external standard in Essay V, is found (as I
said) to be devoid of precise meaning or scientific value.
To sum up, then, I have nothing to retract or qualify on any of the
points raised by Mr Bradley except a pair of inverted commas which
were accidentally attached to a phrase of my own. But I should
prefer to part from him in a friendly manner ; and therefore I am glad
to find something to concede to him in the phrase in which I
characterised his style as over-rhetorical. I still dislike the quality of
his rhetoric, whether it be satirical, pathetic or declamatory : and I
think it is sometimes introduced, at important points, so as to interfere
with the closeness of his reasoning. But I find that the sentence in
which I combined these two judgments was too strongly worded : and
am glad to substitute for it the milder phrases just given.
HENKY SIDGWICK.]
Mr. Hodgson on 'Cogito ergo sum'. Assuming that Descartes' first
principle really means what Mr. Hodgson (MiNDlV.) says it does that
my being and my consciousness are one, that my being is my con-
sciousness and my consciousness my being what are we to make of
a sentence like the following ? " If the true sense of ' Cogito ergo
sum' is what I contend, My existence means my consciousness, we can
go on to generalise this in application to other things : their existence
Notes and Discussions. 127
means the consciousness which I or others have of them ; esse means
percipi." Is there not something very far wrong here ] When I say,
1 exist, I mean, I am conscious ; but Mr. Hodgson declares that this
statement generalised runs so The existence of other things means,
not their consciousness, but my consciousness of them. Now, it ap-
pears to me that this is a generalisation in which the essential element of
the particular has been left out of the general, that there is, in fact,
absolutely nothing in common between the particular proposition
started with and the generalised result. If the fundamental truth of
philosophy were, My existence arises in my consciousness, existence
and consciousness might be regarded as possibly different ; in any case,
the nature of existence would be an open question. But if the ulti-
mate fact is, My existence arises as my consciousness, then existence
and consciousness are indissolubly one, and conceivable only as differ-
ent names for the same thing. When, therefore, I generalise the con-
ception of my existence, and apply it to that of other things, the gene-
ralisation ought to be The existence of other things means their con-
sciousness. This seems so obviously the only fair logical extension of
Descartes' deliverance as interpreted by Mr. Hodgson, that I am half
disposed to believe that I am somehow misunderstanding the very
plain-looking words of the sentence just quoted. If all that I know
of existence at first hand that is, in my own case is, that it is always
a mode of consciousness, then, when I extend this unvarying expe-
rience to other existences, real or conceived, is it lawful for me to
strike out of the idea of existence as thus extended its inseparable
other-half, consciousness 1 Surely this would be no extension of my
own individual experience at all no generalisation in any proper
sense of the word. In my own case, existence and consciousness stand
or fall together ; but the existence of Peter and James and John, and
stocks and stones, is secure enough, it appears, if somebody else is con-
scious of them. The logic here looks alarming, but Mr. Hodgson is
responsible for it, if I have not grossly misunderstood his language.
The existence of other things being supposed, it seems clear that,
if we are entitled to extend to them that conception which is given in
every one of our own conscious acts, we must attribute to all conceived
existences some form of consciousness a generalised form, of course,
but still a consciousness. Otherwise, there will have been no true
logical extension of Descartes' primary conception. If esse means
percipere in the particular, it cannot be transformed into percipi in the
general. It is absurd to represent the passive voice as a generalised
form of the active.
Mr. Hodgson remarks that Descartes' deliverance " does not tell us
what existence in general is ; that would disqualify it at once for a
beginning of philosophy it speaks only of a particular case, the case
of ourself ". But existence in general must be the same in kind as
existence in particular, else generalisation would signify metamorphosis ;
and if consciousness is the very essence of existence in each particular
case, it must be conceived as present in all cases. And there is the
more need for extreme watchfulness as to the use made of this root-
128 Notes and Discussions.
proposition, because maiiy things just now seem pointing to the con-
clusion, that on Descartes' ' Cogito ergo sum,' rightly understood, the
philosophy of the future can find its only firm footing ; that his first
principle, boldly carried to its farthest logical issues, can be shown to
possess that necessity and universality without which no system of
thought can be other than an unenduring cloud-world of more or less
consistency. If consciousness were clearly seen to be co-extensive
with existence (actual and conceivable), that hitherto fruitless and
painful search for the Ding-an-sich would cease for the " thing in
itself " would then have been found ; the Kantian dualism, with all its
perplexing inconsistencies, would fall to pieces ; and the incorrigible
Hegelian even would acknowledge that all the unquestionable truth
in his master's system had been embraced in the one dictum, Exist-
ence is Consciousness. Whether or not Descartes himself saw to the
end of the road along which his principle points, this is not the place
to inquire ; the intention here is simply to note the fact that Mr.
Hodgson, at all events, would appear to have missed the path alto-
gether.
As against Mr. Arnold's reading of the famous * Cogito ergo sum,'
the passage quoted by Mr. Hodgson seems decisive, though it is more
than questionable whether it will appear so to the author of God and
the Bible. Mr. Arnold's own contributions to philosophy having
hitherto, most of them, taken the form of contemptuous remarks
upon philosophers, expressed in the choicest of English, and with all
the graces which culture can bestow, he is not likely to be greatly
moved by this note or that of Mr. Hodgson. But all those who make
philosophy a serious study will be disposed to admit that the signifi-
cance of the Cartesian First Principle is, even in these advanced times,
worthy of the strongest possible emphasis.
ALEXANDER MAIN.
[Mr. Main's note is opportuneness itself. I was quite aware that
many might require to have the grounds of my generalisation of the
' cogito ' fully drawn out before accepting it, but I was withheld from
saying more by the fear of travelling out of the record. Now, however,
Mr. Main comes to my aid, and that by so clear and forcible a state-
ment of the opposite alternative as to save me from all need of restating
it, as I must have done if I had explained the whole case myself.
Assuming, then, that my existence means my consciousness expresses the
true sense of the ' cogito,' I argue that Mr, Main's generalisation of
that statement, viz., that the existence of other things means their con-
sciousness, and that esse means percipere, is inconsistent with its true
sense. In my existence means my consciousness, my consciousness may
primd facie be taken to signify one of three things, either (1) myself
being conscious, or having my states of consciousness; or (2) my states
of consciousness as coming from existing things; or (3) my states of
consciousness alone. (The word my, in all three cases, is merely a word
of designation, to make it clear to the reader that I am not passing
beyond the limits of the subject, my consciousness). Now the two first
of these meanings are excluded from being the true meaning, because
each of them assumes existence as known, the existence of myself in the
first case, of things in the second, and thus nullifies the statement my
existence means my consciousness, and disqualifies it as an explanation of
Notes and Discussions. 129
my existence. It is no explanation of my existence to say that it means
myself having consciousness, for that assumes that I already know myself
as having something, that is, as existing.
It is this meaning of my consciousness which is involved in Mr. Main's
generalisation. It would make Descartes' l cogito' say, / exist because
I exist thinking ; it would simply unsay the ' cogito' '. The only admissible
sense of the ' cogito ' is the one in which my consciousness means my
states of consciousness alone, states which become objects to me in the
' cogito ' moment, which is the moment of self-consciousness or reflec-
tion. They and they alone, in the first instance, are the explanation of
my existence ; my esse is not my percipere but my percipi.
Adopting this, the sole admissible, meaning of my existence means my
consciousness, I then generalise it by dropping the particular circum-
stance that it is mine. The esse of anything means that it is an object in
some consciousness, its own or other. As Mr. Main truly remarks,
" existence in general must be the same in kind as existence in
particular".
I cordially concur also in the necessity for extreme watchfulness in
the use made of this " root-proposition " ; and also in the belief that it
offers the only firm footing for philosophy. But I cannot agree that
Mr. Main's generalisation of it necessarily precludes a Ding-an-sich.
On the contrary, the interpretation on which it rests apparently
introduces a Ding-an-sich as Subject ; for by that interpretation a
percipient Subject is assumed without the explanation of a predicate.
But by my interpretation a predicate is given to the supposed Subject.
Some other consequences too of Mr. Main's interpretation, if the
* cogito ' is also made the basis of philosophy, are familiar to us. It is
the conception which is at the root not of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel
only, but of all the forms which are or may be included in the now
fashionable philosophy of Monism, the latest importation from chimera-
land. The last outcome of philosophy would be evidently necessary
from the very first step in it, on Mr. Main's interpretation of Descartes.
If to be endowed with consciousness is a condition of existing, it follows
at once that whatever exists is, or has been endowed with consciousness,
for instance, the Universe. Philosophy is not so royal a road as this
syllogism would imply.
Another side of the question remains to be considered. No genera-
lisation of the ' cogito ' can be true which contradicts or unsays the
' cogito '. The true sense of the ' cogito ', when once established, is a
test to which we must bring any proposed generalisation. The con-
sequence in the ' cogito,' its ergo, may primd facie be taken as one of
three different kinds, namely, as introducing and assigning either (1)
the condition of existence of my existence ; as, my existence results from
my consciousness; or (2) the condition of my knowing that I exist; as,
the fact that I exist is shown by my being conscious; or (3) the condi-
tion of my knowing what my existence is ; as, my existence means my
consciousness. There are three possible alternatives, because there are
three ultimate sorts of conditions, existendi, cognoscendi, and essendi.
The last of the three alternatives has been shown to be the true one.
I argue, therefore, that any proposed generalisation of the ' cogito'
which either assigned a condition of existence for existence at large, or
assigned a condition of knowing the fact of existence at large, would
not be true as a generalisation of the ' cogito '.
But Mr. Main, in his first sentence, puts my intrepretation of the
'cogito' thus: "that my being and my consciousness are one, that my
being is my consciousness and my consciousness my being". The word
9
130 New Books.
ts, when standing as copula, gives no indication which kind of condition
is intended by the proposition. And therefore I was careful to interpret
the is in the ' cogito' by the word means, having shown the ' coyito* to
express only what existence was, and not how it arose nor how it was
inferred. Mr. Main, in recurring to the unanalysed use of is, really
unsays Descartes' proposition.
SHAD WORTH H. HODGSON.]
XII NEW BOOKS.
History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. By LESLIE
STEPHEN. 2 vols. London : Smith, Elder & Co. Pp. 466, 469.
This very important work will be reviewed at length in a future
number. It is first of all, as the preface tells, a history of the
Deistical movement ; but for this it " seemed necessary to describe
the general theological tendencies of the time, and, in order to set
forth intelligibly the ideas which shaped those tendencies, it seemed
desirable, again, to trace their origin in the philosophy of the time
and to show their application in other departments of speculation ".
The author therefore begins with an account of the contemporary
Philosophy, and seeks besides " to indicate the application of the
principles accepted in philosophy and theology to moral and political
questions, and their reflection on the imaginative literature of the
time " ; though in dealing with political theories he tries to keep as
far as possible from the province of political or social history.
A Treatise on the Moral Ideals. By the late JOHN GROTE, B.D.
Edited by Joseph Bickersteth Mayor, M.A. Cambridge :
Deighton, BeU and Co. 1876. Pp. 519.
Professor Mayor, continuing his work as editor, here prints the
constructive treatise on Ethics which the late John Grote turned to
write on resigning his original intention of publishing a controversial
answer to Mill's Utilitarianism. The controversial treatise, which
had been partly printed when laid aside, after all saw the light first,
being published six years ago by Prof. Mayor, in the exercise of his
editorial discretion, under the title of An Examination of the Utili-
tarian Philosophy. The present work will be reviewed in the next
number of MIND, and all reference to its contents may therefore be
deferred. As in the case of the former work, the editor's duties
have been very onerous. He now proceeds to prepare for the press
the second part of the Exploratio Philosophica, of which Part I.
appeared in 1865, the year before Professor Grote died.
A Philological Introduction to Greek and Latin, translated from the
German of FERDINAND BAUR by C. Kegan Paul and E. D. Stone.
London : King & Co. 1876. Pp. 153.
This little work, however technical, calls for notice in MIND by
reason of the remarkably clear psychological conceptions underlying
New Books. 131
the author's treatment of his special subject. The exposition falls
into three parts, from the division of Philology or the science of
Language (as the phonetic representation of Thought) into Glottology,
dealing with Vowels and Consonants as the matter of language (1),
and Grammar or the science of linguistic form in the two phases of
(2) Root and Stem formation, and (3) Word formation or Inflexion.
How the Root arises originally as the expression of a general idea
and passes into the fully developed Word through the Stem, is very
accurately conceived in point of psychology, and the philosophical
student may follow even the technical details of the book for illus-
tration of the principles which he will find (for his purposes) only
too briefly expounded.
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. By
JEREMY BEXTHAM. Oxford : at the Clarendon Press. 1876.
Pp. 336.
A timely and handy reprint, for the use of students, of this classi-
cal work (first published in 1789), according to the 'New Edition,
corrected by the Author,' which appeared in 1823.
Behind the Veil. An outline of Bible Metaphysics compared witJt
ancient and modern thought. By THOMAS GRIFFITH, A.M.,
Prebendary of St. Paul's. London : Longmans, Green and Co.
1876. Pp. 230.
The work is divided into four parts : I. Invisible Realities. II.
The Realities in Mature. III. The Reality in Man. IV. The Su-
preme Reality. The present age demands facts. But we cannot rest
there. Facts are phenomena in the human mind. But phenomena
suggest the questions Phenomenal of what 1 Phenomenal to what 1
Hence the faiths of mankind, the reaching beyond the known. Three
Realities must in short, be believed, although not beheld a Reality
beneath nature, a Reality at the base of all mental phenomena, and
a Reality underlying the universe or nature and mental phenomena.
With regard to the first all philosophy testifies that things are not
what they seem. Nature is summed up as matter and. force, and as
matter is only known to us as force, our system of the universe is an
orderly arrangement of forces ; for which we are entitled to read
" Realities which put forth force," even as the energy exerted by our-
selves wells up from an unfathomable depth below. For secondly,
Man is not all that he seems. There is an unrevealed " inward " man
or true self, the recognition of which is not only spontaneous with the
common mind, but emerges through the contradictions of thinkers
who would deny it. The Ego cannot be eliminated from our psy-
chological statements, as at once a Recipient of impressions, a Per-
cipient of thoughts, an Incipient of actions distinct from impres
sions, thoughts, and actions, Lastly, the hidden realities in nature
and in man are obviously not unconditioned realities. They are inter-
dependent and limited. They, too, must have a ground, an Un-
conditioned Reality of realities. The Being, Character, and Proce-
132 New Books.
dure of God are the titles of the closing chapters, occupying a large
portion of the volume. The work is enriched with references, indicat-
ing a catholic range of reading.
Studies in Ancient History, comprising a Reprint of ' Primitive
Matriage'. By JOHN FERGUSON M'LENXAN, M.A., LL.D. Lon-
don : B. Quaritch, 1876.
Mr. M'Lennan here reprints his well-known and much sought-for
essay on Primitive Marriage (1865) in its original form, rather than
keep it longer out of print for the revision he has hitherto been
unable to make and could now not make in a short time. By
appending, however, some essays on related subjects, his publication
now assumes the wider scope indicated by the new title. The first
of the appended essays, ' Kinship in Ancient Greece,' is itself u
reprint, being the author's reply in 1866 to a challenge from Mr.
Gladstone to show proof that kinship through mothers ever existed
among the Greeks. The new essays are four in number: (1) 'The
Classificatory System of Relationship,' against Mr. Morgan; (2)
' Bachofen's Das Mutterrecht'- a work that anticipated by four
years the author's discovery of the fact of female kinship, though on
very different grounds from his ; (3) ' Communal Marriage ' against
Sir J. Lubbock ; (4) ' Divisions of the Ancient Irish Family ' against
Sir H. Maine.
Winds of Doctrine : being an Examination of the modern theories of
Automatism and Evolution. By CHARLES ELAM, M.D. London :
Smith, Elder & Co. 1876. Pp. 163.
Dr. Elam here "reprints some essays on Automatism and Evolution
which have recently appeared in a serial form. They were written for
the most part in 1874 after the meeting of the British Association at
Belfast, where Professors Tyndall and Huxley held forth in the way
known to all men. The somewhat ' question-begging ' title now pre-
fixed to the essays indicates their drift : the doctrine of Automatism
depends on the doctrine of Evolution, and the doctrine of Evolution
is a sheer figment of the intellect, unsupported by the least direct
evidence and in its outcome flatly contradicting all the deepest con-
victions, intellectual, moral and religious, of human nature. Like
wind, it will pass.
PhUosophische Consequenzen der Lamarck-Darwimchen Entmcldungs-
fheorie. Ein Yersuch von Dr. GEORG VON GIZYCKI. Leipzig u.
Heidelberg : C. F. Winter. 1876. Pp. 97.
The author (who professes himself to be a disciple of Zeller in
philosophy) takes exactly the opposite view of Evolution from Dr.
Elam, and holds that the doctrine is not only verified as much as a
doctrine of such comprehensive scope can be, but has full possession
of the scientific field : " this or nothing ". At the same time he is
no less concerned than Dr. Elam for philosophic truth and for the
New Books. 133
practical interests of morality and religion, and his little book is
written to show that the theory of Evolution, when truly conceived,
does not turn, as commonly supposed, in majorem materialism* et
atheismi gloriam. The philosophical consequences of the theory are
drawn out under the four heads of Psychology, Epistemology, Morals,
Eeligion.
Die Philosophic Shaftesbury's, dargestellt von Dr. GEORG VON GI^YCKI.
Leipzig 11. Heidelberg : C. F. Winter. 1876. Pp. 200.
The author is of opinion that no extant ethical doctrine comes so
near as Shaftesbury's to meeting the requirement now imposed upon
philosophy, namely, that it conform to the spirit of positive scientific
inquiry. He is therefore concerned to set it forth at the present time,
more especially in opposition to the " contranatural " ethical system
of Kant. Shaftesbury's works were translated into German in the
course of the 18th century, and made no small impression on Herder
and others ; but, according to the author, their philosophical import-
ance has never been sufficiently recognised, while by Schlosser their
true character was grossly traduced. Xeither in his own country has
Shaftesbury received justice, his " idealistic " philosophy appearing
like an exotic plant upon English soil. The author is wholly at one
with Shaftesbury in conceiving ethics as having for its subject Virtue,
not Duty, and he holds that an ethical doctrine should in particular
include (1) a theory of the springs of human action, (2) a theory of
virtue or moral excellence, and (3) a theory of moral progression and
decline. Shaftesbury's doctrine lends itself naturally to exposition
under* these three heads, and the work ends with a chapter on his
religious philosophy.
Kant's Analogies der Erf alining. Von ERNST LAAS. Berlin, Weid-
mannsche Buchhandlung, 1876. Pp. 363.
The Analogies of Experience seem to the author the central point of
Kant's philosophy in its theoretical aspect, and a concentrated exami-
nation of them is believed by him to throw more light on the Critical
Philosophy generally than can be had by following all the turns of
thought and scholastic argumentation with which Kant perplexes his
reader. The Analogies of Experience seek to prove that previously to
experience we are able to affirm of all experience, that it must contain
a permanent element as Substance, and be subject to the laws of
Casuality and Reciprocity ; and of these points there can be no suffi-
cient exposition without drawing in all the most characteristic philo-
sophical ideas of Kant. Among later thinkers, J. S. Mill and Scho-
penhauer chiefly engage the author's attention. With Mill he has
much in common, but he justly blames him for contending with think-
ers like Whewell or Hamilton, instead of meeting Kant at first hand.
Die Philosophic seit Kant. Von Dr. FRIEDRICH HARMS. Berlin,
1867. Pp. 603.
In the development of recent German philosophy the author notes
134 New Books.
four distinct stages. The labours of Lessing, Herder, and Jacobi
mark the beginnings of what is most characteristic of the philo-
sophy of Germany, the setting-up a historical view of the world
by the side of the physical. The second division contains the
foundation of German philosophy by Kant. The positive result
of Kant's endeavours was the establishment of an ethical theory
of the world. The Critic of Practical Reason and the Critic of
Judgment contain the ripest fruits of the Kantian thinking.
Thirdly comes the great systematisation of German thought by
Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Fichte sees the determining principle
in Moral Purpose, Schelling in the Nature of Things, Hegel in Logical
Thought. The systems of these thinkers were the necessary historical
development of the doctrines of Kant. In the fourth place, we have
the limitation of philosophy, determined by Schleiermacher, Herbart,
and Schopenhauer. Of these, Schleiermacher stands as the represen-
tative of careful and sober criticism of the philosophy of the Absolute.
In conclusion, the author devotes a few pages to the consideration of
German philosophy in its most recent phases. The author sees at the
present time two divergent tendencies as logical extremes of pre-
vious doctrines and systems. The one is represented by the journal
founded by the younger Fichte, by Trendelenburg, and by Lotze. Here
the stand-point is theistic, an Absolute being recognised as the last
ground of Being and Becoming, of Action as well as of Thought. The
other tendency may be styled Anthropologism, Man being taken as at
once principle and end of Nature. This latter tendency is to be found in
germ in Kant's Critic of Pure Reason, and more developed in Hegel's
Natural Philosophy and in his conception of the essence of Eeligion.
The claim of Anthropologism to be the whole of Philosophy is
not however found previously to Feuerbach, the Materialists, and
Schopenhauer. Whether this claim be justifiable or not is the philoso-
phical question of the present.
Das Gesetz der Causal-licit in der Natur. Von EGBERT SCHELLWIEN.
Berlin, 1876. Pp. 271.
The author compares the Kantian Metaphysic with the ground-
principles of modern science. The former assumed a real unknowable
world, furnishing the matter of our sense-consciousness ; the latter
posits a world of atoms whose movements are the anterior causes of all
nervous changes. Assumptions in both cases are the ground of certain
subjective phenomena. But Kant's Thing-in-itself implied a contra-
diction as being a known unknowable. Modern science is even
more irrational, as its unknowable is clothed with the attributes
of indivisibility, impenetrability, and activity. What way out of
these contradictions 1 None but the identification of the Pheno-
menon with the Thing-in-itself. The real world is the known world,
and Consciousness and Existence are one. This is not to de-
grade the world into a merely subjective presentation. Things are in
themselves as they appear to us, but all does not appear. It is the
task of the higher functions of consciousness to fill up what is wanting
New Books. 135
in sensible perception, a method which is only scientifically justified on
the principle of continuity, what is underivable from sense or not to be
referred thereto being devoid of authority. The sensible objective
world or Mature consists of distinct things having a multiplicity of re-
lations presented in space. The way in which one thing is related to
other things determines either its position of equilibrium, or its passage
into another stats of equilibrium. This relation of thing to thing is
natural causality. The element of time disregarded, it is asserted that
the fact of the difference of things is the first member in their causal con-
nection and the presupposition of all their possible relations. The
Law of Causality runs as follows : Natural Causality consists in such
a relation between things that their difference is abolished, and they
become related to each other as same or identical. The author illus-
trates and developes this thesis at considerable length. Coining finally
to a special treatment of consciousness, he says, Nature and Mind are
not different things, but different functions. The function of conscious-
ness, like every natural function, is movement in which difference is
expressed in the form of identity, but the form of identity of conscious-
ness is higher than any natural one, because it is not relation of thing
to thing, but absolute relation of the conscious essence to itself, and
therefore has no longer difference or distinction as something foreign
outside itself, but as its own in itself.
Bernardi Silvestris De Mundi Universitate Libri Duo, sive Megacosmus
et Microcosmus. Nach handschriftlicher Ueberlieferung zum
ersten Male herausgegeben von C. S. BARACH und J. WROBEL.
Innsbruck, 1876. Pp. xxi. 71.
This is the first of a series of reproductions of philosophical works
of the Middle Ages, hitherto unprinted or become rare, which will ap-
pear from time to time under the supervision of Prof. Barach of Inns-
bruck, entitled Bibliotheca Philosophorum Medice Acted is, and de-
signed to fill the gaps in our present knowledge of the literature of the
time. " Bernard Silvester, generally known from the place where he
taught as Bernard of Chartres, belongs to the most eminently cul-
tured and influential personalities of the 12th century." The judg-
ment of Prantl seems to the editor fully justified that the stand-point
of Bernard was extreme Eealism, a Realism which confronted the
then rising Nominalism with the assertion of the singularity of indi-
viduals in the intelligible world. Bernard was at once poet and philo-
sopher. De Mundi Universitate is written partly in prose, partly in
verse. The philosophical ideas are conveyed under a mythical repre-
sentation of the creation of the world and man.
SEBASTIANO TURBIGLIO : Benedetto Spinoza e le Transformazione
del suo Pensiero. Roma, 1875.
This work, although of marked ability, is one of the strangest which
has ever been written on the philosophy of Spinoza. It passes com-
pletely over what, from the title, we naturally look for, and describes
to us instead a discovery which, if true, is certainly very remarkable.
136 New Book*.
It says nothing about the various phases through which the system of
Spinoza passed in its author's rnind during the fifteen or twenty years
which elapsed between the first written sketch the Korte Verhan-
deling van God, de Mensch, &c. and the final form of the Ethica, but
is exclusively occupied with tracing the transformations of thought in
the Ethica itself. Its general finding is that there are in that work
two Spinozas, one who proceeds by syllogisms, and another who pro-
ceeds by intuitions, an apparent or phenomenal Spinoza who has
hitherto been mistaken for the real Spinoza, and a true or noumenal
Spinoza, who was an unconscious Leibniz, and a powerful defender of
the spirituality and immortality of the soul. How has a critic of the
industry and intellectual vigour and sublety of Signor Turbiglio arrived,
after five years of special study of his author, at this extraordinary re-
sult 1 By arbitrarily, although most ingeniously, rearranging the
thoughts of Spinoza, and giving the words in which Spinoza expressed
them a new meaning in their new connection. Although we cannot
but think his work a failure on the whole, we cordially admit that it
abounds in most suggestive combinations, and contains much excellent
criticism.
GIUSEPPE DESCOURS Di TOURXOY. Del Vero, del Bello, e del Bene.
Volume Primo. Milano, 1876.
This volume treats merely of the True, but comprehends an intro-
duction, in which the genesis, method, and utility of philosophy are
discussed, an Ideology or doctrine of the formation of notions, a Logic
or doctrine of the combination of notions, a Metaphysics or doctrine of
the objective conditions of truth, and an Appendix on the principles of
Psychology. It is designed for general readers fully as much as for
special students of philosophy. Prof. Di Tournoy has, perhaps, at-
tempted to do more than was possible in the space he has allowed him-
self, especially as he has not always strictly economised it, but he is a
clear writer and independent thinker. He belongs to no ' school '.
GIACINTO FONTAXA : Idea per una Filosofia della Storia. Firenze,
1876.
The author of this work must not be confounded with Bartolorneo
Fontana, whose Filosofia della Storia nei pensatori italiani is written
from a very different point of view. He has been of late a diligent
contributor to the Filosofia delle scuole italiane, and his book is through-
out an application of the spirit and principles of the philosophy which
is represented by that journal to the explanation of history. He starts
with 'the idea,' the Absolute Being, and endeavours to show in
what manner and measure the idea, as the highest object of thought
and the ultimate end of action, has been apprehended by, and realised
in, humanity. The course of its apprehension, the development of
what he calls the contemplative principle, must be traced, he thinks,
in the history of religion and science, while the course of its realisa-
tion, the development of the active principle, must be traced in the
history of art, industry, and commerce. Such is the central idea of a
News. 137
book which fortunately contains many other ideas of a less doubtful
character, which displays a wide range of learning, which shows its
author to be a man of considerable speculative capacity, and which is
written in an interesting, although a somewhat too rhetorical, style.
The distribution of contents made in it is : (1) Introduction; (2) The
ideal in history; (3) The two principles the contemplative and active;
(4) Development of the two principles ; (5) Religions and Legislations ;
(6) Humanity ; (7) Nations ; (8) Civilisation ; (9) Conformity of his-
tory to the speculative plan ; (10) The progress of liberty ; (11) Reli-
gious and civil liberty ; (12) Conclusion.
XIIL NEWS.
Mr. Philip Magnus, B. Sc., writes as follows :
In the last number of MIND, attention is drawn to the fact, that
according to the new Regulations issued by the Senate of the University
of London for degrees in Science, Psychology and Logic are no longer
compulsory subjects. To many who have been looking forward to the
appearance of these Regulations, the intelligence that Logic as well as
Psychology have been made optional subjects will be a matter of regret.
To me, personally, it was a disappointment; for, at a meeting of the
Committee of the Senate, which I had the honour to be asked to attend,
I urged, as strongly as I could, and I had hoped with some success, the
advisableness of retaining Logic among the indispensable requirements
from all candidates for the B. Sc. degree.
Considering the importance of accurate thinking in all scientific
pursuits, and the assistance that is obtained both in acquiring knowledge
and in expressing it from an acquaintance with the principles of Logic,
it is greatly to be regretted that this subject should not even have been
included in the former or preliminary examination, which is, I imagine,
intended to test the general scientific discipline of the student. The
same importance can hardly be said to attach to Psychology, which till
now formed one of the subjects of examination. But seeing that Logic,
as developed by Herschell, Whewell, Mill, and Jevons, may now, per-
haps, with more propriety than ever be styled Scientia Scientiarum, it
appears somewhat anomalous that a degree in Science can be gained by
uif-n who may be wholly ignorant of the fundamental principles of this
subject.
I do not wish to enter into detail with respect to the advantages
which the student of Science gains from an elementary knowledge of
Logic. But to the science-teacher the intellectual discipline which this
study affords is of the greatest value. Even granting that facts may be
accurately observed and registered, and inductions carefully drawn from
them, by men who have never heard of an experiment am crucis or the
Method of Concomitant Variations, I doubt very much whether any one
who knows nothing of the laws of thought, or the principles of classifi-
cation, can ever be made a good scientific teacher. Now, one of the
chief uses of our B. Sc. degree is to give teachers a qualifying certificate.
With this object it is principally sought after; and it commands no
mean value. But I cannot help thinking that the London Science
Degree will, for the future, be deprived of one of its chief merits ; and
that the certificate will be less likely than heretofore to indicate the fact
that the holder of it has undergone some kind of training which may
qualify him to become the teacher of others.
138 News.
With the general character of the new Regulations I am not now con-
cerned : but there can be little doubt that they are a great improvement
on the former scheme. Looking over the list of subjects a knowledge of
which will now be required from candidates for the Science Degree, it
is, I admit, now difficult to say what subject should be displaced to
make room for Logic ; but I am inclined to think that it might have
been better to have given three hours only to Experimental thysics, or
to have omitted Mixed Mathematics from the preliminary examination,
than to have excluded Logic altogether from the curriculum.
According to the new Regulations, candidates who choose Logic
and Psychology as one of the three special subjects at the 2nd B. Sc.
examination, will have three papers set to them instead of the two
formerly set for B.A. and B.Sc. alike; and this is, so far, well.
Presumably, however, if one may judge by dates, two of the three
papers will still be common to the two Degrees ; while it is expressly
stated that the examination for Honours will be common. The
arrangements altogether are open to much criticism, but the really
serious matter is the question of principle reverted to by Mr. Magnus.
By the surrender of Logic as a compulsory subject for the Science
Degree, the credit of the University is gravely affected ; and, if the
authorities would but see this, no fear that a way of recovery could
be found from the retrograde step.
We have received from the publisher (J. Baedeker, Iserlohn), Vol. I.
of the third edition of Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus. It con-
tains, besides a portrait of the lamented author, a short sketch of his
life. He was only 47 when he died, on the 27th November, 1875.
Till three weeks before his end he was busy with anew work, Logische
Studien, which will shortly -appear. He began this work on completing
the revised second edition of his Geschichte in 1873. The History, now
become so celebrated, appeared originally in 1865, when Lange, after
having been privat-docent in Bonn (1855-57) and then gymnasial
teacher in Duisburg, was in business as a printer and publisher :
earlier in the same year had appeared his Grundlegung der Mathema-
tischen Psychologie. After other changes of occupation, but always
busy with philosophy, he resumed the academic life in 1870, as
professor in Zurich, whence he passed to Marburg in 1872. He
was also a writer of note on social and political questions, both as
journalist and author. An English translation of his great work
is now announced as in the press.
The hope of attaining a scientific phrenology, excited by recent
physiological work on the brain, has led some French medical men
and others to form a 'Society of mutual (!) Autopsy'. They say,
truly enough, in their articles of foundation, that experiments on
animals throw but little light on the phenomena of intelligence, and
that if anything definite is known of the cerebral functions in man
it has been learned by way of post mortem examination in hospitals.
Here, however, the autopsy is marred through ignorance of the
patients' antecedents, and by the fact that they belong generally to
the uncultivated classes. To be in any way effective, it should be
News. 139
inn de on the brains of men of culture and repute ; and such examin-
ation, it is urged by the founders of the Society, besides increasing
knowledge, would be of signal benefit to a man's descendants, as
indicating weakness or morbid tendencies that might in them be
checked. The members therefore bind themselves to make express
disposition of their bodies, so that after death these and especially the
brain and skull shall be subjected to investigation in ' the laboratory
of anthropology ' ; interment of the remains afterwards to take place
strictly according to the written directions of each person.
The Rev. John Eyfe, librarian of the University of Aberdeen, has been
appointed by the Crown to the vacant chair of Moral Philosophy there.
The new German philosophical quarterly, referred to in our last
number, has now appeared (in October) under the title of Viertel-
jahrschrift der Wissenschaftlichen Philosophic. It is edited by Dr.
Avenarius not, as was formerly stated, by Prof. Wundt, who with
Drs. Goring and Heinze will only co-operate. The key-note of the
journal is struck in the title. It starts from the position that Science
is possible only on a basis of experience, and it will occupy itself with
no Philosophy that is not in this sense scientific. Its range of topics
will practically coincide with that of MIND. One feature in its
scheme is original. Authors of philosophical works are invited to
send in short statements (from a third to half of a page in length) of
what they consider to be the new or characteristic ideas in their works :
these notices will be printed, on the responsibility of the writers, if
they appear of sufficient importance. The advantages of the plan to
authors is obvious, and we shall gladly adopt it in MIND as a means
of overtaking the great variety of native and foreign literature in
philosophy.
Among existing philosophical journals, there is one, La Critique
Philosophique, appearing weekly under the direction of M. Renouvier,
which has not yet received from us the attention it deserves, though
it was mentioned in No. III. (p. 437). This journal, which succeeded
after a break to the yearly publication of V Annee Philosophique by
M. Pillon (a disciple of M. Renouvier's), is now in its fifth year. M.
Renouvier's position will be explained to English readers in an article
on the present state of Philosophy in France which will appear in a
forthcoming number of MIND, and for the present we must be content
to mention below (as we hope to do regularly henceforth) the chief
philosophical articles in the numbers of his journal for the last quarter.
The journal discusses also political questions of the day.
JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILSOSPHY. Vol. X. No. 1. G. S.
Morris ' The. Philosophy of Art '. J.Watson ' Empiricism and Com-
mon Logic'. . . . K. Th. Bayschofier ' The Idea of Matter (Tyndall's
Problem solved) '. Notes and Discussions. Book Notices. No, 2. J.
"Watson ' Kant's reply to Hume '. J.'H. Pepper ' Darwin's Descent of
Man'. . . . L. P. Hickok ' The two kinds of Dialectic'. H.
Haanel ' Herbart's Ideas on Education '. . . . W. T. Harris (Editor)
' The Relation of Religion to Art ' . Book Notices. No. 3. Editor
140 News.
* History of Philosophy in Outline'. J. Watson 'Hedonism and
Utilitarianism'. T. Gray 'Science in Government'. J. Lachelier
' The Basis of Induction ' (transl.). Kant's Anthropology'' (section transl.).
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. No. X. James Sully ' L'Art et la Psycho-
logie '. J. Delboeuf 'La Logique Algorithmique ' (ii.). E. Gazelles
'La Morale de Grote '. L. Ferri ' Le Proces de Galilee d'apres des
documents inedits'. Observations et documents 'La continuite et
1'identite de la conscience du inoi,' par A. Herzen. Analyses et comptes-
rendus. Revue des Periodiques, &c. No. XI. L. Tannery ' La
Geometrie Imaginaire et la notion d'Espace '. L. Dumont ' M. Del-
boeuf et la Theorie de la Sensibilite '. J. Soury ' L'Histoire du
Materialisme de Lange (ii.) Observations et documents' De la trans-
formation du sens de certains mots,' par A. Darmesteter. Analyses et
comptes-rendus. Revue des Periodiques, &c. No. XII. J. Delboeuf
' La Logique Algorithmique ' (fin.). Th. Ribot ' La Psychologic Eth-
nographique en Allemagne'. J. Soury 'L'Histoire du Materialisme
de Lange ' (fin.). Analyses et comptes-rendus, &c.
LA CRITIQUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. Vine. Aiinee, Nos. 36-45. C. Renou-
vier ' Un point d'histoire uaturelle mentale' (36) ; ' Les labyrinthes de
la metaphysique : L'infini et le continu, Stuart Mill' (37), ' Herbert
Spencer' (42), ' Hegel et M. Shadworth Hodgson' (44) ; ' De la resem-
blance mentale de 1'homme et des autres animaux selon Darwin ' (38).
Bibliographic: Spencer, Social Statics (43); Michaut, De I 9 Imagina-
tion (45).
LA FILOSOFIA DELLE ScuoLE ITALIANS. Vol. XIV. Disp. 1. F. Bona-
telli ' La Filosofia dell Inconscio '. T. Mauiiani ' Delia Evoluzione'.
Bulgariiii ' Sul trattato della Coscienza del Prof. Ferri'. Bibliografia, &c.
Disp. 2. T. Mamiani ' Delia Evoluzione'. L. Ferri ' II metodo psi-
cologico e lo studio della coscienza'. Mamiani 'Filosofia della reli-
gione'. A. Valdarnini ' Effetti delle moderne teorie filosofiche nelle
scienze morali e sociali'. Bibliografia.
VlERTELJAHRSCHRIFT FUR WlSSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. I.
Heft i. R. Avenarius ' Zur Einfuhrung '. Fr. Paulsen ' Ueber das
Verhaltniss der Philosophic zur Wissenschaf t '. A. Riehl ' Die Englische
Logik der Gegenwart '. W. Wundt ' Ueber das Kosmologische Pro-
blem'. J. Kollmann ' Aus dem Leben der Cephalopoden'. Selbstan-
zeigen. Bibliogr. Mittheilungen.
ZEITSCHRIFT FUR PHILOSOPHIE, &c. Bd. LXIX. Heft 1. Steffens
' Gewinn fiir die Kenntniss der Gesch. der griech. Phil, aus den Schriften
des Aristoteles ' (Schluss). Richter ' Kant als A.esthetiker '. Rehnisch
' Untersuchungen u. Ergebnisse der Moralstatistik ' (ii.). Recensionen.
Heft 2. Spicker ' Mensch u. Thier '. Milliner' W. Rosenkrantz ' Phil-
osophie ' (i.). Receusionen. Bibliographic.
PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Bd. XII. Heft 6, 7. E. Bratus-
check ' Sumini in philosophia honores'. Krohn, Studien zur sokratisch-
platonischen Lite-rat ur (recens.) ; I. H. Fichte, Fragen u. Bedenken ilber die
ndchste Forte ntwicklung deutscher Speculation (recens). Bibliographie.
Heft 8. Spicker, Kant, Hume u. Berkeley (recens.) ; Hermann, Aestheti-
sche Farbenlehre u. Die Aesthetik in ihrer Geschichte u. als wissenschaftliches
System (recens.) ; Heppe, Geschichte der quietistischen Mystik (recens.).
Bibliographie, &c. Heft 9. H. F. Muller ' Plotin u. Schiller iiber die
Schonheit '. Paulsen, KantiscJie Erhenntnisstheorie (recens.) ; Hume, Unter-
suchung in Betreff des mensch. Verstandes, iibers. von Kirchmann (recens.).
Todtenhaupt 'Mechanismus u. Teleologie '. Bibliographie, &c.
ERRATUM. In No. IV., p. 562, 1. 4, for when read where.
No. 6.] [April, 1877.
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
I. ME. SPENCER'S PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY.*
MR. HERBERT SPENCER has now set himself to " crown the
edifice " of Evolutionary Philosophy, the present volume being
the first of two devoted to systematising the principles of man's
social development. It is to be regretted that weak health has
made it expedient for him to publish this first volume in a
slightly incomplete state, rather than keep his readers waiting
for months till he should be able to add some final pages. Prac-
tically, however, this deficiency has no ill effect, for Mr. Spencer's
arguments are usually complete so far as they go, and the sepa-
rate departments of this volume may be criticised without fear
of the author's conclusions being altered in later chapters.
In acceding to the wish of the Editor of MIND that I should make
such comments as occurred to me on Mr. Spencer's system of
Sociology, I do not undertake a formal review of it as a whole.
But as a worker for many years on the ground where Mr. Spencer
is now engaged, I am desirous of noticing where he has followed
lines already traced, where he has gone farther and excavated
deeper than -those who went before him, and where he has been
led, as the ablest men are at times, to waste his labour in blind
cuttings. To me such examination is particularly interesting
with regard to the chapters occupying about half this volume, in
* The Principles of Sociology, by HERBERT SPENCER. Vol. I., 1876.
Williams & Norgate.
10
142 Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology*.
which Mr. Spencer treats of the evolution of religious doctrine
and worship. These chapters may, I think, be properly described
as a new statement, with important modifications and additions,
of the theory of Animism which (to pass over less complete
statements in previous years) was given by me in summary in
the Journal of the Ethnological Society for April 26th, 1871, and
was worked out with great fulness of detail in my Primitive
Culture, published in 1871. Stated shortly, this theory is,
in the first place, that a conception of the Human Soul is a
crude but reasonable inference by primitive man from obvious
phenomena. Man has two things belonging to him, his
phantom and his life. The human shapes which appear in
dreams and visions seem to the savage to be real objects, con-
nected with the bodies whose image they bear, but separable
from them so as to be capable of presenting themselves to people
at a distance. The life which seems to be present in the
active waking healthy living man, but absent or lessened in
sleep, lethargy, disease, and death, is also something connected
with the body, but separable from it. The outcome of these two
sets of considerations is the primitive and savage doctrine of a
ghost-soul, which accounts under one head for dreams and visions
and for life and death. In the second place, the notion of a ghost-
soul as the animating principle in man, being once arrived at, is
extended by easy steps to souls of lower animals, and even of
lifeless objects, as well as to the general conception of spirits and
deities, who are as it were souls of nature, and the belief in whose
presence furnishes the savage with a rational explanation of facts
and events which require accounting for. On this view of Primitive
Animism, the general belief in souls and deities is not ultimately
derived from occult tendencies in man or revelations to man,
but is based on the philosophy of remote rude ages, whose doc-
trine has been only more or less modified in modern theologies.
It need hardly be said that such a view of the origin of funda-
mental theological ideas is revolutionary. If it, or anything like
it, can be proved to the satisfaction of the educated world to be
the true view, then the generally received systems of theology
must either be developed into systems more in harmony with
modern knowledge, or they must after a time be superseded and
fall into decay. It is thus a matter of importance to the world
that Mr. Spencer, a philosopher whose systematic thought and
persuasive argument act forcibly on the world's opinion, should
treat the development of religious ideas on the animistic line.
Though he does not adopt the term Animism, his system agrees
with it, not merely in some special conclusions, but in its two
fundamental positions, the origination of the idea of a human
soul and the evolution from this of all other ideas of spirits and
Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology '. 143
deities. How far his conclusions have been arrived at inde-
pendently of mine I cannot say, nor is this a matter of much
consequence. Indeed it seems to me that, in its main
principles, the theory requires no great stretch of scientific
imagination to arrive at it, inasmuch as it is plainly suggested
by the savages themselves in their own accounts of their
own religious beliefs. It is not too much to say that, given
an unprejudiced student with the means (only of late years
available) of making a thorough survey of the evidence, it is
three to one that the scheme of the development of religious
doctrine and worship he draws up will be an animistic scheme.
But as yet both the. evidence and the arguments are very imper-
fect, and those who agree in the main theory may diverge widely
in its subordinate branches. In comparing Mr. Spencer's system
with my own, I am naturally anxious to see where the later
writer differs from the earlier, and where for the better and
where for the worse.
Before entering on the problem of the origin of religion, Mr.
Spencer prepares the way by an interesting study of the mental
condition of primitive man, whose vagueness of ideas and loose-
ness of reasoning must be taken well into account in investiga-
ting ancient phases of theology. Here, however, there already
comes into view a tendency of the author's for which readers must
be warned to make allowance. In dealing with the phrases
by which rude races convey their thoughts, he is prone to a
tightness of interpretation which their loose, unscientific lan-
guages will not bear, and which may give wrong notions of what
actually passes in their minds. Thus the following passage is
quoted by him (p. 118) as proof of extreme inconsistency in the
minds of the natives of Madagascar " In almost the same breath,
a Malagasy will express his belief that when he dies he ceases
altogether to exist . . . and yet confess the fact that he is
in the habit of praying to his ancestors ". But even among
modern Englishmen we hear it said that " It is all over with
poor So-and-so he is no more well, perhaps he's better off
where he is ". We know well enough what is meant by this,
and that it really involves no gross inconsistency. Curiously
enough, Mr. Spencer has overlooked the fact that the very pas-
sage he quotes (which is taken from Ellis's History of Madagascar,
vol. I., p. 393) is there followed by a sufficient explanation of
what the Malagasy actually means. " If asked, were his an-
cestors not human beings like himself, and did they not cease
altogether to exist when they died how then can it be consis-
tent to pray to them when they have no longer any being, he will
answer, ' True, but there is their matoatoa,' their ghost ; and
this is supposed to be hovering about the tomb when the body
1 44 Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology '.
is interred," &c. The whole account goes to prove that the
Malagasy really holds his animistic belief about as consistently
as do our own theologians. It may here be remarked that the
besetting sin of us all who study primitive ideas is to treat the
savage mind according to the needs of our argument, sometimes
as extremely ignorant and inconsequent, at other times as ex-
tremely observant and logical, there being abundant statements
of travellers forthcoming which can be used in support of either
view. Mr. Spencer, with all his evident desire to be impartial,
has not always shaken himself free of this tendency. Thus (in
Appendix B) when he is arguing against Prof. Max Miiller's
views of the sources of myth in the minds of uncultured men,
Mr. Spencer insists on their minds being devoid of rational
curiosity as to nature, and argues that in early stages the intel-
lectual factor required for myth-making is wanting till long
after the ghost- theory has originated a mechanism of causation.
In this connection he cites a remark by Dr. Rink as to the
Esquimaux, that " existence in general is accepted as a fact,
without any speculation as to its primitive origin ". Now this is
rather hard on the Greenlanders (who are Dr. Rink's Esquimaux),
seeing that they not only have a well-developed mythology but
a well-developed animistic theology ; and in other places (pp.
131, 157, 164, 192, &c.) Mr. Spencer himself cites their notions
of dreams, shadows, ghosts, &c., as evidence of the very develop-
ment of such speculative ideas as he here denies to them. He
even attributes to them a philosophical subtlety which seems
beyond what they can claim. Referring to their well-known no-
tion that man has two souls, his shadow and his breath, and that
the soul goes out hunting and visiting in dreams, he brings in the
additional refinement that the shadow, which becomes invisible at
night, is that soul which at night wanders away and has adventures.
This he states on the authority of Cranz, but it seemed to me
too good to be true, and on referring to my copy (the original
German edition of 1765) I find that the words of the old mis-
sionary do not justify it. On the whole it appears that Mr.
Spencer, in handling the evidence of savage ideas, is apt to find
the utmost strictness and coherence in their philosophy, while
unduly pushing aside proofs of their mythic and poetic fancy,
which are really not less forcible.
In carrying on the consideration of the savage state of mind,
Mr. Spencer introduces (p. 119) an important element which
has hardly been brought into notice before. On few subjects
must primitive views of nature have suffered more alteration
than as to the possibility of transformation or metamorphosis.
The savage watches a cloud drifting away and vanishing in the
sky; he sees the stars appear and disappear; flashes of lightning
Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology '.. 145'
cross the heavens for an instant and are gone; the raindrops
form pools of water which in a few hours gradually depart;
shadows and dreams are beheld for a time and then all at once
they are not. Growth shows changes hardly less great : from the
seed springs the shoot,and then. the flower; out of. eggs come chicks ;
the caterpillar turns into- the chrysalis and thence issues the but-
terfly ; every carcase and mudbank show spontaneous generation
of animals; while fossils- seem to prove .that animals and plants
may be turned into stones. Such phenomena, without the expla-
nation which the world owes to later science, must impress on
the uncultivated man a scarcely limited belief in transformation.
Thus it does not strike a barbarian as at all incredible that a
man should turn into a rock or a tree, or that his personality
should become invisible yet still go to and fro, like the wind
which he cannot see even when he is struggling in its violent
grasp. This argument of Mr. Spencer's will do much to clear
a way in the minds of unprepared readers for a fair appreciation
of what the belief in spirit-life must mean in savage or primi-
tive thought.
Of even more consequence is the treatment (p. 143, &c.)
of the opinion that the primitive mind tends to ascribe life
to things which are not living. This is the assumption which
lies at the basis of Auguste Comte's famous theory (founded
on that of De Brosses in the last century) of Fetishism
as the primitive phase of religion, in which man con-
ceived of all external bodies as animated by a life analogous
to his own, and accordingly could deify and worship not only
animals, but even trees and stones, in fact any object whatso-
ever. Anthropologists of the present generation owe much to
Comte, whose theory of the origin of religion must, however, be
displaced by the very inquiries it has led to. Mr. Spencer, as
his earlier essays show very fully, was one of those who ac-
cepted Comte's doctrine of primitive Fetishism. In the present
\vork, however, not only does he discard Comte's idea of the
primitive conception of Fetishism, which he reduces (as I had
June) to a secondary development of the doctrine of spirits,
but he now attacks Comte's position at its very basis, by
disputing the assertion that children do seriously suppose life
in the dolls or chairs which they treat as alive in play. This
is, as he argues, mere dramatising, and the child would be as
utterly astonished as we should be, if the doll were really to
bite. Following this up at p. 343, he argues that the primeval
man would be as little likely to gratuitously confuse a mere
fetish object with a living creature. Mr. Spencer's reasoning
is most forcible and will strengthen the position of the doctrine
as the underlying cause not only in fetish-worship but in nature-
146 Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology \
worship with its great deities. One may doubt, however, whether
lie does not go too far in cutting away from primitive life the
personifying faculty to which both mythology and religion owe
SD much. To both the child and the savage, human will is the
first-conceived source and reason of action, and the early myth-
maker probably found it as easy as a modern child does to
invest sun and stars, clouds and rivers, rocks and trees, with a
personality drawn from human life. Many readers who go on
to find what artificial devices Mr. Spencer is driven to in ex-
plaining the origin of nature-myths, will come to the con-
clusion that his criticism of Comte's doctrine has gone too
far in sweeping it away, good arid bad together. He has
emptied out the bath with the baby in it, as the German
proverb says.
It is not necessary to go into details as to the chapters on the
origin of the doctrine of the human soul, as founded on a rational
interpretation of phenomena such as sleep and dreams, trance
and death, &c., except on special points. It is to be noticed that,
in stating the effect of dreams in proving to the savage that man
has beside his body a second self or soul, Mr. Spencer (p. 151)
strengthens the case by pointing out that somnambulism tends
to confirm the belief, as proving that men may really go away
during their sleep and do the things they dream of doing. Also
(p. 154) he draws attention to the effect which a belief in dreams
being real events must produce on the uncultivated man's notion
of the possibilities of nature. In his dreams he finds himself
flying through the air, or sees his companion suddenly turn into
a wild beast ; thus it is not strange that he should believe that
such things really happen in life. I have argued (Prim. CuL,
vol. I., p. 496), that the philosophical notion of ideas is directly
derived from the savage notion of the souls of animals and
tilings, itself mainly derived from the appearance of their
phantoms in dreams. Mr. Spencer (p. 156) goes further,
endeavouring to trace from the experience of dreams the de-
velopment of the whole conception of mind. The primary
hypothesis which grew up to account for dreams was the hypo-
thesis of two entities in man ; transform the second entity (or
soul) by dropping physical characters irreconcilable with the
facts, and the modern hypothesis of a mental self or mind
becomes established. It is to be desired that Mr. Spencer
should expand this daring (but I venture to think highly
reasonable) argument beyond its present short statement, and
put it in full fighting order to receive the blows which the
metaphysicians will aim at it.
The well-known evidence from . the beliefs of uncultured
Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology '. 147
nations is next adduced by Mr. Spencer to show how the savage
conception of the soul serves its purpose in accounting for such
vital phenomena as trance, lethargy, &c., when the soul is
supposed to be out of the body, and for the recovery of the
patient to normal life by the soul's supposed return. Death is
of course looked on under this animistic theory as the result of
the soul's permanent departure. It is to be noticed, however,
that Mr. Spencer, in following up the course of these ideas,
gives the argument several new turns. The fact of death is not
at once certainly apparent even to our modern medical know-
ledge, and to the savage it must remain doubtful for an indefinite
time whether the cessation of vital functions is only a prolonged
insensibility, which may be put an end to by the other self or
soul returning. To the practices which would arise during this
doubtful interval, while the bystanders were still uncertain
whether to treat the body as alive or not, Mr. Spencer refers the
origin of a number of funeral rites, as where among the Ami
(not Assu) islanders, several times during the few days after
one has died, they try to make him eat, filling the corpse's
mouth with food and arrack till it runs over the floor. That
this matter-of-fact proceeding should have been the first stage
of the ceremony of offering food to the dead, afterwards carried
on less materially in sacrifice, is a suggestion of great interest.
That the preservation of the corpse by drying and embalming
has often been intended to keep the body for the life or soul to
return to, is well known by direct historical evidence. But Mr.
Spencer's remarks on the subject make much clearer than here-
tofore the intimate connection between the primitive notion of
death being only a temporary departure of the soul from the
body, and the theological doctrine of bodily resurrection, which has
been so little affected by the growth in our knowledge of biology
and chemistry, that " on 5th July, 1874, the Bishop of Lincoln
preached against cremation, as tending to undermine the faith
of mankind in a bodily resurrection ". To the primitive savage,
however, the notion of the corpse being resuscitated a few
days hence was a practical probability of present concern, while
after many ages the civilised man transferred it into the indefinite
future, and it passed into a theological tenet referring to a future
life. In connection with the doctrine of bodily resuscitation,
Mr. Spencer refers to the well-known savage or barbaric rite of
the survivors mutilating themselves as an act of mourning or
propitiation, as by cutting off finger-joints, clipping locks of
hair, or lacerating themselves to draw blood. It has for many
years been well understood by writers on the history of religions,
that at least part of these proceedings are sacrifices of a part of
148 Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology \
the mourner's body to represent the whole, and this view Mr.
Spencer adopts. But how he makes out (p. 180) that such rites
imply the belief in bodily resurrection rather than some more
spiritual phase of the belief in future life, does not seem clear,
and one would think some part of the argument may have been
left out. Passing "on (p. 201) to the practices of placing near or
burying with the corpse a supply of food, weapons, garments, &c.,
Mr. Spencer seems to take as their original intention that they
were to be materially used by the dead on resuscitation. This must
be admitted as at least possible, and indeed the idea, so far as it
existed, would serve as a stepping-stone to the more prevalent
barbaric intention, that the soul of the dead man should use on
his journey to the spirit- world, or after he got there, what may
be called the souls of the weapons and garments and other things
sacrificed. There is proof enough that this came in at a very
early stage of thought, and indeed it seems involved in the
common habit of the lower races to break or bum the objects
offered, an act which flatly contradicts the idea of the corpse
coming to life again and using the things themselves, while it is
fully consistent with the idea of dispatching their souls for the
use of the man's soul. As for the funeral sacrifice of animals
and men with the dead, this is so rational an outcome of
the notion of the soul departing from the body at death,
that there seems ground for referring it to the fully developed
animistic stage. It is indeed a necessary corollary from the
primitive dream-theory of souls, that mere things should have
souls (object-souls as I have called them), inasmuch as their
phantoms actually appear in dreams or visions, as obviously as
men's own phantoms. Mr. Spencer of course admits the exist-
ence of stages of religion when people not only believed in the
existence of souls of men, animals, and things, but when they
dispatched all sorts of such souls by funeral sacrifice for the use
of the dead man's soul. The question between us is this, that
Mr. Spencer brings the notion of wife and slave-sacrifice into
close connection with the putting of food or other things, to be
materially used by the returning dead, while this, it seems to me,
is anticipating the actual course of belief. But the subject will
require more sifting.
Savage religions, as they assume the existence of the ghosts of
the dead who appear to the living in dreams, have to deal with
the question where is the land of souls, the abiding-place - of
these ghosts. This question they answer in a number of ways.
Perhaps the most primitive may be that the ghosts continue
near the corpse, or hover about among the living, who indeed
often desert the house of the dead and leave it to the ghost.
But it is also believed by many tribes that the land of souls is
Mr. Spencer s 'Principles of Sociology '. 149
in some distant part of the country, or on mountain- tops or
remote islands, or down in some cavernous recess or under-world
below the earth, or up in the sky. In fact, the ghost-land is
located by the savage theologian in almost every possible region
he can think of, and there is some difficulty in assigning the
reasons which may have led him to the choice of each. Mr.
Spencer's contribution to this subject in several points advances
it, but sometimes his suggestions seem less reasonable than those
of previous writers. No doubt, for instance, savages who have
migrated from some distance often suppose their ghosts to return
to the home-land, which thus becomes, in their tradition, the
land of souls. But savage tribes, who, it should be remembered,
appreciate geographical direction with tolerable accuracy, give
accounts of the direction of the spirit-land, which show the in-
sufficiency of any attempt to explain them as due to mere re-
collection of migration. Mr. Spencer's own instances (p. 221)
are enough to prove that he has neglected some important
factor in the case. Tribes hardly migrate from the west rather
than from the north or south, or from intermediate points such
as north-west. Yet of the fourteen localities he gives for the
land of souls, seven are in the west against three in the east,
three in the north and only one in the south. This does not at
all exaggerate the actual preponderance among mankind of the
belief that the land of souls or its entrance is in the west where
the sun goes down. And if we ask where the sun goes down
to, there are plenty of tribes ready with the answer that there is
below the earth an under-world into whose cavernous recesses
the sun descends. When Mr. Spencer has to account for the
world-wide belief in a subterranean Hades peopled by the
ghosts of the departed, all he has to offer is the suggestion that
it arose from dwelling and burying the dead in caves. This
latter idea has been suggested by several writers, and is reason-
able enough as an accessory cause of the belief in Hades, but is
no more equal to explaining the whole belief in an under-world
of the dead, than the notion of migration is equal to explaining
why the land of Hades is entered from the west. To understand
the mass of different beliefs on this subject, it is necessary to give
proper weight to the distinct notions of primitive cosmology,
that there is an under-world into which the sun goes down at
night, and to this must be attached the natural inference known
among the. lower races, that in this subterranean Hades the
ghosts, invisible in the daytime, have their home, rarely coming
up to earth except in the night, when ghosts appear and when
the time is for dreams. One cannot but think that Mr. Spencer's
omission of these well-known points may be due to a dislike of
anything like sun-myth. But such solar ideas, whether belong-
150 Mr. Spencers 'Principles of Sociology '.
ing to myth or to rude science, do indisputably arise in the
primitive mind, and exercise an influence on the formation of
belief which cannot be ignored. Again, some other explana-
tions which Mr. Spencer resorts to seem hardly strong enough
to bear the stress laid on them. Thus the practice of burying
the dead on mountain-tops is no doubt sometimes connected
with the idea of these places being the resort of ghosts (p. 218).
But the author goes on to argue (pp. 229-32) that this may have
led by confusion of ideas to the notion of the spirit-world being
in the heaven itself, so that the mountain-stronghold of a con-
quering race may have led the inferior tribes around to belief in
a heavenly paradise of divine beings, the chief of the tribe being
promoted to divine dignity as the thunder-god. Of course there
is a possibility of such ideas having sometimes arisen in such
ways, but it would require strong evidence to persuade us that
mountaineers ever really came to be taken for spirits dwelling
in the sky ; and it is unfortunate that Mr. Spencer, who offers
fair evidence in support of notions comparatively easy of
belief, should here draw so largely on his reader's imagina-
tion. Before quitting the subject of primitive ideas of a world
after death, notice should be taken of an ingenious hypothesis,
though this is not the place to discuss it properly on the evi-
dence. It is well known that the religions of numerous nations,
savage and cultured, recognise the notion of a river which the
departed soul has to cross by bridge or ferry or otherwise, to
reach the land of souls on the other side. How did this idea of
a river of death occur so often to the savage imagination ? Mr.
Spencer suggests (p. 224) that it was started among tribes by
the tradition of an actual migration from the country of their
forefathers. As they had no boats with them, some large river
to be crossed was naturally a chief obstacle to overcome, and the
re-passing it would be regarded as a chief obstacle on the journey
made by the dead back to the home-land of their nation, now
become their spirit-land. It is not impossible, he continues,
that the conceived danger of this river-crossing may have led to
the idea that spirits cannot pass over running streams.
The argument of the present work (ch. xvi., &c.) as to the
development in primitive belief, by which the original human
ghost-souls gave rise to the class of pervading spirits or
demons, runs nearly parallel with my own (Primitive Culture,
chap, xiv., &c.). A vast proportion of the spirits imagined by
men never even lose their original quality of being human
ghosts or manes; as such they enter or possess men, causing
madness, disease, or inspiration, persecuting them or tending
them as guardian spirits, killing them or saving their lives.
Beliefs ancient and modern in demoniacal possession and beset-
Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology 1 . 151
merit, in inspiration by deities and accompaniment by guardian
spirits, as well as exorcism and kindred rites resulting from
such beliefs, are developed from the primitive animistic
conception, and these phantom-beings pervading the universe
become the personal causes of events. Thus the spiritual
series, beginning with human souls, extends on into other
special classes of spirits, of whom some are mere minor
demons, angels, elves, &c., while some few rise to the rank of
great deities, controlling man and nature. There is no real
break in the whole series of conceptions which begins with the
human ghost and ends with the highest divinity ; nor is there
the least difficulty in understanding how the prayer and worship
and offering, at first addressed to the human ghost who is pro-
pitiated by them in the most absolutely human way, came to
be addressed with more or less change of meaning and expansion
of ceremonial by the priest to the divinity in his temple. But
though the general course of development seems clear enough,
there are many open points in the details which will require
years of careful study to settle. One part of the matter is
brought into new clearness by Mr. Spencer when (p. 272, &c.)
he sketches the probable transition from the burial-place, whi-
ther the survivors came with food to propitiate the ghost still
lingering there, to the stately temple, the abode of a ghost-like
deity, who received there his solemn sacrifices. I think, how-
ever, that Mr. Spencer scarcely recognises enough the develop-
ment of the idea of spiritual beings, in which the primary
ghost-nature is almost lost, and the demon or nature-spirit
assumes an independent character distinct from humanity. Not
to dwell on other parts of the exposition, which will be approved
as a matter of course by readers who accept the general principles
of animistic development, I wish to devote my remaining re-
marks to two subjects where Mr. Spencer may seem to others,
as he does to me, to extend parts of the theory till they stand
on unsafe ground. I refer to his scheme of the origin of animal-
worship, and of the great polytheistic divinities.
Taking animal-worship in general as a disguised form of
ancestor-worship, Mr. Spencer assigns (ch. xxii.) the causes
which, in his opinion, have led men to worship such lower
creatures. Due importance is given to the effect of beliefs in
animal transformation (as in the familiar cases of were-wolves
and man-tigers), as also of the doctrine of transmigration of
souls into animal bodies, which are often recognised as incarna-
tions of the dead by their frequenting their old homes (as in the
case of tame house-snakes thought to be returned ancestors), or
by their being found near the burial-place. All this is plain
enough, but Mr. Spencer lays much greater stress on another
152 Mr. Spencers 'Principles of Sociology'.
cause the misunderstanding of personal names. A man is
called Tiger ; he dies, his great-grandchildren hearing from their
parents in their rude indefinite phrases the name of this ances-
tor, suppose themselves to be descended from an actual tiger,
and thence arises the belief in a divine tiger-ancestry, and a
worship of tigers. Now, though Mr. Spencer seems to have no
actual proof that anything amounting to this has ever actually
happened, yet it must be allowed that such proof would be
difficult to get at. So let us admit at least the possibility of
its having sometimes happened, thus accepting it as one of the
various mythical processes which may have contributed to
animal-worship. But the question is, whether such a possible
cause is at all commensurate with the great place in the religion of
the world ascribed to it by Mr. Spencer. Look at such a case as
that of the Patagonians, divided into animal castes or families,
such as the caste of the tiger, the lion, the guanaco, and the ostrich,
each of these castes being presided over by a particular deity-
its creator. Is it in accordance with probability that such a
systematic division should have arisen from chance-misunder-
standing of the names of four ancestors, who happened by
chance to be provided with convenient names to make up a
neat symmetrical set of animal-totems ? Moreover, it is not
once, but a number of times, and in distant regions of the globe,
that such symmetrical sets of clan-names have to be accounted
for, as, for instance, among the Bechuanas with their division
into the clans of the crocodile, fish, lion, wild vine. This hardly
looks like the result of chance verbal misunderstanding of one
particular class of personal names, which happened to be taken
from animals and plants. The present theory was published by
Mr. Spencer in his paper " On tlie Origin of Animal- Worship "
in the Fortnight 1 1/ Review, May, 1870. Mr. A. Lang, in the same
periodical, 1873, objected that early man knew too little as to
who his progenitors were. It is a point which any ethnologist
would notice, that the very tribes most distinguished for their
division by animal-totems reckon descent not on the male but
011 the female side. Thus a North American who belongs to
the clan of Wolf, inherited this totem not from his father, or
grandfather, or great-grandfather, but from his mother ; yet, if
a personal name at all, it was a man's and not a woman's. A
remark of Mr. Spencer's (p. 667) meets this, though in a way
which seems to me to show how artificial his hypothesis is :
" Commonly the names of the clans which are forbidden to
intermarry, such as Wolf, Bear, Eagle, Whale, &c., are names
given to men; implying, as I have before contended ( 170-3),
descent from distinguished male ancestors bearing those names
descent which, notwithstanding the system of female kinship,
Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology \ 153
was remembered when there was pride in the connection ". For
my own part, I cannot think that Mr. Spencer's ingenious guess
has solved the mystery which still hangs over the origin of the
totem-system, and over that large part of animal-worship which
cannot be explained as resulting either from direct worship by
savages of powerful, dangerous beasts like the bear or tiger, or
from the notion that beasts are transformed men, or inhabited
by human souls, or fetishes, or incarnations of other spirits.
Turning now to Mr. Spencer's explanations of the great deities
of polytheistic religion, it is well known that many of them
simply result from expansion and idealisation of divine ancestors,
actual or imagined. Even in our own time, in India or South
Africa, the soul of a deceased warrior or sorcerer may pass into
a local deity of some importance, and the apotheosis of a Eoman
Emperor may be paralleled among the modern Polynesians whose
kings were talked of with divine attributes even in life, and be-
came great celestial potentates at death. And when barbaric
theology works back in imagination to first ancestors, it readily
produces for belief and worship such great divine beings as the
Unkulunkulu of the Zulus, the Old-old-one, ancestor, god, and
creator. Nor is there any difficulty in believing that a real
man distinguished for any particular art or power should become
a patron god of his particular department, much as St. Peter is the
patron saint of fishmongers. All this is part and parcel of the
animistic theory of religion. But Mr. Spencer seems to stretcli
the principle of deities being actual ancestors deified somewhat
far. Thus (p. 417) he treats the Kamchatkan legend of Kutka,
maker of heaven and earth and first father of men, as founded
on recollection of a real early ancestor. Maybe ; but the stories
the natives tell of him are mostly the wildest of fables, and it is
quite as easy to invent names for the inferred first pair of an-
cestors, the Adam and Eve of a race, as to remember actual
ancestors for many generations. Some cases where Mr. Spencer's
view admits of being tested, hardly look encouraging. Thus
(p. 313) he treats as a real remembered ancestor the divinity
named Quiateot, who the Nicaraguans said sent them the rain,
their account of him adding that he is a man and has father and
mother, and those dwell where the Sun rises in heaven. If,
however, we look at the etymology of the name Quiateot, it is
seen simply to mean Rain-god (Mexican quiahuitl rain, teotl
god), which much lowers the probability of its having been a
real ancestor's name. Mr. Spencer's theory leads him (p. 422)
not only to introduce seriously the so-called "historical" Odin,
who is written of in the Heimsk ringlet as an ancient invader-king
and sorcerer in Scandinavia, but he even treats him as the real
personage from whom the process of ancestor-worship de-
154 Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology '.
veloped the Scandinavian deity, Odin the All-father. That is
to say, a legend which rests on the authority of a chronicle of
the 13th century, and which, from a historical point of view,
stands about on a par with the legend of Brutus of Britain, is
offered as explaining the existence of a divinity whose real
antiquity is shown by his belonging to both the Teutonic and
the Scandinavian nations, as far back as there is distinct record
of their pantheon, and notwithstanding their long-diverged his-
tory and languages. Mr. Spencer here engages his theory in
conflict not merely with the speculations of mythologists, but
with the canons of sober historical criticism.
A scarcely less weak point, it must seem to many students, is
exf)osedj by Mr. Spencer in chap, xxiv., where he constructs a
general theory to account for the great nature-gods of polytheism,
from misunderstanding of personal names of real ancestors, and
other mere verbal misunderstandings which, when repeated on
authority, are supposed to have passed into religious beliefs.
For instance, people reaching a foreign shore in boats may be
called " men of the sea," or by an easy transition, " children of
the sea," whence legend may evolve a conception of the Sea
itself as a divine parent (p. 395). Or if a tribe migrates from the
east and hence conies to be called " children of the sun," this is
a source out of which the conception of the Sun as a divine
ancestor may arise (p. 406). Or some noted warrior may be
called Sun (as Pedro de Alvarado was by the Aztecs from his
frank, fair countenance, and golden hair), or a king may be com-
pared metaphorically with the sun, as many indeed have been ;
and hereby again later generations may be led to believe in a
divine Sun or Sun-god. Or when a man is named Dawn (a real
instance is given of a New Zealand chief called Heavenly Dawn,
from his having been born at sunrise), and such a man becomes
noted and traditions of him are handed down in which uncritical
savages identify him with the real dawn, then the adventures
would be interpreted in such a manner as the phenomena of the
dawn made most feasible (p. 399), and thus would be produced
one of those legends which mythologists call dawn-myths. Now
Mr. Spencer of course never adduces as a cause anything that is
actually impossible, and divine myths and beliefs may have at
times grown up in such ways. To take the most probable case
here given, it is mentioned (p. 394) that the Santals worship as
their national god, Marang Buru, the great mountain (the name is
misspelt Nurang), and his explanation of this is that the people,
who regard the eastern Himalayas as their natal region, have con-
founded the notion of a mountain being the source of their race
with that of a mountain being a personal parent, a divine
ancestor. It may be so, though one would like rather stronger
Mr. Spencer's 'Principles of Sociology '. 155
evidence. But when we look at the polytheistic systems of the
world at large, it is seen how consistently the same great divini-
ties re-appear among remote tribes ; in all quarters of the world
are found representatives of the Heaven-god, the Earth-god, the
Sea-god, the Sun-god, the Moon-god, the Wind-gods, &c. The
question at once suggests itself : Did concatenations of verbal
blunders happen scores of times among scores of different
nations, so as after all to work round to the simple result that
savages and barbarians are apt to recognise among their chief
gods certain personal divinities who are attached to or embodied
in the great obvious phenomena of nature ? I cannot but
think that on comparison of the verbal misunderstanding-
theory with the facts of polytheism which it has to account for, it
will be rejected as having the doctrine of chances against it.
To account for the prevalence of polytheistic nature-worship,
we must ascribe it to some consistent common cause acting on
men's minds. For my own part, I fail to see anything to object
to in the ordinary notion that savages do directly personify the
Sun or the Sky, the Winds or the Itivers, treating them as great
beings acting by will, and able to do good or harm to men. It
is the easiest way in which rude minds can contemplate them.
It is favoured by the ambiguity of language which arises from
speaking of inanimate objects in the terms applied to persons,
as in an example of Mr. Spencer's own, where a child seeing a
great meteor, exclaims, " 0, mamma, there's the moon rinnin'
awa' ". And when in early stages of religion the notion gained
ground of nature-spirits made after the likeness of human souls,
the. great powers of nature would be more and more identified
with divine personal beings, glorified developments of the same
original human type. While fully agreeing with Mr. Spencer
in thinking that many of the current speculations on the origin
of " nature-myths " to be met with in modern books on com-
parative mythology are mere fancies, as mythical as the myths
themselves, I cannot but think he has gone too far in the
opposite direction by so far ignoring the myth-making tendency
of primitive man. This is too large a subject to discuss at the
end of a notice like the present, but it is needful to mention it,
as it is in rivalry with this theory of mythic personification of
nature that Mr. Spencer brings into such prominence the hypo-
thesis of verbal misunderstandings.
In conclusion, it is proper to mention the reason which has
led me to dwell so much more on the points where Mr.
Spencer's views differ from my own, than on the branches of
the subject, really more both in number and consequence, as to
which I have the high satisfaction of finding my own inferences
from the facts to be in unity with those arrived at by so
156 Consciousness and Unconsciousness.
eminent a thinker. My object in so often taking the line of a
fault-finder is mainly this. As yet there is but a limited
number of students who seriously occupy themselves with the
problem of the development of religious ideas as viewed from
the ethnological standing-point. Probably in a few years' time
public interest in this great problem will be much wider and
deeper, a result to which the present work must largely contri-
bute. When this happens, a vast controversy will no doubt set
in, for which it will be advantageous to ethnologists to be well
prepared beforehand. The previous interval may therefore be
well turned to account in settling discrepancies as to sub-
ordinate points, so that the weaker parts of the theory of
animistic development may be cut out and their places supplied
with stronger evidence and reasoning. Mr. Spencer's work
seems to me to do this in several branches of the subject, arid
notably as to ancestor-worship and fetishism. It is the best
acknowledgment of the importance of the work at once to raise
objection to the points which seem objectionable, that it may be
settled as soon as possible whether the author will be able to
maintain them or not.
EDWARD B. TYLOR.
II CONSCIOUSNESS AND UNCONSCIOUSNESS .
SCIENCE demands precision of terms ; and in this sense Con-
dillac was justified in defining it " unc langue bienfaite". The
sciences of Measurement are exact because of the precision of
their terms, and are powerful because of their exactness. The
sciences of Classification cannot aspire to this precision, and
therefore, although capable of attaining to a fuller knowledge of
phenomena than can be reached by their rivals, this advantage
of a wider range is accompanied by the disadvantage of a less
perfect exposition of results. While physicists and chemists
have only to settle the significance of the facts observed, biologists
and social theorists have over and above this to settle the
significance of the terms they employ in expressing the facts
observed. Hence more than half their disputes are at bottom
verbal.
This is markedly the case in the question of Automatism. One
man declares that animals are automata ; another that they are
conscious automata ; and while it is quite possible to hold these
views and not practically be in disagreement with the views
* From a forthcoming volume on The Physical Basis of Mind.
Consciousness and Unconsciousness. 157
of ordinary men, or indeed with the views of spiritualist and
materialist philosophers, we can never be sure that the advocates
of Automatism do not mean what they are generally understood
to mean. If a man says that by an automaton he does not
here mean a machine, such as a steam-engine or a watch, but a
vital mechanism which has its parts so adjusted that its actions
resemble those of a machine ; and if he adds that this automaton
is also conscious of some of its actions, though unconscious of
others, we can only object to his using terms which have misleading
connotations. If he mean by "conscious automata," that animals
are mechanisms moved on " purely mechanical principles," their
consciousness having nothing whatever to do with the production
of their actions, then indeed our objection is not only to his use
of terms, but to his interpretation of the facts.
The questions of fact are two : Are animal mechanisms right-
fully classed beside machines ? and, Is consciousness a coefficient
in the actions of animal mechanism ? The first has already been
answered ; the second demands a preliminary settlement of the
terms " conscious," " unconscious," " voluntary," and " invol-
untary ". The aim of Physiology is to ascertain the particular
combinations of the elementary parts involved in each particular
function in a word, the mechanism of organic phenomena ; and
the modern Reflex Theory is an attempt to explain this mechan-
ism on purely mechanical principles, without the co-operation of
other principles, especially those of Sensation and Volition. It
is greatly aided by the ambiguity of current terms. We are
accustomed to speak of certain actions as being performed
unconsciously or involuntarily. We are also accustomed to say
that Consciousness is necessary to transform an impression into
a sensation, and that Volition is the equivalent of conscious effort.
When, therefore, unconscious and involuntary actions are re-
corded, they seem to be actions of an insentient mechanism.
The Reflex Theory once admitted, a rigorous logic could not fail
to extend it to all animal actions.
I reject the Reflex Theory, on grounds hereafter to be urged,
but at present call attention to the great ambiguity in the terms
" conscious " and " unconscious". In one sense no definition of
Consciousness can be satisfactory, since it designates an ultimate
fact which cannot therefore be made more intelligible than it is
already. In another sense no definition is needed, since every
one knows what is meant by saying, " I am conscious of such a
change, or such a movement". It is here the equivalent of
Feeling. To be conscious of a change, is to feel a change. If
we desire to express it in physiological terms, we must define
Consciousness -"a function of the organism"; and this definition
we shall find eminently useful, because the organism being a vital
158 Consciousness and Unconsciousness.
mechanism and the integrity of that mechanism being necessary for
the integrity of the function, while every variation of the mechan-
ism will bring a corresponding variation of the function, we shall
have an objective guide and standard in our inquiries. Organisms
greatly differ in complexity, yet because they also agree in the
cardinal conditions of Vitality, among which Sensibility is one,
we conclude that they all have Feeling ; but the Feeling of the
one will differ from that of another, according to the complexity
of the sentient mechanism in each. The perfection of this me-
chanism lies in the'co-ordination of its parts, and the consensus
of its sentient activities; any disturbance of that consensus must
cause a modification in the total consciousness ; and when the
disturbance is profound the modification is marked by such
terms as " insanity," " loss of consciousness," " insensibility ".
These terms do not imply that the sentient organs have lost
their Sensibility, but only that the disturbed mechanism has no
longer its normal consensus, no longer its normal state of Con-
sciousness. Each organ is active in its own way so long as its
own mechanism is preserved ; but the united action of the organs
having been disturbed, their resultant function has been altered.
Hence in a fit of Epilepsy there is a complete absence of some
normal reactions, with exaggeration of others. In a state of
Coma there is no spontaneity none of the manifold adaptations
of the organism to fluctuating excitations, external and internal,
observable in the normal state. The organism still manifests
Sensibility but this is so unlike the manifestations when its
mechanism is undisturbed (and necessarily so since the Sensibi-
lity varies with the mechanism) that it is no longer called by
the same name. In the normal organism Sensibility means
Feeling, or Consciousness ; but in the abnormal organism there
is said to be a " loss of Consciousness ". What the physiologist
or the physican means by the phrase " loss of Consciousness " is
intelligible, and for his purpose unobjectionable. He observes
many organic processes going on undisturbed the unconscious
patient breathes, secretes, moves his limbs, &c. These processes
are referred to the parts of the mechanism which are not dis-
turbed ; they are obviously independent of the adjustment of the
mechanism which, by its consensus, has the special resultant
named Consciousness ; he therefore concludes that these, and
many other organic processes, which are neither accompanied
nor followed by discriminated feelings, are the direct conse-
quences of the stimulated mechanism. He never hesitates to
adopt the popular language, and say, " We sometimes act uncon-
sciously, perceive unconsciously, and even think unconsciously,
all by the simple reflex of the mechanism ".
Now observe the opening for error in this language. The -actions
Consciousness and Unconsciousness. 159
are said to go on unconsciously, and, because unconsciously, as
pure reflexes, which are then assigned to an insentient mechanism,
and likened to the actions of machines. But, as I hope here-
after to make evident, the reflex mechanism necessarily involves
Sensibility ; and therefore reflex actions may be unaccompanied by
Consciousness in one meaning of that term without ceasing
to be sentient : the feelings are operative, although not discrimi-
nated. On the other hand, there is another and very general
meaning of the term Consciousness, which is the equivalent of
Sentience.
In discussing Automatism, or the Eeflex Theory, it is abso-
lutely necessary that we should first settle the meaning we assign
to the term Consciousness. The laxity with which the term is
used may be seen in the enumeration occupying six pages of
Professor Bain's account of the various meanings. Psychology
is often said to be " the science of the facts of Consciousness ";
and the Brain is often assigned "as the organ of Conscious-
ness ". Yet there are many mental processes, and many cerebral
processes, which are declared to be unconscious. Obviously if
Consciousness is the function of the Brain, there can be no
cerebral activity which is unconscious ; just as there can be no
activity of the lungs which is not respiratory. Usage therefore
points to a general and a special sense of the term. The general
usage identifies it with Sensibility, in its subjective aspect as
Sentience, including all psychical states, both those classed under
Sensation, and those under Thought. These states are the " facts
of consciousness " with which Psychology is occupied. In the
special usage it is distinguished from all other psychical states
by a peculiar reflected feeling of Attention, whereby we not
only have a sensation, but also feel that we have it ; we not only
think, but are conscious that we are thinking ; not only act, but
are conscious of what we do. It is this which Kant indicates
when he defines it " the subjective form accompanying all our
conceptions (Begriffe) "; and Jessen when he defines it " the
internal knowing of our knowing, and in itself reflected know-
ing ".*
We shall often have to recur to this general and this special
meaning, both of which are too firmly rooted for any successful
attempt to displace them. The fact that some organic processes
and some mental processes take place now consciously and now
unconsciously, i.e., now with the feeling of reflected attention,
* " Das Bewusstwerden 1st nichts Anderes als ein weiter fortgeschrit-
tenes Erinnern oder Neuwerden des von aussen aufgenonimenen Wis-
sens, ein irmerliches Wissen dieses Wissens oder ein in sich reflectirtes
"Wissen." JESSEN : Versuch einer Wissenschafthchen Begriindung der
Psychologic, 1855, p. 477.
160 Consciousness and Unconsciousness.
and now with no such feeling, assuredly demands a correspond-
ing expression ; nor, in spite of inevitable ambiguities, is there
ground for regretting that the expression chosen should be only
an extension of the expression already adopted for all other
states of Sentience. A sentient or conscious state can only be
a state of the sentient organism, itself the unity of many organs,
each having its Sensibility. There is more or less consensus,
but there is no introduction of a new agent within the organism,
connecting what was physical impression into mental reaction.
From first to last there has been nothing but neural processes,
and combinations of such processes which, viewed subjectively,
are sentient processes. Thus the gradations of sensitive reaction
are Sentience, Consentience, and Consciousness, which are repre-
sented in the Logic of Feeling and the Logic of Signs. The
familiar term Conscience will then represent the Logic of Con-
duct. Thus understood, we may say that a man sometimes acts
unconsciously, or thinks unconsciously, although his action and
thought are ruled by Consentience, as he sometimes acts and
thinks unconscientiously, although he is not without obedience
to Conscience on other occasions. The feeling which determines
an action is operative, although it may not be discriminated from
simultaneous feelings. When this is the case, we say the feel-
ing is unconscious ; but this no more means that it is a purely
physical process, that it takes place outside the sphere of Sen-
tience, than the immoral conduct of a man would be said to be
mechanical, and not the conduct of a moral agent. There is
undoubtedly a marked distinction expressed in the terms Con-
sciousness and Unconsciousness, but it is not that of Mental
and Physical, it is that of extremes such as Light and Darkness.
Just as Darkness is a positive optical sensation very different
from mere privation just as it replaces the sensation of Light,
blends with it, struggles with it, and in all respects differs from
the absence of all optical sensibility in the skin ; so Unconscious-
ness struggles with, blends with, and replaces Consciousness in
the organism, and is a positive state of the sentient organism,
not to be confounded with a mere negation of Sentience ; above
all, not to be relegated to merely mechanical processes,
llemember that, strictly speaking, Consciousness is a psycho-
logical not a physiological term, and is only used in Physiology
on the assumption that it is the subjective equivalent of an ob-
jective process. To avoid the equivoque of " unconscious sensa-
tion," we may substitute the term "unconscious neural process";
and as all neural processes imply Sensibility, which in the
subjective aspect is Sentience, we say that Sentience has various
modes and degrees sueh as Perception, Ideation, Emotion,
Volition, which may be conscious, sub-conscious, or unconscious.
Consciousness and Unconsciousness. 161
When Leibnitz referred to the fact of " obscure ideas," . and
modern writers expressed this fact as "unconscious cerebration,"
the one phrase did not imply a process that was other than
mental, the other phrase did not imply a process that was other
than physiological; both indicated a mode of the process known
as Consciousness under other modes. There are different neural
elements grouped in Ideation and Emotion ; there are different
neural elements grouped in Consciousness, Sub-consciousness,
and Unconsciousness; but one tissue with one property is active
in all.
The nervous organism is affected as a whole by every affection
of its constituent parts. Every excitation, instead of terminat-
ing with itself as is the case in most physical processes or
with the motor impulse it excites, is propagated throughout the
continuous tissue, and thus sends a thrill throughout the
organism. The wave of excitation in passing onwards beats
against variously-grouped elements temporary and permanent
centres disturbing their balance more or less, arid liberating
the energy of some, increasing the tension of others, but neces-
sarily affecting all. Those groups which have their energy
liberated set up processes that are either discriminated as
sensations, or are blended with the general stream, according to
their relative energy in the consensus. Thus the impulse on
reaching the centres for the heart, lungs, legs, and tail excites
the innervation of these organs ; but as these are only parts of
the organism, and as all the parts enter the consensus, and
Consciousness is the varying resultant of this ever-varying
consensus, the thrill which any particular stimulus excites will
be unconscious, sub-conscious, or conscious, in proportion to the
extent of the irradiated disturbance, which will depend on the
statical conditions of the centres at the moment. A sound
sends a thrill which excites emotion, causes the heart to beat
faster, the muscles to quiver, the skin-glands to pour forth their
secretion; yet this same sound heard by another man, or the
same man under other conditions, physical or historical, merely
sends a faint thrill, just vivid enough to detach itself as a
sensation from the other simultaneous excitations ; and the
same sound may excite a thrill which is so faint and fugitive
as to pass unconsciously. Physiological and psychological
inductions assure us that these are only differences of degree.
The same physiological effects accompany the conscious and
unconscious state. Every sensory impression, no matter whether
discriminated or not, affects the circulation and develops heat.
The blood-vessels of the part impressed expand, vessels else-
where contract a change in the blood pressure has been effected,
which of course implies that the whole organism has been
162 Consciousness and Unconsciousness.
affected. Delicate instruments prove that at the time a sensa-
tion is produced the temperature of the brain is raised. The
same is true of ideation. Mosso has invented a method of
registering the effect of thought on the circulation. He finds
ideation accompanied by a contraction of the peripheral vessels
proportionate to the degree of intellectual effort. A young man
translating Greek showed greater contraction than when he was
translating Latin. During sound sleep when we are said to
be unconscious sudden noises always cause contraction of the
peripheral vessels. Psychological observation assures us that
the conscious and unconscious states were both consentient,
and were both operative in the same degree. The absorbed
thinker threads his way through crowded .streets, and is sub-
conscious and unconscious of the various sights, sounds, touches,
and muscular movements which make up so large a portion of
his sentient excitation at the time ; yet he deftly avoids obstacles,
hears the sound of a hurried step behind him, recognises an
interesting object directly it presents itself, and can even recall
in Memory many of the uninteresting objects which he passed
in sub-conscious and unconscious indifference.
On all grounds, therefore, we must say that between conscious,
sub-conscious, and unconscious states the difference is only of
degree of complication in the neural processes, which by relative
preponderance in the consensus determine a relative discrimina-
tion. We can only discriminate one thrill at a time ; but the
neural excitations simultaneously pressing towards a discharge
are many ; and the conditions which determine now this, and
now the other excitation to predominate by its differential
pressure, are far beyond any mechanical estimate. I mention
this because the advocates of the Eeflex Theory maintain that
the neural processes are the same whether a sensation be
produced or not; and that since the same actions follow the
external stimulation whether sensation be produced or not, this
proves the actions to be purely mechanical. I reply, the neural
processes are not the same throughout in the two cases other-
wise the effects would be the same. You might as well say,
" Since the explosion of the gun is the same, whether shotted or
not, a blank cartridge will kill " ; but if you tell me that your
gun killed the bird, I declare that the cartridge was not a blank
one. Whether the explosion of the gun also produced terror in
one bystander, curiosity in a second, and attracted no notice
from a third, will be altogether another matter. In like manner
the sensory impression which determines a movement may or
may not be accompanied or followed by other sentient states ;
the fact of such movement is evidence of its sentient antecedent ;
and an external stimulus that will produce this neural process,
Consciousness and Unconsciousness. 163
and this consequent movement, must produce a feeling, although
not necessarily a discriminated sensation. Now since, for dis-
crimination, other neural processes must co-operate, we cannot
say that in the two cases the neural processes have been the
same throughout ; nor because of this difference can we say that
the process of the undiscriminated sensation is a mechanical, not
a sentient process.
The need of recognising Consciousness and Consentience as
degrees of energy and complexity in sentient states is apparent
when we consider animal phenomena. Has a bee consciousness?
Has a snail volition ? or are they both insentient mechanisms ?
All inductions warrant the assertion that a bee has thrills
propagated throughout its organism by the agency of its nerves ;
and that some of these thrills are of the kind called sensations
even discriminated sensations. Nevertheless we may reason-
ably doubt whether the bee has sentient states resembling other-
wise than remotely the sensations, emotions, and thoughts which
constitute human Consciousness, either in the general or the
special sense of that term. The bee feels and reacts on feelings ;
but its feelings cannot closely resemble our own, because the
conditions in the two cases are different. The bee may even be
said to think (in so far as Thought means logical combination of
feelings), for it appears to form Judgments in the sphere of the
Logic of Feeling TO VO^TLKOV ; although incapable of the Logic
of Signs TO ^iavQj]TiKov. We should therefore say the bee has
Consentience, but not Consciousness unless we accept Con-
sciousness in its general signification as the equivalent of
Sentience. The organism of the bee differs from that of a man,
as a mud hut from a marble palace. But since underlying these
differences there are fundamental resemblances, the functions of
the two will be fundamentally alike. Both have the function
of Sentience; as mud hut and palace have both the office of
sheltering.
The question of Volition needs a separate discussion. Re-
stricting ourselves here to that of Consciousness, and recalling
the distinction of the two meanings of the term, we now
approach the question of Unconsciousness. Are we to under-
stand this term as designating a purely physical state in
contrast to the purely mental state of Consciousness ; or only as
designating a difference of degree ? This is like asking whether
Light and parkness are both optical feelings, or one an optical
feeling and the other a physical process ? On the Reflex
Theory, no sooner does a vital and mental process pass from the
daylight of Consciousness, or twilight of Sub-consciousness, into
the darkness of Unconsciousness, than the whole order of
phenomena is abruptly changed, they cease to be vital, mental,
164 Consciousness and UncoTisciousness.
and lapse into physical, mechanical processes. The grounds of
this conclusion are, first, the unpsychological assumption that
the unconscious state is out of the sphere of Sentience ; and
secondly, the unphysiological assumption that the Brain is the
only portion of the nervous system which has the property of
Sensibility. Restate the conclusion in different terms and its
fallacy emerges: "organic processes suddenly cease to be organic,
and become purely physical by a slight change in their relative
position in the consensus; the organic process which was a
conscious sensation a moment ago, when its energy was not
balanced by some other process, suddenly falls from its place in
the group of organic phenomena sentient phenomena to sink
into the group of inorganic phenomena now that its energy is
balanced ". Consider the parallel case of Motion and Best in
the objective sphere. They are two functions of the co-operant
forces, one dynamic, the other static ; although markedly dis-
tinguishable as functions, we know that they are simply the co-
operant forces now unbalanced and now balanced ; what we call
Rest is also a product of moving forces, each of which is operant,
and will issue in a definite resultant when its counter-force is
removed. Motion and Rest are correlatives, and both belong to
the sphere of Kinetics. In like manner Consciousness and
Unconsciousness are correlatives, both belonging to the sphere
of Sentience.* Every one of the unconscious processes is
operant, changes the general state of the organism, and is
capable of at once issuing in a discriminated sensation when the
force which balances it is disturbed. I was unconscious of the
scratch of my pen in writing the last sentence, but I am
distinctly conscious of every scratch in writing this one. Then,
as now, the scratching sound sent a faint thrill through my
organism, but its relative intensity was too faint for discrimina-
tion; now that I have redistributed the co-operant forces, by
what is called an act of Attention, I hear distinctly every sound
the pen produces.
The inclusion of Sub-consciousness within the sentient sphere
is obvious ; the inclusion of Unconsciousness within that sphere
may be made so, when we consider its modes of production, and
compare it with the extra-sensible conception of molecules and
atoms. The Matter which is sensible as masses, may be divided
into molecules, which lie beyond the discrimination of sense ;
and these again into atoms, which are purely ideal conceptions ;
but because molecules are proved, and atoms are supposed, to
* In conmon language a stone or a tree is said to be unconscious; but
this is an anthropomorphic extension of the term. In strictness we
should no more speak of unconsciousness outside the sphere of Sentience
than of darkness outside the sphere of Vision.
Consciousness and Unconsciousness. 165
have material properties, and to conform to sensible canons of
the objective world, we never hesitate to class them under the
head of Matter ; nor do we imagine that in passing beyond the
discrimination of Sense they pass into the subjective region.
They are still physical, not mental facts. So with Sentience.
We may trace it through infinite gradations from Consciousness
to Sub-consciousness, till it fades away in Unconsciousness;
but from first to last the processes have been those of a sen-
tient organism ; and by this are broadly distingushed from
all processes in anorganisms. The movement of a limb has
quite different modes of production from the movement of a
wheel ; and among its modes must be included those of
Sensibility, a peculiarly vital property. Oxidation may be
slow or rapid, manifesting itself as combustion, heat, or flame,
but it is always oxidation always a special chemical pheno-
menon. And so the neural process of Sentience, whether
conscious, sub-conscious, or unconscious, is always a state of the
sentient organism. If a material process does not change its
character, and become spiritual, on passing beyond the range of
sensible appreciation, why should a psychical process become
material on passing beyond the range of discrimination ? If we
admit molecules as physical units, sentient tremors are psychical
units. The extra-sensible molecules have indeed their subjective
aspect, and only enter perception through the " greeting of the
spirit ". The sentient tremors have also their objective aspect,
and cannot come into existence without the neural tremors,
which are their physical conditions.
It is only by holding fast to such a conception that we can
escape the many difficulties and contradictions presented by
unconscious phenomena, and explain many physiological and
psychological processes. Descartes followed by many philo-
sophers identified Consciousness with Thought. To this day
we constantly hear that to have a sensation, and to be conscious
of it, is one and the same state ; which is only admissible on the
understanding that Consciousness means Sentience, and Sentience
the activity of the nervous system viewed subjectively. Leibnitz
pointed out that we have many -psychical states which are
unconscious states to have an idea and be conscious of it,
are, he said, not one but two states. The Consciousness by
Descartes created into an essential condition of Thought, was
by Leibnitz reduced to an accompaniment which not only may
be absent, but in the vast majority of cases is absent. The
teaching of most modern psychologists is that Consciousness
forms but a small item in the total of psychical processes.
Unconscious sensations, ideas, and judgments are made to play
a great part in their explanations. It is very certain that in
166 Consciousness and Unconsciousness.
every conscious volition every act that is so characterised
the larger part of it is quite unconscious. It is equally certain
that in every perception there are unconscious processes of
reproduction and inference there is much that is implicit,
some of which cannot be made explicit a " middle distance "
of sub-consciousness, and a " background " of unconsciousness.
But, throughout, the processes are those of Sentience.
Unconsciousness is by some writers called latent Conscious-
ness. Experiences which are no longer manifested are said to
be stored up in Memory, remaining in the Soul's picture-gallery,
visible directly the shutters are opened. We are not conscious
of these feelings, yet they exist as latent feelings, and become
salient through association. As a metaphorical expression of
the familiar facts of Memory this may pass, but it has been
converted from a metaphor into an hypothesis, and we are
supposed to have feelings and ideas, when in fact we have
nothing more than a modified disposition of the organism -
temporary or permanent which when stimulated will respond
in this modified manner. The modification of the organism
when permanent becomes hereditary ; and its response is then
called an instinctive or automatic action. And as actions pass
by degrees from conscious and voluntary into sub-conscious and
sub-voluntary, and finally into unconscious and involuntary, we
call them volitional, secondarily automatic, and automatic. If
any one likes to say the last are due to latent consciousness, I
shall not object. I only point to the fact that the differences
here specified are simply differences of degree all the actions
are those of the sentient organism.
Picture to yourself this sentient organism incessantly stimu-
lated from without and from within, and adjusting itself in.
response to such stimulations. In the blending of stimulations,
modifying and arresting each other, there is a fluctuating
" composition of forces," with ever- varying resultants. Besides
the stream of direct stimulations, there is a wider stream of
indirect or reproduced stimulations. Together with the present
sensation there is always a more or less complex group of
revived sensations, the one group of neural tremors being
organically stimulated by the other. An isolated excitation
is impossible in a continuous nervous tissue ; an isolated feeling
is impossible in the consensus or unity of the sentient organism.
The term Soul is the personification of this complex of present
and revived feelings, and is the substratum of Consciousness
(in its general sense), all the particular feelings being its states.
To repeat an illustration used in my first volume, we may
compare Consciousness to a mass of stationary waves. If the
surface of a lake be set in motion each wave diffuses itself over
The' Suppression,' of Egoism. 167
the whole surface, and finally reaches the shores, whence it is
reflected back towards the centre of the lake. This reflected
wave is met by the fresh incoming waves, there is a blending
of the waves, and their product is a pattern on the surface.
This pattern of stationary waves is a fluctuating pattern, because
of the incessant arrival of fresh waves, incoming and reflected.
Whenever a fresh stream enters the lake (i.e., a new sensation
is excited from without), its waves will at first pass over the
pattern, neither disturbing it nor being disturbed by it ; but
after reaching the shore the waves will be reflected back towards
the centre, and there will more or less modify the pattern.
GEORGE HEXRY LEWES.
III. THE ' SUPPRESSION ' OF EGOISM*
As Mr. Sidgwick's book on The MctJwds of Ethics seems
thought to have cast some discredit on the system which he
calls 'Egoistic Hedonism,' and which indeed he himself distinctly
claims to have ' suppressed/ I propose in this paper to consider
his treatment and non-treatment of that system.
Of the principle that the Ethical end of Action is Pleasure of
the Actor, there are three distinct and independent proofs, which
I may call respectively the Physical, the Introspective, and
the Intuitional. My aim will be to show that of these Mr.
Sidgwick has omitted the first, has not disproved the second, and
has established the third. If any one of these propositions be
accurate, then, since one proof is sufficient to prove, and truth
is not made doubtful by the possibility of reaching it falsely,
Egoism will be untouched by Mr. Sidgwick's attack. In-
stead of the ' suppressor' of Egoism, I hope to show him
its unwilling prophet. Let me remark at the outset that
it is the Science, not the Art, of Morality that I am con-
cerned with ; the truth of principles, not the method of using
them. If a man can establish a thing to be true, he need not
care for its practical application : that will take care of itself.
* Notwithstanding that so much space has already been given in
MIND to the criticism of Mr. Sidgwick's work, I do not hesitate to print
the following article, written as it is from a fresh point of view. The
interest that continues to be excited by The Met/tods of Ethics, shown
also in the recent appearance of Mr. F. H. Bradley's pamphlet (Mr.
Sidgwick's Hedonism, King & Co.), is a notable fact in English philosophy
at the present dny, and there should remain due record of it in the
pages of this Journal. EDITOB.
168 The l Suppression ' of Egoism.
I. The title of Mr. Sidgwick's book should have been TJie
Introspective Method of Ethics. For starting with the assump-
tion of a Moral Faculty, into the origin of which it refuses to
enquire, the whole book is an elaborate analysis of the dicta of
this ' Faculty'. There is therefore but a single method ex-
amined, the Introspective ; and the various so called ' methods'
are distinguished by the different axioms or principles which
Reason dictates, and not by the method of arriving at them
which is throughout the same, viz., self-interrogation. They
are in fact not different ' Methods of Ethics' but different results
of the same method.
Of course an author is perfectly justified in confining himself
to any branch of a subject which he may select, and so impartial
and thorough an investigation of any single method as that
which Mr. Sidgwick has given to the Intuitive method of Ethics
cannot fail to be of great value, if the only result were to bring
into clear relief the divergent results to which such method
leads and its consequent uselessness for scientific purposes.
But it is hardly fair to take arbitrarily a single method, and
treat it as the only one possible, or even as the only one worthy
of a particular name. A man who wrote a treatise on c The
Methods of Acoustics' and confined himself to an examination
of the various opinions as to the nature of sound held by
persons with ' a good ear,' and refused all enquiry into its
physical properties, and all aid from any sense except that of
hearing only, as foreign to his subject and of no practical import,
might compose a very instructive and valuable work, but would
hardly be thought to have exhausted the possibilities of a
Science of Sound. Yet he would be clearly more justified by
at least the etymological meaning of words in saying that
Acoustics has to do with the sense of hearing only, than Mr.
Sidgwick has in saying that Ethics has to do only with the Moral
Faculty. Mr. Sidgwick says (p. vi.) that " the investigation of
the historical antecedents of this cognition, and of its relation to
other elements of the mind, no more properly belongs to Ethics
than the corresponding questions as to the cognition of Space
belong to Geometry". But in the first place, Geometry does not
assume a Spatial Faculty and proceed simply to interrogate
that and chronicle the results ; it measures one sense against
another and so arrives at what we call 'objective' or what is in
fact consistent truth. And secondly, if Geometry assumes the
fundamental properties of space as axioms or postulates, that is
because there is no dispute about them ; they are indisputably
or at least undisputedly valid, and that is sufficient. But in
Ethics it is as to the axioms that the great dispute arises, their
application being scientifically of minor importance. And to
The ' Suppression ' o f Ego ism. 169
say that the latter only is the proper province of Ethics, is
clearly opposed to the ordinary use of the word, and as clearly
opposed to Mr. Sidgwick' s understanding of it, seeing that he
defines it as " the study of what ought to be done" (p. 4) and
that his whole book is a consideration of the relative value of
first principles and not only of their application to practice.
But Mr. Sidgwick may say : ' I do not object to your discussing
principles as much as you like, so long as you keep to the
Moral Faculty, but if you go behind that you get out of Ethics'.
To this I answer : In the first place, I doubt the validity of your
Moral Faculty, and in order to determine that I must compare
it with my other faculties. No doubt, as you say (p. 4) " if we
were only agreed as to what we ought to do, the question ' How
we come to know it' would be one of quite subordinate interest";
but we are not agreed, and the question therefore becomes
vital. But in the second place, suppose this moral faculty to
be valid, why should Ethics be confined to it alone, any more
than Acoustics is confined to the faculty of hearing ? There
can be no science which is confined to one sense, because there
can thus be no objectivity. From hearing alone how can we
know that sound means the same, that is, stands in the same
relation, to all men ? Similarly from the moral faculty alone
how can you distinguish " between what men think to be their
duty and what really is such" ? If the moral faculty be ultimate,
what is a man's duty is what the moral faculty says, i.e., to each
man is what he thinks his duty. So we get to the old sophistic
doctrine of individualism, which is plainly exclusive not only of
a science of Ethics but of all ethical reasoning. If on the con-
trary it be assumed as it is by Mr. Sidgwick (p. 6), that there
is an objective good, and that this can be knovtoi, interrogation
of the moral faculty can clearly not yield it, and therefore the
insufficiency of the Introspective Method is assumed in all
moral reasoning. To say that men know * objective' good, but
can give no reason for it or explanation of it, is really to say
that good is in the knowledge of it, or in other words is sub-
jective only.
I may here make a remark, the importance of which will be
seen hereafter, that there may be an objective good which is
still relative to the individual, if it bear the same relation to all
individuals : for instance, it may be Pleasure, which though
relative to the organism is in a universal relation, and therefore
satisfies the conditions of Science. Mr. Sidgwick is not accurate
here. He says (p. 6) : " If it be maintained that two men may
act in two different ways under circumstances precisely similar,
and yet neither be wrong because each thinks himself right :
then the common notion of morality must be rejected as a
170 TJie ' Suppression ' of Eyoism.
chimera. That there is in any given circumstances some one
thing which ought to be done and that this can be known, is a
fundamental assumption." Now if under ' circumstances' he
includes internal circumstances such as character and belief, his
hypothesis is self-contradictory, because different beliefs as to
what is right are different circumstances : if not, the conclusion
is false ; for common morality says that a man ought to act
not only according to his beliefs but according to the whole of
his nature, and that what is right for one man may be wrong
for another. The only fundamental assumption either neces-
sary for a Science of Ethics or warranted by common notions is
that morality conforms to the general law of uniformity, i.e., that
in the same circumstances, external and internal, the same thing-
is morally good : " ofjioiwv <yap ovrcov KCU TT/SO? aXA/?;Xa TOV avrov
rpoTrov e^ovrwv rov re TTO^TLKOV KOI rov TraOrrriKov, ravro
7re<f>vice ylveaOat, ". If this be so, then in any given circum-
stances " there is some one thing which ought to be done" ; one,
not in the sense that it is the same for each man, but that it has
the same relation to each man, and therefore is capable of being
known in the case of each man by all men.
But there is another reason why Mr. Sidgwick objects to
going outside the moral faculty and explaining its derivation,
namely, that " this would require us to prefer the coarsest and
lowest of our pleasures to those that are more elevated and
refined : which no one would maintain to be reasonable "
(p. 42). And again (p. 186) " Why should our earliest beliefs
and perceptions be more trustworthy than our latest, supposing
the two to differ 1 The truths of the higher mathematics aie
among our most secure intellectual possessions, yet the power of
apprehending these is rarely developed until the mind has
reached maturity." Now, inasmuch as Mr. Sidgwick has
defined ' Eeason ' as the faculty which prescribes moral rules, it
is a clear fallacy to argue in favour of these rules that they are
more ' reasonable' than others. But apart from this, Mr.
Sidgwick should not forget that a thing may be fyvaei irporepov,
but varepov rj^lv. He would surely not argue against the
Cosmogony of Laplace, that it is ' unreasonable ' and retro-
gressive, because it goes back to the ' mean and beggarly
elements ' of nature. Surely this is the very law and order of
knowledge, to return on nature's tracks, so that the farther back
it can get the more perfect it is ; and the truths of Mathematics
are secure for this very reason that they go back the farthest of
all. This is just what we wish to do with the Moral Faculty,
to carry it farther back into its elements and thus rest it on a
secure foundation. No one says that it is ' unreal ' or ' vanishes'
because it is found to be compound ; on the contrary its exist-
The ( Suppression ' of Egoism. 171
ence is more real because more known. No one wishes to
substitute the elemental pleasures for the compound, the earliest
beliefs for the latest, but to know or render self-conscious the
evolution of one from the other, and thus to understand our
present nature. A belief cannot be more valid than its data,
and therefore if we discover the origin of our present beliefs we
shall have at any rate a maximum measure of their validity.
In an article in MIND No. I., Mr. Sidgwick seems to have
intended to collect more systematically than he has done in his
book his reasons for excluding the history of the Moral Faculty
from the province of Ethics. He there repeats the arguments
which I have already noticed, with others which I may briefly
summarise as follows. ' True it is that Evolution is progress, and
that Morality aims at progress ; but how do you know that the
two kinds of progress are identical ? How do you connect ' is '
with 'ought to be,' ' being ' with 'well-being'?' To answer this
thoroughly would be to expound the Physical System of Ethics,
which I have tried to do elsewhere, but which it is not now my
business to attempt : suffice it for the present purpose to give
the answer which Mr. Sidgwick himself suggests that the con-
necting link is ' happiness ' or ' pleasure '. ' But if this be so '
says Mr. Sidgwick, ' it is easier to aim at this directly than
through development. No two even of your experts are agreed
as to where the latter is going, so that it is a very useless mark
to aim at.' To this I answer: At any rate it takes nothing
away ; you have the old mark of pleasure left, and you are no
worse off than before ; besides, if it is true, I do not care to ask
whether it is useful or not. But I answer chiefly that develop-
ment is not the mark which the scientific system of Ethics sets
up. In showing you the development of the organised search for
pleasure it does not bid you aim at development as such, but
shows you why you ought to aim at pleasure, by proving that
you do so aim and that ' ought to ' is compounded out of ' is '.
' But if you mean,' says Mr. Sidgwick, ' that evolution recon-
ciles the Instinctive and Utilitarian Morality, it can only do so
on a broad general gromnd, and inasmuch as their mutual agree-
ment in the main is self-evident, to show the reason of it is
ethically superfluous whatever historical interest it may have.'
To this I answer as before that nothing is scientifically ' super-
fluous ' that is true ; and that the whole interest of physical
science is in this sense ' historical/ for its aim is a conscious
retracing of the unconscious evolution of the universe. But to
give a less general answer : Would Mr. Sidgwick say that the
nebular hypothesis, supposing it to be true, is ' astronomi-
cally superfluous,' or that the laws of the formation of clouds
have only an ' historical interest' to Meteorology ? Or, to take
172 The ' Suppression ' of Egoism.
another instance, would a knowledge of the creation of mankind
by God have no bearing on its relations to him when once
created ? And has legal history no jural value ?
In another paper in MIND No. V., Mr. Sidgwick appears as
the champion of Hedonism against a supposed assault from the
side of Physical Science, but his arguments go only to establish
against a mere external .standard the necessity of a Hedonistic
criterion, and do not at all effect my position that Science proves
Hedonism, but proves it in the Eg )istic form.
Finally, I would remark that, supposing Mr. Sidgwick's
objections well founded, as I contend they are not, they furnish
no answer to the proposition which I am here concerned to
establish, viz., that the Physical or Scientific proof of Egoistic
Hedonism is nowhere examined, much less disproved, by Mr.
Sidgwick : for they are all not arguments against it but reasons
for its non-examination. This fact is not only a sufficient pro-
visional defence of Egoism, but marks a defect in the plan of
Mr. Sidgwick's book, if while professing to examine scientific
methods of Ethics he really excludes the only method which is
scientific at all. To talk of a ' science ' which " lies outside of
all investigation of the actual" (p. 2) may be called a mere
' verbal ' error, but only in the sense that all misstatements,
being made in words, are verbal mistakes. The object of true
or what Mr. Sidgwick calls " speculative " science is by com-
paring the data of different senses and so correcting their de-
ficiencies to arrive at ' objective ' truth ; and just as Physical
Optics or Acoustics takes light or sound and resolves them into
the simpler elements of vibration, so Physical Ethics resolves
Good into its constituent elements. It explains the Moral
Faculty and its judgments of ' right ' and ' good ' as the physical
result of Evolution, which objectively is perfection, subjectively
is pleasure-attaining, and self-consciously is pleasure-seeking ;
and thus it connects the sphere of morality with the physical
universe, gives a new meaning to the ethical dogma ' Follow
nature,'* and constitutes a true Science of Ethics. Of this
*At p. 356, Mr. Sidgwick says that this maxim involves a vicious
circle. How so ? Even to the Stoics it meant ' Consciously imitate the
unconscious striving of nature' ; to us it means * Be a self-conscious
agent in the evolution of the universe'. In another place (p. 63) he
seems to think that ' Follow nature ' means ' Go in the opposite direction to
nature,' ' C/ndevelope yourself '. Conformity to nature means conformity
to its dynamical laws of Evolution, and to its statical laws of Physics.
The former involves action, the latter knowledge; there is no real
ambiguity in either precept. I may notice that the Physical System of
Ethics reconciles Stoicism and Epicureanism by showing them to be the
inuer and outer expressions of the same law; the Stoic giving the
Physical element, the Epicurean the Ethical.
The ' Suppression ' of Egoism. 173
' Method of Ethics ' Mr. Sidgwick gives no account : he hardly
even says of it that it does not exist.
II. I said that Mr. Sidgwick's book should be called ' The
Introspective Method of Ethics ' : I had almost said ' Intui-
tional '. For it is . not even to the whole facts of our inner
consciousness but to the single consciousness of Duty that his
method is chiefly directed ; not to what actually are our
motives, but to what we think they ought to be. The larger
Introspective Method he does indeed hint at in a single short
chapter (Book I., ch. iv.) but only to put it aside ; and the
remainder of the book is devoted to ' Reason '. His position in
that chapter I take to be this : Admitting that if pleasure could
be proved to be the universal motive this would be binding on
Reason, necessity being evidently comprehensive of duty, he
argues that such proof is imperfect, and the mere generality of
motive which it establishes is not sufficient to displace or sub-
ordinate the motive which he assumes, viz., the " desire to do
what Reason dictates". To arrive at this position he has to
refute what I have called the Introspective proof of Hedonism,
mz. t that self-examination shows us that pleasures and pains
are as a matter of fact the only motives to voluntary action, and
act in proportion to their intensity. Let us examine his argu-
ments. The first (p. 31) is as follows : " It is a matter of common
experience that the resultant or prevailing desire in men is often
directed towards what (even in the moment of yielding to the
desire) they think likely to cause them more pain than pleasure
on the whole. ' Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor.' "
In other words Action does not always follow Knowledge. Of
course not ; but the doctrine does not require that it should, for
it says, not that we follow what is our greatest possible pleasure
or what we know or ' think ' to be so, but what at the moment
of action is most desired. In fact the only practical measure of
pleasures as motives at any moment, is in ourselves the result-
ant desire, in others the resultant action. But it may be
objected that to say that ' the pleasure which under any given
circumstance is the greatest moves,' and when asked for a
measure to say 'the pleasure which moves is under those circum-
stances the greatest ', is to argue in a circle. It is no more a
circle than to measure weights by their effect on the scales, or
temperatures by the position of the mercury in a thermometer.
The argument is at bottom this : I know pleasure to be a
motive, and I know no other ; I reasonably assume (having no
evidence to the contrary) that motives follow laws analogous to
those of other forces, or, in other words, the law of causation
(this is what Mr. Sidgwick really asserts under the ' objectivity'
of good) : therefore, just as, when two forces acting on a body in
12
174 The ' Suppression ' of Egoism.
opposite directions result in movement in one of these direc-
tions, we say that under those conditions the conquering force
was the greatest, so, when desire or action follows one .motive
rather than its opposite, we define the motive force of the first
under those conditions to be greater than that of the latter. In
eaclf of iTTese cases the absolute relation (if I may use~such an
expression) between the forces or motives may be very different
from their relation under the given conditions : for in order to
measure their absolute values the special conditions must be
eliminated. The ' condition ' which is most important is that of
position : in the case of mechanical forces, position in space ;
in the case of motives, position in time.* When I raise my
hand, I know that my muscular force is not absolutely greater
than the earth's attraction but only in that relative position.
Similarly when I act to secure a ' nearer good,' I may know
quite well that it is ' less valuable ' according to an absolute
standard. For the idea of a distant pleasure is far weaker than
that of an immediate one, but in theory this ' discount ' is not
considered, for theory ideally simplifies by eliminating the element
of time altogether, just as Algebra eliminates space from
Geometry. What is best in theory is what would have been
best in the end, but what moves is the resultant of the projec-
tions of pleasures on the plane of the present. Action looks at
life as we look at a landscape, knowledge maps it out to scale as
on a chart. This divergence is gradually remedied by habitually
acting on principle, and so making allowance for distance
automatically, as we do in the eye : but this takes time, " Bel
yap avfjifyvvai, TOVTU> Se ^povov Set" and in human beings is at
present very imperfect. To suppose that action could exactly
follow theoretic knowledge is to suppose a being in whom ideas
should be equally vivid however distant the anticipations, in
other words, should be equivalent to sensations ; to whom there-
fore there should be no distinction of present and future, fact
and knowledge, object and subject. But this is clearly not the
case with man, so that to him knowledge which compares between
ideas only, and ideas at equal distances, is necessarily at variance
\vith action, which has to do with both ideas and sensations,
and where perspective is everything.
But it may be answered that it is possible to act not only
against theoretical knowledge, which is what Mr. Sidgwick seems
to mean (cf. note to p. 112) but against practical knowledge, i.e.,
* We may perhaps conjecture that, as Time is extension in one dimen-
sion only, the law of motive force corresponding to the law of gravitation
in space will be found to involve a function of the simple inverse of the
distance in time of the origin of the force instead of the inverse square :
probably also a constant determined in the case of each individual by a
' personal equation '.
The ' Suppression ' of Egoism. 175
not only against experience that certain actions bring the moxt
pleasure, but even against experience that they are the most
pleasant at the time. This is explained by another ' condition '
of action which I have incidentally mentioned above, but which
has a wider operation than what I may call ' the Temporal law
of Motive/ viz., imperfection of machinery. If a man acted up
to his knowledge, whatever that might be, he would be qiia
practice, i.e., as a practical machine, perfect. But as a matter of
fact not only is knowledge expressed imperfectly, but not un-
frequently some knowledge does not emerge in action at all,
forms no constituent of the resulting act. A new line of com-
munication cannot enter into competition with one well used,
for the tissues acquire ' habits ' which take long to modify. In
other words, habit controls the practical effect of knowledge.
A man may either choose the wrong rule, the lower instead of
the higher, or (what comes to the same thing) he may not
perceive that the particular circumstance comes under its proper
rule ; or, as Aristotle says, the practical syllogism, which is the
expression of knowledge in action, may be vitiated either by
choosing the wrong major premiss or by the imperfect appre-
hension of the minor. In such cases therefore the effective
knowledge is what Plato calls in the Protagoras " a kind of
ignorance," i.e., as compared with the higher knowledge which
the man in a way has and has not : it is a less complete calcula-
tion of pleasure, a lower organisation of motive. But the
difference is only in the completeness of the calculation, the
nature of it is the same ; and the fact of such difference means
only that the machine is not perfect.
These considerations seem to me to dispose of Mr. Sidgwick's
objection that action does not follow knowledge, whether by
knowledge be meant ideal comparison of pleasures or belief as to
the actual pleasantness of particular actions ; and tc show that,
though desire may not be directed to the greatest pleasure within
our reach or even to what we c think ' such, this does not
involve (as Mr. Sidgwick thinks it does) the abandonment of
the strict proportionality between pleasure and desire, any more
than the fact that two equal weights at opposite ends of a stiffly
working lever with unequal arms do not balance one another,
disproves the strict proportionality between weight and active-
force. But the Introspective proof as I have stated it, involves
the fact that we have no other motive than pleasure. Mr. Mill
tl links this is so obvious as to be beyond dispute, but Mr.
Sidgwick argues that this is due to a confusion between pleasure
as " signifying the mere fact of preference " and pleasure as an
" agreeable sensation" the former being identical with motive
and the latter being the rj&ovrj of Hedonism. Now it is curious
176 The ' Suppression ' of Egoism.
that, when Mr. Sidgwick comes later on (p. 114) to discuss
Hedonism and give " a more precise notion of pleasure," he says
that " it seems obvious to define it as the kind of feeling which
pleases us, which we like or prefer," and eventually concludes
that " we must define pleasure, if we are to estimate it exactly,
not as the kind of feeling which we actually seek and pursue,
but as that which we judge to be preferable ". * There-
fore the distinction which he makes seems to be between what
is actually preferred and what is judged to be preferable, and
the argument is that the two do not agree, which resolves itself
into that already considered, that practice is often at variance
with knowledge. Apart from this argument, it is Mr. Sidg-
wick's own definition of the ' pleasure ' of Hedonism that it is
" the kind of feeling which we prefer," or, even more definitely,
" which prompts us to actions tending to produce or sustain it " :
so that, even if our refutation of this argument is invalid, the
only change which he would make in the 'tautological assertion'
is that instead of ' we desire a thing in proportion as it appears
pleasant,' he would say ' we ought to desire a thing in proportion
as we know it to be pleasant * : he only prefers the Intuitive
proof to the Introspective.
Mr. Sidgwick's remaining arguments are all intended to show
that our active impulses are not always " consciously directed
towards the attainment of agreeable sensations as their end".
As this is not the doctrine of Physical Hedonism I shall
pass over these arguments shortly. Nobody denies that there are
' extra-regarding impulses ' in this sense that desire of an end
may become desire of means, so that it may seem to aim at
means for their own sake. This is the case with appetites, as
when a man takes a walk to ' get an appetite,' or pursuits such
as fox-hunting ; and it may often be true that a man is most
likely to attain the end if he aim only at the means and forget
the end. The extent to which this losing of end in means may
be carried is illustrated in Benevolence, which " even though it
may owe its origin to a purely egoistic impulse, is still essentially
a desire to do good to others for their sake, and not for our
own " : in other words, I may find pleasure in doing good to
others for their sake, and not for my own. We might go even
further and say: I may cut my finger because it gives me
pleasure to give myself pain. All this is part of Hedonism,
which asserts that original impulses were all directed towards
pleasure, and that any impulses otherwise directed are derived
from these by ' association of ideas '. But Mr. Sidgwick say*
(p. 41) that observation is against this, "as preponderant
* Of. p. 372, where he defines pleasure as " Preferable or Desirable
Feeling of whatever kind".
The ' Suppression ' of Egoism. 177
objectivity seems characteristic of the earlier stages of our
consciousness, and the subjective attitude does not become
habitual till later in life ". I answer that the earliest stage of
our consciousness is before the separation of object and subject,
and that the earliest motive and that which Hedonism asserts
to be fundamental is ' a pleasure,' not either a 'pleasant object'
or a ' pleased subject '. The first object of desire, a pleasant
state, becomes afterwards thought of as a union of subject and
object, and the desire may be transferred to either factor by
association. When we reflect, we say, ' /desire an apple' : but the
desire is for the union of object and subject, that the apple
should become I. Hedonism would be true though the ideas of
object and subject did not exist, and though no one had ever
formed the idea of ' self ' at all.
Mr. Sidgwick concludes with the argument that at any rate
" all men do not now desire pleasure, but rather other things ".
I answer : That is exactly what you have to prove, and what is
not proved by showing that means may be substituted for ends.
For this does not make men desire "other things-" than pleasure,
but only makes them desire one pleasure instead of another, or
(as it may be put otherwise) call an old pleasure by a new
name.
In a subsequent chapter (at p. 115) Mr. Sidgwick asks the
following question: How is non-hedonistic preference (which
is commonly thought to be of frequent occurrence) possible,
unless there is something preferable (i.e., which can be preferred)
besides pleasure, and if there is some such thing, what is it ?
The answer comes to this, that it must lie in the circumstances
under which the state of consciousness arises, or the objective
relations of the sentient individual. " For," he says, " if we se-
parate in thought any state of consciousness from all its objective
circumstances and conditions (and also from all its effects on the
consciousness of the same individual or of others) and contem-
plate it merely as the transient feeling of a single subject; it seems
impossible to find in it any other preferable quality than that
which we call its pleasantness, as to which the judgment of the
sentient individual must be taken as finally valid." This seems
to me practically to yield the point at issue, if we remember
that to the sentient individual the objective circumstances and
conditions and also the effects of one of his conscious states are only
modifications of that or some other of his conscious states, so
that to him the only thing which is preferable, i.e., which he can
prefer, is a pleasant state, or that which produces a pleasant
state. Consequences come in (and this is the explanation of
preferring a ' higher ' or more ' refined ' to an immediately
greater pleasure) ; but to each individual it is the consequences
178 The ' Suppression ' of Egoism.
to himself alone and in judging of them pleasure is the only
ground of preference. That this is true Mr. Sidgwick seems
really to admit : for he says (p. 371) : " If I have any intuition at
all respecting the ultimate ends of action, it seems to me that I
can see this : that these objective relations of the conscious
subject, when distinguished in reflective analysis from the
consciousness accompanying and resulting from them, are not
ultimately and intrinsically desirable : any more than material
or other objects are, when considered out of relation to conscious
existence altogether ". If then nothing but conscious states of
the conscious subject is ' ultimately desirable/ and the only
' preferable quality ' in these is " that which we call pleasant-
ness, as to which the judgment of the individual must be taken
to be finally valid," this is at least Intuitive Egoism. I say at
least because I am not sure whether Mr. Sidgwick here means
by ' desirable ' what he must have meant in the former passage,
' capable of being desired', or rather, ' which ought to be
desired '. If he means the latter, I go on to say that conscious
states alone are rationally desirable for this reason, that nothing
else is or can be actually desired, seeing that a thing is to us its
relations to us, or in other words, the states of consciousness
which 'it produces' in us; so that any existence it may have
in itself is at least indifferent to us, and incapable of exciting
desire or preference. If this be true, the Introspective proof of
Egoistic Hedonism is complete.
III. Having omitted the Physical and negatived the Intro-
spective method, Mr. Sidgwick proceeds at once to the Intuitive.
" To ascertain what Eeason dictates " is, he says, " the aim of all
ethical discussion." Of course it dictates all kinds of tilings ;
but on the whole Mr. Sidgwick gathers that Eational ends (for
it is ends, not methods, which he uses as divisions) " are limited
in number" and " seem to be" Perfection and Happiness, either
individual or universal, and Eightness or Goodness for its own
sake. These ends or methods he proceeds to consider seriatim.
First he deals with Egoistic Hedonism. As to its fundamental
principle he says that there seems to be more general agreement
among reflective persons as to its reasonableness than for any
other, such reasonableness being admitted by Utilitarian and
Intuitionist alike : and that " the onus prolandi lies with those
who maintain that disinterested conduct as such is reasonable "
(p. 108). Then follows an examination of its different
methods of application, or of what Plato calls the fjbeTprjTifcrj
rexyT), such as the empirical comparison of pleasures, common
sense judgments, notions of duty, divine law, natural impulses,
self-development. All of these are found to lead back to the first,
and that seems unworkable. These objections as to impracti-
The 'Suppression' of Egoism. 179
cability do not seem, however, to be thought much of by Mr.
Si do- wick, as he eventually adopts a system to which they apply
with far greater force. At any rate they do not touch the truth
of the principle, with which we are here concerned ; nor, so far
as I can see, its ' reasonableness ' in the sense in which Mr. Sidg-
wick uses the word Reason, viz., as "the faculty of apprehending
universal truth ". Egoism is made to seem unreasonable only
by a confusion with the other sense of ' reason/ as reasoning,
which seeks means to an end. For of course in that sense
Egoism would be unreasonable if there were no means to it.
But Mr. Sidgwick's Reason seems so called on this very account,
because it makes affirmations for which no reason can be given.
The result is that Reason says that Egoism is primd facie
proved. If Mr. Sidgwick, notwithstanding, feels " aversion " to
it, and regards it as " ignoble " and " despicable," he should
remember that there is at least nothing noble in an unreasoning
aversion.
Next we proceed to Intuitionism, which takes three forms,
according as it is held to give particular judgments, general
axioms, or a philosophic basis. The last, though nominally a
sub-class, seems to include all ' methods of Ethics ' recognised
by Mr. Sidgwick not included in the two former : so that when
the two former are disposed of as not capable of supplying
measures sufficiently precise to be elevated into scientific
axioms, the chapter on ' Philosophical Intuitionism ' is really
an enquiry whether our Moral Faculty can supply any ethical
axioms (besides that of Egoism) which have at once scientific
precision and positive content. Mr. Sidgwick believes that it
can supply two such, and that one of these involves " the
suppression of Egoism ". He takes them from Clarke, and calls
them respectively the Rule of Equity and the Rule of Benevo-
lence.
The first is as follows : " Whatever I judge reasonable or
unreasonable that another should do for me, that by the same
judgment I declare reasonable or unreasonable that I should in
the like case do for him" (p. 358). This is the principle of the
" objectivity " (as Mr. Sidgwick calls it) of rightness. I have
already tried to show that it is either an assertion that morality
follows the physical law of uniformity (i.e., that mere difference
of individuality in moral agents, as in atoms, does not effect the
result, which is precisely similar under all similar conditions)
in which sense I gladly accept it as a testimony from conscious-
ness to the possibility of a Physical science of Ethics; or if "the
like case " does not include the like internal natures of agent
and recipient, that it is not only no axiom but plainly repugnant
180 The ' Suppression ' of Egoism.
to common sense. Mr. Sidgwick, if I understand him rightly,*
takes it in the latter sense, and yet holds it an axiom. Let me
put to him an illustration. He says that it is a duty to seek
one's own happiness (p. 304). But to determine what is a man's
happiness, you have to look at his character and disposition,
just as a meal fit for Milo is too large for an ordinary man.
How, then, can duty be independent of the character of the
agent ? Or to take the converse, on what principle is it allowable
(as Mr. Sidgwick says it is) to tell a He to a lunatic ?
The second rule, which as the supposed suppressor of Egoism
I approach with more awe, is stated by Clarke as follows (p. 3o9) :
" If there be a natural and necessary difference between Good
and Evil ; and that which is Good is fit and reasonable, and that
which is Evil is unreasonable, to be done : and that which is the
Greatest Good is always the most fit and reasonable to be
chosen : then as the Goodness of God extends itself universally
over all His works throughout the whole creation, by doing
always what is absolutely best in the whole : so every rational
creature ought, in its sphere and station, according to its res-
pective powers and faculties, to do all the Good it can to its
fellow-creatures : to which end, universal Love and Benevolence
is plainly the most certain, direct, and effectual means." The
premisses here seem three : (1) It is reasonable to do the greatest
good ; (2) There is a God, and His goodness is the greatest ; (3)
The goodness of God can be known apart from ours, and
comprises Benevolence to all His works. The second and third
would hardly now-a-days be accepted as self-evident truths.
Even if modified as far as possible to suit modern ' com-
mon sense,' they would at least involve the very contro-
verted hypothesis of a moral government of the universe
on optimist principles. But suppose them granted what
follows ? Clearly that ' every rational creature ' ought to do
good not ' to its fellow-creature,' but ' to all its works ' ; in other
words, to itself. If God's goodness is the ideal, and con-
sists in doing good to ' His works,' i.e., to Himself, how can
a man possibly imitate this ideal by doing good to others ?
Mr. Sidgwick says he thinks the reasoning of Clarke " substanti-
* In a note to p. 183 Mr. Sidgwick says that " difference of circum-
stances must be taken to include difference of nature and character- in
short, all differences beyond the mere individuality of different indi-
viduals". If this be his theory, I rejoice; but I cannot reconcile it
with what he says elsewhere, or even on that same page when he con-
trasts ethical judgments with judgments as to sensations of taste as
being really instead of only apparently ' objective'. As I have shown,
Mr. Sidgwick holds that two persons cannot differ and both be ' ob-
jectively right ' (c/. pp. 6, 190 n., 364).
The ' Supp ression ' of Egoism. 181
ally sound " ; to me, I confess, it appears a paralogism of the
grossest kind.
However, Mr. Sidgwick admits that " to exhibit it as clear
and cogent, considerable modification in form is needed ". This
is the form he gives (p. 360) : " We are supposed to judge that
there is something intrinsically desirable some result which it
would be reasonable for each individual to seek for himself, if he
considered himself alone. Let us call this the individual's Good
or Welfare : then what Clarke urges is that the Good of any one
individual cannot be more intrinsically desirable, because it is
his, than the Equal Good of any other individual. So that our
notion of Ultimate Good, at the realisation of which it is
evidently reasonable to aim, must include the Good of every one
on the same ground that it includes that of any one. This
seems to be as much a self-evident truth as the principle of
Equity." Perhaps so ; to me also the two principles seem pretty
equal in that respect. The premisses seem again three in
number : (1) I reasonably desire my own good or welfare ; (2)
What is reasonable under any given circumstances is right under
all precisely similar circumstances ; and (3) " The fact that I am
I " (as Mr. Sidgwick expresses it) is not a material circumstance.
I admit these premisses. What then follows ? Two inferences
seem logically deducible. From (1) and (2) it follows that ' it
is reasonable for me to desire all welfare which stands in pre-
cisely similar circumstances to my own '. One of these is that
it is ' my own,' but this by (3) is unimportant. But another is
that it is actually desired by me. Hence we conclude that ' it is
reasonable for me to desire all welfare, which I desire equally
with my own '. This is evidently not what we seek. Next let
us combine (1) and (3) : it follows that ' all men reasonably
desire their own welfare '. For surely the result of ' universal-
ising the maxim, ' I seek my own good/ is ' All men seek their
own good/ not ' I seek all men's good '. If so, how does Mr.
Sidgwick elicit the latter conclusion ?
Mr. Sidgwick repeats the argument at p. 365* in the following
condensed form : " The fact ' that I am I ' cannot make my
happiness intrinsically more desirable, more fit to be accepted
by my reason as the standard of right and wrong in conduct,
than the happiness of any other person ". It is certainly not
more fit to be accepted as the standard of right and wrong in
my conduct; than the happiness of any other person in his. But
to say that happiness is " the standard of right and wrong in
* The argument is substantially repeated in the same form in other
places (e.g. at p. 367). But I do not find any statement of it containing
any new element.
182 The ' Suppression ' of Eyoism.
conduct" means that A's happiness is the standard of A's
conduct, thougli of course the fact that A is A does not matter
in the sense that B would not be an equally good example : and
in the alternative expression of the premiss, which considers
desire or desirability, its distributive nature is still more ap-
parent.
This seems to me so evident, that I long thought it impossible
for so clear-headed a writer as Mr. Sidgwick to have fallen into
so obvious a fallacy, and I have read his various statements of
this argument through many times in order to find some more
substantial ground for his conclusions, but I confess without
success : nor indeed can I imagine what other premiss he can
supply, while I am clear that from the premisses I have stated
no such conclusion as "the suppression of Egoism" can be
evolved. I think the source of Mr. Sidgwick's error is traceable
in the words " intrinsically desirable ".* These words seem to
have no meaning ; desire must be felt by somebody, either the
individual whose good is in question, or some other person. On
the first alternative the premiss is that a man's own good is
' intrinsically desirable ' to himself, from which it is impossible
by any mere logical artifice to show that one man's good is
' intrinsically desirable ' to another ; on the second alternative
the premiss is that a man's good is desirable to other people,
and this is the very question to be proved. Mr. Sidgwick seems
to have first convinced himself that Good is something ' ob-
jective ' or ' universal,' and then to have argued that this must
mean something independent of individuals altogether, whereas
(as I have already tried to show) it may consist in a universal
relation to individuals. The laws of nutrition of animals are
clearly objective and universal, but surely Mr. Sidgwick would
not argue that because my dinner is not ' intrinsically ' more
worthy of digestion than another's, therefore it is reasonable for
me to digest all men's dinners, or even as much as I can of the
dinners of as many men as possible. Yet I confess .that " this
seems to be as much a self-evident truth as the principle of
Equity," or the principle of Benevolence.
* I may compare his use of the word in another passage (p. 316)
where he says that "truths may be intrinsically self-evident which are
yet not commonly seen to be so ". Of course all truths are ' self-
evident' to omniscience, but this is clearly not Mr. Sidgwick's meaning.
I cannot even guess what it is. It is at least ' self-evident ' to me that
a truth, if evident at all, must be so to somebody. This confusion of
thought is still more apparent in a subsequent assertion (p. 320) that
" it is implied in the very notion of Truth that it is intrinsically the same
for all minds". Surely the word 'intrinsic,' if it mean anything,
excludes relation, so that to talk of a thing being 'intrinsically'
perceived, or evident, or desirable, is a contradiction in terms.
TJie ( Suppression' of Egoism. 183
That this was the source of Mr. Sidgwick's error seems con-
firmed by a recapitulation of the argument which he gives at
p. 391, in which he says that it is effectual against the Egoist
only if the latter put his proposition in the form that "his
happiness is objectively desirable," and not if he put it in the
form " that he ought to take his own happiness as his ultimate
end ". But why should the Egoist put it in that form ? He
would be very foolish to do so, for it is not what he means.
His proposition is, ' Own happiness is desirable to each,' or, if
you like, ' is objectively desirable,' and against this statement
the Universalist is powerless, simply because it makes his para-
logism evident. Let me take a parallel instance. If I say ' I
see what my eyes show me,' no Universalist could argue from
that to show me that I see, or ought to see, what all men's eyes
see. But if I were foolish enough to say, ' What I see is
objectively visible,' the Universalist might argue, c What you see
cannot be more objectively visible than what any other person
sees, for the mere fact that you are you can have nothing to do
with objective visibility,' and might conclude that I ought
reasonably to see what all men saw. But when I put it,
'What each man sees is visible to him,' my Egoism is invulner-
able.
I may remark in conclusion that even if the proof were
admitted, it would be a deduction from Egoism, for Egoism is
one of its data ; and a conclusion can never be more valid than
its premisses. At most the voice of ' Reason ' would be divided,
and we should have to seek counsel elsewhere.
The examination of Kant adds no fresh argument, and the
conclusion of the whole matter is that the only axioms given
intuitively by ' Common Sense ' or ' Reason ' are that Good is
' objective ' and ' universal '. Now, since Reason has been
denned as the faculty of apprehending moral distinctions (p. 23)
as "a faculty which takes cognisance of objective truth" (p. 27),
and as " the faculty of apprehending universal truth " (p. 85),
we could have told at once that Reason would affirm that "moral
distinctions " were " objective " and " universal," for that is con-
tained in the definition : the only question, then, would be as to
the existence of a faculty as so defined, and that is " assumed "
by Mr. Sidgwick with an express refusal to argue the point.
The result, therefore, seems to be that on the assumption of such
a faculty there is such a faculty. Eor myself, I am quite ready
to admit its existence ; and the conclusion to which I say it
leads, and to which I say that, assuming its existence, Mr.
Sidgwick has proved that it leads, is the principle of Egoistic
Hedonism, as the objective or universal law of morality. That
he has seemed to reach another conclusion is due, not to any
184 The ' Suppression ' of Egoism.
fault in his analysis of the moral dicta of Eeason, which seems
to ine to be admirable, but to a slip of reasoning which need
only be pointed out to be recognised. That Hedonism of some
kind is the verdict of Eeason as against other ends he shows
clearly in Book III., ch. xiv. ; he also shows that Egoism is the
form of Hedonism which Eeason originally dictates, but that
this must be universal. I quite agree; but I say, Universal
Egoism is not Utilitarianism and no logical jugglery will make
one out of the other.
In his concluding chapter Mr. Sidgwick seems to give up his
proof of Utilitarianism from Egoism, for he feels it necessary to
seek for further sanctions of the principle of Utility than the
" proof " by Eeason. His conclusion is that we must " assume "
a harmony of the two, because otherwise moral science is im-
possible, for reason is divided against itself. This harmony is
" a hypothesis unverifiable by experiment," without which " the
Cosmos of Duty is reduced to a Chaos, and the prolonged effort
of the human intellect to form a perfect ideal of rational conduct
is seen to have been fore-doomed to inevitable failure ". This is
a sad ending, that the only ground for believing that moral
science exists is the waste of time which we have been mak-
ing if it does not. I cannot refrain, therefore, in conclusion,
from trying to comfort Mr. Sidgwick by the suggestion of a
' hypothesis ' which accounts for what I admit to be proved by the
analysis of the dicta of the Moral Faculty, viz., the simultaneous
presence in Eeason of the Egoistic and Utilitarian principles,
and reconciles them on a principle wider than both. It is a
suggestion in its rudiments as old as Plato, but which, like
many other happy guesses of Greek genius, has received a new
meaning from physical science.
The end of all action is pleasure of the actor, and an action is
good or right in proportion as it intentionally attains the end.
If the actor be an organism or polity of members, his acts have
two relations, one internal, the other external. His morality,
therefore, lias two sides, which may be called respectively the
Law of Health and the Law of Conduct ; and these vary in
relative importance according to the completeness of organisa-
tion to which the actor has reached, that is, according as
Evolution is for the time being more engaged in perfecting him
as a unit or connecting him with other units into a higher
organism. As unit organisms are gradually organised into
higher organisms, the Law of Health of the higher organism and
the Law of Conduct of the unit organisms are concurrently
operative on the same unit organisms as codes for regulating
their external relations ; and though these codes serve different
TJie ' Suppression ' of Egoism. 185
functions, and are regulated by different ends, they are funda-
mentally the same, because they are different products or
branches of the same physical law. Now the unit organism
which we are principally concerned with is the individual man,
and the most important higher organism of which he is the unit
is the state or society. The Law of Conduct of the unit is
Ethics and its principle is Egoism, and the Law of Health of the
higher organism is Jurisprudence and Sociology, or, in the classi-
cal sense of the word, Politics, and its principle is Utilitarianism,
i.e., not ' the greatest happiness of the greatest number ' of units,
but the happiness of the whole. Hence in the human reason,
which is an echo of human experience, that is, of internal egoistic
desires and of external family, social, and political influences,
the two principles of Egoism and Utilitarianism must be mixed ;
and if we analyse the common sense of mankind we need not be
surprised to find a deep-lying principle of Egoism which will not
be reasoned with because it is the old essential nature of the
man, and an apparently later growtli of Utilitarian maxims
which rest their claim on the general assent of mankind rather
than on the inner nature of each individual man. This is just
what we should expect, and just what Mr. Sidgwick has found.
But man is not individual and citizen alone. Human life, as
we live it, is a complex of relations. Besides his relation to
nature which constitutes him an individual and gives content to
his simplest Egoism, he is a member of a family, a profession, a
social circle, a race, a country, and finally of an ideal society
within his breast, a ' kingdom of heaven ' whose voice is his own
best feelings, his inner prescience of coming evolution, and whose
omniscience he cannot hope to elude, because it is his own
knowledge of himself. Each of these organisms impresses its Law
of Health upon his actions and conscience, and so are produced
in him the conceptions of ' duty ' to his family, his friends, his
country, and his God. If we ask how each of these Laws of
Health impresses itself upon his moral nature, in other words,
what is the motive to all these different Utilitarianisms, the answer
would be that inasmuch as the essence of morality is that the
apxn should be internal, they can effect him morally only through
his nature, by becoming part of it. This they do by artificially
modifying his motives, i.e., either by altering the consequences
of his actions (as by reward or punishment, praise or blame), or
by altering his belief as to those consequences- in other words,
the Ethical value of Utilitarianism of whatever kind can only be
as a method of Egoism. Similarly we might say that the
Political or Social value of Egoism is only as a material of
Utilitarianism, just as the Ethical value of Health is as a material
of Egoism. Further development of the Physical System would
186 Tlic So-called Antinomy of Reason.
be here out of place, but I contend that it is a 'hypothesis'
which not only, if true, explains the relation of Egoism and
Utilitarianism, but is also ' verifiable by experience '. If it be
verified, Ethical Science will stand on a firmer foundation than
the sorrow we should feel if it were not true.*
ALFRED BARRATT.
IV. THE SO-CALLED ANTINOMY OF REASON.
MENTAL action is known to us in one or other of three states,
namely, awake or asleep or in an intermediate state which may
be called somnolent. When awake the mind is simultaneously
aware both of its actual surroundings and of itself. In normal
sleep it has ceased to be aware of its actual surroundings and is
unconscious. And in the somnolent state it is what may be
called half-conscious. It may be obscurely aware of its surround-
ings or obscurely aware of itself but not of both simultaneously.
Thus the light of the morning may awake the sleeper and he may
see before the thought of selfor any inner feeling at all has awoke.
In all ordinary cases of awaking out of sleep, feeling is indeed
imminent or immediately consequent upon perception. But the
two, the objective and the subjective, are not only separable in
analysis, they are occasionally separable also in time. Supposing
the term sensibility to imply feeling and the term perceptivity
to imply merely a capacity of beirfg impressed by an object in
some way that is somehow representative of that object, percep-
tivity is a simpler function than sensibility. Leibnitz in laying
hold of perceptivity as the elemental conception of mind, was
more happy and opened the way to a larger, a more harmonious,
and philosophical conception of the universe than Kant who
placed sensibility in this position. Those who insist upon both
as inexorably given simultaneously, and who maintain that sub-
* Since the foregoing paper was in print, I have seen Mr. F. H.
Bradley' s elaborate examination of The Methods of Ethics. His criticism
and mine are curiously divergent ; but there is at least one of his beliefs,
which he mentions incidentally, in which we are agreed namely, that
the only consistent Hedonism is Egoistic. Even that, however, he
would take as an argument against Hedonism (for I fear he would not
waste much politeness over the mental or moral qualities of an Egoist) ;
whereas I have ventured to consider it an argument for Egoism. The
difference between Mr. Bradley and myself, though it looks enormous,
is in reality curiously small. I quite agree that Virtue is the Realisation
of the will ; only I add, the will is Pleasure. This I fear he will con-
sider an ' irreducible minimum '. However, even that is sometimes got
over ; and a question of fact, which I hold this to be, should never be
irreducible.
The So-called Antinomy of Reason. 187
ject-object is the primal, the inseparable and true unity, and
the only warrantable basis of philosophic belief, can never get
beyond it. While appealing to consciousness as their supreme
authority, they do violence, when they have proceeded but a little
way, to that cumulative testimony of mankind which goes by
the name of common sense ; which, nevertheless philosophy
must respect if it is ever to be suitable for general culture,
and to contribute to the intellectual and moral advancement of
humanity.
The co-existence (so far as can be discovered) at the same
moment of subject and object in the mind, that is, the existence
of subject-object as the undivided and seemingly indivisible
datum of the mental functioning, is not a state of things in which
mind must be always unavoidably and necessarily involved. It
is on the contrary only the product of a rhythmical action in
mind that is proper to the waking state, depending on a corres-
ponding somatic rhythm which may be roughly compared to the
polarised state in the merely dynamic economy of nature.
At any rate in this two-fold mode of mental action which ma-
nifests at once the outward and the inward, the objective and the
subjective, there may be detected a notable difference between
the two phases in which it consists. In that which gives the
objective, the mind is merely receptive and may be somnolent.
Its principal relations are, as we may say, cosmical. That which
gives the subjective wakes up in a Hi mi ing what the other pre-
sents to belief. But this is not all ; it forthwith proceeds to con-
stitute consciousness, that is, to make place for itself in the midst
of the inflowing tide of intuitions or informations, to defend it-
self against encroachments, to aggrandise itself, and ultimately
to exclude or deny what the cosmical relation presents to belief,
and which it is the first duty of the mind to affirm. As the for-
mer phase has been said to be cosmical, constitutional, sponta-
neous, merely a capacity in function afferent or inbringing,
so may this be said to be personal and volitional or of the nature
of a power in function efferent or aggressive. In brief and
more familiarly, the former is the mind in its naturally synthetic
phase of mental action ; the latter is the mind in its analytic
phase. And in one or other of these phases, usually in both
simultaneously, more or less, and in none others, the mind as an
intellectual agency always is when the individual is aw r ake.
During sleep, the volitional, the analytical, phase retreats as
it were or sheathes itself in the spontaneous, the synthetic phase,
and leaves the mind simply intuitional or informational. Not
that an undisturbed intuition of reality ensues, because the mind
when in the brain is like a magnetic compass in the hold of an
iron ship, which instead of pointing steadily to the pole reels
188 TJie So-called Antinomy of Reason.
about, and if believed would mislead. Similarly during sleep,
instead of a simple listening for impressions or an open steady
intuition of reality, there is induced in all ordinary cases a
careless play of mind and the presentation of only a mock-reality,
a creation of the imagination a dream.
Between these two phases of mental action it is further need-
ful to be remarked that the cosmical, the spontaneous, the syn-
thetic phase, however long-continued, implies no exhaustion of
mental energy but rather the reverse, and therefore tends to pass
through reverie into ecstacy ; while the volitional, the personal,
the analytical phase, being the outcome of the personal energy,
does imply exhaustion and is ever liable to discharge itself in
motion. Nevertheless this dynamic inequality between the two
phases exists in the interest of the real and the true, provided
error be not already in possession of the mind. Where this is
the case then on the contrary, this liability of the analytic power
to weakness in the weak and mere emotion in the strong gives
rise to a general liability to believe what may not be belief-
worthy, in one word, to credulity.
Supposing the mind thus awake, aware both of itself and its
environments, to exist in the midst of any panorama, then,
whilst its cosmical or synthetic phase secures to it a belief in the
existence of that panorama, its analytical, volitional or personal
phase, acting as selective attention or as it is more generally
named abstraction, can vivify to any extent it pleases individua-
lised objects in the given panorama, the mind becoming blind to
object after object till they are all gone. The question is what
remains of the original panorama as matter of direct and im-
mediate intuition, the surviving datum of the sustained synthetic
phase of the mental state ? To this the answer is that there
remains the intuition of the place where the now vanished objects
were ; there remains the intuition of room for any individualised
objects which may be introduced again into the ambient where
objects were before ; there remains the intuition of SPACE imply-
ing a condition of the possibility of external objects, a conviction
so deep-seated and constitutional that it is impossible to deny
it or to conceive it to be otherwise.
Nor is there given to the mind in virtue of its synthetic phase,
when in its place in nature, an intuition of Space only ; it also
obtains and cannot escape from an intuition of BEING or that
which exists. This intuition indeed flows from a two-fold source
and stands on a double basis, namely the inward manifestation
of the mind to itself and the outwardly experienced fact pro-
ducing the conviction that the intuition of space has in it more
than mere emptiness, has in it, in a word, that for which there is
no mistake in naming it Being.
The So-called Antinomy of Reason. 189
Moreover, these intuitions of Space or immensity, and of Being
or existence, when thus given by the mind in its cosmical or
synthetic phase, are given wholly without limits, and not ne-
gatively but positively INFINITE. During the phase of mental
existence which we have been considering, no limit has appeared.
The idea of a limit has not yet emerged. There is nothing as
yet to embarrass or stop the influence of the intuition in that
character which the intuition itself ascribes to its object, namely
Infinity. And here let us remark that the acceptance or the re-
jection of this view ought to depend entirely on what may be
called the natural-history character of the intuition by those
who have that intuition, not on the issue of an analysis which,
though designed to be merely searching, yet so often proves to
be destructive. Now the place which the idea of the Infinite
has taken and holds in the history of humanity, especially in the
most enlarged and elevated minds of all ages, demonstrates in a
natural-history point of view that the Infinite is not a merely
negative but a truly positive object. But it is not to be for-
gotten that during the state which we have been considering the
embodied mind is supposed to be, although conscious, yet on
the eve of sleep, the personal activity being in abeyance. That
such a state of naked intuition does occur occasionally in the
spontaneous course of life must, I think, be admitted. Nor
are we, the victims of the over-activity of the West, as appears
to me, warranted in denying what the meditative minds of the
East affirm, that such a state is attainable by education by a
life-long discipline of contemplation and repose.
When we are fully awake as in all ordinary states of think-
ing, when the personal, the volitional, the analytic phase of mind
is in action, a remarkable change comes over the previous cha-
racter of our intuition. Conception then takes the place of simple
intuition. Definition or an attempt to define everything, and
in every case a LIMIT, then emerges. And it is reproduced as
often as the recurrence of the previous state of intuition puts
it out of the way.
The reason of this is that the mind when acting as a specially
individualised being, itself limited in energy as it ever is and
ever must be, co-ordinates and ever must co-ordinate its views
of tilings with itself as its principal object of regard. This, the
cosmical law of assimilation compels. What the primal intui-
tion gives therefore to the mind as a pure receptivity, the per-
sonal functioning being in abeyance and reality truly mirroring
itself in the reposing soul, (in which case reality is felt and seen
to be infinite and absolute), the mind when acting out from
itself reflectively, volitionally, personally finds to be like itself
finite and conditioned.
13
190 Tlie So-called Antinomy of Reason.
Hence the infinitude, the boundlessness of space, as given in
the pure intuition of it, is interfered with. A limit is fixed upon.
And though the primal intuition as often as it recurs obliterates
that limit and carries thought beyond it, yet in the next fit of
the mind's personal action the limit is reproduced. But it is now
more distant than before. And so on alternately as long as any
one pleases. The ultimate view is thus a conception of a sphere,
the mind in the centre and the periphery too distant to be con-
sidered. Yet a periphery is affirmed to exist somewhere, because
the mind's own activity is more important to itself than its re-
ceptivity of impressions, and therefore it claims the last word.
The same phenomenon occurs when, instead of thinking of
space in all its immensity, we think of it as the smallest volume
conceivable. The personal activity comes in here as before, but
now to exhaust space or bring it to a close. No such issue how-
ever is possible. In virtue of the infinitude of the primal in-
tuition, a volume still remains after every act of dichotomy I do
not say after every section, for space is essentially continuous
and cannot be divided. When it is cut into, it exists in the par-
titionments the same as on their sides. Instead of being infi-
nitely divisible as is commonly said, space is not divisible at all.
It is absolutely fixed as well as infinitely extended.
In these respects Space differs from Being, from matter for
instance. Thus let the atom, the true material element, be merely
a centre of force so that the extension of body shall be pro-
duced by centres of force in juxta-position, balanced at proper
distances from each other by their reciprocal attractions and re-
pulsions, then as there is a natural so is there a logical limit to
divisibility when these elements are separated or viewed as
separate from each other ; for a centre is that which has indeed
position in space but has not space within itself. It has no
volume or magnitude to supply a field for the mind in its ana-
lytic phase to affirm infinite divisibility of it. And following so
far in the footsteps of Leibnitz and Boscovich by the aid of the
discoveries of modern chemistry, I have shown that on such a
view of matter the phenomena of the molecular world may be
explained to an unprecedented extent, and indeed without limit.
The view which we have obtained by banishing from thought
all individualised objects, and leaving only what cannot be got
rid of, has given us as necessary or unavoidable intuitions abso-
lute being and sufficient and therefore infinite room for it or
space. And these intuitions are so blended, so simultaneous and
united, that when they first come in they do not force upon the
mind the idea of change. Nevertheless they are a couple. They
imply an alternative. And the mind in its activity and natural
restlessness soon shifts and varies its regard from the one to the
TJie So-called Antinomy of Reason. 191
other, and thus feels a change, and remembering it marks a differ-
ence and makes it the object of reflection. And thus the mind
becomes cognisant of change and succession, and consequently of
duration, in a word, of TIME. Time thus comes into the mind as
the medium or possibility of change. So far then it is analogous
to space. Like space it is a field for the occurrence of pheno-
mena. But both in its genesis and in its relations time dif-
fers remarkably from space. Thus space is discovered to the
mind in its synthetical, its cosmical, its spontaneous and unavoid-
able phase of action. Time is discovered and we may say created
by the mind in its personal, its analytical, its volitional phase of
action. Space is a manifestation in the objective or outward
field of thought, time in the inner. Nevertheless there is such
reciprocal urgency between the ideas of space and time, that
it may be questioned whether it is possible to think of mere or
pure time without the idea of space intruding itself into the
thought. Thus whenever there is in the mind the idea of time
there must be simultaneously the cognisance or conception ex-
plicitly or implicitly of at least two distinguishable objects. Now
in consequence of this, though the pure idea of time regards them
only as successive, yet the imminence, the constant presence, of
the idea of space is ever apt to interpose the thought that there
is some distance between them, and so to mix up the idea of
space with that of time. Hence nothing more common even in
philosophic works than to find the author speaking of a ' space
of time ' instead of a ' duration of time '. In consequence of the
poverty of language indeed it is impossible to avoid speaking
of ' the length of time ', ' the shortness of time ', though these
terms apply literally to space only.
Hence also the degradation of both ideas when space is spoken
of as extensive quantity, and time as proteusive quantity, con-
ceptions which apply only to volume and movement not to space
or time at all.
It is this confusion which prevents our being able to think of
a beginning or an end of time. In itself the thought is as easy
as is the thought of a beginning or an ending of change. This, it
may be said, is impossible also. And so no doubt it is, so long as
the consciousness or the surreptitious influence of life enters into
our thought ; for life is change. For a like reason it is impossible,
while the doctrine of cause is in possession of the mind ; for life
is cause as well as change. But as to mere time, succession,
duration, that which the observation of change imparts to the
mind, it must cease when all observation of change ceases. To a
Being with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning,
there can be no past, no future, all must be one present panorama.
Tli ere is no field for time. Eternity in that case holds the place.
192 The So-called Antinomy of Reason.
of time. Now this idea Eternity is not, as nevertheless it
seems to be, the synthetic conception of all times considered as
one. Eternity is not the totality of time. Thought, when from
time it has slid into eternity, has unconsciously changed its
ground, and is in point of fact contemplating the infinite. The
thought which is the product of the personal activity has given
place to that which is given by the cosmical intuition.
There is nothing therefore which is merely poetic and figura-
tive in the anticipation of an epoch when time shall be no more.
It is rather a promise to the soul of a higher mode of intui-
tion, when it has attained the lucidity of a true repose, when,
as the Buddhist philosophers say, " the pride of the I am is
subdued."
The tenet that an absolute beginning and an absolute ending
of time are unthinkable is the result of confusion of ideas and
defective analysis. What is thought of as the ground of such an
affirmation is not " pure time " but " space of time," not the field
of change but the field of existence. The latter is indeed truly
beginningless, truly unending ; and to attempt to estimate it by
adding time to time or volume to volume, or in any way by the
use of the personal or analytical power of the mind, is vain. A
sum of numbers or of forms, however great or vast, remains for
ever infinitely short of the infinite. This is a simple indivisible
intuition given to the mind when reposing in its cosmical
relation. All attempts whether to realise or to deny it by the
exercise of the personal, the volitional, the analytical action of
the mind are misapplied and futile. The alternate affirmation
and denial by the mind of the absolute, the infinite, is not a
valid contradiction. It is not an antinomy in reason. It is
only the result of a mistake in the use of reason, or rather
indeed of reasoning. That which the philosopher of Konigs-
berg called the practical reason is best entitled to the name of
reason without any qualification. It is the information of the
mind when functioning in its cosmical phase and lighted up
by intuition with all the greatest cosmical truths. The question
as to the way in which the embodied mind comes to be possessed
of these truths, whether at once by the imminence, the penetra-
tive power, and the immediate impressiveness upon it of the
corresponding realities, or piece-meal by Zoic development and
the synthesis of lower instincts, need not be considered. Our
mental inability to grasp and see through combinations which
are manifold, and our consequent demand for that which is
simple and easily conceivable, will always secure a popular vote
in favour of development. Meantime the knowledge of the fact
is the main thing. And intuition in man cannot be cogently
denied so long as instinct in animals is granted. Surely, too,
' Cram: 193
we ought to pay the greatest respect to intuition so far as it is
verified by reality, since all that we can do by way of reasoning
and demonstration is to infer identity not where there is no
difference but where no difference appears to us.
J. G. MACVICAR.
V. ' CKAM.'
A HUMAN institution has like man its seven ages. In its
infancy unknown and unnoticed, it excites in youth some in-
terest and surprise. Advancing towards manhood, every one is
forward in praising its usefulness. As it grows up and becomes
established, the popular tone begins to change. Some people
are unavoidably offended or actually injured by a new institu-
tion, and as it grows older and more powerful, these people be-
come more numerous. In proportion to the success of an under-
taking, will be the difficulties and jealousies which are encoun-
tered. It becomes the interest of certain persons to find out the
weak points of the system, and turn them to their private ad-
vantage. Thus the institution reaches its critical age, which
safely surmounted, it progresses through a prosperous middle
life to a venerable old age of infirmities and abuses, dying out
in the form of a mere survival.
There is no difficulty in seeing what period of life the examin-
ation-system has now reached. It is that critical age at which
its progress is so marked as to raise wide-spread irritation. To
abuse examinations is one of the most popular commonplaces
of public speeches and after-dinner conversation. Everybody
has something to say in dispraise, and the reason is pretty
obvious. Many persons have been inconvenienced by examina-
tions ; some regret the loss of patronage ; others the loss of patrons
and appointments ; schoolmasters do not like having their work
rudely tested : they feel the competition of more far-sighted
teachers who have adapted themselves betimes to a new state of
things. In these and other ways it arises that a formidable
minority actually have good grounds for hating examinations.
They make their feelings widely known, and the general public,
ever ready to grumble at a novelty of which they hear too much,
and do not precisely appreciate the advantages, take up the
burden of the complaint.
Fortunately, too, for the opponents of examination, an ad-
mirable ' cry ' has been found. Examination, they say, leads
to ' cram/ and ' cram ' is the destruction of true study. People
194 'Cram.'
who know nothing else about examination know well enough
that it is ' cram '. The word has all the attributes of a perfect
question-begging epithet. It is short, emphatic, and happily de-
rived from a disagreeable physical metaphor. Accordingly, there
is not a respectable gentleman distributing prizes to a body of
scholars at the end of the session, and at a loss for something to
say, who does not think of this word ' cram,' and proceed to
expatiate on the evils of the examination-system.
1 intend in this article to take up the less popular view of the
subject and say what I can in favour of examinations. I wish
to analyse the meaning of the word ' cram, ' and decide, ii pos-
sible, whether it is the baneful thing that so many people say.
There is no difficulty in seeing at once that ' cram ' means two dif-
ferent things, which I will call 'good cram' and 'bad cram'.
A candidate, preparing for an important competitive examination,
may put himself under a tutor well-skilled in preparing for that
examination. This tutor looks for success by carefully directing
the candidate's studies into the most ' paying' lines, and restricting
them rigorously to those lines. The training given may be of an
arduous, thorough character, so that the faculties of the pupil
are stretched and exercised to their utmost in those lines. This
would be called ' cram ' because it involves exclusive devotion to
the answering of certain examination-papers. I call it 'good cram'.
' Bad cram,' on the other hand, consists in temporarily impres-
sing upon the candidate's mind a collection of facts, dates, or for-
mulae, held in a wholly undigested state and ready to be disgorged
in the examination-room by an act of mere memory. A candi-
date, unable to apprehend the bearing of Euclid's reasoning in
the first book of his Elements, may learn the propositions off by
heart, diagrams, letters and all, like a Sunday scholar learning
the collects and gospels. Dates, rules of grammar, and the like,
may be ' crammed ' by mnemonic lines, or by one of those
wretched systems of artificial memory, teachers of which are
always going about. In such ways it is, I believe, possible to give
answers which simulate knowledge, and no more prove true
knowledge, than the chattering of a parrot proves intellect.
I am far from denying the existence of ' bad cram ' of this cha-
racter, but I hold that it can never be advantageously resorted
to by those who are capable of ' good cram ' . To learn a proposition
of Euclid by heart is far more laborious than for a student of
moderate capacity to master the nature of the reasoning. It is
obvious that all advantages, even in an examinational point of
view, are on the side of real knowledge. The slightest lapse of
memory in the bad ' crammer,' for instance the putting of wrong
letters in the diagram, will disclose the simulated character of
his work, and the least change in the conditions of the proposi-
'Cram.' 195
tion set will frustrate his mnemonic devices altogether. If
papers be set which really can be answered by mere memory,
the badness is in the examiners.
Thorough blockheads may be driven to the worst kind of
' cram/ simply because they can do nothing better. Nor do the
blockheads suffer harm ; to exercise the memory is better than to
leave the brain wholly at rest. Some qualities of endurance and
resolution must be called into existence, before a youth can go
through the dreary work of learning off by heart things of which
he has no comprehension. Nor with examiners of the least in-
telligence is there any reason to fear that the best directed ' bad
cram ' will enable a really stupid candidate to carry off honours
and appointments due to others. No examination-papers even
for junior candidates should consist entirely of ' book-work,' such
as to be answered by the simple reproduction of the words in a
text-book. In every properly conducted examination, questions
are, as a matter of course, set to test the candidate's power of ap-
plying his knowledge to cases more or less different from those
described in the books. Moreover good examiners always judge,
answers by their general style as well as by their contents. It
is really impossible that a stupid slovenly candidate can by any art
of 'cramming' be enabled to produce the neat, brief, pertinent essay,
a page or two long, which wins marks from the admiring examiners.
If we may judge from experience, too, ' bad cram ' does not pay
from the tutor's point of view. That this is so we may learn
from the fact that slow ignorant pupils are ruthlessly rejected by
the great ' coaches '. Those who have their reputation and their
living to make by the success of their candidates cannot afford
to waste their labour upon bad material. Thus it is not the stupid
who go to the ' cramming ' tutors to be forced over the heads of the
clever, but it is the clever ones who go to secure the highest
places. Long before the critical days of the official examination,
the experienced ' coach ' selected his men almost as carefully
as if he were making up the University boat. There is hardly
a University or a College in the kingdom which imposes any
selective process of the sort. An entrance or matriculation exa-
mination, if it exists at all, is little better than a sham. All comers
are gladly received to give more fees and the appearance of pros-
perity. Thus it too often happens that the bulk of a college class
consists of untutored youths through whose ears the learned in-
structions of the professor pass, harmlessly it may be, but use-
lessly. Parents and the public have little idea how close a re-
semblance there is between teaching and writing on the sands
of the sea, unless either there is a distinct capacity for learning
on the part of the pupil, or some system of examination and re-
ward to force the pupil to apply.
196 '(7mm/
For these and other reasons which might be urged, I do not
consider it worth while to consider ' bad cram ' any further. I
pass on to inquire whether 'good cram' is an objectionable form
of education. The good 'cramming' tutor or lecturer is one whose
object is to enable his pupils to take a high place in the list.
With this object he carefully ascertains the scope of the exa-
mination, scrutinises past papers, and estimates in every pos-
sible way the probable character of future papers. He then
trains his pupils in each branch of study with an intensity pro-
portioned to the probability that questions will be asked in that
branch. It is too much to assume that this training will be su-
perficial. On the contrary, though narrow it will probably be
intense and deep. It will usually consist to a considerable ex-
tent in preliminary examinations intended both to test and train
the pupil in the art of writing answers. The great ' coaches ' at
Cambridge in former days might be said to proceed by a constant
system of examination, oral instruction or simple reading being
subordinate to the solving of innumerable problems. The main
question which I have to discuss, then, resolves itself into this :
whether intense training directed to the passing of certain de-
fined examinations constitutes real education. The popular op-
ponents of ' cram ' imply that it does not ; I maintain that it does.
It happened that, just as I was about to write this article, the
Home Secretary presided at the annual prize-distribution in the
Liverpool College, on the 22nd December, 1876, and took
occasion to make the usual remarks about ' cram '. He expressed
with admirable clearness the prevailing complaints against
examinations, and I shall therefore take the liberty of making
his speech in some degree my text. " Examination is not edu-
cation," he said. " You require a great deal more than that. As
well as being examined, you must be taught In
the great scramble for life there is a notion at the present
moment of getting hold of as much general superficial knowledge
as you can. That to my mind is a fatal mistake. On the other
hand, there is a great notion that if you can get through your
examination and ' cram up ' a subject very well, you are being
educated. That, too, is a most fatal mistake. There is nothing
which would delight me so much, if I were an examiner, as to
baffle all the ' cramming ' teachers whose pupils came before me "
(laughter).
Let us consider what Mr. Cross really means. Examination,
lie says, is not education ; we require a great deal more ; we
must be taught as well as be examined. With equal meaning
I might say, ' Beef is not dinner ; we want a great deal more ;
we must have potatoes, bread, pudding, and the like '. Never-
theless beef is a principal part of dinner. Nobody, I should
'Cram.' 197
think, ever asserted or imagined that examination alone was
education, but I nevertheless hold that it is one of the chief
elements of an effective education. As Mr. Cross himself said
in an earlier part of his speech, "the examination is a touchstone
and test which shows the broad distinction between good and
bad. . . . You may manage to scramble through your
lessons in the ' half,' but I will defy you to get through your
examinations if you do not know the subjects."
Another remark of Mr. Cross leads me to the main point of
the subject. He said " It is quite necessary in the matter of
teaching that whatever is taught must be taught well, and
nothing that is taught well can be taught in a hurry. It must
be taught not simply for the examination, but it must sink into
your minds, and stay there for life."
Both in this and his other remarks Mr. Cross commits himself
to the popular but wholly erroneous notion that what boys learn
at school and college should be useful knowledge indelibly
impressed upon the mind, so as to stay there all their lives, and
be ready at their fingers' ends. The real point of the objections
to examination commonly is, that the candidate learns things
for the examination only, which, when it is safely passed, he for-
gets again as speedily as possible. Mr. Cross would teach so
deliberately and thoroughly that the very facts taught could not
be forgotten, but must ever after crop up in the mind whatever
we are doing.
I hold that remarks such as these proceed from a wholly
false view of the nature and purposes of education. It is implied
that the mind in early life is to be stored with the identical
facts, and bits of knowledge which are to be used in after life.
It is, in fact, Mr. Cross and those who think with him, who
advocate a kind of ' cram,' enduring it is true, but still ' bad
cram '. The true view of education, on the contrary, is to regard
it as a course of training. The youth in a gymnasium practises
upon the horizontal bar, in order to develop his muscular powers
generally ; he does not intend to go on posturing upon hori-
zontal bars all through life. School is a place where the mental
fibres are to be exercised, trained, expanded, developed, and
strengthened, not ' crammed ' or loaded with ' useful knowledge '.
The whole of a youth's subsequent career is one long course
of technical ' cramming ' in which any quantity of useful facts are
supplied. to him nolens volens.- The merchant gets his technical
knowledge at the clerk's desk, the barrister in the conveyancer's
ofhces or the law courts, the engineer in the workshop and the
field. It is the very purpose of a liberal education, as it is
correctly called, to develop and train the plastic fibres of the
youthful brain, so as to prevent them taking too early a
198 ' Cram. 9
definite ' set,' which will afterwards narrow and restrict the
range of acquisition and judgment. I will even go so far as to
say that it is hardly desirable for the actual things taught at
school to stay in the mind for life. The source of error is the
failure to distinguish between the form and the matter of know-
ledge, between the facts themselves and the manner in which
the mental powers deal with facts.
It is wonderful that Mr. Cross and those who moralise in his
strain do not perceive that the actual facts which a man deals
with in life are infinite in number, and cannot be remembered
in a finite brain. The psychologists, too, seem to me to be at
fault in this matter, for they have not sufficiently drawn atten-
tion to the varying degrees of duration ie\uired in a well
organised memory. We commonly use the word Memory so as
to cover the faculties of Retention, Reproduction and Repre-
sentation, as described by Hamilton, and very little consideration
w r ill show that in different cases we need the powers of reten-
tion, of suggestion and of imagination in very different degrees.
In some cases we require to remember a thing only a few
moments, or a few minutes ; in other cases a few hours or
days ; in yet other cases a few weeks or months : it is an
infinitesimally small part of all our mental impressions which
can be profitably remembered for years. Memory may be too
retentive, and facility of forgetting and of driving out one train
of ideas by a new train is almost as essential to a well-trained
intellect as facility of retention.
Take the case of a barrister in full practice, who deals with
several cases in a day. His business is to acquire as rapidly as
possible the facts of the case immediately before him. With
the powers of representation of a well-trained mind, he holds
these facts steadily before him, comparing them with each other,
discovering their relations, applying to them the principles and
rules of law more deeply graven on his memory, or bringing them
into connection with a few of the more prominent facts of
previous cases which he happens to remember. For the details
of laws and precedents he trusts to his text writers, the statute
book, and his law library. Even before the case is finished his
mind has probably sifted out the facts and rejected the unim-
portant ones by the law of obliviscence. One case done with,
he takes up a wholly new series of facts, and so from day to day,
and from month to month, the matter before him is constantly
changing. The same remarks are even more true of a busy and
able administrator like Mr. Cross. The points which come
before him are infinite in variety. The facts of each case are
rapidly brought to his notice by subordinates, by correspond-
ence, by debates in the House, by deputations and interviews,
' Cram! 199
or by newspaper reports. Applying well-trained powers of
judgment to the matter in hand, he makes a rapid decision and
passes to the next piece of business. It would be fatal to Mr.
Cross if he were to allow things to sink deep into his mind and
stay there. There would be no difficulty in showing that in
like manner, but in varying degrees, the engineer, the physician,
the merchant, even the tradesman or the intelligent artisan, deal
every day with various combinations of facts which cannot all
be stored up in the cerebral framework, and certainly need not
be so.
The bearing of these considerations upon the subject of examina-
tions ought to be very evident. For what is ' cram ' but the rapid
acquisition of a series of facts, the vigorous getting up of a case,
in order to exhibit well-trained powers of comprehension, of
judgment, and of retention before an examiner ? The practised
barrister ' crams ' up his ' brief ' (so called because, as some sup-
pose, made brief for the purpose) and stands an examination in
it before a judge and jury. The candidate is not so hurried ;
he spends months or it may be two or three years in getting up
his differential calculus or his inorganic chemistry. It is quite
likely that when the ordeal is passed, and the favourable verdict
delivered, he will dismiss the equations and the salts and com-
pounds from his mind as rapidly as possible; but it does not follow
that the useful effect of his training vanishes at the same time.
If so, it follows that almost all the most able and successful men
of the present day threw away their pains at school and college.
I suppose that no one ever heard of a differential equation
solving a nice point of law, nor is it common to hear Sophocles
and Tacitus quoted by a leading counsel. Yet it can hardly be
denied that our greatest barristers and judges were trained in the
mathematical sciences, or if not, that their teachers thought the
classics a better training ground. If things taught at school
and college are to stay in the mind to serve us in the business
of life, then almost all the higher education yet given in this
kingdom has missed its mark.
I come to the conclusion, then, that well-ordered education is
a severe system of well-sustained ' cram '. Mr. Herbert Spencer
holds that the child's play simulates the actions and exercises of
the man. So I would hold that the agony of the examination-
room is an anticipation of the struggles of life. All life is a long
series of competitive examinations. The barrister before the
jury ; the preacher in his pulpit ; the merchant on the Exchange
flags ; the member in the House all are going in for their
' little goes,' and their ' great goes,' and their ' triposes '. And
I unhesitatingly assert that as far as experience can guide us,
or any kind of reasoning enable us to infer, well-conducted com-
200 ' Cram!
petitive examinations before able examiners, are the best means
of training, and the best method of selection for those who are to
be foremost in the battle of life.
I will go a step further, and assert that examination in one
form or another is not only an indispensable test of results, but it
is a main element in training. It represents the active use of
faculties as contrasted with that passive use which too often re-
solves itself into letting things come in at one ear and go out at
the other. Those who discuss examinations in the public papers,
seem to think that they are held occasionally and for the sole
purpose of awarding prizes and appointments. But in every
well-ordered course of instruction there ought to be, and there
usually are, frequent less formal examinations of which outsiders
hear nothing. The purposes of these examinations are manifold ;
they test the progress of the class, and enable the teacher to judge
whether he is pursuing a right course at a right speed ; they
excite emulation in the active and able ; they touch the pride
even of those who do not love knowledge much, but still do not
like to write themselves down absolute blockheads ; and they
are in themselves an exercise in English composition, in the con-
trol of the thoughts, and the useful employment of knowledge.
In direct educational effect a written examination may be worth
half-a-dozen lectures. Mr. Cross says that examination is not
education ; I say that it is. Of course you cannot examine upon
nothing, just as you cannot grind flour in a mill unless you put
the grain in. Nevertheless examination in some form or other
represents the really active grinding process in the pupil's mind.
It is not merely that which goes into the eyes and ears of
a student which educates him ; it is that which comes out. A
student may sit on the lecture-room benches and hear every word
the teacher utters ; but he may carry away as much useful effect
as the drowsy auditor of a curate's sermon. To instruct a youth
in gymnastics, you do not merely explain orally that he is to climb
up one pole, and come down another, and leap over a third. You
make him do these motions over and over again, and the educa-
tion is in the exertion. So intellectual education is measured not
by words heard or read, but by- thoughts excited. In some sub-
jects mental exertion in the pupil is called forth by the working
of problems and exercises. These form a kind of continuous
examination,' which should accompany every lecture. Arithmetic
is only to be learnt by sums upon the schoolboy's slate, and it is
the infinite variety of mathematical tasks from common addi-
tion upwards, which makes mathematical science the most
powerful training ground of the intellect. The late Professor De
Morgan was probably the greatest teacher of mathematics who
ever lived. He considered it requisite that students should at-
'Cram! 201
tend his expository lectures for an hour and a quarter every
day ; but he always gave an abundance of exercises as well,
which, if fully worked out, would take at least as long, and often
twice as long a time. Exercises are the sheet-anchor of the
teacher, and in this way only can we explain the extraordinary
propensity of classical teachers towards Latin verses. As I have
heard such teachers explain, verses though useless in every other
way afford a definite measurable amount of exercise a man-
ageable classical treadmill. For many years past it was my
duty to teach several subjects Logic, Mental and Moral Philo-
sophy, and Political Economy. Experience made me acutely
aware of the very different educational values of these diverse
subjects. Logic is by far the best, because when properly taught
it admits of the same active training by exercises and problems
that we find in mathematics. It is no doubt necessary that
some instruction should also be given to senior students in philo-
sophy and political economy ; but it is difficult in these subjects
to make the student think for himself. Examination, then, re-
presents the active as opposed to the passive part of education,
and in answer to Mr. Cross's statement that examination is not
education, I venture to repeat that, in some form or other, exa-
mination is the most powerful and essential means of training
the intellect.
I now pass on to the wholly different question whether open
competitive examinations are the best me;.ns of selecting men
for important appointments. In this view of examinations the
educational results are merely incidental, and the main object is
to find an impartial mode of putting the right man into the right
place, and thus avoiding the nepotism and corruption which
are almost inseparable from other methods of appointment. At
first sight it might seem absurd to put a man in a position re-
quiring judgment and tact and knowledge of the world because
he answers rightly a few questions about mathematics and Greek.
The head master of a great school succeeds not by -the teaching
of the higher forms, but by the general vigour and discretion of
his management. He is an administrator not a pedagogue ; then
why choose a high wrangler, because of his command over differ-
ential equations ? Why make a young man a magistrate in
Bengal, because of his creditable translations from the classics,
or his knowledge of English history ? Would it not be far better
to select men directly for any success which they have shown in
the management of business exactly analogous to that they will
have to perform ?
Experience must decide in such matters, and it seems to de-
cide conclusively in favour of examinations. Public opinion and
practice at any rate are in favour of this conclusion. Eor a long
202 ' CramJ
time back the honours' degrees of Oxford and Cambridge have
been employed as a means of selection. It does not of course
follow that a high wrangler, or a double first, will suit every im-
portant position ; but it is almost always expected now-a-days
that a man applying for a high post shall have some high
degree. Even those who are unfettered in their powers of ap-
pointment will seldom now appoint a young man to a conspi-
cuous post unless his degree will justify the appointment in the
eyes of the public. The President of the Council, for instance,
is unrestricted in the choice of School Inspectors, but he prac-
tically makes a high degreee a sine qua non. Not only does he
thus lessen his responsibility very greatly, and almost entirely
avoid suspicion of undue influence, but the general success and
ability of those appointed in this manner fully bear out the wis-
dom of the practice.
The fact seems to be that the powers which enable a man to
take a conspicuous place in a fierce competitive examination are
closely correlated, if they be not identical, with those leading to
success in the battle of life. It might be expected that a high
wrangler or a double first would generally be a weakly book-worm,
prematurely exhausted by intense study, unable to expand his
mind beyond his books, and deficient in all the tact and worldly
knowledge to be acquired by mixing in the business of life. But
experience seems to negative such ideas. The weakly men are
weeded out before they get to the final struggle, or breakdown in
the course of it. The true book-worm shows himself to be a
book-worm, and does not fight his way to a high place. Success
in a severe examination requires, as a general rule, a combina-
tion of robust physical health, good nerve, great general energy,
and powers of endurance and perseverance, added to pure intel-
lectual ability. There are of course exceptions in all matters of
this sort, but, so far as we can lay down rules in human affairs,
it is the mens sana in corpore sano which carries a candidate to
the higher part ot the list.
A man must not always be set down as a blockhead because
he cannot stand the examination-room. Some men of extensive
knowledge and much intelligence lose their presence of mind
altogether when they see the dreadful paper. They cannot
command their thoughts during the few hours when their success
in life is at stake. The man who trembles at the sight of the
paper is probably defective in the nerve and moral courage so
often needed in the business of life. It by no means follows,
a^ain, that the man of real genius will take a conspicuous place
in the list. His peculiar abilities will often lie in a narrow line
arid be correlated with weakness in other directions. His
powers can only be rendered patent in the course of time. It is
' Cram. 9 203
well known that some of the most original mathematicians were
not senior wranglers. Public examinations must be looked upon
as tests of general rather than special abilities ; talent, strength,
and soundness of constitution win the high place, powers which
can be developed in any direction in after life.
If evidence were needed to support this view of the matter it
is amply afforded by the recent Parliamentary Eeport on the
education and training of candidates for the Indian Civil
Service. Whatever may be thought as to the details of the
methods of training, which have been recently modified, there
can be no doubt that this report is conclusive as to the success
of examinational selection. The ability of the statements
furnished to this report by officers appointed by open competi-
tion goes far to prove the success of the system. It is impossible
to imagine a severer test than that system has passed through
in the case of the Indian Civil Service. Young men selected for
the amount of Latin, Greek, Mathematics, French, German, Logic,
Political Economy, and so forth, which they could ' cram up ',
have been sent out at 21 or 23 years of age, and thrown at once
into a new world, where it is difficult to imagine that their
' crammed ' knowledge could be of the least direct use. There
they have been brought into contact with a large body of older
officers, appointed under a different system, and little prejudiced
in favour of these ' Competition Wallahs '. Yet the evidence
is overwhelming to the effect that these victims of ' cram ' have
been successful in governing India. A large number of the best
appointments have already been secured by them, although the
system has only been in existence for twenty-two years, and
seniority is naturally of much account. The number who are
failures is very small, certainly smaller than it would be under
the patronage system. It is impossible that I should within the
limits of this article present the evidence accumulated on this
subject. I must refer the reader to the Blue Book itself, which
is full of interest for all concerned in education.* I must also
refer the reader to the remarkably able essays on the subject
published by Mr. Alfred Cotterell Tupp, BA. of the Bengal Civil
Service,-)- to which essays I am indebted for some of my ideas on
this subject. Mr. Tupp gives a powerful answer to the celebrated
attack on the competitive system contained in the Edinburgh
Review of April, 1874. He gives statistical tables and details
concerning- the careers of the men selected by competition, and
* TJt Selection and Training of Candidates for the Indian Civil Service
(C. 1446) 1876. Price 3s. od.
f The Indian Civil Service and the Competitive System, a discussion on
the Examinations and the Training in England. London : E. W. Brydges,
137, Gower fctieet. 1876.
204 ' Cram. 9
a general account of the examinations and of the organisation
in which the civil servant takes his place. The evidence against
selection by competition seems to come to this, that, after a most
complete inquiry, the worst that can be made out against the
' Competition Wallahs ' is that some of them do not ride well,
and that there is a doubt in some cases about the polish of their
manners, or the sweetness of their culture.
Doubt, indeed, was thrown by some writers upon the physical
suitability of selected candidates ; but on this point a most
remarkable fact was brought to light. All the candidates for
the Indian Civil Service have to undergo two strict medical
examinations before Sir William Gull, so that this eminent
physician is able to speak with rare authority as to the physical
health of the candidates. This is what he says (Report,
p. 36) : " I still continue to be impressed with the fact that a
sound physical constitution is a necessary element of success in
these competitive examinations. The men who have been
rejected have not failed from mere weakness of constitution, but
(with only a solitary exception or two) from a mechanical defect
in the valves of the heart in otherwise strong men, and for the
most part traceable to over-muscular exercises. . . . There
is a somewhat prevalent opinion, that the courses of study
now required for the public service are calculated to weaken the
physical strength of candidates. Experience does not only not
confirm this, but abundantly proves that the course of life which
conduces to sound intellectual training, is equally favourable to
the physical health of the student."
Unless then we are prepared to reject the opinion of the
physician who has had the best possible means of forming a
sound conclusion, a competitive examination is actually a good
mode of selecting men of good physical health, so closely are the
mental and bodily powers correlated as a general rule.
It is impossible that I should in a single article treat of more
than two or three of the principal arguments which may be
urged in defence of the examination-system. Did space admit
I might go on to point out the great improvement which has
taken place in education since effective examinations were estab-
lished. The condition of Oxford and Cambridge as regards
study in the present day may not be satisfactory, but it is
certainly far better than at the close of the last century. The
middle class schools are yet far from what they ought to be, but
the examination-system set on foot by the old universities is
doing immense good, giving vigorous and definite purpose where
before a schoolmaster had hardly any other object than to get
easily through the ' half. Primary schools would for the most
part be as bad as the old dames' schools, did not the visits of
' Cram: 205
Her Majesty's Inspectors stir them up to something better. In
one and all of the grades of English education, to the best of my
belief, examination is the sheet-anchor to which we must look.
I will not conclude without adverting briefly to a few of the
objections urged against the examination-system. Some of
these are quite illusory ; others are real though possibly exag-
gerated. JsTo institution can be an unmixed good, and we must
always strike a balance of advantage and disadvantage. One
illusory objection, for instance, is urged by those who take
the high moral ground and assert that knowledge should be
pursued for its own sake, and not for the ulterior rewards con-
nected with a high place in the examination-list. The remarks
of these people bring before the mind's eye the pleasing picture
of a youth burning the midnight oil, after a successful search for
his favourite authors. We have all of us heard how some young
man became a great author, or a great philosopher, because, in
the impressible time of boyhood, he was allowed to ransack the
shelves of his ancestral library. I do not like to be cynical, but
I cannot help asserting that these youths, full of the sacred love
of knowledge, do not practically exist. Some no doubt there are,
but so small is the number with which the school or college teacher
will meet in the course of his labours, that it is impossible to
take them into account in the general system. Every teacher
knows that the bulk of a junior class usually consists of intellects
so blunt or so inactive that every kind of spur is useful to incite
them to exertion.
Nor do I believe that the few who are by nature ardent stu-
dents need suffer harm from a well-devised system of university
examinations. It is very pleasant to think of a young man
pursuing a free and open range of reading in his ancestral library,
following his native bent, and so forth ; but such study di-
rected to no definite objects would generally be desultory and
unproductive. He might obtain a good deal of elegant culture,
but it is very doubtful whether he would acquire those powers
of application and concentration of thought which are the basis of
success in life. If a man really loves study and has genius in
him, he will find opportunities in after life for indulging his
peculiar tastes, and will not regret the three or four years when
his reading was severely restricted to the lines of examination.
Of course it is not desirable to force all minds through exactly
the same grooves, and the immense predominance formerly given
to mathematics at Cambridge could not be defended. But the
schemes of examination at all the principal universities now
offer many different branches in which distinction may be
gained.
The main difficulty which I see in the examination-system is
14
206 ' Cram.'
that it makes the examiner the director of education in place of
the teacher, whose liberty of instruction is certainly very much
curtailed. The teacher must teach with a constant eye to the
questions likely to be asked, if he is to give his pupils a fair
chance of success, compared with others who are being specially
'crammed' for the purpose. It is true that the teacher may him-
self be the examiner, but this destroys the value of the exami-
nation as a test or means of public selection. Much discussion
might be spent, were space available, upon the question whether
the teacher or the examiner is the proper person to define the
lines of study. No doubt a teacher will generally teach best,
and with most satisfaction to himself, when he can teacli what
he likes, and, in the case of University professors or other teachers
of great eminence, any restriction upon their freedom may be
undesirable. But as a general rule examiners will be more able
men than teachers, and the lines of examination are laid down
either by the joint judgment of a board of eminent examiners, or
by authorities who only decide after much consultation. The
question therefore assumes this shape Whether a single teacher,
guided only by his own discretion, or whether a board of compe-
tent judges, is most to be trusted in selecting profitable courses
of study ?
Few have had better opportunity than I have enjoyed both as
teacher and examiner in philosophical and economical subjects, of
feeling the difficulties connected with a system of examination in
these subjects. Some of these difficulties have been clearly ex-
pounded in the series of articles upon the state of philosophical
study at the different Universities published in MIND. It is
hardly needful to refer to the excellent discussion of the philo-
sophical examination in the London University by the Editor in
No. IV. I should not venture to defend University examina-
tion against all the objections which may be brought against them.
My purpose is accomplished in attempting to show that examina-
tion is the most effective way of enforcing a severe and definite
training upon the intellect, and of selecting those for high position
who show themselves best able to bear this severe test. It is the
popular cry against ' cram ' that I have answered, and I will con-
clude by expressing my belief that any mode of education which
enables a candidate to take a leading place in a severe and well-
conducted open examination, must be a good system of educa-
tion. Name it what you like, but it is impossible to deny that it
calls forth intellectual, moral, and even physical powers, which
are proved by unquestionable experience to fit men for the busi-
ness of life.
This is what I hold to be Education. We cannot consider it
the work of teachers to make philosophers and scholars and
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 207
geniuses of various sorts : these, like poets, are born not made.
Nor, as I have shown, is it the business of the educator to impress
indelibly upon the mind the useful knowledge which is to guide
the pupil through life. This would be ' cram ' indeed. It is the
purpose of education so to exercise the faculties of mind that the
infinitely various experience of after-life may be observed and
reasoned upon to the best effect. What is popularly, condemned
as 'cram' is often the best devised and best conducted system
of training towards this all-important end.
W. STANLEY JEVONS.
VI. PHILOSOPHY IN THE SCOTTISH
UNIVERSITIES. (II.)
The system of the Professoriate, as we have seen, followed
that of Regenting in the early part of last century. Its distinc-
tive feature is the specialising of the subjects of instruction, and
essentially connected with this are the organisation and distribu-
tion of these among different chairs. The character of the Philo-
sophical teaching, and the contributions to Philosophical litera-
ture, of the Scottish Universities during the last hundred and
fifty years have depended on those two elements. Out of
the division of subjects, two chairs arose in the Scottish Univer-
sities. The 'one was known as the chair of Logic, and was devoted
to the topics of Intellectual Philosophy embracing generally
Logic, Psychology, and Metaphysics, and, in the cases of St.
Andrews and Glasgow, Rhetoric as well. The other was called
the chair of Moral Philosophy, and was regarded as embracing
Ethics proper, Natural Jurisprudence, Natural Theology, and
generally Political Economy. The one exception to this arrange-
ment was Aberdeen. There was a chair of Moral Philosophy
both in King's and in Marischal College, but there was no special
chair of Logic until 1860, when it was instituted on the fusion
of the two Colleges. Intellectual Philosophy was, however, to
some extent taught by the Professors of Moral Philosophy. It
will thus be seen that the sphere of each chair was sufficiently
wide, even after the specialising. This comprehensiveness allowed
the individual professor considerable latitude of choice as to
which department he should most prelect upon ; and, in the
history of these chairs, this freedom has not been always helpful
to the progress of abstract thought.
One of the earliest results of the change to the Professoriate
was that Latin, as the language of instruction, was abandoned
208 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
for English. The teaching thus threw off the old conven-
tionalisms and formal phraseology, and came into closer contact
with everyday life and experience. It became freer and fresher
in spirit, and drew inspiration from the general literature of the
country, and re-acted on that in turn. In Glasgow, in 1730,
Francis Hutcheson delivered his introductory lecture in Latin,
and a very fine and fervid specimen of Latin composition it was.
But he found the trammels of the old speech too hard for the
modern spirit, and very soon, for the first time in the University,
took to lecturing in English. Since Hutcheson's time, the
spoken discourse of an hour each day has been the staple of in-
struction in Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. The power
and influence of this mode of teaching must no doubt vary with
the lecturer, and depend on his character, capacity, and vigour.
That this can be very great, apart even from subsequent examina-
tion on the lecture, and what may be called tutorial exercise, is
known to those who are familiar with the system. The influence,
simply as lecturers, of Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and Eeid in
Glasgow ; of Ferguson, Dugald Stewart, and Dr. Thomas Brown
in Edinburgh, is well-known ; and many in the present genera-
tion have felt the power of the well-knit, logical utterances of
Sir W. Hamilton, and the freshness, ease, and grace of Ferrier.
The interest and eagerness of the Scotch student, the large class,
the sympathy of numbers, the readiness for hard thought, and
the disinterestedness of feeling, are the elements on which the
Professor is privileged to work. He has the opportunity, simply
by the character of his prelections from the chair, of quickening
and inspiring his students in philosophical studies, and giving
them a connected, comprehensive, and systematic view of his
department such as can be accomplished equally well under no
other arrangement. If he fails to do this, the fault is his own.
But the habit of mere lecturing is not now, and has not been,
for a long time, the system of the Scottish Universities. We
find it in full force in Germany and in France, and no doubt it
has its advantages in leaving the Professor un trammeled by
tutorial work, and free for the higher duties of his chair. In
the German Universities, and the Hall of the Sorbonne, the
greater part of the philosophical literature of Germany and
France has appeared first in the form of spoken lectures. But
the Scotch professor has not only to lecture daily he has to
teach as well. He does the work of the Professor proper and
that of the Tutor besides. In all of the philosophical classes in
Scotland, some hour or hours are set apart for oral examination,
to say nothing of written examinations and essays.
As to modern philosophy in Scotland its rise, method,
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities, 209
scope, and results, since the first quarter of last century until
now, I am afraid the utmost compression, within my pre-
scribed limits, will not enable me to do it anything like justice.
This is true of it, as Cousin remarks, that it was born in the
Universities, and fostered by them. And it would be difficult
to find a parallel in any country in Europe for the degree of
tutorial work and the fulness of independent research, done by
the occupants of the two poorly endowed chairs of Logic and
Moral Philosophy in the different Universities of Scotland
during the last 150 years.
Remarkably enough, with the first man appointed to the
professoriate in Glasgow, we have the commencement of inde-
pendent investigation. This was Gerschom Carrnichael, the first
professor of Moral Philosophy, in 1727. He is regarded by
some as the founder of what is known as the Scottish School.
He was, at any rate, a fresh thinker and teacher well read in
the older philosophy, and yet alive to a new power and method
of inquiry. Both by date and habit of thought, Carmichuel
may be taken as the connecting link between the Regentiug
and the Professoriate, between the old thought and the new.
Born about 1672, he studied in Edinburgh, and became one
of the Regents in St. Andrews. In 1694, he gained by public
trial, as was usual at that period, the place of Regent in Glasgow.
His main interest was in ethical studies, and when the pro-
fessoriate was instituted in 1727, he was made professor of
Moral Philosophy. In all the departments of Philosophy which
he touched, there are signs of the new spirit. His Eremuscula
Introductio ad Logicam, published before 1722, shows the
influence of the logic of Port-Royal especially in the distinc-
tion of Comprehension and Extension. He edited Puffendorf,
with valuable notes De Officio Hominis et Civis Juxta Legem
Naturalem. The second edition is dated Edinburgh, 1724. The
important advance which is made in this work is the subordina-
tion of Jurisprudence to Ethics, and the attempt to find a ground
tor human law by a method of observation and analysis of the
fficts and principles of human nature. His Synopsis Histories
Naturalis, sive Notitice de Existentia Attributes et Operationibus
M.mmi Numinis, ex ipsa Rerum Natwa haustce, appeared in
1729 the year of his death. In this treatise, he objects to the
demonstrations of Descartes and Dr. Samuel Clarke, refers to
the proofs of design in the world, and shows generally that while
he had still a hold of the expiring formalism of the time, he re-
cognised the new or experimental method of founding inference
on the observation of facts. The gems of fresh thought can
hardly be said to have expanded greatly in Carmichael, but they
were quickened into growth and fruitfulness in the mind of his
pupil Francis Hutcheson.
210 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
Francis Hutclieson (1694-1746) entered Glasgow College as
a student in 1710, where he studied under Carmichael. He was
the son of a Presbyterian minister in the north of Ireland. The
family was originally, however, from Ayrshire. The son studied
for but finally abandoned the ministry, his philosophical cast of
thought and moral views finding little sympathy among the
people of the Irish Presbyterian community. His theological lean-
ings were to the "New Light" party. The authorities of the Angli-
can Church in Dublin tried to prevent his carrying on an academy
there, because he had not subscribed the articles ; and but for
the friendly intervention of Archbishop King, a speculative
thinker like himself, they would have succeeded. The exulting
spirit of freedom and the feeling that he had at length got into his
true sphere of work, pervade his inaugural address at Glasgow
in 1730. During the 16 years in which he occupied the chair
of Moral Philosophy there, he was a most powerful and attrac-
tive lecturer. He drew to the University numerous dissenting
students from England and Ireland, against whom the native
Universities were closed. His lectures embraced Ethics, Natural
Jurisprudence, Politics, Economics, and Natural Theology,
and breathed a strong spirit of that civil and religious liberty
from the limitation of which both professor and students had
suffered. Jealousy followed his distinction ; and suspicion, pre-
judice, and bigotry, his freedom of speech. But Hutclieson was
a man, and minded none of them. He has left the mark of his
personal character and opinions on all the philosophical litera-
ture of last century. Hutcheson's moral teaching, and indeed
the whole University teaching in Scotland that succeeded him,
was inspired by a revulsion from the servile politics of Hobbes,
and his ethics of self-interest. The gradually increasing
results of the impulse are seen in the lectures and writings
of Smith, Eeid, Ferguson, and Stewart. Smith, Ferguson, and
Stewart especially, connect themselves directly with the advanced
views of civil and religious liberty which animated the young
statesmen of the Whig party who laboured for those ends up
to 1832. Stewart, in particular, by his lectures on Political
Economy in the early years of the century, diffused and popu-
larised the views of Smith, and recommended them to such
pupils as Palmerston, Lansdowne, Lauderdale, and Russell.
The influence of Carmichael is manifest on the whole cast of
Hutcheson's thought ; and Hutcheson, more than any other,
was the forerunner of the Scottish School. The progress from
Locke to the later forms of doctrine can easily be traced in his
writings. He accepted Locke's theory of the origin of know-
ledge ; and he never to the end attacked it in principle. In
him the psychological method, the reflective analysis of con-
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 211
sciousness, became more marked, and more minutely applied.
He still keeps by the notion of Sense as the inlet of ideas and
feelings. He recognises the External Senses and the Internal
Sense, or Sensation arid Reflection of Locke. With regard to
the former, however, he shows that there are ideas accompanying
sensations proper, viz., duration, extension, and number, which
are not, strictly speaking, sensations, for they belong either to a
plurality of senses or equally to the external and the internal
senses. This was an anticipation of Eeid's subsequent analysis
of Perception, and of Kant's forms of space and time. Hutche-
son also finally gave up the hypothesis of representative ideas,
and leant to the Berkeleyan doctrine of sensations, as signs of
causal power. And he finds also that there are other senses
besides these called Eeflex which are the sources of specific
feelings. Among these is the sense of Beauty and that of
Goodness. Sensation and Reflection, therefore, are not the only
sources of human knowledge. Hutcheson's moral theory was
very much influenced by that of Shaftesbury. It is not suffi-
ciently analytic in ground, nor extensive in grasp. Sense is an
objectionable word for a new source of ideas ; it tends to make
feeling the ground of judgment, and gloss over the real difficul-
ties in an ethical theory. Its vagueness and evil effects are seen
in the Theory of Moral Sentiments of Hutcheson's pupil, Adam
Smith. Then it is impossible to resolve as Hutcheson does
all virtue in'o a beneficent motive as the principle and public
good as the quality. But the fervour of the man and, on
the whole, the noble, elevating, and refining character of his
ethical views, were of great value and influence in an age
that was painfully working out from the not very inspiring
consequences of the systems of Locke and Hobbes. In
Hutcheson's coinpend of Logic and synopsis of Metaphysic,
moreover, there are more questions and points in common with
the logical and metaphysical discussions of Sir W. Hamilton
than any other treatise in Scottish philosophy from the time of
the former to that of the latter.
Hutcheson's first work, the Inquiry into the original of our
Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, inaugurated another line of specu-
lative thought in Scotland. It was one of the very earliest
modern treatises on the subject of Aesthetics. Appearing in
1725, it preceded the treatise of the Pere Andre in France
(1741), and that of Baumgarten in Germany (1750). It was
the forerunner in Scotland of some very important and valuable
discussions of the subject. One of the pupils of Hutcheson
caught the impulse and the spirit of his aesthetical inquiries.
Adam Smith, a Glasgow student and a Snell Exhibitioner at
Oxford, returned from the English university in 1748, at the
212 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
age of 25, and began his public career by giving lectures on
Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in Edinburgh. These" formed part
of the material which he afterwards used in his brief occupancy
of tae Logic Chair in Glasgow, 1750-51. They were pos-
thumously published under the title of Philosophical Essays.
The taste for aesthetical inquiries thus awakened led to the
foundation of the Chair of Ehetoric in Edinburgh, 1762. It
was fii st occupied by Dr. Hugh Blair, whose lectures, afterwards
published, are well known to the world. This form of investi-
gation has received great attention in the Scottish universities,
since Hutcheson gave it an impulse. It was prosecuted in
Aberdeen in last century by Alexander Gerard, Beattie, and
Principal Campbell. The subject has occupied a place more or
less prominent in the teaching and writings of Eeid, Stewart,
Brown, and Hamilton.
There is, however, another name besides those of Carmichael
and Hutcheson, which has been too greatly neglected in the
early history of Scottish speculation, viz., that of George
Turnbull, Professor of Philosophy in Marischal College and
University, Aberdeen. Turnbull had a very direct influence on
Scottish thought, for he was the master of Eeid, and there can
be no doubt that Eeid got from him much that is distinctive in
his method and system. Turnbull has been cursorily referred
to by Stewart and Hamilton, but it was Cousin who, in his'
most painstaking and interesting history of the Scottish Philo-
sophy, first did justice to Turnbull and his influence on Eeid.
Turnbull was born in 1698, and graduated at Edinburgh in 1721.
In the same year he was appointed a Eegent in Marischal
College; and in 1726, the last on the list of the candidates
whom he presented for laureation was Thomas Eeid. Turnbull
resigned his regency in Marischal College in 1727, and there-
after seems to have travelled on the Continent of Europe as
tutor to young Wauchope of Niddry. He was among the first
to apply to the contents of consciousness the method of observa-
tion and induction, which had been employed with sucli brilliant
results in the natural sciences. Abjuring abstract metaphysics in
word and method, he substituted moral philosophy as the name of
the new line of inquiry. At the same time, he regarded reason-
ing and deduction as perfectly legitimate in moral philosophy,
provided the principles were first of all formed by a study of
consciousness. Immediate principles of common sense were
recognised by him ; and a fact guaranteed by these, such as
freedom of volition, was held as superior to abstract reasoning.
To hypothesis and deduction from if), he was especially averse.
He has analysed the fact of association with remarkable ability ;
and shown even by this example alone the utter misconception
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 213
of those who suppose that the reflective method of the Scottish
thinkers means merely the acceptance of facts of experience in
their totality and complexity, and does not involve thorough-
going analysis. The two principal works of Turnbull are :
The Principles of Moral Philosophy ; an Inquiry into the wise
and good government of the Moial World, London, 1740. The
other is the fruit mainly of his foreign travels : A Curious
Collection of Ancient Paintings, London, 1744. Turnbull owes
much to Hutcheson, which he frankly acknowledges ; he refers
also to Shaftesbury and Pope ; he is familiar with the new
physical views of Newton ; he is full of the modern spirit of
inquiry ; and there is withal a remarkable vein of originality
and freshness in his speculative investigations. But for the
fact that lie left Scotland at an early age, and seems never to
have returned, his writings would have been long ago recognised
as an important and influential element in Scottish thought.
The ancient practice of Disputation had fallen into desuetude
in the Scottish Universities generally towards the middle of
last century. In itself it was useful, as a means of self-action ;
but its tendency in the long run is no doubt to conventionalism
in phrase arid argument, and thus to a deadening rather than a
quickening of intellectual effort. It was probably, however, a
feeling of the real want, which the practice had no doubt supplied,
that led, in connection with certain of the Scottish Universities,
in the first quarter and middle of last century, to the rise of
Voluntary Debating Societies. These were formed in some
cases by students attending the University, and in others, by
young men who had passed through their course. The earliest
association of this kind arose in the ancient L T niversity of St.
Andrews. There, about the end of the 16th century, a society of
students was formed, for literary and philosophical purposes. They
had no fixed place of meeting ; but along the east sands of the
pleasant bay, or among the fields rising to the south, which
overlook the spires and towers of the grey city by the sea,
they wandered free as the thoughts which moved them, discussing
classical and speculative points. One of these lads afterwards
made a name in history as Thomas Young, the tutor of Miltoru
This says something for classical Latinity in Scotland in the
17th century.
Since then, housed and encouraged by the Universities, these
private societies have supplied the place of the old academical
disputations they have developed latent talent, they have
trained their members to readiness and fluency of speech, and
to self-command and self-development; they have taught young
lads to find their level, and to know their practical powers.
Many distinguished men, as Principal Kobertson, Dugald
214 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
Stewart, Lord Brougham, Thomas Brown, Sir James Mackintosh,
Lord Jeffrey, Francis Homer, Lord Cockburn, and others, have
emphatically acknowledged their obligations to this early dis-
cipline. They were in fact, as has been well said, " able to per-
form their part in the drama of life with greater ease and success,
in consequence of this early rehearsal ".
The writings of Berkeley, on their publication, made less
impression in England than might have been looked for ; but
in Scotland, they at once attracted attention. In Edinburgh, a
society of young men, chiefly connected with the University,
was formed, for the express purpose of studying them, and of
soliciting explanations from the author of obscure points in
them. Among other members, were the Rev. Dr. Robert
Wallace, author of a Discourse on the Numbers of Mankind, and
John Stevenson, afterwards Professor of Logic in the University.
It was called the Rankenian Club, and out of it the Royal
Society of Edinburgh is said to have taken its rise. The date
of the Club seems to have been from about 1718 to 1724.*
The Rankenian Club was succeeded by several other societies,
partly philosophical and partly literary. There was the society
of which Principal Robertson, Wilkie, the author of the Epiyo-
niad, and John Home, the author of Douglas, were members.
There was the Select Society, of which Allan Ramsay, the poet,
was founder, in 1754. The Speculative Society arose in 1764.
Dugald Stewart was an active member of it from 1772-75.
When a lad, in Glasgow, attending the lectures of Reid, he was
a member of a College Society there. Before it he read an
essay on Dreaming, the first philosophical essay he ever wrote.
A revised draft of it seems afterwards to have been read before
the Speculative Society, and out of it, he tells us, his whole
subsequent speculations on the mind took their rise. Whenever
there was any quickened life in the University, there seems to
have been an impulse to associations of this kind. Two years
after Sir W. Hamilton was appointed to the chair of Logic in
Edinburgh, a society of young and ardent students arose, num-
bering as members several names afterwards known in philoso-
phical literature.f
But the Philosophical Society of Aberdeen was the most re-
markable and the most influential on the speculative thought
and literature of the country. It was founded in the beginning
of 1758, it continued in vigour for several years, and finally
* Stewart's Life of Robertson, and Eraser's Berkeley, Vol. IV., p. 224.
t Among others, A. C. Fraser, now Professor of Logic in Edinburgh,
John Cairns, now the Eev. Dr. Cairns, Professor of Theology in the
United Presbyterian Hall, John Clarke, a student of great promise, who
died young.
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 215
ceased in 1773. The original members were Thomas Eeid,
Eegent in King's College, George Campbell, of Marischal
College, John Stewart, Professor of Mathematics in Marischal
College, Dr. David Skene, Physician in Aberdeen, Eobert Trail,
and Dr. John Gregory, ' Mediciner,' or Professor of Medicine
in King's College, afterwards of Edinburgh. Eeid appears to
have been the founder, and was the first secretary. The
rules are in his handwriting. To the original members were
added Professors Alexander Gerard (of Moral Philosophy,
Marischal College, 1752-1760), Beattie, Thomas Gordon,
George Skene (Moral Philosophy, Marischal College, 1760-
1787), William Ogilvie, James Dunbar, William Trail, John
Farquhar, Minister of Nigg, and John Eoss, of Banff Castle.
The constitution, which was probably drafted by Eeid, is very
curious. Philosophy alone is to be the subject of discussion
and essay to the exclusion of Grammatical, Historical, and
Philological questions. Philosophy is explained as compre-
hending " every principle of Science which may be deduced by
just and lawful induction from the phenomena either of the
human mind or of the material world ; all observations and
experiments that may furnish materials for such induction.
The examination of false schemes of Philosophy and false
methods of philosophising ; the subserviency of philosophy to arts ;
the principles they borrow from it, and the means of carrying
them to their perfection." This was the explicit statement of
the new method of philosophy in the country, and might be
taken as the motto to the whole subsequent works of Eeid.
The business consisted of debates and discourses on subjects
prescribed. The first discourse was by Mr. Eobert Trail, en-
titled " An abstract of a discourse by Mr. Eousseau on the
Source of the Inequality among Mankind, with some observa-
tions upon it ". The next was by Principal Campbell, " On the
Nature of Eloquence, its various species and their respective
ends ". This and three other discourses became chapters of the
Philosophy of Rhetoric, published in 1776 the work which
first widened the view of the science so as to meet modern re-
quirements. Eeid gave in the first year (1758) a discourse " On
the Philosophy of the Mind in general, and particularly on the
Perceptions we have by Sight ". Subsequently Eeid gave a
discourse " On the Sense of Touch," and one " On Euclid's De-
finitions and Axioms ". He is also referred to as giving a
discourse which was not entered, as was the practice, in the
Eecords of the Society, as he is to send it to the press, along with
other discourses which he had read before the Society. In 1763,
he gave a discourse " On Perception ".* The Inquiry into the
* I am indebted to Professor Bain for notes taken from the Minute
216 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
Human Mind the first, the freshest, and most original of his
works which doubtless embodied those discourses or their
results, appeared in the end of 1763. Gerard, among other
subjects, gave "The Nature and Varieties of Genius" (1758),
and " The proper subjects of Demonstrative Eeasoning ".
Beattie takes up " The Characters of Poetical Imagination,"
and " The Difference between Common Sense and Reason ".
Their subsequent writings bear traces of these special studies
and discussions. Out of these society-papers came the two
works of Gerard the Essay on Taste (1759), and that On
Genius (1767). These show a very meritorious study of the
Poetics and Rhetoric of Aristotle, and an appreciation of
Aristotelian principles, which no other writers, save Harris and
Monboddo, evinced in the last century. Beattie's Essay on
Truth, not certainly remarkable for its speculative insight,
appeared in 1770. His essays On Poetry and Music were pub-
lished in the same year with Campbell's Ehtioric; and his
Dissertations Moral and Critical appeared in 1783. No student
of aesthetics, or of the progress of culture in Scotland, should
pass by without careful attention the critical essays of Gerard
and Beattie.
While fresh speculative thought was thus active in Glasgow
and Aberdeen, the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews
showed little or nothing of this new influence. Colin Drummond,
who had been one of the Kegents, was the first professor in Edin-
burgh (1708-30), and continued very much in the old line. John
Stevenson succeeded him, and occupied the chair until 1775.
Stevenson was probably the first to introduce the then novel
principles of Locke into university teaching in Scotland. But his
course embraced a great deal more than was represented by
Locke. He made use of text-books as the basis of his teaching,
and, besides Bishop Wynne's Abridgment of Locke's Essay } these
were, in Logic and the History of Philosophy, the Element*
Philosophice Rationalis et Moralis of Heineccius (1680-1741), for
some time Professor of Philosophy at Halle ; in Metaphysics,
De Vries's Determinationes Ontologicw ; in Rhetoric, Aristotle's
Poetics and Longinus On the Sublime. Stevenson continued the
mediaeval practice of oral disputation in the class. He represents
the transition period between the old and the new teaching. His
influence was most marked in the department of aesthetics and
the cultivation of literary taste. Principal Eobertson, one of his
students, acknowledged that he was more deeply indebted to
Stevenson's instructions, especially his illustrations of Aristotle
Book of this Society ; and since I received the notes, the Minute Book
itself has been most obligingly sent to me for examination by its pos-
sessor, Dr. Johii Webster of Edgehill.
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 217
and Longinus, than to any other influence in the course of his
academical studies.* Stevenson published nothing in Philo-
sophy. The only work that emanated from a Scottish Pro-
fessor in last century which showed distinctly and almost
exclusively the influence of Locke, was the Elements of Logic,
by William Duncan, Professor of Natural Philosophy in
Marischal College, Aberdeen, from 1753 to 1760. John Bruce
(1775-86), the successor of Stevenson, adhered closely to the in-
ductive method and spirit ; in fact, more exclusively so than his
predecessor. He published First Principles of Philosophy, for the,
Use of Students, 1777 ; Elements of the Science of Ethics, on the
Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1786. James Finlayson (1786-
1808), was an able man, but he published nothing in Philosophy.
Dr. David Eitchie's occupancy of the chair (1808-36) was the
dead time prior to Hamilton. In the Logic chair in St.
Andrews, Robert Watson (1756-78) and William Barren (1778-
1804) lectured chiefly on Rhetoric. It was not until the time
of William Spalding (1845-60) that Psychology and Logic
assumed their proper places in the course, under an able
and most painstaking professor. In the Moral Philosophy
chair, Edinburgh shows nothing of importance until the time
of Adam Ferguson (1764-1785). His occupancy of the chair
corresponds to a great extent with the period of Reid in
Glasgow, and he must be regarded as an independent power
in philosophical literature and in promoting high academical
teaching, especially in Ethics and Politics. On the question
of the origin of knowledge, he did not in theory advance
beyond Locke. In Morals, however, he went beyond not only
Hobbes but Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in recognising, besides
self-interest and benevolence, the principle of Development and
Perfectibility. He published in 1766 An Analysis of Pneu-
matics (Psychology) and Moral Philosophy. His Institutes of
Moral Philosopky (1769) and Principles of Moral and Political
Science (1792) contain passages of high and well-sustained elo-
quence. Ferguson and Adam Smith are probably the best types,
in Scotland in the last century, of culture and style formed on
a classical model. Ferguson's Essay on Civil Society (1767)
examines the questions of the origin, end, and form of govern-
ment, and vigorously assails the opinions of Hobbes.
Turnbull's teaching was over before there appeared (1739-
1740) the- famous Treatise of Human Nature, round which
has centred all the deepest and most exciting thought of
modern times. But we have evidence, in the topics of the
Aberdeen Philosophical Society and in his letters, that Reid
was alive to the issues raised by Hume, and was studying
* Stewart's Life of Robertson. Works, Vol. X., p. 105.
218 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
these in the quiet seclusion of his country parish before he was
called to be Regent in King's College in 1751. Eeid was the
first Scotchman who truly appreciated the breadth and the
bearing of the principles of the Treatise of Human Nature. The
scattered lines of speculative effort in the minds of thinking men
were gathered into one by him during the course of his lectures
in the Moral Philosophy chair in Glasgow (1764-86), and the
results of his reflection were finally embodied in his Essay on the
Intellectual Powers (1785) and Essay on the Active Powers (1788).
Scottish Philosophy, so far as it was a purely native growth
or attempt to answer philosophical questions from its own
resources, turned, from Eeid's time, on three points viz., Sen-
sationalism (with Eepresentationalism), Idealism, and Nega-
tion alism or Scepticism. The first was for it represented by
Locke ; the second by Berkeley ; the third by Hume. There
might be a question as to how far each of these names was
properly identified with the associated doctrine. But histori-
cally for the Scottish speculators, Locke represented the first
point, Berkeley the second, and Hume the third. And it seems
to me that it was substantially correct so to connect those
names, although Locke undoubtedly put reflection alongside of
sensation, and Berkeley may be interpreted as holding some-
thing not unlike Natural Realism in its phenomenal form, and
although it may be a question as to whether Hume's basis
was absolute or hypothetical, and his doctrine therefore Nega-
tionalism, or simply Scepticism. The Eepresentationalism of
Locke readily developed into the Idealism of Berkeley. He
had only to cut off the thing represented, by showing that it
was impossible to know it on the theory. The Sensationalism
of Locke and the Idealism of Berkeley developed in the
hands of Hume into a Negationalism or Scepticism which
left the simple impression of Sensation the sole reality in
the universe. The impression neither had cause in an outward,
nor subject in an inward world. The Universe meant merely
a series of impressions, utterly isolated but for casual con-
junction found to be constant. The external world, the Ego,
Cause, Wisdom, Deity, all disappeared as illusions of the fancy ;
they were subjectively unreal, therefore objectively empty, and
inapplicable as notions to experience.
One form of answer distinctively made to Hume in Scotland
consisted in a protest against the extreme consequences
of his system. It lay almost entirely in an appeal to the
general or universal in the ordinary experience and belief of
mankind as to material reality, personality and identity, cause,
freedom, and Deity. These were alleged to be objects of common
belief or common sense, to be practically recognised by all, by
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 219
peasant and sceptic alike, and to be irresistibly accepted as
realities. This answer may be taken as represented by Beattie
and Oswald; only very partially, if at all, by Eeid and
Stewart. If it be offered as a complete or final answer to
Hume, it is inadequate. For he recognises these beliefs as facts
in our experience, and he proposes to show that they have no
ground in knowledge, and also how, as illusions of the conscious-
ness, they grow up in that experience. We must do more,
therefore, than simply protest that they exist, or that they are
in our experience. But the statement of these beliefs is quite
competent to this extent, that they are the materials of the
speculative question, that which it is called upon thoroughly
to analyse and definitely to explain or, if they be represented
as illusions, clearly to show that they are so, and how they
are so. No speculative theory can be accepted as adequate
which simply over-rides the universal or even the general
convictions of human experience. And as Hume includes
under impression, not only sense-impressions, but passions,
emotions, desires, volitions, " on their first appearance," it
might very fairly be urged that he has no right, apart from a
more definite analysis and proof, to regard all these so called
impressions as of the same nature with sense-impressions. It
would be perfectly competent for a critic to say ' I find
more in emotion and in volition than you profess to find in
the simple impression of sensation, and I deny your right
to class or slur those together merely because they are not
the reflex of some idea or copy of a sense-impression'. This
would open an almost illimitable field of intellectual, moral, and
religious experience ; it would be as wide as any individual
sentiency could reach to; and it would probably show that
this basis of impression is, as put by Hume, altogether vague
and useless. When this first somewhat rough position of
what is often ignorantly named the Common Sense School
became more philosophical, it was found that the analysis of the
facts called impressions by Hume, according to his own method
of reflection, really became an important battle-ground.
Another possible answer to the doctrine might have been to
show that, admitting the ultimate in knowledge laid down by
Hume, the consequences do not logically follow from it, that we
yet may and do know the objects which Hume professes to show
we cannot, know, on the basis of his assumption. This answer
Eeid did not attempt and he showed his sagacity in not doing
so. But even on this point Eeid has in a way suggested, and
legitimately, that the requirements of Hume are self-inconsistent
or contradictory ; and the principle of Non- Contradiction Hume
himself must and does admit. For he assumes not only
220 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
a single impression of sensation, but a series or succession of
impressions, that is, of consciousnesses. If human knowledge
be the conscious impression of each moment of time, how
can the second or different conscious impression know any-
thing of the first impression, or know anything but itself, if
it be a self? If knowledge be restricted to each successive
moment, how can there be a knowledge of a series or suc-
cession at all ? If not, how can there be a knowledge or
experience of uniformity in nature the great point which,
according to Hume, requires to be accounted for ? Why should
we fall back on custom or habit to account, forsooth, for that
which, on the conditions of knowledge laid down by Hume,
cannot be known, and cannot, therefore, be ?
But Reid's main reply to Hume is, that his analysis of experi-
ence is imperfect, one-sided, exclusive. Reid has said that
sensation or impression is not alone in experience or con-
sciousness, as Hume alleges. He has challenged the fulness
and the accuracy of Hume's analysis of experience, " percep-
tions," or consciousness ; and he is as much entitled to say that
there are other elements in consciousness, as Hume is entitled
to say or assume that there is but one element in consciousness.
Eeid, in making his statement and exhibiting his analysis, is as
philosophical in method as Hume is. The result is a matter of
testing by reflection the ultimate court of appeal. But Reid's
allegation is that Hume's basis is inconsistent with the facts to
be found in the same quarter and by the same method as Hume
himself resorts to and uses. And he has a perfect right, philo-
sophically, to this method of answer. Thus, for example, Reid
would say ' Sensation is a mere abstraction. It is not found
alone ; it cannot form a real basis. It is inseparably associated
with a self or person a sentient subject. It is wrong, there-
fore, first of all, to disassociate these, and impossible thereafter
to conjoin them.'
Hume sought to destroy the reality of certain objects per-
sonality and Deity through the destruction of the possible con-
ceptions of them. Reid is usually represented as " protesting "
that we believe in these things that all mankind does so and,
therefore, that this belief is a guarantee of their truth. Reid's
protest was, when fairly interpreted, no such thing. He pre-
tested merely to this extent that common or universal belief is
not explained or satisfied by the results of Hume's hypothesis or
basis. He quite admitted the contradiction between sense and
reason, which Hume had created ; but he did not merely allege
the sense-side against the reason and rest there. This led him
to analyse the experience which Hume says had been analysed,
and to show that its essential elements had been overlooked.
Philosophy in tlu Scottish Universities. 221
Eeid's argument, therefore, is that on such a point as personality
or identity, Hume has not destroyed its objective reality by
proving its subjective emptiness, for the notion is given along
with is, the basis of even the impression which Hume says is
the whole in experience. This may be taken as the first stage of
Eeid's reply to Hume. It is the one represented by Eeid's first
treatise the Inquiry. It amounts to saying and showing that
there are certain principles or laws of intelligence which logically
condition the so-called only sources of knowledge sensation and
reflection recognised by Locke and Hume ; and this is a per-
fectly competent and legitimate mode of answer. It only re-
quires to be made out.
The second and advanced stage of the answer is that repre-
sented in the Essays on the Intellectual Powers (1785), in which
he explicitly lays down the test of necessity, as the criterion
of what is original and what is empirical. Here no doubt his
analysis of the principles thus supposed to be found is far from
being above criticism. His two lists of the principles of con-
tingent and necessary truths are not well marked off from
each other. But the lists afford the impartial basis at least
of a more thorough-going analysis and systematic arrange-
ment. Such is Eeid's position, and we see how little ground
there is for the assertion that, while Kant " demonstrates " his
philosophy, Ep.id merely protests against conclusions. The
truth is Eeid does nothing less or more in this respect than
Kant does or can do. Eeid points to universality in knowledge ;
and he ultimately grounds it in necessity of thought. And
what is Kant's position in the matter ? In the first part of the
Kritik he supposes elements in knowledge, not given by
experience. But he has and can have no " demonstration " of
this assumption. How does he establish a priori elements ?
In this way : the senses, taken by themselves, give us only the
particular and contingent. If there be universal and necessary
elements in knowledge, then these are furnished not by Sense
but by Eeason. That such elements exist is proved by reference
to certain sciences, and also by reference to our consciousness.
A*nd it can be shown that without connection and relation, the
data of sense would not constitute knowledge as we find it.
The connection or relation, therefore, is the condition of the
possibility of experience or knowledge. Now obviously univer-
sality must- be grounded on necessity ; and how is necessity to
be tested except by reflective analysis, an appeal to what we
can or cannot reverse in thought ? But where in such a case is
the demonstration of the system, and wherein does it differ from
Eeid's position ? How can I distinguish the contingent in
Sense from its opposite, the necessary in Eeason unless I
15
222 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
assume the distinction of contingent and necessary as already
in knowledge ? In no way whatever ; and it is not a demon-
stration to an associationist. It is to him a piece of mere
dogmatism. Kant not less than Eeid must simply fall back on
an ultimate reflective necessity, both analytic and synthetic,
both logical and metaphysical. Both these necessities are
essential to any a priori synthetic act ; for the subject must
in the first place be kept identical with itself by a logical neces-
sity, and the predicate must be added to it, in the second place,
by a metaphysical necessity. This test is always supposed, and
supposed in fixing the conditions or possibility of any judgment
a priori, whether analytic or synthetic. The truth is that de-
monstration in metaphysics, in any proper sense of the term, is
a vain dream.
Part of the repugnance to the writings of Eeid is due to a
certain aversion to the moral spirit which characterises them.
Eeid is strongly dogmatic. He has no sympathy with any
but a disinterested ethical theory, whether of desire or duty,
or with theories of fatalism or materialism in any form. And he
is content virtually to say, ' I am prepared to show that the
objections before me to the common dicta of mankind and of
consciousness on those points are unfounded ; at the same time
I cannot give, and do not think there can be given, a reasoned-
out theory of them'. Now this is a state of mind in which the
moral interest is stronger than the intellectual. It is content to
accept what it cannot demonstrate. This is a mood which is
excessively repugnant to the upholders of a complete demon-
stration of human knowledge and beliefs of a reasoned philo-
sophy and it is particularly repugnant to the hangers-on to
the skirts of such systems, who in the zeal of an intellectual
flippancy set little store on moral interests. It might be sug-
gested to such people that a 'reasoned -out' system of philosophy,
whether speculative or moral, is not reasoned out until it is
proved ; that the pretence of demonstration and a restless
intellectual turning round and round do not necessarily betoken
strength, and are but poor substitutes for cautious observation
and circumspect analysis.
Dugald Stewart succeeded Ferguson (1785-1810). Through
him the influence of Eeid, whose pupil he had been in Glasgow,
was extended to Edinburgh. Stewart's position, as to some
extent developing and illustrating the main doctrines of Eeid, is
well known. His power and eloquence as a lecturer, his fine
psychological analysis, his refined, though somewhat formal and
repressed, style of writing are characteristically his own.*
* See his Collected Works in Ten Volumes edited by Sir W. Hamilton
with Memoir and Supplementary Volume, &c., by the present writer, 1858.
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 223
Thomas Brown (1810-1820) succeeded Dugald Stewart.
Brown occupies an intermediate position in relation to the
philosophy of his time. Accepting to some extent the doctrine
of intuitive principles, the main line of his thought is yet of the
associational type. Condillac and De Tracy, whose opinions
had been formulated by Dr. Young of Belfast, were the foreign
influences which determined on many points almost literally the
views of Dr. Thomas Brown. He first made a reputation by
the Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect (1804), in
which he adopted the view, meagre and insufficient as it is, cf
uniformity of sequence as identical with causality, and endea-
voured to show that the consequences charged on this doctrine
as held by Hume, were not well founded. His Physiology of the
Mind, an imperfect book, appeared in 1820, and his Lectures
on the Philosophy of the Mind, after his death, in 1822. Brown's
views have formed very much of an episode in the course of
speculative thought in Scotland ; and, with all his subtlety and
diffusive eloquence, it would be difficult to vindicate for him
any place except that of an illogical disciple of Hume.
There were but two men in the Scottish Universities over
whom Brown had any influence. The one of these was Dr.
Thomas Chalmers, Professor of Moral Philosophy in St.
Andrews (1823-28). Chalmers was naturally a powerful
lecturer. As a speculator he shows the unreconciled influence s
of Brown and Butler. Patrick C. Macdougall, Professor of
Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh (1853-68), was influenced
mainly by Brown and Chalmers. His fervour, eloquence, and
subtilising power as a lecturer often too minute to the student
not capable of prolonged attention will not soon pass from
the memory of his auditors. Nor can an old pupil omit a
passing reference to the power with which John Wilson, Pro-
fessor of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh (1820-1853), though
not connected with any school, could stir the feelings of h:s
students. Some of his analyses were very remarkable par-
ticularly that of Imagination ; and speaking from the memory
of twenty-seven years, I regret that these lectures have not been
given to the world.
Until the time of Sir W. Hamilton, philosophical thought in
Scotland may be said to have been purely a product of the soil.
Brown no doubt borrowed largely from De -Tracy, but his
writings cannot be said to have had a paramount influence in
the country. It was Hamilton who first changed and widened
the conception of the problems of philosophy, while still
keeping scrupulously to the method in use. The two foreign
influences which moulded Hamilton's thinking mostly were
Aristotle's Organon, and Kant's Kritik of the Pure Reason.
224 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
From the articles of Hamilton, in the Edinburgh Review, on
Cousin's Philosophy (1829), the Philosophy of Perception (1830),
Logic (1833), Speculation in Scotland was led to look at the old
problems from entirely new points of view, and to speak in a
nomenclature formerly unheard, and so technical as to be utterly
unfamiliar to the readers of the older writers. The thought and
language were more precise, finished, and greatly more abstract
than any known before in Scotland. The essay on Cousin put
a question regarding the reach and limits of knowledge, which
had not been put speculatively before ; that on Perception raised
much wider issues regarding the authority of the grounds of
knowledge than had been previously discerned as involved in it;
and the discussion on Logic placed the science on a basis which
had not been possible through any previous line of analysis in
Scotland. The whole philosophy of Hamilton was comprised
in general in those contributions to the Review. His labours on
Reid, his Discussions and Lectures, cannot be said essentially to
go beyond the lines of thought there laid down. Indeed, except
on the object in perception, there is no real change in his subse-
quent writings ; and his latter view on this point could, were
there space at present, be shown to be in no way incompatible
with his earlier position.
As to method, Hamilton made it perfectly clear that that of
Speculation is reflective observation and analysis. While retain-
ing and vindicating the phrase Common Sense as a name for
the universal in Consciousness, he shows that tin's is not proposed
as Philosophy, nor as the method of Philosophy ; it is the
material upon which a purifying analysis works. There is " no
appeal to the undoubted beliefs of the irreflective many," but
" a critical analysis of these beliefs ". And this common con-
sciousness, sifted through all its forms, is that with which in the
end philosophy must be found in harmony, or show reason for
its divergence. The method of the school, therefore, seeks in
a word only the original data of consciousness all of them
and these in their integrity and relative place. It thus affords
scope for any reach of analysis and evolution, however far back
ifc may go ; but, what is no less important, keeps in view the
actual and matured state of consciousness in its complex filling
or content.
If Reid vacillated between universality and necessity as tests
of ultimate truth, Hamilton made it perfectly clear that in his
view the latter was primary and essential. The ultimate truths
of Reason are with him guaranteed by the logical unthinkable-
ness of their opposites ; the ultimate truths of fact, still called
necessary, are regarded as subject to possible doubt as to theii
truth, but not as to their existence. And this doubt is even
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 225
supposed in the end to be corrected by the law of Non-contra-
diction. * It is here that Hamilton connects himself with
foreign speculation. Descartes in reaching the absolutely in-
dubitable had found it in self-consciousness, which guaranteed
itself simply in preserving its consistency. But Descartes did
not explicitly state the principle of the guarantee. This is the
law of Non-Contradiction, that preserves for us a given datum
or content a datum realised in conscious thought, and shows
it to be by our thought indestructible. But beyond or
above consciousness Hamilton holds it impossible to go.
The question How is consciousness possible ? he holds to
be incapable of solution, as demanding the impossible con-
dition of another and higher consciousness than ours. The
furthest back point in reflection is for us consciousness, as
revealed in a co-existing self and not-self ; and if it be asked
how a self can be conscious of a not-self, or how an unextended
subject can be conscious of an extended object, his answer is,
that, as an ultimate fact ascertained by critical analysis, it is
both unnecessary and impossible to show how it is so, and fur-
ther, that it is as impossible to show how we are conscious that we
think at all, or know anything whatever, as it is to show how we,
perceive the not-self. In fact, with Hamilton, Philosophy ulti-
mately means the co-ordination, and to a certain extent sub-
ordination, of the primary contents of consciousness in a
harmony which excludes the self-contradictory.
The question as to hoiv we perceive the material or extended
is still raised as an objection to the doctrine of Natural Eealism.
It does not seem to be considered that the point is first of all
a question of fact, and that the fact is to be decided according
to certain tests or criteria. I admit that it would be a fair line
of argument to attempt to show that what is called extension
or spatial co-existence is simply a form of succession in time,
say of muscular sensations, and hence that externality, as
understood by the Eealist, is merely, after all, an illusion. This
has been essayed by De Tracy, Brown, the two Mills, and
Professor Bain ; as, I think, without effect though I cannot
now criticise the arguments. But the question of explication
in the sense demanded is a wholly secondary point, and may
not be of the slightest consequence in the discussion. And
what are we to say of such an objection on the part of a
philosophy which first of all denies that there is any pure or
mere mental act, that the physiological and the psychological
are inextricably fused, and at the same time holds it to be
impossible and contradictory to know an independent material
reality, because the notion of a material thing is a mental state,
* See Eeid's Works, p. 754, IV., 3.
226 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
and because such an object can be known only in relation to
mind ? So far as Hamilton is concerned, he never speaks of
any material reality that is not in relation to mind ; and as for
the knowledge of a material object being a mental state, he
would never have dreamed either of disputing it, or of admitting
that it entailed any consequence of the kind alleged. But how,
if there be no purely mental state at all can the difficulty of
fusing matter and mind occur ? The proper objection on such
a system would be not that mind cannot know matter, but that
there is no mind only a synthesis or fusion of mind and matter
to know, that in fact matter is known as mind, and mind
known as matter, as reciprocally convertible experiences.
The other main feature in the philosophy of Hamilton is its
doctrine of the Infinite and Absolute. His negative theory on
this subject comes directly out of his fundamental position that
neither thought nor consciousness can transcend the relation
between the knower and the known, i.e., his theory of subjective
relativity, and that in the object known there is always a
plurality of relation, i.e., his doctrine of objective relativity.
Both these points he recognises most firmly, and these are the
kinds of relativity which regulate his whole thought on the
subject of Infinite and Absolute. He would most thoroughly
have repudiated his critic J. S. Mill's " substantial " doctrine of
relativity, viz., that knowledge is only or mainly relative when
it is held to be an impression on the mind from an unknown
object or world. This Hamilton would have regarded as not
properly a doctrine of relativity at all, inasmuch as the know-
ledge given in self-consciousness is possible apart from it, and
he would have repudiated it further as based on the wholly
illegitimate and improbable hypothesis of an existing yet un-
known and unperceived cause of impressions. And as to two
objects being necessary to knowledge, Hamilton has, with the
requisite limitations, laid this down both on the subjective and
objective sides of knowledge, both in his dualism of subject and
object, and in his doctrine of intrinsic relation in the object
known.* Mill was strong in the sphere of what Bacon would
call the axiomata media ; but he has hardly come face to face
with the higher questions of speculation as stated by Hamilton ;
and, I venture to think, he has misconceived the essential doc-
trines of Hamilton's philosophy.
I cannot do more than refer to the development and applica-
tion of Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine of the Infinite to theology,
which Mansel essayed in the famous Bampton Lecture of 1858.
* Compare appendix to Discussions. On this and some other points
the reader may be referred to the appendix to the Memoir of Sir W.
Hamilton, by the present writer.
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 227
This, and other criticism of Hamilton's theory by Professor Henry
Calderwood, in his Philosophy of the Infinite (1854, 3d edition,
1872), would carry me far beyond present limits. * I can only
now say that I think Mansel's development and application
of Hamilton's views questionable, and that Professor Calder-
wood's criticisms, however acute, seem to me not to touch the
essential points in Hamilton's doctrine of our knowledge of
the Infinite. How far and in what way our fundamental intel-
lectual and moral conceptions are rationally predicable of an In-
finite Being, is the unsolved problem of Metaphysics.
From the middle of last century down to a date well past the
first quarter of the present, the important branches of Logic,
Deductive and Inductive especially the former were imper-
fectly treated in the Scottish Universities. The Experimental
Method of Inquiry, as it was called, which, through the precept
of Bacon and the practice of Newton, had become dominant in
Britain, greatly affected the habits of thought in last century in
Scotland. Its results were so great and brilliant, and its promise
so high, that there was an unreasoning reaction against Deduc-
tive Logic. This was, unfortunately, shared in by the leaders of
abstract thought at the time. Even Eeid, though he has left us
a very intelligent abridgment of the Organon, could sneer at
"the syllogistic art" as a mechanical mode of reasoning by
which in all cases truth and falsehood might be accurately dis-
tinguished.t This echo of the crudities and puerilities of Locke
on the subject was caught up by Dugald Stewart, who seldom
loses an opportunity of speaking disparagingly of " the logic of the
schools ". Owing to a current of opinion of this sort, Logic, as a
science and organic branch of Mental Philosophy, ceased to be
studied in the Universities of Scotland. It was treated in a
cursory manner as an intellectual curiosity which had enjoyed
the attention of men in " the dark ages," but which must give
way to new and fresh studies conducted by the advanced intel-
lects of the time. And what was the substitute for this in the
chairs of Logic ? Let us take Glasgow as a sample, and it is a
fair one of the other Universities. With the appointment of James
Clow to the Logic chair there in 1752, we had the beginning of
the new and improving themes. " He dedicates, we are told, the
greater part of his time to an illustration of the various mental
operations, as they are expressed by the several modifications of
speech and writing, which leads him to deliver a system of lec-
* Dr. Calderwood, who was appointed to the Chair of Moral Philosophy
in Edinburgh in 1868, is also the author of Handbook of Moral Philosophy
(1872).
t Statistical Account of the University of Glasgow. Works', p. 735.
228 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
tures on General Grammar, Ehetoric, and Belles Lettres." * This
sphere of lecturing, the greater part of which was wholly ex-
fen eous to the subject of the chair, continued to be that of the
togic Professors in Glasgow for more than a century in fact
for 112 years. The result was that the chair became wholly
tutorial any scientific development of Logic from its principles
was never dreamt of. Contribution to the literature of Philosophy
was entirely unknown. Some of the more obvious rules of syllo-
gism and fallacies were taught carefully and efficiently ; but that
was all so far as Logic was concerned. Even the psychology
given was limited, and metaphysical questions, so far from being
discussed, were not even stated and this in a University to
which we already owed the logical treatises of Carmicliael and
Hutcheson, and the speculative thought of Eeid ! A system of
patronage, narrow and nepotic, vested in the College, was the
means of propagating this miserable traditionalism.
It was not until Hamilton fully and lucidly set forth the true
character and place of Formal Logic as a branch of Mental
Philosophy, in his article in the Edinburgh Review of 1833, that
the study recovered its true position in the Scottish Universities.
Of the influence of this remarkable essay we could not have a
better illustration and evidence than in the Elements of Logic of
the late Professor Spalding of St. Andrews one of the ablest of
our modern text-books, and one which shows the high tone of
teaching in that ancient though small University from 1845 to
1860, the recovery, in fact, of its mediaeval prestige. One of
the earliest treatises which aimed at extending a knowledge of
Hamilton's logical system beyond the class-room was an Essay
on the New Analytic of Logical Forms, by Thomas Spencer
Baynes (1850), now Professor of Logic in St. Andrews. Mr.
Baynes is also the author of a Translation of the Logic of Port
Royal (1850). Both works show the influence of the logical and
historical spirit of Hamilton on a sympathetic student.
The same influence which acted in Scotland extended to
Oxford and freshened the faded dialectic of that university, as
represented by the meagre and inaccurate compend of Aldrich,
for the Outline of the Necessary Laics of Thought by William
Thomson of Queen's (1842), now Archbishop of York, and the
able, learned, and valuable logical writings of the late Dean
Mansel are the almost direct inspiration of Hamilton. We have
to thank Oxford for Whately's Elements of Logic (1826), as one
of the most useful and practical books on the subject which we
yet have ; but Oxford has had to look to Scotland rather than
to its own Oriel for a systematic development of the science, and
for the learning needed to correct blunders in its nomenclature
* Eeid, Statistical Account uf Glasgow. Works, p. 735.
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 229
and history. The most recent addition to the literature of
Logic in Scotland is by Professor Bain of Aberdeen, who has
given us two important treatises on Inductive and Deductive
Logic. His deductive logic is marked by Mr. Mill's peculiar
view of the syllogism, which need not at present be discussed.
It is curious and interesting to find that one who may be regarded
as the most eminent of the school of Locke in Scotland in our
time, has written valuable works on that department of philo-
sophy which Locke himself so greatly misunderstood and con-
temned.
We have not had in the Scottish Universities any marked
attempt at a demonstrative system of metaphysics, unless in the
case of the late Professor Ferrier. * Ferrier has been the most
accomplished opponent of the observational method in these
times in Scotland. His system shows the influence of Fichte and
Hamilton, chiefly of the latter ; for Ferrier's subject-object as
the absolute is clearly derived from Hamilton's subject-object
as the relative. Ferrier's contribution to Philosophy is the at-
tempt to reason out an absolute system from this as a basis. It
seems to me, however, that the basis of his Institutes of M eta-
physic is essentially ambiguous, and that his application of the
law of Non-Contradiction, by which he seeks to give coherence
to the reasoning of the system, is a misapplication. The first
four propositions of the Institutes contain at least two distinct,
and even contradictory, meanings. These are (1) That the ob-
ject is known along with the subject of knowledge or self ; (2)
That the object of knowledge is always object + subject. These
are two totally different propositions ; the former implies simply
correlation of subject and object, the latter implies integration.
Nobody need dispute the former ; the latter requires to be proved,
and we must ask for a test of subject and object in the object of
knowledge. How is this to be got, if we never know either sepa-
rately ? Further, the nature of this object of knowledge cannot
be proved by the law of Non-Contradiction, for the simple reason
that this law cannot come into play until it has got a definite
datum to guarantee and keep consistent with itself, and the
mere consistency which it gives is subsequent to the datum, not
demonstrative of it. And, further, it is an utter misconception
of the law of Non-Contradiction to suppose that, dealing with a
datum of our consciousness, it can go beyond this, and extend it
as a law to all possible intelligence. This is to make a primary
analytic principle the ground of a synthetic judgment.-)- What
* Institutes of Metaphysic, 1854. Lectures axd fiemains, 1866.
t I have discussed the true sphere of the law of Non-Contradiction,
with special reference to Ferrier's views, in an appendix to the Memoir
of Duyuld Stewart, published in 1858. Works, Vol. X.
230 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
knowledge is, the law of Non-Contradiction cannot tell us ;
whether knowledge, as we find it, is essentially the same with
all intelligence, it can as little tell us. I venture to think the
Institutes a reasoned failure, and the failure is inseparable from
the attempt. But the ease, the grace, the brilliancy of the style
of the Institutes will make it always a memorable book in
Scottish Metaphysics.*
Professor Eraser, who succeeded Sir W. Hamilton in 1856,
has now held the chair more than twenty years the extent of
Hamilton's occupancy. During his years of teaching, in which
he has quickened many a youth to speculative inquiry, he has
nmde numerous contributions to the literature of philosophy.
The most important of these is his edition of the works of
Berkeley, with the Life and account of his Philosophy. Pro-
fessor Fraser cannot be regarded as a Berkeleyan in the ordinary
or technical sense of the phrase, as against a realistic point of
view : a certain form of Natural Eealism, indeed, comes very
close to a possible interpretation of Berkeley anism. His interest
in Berkeley seems to be twofold first, as a writer who has
been powerfully influential in the development of modern
speculation, and secondly, as one whose philosophy may be
interpreted as a system of spiritual causation, and thus as
beneficial in exhibiting and correcting prevailing materialistic
assumptions.
. All through the Scottish school and Reid, there is a revulsion
from a mechanical or physiological explanation of mind. The
naturalistic doctrines of Hobbes, Hartley, and Priestley led in
part to this ; and the evident tendency of Hume, in so far as he
is dogmatic, to regard it as possible to explain the mind, or states
of consciousness, on a principle akin to gravitation an attraction
and aggregation of sensations with its results decided Reid in
this attitude. The general position of the school has thus come to
be that of a resolute maintenance of a distinction between physio-
logical and psychological facts. The former are at the best but
regular antecedents of the latter conditions, but not causes, in
any proper sense of the word. The doctrine of " the transmuta-
tion of energy," as it is called, was not developed in Reid's time ;
* In the Lectures and Remains, Ferrier shows a tendency to take up
Hegelianism, though he never carne definitely to an acceptance of the
system on its fundamental principles. The fact that 'the system is one
that reverses ordinary points of view formed quite an attraction for his
subtilising intellect. Any introduction of Hegelianism into this country
since the time of Ferrier has been attempted without any real effort to
vindicate the principles of the system, or to estimate its logical conse-
quences. It will be time enough to examine it minutely when it passes
the dogmatic stage of assertion, or the assumptive stage of the applica-
tion of principles to fact and history, which are not vindicated as legiti-
mate either on grounds of reason or fact.
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. . 231
but both he and Stewart would have said that there is, and
can be, no evidence of the passing of a nerve energy into even
sensation, to say nothing of thought, or will, so that any one
of these is an equivalent of a definite quantity of force. The
facts of mind or consciousness were to them wholly sui generis.
Since their time, greater attention has been given to the
physiological side of the mental phenomena. Hamilton, though
he rated such inquiry at little as a means of throwing light on
mental phenomena, somewhat broke down the barrier between
the physiological and the psychological in his doctrine of sensa-
ation, which he latterly held to be a state, not of the mind alone,
but of mind and body interpenetrated, and thus opened a way
for the advance of physiology'upon psychology.
Professor Bain of Aberdeen, in his able and important works
in Psychology, may be said to have returned to the method of
Hartley, but with greatly better appreciation of the require-
ments of the problem to be solved. This method may be said
to be that of the Natural Sciences, and what he undertakes
to evolve is a natural history of Mind, or explication of the
states of consciousness, which he regards as feelings in their
most generic aspect. His method may be described as a mixed
one physiological and psychological. Purely psychological
study he regards as abstract and incomplete. Starting from a
physiological basis, he describes the physiological structure and
facts, and the states of consciousness which are connected with
them. He has gathered together a large mass of details, and he
has made very delicate and valuable observations. He is strong
in descriptive analysis. He has sought to apply his method in
great fulness to the mental phenomena the Senses and the
Intellect, the Emotions and the Will. He has greatly enlarged
the idea of the physiological basis as not simply the brain, but
the whole nervous system as affected by and manifested in
nervous currents. But proximately mental force depends on
the activity of the brain ; this depends on nervous force ; this
again on transformation of blood, and ultimately on oxidation
of the materials of nutrition. Mental force is a definite,
though not numerically determinate, equivalent of combustion.
This force is thus finally convertible with nervous force, and
we see it again passing into its physical equivalent. Nu-
trition, or rather the law which creates it, is thus the ultimate
cause or first form of Mind. Physical fact is single ; but
psychological fact has a double aspect a physiological and
a psychological. There is no mere or pure psychological
fact it is neither purely material nor purely mental. Sen-
sation is the first or earliest mental blossom. Sensation and
association are the only true elements needed to build up
232 Philosophy in the Scottish Universities.
Intellect. As an Associationist, Professor Bain is greatly in
advance of Hartley in admitting the fact of spontaneous acti-
vity in Mind, as against Hartley's bare position that the brain
simply obeys impressions. He finds, in fact, from the physio-
logical side what Keid found from the psychological. With
him it is mainly the spontaneity of muscular development ;
this ultimately, under new conditions, gives rise to Will. He
has also very ably and ingeniously analysed the states of plea-
sure and pain, adopting in principle the Aristotelian law. With
this are connected some of his most valuable analyses.
However important these physiological investigations may be,
it is still open to doubt how far they are useful in promoting a
genuine psychology. The last word of the system, absolutely
carried out, is that Sensation is Motion. This is rather running
us back into a less determinate idea of Sensation than we had
before, simply from consciousness ; and no form or kind of
motion we observe can be substituted for the Sensation we feel.
It is obvious, further, that the physiological research cannot
dispense with the psychological method, for the correlate of the
motion, the mental state, does not submit itself to vision ; it
stands out only in the clear light of conscious reflection. And
it seems to me impossible to go deeper as a basis than Sensa-
tion or a state of consciousness ; even this is never given per se,
and is not sufficient with every possible postulate of association
to afford of itself the key to human knowledge and experience.
The method of reflective analysis in philosophy the analysis
of experience and its conditions as realised in consciousness,
this is the old method which has been more or less faithfully
practised in Scotland, we may say in Britain, since the time
of Locke. There is still in it hope for the future. It has been
somewhat narrowly understood and applied among us. Its
true sphere is not merely the consciousness of the individual ;
it is the consciousness of the race. I see hope for philosophy in
this slow, careful, almost painful method, if it be extended in
its scope beyond the individual consciousness to the phenomena
of animal life, to the course of history, to philology, political
institutions, and scientific thought. Wherever and howsoever
man has expressed himself, thither and through that form,
through its origin and genesis, reflective analysis should follow
him. The great defect of Scottish thinking has been its narrow
acquaintance with the history of philosophical opinions, and
its limited erudition. Of all the thinkers in Scotland since
Hutcheson, Hamilton alone has redeemed the character of the
school in this respect. Eecently we have had an important
addition, if not to the history of philosophy, at least to the
literature of a kindred subject, in Professor Flint's able treatise
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities. 233
on the Philosophy of History in France and Germany (1874).
We need, however, more than ever not only technical learning,
but imaginative power of historical reproduction. All man has
said and done is but a realised consciousness. Let this be
fairly recognised by the reflective method, and we shall gradu-
ally approximate, not by demonstration but by observation and
analysis, to a knowledge of the full contents and development
of experience of that vast sphere of being which is succes-
sively revealed to our personality.
" There was no place in Europe," said James Melville, speak-
ing of Glasgow College in 1575, " comparable to Glasgow during
these years for a plentiful and a gude chepe mercat of all kynd
of langages, artes, and sciences." * The Scottish Universities
have been faithful to the tradition of a high education and a
cheap education ; and they have thus been the Universities of
the nation, not of a class ; on the whole, they have shown a
high education and a cheap education to be not incompatible.
And in Philosophy they may fearlessly stand questioning as to
the promotion of research. At the same time, it must be ad-
mitted that in some respects the research would have been fuller
and wider had it not been for the poverty which weighed it
down, and the height of the education would have been greater
but for its cheapness.
It is a self-glorious commonplace at British Association
gatherings to say that, while the present is pre-eminently the
age of scientific progress and eminence, it is one of decline in
literature and philosophy. This is one of those judgments, with-
out reasons annexed, which we find given out in a somewhat
off-hand and dogmatic fashion. It means very much that the
speaker is judging of things only by what is open to his own
vision. It is unfortunate, not for philosophy itself, but at least
for its popular appreciation, that its processes and, to a consider-
able extent, even its results cannot be made palpable to the crowd.
These must be thought out by the individual whom they are
to stimulate and benefit. The mass of men have neither the
leisure nor the training to enable them to do so. The results
of scientific processes on tire other hand, if not the processes
themselves, can be made obvious to the senses, and palpable to
the crowd. An analysis of space, or time, or causality, or even
logical method, though essential to the completeness and even
the vindication of scientific knowledge, cannot be exhibited like
the spectroscope or the electrometer. But it would be a very
narrow and ill-informed mind which would straightway, there-
* Diary, p. 78.
234 Philosophy in tlie Scottish Universities.
fore, pronounce the abstract work to be inferior in value or
influence to that done by the scientific man. Looking only to
the last twenty-five years of Scottish University history, there
have proceeded from men occupying chairs of Logic and Moral
Philosophy, contributions to philosophy characterised by an
amount and quality of intelligence, by a painstaking industry
and research, by a patience of reflective genius, which are not
surpassed by any form of scientific effort in the same period.
And among these writings there are some which show a culture
and catholicity utterly unknown amid the specialisms of science.
Public recognition or reward these workers seldom get, and
probably do not much care for. What is offered to them is more
frequently an insult than an appreciation. One hundred a-year
was offered by a government of Great Britain to Hamilton, when
he was poor and ill. It was, of course, indignantly spurned by
him. But the work of such men has an influence which
even politicians come to recognise, when they find it expedient.
The results of abstract thought on practical life can seldom be
immediate ; they are first felt in individualism of character, and
through that silent power, time will gradually work out, unob-
served by commonplace stolidity, the changes of moral, political,
and theological opinion.
JOHN VEITCH.
VII. CRITICAL NOTICES.
The Physiology of Mind. By HENRY MAUDSLEY, M.D. London :
Macinillan & Co. 1876.
Dr. Maudsley's well-known work on the Physiology and Pathology
of Mind, having gone through two editions since its publication in
1867, is now being re-issued in an altered form. The original first
part, revised and enlarged, appears as a separate volume, and the
Pathology as an independent work will follow in due course.
The success of the book from its first appearance has been well
deserved. To say nothing of the special value of the pathological
section which in the new issue is not yet before us, it is impossible to
read Dr. Maudsley's general chapters on the method of psychology
and the relation between mind and the nervous system, or his more
specially physiological chapters with a psychological reference, or his
more specially psychological chapters with a physiological reference,
and not undergo a genuine intellectual stimulation. There is also
throughout a certain vigour of expression which, if at times a trifle
rough or even crude, not seldom is mellowed into a grave eloquence,
as when, for instance, he tries to acknowledge the immeasurable debt
of the individual to mankind or considers the spectacle of human
striving in relation with the universal order. Nor is there lack of
true scientific insight, whether as turned upon the workings of mind
generally, or upon the special questions that have engaged the atten-
tion of recent psychologists. On the subject of unconscious mental
life, no English psychologist is more to be regarded than Dr. Maudsley,
Few understand as clearly the import of the motor side of the human
system what he calls Actuation or Effection in the explanation of
knowledge. And, to mention one other point only, the very last
paragraph of his present volume, where he shortly considers why we
have no exact memory of pain, contains a suggestion most strikingly
illustrative of the advantage, or rather the necessity, in studying
Mind, of keeping that unceasing hold upon physiological conditions
for which it is his real object to contend.
It is Dr. Maudsley's general position that most claims attention on
the issue of the present work as an independent theoretic treatise.
What is that notion of ' Physiology of Mind ' which he seeks to put
forward 1 The words may either mean, in a general sense, ' Natural
Science of Mind,' * Psychology as Natural Science,' or they may
mean a theory of Mind in relation with the special sense of
physiological science. To Dr. Maudsley, within the compass of his
book, they seem to mean both the one and the other, or, rather, now
the one and now the other, according to his mood and his mood
varies. It is not possible to urge more forcibly than he does how un-
scientific any doctrine of mind must be that is not based on experi-
ence, and what a range of experience (all, in a true sense, natural) is
available for scientific psychology. In the words of his own summary,
" the study of the plan of development of mind, the study of its
236 Critical Notices.
forms of degeneration in the insane and criminal, the study of its
progress and regress as exhibited in history, and the study of bio-
graphy," may none of them be neglected. All this he understands as
included in the inductive method objectively applied to the investi-
gation of mind, and such a treatment might with good reason be
called, as he sometimes calls it, physiological. But, of course, the
word is ambiguous, and in general, throughout the work, he has the
other meaning in view, according to which the scientific doctrine of
mind is to be called * physiology,' because mental phenomena are
specially connected with the organic processes of the body generally,
and the activity of the nervous system in particular. Physiological
investigation of the nervous and general bodily system has in recent
times made great and steady progress, and it is Dr. Maudsley's great
contention that the hope of attaining positive knowledge concerning
mind is bound up with the advance of physiological science in the strictest
sense of the term. Therefore, in his first edition, he made an "energetic
exposition" of the shortcomings of what he calls variously "the method
of introspection," "the method of self consciousness," "the metaphysi-
cal method," " the psychological method," and also " psychology "
simply. And though he seeks in the present edition " to maintain
the level of a more sober style," because he is no longer so young and
enthusiastic, and, besides, " the physiological method " seems to him
now-a-days to stand above the need of defence or advocacy, he yet
abates not one jot of his old antagonism to any doctrine of mind that
is not in the special sense physiological. How does he then under-
stand such a doctrine 1
Here again his mood varies, and now in a way that is not a little
surprising. When the fit is on him, Dr. Maudsley will hear of
nothing but physiology physiology of brain, and woe be to the luckless
introspectionist who ventures to think of profiting by physiological
discoveries and would fain thereby seek to " put meaning into the
vague and abstract language of psychology : that would simply be to
subject physiology to the tortures of Mezentius to stifle the living
in the embraces of the dead ". There is no question of brain and
mind, but it is "brain or mind " " mind or brain" ; and " mind " is
to be understood as " mental organisation," and this again as " that
organisation of brain which ministers to mental function " ; for " the
substance beneath " is brain and only brain. Of course, then, there
is no room but for physiology. The scientific inquirer must work
up from vital to mental phenomena, and this he can do so perfectly
upon the strictly physiological track, that it is nothing short of a pure
hardship for him to have to express his results in the terms of psychology
so vague, so obscure, so figurative, so full of theory and the theory
false, &c. &c. Because there is continuity between the physical pro-
cesses of life in the organism and the physical processes that have
been discovered to be concomitant with the phenomena of mind,
Dr. Maudsley will have it that brain and mind differ not otherwise
than an orange touched differs from the same orange seen ; and there-
upon he declares in a tone he loves to assume " Above all things it is
Critical Notices. 237
now necessary that the ahsolute and unholy barrier set up between psy-
chical and physical nature be broken down." No wonder, if the psychical
is just a kind of physical, that he cannot have patience with introspec-
tive psychologists trying to link their notion of mind with the rich dis-
coveries of physiology, and must tell them, whether in sober style or
not, that they seek " an unhallowed and unnatural union which can
only issue in abortions, or give birth to monsters ". But when the
fit is off, or rather in its pauses for it is never quite off we henr
another strain. There is a " happy bridal union from which we may
expect vigorous offspring," and what may this be 1 It is " the union
of the subjective and objective methods," and this is declared to be
the true method of psychology physiology no more. Dr. Maudsley
at an early stage of his exposition adopts Comte's superficial objection
against the possibility of self-introspection ; but, like Conite himself,
he finds he can practise it perfectly well whenever there is occasion
(as when is there not ?). Hear him when he is in the vein.
" We can observe the associations and sequences of mental states
without knowing their physical antecedents. Moreover, when we have
discovered by objective inquiry the physical antecedents, we must still
depend upon the help of subjective observation in order to establish the
exact sequences of the mental states, which we only know by introspec-
tion, to the physical states which we observe and make experiments
npon" (p. 47). Again (p. 61): "Everybody (?) can perceive that
feelings, ideas, volitions are known through self-consciousness, and have
only a subjective meaning. And although they may, and no doubt do,
correspond to what, I suppose, we may call objective changes in the
nervous system, we cannot know them by objective inquiry, any more
than we can know the material changes by mental introspection. No
observation of the brain, no investigation of its chemical activities, gives
us the least information respecting the states of feeling that are con-
nected with them ; as has been aptly remarked, it is certain that the
anatomist and physiologist might pass centuries in studying the brain
and nerves, without even suspecting what a pleasure or a pain is, if they
have not felt both ; even vivisections teach us nothing except by the
interpretation which we give them through observation of our own
mental processes."
Nay, so certain is Dr. Maudsley now of the facts of subjective
experience, as revealed by self-introspection, that he does not hesitate
with the veriest idealist that ever was to declare that, when we are
dealing with purely natural forces such as electricity and chemical
affinity, and the changes in matter to which they are sequent, all the
" sequences, as known to us, are only states of consciousness " !
(p. 63).
Might Dr. Maudsley then fairly disclaim, as he originally did, anjr
" absurd attempt to repudiate introspective observation entirely " 1
Assuredly. But might his critics as fairly charge him with seeking
" to employ the physiological method exclusively " 1 Assuredly also.
This is what comes of an exposition so very " energetic " in one phase
as to exclude the possibility of there being another or make its later
recognition a piece of gratuitous, and not quite harmless, inconsistency.
The time is long past if there ever was a time when such an advo-
16
233 Critical Notices.
eacy of the ' physiological method ' could serve a good purpose.
Since when has there been any indisposition on the part of serious
psychologists to accept all physiological results, really established,
that have a bearing on the conclusions obtained by what Dr. Maudsley
himself, as we have seen, allows is the perfectly legitimate and indis-
pensable method of introspective inquiry ] Let physiologists bethink
them why on their side it is only so recently that results have been
obtained worthy of being taken into account for the general science
of mind. It will be time enough to deride the willingness of psycho-
logists to appropriate the results of physiology, when physiologists
show not less readiness to pay heed to the best results of the intro-
spective method, instead of themselves making crude attempts at
psychological analysis. Meanwhile, the energy of Dr. Maudsley's
exposition can only have the effect of confirming the unwary among
his brethren in the very attitude of psychological ignorance which,
happily for himself, he has never seriously maintained.
Curiously enough, too, in this so-called Physiology of Mind, while
it is those parts of the book where Dr. Maudsley is constrained to
become the advocate of the method of introspection that are most to
be recommended to physiologists, the more strictly physiological parts
are not in turn those which the psychologists need most to lay to
heart. Even before the present generation there have been professed
psychologists as deeply imbued as Dr. Maudsley himself with the
physiological spirit, though unlike him in keeping steadily in view,
and not forgetting and remembering by turns, the subjective aspect of
mental life. But one thing the psychologists have been slow to learn
the necessity of studying mind on a broader scale than the self-
consciousness of the individual or of studying the individual mind in
express relation to the social environment wherein it is developed.
JSTow of this necessity Dr. Maudsley has so firm a grasp that, though
he impresses it but incidentally in his book, he truly deserves to be
distinguished as one of the pioneers in a path of inquiry which
English psychologists must no longer delay to tread. True, the intro-
spective analysis they have pertinaciously followed out is the indis-
pensable foundation for effective conclusions on this or any other line
of positive inquiry in relation to mind,* to say nothing of its import
for general philosophy, which comes little into Dr. Maudsley's view.
Yet there could be no greater mistake, in trying to deal scientifically
with such a subject as Mind, than to be slow to adopt a new point of
* This was a point well urged by Mr. Stewart in MIND No. IV., in
his short paper entitled * Psychology a Science or a Method ? '. Mr.
Stewart did not, however, carry me with him to his conclusion that
psychology is a method and not a science; and when he represented this
as the position of earlier English inquirers like Hume, he surely over-
looked the emphatic assertion in the introduction to the Treatise on
Human Nature, that the object was to obtain a " science of man " by the
same method of " experience and observation " as had recently led to
the extraordinary advance of physical science ; though with this was
coupled the philosophical idea that the science of man when thus got
would form " the only solid foundation for the other sciences ".
Critical Notices. 239*
view, so obviously suggested by the advance of other special sciences
and by the growth of the conception of order as pervading every way
the stream of phenomenal occurrence. For all the psychological books
that have been written, with or without regard to the strictly physio-
logical conditions of mental life, we are still far from understanding
the actual process of development of the mind, related as it is in every
individual not only to the world of natural experience but to that
complex of conditions which, while also natural in a wider sense, are,
for men at least, properly called social. All credit is due to Dr.
Maudsley for his intelligent appreciation of what remains to be done
on this side for psychological science ; and only there is room for
regret that he cannot advocate this or any other true conception with-
out marvelling overmuch at the intellectual weakness of those who
cling to that subjective study of mind which first engaged the atten-
tion of philosophic thinkers and may not be neglected to the last even
by ' mental physiologists '.
EDITOR.
A Treatise on tlie Moral Ideals. By the late JOHN GROTE, B.D.,
Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cambridge..
Edited by JOSEPH BICKERSTETH MAYOR, M.A. Cambridge :
Deighton, Bell, & Co.
THIS posthumous work has the merits and defects which a reader
of Prof. Grote's already published treatises will naturally expect to
find. It is rather subtle than exact, rather comprehensive and im-
partial than systematic or in any way exhaustive : full of fresh and
independent thought, just criticism, and fine psychological observation,
as well as elevated moral sentiment, and sagacious practical counsels ;
but not in the highest sense original or penetrating in the treatment
of ethical theories. Thus, while there is no living thinker who may
not learn much from it, it is hardly likely to have a marked influence
on contemporary thought. It should be observed that the impression
of inexact and unsystematic exposition which the work, as a whole,
produces on the reader's mind, is partly due to the fragmentary con-
dition in which it was left; and partly also to the editor's plan of
supplementing the gaps in it by extracts from other unpubJ is] . , < 1
manuscripts of the author : though the reader cannot fail to be grateful
for these additions, which seem to have been most carefully and judi-
ciously selected.
At the same time, we seem to notice here and there a deliberate
avoidance of precision and systematic completeness. Prof. Gi- "-
indeed tells us (p. 139) that "exact classifications in a subject such
as we are .now dealing with are a mere appearance " ; and again (p.
138) that " objective morality ... is not anything which can be
expressed in any sort of way in a code or system ". Several other
passages might be quoted to the same effect. It is true that, as the
editor contends, Prof. Grote was by no means indifferent to the
advantages of clearness and consistency ; but we can hardly concede*-
240 Critical Notices.
that he was " remarkably free from hastiness and looseness of
thought," except in a very limited sense. His dissertations on Virtue,
Duty, Wrong-doing, Happiness, Character, &c., all contain a rich
fund of mature reflection, but the form in which this is communicated
is by no means free from the defects of haste. Again, when he is
engaged in describing the relations of different points of view, or
distinguishing the different meanings of common terms, his subtlety
and clearness of discrimination often strike one as masterly ; but this
clearness is not equally maintained in his more detailed development
of views, or in his habitual use of his own cardinal notions. Nor,
finally, does he seem to succeed in his main purpose of combining into a
harmonious whole the chief competing systems of moral philosophy ;
though his impartial study of their mutual relations has led him to
several valuable suggestions for such a combination.
The main plan of the treatise is sufficiently indicated by the
characteristic phrase " Aretaics and Eudaemonics " which heads the
first chapter and was originally intended for a title to the whole work.
Both Aretaics or the " Science of Virtue," and Eudaemonics or the
" Science of Happiness," are required, in Prof. Grote's view, to make
a complete moral philosophy; the former dealing with man as an
active being, the latter considering him as a sentient (or pain-feeling
and pleasure-feeling) being. The reason for regarding these as two
distinct sciences is, we are told, that man's " activity and his sentience
are two independent portions of his nature, each as early, as native,
and as important as the other ". Now we can no doubt conceive a
purely speculative study of human feelings, which should keep clear
of any reference whatever to action ; a study which would merely
aim at distinguishing and classifying the different species of pleasures
and pains, and investigating their causes, without entering into the
question whether and how far the former were to be sought and the
latter shunned. But this does not correspond to our author's concep-
tion of Eudaemonics : for he gives as the " fundamental axiom " of
Eudaemonics, " that pain is a thing undesirable, or to be avoided,"
the antithetical axiom of Aretaics being that pain is " a thing not to
be inflicted ". Now the proposition " that pain is to be avoided,"
clearly deals with man as an active being : it directs him to action for
the avoidance of pain, as Prof. Grote afterwards (p. 145) clearly
sees. And if we take the axiom generally, understanding it to be
" that pain is a thing undesirable for any one" not merely " for me,"
it necessarily includes the fundamental axiom of Aretaics. For if
pain be something which (as far as possible) no one is to suffer, it
must obviously be something which (to an equal extent) no one is to
inflict : the two statements are merely two sides of the same practical
principle. Eudaemonics, in fact, if it is to be practical at all, must
claim the whole sphere of human activity ; to relinquish any portion
of it to a separate science of Aretaics would be an act of the most
illogical and suicidal moderation.
A similar criticism must be passed on our author's attempt in ch. vi
to hold the balance even between Utilitarians and their opponents in
Critical Notices. 241
expounding his theory of the " value of action in the abstract ".
Actions, he says, have two kinds of value, eudaemonic and aretaic,
each of which may be taken as a part or element of the full moral
value of actions in the universe. Their eudaemonic value is, of
course, proportioned to their " usefulness," or tendency to promote
happiness : but their aretaic value depends on a quality quite different
from, and in a manner opposite to this the degree, namely, of
" generosity," " self-forgetfulness," " non-value for [one's own] happi-
ness," with which they are done. Here, again r it seems obvious that
a sincere acceptance of the principle of maximising happiness generally
involves a readiness to sacrifice one's own happiness to the greater
happiness of any one else, in case of a conflict of interests. No doubt
from a Utilitarian point of view this readiness has only a secondary or
derivative value, depending on the existence of this (real or apparent) con-
flict of interests : and it may still be urged on Prof. Grote's side that our
common moral consciousness recognises an independent value in self-
sacrifice : to which Utilitarians may reply that common sense condemns
some self-sacrifice as extravagant and that no satisfactory criterion of
right and wrong self-sacrifice can be suggested, except the Utilitarian.
In short ' Eudaemonics ' has necessarily its own peculiar theory of
Virtue, Moral Excellence, Moral Value; which may be more or less
effectively attacked, but which it is idle to treat as non-existent.
Nor am I prepared to assert that Prof. Grote does so treat it. In-
deed, as we advance further in the book, it becomes somewhat
difficult to see how he draws the line between Eudaemonics and
Aretaics. This difficulty is partly due to his treatment of the latter
inquiry. Though he argues with much clearness and force (in ch. ii.)
that " Aretaics is ideal in its very essence," and makes many interest-
ing and some profound remarks (chs. iii.-v.) on the nature of the Moral
Ideals, and their relation to Intellectual Ideals, he does not seriously
and directly attempt to expound the principles of Aretaics from this point
of view. After a subtle and suggestive account of the general notion
of Duty as compared with the cognate notions of Virtue and Law, he
passes rather unexpectedly from ideal to what he characteristically calls
" observational Aretaics " : that is, instead of a construction of ideal
Virtue on rational principles, hegives us (chs. viii.,ix.)an analysis of Virtue
as a " fact in the world," a generally recognised and admitted feature
of human life. Virtue thus viewed is found to consist of three ele-
ments, benevolent impulse, sense of duty, and love of excellence. Of
these the former is given as primary and principal, though the two
latter are indispensable supplements : " Virtue (we may say) is bene-
volence, more or less stimulated and regulated by the accompanying
sense of duty and love of excellence ". But Benevolence, or " the dis-
position to- do action for a good purpose," is expressly characterised by
our author in such a manner as to refer it to Eudaemonics, if this be
(as defined in ch. i.) the science which deals with man as a sentient
being : "By Benevolence," he says, " I have wished to indicate the
effect on us, as sentient beings, of a number of beings sentient or feeling
lilce ourselves, into whose feelings we enter ". While again in ch. x.
242 Critical Notices.
tin- proposition " that pain is not to be inflicted " seems to be treated as
essentktlly an application of rational benevolence, necessary to counteract
the effect of " bare equity or fairness " (pp. 213, 214) : though in the
preceding chapter (pp. 144-147) " Neminem Icede " is given as the fun-
damental maxim of Conscience (or the sense of Duty) in contradistinc-
tion to the axiom of Benevolence " Love all in their degree ". The
truth is that the division between the sciences of human activity and
human sentience, proposed in ch. i, is far too unnatural to be maintained,
and therefore becomes an inevitable source of confusion : while at the
same time it tends to prevent a fair and full discussion of the claims
of Utilitarianism to regulate activity by sentience.
The value, then, of Prof. Grote's Aretaics certainly does not lie in
lucid development of its relation to Eudaemonics, nor indeed in its sys-
tematic character generally : but rather in the discussions on special
points of morals, scattered historical aper^m, fine psychological obser-
vations, and subtle analysis of complex sentiments. I may refer for
illustration "to his distinction in ch. viii of the different feelings called
vaguely " benevolent," to the account in ch. ix of the Love of Excel-
lence as the regard for moral value modified by rivalry, and of the
Sense of Honour as the same regard with a special stress laid on that
imagination of the judgment of others which normally accompanies all our
moral judgments. Again, the whole account, (in ch. x and its appendix)
of the principles of distribution of services considered first ideally and
abstractly and then in relation to existing law, is worth studying : and
the different elements in the common notion of Justice are well discrimi-
nated. The following is one of the apt corrections of traditional
commonplace which Prof. Grote delights in supplying : " It is in re-
ference to its character as impartiality, and as being ' no respecter of
persons/ that Justice is drawn blind. . . . Justice might perhaps
better have been drawn with many eyes to see the difficulties which
from opposite directions beset impartiality, and of which sinister
interest is one only ".
A chapter on wrong-doing (ch. xi.) temporarily concludes the "obser-
vational Aretaics". the discussion of Eudaemonics is then taken up
and carried through two chapters, on Pleasure and Happiness respec-
tively, to which the editor has appended two extracts from earlier
MSS. Prof. Grote takes as fundamental a distinction which recalls
the old Epicurean classification of pleasures into those eV tnaaet and
those tV Kivrjaet. His first class of pleasures and pains he characterises
as " feelings of undisturbance " or rather (as he explains) feelings that
involve a slight and indefinite general disturbance in the direction of
pleasure and pain respectively. Pleasure of this kind he proposes to
call " wellfeeling," meaning " the feeling which accompanies a normal
and healthy state of mind " when consciousness is chiefly occupied with
objective regards, " Pleasures of disturbance," again, he divides into
( 1 ) those which accompany the satisfaction of a want, and (2) those
which do not : the latter he inclines to call " pleasures of enjoyment " ;
the former, " pleasures of gratification ". He adds some just criticism
of two opposite errors, that of Butler who only recognises pleasures of
Critical Notices. 243
gratification, and that of the Utilitarians who ignore the dependence
of these pleasures upon antecedent desires which are not generally
directed toward pleasure. He proceeds to attack Utilitarianism as
mistaken, and dangerous to morality, in taking " distinct, measure-
able, describable pleasures " as the element of Happiness : and
neglecting the more important element " well-feeling " which does not
lend itself to definite measurement. The criticism is not without
force ; but its impressiveness seems partly due to an ambiguity in the
notion of " wellbeing," to which " wellfeeling " is the corresponding
consciousness. For (1) if this notion be taken in the widest sense in
which Prof. Grote uses it, to include the whole variety of normal life,
" enjoyed thought, emotion, action," we can surely analyse " Well-
feeling " into elements similar in kind to the " distinct and exhibitable
pleasures " from which it is distinguished, though they may be fainter in
degree. The pleasures of benevolent affection, or of artistic emotion, or of
scientific investigation, or of the exercise of skill of any kind, seem t6
be as definite and " describable " as those of gratified appetite. While
(2) if Wellbeing be understood to mean " loving rightly, doing as we
should, in which doing we feel as we should," and a strictly " aretaic "
interpretation be given (as it is by Aristotle) to this notion of Well-
doing ; then according to Prof. Grote's theory of Virtue, it must consist
in the exercise of benevolence regulated by a right view of duty : that
is, practically, in bestowing happiness on the proper people. And
thus, if our ideal is not to be reduced to the almost ludicrous concep-
tion of a society of human beings beneficently bestoAving on each other
beneficent dispositions, we must fall back on the second element of
Happiness in order to give definiteness to the first.
The truth is that Prof. Grote's account of Wellbeing (and, I may add,
of Beneficence) would have been more satisfactory if he had attained a
clearer view of the contents of his notion of Good or Desirable as dis-
tinct from Duty or Virtue on the one hand and Pleasure or Happiness
on the other. That he had faced the difficulties of this task is evident
from chs. ii, iii, where he distinguishes three principal forms of the moral
ideal (1) Right or Faciendum, (2) Bonum or the Desirable, (3) Happi-
ness ; and treats the first two as primary, while he regards the third
as " arising from the coupling of the sensible fact of pleasure and pain
with the previous ideal of ' the desirable ' ". But though he has given
us some very interesting reflections on the general nature of Good,
considered as the correlative of " Want or Egence " in the universe,
he nowhere seems to have answered distinctly the questions raised in the
following passage (p. 35) : " The desirable, or the ' to be desired,' is
a much more complicated notion. Has it or has it not the former ideal
mixed with it] Is the 'to be desired ' in any way that which 'ought'
to be desired 1 or is it ' the desired ' with appeal to human feeling and
human history 1 ? or is it 'the reasonably desired' pointing to som6
other ideal still for its interpretation 1 " Still less has he offered a theory,
even in outlines of the particulars of Good. Indeed, though the compre-
hensive view of the moral ideals exhibited in chs. ii-v would rather
have suggested a three-fold division (at least) of Moral Philosophy, in
244 Critical Notices.
the main part of the treatise he seems to have worked on the basis
of the simple antithesis between Aretaics and Eudaemonics, given in the
first chapter ; and thus is led sometimes to use " good " as convertible
with " felicific," as in speaking of " good will," " good purpose " ;
while at other times he distinguishes " giving pleasure " from " doing
real good " (p. 334).
I have not left myself space to notice the remaining chapters on
" moral elevation," " the relation of the ideals to higher and lower
fact " " actual and ideal human nature," the " goodness of custom."
and " the relation of the individual to custom," " character, will and
education," " discussion, controversy, war," and the " importance of
right belief". The treatise perhaps becomes somewhat more decousu
as we approach the end, without however losing in interest. Many
of the doctrines developed in the book will be familiar to readers of
the Examination of Utilitarianism : but Prof. Grote was too fresh
and fertile a thinker to repeat himself tediously.
H. SIDGWICK.
Lcs Causes Finales. Par PAUL JANET. Paris : Germer Bailliere,
1876.
THIS work, from the pen of an eminent representative of philoso-
phical spiritualism, aims at presenting the particular theory of Final
Causes maintained by this school with greater fulness and systematic
exactness than has yet been done, and at the same time of re-asserting
the importance of the teleological conception of the universe in the face
of the contempt cast on it by modern science. The work consists
of two parts answering to what may be called the scientific and the me-
taphysical problem of finality. The first deals with the question
whether finality or the adaptation of means to ends (Zweckrfiassiglceit),
is a law of nature, the second is concerned with the inquiry into the
ultimate cause or principle on which such finality rests. This order
of treatment is much the same as that adopted by E. von Hartmann
in expounding the related principle of an unconscious will and intel-
ligence in the universe.
M. Janet begins by giving us a definition of final cause. As pre-
sented to us in experience it is " an effect, if not foreseen at least pre-
determined, and which by reason of this predetermination conditions
and commands the series of phenomena of which it is in appearance
the result ". It strikes one that M. Janet's caution in separating the
problem of adaptation from that of its interpretation when ascertained
forces him here into an unmeaning abstraction. How a result can
command an antecedent series of events apart from some mode of pre-
vision is not easily conceived. In truth the writer is forced again and
again in spite of his professed postponement of the question of a pre-
arranging intelligence to concede that finality has no meaning apart
from an antecedent mental representation of the dominating result.
That there is such a thing as finality in nature cannot, says M. Janet,
be known a priori. Unlike the law of causality it is, to speak in
Critical Notices. 245
Kantian language, a " regulative " not a " constitutive " principle.
If valid, it must be justified as the teaching of observation and induc-
tion. This, by the way, is clearly to assign to the idea of aim (Zweck)
a much more modest rank than is claimed for it in other systems, for
example the Hegelian. How does experience supply us with a basis
for this induction 1 This is M. Janet's argument. A glance at the
order of events in nature shows that it is made up of separate chains
of phenomena each of which is sufficiently held together by the law
of causation. But in addition to the separate threads there are the
juxtapositions co-existences as well as successions. If these are rare
and few in number they do not require explanation ; if, however, they
are numerous and complicated, they have to be accounted for. Some-
times this may be done by a mere reference to a previous arrangement
of causes (as in explaining the frequent presence of sea-shells on moun-
tains) ; at other times this is impossible, namely whenever the recur-
ring combination has the " character of being determined relatively to
a future phenomenon more or less remote ". In these cases the rela-
tion of the coincidence to the future phenomenon is an additional ele-
ment needing explanation, and this involves the conception of " a cause
in which this future phenomenon is ideally represented". [Surely this is
to admit that finality apart from mental representation is meaningless.]
Thus we reach finality as a fact or law of nature. " We set out from
a fixed point given us in experience as an effect : but this effect not
being possible except by an incalculable mass of rencontres, it is this
agreement among so many coincidences and a certain effect which pre-
cisely constitutes the proof of finality." The conditions of this proof,
it need hardly be said, are found by M. Janet in a conspicuous form
in the numerous and complicated adaptations of organ to function.
He argues that the complexity and heterogeneity of the co-existences
entering into the formation of an organ and still more of an organism
wholly preclude the idea of fortuitous coincidences, since in these cases
such coincidences would have to be conceived as infinite in number.
But allowing that finality, in the meagre signification which M.
Janet has hitherto endeavoured to assign the term, is proven, how are
we justified in inferring that it implies some form of intelligence? By
the argument known as analogy, answers our author. Having a direct
experience of pre-arrangement in our own voluntary actions, we reason
that a similar cause produces the adaptations of nature : " The same
effects imply the same causes ". The reasoning is of the same kind as
that employed in inferring that the actions of our fellow-men and of
the lower animals are preceded by conscious purposes. It differs from
this mode of conclusion only in the degree of the probability. M.
Janet labours hard to show the close resemblance between the industry
of man and that of nature which in its progressive stages employs
means of greater and greater complexity, and involving more and
more deliberation.
M. Janet then endeavours to determine the right relations of the
teleological and the mechanical method of interpreting nature. The
invariable employment of the latter does not, he says, exclude the
246 Critical Notices.
former, since the means which conspire to produce a given result must
always work according to mechanical laws ; only in addition to this
physical explanation the ingredient of fitness already emphasised re-
quires an intellectual solution.
The argument of the First Book is "brought to a close by a considera-
tion of the principal objections commonly urged against the doctrine
of finality, and by a separate discussion of the theory of organic
evolution in its older and newer forms. The author here presents the
difficulties of his theory in their full force, and however inconclusive
some of his answers may be, they frequently display considerable in-
genuity. In reviewing Mr. Darwin's theory he follows previous
objectors both in throwing doubt on the principle of natural selection
as a dominant cause of organic transformation, and in contending that
the useful variations which are to be preserved by natural selection
themselves imply purpose. This line of remark is followed up in an
appendix devoted to an examination of Mr. Spencer's biological prin-
ciples.
The reader will perceive from this brief summary that M. Janet
adds little in substance to the arguments previously resorted to in favour
of design in nature. Though he works out many points with inde-
pendent reflection, and presents his subject with much freshness of
illustration, the real force of the reasoning lies in the contention that
a recurring assemblage of complicated conditions converging towards
one result involves a pre-representation of that result. We do not in-
tend to argue this question here, though we may congratulate M. Janet
on substituting so definite a criterion for the looser methods of ascer-
taining marks of design. One or two observations on M. Janet's line
of reasoning must suffice. We hardly think he will secure the support
of men of science in limiting the action of physical or mechanical causa-
tion where he does. To say for example that mechanical principles
cannot account for the symmetrical arrangement of the lines of a
crystal is surely to betray a rather superficial acquaintance with the
mechanical mode of explanation. It seems much too soon, in view of
Mr. Darwin's reduction of so many adaptations to a strictly mechanical
process, to affirm that physical causation is inadequate to account for
the orderly arrangements of living structures. We are no doubt still
a long way from a mechanical theory of organic growth, but it may be
said to be the qucesitum of modern science, and no one can say that
it is a chimaera. Should it ever be reached, one suspects in spite
of M. Janet's assurances, that ideas of final causes will soon wax
very faint. For such a theory, while admitting that there is a
close relation between organ and function, would be able to furnish
another explanation of the relation, and M. Janet's argument that what
resembles the result of intelligent volition cannot be due to another
cause will hardly convince those who are familiar with the doctrine of
the plurality of causes. The author seems to us to argue most weakly
when he seeks to assimilate our knowledge of design in nature to that
of others' conscious thoughts and volitions. The independent chains
of reasoning by which we are able to establish the existence of another
Reports. 247
mind, whether in one of our fellowmen or of the lower animals, serve
as a mode of mutual verification, and to this there corresponds nothing
in the teleological argument.
We will not follow the author into his Second Book, where the
several philosophic interpretations of finality are carefully examined
and the reasons set forth in favour of a transcendent intelligence rather
than an immanent principle, whether conscious or instinctive. It is
sufficient to say that the student of philosophy will here find a valu-
ahle retrospect of one aspect of philosophic history and not a few per-
tinent criticisms on the weaker sides of the several theories reviewed.
JAMES SULLY.
VIII. EEPOETS.
Functions of the Cerebrum, At the end of his first paper on the
functions of the cerebrum in dogs, reported on in MIND No. V., Prof.
Goltz promised to deal with the psychical effects of his remarkable
experiments in another paper. It was not very obvious what results
remained to be indicated, after he had so carefully stated not only the
effects on sensation and movement, but also the change of emotional
demeanour in the subjects of his experiments ; and it is therefore
hardly surprising that, in the second paper which he has now contri-
buted to Pfliiger's Arcliiv (XIV. 8, 9), he does not advance very far
beyond the lines of his former communication. He has, however,
widened the scope of his research by treating both hemispheres instead
of one only, and, while the results thus obtained are generally con-
firmatory of those before published, they are altogether of the most
striking character. He is doubtless, as he supposes, the first observer
who has been able to note the permanent results of wide-spread
destruction in both hemispheres of a highly organised animal, and his
method of experiment (washing out by a jet of water, which leaves
the great blood-vessels unruptured) needs 110 other testimony to its
scientific value.
As anything like considerable destruction of the cortex of either
hemisphere was found to be attended with a permanent reduction of
Touch (in all its modes) on the other side of the body, so destruction
in the two hemispheres is followed by permanently reduced sensi-
bility over the whole frame.
The effect upon Siyht partial or total blindness according to the
extent of cortical destruction previously demonstrated in one eye
from the opposite hemisphere, is exactly reproduced in the other eye
when the remaining hemisphere is in turn affected. In the cases of
largest destruction, the blindness remained total for weeks and showed
no signs of disappearing. When more limited, the animal would
begin after a time to respond to impressions of sight, especially from
moving objects ; but even when the destruction was very partial, if
on both sides, a relative insensibility to light could always be estab-
lished by special tests, months afterwards meat, for example, not
2-48 Reports.
being recognised by its colour when beyond the reach of smell, or
even when smelt, not being detected by the eye, if hung in an un-
usual position (though very close) over the animal's head. Goltz's
determinate conclusion, after a most varied series of experiments, is
that the permanent effect on vision depends strictly on a loss of
natural function of the cortical areas destroyed by the operation ; and
according to him the areas are in no way circumscribed.
The other special senses Hearing, Smell, and Taste might be
expected to be in like manner affected by cortical destruction, though
in the first series of experiments on a single hemisphere there was
no clear evidence of any effect produced, owing to the difficulty or
impossibility of stimulating one ear (for example) without the other.
The expectation has not been verified. Even when the destruction
in the two hemispheres was so great as to leave an animal permanently
blind, it would begin to respond to sounds within a few days from the
operation wag the tail whefc called by name, bark when barked at
(even by a human throat, till it found it was being tricked), and
cower at the sound of a whip though shaken in vain before its eyes.
Smell also appears to be unaffected, though there was a doubt in one
or two cases. Taste, which is so hard to separate from smell, has not
been sufficiently tried.
As regards Movements, the experiments on two hemispheres gene-
rally confirm those on one. There is a permanent muscular helpless-
ness of the limbs on each side from the opposite hemisphere, which
is either plainly marked with large destruction, or may be made
manifest by special tests if the destruction is small. One striking
effect is the tendency to take high steps like a cock, especially under
excitement. The use of the forepaw r s for grasping is completely lost.
Yet Goltz asserts that the awkward movements after loss in both
hemispheres are not less energetic than in the normal state : great
enough leaps would be taken to clear high obstacles, but to no purpose
because taken only in the vertical direction. It is also remarkable
that the muscles of the jaws remain unaffected, bones being crunched
as effectively as usual.
Very marked is the change in general demeanour when both hemi-
spheres have been treated. The animal has a stolid dazed look,
remains still, begins to move slowly, and then moves straight forward
like an automaton, not avoiding obstacles. In eating it finds the
pieces of food in a dish with difficulty, being apt to bite the dish
instead or any indifferent object : one dog had the habit of placing its
forepaw on the dish and repeatedly bit it by mistake. The teeth at
first work irregularly ; yet the tongue always escapes injury, and, even
when the destruction extends down to the corpus striatum and optic
thalamus on one side, seems to have its movements unaffected.
With the inability to find the food in a dish, there appears also a
loss of the sense of locality in general. If called from a distance, the
animal would get up to come to the place, but wander about without
reaching it. Goltz could not suppose that this was due only to loss of
vision, when blind dogs get about so easily and surely, and, as in the
Reports. 249
subjects of his experiments hearing and smell remain intact, he judged
that the fault must lie with the muscular sense and whatever else is
involved in the perception of the body as extended in space. He
therefore devised experiments for testing the animal's ability to free
itself from disagreeable irritation at different parts of the surface of
the body, and found that after loss in both hemispheres it could no
longer, as before, apply its snout directly to the places affected, but
only made more or less indeterminate reflex movements. To his
surprise he then found that the power was equally lost for the whole
body, though only one hemisphere was treated.
[This is certainly a very remarkable fact and seems to show how
complex is the integration of sense-impressions and movements in
what we call an act of perception. The reference of sensation to a
definite locality on the extended surface of the body is, of course, very
different from a mere passive sense-affection, and, to judge by the
experimental evidence, is connected with such an involved nervous
process in the convolutions that it is affected by the disturbance of
this at any part of the cortical substance in either hemisphere,]
The sexual appetite remains after moderate loss in both hemispheres,
but vanishes when it is great. Other emotions as hate, love, &c., sur-
vive considerable destruction. Interesting particulars are given on this
head as on others.
Nothing depends more definitely upon the amount of brain-matter
than Memory, as shown by its decay with progressive destruction of
the cortex. Also, when both hemispheres are treated instead of only
one, ne\v acquisitions become impossible.
In conclusion, Goltz urges that whatever be the permanent de-
ficiencies of function established by the experiments, no single muscle
is lamed and (as before mentioned) the whole amount of muscular
energy is not reduced. He has not been too particular in assigning
the amount of destruction in each case, because there appeared no
difference of result as dependent on particular convolutions : the
difference was quantitative only. The parts affected were the upper
and lateral surfaces, but these (as mentioned in the first paper) both
within and without the ' excitable region ' of Hitzig [and Ferrier, to
whom Goltz still does not refer]. The corpora striata and optic
thalami were liable in cases of large destruction to be affected, and
may thus be involved in the resulting phenomena to an extent not yet
determined. [This is a point over which Goltz passes much too
lightly.] The research, he maintains, is decisive against the older
doctrine (of Flourens) that a mere remnant of the hemisphere can do the
work of the whole. Nor, as far as it goes, does it lend any confirmation
to the newer doctrine that particular regions of the cortex have special
functions ; fpr, however symmetrical were the portions of the two
hemispheres destroyed, the effects on the opposite sides of the body
were always alike, or differed only quantitatively in proportion to the
extent of the lesion. The fact that hearing remains intact, after loss
of sight, might indeed be taken to imply that there is a special centre
for hearing in the basal part of the brain not reached by the opera-
250 Reports.
tion, but till such a spot is positively indicated, Goltz refuses to take
up with any such supposition. [The reader need hardly be reminded
that Ferrier does assign a special centre for hearing, not however on
the basal part of the brain, but on the lateral surface which Goltz
declares may be destroyed in both hemispheres without affecting the
auditory sense. More expressly contradictory the results of the two
inquirers could not well be on this as on other points.]
Localisation of Function in the Cerebral Cortex. In a short note
reprinted from the St. Bartholomew Hospital Reports, vol. xiii, Dr.
Ainslie Hollis maintains that in the present state of our knowledge we
have only the assurance that there exist in the brain a posterior or re-
tentive system and an anterior or expressive system. The expressive
system may be said generally to consist of the fronto-parietal convo-
lutions. Of these the parietal convolutions, immediately bounding the
great fissure of Rolando, are concerned in the movements of limbs,
neck, back, &c., that is to say, the acquired movements of these parts ;
for Soltinann and others have found that in the very young, before
experience has been acquired, the movements described by Hitzig, &c.,
as depending on electrisation of these convolutions and no others are
not in the same way present. The adjoining frontal convolutions
are concerned in the complex symbolic actions of speaking, number-
ing, writing, &c., as has partly been made out by direct pathological
evidence, and partly may be inferred from the greater frontal develop-
ment in cultured races as compared with savages whose sense-
acuteness is not accompanied by the intelligence which involves a.
highly-developed system of symbolic expressions. What Dr. Ainslie
Hollis calls the retentive [better, perhaps, the receptive] system consists,
he believes, of the posterior or occipito-temporal lobes. He adduces two
cases in support of this position. One of these was noted by Dr.
Bateman in his essay on Aphasia that of a gentleman who put
vinegar on his food instead of pepper, and said " How bright the
poker looks," but adding, when told he meant the fire, "Yes, I mean the
fire". Dr. Bateman called this (with some hesitation) a case of
anmesic aphasia, supposing that " the idea was conceived but the
means of communication with the external world did not exist ". But
as the autopsy showed that the frontal lobes were perfectly healthy, and
only the posterior third of the left hemisphere was diseased, it is-
rather, Dr. Ainslie Hollis urges, to be supposed that while the power
of expression was intact, there was a loss of the power of appreciating
or recognising the attributes of objects. His other case is of a letter-
sorter who became unable to do his work, first losing, as he declared,
the clear mental picture of the position and relation of the openings in
his nest of pigeon-holes. Here the disease proved to be tumour in the
left temporal lobe. In conclusion the author utters a warning against
the attempt to localise in the cortex too closely the several faculties of
the mind. " It* is preposterous to expect that similar cells are reserved
for similar functions in all human brains, knowing what we do of the
great diversity in man's mental nature, his various occupations, procli-
vities, and talents."
Reports. 251
The Habits of Ants. Sir John Lubbock's paper under this title in
the Fortnightly Review (March, 1877) embodies a number of results
obtained by the most careful experimental inquiry, and so to be dis-
tinguished from the loose observations on mental life in animals
that pass current. His experiments confirm some of the most remark-
able assertions that have been made as to the organisation of ant-
societies, but on the whole suggest a more sober estimate than is
usually taken of the mental capacity of the individual workers.
He finds distinct proof of a differentiation of function among the
working members of the communities, not dependent on age or sex.
He has satisfied himself that not only are aphides kept for the sake
of the sweet fluid they yield but even their eggs are watched over,
and, generally, that a great variety of other nest-inmates are enter-
tained for purposes of service. He allows the extreme difference of
character in different species, and confirms in particular, as regards
one energetic species of slave-makers (Polyergus rufescens), the
astonishing fact that they rely so much on their captives as to have
lost the instinct of feeding and would die but for the care they exact.
These and other instances given in the paper of extremely developed
function (in the last case turning to weakness) seem to be indubit-
able facts which must be interpreted as they best may in the light of
our other knowledge of animal life.
The specific results of Sir J. Lubbock's original experiments are
shortly these. Not the least ingenuity is shown for the saving of
time and labour in procuring food : a long roundabout journey con-
tinued to be taken when it might have been avoided by the smallest,
venture across intervening space or the simplest bridge-construction.
Still where it was a case of being excluded from food altogether, the
ants did succeed in removing a direct artificial obstruction. As to
helpfulness, no notice was taken of a friend buried under loose earth,
and very rarely was relief afforded to companions in distress (through
being smeared with a sticky substance). Hopeless victims of chloro-
form, at first neglected, were afterwards got rid of by being dropt
into water close at hand ; but others merely drunk from alchohol
were for the most part carried in safety into the nest. These were
friends : strangers (from another nest) in the like case were almost
all bundled into the water. The distinction otherwise made,
between friends and strangers was very marked : after months of
absence an ant would be re-admitted, if not welcomed back, to its
native nest, whereas a stranger would be expelled and be only too
glad to make its escape.
As regards the senses, smell was proved to be exceedingly acute.
Hearing, if not absent, must be supposed to have a quite different
range from ours. Sight, for all the apparent development of eyes,,
seems to be of little account for the direction of locomotion certainly
plays nothing like the part it does for us in objective perception.
Notion of objective direction is. absent : they returned always upon
their track on a board heedless of its being turned round away from
the nest.
252 Reports.
There was no evidence (after very careful experiment) of inter-
communication to the effect of describing or indicating localities where
food was to be had : when numbers come together to the same place,
they must be supposed to follow one another by sight or to be guided by
scent. Yet there seemed to be somehow a transmission of the simpler
notion that more food was to be found in one of two directions than
in the other.
EDITOR.
M. Taine on the Acquisition of Language by Children. M. Taine
contributed to the Revue Philosophique No. 1. (January 1876) a remark-
able series of observations on the development of language in a young
child, which are here made accessible by translation to English readers.
Such a record has been too rarely attempted, and the psychological
value of this one is very evident.
' ' The following observations were made from time to time and
written down on the spot. The subject of them was a little girl whose
development was ordinary, neither precocious nor slow.
From the first hour, probably by reflex action, she cried incessantly,
kicked about and moved all her limbs and perhaps all her muscles. In
the first week, no doubt also by reflex action, she moved her fingers and
even grasped for some time one's fore-finger when given her. About the
third month she begins to feel with her hands and to stretch out her
arms, but she cannot yet direct her hand, she touches and moves at
random; she tries the movements of her arms and the tactile and
muscular sensations which follow from them ; nothing more. In my
opinion it is out of this enormous number of movements, constantly
essaj 7 ed, that there will be evolved by gradual selection the intentional
movements having an object and attaining it. In the last fortnight (at
two and a half months) I make sure of one that is evidently acquired ;
hearing her grandmother's voice she turns her head to the side from
which it comes.
There is the same spontaneous apprenticeship for cries as for move-
ments. The progress of the vocal organ goes on just like that of the
limbs ; the child learns to emit such or such a sound as it learns to turn
its head or its eyes, that is to say by gropings and constant attempts.
At about three and a half months, in the country, she was put on a car-
pet in the garden; there lying on her back or stomach, for hours together,
she kept moving about her four limbs and uttering a number of cries
and different exclamations, but vowels only, no consonants; this con-
tinued for several mouths.
By degrees consonants were added to the vowels and the exclamations
became more and more articulate. It all ended in a sort of very distinct
twittering, which would last a quarter of an hour at a time and be
repeated ten times a day. The sounds (both vowels and consonants), at
first very vague and difficult to catch, approached more and more nearly
to those" that we pronounce, and the series of simple cries came almost
to resemble a foreign language that we could not understand. She
takes delight in her twitter like a bird, she seems to smile with joy over
it, but as yet it is only the twittering of a bird, for she attaches no
meaning to the sounds she utters. She has learned only the materials
of language. (Twelve months.)
She has acquired the greater part quite by herself, the rest thanks to
the help of others and by imitation. She first made the sound mm
Reports. 253
spontaneously by blowing noisily with closed lips. This amused
her and was a discovery to her. In the same way she made another
sound, kraaau, pronounced from the throat in deep gutturals ; this was
her own invention, accidental and fleeting. The t\vo noises were
repeated before her several times ; she listened attentively and then came
to make them immediately she heard them. In the same way with the
sound papapapa, which she said several times by chance and of her own
accord, which was then repeated to her a hundred times to fix it in her
memory, and which in the end she said voluntarily, with a sure and
easy execution, (always without understanding its meaning) as if it were
a mere sound that she liked to make. In short, example and education
were only of use in calling her attention to the sounds that she had
already found out for herself, in calling forth their repetition and perfec-
tion, in directing her preference to them and in making them emerge
and survive amid the crowd of similar sounds. But all initiative belongs
to her. The same is true of her gestures. For many months she
has spontaneously attempted all kinds of movements of the arms, the
bending of the hand over the wrist, the bringing together of the hands,
&c. Then after being shown the way and with repeated trials she has
learned to clap her hands to the sound bravo, and to turn her open hands
regularly to the strain au bois Juliette, &c. Example, instruction and
education are only directing channels ; the source is higher.
To be sure of this it is enough to listen for a while to her twitter. Its
flexibility is surprising ; I am persuaded that all the shades of emotion,
wonder, joy, wilfulness and sadness are expressed by differences of tone ;
in this she equals or even surpasses a grown up person. If I compare
her to animals, even to those most gifted in this respect (dog, parrot,
singing-birds), I find that with a less extended gamut of sounds she far
surpasses them in the delicacy and abundance of her expressive intona-
tions. Delicacy of impressions and delicacy of expressions are in
fact the distinctive characteristic of man among animals and, as I have
shown (De I 1 Intelligence I. b. i.), are the source in him of language and of
general ideas ; he is among them what a great and fine poet, Heine or
Shakespeare, would be among workmen and peasants ; in a word, man is
sensible of innumerable shades, or rather of a whole order of shades
which escape them. The same thing is seen besides in the kind and
degree of bis curiosity. Any one may observe that from the fifth or
sixth month children employ their whole time for two years and more
in making physical experiments. No animal, not even the cat or dog,
makes this constant study of all bodies within its reach ; all day long
the child of whom I speak (at twelve months) touches, feels, turns
round, lets drop, tastes and experiments upon everything she gets hold
of; whatever it maybe, ball, doll, coral, or plaything, when once it is
sufficiently known she throws it aside, it is no longer new, she has
nothing to learn from it and has no further interest in it. It is pure
curiosity; physical need, greediness, count for nothing in the case; it
seems as if already in her little brain every group of perceptions was
tending to complete itself, as in that of a child who makes use of
Ian2uage.
As yet she attaches no meaning to any word she utters, but there are
two or three words to which she attaches meaning when she hears them.
She sees her grandfather every day, and a chalk portrait of him, much
smaller than life but a very good likeness, has been often shown her.
From about ten months when asked "Where is grandfather?" she turns
to this portrait and laughs. Before the portrait of her grandmother,
not so good a likeness, she makes no such gesture and gives no sign of
17
254 Reports.
intelligence. From eleven months when asked " Where is mama ? " she
turns towards her mother, and she does the same for her father. I
should not venture to say that these three actions surpass the intelli-
gence of animals. A little dog here understands as well when it hears
the word sugr ; it comes from the other end of the garden to get a bit.
There is nothing more in this than an association, for the dog between a
sound and some sensation of taste, for the child between a sound and
the form of an individual face perceived; the object denoted by the
sound has not as yet a general character. However I believe that the
step was made at twelve months ; here is a fact decisive in my opinion.
This winter she was carried every day to her grandmother's, who often
showed her a painted copy of a picture by Luini of the infant Jesus
naked, saying at the same time "There's bibe". A week ago in
another room when she was asked "Where's 6eW meaning herself,
she turned at once to the pictures and engravings that happened to be
there. Bebe has then a general signification for her, namely whatever
she thinks is common to all pictures and engravings of figures and
landscapes, that is to say, if I am not mistaken, something variegated in a
shining frame. In fact it is clear that the objects painted or drawn in
the frame are as Greek to her ; on the other hand, the bright square
inclosing any representation must have struck her. This is her first
general word. The meaning that she gives it is not what we give it, but
it is only the better fitted for showing the original work of infantile
intelligence. For if we supplied the word, we did not supply the mean-
ing ; the general character which we wished to make the child catch is
not that which she has chosen. She has caught another suited to her
mental state for which we have no precise word.
Fourteen months and three weeks. The acquisitions of the last
six weeks have been considerable ; she understands several other
words besides bebe, and there are five or six that she uses attaching
meaning to them. To the simple warbling which was nothing but a
succession of vocal gestures, the beginnings of intentional and determin-
ate language have succeeded. The principal words she at present utters
are papa, mama, tete (nurse), oua-oua (dog), kuko (chicken) dada (horse
or carriage), mia (puss, cat), kaka and tern ; the two first were papa and
tern, this last word very curious and worth the attention of the observer.
Papa was pronounced for more than a fortnight unintentionally and
without meaning, as a mere twitter, an easy and amusing articulation.
It was later that the association between the word and the image or
perception of the object was fixed, that the image or perception of her
father called to her lips the sound papa, that the word uttered by
another definitely and regularly called up in her the remembrance,
image, expectation of and search for her father. There was an insen-
sible transition from the one state to the other, which it is difficult to
unravel. The first state still returns at certain times though the second
is established; she still sometimes plays with the sound though she
understands its meaning. This is easily seen in her later words, for
instance in the word kaka. To the great displeasure of her mother she
still often repeats this ten times in succession, without purpose or meaning,
as an interesting vocal gesture and to exercise a new faculty ; but she
often also says it with a purpose when there is occasion. Further it is
plain that she has changed or enlarged its meaning as with the word
beb6 ; for instance yesterday in the garden seeing two little wet places
left by the watering-pot on the gravel she said her word with an evident
meaning ; she meant by it whatever wets.
She makes imitative sounds with great ease. She has seen and heard
Reports. 355
chickens and repeats Tcoko much more exactly than we can do, with the
guttural intonation of the creatures themselves. This is only a faculty
of the throat ; there is another much more striking, which is the spe-
cially human gift and which shows itself in twenty ways, I mean the
aptitude for seizing analogies the source of general ideas and of lan-
guage. She was shown birds two inches long, painted red and blue on
the walls of a room, and was told once " There are kokos ". She was at
once sensible of the resemblance and for half a day her great pleasure
was to be carried along the walls of the room crying out koko I with joy
at each fresh bird. No dog or parrot would have done as much ; in my
opinion we come here upon the essence of language. Other analogies
are seized with the same ease. She was in the habit of seeing a little
black dog belonging to the house which often barks, and it was to it that
she first learnt to apply the word oua-oua. Very quickly and with very little
help she applied it to dogs of all shapes and kinds that she saw in the
streets and then, what is still more remarkable, to the bronze dogs near the
staircase. Better still, the day before yesterday when she saw a goat a month
old that bleated, she said oua-oua, calling it by the name of the dog which
is most like it in form and not by that of the horse which is too big or
of the cat which has quite a different gait.* This is the distinctive trait
of man ; two successive impressions, though very unlike, yet leave a
common residue which is a distinct impression, solicitation, impulse, of
which the final effect is some expression invented or suggested, that is to
say, some gesture, cry, articulation, name.
I now come to the word tern, one of the most remarkable and one of
the first she uttered. All the others were probably attributives t and
those who heard them had no difficulty in understanding them ; this is
probably a demonstrative word; and as there was no other into which it
could be translated, it took several weeks to make out its meaning.
At first and for more than a fortnight the child uttered the word tern
as she did the word papa without giving it a precise meaning, like a
simple twitter. She made a dental articulation ending with a labial
articulation and was amused by it. Little by little she associated this
word with a distinct intention ; it now signifies for her give, take, look ;
in fact, she says it very decidedly several times together in an urgent
fashion, sometimes that she may have some new object that she sees,
sometimes to get us to take it, sometimes to draw attention to herself.
All these meanings are mixed up in the word ttm. Perhaps it comes
from the word titns that is often used to her and with something of the
same meaning. But it seems to me rather a word that she has created
spontaneously, a sympathetic articulation that she herself has found in
harmony with all fixed and distinct intention, and which consequently
is associated with her principal fixed and distinct intentions, which at
present are desires to take, to have, to make others take, to look, to
make others look. In this case it is a natural vocal gesture, not learned,
and at the same time imperative and demonstrative, since it expresses
both command and the presence of the object to which the command
refers ; the dental t and the labial m united in a short, dry, and quickly
stifled sound, correspond very well, without convention and by their
* "When the Romans first saw elephants they called them Lucanian oxen.
In the same way savage tribes have called horses on seeing them for the first time
' large pigs'. " (Lectures on Mr. Darwin's Philosophy of Language by Max
Miiller, p. 48 (1873).
fMax Miiller, Lectures on the Science of Language, 6th edition. Vol. I. p.
309, 6th ed. The roots of a language are 400 or 500 in number, and are
divided into two groups, the attributive and the demonstrative.
256 Reports.
nature alone, to this start of attention, to this sharp and decided out-
break of volition. This origin is the more probable that other and later
words, of which we shall presently speak, are evidently the work, not of
imitation but of invention. *
From the 15th to the 17th month. Great progress. She has
learnt to walk and even to run, and is firm on her little legs. We
see her gaining ideas every day and she understands many phrases, for
instance: "bring the ball," "come on. papa's knee," "go down,"
"come here," &c. She begins to distinguish the tone of displeasure
from that of satisfaction, and leaves off doing what is forbidden her
with a grave face and voice ; she often wants to be kissed, holding up
her face and saying in a coaxing voice papa or mama but she has
learnt or invented very few new words. The chief are Pa (Paul),
JBabert (Gilbert), bebe (baby), beee (goat), cola (chocolate), oua-oua (any-
thing good to eat), hum (eat, I want to eat). There are a good many
others that she understands but cannot say, for instance grancl-pere
and grand-mere, her vocal organs having been too little exercised to
produce all the sounds that she knows, and to which she attaches
meaning.
Cola (chocolate) is one of the first sweetmeats that was given her and
it is the one she likes best. She went every day to her grandmother's
who would give her a lozenge. She knows the box very well and keeps
on pointing to it to have it opened. Of herself and without or rather
in spite of us she has extended the meaning of the word and applies it
now to anything sweet ; she says cola when sugar, tart, a grape, a peach,
or a fig is given her.f We have already had several examples of this
spontaneous generalisation ; it was easy in this instance, for the tastes of
chocolate, of the grape, of the peach, &c., agree in this, that being
all pleasant they provoke the same desire, that of experiencing once
more the agreeable sensation. So distinct a desire or impulse easily
leads to a movement of the head, a gesture of the hand, an expression,
and consequently to a word.
Bebe. We have seen the strange signification that she at first gave
to this word; little by little she came nearer to the usual meaning.
Other children were pointed out to her as bebes, and she was herself
called by the name and now answers to it. Further, when put down
before a very low mirror and shown her face reflected in it, she was told
"that's bebe," and she now goes alone to the mirror and says bebe,
laughing when she sees herself. Starting from this she has extended
the meaning of the word, and calls bebes all little figures, for instance,
some half-size plaster statues which are on the staircase, and the figures
of men and women in small pictures and prints. Once more, education
produced an unexpected effect on her ; the general character grasped by
the child is not that which we intended ; we taught her the sound, she
has invented the sense.
Ham (eat, I want to eat). Here both sound and sense were invented.
The sound was first heard in her fourteenth month. For several weeks
I thought it no more than one of her warblings, but at last I found
* A neighbour's little hoy had at twenty months a vocabulary of seven words,
and among them the word fa y est, somewhat analogous to tern, and like it un-
translateable into our language, for he used it to say there, I have it, it's done, he
has com"., and meant hy it the completion of any action or effect.
t In the same way the above-mentioned little boy of twenty months used the
word teterre (pomme de terre) to designate potatoes, meat, beans, almost every-
thing good to eat except milk, which he called lolo. Perhaps to him teterre
meant everything solid or half solid that is good to eat.
Beports. 257
tbat it was always produced without fail in presence of food. The cliild
now never omits to make it when she is hungry or thirsty, all the more
that she sees that we understand it, and that by this articulation she
gets something to eat or drink. On listening attentively and attempting
to reproduce it, we perceive that it is the natural vocal gesture of a person
snapping up anything ; it begins with a guttural aspirate like a bark,
and ends with the closing of the lips as if food were seized and swallowed.
A man among savages would do just the same, if with tied hands and
solely dependent for expression upon his vocal organs he wished to say
that he wanted food. Little by little the intensity and peculiarity of
the original pronunciation were lessened ; we had repeated her word
but in a milder form ; consequently she left off making so much of the
guttural and labial parts, and the intermediate vowel came to the front ;
instead of Hamm she says am, and now we generally use the word as
she does. Originality and invention are so strong in a child that if it
learns our language from us, we learn its from the child.
Oun-oua. It is only for the last three weeks (the end of her sixteenth
month), that she has used this word in the sense of something good to
eat. It was some time before we understood it, for she has long used
it and still uses it besides in the sense of dog. A barking in the street
never fails to call forth this word in the sense of dog, uttered with the
lively joy of a discovery. In the new sense the sound has oscillated
between va-va and oua-oua. Very likely the sound that I write oua-oua
is double to her ac-ording to the double meaning she attaches to it, but
my ear cannot catch the difference ; the senses of children, much less
blunted than ours, perceive delicate shades that we no longer distin-
guish. In any case, on seeing at table a dish she wishes for, she says
oua-oua several times in succession, and she uses the same word when,
having eaten some of it, she wishes for more, but it is always in presence
of a dish and to point out something eatable. By this the word is
distinguished from am which she only uses to make known her want of
food, without specifying any particular thing. Thus, when in the
garden she hears the dinner-bell she says am and not oua-oua ; on the
other hand, at table before a cutlet she says oua-oua much oftener
than am.
For the last two months, on the other hand, she has left off using the
word tern (give, take, look) of which I spoke above, and I do not think
she has replaced it by another. This is no doubt because we did not
choose to learn it, for it did not correspond to any one of our ideas, but
combined three that are quite distinct ; we did not use it with her and
therefore she left off using it herself.
On summing up the facts I have just related we arrive at the fol-
lowing conclusions, which observers should test by observations made
on other children.
At first a child cries and uses its vocal organ, in the same way as its
limbs, spontaneously and by reflex action. Spontaneously and from mere
pleasure of action it then uses its vocal organ in the same way as its
limbs, and acquires the complete use of it by trial and error. From
inarticulate it thus passes to articulate sounds. The variety of intona-
tions that- it acquires shows in it a superior delicacy of impression and
expression. By this delicacy it is capable of general ideas. We only
help it to catch them by the suggestion of our words. It attaches to
them ideas that we do not expect and spontaneously generalises outside
and beyond our cadres. At times it invents not only the meaning of the
word, but the word itself. Several vocabularies may succeed one
another in its mind by the obliteration of old words, replaced by new
258 Reports.
ones. Many meanings may be given in succession to the same word
which remains unchanged. Many of the words invented are natural
vocal gestures. In short, it learns a ready-made language as a true
musician learns counterpoint or a true poet prosody ; it is an original
genius adapting itself to a form constructed bit by bit by a succession
of original geniuses ; if language were wanting, the child would recover
it little by little or would discover an equivalent.
These observations were interrupted by the calamities of the year
1870. The following notes may help to determine the mental state
of a child ; in many respects it is that of primitive peoples at the
poetical and mythological stage. A jet of water, that the child saw
under the windows for three months, threw her every day into new
transports of joy, as did also the river under a bridge ; it was evident
that sparkling running water seemed to her to be of extraordinary
beauty. " Ueau, Veau!" she goes on exclaiming (twenty months).
A little later (two and a half years) she was very much struck by the
sight of the moon. She wanted to see it every evening ; when she saw
it through the window-panes there were cries of joy ; when she walked
it seemed to her that it walked too, and this discovery charmed her.
As the moon according to the hour appeared in different places, now in
front of the house now behind it, she cried out "Another moon, another
moon!" One evening (three years) on inquiring for the moon and
being told that it had set fqut'elle est allee se roncherj she replies " But
where's the moon's bonne ? " All this closely resembles the emotions
and conjectures of primitive peoples, their lively and deep admiration
for great natural objects, the power that analogy, language and meta-
phor exercise over them, leading them to solar and lunar myths, &c.
If we admit that such a state of mind was universal at any time, we
could at once divine the worship and legends that would be formed.
They would be those of the Vedas, of the Edda and even of Homer.
If we speak to her of an object at a little distance but that she can
clearly represent to herself from having seen either it or others like it,
her first question always is ''What does it say?" "What does the
rabbit say!'" What does the bird say?" "What does the horse
say ? " " What does the big tree say? " Animal or tree, she immedi-
ately treats it as a person and wants to know its thoughts and words ;
that is what she cares about ; by a spontaneous induction she imagines
it like herself, like us ; she humanises it. This disposition is found
among primitive peoples, the more strong the more primitive they are ; in
the Edda, especially in the Mabinoyiou, animals have also the gift of
speech ; the eagle, the stag and the salmon are old and experienced
sages, who remember bygone events and instruct man.*
It takes much time and many steps for a child to arrive at ideas
which to us seem simple. When her dolls had their heads broken she
was told that they were dead. One day her grandmother said to her,
" I am old, I shall not be always with you, I shall die ". "Then shall
you have your head broken ? " She repeated this idea several times and
still (three years and a month) with her ' to be dead ' is to have the head
broken. The day before yesterday a magpie killed by the gardener was
hung by one foot at the end of a stick, like a fan ; she was told that the
magpie was dead and she wished to see it. " What is the magpie
doing ? " " It is doing nothing, it can't move, it is dead." " Ah ! "
For the first time the idea of final immobility entered her head. Suppose
a people to stop short at this idea and not to define death otherwise;
the other world would be to it the scheol of the Hebrews, the place where
* Similarly she says, " My carriage won't go, it is naughty ".
Notes. 259
the iinmoveable dead live a vague, almost extinct life. Yesterday means
to her in the past, and to-morrow in the future, neither of these words
denoting to her mind a precise day in relation to to-day, either pre-
ceding or following it. This is another example of too extended a
meaning, which must be narrowed. There is hardly a word used by
children which has not to undergo this operation. Like primitive
peoples they are inclined to general and wide ideas ; linguists tell us
that such is the character of roots and consequently of the first concep-
tions as they are found in the most ancient documents, especially in the
Rig- Veda.
Speaking generally, the child presents in a passing state the mental
characteristics that are found in a fixed state in primitive civilisations,
very much as the human embryo presents in a passing state the physical
characteristics that are found in a fixed state in the classes of inferior
animals."
IX. NOTES.
The Meaning of ' Existence ' and Descartes' ' Cogito\ In dealing
with very difficult abstractions, logicians inculcate the practice of
resolving them into the corresponding particulars. The prescription is
well put by Samuel Bailey thus :
" If the student of philosophy would always, or at least in cases of
importance, adopt the rule of throwing the abstract language in which
it is so frequently couched into a concrete form, he would find it a
powerful aid in dealing with the obscurities and perplexities of meta-
physical speculation. He would then see clearly the character of the
immense mass of nothings which constitute what passes for philo-
sophy."
Certain abstractions are difficult to handle from their complexity ;
such is ' Life'. The rule to refer to the particular things is especially
called for in this case. Less complex is the notion of ' Force' ; still
the particulars are so different in their nature, that we must be sure
to represent all the classes mechanical or molar forces, molecular
forces, and the forces of voluntary agents. The danger here is that
we coin an abstraction distinct from matter altogether, like Plato's
* Ideas ' and Aristotle's ' Form '.
If any abstract notion stands in need of all the aids that logic can.
supply, it is ' Existence '. Try it then by the method of particulars.
What are the things that are said to exist 1 There is no difficulty in
finding such things ; stars, seas, mountains, minerals, plants, human
beings, kingdoms, cities, commerce, exist. It is not for want of
particulars, therefore, that we are in any doubts about the meaning of
' Existence ' ; it is rather for the opposite reason we have too many par-
ticulars. In fact, the word ' exist ' means everything, excludes
nothing. In all other notions, there is a division of the universe into
objects possessing the attribute, and objects devoid of it ; ' Life' both
includes and excludes. But ' Existence ' is the entire Universe
extended and unextended, matter and mind. Is there not a risk that
when you mean everything, you mean nothing 1
260 Notes.
I have maintained (Deductive Logic, p. 59) that ' Existence ' is an
unreal notion, for the very reason that it has no real negative.
According to the Law of Universal Relativity, the summa genera of
things must be at least two : say mind and not-mind, subject and
object. We may in form put the two into one sum, and give it a
name ' Existence,' but we cannot thereby construct a new meaning.
There still remain the two distinct genera, in mutual contrast.
On this ground, I argued (p. 107) against Mill's including 'Exist-
ence' among the Universal Predicates, in the final Import of
Propositions. My purpose requires me to quote the passage :
" With regard to the predicate EXISTENCE, occurring in certain pro-
positions, we may remark that no science, or department of logical
method springs out of it. Indeed, all such propositions are more or less
abbreviated, or elliptical ; when fully expressed they fall under either
co- existence or succession. When we say, There exists a conspiracy for a
particular purpose, we mean that, at the present time, a body of men
have formed themselves into a society for a particular object ; which is
a complex affirmation resolvable into propositions of co-existence and of
succession (as causation). The assertion that the dodo does not exist,
points to the fact that this animal, once known in a certain place, has
disappeared or become extinct; is no longer associated with the locality :
all which may be better stated without the use of the verb 'exist'.
There is a debated question Does an Ether exist ? but the correcter
form would be this Are heat and lig-ht and other radiant influences
propagated by an ethereal medium diffused in space ? which is a pro-
position of causation. In like manner the question of the Existence of
a Peity cannot be discussed in that form. It is properly a question as
to the First Cause of the Universe, and as to the continued exertion of
that Cause in providential superintendence."
Fortunately, Mill has furnished us with his reply in the latest
edition of his Logic, Yol. I., p. 113, n., as follows :
" I accept fully Mr. Bain's Law of Eelativity, but I do not under-
stand by it that, to enable us to apprehend or be conscious of any fact,
it is necessary that we should contrast it with some other positive fact.
The antithesis necessary to consciousness need not, I conceive, be an
antithesis between two positives ; it may be between one positive and
its negative. Hobbes was undoubtedly right when he said that a single
sensation indefinitely prolonged would cease to be felt at all ; but simple
intermission, without other change, would restore it to consciousness.
In order to be conscious of heat, it is not necessary that we should pass
to it from a state of no sensation, or from a sensation of some other
kind. The relative opposite of Being, considered as a summum genus, is
Non-entity, or Nothing; and we have, now and then, occasion to con-
sider and discuss things merely in contrast with Non-entity.
' ' I grant that the decision of questions of Existence usually if not
always depends on a previous question of either Causation or Co-
existence. But Existence is nevertheless a different thing from Causa-
tion or Co-existence, and can be predicated apart from them. The
meaning of the abstract name of Existence, and the connotation of the
concrete name Being, consist, like the meaning of all other names, in
sensations or states of consciousness : their peculiarity is that to exist,
is to excite, or be capable of exciting, any sensations or states of con-
sciousness : no matter what, but it is indispensable that there should be
some. It was from overlooking this that Hegel, finding that Being is
Notes. 261
an abstraction reached by thinking away all particular attributes,
arrived at the self-contradictory proposition on which he founded all his
philosophy, that Being is the same as Nothing. It is really the name
of Something, taken in the most comprehensive sense of the word."
The contention here is that the Law of Eelativity is sufficiently
complied with, through the alternative notion expressed by Non-
entity, or Nothing. From this I must still dissent. But I arn more
concerned at present with Mill's account of the positive meaning of
the term, namely, whatever excites in us " any sensations or states of
consciousness, no matter what ". In other words, when we cannot
say of anything that it is either Object or Subject, but still treat it as
a reality, we may use the supra-relative terms, * existence,' ' thing,'
' being '. Now I grant that the occasion may arise for stating a thing
in this uncertain fashion ; and that a word may be suitably employed
for that purpose. But this is different from stating a property
common to Object and Subject, and coining a higher genus including
both, in the same way that Object includes, as sub-genera, Matter
and Space. I regard ' Existence ' employed in this way, as having no
separate or original meaning ; it is merely a short synonym for a com-
plex alternative given in terms of the two highest genera that possess
reality Object and Subject. I contend, in short, that for the
meaning of ' Existence,' we need always to refer to some of the other
attributes of things; that, as an independent attribute, it is devoid of
all real standing.
There must be a certain convenience in the term, otherwise it would
not be so often employed in everyday life. I can only repeat my
visw, that it is an elliptical term ; it expresses shortly and yet suffi-
ciently, what many words might be needed to express fully. When
we ask, Does such a thing exist 1 we imply a definite set of conditions
of time, place, and circumstance. Does there exist a cure for hydro-
phobia 1 means when fully stated Will any substance or application,
known or accessible to us, cure hydrophobia ? There is no meaning
specific to the word ' Existence' ; what it signifies is already amply
expressed in other forms.
To come to the greatest example of all Being or Existence, as
applied to the Deity. Theologians habitually employ the couple
Being and Attributes of God. This seems all very natural. We
have first to ask whether there be a God, and, that decided in the
affirmative, we next inquire what are His Attributes. On the surface,
nothing could be more plausible than this arrangement. It lays down
* Being ' or ' Existence ' as a fact by itself, apart from every Attribute
whatsoever. The natural theologian must substantiate Existence
before he venture on any inquiry as to Eternity, Infinity, Wisdom,
Power, Goodness. Let us, however, look a little below the surface.
After putting forward ' Being ' as the thesis, how does the Theologian
proceed to establish it ? There is a singular uniformity of procedure
on the point, so that there is no need to make many references. I
will take, as a representative, one of the acutest minds that ever dis-
cussed this or any other theological thesis Thomas Brown. The
262 Notes.
habit is to preface the arguments for ' Being ' with a re-statement of
the position in expanded phraseology : thus says Brown, the proof of
the Existence is the proof of " a Creator and Preserver of the Uni-
verse ". In short, the real inquiry is, how did the Universe commence,
and how is it maintained and controlled 1 More familiarly, it is stated
as the question of a First Cause.
If we were to be hypercritical, we might say that the division
by theologians into ' Being' and 'Attributes' is faulty, in respect
that ' Being ' really means two of the 'Attributes ' Creative Agency
and Providential Control these two implying a good deal more,
namely, duration in the past (not inaptly called Infinite), extent of
agency over space, likewise so vast as to admit the same epithet,
together with power and wisdom, on a par with the work involved;
We might undoubtedly reserve the moral Attributes for a second
head ; but the first head ' Being ' inevitably contains all those now
named. Thus, supposing the words ' Being,' ' Existence,' were
entirely discarded, there would be nothing lost. The line of argu-
ment would be exactly what we now find it. To recur to Brown's
treatment. He, as we might expect, scouts the figment of language
' Necessary Existence ' ; and proceeds, upon the usual argument from
Design, to show that the Universe originated with a Mind. This is
the real position concealed under the title ' Existence '. Brown's
second branch the 'Attributes ' comprises Unity, Wisdom, Power,
Goodness. The proof of these is pretty much a repetition, or at all
events, an extension and exhaustion of the argument from Design.
If we establish a Mind as the First Cause, we must ascribe to that
Mind an amount and character of efficiency comparable to the effect,
which is all that is meant by the Attributes.
Dugald Stewart introduces natural theology with the question
" Whence am I, whence the tribes of plants and animals, whence the
beautiful fabric of this Universe "? " He then uses as a convenient
abbreviation " proof of the existence of the Deity " ; otherwise,
" the existence of an intelligent and powerful cause from the works of
creation ". So it always is. We may state the question as ' Being '
or ' Existence,' but we must prove it as Cause and Effect. Here is
another variety of wording " There is a Divine Being, whose essence
is love, grace, and mercy ". The expression " Divine Being " is a
short summary of all the natural attributes, and the intention of the
speaker is to join with these the moral attributes. There is no such
thing as Existence in the abstract.
I do not mean to discuss Descartes' mode of establishing Theism,
but I may refer to his handling of the question to show that by the
existence of God he means the First Cause of the world. " By the
name God, I understand a substance infinite, independent,
all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which myself and all other
things were created." The proof is still a proof from Causation, and
the idea has no other significance.
I come now to the formula 'Cogito, ergo sum '. Mr. Matthew
Arnold's criticism of this formula is expended on the ' sum '. He is
Notes. 263
unable to assign any distinct meaning to ' Being ' or ' Existence ' ; and
therefore professes himself unable to comprehend the demonstrations
given by theologians in general of the existence of God. Partly in
earnest, aud partly in his inimitable banter, he goes after the etymo-
logy of the word ' be,' and the other synonyms. Sometimes, indeed,
a reference to the origin of an obscure word throws a light upon the
present meaning ; the connection of ' just ' with ' ordered ' has a
certain significance. But the great metaphysical abstractions are
expressed by terms whose origin only reveals a metaphor. That ' be '
signifies to ' breathe ' really teaches nothing at all ; we could not
substitute ' breathing ' for ' being '. Mr. Arnold knows well enough
that etymology is not likely to solve any serious problem. His more
direct course would have been to ask what other things, besides God,
' Being ' or ' Existence ' is applied to. Present use is the only criterion
of meaning. If he had followed this inquiry, he would have en-
countered the real difficulty, namely, that the word means anything
and everything.
How then shall we deal with ' I think, therefore, I exist ' 1 Is
' exist ' here elliptical, and, if so, what is the full expression 1 One
would like to have had some various wording of the inference, that
would answer the same purpose as the equivalents of the ' Existence '
of the Deity. But we have no such help in the present instance. If
' exist ' meant to * live ' as opposed to ' death,' the argument would
have some meaning, but that is not intended. We may, however,
fall back upon Mill's equivalent term ' Something '. It would then
be ' I think, therefore, I am something '. I have already admitted
that * Existence ' would have meaning in the form of an alternative
either Subject or Object, we do not say which : there being no reality
but what is one or other. This is an equivalent of ' something '. The
form would then be ' I think, therefore, I am either Subject or
Object '. A worse than an undecided inference ; for whoever knows
the meaning of the word 'think' must know that it is a mental
quality ; and to throw the question open, whether it be mind or not-
mind, is not to go forward, but to go backward ; not to extend our
knowledge, but to contract it.
The assertion * I think ' would seem, therefore, to entitle us to say
at least, * I am mind ' ; ' I am not the opposite of mind,' ' I am a
definite or precise something,' which is much better for me than being
an indefinite or alternative^ something. To be sure, the inference is
unreal ; the meaning of ' think ' contains the meaning of ' mind,' if
we know what thinking is, that is, if we are using the word with a
consciousness of meaning. A real inference might be constructed
thus : ' I think, therefore I feel, and also will ' ; experience shows
that these three facts are always associated ; the association receiving
the name ' Mind '.
Another real inference is 'I think, therefore I am not brute
matter ' ; also the fruit of our experience of the kind of organisation
that thinking is allied with. But the proposition ' I think ' may
itself be subjected to analysis and criticism, which will illustrate
264 Notes.
farther the illogical character of the whole transaction. Let us
separate the proposition into its two parts subject and predicate ; let
us inquire what is the precise meaning of the subject, and what of the
predicate : we then discover whether it is a real proposition, whether
the predicate adds anything to the subject. What is ' I "J The
answer must be, all that is included in the terms ' man ' or ' human
being ' all the parts and functions of body and mind that go to make
up an individual man or woman. Consequently to say ' I think ' is
mere redundancy ; whoever understands ' I ' already knows that much ;
it is only repeating a part of the meaning of the subject of the pro-
position. In short, it is a mere verbal or analytic proposition ; it may
serve a purpose, but that purpose is not to found an inference.
On the whole, as to the ' Coyito, ergo sum, 1 I am of opinion that
we should cease endeavouring to extract sunbeams from that cucumber.
A. BAIN.
The Logic of " //. " I have lately come across a passage in
Clarissa Harlowe where Richardson indicates with great clearness
a distinction which has long seemed to me to be overlooked by logi-
cians in their treatment of Hypothetical Syllogism. It is in the
admirable scene where Morden and Lovelace are first brought together
and runs thus : Morden. " But if you have the value for my cousin
that you say you have, you must needs think " Lovelace, " You
must allow me, sir, to interrupt you. If I have the value I say I have.
I hope, sir, when I say I have that value, there is no cause for that
if, as you pronounced it with an emphasis." Morden. " Had you
heard me out, Mr. Lovelace, you would have found that my if was
rather an if of inference than of doubt."
The question has been much debated among logicians whether the
so-called Hypothetical Syllogism of this type
If A is B, C is D
But A is B
.-. CisD
is a mediate inference like the common Categorical Syllogism, or
whether the conclusion is not immediately drawn from the one pre-
miss ' If A is B, C is D '. Prof. Bain, for example, (Logic I. p. 116),
would deny that the reasoning is mediate, and the reader may consult
his work for a short summary of the different arguments urged by
Mansel and other distinguished logicians on the same side of the
question. Some of the arguments, indeed, are too plainly defective,
as when Mansel declares that in the Hypothetical Syllogism " the
minor (A is B) and the conclusion (C is D) indifferently change places
and each of them is merely one of the two members constituting the
major " which is not the case in Categorical Syllogism. Here he
commits a very great blunder, since it is notorious that ' A is B ' can-
not be got as a conclusion with ' C is D ' as second premiss. How-
ever the whole weight of authority in favour of the inference being
immediate is undoubtedly great, and if one takes the other view, some
Notes. 265
explanation must be found for the strong array of opinion that may
be cited against it.
It seems obvious enough that when the proposition ' If A is B, C is
D ' is uttered as a pure hypothesis the if, as Richardson expresses
it, being one of doubt it is not possible to pass directly to the asser-
tion that ' C is D '. This can be reached only through the other asser-
tion ' A is B ' ; and what is the reasoning then but mediate ? If the
conclusion, which is quite a different proposition from the original
datum, is here not mediately reached, there is no such thing as
mediate reasoning in categoricals. Whatever meaning there is in.
saying that given ' M is P,' we arrive at the different proposition ' S is
P ' only mediately through ' S is M,' there is as much meaning in
saying the like of ' C is D ' obtained as a positive assertion from the
supposition ' If A is B, C is D ' only through the positive assertion
' A is B '. For that matter, the categorical major ' M is P ' can itself
be expressed as a hypothetical ' If M, then P ' ; then follows in the
minor an "assertion of M (namely S) ; whence as the conclusion an
assertion of P. The only immediate inferences that can be drawn
from the purely hypothetical proposition ' If A is B, C is D ' must
themselves be hypothetical. These namely follow : * If C is not D,
A is not B/ * In some case (at least once) where C is D, A is B ' the
logical contrapositive and converse respectively of the original. But
these are utterly unlike the conclusion ' C is D ' got from the same
hypothesis through the assertion ' A is B '.
With what reason, then, can it in any case be maintained that ' C
is D ' is immediately got from * If A is B, C is D ' ? With very good
reason, when if, instead of meaning suppose that, is used for since,
seeing that, or because. It is plain that the original proposition may
be thus understood : * Since A is B, C is D '. Or take a material case.
' If it rains, the street is wet/ interpreted strictly as a bare supposition,
can never of itself lead to the categorical assertion ' The street is wet '
(as a matter of fact) : it only involves immediately such other suppo-
sitions as these ' If the street is not wet, it does not rain, ' If the
street is wet, it may be from rain '. But the same expression is also
used on a very different occasion : ' It rains (do you say ?), why then
of course the street is wet,' * To be sure the street is wet, for does it
not rain ' 1 ' No doubt, as it rains, the street is wet '. Here we know
immediately that * the street is wet ' (or C is D), for this is the asser-
tion in the proposition ; and the 7/-clause is not proposed as a possible
ground for a conclusion, but is stated shortly as the actual reason of a
fact. When expanded, it corresponds not to the first premiss of the
Hypothetical Syllogism, but to the two premisses together. That is to
say, if the clause is regarded as containing a supposition at all, it con-
tains, besidjes the formal supposition 'If A is B, C is D,' the positive
assurance ' A is B '. Of course from the two premisses thus taken to-
gether, the conclusion ' C is D ' follows at once or immediately ; but
the same is true of the conclusion of a Categorical Syllogism as follow-
ing from its two premisses. Now, when if thus covers an assertion
of fact within a supposition, it may be called, as by Richardson, an if
266 Notes.
of inference, as containing the whole reasoned ground of the last clause
in the sentence. But such a sentence is no longer the * hypothetical
proposition' of logic that kind of thought-utterance which, though
it has a different form, is as simple as the simplest categorical proposi-
tion, seeing (as before suggested) there is no categorical proposition
which may not be expressed as a hypothetical, and vice versa.
The true and simple sense of If in the antecedent part of a purely
hypothetical proposition may be otherwise brought out by con-
sidering its analogy with the subject in a categorical. Take a proposi-
tion in Euclid. It is exactly the same whether we say, * The angles at
the base of an isosceles triangle are equal,' or * If a triangle is isosceles,
the angles at its base are equal' ; and Euclid, like everybody else, falls
as readily into the one expression as the other. Now to suppose that
the consequent in this pure hypothetical is immediately given with
the antecedent or follows from it directly, can amount only to saying
that the predicate (in the categorical expression) is directly im plied
in the subject ; or, in other words, that the proposition is analytic.
But it is, as we know, in this case synthetic, and to bring about the
synthesis, an express proof is necessary. Just so we must not think
of getting the consequent of a pure hypothetical from the antecedent
except in the case where there is direct implication, as ' If triangle,
then trilateral '.
It is worth while adding in this connection that the other form of
proposition ranged by logicians with the Hypothetical, namely the
Disjunctive, may be shown to be as simple as the pure Hypothetical
being in fact a special case of it. The common view is that it involves
at least two hypothetical propositions, or, as some say, even four.
Thus ' Either A is B or C is D ' is resolved by some into the four
hypothetical
If A is B, C is not D (1)
If A is not B, C is D (2)
If C is D, A is not B (3)
If C is not D, A is B (4)
"but the first and third of these are rejected by others, and with reason,
because they are in fact implied only when the alternatives are logi-
cal opposites. The remaining propositions (2) and (4) are, however,
the logical contrapositives of one another ; and this amounts to saying
that either of them by itself is a full and adequate expression of the
original disjunctive. EDITOR.
Hedonism and Ultimate Good. Any objection made by Mr.
Henry Sidgwick to any statement of mine causes me great
searchings of heart. When I found, therefore, from the last
number of MIND (p. 36) that a passage, which he quoted from my
Introduction to Hume, represented to him only the " metaphysical
whim of a scholastic philosopher," I anxiously reconsidered it. Being
still unable, however, to escape from the conclusion at which I had
arrived when I wrote it, I would fain hope that, upon a fuller and
clearer statement, the doctrine advanced, whether * metaphysical ' or
Notes. 267
otherwise, may approve itself more to Mr. Sidgwick's judgment. If
room for such a statement can be afforded me, I shall be very grateful.
To any one who will take the trouble to look at the whole context
of the passage in question it will be clear that it relates, not to any
possible sense which the phrase ' greatest sum of pleasures ' may be
made to bear, but to the sense which it must bear if it is plausibly to
do duty as representing the ' summiini bonum '. It is not of course
intended to deny that it may be used to mean something which is not
an ' unreal abstraction '. The question is as to its use by those writers
who take it to represent the chief good or moral standard. Are they
not, in so taking it, of necessity trying to give it a sense which is
nonsense 1 It is no doubt legitimate to talk of a constant repetition
of pleasure, or of being pleased as often as possible ; and if, when it
is said that every one desires the greatest possible sum of pleasures,
no more is meant than that every one wishes to be pleased as often as
possible, though the truth or importance of the proposition may be
questioned, it certainly has a meaning as much at any rate as the
statement (to use Mr. Sidgwick's illustration) that a man desires
' length of days,' in the sense that he wishes to live as long as he can.
To a man, however, who expressed a wish to be pleased as often as
possible it would be well to point out however stale the observation
may be that he cannot accumulate pleasures ; that, if he experiences
a pleasure every hour for the next 50 years, he will have no more in
possession, and will be in no better state, than if he is pleased the
next minute and then comes to an end. In being told this, he would
be told what, I suppose, is not merely true but a truism : yet it might
lead him to reflect on the wisdom of his wish. It might even lead
him to ask himself whether he really entertained it or whether, in
saying that he did so, he was not misinterpreting the fact either that
he finds himself (if it be so) constantly desiring some particular
pleasure or that he desires to be in a state of mind and character in
which activity is unimpeded.
If, after thus reflecting, he were told by a moral philosopher that
in wishing for any particular pleasure he is wishing for what is good,
but that only in wishing to be pleased as often as possible is he wish-
ing for the chief good, he would probably ask the philosopher two
questions : (1) whether by the chief good he means a state of con-
sciousness ; to which, I suppose, the philosopher, if he has read NT.
Sidgwick on the * summum bonum/ will reply in the affirmative ; (2)
how, as representing a state of consciousness, to be pleased as often as
possible differs from the simple to be pleased. Supposing that, accord-
ing to the laws of nature, the greatest number of experiences of plea-
sure possible to AB is x, AB's state of consciousness in the way of
pleasure, when the full number x is completed, does not differ (except
possibly for the worse through satiety) from what it was when the num-
ber stood at z 1000, or at x 50,000. If then the chief good is a
state of consciousness, there is no reason for saying that it is any more
attained when x has been reached than upon the first of the pleasant
experiences which make up that number. There is sense, then, in
268 Notes.
saying that each pleasure as it comes is good ; but, if the good is a
state of consciousness, none in saying that to be pleased any number
of times or * as often as possible ' is the chief good, or more of a good
than to be pleased once. A ' chief good ' has no meaning unless it
professes to be something of which some being can be conceived in
possession, and by approximation to which the state of a moral agent
may be estimated. But a chief good, that consists in being pleased as
often as possible, is one of which no one can be conceived in posses-
sion and to which as a state of consciousness no one is nearer at one
time than at another.
Finding it impossible to give meaning to the proposition that the
chief good is the greatest possible sum of pleasure, if taken in the
sense that the chief good, as a possible state of being, consists in being
pleased as often as possible, the Hedonist may try either of two ways
of escape. He may give up the notion that the chief good represents
a state of consciousness at all, and explain the proposition as follows.
' It is open to a man according to the laws of nature to be pleased a
certain number of times. The chief good would be attained if every
one were pleased that number of times, and is approached in propor-
tion as the number is more nearly reached. It serves as the moral
criterion in the sense that an act is good according as it contributes to
such attainment.' Thus explained the proposition would challenge
further questions. (1) With what significance can we speak of a
' chief good ' which, in ceasing to be regarded as a possible state of
being or consciousness, ceases to be a possible object of desire ? Does
not the meaning, which every one recognises in the statement that plea-
sure is a good, in the sense that pleasure is desired, disappear when along
with the substitution of ' chief good ' for a good we have to substitute
for pleasure the fact of having been pleased an indefinite number of
times 1 (2) Of what value, as a criterion of action, is an end to which
our approximation is wholly unascertainable except in the sense that,
on the supposition of there being no pleasure after death, we must be
getting nearer it every day of our lives 1 Of any man, clearly, till we
can be ' certified how long he has to live/ we have no means of know-
ing whether he is near or far off the consummation of having been
pleased as often as possible. Can we, however, say of any of his acts
that they help him to experience, or tend to abridge, the full number
of pleasures which ' nature ' leaves it open to him to attain 1 Accord-
ing to the doctrine of volition which Hedonistic philosophers generally
adopt it is difficult to say that any one, under all the conditions, could
have gained more pleasures than his actions have brought him. At
any rate, whatever our doctrine on this point, not knowing how long
it may be physically possible for the man to live or how many
pleasures it may be possible for him to get into a given time, we are
not able to conjecture what the number of pleasures which nature
allows him may be nor, in consequence, whether any action detracts
from that number or no whether in his case conduct on the plan of
' a short life and a merry one/ or on the contrary method, contributes
most to the ' chief good '.
Notes. 269
Hedonism in short, logically leaves no ' chief good ' at all, but the
Hedonistic moralist, not being able to do without it, is apt to seek the
other way of escape to which I have referred. Retaining the view of
the ' chief good ' as a state of consciousness, he makes it consist not
in the being pleased as often as possible, understood in the sense
which we have been so far considering, but in a ' greatest possible
sum of pleasures,' taken in the sense which I venture to describe as
intrinsically nonsense, viz., as an accumulation of enjoyments, which,
all together, must be more of a good than any one of them or than any
smaller sum and which thus, all together, form the ' chief good '.
This is ~an absurdity because for the consciousness of the pleased per-
son, or in relation to his capacity for enjoyment, in which relation
alone pleasures are called good, they cannot form a sum. Each is
over when the other begins. Tt is only as counted, not as enjoyed,
that they accumulate, and when we speak of them as together consti-
tuting the chief good, we are confusing a sum of numeration with a
sum of coexistence or enjoyment.
Thus to the person who says that the greatest sum of pleasures is
the chief good we may offer two alternatives. Either the subject of
his proposition is (as a German might say) an Unding or the predicate
is inappropriate. If by the ' sum of pleasures ' he means an accumu-
lation of pleasures for consciousness, the absurdity lies in the subject
of the proposition. Though, if there could be such a thing, there
might be sense in calling it the chief good, there can be no such thing.
If, on the other hand, by the ' greatest sum of pleasures ' he means
the being pleased as often as possible without implication of any co-
existence of pleasures, he is giving sense to the subject of his proposi-
tion at the expense of what he predicates of it. There is no ground
for distinction between the sum of pleasures, thus understood, as the
chief good and any particular pleasure as good. The moral criterion
has disappeared.
T. H. GREEN.
Happiness or Welfare. Replies and rejoinders are, as a rule, the
least profitable form of discussion ; but an exception may perhaps be
admitted in cases where the discussion is not a controversial one, and
I therefore venture to say a few words in answer to Mr. Sidgwick's
remarks in MIND, Xo. V., p. 34. Mr. Sidgwick puts forward a neatly
constructed dilemma which, if the good old ways of philosophical
discussion were still in use, might have been expanded into a sarcastic
pamphlet and entitled " A Short Way with the Darwinians ". He
says in effect : " You maintain that the ethical end is not Happiness,
a function of Pleasure, but Welfare, a function of Preservation. You
likewise admit that you are not ready with a definition of Welfare :
therefore either you are at sea altogether, having not even a proximate
definition, or you must, notwithstanding your protests, reduce the
notion of Welfare to that of ' being with the promise of future being '.
But this latter alternative is absurd : on the whole, therefore, you have
no standing ground." Now I do not accept the dilemma, for this
18
270 Notes.
short reason : Welfare I cannot define, Happiness (whatever strict
utilitarians may feel themselves capable of accomplishing) I cannot
define either. Nevertheless the terms do stand for notions which
beyond question exist in our minds, and which, as I venture to think,
are clear enough to be sufficient guides to action. Moreover the two
notions are so far equivalent that at present the distinction between
them may for all purposes of action be neglected. Hence we can
accept Utilitarianism as a working method good and sufficient as far
as it goes, and can afford to wait with equanimity for the time when
definition shall be attainable. This is the answer to the first branch
of the dilemma ; we are not cast adrift, because we practically go along
with Mr. Sidgwick. Indeed, our acceptance of Utilitarianism is
hardly less complete than his. For Mr. Sidgwick himself, unless he
has changed his mind since he wrote the last chapter of his Methods
of Ethics, is an utilitarian on practical rather than dialectical grounds.
Besides, we are in any case no worse off than the thousands of our
fellow-citizens, including not a few of the most virtuous, learned, and
eminent of mankind, who go through the duties of life without any
moral philosophy at all. The proposed dilemma seems to me to
smack a little of the fallacy that one must be a moral philosopher in
order to be a good man : a fallacy which, though not of the most
uncommon, I am sure Mr. Sidgwick is very far from intending to
countenance.
As to ' being with the promise of future being,' it seems to me not
very intelligible, and certainly inadequate, as an object of rational
desire. One can easily conceive cases where the question "to be or
not to be" would become at least doubtful; I mean for a society
rather than for an individual. Suppose a small body of civilised men
hopelessly cut off in a desert in such wise that their only chance of
living is to sink to the level of savages : is it worse for them to die as
civilised men than to live and be even as Bushmen 1 ? Again, is it
worse for a people who have known freedom to be exterminated than
to be enslaved 1 I do not say the answer is clear, nor stop to discuss
it ; a fair doubt is enough. "We know, in fact, that a species or a
tribe may be preserved by becoming degraded. The bare physical
preservation of the species does not come up to the notion of welfare
or well-being. The preservation which is the condition of Welfare is
not mere persistence, but persistence by means of development in
fixed directions which are given by the past experience of the race.
At the same time, we//-being demands being, and there is a race-
instinct, conatus, or what else it may be called, in all living things,
which in conscious agents appears as a love of life for its own sake.
Better to be a thrall on earth than king of all Hades, said the men of
the Homeric time ; and much human action of great importance is
still founded on the belief that most men at most times will choose a
very hard, poor, and joyless life in short, unhappiness rather than
no life at all. The facts may, no doubt, be stated in hedonistic lan-
guage ; or the hedonistic interpretation of them may even be made, as
it was by Strauss, a short cut to optimism : if it is a bad world, why
Notes. 271
do those who call it so choose to stay in it 1 But in this way of
putting the matter the true significance of it is, I think, obscured.
Mr. Sidgwick's question may be framed, however, in a different
and perhaps a more forcible manner, thus : Yon say that Welfare or
Well-being is not Being simply, but Being with some as yet unspeci-
fied differentia. Is not that differentia really Pleasure, and your
doctrine an implicit Hedonism ? This seems to require farther con-
sideration. A complete answer I am not prepared to give, my position
being that no such answer is yet possible. Still, it seems to me
that pleasure, however closely it may accompany the things in which
we feel that happiness consists, is rather an index of well-being than
well-being itself. So far as concerns the physical conditions of life,
pleasure may be regarded as correlative, in its origin at least, to bene-
hcial modes of activity. This has been well shown by Mr. Herbert
Spencer, and the proof is so simple that one can repeat it in passing :
a species which as a rule found its pleasure in actions hurtful to itself
could manifestly have no permanent existence. And the thought
seems no less applicable to the life of men in society and the con-
ditions of their common weal. In this wise, then, Hedonism may be
practically justified without regarding Pleasure as in itself the End ;
subject, of course, to qualifications, warnings, and regulations which
would be in substance the same as those already imposed on the crude
forms of Hedonism by our later utilitarians If this is so, or in other
words if, so far as the man or tho society he lives in is not diseased,
pleasure means, as Spinoza says, the passage to a greater perfection,
then one can understand the strength of Hedonism, and be thankful
for the gifts of its doctrine, without holding that Pleasure is every-
thing. I cannot help feeling (for I dare not claim for this the con-
sistence of settled thought) that while fullness of life is pleasant, yet
it is not so much the pleasure of it that is good as, the fullness of life
itself. When I look forward to the hopes of mankind, the images
that come before me are not of rest or " dreamful ease," but of new
powers and activities ; not of mere enjoyment, but of continued strife
and triumph in an ever increasing mastery of things ; of discovery and
enterprise unceasing, of undreamt victories over nature, of beauty in
the work of man's hands, and peace and wisdom in his counsels ; a
life, in short, greater, nobler, more harmonious than any life we yet
know. Ail which, it may be answered, only comes to saying that
activity is pleasant, and that to competent judges certain kinds of
activity seem the most pleasant. I can only say again that this
seems to me a forced way of stating the facts. There is another
question, hardly recognised as yet, which lies at the root of the
current objections to the possibility of a " Hedonistic Calculus," and
gives them most of their force (though to the practical effect of those
objections, I may say in passing that I quite agree with Mr. Sidgwick).
Do we know after all what Pleasure is ] Can we assume it to be
simple or homogeneous 1 Is it even capable of the predicates of more
or less in the same sense as quantities which can be numbered and
measured 1 May not the greater and bias of pleasure peradventure be
272 Notes.
only homonymous, as the Schoolmen say, with the greater and less of
measurable magnitudes, in which case the whole controversy whether
different kinds of pleasure are commensurable would become little
more than a barren beating of the air 1
These things I do not pretend to know ; but there are divers reasons,
as it seems to me, for suspecting that pleasure is really a very complex
thing. Nay, it is very conceivable to me that, by the help of workers
from the physiological side, such as Fechner and Wundt (whose work,
however, I know but vaguely and by report) this may one day be
matter of demonstration. If that day ever comes, I do not see how
Hedonism can escape from recasting its vocabulary. This may be
called a materialistic suggestion, and perhaps in one sense it is ; but
having, as I hope, never wavered in the following of Berkeley, I am
too thorough going an immaterialist to mind that. Meanwhile this
line of consideration, so far as it may be worth anything, cuts both
ways. If the utilitarian has to forego his claim to achieve the exact
solution of ethical problems in a manner in which nobody solves them
in practice, the intuitionist must also forego such satisfaction as he can
at present derive from asking the utilitarian what multiple of the
pleasure of eating pastry will come out equal to the pleasure of doing
a benevolent action. There are really two distinct questions : Is it
possible to construct a numerical scale of pleasures 1 and, In the
conscious choice of what to do, is the choice always between pleasures
or things considered as pleasant 1 In this last statement, however, a
rational utilitarian might fairly object to the word considered as too
definite, too much suggesting a process of actual calculation : AVI-
should say, perhaps, regarded, or even felt. And, so far as I can see,
the questions are not only distinct but perfectly independent.
On the whole, then, I submit that we must wait for more light.
The conclusion may seem an idle one, but I have endeavoured, after
the Platonic precept, to follow the leading of our \6*{o<>, whithersoever
it would, and thus far and no farther it has led me. No one can be
more aware than myself of the loose, unsettled, unfinished character
of these reflections. But I believe that in the present state of ethical
definitions even loose discussion may have its uses. Let me once
more repeat, to prevent misunderstanding, that in the meantime I
accept Happiness, as conceived by Grote, Mr. Sidgwick, or any other
rational utilitarian, as a good and valid working conception.
1\ POLLOCK.
Dr. Carpenter's Theory of Attention. It is curious to notice how
the advocates of metempirical doctrines occasionally adduce facts
which furnish the refutation of their own theories. An instance of
this kind may be found in Dr. Carpenter's Mental Physiology.
In that treatise the state of Attention is maintained to be the
mental correlate of local hyperaBuiia of the parts of the brain con-
cerned in producing the mental state on which it is fixed, the hyper-
remia being induced by a dilatation of the arteries supplying those
parts, which dilatation is the effect of the action of the vaso-motor
New Books. 273
nerves upon the muscular walls of the arteries. When, therefore,
the Will fixes the Attention on any mental state, it does so, according
to this theory, by "playing upon" the vaso-motor centre (i.e., the
medulla oblongata).
Now this theory is contradicted by the fact stated in the following
passage taken from the same treatise (p. 127). After speaking of
" that very important division of the Sympathetic which is distributed
on the walls of the arteries now known as the Vaso-motor System,"
Dr. Carpenter says that " No motor power can be exerted through the
Sympathetic System by any act of Will ; but the muscular actions
of many of the parts just enumerated are greatly affected by Emo-
tional States ; and this is particularly the case in regard to those of
the heart and arteries ".
That is to say, the power attributed to the Will (which, accord-
ing to Dr. Carpenter, is an immaterial agent animating, as it were,
the body) of fixing the Attention is in reality exercised only by the
Emotions. If for the Emotional States we substitute their physical
correlates, the above passage would thus amount to an admission of
the doctrine of Automatism. For Dr. Carpenter, in his second
article " On the Doctrine of Human Automatism," contributed to the
Contemporary Review for May, 1875, himself resolves the control of
the Will over conduct into its control over the Attention.
JNO. T. LINGARD.
X. NEW BOOKS.
Die Etliik ties Spinoza im Uriexte. Herausgegeben, etc, von HUGO
GINSBERG. Leipzig, 1875. Pp. Ivi, 299.
Der Briefwechscl des Spinoza im Urtexte. Herausgegeben, etc, von
HUGO GINSBERG. Leipzig, 1876. Pp. Ixxxix, 252.
From the very useful and pleasant introductions with which they
are accompanied, these volumes are well worth the attention of the
student. Dr. Ginsberg is not afraid of quoting, and presents us with
copious extracts from Wachter (an interesting 17th century critic),
Joel, Trendelenburg, Erdmann, Kuno Fischer, and Sigwart. The
first volume contains an introduction, a bibliographic summary, and
the texts of the preface to the Opera Posthuma and of the Ethica.
Fn the Introduction the life of Spinoza is briefly summed up. The
latest researches are kept well in view ; the conditions of culture in
the colony of Portuguese Jews at Amsterdam are sketched in a lively
manner, and the synagogue is defended from the charge of barbarous
fanaticism in the matter of the excommunication. There is a highly
interesting excerpt from the Memoirs of one Gottlieb Stolle, who was
in Amsterdam in 1703, and busied himself in collecting " news " con-
cerning Spinoza. The reader will probably feel that the wondrous
gossip of Stolle's " old man" is by no means too lightly treated ; and
that a witness who draws for us a picture of the author of the Et/tica,
274 New Books.
nicely dressed, with a sword by his side, indulging in his two cans of
win ', and in visits " ad viryo " (sic !) is unworthy of serious atten-
tion. A suggestive review and criticism of the cardinal points of the
great thinker's system closes the Introduction to the first volume.
The second contains another introduction, a summary of the
" groups of correspondence," a collection of biographical notices,
the " arffumenta " to the Letters (taken from Yon Murr's Adnota-
fiones), the text of the Letters, and an appendix consisting of the
Vie de Spinoza of Colerus, with a Latin translation of the edict of ex-
communication. The Introduction gives an extract from Trendelen-
burg's essay on the correspondence as amplified by the new matter
published by Van Vloten in his Supplemenfam in 1862. There is a
thorough discussion, by Sigwart and by Trendelenburg, of the date of
composition of the Ethica. A review of the passages of the corres-
pondence that are important for purposes of study, gives occasion for
the introduction of an instructive excursus on the doctrine of the At-
tributes, by Erdmann, Trendelenburg, and Kuno Fischer ; and this
is followed by much excellent discussion of Spinoza's teaching, meta-
physical, psychological, and ethical. Dr. Ginsberg has probably done
wisely in rejecting Bruder's division of the letters into paragraphs :
which certainly lends to Spinoza's letters a false air of pedantry that
by no means belongs to them. The Biographical Notices are almost
all that is wanted ; the name of Leibnitz, however, is absent from
them. The collection of Argumenta, which are given in a body, and
not dispersed over their respective letters, is very convenient.
Unfortunately, the editing of the texts is most marvellously careless.
The three or four pages of errata give but a very inadequate account
of the misprints. Ep. xxxviii is not given in the original Dutch, as
it ought to be given in any edition that lays claim to completeness.
This is perhaps pardonable ; but to have reprinted Ep. xlix, as it
stands in former editions, without noticing the interesting variations
of the MS. of the letter as published by Van Vloten, is unpardon-
able. The treatment of Ep. xxvi is quite inexcusable. Dr. Ginsberg
has copied literally the later paragraphs in which Van Vloten presents
us with the text of his MS. ( ' Supplementum p. 296.), and has thus
succeeded in omitting the seventeen important lines that make up the
two concluding paragraphs of the letter in Bruder's edition ; the
omission being indicated only by an useless and unintelligible " etc"
From Ep. xxvii, he has omitted the not uninteresting initial para-
graph furnished by Van Vloten.
If the student will buy these inexpensive volumes, and have the
Introductions bound up together, he will find them a very handy book
of reference. ARTHUR BOLLES LEE.
A Discourse on Truth. By RICHARD SHUTS, M.A., Senior Student
and Tutor of Christ Church, Oxford. London : King & Co.,
1877. Pp. 299.
This book starts from the premisses supplied by Locke and Hume,
and by taking them in connection with the conception of adaptation to
New Books. 275
environment, draws conclusions opposed to Mill's law of the unifor-
mity of Nature, and doctrine of the functions and value of Syllogism.
Truth is a general name for the way in which a man adapts himself
to circumstances, and by speech helps others to do so. The sixth
chapter ' Syllogism and Deductive Reasoning ' is the central point
of the book ; ' Definition,' ' Cause,' and ' Induction ' lead up to it.
The chief function of Induction is to furnish us with formulae for
communicating useful beliefs or rather tendencies to believe when
occasion presents itself. Deduction is a- distinct process of discovery.
Mill in criticising the Syllogism limited himself to the unimportant
deductions where the middle term is a natural kind like Man, which
is naturally suggested by Ccesar. In a legitimate syllogism the
extremes must not necessarily suggest the middle. The middle term
must be an artificial class-name. Whale, Mammal, Lungs is a
legitimate deduction, because Whale does not naturally suggest
Mammal, as Ccesar does Man. From this use of artificial class-names
the author goes on to treat of Language in relation to Thought, and of
1 Necessary Truths ' which he declares to be a self-contradictory con-
ception. An ' Epilogue ' is directed against Rational Religion which
" makes no demands upon that Faith which is the evidence of things
not seen ".
Mr. Sidgwick's Hedonism : An Examination of the main argument of
the The Methods of Ethics. By F. H. BRADLEY. London :
King& Co., 1877. Pp. 64.
The author in Part I. seeks " to help the reader to master the most
prominent conceptions of the book, and to bring to light the obscurity
and ambiguous nature of the leading terms, and the equivocal
character of the main thesis ". In Part II. he endeavours to show
that the proof of the thesis offered is unsatisfactory. In Part III. he
tries to exhibit the real nature of the Ethical Science which is pro-
posed, with some of the objections to which it lies open ; also, he
discusses the problem, partly moral and partly theological, which is
raised at the end of Mr. Sidgwick's work. The author's final judg-
ment upon the work is thus expressed : " I can find no unity of
principle which holds its parts together. Rather I seem everywhere
to have seen an attempt to unite irreconcileable points of view, which
has failed because the criticism which should first have loosened their
opposition, has been wanting, Hedonism and Individualism on the
one side, and abstract Rationalism on the other, have met, but have not
come together, and the result is a mere syncretism, a mechanical
mixture of both." The " failure to take account of the views most
opposed to traditional English doctrine has been at least one cause of
the uncertain handling of leading conceptions, and the confusion in
the result ".
History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne. By
WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY, M.A. 3rd Ed. Revised.
2 vols. London : Longmans & Co., 1877. Pp. 468, 407.
This well-known book has been carefully revised since the last
276 New Books.
edition, the author being much aided in his task by his German
translator, the deceased D. H. Jolowicz. The controversial first
chapter on ' The Natural History of Morals ' now appears on the one
hand shorn of a few lines, and on the other increased by three or four
short passages in elucidation or support of the author's former
positions.
Der Ursprung der SpracJie, im Zusammenlmnge mit den letzten Fragen
alles Wissens. Von Dr. H. STEIXTHAL. 3te Aufl. Berlin,
Diimmler, 1877. Pp. 374.
This edition is more than twice, almost thrice, the size of the
former one (1858). Continuing his critico-historical treatment of
linguistic theories which formerly did not extend beyond Heyse and
Kenan, the author now passes under review the labours of L. Geiger
(at great length), his own former theory as maintained in the days
before the revolution wrought by Darwin and others in natural history,
the views of Jager, of Darwin himself and of Caspari. The book has
thus become a real compendium of all important theories that have
been held concerning the origin of language, viewed in relation to the
ultimate questions of metaphysical and religious philosophy. In a final
chapter the bearings of the doctrine of Evolution upon linguistic
science are specially considered.
Kant und Newton. Yon Dr. KONRAD DIETERICH. Tubingen : H.
Laupp. 1877. Pp. 294.
This essay, in itself not long, aims at accomplishing one part of a
task left unperformed or insufficiently performed by Kant's expositors
namely, to trace with careful detail the connection between his
physical and metaphysical investigations on the one hand and between
his researches in culture-history and his ethical philosophy on the
other. The second part of the task is reserved for another book soon to
appear under the title of Kant und Rousseau. The author's view of
Kant's relation to Newton is that while Newton had explained
according to mechanical laws the cosmical system as it is, he should in
like manner explain how it came to be. " Newton was the good genius
who stood by the cradle of his scientific development and hovered as
guardian over the progress of his philosophical thought." The sup-
porting citations, filling half the volume, are very complete and there-
fore valuable as a collection.
Denken und WirTdichJceit. Versuch einer Erneuerung der Kantischen
Philosophie. Von A. SPIR. 2te umgearbeitete Auflage. 2 vols.
Leipzig: J. G. Findel, 1877. Pp. 386, 292.
This is a second edition of a work that appeared in 1873, and is
issued before the former one is quite exhausted, because it is a matter
of conscience with the author to give his ideas the greatly improved
exposition that he now offers. The book possesses a special interest for
English readers, by reason of the author's intimate acquaintance with
New Books. 277
all the recent phases of English philosophy. He recognises in the
Experientialism of English thinkers a genuine attempt to solve the
question of Philosophy in the spirit of Kant's criticism, though he
himself sides with Kant in declaring for a priori elements in know-
ledge, and these (he maintains) of a kind not to be explained by the
doctrine of heredity. Like most other Kantians, however, he is by no
means satisfied with the master's actual scheme of the a priori ele-
ments, and he seeks to devise a better. His most characteristic posi-
tions have already been indicated in MIND (No. III. p. 420, as also
]N"o. IV. p. 557), and more cannot now be added in this short
announcement, but the book is recommended to the attention of
philosophical students.
Logique Algorithmique. Essai sur un Systeme de Signes applique*
a la Logique, avec une Introduction ou sont traitees les questions
generales relatives a 1' emploi des dotations dans les Sciences.
Par J. DELBOEUF, Professeur a 1' Universite de Liege. Liege,
Bruxelles. 1877. Pp. 99.
This essay, first published in three numbers of the Revue Philoso-
phique towards the end of last year, was announced by the author
as far back as the year 1865 in the preface to his remarkable Essai
de Logique Scientifique. He had then settled with himself the prin-
ciple of his logical calculus, and done so in ignorance of Boole's
earlier labours ; nor, when he returned some months ago (from his
psycho-physical investigations) to the task of carrying it out, had
he been able in the interval to make himself acquainted with the
various English attempts to establish an algorithmic logic, though he
now makes supplementary references to some of them. M. Delboeuf 's
symbolism has some similarity to that suggested by Mr. Murphy in
the last number of MIND and expounded a year or two earlier by him
in a paper on ' The relation of Logic to Language,' but it is separated
from this by important differences, and his whole treatment of the
subject is marked by much originality. Indeed it may be doubted
whether any one has yet sought to devise a logical calculus with so
true a grasp as M. Delboeuf has of the relation between logic on the
one hand and mathematics and the sciences generally on the other.
The first two parts of the present essay, dealing with the question of
the general character of a calculus and the possibility of having one
in logic, are full of instruction even for those who may attach less
importance than he does to the realisation of the possibility. At the
same time he cannot be charged with exaggerating the merely practical
value of his invention ; for he adds to the third part, in which it is
wrought out at length, a short fourth part on the question of utility,
in which he' allows that it is of service in the solution of very simple
questions only. " When the reasoning is brought to a series of syl-
logisms, it can undoubtedly assign the possible consequences, or in-
dicate rapidly and surely the true conclusion ; but the true difficulty
to be contended with lies in the translation of the reasoning into
conclusive syllogisms."
278 New Books.
Logische Studien. Em Beitrag zur Neubegriindung der Formalen
Logik und der Erkenntnisstheorie. Von FRIEDRICH ALBERT
LANGE. Iseiiohn : J. Baedeker. 1877. Pp. 149.
This work, completed as it stands three weeks before the lamented
author's death, is but a first part that was to be followed by a second.
Its fundamental conception is that Logic can have no other firm
foundation than the laws that arise from the consideration of Space
and of Movement in space. ' Theory of Cognition/ which comes
into the second title, is taken by Lange as the doctrine of human
knowledge based on Logic, Metaphysic, and Psychology, and therefore
having no strict unity of principle. The science resolves itself into
(1) the pure a priori investigation of the postulates presupposed in
knowledge (after the manner of Kant), and (2) the psychological
doctrine of cognition, which is empirical ; while these two divisions
presuppose an exact investigation of logical forms. The contents of
Part I. are : (1) Formal Logic and Theory of Knowledge, (2) Morality
of Judgments, (3) The Particular Judgment and the Doctrine
of Conversion, (4) Syllogistic, (5) The Disjunctive Judgment and the
Elements of the Doctrine of Probability, (6) Space, Time, and Number.
A note remains of the contents of Part II. that was next to be written :
(7) The Psychology of Thought, (8) Grammar and Logic, (9) Induction,
(10) The Numerical Method and the law of large Numbers, (11) The
Historico-Critical Method, (12) Idea of a Comparative Methodology
of Science, with appendix to follow on Choice and Voting.
The Physical Basis of Mind. (Being the Second Series of Problems
of Life and Mind.) By GEORGE HENRY LEWES, with woodcut
illustrations. Triibner & Co.
The following extracts are given from the Preface to Mr. Lewes's
new volume, which will very shortly appear :
" The title indicates that this volume is restricted to the group of
material conditions which constitute the organism in relation to the
physical world a group which furnishes the data for one half of the
psychologist's quest ; the other half being furnished by historical and
social conditions. The human mind, so far as it is accessible to scientific
inquiry, has a twofold root, man being not only an animal organism
but an unit in the social organism ; and a complete theory of its
functions and faculties must therefore be sought in this twofold
direction.
The volume contains four essays. The first, on The Nature of Life,
deals with the speciality of organic phenomena, as distinguished from
the inorganic. It sets forth the physiological principles which Psych-
ology must incessantly invoke.
'Ihe second es-^ay is on the Nervous Mechanism, setting forth what is
known, and what is inferred, respecting the structure and properties of
that all-important system. If the sceptical and revolutionary attitude
in presence of opinions currently held to be established truths, surprises
or pains the reader unprepared for such doubts, I can only ask him to
submit my statements to a similar scepticism, and confront them with
the ascertained evidence. After many years of laborious investigation.
New Books. 279
and meditation, the conclusion has slowly forced itself upon me that on
this subject there is " a false persuasion of knowledge " very fatal in its
influence, because unhesitatingly adopted as the ground of speculation
both in Pathology and in Psychology. This persuasion is sustained be-
cause few are aware how much of what passes for observation is in reality
sheer hypothesis. I have had to point out the great extent to which
Imaginary Anatomy has been unsuspectingly accepted ; and hope to
have done something towards raising a rational misgiving in the
student's mind respecting "the superstition of the nerve-cell "
a superstition which I freely confess to have shared in for many
years.
The third essay treats of Animal Automatism. Here the constant
insistance on the biological point of view, while it causes a rejection of
the mechanical theory, admits the fullest recognition of all the mechani-
cal relations involved in animal movements ; and thus reconciles the
contending schools. In this essay I have also attempted a psychological
solution of that old and much, debated question, the relation of Body
and Mind.
In the final essay the Reflex Theory is discussed ; and here once more
the biological point of view rectifies the error of an analysis which has
led to the denial of Sensibility in reflex actions, because in that analysis
the necessary presence of the conditions which determine Sensibility has
been overlooked. . . .
According to my original intention this volume was to have in-
cluded an exposition of the part I conceive the brain to play in physio-
logical and psychological processes, but I have determined to postpone
that until it could be accompanied by a survey of the psychological pro-
cesses which would render the exposition more intelligible."
German Pessimism. By JAMES SULLY. King & Co. [Will appear
shortly.]
" Its twofold aim is a critical estimate of the pessimists' doctrine of
life and an explanation of the origin and apparent vitality of this
belief. Accordingly, before entering into an exposition and criticism
of the modern philosophic systems worked out by Schopenhauer and
his successors, the writer reviews the history both of pessimism and of
its correlative in their unreasoned or popular and their reasoned or
scientific forms. The systems of Schopenhauer and Hartrnann are then
expounded and examined, a separate chapter being devoted to the
metaphysical, the scientific, and the empirical basis of the doctrine.
Special attention is given to the pessimists' conception of the physical
world (as developed by Hartmann), and to their view of the processes
of volition, and of the relation of feeling (pleasure and pain) to will.
Accepting the Hedonistic basis of value adopted by the pessimists, the
author proceeds to re-discuss the question raised by optimism and pes-
simism. After an attempt to construct an idea of happiness on a basis
of pleasurable feeling, he inquires first of all into the present reality
of happiness, and secondly into the bearing of progress on the realisa-
tion of happiness. A concluding chapter investigates the sources of
optimism and pessimism, both in the varying disposition or mental
temperament and in the circumstances (variable and constant) of
human life, discusses the special influences which appear to support
pessimism at the present day, and finally seeks to assign to this doc-
trine its legitimate rank among the varying tendencies of practical
thought."
280 News.
Natural Law : An essay in Ethics. By EDITH SIMCOX. Triibner and
Co. [Will appear shortly in a series to be entitled " English and
Foreign Philosophical Library".]
" The essay discusses the source and nature of the human sense of
obligation legal, moral and religious. The object proposed is to trace
the common elements in laws " properly so called," the moral law
generally acknowledged, and the scientific laws of nature. A true law is
denned as the statement of constant relations, such constancy following
necessarily from the nature of the things related. The argument is
that the sense of obligation or bondage to law = the consciousness of
subjection to a real, regular pressure, in certain fixed directions ; that
men are subject to such pressure from three different sources, resulting in
a (general) necessary obedience to the injunctions of law, morality and
religion. Positive or customary law states the obligations imposed
on men by their objective relations with other men ; morality, the obli-
gations imposed on them by their own moral and intellectual nature in
the actual circumstances of society; religion, the obligations imposed
on them by their spontaneous feelings towards the most abstract ten-
dencies of universal nature. As to the nature of the obligations imposed
by the moral law, three kinds of good are distinguished : Natural Good,
Sensible Good or Pleasure, Moral Good. The common elements in differ-
ent forms of the religious sentiment are considered ; and finally the
natural history of altruism, the natural sanctions of the moral law, the
conditions of social and individual perfection."
XI. NEWS.
The subscriptions for the Spinoza Memorial to be erected at the
Hague had in January reached the sum of about 900, and the
Committee, seeing its way to the execution of the project, then
announced that it would shortly throw open the design of the
memorial to international competition. On the 21st February, the
two-hundredth anniversary of the day of Spinoza's death, a meeting
was held at the Hague, and an oration in French was delivered by
M. Renan. The address is now printed as a pamphlet, and the pro-
ceeds of the sale will be added to the subscription.
Mrs. Grote has just made over to the authorities of University
College the sum of 6000, which her husband, the late President of
the College and one of its original founders, bequeathed for the
eventual endowment of the Chair of Philosophy of Mind and Logic.
The first condition of the bequest was prescribed by Mr. Grote in his
"Will as follows : " I earnestly desire that the principle distinctly
recognised when University College was founded, as being of essential
and permanent importance, that is to say abstinence from all religious
teaching and neutrality between all varieties of opinion in matters of
religion, shall at all times be faithfully and exactly carried out, and I
consider it inconsistent with that principle that the Professorship of
Philosophy of Mind and Logic should be held by a minister of the
News. 281
Church of England or of any other religious persuasion, who shall at
any time have undertaken as his professional duty to inculcate the
particular creed or doctrines of the Church or party to which he
belongs. If therefore any such minister should at any time or times
be appointed by the Council to the Professorship of Philosophy of
Mind and Logic, or if any Professor of Philosophy of Mind and
Logic, having been when appointed a layman, shall subsequently
take orders or become a minister of any such creed or doctrines
as aforesaid, I direct that no payment shall be made to him of
the present endowment, but that the annual income when received
shall as far as the law will admit be re-invested and added to the
principal until the time when the said Professorship shall be occupied
by a layman."
The fourth edition of Comte's Philosophic Positive, recently
announced, has now appeared, with a second Preface from M. Littre
which may be read in the January number of the journal conducted
by himself and M. Wyrouboff. M. Littre professes himself still the
disciple that he was twelve years ago when he wrote his preface to
the second edition, and that he has been for the last forty years.
He contrasts with the fate of books of science which become anti-
quated in ten years the fortune of Comte's philosophical work which
the years make only more widely known, and he claims for it the
unique character of remaining true after the scientific discoveries of
the last half century just as it was when written so completely did
it grasp the spirit of scientific inquiry enthroned for all time to come.
According to M. Littre, the peculiarity of the Positive Philosophy is
that it recommends itself on different sides alike to minds accustomed
to the rigorous methods of science and to the untrained who find in
it a response to their social aspirations. As regards its origin, he does
not pretend that it was the creation of one man : "it was prepared in
every way ; the elements that could produce it, the plasma whence
it sprung, were then full of life and fecundity ". Neither does he
put out of sight the cognate but independent doctrine of English
thinkers ; respecting which, however, he maintains his formerly
declared opinion that it errs in making psychology, rather than the
hierarchy of the positive sciences, the basis of philosophy. Eor the
issue of the conflict between the two conceptions he is content to
wait upon the progress of psychical physiology. "The more it
becomes clear that psychical physiology is the biological equivalent of
the traditional psychology, more or less modified by the experimental
method which the English philosophers apply, the more it will
become certain that the study of the psychical fa3ulties is only, as
Auguste Comte proclaimed it, a tributary of the general doctrine, not
to be taken for its source."
In a later number of his journal (March-April) M. Littre" writes a
few pages in memory of Madame Comte who died some weeks ago.
While confining himself mainly to a statement of what she did since
282 News.
Comte's death for the cause of the Positive Philosophy, he gives the
impression of a superior intellect and character of no common firmness
and elevation. It was she who, in 1860, determined to have her
husband's biography written ; and M. Littre tells how, when she bore
down his reluctance to add this burden to the labour of his Diction-
ary, he used for a whole year, regularly at the stroke of midnight, to
put away his other papers and write at his Auguste Comte et la pJi 'do-
soph ie positive for three hours long into the morning. It was she who
next would not rest till the Cours de philosophic positive, which had
long been out of print, was made accessible to readers in a new
edition, and she lived long enough to be rewarded by the call for two
editions more. She again it was who exacted from the hard-worked
disciple his defence of Comte against Mill's strictures in 1865 ; and
then followed her idea of founding a periodical organ for the spread
of the cause, which ultimately was realised by her securing the co-
operation of M. Wyrouboff. Last year she urged her friends to take
advantage (like the Catholics) of the new freedom of instruction in
France, and found a school of the positive sciences ; and one notion
more she had which M. Littre says he would be tempted to carry into
effect were he ten years younger that of establishing a cheap journal
for the common people to judge political events and social questions
from the point of view of the Positive Philosophy. The record proves
her unflinching devotion to what she deemed the true philosophic
fame of her husband, and M. Littre for his part gratefully acknow-
ledges the service she did to himself in laying tasks upon him,
which, if they had not been performed in the midst of his lexicographic
labours, he should hardly have had strength or courage left to essay
when at last his Dictionary was completed. He is now in his 77th
year.
An English translation of Prof. BarzellottiV excellent treatise La
Morale ndla Filosojia Positiva (Florence, 1871) referred to in Mr.
Spencer's Study of Sociology (p. 229) is being prepared in America
by Signer E. Gandolfo and Miss J. L. Olcott of Brooklyn. By
' Positive Philosophy ' the author means the doctrines of English
thinkers chiefly the two Mills, Prof. Bain, and Mr. Spencer.
Dr. David Asher of Leipsic first published in 1865, and then in
1871 reprinted (with some other papers, under the title Arthur
Schopenhauer Neues von ihm und uber ihn, pp. Ill), a series of
twenty-four letters from Schopenhauer to himself, which seem to have
escaped the notice of recent English writers. The letters, extending
from 1855 till within a few weeks of Schopenhauer's death in 1860,
are extremely characteristic of the man.
Baron von Eeichlin-Meldegg, the aged Professor of Philosophy at
Heidelberg, has just died. A correspondent says : " His philosophi-
cal position was a modified Kantism ; and unlike his colleague, Prof.
Kuno Fischer, he believed in the second edition of Kant's Kritik
News. 283
always declaring that he could not see why Dualism was inconsistent
with the laws of the human understanding. His system of Logic,
based on this view, follows the direction of Schleiermacher and
Ueberweg, and presupposes a correspondence between things and
representations of things. He had a most stupendous memory : he
could recite whole pages of Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, English,
Spanish, and Italian authors; all the titles of books with their
peculiar idioms and their dates, dates of historical events and of
events occurring in special biographies ; numbers of chapters and
pages of particular passages in books, &c. In his lectures on Faust
he would recite the whole of both parts by heart, now and then
stopping to comment upon some passages, resuming the recital where
he had left off. On the other hand, it cannot be said that his works
are strongly marked by independence or novelty. Besides numerous
historical, biographical, and theological works, he wrote on Faust ;
Geschichte des Christentliums (1836); Psychologic des Menschen ruit
Einschluss der Somatologie u. der Lehre von den Geisteskrankheiten
(1838) ; System der Logik, nebst Einleitung in die Philosophie (1870).
In private life he was a man whom one could not help respecting and
loving."
W. Volkmann Ritter von Volkmar, Professor of Philosophy at
Prague, and author of the Lehrbuch der Psychologic- (Herbartian),
&c., died on the 14th January last.
Le"on Dumont, author of Tlieorie Scientifique de la Sensibilite (re-
viewed in MIND, No. III., p. 399) and of an earlier work Sur les
causes du Rire, died at the early age of 40, on the 17th January.
He was one of the most active and intelligent spirits of the younger
generation of French thinkers.
The Pldlosophische Monatshefte (whose earlier fortunes have been
told in MIND No. I.., p. 141) has passed with the new year into the
hands of Prof. C. Schaarschmidt of Bonn as editor, Dr. Ascherson of
Berlin continuing as before to supply the very carefully compiled
Bibliography which has for some years been a notable feature of the
journal. The new editor, who is best known by his work on the
Platonic canon, starts with the promise of strong support from his
professional brethren. The journal will be published as before
by E. Koschny of Leipsic, but under new and more liberal con-
ditions.
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQTJE. 2me Annee No. I. H. Taine ' Les Vibra-
tions cerebral es et la Pensee.' E. v. Hartmann ' Un nouveau disciple
de Schopenhauer, J. Bahnsen.' P. Janet ' Qu'est-ce que 1'Idealisme ? '
A. Herzen ' De 1'ecliauffement des centres nerveux par le fait de leur
activite ! Notes et Documents ' Une Idole moderne,' par A. Main.
Analyses et comptes-rendus H. Spencer, Principles of Sociology (Tome
I) ; Jb\ Breiitano, La civilisation et sea lots ; Du Bois Reymond, Darwin
284 Neu-s.
versus Galinni ; Goering, Raum und Stnff ; Basevi, Scienza della Divfna-
zione ; P. d'Ercole, La pena di Morte, &c. ; Caroli, Logica con nuovo meto-
do ; Michaud, De U Imagination. No. II. Ch. Leveque ' Fran9ois Bacon
inetaphysicien.' E. de Hartmann * Un nouveau disciple de Schopen-
hauer, J. Bahnsen ' (fin). G. Compayre ' L'education d'apres Herbert
Spencer.' Analyses et comptes-rendus D. Ferrier, The functions oft/ie
Brain; Bridel, La philosophic de la religion de Kant; Swientochowski,
Essai sur Vorigine des lots morales. No. III. J. Delbceuf ' La loi
psychophysique : Heiing contre Fechner.' F. Bouillier ' La Regie des
inoeurs.' L. Liard 'La Logique de M. Stanley Jevons.' Analyses et
comptes-rendus v. Hartmann, Kritische Grundlegung des transcendenta-
len JKealismus ; Angiulli, La Pedagogia, lo Stato e la Famiglia ; J. Soury,
Les Religions, les Arts, la Civilisation de VAsie ant6rieure et de la Grece ;
J. Baissac, Les Origines de la Religion.
LA CRITIQUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. Vme Annee, Nos. 46-52, Vlme.
Annee, Nos. 1-7. C. Renouvier ' Les labyrinthes de la metaphysique :
L'infini et le continu, V. Cousin, M. Vacherot (46), Les physiciens et les
chimistes (49), Les mathematiciens (2), La methode dite des limites (7) ;
Le ' reve ' de D'Alembert et les ' reves ' de M. Eenan (51). Petit tr.tite
de morale a 1'usage des ecoles primaires laiques (Suite, 46-8, 50, 52, 1-3,
5-7.)
LA FILOSOFIA DELLE SciJOLE IxALiANE Vol. XIV. Disp. 3. L. Ferri
' La Coscienza.' T. Mamiani ' Filosofia della religione.' A Martin-
azzoli ' Della morale disinteressata.' Manzoni ' 11 nuovo criticismo
di C. Eenouvier. 1 T. Mamiani ' Di una insufficiente filosofia della
storia.' Bibliografia. &c. Vol. XV. Disp. 1. F. Bonatelli Un escur-
sione psicologica nella regione delle idee. T. Mamiani ' Filosofia
della religione.' N.N. ' Appunti sul Darvinismo.' F. Bertinaria
' JEiicerca se la separaziorie della Chiesa dallo Stato sia dialettica ovvero
sofistica.' Collyns Simon ' La religione e la rnetafisica ' C. Cantoni
* I precursor! di Kant nella filosofia critica.' T. Mamiani ' Carteg-
gio.' Bibliografia, &c.
VlERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FUR WlSSEXSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. I.
Heft ii. Fr. Paulsen ' Ueber die principiellen Unterschiede erkennt-
nisstheoretischer Ansichten.' M. Heiuze ' Der Idealismus Friedrich
Albert Lange's.' O. Liebmann ' Raumcharakteristik und Raumde-
duction.' A. Riehl ' Der Raum als Gesiohtsvorstellung.' W. Windel-
band ' Ueber die verschiedenen Phasen der Kantischen Lehre vom
Ding-an-sich.' E. Zeller ' Antwort an Herrn Professor Dr. J. H. von
Fichte.' Recensionen Schmitz-Dumont, Zeit und Raum ; Erdmann,
Martin Knutzen, &c. ; Ribot, die Erb/ichkeit. Selbstanzeigen.
PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Bd. XII. Heft 10. Sup. Opitz
' Realismus und Idealismus.' H. Vaihinger ' Zur modernen Kantphi-
lologie.' E. Bratuscheck ' Kritischer Jahresbericht.' (Forts.) Biblio-'
graphie. Schlusswort. Bd. XIII. Hefte 1,2. C. Schaarschmidt A.
Horwicz, Ueber Wtse.n und Aufgabe dtr Philosophic. R. Hasenclever
' Zur Analysis der Raumvorstellung.'j C. S. Barach ' Ueber die Philo-
sophic des Giordano Bruno.' J. H. Witte Fr. Harms, Die Philosophic
seit Kant. C. Schaarschmidt G. V. Schiaparelli, Die Vorldnfcr des
Coper nikus im Alterthum. Prof. Lutterbeck H. Thiersch, Ueber den
christ Staat. Dr. Bertling Oscar Schmidt, Die naturtviss. Grundl. der
Phil, des Unbewussten, Bibliographie, &c.
NO. /.] fJ^y. 1877-
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
I._ A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF AN INFANT.
M. Taine's very interesting account of the mental development
of an infant, translated in the last number of MIND (p. 252),
has led me to look over a diary which I kept thirty-seven
years ago with respect to one of my own infants. I had ex-
cellent opportunities for close observation, and wrote down at
once whatever was observed. My chief object was expression,
and my notes were used in my book on this subject ; but as I
attended to some other points, my observations may possibly
possess some little interest in comparison with those by M.
Taine, and with others which hereafter no doubt will be made,
I feel sure, from what I have seen with my own infants, that the
period of development of the several faculties will be found to
differ considerably in different infants.
During the first seven days various reflex actions, namely
sneezing, hickuping, yawning, stretching, and of course sucking
and screaming, were well performed by my infant. On the
seventh day, I touched the naked sole of his foot with a bit of
paper, and he jerked it away, curling at the same time his toes,
like a much older child when tickled. The perfection of these
reflex movements shows that the extreme imperfection of the
voluntary ones is not due to the state of the muscles or of the co-
ordinating centres, but to that of the seat of the will. At this time,
though so early, it seemed clear to me that a warm soft hand
19
286 A Biographical Sketch of an Infant.
applied to his face excited a wish to suck. This must be con-
sidered as a reflex or an instinctive action, for it is impossible to
believe that experience and association with the touch of his
mother's breast could so soon have come into play. During the
first fortnight he often started on hearing any sudden sound,
and blinked his eyes. The same fact was observed with
some of my other infants within the first fortnight. Once,
when he was 66 days old, I happened to sneeze, and he
started violently, frowned, looked frightened, and cried rather
badly : for an hour afterwards he was in a state which would be
called nervous in an older person, for every slight noise made him
start. A few days before this same date, he first started at an
object suddenly seen ; but for a long time afterwards sounds
made him start and wink his eyes much more frequently than
did sight; thus when 114 days old, I shook a paste-board box
with comfits in it near his face and he started, whilst the same
box when empty or any other object shaken as near or much
nearer to his face produced no effect. We may infer from these
several facts that the winking of the eyes, which manifestly
serves to protect them, had not been acquired through experi-
ence. Although so sensitive to sound in a general way, he was
not able even when 124 days old easily to recognise whence a
sound proceeded, so as to direct his eyes to the source.
With respect to vision, his eyes were fixed on a candle as
early as the 9th day, and up to the 45th day nothing else
seemed thus to fix them ; but on the 49th day his attention
was attracted by a bright-coloured tassel, as was shown by his
eyes becoming fixed and the movements of his arms ceasing.
It was surprising how slowly he acquired the power of follow-
ing with his eyes an object if swinging at all rapidly ; for he
could not do this well when seven and a half months old. At
the age of 32 days he perceived his mother's bosom when three
or four inches from it, as was shown by the protrusion of his
lips and his eyes becoming fixed ; but I much doubt whether this
had any connection with vision ; he certainly had not touched
the bosom. Whether he was guided through smell or the sensa-
tion of warmth or through association with the position in
which he was held, I do not at all know.
The movements of his limbs and body were for a long time
vague and purposeless, and usually performed in a jerking
manner ; but there was one exception to this rule, namely, that
from a very early period, certainly long before he was 40 days
old, he could move his hands to his own mouth. When 77
days old, he took the sucking bottle (with which he was partly
fed) in his right hand, whether he was held on the left or right
arm of his nurse, and he would not take it in his left hand
A Biographical Sketch of an Infant. 287
until a week later although I tried to make him do so ; so that
the right hand was a week in advance of the left. Yet this
infant afterwards proved to be left-handed, the tendency being
no doubt inherited his grandfather, mother, and a brother
having been or being left-handed. When between 80 and 90
days old, he drew all sorts of objects into his mouth, and in two
or three weeks' time could do this with some skill ; but he often
first touched his nose with the object and then dragged it down
into his mouth. After grasping my finger and drawing it to
his mouth, his own hand prevented him from sucking it ; but
on the 114th day, after acting in this manner, he slipped his own
hand down so that he could get the end of my finger into his
mouth. This action was repeated several times, and evidently
was not a chance but a rational one. The intentional move-
ments of the hands and arms were thus much in advance of
those of the body and legs ; though the purposeless movements
of the latter were from a very early period usually alternate
as in the act of walking. When four months old, he often
looked intently at his own hands and other objects close to him,
and in doing so the eyes were turned much inwards, so that lie
often squinted frightfully. In a fortnight after this time (i.e.
132 days old) I observed that if an object was brought as near
to his face as his own hands were, he tried to seize it, but often
failed ; and he did not try to do so in regard to more distant
objects. I think there can be little doubt that the convergence
of his eyes gave him the clue and excited him to move his arms.
Although this infant thus began to use his hands at an early
period, he showed no special aptitude in this respect, for when
he was 2 years and 4 months old, he held pencils, pens, and
other objects far less neatly and efficiently than did his sister
who was then only 14 months old, and who showed great in-
herent aptitude in handling anything.
Anger. It was difficult to decide at how early an age anger
was felt ; on his eighth day he frowned and wrinkled the skin
round his eyes before a crying fit, but this may have been due
to pain or distress, and not to anger. When about ten weeks
old, he was given some rather cold milk and he kept a slight
frown on his forehead all the time that he was sucking, so that
he looked like a grown-up person made cross from being com-
pelled to do something which he did not like. When nearly
four months old, and perhaps much earlier, there could be no
doubt, from the manner in which the blood gushed into his
whole face and scalp, that he easily got into a violent passion.
A small cause sufficed ; thus, when a little over seven months
old, he screamed with rage because a lemon slipped away and he
could not seize it with his hands. When eleven months old, if
288 A Biographical Sketch of an Infant.
a wrong plaything was given him, he would push it away and.
beat it ; I presume that the beating was an instinctive sign of
anger, like the snapping of the jaws by a young crocodile just
out of the egg, and not that he imagined he could hurt the
plaything. When two years and three months old, he became
a great adept at throwing books or sticks, &c., at anyone who
offended him ; and so it was with some of my other sons. On
the other hand, I could never see a trace of such aptitude in my
infant daughters ; and this makes me think that a tendency to
throw objects is inherited by boys.
Fear. This feeling probably is one of the earliest which is
experienced by infants, as shown by their starting at any sudden
sound when only a few weeks old, followed by crying. Before
the present one was 4 months old I had been accustomed to
make close to him many strange and loud noises, which were
all taken as excellent jokes, but at this period I one day made a
loud snoring noise which I had never done before ; he instantly
looked grave and then burst out crying. Two or three days
afterwards, I made through forgetfulness the same noise with the
s:ime result. About the same time (viz. on the 137th day) I
approached with my back towards him and then stood motion-
less : he looked very grave arid much surprised, and would soon
have cried, had I not turned round; then his face instantly
relaxed into a smile. It is well known how intensely older child-
ren suffer from vague and undefined fears, as from the dark, or in
passing an obscure corner in a large hall, &c. I may give as an
instance that I took the child in question, when 2J years old, to
the Zoological Gardens, and he enjoyed looking at all the animals
which were like those that he knew, such as deer, antelopes &c.,
and all the birds, even the ostriches, but was much alarmed at
the various larger animals in cages. He often said afterwards
that he wished to go again, but not to see " beasts in houses " ;
and we could in no manner account for this fear. May we not
suspect that the vague but very real fears of children, which are
quite independent of experience, are the inherited effects of real
dangers and abject superstitions during ancient savage times ?
It is quite conformable with what we know of the transmission
of formerly well-developed characters, that they should appear
at an early period of life, and afterwards disappear.
Pleasurable Sensations. It may be presumed that infants feel
pleasure whilst sucking, and the expression of their swimming
eyes seems to show that this is the case. This infant smiled
when 45 days, a second infant when 46 days old ; and these
were true smiles, indicative of pleasure, for their eyes brightened
and eyelids slightly closed. The smiles arose chiefly when look-
ing at their mother, and were therefore probably of mental origin ;
A Biographical Sketch of an Infant. 289
but this infant often smiled then, and for some time afterwards,
from some inward pleasurable feeling, for nothing was happening
which could have in any way excited or amused him. When
110 days old he was exceedingly amused by a pinafore being
thrown over his face and then suddenly withdrawn ; and so he
was when I suddenly uncovered my own face and approached
his. He then uttered a little noise which was an incipient
laugh. Here surprise was the chief cause of the amusement, as
is the case to a large extent with the wit of grown-up persons.
I believe that for three or four weeks before the time when he
was amused by a face being suddenly uncovered, he received a
little pinch on his nose and cheeks as a good joke. I was at
first surprised at humour being appreciated by an infant only a
little above three months old, but we should remember how very
early puppies and kittens begin to play. When four months
old, he showed in an unmistakable manner that he liked to hear
the pianoforte played ; so that here apparently was the earliest
sign of an aesthetic feeling, unless the attraction of bright
colours, which was exhibited much earlier, may be so considered.
Affection. This probably arose very early in life, if we may
judge by his smiling at those who had charge of him when
under two months old ; though I had no distinct evidence of
his distinguishing and recognising anyone, until he was nearly
four months old. When nearly five months old, he plainly
showed his wish to go to his nurse. But he did not spon-
taneously exhibit affection by overt acts until a little above a
year old, namely, by kissing several times his nurse who had
been absent for a short time. With respect to the allied feeling
of sympathy, this was clearly shown at 6 months and 11
days by his melancholy face, with the corners of his mouth
well depressed, when his nurse pretended to cry. Jealousy was
plainly exhibited when I fondled a large doll, and when I
weighed his infant sister, he being then 15 J months old.
Seeing how strong a feeling jealousy is in dogs, it would
probably be exhibited by infants at an earlier age than that just
specified, if they were tried in a fitting manner.
Association of Ideas, Reason, &c. The first action which
exhibited, as far as I observed, a kind of practical reasoning, has
already been noticed, namely, the slipping his hand down my
finger so as to get the end of it into his mouth ; and this
happened on the 114th day. When four and a half months old,
he repeatedly smiled at my image and his own in a mirror, and
no doubt mistook them for real objects ; but he showed sense
in being evidently surprised at my voice coming from behind
him. Like all infants he much enjoyed thus looking at himself,
and in less than two months perfectly understood that it was
200 A Biographical Sketch of an Infant.
an image ; for if I made quite silently any odd grimace, he
would suddenly turn round to look at me. He was, however,
puzzled at the age of seven months, when being out of doors he
saw me on the inside of a large plate-glass window, and seemed
in doubt whether or not it was an image. Another of my
infants, a little girl, when exactly a year old, was not nearly so
acute, and seemed quite perplexed at the image of a person in
a mirror approaching her from behind. The higher apes which
I tried with a small looking-glass behaved differently ; they
placed their hands behind the glass, and in doing so showed
their sense, but far from taking pleasure in looking at them-
selves they got angry and would look no more.
When live months old, associated ideas arising independently
of any instruction became fixed in his mind ; thus as soon as
his hat and cloak were put on, he was very cross if he was not
immediately taken out of doors. When exactly seven months
old, he made the great step of associating his nurse with her
name, so that if I called it out he would look round for her.
Another infant used to amuse himself by shaking his head
laterally : we praised and imitated him, saying " (Shake your
head " ; and when he was seven months old, he would' some-
times do so on being told without any other guide. During the
next four months the former infant associated many things and
actions with words ; thus when asked for a kiss he would pro-
trude his lips and keep still, would shake his head and say in
a scolding voice " Ah " to the coal-box or. a little spilt water, &c.,
which he had been taught to consider as dirty. I may add
that when a few days under nine months old he associated
his own name with his image in the looking-glass, and when
called by name would turn towards the glass even when at some
distance from it. When a few days over nine months, he learnt
spontaneously that a hand or other object causing a shadow to
fall on the wall in front of him was to be looked for behind.
Whilst under a year old, it was sufficient to repeat two or three
times at intervals any short sentence to fix firmly in his mind
some associated idea. In the infant described by M. Taine (pp.
254-256) the age at which ideas readily became associated seems
to have been considerably later, unless indeed the earlier cases
were overlooked. The facility with which associated ideas due
to instruction and others spontaneously arising were acquired,
seemed to me by far the most strongly marked of all the dis-
tinctions between the mind of an infant and that of the cleverest
full-grown dog that I have ever known. What a contrast does
the mind of an infant present to that of the pike, described by
Professor Mobius,* who during three whole months dashed and
* Die Bewegungtn dtr Thiere, &c., 1873, p. 11.
A Biographical Sketch of an Infant. 291
stunned himself against a glass partition which separated him
from some minnows ; and when, after at last learning that he
could not attack them with impunity, he was placed in the
aquarium with these same minnows, then in a persistent and
senseless manner he would not attack them !
Curiosity, as M. Taine remarks, is displayed at an early age
by infants, and is highly important in the development of their
minds ; but I made no special observation on this head. Imita-
tion likewise comes into play. When our infant was only four
months old I thought that he tried to imitate sounds ; but I may
have deceived myself, for I was not thoroughly convinced that
he did so until he was ten months old. At the age of 1 1 1
months he could readily imitate all sorts of actions, such as
shaking his head and saying " Ah " to any dirty object, or by
carefully and slowly putting his forefinger in the middle of the
pal in of his other hand, to the childish rhyme of " Pat it and pat
it and mark it with T ". It was amusing to behold his pleased
expression after successfully performing any such accomplish-
ment.
I do not know whether it is worth mentioning, as showing
something about the strength of memory in a young child, that
this one when 3 years and 23 days old on being shown an
engraving of his grandfather, whom he had not seen for exactly
six months, instantly recognised him and mentioned a whole
string of events which had occurred whilst visiting him, and
which certainly had never been mentioned in the interval.
Moral Sense. The first sign of moral sense was noticed at the
age of nearly 13 months : I said " Doddy (his nickname) won't
give poor papa a kiss, naughty Doddy ". These words, without
doubt, made him feel slightly uncomfortable ; and at last when
I had returned to my chair, he protruded his lips as a sign that
he was ready to kiss me ; and he then shook his hand in an
angry manner until I came and received his kiss. Nearly the
same little scene recurred in a few days, and the reconciliation
seemed to give him so much satisfaction, that several times
afterwards he pretended to be angry and slapped me, a.nd then
insisted on giving me a kiss. So that here we have a touch of
the dramatic art, which is so strongly pronounced in most young
children. About this time it became easy to work on his feel-
ings and make him do whatever was wanted. When 2 years
and 3 months old, he gave his last bit of gingerbread to his little
sister, and then cried out with high self-approbation " Oh kind
Doddy, kind Doddy ". Two months later, he became extremely
sensitive to ridicule, and was so suspicious that he often thought
people who were laughing and talking together were laughing
at him. A little later (2 years and 7| mouths old) I met him
292 A Biographical Sketch of an Infant.
coming out of the dining room with his eyes unnaturally bright,
and an odd unnatural or affected manner, so that I went into
the room to see who was there, and found that he had been
taking pounded sugar, which he had been told not to do. As
he had never been in any way punished, his odd manner cer-
tainly was not due to fear, and I suppose it was pleasurable
excitement struggling with conscience. A fortnight afterwards,
I met him coming out of the same room, and he was eyeing his
pinafore which he had carefully rolled up ; and again his manner
was so odd that I determined to see what was within his pina-
fore, notwithstanding that he said there was nothing and
repeatedly commanded me to " go away," and I found it stained
with pickle-juice ; so that here was carefully planned deceit.
As this child was educated solely by working on his good feel-
ings, he soon became as truthful, open, and tender, as anyone
could desire.
Unconsciousness, Shyness. No one can have attended to very
young children without being struck at the unabashed manner
in which they fixedly stare without blinking their eyes at a new
face ; an old person can look in this manner only at an animal
or inanimate object. This, I believe, is the result of young
children not thinking in the least about themselves, and there-
fore not being in the least shy, though they are sometimes afraid
of strangers. I saw the first symptom of shyness in my child
when nearly two years and three months old : this was shown
towards myself, after an absence of ten days from home, chiefly
by his eyes being kept slightly averted from mine ; but he soon
came and sat on my knee and kissed me, and all trace of shy-
ness disappeared.
Means of Communication. The noise of crying or rather of
squalling, as no tears are shed for a long time, is of course
uttered in an instinctive manner, but serves to show that there
is suffering. After a time the sound differs according to the
cause, such as hunger or pain. This was noticed when this
infant was eleven weeks old, and I believe at an earlier age in
another infant. Moreover, he appeared soon to learn to begin
crying voluntarily, or to wrinkle his face in the manner proper
to the occasion, so as to show that he wanted something. When
46 days old, he first made little noises without any meaning to
please himself, and these soon became varied. An incipient
laugh was observed on the 113th day, but much earlier in
another infant. At this date I thought, as already remarked,
that he began to try to imitate sounds, as he certainly did at a
considerably later period. When five and a half months old, he
uttered an articulate sound " da " but without any meaning
attached to it. When a little over a year old, he used gestures
A Biographical Sketch of an Infant. 293
to explain his wishes ; to give a simple instance, he picked up a
bit of paper and giving it to me pointed to the fire, as he had
often seen and liked to see paper burnt. At exactly the age of
a year, he made the great step of inventing a word for food,
namely, mum, but what led him to it I did not discover. And
now instead of beginning to cry when he was hungry, he used
this word in a demonstrative manner or as a verb, implying
" Give me food ". This word therefore corresponds with ham as
used by M. Taine's infant at the later age of 14 months. But
he also used mum as a substantive of wide signification ; thus
he called sugar shu-mum, and a little later after he had learned
the word " black," he called liquorice Uack-slm-mum, black-
sugar-food.
I was particularly struck with the fact that when asking for
food by the word mum he gave to it (I will copy the words
written down at the time) "a most strongly marked inter-
rogatory sound at the end ". He also gave to " Ah," which he
chiefly used at first when recognising any person or his own
image in a mirror, an exclamatory sound, such as we employ
when surprised. I remark in my notes that the use of these
intonations seemed to have arisen instinctively, and I regret
that more observations were not made on this subject. I
record, however, in my notes that at a rather later period, when
between 18 and 21 months old, he modulated his voice in
refusing peremptorily to do anything by a defiant whine, so as
to express " That I won't " ; and again his humph of assent
expressed " Yes, to be sure ". M. Taine also insists strongly on
the highly expressive tones of the sounds made by his infant
before she had learnt to speak. The interrogatory sound which
my child gave to the word mum when asking for food is
especially curious ; for if anyone will use a single word or a
short sentence in this manner, he will find that the musical
pitch of liis voice rises considerably at the close. I did not then
see that this fact bears on the view which I have elsewhere
maintained that before man used articulate language, he uttered
notes in a true musical scale as does the anthropoid ape Hylo-
bates.
Finally, the wants of an infant are at first made intelligible
by instinctive cries, which after a time are modified in part
unconsciously, and in part, as T believe, voluntarily as a means
of communication, by the unconscious expression of the
features, by gestures and in a marked manner by different
intonations, lastly by words of a general nature invented
by himself, then of a more precise nature imitated from those
which he hears ; and these latter are acquired at a wonderfully
quick rate. An infant understands to a certain extent, and as
294 Education as a Science.
I believe at a very early period, the meaning or feelings of those
who tend him, by the expression of their features. There can
hardly be a doubt about this with respect to smiling ; and it
seemed to me that the infant whose biography I have here
given understood a compassionate expression at a little over five
months old. When 6 months and 11 days old he certainly showed
sympathy with his nurse on her pretending to cry. When
pleased after performing some new accomplishment, being then
almost a year old, he evidently studied the expression of those
around him. It was probably due to differences of expression and
not merely of the form of the features that certain faces clearly
pleased him much more than others, even at so early an age as
a little over six months. Before he was a year old, he under-
stood intonations and gestures, as well as several words and
short sentences. He understood one word, namely, his nurse's
name, exactly five months before he invented his first word mum;
and this is what might have been expected, as we know that
the lower animals easily learn to understand spoken words.
CHARLES DARWIN.
II. EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. (II.)
IN a preceding article (MiND, No. V.), the psychological
bearings of Education were entered upon ; and two out of the
three primary functions of the Intellect were considered. There
remained the power named
Similarity or Agreement.
It is neither an inapt nor a strained comparison to call this
power the Law of Gravitation of the intellectual world. As
regards Education, it has an importance co-equal with the
plastic force that is expressed by Eetentiveness or Memory.
The methods to be pursued in attaining the commanding
heights .of General Knowledge are framed by the circumstances
attending the detection of Like in the midst of Unlike.
With all the variety that there is in the world of our experi-
ence, a variety appealing to our consciousness of difference, there
is also great Eepetition, sameness, or unity. There are many
shades of colour, as distinguished by the discriminative sensi-
bility of the eye ; yet the same shade often recurs. There are
many varieties of form the round, the square, the spiral, &c.
and we discriminate them when they are contrasted ; while the
same form starts up again and again. At first sight, this would
Education as a Science. 295
appear to mean nothing at all ; the great matter would appear
to be to avoid confounding differences blue with violet, a
circle with an oval ; when blue recurs, we sirnply treat it as we
did at first.
The remark is too hasty, and overlooks a vital consideration.
What raises the principle of Similarity to its commanding
height is the accompaniment of diversity. The round form first
discerned in a ring or a half-penny, recurs in the full moon,
where the adjuncts are totally different and need to be felt as
different. In spite of these disturbing accompaniments, it is
important to feel the agreement on the single circumstance called
the round form.
When an impression made in one situation is repeated in an
altered situation, the new experience reminds us of the old, not-
withstanding the diversity ; this reminder may be described as a
new kind of shock, or awakened consciousness, called the shock
or flash of identity in the midst of difference. A piece of coal
and a piece of wood differ, and are at first looked upon as
differing. Put into the fire, they both blaze up, give heat, and
are consumed : here is a shock of agreement which becomes an
abiding impression in connection with these two things. Of
such shocks is made up one-half of what we term Knowledge.
Whenever there is a difference it should be felt by us ; and
so whenever there is an agreement it should be felt. To over-
look either the one or the other is stupidity. Our education
marches in both lines ; and, in so far as we are helped by
the schoolmaster, we should be helped in both. The artifices
that promote discrimination, and the influences that thwart it,
have been already considered ; and many of the observations
apply also to Agreement. In the identifying of like in the
midst of unlike, there are cases that are easy ; and there are
cases that the unassisted mind fails to perceive.
(1.) We must repeat, with reference to the delicate perception
of Agreements, the antithesis of the intellectual and the emo-
tional outgoings. It is in the stillness of the emotions that the
higher intellectual exercises are possible. This circumstance
should operate as a warning against the too frequent recourse
to pains and penalties, as well as against pleasurable and other
excitement. But a more specific application remains.
We may at once face the problem of General Knowledge.
The most troublesome half of the education of the intellect is the
getting possession of generalities. A general fact, notion, or
truth, is a fact recurring under various circumstances or accom-
paniments : ' heat ' is the name for such a generality ; there are
many individual facts greatly differing among themselves, but
all agreeing in the impression called heat the sun, a fire, a
296 Education as a Science.
lamp, a living animal. The intellect discerns, or is struck with,
the agreement, notwithstanding the differences ; and in this
discernment arrives at a general idea.
Now the grand stumbling-block in the way of the generalising
impetus is the presence of the individual differences. These
may be small and insignificant ; in comparing fires with one
another, the agreement is striking, while the differences between
one fire and another, in size, or intensity, or fuel, do not divert
the attention from their agreement. But the discerning of
sameness in the sun's ray and in a fermenting dung-heap is
thwarted by the extraordinary disparity ; and this conflict
between the sameness and the difference operates widely and
retards the discovery of the most important truths.
(2.) The device of juxta-position applies to the expounding
of Agreement, no less than of difference. We can arrange the
several agreeing facts in such a way that the agreement is more
easily seen. The effect is gained partly by closeness, as in the
case of differences, and partly by a symmetrical contact, as
when we compare the two hands by placing them finger to
finger, and thumb to thumb. Such symmetrical comparisons
bring to view, in the same act, agreement and difference. The
method reaches far and wide, and is one of the most powerful
artificial aids to the imparting knowledge.
(3.) The cumulation of the instances is essential to the
driving home of a generality. A continuous, undistracted
iteration of the point of agreement is the only way to produce
an adequate impression of a great general idea. I cannot now
consider the various obstacles encountered in this attempt, nor
explain how seldom it can be adhered to in the highest
examples. It must suffice to remark that the interest special
to the individual examples is perpetually carrying off the atten-
tion ; and pupil and master are both liable to be turned aside
by the seduction.
There is another aspect of the power of Similarity, under
which it is a valuable aid to Memory or Eetention. When we
have to learn an exercise absolutely new, we must engrain every
step by the plastic adhesiveness of the brain, and must give
time and opportunity for the adhesive links to be matured.
But when we come to an exercise containing parts already
acquired by the plastic operation, we are saved the labour of
forging fresh links as regards these, and need only to master
what is new to us. When we have known all about one plant,
we can easily learn the other plants of the same species or
genus ; we need only to master the points of variety.
The bearing of this circumstance on mental growth must be
apparent at once. After a certain number of acquirements in
Education as a Science. 297
the various regions of study manual art, language, visible
pictures nothing that occurs is absolutely new ; the amount of
novel matter is continually decreasing as our knowledge in-
creases. Our adhesive faculty is not improving as we grow
in years ; very much the contrary : but our facility in taking
in new knowledge improves steadily; the fact being that the
knowledge is so little new that the forging of fresh adhesions
is reduced to a very limited compass. The most original air of
music that the most original genius could compose would be
very soon learnt by an instructed musician.
In the practice of the schoolmaster's art, this great fact will
be perpetually manifesting itself. The operation can be aided
and guided in those cases where the agreement really existing
is not felt. It is one of the teaching arts to make the pupils
see the old in the new, as far as the agreement reaches ; and
to pose them upon this very circumstance. The obstacles are
the very same as already described, and the means of over-
coming them the same. Orderly juxta-position is requisite for
matters of complexity ; and we may have also to counterwork
the attractions of individuality.
Construct 'iveness.
In many parts of our education, the stress lies not in simple
memory, or the tenacious holding of what has been presented
to the mind, but in making us perform some new operation,
something that we were previously unable to do. Such are the
first stages of our instruction in speaking, in writing, and in all
the mechanical or manual arts. So also in the higher intel-
lectual processes, as in the imagining of what we have not
seen. I do not go so far as to include invention or discovery ;
the culture of the creative faculty is not comprised in the
present discussion.
The psychology of Constructiveness is remarkably simple.
There are certain primary conditions that run through all the
cases ; and it is by paying due respect to these conditions that
we can, as teachers, render every possible assistance to the
struggling pupils.
(1.) The constructive process supposes something to construct
from; some powers already possessed that can be exercised,
directed, and combined in a new manner. We must walk
before beginning to dance ; we must articulate simple sounds
before we can articulate words ; we must draw straight strokes
and pot-hooks before we can form letters; we must conceive
trees and shrubs, flowers and grassy plots, before we can con-
ceive a garden.
The practical inference is no less obvious and irresistible ; it
298 Education as a Science.
is one that covers the whole field of education, and could never
be entirely neglected, although it has certainly never been fully
carried out. Before entering on a new exercise, we must first
be led up to it by mastering the preliminary or preparatory
exercises. Teachers are compelled by their failures to attend
to this fact in the more palpable exercises, as speaking and
writing. They lose sight of it, when the succession of stages is
too subtle for their apprehension, as in the understanding of
scientific doctrines.
"(2.) In aiming at a new construction, we must clearly con-
ceive what is aimed at ; we must have the means of judging
whether or not our tentatives are successful. The child in
writing has the copy lines before it ; the man in the ranks sees
the fugleman, or hears the approving or disapproving voice of
the drill-sergeant. Where we have a very distinct and intelli-
gible model before us, we are in a fair way to succeed ; in
proportion as the ideal is dim and wavering, we stagger and
miscarry. When we depend upon a teacher's expressed approval
of our effort, it behoves him to be very consistent, as well as
very sound, in his judgment ; should he be one thing to-day,
and another thing to-morrow, we are unhinged and undone.
It is a defect pertaining to all models that they contain
individual peculiarities mixed up with the ideal intention. We
carry away with us from every instructor touches of mannerism,
and the worst of it is that some learners catch nothing but the
mannerism ; this being generally easier :o fall into than the
essential merits of the teaching. There is no remedy here
except the comparison of several good models ; as the ship-
captain carries with him a number of chronometers.
In following an unapproachable original, as in learning to
write from copperplate lines, we need a second judgment to
inform us whether our deviations are serious and fundamental,
or are venial and unavoidable. The good tact of our instructor
is here put to the test ; he may make our patli like the shining
light that shineth more and more, or he may leave us in hope-
less perplexity. To point out to us where, how, and why we are
wrong, is the teacher's most indispensable function.
(3.) The only mode of arriving at a new constructive com-
bination is to try and try again. The will initiates some move-
ments ; these are found not to answer, and are suppressed ;
others are tried, and so on, until the requisite combination has
been struck out. The way to new powers is by trial and error.
According as the first and second conditions above given are
realised, the unsuccessful trials are fewer. If we have been
well led up to the combination required, and if we have before
us a very clear idea of what is to be done, we do not need many
Education as a Science. 299
tentatives ; the prompt suppression of the wrong movements
ultimately lands us in the right.
The mastering of a new manual combination, as in writing,
in learning to swim, in the mechanical arts, is a very trying
moment to the human powers ; success involves all those
favourable circumstances indicated in discussing the retentive
or receptive faculty. Vigour, freshness, freedom from distrac-
tion, no strong or extraneous emotions, motives to succeed, are
all most desirable in realising a difficult combination. Fatigue,
fear, flurry, or other wasting excitement, do away with the
chances of success.
Very often we have to give up the attempt for a time ; yet
the ineffectual struggles are not entirely lost We have at
least learnt to avoid a certain number of positions, and have
narrowed the round of tentatives for the next occasion. If after
two or three repetitions, with rest intervals, the desired com-
bination does not emerge, it is a proof that some preparatory
movement is wanting, and we should be made to retrace the
approaches. Perhaps we may have learnt the pre-requisite
movements in a way, but not with sufficient firmness and
certainty for securing their being performed in combination.
Alternation and Remission of Activity.
In the accustomed routine of Education, a number of separate
studies and acquirements are prosecuted together ; so that, for
each day, a pupil may have to engage in as many as three, four,
or more, different kinds of lessons.
The principles that guide the alternation and remission of
our modes of exercise and application are apparently these :
(1.) Sleep is the only entire and absolute cessation of the
mental and bodily expenditure ; and perfect or dreamless sleep
is the greatest cessation of all. Whatever shortens the due
allowance of sleep, renders it fitful and disturbed or promotes
dreaming, is so much force wasted.
In the waking hours, there may be cessation from a given
exercise, with more or less of inaction over the whole system.
The greatest diversion of the working forces is made by our
meals : during these the trains of thought are changed, while
the body is rested.
Bodily or muscular exercise, when alternated with sedentary
mental labour, is really a mode of remission accompanied with
an expenditure requisite to redress the balance of the physical
functions. The blood has unduly flowed to the brain ; muscular
exercise draws it off. The oxidation of the tissues has been
retarded ; muscular exercise is the most direct mode of increas-
ing it. But definite observations teach us that these two
300 Education as a Science.
beneficial effects are arrested at the fatigue-point ; so that the
exercise at last contributes not to the refreshment, but to the
farther exhaustion of the system.
(2.) The real matter before us is, what do we gain by
dropping one form of activity and taking up another ? This
involves a variety of considerations.
It is clear that the first exercise must not have been pushed
so far as to induce general exhaustion. The raw recruit, at the
end of his morning drill, is not in a good state to improve his
arithmetic in the military schoolroom. The musical training
for the stage is at times so severe as to preclude every other
study. The importance of a particular training may be such
that we desire for it the whole available plasticity of the system.
It is only another form of exhaustion when the currents of
the brain continue in their set channels and refuse any proposed
diversion.
There are certain stages in every new and difficult study,
wherein it might be well to concentrate for a time the highest
energy of the day. Generally, it is at the commencement ; but
whatever be the point of special difficulty, there might be a
remission of all other serious or arduous studies, till this is got
over. Not that we need actually to lay aside every thing else ;
but there are, in most studies, many long tracts where we seem
in point of form to be moving on, but are really repeating
substantially the same familiar efforts. It would be a felicitous
ideal adjustment, if the moments of strain in one of the parallel
courses were to coincide with the moments of ease in the rest.
Hardly any kind of study or exercise is so complicated and
many-sided as to press alike upon all the energies of the system ;
hence there :s an obvious propriety in making such variations
as would leave unused as few of our faculties as possible.
This principle necessarily applies to every mental process
acquirement, production, and enjoyment. The working out of
the principle supposes that we are not led away by the mere
semblance of variety.
Let us endeavour to assign the differences of subject that
afford relief by transition.
There are many kinds of change that are merely another
name for simple remission of the intellectual strain. When a
severe and difficult exercise is exchanged for an easy one, the
agreeable effect is due not to what we engage in, but to what
we are relieved from. For letting down the strain of the
faculties, it is sometimes better to take up a light occupation
for a time than to be totally idle.
The exchange of study for sport has the two-fold advantage
of muscular exercise, and agreeable play. To pass from any-
Education as a Science. 301
thing that is simply laborious to the indulgence of a taste or
liking, is the fruition of life. To emerge from constraint to
liberty, from the dark to the light, from monotony to variety, from
giving to receiving is the exchanging of pain for pleasure.
This, which is the substantial reward of labour, is also the con-
dition of renovating the powers for farther labour and endur-
ance.
To come closer to the difficulty in hand. The kind of change
that may take place within the field of study itself, and that
may operate both as a relief from strain and as the reclamation
of waste ground, is best exemplified in such matters as these :
In the act of learning generally there is a two-fold attitude
observing what is to be done, and doing it. In verbal exer-
cises, we first listen and then repeat ; in handicraft, we look
at the model, and then reproduce it. Now the proportioning
of the two attitudes is a matter of economical adjustment. If
we are kept too long on the observing stretch, we lose the
energy for acting ; not to mention that more has been given us
than we are able to realise. On the other hand, we should
observe long enough to be quite saturated with the impression ;
we should have enough given us to be worthy of our reproducing
energy. Anyone working from a model at command learns the
suitable proportion between observing and doing. The living
teacher may err on either side. He may give too much at one
dose ; this is the common error. He may also dole out insig-
nificantly small portions, which do not evoke the sense of
power in the pupils.
When an arduous combination is once struck out, the worst
is over, but the acquisition is not completed. There is the
farther stage of repetition and practice, to give facility and
ensure permanence. This is comparatively easy. It is the
occupation of the soldier after his first year. There is a plastic
process still going on, but it is not the same draft upon the
forces as the original struggles. At this stage, other acquire-
ments are possible and should be made. Now, in the course of
training, it is a relief to pass from the exercises that are entirely
new and strange, to those that have been practised and need
only to be continued and confirmed.
Before considering the alternations of departments of acquisi-
tion, we may advert to the two different intellectual energies,
called, respectively, Memory and Judgment. These are in every
way distinct, and in passing from the one to the other, there is a
real, and not merely an apparent, transition. Memory is nearly
identical with the Retentive, Adhesive, or Plastic faculty,
which I have assumed to be perhaps the most costly employ-
ment of the powers of the mind and brain. Judgment again
20
302 Education as a Science.
may be simply an exercise of Discrimination ; it may also involve
Similarity and Identification; it may farther contain a Con-
structive operation. It is the aspect of our intellectual power
that turns to account our existing impressions, as contrasted
with the power that adds to our accumulated stores. The most
delightful and fructifying of all the intellectual energies is the
power of Similarity and Agreement, by which we rise from the
individual to the general, trace sameness in diversity, and
master, instead of being mastered by, the multiplicity of nature.
Much more would be necessary to exhaust the nature of the
opposition between exercises of Memory and exercises of Judg-
ment. Language and Science approximately represent the con-
trast, although language does not exclude judgment, and science
demands memory. But in the one region, mere adhesion is in
the ascendant, and, in the other, the detection of similarity in
diversity is the leading circumstance. There is thus a real
transition, and change of strain, in passing from the one class
of studies to the other ; the only qualifying circumstance is that
in early years routine adhesion plays the greatest part, being,
in fact, easier than the other line of exertion, for reasons that
can be divined.
We can now see what are the departments that constitute the
most effective transitions or diversions, whereby relief may be
gained at one point, and acquirement pushed at some other.
In the muscular acquirements, we have several distinct regions
the body generally, the hand in particular, the voice (articulate)
and the voice (musical). To pass from one of these to the other is
almost a total change. Then as to the sense engaged, we may
alternate between the eye and the ear, making another complete
transition. Farther, each of the sense-organs has distinguishable
susceptibilies, as colour and form to the eye, articulation and
music to the ear.
Another effective transition is from books or spoken teaching
to concrete objects as set forth in the sciences of observation and
experiment. The change is nearly the same as from an abstract
subject like Mathematics, to one of the concrete and experimental
sciences, as Botany and Chemistry. A still farther change is
from the world of matter to the world of mind, but this is liable
to assume false and delusive appearances.
It has been well remarked that Arithmetic is an effective
transition from Beading and Writing. The whole strain and
attitude of the mind is entirely different, when the pupil sets to
perform sums after a reading lesson. The Mathematical sciences
are naturally deemed the driest and hardest of occupations to
the average mind ; yet there may be occupations such as to make
them an acceptable diversion. I have known clergymen whose
Education as a Science. 303
relaxation from clerical duty consisted in algebraical and geo-
metrical problems.
The Fine Art acquisitions introduce an agreeable variety,
partly by bringing distinctive organs into play, and partly by
evoking a pleasurable interest that enters little, if at all, into
other studies. The more genial part of Moral Training has a
relationship to Art ; the severer exercises are a painful necessity,
and not an agreeable transition from anything.
The introduction of narratives, stirring incidents, and topics
of human interest generally, is chiefly a mode of pleasurable
recreation. If taken in any other view, it falls under some of
the leading studies, and engages the Memory, the Judgment,
or the Constructive power, and must be estimated accordingly.
Bodily training, Fine Art (itself an aggregate of alternations),
Language, Science, do not exhaust all the varieties of acquire-
ment, but they indicate the chief departments whose alternation
gives relief to the mental strain, and economises power in the
whole. Under these, as already hinted, there are variations of
attitude and exercise ; from listening to repeating, from learning
a rule to the application of it in new cases, from knowledge
generally to practice.
The transition from one language to another, being a varia-
tion in the nature of the impressions, is a relief of an inferior
kind, yet real. It is the more so, if we are not engaged in
parallel exercises ; learning strings of Latin words in the
morning, and of German in the evening, does not constitute any
relief.
From one science to another, the transition may be great, as
already shown, or it may be small. From Botany to Zoology
affords a transition of material, with similarity in form. Pure
and Mixed Mathematics are the very same thing. The change
from Algebra to Geometry is but slightly refreshing ; from
Geometry to Trigonometry, and Geometrical Conic Sections, is
no relief to any faculty.
There are minor incidents of relief and alternation that are
not to be despised. Passing from one master to another (both
being supposed competent) is a very sensible and grateful
change ; even the change of room, of seat, of posture, is an
antidote against weariness, and helps us in making a fresh start.
The jaded student relishes a change of books in the same subject.
Some subjects are in themselves so mixed that they would
appear to contain the elements of a sufficiently various occupa-
tion of the mind ; such are Geography, History, and what is
called Literature, when studied both for expression and for
subject-matter. This variety, however, is not altogether a
desirable thing. The analytic branch of the Science of Educa-
304 Education as a Science.
tion would have to resolve those aggregates into their constituent
parts, and consider not only their respective contributions to
our mental culture, but also the advantages and disadvantages
attending the mixture.
CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS.
The laws attainable in the departments of Emotion and
Volition are the immediate prelude to Moral Education, in
which all the highest difficulties culminate. There are emo-
tional and volitional forces prior to any cultivation, and there
are new forces that arise through cultivation ; yet from the
vagueness attaching to the measured intensity of feelings and
emotions, it is not easy to value the separate results.
The general laws of Retentiveness equally apply to emotional
growths. There must be Eepetition and Concentration of mind
to bring about a mental association of pleasure or of pain with
any object. But there are peculiarities in the case such as to
demand for it a supplementary treatment. Perhaps the best
way of bringing out the points is to indicate the modes or species
of growths, coming under Emotion and Volition, that most
obtrude themselves upon the notice of the educationist.
(1.) We may quote first the Associations of Pleasure and
Pain with the various things that have been present to us
during our experiences of delight and suffering. It is well
known that we contract pleasurable regards towards things
originally indifferent that have been often present to us in
happy moments. Local associations are among the most
familiar examples ; if our life is joyous, we go on increasing our
attachments to our permanent home and neighbourhood ; we
are severely tried when we have to migrate ; and one of our
holiday delights is to revisit the scenes of former pleasures.
A second class of acquired feelings includes the associations
with such objects as have been the instruments of our avoca-
tions, tastes, and pursuits. The furnishings of our home, our
tools, weapons, curiosities, collections, books, pictures, all
contract a glow of associated feeling, that helps to palliate the
dulness of life. The essence of affection, as distinguished from
emotion, is understood to be the confirming and strengthening
of some primary object of our regards. As our knowledge
extends, we contract numerous associations with things purely
ideal, as with historic places, persons, and incidents. I need
only allude to the large field of ceremonies, rites, and formalities,
which are cherished as enlarging the surface of emotional
growths. The Fine Art problem of distinguishing between
original and derived effects consists in more precisely estimating
these acquired pleasures.
Education as a Science. 305
The educationist could not but cast a longing eye over the
wide region here opened up, as a grand opportunity for his art.
It is the realm of vague possibility, peculiarly suited to san-
guine estimates. An education in happiness pure and simple,
by well-placed joyous associations, is a dazzling prospect. One
of Sydney Smith's pithy sayings was " If you make children
happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence, by the
memory of it ". This referred no doubt to the home life. It
may, however, be carried out also in the school life ; and enthu-
siasm has gone the length of supposing that the school may be
so well constituted as to efface the stamp of an unhappy home.
The growth of such happy associations is not the work of
days ; it demands years. I have endeavoured to set forth the
psychology of the case (The Emotions and the Will, 3rd edit., p.
89), and do not here repeat the principles and conditions that
seem to be involved. But the thread of the present exposition
would be snapt, if I were riot to ask attention to the difference
in the rate of growth when the feelings are painful ; the progress
here is not so tedious nor so liable to thwarting and interruption.
With understood exceptions, pleasure is related physically
with vitality, health, vigour, harmonious adjustment of all the
parts of the system; it needs sufficiency of nutriment or support,
excitement within due limits, the absence of every thing that
could mar or irritate any organ. Pain comes of the deficiency
in any of these conditions, and is therefore as easy to bring
about and maintain as the other is difficult. To evoke an echo
or recollection of pleasure, is to secure, or at least to simulate,
the copiousness, the due adjustment and harmony of the powers.
This may be easy enough when such is the actual state at the
time, but that is no test. What we need is to induce a pleasur-
able tone, when the actuality is no more than indifferent or
neutral, and even, in the midst of actual pain, to restore pleasure
by force of mental adhesiveness. A growth of this description
is on a priori grounds not likely to be very soon reached.
On the other hand, pain is easy in the actual, and easy in the
ideal. It is easy to burn one's fingers, and easy to associate
pain with a flame, a cinder, a hot iron. Going as spectators to
visit a fine mansion, we feel in some degree elated by the asso-
ciations of enjoyment ; but we are apt to be in a still greater
degree depressed by entering the abodes of wretchedness, or
visiting the gloomy chambers of a prison.
(2.) The facility of painful growths is not fully comprehended,
until we advert to the case of Passionate Outbursts or the modes
of feeling whose characteristic is Explosiveness. These costly
discharges of vital energy are easy to induce at first hand, and
easy to attach to indifferent things, so as to be induced at second
306 Education as a Science.
hand likewise. Very rarely are they desirable in themselves ;
our study is to check and control them in their original operation,
and to hinder the ris.e of new occasions for their display. One of
the best examples is Terror ; an explosive and wasteful manifesta-
tion of energy under certain forms of pain. If it is frequently
stimulated by its proper causes, it attaches itself to bystanding
circumstances with fatal readiness, and proceeds with no tardy
steps. Next is Irascibility, also an explosive emotion. It too,
if ready to burst out by its primary causes, soon enlarges its
borders by new associations. It is in every way more dangerous
than terror. The state of fear is so miserable that we would
restrain it if we could. The state of anger, although containing
painful elements, is in its nature a luxurious mood ; and we may
not wish either to check it in the first instance, or to prevent it
from spreading over collateral things. When any one has
stirred our irascibility to its depths, the feeling overflows upon
all that relates to him. If this be pleasure, it is a pleasure of
rapid growth ; even in tender years we may be advanced in
hatreds. That combination of terror and irascibility giving
rise to what is named Antipathy is (unless strongly resisted) a
state easy to assume and easy to cultivate, and is in wide con-
trast with the slow growth of the pleasures typified under the
foregoing head. A signal illustration of explosiveness is fur-
nished by Laughter, which has both its original causes, and also
its factitious or borrowed stimulants. This is an instance where
the severity of the agitation provokes self-control, and where
advancing years contract rather than enlarge the sphere. As
the expression of disparaging and scornful emotions, its cultiva-
tion has the facility of the generic passion of malevolence. We
may refer, next, to the explosive emotion of Grief, which is in
itself seductive, and, if uncontrolled, adds to its primary urgency
the force of a habit all too readily acquired. There is, more-
over, in connection with the Tender Emotion, an explosive mode
of genuine affection, of which the only defect is its being too
strong to last ; it prompts to a degree of momentary ardour
that is compatible with a relapse into coldness and neglect.
This, too, will spontaneously extend itself, and will exemplify
the growth of emotional association with undesirable rapidity.
What has now been said is but a summary and representa-
tion of familiar emotional facts. Familiar also is the remark
that explosiveness is the weakness of early life, and is sur-
mounted to a great degree by the lapse of time and the
strengthening of the energies. The encounter with others in
every-day life begets restraint and control ; and one's own
prudential reflections stimulate a farther repression of the
original outbursts, by which also their growth into habits is
Education as a Science. 307
retarded. In so far as they are repressed by influence from
without, and counter-habits established, as a part of moral
education, I have elsewhere stated what I consider the two main
conditions of such a result a powerful initiative, and an
unbroken series of conquests. When these conditions are
exemplified through all the emotions in detail, the specialities
of the different genera Fear, Anger, Love, and the rest, are
sufficiently obvious.
(3.) The chief interest always centres in those associations
that, from their bearing on right and wrong conduct, receive the
name ' Moral '. The class just described have this bearing in a
very direct form ; while the first class indirectly subserves moral
ends. But when we approach the subject with an express view
to moral culture, we must cross the field of emotional association
in general by a new track.
The newly-appointed Professors of the Theory of Education
are perhaps not yet fully aware that, when they venture upon
the troubled arena of Moral Education, they will not be able to
evade the loug-standing question What is the Moral Faculty ?
A very short argument will prove the point. Moral improve-
ment is obviously a strengthening of this so-called Moral
Faculty, or Conscience increasing its might (in Butler's phrase)
to the level of its right. But in order to strengthen an energy
we must know what it is : if it is a simple, we must define it in
its simplicity ; if it is a compound, we must assign its elements,
with a view to define them. The unconventional handling of
moral culture by Bentham and James Mill is strongly illustra-
tive of this part of the case. Mill's view of the Moral Sense is
the theory of thorough-going derivation ; and, in delineating the
process of Moral Education, he naturally follows out that view.
He takes the cardinal virtues piece-meal ; for example :
" Temperance bears a reference to pain and pleasure. The
object is, to connect with each pain and pleasure those trains of
ideas which, according to the order established among events,
tend most effectually to increase the sum of pleasures upon the
whole, and diminish that of pains." The advocates of a Moral
Faculty would have a different way of inculcating Temperance,
which, however, I will not undertake to reproduce.
It will not be denied, as a matter of fact, that the perennial
mode of ensuring the moral conduct of mankind has been
punishment and reward pain and pleasure. This method has
been found, generally speaking, to answer the purpose ; it has
reached the springs of action of human beings of every hue.
No special endowment has been needed to make man dread the
] tains of the civil authority. Constituted as we are to flee all
sorts of pain, we are necessarily urged to avoid pain when it
308 Education as a Science.
comes as punishment. Education is not essential to this effect,
any more than it is essential to our avoiding the pains of
hunger, cold, or fatigue.
Those that demur to the existence of a special faculty, differ-
ent from all the other recognised constituents of mind Feeling,
Will, or Intellect are not to be held as declaring that
Conscience is entirely a matter of education ; for, without any
education at all, man may be, to all intents and purposes, moral.
What is meant by the derivative theory of Conscience is, that
everything that it includes is traceable to some one or other of
the leading facts of our nature ; first of all to Will or Volition,
motived by pain and pleasure, and next to the Social and Sym-
pathetic impulses. The co-operation of these factors supply
a nearly all-powerful impetus to right conduct, wherever there
is the external machinery of law and authority. Education, as
a third factor, plays a part, no doubt, but we may over-rate as
well as under-rate its influence. I should not be far out in
saying that seventy-five per cent, of the average moral faculty
is the rough and ready response of the Will to the constituted
penalties and rewards of society.
At the risk of embroiling the theory of Education in a con-
troversy that would seem be alien to it, I conceive it to be
necessary to make these broad statements, as a prelude to
enquiring what are the emotional and volitional associations
that constitute the made-up or acquired portion of our moral
nature. That education is a considerable factor is shown by the
difference between the children that are neglected and such as
are carefully tended ; a difference, however, that means a good
deal more than education.
When the terrors of the law are once thoroughly understood,
it does not seem as if any education could add to the mind's
own original repugnance to incur them ; and, on the other hand,
when something in the nature of reward is held forth to en-
courage certain kinds of conduct, we do not need special instruc-
tion to prompt us to secure it. There is, indeed, one obvious
weakness that often nullifies the operation of these motives,
namely the giving way to some present and pressing solicitation,,
a weakness that education might do something for, but rarely
does. The instructor that could reform a victim to this frailty,
would effect something much wider than moral improvement
properly includes.
Going in search of some distinct lines of emotional associa-
tion that enhance the original impulses coincident with moral
duty, I think I may cite the growth of an immediate, independent,
and disinterested repugnance to what is uniformly denounced
and punished as being wrong. This is a state or disposition of
Knowledge and Belief. 309
mind forming part of a well-developed conscience ; it may grow
up spontaneously under the experience of social authority, and
it may be aided by inculcation ; it may, however, also fail to show
itself. This is the parallel of the much-quoted love of money
for itself; but is not so facile in its growth. For one thing,
the mind must not treat authority as an enemy to be counted
with, and to be obeyed only when we cannot do better. There
must be a cordial acquiescence in the social system as working by
penalties ; and this needs the concurrence of good impulses
together with reflection on the evils that mankind are saved
from. It is by being favourably situated in the world, as well
as by being sympathetically disposed, that we contract this
repugnance to immoral acts in themselves, and without reference
to the penalties that are behind ; and thus perform our duties
when out of sight, and not in the narrowness of the letter, but
in the fulness of the spirit. It would take some consideration
to show how the schoolmaster might co-operate in furthering
this special growth.
A. BAIN.
III. KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF.
BELIEF seems to remain still among the few mental pheno-
mena whose place and connections are not determined with a
degree of positiveness and certainty sufficient to make students
of mental science feel very sure of their ground. James Mill
with his accustomed clearness of exposition enumerated, in his
Analysis of the Human Mind, the kinds and objects of belief,
reducing all cases to indissoluble association, and maintaining
" that there is no generic distinction but only a difference in the
strength of the association between a case of belief and a case
of mere imagination : that to believe a succession or co-existence
between two facts is only to have the ideas of the two facts so
strongly and closely associated that we cannot help having the
one idea when we have the other ". Upon this exposition by
James Mill has taken place, perhaps, the most instructive and
valuable discussion of the subject of belief which is extant.
This discussion occurs in notes by Professor Bain and John
Stuart Mill in the edition of the Analysis published in 1869
(Vol. I., p. 393, ff.). Professor Bain in his Emotions and Will
(p. 505, ff. 3rd ed.) has gone into the matter more thoroughly and
with greater amplitude of detail, but discloses little not con-
tained essentially in his notes to which allusion has just been
made. These latter have the advantage of being concise and of
310 Knowledge and Belief.
being placed in juxtaposition with the comments of the two
Mills upon the same topic. Both J. S. Mill and Professor
Bain show conclusively enough the defects of the elder Mill's
treatment, but differ somewhat in their own estimates of the
nature and bearings of the phenomena in question.
That belief is not solely inseparable association, argues J. S.
Mill, appears from the fact that those inseparable associations
which seem to generate beliefs do not generate them in every-
body. The generality of mankind believe they see distance,
extension and figure, though all they really see is the accom-
panying optical effects, the rest being matter of association.
But the associations are just as inseparable in the minds of
scientific men who know what the facts -are, although in the case
of such there is no belief. And further, there frequently exist
in the mind associations of an opposite and conflicting charac-
ter, with one of which belief is connected and with the other
disbelief. If then we can represent in imagination either of two
conflicting suppositions, of which we believe one and disbelieve
the other, neither of the associations can be inseparable. We
can represent to ourselves either the sun sinking below the
horizon, or the horizon rising to eclipse the sun ; we believe that
the latter is the true state of the case. A person may have an
habitual belief that there are no such things or beings as ghosts ;
but there may be occasions when, as under the influence of
terror, he thinks he does see a ghost. A momentary belief in
ghosts breaks in upon the normal belief. The associations then
by which a belief in ghosts is negatived cannot be inseparable,
and certainly those are not so by which the belief is generated
for the moment. Belief and inseparable association then are not
absolutely coincident ; belief is something more than or other
than inseparable association. After criticism of this character,
J. S. Mill proceeds to review the objects of belief, to resolve all
belief into memory and expectation, and finally to announce his
conclusion that belief is a primordial and unanalysable experience
and that the difference between memory and imagination is an
ultimate and fundamental one.
Professor Bain considers the main difficulty in the way of
understanding belief to lie in the habit of regarding it as
appertaining to the intellect instead of the active part of our
nature. Besides referring it to the active side of the mind, he
places among the fundamental facts of belief what he terms a
" primitive credulity," inclining us to believe everything until
experience corrects the tendency. He also advances the view
that, " while action is the basis and ultimate criterion of belief,
there enters into it as a necessary element some cognisance of
the order of nature, or the course of the world. . . . Nothing
Knowledge and Belief. 311
can be set forth as belief that does not implicate in some way
or other the order, arrangements, or sequences of the universe.
. . . The state in question then, having its roots in voluntary
action, has its branches spreading ' far and wide into the realms
of intelligence and speculation." He further thinks there is no
necessity for the " unexplained residuum " left by J. 8. Mill.
He also develops the important fact that belief and disbelief are
the same state of mind, the opposite of belief in his estimation
being not disbelief, but doubt or uncertainty.
Mr. James Sully (Sensation and Intuition, Essay IV.), has
contributed to the literature of this branch of psychological
investigation a valuable paper, in which he dissents from Mr.
Bain's idea that belief is resolvable essentially into the mind's
activity. According to Mr. Sully, the explanation of belief is
" to be found in the transition from a sensation to an idea ".
" Every idea has an inherent tendency to approximate in
character and intensity to the sensation of which it is the
offspring." In belief there is "the reproduction of a past sensa-
tion by the medium of a present idea felt to be like it ". " The
present idea distinguished from the absent sensation gives the
state of belief that the absent was once present." By means of
this theory, Mr. Sully thinks the most complicated cases of
belief can be resolved.
After examining these various discussions, one is struck with
the thoughts, first, that the subject is not in any or all of them
perfectly freed from confusion, yet, secondly, that facts are
lying about in sufficient number to give a satisfactory explana-
tion of the phenomena, if only those facts were gathered up and
arranged in their proper places. I may be pardoned, therefore,
for advancing what follows in aid of such a result.
We shall find an examination into the nature and sources of
Belief to involve an inquiry into the sources and nature of
Knowledge. What contributes to make clearer the one, can be
made auxiliary to an explanation of the other. Before investi-
gating the elements of knowledge, however, a preliminary survey
of the objects of belief may serve to narrow and define our
inquiry. In this introductory task, we need not go very far be-
yond the analysis made by the elder and the younger Mill, which
is an exhaustive one, and which in its general line of procedure
I shall venture to follow in my own order and language.
We do not use, ordinarily, the word belief in connection with
a present feeling or idea. I may have a sensation of cold, and
say I believe I have such a sensation ; but, unless I am identi-
fying the sensation, I mean nothing more than that I have it.
Equally so, if I say I know I have a sensation of cold, I mean
no other thing than that I have the sensation. Similarly of
312 Knowledge and Belief.
any pleasure or pain ; I have it or I do not have it. It is not
maintained that belief proper is altogether absent in any of
these experiences ; quite the contrary will, I think, be shown
farther on ; but we may allow safely that the term belief is
inappropriate so far as the experience is presentative.
The primary objects of belief are real occurrences which have
happened to ourselves. We believe that such and such things
have happened within our experience ; from these we pass
readily to anticipatory beliefs that such and such things will
happen, but the first is the simplest case. I believe my father
was a tall man. I believe that I saw in my youth the New
York riots. I believe that I moved my foot two seconds ago,
or that a moment before I began to write this sentence I
thought of a dog which is accustomed to howl in the yard
underneath my window. In all these matters of experience,
whether they occurred a second or ten years ago, belief is
inextricably interwoven with memory. We believe nothing
that we do not remember ; and everything we remember is also
a matter of belief, at least so far as attributing it to our experi-
ence is concerned.
Next we note belief in the existence of things. This is some-
thing more than belief in sensations which we have experienced,
and something more than present experience of sensations. It
includes (1) belief in existences present to the senses ; (2) in
existences not present to the senses but of which we have had
past experience ; (3) belief in the future existence of that of
which we have had experience ; and (4) in existences of which
we have had no experience at all and which may be either past,
present, or future. (1) The experience of any object present
involves a multitude of associations of one kind of sensation
with another, some of which associations are not present. Per-
ceptions of distance, direction, and magnitude all arise from
tactual sensations associated with visible. When the distance
of an object is determined by .the sight of it, the tactual asso-
ciations are not present. They are, however, reproductions of
past experience, and hence are a matter of memory. There is
the additional association that under certain conditions the
reproduced experiences may again be actually experienced. I
have not only the tactual associations but the association of
myself again having the tactual sensations which I once had in
connection with an object. I see an orange and my belief in
the existence of the orange is simply in the experience of the
sensations of sight and in the associations of other sensations of
touch, odour, and taste, which (a) I recollect having had from
an orange, and (b) which I think I could have again if I
touched, smelled, and tasted the fruit. What is believed is the
Knowledge and Belief. 313
associations, not the actual present sensations, and these associa-
tions are of things which (a) have been experienced and of
things which (b) there is a possibility or expectation of ex-
periencing in the future. In the case, then, of belief in exis-
tences present to the senses, belief consists of memory and expec-
tation, the latter being a word which itself requires considerable
explanation, to be given by-and-by, but which is convenient for
use at the present stage and is not misleading. (2) Belief
in existences not present, but of which we have had past
experience, is nothing more than a reproduction of a past
experience to ourselves. We remember that we had a particular
experience. This may and does postulate the belief of the
preceding sub-division, namely, belief in a present existence ;
for my belief in the existence of things which I recollect having
seen involves a recollection that I believed in their existence at
the time when I saw them. Besides, the case of belief now
under consideration often merges in the preceding case as when
we believe that the trees we see from our window existed
yesterday and are now existing, or that our friends whom we
saw a month ago are still living, though absent. Into this case,
therefore, no new constituents enter. The belief amounts to
memory, and with it expectation is postulated. A prominent
example of belief in the existence of things not present to the
senses, but of which there has been experience, is found in the
associations of cause and effect. The reproduction is not merely
of myself having sensations, but of the sensations following
each other in a more or less variable sequence and of forces
existing as noiimenal to the sensations. An antecedent becomes
associated closely with its consequent, so that when one is
reproduced the other is evoked also. Cause and effect are
likewise in the category of belief in future experiences and
existences. (3) Belief in future existences of which we have
had experience demands that we have (a) an idea of that which
we believe, and (b) an expectation that it will exist in the
future. This idea of the thing which we are to make an object
of belief is some reproduced experience and belief ; so far, then,
the case is the same as the last. Beyond this lies only expec-
tation, the analysis of which it has been thought wiser to defer.
Belief of this variety is a matter of expectation that we should
have or shall have, under certain circumstances, experiences of
which our past sentient life gives us an idea. (4) Belief is
not confined to our own experience, past, present, or future.
We believe also in the existence of many things, present, future,
and past, which have never come within our own experience,
and which we do not expect to come within that experience.
These beliefs are substantially that in a' given condition of
314 Knowledge and Belief.
circumstances we should have had certain experiences, or that
in a given condition we shall have them. Here belief requires
(a) an idea of the object, event, or fact to be believed ; (b) an
idea of certain other objects, events, or facts, existing ante-
cedently to the first idea ; and (c) an expectation that certain
experiences will occur. The idea both of the object and of the
antecedent or conditional circumstance is a reproduction as a
whole, or in its parts, of past experiences. The belief, therefore,
seems as before to resolve itself into memory and expectation.
But into this variety of belief there comes very prominently
the element of testimony ; upon testimony depends altogether
our belief in existences irrelevant to our own experience. Inas-
much, however, as testimony enters into classes of objects of
belief other than the one now before us, its consideration will
be deferred to a separate paragraph soon to follow.
Having touched upon the relations of belief to a present
feeling or idea ; having also noted as objects of belief real oc-
currences which have happened to ourselves, and the existence
of things present, past, and future, connected with our expe-
rience and not connected with our experience ; we may now
add (a) future events and occurrences as happening to our-
selves, and (b) events in general not happening to ourselves.
The difference between events and existences is a difference
not in the things themselves, but in the way of looking at them.
It is the difference between succession and co-existence. An
event is something happening ; events are things happening one
after or before the other ; these things happening are existences
or at least experiences. Hence a belief in events is a belief in
experiences or existences succeeding each other. Such a belief
postulates a belief in experiences or existences and a succession.
Succession is the only new circumstance, and a closer analysis
would reveal that this also is involved in the former beliefs
classified. Without going into any such examination, however,
it is sufficiently evident that succession is cognised either as
memory or expectation, and there is no succession without
something succeeding something. Future events are looked
forward to as happening to ourselves in expectation, representa-
tive processes giving an idea of the event ; and events in general
not happening to ourselves are believed as reproduced or ex-
pected successions of experiences and existences.
Upon testimony is founded belief in existences and events
not cognised immediately. Testimony is also sometimes an aid
to belief in what has been directly experienced. We can
refresh our recollection of what has happened to us by means
of testimony. In all cases belief in testimony necessitates the
prior belief that the testimony is credible. I am told or have
Knowledge and Belief. 315
evidence, as we say, that the President is to-day at Wash-
ington, and I believe this as a fact. The belief rests upon the
testimony of some friend who saw the President at Washington
and came on to New York thereafter, or of a telegraphic
despatch to a newspaper. In order to believe either, I must
have the antecedent belief that my friend is trustworthy or
that the newspaper is worthy of credit. Such beliefs as these
latter are the results of a large portion of past experience.
Having the belief, gathered from long experience, that certain
kinds of testimony and testimony given under certain circum-
stances are credible, I include this particular case under the
generalisation I have made. Belief upon circumstantial evi-
dence is of the same character. Past experience teaches that
certain groups of circumstances indicate certain facts ; a present
case is identified with those cases wherein the circumstances are
of this certain character. If the case be transferred to the past
and I say, I believe the President was at Washington last
week Thursday; or if it be carried forward and belief be
declared that the President will be there next month, no change
is wrought in the conditions of believing the testimony. It all
rests upon past experience of what has proved credible and
incredible. Things believed on testimony, then, should not
constitute a separate class of objects of belief, but testimony
should be regarded as one of the means by which belief is
reached, as a factor in the growth of belief.
Finally, we believe in the truth of propositions. We believe,
for instance, in the truth of the affirmation 'All men are
mortal '. That is to say, we believe in the truth of the facts
stated in the proposition, in this case a generalisation from past
experience. We may believe also in the truth of the proposi-
tion ' The wicked will go into everlasting punishment ' ; this
is likewise a belief in the truth of the facts asserted, in this case
expected to happen in the future. All belief in the truth of
propositions is belief in facts, that is existences or occurrences,
within our experience or out of it ; and both these cases have
been reviewed.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that the objects of disbelief
are the same as the objects of belief.
Incidentally to this cursory survey of the objects of belief,
if it be comprehensive of all such objects, we find, therefore,
that belief involves inextricably memory or representation,
direct and- conditional expectation of the future. This result
will guide our thoughts into channels leading to the final con-
clusions of our discussion.
The term knowledge is used to indicate both the operation and
the products of cognition ; on account of which ambiguity,
316 Knowledge and Belief.
among others, the term is sometimes misleading, and its use
attended with confusion. In studying the nature of knowledge,
however, it is tolerably evident that no progress can be made
in understanding the products of cognition until we have first
learned what is the process of cognition. Having ascertained,
if such a thing be practicable, what the experience of cognition
is, we shall be at no loss to apprehend what is an accumulation
of cognitions, that is, what are the products of cognition. Our
concern in this place is, then, first and principally with know-
ledge as the process of knowing. Let us take any simple
experience and endeavour to analyse it, to discover what are the
elements of cognition. To avoid complications, let us suppose
a tactual sensation, apart from sight, hearing, or inferior sensa-
tion. For instance, let me conceive a simple contact with the
back of my head, as if a person standing behind me should put
his hand there gently. I have a feeling called a sensation :
what is involved in that sensation ? In the first place, there is
involved a consciousness of difference. I recognise a feeling as
different from the feeling I had a moment ago. If it were not
different I should have no sensation at all in that place, but my
experience would run on without my knowing that anything
was upon my head. I feel a pressure where there was no
pressure before, a warmth where there was less warmth pre-
viously. In the second place, if there is any appreciable
sensation, I am conscious also of an agreement, a similarity, or
identity. In fact, 1 could not be conscious of a difference were
I not also conscious of an agreement. A thing must be itself
long enough for comparison in order to be said to be different
from something else. When the hand strikes my head, I am
conscious of a sensation continuing the same or similar from
moment to moment. There is agreement or similarity of its
parts. One can even go so far as to say that the term conscious-
ness of difference has no meaning except with reference to a
consciousness of agreement. Sameness and difference, like and
unlike, are relative terms, either of which is devoid of signifi-
cance without the other. So dependent is the one upon the
other, though the two are distinct and antithetical, that con-
sciousness of difference is made up of consciousness of agreement
and consciousness of agreement made up of consciousness of
difference. That sameness requires difference appears from the
consideration that in order to establish a sameness a continuity
must be made out, and a continuity implies distinguishable
points ; but a point distinguishable is also separable, and to say
that it is separable and distinguishable implies a difference from
something from which it is distinguished and separated. That
difference postulates sameness is evident from the fact already
Knowledge and Belief. 317
suggested that while a comparison is made the terms must
remain constant ; and constancy involves identity or similarity.
Therefore, from whatever direction we approach the phenomena,
there seems no escape from the conclusion that in the cognition
of a sensation like that particularised, there is a consciousness of
difference and a consciousness of agreement, neither of which
can be merged in the other, and both of which are fundamental
and primordial. In the third place, we are required to take
formal notice of what already has been anticipated, namely, a
consciousness of time ; and the fact that we have been obliged
to make such anticipation proves the elementary character of
the phenomenon. There must be some continuity of the sensa-
tion occasioned by the hand on the back of my head, in order
for me to distinguish any difference in feeling : in other words,
in order for me to have a feeling. Furthermore, if time is
necessary for a consciousness of difference and consciousness of
difference is necessary for consciousness of agreement, time is
also necessary for a consciousness of agreement. It does not
appear possible to analyse this consciousness of time into either
consciousness of agreement or consciousness of difference, for it
is presupposed in both. There is no difference without a con-
tinuance and no agreement without a continuance. On the
other hand, it is equally true that if the experience of time be
examined closely, agreement and difference will be found as
much presupposed as is time for them. I apprehend the
sensation of the hand on my head by its continuing appreciably.
If it continues, there must be a past and a present at least. It
must hence be divisible into moments ; one moment is not the
same identically with a moment which is past ; there is hence a
difference. And yet the moments of time are similar and united
in a whole of time, which is possible only through a conscious-
ness of agreement. It can be said, therefore, that each of the
three elements thus far found presupposes the others, but each
one is itself ultimate.
If now we may be satisfied that there is required for my
cognition of a sensation coming from the touch of a hand on
the back of the head, a consciousness of time, agreement, and
difference ; an interesting question arises, in the fourth place, in
regard to what sort of process it is by which I am enabled to
affirm that the sensation now experienced is the same with or
different from a preceding one. The preceding sensation is past
and gone, 'and I never have that sensation again, though I have
another which I loosely say is the same, meaning that it is
similar. Yet if a sensation be gone utterly, it is out of mind
wholly and there is no way by which I can tell whether it is
different from or like another sensation. Comparisons cannot
21
318 Knowledge and Belief.
be made when there is only one term ; in order to compare
there must be something to compare with something. We are
hence compelled to posit a mental representation of the sensa-
tion had a moment ago, in order to declare that the sensation
continues, that it is the same with or different from a present
sensation. On scrutinising this mental repifesentation to see if
it cannot be decomposed into something else, a suspicion that
it is so decomposable, might be generated by the discovery,
which can be made, that this process of mental representation
presupposes the three elements already brought out. For, if I
am conscious that a sensation is represented, I must also be
conscious that it is the same sensation I had before ; that it is
the same implies that it is different from some other ; and that
it is a past sensation implies time a sensation as continuing
and as completed in the past. Is there, after all, anything new
in this consciousness of representation ? If we aver that there
is not, the query above propounded is still unanswered, and the
difficulty recurs with undiminished force. How can I compare
a present with a past sensation to know that the two are alike
or different until first the past sensation is restored ? If I could
compare something with nothing, the question might be answered:
but till this can be done it seems unanswerable upon any hypo-
thesis other than that the experience of representation is an ori-
ginal, fundamental, unanalysable one. We shall, therefore, be
justified in adding to the three elements of cognition heretofore
found a fourth, which may be called consciousness of represen-
tation. And we shall notice the same curious interdependence
between the four elements thus ascertained which existed when
there were only three. It has already been disclosed that repre-
sentation involves agreement, difference, and time : it is in equal
measure true that each one of the latter involves representation.
This may be seen, once for all, in the phenomena of time. Con-
tinuance means succession ; succession is something succeeding
something. It cannot be known that the later something follows
the earlier something, unless the latter leaves an impression, or
is represented. Conceding then that consciousness of represen-
tation is involved in consciousness of time, it must be allowed
to be involved also in consciousness of agreement and difference,
for the latter two are, as has been seen, themselves inexplicable
without the presupposition of a consciousness of time.
The manner in which the expression consciousness has been
used to describe the elements of primary cognition, may perhaps
excite comment. These elements have not been stated as merely
difference, agreement, time, and representation (except for the
purpose of abbreviation in a few instances) ; but as consciousness
of difference, consciousness of agreement, consciousness of time,
Knowledge and Belief. 319
consciousness of representation. It will now be explained why
these collocations of words have been employed. When I feel
and become cognisant of the pressure of the hand upon my head,
I am cognisant of a difference, agreement, continuance, and re-
presentation. That is to say, I am cognisant of a certain expe-
rience which I refer to myself as an actor or sufferer. This cog-
nition is no cognition if / do not cognise. Underneath all is the
Ego, the / which experiences, the / which knows. We mean
then in using the term consciousness of agreement, for example,
an apprehension of agreement by self, a reference of the expe-
rience to self. This reference is not itself a consciousness of
agreement alone, for it is the / that is conscious of the agree-
ment, and / am conscious that it is the / which is conscious, of
agreement. In other words, the,re is consciousness of an under-
lying something, which all these varieties of consciousness pre-
suppose. A similar line of remark may be made to show that
this reference of an experience to a self is not the same thing as
consciousness of difference, time, or representation, but is pre-
supposed in each of them. It is then incumbent upon us to add
a fifth, and, if possible, still more fundamental, element to the
others thus far elicited. This might perhaps be termed a con-
sciousness of self ; but the name self or Ego is the only mark we
have to indicate subject-mind, a subject which is always be-
hind every mental exercise and which never can be reached, but
eludes all circumscription. And inasmuch as in the study of
mind we are thus forced to objectify mind, some term which
should point clearly and unqualifiedly to the fact of such objec-
tification would seem a desideratum. The phrase consciousness
of power is, perhaps, better calculated than any other to express
this fundamental consciousness, especially as it can be charac-
terised and distinguished readily as active and passive, thus cor-
responding to the two modes of mental experience, and as, in ad-
dition, it suggests analogy and at the same time makes anti-
thesis with force, which is the ultimate of ultimates in the world
of not-mind. In the fifth place, then, we write down conscious-
ness of power as an element of cognition. It has just been ob-
served that this consciousness is postulated in all the other
elements, and it does not need detailed exposition to reveal the
fact that consciousness of power in its turn demands the other
four. This can be demonstrated as in the preceding case. Cer-
tainly the consciousness of power implies the consciousness of
something continuing ; and continuance presupposes representa-
tion, agreement, and difference.
There are, therefore, in the cognition of a simple tactual sen-
sation, five elements, which cannot be analysed further, cannot
be sublimated into each other (though all seem to rest upon
320 Knowledge and Belief.
the last), and cannot be separated from each other. This, I
think, exhausts the matter so far as the particular experience
in question is concerned. It still remains to ask whether all
cognition is the same, or whether in any cognition there is
aught more or other than what has been found. I feel confident
there is not : but inasmuch as no opportunity exists within the
limits of this essay, to go into a very full examination of special
varieties of cognition, I shall be obliged, after taking up two or
three which might present difficulties, to throw upon other minds
the burden of seeking and bringing forward a cognition in which
is something more than, or something different from, what has
been pointed out.
So far as can be determined, our earliest cognitions do not
occur in connection with sensations of the character of that just
used as an illustration. The feelings of which that is a type
seem to come upon the passive mind ; our first cognitions pro-
ceed from the mind's activity. Energy is put forth in movement
and meeting with resistance, consciousness is evoked. But still,
allowing this, there is no difference in the elements of cognition
from the case of experience of a sensation. Suppose a child
putting out his arm and striking some resisting substance, as the
mother's breast. At the point of resistance, a difference is gen-
erated in consciousness between the impinging energy and the
force which opposes it. Having given a consciousness of differ-
ence, all the other elements posited can be deduced by a pro-
cess of examination like that just concluded.
The general discrimination of self from not-self develops also
the same elements brought out in cognising a simple sensa-
tion. This discrimination probably is first made upon some such
experience as that last-mentioned. Such a discrimination
obviously requires consciousness of difference, for discrimination
means making a difference or differentiating. It also necessitates
consciousness of a personal identity from moment to moment.
This knowledge of personal identity is not attained without cog-
nition that I am the same self which had a certain experience a
moment ago. There arises here precisely the same difficulty
which arose in considering how to explain the ability to decide
whether a sensation experienced in the past moment, and which
is gone, is the same as that experienced in the present moment.
How can we compare something present with something absent ?
In the case of personal identity, as in the case of identity of sen-
sations, I can advance no other explanation than may be found
in the fact of an original and primordial consciousness of repre-
sentation. Conceding this, all the other elements take their
places without confusion, and the five seem to exhaust the cog-
nition. In cognising personal identity, we objectify ourself and
Knowledge and Belief. 321
the cognition is as much cognition of an object as is the cognition
of a sensation. Subject-mind cannot be brought within the limi-
tations of thought.
Let us now suppose that instead of having a sensation of a
hand upon my head, I have only a recollection of such a sensa-
tion ; in other words, an idea of such an experience. Here the
cognition is duplex. In the first place there is a preservative
cognition of the idea itself. I know I ani having a certain expe-
rience. In this appreciable experience of having an idea, cogni-
tion is evidently of the same character as in having an original
sensation. I am conscious of a difference between the idea and
a preceding experience ; of an identity of the idea with itself ;
of a representation from instant to instant in order that there
may be any identification ; a consciousness of time ; and a con-
sciousness of a power evolving and sustaining the idea. So far
the experience, though involving representation, is comparatively
presentative. But cognition goes further. I cognise the fact
that the whole ideal experience is itself a representation of what
I have had antecedently. I know it to be a copy or reproduc-
tion of a past experience. Now what is involved in this cogni-
tion ? In reply it may be said that at the outset there is a re-
semblance or an agreement between the copy and the original.
Furthermore, the copy is not the same as the original ; that is,
there is a difference between them. Thirdly, there is a distinct
consciousness that the original is represented. Fourthly, there
is a consciousness of continuance of the experience : and, fifthly,
a consciousness of a power reproducing and suffering the repro-
duction. Thus we have over again the elements of cognition of
a sensation, and we do not seem to be able to get beyond them.
Again, I have many ideas which, in their entirety, do not re-
present any sensational experience. The mind has a tendency to
associate similar and contiguous impressions. These cohere, call
each other up in representation, separate and segregate, forming
out of fused parts of past experiences new wholes which are not
as wholes copies of any real experience. In these cases of new
combinations the effect is something like that of an original pre-
sentation. It is cognised as something different from a sensation,
and yet a copy of no particular sensation, though its parts are
copies of past sensations or portions of past sensations. Let us
assume, for illustration, that in the process of association there
comes into the mind the idea of an animal with the body of a
sheep, and the head and neck of a man. This, we say, is a crea-
tion of the imagination. In this experience we have a cognition
of the idea as a distinct continuing idea; this needs no further
explanation. Besides, there is consciousness of a representation
of that experience we call the body of a sheep ; also of that which
322 Knowledge and Belief.
we call the head of a man. We know that both these are repro-
ductions of past experience. But when the two are associated
together, we have no consciousness of the whole being a repro-
duction of any thing we have ever seen. There does not, how-
ever, seem to be any explanation why we are conscious in the
one case of representation, and why we are not conscious of it
in the second case, except by stating the fact. Similarly with
every product of imagination : the parts which make up the idea
are always representative, often highly so ; by differences of collo-
cation wholes are produced which are not, as wholes, represen-
tative but presentative ideas. Out of new combinations of
materials furnished by experience, wholes emerge which are not
copies of experience. The process of association by which these
results are accomplished is not a new or different power of the
mind involving new elements of cognition from those already
considered. The process, the manner of succession, the course
of representation, has its own laws based upon the observed
order and sequence of representations, which laws do not con-
cern us here, inasimich as they are relatively secondary laws of
mind. There must first be cognition before there is association
of cognition.
It seems, then, that every experience induces a modification of
mind more or less permanent, by which the recurrence of that
experience is possible, and by which, when it recurs, that return
is known as a representation of past experience. It is known
immediately, and the cognition of it as representative is pri-
mordial and ultimate. The mind also, in the process and
sequence of representations, in effect consolidates and integrates
experiences into new wholes which present themselves as units,
upon which in turn, as if wholly original, the mental forces
operate to preserve and represent.
We have now arrived at a point where we are better able to
understand belief ; and if the foregoing analysis has been suc-
cessful, the true location of belief will have been more or less
definitely suggested. In our prior enumeration of the objects of
belief, we found belief to be interfused with memory and expec-
tation. Bringing together the results of this examination, and
the analysis of the elements of cognition, just finished, it will not
be unsafe to assume that the terms memory and consciousness of
representation cover essentially the same ground. Memory is the
name given to the power or ability to recall events ; recollection
is the name given properly to the act of remembering. Conscious-
ness of representation applies both to a given consciousness in a
particular act of representation, and to the consciousness of a
general and continual process of representation going on and
having gone on in our experience, that is, the consciousness of
Knowledge and Belief. 323
a power or ability to remember or represent, expectation being
postulated with it. If we are permitted thus to identify memory
and consciousness of representation, we shall be able to assert
that so far as we have made out belief to be memory, so far also
we have shown that it is consciousness of representation. We
shall hence be spared the necessity of giving further illustration
of the fact that belief falls in with consciousness of represen-
tation.
We have also found, however, that belief inheres in expecta-
tion. It is important then to settle the position of expectation
and make clear what is the experience thereof. To explain
belief by the word expectation is not of very much avail, for it
would be a difficult task to explain expectation without belief.
Nevertheless attention to the general laws of association for a
moment will enable us to see more precisely what is meant by
expectation. Granting the fact (which has been proven abund-
antly by a number of psychologists) that certain associations
tend to inseparableness and become inseparable, one important
step in elucidation is taken. Let us make use of a simple illus-
tration : I believe that the sun rose yesterday morning. This is
a representation of an experience that occurred to me yesterday.
With this represented experience (and with the original also) is
associated the representation of another and another and another
numerous experiences, a series, of the same sort. I have a re-
collection of certain divisions of time past which I denominate
mornings. Whenever I think of one of these divisions, there
arises, inseparably connected with it, the idea of the others. I
follow along the line backward and never reach the end. When
I think of a last morning (that is last in the series), the associa-
tion of another still beyond rears itself. I then return over the
same line till I come to yesterday. The association of this morn-
ing springs up as still more recent. The idea of this morning by
irresistible association brings forth the idea of another morning,
which is the idea of a future ; and from that the process goes
forward without end in the same manner as in the opposite direc-
tion. I distinguish this idea of a to-morrow morning from the
idea of a yesterday morning by the particular consciousness of
representation which is involved with the idea of yesterday, and
absent from the idea of to-morrow. I recognise the idea of yes-
terday as a reproduction of an actual experience past and gone.
The idea of to-morrow I recognise as a copy of that actual expe-
rience, but without the representation of its having actually oc-
curred. Now when I review my experience of mornings, I find
inseparably associated therewith the idea of the sun rising. I
have a consciousness, too, of a representation of the fact that the
sun actually rose, and I witnessed it on each of those occasions.
324 Knowledge and Belief.
( [t is not necessary to take into account days of obscuration and
late rising.) Therefore, as the idea of a to-morrow morning
occurs, there is united with it the association of myself as wit-
nessing the sun rise, or witnessing it having risen. This is ex-
pectation or belief that the sun will rise to-morrow.
So also the process is similar when I believe a thing will happen
to me of which I have had no experience. I believe I shall go
across the ocean to London ; a place which I have never visited,
having never been beyond the seas. In order to have such a
belief, I must have a distinct idea of going to London. This
idea is derived from past experience. Upon testimony I believe
that others have gone to London, and, recognising myself as
similar to others, I attach the idea of myself to the idea of going
to London. Certain circumstances as pleasure of travel, or calls
of business, make me desire to go to London. I have an incipient
volition to go. If there be no opposing considerations sufficient
to deter, I form the intention of going. My past experience has
been that whatever I have intended to do (which any one may
do) I have more or less regularly done. Accordingly, I class
this intention with other intentions fulfilled, and transfer by
association the idea of a fulfilment of intention to the idea of
going to London. I then say, I believe I shall go to London, or
I expect to go. There is no new element of cognition intro-
duced ; there is only a peculiar arrangement of cognitions.
Again, we may take the belief in death, to come to me in
common with other men. This belief arises from a common ob-
servation of certain phenomena called death, as occurring to all
sentient beings, with which class I associate myself. Many men
of whom I have heard have died ; the number of those who have
died is vastly in excess of those now living. The associations of
death thus come to be connected with all men, and with myself
among the number. I believe, therefore, that I shall die. But
I recognise the ideas as divested of the representation which is
present when an actuality, an event already happened, returns
in idea.
Conditional expectation furnishes -a higher complication of
association, but does not bring in any new elements. ' I expect
to go to Boston, if John goes ' requires an idea of John going
antecedently, and an idea of myself going consequently. My in-
tention to go depends upon his going. My belief is, that I shall
go not absolutely, but after some other event shall have taken
place. These various ideas are made up of representative mate-
rial ; the expectation involves a difference in order and associa-
tion, but postulates the same elements of cognition as in recol-
lection. So also where a belief is generated in connection with
a condition contrary to fact ; ' If John had gone to Boston, I
Knowledge and Belief. 325
should have gone ' may be analysed roughly, as follows : John
did not go to Boston ; I did not go ; it was possible for John to
go ; it was possible for me to go ; John's antecedent going made
it desirable for me to go, and associated with his going I had
a desire and intention to go; my intentions in the past similar to
this have been fulfilled generally ; the idea of myself going under
certain circumstances is associated with the idea that those cir-
cumstances did not exist (though possible), and that I did not
go. I declare, therefore, 'I believe I should have gone'. My
expectation thus appears to be a combination of representations.
That John did not go and that I did not go are both representa-
tions ; that it \vas possible for John and possible for me to go are
beliefs coming from past experience ; the association between my
intention to go and his going is representative ; the generalisa-
tion in regard to fulfilment of intention is also representative ;
and so forth. Expectation, then, seems to be nothing more, in-
tellectually considered, than representations of past experiences,
associated together in certain peculiar modes.
The state called expectation is further marked by a volitional
condition of preparedness to act, indicating desire, intention, or
resolution. This does not constitute the belief, which depends
more directly upon the associations, but varies with the strength
of the associations and of emotion accompanying the same ; and
as the volitional impulse varies, so the expectation is said to be
stronger or weaker. This determination toward action seems an
essential characteristic of expectation.
From what has been elicited thus far, it follows that conscious-
ness of representation is a fundamental element in the act of be-
lieving. But it has been shown in some detail that conscious-
ness of representation involves and presupposes consciousness of
agreement, consciousness of difference, consciousness of time, and
consciousness of power. Each one of these four, consequently,
must be postulated also as primitive elements in believing. And
the examination thus far conducted reveals no other intellectual
constituents, nor is it easy to suggest any other. We shall be
forced then to the conclusion that these are the ultimate facts of
belief.
But now an apparently serious objection will, undoubtedly,
be made. According to this analysis, it will be said, to
believe and to know are precisely the same thing ; both have
exactly the same constitution. To believe is to be conscious of
representation, agreement, time, and so forth ; equally so is to
know. In answer, it may be urged that because a power has a
certain and uniform constitution, it does not follow that all its
exercises are the same ; and if there be exhibited two quite dissi-
milar or two opposed phenomena, we are not wholly precluded
336 Knowledge and Belief.
from ascribing to them a common origin. They may be the
obverse of each other. The differences may be in the attendant
circumstances, and not in the source. It is very evident that,
when using language accurately, ' to know ' does not mean the
same thing as ' to believe '. But, so far as we are able to make
out, the process, the act is, in the two cases, absolutely identical.
We must look, therefore, for the real difference to that upon
which the mental process is exercised, or to the manner of its
exercise. And it will not take us long to discover that difference.
Let us discard for the moment the words knowledge and "belief,
and signify the act of mental apprehension by the term cognition.
In order that there may be cognition, there must be something
cognised. That which is cognised is broadly distinguished as
presentative and representative. Accordingly, we may distin-
guish cognition into presentative and representative cognition.
Now it is true that there is no presentative cognition that does
not also involve representative ; and no representative cognition
that does not involve presentative : but there is a preponderance
of one over the other. There are times, as when great strength
of feeling prevails and the mind is engrossed with a powerful
sensation, when the state of cognition is a conspicuously presen-
tative one ; there are other times, as in a train of reflection undis-
turbed, when the presentative side of the experience is mostly
underneath and the representative in the ascendant. In proportion
as cognition is presentative we are said to know ; in proportion
as it is representative we are said to believe. Cognition, viewed
on its presentative side, is knowledge ; on its representative side
is belief. In other words, belief varies as the representative ele-
ment. These statements are in full accord with the results of
the foregoing analyses. Belief exists in expectation, which is a
highly representative experience; in the reproduction of all sorts
of past experiences simple and complex ; but is not ascribed to
the experiences of sensations, or of ideas, as ideal presentations.
If then we were asked to define believing, we could say that it
is representative cognition, or more exactly, perhaps, the cogni-
tion of an experience as representative. To call it the cognition
of a representative experience would not answer the purpose,
for such a cognition might be a knowing if it merely took cog-
nisance of an experience, which happened to be representative.
When, however, it cognises the experience as representative, the
cognition is a believing.
More clearly still appears then the intimate connection be-
tween knowledge and belief. They are not only the same in
elementary constitution, but they exist concurrently, and one is
necessary to the existence of the other. They are the obverse
of each other. We have seen that there is no cognition without
Knowledge and Belief. 327
representation, and every representation involves belief; and
there is no representation without presentation, so that all be-
lieving involves knowing. The two are primordial and comple-
mentary. The same interdependence is observable when know-
ledge and belief are regarded as products. Knowledge as a pro-
duct is the accumulated body of cognitions which form the
mind's function. These cognitions are representative mainly,
and composed of representations. The stock of knowledge is
hence made up by many acts of believing, and is itself a vast
congeries and aggregate of beliefs. No antithesis should be made,
therefore, between knowledge and beliefs as products. Our beliefs
are a part of our knowledge and by far the greater part.
The differences in what is commonly termed the intensity of
belief furnish confirmation of the -views here maintained. Some
of our beliefs we are accustomed to regard as very strong ; others
we consider exceedingly weak. I have a maximum of confidence
that to-night will be succeeded by morning, or that the stone I
throw up will fall to the ground. I have a moderate degree of
trust that the morrow will be fair and cloudless ; a small degree
of belief that a stone thrown by me will strike a bird on the fence
top. I believe weakly that Captain John Smith had his reputed
adventure with Pocahontas. An inquiry as to the explanation
of grades in the intensity of belief elicits only the fact that the
difference is a difference in strength of representation. This
strength of representation may be either a tenacity of union be-
tween two associations by virtue of which they become more or
less inseparable, or it may be reproduced strength of feeling con-
nected with the experience. I may believe, implicitly, that my
mother whipped me on a given occasion. The circumstances of
the whipping are reproduced with great vividness, and there is
a representation of the feelings then experienced to a degree suf-
ficient to cause cringing, anxiety and distress. Particular asso-
ciations call out strong forms of emotion which attach to those
associations and are represented ; these emotions hence attend
our beliefs and make them stronger or weaker, as we say. The
intensity, however, is intensity of feeling accompanying the asso-
ciations, and does not constitute the associations, nor does it
constitute the belief. In such cases, by intensity of belief is
meant intensity of feeling concomitant with belief. In the other
class the term strength of belief indicates the strength of the
associations. In the example of Captain John Smith and Poca-
hontas above cited the belief, whatever it is, rests upon testimony.
I first read the story of John Smith and Pocahontas at a very early
age in some history. I had been told by my parents or other
instructors that what was related in this history was true, and
my uniform experience had been that my instructors and parents
328 Knowledge and Belief.
told the truth. Accordingly, I believed the story in question. I
read the same given as fact in other books, and every time I
thought of the incident there was represented a strong associa-
tion between the story and an actual occurrence of the facts
therein stated. My belief, therefore, was strong in the truth of
the narration. But a few years ago I met with considerable
sceptical criticism of those accounts. The former association
was weakened thereby, and now when the narrative is brought
before me, the association between the story and actual fact is
weak ; in the same measure my belief is weak. So also my uni-
form experience has been that night is followed by day ; with
the thought of night is reproduced inevitably the association of
day. On the contrary, the idea of a cloudless day is not repre-
sented with certainty. My experience has not been that days
are uniformly cloudless ; many of them have been just the
reverse. The belief then is more or less variable, according as
I see certain signs which evoke past associations of various de-
grees of strength pointing on the one hand to cloudiness, and on
the other to clear sky for the morrow. The same principles
obtain in the other examples. My experience of gravitation is
uniform ; my experience of the certainty of my aim has been
variable. In the one case there are strong associations growing
out of the uniformity ; in the other the associations are weak,
because of the variations of experience. My belief is dependent
upon these uniformities and variations of association, waxing and
waning with them.
The word belief, or its verb, is sometimes employed to express
a less degree of certainty than the word knowledge, or its asso-
ciated words. I ask a person if he knows a certain thing, and
he answers : ' I do not know it, but I believe it ' ; intending
thereby that he is not so certain of the thing in question as if
he knew it. In all such instances, I apprehend, the speaker
makes a distinction, by which he includes under the term know-
ledge the " things we see," and the things seen remembered,
while belief is of things to which testimony is borne. A very
little reflection must convince one that both this distinction, and
any assumed difference of certitude between knowledge and be-
lief are vulgar errors born of and breeding confusion. In the first
place, the line between believing and knowing is not correctly
drawn ; there is as truly belief in remembering one's own expe-
rience as in relying upon testimony of other people to what one
has not one's self witnessed. And secondly, while it is very often
true that belief on testimony is less reliable than the remem-
brance of a personal experience, it is equally the fact that, in
many cases, a direct experience and remembrance are not, ob-
jectively considered, as trustworthy as an opinion based on tes-
Knowledge and Belief. 329
timony. I believe that the city of Paris exists ; this is, in iny
case, a belief on testimony. I believe that I called with my
father on Oliver Wendell Holmes, when I was six or seven years
old. In my recollection of what occurred at so early an age, I
might readily be mistaken and confound the experience of some-
body else with my own. This is not of infrequent occurrence.
Prof. Bain (Emotions, <&c., p. 535) cites an instance of a late dis-
tinguished man who had sometime before his death, at a great
age, declared positively that he had seen Mirabeau in London,
though the known facts of Mirabeau's history were entirely
against him. But my belief in the existence of Paris may rest
upon an immense weight of testimony in regard to which the
probability of error is infinitesimally small. Such a belief is
more trustworthy than are many beliefs from remembered expe-
rience. And, subjectively, there is exactly the same degree of
certitude created by a state of belief as by one called of know-
ledge. We are accustomed to consider that there is no higher
degree of certainty than of things immediately present to our
senses. True enough : but without the assurance that I saw a
second ago the tree I am looking at now, my present certainty
of sight falls to pieces from lack of continuity. The certainty
that I saw the tree a second ago is a certainty of belief. Belief
and knowledge, therefore, are alike as to certitude, varying
equally and according to the same laws. We are not more cer-
tain of a thing, because we know it than because we believe it,
nor the converse. Certainty depends upon the union and inte-
gration of associations ; a strong association begets certainty, a
weak one uncertainty ; and associations involve both knowledge
and belief. The popular antithesis as to certitude between know-
ledge and belief is hence wholly fallacious. It would lead to
much less misapprehension, if instead of saying to indicate my
assurance ' I know it, ' I should say, ' I am certain of it ; and
if to denote a less degree of certainty, in place of the expression
' I believe it,' I should employ some qualifying phrases as ' I am
not quite certain of it/ or ' I am tolerably (or moderately) sure
of it '. It is quite hopeless, however, to relieve language of am-
biguities or to purify its use by suggestion, no matter how patent
may be the imperfection or misuse. Augean stables could more
easily be cleansed with a hose-pipe.
Before summing up I will advert again to some of the views
mentioned at the beginning, and first of all Prof. Bain's. This
psychologist lays down as " the genuine, the unmistakeable
criterion of belief," " preparedness to act upon what we affirm ".
But how can my belief in what is past be considered prepared-
ness to act when there is no occasion for action ? He answers
by saying " I believe that I yesterday ran up against a wall to
330 Knowledge and Belief.
keep out of the way of a carriage. I have no disposition to do
anything in consequence of that conviction ; yet I call it a
conviction and not a mere notion, because I am affected by it
in the same way as I am by another recollection that I do act
upon. I feel that if there were any likelihood of being jammed
up in that spot again, I should not go that way if I could help
it, which is quite enough to show that in believing my memory,
1 have still a reference to action more or less remote." It may
well be doubted whether the thought that I should avoid such
an experience if I could, has anything to do with the state of
belief ; the belief is complete without that. The mere recollec-
tion of the circumstance is sufficient for belief. I may have no
more thought of avoiding than is necessitated by the represen-
tation of my own efforts to get away at the time I was jammed
up ; I may not even have that and yet believe. Moreover,
supposing while I stood in the narrow passage-way a stone had
fallen upon my foot : the pain would have generated a " pre-
paredness to act," would have demanded action ; and yet the
experience would have been an entirely presentative one, a
matter of knowledge and not of belief. We might as well say,
then, that " preparedness to act " is a criterion of knowledge.
So far as I am able to make out, " preparedness to act," in Prof.
Bain's view, means nothing more than incipient volition in the
forms of desire, intention, resolution, and the like; and these
certainly are no more attendant upon belief than upon know-
ledge. Of course it may be freely allowed that volition is
present in all mental experience ; that every state of conscious-
ness has its volitional side. So far forth then as all mental
states involve belief and all have a volitional side tending
toward activity, so far and no further is preparedness to act
associated with belief and the latter with the former. This is
the modicum of truth in Prof. Bain's idea. But to make such a
determination toward action the test of belief is unsatisfactory
and inconclusive; it does not explain anything. Even in
expectation with reference to which the phrase has a force not
elsewhere obtained, the belief is after all a matter of representa-
tion, which is conceivably separable from the volitional impetus
existing in expectation, although the latter be present also.
The expectation that I shall go to Philadelphia depends upon a
number of representative beliefs, the union of which generates
this particular belief and which carry with them a volitional
impulse though the latter is not an essential element in the
belief any farther than volition is essential to all cognition. A
state of weak belief, so called, may be as completely and
perfectly belief as if it were stronger, though in the former case
it does not develop with it the preparedness to act which it
Knowledge and Belief. 331
does in the latter. An affirmation involves belief, which is
belief in all essential qualities, though we may not be prepared
to act on what we affirm. In fine, Prof. Bain does not seem to
me to be as successful in his attempt to ally belief with activity
principally as are those who regard it mainly as an intellectual
state, and he himself recently seems to incline to the latter
view (MenL and MOT. Science, Note in Appendix).
Nor is one satisfied with Prof. Bain's factor of a " primitive
credulity". To say that belief is founded upon primitive
credulity means no more than that knowledge is founded on
primitive cognition. If, however, as we may possibly suppose,
he intends in this language to affirm that belief is a primordial
experience, he has enunciated an important truth ; but it is to
be regretted that he did not make his meaning a little clearer.
He seeks to support " primitive credulity " as a leading element
in belief by calling attention to what he considers the fact that
" belief is distinguished when we suffer the shock of a contra-
diction, a check, or disappointment in some career of activity ".
Apparently he means that we believe everything without
knowing that we believe, till we are contradicted and our
confidence receives a shock. Then from repeated disappoint-
ments scepticism is produced, and we have " two opposing
tendencies primitive credulity and acquired scepticism ". The
fair inference from his statements is that " acquired scepticism "
is not belief at all, but the opposite of belief. Now, if the
preceding examination has been a thorough one, it will be
evident that this acquired scepticism is not explicable except
under the supposition that it also involves and requires belief.
In early childhood I believed what everybody told me ; when
any person theretofore unknown told me anything, I reproduced
past experience of the truth of whatever had been told me, and
in accordance therewith I believed the new comer's statement.
But presently I found that something told me was not true.
An association was then started between a story told and a state
of facts contrary. Not being more fortunate than the generality
of mankind, I soon had a shock of these latter experiences.
Accordingly, when a person now tells me something, I have a
representation of various cases where there is an accordance
between what is told ine and the fact, on the one hand ; and on
the other, a representation of various cases where there was a
non-accordance between what was told me and the fact. In
regard to the former, I believe that I did meet with such
accordant experiences ; in regard to the latter I believe that I
was in such ways deceived. Both are matters of belief and I
am at a loss whether to associate the present tale with the one
class or the other. Associations pulling in opposite directions
332 Knowledge and Belief.
create a state of uncertainty and perplexity. Doubt is not the
absence of belief but the opposition of beliefs ; as association
widens its range they continually contradict each other, creating
as far as action is concerned wavering and hesitation. With
this differentiation of associations and the following integration
belief is all the time and all the way through involved and is
never absent. The conflict of motives to action occasions
deliberation and in that deliberation the component parts of
thought are beliefs in one direction and another, varying
according to remembered experiences, drawing this way and
the other and every way, until the strongest set of beliefs over-
powers the others, and determines action. Where the stock of
represented experiences is smallest, there the credulity is
greatest not, however, because there is more belief, but because
there is less ; that is to say, because there are represented fewer
beliefs in experience and there is less contradiction of experi-
ences. So incredulity or scepticism indicates not a small
number of beliefs but a large number ; so large that they
balance and hold each other in check. Is there then no
opposite to the state of belief? it may be asked. I answer,
no more than there is to a state of knowledge. The term
ignorance may express the opposite of both : but this must be
taken in a limited sense ; we are never in a state of absolute
ignorance. Perhaps unbelief might be used as an opposite of
belief, if its meaning of simple absence of belief could be
preserved and it is not confounded with disbelief, which is
belief in a contrary or contradictory. This word, however,
must be employed qualifiedly, with regard to some specific
object or objects of belief. We are never in our conscious
experience, out of a state of belief; although we are not always
believing the same thing, or believing in the same degree of
association, or with the same associates of feeling and volition.
Prof. Bain is quite right in placing as a necessary element in
belief, " some cognisance of the order of nature ". But the
order of nature is nothing more than our uniform experience
in certain directions by which inseparable associations are
generated and represented continually in our mental life. As
these representations are made, we believe ; and in proportion
to the strength and uniformity of such associations our belief
is strong.
The question may again force itself upon our attention at
this point Is not after all belief, as James Mill thought, simply
inseparable association ? The reply must be in the negative,
because there is belief when the associations are not inseparable.
But may it not be at least association and nothing more ?
Still the answer must be, no. It is not association because it is
Knowledge and Belief. 333
presupposed in order that there may be any association at all.
A careful reperusal of the earlier of these pages, wherein I en-
deavour to show that belief is involved in every representation,
and that no cognition and hence no association is accomplished
without consciousness of representation, will be sufficient, I
think, to satisfy this query, without further repetition on my
part. Again, therefore, we are brought to the conclusion that
belief is primordial and an original part of cognition.
If this article falls under the eye of anyone not familiar witli
Prof. Bain's works, I hope he will not infer from what I have
said that this author has any particular theory of belief which
he is bent on upholding. No man is more thoroughly and
impartially an observer and chronicler of facts than Prof. Bain,
and no objection is here offered to the large mass of facts
collected by him but only to some aspects under which he
seems to regard them. The criticisms here passed are not at
all for the purpose of creating an impression of the inferiority
of Prof. Bain's results of study. It is not too much to assort
that psychology proper owes more to him than to any ot hoi-
person living or dead. But upon this particular topic, I cannot
help thinking that J. S. Mill saw the way a little more clearly ;
and, if we may judge from what he has given us, it can hardly
be doubted that, had he turned his attention chiefly to psycho-
logy, he would have left little to be done on this subject by any
one who should succeed him.
I am unable to discover in Mr. Sully's idea of the origin of
belief anything more than cognition of experience as representa-
tive. He considers that in " the partial reproduction of a past
sensation by the medium of a present idea felt to be like it, one
seems to tind the origin of the oldest and most simple form of
belief. For, as sure as this experience becomes possible, and the
present idea and the absent sensation are distinguished, it seems
certain that the mind would fall into the attitude of belief with
respect to the absent sensation. In other words, if the infant
could fully describe to us its state of mind, it might not improb-
ably do so by saying, ' There is something in my mind that
carries thought away to another thing brighter and better than
itself, which thing is not exactly in my mind just now, but yet
seems near and ready to enter it '. In the inexplicable fact that
a present idea carries on its face the mark of its origin, and
reminds of the sensation which preceded it, we appear to have the
last accessible stage in the history of belief. Belief and memory
in the sense of the idea pointing to the absent sensation, appear
to be mutually involved in this unanalysable mental process,
neither being conceivable apart from the other." This passage
exhibits Mr. Sully's views as well as does any. His position is
22
334 Knowledge and Belief.
substantially the same as that of J. S. Mill in the latter's
conclusion of a radical difference between an idea as such and
a remembered occurrence. The whole drift of Mr. Spencer's
thought would seem to be in the same direction, and such as to
authorise just these conclusions, though I am not aware that he
has gone into any exhaustive special discussion of belief. Prof.
Bain also, in one place, allows, I think, the same state of things
contended for by Mr. Mill and Mr. Sully, when he asserts a
normal power of distinguishing, "(1) a sensation; (2) an idea of
what has been a sensation, or actuality ; and (3) an idea of what
has never been a sensation, but is artificial, though constructed
out of sensations " (Emotions and the Will, p. 533). All these
expressions seem to point to the results (1) That belief is
something original and primordial; and (2) that belief is
involved in some way essentially with the representative power
and representation. Mr. Sully occupies himself principally with
the conditions of the varying directions and intensities of belief,
giving up all attempt " to resolve the phenomenon into more
primitive modes of mental activity ". Into this field we are not
called upon to follow him, as our present concern is not with
tracing the growth and ramifications of belief, but with a study
of its sources and genesis.
In conclusion, we may condense the results of this examina-
tion into the following enunciations :
First. Knowledge is a product resulting from a process of
knowing : Belief is a product resulting from a process of be-
lieving. The products are explained by the processes ; having
one piece of Knowledge or Belief, the rest is but an accumulation
of things which have the same constitution.
Second. Every act of cognition, from the earliest to the
latest, involves five undecomposable elements, each of which
presupposes and is presupposed in all the others, namely,
Consciousness of Difference, Consciousness of Agreement,
Consciousness of Time, Consciousness of Representation, Con-
sciousness of Power. Every act of Believing, from the earliest
to the latest, involves precisely the same elements.
Third. Knowing and Believing are present, then, with the
dawn of consciousness, and in every subsequent act of cognition.
There is no Knowing without Believing, and no Believing
without Knowing. There is no Knowledge without Belief, and
no Belief without Knowledge.
Fourth. From the beginning of consciousness, cognition pro-
ceeds in two broadly marked divisions, Presentative Cognition
and Representative Cognition ; the former referring to present
experience, the latter to reproduced experience. This division,
however, is only relative, for every Presentative Cognition
Knowledge and Belief. 335
involves and requires Eepresentation, and every Eepresentative
has a Presentive element.
Fifth. Belief is allied with Eepresentative Cognition, varying
with the degree of representation ; where the Eepresentative
element is in the ascendant, the state of consciousness is said to
be more of Belief than of Knowledge, and where the Presenta-
tive element is prevailing, it is said to be more of Knowledge
than of Belief. Believing may be described as the conscious-
ness of an experience as representative. This is as near an
approach to a definition as is here attempted.
Sixth. The term intensity, as applied to Belief, has no more
relevancy than if applied to Knowledge. What is ordinarily
termed intensity of belief is either close union of associated
ideas, or strength of feeling accompanying the reproduction of
experiences. As feeling accompanies every cognitive experience,
being another side of that experience, so feeling accompanies
every experience of Belief and every act of Believing.
Seventh. As every cognitive experience has also a volitional
side, so also every state of Believing has a volitional aspect.
No Belief occurs without some volitional determination.
Eighth. The natural history of the growth of Belief is the
natural history of the growth, expanse, and integration of
associations. Whatever determines association determines
Belief. Belief follows the course of association, for association
is association of Beliefs in that it is association of cognitive
experiences.
Ninth. The total absence of Belief is absence of consciousness ;
but there may be absence of Belief in regard to particular
objects, just as there may be absence of Knowledge of
particular things. The term ignorance covers both of the latter
states, though unbelief in the sense of negation of Belief may be
more distinctively applicable to the first of the two. Disbelief
is merely Belief in an opposite, contrary or contradictory.
Doubt arises not from absence of Belief, but from conflict of
Beliefs.
In the discussions of the Schoolmen, therefore, as to the
relative priority of knowledge and belief, both sides were right.
Anselm's Crede ut intelligas was no more true than, and was
just as true as, Abelard's Intellige ut credas. In knowledge is
belief, and in belief, knowledge ; neither exists without the
other, and in the complete absence of either, conscious experi-
ence would be void.
DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON.
IV. ON SOME PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC.
IT must have occurred to many readers of Mill's System of
Logic, and Professor Bain's work on the same subject, that by
abandoning the synthetic order of exposition, which used to be
a characteristic feature of the science, something had been lost,
not only in form and architectural effect, but even in intelligi-
bility. Prof. Bain's account of the natural order of logical
topics (Logic, Introd., 55), appeared to me so much better
than his reasons for not adopting it, that I formed the pro-
ject of writing something, however sketchy, to exhibit that
order by actually embodying it. Afterwards, on reading Mr.
Herbert Spencer's Principles of Psychology, the distinction drawn
in Chapter viii. between Logic and the Theory of Seasoning,
and the view taken of Logic as a science of things, or of the
" most general laws of the correlations of existences considered
as objective," seemed to me so true and important, that I also
formed a project of writing something to realise this suggestion.
And on reflection these two projects harmonised so well, that
the result was an essay, of which the main heads are given
below,* and some of whose principles I wish to submit to the
consideration of thinkers in this paper.
Perhaps to make everything clear it will be well to quote at
length from Mr. Spencer the passage just referred to (Psychology,
302) :
" A distinction exists which, on account of its highly abstract
nature, is not easily perceived, between the science of Logic and an
account of the process of Reasoning. . . . The distinction is, in
brief, this, that Logic formulates the most general laws of correlation
among existences considered as objective ; while an account of the
process of Reasoning formulates the most general laws of correlation
* Theory of Logic: an Essay. General Purposes : (1) to treat Logic
as a Science of matters of fact (not of thought, or language) ; (2) to
return to the synthetic order of exposition. Ch. I., Of Relations.
Ch. II., Of the Terms of Relations. Ch. III., Of the Immediate and
Mediate Comparison between Single Terms, &c., contains a statement
of the most general laws of the correlation of phenomena, equivalent
to the most general conditions of valid inference ; such conditions being
considered as laws of nature. Ch. IV., Of Classes. Ch. V., Of the
Discovery of Classes Definition and Probation contains a discussion
and statement of the Law of Causation ; and thence a systematic de-
duction of the Experimental Methods ; Doctrine of Kinds, &c. Ch. VI.,
Of the Immediate Comparison of Classes, corresponds to the theory of
Judgments or Propositions in Scholastic Logic. Ch. VII., Of Hypo-
theticals. Ch. VIII., Of the Mediate Comparison of Classes (Syllogism),
contains suggestions toward modifying the Axioms of the Mediate
Comparison of Classes ; theory of the Syllogism as comprising five
Terms ; new arrangements of Mood and Figure, &c.
On some Principles of Logic. 337
among the ideas corresponding to these existences. The one contem-
plates in its propositions, certain connections predicated, which are
necessarily involved with certain other connections given : regarding
all these connections as existing in the non-ego not, it may be, under
the form in which we know them, but in some form. The other
contemplates the process in the ego by which these necessities of con-
nection come to be recognised."
On this passage I have to remark, first, that it limits Logic
too much. That science may very well consider the correlations
of ideas among themselves ; only not as in correspondence with
other things : thus differing from Psychology, of which the
theory of Reasoning is a branch, somewhat in the same way, as
Mr. Spencer has elsewhere ( 53) pointed out, that Biology
differs from Psychology. Secondly, the above passage does not
limit Logic enough ; for Logic, I conceive, deals only with laws
of phenomena ; and for my part, I should be sorry to be found
predicating anything concerning connections under some form
in which we do not know them. But with these qualifications
we may accept the passage as giving a clearer account than is
to be found anywhere else of the essential nature of Logic.
I am happy also to accept Mr. Spencer's definition of Logic ;
which is stated in his tabular view of the Abstract Sciences
thus : Logic deals with the " laws of relations that are quali-
tative; or that are specified in their natures as relations of
coincidence or proximity in Time and Space, but not necessarily
in their terms ; the natures and amount of which are in-
different. (Classification of the Sciences, Table I.)
Qualitative Relations of Likeness and Unlikeness might
perhaps have been included in this definition ; unless their
inclusion should be regarded as too much a matter of course to
need special mention. And in working out the science it has
been found convenient to take some account of quantitative
relations: logicians have treated of classes chiefly in their
extensive, which is also their quantitative aspect; and Prof.
Bain has much improved the statement of the Law of Causation,
by including in it purely quantitative considerations of the
Conservation of Energy. These, however, are deviations from
logical treatment, strictly conceived, for the sake of convenience
or power exceptional, not exemplary proceedings ; and setting
such matters aside, we shall find Mr. Spencer's an adequate
definition of theoretical Logic ; and it has the merit of leading
directly into the subject.
We learn from it that the elements of Logic are qualitative
relations ; so that our first business is to enumerate these, and
classify them. This is not a fresh investigation, but one which
lias been prosecuted by a number of writers in analysing the
338
On some Principles of Logic.
import of propositions ; and in this way the enumeration of
ultimate relations appears to have been completed by Prof.
Bain (Logic, B. I., c. 3, 17), who gives a list of three : Equality
(the most definite Likeness), Co-existence, and Succession (co-
incidence or proximity in Space and Time). Or if it be
attempted to carry the analysis further, we may perhaps regard
Co-existence and Succession as modes of Likeness and Unlike-
ness, namely, with respect to Time. The most important sub-
divisions are these : Likeness may be either quantitative or
qualitative ; Co-existence and Succession may be either constant
or inconstant. Let us make a Table of these Relations
Likeness and Unlikeness.
In Quantity. In Quality.
In Quality simply. In Time.
Succession. Simultaneity or
Co-existence (Space some-
times vaguely implied).
Inconstant. Constant. Inconstant. Constant.
This classification might be carried further, but for our
present purpose there is no need. We only observe that when
relations of Succession in Time and Co-existence in Space are
measured, they pass over to Mathematics.
Our next step must be to take some account of the Terms of
relations, not indeed for their own sake, but in order to further
explicate the nature of Relations. And, first, Terms must be
classed as either simple or compound ; for as a consequence of
this, Eelations, too, are either simple or compound. And simple
Terms are either Feelings and simple Qualities, or Eelations
themselves. It is an important truth that every relation is
itself a term of another, and indeed of innumerable other rela-
tions ; and any law of relationship is equally true, whether the
relations primarily contemplated unite, or tie, mere terms, or
other relations, or relations of relations. This fact gives immense
reach to the simplest law of Logic.
So much as to the elements of Logic ; we now come to the
laws of those elements : and first, as to the relations of Single
Terms. I have been a little surprised to find that the principles
of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded Middle do really stand
at the threshold of Logic ; for I had been led to think of those
venerable pillars of science and faith with unbecoming con-
tempt ; but they suddenly confronted me in disguise, so to
speak, when I was not at all looking for them. As to Identity,
On some Principles of Logic. 339
indeed, it is a matter of definition. If we call vague likeness,
similarity, and indistinguishable likeness, sameness or equality,
we may give the name of identity to a certain complex same-
ness. To be called identical, a thing must be the same with
itself from time to time ; and, if an object, its position must be
persistently the same, or its changes of position must be
rationally accounted for; but the definition of identity does
not seem to be quite the same for all kinds of terms.
The principle of Contradiction, which in Logic would be
better called the principle of the Mutual Exclusion of Terms,
depends upon the fact that an identical relation has only two
ends, or ties only two terms; so that any two terms being
related in any way, no other term can enter into that relation.
One term cannot stand in an identical relation to a second and
also to a third, or to the absence of the second, or to a duplicate
of the second (x or 2 ).
The principle of Excluded Middle, or Alternity, rests upon the
fact that, given any relation terminated at one end, every
remaining term in the world must either terminate the other
end or not ; and cannot both terminate it, and not.
The principle of Identity, viewed as persistent sameness, may
be said to formulate a relation of a term to itself (from time
to time). The principles of the Mutual Exclusiveness of Terms,
and Alternity, express the facts that a relation must have two
terms, and cannot have more, and that every term must be
related. Let us go on to consider how an identical pair of
terms may be connected by more than one relation.
Relations that tie the same terms may be said to coincide.
And there are certain relations that must coincide ; or, rather,
there are certain relations such, that if one of them obtain
between two terms the other must ; though the converse is not
necessarily true. A relation with which another must coincide
may be said to implicate the second ; thus, Simultaneity impli-
cates Kon-succession. Relations that can coincide are compa-
tible : such are Likeness and Co-existence. Relations that
cannot coincide are incompatible : such are Simultaneity and
Succession, and Likeness and Unlikeness. And here we see
the necessity of distinguishing between simple and compound
Terms ; for compound Terms may be alike in some qualities and
unlike in others ; and in that case, Likeness and L^nlikeness do
not coincide, but are only compounded. Incompatibility is
obverse implication : if a relation, incompatible with a second,
obtain, it implicates the absence of the second relation ; as
Likeness implicates the absence of Unlikeness.
These considerations are parallel to the modes of Opposition
between judgments or propositions in Scholastic Logic. Sirni-
340 On some Principles of Logic.
larly, we may convert these relations of Single Terms ; and I
am happy to be able to quote the formulae of these processes
from Mill : " When one thing is before another, the other is
after. When one thing is after another, the other is before.
When one thing is along with another, the other is along with
the first. When one thing is like (or unlike) another, the other
is like (or unlike) the first." (Examination of Hamilton, p. 466,
3rd ed.)
In speaking above of the implication of one relation by another,
we touched the constitutive principle of Logic. Logic might
be defined as the science that investigates th most general
conditions of the implication of relations. The fundamental
assumption is that certain relations among phenomena are
evidence of other relations ; or, that there exist constant cor-
relations ; and the question is, what are these correlations ?
One of them we have just met with, namely, correlation by
necessary coincidence, or Biterminal Correlation : where the
Relations compared are conjoined at both ends. If we call any
relation directly known, explicit ; any relation not directly
known, but involved in explicit relations, may be called implicit
In Biterminal Correlations an Explicit and an Implicit relation
coincide ; and such implication may be called Immediate. But
there are cases in which a relation between two terms is impli-
cated in explicit relations with which it does not coincide in
relations which obtain between its own terms, severally, and
some other term or terms ; and such implication may be called
Mediate.
It was formerly supposed that the unit of all Mediate Impli-
cation (in Logic) was a correlation of three terms ; such as we
have in the Axiom, ' Things which are equal to the same thing
are equal to one another ' ; and this was also supposed to be
exemplified by the syllogism. Mr. Spencer, however, has found
an equally important unit of Mediate Implication in a certain
correlation of four terms. The whole of this subject is discussed
from the psychological point of view in Mr. Spencer's Principles
of Psychology, especially in Chapter viii. ; and I must confess
myself astonished to find in recent works on Logic so few re-
ferences to that important dissertation. The units of Mediate
Implication may be thus stated :
(1.) Where the relation of two terms to one another is implied
in the relations which they severally bear to a third ;
as if A = B, and B == C, we know that A = C.
The mental correlation corresponding with such a fact, Mr.
Spencer calls an intuition of conjunct relations, because the
relations compared are conjoined or have one term in common.
On some Principles of Logic. 341
For logical purposes I propose to call the fact itself a Triter-
minal Correlation.
(2.) Where a relation between two terms is implied in the
relations which they severally bear to two other terms,
and the relation which those two other terms bear to
one another ; as if a circumstance, A, be like C, the
known cause of D, we know that A will produce an
effect, B, similar to D.
And in this case Mr. Spencer calls the corresponding correlation
of Ideas an intuition of disjunct relations, because the relations
compared have no term in common. For logical purposes I
propose to call the fact itself a Quadriterminal Correlation.
These units of mediate implication Mr. Spencer admirably
represents by two symbols, which I will take the liberty to
reproduce here ; only making a slight alteration in the symbol
of Triterminal Correlation, which may be written thus :
B
In this symbol the explicit relations are A : B, B : C ; and A : C
is implicit ; a comparison is therefore indicated between an
explicit and an implicit relation ; whereas, in the way in which
the symbol is written by Mr. Spencer, I understand a compari-
son to be indicated between two explicit relations. My reasons
for the change will be given at length elsewhere : I will now
only remark that the symbol as written above agrees best with
the symbol of Quadriterminal Correlation : wherein, also, the
relations between which a comparison is indicated are one of
them explicit and the other implicit. Let the relation C : I)
imply A : B.
O
B; ID
The most general laws or rules of these correlations of both
orders have also iu one or two places been hinted at by Mr.
342 On some Principles of Logic.
Spencer. (Psychology, Vol. II., p. 107.) Before stating them
it will be convenient to agree upon the following signs of rela-
tionship
Eelation in general, - - :
Likeness in general, - a
Equality or Sameness, - =
Uiilikeness, - 77
Co-existence, - -co
Non-Co-existence, - - o
Succeeded by, - v
Succeeds, - a
Non-succession, e
Concomitance in general, - - co.v
Rule of Triterminal Correlation.
Two terms homogeneously related to a third, and one of them
positively, are related to one another as the other is related to
the third.
I call this a Eule, rather than an Axiom, for it is too general
to be quite self-evident, and, moreover, one or two slightly
exceptional cases have to be allowed for. The true Axioms are,
I conceive, the following special laws of the different orders of
fundamental relations, laws which embody the above rule, but
can hardly be said to be derived from it.
1st, Likeness and Sameness
A BaC.'.AaC.
A 77 B 77 C . . (No Positive.)
A a B a C . ' . (Too indefinite.)
2nd, Co-existence
AcoBcoC.-.AcoC.
AcoBoC.-.AoC.
A o B o C . ' . (No positive.)
3rd, Succession (a> signifies Simultaneity)
AuBvC.-.AvC. (a fortiori.)
AeoBeC.'.AeC.
A v B e C . ' . (Too indefinite.)
A e B e C . . (No Positive.)
A v B o C . ' . (Too indefinite.)
Let us symbolise one of these correlations with concrete
terms :
On some Principles of Logic. 343
Plato
Socrates v ^ ^ .Aristotle.
The axioms of Triterminal Correlation govern the Constant
and Inconstant relations of Single Terms, and of Single Terms
only. Quadriterminal Correlation introduces the consideration
of Classes.
Rule of Quadriterminal Correlation.
Two terms that are severally the same as, or like, certain other
terms, which are definitely related to one another, are themselves
in the same way definitely related.
This principle is less self-evident than the former ; and even
in its special aspects the laws of the correlation of the various
fundamental kinds of relations are not all sufficiently certain to
be called Axioms.
1st, Likeness
Qualitative relations of likeness need not be compared in
this way. For suppose we wish to find a correlation which
implicates the relation A a B, such a correlation is indeed given
in the expression
A a B = C a D,
where A a C and B a D. But the relation to be established
is more clearly implicated in two Triterminal correlations, thus :
A a C a D .; . A a D,
A a D a B . . AaB.
If, however, in any correlation, two explicit relations be of an
indefinite kind, implication is uncertain.
The logical application of the Rule of Quadriterminal Corre-
lation is to relations of Succession and Co-existence.
2nd, Co-existence. (Let A = C and B = D.)
A o B = C o D.
3rd, Succession. (Let A = C and B = D.)
A v B = C v D,
A e B = C e D,
To symbolise these correlations with concrete terms :
344
On some Principles of Logic.
Men as a class. \ =
Any member of the
class unspecified.
Mortality, y =
Again
Heated metals as a class.
Expansion.
Mortality.
Any metal similarly heated.
Expansion.
It will be plain, I think, to everyone who sees these symbols
that the principle of the Quadriterminal Correlation of Co-
existences is a generalised statement of the doctrine of Natural
Kinds ; participating, of course, in the shortcomings of that
doctrine. And it is equally manifest that the principle of the
Quadriterminal Correlation of Successions is no other than the
Law of Causation. We have thus arrived in a familiar region.
It has already been observed, and the above illustrations
show, that Quadriterminal Qualitative Correlations are those
involved in the nature of Classes ; and, accordingly, the next
logical topic is the general nature and definition of Classes ; and
indeed, roughly speaking, the one remaining subject of Logic is
the theory of Classification. But in order to make good this
assertion, we must ask permission to extend somewhat the
denotation of the word Class. Usually we understand by a
Class an assemblage of Compound Terms, agreeing in certain
qualities, which cohere chiefly in co-existence ; but there seems
to be no scientific objection to the recognition of classes of
Terms whose points of agreement cohere chiefly in Succession,
classes the members of which should be unities of Cause and
Effect, or, as one might call them, Causal Instances. The recog-
nition of such classes agrees well with the psychological doctrine
that all thought is classification, and enables us to add that the
one aim of Science is systematic classification. It enables us
to identify to a great extent Laws and Definitions. For every
Law of Causation is the Definition of a Class of Causal
Instances ; and every Definition of a Natural Kind is a Law of
Co-existence. These remarks require some qualifications, but
On some Principles of Logic. 345
we will not linger over them just now ; nor need the considera-
tion of classes in general and their definition, regarded as a
process of generalisation, at present detain us.
A class or law having been generalised, it still remains to
test its truth, that is, the constancy of the relations predicated.
This is usually called Induction. The Induction of relations of
Succession is governed by the Law of Causation ; the Induction
of relations of Co-existence is aided (much less effectively) by
the doctrine of Natural Kinds. And thus the Logic of the
text-books connects itself with the more general principles above
exhibited.
What now are the nature and use of the Law of Causation
and the doctrine of Natural Kinds ? Their nature is to be
definitions : the Law of Causation is the Definition of Causal
Instances in general ; the doctrine of Natural Kinds is the
definition of Natural Kinds in general. And their use is to
sum up the marks of constant relationship : the Law of Causa-
tion sums up the marks of constant relations of Succession ; the
doctrine of Natural Kinds sums up the marks (so far as we are
able to discover any) of constant relations of Co-existence.
Relations of Succession are certainly, relations of Co-existence
are presumptively, constant, when they can be shown to have
the marks indicated by these definitions.
The subject of Causation is encumbered with many contro-
versies, and even the statement of the Law of Causation is not
unanimously agreed upon. The best expression of it, as it
appears to me, is to be gathered from the work of Prof. Bain
(Logic, B. III., c. iv.). The greatest innovation in the portion of
his book devoted to Induction, is, he tells us, " the rendering of
Cause by the new doctrine called the Conservation, Persistence,
or Correlation of Force " (Preface) : and this innovation, though
strictly, perhaps, of an extra-logical character, is still a very
desirable one, because it supplies an additional mark of con-
stancy. Besides the old points of the Law, namely, that every
event has a cause, and that the same causes always produce
the same effects, we now learn that the quantity of energy
embodied in the effect is always equal to the quantity of energy
embodied in the cause; a fact which until recently was only
faintly and insecurely apprehended. This, it will be observed,
is as much as to say, that a relation of constant Succession
constantly coincides with a relation of equality. To take a
concrete illustration :
346 On some Principles of Logic.
Class of Instances of the^v = /Single Instance of such,
contact of Fire with J I contact.
Gunpowder.
Explosion.y = \Explosion.
It is convenient to state the Law of Causation in three distinct
clauses as above indicated : we are then able, by a process
toward which Prof. Bain has given more than a broad hint
(Logic, B. III., c. 5, 6), to deduce from it the Experimental
Methods, except the Joint Method, which seems to depend
partly on Probabilities. Prof. Bain is quite right, therefore, I
conceive, in saying, that the Methods of Elimination usually
called Inductive are really Deductive.
As for the doctrine of Natural Kinds, there seems to be little
or nothing to add to Mill's first account of it. " There are some
classes," he says, " the things contained in which differ from
other things only in certain particulars which may be numbered,
while others differ in more than can be numbered, more even
than we need ever expect to know. ... A hundred
generations have not exhausted the common properties of
animals or of plants, of sulphur or of phosphorus ; nor do we
suppose them to be exhaustible, but proceed to new observations
and experiments, in the full confidence of discovering new
properties which were by no means implied in those we
previously knew " (Logic, B. I., c. 7, 4). From this language,
which Prof. Bain, if I remember rightly, somewhere pronounces
to be " perhaps slightly exaggerated," we gather that the mark
of a Natural Kind is, that the members of it agree among them-
selves, and differ from other terms in a multitude of underived
qualities: and since the relations among the qualities of a specimen
of a Natural Kind have a high degree of constancy, the mark of
a Natural Kind is a mark of constancy ; this at least is a fair
presumption. But as an instrument of Probation the doctrine
of Natural Kinds must always be very inferior to the Law of
Causation. And from a certain point of view, this is even
fortunate : for had we two equally powerful principles, each
applying to a fundamental order of constant relations, we
might not know which principle we ought to try to reduce
to the other ; 'and so we might be condemned to a perpetual
duality of conception. But complete generalisation requires
that one should be reduced to the other ; and, as it is, we cannot
hesitate to endeavour to reduce Co-existence to the effect of
Causation.
On some Principles of Logic. 347
After the Definition, Probation, and Establishment of Classes,
the clue of exposition leads naturally to the relations of Classes
among themselves. Classes, like Single Terms, may be im-
mediately or mediately compared. The subject of the immediate
comparison of Classes corresponds with that portion of Scholastic
Logic which deals with Judgments or Propositions.
Finally, we come to treat of the Mediate Comparison of
Classes, and herein of the Syllogism.
In the theory of the Syllogism there seem to be at present
two principal moot points, first, as to the presiding axiom of
that special Correlation ; secondly, as to the number of its
Terms. Mill rejected the old Axiom of the Syllogism, which
had previously been generally, though not universally, accepted,
that is, the famous Dictum, and proposed instead Axioms
closely resembling the former rival of the Dictum, the Nota
notae ; namely
(1) " Things which co-exist with the same thing, co-exist
with one another."
(2) " A thing which co-exists with another thing, with which
other thing a third thing does not co-exist, is not co-existent
with that third thing " (Logic, B. II., c. 2, 3, 7th ed.).
These axioms we have already recognised as formulating
certain modes of Triterminal Correlation. Prof. Bain apparently
prefers to fall back upon the Dictum, only amending it so as to
fence it against the imputation of begging the question. His
amended statement of it reads : " Whatever is true of a whole
class (class indefinite, fixed by connotation), is true of whatever
thing can be affirmed to come under or belong to the class (as
ascertained by connotation) " (Logic,, B. II., c. 1, 11).
Both the Dictum itself and Mill's Axioms assume that* a true
Syllogism comprises three terms; the terms regarded in the
former case being classes ; and in the latter case, attributes. Mr.
Spencer, however, contends that a Syllogism comprises four
terms (Psychology, c. viii.). I must venture to differ slightly
from all these authorities.
Mr. Spencer has elsewhere (Study of Sociology, c. ix.) described
Deductive Logic as " a science of the relations implied in the
inclusions, exclusions, and overlappings of classes " ; and I think
we shall gain by trying to regard the subject steadily from this
matter-of-fact point of view, neglecting as much as possible the
complications introduced into it by forms of language. Classes
may be compared as to their Comprehension, and as to their
Extension ; or, as it would perhaps be better phrased, as to their
Attributions, and as to their Constituencies. For every relation
between the Attributions of two or more classes, there must be
an equivalent relation between their Constituencies. And from
348 On some Principles of Logic.
these different points of view, we may frame Axioms of the
Syllogism, which shall be equivalent to one another.
Of the three classes comprised in a Syllogism, that one to
which the other two bear explicit relations, is called the Middle :
the other two classes may be called the Outers. All Syllogisms
which imply an inclusive relation between the Outers, may, if
we think of the three classes as sums of Constituents, be brought
under the following Axiom :
(1) A class that includes a second class, that includes a third,
itself includes -the third, in so far as the third is included in the
second.
If we think of the three classes as determined by the common
qualities of their constituents, the Axiom will run :
(2) A class whose Attribution is included in the Attribution
of a second class, whose Attribution is realised in the Constitu-
ents of a third class or in some of them, includes those Con-
stituents of the third class.
Syllogisms which imply an exclusive relation between the
Outers, come under the following Axioms :
(1) A class that excludes a class, that includes a third class,
itself excludes the third class, in so far as the third class is
included in the second.
Or, from the attributional point of view :
(2) If the Constituents of a class do not realise the Attribu-
tion of a second class, whose Attribution is realised by the
Constituents of a third class (or by some of them) the Con-
stituents of the first and third classes (or some of them) are not
identical.
The Axioms of Constituent Belationship (so to speak) resemble
the Dictum in its old form ; as a moment's consideration will
show. We may write the Dictum thus : Whatever is affirmed
of a class is affirmed of every part - of it. But that which is
affirmed of a class is always an Attribute, and every Attribute
is the basis of a class. To say ' whatever is affirmed of a class,'
then, amounts to saying, ' whatever class includes a class ' ; and
the whole Dictum comes to this : A class that includes a
class, includes every part of it. And the Axioms of Attribu-
tional Eelationship (so to speak) bear some resemblance to
Mill's Axioms ; but still more to the Dictum as amended by
Prof. Bain.
If now these are the Axioms of the Syllogism, or of the
Mediate Comparison of Classes ; how many terms does a
Syllogism comprise ? It lies on the face of the above Axioms
that, if by a term be meant an explicit class, a Syllogism
comprises three terms, as it has always been supposed to do.
But in dealing with classes in this way we resort to an artifice.
On some Principles of Logic. 349
an abbreviated mode of expression. If looking beneath the
artifice we consider the actual correlation of phenomena, we
shall probably perceive that a Syllogism comprises more than
three terms, and even more than four.
Let us take an example ; how many Terms has this Syllo-
gism ?
Men are mortal ;
Greeks are men ;
Greeks are mortal.
According to the old view, there are three Terms
Greeks, Men, Mortals :
or, in comprehension,
Mortality, Humanity, Hellenicity ;
and either way, the three Terms slide into one another, as one
shuts up a telescope. According to Mill's Axiom, the correlation
might be symbolised thus :
Hellenicity o> Humanity.
Mortality.
But here we are reminded that Hellenicity does not co-exist
with all the Humanity with which Mortality is concomitant.
The evidence thus adduced for the mortality of Greeks, is the
mortality of Greeks and no more ; but much more is intended
when it is said that Greeks are mortal, because all men are.
So far then I agree with Mr. Spencer that Mill's view is in-
sufficient ; but I cannot assent to the view which he appears to
hold, that the symbol of Quadriterminal Correlation adequately
represents the Correlation formulated in a Syllogism.
Men as a ClassA /Certain Men unspecified.
Mortality. ) \ Mortality.
This, it seems to me, is all that can fairly be got into a symbol
23
350 On some Principles of Logic.
of Quadriterminal Correlation, and this represents a relation of
only two classes (Humanity and Mortality), not of three. The
differential nature of Greeks is here omitted ; wherein, perhaps,
there may be something incompatible with mortality. The
correlation formulated in a Syllogism therefore must be repre-
sented as Quinqueterminal :
Humanity hi^ /'Humanity G> Hellenicity.
general.
2
^
Mortality./ \ Mortality.
This Quinqueterminal Correlation is a union of Quadriter-
minal and Triterminal Correlations. And here let me point out
again, that Triterminal Correlation can never give a relation of
Classes, but at most the relation of qualities in the members of
a single class.
The above Syllogism, then, really comprises the following five
terms :
(1) Hellenicity.
(2) Hellenic Humanity.
(3) Mortality of Hellenic Humanity.
(4) Non-Hellenic Humanity.
(5) Mortality of Non- Hellenic Humanity.
Thus we see that in the Axioms of the Syllogism, as above
stated, the three classes spoken of are two of them (Humanity
and Mortality) divisible each into two classes ; and one of the
two (Mortality) contains a third portion, namely, Non-Human
Mortality, which is not a term of the Syllogism. In fact it
may contribute to the right understanding of Logic, as well as
to the uniformity of its formulae, if we write the Axiom of the
Syllogism thus :
Eule of Quinqueterminal Correlation.
A Term that co-exists with a second Term, that second Term
and a third Term being severally the same as a fourth and fifth
Term, which are related to one another by Co-existence or
Succession, is related to the third Term as the fourth to the
fifth, and as the second to the third.
For that the rule applies to classes of Causal Instances, as
well as to Kinds, will be apparent to anyone who contemplates
this symbol :
On some Principles of Logic.
351
Metal heated.
Expansion
Metal heated &> Differentia of Iron.
Expansion.
And that is to say ; Expanded bodies include heated metals,
which include heated iron.
We have now surveyed four modes of Implication, four
modes of Correlation in which relations that are explicit imply
and prove relations that are not explicit ; and each of these
genera includes more than one species. It did not fall within
our sphere to consider other than Qualitative Correlations ; but
had we taken account of the Quantitative order, it would only
have added two or three formally different kinds ; the chief
being Proportion tinder Quadriterminal Correlation. Perhaps a
Table of the modes of Implication may throw back some light
on preceding pages.
Implication.
Immediate.
Bitenninal. Triterminal.
Correlations. Correlations.
(doubly (singly
conjunct). conjunct).
The Kelations compared
may be severally
constant or inconstant.
Mediate.
_^^-
Quadriterminal.
Correlations,
(disjunct).
Quinquet erm inal.
Correlations.
The Relations compared
are severally constant.
The first three modes appear to be elementary and irreducible :
the fourth mode is compounded of the second and third ; but
cannot, I think, be reduced to them without loss. . All other
compound modes, so far as I have examined them, are easily
reducible, and do not need separate discussion.
Whilst writing these pages, I have generally tried, not always
successfully, to avoid expressions which might draw attention
to that aspect of Logic which has won for it the name of the
Science of Proof. Let us now briefly inquire what is the
relation of Logic to Probation. Any Law gains in certainty by
being subsumed under a higher and more general Law : it is
demonstrated when it is subsumed under an Axiom. Any
Science which contains an Axiom of its own, or by accumulated
352 English Thought in the 18th Century.
empirical evidence raises one of its Laws to the authority of an
Axiom, becomes to that extent a Science of Proof in all less
general cases to which the principle applies. Logic and Mathe-
matics have this character pre-eminently, because they are so
rich in Axioms and in deductions from Axioms which are of
axiomatic certainty. In Logic, the different modes of Correla-
tion, the special Axioms, the Experimental Methods, and the
Moods of Syllogism, all form an apparatus of Proof. And it is
true that a good deal of it was developed for that purpose. But
it needed not to have been so : all these formule might have
been worked out merely for the sake of developing the Science ;
and they would still have been equally efficient as a means of
Proof. Thus, to be a Science of Proof is a proprium of Logic,
and no part of its essence ; and therefore, strictly speaking, the
fact should not be included in the definition of Logic. I hope
it is needless to add that this remark is intended only to clear
up the nature of the Science, and not at all to deprecate the
development of Applied Logic.
CARVETH EEAD.
V. ENGLISH THOUGHT IN THE 18ra CENTUEY*
BESIDES the remarkable work whose name is placed at the head
of this article, two other important contributions have recently
been made to the history of philosophical thinking in England.
Professor Kuno Fischer has taken his old monograph on Francis
Bacon (known to English readers since 1857 in Mr. Oxenford's
translation), and so recast and enlarged it as to give not only
a more adequate representation of Bacon as a man and thinker,
but an account of the development of the ' Philosophy of
Experience' as far as Hume, no longer quite too meagre to stand
as a side-piece to that history of Modern Philosophy which he
has traced on a great scale from Descartes through Spinoza and
Leibnitz to Kant and his successors.f The book in its new form
appeared in 1875, and in the same year, by a curious coinci-
dence, the late M. de Eemusat, who had before followed close
on Fischer with an independent monograph on Bacon, came
forward with a History of Philosophy in England from Bacon
to Locke.^. There is evidence of genuine research in this work,
* History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, by LESLIE
STEPHEN. 2 vols. London : Smith, Elder, & Co. 1876.
t Francis Bacon und seine Nachfolger. Entwicklungsgeschichte der
Erfahrungsphilosophie. Von KUNO FISCHER. 2te vollig umgearbeitete
Auflage. Leipzig : Brockhaus, 1875. The greater work, Geschichte der
neuern Philosophic, has thus far been brought down to Schelling.
J Histoire de la Philosophic en Angleterre depuis Bacon jusqu' a Locke,
par CHARLES DE EEMUSAT. 2 Tomes. Paris : Didier et Cie., 1875.
English Thought in the 18th Century. 353
especially among the less-known writers of the 17th century,
which should have drawn attention to it in England before this
time. On the present occasion it is simply mentioned, because
of the period which it seeks to compass. Where M. de Kemusat
leaves off, there Mr. Leslie Stephen in his brilliant volumes may
be said to take up the tale ; and, though there could not well be
a greater difference in the spirit and scope of the two works,
there is much in the later history that may be better understood
for the careful record of the earlier time which we owe to a
foreign hand.
Much as he has to say about philosophers and their work,
great and small, Mr. Stephen has not written or professed to
write a History of Philosophy in the stricter sense. His aim
and even his method of constructing the book are disclosed with
the utmost candour. It was his first object to trace systemati-
cally and in full detail the course of Keligious Thought from 1688
to 1750, the period defined and rapidly sketched in Mr.
Pattison's well-known essay. Lechler, more than thirty years
ago, gave an adequate account of the Deists proper, but did not
concern himself, save incidentally, with their orthodox oppon-
ents, though these (as Mr. Pattison sought particularly to
impress) betrayed the same general tendencies of thought. It
accordingly seemed necessary to Mr. Stephen to trace back the
common theological tendencies of the age to the philosophical
ideas then prevalent ; and upon this there was an interest in
showing how the principles accepted in philosophy and theology
were applied to practice in the sphere of moral and political
thought, or, again, reflected in the imaginative literature of the
time. As thus explained, the scope of the book is of course
very different from that of a technical History of Philosophy,
and it is in fact so comprehensive that almost everything
appears to be included in the author's survey of thought or
intellectual activity in the century, except the work of special
science.
Is he justified in giving to the word Thought at once such an
extension and such a restriction, as to include in the same
treatise with thinkers like Locke and Hume and Butler, poets
and novelists and preachers like Burns and Fielding and
Wesley, to the exclusion of scientific inquirers like Newton or
Black or Hunter ? Mr. Stephen, though himself doubting
whether his title is not too ambitious, evidently is guided by
some definite principle in determining the scope and limits of
his work ; and perhaps it may be gathered, in default of more
express statement, from the beginning of his last chapter where
he passes, after dealing successively with philosophers, theo-
logians, moralists and publicists, to the delineation of what he
354 English Tliought in the 18th Century.
calls the ' Characteristics ' of the age. The literature of a
people, we are told, may be disposed under three heads: (1) his-
torical, which records facts and summarises or amplifies existing
knowledge ; (2) speculative, which discusses the truth of the
theories binding knowledge together ; and (3) imaginative,
which utters the emotions generated by the conditions in which
men are or believe themselves to be placed. Here, Science is
either excluded from Literature altogether as a technical pursuit,
or it is included in the wider sense of History, which regards
nature in all its varied aspects as well as man. In either case,
since History itself is not brought within Mr. Stephen's scheme,
Science as the sum of existing positive knowledge about the
world is naturally excluded. But besides the properly philo-
sophic thought which seeks rationally to co-ordinate the variety
of human knowledge with a view more or less direct to practical
conduct, it is natural to consider the imaginative synthesis,
since by this (as he urges) is determined the action of the
majority of mankind, and farther (as he might have added)
because the philosophical synthesis, not being in the same way
verifiable as the generalisations of positive science, must always
contain an element of subjective sentiment allying it to ima-
ginative literature. If some such view was present to Mr.
Stephen's mind, there is not wanting a good reason for the limita-
tion of subjects in his book ; while, on the other hand, his readers
may be glad that he has so far widened his scheme as to give
them, in his well and often brilliantly written pages, a varied
picture of national thought and feeling alive with human
interest, instead of the abstract and one-featured record, apt to
be misleading, which History of Philosophy commonly is. Nor
in this case at least is good literary effect procured at the
expense of careful research. The one objection, perhaps, in
point of form, that can be brought against the book as a History
of Thought, is the unequal prominence given to the phases of
religious as compared with philosophical opinion, if it is not
too ungracious to say so, when Mr. Stephen has implied in his
ingenuous preface that, but for his interest in the religious
movements, we might not have had from him a view of the
century at all.
In Mr. Stephen's view one figure stands forward at the
beginning, and re-appears towering above all others in every
scene of the history. Whether it be the philosophy, or the
theology, or the morals, or the politics of the century that is
under review, the decisive word, representing the last otitcome
of what was in men's minds, is always uttered by Hume. Half-
way through the century dogmatic speculation about the siiper-
natural ceased of a sudden : Hume had spoken, and ever after-
English Thought in the 18th Century. 355
wards those who were concerned to save the conclusions of
metaphysical philosophy had no choice but to try for them by
another road. About the same time the hot theological warfare
that had filled the world with clamour for two generations died
away : Hume had sprung a mine that sent into the air both
deists who were not Christians, and Christian apologists who
were but deists. It took fifty years from the time of Locke
before the utilitarian ethics, so congenial to the national mind,
got a definite philosophical expression from Hume. Hume
left nothing unsaid which the acutest intellect could say about
political philosophy so long as men were supposed independent
atoms, and there was no thought of organic evolution or serious
consideration of historical development. And if the historical
spirit began to awake in the second half of the century, in pre-
paration for the work of the age to come, even in this forward
movement Hume too had part. When we remember, besides,
who it was that almost disowned the rugged work of his strong
youth, and desired to be judged by the fastidiously polished but
less searching essays of his prime, we see with what reason Mr.
Stephen may take Hume as quite the representative thinker of
a century quick with intellectual activity, only not the deepest.
Should we try, farther, to gain a comprehensive view of the
whole course of thought in the century, as it presents itself to
Mr. Stephen, the spectacle resolves itself into a number of scenes
which, described in very general terms, are these : (1) A move-
ment of determined philosophical criticism lasting fifty years
or more from Locke to Hume, destructive of the whole edifice
of speculative metaphysic reared by Descartes and his followers
in the 17th century, but neither itself constructive nor exciting
(in England), while the century lasted, any philosophical con-
struction of real and permanent importance. (2) A rationalistic
movement in religion, prepared in the 17th century, and follow-
ing naturally from the principles of Protestantism, at first
promoted by the influence of the current philosophical ideas,
yet in the end suppressed by the advance of philosophical
opinion, or changed into a historical investigation of the external
evidences for a supernatural revelation. (3) A movement to
find a rational ground for moral action, by way of supplement
to the weakened force of the theological sanction, or as a
substitute for it when altogether rejected. (4) A corresponding
movement, less earnestly maintained, to explain on rational
principles the social and political relations subsisting between
men, upon the decay of the notion of supernatural ordinance.
(5) Within this last movement, a special determination towards
economic inquiry. (6) Finally, a varied literary movement,
at first reflecting very faithfully the dominant philosophical
356 English Thought in the 18th Century.
and religious conceptions, but afterwards, as these became
effete without begetting others, opening out into new lines of
sentiment which anticipated the rational thought and inquiry
of the coming time.
It is not possible, in short compass, to do anything like
justice to the working out of so comprehensive a scheme as this
of Mr. Stephen's, but as the philosophical and ethical move-
ments, which are of special interest to the readers of this journal,
happen to be rather compendiously treated, we may look a little
more closely at his view of these.
The dogmatic philosophy which the ' English Criticism '
broke down was the metaphysical system inaugurated by Des-
cartes, and, according to Mr. Stephen (though the point is never
very clearly established and is rather doubtful), the same
system, with its abstract assumptions and deductive method,
dominated the minds of the chief English rationalists in religion,
whether orthodox or deistical. He therefore begins with a short
account of the Cartesian philosophy. He makes no reference to
Bacon, and but incidental reference to Hobbes, the great English
thinkers of the 17th century, and this may appear strange ; yet
there is reason for the omission. Bacon and Hobbes were, each
in his generation and in his own way, true representatives of
the English spirit in philosophy, but it was not till Locke aban-
doned any such attempt as either of theirs to construct an objec-
tive system of universal knowledge, and threw himself upon a
critical investigation of the mind's powers, that England joined
properly in the modern philosophical movement of Europe. It
is true that Descartes himself, the great leader of the movement,
had sought, from his philosophical starting-point, to work out
also an explanation of the concrete phenomena of nature. Before
the end of the 17th century, however, the attempt was practi-
cally discredited by the advance of positive physical science from
the time of Galileo ; and Locke showed a true appreciation of
the Zeitgeist, when, in an age that produced " such masters as
the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with
some other of that strain," he thought it "ambition enough
to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a
little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way
to knowledge". In words of too great modesty, we have here
from Locke himself a statement of the true work of philosophy
in modern times, and we see how in him English philosophical
thought comes into relation with the general European move-
ment which, however, diverted by this or that speculative
genius, has always been directed to the fundamental inquiry
as to the ground and limits of knowledge. In particular, the
Cartesian philosophy was an attempt to found certainty of
English Thought in the 18th Century. 357
knowledge upon the immediate deliverances of adult con-
sciousness, without consideration of the sources and develop-
ment of knowledge, and in respect of method sought to proceed
by way of rational deduction in constructing a fabric of meta-
physical doctrine. This was exactly what Locke set himself
from the very foundation to oppose. That the question of the
validity and limits of knowledge must depend upon an inquiry
into its origin and development was his deepest philosophical
conviction ; and though, as Mr. Stephen well points out, he and
his successors till Hume were really at one with the Cartesians
in restricting the inquiry to the consciousness of the individual
as known by introspection, and had not a different conception
of the meaning of real existence, yet the difference of method
could not but lead to very different conclusions. How far Locke
himself applied the critical solvent to the system of dogmatic
metaphysics and how, with diverse aims, it was farther applied
by Berkeley and Hume, is clearly and vigorously set forth in
general lines by Mr. Stephen. The result was what we know-
that rational speculation by itself, apart from experience, was
stripped of all authority.
Mr. Stephen, having always more than an antiquarian interest
in his subject being, in fact, for an historian, too much rather
than too little apt to sit in judgment, as well as set forth and
explain is especially careful to consider the attitude of Hume,
so as to find a way out of the deadlock to which the great doubter
seemed to bring all human inquiry, while shattering the system
of speculative metaphysic. He finds that Hume's point of view
was essentially artificial ; that he did not think of the mind of
the individual in its true relation to the social organism as
moulded by influences quite different from the disjointed and
haphazard sense-impressions out of which he supposed the whole
fabric of intellectual consciousness had ever anew to be reared
by and for each person ; that he had no historical sense, much
less a glimmer of that scientific notion of the evolution of all
organic life which since then has so profoundly affected the work
of philosophical interpretation. The criticism, though not very
elaborate, is, as far as it goes, admirably conducted, and is an
attempt of a kind that has been too seldom made by sympathisers
with Hume's philosophical spirit to maintain it intelligently in
the altered state of human knowledge since his time. As such,
Mr. Stephen's judgment deserves the attention of those cham-
pions of a different philosophy, who seem to think that a textual
sifting of the writings of Locke and Hume, revealing manifold
inconsistencies and defects of thought, is the most effective way
of dealing a death-blow to the cause of Experientialism at the
present day. But in exhibiting Hume as the hero of a philoso-
358 English TlwugU in the 18th Century.
phic movement which effectually accomplished a work of destruc-
tion yet did it from principles which could lead to no construc-
tive result, so that only after a long lapse of years and by means
of varied research in history and special science was there gra-
dually formed, in these latter days, something like an adequate
experiential philosophy Mr. Stephen has not given sufficient
prominence to one very marked phase of English intellectual in-
quiry in the 18th century, and has thus been led to do some in-
justice, if not to Hume's predecessors, at least to his contem-
poraries and successors within the century. Psychology, if it is
viewed as science, has yet an exceptional standing in relation
to philosophy, and cannot be neglected in a history of philoso-
phic thought in England, where it has been so steadily cultivated
without being too carefully discriminated from philosophy proper.
Now Mr. Stephen, in his exposition, nowhere gives much atten-
tion to the progress of psychology, though this was very remark-
able within the century ; and hence he fails to assign due im-
portance to one in particular of Hume's contemporaries David
Hartley. His somewhat disparaging estimate of Reid, in the
last generation of the century, might also have been relieved
by an allowance of serious purpose as a psychological inquirer
to one who himself achieved something, and moved others to
achieve more.
It should be well understood that Locke's work, the beginning
of all that followed in England, had two sides which, however
related to one another, may be clearly distinguished, and were
in fact the occasion of two different lines of development in
English thought. Essentially a philosopher in his concern for
the general problem of knowledge, he sought for the solution of
it in a psychological spirit, and he was the first who expressly
took up this position. He differed from his predecessors, not
only in his philosophical conclusion, but from all of them even
his own countryman Hobbes in putting forward the psycholo-
gical question of the growth of knowledge as the first to be
answered. And however undeveloped his own psychology was,
it soon appeared from what followed how effectively he had given
an impulse to new inquiry. Berkeley did not only philosophise
after the manner of Locke, showing, with the special theological
purpose that moved him, how all knowledge was based on expe-
rience, and that no experience could be assigned portending an
absolute existence of matter : he began in his New Theory of
Vision the work of special psychological investigation after the
manner of positive science. Even Hume, though his lasting im-
portance consists in his properly philosophical activity, set out
at the beginning with the distinctly psychological aim of found-
ing a 
