Mind

MIND

A QUARTERLY REVIEW

OF

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.

ABERDEEN:

A. KING AND 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,

PROFESSOR IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.

VOL.JII.-I878.

WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,

14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON
AND 20 SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.

IS/8.

M

CONTENTS OF VOLUME III

AETICLES.

PAGE

ALLEN, GRANT. — Note-Deafness 157

The Origin of the Sublime .... 824
BAIN, A. — Education as a Science ..... 304,451
BALFOUR, A. J.— The Philosophy of Ethics .... 67
„ Transcendentalism ..... 480

BARZELLOTTI, G. — Philosophy in Italy ..... 505
CLIFFORD, W. K. — On the Nature of Things-in-themselves . 57
CUNNINGHAM, W. — Political Economy as a Moral Science . .369
EDITOR. — The Physical Basis of Mind . . . . .24
„ Philosophy in Education ..... 241

HALL, G. S. — The Muscular Perception of Space . . . 433
HELMHOLTZ, H. — On the Origin and Meaning of Geometrical

Axioms (II.) 212

LAND, J. P. N. — Philosophy in the Dutch Universities . . 87

MONCK, W. H. S.— Butler's Ethical System .... 358

POLLOCK, E. — Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza . . . 195

EOMANES, G. J. — Consciousness of Time . . . .297

, SIDGWICK, A. — The Negative Character of Logic . . .350

STEWART, J. A. — Philosophy in Education .... 225

SULLY, J. — The Question of Visual Perception in Germany . 1,167

. THOMPSON, D. G.— Intuition and Inference . . . 339,468

. VENN, J.— The Use of Hypotheses 43

CRITICAL NOTICES.

ADAMSON, R. — Anonymous Thoughts on Logic . . .124
„ Schroeder's Die Operationskreis des Logikkalkuls 252

„ Huber's Die Forsclmng nach der Mater ie . .389

COLLIER, J. — Espinas's Des Societes animates . . . .105

vi Contents.

PAGE

EDITOR. — Pillon's Introduction to Hume's Treatise of Human

Nature (in French) 384

„ Meinong's Hume-Studien, I. ..... 386

FLINT, E. — Turbiglio's Le Antitesi tra il Medioevo e V Eta

moderna nella Storia della Filosofia . . .549
LAND, J. P. N". — Erdmann's Die Axiome der Geometric . . 551
LEE, A. B. — Camerer's Die Lehre des Spinoza . . .261
MAIN, A. — Bouillier's De la Conscience and Du Plaisir et de la

Douleur 255

POLLOCK, F. — Perez' Les trois premieres annees de T Enfant . 546
READ, C. — Bowen's Modern Philosophy from Descartes to

Schopenhauer and Spinoza . . . .118
STEWART, J. A. — Lange's Logische Studien . . . .112
VENN, J.— Read's Theory of Logic 539

REPORTS.

De Cyon, E. — The Semicircular Canals and the " Sense of Space " 559

Pniiger, E. — Teleological Mechanics of Life .... 264

„ Sensory Functions of the Spinal Cord . . . 268

Pollock, F. — An Infant's progress in Language . . .392

Simcox, E.— Note-Deafness (G. Allen) 401

Spencer, H, — Consciousness under Chloroform .... 555
Stilling, J. — Detection of Colour-Blindness . . . .262
Striimpell, A. — A contribution to the Theory of Sleep . . 263

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

^-» Adamson, R. — Prof. Jevons on Mill's Experimental Methods . 415
Allen, G. — The Development of the Colour-Sense . . .129

r — Bain, A. — Mill's Theory of the Syllogism . . . .137
Balfour, A. J. — The Philosophy of Ethics . . . .276
Barratt, A. — Ethics and Psychogony . . . . .277
Davies, W. G. — Necessary Connexion and Inductive Reasoning 417
Douse, T. Le M. — " Transposition of Traces of Experience " . 132

,— sr Editor.—/. S. Mill's Philosophy tested by Prof. Jevons . 141,287
-t^.,, Logic and the Elements of Geometry . . .564

Contents. vii

PAGE

Friedmann, P. — The Genesis of Disinterested Benevolence . 404

Haldane, E. B. — Hegelianism and Psychology . . .568

^x« Halstead, G. B. — Prof. Jevons' s criticism of Boole's Logic . 134

^K ^Hirst, T. A. — Logic and the Elements of Geometry . . . 564

—Jevons, W. S.— J. S. Mill's Philosophy tested by Prof. Jevons 284

Lingard, J. T. — The Rule of Three in Metaphysics . . .571

Oughter-Lonie, A. C. — The Genesis of Primitive Thought . 126

, Kead, C. — Mr. Sully on Pessimism . . . . .410

~- .Strachey, A. — /. S. Mill's Philosophy tested by Prof. Jevons . 283

^ Thompson, D. G. — Presentative and Representative Cognitions . 270

t=i Wedgwood, H. — The Foundation of Arithmetic . . .572

NEW BOOKS.

Althaus, J. — Diseases of the Nervous System . . . .149
Baerenbach, F. v. — Das Problem einer Naturgeschichte des

Weibes 152

•Bascom, J. — Comparative Psychology . . . . .581
Bateman, F. — Darwinism tested by Language .... 579

Butler, S. — Life and Habit ' . 149

Byk, S. A. — Die vorsokratische Philosophic der Griechen, II. . 153

Cantoni, C.— Giuseppe Ferrari 583

Cohen, H. — Kant's Begriindung der Ethik .... 153

Cox, E. W.— Sleep and Dream 289

Edgeworth, F. Y.—New and Old Methods of Ethics . . 146
Erdmann, B. — Kant's Prolegomena fyc. . . . . .430

Fechner, G. T. — In Sachen der Psijchophysik . . . .293

Flint, E.— Theism 150

Fontana, G. — V Epopaea e la Filosofia della Storia . .582
.Fowler, T. — Inductive Logic (3rd ed.) . . . . .426

. „ Bacon's Novum Organum . . . . .426

Garden, F. — A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms . . .291
G%cki, G. \.-Die Ethik David Hume's &c. ... 429

Guthrie, M. — The Causational and Free Will Theories of

Volition 150

Harms, F. — Die Philosophic in Hirer Geschichte . . .292
Hawkins, J. — Phases of Modern Doctrine fyc. . . .291

Hermann, C. — Hegel u. die logische Frage in der Philosopliie

der Gegenwart . . . . . .582

viii Contents.

PAGE

Hodgson, S. H. — The Philosophy of Reflection . . . 424
Hopkins, E. — Life and Letters of James Hinton . . .289
Horwicz, A. — Psychologische Analysen, II. 2 . . . . 294

„ Moralische Brief e . . . . . .581

Jevons, W. S. — The Principles of Science (2nd ed.) . .148
Joly, H. — L' Imagination . ... . . . .428

Lazarus, M. — Das Leben der Seele, II. . . . . .291

Lilienfield, P. v. — GedanJcen iiber die Socialwissenschaft der

Zukunft 152

Macvicar, J. G. — On the Nature of Things . . ' . . 580
Magnus, H. — Die geschichtliche Entivickelung des Farbensinnes 151

„ Die Entwickelung des Farbensinnes . . .151

Miiller, G. E. — Zur Grundlegung der Psychophysik . . 430
Paoli, A. — Dei Concetti direttivi di J. S. Mill, fyc. . . . 429
Physicus. — A Candid Examination of Theism . . . 426

Eead, C.— On the Theory of Logic 426

Sidgwick, H.—The Methods of Ethics (2nd ed.) . . .147

Shields, C. W.—T/ie Final Philosophy $c 427

Sime, J. — Lessing : his Life and Writings . . . .145

Strachan, J.— What is Play? 149

Tuke, D. H. — Insanity in Ancient and Modern Life . . 427
Vere, Aubrey de — Proteus and Amadeus . . . .580

Wake, C. S.—The Evolution of Morality .... 290
Waldstein, C. — The Balance of Emotion and Intellect . .581
Wilson, W. D. — Live Questions in Psychology and Metaphysics 427
Witte, J. H. — Zur Erkenntnisstheorie und Ethik . . .293
Zeller, E. — Vortrdge und Abhandlungen, II. . . . . 152
Zinimern, H. — Gotthold Ephraim Lessing . . . .290
General Sketch of the History of Pantheism, I. ... 580

NEWS 153, 294, 431, 583

No. 9.] [January, 1878.

MIND

A QUARTERLY REVIEW

OF

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.

I.— THE QUESTION OF VISUAL PEKCEPTION IN
GEKMANY. (I.)

IMPARTIAL readers of recent English discussions of the space-
question will be ready to admit that there is still ample room
for more than one theory of the subject. Some years ago it
was commonly thought that, thanks to the arguments of the
Berkeleyans aided by the experiments of Wheatstone and others
the derivative nature of visual space was amply demonstrated.
Yet the skilful rehabilitation of the opposite doctrine by Bailey
proved, as J. S. Mill allowed, how great the difficulties are which
still beset the problem. More recently the ingenious arguments
of what may perhaps be called the Dublin school, including
Messrs. Abbot, Monck, and Mahaffy, have shown that the theory
of visual space is even now far from being finally determined.

In Germany the same unsettled condition of the problem
meets us. Indeed the division of opinion is even more strongly
marked in that country than in our own. English writers on
the whole have followed the direction indicated by Berkeley, who
may be said indeed to have given shape to the problem in our
country. In Germany, on the other hand, the discussion of the
question received its initial impulse from the opposite side,
namely, from the peculiar intuitional doctrine of Kant. And
this fact explains why the intuitive or original view has been so
ably represented in German writings. On the other hand, how-

1

2 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

ever, the influence of Berkeley and generally of the analytic
English psychology has made itself felt in the German discus-
sions, and at present it may be said that the derivative view of
space is quite abreast, if indeed not in advance of, its rival.

The field in which the space-question has been most warmly
discussed is that of visual perception. This domain is clearly
not one of pure psychology (in its narrow sense as a subjective
science), but to some extent comes under the control of physi-
ology. It offers ample territory for exact objective observation,
and for skilfully arranged experiment. Accordingly one finds
that in Germany it is the physiologists who have done most to
advance the question of the nature and origin of visual space.

The immense advantage that the co-operation of these workers
has secured is the accumulation of a large mass of new material
which the psychologists of the future will have to work up in
their theoretic constructions. Of the nature and extent of this
material it is my chief object to give some account in this paper.
It consists of observations and experiments which, being carried
out by men trained in the conditions of accurate scientific data, is
worth unspeakably more than the rough personal observations
which used to be put forward as a sufficient groundwork of a
psychological theory of space.

It will naturally be expected that such workers, having to
deal with so complicated a set of phenomena, and not being
specially trained in psychological interpretation, would, as soon
as they began to theorise on their facts, reach very different
results. What most strikes one, perhaps, in going over the
recent literature of the subject is the number of seemingly dis-
tinct hypotheses set up in explanation of the phenomena. Closer
inspection, however, shows that the diversities are often little
more than verbal. Further, a free exchange of criticisms has
served both to diminish the points of difference, and to reduce
the number of the competitors whose claims are worth serious
consideration.

I propose in the present paper to give a very brief sketch of
some of the principal results of recent researches in physiological
optics which bear on the nature of the visual perception of
space. So far as possible I shall confine myself to facts, only
giving such immediate conclusions from these as seem to be
indisputable. In a second paper I hope to indicate the various
ways in which the representatives of the different theories seek
ultimately to interpret the facts.*

First of all, then, let us inquire what has been done of late to

* I am indebted for most of these facts to Helmholtz's classical work
Physiologische Optik. Next to this Wundt's elaborate treatise Physio-
log ische Psychologic has proved most useful.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 3

elucidate the nature of the eye's perception of space-relations
in two dimensions, namely, relative direction, magnitude, and
figure. We will first of all consider these properties as perceived
by the single eye. The appreciation of them in binocular vision
is a subject so intricate as to call for a special discussion later
on.

If we ask what are the means at the disposal of the eye in its
construction of space, we find that these consist of two and only
two modes of sensibility. The first of these is what is known as
the discriminative local sensibility of the several nervous ele-
ments which compose the sensitive layer of the retina. It must
be admitted that in the mature eye a peculiar local interpreta-
tion belongs to all impressions falling on the same retinal ele-
ments.* What the ultimate nature and the origin of this sensi-
bility may be, is a question which must for the present be post-
poned. The second mode of sensibility which, as is now gene-
rally admitted, is involved in these perceptions is that which is
variously known under the name of the muscular sense, feeling of
innervation, and so on. There are a number of feelings attending
ocular movement and the action of the ocular muscles. Of these
the chief are those which accompany the actual movements of
the eye, and which vary according to the direction and range of
these movements. The question of the precise nature of this
motor and muscular sensibility will have to be dealt with under
the head of theoretic interpretations.

By help of these two orders of feeling, the eye gives local order
to its impressions in respect of the relative position of points,
lines, &c., their distance from one another, their magnitude, &c.
In other words, by these means it is capable of conceiving the
position of points, &c., in two dimensions.

Had we no other knowledge than this we should assign no
particular distance to objects, nor would the surface on which we
projected them have any particular shape. With our mature
ideas of space, we cannot, it is clear, conceive what our spice-
intuition would be under these circumstances, though we may
gain a faint imagination of it, perhaps, by thinking of the space-
ideas of microscopic creatures living on the surface of a sphere,
and knowing only points, lines, &c., lying on this surface.

It is sometimes said that from the first we tend to project
retinal impressions on to an imaginary concave surface. Thus it
is said that from the first children conceive the sky as the inner
side of a hollow sphere. Yet it must not be supposed that our
perceptions of the relative position and distance of points (or
lines) would involve any such conception. The notion of a

* Strictly speaking, this varies with the position of the eye. I assume
here that the eye remains in one and the same position.

4 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

hollow sphere belongs to our complex mature space-consciousness,
and our interpretation of the sky as a cupola may be explained
as the resultant of many experiences.

In investigating what has been done to clear up the conditions
of this side of our space-perception, we naturally begin with the
discriminative sensibility of the retina. Careful observations
have been made in this region by E. H. Weber and others,
corresponding to the celebrated researches conducted also by
Weber in the domain of. tactual sensation. It appears from
these that, in the case of a practised eye, in the area of perfect
vision (the yellow spot) two points are distinguished when the
visual angle reaches 60-90 seconds, or when the retinal image
has a magnitude of 0'004-0'006 millimetres.

The discriminative sensibility is less fine as we pass from the
centre to the peripheral regions of the retina ; and, what is more
curious, this falling-off takes place more rapidly along certain
retinal meridians than along others. Thus it is less rapid in the
horizontal than in the vertical direction. (Aubert & Forster.)

It seems probable that the cones, which are much more
numerous in the area of the yellow spot than elsewhere, are the
ultimate sensitive elements of the retina. It is a question, then,
what relation exists between the minimum of local discrimination
and the magnitude of the cones. This point is not yet settled,
owing to the conflicting results of the measurement of these
elements by different observers.*

The decrease in discriminative sensibility towards the peri-
phery is explained by the comparative sparsity of the cones. It
seems probable that over and above this circumstance, inequali-
ties in the exercise of the different retinal regions have an in-
fluence here. It is to be supposed that just as special practice
is found very considerably to increase the power of discrimina-
tion in the yellow spot, so the customary exercise of the eye
would tend to render the sensibility of the central still more
delicate than that of the peripheral regions.

The results of the defective observations reached on this whole
subject point to the conclusion adopted by Wundt, that the
local discrimination of the retina is somehow limited by the size
of the ultimate nervous elements, though additional attention
and practice may effect a considerable increase of sensibility
within these limits.

* Helruholtz, leaning on measurements of Kolliker, argues that the
minimum retinal interval of distinguished points must be greater than
the diameter of a cone. Wundt, following the measurements of H.
Miiller and Max Schultze, thinks that impressions may he distinguished
which fall within the area of a single cone, and that this is effected by
the help of the distinct fibrils which issue from one and the same cone.

Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 5

We may now pass to the second elementary factor in the
visual construction of space, namely, ocular movement.

The eye is rolled about its centre by means of six muscles.
So far as a mere inspection of this mechanism would tell us, we
might suppose that the eye's axis could be moved from any given
point in the field to any second point by different combinations
of muscular contractions. In point of fact, however, it is found
that these movements are invariably carried out in one particu-
lar way. Thus it was found by Bonders that to a given posi-
tion of the eye's axis relatively to the head, there belongs a cer-
tain and invariable amount of rotation about this axis. In other
words, whenever the eye fixates a particular point in the field (no
matter from what other point it has moved), the various regions
of the retina preserve the same relative arrangement.

Once more, it has been found by Listing that when the eye
sets out from a certain ' primary position/ in which the principal
axis is directed to the point of the field immediately in front of
the eye, there is no rolling about the axis at all. In all such
cases the movements are the same as if the eyeball rotated about
an axis lying in the vertical plane which we may imagine to
divide its anterior and posterior hemispheres.

There are two ways of regarding these uniformities of ocular
movement. According to Wundt they answer to the least ex-
penditure of muscular energy, and are conditioned by certain
innate arrangements of the muscular mechanism.

On the other hand Helmholtz argues that these laws are to
some extent the result of the individual experience. He has
succeeded by the use of prisms, which impose unwonted condi-
tions on binocular vision, in producing abnormal combinations of
axial movement and rotation about the axis.

These views may be reconciled by the supposition, put for-
ward by Wundt, that there is an innate disposition to the
habitual or normal combinations, though this is itself the result
of the collective experience of the race.

Some of the more obvious results of these laws in relation to
visual perception are the following. First of all it follows from
Donders's law that, whenever the eye returns to a particular point
of the field, a fixed object in this region will be pictured on the
same retinal elements. JSTow it is certain that the experienced
eye perceives form when at rest and by help of the varying local
sensibility of the retinal elements. It must follow, then, that so
far as the eye appreciates form through a number of .simultaneous
retinal impressions, it will have an advantage in rotating as
this law defines, since it will be able to return an indeiinite
number of times to an object at rest, and to receive from it a

6 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

perfectly similar group of retinal impressions on the same ner-
vous elements.

The implications of Listing's law are still more important in
relation to our present subject. It follows from this law that
when the moving eye traces a line immediately in front of it, it
necessarily receives the image of the line on the same series of
retinal elements or the same retinal meridian.* That is to say,
the nervous elements excited by any two successive impressions
of the lines will for the greater part be the same, only a few of
the old elements being dropped and new ones taken up. Conse-
quently any deviation from a perfectly rectilinear direction in
the line would (so far as this is appreciated through retinal
sensibility) at once make itself felt through this intrusion of a
new nervous element falling outside the meridian. It follows
then, that, so far as the eye appreciates form through retinal
sensibility alone, it will be much better able to estimate the
straightness of a line which lies immediately in front of it than
of those situated elsewhere.

Observation bears out this conclusion. When we want to tell
very nicely whether a line is straight, we half instinctively bring
it exactly in front of the eye so that its centre coincides with
the principal point of fixation, and then let the eye wander up
and down it. In this case the appreciation of rectilinear form is
very delicate.f

Another consequence of Listing's law is that when the eye
(the head being supposed to be fixed) moves from the primary
position over the field in different directions, certain fixed lines
in the field will necessarily be pictured on the same retinal
meridian.^ This applies to all parallel lines lying in the central
portions of the field. It would seem to follow that so far as
retinal sensibility is involved there will be an advantage in
appreciating the direction of parallel rather than of any other
lines in these regions. Further, one may deduce from this law

* Strictly speaking this holds true of all lines, straight or curved,
which cover or could be projected on any one of the great circles of
the concave field which intersect at * the principal point of fixation '
immediately in front of the eye.

t This is true even when the eye is at rest. This would be explained
by the supposition that the elements of one and the same meridian (in
the central regions of the retina) have their discriminative sensibility
sharpened by the exercise involved in these habitual and critical move-
ments. Of this more hereafter.

J This is true of all lines whose projections on the concave field cor-
respond to circles which intersect at ' the occipital point ' — an imaginary
point supposed to be situated behind the head, and answering to the
principal point of fixation — and which at this point of intersection touch
one and the same meridian of the field.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 7

that it will be much easier to measure the length of two parallel
lines than of two diverging lines, since in the former case the
successive images may be made to fall on exactly the same series
of retinal elements.

These conclusions, again, are fully corroborated by observa-
tion. The eye is able to detect very slight deviations from a
parallel direction in pairs of lines when these lie opposite the
eye in the central regions of the field. Again, it detects in-
equalities between lines much more easily when they are parallel
than when they have different directions. Once more, the mag-
nitudes of angles with parallel pairs of lines are compared much
more exactly than those of angles contained by non-parallel pairs
of lines.

One further consequence deserves to be mentioned. We are
able to appreciate form to some extent in indirect vision. It
might be conjectured from what has gone before that the rela-
tions of points and lines implied in the forms of objects thus
viewed will be better appreciated when they are so situated that
their images may successively be received on the same retinal
elements. This seems to be so far borne out that with the eye
at rest we can pretty accurately appreciate the inequality of
two parallel lines in the central field, though the comparative
measurement of two lines having unlike directions is liable to be
far from exact.

The most striking fact, however, in this indirect visual appre-
ciation illustrative of the law of movement now discussed is the
following. When the eye moves from its primary position to a
point far out in the peripheral region of the field a really verti-
cal or horizontal line is no longer imaged on the same retinal
meridian as lines of the same direction in the central regions.
How then, it may be asked, does the eye at rest regard such
lines in these outlying portions of the field? Curiously enough,
under these circumstances it estimates form in relation to the
impression which would be made on the central area of the
retina if the eye were moved to the object. Thus a line
actually vertical appears in indirect vision inclined and vice versa.
As soon as the eye fixates the line the illusion disappears.
This fact is of great interest as pointing to the secondary or
derivative character of the eye's indirect appreciation of form.

I have hitherto assumed with Helmholtz that in these
appreciations of form and magnitude the discriminative sensi-
bility of the sensory elements of the retina takes part. At the
same time it is to be observed that in all cases of successive
comparison in direct vision the sensibility connected with the
eye's movements may be the ground of judgment as well.
Thus, in comparing the length of two parallel lines it may be

8 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

said that the perception rests on the motor or muscular feelings
which accompany the eye's movements along each of the lines.
In truth there are facts which seem to prove that this is actually
so. E. Hering has in a recent work, Die Lehre vom Binocularen
Sehen, attempted to show that within certain limits in the
centre of the field a movement along a line is carried out from
first to last by the same muscles ; further that under these
circumstances the muscles employed work in the same ratio of
intensity from the beginning to the end ; and finally that owing
to the particular arrangements of the muscular apparatus all
parallel movements within these limits are effected by the same
muscles pulling in the same ratio of force. These facts, if fully
established, are of the first consequence for the understanding of
the eye's appreciation of form. They would serve to explain
its peculiar delicacy in the estimation of straight lines, and in
the comparison of the directions of parallel lines (and so of the
magnitude of angles contained by parallel pairs of lines), solely
on the ground of muscular sensibility.

There seems, then, to be two equally good ways of explaining
these facts. Since movement accompanies nearly all our per-
ceptions of the direction and magnitude of lines, we may suppose
that muscular sensibility commonly takes part in these judg-
ments. At the same time it is certain that some of these
judgments are carried out by means of simultaneous impressions,
the eye being at rest and fixating the centre of the line. Thus
the differential sensibility of the nervous elements is a fact
which must be accepted and accounted for.

Yet though this sensibility must be supposed to enter into
our judgments of relative position and magnitude, it by no
means follows that it is superior in delicacy to the motor
feelings. Wundt argues on the contrary that the finest dis-
criminations of magnitude are only possible by help of ocular
movement. According to the experiments of Volkmann and
Fechner, the eye's discriminative appreciation of linear magni-
tude follows within certain limits the latter's psychophysical
law. That is to say, the minimum difference perceived is a
pretty constant fraction of the length of line compared.* Below
a particular limit, however, this relation no longer holds good.
Wundt argues very ingeniously that this ' threshold ' is imposed
not by the area of the retinal elements, but by the limits of
discriminative motor sensibility.

Wundt considers that the influence of the motor feelings
(which he calls ' feelings of innervation ') on the visual appre-

* This fact does not tell, so far as I can see, in favour of either sensi-
bility, since Fechner's law is known to apply both to the intensive and
the extensive magnitude of sensations.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 9

elation of form and magnitude is illustrated in many of the
well-known optical illusions respecting relative direction and
size. These he seeks systematically to refer to peculiarities in
the process of innervation involved, and its attendant feeling.
Thus it is known that we over-estimate vertical magnitude
relatively to horizontal. This arises, says Wundt, from the fact
that horizontal movements are executed by a single pair of
muscles (rectus externus and internus), whereas vertical move-
ments involve two pairs (rectus superior and inferior and the
two obliqui) which oppose one another in a certain measure.*
Hence a greater muscular strain, and so a greater feeling of
innervation, in the latter than in the former instance. Similarly
the error made in over-estimating magnitude in the upper as
contrasted with the lower regions of the field, and in the outer
as compared with the inner regions, is referred to differences in
the degrees of innervation involved.-f

While Wundt thus emphasises the influence of the feelings of
movement in monocular appreciation, Helmholtz calls attention
to the effects of past experience. Thus he would explain our
disposition to over-rate the magnitude of the vertical direction
relatively to that of the horizontal by the fact that by far the
largest number of forms compared in daily life coincide with the
plane of the ground,J and consequently have their upper portion
further from the eye than their under, so that the vertical is fore-
shortened. Owing to this prevailing experience we acquire the
habit of interpreting the vertical dimension as larger than it
directly appears.§

The co-operation of ideation or of imagination based on
experience, is illustrated still more distinctly in the filling-
in of the lacuna in the visual field answering to the blind
spot in the retina. Volkmann has called attention to the fact
that when the lacuna falls on the printed page of a book, we
fancy at first that we see letters within the limits of the lacuna.

* Wundt holds that rolling about the axis is prevented by an anta-
gonistic action of the combining muscles (e.g. the superior rectus and
obliquus).

t He thinks that since in transverse section the upper muscle exceeds
the under in calibre, and the inner the outer, a smaller degree of inner-
vation is required. Wundt's attempt to reduce all the well-known cases
of illusory measurements (including Zollner's pattern) to special moments
in the feeling of innervation is ingenious though somewhat forced. On
the other hand, Helmholtz's explanations hardly seem more satisfactory.

J The reason for this prevailing mode of viewing forms is to be found
later on.

§ Another fact differently interpreted by these two observers is that
a line drawn precisely vertical to a given horizontal line appears to be
slightly inclined. The meaning of this will be best discussed later.

10 TJic Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

The illusion disappears with a concentrated effort of attention.
The phenomena of the blind spot show incontestably that our
visual perception of space-relations is to some extent a process
of inference or of imaginative construction out of remembered
elements of previous experiences. We fill the gap in the field
with ideal impressions, which the eye would receive were it to
fixate this particular region.

Let us now pass to another aspect of our visual intuition of
space. So far I have spoken of relative direction only, or the
position of points in relation to one another. It is a different
question what determines the eye's judgment of the absolute
direction of objects in the field, i.e., their position relatively to
one fixed starting point. This standard of direction is clearly
our own position in space. When we refer an object to the
left or right of the whole field over which our moving eye
wanders, we assign it a position relatively to that of our own
body.

This absolute direction is known in monocular vision when
the position of the axis of vision (principal axis) is known.
The several parts of the total field over which the eye travels
(the head being supposed to be fixed) are all projected in
different directions. As soon as we know the absolute direction
of any one of these successive lesser fields we are able to fix the
direction of any particular object in this region in relation to
this fixed direction as centre. Accordingly what we have to
find is the eye's means of determining the absolute direction of
any given partial field, in other words, any given centre of
fixation.

Our perception of direction depends, as abundant observation
shows, in part on the motor feelings of the eye. In every
movement of the organ upwards or downwards, to the right or
to the left, and so on, some peculiar shade of motor feeling
arises. Moreover each of these modes of feeling varies with
the range of the movement executed. The different feelings
attending these varieties of movement are the ground of our
projecting impressions in this or that direction.

That the motor feelings do thus serve as the ground of judg-
ment is proved, as Helmholtz says, by the simple experiment
of closing one eye and pressing the other inwards with the
finger. The result of this is that objects appear to move
inwards too. The explanation of the phenomenon is that since
in this case there is a transference of the retinal picture to new
elements without any consciously executed ocular rotation, we
ignore the passive movement of the eye-ball and infer that
objects have shifted their position in the opposite direction to
that of the retinal image.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 11

In this connection the effects of a paralysis of the ocular
muscles are highly instructive. If the external rectus of the
right eye (or its nerve) is completely paralysed, every effort to
move the eye outwards (which is of course futile) is attended
with an impression that objects are moving to the right. Here
the feeling of motor innervation misleads the patient who,
supposing that his eye has actually moved outwards, infers that
since there has been no shifting of the retinal picture objects
have followed the eye. If the paralysis is partial, there is still
an error in the perception of direction which shows itself as
soon as the patient attempts to seize an object.

Closely related to this point are some of the phenomena of
giddiness. The apparent movement of objects in this condition
is in certain cases explained by help of the motor feelings.
When we have for some time followed objects moving in one
direction, as when sitting in a railway carriage we follow the
apparent backward movement of the objects near the railway,
our eye continues for some time to move in the same direction
though we are quite unconscious of the movement.* If now
we try to fixate some object at rest, our eye in reality passes
across it, and the result of the unconscious ocular movement is
interpreted as a movement of the object in the opposite direc-
tion, namely that of the train's motion. In other words, in this
case as in that of pressing the eye-ball, what is ignored in
ocular movement has to be interpreted as a movement of objects
in the opposite direction.

But how, it may be asked, do we perceive direction when the
eye is at rest ? To explain this, we must have recourse to
another side of muscular sensation. Not only does actual
movement yield a certain consciousness which is known as the
feeling of movement : any muscular tension when not leading to
movement affords a particular mode of feeling also. Thus

* That the eye does thus actually continue to move after we cease to
be conscious of the movement, may, says Wundt, be directly perceived
by an ' objective observer'. Why do we cease to be conscious of the
movements of the eye in these cases ? Helmholtz argues that after follow-
ing objects moving in the same direction for some time, we come to look
on the required motor innervation as that proper to a fixation of the eye.
In other words, the muscular feelings by which we estimate a state of
fixation of the eyes become obscured. Wundt holds that this is no
adequate explanation. He considers that not only the actual move-
ments of the eye but also the extraordinary efforts to counteract these
movements and to fixate the moving object (which efforts are continually
thwarted by the invincible tendency to follow the object) affect our
judgment here. By over-estimating these futile impulses we both
under- estimate the velocity of the moving objects, and afterwards over-
look the slight amount of movement due to the momentum so to speak
which the eye has acquired.

12 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

whatever the position of the eye relatively to the head, there
belongs to this position a particular state of muscular contrac-
tion, and, as the concomitant of this, a particular shade of
consciousness. To quote Hering : " The innervation and the
muscular action corresponding to this is a one- valued function
of the situation of the point of fixation in the field ". We may
naturally suppose that the primary position being that in which
the muscular tensions are equalised, and so the natural and
normal position, serves as the customary standard of direction.
The feeling attending this condition of the muscles serves as a
basis of our judgment of the leading direction, namely the
front. Any other position of the eye-ball will be estimated as
a deviation from this normal position.

So far we have supposed the head to be fixed. When the
head moves the sense of direction is of course more complicated,
the feelings which accompany the contraction of the muscles of
the neck being now a factor in the judgment.*

Finally it is to be observed that according to recent researches
the apparent direction of objects may be affected by those
feelings which yield us the general consciousness of our bodily
position or attitude. Thus the apparent movement of objects
after rapid rotation of the body (as in dancing) is now attri-
buted not to unconscious and misleading movements of the eyes
relatively to the body, but to a perverted sense of how the body
stands.f

The position of the head and of the eye-ball being thus known
through motor feelings, our judgment respecting direction is
determined by the special local sensibility of the several retinal
fibres. Impressions falling on particular elements are projected
in the direction of the optic axis (i.e., the axis of the bundles of
rays which converge on the different retinal elements). That
this projection in the case of the experienced eye is immediate

* The appreciation of the position of the head is found to be more
exact in the light than in the dark. According to an experiment of
Aubert, we under-estimate the amount of rotation of the head in the
dark. This shows that the feelings yielded by the muscles of the neck
are vague and insufficient, and that under ordinary circumstances we
estimate the position of the head in part by differences of optical
impressions, namely, the shifting of the image of the visible parts of our
own body.

t Helmholtz thinks we deceive ourselves in these cases as to the exact
moment in which the body ceases to rotate. The researches of Goltz
and Crum Brown render it probable that this confused sense of the
bodily posture after rotation is due to disturbances in the normal
pressure of the fluid contents of the ampullae of the ears, the feelings
attending which play a prominent part in the maintenance of the
equilibrium of the head and with it that of the body. — See Ferrier's
Functions of the Brain, p. 60.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 13

and unavoidable is seen in the fact that we continue to project
subjective after-images (spectra), and the sensations of light caused
by pressing on the hinder parts of the eye-ball, in the direction
of the axis even when we are fully aware that no objects
answering to these perceptions exist in these quarters.

If the direction of the rays impinging on the retina is artifi-
cially altered the result is an apparent shifting of the visual
object. This may be illustrated by covering the eye with a glass
prism in such a way that the edge or angle of refraction shall be
vertical and to the left. Under these circumstances the objects
of the field appear to be shifted to the left.

It might be supposed that the single eye's perception of direc-
tion depends exclusively on the two conditions just spoken of,
namely, the feelings of motor innervation and the special local
sensibility of the different nervous elements of the retina. But
recent experiment has shown that yet another factor contributes
to this judgment. Hering has made the following observation :
—The two eyes first fixate an object infinitely distant, so that
the principal axes have a parallel direction. If the right eye be
then closed and the left eye preserve its direction, the object
appears exactly as before. If, however, the left eye be now
accommodated to a nearer point in the same line of sight the
object appears to shift to the left. The retinal image has in this
case undergone no change of place, and the only new element
introduced by the accommodation is the movement of converg-
ence in. the closed eye. It follows from this that when .we
judge of direction by one eye the position of the closed eye helps
to determine the judgment. To quote Hering — " The direction
of vision is the same for the left eye, the right eye, and the two
eyes " (Beitrdge, p. 28).

Helmholtz has found that a precisely similar relation between
the open and the closed eye exists with respect to rolling about
the axes. When the two eyes, after having a parallel direction,
are made as before to converge towards a point in the line of
sight of the open eye, a line which before appears horizontal
seems to undergo a rotatory movement about its centre. The
various meridians of the retina of the open eye do not in this
case undergo any rotation, and the change in the apparent direc-
tion of the line is due to the rolling of the closed eye. These
facts are gathered up by Hering and Helmholtz under the figure
of an imaginary cyclopean eye placed midway between the two
eyes and fixating the common point of fixation of the two eyes.
If we suppose the retinal images to be transported from one of
the actual eyes to such an eye so that central point (fixation-
point) falls on central point, and retinal horizontal meridian on
horizontal meridian, then " the points of the retinal image are

14 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

projected outwards in the line of direction of this imaginary
cyclopean eye ".

Helmholtz connects these curious facts with the circumstance
that our normal customary vision is binocular, not monocular,
and that we learn from experience to estimate direction not in
relation to the single eye but in relation to the median plane of
our body which supports the organs of movement. That the
monocular perception of direction has for its fixed starting-point
the median plane of the head, coinciding with that of the nose,
may be proved by means of the following experiment. I fixate
with one eye a distant object and cover the lower part of the
field, including the hands and arms, by means of a sheet of paper.
If 1 then lift my forefinger behind the paper and try to bring it
in the line of the object, the finger will come into view some-
what left of the object when the right eye is used, somewhat
right of the object if the left eye is used. An exactly opposite
result occurs when the object is near and the finger rises behind
it. In all these cases, as Hering says, we refer the object to the
root of the nose, and place the finger in the line uniting this
point and the fixated object.

The perception of direction in binocular vision, which this ex-
periment shows to be the normal one, is assisted by the motor
feelings which accompany the combined movements of the eyes.

Of these combined movements it is unnecessary to speak very
fully here. As the reader knows, they are determined by the
prime necessity of binocular vision, which is the simultaneous
reception of an image of the object to be viewed on the area of
perfect vision (the yellow spot) in each retina.

It is an interesting question how far these combinations are
fixed from the first by certain mechanical arrangements. That
they are modifiable within certain limits has been shown by
Helmholtz, who succeeded in making the axes divergent and in
giving them different elevations when by certain artificial
arrangements these positions were necessary for distinct conjoint
vision by the yellow spots.*

Eeturning now to the perception of direction, we infer from
the observations already made that in binocular vision the eyes
do not separately estimate the direction of an object in relation
to themselves, but that they each estimate it in relation to a
point midway between their centres of rotation. The supposi-
tion that each eye projects its retinal impression along the line

* The first deviation may be effected by a stereoscopic arrangement
in which by interposing two prisms the centres of the pictures could only
be fixated by diverging axes. The second deviation is brought about
by holding a prism before one eye with its angle of refraction upper-
most.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 15

of the optic axis appears to rest on the fallacioiis assumption,
that when we look at objects we are conscious not only of the
position of the retinal picture but also of the course of the in-
coming rays. But of this more will have to be said by and by.

In binocular vision, then, absolute direction is clearly estimated
by the sum of the motor feelings arising from the movements of
the two eyes. In moving the eyes from one point to another
the amounts of movement executed by the two eyes are not
always equal. Thus the movement described in Bering's ex-
periment involves a movement of one eye only. So when the
axes are directed to a point very far to the right or to the left a
movement to a new object involves a larger sweep of movement
in the nearer than in the further eye. It follows then that in
judging of direction we are somehow conscious of the amount of
movement executed by each eye, and estimate any given change
of direction by means of the sum or combination of these
feelings.

Before leaving the subject of direction I may refer to a curious
experiment of Helmholtz which illustrates the relation of the
perception of direction by the eye to that by the organs of touch
and movement. How this relation is to be conceived will of
course vary according to the general theory of the space-intui-
tion. Of this more will be said hereafter. That the two modes
of perception agree is incontestable. Helmholtz has shown how
they can be made to disagree and afterwards be re-adjusted.
He placed two prisms in the frame of a pair of spectacles with
their angles of refraction turned to the left. Objects looked at
through these appeared shifted to the left. He then fixated
some particular object, shut his eyes, and tried to reach the
object with his forefinger. He found of course that the finger
passed to the left of the object. When, however, the trial has
been repeated a number of times, and still more quickly after
the hand is brought into the field and its movements guided by
the eye under the new circumstances, the attempt to reach an
object is successful. If, further, when this stage is reached the
prisms are taken away, an object is fixated, and another attempt
is then made with closed eyes to reach it, the finger misses the
object, now passing to the right of it.

One other result of the experiment deserves to be named.
Even when in re-adjusting the movements of the hand to the
new and artificially changed visual impressions only the right
hand has been employed, it is found that the left hand is at
once capable of executing the required movements.

It might be supposed that the sense of direction is absolutely
determined when once the movements and positions of the eyes
are known. Yet it appears that experience may so far influence

16 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

our judgment as to cause within certain limits an apparent
change of direction of an object when there exists a powerful
disposition to think of it as moving. Thus, for example, to refer
to an observation mentioned by Wundt, when we look at the
clouds flying over the moon we instinctively attribute the move-
ment to the moon. The reason of this is, as Wundt says, that
we are constantly seeing small objects move, rarely large
objects.*

It has been assumed here that in binocular vision the direc-
tion of an object is the same for each retina. This is not invari-
ably the case for objects seen in indirect vision. The exceptions
to the rule will have to be spoken of presently when we take
up the subject of double vision.

Let us now pass to the second element in the binocular
perception of space, namely distance, or as the Germans say,
depth. The distance of an object is estimated either relatively,
that is in relation to some other object, or absolutely, that is
according to some constant standard. We will first touch on
the perception of relative distance.

In appreciating a very minute distance between two objects
there are two conceivable elements on which our judgment may be
based. In the first place the optical axis may remain fixed. In
this case the perception will rest exclusively on the difference
in the relative positions of the parts of the two retinal pictures
due to the inequality of distance of the corresponding object-
points. In the second place the eyes may be supposed to move
from one point to another, and so the perception of difference in
distance to arise through a change in the feeling of convergence.
Helmholtz adopts the former supposition. He dwells on the
delicacy of the discriminative sensibility of the elements of the
two retinas as seen in stereoscopic perception. Thus, for
example, two successive impressions from a printing press when
stereoscopically combined give a perception of words and letters
lying before and behind one another, the reason of this being
the introduction of very slight changes in the distances of the
letters from one another in the two impressions. Helmholtz
has also measured the limits of this discriminative sensibility by
means of an experiment which I have elsewhere described
(Sensation and Intuition, p. 55), proving that the delicacy of the
discriminative sensibility of the two retinas is precisely the
same as that of a single retina. That is to say, a displacement
of the image of one retina relatively to that of the other is
recognised when it amounts to the minimum distance between
two retinal images which is recognised as such by the single eye.

* Of course the allusion disappears when we steadily fixate the moon.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 17

On the other hand, Wundt in his latest work, when giving the
results of certain experiments of his own touching the limits of
the feeling of convergence, argues that the finest discriminations
of distance rest on the feelings attending ocular movement.
He found that the minimum change of distance of a vertical
thread noticeable did not always correspond to one and the same
displacement of the retinal images, but that it varied inversely
as the absolute distance. In other words, the nearer the thread
to the eyes, the greater the least change of distance perceptible.*
Wundt would account for the agreement between the discrimi-
native sensibility of the two retinas under the most favourable
circumstances (viz., with the least possible degree of convergence)
and that of a single retina, by saying that in the finest monocular
discrimination of adjacent points the feelings of movement
exert an influence. On the point here at issue between the two
eminent observers, something more will have to be said later
on.

Let us now pass to the perception of absolute distance.
This is found to be far less delicate than that of relative distance.
According to Helmholtz " it is one of these elements of judg-
ment which are easily overridden by others which contradict
them". Many curious illustrations of the comparative bluntness
of this feeling are given by Helmholtz. To these the reader
must be referred. One fact respecting the nature of this
judgment of distance by the feeling of convergence deserves to
be reproduced. If we look at distant objects through two
prisms of an angle of refraction of four degrees with their angles
turned outwards, we see with diverging axes ; and yet the
objects though appearing a little further than when seen with
the naked eyes, do not on the whole look very different. This
fact is paralleled by another, namely, that stereoscopic pictures
may be combined in a perception of a single object even when
the axes are made to diverge. These facts appear to show that
what we attend to in judging of absolute distance is the
direction and amount of combined movement (convergent or
divergent) from a position of average convergence.^

* Wundt finds that this ratio (about 1 : 50) corresponds approx-
imately with, the ratio of the least perceptible differences in linear
magnitude, or distance in two dimensions (vide supra). He argues from
this that the basis of judgment in both cases is the feeling of inuerva-
tion. Helmholtz suggests that this relation between absolute distance and
least change of distance perceptible, maybe explained (consistently with
his supposition that the judgment is based on the discriminative sensibility
of the two retinas) by saying that when the degree of convergence
increases it becomes more difficult to keep the eyes fixed on a point, and
consequently to estimate a displacement of Ihe retinal pictures.

t Another curious point connected with the binocular judgment of
distance is the error to which we are liable in estimating vertical lines

2

18 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

We may now pass to what seems to be the most complicated
department in binocular visual perception, namely the conditions
of double and single vision. The reader may be supposed to be
aware of the familiar phenomena of double images which are
sometimes seen when the axes of the two eyes converge to a
point nearer or further off than the object which is seen double.
He is also no doubt aware that the fact of seeing objects single
with two eyes has given rise to a curious amount of psycholo-
gical speculation. Recent observations have done much to
define the precise conditions of this single vision, and a careful
study of the experiments made will help us to answer the
question why objects are seen single, and also to understand
more clearly how we reach our visual perceptions of space.

Helmholtz has carefully determined according to the latest
researches the limits of this coalescence of images, as it is called,
in a single perception. Objects, he tells us, are seen double
when they have in the two fields a position relatively to the
point of fixation sufficiently dissimilar to be noticed by the eye
by help of its measure of distance. We have then to ask what
points in the two fields have an apparently similar position
relatively to the point of fixation, or what points may be said to
cover one another in the common field of the two eyes. These
points are called 'corresponding points' or ' covering points'. We
may of course equally well speak of corresponding points in the
two retinas, meaning those which answer to these objectively
projected points in the two partial fields. They include first of
all the points of fixation themselves. At the same time the two
centres of the retinal yellow spots are not always corresponding
points. This is proved by the case of squinters whose retinal
points of fixation do not correspond with the centres of the
yellow spots. Again the retinal horizons, that is, the meridians
which co-incide with the plane of vision in the primary position
of the eyes, correspond. The other corresponding points are
determined by these, namely, the retinal points of fixation and
the retinal horizons. Thus the retinal meridians which

under different circumstances. Hering and Helmholtz find that an
actually vertical thread is perceived to be such with great accuracy if the
eyes are in their primary position and the thread falls exactly in
the median plane passing midway between the two eyes. If, however,
the head is a little raised or depressed so that the plane of vision (that
is the plane which contains the axes of vision) is no longer in its
primary position, a thread which is to appear vertical must really incline
towards the observer either at its upper or under extremity. Helmholtz
explains this by help of the consideration already dwelt on, that with
converging axes the direction and situation of objects are so judged as
if the eye had a direction parallel to the mean direction of the axes, and
the corresponding amount of rotation.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 19

correspond to the apparently vertical direction of lines * cover
one another. Again those points in the apparently vertical
meridians which correspond must be equi-distant from the retinal
horizons, and points in these last which correspond must be
equi-distant from the point of fixation.f

Helmholtz reasons that the position of these corresponding
points is determined by the frequency of the co-existence of
impressions from one and the same object-point. Thus, as we
have seen, the points of perfect vision only correspond in the
case of normal eyes when they are also points of fixation.
So again the distinguished position of the retinal horizons as
corresponding regions is due to the same principle. The
meridians which coincide with the plane of vision in any given
position of the eyes are the only ones which will always receive
a series of images of the same object-points quite irrespectively
of the form and situation of the object. Also it is manifest that
the retinal horizons are, of all the meridians which ever coincide
with the plane of vision, those which will most frequently
receive impressions from one and the same objective line, on the
supposition that the primary position is the usual one.

Next to determining what are corresponding points in the
two retinas and their projections, comes the task of determining
what are corresponding points in objective space. That is to
say, we have to find out what points of real objective space
project their images on corresponding retinal points and con-
sequently are (as a rule) seen single. This will, of course, vary
with different positions of the eyes, and the directions of the
optical axes. That portion of space which includes all such

* These meridians are called by Helmholtz apparently vertical to the
retinal horizons. The meaning of their deviation from strict verticality
will be spoken of presently.

t These corresponding retinal points of Helmholtz are of course fixed,
and the same for all the positions of the eyes. As will be seen presently
their impressions do not in every case coalesce in a single perception.
Wundt tries to meet these facts by introducing a different terminology.
He calls (1) ' identical points ' those which receive the same images from
an object infinitely distant (the eyes' axes being parallel). From these
he distinguishes (2) 'corresponding points' viz., those points of which
the impressions most frequently coalesce in a single sensation. The first
is an anatomical conception, the second a physiological. Finally
he marks off (3) ' covering points ' (Deckpunktej of which the impressions
are referred to a single object in any given case. Class (2) vary slightly
with different individuals, whereas class (1) are constant for all. Both
(1) and (2) are the same in the same individual for all positions of the
eyes, whereas (3) vary with the position. Class (2) often coincide with
class (3) but not always. These distinctions are no doubt valuable in
understanding the phenomena of double and single vision. Yet I have
thought it best in this case to follow Helmholtz's simpler method of
description.

20 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

points is known as the ' horopter '. The precise determination
of the horopter is a difficult mathematical problem which does
not specially concern us here.

One fact, however, must be mentioned. If the eyes are fixed
on a point infinitely distant in the median plane, it is found
that in the lower regions of the field the horopter is not a curve
as in the upper regions but coincides approximately with the
plane of our feet — that is, the plane of the ground on which we
stand. Helmholtz ingeniously argues that this fact serves to
account for the well-known fact that a line exactly vertical
appears to the single eye slightly oblique. In other words, the
meridian of the retina corresponding to the perception of the
vertical is not exactly vertical. Helmholtz Supposes that when
we use two eyes and look at the distant field we are wont to
attend (in indirect vision) much more to the many forms lying
below the horizon in the plane of the ground than the few lying
above in the sky. Hence we acquire the habit " of localising
alike the images of these retinal points on which as we walk
the same points of the ground are wont to be imaged ". In
other words, a line drawn on the ground in the median plane of
our body comes to be seen as single though its retinal images
are not parallel but converge upwards. Now this inclination of
the images of our imaginary line is found to be the same, both
in direction and in magnitude, as the inclination of the retinal
image which answers to an apparently vertical line as seen by
the single eye. The facts prove that the monocular perception
of direction has been developed out of binocular experience.
The norm for the vertical direction to the single eye is supplied
by the receding line in the plane of the ground as seen by the
two eyes.*

After thus determining what dimensions are viewed as the same
in the two fields, Helmholtz proceeds to investigate the delicacy
of this comparison of the fields. This, he tells us, is very nice
so far as it enters into the judgment of solidity, though it is
comparatively inexact in relation to the recognition of double

* Wundt thinks that this obliquity of the apparently vertical meridians
is to be explained immediately by means of certain innate peculiarities
of the muscular apparatus. This is more especially disposed for vision
in an inclined and converging position of the axes. In consequence of
this the sinking of the eyes is involuntarily attended with a convergent
movement, and the raising of them with a divergent movement. This
happens if we try to move our eye in a vertical direction upwards or
downwards. Accordingly this really oblique movement is regarded tis
that which corresponds to a vertical direction in the field of vision. At
the same time Wundt adopts the idea of Helmholtz respecting ^ the
influence of binocular vision on the single eye's perception of the vertical,
and supposes that the mechanism of the ocular muscles has in this case
adjusted itself to the needs of normal, that is, binocular vision.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 21

images and the comparison of their positions in the two fields.
With respect to the discrimination of the images of the fields
which serves as a basis for the perception of solidity, the eyes'
judgment is found to be most exact in relation to objects lying
in the horopter, and becomes less and" less exact as the distance
from this increases. Thus the perception of relief is particularly
exact in the plane of the ground. This may be seen by com-
paring the exact stereoscopic impression given by this plane
under ordinary circumstances with the impression made by
looking at the horizon with head bent sidewards or, still better,
with head bent down so that objects are looked at between the
legs.* In these cases, as Helmholtz points out, we see " the
farther portions of the ground no longer as horizontal but as a wall
painted on the surface of the sky."-f- The element of solidity
and relief being much better appreciated in the case of objects
lying in the horopter, we are accustomed instinctively to bring
objects which we have to observe carefully, as far as possible,
into the horopter.

Let us now pass to the second mode of comparing the two
fields, viz., that which subserves the , perception of the apparent
distribution of objects in the common field of vision, and the
discrimination of double images. This is found to be exact only
in the middle of the field, being liable to be very inexact in the
peripheral regions. The conscious separation of double images
is rendered impossible by a number of psychical conditions, fore-
most among which is a pre-existing conception of the unity of
the object which projects the images. Certain precautions have
to be taken in most cases in order to recognise double images at
all, and even then the comparative estimation of spacial magni-
tudes by this means is much less exact than that of similar mag-
nitudes in a single field.

The reader must be referred to Helmholtz's work itself for a
full account of the circumstances which affect and limit this
power of recognising double images, or in other words the con-
ditions which determine whether the two images are fused in a
single perception or recognised as double. The experiments in
combining stereoscopically pairs of drawings, which are here
described, are exceedingly interesting, and can easily be carried
out by every reader for himself even without the aid of a stereo-

* It is well to mount a stone or hillock so that the altitude of the
head above the plane be not materially altered.

t Helmholtz refers the increased brilliance of the colours of a land-
scape when looked at in this way to the change effected in the percep-
tion of relief. 80 long as this is not disturbed the modifications of the
colours of objects by the atmosphere are looked at as the customary
attributes of distance, and not attended to in themselves.

22 Tlie Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

scopic apparatus. Here it must suffice to name one or two of
the most interesting facts.

The main ground for the coalescence of images which do not
fall on corresponding points is their degree of resemblance to
the two perspective images projected on the retinas by one and
fie same object. The greater this is, the more difficult it is to
perceive them as two. Double images may often be recognised
by means of a strenuous volition aided by a vivid representation
of their plurality. Again the recognition of double images as
such may be facilitated by the addition of most insignificant
incongruities to the two pictures or designs which are to be com-
bined. Once more it is shown by a series of experiments un-
dertaken by Volkmann that images only coalesce when their
vertical distance is small. On the other hand the limit of hori-
zontal distance is much greater. It is hardly necessary to add
that practice greatly improves the power of distinguishing
double images.

Among the most striking facts brought to light in these inves-
tigations is that mentioned by Wheatstone, viz., that just as the
images of disparate or non-corresponding points may coalesce,
so under certain circumstances the images of corresponding
points may be projected in different directions and so seen
double. This fact has been disputed, but Helmholtz shows
that it is a necessary consequence of the coalescence of images
of disparate points.

It may be asked whether movement of the eyes is essential to
the coalescence of images and to stereoscopic perception. Briicke
broaches the theory that all perceptions of depth are gained by
movement, and that double images are only got rid of by suc-
cessively fixating the single points and so seeing them simply.
Yet it has been found by Dove that this combination takes place
in many instances instantaneously when the pictures are
illumined by an electric spark.* At the same time Helmholtz
holds that with the wandering of the eyes over the object the
intuition of depth or solidity becomes decidedly more exact and
vivid than with the fixation of a point. This he explains by
saying that we only perceive difference of depth or distance very
nicely when the points happen to fall in the particular horopter
of the moment.

In the foregoing investigations the double images resembled
the perspective images which are usually received from one and
the same object, and in consequence were easily combined as
signs of this object. When, however, they are altogether dif-

* That ocular movement is not essential is proved also, as Helmholtz
tells us, by the fact that after-imuges or spectra may be combined
stereoscopically.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 23

ferent, having no such perspective relation to one another, this
combination becomes impossible. When, for example, the two
fields are filled with quite dissimilar forms, there is no question
of combining the impressions in a single perception. Here it is
simply a question of seeing the two fields, or one rather than
the other. This subject has been studied under the title of
" Bivalry of the fields of vision ". It concerns us here only so
far as it helps to throw light on the nature of the correspondence
of the two retinas as exhibited in the binocular perception of
space.

In general both images are seen simultaneously and superposed
in the field of vision. Yet in certain regions of the field there
dominates now the one image now the other. Through an
effort of attention either image may be made to extinguish the
other. Yet the attention cannot long be kept fixed on either
image without the other intruding itself. More especially the
image forces itself into consciousness when it has a prominent
and striking contour. It is a point in dispute whether two fields
differently coloured ever yield a single composite sensation of
colour (e.g., whether a blue and a red field yield the sensation of
purple). Helmholtz and some others deny that this is the case,
though there are not wanting good authorities on the other side.
The perception of lustre which, as Dove has shown, may arise
from the sterescopic combination of impressions of unequal
light-intensity, as white and black, is an interesting instance of
the coalescence of the impressions of corresponding points.
Finally it is found that the colour-impression of one retina may
be intensified by contrast with a simultaneous impression of
the complementary tint in the other retina.

We may roughly gather up the results of these investigations
into the nature of binocular vision as follows : (1) There are no
points of the two retinas whose impressions are always and under
all conditions indistinguishable. (2) In the normal and mature
organ there are certain corresponding points or circles in the two
retinas of which the impressions tend with more or less force,
varying according to certain psychical conditions of the moment,
to coalesce in single perceptions. How these facts have been
variously interpreted, I shall try to show in another paper. The
real meaning of the correspondence between the two eyes is a
vemia qucestio in the discussions of visual space. It is allowed
by all that experience has something to do with the determina-
tion of the limits of single vision ; but the point is sharply dis-
puted whether this correspondence does not involve as well some
connate anatomical connection which serves as a physical basis
for a sort of d priori disposition to see single objects in a single
space. JAMES SULLY.

II.— THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND.

UNDER this title Mr. Lewes, in his new volume,* passes from
the general part of his philosophical task to deal with the more
special ' Problems of Life and Mind/ and delivers himself on va-
rious questions that have lately engrossed much attention. Promi-
nent among these is the question of so-called Animal Automatism,
and it is proposed in the following pages to offer some remarks
on the subject after considering his handling of it ; but first it is
necessary, as well as due to Mr. Lewes, to take account of other
parts of the volume, which contain the results of long protracted
inquiry.

In this country at least, Mr. Lewes holds an almost unique
position. He is a philosophical thinker and psychological inquirer
who is also a practical worker in physiology ; or he is a physiolo-
gist whose positive investigations of the innermost phenomena of
organic life are guided by trained psychological insight and an
ever-present regard to philosophical principles. In either
aspect of it, his activity is of prime interest to all who at this
present time are concerned about the problems of Life and
Mind. Physiological specialists, who naturally are every day
more and more encroaching on the psychological domain, may
draw much enlightenment from one who knows how to speak
their language as well as the other; and psychologists, who have
to endure many a sneer for their readiness to eke out subjective
observation with second-hand objective discoveries, may repose
special confidence in a fellow-inquirer who accepts 110 physio-
logical results that he does not himself verify. Those parts,
therefore, of his present volume where he appears most distinctly
in his double character of physiologist and psychologist, or
prepares the way for assuming it, have the strongest claim on
our attention here. A short preliminary survey of the volume
will make plain v/hat they are.

We have first a series of discussions on ' The Nature of Life'.
Since it is animal organisms that manifest mind, a clear view
of the distinctive character of vital organisation is naturally
the primary requisite for understanding that special form of life
which mind is. Towards the general argument of his volume,
Mr. Lewes here more especially contends that no mechanical
expression can ever adequately rep. v3sent the processes of life ; he
also impresses, for use later on, the very important distinction

* The Physical Basis of Mind, with illustrations. Being the Second Series
of Problems of Life and Mind, by GEORGE HENRY LEWES. London :
Trubner & Co., 1877. (Vol. I. of the First Series, The Foundations of a
Creed, appeared in 1874, and Vol. II. in 1875.)

The Physical Basis of Mind. 25

between Property and Function which he had the credit, nearly
twenty years ago, of first bringing clearly into view in the
physiological science of the present generation. The considera-
tion of vital phenomena is then brought to a close in a long
chapter on Evolution, which aims at showing that a struggle for
existence is maintained not only among organisms but also
among their component tissues and organs, and that the unity
of type in organisms is rather to be explained by all-pervading
laws of Organic Affinity than by Mr. Darwin's supposition of
Unity of Descent. The next section is concerned with ' The
Nervous Mechanism,' and contains much destructive criticism of
current scientific doctrines, followed up by an exposition of such
general notions of the structure and action of the nervous
system as the author believes can be affirmed in the present
imperfect state of knowledge. Then follows under the heading
of ' Animal Automatism,' a somewhat varied collection of disser-
tations— historical, abstract, polemical — directed to the assertion
of " the biological point of view " against a purely mechanical
one in treating of mind as related to the living organism. And
last, within the present volume, ' The "Reflex Theory,' which
forms so great a part of the prevalent doctrine of neuro-physio-
logy, is subjected to an elaborate consideration from the same
" biological " point of view, taken as it had already been by the
author in regard to this particular question when he wrote his
well-known popular work The Physiology of Common Life.

The last two " problems," while intimately connected, arise
naturally out of the * problem " of the Nervous Mechanism as
treated by Mr. Lewes, and must be approached through it. On
the other hand, the preliminary discussion on the Nature of Life,
if its general import is kept in view later on, need not here
detain us. Not the least interesting portion, it may only be
remarked in passing, is that in which Mr. Lewes seeks to
generalise the principle of Natural Selection by extending it to
the organised elements of composite animal organisations ; as he
had already some years ago proposed to amend Mr. Darwin's
theory in another direction, namely, by supposing Natural Selec-
tion to proceed upon an indefinite number of original protoplasts
emerging under similar conditions, instead of the four or five or
even one considered by Mr. Darwin himself at once necessary
and sufficient to account for all the variety of related organic
forms. Mr. Darwin, in reply to the earlier criticism, has
admitted (Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 425) the possibility that
at the first commencement of life many different forms were
evolved, but thinks it may be concluded that in that case only a
very few have left modified descendants. One would gladly
learn his opinion of the extension now proposed of his famous

26 The Physical Basis of Mind.

the©ry. Perhaps it may be guessed that he would decline to
load the theory with an application so purely speculative, and
not unreasonably, considering the difficulty of its verification
even within the original limits. It cannot, however, be denied,
in view of what is already known of the composition of organisms
from living elements, that the question of the origin of species
is but one aspect of the general question as to the development
of life, and Mr. Lewes does good philosophical work when he
raises it in its full implication.

As regards the Nervous Mechanism, Mr. Lewes has long been
known to hold unfashionable opinions, which now at last
receive a formal expression. He confines himself for the
present, indeed, to the more general aspects of the nervous
system, reserving the question of the functions of the brain till
the physiological exposition can be accompanied by the
necessary survey of psychological processes ; but, as it stands,
his treatment is fraught with observations of deep import to the
psychologist. Mr. Lewes is persuaded that a great part of the
current doctrine, confidently propounded by anatomists and
physiologists and implicitly received by too confiding psycholo-
gical inquirers, is either wholly baseless or at least not yet based
on actual experience. An imaginary anatomy makes fibres run
into cells and cells prolong themselves as fibres in a way that
no eye has ever seen, all because of a physiological prepossession
as to the part played by these particular elements in the
nervous system. It is by an over-simplification of the system
tlmt these elements are singled out from the whole mass of it,
and the proper scientific task of analysis is again overdone when
division is arbitrarily made of the system into sides and parts,
which are credited with such diverse characters in separation
that it becomes impossible to understand how they should form
together a system the most coherent and uniform that is. It
is difficult not to allow the force of Mr. Lewes's objections
against many of the most fundamental positions in the reigning
doctrine of neuro-physiology, and the vigour of his criticism, in-
formed as it is by the practice of original experimental work,
bespeaks attention to the doctrine (given in outline) which he
would substitute, at least provisionally, for the too definite
teaching of the schools. Some of his more characteristic views,
not now expressed for the first time, have indeed already begun
to modify the traditional dogma in the minds of younger
physiologists.

The key-note of his doctrine is the assertion of uniformity of
structural plan and mode of working in all parts of the nervous
system, high and low. This is not denied or is even affirmed, in
so many words, by physiologists in general, but they are apt to

The Physical Basis of Mind. 27

couple any such assertion with others which to Mr. Lewes seem
to rob it of all its significance — as, for instance, that the action
of the lower centres is purely reflex or mechanical ; that the
action of the higher centres differs in being conscious action ;
that particular nerve-calls are sensory or motor, or even sensa-
tional, or ideational, or emotional ; and the like. Not that he
either pretends that there is no distinction in the action of the
different parts : there is undoubtedly the most marked difference
of function or use, according as the various collections of nervous
elements, distinguished as particular nerves or centres, are
connected with different structures in the bodily organism.
But this circumstance only makes it the more vitally important,
for the comprehension of the system generally, to signalise the
fundamental identity of character pervading all its parts, and
this Mr. Lewes does by distinguishing (after Bichat) Property
from Function, and maintaining that the elements of the system
in all their variety, both as elements and when aggregated,
manifest everywhere one perfectly characteristic property.
This property he speaks of under the two names of " Neurility "
and "Sensibility," according as it is presented by the nervous lines
branching out towards the periphery or by the parts distin-
guished as central ; but, however named, we are to think of a
purely objective quality, symbolising a multitude of changes
expressible ultimately only in terms of motion. Thus understood,
the conception undoubtedly helps to a clear understanding of
the whole system of neural processes, which is otherwise apt to
be misconceived from the fact that our conscious mental life is
obviously related to some of the processes rather than to others, or
to some more than to others. There is, besides, positive evidence
that native property survives functional appropriation in the
well-known facts, established by Vulpian and others, of function
becoming experimentally reversed ; and Mr. Lewes would even
suggest in one place (p. 282) that the same fibres which carry
impulse out to the muscles may transmit the muscular reaction
as a recurrent stimulus inwards to the centres — a view which, if
it could be maintained, would help to reconcile the notoriously
opposite interpretations of the muscular sense now prevalent.
He also gives due prominence to all the facts tending to show
that nerve-fibres are not merely passive carriers, and that the
grey 'matter (for example, in the spinal cord) performs the work
of transmission as well as any fibres.

Next to the fundamental uniformity of plan and process
throughout the nervous system, it is the actual coherence and
solidarity of its parts with unity of action that Mr. Lewes is
most concerned to establish against the exaggerated " analysis "
of the common physiological view. He objects to the distinction

28 The Physical Basis of Mind.

of peripheral and central parts as artificial, protests against the
opposition of sensation and motion if taken to imply the inde-
pendent and unrelated working of two sides in the nervous
system, and seeks above all to bring into relief the diffuse
character which nervous disturbance is prone to assume with
the effect of implicating the whole organism. He does not, of
course, overlook the salient feature of the nervous system known
as " isolated conduction," or forget how mental growth through
experience depends upon restriction of the original "irradiation";
but he is utterly sceptical as to the efficiency of the medullary
sheath which is commonly assigned as the means of insulating
the ultimate nerve-lines, while refusing, in the present state of
knowledge or ignorance, to hazard any other explanation of the
fact in as far as it occurs. That it must not be asserted in any
absolute sense, so as to imply fixity or invariability of nervous
conduction, he is quite sure : " fluctuation," he is never tired of
repeating, is the characteristic at least of central combinations,
and this, he more than suggests, may be dependent on the
presence of a structural element for which no allowance has
been made in the current physiological theories, namely, the so-
called Neuroglia. According to some a kind of merely connec-
tive tissue, affording mechanical support to the true (fibrous and
cellular) elements of the nervous system while itself not neural,
this " nerve-cement " seems to Mr. Lewes, whether called neural
or not, to play an essential part in all the processes of the
system and probably a more important part than even the
nerve-cells (p. 246).* In any case, until the network of the
Neuroglia is better understood and duly taken into account,
there can, he maintains, be no thought of having a theory of
the working of the nervous system satisfactorily based, as it
should be, on the ground of elementary anatomy. Meanwhile
Psychology, in the way of objective help, must be content with
such general knowledge as anatomy already affords of con-
tinuity and coherence in the nervous system, and for a notion
of the physical conditions of mental life must rely rather upon
the researches of physiologists and pathologists.

The general representation of the working of the nervous
mechanism which Mr. Lewes accordingly proceeds to give at the

*Wundt (Phijsidl. Psychology 'e, p. 29), after a short anatomical
description of the Neuroglia in his text, disposes of it physiologically in
a foot-note. He mentions that the body of it, while enclosing cells that
are clearly not nervous, has itself a constitution somewhat resembling
the protoplasmic contents of ganglionic cells, and that many observers
(Wagner, Henle, &c.) have thereby been induced to consider it as
nervous in character. But this view, he declares, is wholly at variance
with all that is known of the relations subsisting between the fundamental
nerve-elements, viz,, the ganglionic cells and nerve-fibres.

The Physical Basis of Mind. 29

end of this part of his inquiry, strikes one as marked by a happy
mixture of boldness and circumspection. It is, of course, only
provisional as well as general, but the way in which he manages,
by a comparatively simple theory, to order the chief facts and to
suggest consistent explanations of special difficulties, deserves
warm acknowledgement. Without following him into his
formal expression of laws, some notion may here be given of his
view of nervous action by quoting a passage that brings its
main points into relief through an apt and instructive simile : —

" Imagine all the nerve-centres to be a connected group of bells
varying in size. Every agitation of the connecting wire will more or
less agitate all the bells ; but since some are heavier than others and
some of the cranks less movable, there will be many vibrations of the
wire which will cause some bells to sound, others simply to oscillate
without sounding, and others not sensibly to oscillate. Even some of
the lighter bells will not ring if any external pressure arrests them ;
or if they are already ringing, the added impulse, not being rhyth-
mically timed, will arrest the ringing. So the stimulus of a sensory
nerve agitates its centre, and through it the whole system ; usually
the stimulation is mainly reflected on the group of muscles innervated
from that centre because this is the readiest path of discharge ; but it
sometimes does not mainly discharge along this path, the line of least
resistance lying in another direction ; and the discharge never takes
place without also irradiating upwards and downwards through the
central tissue. Thus irradiated, it falls into the general stream of
neural processes ; and according to the state in which the various
centres are at the moment it modifies their activity " (p. 284).

A notable feature in this view is the treatment of Arrest as but
another aspect of Discharge, whereby he gets rid of the complex
machinery of inhibitory centres which has become so troublesome
in recent physiological theory ; but instead of dwelling on this
or any other of the interesting questions raised by Mr. Lewes,
it must suffice to direct the attention of psychological students
to the whole of this closing chapter on the Laws of Nervous
Activity, and we may now pass to the third and fourth
" problems ". Thus far Mr. Lewes has been treating the nervous
system from the anatomical and physiological point of view.
Only in the chapter where he introduces his use of the word
Sensibility to mark the common property of nerve-centres (as
opposed to the common property of peripheral nerves, which he
calls Neurility) is he led to refer to the subjective aspect of
nerve-processes which, he does not deny, is unavoidably
suggested by the word. In spite of the ambiguity he delibe-
rately makes choice of it to designate the objective quality he
has in view, and he believes he has his reward in evading, with
it and its companion-term Neurility, the more seriously confus-

30 TJie Physical Basis of Mind.

ing associations of the alternative name Nerve-force. For the
subjective aspect of Sensibility he proposes, or rather at once
claims as a matter of course, to use the word " Sentience ; " and,
though in the chapter itself he somewhat curiously interchanges
the words as if they meant not only the same thing in different
aspects (which he afterwards seeks to prove) but quite the same
(subjective) aspect of the thing, yet, on the question of principle,
he is most impressive in his distinction of the two aspects, and,
while indicating as clearly as possible the respective tasks of
physiologist and psychologist in the matter, he confines himself
in all the remaining chapters of his second part strictly to the
objective view. In the last two parts of the volume, on the
other hand, it is the subjective phase of mind that is upper-
most— not indeed as viewed in itself by the introspective
psychologist but (in accordance with his main title) as that of
which the nervous mechanism is the " physical basis ". The
amount of controversial matter in these two parts makes it
somewhat difficult to take an orderly critical survey of his
positions. On the whole it seems best to work into his meaning
through the discussion of the Reflex Theory which he himself
takes last, keeping in view, where necessary, the more general
considerations ranged under the head of Animal Automatism.

What is the precise import of the Eeflex Theory as under-
stood by physiologists, who do not as a rule trouble themselves
much about the full psychological implication of their state-
ments,— may be a matter of question ; but Mr. Lewes takes
pains to leave us in no doubt as to the counter-theory which he,
with his face distinctly set towards psychology, would substitute
for it. While the current theory seems to him to assert dog-
matically that the nervous processes in lower centres may and
do pass as purely physical (or, as they are called, mechanical)
changes without having any psychical aspect whatever, he con-
tends that every central nervous process, to the very lowest and
simplest, in any organism, intact or truncated, that is not
dead, has in and for itself its proper psychical phase or aspect,
as much as the highest and most complex cerebral process
accompanying or accompanied by that which all understand as
a conscious experience. He does not say that the psychical
state concomitant with the action of a lower centre is a con-
scious state — either that the centre is itself endowed with con-
sciousness or that the man or animal is conscious in the case ;
as indeed, foi^that matter, he denies that the centres immediately
concerned in the higher cerebral process are in themselves the
seat of consciousness, or that the man or animal need always
be conscious in this case. But he does assert that in the one
case as well as the other there is, besides the physical, a real

The Physi'cal Basis of Mind. 31

psychical occurrence which is to be understood in terms of
" Feeling" or subjective experience. He commits himself, for
example, to the general statement that " Feeling is necessary
for reflex action" (p. 435), meaning this at all events, that
whenever and wherever a central nervous process goes forward
in a living organism there always is present something that
may be called Feeling. His favourite expression, however, is
that the centre has Sensibility ; and, though he may have
wished elsewhere to understand by Sensibility a purely physical
or objective process — something wholly expressible in terms of
matter and motion — here, there can be no doubt, he means by
Sensibility a subjective condition as well. This is abundantly
clear when, in the course of his argument, he claims for every
active centre a power of Discrimination, Memory, &c. ; or if it
be said, as is sometimes half implied (p. 463), that these terms
may after all be understood objectively— e.g., Discrimination as
meaning only " neural grouping " — cadit quaestio. JSTo upholder
of the Eeflex Theory, even in Mr. Lewes's statement of it, denies
that the centres perform a work of neural grouping, or that, as
a plain matter of objective fact, there does appear an " adapta-
tion of the mechanism to varying impulses ".

The theory he opposes has. according to Mr. Lewes, nothing
to rest on but a mere prejudice as to the brain alone being the
seat of sensation. When the actual facts observable in animals
(with or without brains) are fairly weighed, especially in the
light of what is known of the structure and laws of the nervous
system, the theory must give way to a truer representation of
the behaviour of the living organism. Presumption against
presumption, it is quite the opposite view that is suggested by
way of general deduction before looking at the particular
evidence. The nervous system, as we saw, has a uniformity of
structure and working everywhere, and is also in the truest
sense a coherent whole. In as far as it is possible at all to speak
of separate action of its parts (this or that centre) in their
natural state of union, the processes in all of them appear
exactly similar ; and, in fact, a process set up anywhere may
always implicate the whole system, and through this the
organism generally. A reaction of the general organism being
the natural outcome of every stimulus, the particular reaction
that is at the moment possible for each, amid the multitude of
impressions always being received, will determine the character
it assumes subjectively. The same kind of impression that at
one time appears as a conscious state specially attended to or
distinctly felt, may at another time in the crush of impressions
not come into consciousness at all ; but in being thus uncon-
scious, it does not cease to le subjectively — it does not lapse out

32 The Physical Basis of Mind.

of the domain of Feeling, for at any moment it
acquire the character of a conscious sensation, if the brain is
not otherwise engrossed. So, if the brain is removed altogether
without loss of life, we are not to suppose that such reaction as
is still possible in the organism has no longer any psychical
character, merely because it can no longer appear as it did to
the animal that was conscious through the brain. Indeed, if
we turn to the actual facts, " instead of marvelling at the dis-
appearance of so many modes of sensibility when the brain is
removed, our surprise should rather be to find so many evi-
dences of sensibility after so profound a mutilation of the
organism " (p. 439). The facts warrant, according to Mr.
Lewes, — especially those placed under the head of Instinct
(pp. 463, ff.) — precisely the same kind of inference as is forced
upon an observer by the deportment of animals in their intact
state. With 1'fliiger, he urges that it is only by inference from
objective signs that we ascribe subjective life to any other man
or animal, and where the signs, though in the absence of the
brain, remain precisely what they were, the inference is not to
be evaded.

There is no need to follow Mr. Lewes into his interpretation
of the facts,' as far as he adduces them, in detail. The point of
real significance is to understand the general reason why Sensi-
bility in its full meaning — not as mere " neural grouping "-
should be so expressly claimed for the spinal cord. Or it may
be said that everything depends on the use to be made of the
concession, supposing it were not withheld ; for if it is true that
the claim can never be proved, it is equally true that it admits
of no positive disproof. First, however, we must seek out the
true meaning of the Reflex Theory, to see what is the real
difference that separates Mr. Lewes and its upholders.

The Eeflex Theory, though often enunciated in an incautious
or in a half-hearted way, is at bottom nothing but an assertion
that, wherever there is nervous stimulation followed by nervous
outcome (appearing as movement or otherwise), there is a con-
tinuous physical process through the central parts involved, and
no hyperphysical or metaphysical agency is to be assumed there
for the explanation of the forthcoming result. When first
formulated, the statement was confined to the lower centres,
but this may have been rather because the processes in these
were simple and could be approximately traced than because
the cerebral processes were believed to be disparate in kind,
that is to say, physically discontinuous, by reason of the inter-
vention of a non-physical agent (the conscious ego) at the
higher centres. Or, if indeed some, nay many, assertors of the
Eeflex Theory have limited it to the spinal column and more

The Physical Basis of Mind. 33

immediately connected parts, under some such notion (more or
less vaguely expressed) of a difference of conditions in the brain,
this is a weakness or misunderstanding which clearer heads
have been able to surmount with the gradual advance of physio-
logical knowledge. The doctrine of Animal Automatism, as
Mr. Lewes himself remarks (p. 389), is only the Eeflex Theory
legitimately carried out ; at least, it includes the assertion that
all central nervous processes whatever, high as well as low, are
physically continuous — that the "nervous arc" is unbroken in
the brain just as in the cord. When, therefore, Mr. Lewes
urges elsewhere (p. 453), as one objection against the Eeflex
Theory, that there are cerebral reflexes as well as spinal reflexes,
he urges that which consistent supporters of it are themselves
most forward to maintain. He does not differ from them seriously
even when he would urge that, as cerebral processes in another
aspect of them are mental processes, so some kind of mental
process may always be assumed as the obverse aspect of a
spinal reflex : they do not assert this, but neither do they deny
it as a matter of fact in what they do assert. He differs from
them radically only if he maintains that Eeflex Action is made
what it is through the agency of Feeling — that " Feeling is
necessary for Eeflex Action" in the sense that without the
presence or interposition of feeling reflex action cannot be con-
ceived as proceeding.

Now it is impossible to doubt that this or something very
like it is Mr. Lewes's meaning, and that he evidently thinks he
thereby makes a distinct advance towards a scientific compre-
hension of Mind. This is the object he has in view throughout
his whole argument, and not the gratification of any mere fancy
for harmonious philosophical expression. Others have indulged
in speculation as to an unconscious mental life bound up with
the action of the spinal cord, and, not stopping there, have'
interpreted in an analogous manner the vital processes in plants
and completed their philosophical sweep by supposing every
change or motion in the physical world to be in some shadowy
fashion the direct manifestation of a mind or mental principle.
Mr. Lewes does not go so far a-field. He founds no argument
on the so-called sensitiveness of plants, to say nothing of simpler
physical processes ; he does not assert that wherever the pro-
perty of Neurility is manifested, as in detached portions of
nerve, there we must also assume the presence of some sort of
subjective feeling ; nay, even when there is distinct " neural
grouping," and thus evidence of the objective property of Sensi-
bility, as when the cheek of a guillotined victim responds with
blushing to a stroke, he scouts the notion of the blow being
felt (p. 439). But wherever there is an animal organism, either

3

34 TJie Physical Basis of Mind.

living as it naturally lives or, however mutilated, able to retain
life, all its central actions, he maintains, are what they are
— actions of a living thing and not motions of a dead mechanism
— only by virtue of Feeling, and if not first viewed as felt they
are wholly unintelligible.

What, then, is the precise difference between a Living Organ-
ism— at least an animal organism with a nervous system — and
a mere Mechanism or Machine, which renders it necessary to
assume feeling as the ground of all action in the former ? This
is a critical question which Mr. Lewes raises over and over
again within his volume, and strives to answer in the most
determinate way. His answer always turns more or less upon
the point that an organism is peculiar in showing selective
adaptation in all its acts, that is, varying combination of motor
impulses to suit the varying requirements of the effect to be at
any time produced, or, as he also puts it, fluctuating combination
of elements in response to variations of stimuli. This, he holds,
is found in no machine ; nor has a machine either that primary
constitution, distinctive of organisms, which appears as their
inherited specific nature, or a history, in the sense of having its
primitive adjustments modifiable through development of struc-
ture brought to pass by the very fact of its working experience.
Otherwise, in his many discussions of the subject, he urges that,
however organisms may exhibit phenomena referable to physical
and chemical agencies, they also exhibit others that can never
be expressed in terms of these ; and, again, that the organism is
no mere mechanism, because mechanics can assign only the
abstract laws of its movements, and cannot account for its
behaviour in the concrete.

The statements may pass for what they are worth ; but
even if they were unexceptionable — which the last, for example,
hardly is, since mechanics gives no more than the abstract laws
of the motion of any body whatever — they yet fail to prove
anything as to the efficacy of Feeling in organic processes. It
is accordingly by another line of argument that Mr. Lewes
really seeks to establish his general position. He does not so
much build any conclusion on the shortcomings of the Eeflex
Theory, as reject this because he has already satisfied himself that
where conscious feeling is allowed by all to be present, it deter-
mines the nervous processes to be what they are in the living or-
ganism. Here, then, we turn expressly to his view of the doctrine
of Animal Automatism. An outgrowth (in its recent statement
at least) from the Eeflex Theory, it may perhaps be so over-
thrown as to uproot the Eeflex Theory with it. Its central
idea, now become familiar to all, is that consciousness, although
present, does not count for anything in the vital history of man

The Physical Basis of Mind. 35

or animal — that all animal actions may be completely expressed
and accounted for in terms of (nervous) matter and motion
without the interposition of feeling as a factor at any point of
the course and indeed without any reference whatever to con-
scious experience. Supposing this were true, there is obviously
a very intelligible sense in which it can be said that everything
proceeds mechanically in the living organism : not that there
is no difference between a biological process and a simple
physical movement, any more than there is no difference
between a chemical reaction and the rebound of a ball, but
in the sense that just as a chemical process can and must always
be interpreted ultimately in terms of motion, so a nervous event
must likewise in the end be so interpreted. Be this point of
expression, however, as it may, Mr. Lewes is by no means
disposed to grant the main position. He contests the ground
inch by inch with Professor Huxley who some years ago gave
an impressive exposition of the doctrine of Automatism, and,
what is more, he enters upon a line of consideration which not
only, as it seems to him, affords the deepest reason for asserting
Feeling to be an agent in the vital procedure of man or animal,
but also yields a strictly psychological solution of the general
question of the relation between Body and Mind.

As a metaphysician, Mr. Lewes is a monist who declares that
objective Motion and subjective Feeling are but two aspects of
one and the same real, but he confesses that he did not always
clearly see how a physical process could also be a psychical
process. Even now, in a chapter (on Body and Mind) that is
otherwise marked by great insight and subtlety of expression,
there is some want of clearness or consistency in the explana-
tion that is offered ; but his general drift is unmistakeable and
is to the effect that what we call Matter and Mind, Object and
Subject, are symbols of different modes of feeling or sentience,
which may both represent the same real, just as one tuning-fork
may appear moving to the eye and sounding to the ear. The
two differ merely in the mode of apprehension. Still they .do
differ, and nobody could more impressively urge than does Mr.
Lewes in this chapter (see especially p. 342, as at the earlier
stage before referred to, p. 193), that there must be no mixing-
up of the different aspects — that when we are talking in terms
of Matter and Motion, i.e., " optico-tactical experiences accom-
panied by muscular experiences," we must not shift about and
pass over into the phase of specially subjective experience for
which the comprehensive symbol is Mind, nor vice versa. Thus,
if by positing only a difference of psychological aspects, not a
difference of substances, he is not saddled with the metaphysical
difficulties of Dualism, he also, by taking the different aspects

36 The Physical Basis of Mind.

as equally independent, avoids the error of those who are prone
to sacrifice the subjective to the objective aspect, speaking of
the terms of the physical series as the causes of the corres-
ponding psychical terms in a sense which does not admit of
being reversed — as if, that is to say, the one were always to be
absolutely assumed, while the other may be considered or
neglected at will. And yet he is perfectly aware of the special
scientific advantage there is in seeking for an objective expres-
sion of the facts of subjective experience, which, though it never
should be declared a mere accident of the series of physiological
processes, does yet, as subjective, not admit of the same rigour
of scientific statement.

This, then, is the argument, and so far it might seem intended
for the rescue of Feeling from the subordinate position to which
it has too often been improperly consigned, and the establish-
ment of a thorough-going parallelism of the physical and
p3ychical ; but now we have to learn that. Mr. Lewes's real
meaning is very different. Because the objective series of
nervous processes and the subjective series of corresponding
mental states may both, in ultimate psychological analysis, be
regarded as modes of feeling in some consciousness or other,
this is to be a reason for declaring that Feeling — meaning always
a mental state in the subjective series — may and does enter as
a term into the objective series, which, as properly objective,
consists of molecular movements in nerve. Let the reader, in
particular, refer to p. 403 where, after his long combat with
Prof. Huxley, Mr. Lewes proceeds to sum up his argument on
the special question of so-called Automatism. There we are
reminded once again that, though we may believe Consciousness,
which is a purely subjective process, to be objectively a neural
process, we are nevertheless passing out of the region of physio-
logy when we speak of Feeling determining Action : motion
may determine motion, but feeling can only determine feeling.
Yet we do, says Mr. Lewes, speak of Feeling determining
Action, and we " are justified : for thereby we implicitly declare
what Psychology implicitly teaches, namely, that these two
widely different aspects, objective and subjective, are but the
two faces of one and the same reality. It is thus indifferent
whether we say a sensation is a neural process or a mental
process — a molecular change in the nervous system or a change
in Feeling. It is either and it is both." Certainly, it is hei;e
made clear why Mr. Lewes has previously permitted himself to
use the same word Sensibility to express the objective fact of
neural grouping and also a fact of subjective experience ; but
with what reason he denounces those who, when they are
speaking in terms of matter and motion, cannot keep to their

The Physical Basis of Mind. 37

text but will persist in dragging-in terms of subjective import —
is not so clear. Why should they not use the subjective words ?
How do they go beyond the reckoning, when it is exactly the
same thing they are speaking about in the one language or in
the other ? Or is Mr. Lewes's meaning this — that the physio-
logist indeed must keep, like any other physical inquirer, to the
sphere of the objective in which he finds himself and which he
cannot explain, but the psychologist is at liberty to pass at will
between the subjective and the objective spheres because he
knows and can prove them to be one in reality ? If this be so,
surely the psychologist's fate is hard. Alas for his insight if it
must be the death of his science — if it shows him the same
thing with two different sides to be named and will not suffer
him to speak consistently about either !

Now let us note, before closing the account, two other posi-
tions taken by Mr. Lewes that are in different ways remarkable.
One is where he declares at the end of his whole argument (p.
409), that "the question of Automatism may be summarily
disposed of by a reference to the irresistible evidence each man
carries in his own consciousness that his actions are frequently
— even if not always — determined by feelings. He is quite
certain that he is not an automaton and that his feelings are not
simply collateral products of his actions, without the power of
modifying or originating them." And Mr. Lewes adds, " this
fundamental fact cannot be displaced by any theoretical expla-
nation of its factors". One reads the words with a certain
surprise. There may be reason indeed for protesting against
such an incautious statement as that feelings are " products " of
(nervous) actions : all that Mr. Lewes urges anywhere against
attempting to explain the psychical series as dependent on the
physical series, is much to the point. An Automatist who
contends for pure parallelism of the physical and the mental,
must no more think of breaking the mental line for the physical
than the physical for the mental, nor has he a right to view the
mental as a discontinuous efflux from the unbroken chain of
nervous events. But the bare suggestion that any scientific
deliverance on the subject can be based upon the immediate
evidence of consciousness, is somewhat confounding when it
comes from Mr. Lewes. The end of that kind of reference in
questions of philosophy is but too well known. If it were
allowed in this particular case, what becomes of the parallelism
of aspects which nobody maintains more strongly or on deeper
grounds than Mr. Lewes ? He would break it in one direction
as much as he charges Prof. Huxley with breaking it in the
other. But, indeed, from the point of view of direct conscious-
ness, what question is there of a parallelism at all ? That a

38 The Physical Basis of Mind.

nervous process represents one purely phenomenal aspect of
what, on another purely phenomenal aspect, is a conscious
mental state, may be a very profound truth, but it never was
ascertained on direct evidence of consciousness, which, in the
sense in which it ever may be said to take account of nervous
processes, views them as physical changes in a material struc-
ture supposed to exist apart. Nor, whatever reason or excuse
there may be for the natural conviction we have as to a relation
between feeling and bodily action, can this be allowed to affect
one way or another the validity of the philosophical interpre- ,
tation.

The other statement referred to occurs at an earlier part of
the argument, but is here taken last because it gives occasion for
the few remarks on the doctrine of so-called Automatism which
will bring this article to a close. Can we translate all psychologi-
cal phenomena into mechanical terms ? asks Mr. Lewes at p. 352,
and he replies (for reasons before mentioned) that we cannot —
" nay, that we cannot even translate them all into physiological
terms . . . nor can the laws of Mind be deduced from phy-
siological processes, unless supplemented by and interpreted by
psychical conditions individual and social." It is important to
take account of this last remark (though it is not followed out
at the place or anywhere adequately enforced throughout the
discussion), because otherwise the denial of the possibility of
expressing mental phenomena in physiological terms would
stand in sharp contradiction with all that the author so often
says about neural and mental processes. Plainly, he cannot
mean that there is not an exact physiological expression (if it
could be obtained) for every psychological phenomenon. He
rather means (I can only suppose) that just in the sense in
which a biological phenomenon is more than a chemical one, so a
psychological phenomenon is more than a biological. And this
is a most important consideration, which if fully grasped may
lead us to see that the notion of Automatism fails to express
just that which is most characteristic in the life of Mind. But
for this a little explanation is necessary.

It was said above that there is a sense in which the expres-
sion of biological phenomena in purely objective terms of motion
may be called a mechanical view of them. Does this mean that
from the principles of mechanics it is possible to deduce the
phenomena of life ? Not at all. It only means that, as life
is manifested by a material structure, no vital change, when
it happens, can be interpreted otherwise than as some more or
less complex phenomenon of motion. More immediately, in
many cases, the vital change may have to be phrased as a che-
mical process, but this, it is not denied, is a peculiar mode of

The Physical Basis of Mind. 39

motion — some re-arrangement, let us say, of atoms in space;
and mechanics (or general physics) contains the laws of all such
change of position. Of course there is nothing absolute or final
in such an expression of chemical and biological phenomena.
Even supposing we could assign to the minutest particular all
the motions or re- arrangements in space that constitute a che-
mical or a biological phenomenon — supposing, that is to say, we
had found the complete physical or mechanical expression — it
would still remain a problem to find the purely mathematical
expression of this physical expression ; and, again, the full ma-
thematical expression, if it could be found, might be viewed as
the result of a conceivable logical combination. But short of
this last stage, at which the problem ceases to belong to
objective science, it has come to be thought sufficient in
modern times to find the mechanical expression for any material
phenomenon, because motion admits of definite measurement ;
and hence the idea that such an expression constitutes an ideal
explanation. However, just as the laws of motion cannot them-
selves be deduced from mathematical principles without data
from experience, so, I repeat, there is no question of merging
chemistry or biology in physics, in seeking for a mechanical
interpretation of chemical and vital phenomena. Chemical pro-
cesses must be investigated in the special conditions under which
they appear in our experience — only always in the light of phy-
sical principles; vital processes likewise— only always in the
light of physical and chemical principles. And so also mental
phenomena, while studied in the light of biological principles
and the others implied in these, have to be investigated in the
special conditions that are found to determine them. They doubt-
less admit of translation into physiological terms, but physiology
can never explain their rise.

Now the doctrine of Automatism declares that the state of
the living organism, more particularly the nervous system, is at
any moment the effect of its state immediately preceding
and the cause of its state immediately succeeding ; just as an
automaton, or mechanism involving some internal principle
of motion, goes through a series of operations each of which in
turn brings on the next. As a matter of fact, the various
nervous processes, as they are successively brought to pass, have
or may have subjective concomitants, which are called, in the
cases where they excite attention, states of conscious experience ;
but none of these have the least real influence in determining
the next condition of the organism, or (as it should be, but is not
always, clearly understood and expressed) are themselves deter-
mined by the accompanying or the foregoing organic states — at
least in the sense in which these are causally related to one

40 The Physical Basis of Mind.

another. Though the presence of consciousness makes the man
or animal a conscious automaton, all the vital acts that are
commonly called mental are, it is said, truly those of an
automaton inasmuch as they are physically predetermined and
would come to pass equally though consciousness were wholly
absent. The doctrine is thus something more than a mere
extension of the Beflex Theory, as it was previously described.
As the name Automatism suggests, the organism is supposed to
have within itself a principle of action whereby the succession of
nervous processes, both cerebral and spinal, is physically deter-
mined ; and the direct implication is that the life of man cr
animal not only may be considered as a set of purely physical
occurrences, but cannot otherwise be scientifically regarded.

Now, if this is at all a true representation of the theory of
Animal Automatism, it is surely quite inadequate as an expres-
sion of the facts of mental life. The state of the brain or whole
nervous system at any moment is always one factor in the
causation of its succeeding state, but, at least in all cases where
anything of the nature of a new mental experience or acqui-
sition is involved, it is one factor only. If we consider how
many and what kind of factors may co-operate in producing the
physiological condition (of brain, &c.) which corresponds with
that which we call (subjectively) a mental judgment — even a
very simple one — we are obviously face to face with a pheno-
menon belonging to an altogether peculiar order of occurrence.
Using the word in the first instance merely for discrimination,
we have in the mental phenomenon something at the least as
much more complex than a vital phenomenon as this is more
complex than a chemical phenomenon. And whether or not
there is any scientific advantage (perhaps there is not much) in
likening the multiplicity of vital reactions to the reaction of an
automaton, because both are motions determined largely from
within, — in the case of mental phenomena, at all events, the
comparison is unsatisfactory in every way. While the reference
to any internal mechanical arrangement that may be devised
gives, on the one hand, hardly the least notion of the marvellous
organisation of the nervous system, slowly developed as this has
been in and through actual working, it gives, on the other hand,
an exaggerated notion of its independent activity as the organ of
what is specially called Mind. For all its apparent spontaneity,
the nervous system as the organ of mind works mainly in
response to stimuli supplied by the natural and social environ-
ments. Even if nothing had to be said about a subjective
representation of these, to overlook them as factors in the
peculiar result which follows from them is to omit all that is
most characteristic in the case.

TJie Physical Basis of Mind. 41

But it may be said that it is no part of the doctrine to exclude
reference to the external factors : what is really contended for is
the right to express all the factors, internal or external, in
physical terms, or rather the scientific necessity of so doing, and
the right to discount all reference to conscious or subjective
experience as irrelevant to the scientific issue, whatever other
interest it may happen to possess. And truly, though the word
Automatism is quite inappropriate as an expression for this
conception, it is not for a moment to be denied that the mental
life from first to last in all its phases — its potencies, its
actuality, its very aspirations and ideals — admits conceivably of
physical expression. But the grave mistake, nay the profound
error, is to think of building the science of mind upon such a
foundation — is to fancy that this way of looking at mind is the
only scientific way or even, in the actual circumstances, at all
truly scientific. Would it be right to defer the study of life till
physics and chemistry with mathematics are sufficiently deve-
loped to furnish a deduction of it, or, if not wholly deferring the
study, are inquirers bound to refrain from establishing any facts
or laws which they cannot exactly express in terms of chemistry
and physics ? Physiologists, by their practice, answer emphatically
No, and theoretically they might urge that the chance of ever
finding the physico-chemical expression of vital phenomena (to
say nothing of their fully reasoned construction) depends not
least on the prior ascertainment of the phenomena as vital. With
what reason, then, can the impression, or even (as it may be and
is) the well-grounded conviction, that mind in all its phases has
its physical equivalent, whereby it is brought within the realm
of objective nature and may on this side conceivably be studied
— with what reason can this conviction be urged against the
study of subjective mind, or be made the ground of a serious
assertion that consciousness is a mere accident of a certain
determinate succession of physical events, when, but as they are
subjectively represented, the factors whereon the events depend
could not be discerned and brought within the view of scientific
inquiry ? A possible assertion it, no doubt, is, and there may
even be some use in making it by the way, as a means of lending
impressiveness to the affirmation of the never-failing physical
aspect of the mental life. But it is no serious assertion to rest in
with a view to science, for the reason just given. The conditions
natural and social upon which mind and the corresponding series
of organic states in point of fact depend, would never come into
view at all except in the guise of properly conscious or psycho-
logical experience. Only, as we are first conscious of influences
received from the world of nature and (through speech and
otherwise) from our fellow-men, can we afterwards have

42 The Physical Basis of Mind.

any true idea of all the (physical) circumstances entering into
the causation of that series of nervous positions which we may
come to think of as co-existing with the flow of our subjective
life. How then can this be truly described as accidental in the
case ? And let it be observed that here the argument is con-
ducted strictly from the point of view of phenomenal science.
We may leave out of sight that deeper philosophical considera-
tion, according to which the series of complex physiological
events itself appears in ultimate analysis as compacted of a
special class of conscious experiences.

In my opinion, the Eeflex Theory and the more developed
Automatic Theory err not in what they really affirm but in
what they are understood by many of their advocates to deny.
When the Reflex Theory is supposed to mean that the nervous
action of the spinal cord is in no way related to the life of
subjective experience, it goes beyond the evidence, even although
there can be no proof positive of the counter-assertion that every
central nervous process is at the same time, in another point of
view, a fact of mental experience conforming to psychological
law. When the Automatic Theory is given out as meaning
that conscious experience has no scientific import, it not only
goes beyond the evidence but bars the way against the kind of
psychological investigation that practically and theoretically
can best be justified. The Reflex Theory brings into view a
consideration of great scientific moment when it declares that,
without the least reference to conscious or any kind of subjective
experience, there is physical provision in the nervous system for
the accomplishment of acts most deeply affecting the well-being
of the organism. It only errs if it is understood to imply that
there is no further question to be asked about such arrange-
ments and that they cannot be at all viewed, either in their
origin or in their developed form, as related to the mental life.
So also the Automatic Theory advances science when it suggests
as a constant problem the expression of all mental phenomena
in those objective terms which can be made so much more
definite than subjective expression ever is. But it impedes
science when it discourages the specific study of mind in all the
variety of its actual conditions and manifestations — for the sake
of a premature and barren physiological deduction. Will any
brooding over physiological data lead to anything but the most
vague and general results in the way of psychological inference ?
Nobody who reflects will pretend that it can ; and one must go
farther and deny that even the vaguest psychological conclusion
can be so obtained, unless with the physiological data there be
coupled unawares some data of purely psychological, which is
to say subjective, experience. I would not quarrel with the

The Use of Hypotheses. 43

theory of Automatism on the ground most commonly taken.
Though it gives a very inadequate expression to the infinite
variety of circumstances determining human actions as viewed
objectively, people must learn to be content with the plain
truth that man, however he may be " man " (which is saying
much), is not " master of his fate," but has his part and lot in
the destiny of that — whatever it may be — which is called the
physical world. But this truth is little towards all that we
want to know of our strange double-sided human existence, and
we cannot know more if our scientific activity is to be limited to
such abstract theorising as finds expression in the doctrine of
Automatism. Mental life can never be understood either in its
essence or in its fullness, unless it is studied directly alike as it
discloses itself to subjective introspection and as it is manifested
more broadly in social relations and in the record of history.

The conclusion of the whole matter is that Psychology,
however it may be related to biology, must be upheld as a
perfectly distinct science— in no sense less distinct than chemistry
is from physics, and in truth much more distinct because of the
transition from the objective to the subjective point of view.
And, returning to Mr. Lewes who has shown himself among the
first — who claims indeed in his present preface to have been
quite the first — to understand Psychology as the science of Mind
in its wider implications, I cannot but venture the opinion that
he has not now made all the use that might have been expected-
of his insight in dealing with the fallacy of " Animal Auto-
matism ".

EDITOR.

Ill— THE USE OF HYPOTHESES.

THE thorough working out of that general view of the nature
and province of Logic which, for the sake of brevity, may be
termed the Material or Objective view, throws a new light upon,
and therefore demands a reconsideration of, a good many de-
tached points. Amongst these, as it seems to me, is the question
of the nature and functions of Hypotheses.

We must first ascertain what, for the purposes of this inquiry,
is to be understood by the term Hypothesis, especially since the
use of the word in any kind of logical discussion will probably
suggest a narrower limitation than that which will here be
adopted. We need not strive after rigid accuracy, but half a
page will be well expended if it aids in indicating what we have
in view and in calling attention to various cautions which are
often neglected. What will here be understood by the term,

44 The Use of Hypotheses.

then, is, briefly speaking, nothing else than a mental representa-
tion, or conception of our own, which is either known or suspected
not to be in accordance with actual facts. It would be a truism
to say that for all ordinary purposes our conceptions should be
in entire accordance with fact, so far as this is attainable. Often
they are so, or are fully believed to be so, and they then go by
various names according to conditions of time or mode of
acquirement. If they refer to future events we might term
them predictions or confident anticipations ; if to the past, and
within our own experience, recollections, and so on. Often,
however, we have occasion to picture to ourselves a state of
things which we deliberately contemplate as not-actual ; it may
be merely that the things are considered as uncertain, it may
be that they are utterly and even whimsically false. With
regard to their nature they may be either concrete facts, or
groups of facts, or properties of bodies, or laws of connection or
succession, which we thus picture to ourselves as other than
they are. Such suppositions as these, in so far as they are
seriously made for scientific or practical purposes, and not with
any prominently aesthetic or humorous aim, may be roughly
taken to correspond to ' hypotheses ' as we are here con-
cerned with them. The account thus sketched out may seem at
first sight to have no very close connection with the term in
many of its common significations ; but it will be found, it is
hoped, to be a consistent one, and we must trust for its justifi-
cation to the discussion which follows.

The remarks just made imply the existence or assumption of
a tolerably sharp distinction between the objective and the sub-
jective, between the complex of external facts and our concep-
tions of them. This is, of course, distinctive of the Material
view of Logic. We cannot pause to enter into any justification
of such a view here, but shall postulate it for the present as
being, if not philosophically unassailable, at any rate a perfectly
tenable and consistent view for all purposes of science and there-
fore of logical inference.

It may serve to make our task plainer if we pause for a minute
to consider what is the ideal towards which such a view or
system of Logic tends ; how would the world be represented to
it if it had attained its ultimate state of perfection ? If this
state were attained every fact would be certain, that is potenti-
ally certain or capable of exact inference. The universe would be
like a vast volume which happened to lie open before us at some
page in the middle, but the leaves of which could readily be
turned so as to enable us to consult and acquire with equal cer-
tainty the contents of any other page standing anywhere before
or behind the one in question. Such a possible and accurate

The Use of Hypotheses. 45

determination of all facts, past, present, or future, would be a
necessary consequence of a complete determination and mastery
of all the data requisite, and of all the laws of sequence and
coexistence by which they are connected together. A well
known passage in Mill's Logic intimates that this is to be re-
garded as the ideal of that branch of Material Logic which he
terms Sociology, and it need hardly be remarked that what
holds good of animate nature would a fortiori hold good of the
inanimate or physical world.

Now supposing that this ideal were attained would there be
any further occasion for Hypotheses ? or, to put it otherwise,
would the word ' if ' have any meaning or use ? At first sight
it might almost seem as if there would be no such meaning or
use. If all that we wanted was merely to call up before the
mind, and contemplate, the absent, whether past or future, and
this in a concrete form, c if ' would really have no place in the
scientific vocabulary of such a perfected system of scientific
logic. The absent events which the mind would thus succeed
in calling up at will out of the boundless sea of time and space
might doubtless be less vivid than those which were present to
its direct consciousness, but they need be none the less certainly
apprehended. Why then should those who could thus get a
sure and certain hold of any fact they wanted go out of their
way by supposing or hypothesising a state of things other than
that which exists ? Confident anticipations might be made
about the future, just as recollections or records might be enter-
tained of the past, but on the view in question the former would
be no more suitable ground than the latter for an ' if ' to grow
and flourish in.

The obvious reply is that, although this attainment of facts
which are remote from us in time or in space is one part of
science, it is very far indeed from being the whole. We have
much more to do than to construct, in the concrete, the course
of history past and future. We have to get at the abstract, to
analyse, and become acquainted with the laws of things. This
would be the case even though our predictive power were com-
plete, for we cannot know the concrete in complicated cases
without a considerable progress in analysis ; but with our pre-
sent imperfect attainments it becomes more obviously necessary.

There seem to be three main reasons why we have occasion
to indulge in hypotheses. They are obvious enough when stated,
but their definite enunciation will suggest certain cautions in
their employment which are often neglected.

In the first place, they are used for what may be called con-
structive purposes. When thus employed they are simply, so
to say, a sort of framework or scaffold, useful in the process

46 The Use of Hypotheses.

of erecting our edifice, but forming no integral part of it and
therefore intended sooner or later to disappear. Our facul-
ties being what they are, we can seldom succeed in tracing out
remote consequences by direct deduction. Our only practicable
course, when the problem is at all complicated, is to make
assumptions or hypotheses, one after the other, and proceed to
test them by experience. We make a variety of suppositions,
ascertain, by experiment or reasoning, what would follow were
they true, compare these consequences with the results which
experience affords, and then reject and dismiss from the mind
all those which have thus displayed their incorrectness.

Again, another use is simply illustrative, as when we employ
hypotheses to familiarise ourselves or others with the bearing and
the limits of any of the laws of nature. Such a use is a sort of
fencing to which we have to resort in order to make ourselves
thoroughly acquainted with the use of our weapons. These
hypotheses, or problems as they are then generally called, are
serviceable in accustoming us to every possible combination of
events, so that we may be the better capable, when the time
comes, to work out the consequences with which we shall be
seriously concerned. The innumerable imaginary combinations
which are introduced in problems in mathematics and the phy-
sical sciences have this purpose in view. In order to attain a
clear comprehension of the bearing of a law or principle in the
occasional and perhaps complicated combinations in which it
is found in nature, we must work out the result which would
follow from it in simpler imaginary examples.

The two above mentioned uses are by comparison speculative
or scientific ; with them may be contrasted the practical use.
This latter arises out of the necessity of our being forewarned
and forearmed against a great number of contingencies which
may at one time or another come in our way. We find it useful
to invent many imaginary combinations and to trace their con-
sequences, because we cannot be sure but that some one or
other of them may befall us. We are in fact simply making an
approach to anticipating future experience. If we knew for
certain in what form the experience would occur, we should only
need to prepare ourselves for. that particular form of it. The
shape in which we pictured it to ourselves beforehand would
then be called — not a hypothesis but — an anticipation. But this
previous certainty is naturally in many ca,ses unattainable. We
can reach to nothing more than an alternative certainty ; our
knowledge being confined to "the fact that some one or other of
a given number of contingencies will occur, but which of them
we cannot tell.

In reference to the first two of the above-mentioned employ-

The Use of Hypotheses. 47

ments, an important remark must be made. In each case alike,
that change in what may be called the natural career of events,
which is mentally introduced when we make the hypothesis, is
arbitrary but perfectly determinate, We might rather say that
it is determinate because it is arbitrary, a change which we in-
troduce ourselves being in our own power to make it what we
will. The framer of .the hypothesis ought to be able to assign
precisely the limits of the change which he contemplates, and to
recognise that everything which he does not so change or which
is not implicated in what he does so change, remains as it was
and is left to develop itself according to its natural laws. Our
hypothesis generally introduces some supposed definite altera-
tion into the course of nature ; an alteration consisting either in
a variation of the laws which govern the events, or in the intro-
duction of fresh events, or in the mutual collocations of existing
events. Suppose, for instance, that we are discussing the con-
sequences which would result from a variation in the velocity of
rotation of the earth. We suppose the velocity, say, to be
doubled, and then calculate the consequences ; — that the shape
of the earth itself might be altered, that the arrangement of land
and water would be different, that changes of climate would
thence ensue, and so on. Here, as we have said, the contem-
plated change is perfectly definite and assignable. We know
exactly what we suppose to be altered, and how much, and
assuming that the laws and collocations remain unaltered in
other directions we trace the consequences of the proposed inno-
vation. In physical science, at any rate, any haziness as to the
precise limits of our hypothesis would never be tolerated.

Let us examine a case or two from the social and moral
sciences, by way of illustration, beginning with Political
Economy. Every one must have noticed how in this science
the wildest suppositions are constantly made by sober writers :
suppositions which no one would expect to see realised except
in a world constructed out of a magnified Bedlam. Cases are
put as to what would follow were all money abolished, were the
amount in circulation instantly doubled, were all productive
labourers to cease working for a given period, and so on without
limit. Such hypotheses are perfectly admissible and often highly
serviceable. Their function is explanatory. They are intended
to explain the working of some general law, and for that purpose
extreme instances will serve at least as well as any others, and
often much better. They have too an important practical use
within certain limits. Though Political Economy does not
generally attempt to wander far from our present standing-point
of time, it constantly does so to a short extent, especially into
the immediate future. But owing to the great complication of

48 The Use of Hypotheses.

many of the data upon which it has to rely, it can seldom ven-
ture upon such a step without much hesitation and uncertainty.
It can only make its assertions in the alternative or hypothetical
form. If so and so is the case, then such results will follow ; if
so and so, then such other results, and so on.

Turn now to Ethics. Here again we have general laws, at
least on most theories of Ethics, and therefore all the range of
their application is valid for the purpose of illustration. We are
at liberty to discuss the consequences, from a moral point of
view, of putting our pauper population to death, just as we
might discuss the economical consequences of such a step. And
yet the example would strike most minds as being in some way
unwarrantable. Why so ? The difference between such a sup-
position and those welcomed in Political Economy cannot be
rested upon any such reason as that one of them is possible or
practicable and that the other is not. If we mean by possible
that the events are so far within human control that did the
desire exist it would be followed by performance, of course both
enterprises are equally possible. If, on the other hand, we term
our event impossible merely because we feel perfectly certain
that as a matter of fact it never will occur, then both are equally
impossible. The distinction is doubtless partly to be sought in the
strongly practical nature of Ethics even on the most speculative
treatment. It consists prominently of rules such as we are all
concerned with more or less every day of our lives. The perpe-
tration of a murder, even against the person of a tyrant, falls
more within the practical sphere of the average agent than does
an over-issue of paper money or a large diversion of fixed capital
into circulating. We get therefore to interpret our rules by their
practical aims, and therefore resent examples which make vio-
lent or unlikely suppositions when more moderate ones would
at all answer the purpose.

The foregoing cases are simple enough ; let us now turn to
History. What we mean here by the term is not so much the
Philosophy of History, or Sociology, as the more ordinary narra-
tive history. The former consists in great part of general rules
applied to the particular course of events under discussion. It
is therefore for most intents and purposes a branch of Ethics ; it
may be regarded as a sort of applied Ethics on a large scale.
But in the simplest narration, if the historian be at all given to
reflection, we shall often find an 'if introduced into the story in
a way which makes one ask what it means. " No one can doubt
that the Eoman Eepublic would have subsided into a military
despotism if Julius Csesar had never lived ; but is it at all clear
that in that case Gaul would ever have formed a province of the
Empire ? " Such imaginary contingencies are not the amuse-

The Use of Hypotheses. 49

merit of the frivolous. On the contrary some of the thought-
fullest and most practical of writers are as fond of them as any
others. Mill says, in his essay On Liberty : " It is a bitter
thought how different a thing the Christianity of the world
might have been, if the Christian faith had been adopted as the
religion of the empire under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius
instead of those of Constantine ".

Now is such a supposition as this a merely sportive exercise
of the fancy, a sort of instantaneous romance, in fact, with 110
more practical or scientific aim than if a theologian were to set
about guessing what might have happened had Adam been
firmer in resisting temptation ? Clearly there must be some-
thing to be gained either speculatively or practically by such an
exercise of the inventive imagination. Some might express it
by saying that the supposition of such a complete turn in the
course of events is legitimate when the primary divergence con-
templated is one that ' might have happened,' which was, to use
the vulgar metaphor; ' on the cards '. This however fails to
mark any philosophical distinction between the reasonable and
unreasonable suppositions. In one sense, as already remarked,
nothing could have happened otherwise than it did, for from un-
changed antecedents the same consequences would always
follow. And in another sense the events might have turned out
other than they did, for in either case had the antecedents been
changed so would the consequences.

I am disposed to think that we should find upon examination
that the reasonable suppositions in such cases as these, as dis-
tinguished from the unreasonable and from those which are fan-
ciful, fall mainly into two classes. One class of them are such as
deal with the conduct of an individual only, or with a body of
persons small enough to be likely to act in concert or be swayed
by an individual will. We make our supposition about the be-
haviour of a king, a minister, or a parliament, rather than of any
miscellaneous group. We ask, what if Luther had been less
firm, if the Long Parliament had been more compliant, and so
on ; but not, what if such a nation or such a miscellaneous group
of people had altered their course of action, or undergone a
sudden change of sentiment. The other class of reasonable
suppositions would be those which turn upon the use of some
physical event which in conventional phrase ' might just as well
have happened/ that is, which does not readily admit of being fore-
seen. The historian for instance would probably count it quite
fair to speculate how European history would have been affected
had a hurricane shattered the British fleet just before the battle
of Trafalgar, or if Grouchy at Waterloo had been a little more
rapid in his movements.

4

50 The Use of Hypotheses.

But what is the prerogative of such cases as these over others ?
That they can have nothing of what we have termed constructive
value is obvious. When we indulge our fancy by framing such
a hypothesis we are consciously stepping aside from the known
course of events, we are postulating something which we are well
aware did not happen ; and we are doing this with no intention
of becoming more certain as to what did happen. ISTor can such
suppositions claim to do much service in the way of illustration,
at least not in any such sense as we have seen that they may
help us in Political Economy. They are put in too concrete a
form ; they postulate too complicated a group of events for con-
sideration. The consequences resulting from our supposition can
never be more than guessed at, and unless they can be compared
with the alternative and tested, there is no illustration gained by
their employment.

The purpose they are really meant to subserve is, I apprehend,
a practical one. It is quite compatible with this view that they
are mostly found, not among future contingencies relevant to our
own circumstances, but amongst those which are past and irre-
vocable, and often widely alien from anything likely to recur at
the present day. For the stu^y^of history has with every one,
to some extent, a prospective reference. Even if we do not con-
sciously philosophise by generalising the laws whose working we
are tracing, we are always on the look-out for precedents which
have relevance to our own present and future needs. Consequences
which turn upon the deeds of an individual, say the assassination
of a ruler, are within the power of many other individuals. Those
which turn upon the conduct of persons high in office are within
the power of a sufficient number to give a certain practical value
to the speculation.

It is not meant of course that these are the only .circumstances
under which the historian may put in an ' if '. But when he is
dealing with occurrences so nearly unique, or so remote in some
of their circumstances,, that we can never expect to encounter
anything similar to them, it appears to me that their interest
must be rested on other than scientific grounds. It should rather
be sought in that dramatic interest which induces us to fashion
out a better life, more stirring incidents, or a more consistent
career than that which truth compels us to accept. For a line or
two the historian turns into the writer, or at least the suggester,
of romance — a perfectly legitimate use of his powers but one
which is aesthetic rather than scientific or practical.

But theologians also are sometimes given to meddling with
suppositions. It appears to me that within their own depart-
ment there is very little use in appealing to such a method, and
indeed next to no meaning in their doing so. Take an instance

The Use of Hypotheses. 51

or two. In discussions upon Ethics, or in controversies upon the
evidential value of miracles, we may sometimes fall in with hy-
potheses such as these : — What ought men to do in case the
Deity were to command a wicked action ? What should they
believe were a miracle worked in support of some immoral doc-
trine ? To a heathen such questions might not be intrinsically
absurd. If there are plenty of gods who are mostly little better
than men in their moral character, no one could undertake to say
what sort of commands might not proceed from them, and it
might be well therefore to be prepared for contingencies of the
kind. But to any believer in a perfect Being such hypotheses
are idle. It is as if one were to ask a geometer to work out some
of the consequences of supposing the focus of an ellipse to change
its relative position. He would not quite understand what we
meant, and would remind us that any such hypothesis as this
was self-contradictory ; that we were in fact postulating by im-
plication an entirely new kind of curve but retaining the old and
now inappropriate name for it. Moral attributes of a Deity
must upon almost any view be regarded as essential, and therefore
capable of none but slight modification.

These considerations seern to apply to any kind of ideal,
theological or ethical. Such ideals must always imply and be
grounded upon a very complicated synthesis of intuitions, emo-
tions and inductions. Now to conceive a serious alteration in
any important group of these supports would by implication
demand a reconsideration of the whole synthesis. What was
supposed to be removed or changed would react on what was
left (as it was thought) untouched ; would disturb its balance,
perhaps break up its cohesion, and thence bring about a profound
alteration of the ideal itself. When speculations are indulged in
as to what would follow were the popular belief in immortality
to be changed or abandoned, it is not always remembered that
there is a good deal more to be thought of than the consequences
of such a change of belief. To suppose the change at all is in
effect to presuppose a change in many other directions. It could
only have come about by such a disturbance of the common
foundations as would cause a very serious resettlement in other
directions as well. In other words, if we please to put the hypo-
thesis of a total change in some one moral or theological principle
we ought in logical consistency to reconsider the question from a
prior point of view, and try to ascertain what sort of concurrent
changes we have tacitly supposed amongst those which are left.

It was pointed out that for any hypothesis to be admissible its
precise limits must be determined, and if needful be stated. In
Political Economy, for instance, it is easy, to an only slightly
less extent than in physical science, to be thus precise. We aie

52 The Use of Hypotheses.

dealing with men and their institutions in a somewhat abstract
form, and when we postulate an alteration of motive or innova-
tion in practice (as we always must do in such problems as those
in question) we are able to conceive precisely the amount of
change hypothetically contemplated, and to take good care that
we do not thereby unconsciously introduce further changes which
were not contemplated. But in Theology, in Ethics, in fact in
any subject where man has to be regarded with the infinitely
varied interaction of innumerable motives, such precision is
altogether unattainable.

In their familiar form such hypotheses are often merely an
indirect way of urging a recommendation. " If only the clergy
would abandon their disputes and unite to oppose immorality
and irreligion, what a mighty effect might they produce !" True,
but why not say at once : " If the immoral and irreligious them-
selves changed their practice and their views ? " Then we should
have the end without needing to trouble ourselves about securing
one particular means towards it. What is really meant is to
address a bit of exhortation, and it is thought more hopeful to
address it to a limited body, by reminding them of their influence
for good or evil, than by letting it waste its force by a too in-
discriminate application. In strictness our hypothesis is idle.
We could not really -suppose a change of sentiment affecting
some thousands of persons (the clergy in question) without some
sort of supposition as to how it could have come about. We
should then perceive that we had had to assume a change of
training and of thought in their case, and of feeling and judgment
in those about them, which carried along witli it by implication a
good deal of that resultant change which was supposed to be cir-
cuitously effected through their agency.

There is another way in which hypotheses enter into ethical
inquiries, which deserves notice, as it not unfrequently confounds
together two very different classes of cases. The attempt is often
made to deter any one from performing some particular action,
or at least to demonstrate its pernicious character, by exhibiting
the action on a large scale. " Only see," it is said, " what would
follow, if all men or a great many, were to do so." I propose to
pluck a bunch of grapes in a field through which I pass, and
urge in defence that the owner will never miss that one. " Quite
true," it is often replied, " but only see what would come of it if
every one did the same, the owner would be ruined by the year's
end." There is nothing wrong in this mode of illustration if no
more is meant by it than to exhibit on a large scale what might
fail to secure attention on a small scale. The consequences may
be thus forced home upon an obtuse and selfish mind. But
nothing is proved ; nothing is shown which an acute and iin-

The Use of Hypotheses. 53

partial mind might not equally have seen without the help of any
supposition. It is as if I wished to prove that even a glass of
water taken from a pond would lower the level of the surface.
Some one, say, is tempted to doubt the fact. But he must admit
that the deduction of a few hogsheads would produce a percep-
tible result, and can persuade himself therefore that a similar
though very small effect would result even from the loss of a
glassful

But it is surely inconsistent to admit that in the individual
case the good of the action outweighs the evil, and yet to claim
that on the large scale these consequences are reversed. Mag-
nify the good and the evil to any extent we please, but their
proportions to one another will not be altered if they are magni-
fied equally. Mr. Austin, for instance, argues thus : — " If I
evade the payment of a tax imposed by a good Government, the
specific effects of the mischievous forbearance are indisputably
useful. For the money which I unduly withhold is convenient
to myself, and compared with the bulk of the public revenue is
a quantity too small to be missed. But the regular payment of
taxes is necessary to the existence of the Government. And I,
and the rest of the community, enjoy the security which it
gives, because the payment of taxes is rarely evaded."

If we judge by consequences only I do not think that this
line of reasoning would keep me from smuggling. It is not easy
to see how a series of actions each of which is to yield a result
of positive good are somehow to add up into a total which is
negative. It is assumed, say, that by keeping £10 to myself,
the balance of happiness is increased, since the consequent in-
crease of comfort to myself by its detention is greater than the
consequent diminution to the community by its expenditure for
them. But this plea of the first defrauder is equally open to
the second and to those who come after him. If the taxes of a
thousand persons are lost, just one thousand persons are ren-
dered happier by having the money to spend as they please.
Would it not be sounder to argue thus — " By defrauding the
revenue of £10 you do injure the community ; you cause more
injury to others than you cause happiness to yourself". The
surface of happiness, so to say, which you want to skim from
the rest of society and to put into your own cup, is thin, no
doubt, but it is very broad, and it makes up in area what it loses
in depth. You cannot gain in this way without others losing,
whether they know it or not.

There is another class of cases, a reference to which will show
us how very misleading a test is furnished by an examination of
the consequences of such a hypothetical extension of the action
upon a large scale. A father, say, is proposing to train his son

54 The Use of Hypotheses.

to enter the ministry. A friend seeks to dissuade him upon the
plea that if all took this line it would be highly injurious, that
production would come to a complete standstill, and so on.
What would his reply be ? Naturally he replies that his con-
duct must be judged separately ; that if too many adopt the par-
ticular course in question, he for one will cease to do so. But if
actions are to be judged by their consequences only, there is
little or no formal difference between the line of argument
adopted in this case and in those previously under discussion.
The fact is that though something may be illustrated, nothing can
really be proved by framing and contemplating the supposition of
similar actions upon a large scale. If performance upon a small
scale has mischievous consequences, performance upon a large
scale will almost necessarily have consequences still more mis-
chievous and therefore more obvious. But we cannot convert
this line of reasoning and argue that, because identity of action
by a multitude is disastrous, that therefore the same action
when performed by the individual must be forbidden as per-
nicious.

The same remarks apply to many important affairs in life.
Suppose I had been an African merchant engaged in the slave
trade : suppose moreover that the test of actions is to be sought
in their consequences only, neglecting all the potent indirect
influences which depend upon sympathy with a good cause, and
with the struggle towards an ideal. I take my stand upon this
ground : — I quite admit that the slave trade is a grievous injury
to the human race. I have no objection to its total suppression,
in fact I would readily aid in procuring this suppression. But,
so long as the trade is permitted, the fact of my carrying on the
business does no direct harm to any one, at least in the way in
question. I do not even really add to the total number of slaves
imported, for, by the well known laws of supply and demand, if
the number of traders in any direction is artificially diminished
profits will rise, and others be attracted into the business. To
make any rational appeal to a man upon the consequences of
his actions, we must try to convince him, not by pointing out
what would happen if something else were to come about, but
by showing him what will result from his conduct. We may
appeal to his self-interest by maintaining that it is the worse for
him to transgress any law divine or human, or to blunt his con-
science, or we may appeal to his sympathetic feelings by show-
ing that every one who triumphs over the love of gain is a help
to humanity and may do good by his example. These are rational
appeals, but they do not involve any imaginary hypothesis.

Hypotheses are constantly implied even where they are not
explicitly stated. This is the case when judgment is passed

The Use of Hypotheses. 55

upon the conduct of an individual or body of persons. On any
theory of ethics, to blame an agent must imply that we contrast
the conduct he really did pursue with other conduct which he
might have pursued. When we say that he did wrong, the same
idea may be conveyed by saying, had he done so and so instead
he would have done right, or at least have done better. And
when the consequences of his conduct are the only element
taken into account, we may translate our condemnation into the
terms — "If so and so had been done instead, then the consequences
would have been certainly or probably better." That is, we are
ready on demand with some hypothetical line of conduct dif-
ferent from the actual. But here comes in the difficulty already
mentioned. To make the comparison a sound one we ought
to contrast his own actual conduct with some hypothetical
alternative which is equally limited in its application to his
individual case. Nothing is proved by contrasting what he did
with that which some class to which he is referred, perhaps
rather arbitrarily, might have done.

Examples need not be multiplied ; but I think that any one who
contemplates Political Economy ethically, that is who tries to de-
duce rules good for the individual agent from the general conclu-
sions of that science will find plenty of illustrations of what
has just been advanced. Conduct is sometimes good (or bad)-
alike when done by the many or by the few. This is the ground
mainly occupied by Ethics, though it is but a portion of human
conduct, and therefore corresponds to a portion only of the
general art of adding to human happiness. Sometimes, again,
conduct is bad when pursued by the many, but good for the few.
This is often the case in Political Economy, and is connected
with the advocacy of the laissez faire principle, and with the
great practical difficulty which is so often felt when we try to
guide ourselves ethically by the conclusions of economists.
Sometimes, again, the result is good if all without exception
combine, either by consent or under compulsion, to do the same ;
but the infringement by but a very few will destroy all good
result as effectually as a general permission. In such cases the
economist is driven to appeal to the State for aid.

In the last case we are led to the apparently paradoxical con-
clusion that it is logically consistent, when consequences are
the test, to blame a body of persons collectively, but to absolve
them each individually. This is the case when we see that the
whole body, by combining, might abolish some injurious practice.
We then compare what that body does do with what it might
do, and blame it accordingly. But till the members do combine
we cannot say the same to them individually. When we pic-
ture what would follow did a few abstain, we see not merely an

56 The Use of Hypotheses.

insignificant gain, but no gain at all ; for what they leave undone
others will certainly make up.

When therefore we test the character of an action by its hypo-
thetical generalisation, that is by seeing what would follow were
it performed by many or by all, the test becomes very untrust-
worthy, for the cases to which we may have to apply it are
widely distinct.

Those who are familiar with the science of Ethics will of
course have noticed already that we have touched incidentally
upon some of Kant's doctrines. He repeatedly lays down, as a
test to the individual agent of the Tightness of his conduct — Can
you will the maxim according to which you act to be a law uni-
versal to mankind ? There seems to be more than one objection
to the validity of such a test. For one thing it assumes that
there is but one maxim, or but one that is thoroughly appropri-
ate, to which the action is to be referred, for it speaks of the
maxim according to which we act ; whereas any particular
action will always admit of reference to an indefinite number of
maxims according to the degree of particularity with which we
specify the characteristics of the action. But passing this over,
the question, What would follow if all men were to do as I do ?
can surely never lead to an answer which will give a certain
test of the goodness or otherwise of the action. If the test is to
be at all serviceable it must mean that the consequences of the
act would be bad when we suppose it thus generalised, for to
confine it to those cases in which the action, so generalised,
would not merely involve bad results but become self-incon-
sistent or downright absurd, would be to limit its applicability
to a very small portion indeed of the field of Ethics as com-
monly understood. But, as above remarked, this way of look-
ing at the matter confounds several widely different cases.
Sometimes it serves to illustrate on the large scale consequences
which should really be visible also on the small scale ; but then
the action here must really admit of examination by itself. But
often when the action would be pernicious on the large scale,
the agent is at liberty to reply : " I do in part because all others
do not, and I should begin to change my practice if I saw them
begin to imitate generally my example". And finally, when the
general consequences would be beneficial, he may sometimes
say : "Yes, I know it would be better if we all combined for the
purpose, but till I see some signs of such a combination there is
no need for me just to sacrifice myself for a formula ".

J. VENN.

IV.— ON THE NATUKE OF THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES.

Meaning of the Individual Object.

MY feelings arrange and order themselves in two distinct ways.
There is the internal or subjective order, in which sorrow succeeds
the hearing of bad news, or the abstraction " dog " symbolises
the perception of many different dogs. And there is the exter-
ternal or objective order, in which the sensation of letting go
is followed by the sight of a falling object and the sound of its
fall. The objective order, qua order, is treated by physical
science, which investigates the uniform relations of objects in
time and space. Here the word object (or phenomenon) is taken
merely to mean a group of my feelings, which persists as a
group in a certain manner; for I am at present considering
only the objective order of my feelings. The object, then, is
a set of changes in my consciousness, and not anything out of
it. Here is as yet no metaphysical doctrine, but only a fixing
of the meaning of a word. We may subsequently find reason
to infer that there is something which is not object, but which
corresponds in a certain way with the object; this will be a
metaphysical doctrine, and neither it nor its denial is involved
in the present determination of meaning. But the determina-
tion must be taken as extending to all those inferences which
are made by science in the objective order. If I hold that
there is hydrogen in the sun, I mean that if I could get some
of it in a bottle, and explode it with half its volume of oxygen,
I should get that group of possible sensations which we call
" water ". The inferences of physical science are all inferences
of my real or possible feelings ; inferences of something actually
or potentially in my consciousness, not of anything outside it.

Distinction of Object and Eject.

There are, however, some inferences which are profoundly
different from those of physical science. When I come to the
conclusion that you are conscious, and that there are objects
in your consciousness similar to those in mine, I am not infer-
ring any actual or possible feelings of my own, but your feelings,
which are not, and cannot by any possibility become, objects
in my consciousness. The complicated processes of your body
and the motions of your brain and nervous system, inferred from
evidence of anatomical researches, are all inferred as things
possibly visible to me. However remote the inference of physi-
cal science, the thing inferred is always a part of me, a possi ble set
of changes in my consciousness bound up in the objective

58 On the Nature of Things-in- Themselves.

order with other known changes. But the inferred existence of
your feelings, of objective groupings among them similar to
those among my feelings, and of a subjective order in many
respects analogous to my own, — these inferred existences are in
the very act of inference thrown out of my consciousness, recog-
nised as outside of it, as not being a part of me. I propose,
accordingly, to call these inferred existences ejects, things thrown
out of my consciousness, to distinguish them from objects, things
presented in my consciousness, phenomena. It is to be noticed
that there is a set of changes of my consciousness symbolic of
the eject, which may be called my conception of you ; it is (I
think) a rough picture of the whole aggregate of my conscious-
ness, under imagined circumstances like yours ; qua group of
my feelings, this conception is like the object in substance and
constitution, but differs from it in implying the existence of
something that is not itself, but corresponds to it, namely, of the
eject. The existence of the object, whether perceived or in-
ferred, carries with it a group of beliefs ; these are always beliefs
in the future sequence of certain of my feelings. The existence
of this table, for example, as an object in my consciousness,
carries with it the belief that if I climb up on it I shall be able
to walk about on it as if it were the ground. But the exis-
tence of my conception of you in my consciousness carries with
it a belief in the existence of you outside of my consciousness, a
belief which can never be expressed in terms of the future
sequence of my feelings. How this inference is justified, how
consciousness can testily to the existence of anything outside of
itself, I do not pretend to say ; I need not untie a knot which
the world has cut for me long ago. It may very well be that I
myself am the only existence, but it is simply ridiculous to
suppose that anybody else is. The position of absolute idealism
may, therefore, be left out of count, although each individual
may be unable to justify his dissent from it.

Formation of the Social Object.

The belief, however, in the existence of other men's conscious-
ness, in the existence of ejects, dominates every thought and
every action of our lives. In the first place, it profoundly
modifies the object. This room, the table, the chairs, your
bodies, are all objects in my consciousness ; as simple objects,
they are parts of me. But I, somehow, infer the existence of
similar objects in your consciousness, and these are not objects
to me, nor can they ever be made so ; they are ejects. This
being so, I bind up with each object as it exists in my mind the
thought of similar objects existing in other men's minds ; and I
thus form the complex conception, " this table, as an object in

On the Nature of Thing s-in- Themselves. 59

the minds of men," — or, as Mr. Shadworth Hodgson puts it, an
object of consciousness in general. This conception symbolises
an indefinite number of ejects, together with one object which
the conception of each eject more or less resembles. Its cha-
racter is therefore mainly ejective in respect of what it
symbolises, but mainly objective in respect of its nature. I
shall call this complex conception the social object; it is a
symbol of one thing (the individual object, it may be called for
distinction's sake) which is in my consciousness, and of an inde-
nite number of other things which are ejects and out of my
consciousness. Now, it is probable that the individual object,
as such, never exists in the mind of man. For there is every
reason to believe that we were gregarious animals before we
became men properly so called. And a belief in the eject —
some sort of recognition of a kindred consciousness in one's
fellow-beings — is clearly a condition of gregarious action among
animals so highly developed as to be called conscious at all.
Language, even in its first beginnings, is impossible without that
belief ; and any sound which, becoming a sign to my neighbour,
becomes thereby a mark to myself, must by the nature of the
case be a mark of the social object, and not of the individual
object. But if not only this conception of the particular social
object, but all those that have been built up out of it, have been
formed at the same time with, and under the influence of,
language, it seems to follow that the belief in the existence of
other men's minds like our own, but not part of us, must be
inseparably associated with every process whereby discrete
impressions are built together into an object. I do not, of
course, mean that it presents itself in consciousness as distinct ;
but I mean that as an object is formed in my mind, a fixed
habit causes it to be formed as social object, and insensibly
embodies in it a reference to the minds of other men. And this
sub-conscious reference to supposed ejects is what constitutes
the impression of externality in the object, whereby it is de-
scribed as not-me. At any rate, the formation of the social
object supplies an account of this impression of outness, without
requiring me to assume any ejects or things outside my con-
sciousness except the minds of other men. Consequently,
it cannot be argued from the impression of outness that there is
anything outside of my consciousness except the minds of other
men. I shall argue presently that we have grounds for believing
in non-personal ejects, but these grounds are not in any way
dependent on the impression of outneafe, and they are not
included in the ordinary or common-sense view of things. It
seems to me that the prevailing belief of uninstructed people is
merely a belief in the social object, and not in a non-personal

60 On the Nature of Things-in- Themselves.

eject, somehow corresponding to it ; and that the question
" Whether the latter exists or not ? " is one which cannot be put
to them so as to convey any meaning without considerable
preliminary training. On this point 1 agree entirely with
Berkeley, and not with Mr. Spencer.

Difference between Mind and Body.

I do not pause to show how belief in the Eject underlies the
whole of natural ethic, whose first great commandment, evolved
in the light of day by healthy processes wherever men have
lived together, is, " Put yourself in his place ". It is more to my
present purpose to point out what is the true difference between
body and mind. Your body is an object in my consciousness ;
your mind is not, and never can be. Being an object, your body
follows the laws of physical science, which deals with the ob-
jective order of my feelings. That its chemistry is ordinary
chemistry, its physics ordinary physics, its mechanics ordinary
mechanics, may or may not be true ; the circumstances are ex-
ceptional, and it is conceivable (to persons ignorant of the facts)
that allowance may have to be made for them, even in the ex-
pression of the most general laws of nature. But in any case,
every question about your body is a question about the physical
laws of matter, and about nothing else. To say : " Up to this
point science can explain ; here the soul steps in," is not to say
what is untrue, but to talk nonsense. If evidence were found
that the matter constituting the brain behaved otherwise than
ordinary matter, or if it were impossible to describe vital actions
as particular examples of general physical rules, this would be a
fact in physics, a fact relating to the motion of matter ; and it
must either be explained by further elaboration of physical
science, or else our conception of the objective order of our feel-
ings would have to be changed. The question, " Is the mind a
force ? " is condemned by similar considerations. A certain
variable quality of matter (the rate of change of its motion) is
found to be invariably connected with the position relatively to
it of other matter; considered as expressed in terms of this
position, the quality is called Force. Force is thus an abstrac-
tion relating to objective facts ; it is a mode of grouping of my
feelings, and cannot possibly be the same thing as an eject,
another man's consciousness. But the question : " Do the
changes in a man's consciousness run parallel with the changes
of motion, and therefore with the forces in his brain ?" is a real
question, and not primd, facie nonsense. Objections of like
character may be raised against the language of some writers,
who speak of changes in consciouness as caused by actions on the
The word Cause, 7roXXa%o>5 \eyopevov and misleading

On the Nature of Things-in- Themselves. 61

as it is, having no legitimate place in science or philosophy, may
yet be of some use in conversation or literature, if it is kept to
denote a relation between objective facts, to describe certain
parts of the phenomenal order. Bat only confusion can arise
if it is used to express the relation between certain objective
facts in my consciousness, and the ejective facts which are
inferred as corresponding in some way to them and running
parallel with them. For all that we know at present, this rela-
tion does not in any way resemble that expressed by the word
Cause.

To sum up, the distinction between eject and object, properly
grasped, forbids us to regard the eject, another man's mind, as
coming into the world of objects in any way, or as standing
in the relation of cause or effect to any changes in that world.
I need hardly add that the facts do very strongly lead us to
regard our bodies as merely complicated examples of practically
universal physical rules, and their motions as determined in
the same way as those of the sun and the sea. There is no
evidence which amounts to a primd facie case against the dyna-
mical uniformity of Nature ; and I make no exception in favour
of that slykick force which fills existing lunatic asylums and
makes private houses into new ones.

Correspondence of Elements of Mind and Brain-Action.

I have already spoken of certain ejective facts — the changes
in your consciousness — as running parallel with the changes in
your brain, which are objective facts. The parallelism here
meant is a parallelism of complexity, an analogy of structure.
A spoken sentence and the same sentence written are two
utterly unlike things, but each of them consists of elements ; the
spoken sentence of the elementary sounds of the language, the
written sentence of its alphabet. Now the relation between the
spoken sentence and its elements is very nearly the same as the
relation between the written sentence and its elements. There
is a correspondence of element to element ; although an ele-
mentary sound is quite a different thing from a letter of the
alphabet, yet each elementary sound belongs to a certain letter
or letters. And the sounds being built up together to form a
spoken sentence, the letters are built up together, in nearly the
same way, to form the written sentence. The two complex
products are as wholly unlike as the elements are, but the
manner of their complication is the same. Or, as we should say
in the mathematics, a sentence spoken is the same function of
the elementary sounds as the same sentence written is of the
corresponding letters.

Of such a nature is the correspondence or parallelism between

62 On the Nature of Things-in- Themselves.

mind and body. The fundamental "deliverance " of conscious-
ness affirms its own complexity. It seems to me impossible, as
I am at present constituted, to have only one absolutely simple
feeling at a time. Not only are my objective perceptions, as of
a man's head or a candlestick, formed of a great number of parts
ordered in a definite manner, but they are invariably accompanied
by an endless string of memories, all equally complex. And
those massive organic feelings with which, from their apparent
want of connection with the objective order, the notion of con-
sciousness has been chiefly associated, — those also turn out,
when attention is directed to them, to be complex things. In
reading over a former page of my manuscript, for instance, I
found suddenly, on reflection, that although I had been conscious
of what I was reading, I paid no attention to it ; but had been
mainly occupied in debating whether faint red lines would not
be better than blue ones to write upon, in picturing the scene
in the shop when I should ask for such lines to be ruled, and in
reflecting on the lamentable helplessness of nine men out of ten
when you ask them to do anything slightly different from what
they have been accustomed to do. This debate had been started
by the observation that iny handwriting varied in size according to
the nature of the argument, being larger when that was diffuse and
explanatory, occupied with a supposed audience ; and smaller
when it was close, occupied only with the sequence of proposi-
tions. Along with these trains of thought went the sensation of
noises made by poultry, dogs, children, and organ-grinders ; and
that vague diffused feeling in the side of the face and head which
means a probable toothache in an hour or two. Under these
circumstances, it seems to me that consciousness must be des-
cribed as a succession of groups of changes, as analogous to a
rope made of a great number of occasionally interlacing strands.
This being so, it will be said that there is a unity in all this com-
plexity, that in all these varied feelings it is I who am conscious,
and that this sense of personality, the self-perception of the Ego,
is one and indivisible. It seems to me (here agreeing with Hume)
that the " unity of apperception " does not exist in the in-
stantaneous consciousness which it unites, but only in subsequent
reflection upon it ; and that it consists in the power of establish-
ing a certain connection between the memories of any two feelings
which we had at the same instant. A feeling, at the instant
when it exists, exists an und fur sich, and not as my feeling ;
but when on reflection I remember it as my feeling, there comes
up not merely a faint repetition of the feeling, but inextricably
connected with it a whole set of connections with the general
stream of my consciousness. This memory, again, qua memory,
is relative to the past feeling which it partially recalls ; but in

On the Nature of Thing s-in- Themselves. 63

so far as it is itself a feeling, it is absolute, Ding-an-sich. The
feeling of personality, then, is a certain feeling of connection be-
tween faint images of past feelings ; and personality itself is the
fact that such connections are set up, the property of the stream
of feelings that part of it consists of links binding together faint
reproductions of previous parts. It is thus a relative thing, a
mode of complication of certain elements, and a property of the
complex so produced. This complex is consciousness. When a
stream of feelings is so compacted together that at each instant
it consists of (1) new feelings, (2) fainter repetitions of previous
ones, and (3) links connecting these repetitions, the stream is
called a consciousness. A far more complicated grouping than is
necessarily implied here is established when discrete impressions
are run together into the perception of an object. The conception
of a particular object, as object, is a group of feelings, symbolic
of many different perceptions, and of links between them and
other feelings. The distinction between Subject and Object is
twofold ; first, the distinction with which we started between
the subjective and objective orders which simultaneously exist
in my feelings ; and secondly, the distinction between me and
the social object, which involves the distinction between me and
you. Either of these distinctions is exceedingly complex and
abstract, involving a highly organised experience. It is not, I
think, possible to separate one from the other ; for it is just the
objective order which I do suppose to be common to me and to
other minds.

I need not set down here the evidence which shows that the
complexity of consciousness is paralleled by complexity of action
in the brain. It is only necessary to point out what appears to
me to be a consequence of the discoveries of Miiller and
Helmholtz in regard to sensation : that at least those distinct
feelings which can be remembered and examined by reflection
are paralleled by changes in a portion of the brain only. In the
case of sight, for example, there is a message taken from things
outside to the retina, and therefrom sent in somewhither by the
optic nerve; now we can tap this telegraph at any point and produce
the sensation of sight, without any impression on the retina. It
seems to follow that what is known directly is what takes place
at the inner end of this nerve, or that the consciousness of sight
is simultaneous and parallel in complexity with the changes in
the grey matter at the internal extremity, and not with the
changes in the nerve itself, or in the retina. So also a pain in a
particular part of the body may be mimicked by neuralgia due
to lesion of another part.

We come, finally, to say then that as your consciousness is
made up of elementary feelings grouped together in various ways

64 On the Nature of Things-in- Themselves.

(ejective facts), so a part of the action in your brain is made up
of more elementary actions in parts of it, grouped together in the
same ways (objective facts). The knowledge of this correspondence
is a help to the analysis of both sets of facts ; but it teaches us in
particular that any feeling, however apparently simple, which
can be retained and examined by reflection, is already itself a
most complex structure. We may, however, conclude that this
correspondence extends to the elements, and that each simple
feeling corresponds to a special comparatively simple change of
nerve-matter.

The Elementary Feeling is a Thing -in-itself.

The conclusion that elementary feeling co-exists with elemen-
tary brain-motion in the same way as consciousness co-exists
with complex brain-motion, involves more important conse-
quences than might at first sight appear. We have regarded
consciousness as a complex of feelings, and explained the fact
that the complex is conscious, as depending on the mode of com-
plication. But does not the elementary feeling itself imply a
consciousness in which alone it can exist, and of which it is a
modification ? Can a feeling exist by itself, without • forming
part of a consciousness ? I shall say no to the first question,
and yes to the second, and it seems to me that these answers are
required by the doctrine of evolution. For if that doctrine be
true, we shall have along the line of the human pedigree a series
of imperceptible steps connecting inorganic matter with our-
selves. To the later members of that series we must undoubt-
edly ascribe consciousness, although it must, of course, have
been simpler than our own. But where are we to stop ? In
the case of organisms of a certain complexity, consciousness is
inferred. As we go back along the line, the complexity of the
organism and of its nerve-action insensibly diminishes ; and
for the first part of our course, we see reason to think that the
complexity of consciousness insensibly diminishes also. But if
we make a jump, say to the tunicate molluscs, we see no reason
there to infer the existence of consciousness at all. Yet not
only is it impossible to point out a place where any sudden break
takes place, but it is contrary to all the natural training of our
minds to suppose a breach of continuity so great. All this ima-
gined line of organisms is a series of objects in my conscious-
ness; they form an insensible gradation, and yet there is a
certain unknown point at which I am at liberty to infer facts
out of my consciousness corresponding to them ! There is only
one way out of the difficulty, and to that we are driven. Con-
sciousness is a complex of ejective facts, — of elementary feelings,
or rather of those remoter elements which cannot even be felt,

On the Nature of Thing s-in- Themselves. 65

but of which the simplest feeling is built up. Such elementary
ejective facts go along with the action of every organism, how-
ever simple; but it is only when the material organism has
reached a certain complexity of nervous structure (not now to
be specified) that the complex of ejective facts reaches that mode
of complication which is called Consciousness. But as the line
of ascent is unbroken, and must end at last in inorganic matter,
we have no choice but to admit that every motion of matter is
simultaneous with some ejective fact or event which might be
part of a consciousness. From this follow two important corol-
laries.

1. A feeling can exist by itself, without forming part of a
consciousness. It does not depend for its existence on the
consciousness of which it may form a part. Hence a feeling (or
an eject-element) is Ding-an-sich, an absolute, whose existence
is not relative to anything else. Sentitur is all that can be said.

2. These eject-elements, which correspond to motions of matter,
are connected together in their sequence and co-existence by
counterparts of the physical laws of matter. For otherwise the
correspondence could not be kept up.

Mind-stuff is the reality which we perceive as Matter.

That element of which, as we have seen, even the simplest
feeling is a complex, I shall call Mind-stuff. A moving mole-
cule of inorganic matter does not possess mind, or conscious-
ness ; but it possesses a small piece of mind-stuff. When
molecules are so combined together as to form the film on the
under side of a jelly-fish, the elements of mind-stuff which go
along with them are so combined as to form the faint beginnings
of Sentience. When the molecules are so combined as to form
the brain and nervous system of a vertebrate, the corresponding
elements of mind-stuff are so combined as to form some kind of
consciousness ; that is to say, changes in the complex which
take place at the same time get so linked together that the
repetition of one implies the repetition of the other. When
matter takes the complex form of a living human brain, the
corresponding mind-stuff takes the form of a human conscious-
ness, having intelligence and volition.

Suppose that I see a man looking at a candlestick. Botli
of these are objects, or phenomena, in my mind. An image
of the candlestick, in the optical sense, is formed upon his
retina, and nerve messages go from all parts of this to form
what we may call a cerebral image somewhere in the neighbour-
hood of the optic thalami in the inside of his brain. This
cerebral image is a certain complex of disturbances in the matter
of these organs ; it is a material or physical fact, therefore a

5

66 On the Nature of Thingsjin-Ttfkmselves.

group of iny possible sensations, just as the candlestick is. The
cerebral image is an imperfect representation of the candlestick,
corresponding to it point for point in a certain way. Both the
candlestick and the cerebral image are matter ; but one material
complex represents the other material complex in an imperfect
way.

Now the candlestick is not the external reality whose exist-
ence is represented in the man's mind ; for the candlestick is a
mere perception in my mind. Nor is the cerebral image the
man's perception of the candlestick ; for the cerebral image is
merely an idea of a possible perception in my mind. But there
is a perception in the man's mind, which we may call the
mental image; and this corresponds to some external reality.
The external reality l)ears the same relation to the mental image
that the (phenomenal) candlestick "bears to the cerebral image.
Xow the candlestick and the cerebral image are both matter ;
they are made of the same stuff. Therefore the external reality
is made of the same stuff as the man's perception or mental
image, that is, it is made of mind-stuff. And as the cerebral
image represents imperfectly the candlestick, in the same way
and to the same extent the mental image represents the reality
external to his consciousness. Thus in order to find the thing-
in-itself which is represented by any object in my consciousness
such as a candlestick, I have to solve this question in propor-
tion, or rule of three : —

As the physical configuration of my cerebral image of the
object

is to the physical configuration of the object,

so is my perception of the object (the object regarded as
complex of my feelings)

to the thing-in-itself.

Hence we are obliged to identify the thing-in-itself with that
complex of elementary mind-stuff which on other grounds we
have seen reason to think of as going along with the material
object. Or, to say the same thing in other words, the reality
external to our minds which is represented in our minds as
matter, is in itself mind-stuff.

The universe, then, consists entirely of mind-stuff. Some of
this is woven into the complex form of human minds containing
imperfect representations of the mind-stuff outside them, and of
themselves also, as a mirror reflects its own image in another
mirror, ad infinitum. Such an imperfect representation is called
a material universe. It is a picture in a man's mind of the real
universe of mind-stuff.

The two chief points of this doctrine may be thus summed
up:—

The Philosophy of Ethics. 67

Matter is a mental picture in which mind-stuff is the thing
represented.

Keason, intelligence, and volition are properties of a complex
which is made up of elements themselves not rational, not
intelligent, not conscious.

"W. K. CLIFFORD.

NOTE. — The doctrine here expounded appears to have been arrived at
independently by many persons ; as was natural, seeing that it is (or
seems to me) a necessary consequence of recent advances in the theory
of perception. Kant threw out a suggestion that the Ding-an-sick
might be of the nature of mind ; but the first statement of the doctrine
in its true connection that I know of, is by Wundt. Since it dawned on.
me, some time ago, I have supposed myself to find it more or less
plainly hinted in many writings ; but the question is one in which it is
peculiarly difficult to make out precisely what another man means, and
even what one means one's self.

Some writers (e.g., Dr. Tyndall) have used the word matter to mean
the phenomenon plus the reality represented ; and there are many
reasons in favour of such usage in general. But for the purposes of the
present discussion I have thought it clearer to use the word for the
phenomenon as distinguished from the thing-in-itself.

W. K. C.

V.— THE PHILOSOPHY OF ETHICS.

ETHICS is a subject which has suffered a somewhat singular
fate : for whereas on its practical side there has been a more
perfect agreement about it than about any other important
branch of human knowledge, on its speculative side it has been,
and it still is, the centre of apparently endless controversy — the
subject of every species of confusion. In the course of the fol-
lowing remarks, which, though they must add to the controversy,
will not, I hope, add to the confusion, I have attempted a treat-
ment of the second or speculative side. I have not tried either to
attack any old system, or to enunciate a new one. My sole aim
has been to lay down the general lines to which any legitimate
system must confoim, and to point out as precisely as possible
the relation which Ethics bears to other subjects of inquiry, and
the kind of proof of which its propositions are susceptible. In
doing so I have been compelled to begin with some general
observations which may seem of disproportionate length when
compared with the more strictly ethical part of the inquiry,
but which cannot be omitted without in some degree prejudic-
ing the clearness of what is to follow.

68 The Philosophy of Ethics.

I.

Everything that we know, or think we know, may be classed
under one of four heads, which, without departing very widely
from ordinary usage, may be named thus : Science, Ontology,
Ethics, and Philosophy. By Science is meant here, not only
what commonly goes by that name, but also history, and know-
ledge of particular matters of fact : so that " knowledge of phe-
nomena and the relations subsisting between phenomena "
would be a more accurate, though less convenient, expression
for what is intended. In Ontology is included not only Theology
and all doctrines of the Absolute, but also (and this is not neces-
sarily the same thing) all real or supposed knowledge of entities
which are not phenomenal.

What is meant by Ethics will be shown in detail later on.
Here it is only necessary to say that it includes not only what
are commonly called moral systems, but also some analogous
systems not usually so described.

Multitudes of propositions, all professing to embody know-
ledge belonging to one of these departments, are being continu-
ally put forward for our acceptance. And as no one believes all
of them, so those who profess to act rationally must hold that
there are grounds for rejecting the propositions they disbelieve,
and for accepting those they believe. The systematic account of
these grounds of belief and disbelief makes up the fourth of the
classes into which possible knowledge is divided, and is here
always called Philosophy.

If it be objected that this is not the common meaning of the
term, I reply that it would be difficult to point out what the
common meaning is. It has been used, perhaps most frequently
in England, as being equivalent to Psychology, which is a
department of science. But researches after the absolute are
also called philosophical, and these belong to Ontology. Ethics
is sometimes called moral philosophy, as science is sometimes
called natural philosophy ; while Logic, which a very common
usage regards as a branch of philosophy, would, as I shall pre-
sently explain, be included in it also by my definition. So that
there cannot, on the whole, be much harm in using the term to
represent a definite subject of investigation for which there is no
other word. In this sense it is not very different from what
Kant called Critical Philosophy.

It follows directly from this definition that, however re-
stricted the range of possible knowledge may be, philosophy can
never be excluded from it. For unless the restriction be purely
arbitrary, there must be reasons for it ; and it is the systematic
account of these reasons which is here called Philosophy. So

The Philosophy of Ethics. 69

that even if it should turn out that Metaphysics is an illu-
sion, and only " positive " knowledge is attainable, this discovery
would be so far from destroying philosophy that it is only by
philosophy that it could be established.

If mankind was in the condition of believing nothing and,
without a bias in any particular direction, was merely on the
look-out for some legitimate creed, it would not, I conceive, be
possible, a priori, to name any of the positive characteristics
which the philosophy corresponding to that creed must neces-
sarily possess. But since this is by no means the case, since
everybody has a certain number of scientific beliefs, and most
people have a certain number of ethical and ontological (theolo-
gical) ones, it may be possible to describe some of the attributes
which should be found in a philosophy professing to support
these provisional conclusions.

For example, since no one supposes that all the propositions
we believe are self-evident, it may be assumed that the greater
number of them are legitimate inferences from propositions
which are self-evident. And from this it follows that philosophy
must consist of two main departments, one of which deals with
these ultimate or self-evident propositions, the other with modes
of inference.

I do not forget that some writers have held that the truth of
a system is to be inferred, not from any self-evident propositions
lying at its root, but from the consistency and coherence of its
parts, though each of these taken by itself is by no means self-
evident. Of such a system it would apparently be incorrect to
say that one part is ultimate, and another derivative ; it ought
rather to be said that the truth of the whole is an inference from
the consistency of the parts, and the truth of the parts is an in-
ference from the truth of the whole. But even on this theory
the formula above stated holds good, for such systems so far
from being self-contained (as it were), and sufficient evidence for
themselves, are really, as a little consideration will show, de-
pendent for their validity on some such proposition as this — " all
that is coherent is true ". Which is itself again either ultimate
or derivative.

This double function is an important characteristic of a com-
plete philosophy ; let me now mention another which, though it
would seem sufficiently obvious, is continually ignored. It may
be stated thus : " The business of philosophy is to deal with the
grounds, not the causes of belief".

There is no distinction which has to be kept more steadily in
view than this between the causes or antecedents which pro-
duce a belief, and the grounds or reasons which justify one. The
inquiry into the first is psychological, the inquiry into the second

70 The Philosophy of Ethics.

is philosophical, and they belong therefore (according to the
classification just announced), to entirely distinct departments of
knowledge.

No doubt, in constructing a philosophy, a previous psycho-
logical inquiry may be required. It may be necessary to acquaint
ourselves with the various modes by which we arrive at convic-
tion, before we can select those which are legitimate. But what
we must not do, and what we are very apt to do, is to suppose
that by performing the first operation satisfactorily, we absolve
ourselves from performing the second at all. In the face of
modern discovery we have continually to recollect that no pro-
gress made in tracing the history of opinions, no development of
the theory of association of ideas, no application of the doctrine
of evolution to mind, however much they may prepare the
ground for a philosophy, add, or can add, one fragment to its
structure.

Thus, it is never a final answer to philosophy to say of a
particular belief, it is "innate," "connate," "empirical," or"&
%>riori" the result of inheritance, or the product of the associa-
tion of ideas. Psychology is satisfied by such replies, but to
make psycholog}^ the rational foundation for philosophy is to
make a department of science support that on which all science
is by definition supposed to rest. It is strictly impossible that
any solutic'*: of the question "How came I to believe this ?"
should completely satisfy the demand " Why ought I to believe
it ?" though, especially in the case of derivative beliefs, it may
go some way towards it. In the case of what profess to be ulti-
mate beliefs, discussions as to their origin are either philosophi-
cally irrelevant, or else prove to demonstration that they are not
ultimate. This will perhaps be clearer if we take a concrete
case. Let us suppose that the result of a particular psycho-
logical investigation is that a certain judgment, e.g., " Everything
has a cause," is "& priori". The psychologist who makes this
discovery is apt to trespass on the domain of philosophy, and
add " it is therefore true ". Now if " everything has a cause " is
to be accepted as true, because it is " a priori," then for that
very reason it is not ultimate ; two propositions at least must
be accepted before it : 1st, all " d priori," judgments are true, and
2nd, this is an "a priori" judgment. Both of which are asser-
tions both disputable and disputed. So in loose philosophical
discussion it is very common to advance some principle as
being self-evident, neither requiring nor possessing any justifi-
cation, and immediately afterwards to adduce in its support some
such argument as that "it is common to all men," or that " it has
been implanted in our nature by a benevolent and all-wise
Creator". In such cases it is clear either that the principles in

The Philosophy of Ethics. 71

question are not self-evident, or that the arguments used to sup-
port them are superfluous.

It is by the consideration of such fallacies as these that I have
been induced to use the word " ultimate," when the expression "a
priori" might appear the most natural. " A priori" means inde-
pendent of experience, but "independent of experience" is am-
biguous. It may mean either that experience has not produced the
judgment in question, or that it furnishes no grounds for believing
it. The first meaning is quite beside the purpose ; philosophy has
no direct concern with the origin of beliefs, which, as before
stated, is part of the subject-matter of psychology. The second
meaning, on the other hand, while it excludes experience as a
ground of belief, and so far expresses the desired idea, does not
express the full differentia of ultimate beliefs, viz., that there
are no grounds for believing them at all. On the contrary, it
sometimes seems to suggest itself directly as a reason for accept-
ing a judgment (as if the fact that experience did not prove
anything was a ground for believing it), and sometimes mediately,
as showing that the constitution of our mind when in a healthy
condition impels us to believe it or that it was implanted in us
by the Author of our being; which reasons, whether good or bad,
show by the very fact that they are given as reasons, that the
judgment called " d priori " is not ultimate.

While, then, it is evidently not the business of philosophy to
account for ultimate axioms and modes of inference, it is also
clear (though it may be hardly necessary to make the remark)
that it is not its business to prove them. To prove any conclusion
is to show that it legitimately follows from a true premiss ; so
that if we were obliged to perform this operation for our axioms
and modes of inference before they were to be received as ul-
timate, we should be driven either to argue in a circle ov
to an infinite regress. Indeed, this will sufficiently appear if
we reflect that all we mean by ultimate is "independent of
proof ".

But if philosophy is neither to investigate the causes nor to
prove the grounds of belief, what, it may be asked, is it to do ?
Its business, as I apprehend it, is to disengage them, to dis-
tinguish them from what simulates to be ultimate, and to exhibit
them in systematic order.

What is meant here by disengaging the grounds of belief in
contradistinction to proving them, will appear more clearly if we
consider what is done by deductive logic. Deductive logic,
apart from the practical rules with which it is encumbered, is
(according to the terminology here employed) neither an art nor
a science, but a systematic account of an ultimate mode of in-
ference by which it may be distinguished from all other modes,

72 The Philosophy of Ethics"

whether legitimate or illegitimate, whether ultimate or derivative:
it is therefore by definition a branch of philosophy.

Now when deductive logic says that any three propositions
which can be reduced to the form " All A is B, all C is A ;
all C is B," are legitimately connected as premisses and conclusion,
whatever may be their content, it is by no means intended that
such pieces of reasoning derive their validity from the fact of
their corresponding with the formula. What is meant is simply
to distinguish and mark off a certain mode of inference by
giving a general description of it ; each particular example of
such inference being in itself the witness of its own validity.

This example explains the procedure of philosophy with
regard to inferences: the axioms of mathematics furnish an
illustration of its procedure in the matter of ultimate principles.
" 240 pence and 20 shillings being each equal to a pound, are
equal to one another," is one of an indefinite number of similar
self-evident propositions, which are described by saying that
" things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one
another " ; but which do not require to be deduced from such
general description in order to make them certain. Such a
deduction is, no doubt, possible. I may, if I please, say : " Things
which are equal, &c." ; " 240 pence and 20 shillings are things
which are equal, &e." ; " therefore they are equal to each other".
But such a syllogism would be as frivolous as Mill supposes
all syllogisms to be ; and for this reason, viz., that the conclusion
is quite as obvious and certain as the premiss which is introduced
to prove it.

It is conceivable, of course, that the axioms at the basis of
knowledge are incapable of classification ; that no two of them
have anything in common except the fact that they are ultimate.
In such an event the business of philosophy will be to enumerate,
instead of describing them. But this can hardly be the case
with modes of inference. The philosophy of deduction is already
comparatively speaking, complete ; and though the same cannot
be said of any other mode of inference, it is difficult to believe
that the bond connecting premisses and conclusion differs in
every case, so as to exclude the possibility of classification.
Something very distantly approaching this state of things would
exist if each department of knowledge had a mode of reasoning
peculiar to itself, as some have supposed (e.g.) theology to have.

To classify inferences is to exhibit what is called their com-
mon form. And it is plain that if of two inferences, which by
classification have the same form, one is false and the other true,
the classification which connects them is philosophically worth-
less. There would be no use in deductive logic, for instance, if
some syllogisms in " Barbara " were trustworthy and others not.

The Philosophy of Ethics. 73

It follows from this very obvious remark that every kind of
logic if it is to be philosophical must be formal. The whole ob-
ject of a philosophy of inference being to distinguish valid and
ultimate inferences from those which are invalid or derivative,
this can only be done either by exhibiting the common form or
forms of such inferences, or (on the violent hypothesis that they
have no common forms) by enumerating every concrete instance.
To enunciate a form of inference which shall include both valid
and invalid examples, can at best only have a psychological in-
terest ; philosophically, it is misleading.

The same remark applies mutatis mutandis to any classifica-
tion of ultimate propositions.

There is no ground " a priori " (i.e., following from the idea of
a philosophy) for supposing that ultimate judgments are general,
rather than particular. Of course if they are the latter, there
must be some legitimate mode of reasoning from particulars
without the help of general propositions

Neither would I venture to assert that they must be certain.
To say that our ultimate grounds of belief may be merely pro-
bable, will appear a paradox to some, and a truism to others.
To me it seems to express a bare possibility. For there are these
three remarks to be made on it : — 1st. That the desire of cer-
tainty being the very thing which impels us to seek a philosophy,
mere probability can never thoroughly satisfy our inquiries. 2nd.
That, as a matter of fact, it will be found, I think, that no merely
probable judgment is ever regarded as ultimate ; nobody says of
any judgment — " There are no grounds whatever for believing
this, indeed none are required, but I think it probable ". 3rd. That
since, according to received doctrines, which for the moment I
assume to be true, the probability of any conclusion diminishes
rapidly with the number of probable premisses required to prove
it, if many of our ultimate premisses are merely probable, any-
thing remotely approaching certainty for ordinary knowledge
will be out of the question. So that those who aspire to re-
gulate their convictions according to reason, will have to modify
considerably their ordinary attitude towards current doctrines.

II.

Before proceeding to extend and apply these remarks on the
idea of a Philosophy in general to the philosophy of Ethics in
particular, it is necessary to correct an error which, in these days,
when science and the knowable are supposed to be co-extensive,
is natural though not the less mischievous : — the error I mean
by which Ethics is degraded to a mere section or department of
Science. At first sight, and from some points of view, the opin-
ion seems plausible enough. That mankind have passed through

74 The Philosophy of Ethics.

many ethical phases (for example) is a fact in history, and history
belongs to science : that I hold certain moral laws to be binding
is a fact of my mental being ; and, like all other such facts, is
dealt with by Psychology — also a branch of science. Physiology,
Ethnology, and other sciences, all have something to say concern-
ing the origin and development of moral ideas in the individual
and in the race ; it is not unnatural, therefore, that some men of
science, impressed by these facts, have claimed, or seemed to
claim, Ethics for their own.

To hold such a view would be a most unfortunate error ; not
to hold clearly and definitely its contrary may lead to much con-
fusion. Eor though, as will appear, scientific laws form necessary
steps in the deduction of subordinate ethical laws, and though the
two provinces of knowledge cannot with advantage be separated
in practice, still the truth remains that scientific judgments and
ethical judgments deal with essentially different subject-matters.

Every scientific proposition asserts either the najture of the
relation of space or time between phenomena which have existed,
do exist, or will exist ; or defines the relations of space or time
which would exist if certain changes and simplifications were
made in the phenomena (as in ideal geometry), or in the law
governing the phenomena (as in ideal physics). Roughly speaking,
it may be said to state facts or events, real or hypothetical.

An ethical proposition, on the other hand, though, like every
other proposition, it states a relation, does not state a relation of
-space or time. " I ought to speak the truth," for instance, does
not imply that I have spoken, do speak, or shall speak the truth ;
it asserts no bond of causation between subject and predicate, nor
any co-existence nor any sequence. It does not announce an
event ; and if some people would say that it stated a fact, it is not
certainly a fact either of the " external " or of the " internal "
world.

One cause, perhaps, of the constant confusion between Ethics
and Science is the tendency there appears to be to regard the
psychology of the individual holding the moral law as the subject-
matter of ethics, rather than the moral law itself; to define the
position which the belief in such a proposition as " I ought to
speak the truth " holds in the history of the race and of the in-
dividual, its cause and its accompaniments, rather than its truth
or its evidence ; to substitute, in short, psychology or anthropology
for ethics. The danger of such confusion will partly be shov/n
by the few remarks which follow on the " Idea of a Philosophy
of Ethics " : — that is, on the form which any satisfactory system
of Ethics must assume, or le able to assume, whatever be its con-
tents.

The obvious truth that all knowledge is either certain in itself,

The Philosophy of Ethics. 75

or is derived by legitimate methods from that which is so, was
sufficiently dwelt on before ; and this, which is true of knowledge
in general, is of course also true of ethical knowledge in par-
ticular. A little consideration will enable us to go on, and state
this further fact, which is peculiar to ethics : The general pro-
positions which really lie at the root of any ethical system must
themselves ~be ethical, and can never le either scientific or ontological.
In other words, if a proposition announcing obligation require
proof at all, one term of that proof must always be a proposition
announcing obligation, which itself requires no proof. This truth
must not be confounded with that which I have just dwelt upon,
namely, that Science and Ethics have essentially different subject-
matters. This might be so, and yet Ethics might be indebted for
all its first principles to Science.

A concrete case will make this second statement clearer. A
man (let us say) is not satisfied that he ought to speak the truth.
He demands a reason, and is told that truth-telling conduces to
the welfare of society. He accepts this ground, and apparently,
therefore, rests his ethics on what is a purely scientific assertion.
But this is not in reality the fact. There is a suppressed premiss
required to justify his conclusion, which would run somewhat
in this way — " I ought to do that which conduces to the welfare
of society ". And this proposition, of course, is ethical. This
example is not merely an illustration, it is a typical case. There
is no artifice by which an ethical statement can be evolved from
a scientific or metaphysical proposition, or any combination of
such : and whenever the reverse appears to be the case, it will
always be found that the assertion, which seems to be the basis
of the ethical superstructure, is in reality merely the minor of
a syllogism, of which the major is the desired ethical axiom.

If this principle be as true as it seems to me to be obvious,
at one blow it alters our attitude towards a vast mass of contro-
versy which has encumbered the progress of moral philosophy.
So far as the proof of a basis of morals is concerned, it makes ir-
relevant all discussion on the origin of moral ideas, or on the
nature of moral sentiments ; and it relegates to their proper
sphere in psychology or anthropology all discussion on such
subjects as association of ideas, inherited instincts, and evolution,
in so far, at least, as these are supposed to refer to ultimate
moral laws. For it is an obvious corollary from our principle,
that the origin of an ultimate ethical belief never can affect its
validity ; since the origin of this belief, as of any other mental
phenomenon, is a matter to be dealt with by Science ; and my
thesis is, that (negatively speaking) scientific truth alone cannot
serve as a foundation for a moral system ; or (to put it positively),
if we have a moral system at all, there must be contained in it,

76 Tlie Philosophy of Ethics.

explicitly or implicitly, at least one ethical proposition, of which
no proof can be given or required.

In one sense, therefore, all Ethics is " a priori ". It is not, and
never can be, founded on experience. Whether we be Utilitarians,
or Egoists, or Intuitionists, by whatever name we call ourselves,
the rational basis of our system must be something other than
an experience or a series of experiences ; for such always belong
to science.

Limited indeed is the number of English moralists who have
invariably kept this in view. However foreign it may be to
their various systems, an inquiry into the origin or into the
universality of moral ideas always appears to slip in, not in its
proper place, as an interesting psychological adjunct, but as hav-
ing an important bearing on the authority of their particular
principle. And the nece'ssary result, of course, of these efforts to
support ultimate principles is, that they cease to be ultimate, and
become not only subordinate, but subordinate to judgments which,
if explicitly stated, would very likely appear far less obvious than
they.

There is a whole school of moralists, for example, who find
or invent a special faculty, intellectual or sensitive, by which
moral truth is arrived at ; who would regard it as a serious blow
to morality if the process by which ethical beliefs were produced
was found to be common to many other regions of thought.
Oddly enough, these are the very people whose systems are often
called " ci priori ". Now if by this term be mea.nt that the or-
dinary maxims of morality are (according to these systems)
independent of experience, it is appropriate enough; but if it
be meant that they are self-evident, it is a singular misnomer.
For it is clear that on their systems rigidly interpreted those
maxims derive their evidence, not from their own internal autho-
rity, but from the fact that they bear a certain special relation
to our mental constitution ; so that the ethical proposition which
really lies at the root of their ethics is something of this sort : —
" We ought to obey all laws the validity of which is recognised
by a special innate faculty, whether called conscience or other-
wise." Now, I do not deny that from a philosophical point of
view such propositions as these are possible foundations of
morals ; but what I desire to point out is that such a phrase
(to take a concrete case) as " I ought to speak the truth because
conscience commands it " may have two widely different mean-
ings, and may belong to two different systems of ethics, not
commonly distinguished. According to the first and most ac-
curate meaning, " I ought to speak the truth " is an inference,
of which the major premiss must be, " I ought to do what con-
science commands," and being an inference, cannot obviously

The Philosophy of Ethics. 77

be an a priori law. According to the second and inaccurate
meaning, " I ought to speak the truth " is in reality received on
its own merits, and conscience is very unnecessarily brought in,
either to add dignity to the law or to account for its general
acceptance among mankind, or for some other extra-ethical reason.
The first of these views is open to no criticism from the point of
view of ethical philosophy ; so far as form is concerned it is un-
assailable. But I greatly suspect that most people who nominally
found their morality on conscience really hold the second theory ;
and in that case, as I think, their statement is misleading, if not
erroneous.

So far I have only given a negative description of the nature
of an ethical proposition. I have said, indeed, that it announces
obligation, but this statement is tautological ; for if we knew in
what obligation consisted, there would be no difficulty in stating
the meaning of ethical. Beyond this I have only said that an
ethical judgment deals with an essentially different subject-
matter from either science or metaphysics. Is it possible to say
more than this ? Is it possible to give any description of ethical
propositions which shall add to our knowledge of their character ?
On general grounds it is plain that this can only be done, sup-
posing that what are commonly called ethical propositions form
part of a larger class of judgments which resemble them in being
neither scientific nor metaphysical, but differ from them in some
other respect. This follows from the very nature of description.
I myself hold this to be the case. I hold not only that the
judgments commonly called ethical (but which, in spite of the
clumsiness attendant on changing the meaning of a term in the
middle of an essay, I shall henceforward call moral), have the
two negative characteristics above mentioned in common with a
larger class of judgments ; but that the distinction between the
two classes should be ignored by ethical philosophy, since it de-
pends not on " form " but on " matter ". All judgments belong-
ing to either of these classes I shall henceforth call " ethical ".
Those commonly called ethical I shall describe as " moral " ; the
rest are either " non-moral " or " immoral ". Every possible judg-
ment, then, is either ethical or non-ethical ; and every ethical
judgment is either moral or non-moral or immoral. The termi-
nology thus being defined, let me explain it, and at the same
time my view on the subject.

If a man contemplates any action as one which he chooses to
perform, he must do so either because he regards the action as
one which he chooses for itself, or because he expects to obtain
by it some object which he chooses for itself. And similarly, if
he contemplates any object as one he chooses to obtain, he must
do so either because he regards that object as chosen for itself,

78 TJie Philosophy of Ethics.

or because it may be a means to one that is. In other words,
deliberate action is always directed mediately or immediately to
something which is chosen for itself alone ; which something
may either be itself an action, or what I loosely term an object.
Including both, then, under the term " end," I define an ethical
proposition thus : — An ethical proposition is one which pre-
scribes an action ivith reference to an end. Nobody will deny
that this definition is true of all moral propositions (most
people, indeed, will think that it is too obvious to need stating) ;
but they will probably say, and say truly, that it is also true of
a great many propositions which are not usually called moral.
Now my object is to show that the distinction between what
are usually called moral propositions and that larger class which
I have defined above, has no philosophic import — has nothing,
that is, to do with the grounds of obligation. And for this pur-
pose let me analyse more carefully this larger class (which I
have called ethical) from a philosophic point of view, that is,
with reference to the rational foundation and connection of its
parts.

(1) Every proposition prescribing an action with reference to
an end, belongs either explicitly or implicitly to a system of
such propositions. (2) The fundamental proposition of every
such system states an end, which the person who receives that
system regards as final — as chosen for itself alone. (3) The
subordinate propositions of that system are deduced from the
fundamental proposition by means of scientific or theological
minor premisses. (4) When two such systems conflict, their
rival claims can be decided only by a judgment or proposition
not contained in either of them, which shall assert which of
these respective fundamental " ends " shall have precedence.
[Ethics, then, rests on two sorts of judgments, neither of which
can be deduced from the other, and of neither of which can any
proof be given or required. The first sort declares an end to be
final, the second declares which of two final ends is to be pre-
ferred, if they are incompatible. This second sort, of course, is
not essential to an ethical system, but can only be required when
an individual regards more than one end as final.] (5) No other
sort of proposition can possibly lie at the root of an ethical
system. [This is merely a re-statement of the law dwelt on
before.]

Now, in so far as this is a complete philosophical diagram
of every ethical system, it must show the sort of authority on
which every ethical proposition, every imperative, must rest.
Yet since it is plain that this diagram takes no account of the
differences there may be between moral and immoral ethical
systems, how, it may be asked, can we explain the wide-spread

The Philosophy of Ethics. 79

delusion that these differences affect the authority of the
former ? This question takes us far afield into the regions of
Psychology and Anthropology, but the answer to it may perhaps
be suggested as follows. The main reason for this error appears
to be false analogy, unchecked by any clear apprehension of the
nature of the rational or philosophical peculiarities of an ethical
system. And in order to illustrate this and at the same time to
place the theory I am defending under as strong a light as pos-
sible, it may be as well to examine the exact bearing which
Universality and the approval of Conscience (two of the chief
characteristics of moral as opposed to non-moral or immoral
systems) are supposed to have on obligation.

My position, of course, is that they have no bearing ; and in
order to show this I offer the following analysis to the reader —
taking Universality first. A law may be said to be universal in
one of four senses. It may mean, first, that all intelligences re-
gard themselves as bound by it. This meaning we need not
further consider, not only because it is a scientific assertion,
and therefore, as I have shown, incapable of becoming the foun-
dation of an ethical system, but also because it is a scientific
assertion now entirely discredited. It is quite out of fashion to
maintain that morality is the same in every race and every
country, and therefore till, in the revolutions of thought, some
one is found to re-assert this doctrine, we need not further
discuss it.

The second possible meaning is that by a universal moral law
we mean one by which all intelligences ought to regard them-
selves as bound. This also we may dismiss because it amounts
to saying that there is a moral law which obliges all intelligences
to be bound by other moral laws. Is then that moral law uni-
versal in the sense we are discussing ? If it is, we are committed
to an infinite series of moral laws, each commanding us to be
bound by the preceding one. If it is not, then there can be a
moral law which (in this sense) is not universal.

The next meaning which we can attach to the word universal
is this — that by a universal moral law we mean one which we
think all men ought to obey. That we do think this of most
moral laws, and that we do not think it of the other ethical laws,
namely the non-moral and the immoral ones, is tolerably certain.
It remains to inquire whether the difference bears on obligation ;
and this inquiry, as it seems to me, may be settled by a very
simple consideration. All intelligences means Me and all other
intelligences. The first of these constituent parts would be
bound by a law held by Me whether it were universal (in this
sense) or not. The second would not be bound by a law held by
Me whether it were universal in this sense or not. In other

80 The Philosophy of Ethics.

words, to be bound by a moral law (and this, by the way, brings
out very clearly the difference between being ethically bound
and legally bound) is exactly the same thing as to regard it as
binding on you ; it is not to regard it as binding on some one
else, and it is not for some one else to regard it as binding on
you ; it has therefore, and it can have, no connection with Uni-
versality in this third sense.

It is, of course, open to any one to assert that he recognises no
imperative which is not universal (in this sense). This may
very well be the fact, and I have no wish to deny it. What I
deny is that the connection of the two is other than empirical
and accidental, or that it has any place in the philosophy of
obligation.

The fourth and last meaning which I am able to attach to the
word universal when used of a law, is that it signifies that all
people of " well-constituted minds " do as a matter of fact regard
themselves as bound by a law so qualified. Now, if " well-
constituted " is defined with reference to morality, and means
" holding the one true moral system," a proposition that all true
or right moral laws are universal is frivolous and merely verbal
If it be defined with reference to something else — if it means,
for instance, sane, or well-educated, or Christian, or scientific,
or anything non-moral, then the same arguments may be used
to show that universality in this sense cannot be a ground of
obligation as I used when speaking of the first sense. For a
proposition asserting that any considerable body of men, dis-
tinguished fromthe rest of mankind by some non-moral attri-
bute, hold the same moral code, is very likely to be question-
able, and being a scientific assertion, is quite certain to be
irrelevant.

As regards Conscience, I have shown before, that to assume a
special faculty which is to announce ultimate moral laws can
add nothing to their validity, nor will it do so the more if we
suppose its authority supported by such sanctions as remorse
or self-approval. Conscience regarded in this way is not ethically
to be distinguished from any external authority, as, for instance,
the Deity, or the laws of the land. Now, it is plain that no ex-
ternal authority can give validity to ultimate moral laws, for the
question immediately arises, why should we obey that authority ?
Only two reasons can be given. The first is that it is right in
itself to obey ; the second is that (through a proper use of sanc-
tions) it will be for our happiness to obey. Now, the first of these
reasons is a moral law, which obviously does not derive its validity
from the external authority, because the external authority is an
authority only by means of it. And the same may be said of
the second reason, substituting the words " ethical but non-

The Philosophy of Ethics. 81

moral" for the word "moral". In neither case, then, is the ex-
ternal authority the ultimate ground of obligation.

The inevitable ambiguity which arises from the sudden exten-
sion of the meaning of the word " ethical " to imperatives which
are immoral or non-moral, makes it, perhaps, desirable that I
should very concisely re-state from another point of view the
main position I have been attempting to establish.

All imperatives, all propositions prescribing actions, have this
in common : — That if they are to have any cogency, or are
to be anything but empty sound, the actions they prescribe
must be to the individual by whom they are regarded as binding,
either mediately or immediately desirable. They must conduce,
directly or indirectly, to something which he regards as of worth
for itself alone. The number of things which are thus in them-
selves desirable or of worth to somebody or other is, of course,
very great. Pleasure or happiness in the abstract, other people's
pleasure or happiness, money (irrespective of its power of giving
pleasure), power, the love of God, revenge, are some of the com-
monest of them, and every one of them is regarded by some'
people as an end to be attained for its own sake, and not as a,
means to something else. Now, it is evident that to every one
of the ultimate propositions prescribing these ends, and for which,
as the ends are ends-in-themselves, no further reason can be
given, there will belong a system of dependent propositions, the
reasons for which are that the actions they prescribe conduce to
the ultimate end or end-in-itself.

If, for instance, revenge against a particular individual is for
me an end-in-itself, a proposition -which prescribes shooting him
from behind a hedge may be one of the subordinate or dependent
propositions belonging to that particular system. But whereas
the indefinite number of such systems is thus characterised by
a common form, it is divided by ordinary usage into three classes,
the moral, the non-moral, and the immoral, about the denotation
of which there is a tolerable agreement. It would be universally
admitted, for instance, that a system founded on the happiness
of others was a moral system, while one founded on revenge was
immoral : and, though there would be more dispute as to the
members of the non-moral class, this is not a question on which
I need detain the reader. The denotation then of these names
being presumably fixed, what is the connotation ? or to simplify
the inquiry, what is the connotation of a moral system ? The
apparent answers are as numerous as the number of schools
of moralists. But however numerous they may be, they can al 1
be divided into two classes. The first class merely re-state the
denotation, in other words, announce the ultimate end-in-itself
of the system, and so, properly speaking, give no answer at all.

6

82 The Philosophy of Ethics.

A Utilitarian, for example, may simply assert that the greatest
happiness of the greatest number is for him the ultimate end of
action. If he stops there he evidently shows no philosophic
reason for distinguishing the system he adopts from the countless
others which exist, or have existed. If he attempts to give any
further characteristic of his system, he then belongs to the second
class, who do indeed explain the connotation of the word moral
according to their usage of it, but whose explanations have, and
can have nothing to do with the grounds of action or the theory
of obligation. The sanction of conscience, emotion of approval,
expectation of reward, feeling of good desert, glow of conscious
merit — these are all most undoubtedly marks or characteristics of
moral actions ; how they came to be so, whether by education,
association of ideas, innate tendency, or howsoever it has happened,
matters nothing whatever except to the psychologist ; that they
are so is certain, but the significance of the fact is habitually
misunderstood. Are they simply the causes of good action ?
Then they have nothing to do with Ethics, which is concerned
not with the causes but with the grounds or reasons for action,
and would remain wholly unchanged if not a single man ever
had done or could do right. Are they the' ends of action ? Is the
fact that they are obtained by a certain course a valid reason for
pursuing that course ? In that case they stand to the person
holding that opinion in precisely the same relation as money does
to the miser, or revenge to the savage. They are the groundwork
of an ethical system, and to state them is simply to denote what
ethical system it is which is being alluded to. Are they, finally,
not ends of action, but merely marks by which certain actions
may be known to belong to a particular system ? In that case,
and for that very reason, they can have nothing to do with the
grounds or theory of obligation. Therefore, finally, though under
the general name " ethical " are included not only moral, but also
non-moral and immoral systems, the distinction regarded from
the outside between these sub-divisions is not essential, and has
no philosophic import — which was the thing to be proved.

III.

Before concluding these remarks, I would point out three
corollaries that may be drawn from them, which are not without
interest. The first corollary is — that no instructive analogy
exists between Ethics and Esthetics. It is true, no doubt, that
philosophers have talked about the Good and the Beautiful, as
if they were co-ordinate subjects of investigation, and that in
ordinary language we say both that a picture " ought " to be ad-
mired, and that an action " ought " to be performed. Neverthe-
less, reflecting on actual or possible aesthetic systems, it would

The, Philosophy of Ethics. 83

seem clear that they must be included under one of four heads.
They must belong either (1) to Ethics, or (2) to Psychology, or
(3) to Ontology, or, lastly (4), to Ontology with an ethical or
psychological element superadded. And in none of these cases
can Esthetics be said to rank as a parallel subject of inquiry
with Ethics.

The first of these possibilities, namely, that ^Esthetics belongs
to, or is included in Ethics, I mention chiefly for the sake of
completeness. Even those art-critics whose denunciations of
bad taste approach most nearly to the level of moral reprobation,
hardly maintain that it is our duty to admire the Venus of Milo
in the same sense as it is our duty to love our neighbour. If
any do hold this view, the conclusion to be drawn is, not that
their aesthetic code stands on a different, but similar, platform
to their ethical code, but that their ethical code is larger than
that of ordinary people, by the whole amount of their ^Esthetics.

According to the second of these possibilities (namely that
^Esthetics belongs to Psychology) ^Esthetics is merely the
investigation of the nature and causes of peculiar emotions —
chiefly secondary — produced in us by certain external causes,
objects, or representations, and has no more to do with Ethics,
either by way of resemblance or contrast, than any other depart-
ment of Psychology.

The third possibility, namely, that Esthetics belongs to Onto-
logy, includes all such theories of the Beautiful as deal exclu-
sively with " objective standards," " ideas," or " archetypes,"
" the evolution of the Idea," or " the perception of the agreement
of the Subject and Object," and such-like. Taken by them-
selves, these theories belong to Ontology ; but if there be added
any consideration of the relation these ontological entities or
processes bear to the individual, these considerations must be-
long either to the first or the second of the above-mentioned
possible treatments of ^Esthetics, and must, therefore, be either
ethical or psychological. This is the fourth possibility.

From this concise analysis, then, it would seem clear that no
analogy exists between Ethics rightly understood and any
system right or wrong of ^Esthetics. But if that be so, how
comes the existence of any analogy even to have been sup-
posed ? The reply to this is, that there does exist an analogy
between some theories of ^Esthetics and Ethics wrongly under-
stood. Some moralists, for example, have dwelt largely on the
emotion excited in us by virtuous actions. And if the scientific
examination of these emotions really constitute the essence of
Ethics, there is unquestionably an analogy between theories of
the Good and some theories of the Beautiful.

Again, if ethical inquiries are thought to resolve themselves

84 The Philosophy, of Ethics.

into researches concerning the existence and nature of some
objective standard of right, it is inevitable that they should
suggest, and it is probable they would resemble, those other
ontological inquiries concerning the objective standard of beauty.
Now it must not be supposed that I pronounce either of these
investigations irrational : all I contend for is that they are not
ethical ; or, rather (to avoid a dispute about words), what I con-
tend for is, that they have nothing, and can have nothing,
directly to do with Obligation.

The second corollary concerns the functions of the Moral
Philosopher. It is clear from what precedes, that it is not the
business of the moral philosopher to account for the origin of
moral ideas, or to analyse and explain that growth of sentiment
which collects around the time-honoured maxims of current
morality. These are topics which belong to Psychology.
Neither is he expected to prove the propositions which lie at
the root of any system of morals ; for these are incapable of
proof. Nor, for the same reason, can he justify the judgments
•which declare which of two final ends is to be preferred in case
of conflict, or how much of one is to be preferred to how much
of -the other. Nor, in reality, has he any but a subordinate part
to play in expounding or deducing the derivative rules of
morality-; and this for the following reason.

The deduction of any derivative rule is always necessarily in
tliis form : " The happiness of mankind ought to be promoted "
(this, let us say, is the ultimate unprovable foundation of the
system) ; " monogamy promotes the happiness of mankind "
(tills is the scientific — in another system it might have been
theological — minor premiss) ; " therefore monogamy is a system
which ought to be supported ". This is the required derivative
rule. Now the only difficulty in deducing this conclusion from
the first principle of the system lies in the difficulty of demon-
strating the minor premiss ; in other words, it lies in the diffi-
culty of a certain sociological investigation, which the specula-
tive moralist as such cannot be expected to undertake.

The important duties of the moralist, for he has important
duties, arise from the confused state in which the greater part
of mankind are with regard to their ethical first principles.
The two questions each man has to ask himself are : — What do
I hold to be ultimate ends of action ? and, — If there is more
than one such end, how do I estimate them in case of conflict ?
These two questions, it will be observed, are questions of fact,
not of law, and the duty of the moralist is to help his readers to
discover the fact, not to force his own view down their throat by
attempting a proof of that which is essentially, and by its very
nature, incapable of proof. Above all, he must beware of sub-

The Philosophy of Ethics. 85

stituting some rude simplification for (what may perhaps be)
the complexity of nature, by deducing (as the Utilitarians do)
all subordinate rules from one fundamental principle, when, it
may be, this principle only approximately contains actual
existing ethical facts.

Since these two questions can be answered, not by ratiocina-
tion, but only by simple inspection, the art of the moralist will
consist in placing before the inquirer various problems in Ethics
free from the misleading particulars which surround them in
practice. In other words, his method will be casuistical, and not
dogmatic.

It may perhaps seem strange that, after commenting at some
length on the prevailing confusion between Ethics and Psycho-
logy, I should now have to announce that the business of the
Ethical Philosopher (at least, so far as first principles are con-
cerned) is as purely psychological as, according to the two pre-
ceding paragraphs, I make it out to be ; and it may seem,
therefore, as if the difference between my view and that of the
philosophers whom I have attempted to criticise is by no means
essential or important. This, however, is not the case. My
complaint against these philosophers is that they appear to
suppose that a psychological law can serve as a rational basis
for an ethical system ; so that their chief aim often seems to
have been the establishment of their own particular views on
the origin and nature of our moral sentiments. I, on the other
hand, altogether deny the possibility of such a basis, and main-
tain that all that a moralist can do with regard to ethical first
principles is, not to prove them or deduce them, but to render them
explicit if they are implicit, clear if they are obscure. To do this
effectually he must, of course, treat of ideas and notions, and his
work will therefore, in some sense, be undoubtedly psychological.
To make this statement complete, I should add that (as appears
by my next paragraph) there is no absurdity in supposing that a
moralist may in the course of his speculations hit on some
entirely new first principle which he has not held even obscurely
before, but which commends itself to his mind as soon as it is
presented to him.

The third corollary I draw is this — that there are only two
senses in which we can rationally talk of a moral system being
superior to the one we profess. According to the first sense,
superior means superior inform, more nearly in accordance with
the ideal of an ethical system just sketched out. According to
the second sense, in which the superiority attaches to the matter
of the system, it can only mean that the system is one of which
we are ignorant, but which we should adopt if presented to us. It
is a hypothetical superiority.

86 The Philosophy of Ethics.

Now it must be observed that the sense in which we speak of
other hypothetical systems as being superior to our own, is by
no means identical with that in which we speak of our own as
being superior to that of other people. Looking back over
history we perceive a change and development of the moral ideas
of the race in the direction of the systems which now-pervail ;
and this change we rightly term an improvement. But if, argu-
ing from the past, we suppose that this improvement will continue
through the indefinite future, we are misled by a false analogy.
The change may very well continue ; the improvement certainly
will not. And the reason is clear. What we mean, or ought to
mean, by an improvement in the past is an approach to our own
standard, and since any change at all corresponding in magnitude
to this in the future must involve a departure from that standard,
it must necessarily be a change for the worse.

In other words, when we speak of another system as being
superior (in matter) to our own, we speak of a possible system
which we should accept if we knew it. When we speak of our
own system being superior to that of some other person, we
assert the superiority unconditionally, and quite irrespectively of
the possible acceptance of it by that other person, supposing him
to be acquainted with it. If then we believe that development
will proceed in the future as it has done in the past, we must
suppose that a time will come when the moral ideas of the world
will be as much out of our reach, supposing them presented to
us, as ours would be out of reach of primitive man. This is
also true of scientific ideas : but there is this difference between
them, that whereas the change in scientific ideas may be an
improvement, that in moral ideas must be a degradation. The
grounds of this distinction, of course, are obvious ; viz., that the
standard of excellence in the case of scientific ideas is, or is
supposed to be, conformity to an infinitely complex external
world — a conformity which may increase with every change in
the ideas. The standard of excellence, on the other hand, in
moral ideas must necessarily be conformity to our actual ideal,
and this conformity must diminish with every change in the
ideas.

This point would not perhaps have been worth dwelling on, if
it was not that the discussion brings into strong relief the nature,
so far as form is concerned, of the criterion of Eight, and has also
some bearing on current theories of optimistic Evolution, with
which I confess it does not seem possible easily to reconcile it.

ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR,

VI.— PHILOSOPHY IN THE DUTCH UNIVERSITIES.

THE history of Philosophy among the Dutch has never yet
been written. It would have little to record beyond a long-
series of infiltrations of foreign thought into the science,
theology and literature of the Northern Netherlands. Its one
great name would be that of Spinoza ; and him we can scarcely
consider a fair representative of the native habit of thinking.
In the average learned Dutchman there is much less of his
speculative daring than of the sceptical conservatism of old m
Erasmus. Born of a race of thrifty citizens and husbandmen,
he fully appreciates the value of accurate knowledge and sound
scholarship, but pure theory he generally distrusts, as likely to
unsettle the even balance of his mind, and endanger the
peaceful progress of human affairs. As the late Professor van
Heusde puts it : " in philosophising we ask for simplicity, good
sound sense, and especially good principles, that should in no
wise disagree with those of our religious doctrine". Hence
philosophy is valued rather as a mental exercise to be taken
with moderation than as a pursuit for life after fundamental
truth. For the purpose in view a summary acquaintance with
existing theories and their shortcomings is commonly thought
sufficient, while strict consistency is given up as a hopeless
pretension, and people on their own part acquiesce in some mild
and tolerant variety of Protestantism.

On the other hand there is a steady demand for French,
German, and English literary productions. And in the nation
itself we find a considerable admixture of foreign elements from
the most different parts, to which it is indebted for much more
discrepancy of opinion than one might be inclined to look for
in so small and so untroubled a community. Ultramontanism,
Calvinism, and Positivism, Toryism and Radicalism, all have
their steadfast adherents, and there can hardly be a party in the
civilised world without its sympathisers in the present kingdom
of the Netherlands. Nevertheless, as in England, while every-
body is speaking his mind and it frequently comes to sharp
altercations, this very continuance of verbal strife has proved
conducive to independence of opinion and, in the main, to a
prudent forbearance from extremes.

In the present slight sketch — which will be strictly confined
to Dutch Academical Philosophy — it would take us too far to
give an account of anything anterior to the Reformation. There
were a few creditable schools, founded chiefly by Gerardus
Magnus and his brotherhood since the fourteenth century, but
the higher order of education, and all academical degrees, had to

88 Philosophy in the Dutch Universities.

be sought for abroad. When the change of religion made
Popish universities unavailable, William of Orange persuaded,
the Provincial States of Holland to provide for the establish-
ment at Leyden of a complete set of Faculties, namely Theology,
Law, Medicine and Arts. To the new university a charter was
granted by the Prince Stadholder under the legal fiction of
an order from the nominal sovereign, King Philip II. of Spain
(1575). Ten years after this, the Frisian States, on their own
authority, founded a similar institution at Franeker, and their
example was followed in time by those of the town and country
of Groningen (1614). Harderwijk on the Zuider-Zee had a
college added to its old established grammar-school by the
district authorities of the Yeluwe (1600), and this was after-
wards endowed with the privileges of a university by the
States of Gelderland (1648). • The old episcopal town of
Utrecht, long desirous of the same advantages, succeeded in
establishing a college of its own (1634), which received aca-
demical prerogatives from the Provincial States in 1636. About
the same period (1630 and 1632) identical measures were
adopted by the cities of Deventer (in Overijssel) and Amster-
dam. In both those cases, however, the Athenaea or Illustrious
Schools, as they were called, have never been empowered by the
supreme authorities to confer degrees, until, by the University
Law of 1876, one has been suppressed altogether, and the other
promoted to the rank of a municipal university. Meanwhile,
after various accidents, Harderwijk and Franeker had been
finally abrogated in 1818 and 1843 respectively. Other
Athena3a had existed for some time at Nimeguen, Dordrecht,
Bois-le-Duc, Breda, and Middelburg.

As all these places of education depended on different
sovereign powers, there was no perfect similarity in their laws
and customs. The statutes of Leyden, framed by a far-sighted
statesman like William the Silent, were the most liberal of all,
enacting no religious or philosophical restrictions. At Franeker
all the professors had to subscribe to the confessional symbols
of the established Presbyterian Church, and Groningen at least
did not abandon this point until 1801. Utrecht copied Gronin-
gen in one more respect. The statutes of both contain the
following article : " Philosophi ab Aristotelis philosophic non
recedunto* propugnatores absiirdorum paradoxorum et inventores
dogmatum novorum ab Aristotelica doctrina discrepantium non
feruntor ". In practice we shall presently find public opinion
more powerful than either the liberty allowed in some places or
the prohibition enacted in others.

*Utrecht added the clause " neque publice neque privatim". All the old
academical statutes were superseded by the Eoyal Decree of 1815.

Philosophy in the Dutch Universities. 89

Unlike all other continental universities, those of the
United Netherlands were always subjected to boards of
Curators, men of rank and note, who often wielded the power
of appointing and even discharging professors. They never
belonged to the body of the university, but acted as delegates of
the sovereign who provided for its wants.* By their prudence,
and the resistance they offered to clerical dictation, they were of
great service in preserving freedom and peace. Of course the
Calvinist clergy, inspired by zealous refugees from France
and Belgium, kept struggling for influence upon the teaching at
least of their own Faculty, and more than once, when they got
for a moment the upper hand in public affairs, they obtained
some temporary advantage. Yet the town corporation of
Leyden declared from the first, that they were not willing to
admit the inquisition of Geneva while making war against that
of Spain. And when the famous Synod of Dordrecht de-
manded an ecclesiastical Curator to look after the theological
faculty, its resolution remained a dead letter, and the regular
Curators prevented the local synod from meddling with aca-
demical government. But the interests of their position for-
bade their giving countenance to very small minorities ; and
Spinoza, perhaps, was not far wrong when in the Tractatus
Politicus he wrote : " A cademiae, quae sumptibus reip. fundantur,
non tarn ad ingenia colenda quam ad eadem coercenda insti-
tuuntur ".

Of college life as in England and at Cologne or Louvain,
there was no question except in the case of certain exhibitioners,
nearly all destined for the Church. Each university had its
lursa or ceconomia ; at Leyden the States' College subsisted from
1592 to 1810, the Collegium Gallo-Belgicum (for preachers in
the French language) from 1606 to 1703. Even within these
the " regenting or tutorial system " found no favour. The
Principal (called Regens) and his vicegerent merely repeated
with the alumni what they learnt from the Professors common
to all ; and other undergraduates found plenty of private

* At Leyden, Franeker, Harderwijk, they were separate boards com-
missioned by the Provincial States and the Stadh older. At Groningen,
where the sovereignty was divided between the town and the country
district, each appointed its own half of the board. At Utrecht the
civic authorities were themselves the Curators, who took care not to
allow any academical jurisdiction, whereas at Leyden the burgomasters
sat with the Curatorial board, and also in the Rector's tribunal. From
1815 the burgomaster (or mayor) of each university-town was ex officio
one of the Curators, 'but the new Law contains no such stipulation.
Of course under the present Constitution the board is in its turn subor-
dinate to the Minister of the Interior, there being no separate
department of Education. The idea of the office was evidently suggested
by the Conservatores privilegiorum of older universities.

90 "Pliilosopliy in the Dutch Universities.

teachers ready to help them on in the same way. On Wednes-
days and Saturdays there were no public lectures, but men
went to hear Extraordinary Professors and licensed Eeaders,
and, under the superintendence of any official teacher, tried their
own powers in disputation.

The oldest Leyden Faculty of Arts (or Philosophy as it was
surnamed) consisted of six Ordinary Professors, for Logic,
Physics, Mathematics, and the three learned languages. Ethics
was commonly regarded with some suspicion on account of its
heathenish tendency ; and Metaphysics also because of the
Humanists' and Protestants' natural aversion from mediaeval
subtleties. Still both were admitted as extraordinary subjects
from the first, and before the middle of the seventeenth century
they had obtained their place in the regular curriculum.
Everyone, especially the candidate for orders, was expected to
begin his studies with Humanities and Philosophy, although a
degree in Arts was by no means looked on as indispensable. Nor
do we find the degree of Bachelor taken except in a very few
instances.* To the title of Artium Liber alium Magister that of
Philosophiae Doctor was superadded at a very early period, so as
to put the graduates markedly on a level with the " Doctors " of
the other Faculties ; the celebrated Gerardus Vossius became the
first A.L.M., Ph. D. of Leyden in 1598.

As might be presumed, the official philosophy was the miti-
gated Scholasticism adopted in the Protestant schools of the
time. Of Eamism there is hardly a trace.f Jac. Arminius the
divine and Eud. Snellius the mathematician, both Hollanders
from Oudewater, who had taught the dialectic of Eamus
in Switzerland and Germany, were called to other duties at
Leyden. Two occupants of philosophical chairs, Corn, de
Groot (Leyden 1575) and Henr. de Veno (Franeker 1602-13)
are mentioned as inclined to Platonic doctrines, meaning ap-
parently some form of modernising eclecticism. As far as I
know, de Groot's successor Nic. van Dam (1575-79) was an
Aristotelian, and so were three Belgian professors at the same
place, Alex, de Eatlo (1578-87), Ant. Trutius (1582-93), and
Adr. Damman (1586-88).J After these and the insignificant
Westerhovius (1583-84) came a Frenchman the elder Pierre du
Moulin (Molinaeus, 1593-98), afterwards a minister at Paris, and

* At Bologna the Bachelor's degree was altogether unknown.

t Prof. Jo. Hachting of Franeker (1622-30), published a Dialectica
Petri Rami in 1626. In mere grammar-schools the doctrine appears to
have found more favour.

J Eatlo had been in England, and Damman is probably the same who
was called to Scotland by Geo. Buchanan, and wrote to Lipsius from
Leith, in 1590.

Philosophy in the Dutch Universities. 91

several Scotch Peripatetics : Jas. Ramsay (1588-93), John
Makolo (MacCulloch? Eeader in Logic 1597), John Murdison
(1600-5), and Gilbert Jack of Aberdeen (Jacchaeus, 1603-28)*
Some writers have supposed a connection between the Aristo-
telian and the Calvinist predominance of the period ; but there
is no indication of nonconformity in the philosophy of the
Remonstrant (or Arminian) party. Petr. Bertius, Ger. Yossius,
and Caspar Barlaeus clearly belong to the same school with
those by whom they were superseded in their offices in 1619
(to please the friends of the Synod of Dordt), Frank Burgersdijk
(d. 1635) and Dan. Mostert (Sinapius). At Franeker, Lollius
Adama (1585-1609), Andr. Roorda (1611-21), probably Joach.
Andreae (1613-20), and certainly Am. Yerhel (1618-64) taught
in the same spirit. At Groningen the first philosophical appoint-
ment was that of another Scotchman, Geo. M'Dowell, a native of
Maxton on the Tweed, who was called from St. Andrews at the
age of twenty-four. From the professor's chair, which he occu-
pied from 1614 to '27, he stepped into that of a presiding
military judge, and in time rose to be Charles II.'s ambassador
at the Hague (1650). Nor did his academical successors, Franc.
Meyvart from Ghent (1620-40), Mart. Schoock from Utrecht
(1640-65), and Jo. Bertling (1667-90), swerve from the received
doctrine. Schoock was a partisan, soon to become a private
adversary, of Gisbert Voet, the Utrecht pillar of orthodoxy, and
enlarged in print upon an endless variety of subjects, from Papacy
and Cartesianism down to butter, herrings, and beer. In the
Deventer College the Peripatetic banner was firmly upheld by a
learned and far-travelled Doctor of Paris, Gisbert van Isendoorn
(1634-47), who taught for nine years more at Harderwijk in his
native province (1648-1657), and then died in peace, after
obtaining a Curatorial resolution against the Cartesian heresies.
During this first period, before the irruption of really original
thought, Aristotle was cherished mainly as a guarantee for bona
fide logical studies, as opposed to the slipshod facility that the
Ramist and similar schools were contented to impart. Even so
accomplished a classical scholar as Hugo Grotius was not to
be deceived as to the mediocrity of the boasted disciples of
Cicero, but recommended Murdison for the long vacant chair of
Logic, and urged Jack to write his Instt. Primae Philosophiae
(1616) ; while all the Peripatetic text-books of the time are
adorned with laudatory verse by such men as Dan. Heinsius,

* On the Scotch Philosophers in the Dutch Universities I shall be
happy to exchange notes with their learned countrymen. Of Eglesham
or Eglisemmus, mentioned by Prof. Yeitch in No. V. of MIND as a Pro-
fessor at Ley den, I have not been able to find a trace in any part of the

country.

92 Philosophy in the Dutch Universities.

Ger. Vossius, Pet. Cunaeus, and Gasp. Barlaeus, whom no one
will suspect of a tender regard for the Middle Ages. Of those
books one at least will be known by name to most readers of
philosophical history. The Grammar Schools of that time re-
tained not only the name of scholae triviales, but actually taught
the old trivium : Grammar, Dialectic, and Ehetoric. Their work
was found insufficient at the University ; so the Provincial States
directed the schools of Holland to be provided with standard
treatises, and by their order Vossius wrote his Grammatica and
Rheiorica, and Burgersdijk his Institutions Logicae (Lugd. Bat.
1626), good scholarly works, that made their way all over
Europe.

The old school having thus prepared everything for undis-
turbed dominion, was very soon after to be involved in a
struggle for life with an enemy from quite a unexpected quarter.
On April 16, 1629, the Rector of Franeker registered the name
of Renatus des Cartes, Gallus, Philosophus. Not finding, as it
seems, the scientific intercourse that he wished for, that habitual
traveller soon returned to Amsterdam, whence he made only a
short trip to England. At Amsterdam he made the acquain-
tance of the private tutor of some young men, Henri Eeniers (or
Eenery as he writes the name), a Belgian convert from Roman-
ism and then recently disappointed of a Leyden professorship.
This new friend was called to a chair at Deventer in 1631, and
in 1634 to one at Utrecht, where he died after a short time from
sheer hard work. In both places he explained the tenets of
his French master, cautiously but devotedly; as he wrote to
Mersenne: " is est mea lux, meus sol, crit ilk mihi semper Deus".
At his death in 1639, not only his philological colleague and
countryman Aemilius, but several of the magistrates and of the
students held with him, and one of his pupils, Henr. de Roy (or
le Roy, Regius), was teaching physiology on his principles with
great applause. However, Regius in his medical chair thought
fit to attack the Aristotelian school in such a style as to move
the wrath, not only of his philosophical colleagues, Arn. Senguerd
(1639-48) and Dan. Berckringer (1640-67), but of their mighty
theological protector Gisbert Yoet, himself an old pupil of Jack
and private teacher of Burgersdijk. This indefatigable champion
of things constituted immediately began his operations, first
making his pupils protest in their customary theses, and then pro-
curing two decrees against the enemy, one of the Town Council,
limiting Regius to his medical profession, and the other of the
Academical Senate. In the latter the body of professors disap-
proved the new Philosophy for three notable reasons : first, because
it contradicted the old system, secondly, because it kept the students
in ignorance of the meaning of old terms, and lastly, because it

Philosophy in the Dutch Universities. 93

led, or might appear to lead, to consequences in opposition with
other sciences, especially with orthodox Theology. Another
pupil of Voet, Schoock at Groningen, was inspired by his master
to publish a damnatory tract against Cartesianism. The irritable
French philosopher, who had at first prompted the faithful
Kegius with arguments at his request, but wished to keep the
peace as long as possible, now found himself openly accused of
nothing less than Atheism, a rather dangerous charge even in
the free republic, and resorted in his turn to vigorous measures.
Besides publishing his well-known Letter to Voetius, he applied
to the ambassador of his country, and with his aid to the Senate
of Groningen and the Utrecht magistrates. After much thro wing-
up of polemical dust, Utrecht forbade its printers to publish any
more controversial writings on either side (1645), and Schoock,
who had betrayed the suggestions of his chief, .narrowly escaped
an action for libel on the latter. Henceforth peace reigned at
Utrecht, under the auspices of Voet and his two sons Paul and
Daniel, each in turn called to a philosophical chair by his influ-
ence (1641-53 and 1653-60). Straight from the deathbed of
the younger the brave old father went forth to make interest
with the authorities for the Aristotelian cause, but this time the
office was given to a young kinsman of some of the town mag-
nates themselves, Eegnerus van Mansvelt, a Cartesian (1660-71).
Only a few years before his death, the veteran divine had the
satisfaction of seeing another of his true pupils, Gerard de Vries,
first a reader (1671-72), and then a professor (1674-1705) in the
place of his offspring. Yet towards the end of the century this
same de Vries was reported to have but little influence, and
to have yielded on certain points to the current of neology.

Meanwhile at Leyden the study of Philosophy had not thriven
under the successors of Burgersdijk : Jo. Bodecherus the Latin
poet (1629-38), Dan. Sinapius, promoted from his place in the
States' College to an ethical professorship (1635-38), and Franc,
du Ban, a Frenchman (1635-43). In 1641 the glib-tongued
Adr. Heereboord* attempted to revive it, protesting against the
slavish respect for Aristotle, which that great thinker would have
been the first to disclaim, and teaching Logic on a plan of his
own. Of course he was called to account before the Eector, Otto
Heurnius, an aged professor of medicine who had lectured on
Logic in his early days ; but the Curators allowed him to proceed
as he had begun. Soon after this we find him in raptures with
the first works of Descartes, and what with his lessons, the re-
ports from Utrecht, and the residence of the French thinker in
Leyden and its neighbourhood, the seeds of neology began to

* Ono of his works, the Philosophia Naturalis, is said to have been re-
printed at Oxford in 1665.

94 Philosophy in the Dutch Universities.

germinate among the students. To escape this danger, some
conscientious youths actually went to Utrecht for lectures on
orthodox Metaphysics ; so the Leyden Curators, at the urgent
request of their theological faculty, determined for the first time
to open a public metaphysical course (1644). On the advice
of Salmasius they secured the services of Adam Stuart, " vir in
philosophia Roscius" sometime professor at Sedan, whose Scotch
antecedents I have not been able to discover, but who at that
time appears to have stayed in London. He at once proved
himself as ardent a controversialist as any of the Yoet family, and
openly opposed Heereboord, who since 1645 had lectured on
Ethics as well, and had sought to point out the difference
between the followers of Aristotle and those of Nature. The
great topics of the .day, the legitimacy of universal doubt, and
the attributes of the Deity, were drawn into every public
disputation, and such was the vehemence of Bevius, Regent of
the College, and Trig-land, a Professor of Divinity, that Descartes
lodged a formal complaint with the Curators (1647). He only
obtained a decree prohibiting all mention of his theories in the
University. But Stuart, continuing his attacks on the doctrine
without naming its author, found a fresh opponent in Jo. de
Kaey, doctor of medicine and a pupil of Eegius, who had played
a part in the Utrecht quarrel six years before, and now insisted
that the decree should be respected to the letter by one party as
well as the other. This led to violent scenes and some passion-
ate pamphlet writing, after which the Curators put a stop to
the proceedings (1648).

For the next quarter of a century their policy appears to have
been one of mediation. In 1656 the professors of Philosophy
and Divinity had to promise not to encroach upon each other's
province. Adam Stuart died in 1654, but by that time de
Kaey had been his colleague in the faculty for three years (1651-
68). Poor Heereboord, addicted to wine and rather a shallow
rhetorician, died in 1661, and was replaced by David Stuart, who
inherited the opinions of his father without his quarrelsome tem-
per (1661-69). During the same time the Leyden students had
the opportunity of hearing a talented Cartesian from foreign
parts, Arnold Geulincx. Born at Antwerp, and educated at
Lou vain, he had been a brilliant professor in that university for
twelve years, but fled from the place to become a Protestant at
Leyden, where he was looked on with suspicion, and only sup-
ported by the charity of a theological professor, Abr. Heidanus.
At last an extraordinary professorship was bestowed on him
(1665), but poverty and disappointment put an untimely end
(1669) to the career of one too little known, whom I incline
to consider the most original thinker ever seated in a Dutch

Philosophy in the Dutch Universities. 95

philosophical chair. In 1669 and '70 the balance of parties was
reversed by the appointment of two decided Cartesians, Bur-
cherus de Voider (1670-1705) and Theod. Kranen (1670-73),
while the tradition of Scholasticism was preserved by a mere
reader, Wolferd Senguerd, the son of the Utrecht Aristotelian,
who had spent his last years (1648-67) at the Athenaeum of
Amsterdam.

However the French invasion of 1672 and the nomination of
William III. drew on a reaction in favour of the time-honoured
system. Fred. Spanheim, the theologian, often annoyed by petu-
lant Cartesian juniors, had the consolation of seeing some of
them banished from the University ; Kranen removed into the
medical faculty ; while Senguerd and a certain Wilhelmius were
installed as professors (d. 1724 and 1677). De Voider, a peace-
ful savant, though faithful to the losing side in politics, kept his
place mainly on account of his skilful scientific experimenting.
Moreover the clergy prevailed upon the Curators to promulgate
a syllabus of errors not to be defended any more ; for instance,
" Oninem philosopliiam esse religionis expertem, summumque
hominis bonum esse animum sua sorte contentum". Heidanus
venturing to remonstrate against this measure both as a Cartesian
and a Coccejan in theology, was ruthlessly deposed in his
eightieth year (1676) ; while a scrupulous French divine, Steph.
le Moyne, took courage to accept office in a university thus hap-
pily purified of modern abominations.

Warded off, as far as possible, from Leyden and Utrecht, the
new philosophy continued to flourish at Amsterdam, where its
staunch defender de Eaey professed from 1669 to 1702, and Jo.
Theod. Schalbruch, the editor of Clauberg's works, from 1698 to
1722.* Even at Harderwijk it was favoured by Corn, van Thiel
(1655-88), and more openly by Ger. Wijnen (1691-1722); and
at Groningen, notwithstanding the Statutes, by the historian
Tob. Andreae (1634-76), Ger. Lammers (1667-69), and two
Huguenot refugees, Jac. Gousset (1691-1704) and Mich. Eossal
(1724-44). Franeker was a hotbed of Cartesianism under Jo.
Greidanus (1658-68), Jo. Wubbena (1664-78), Jo. Schotanus a
Sterringa (1678-99), Abr. Gulichius (1679-80), Tob. Andreae
the nephew (1681-85), Herm. Alex. Koell (1686-1704), and
Ruard Andala (1701-27). Yet here also the Scholastic tradition
was designedly kept up by the appointment of Christopb.
Munster (1651-60), Abr. Steindam (1664-72), and Jo. Begins
(1686-1738), the last of his tribe, who had to eke out his means
by the practice of medicine, while striving to the last to stem

* Of the philosophical teaching of the famous Tib. Hemsterhuis
(Amst. 1705-1717) there is little or no record.

96 Philosophy in the Dutch Universities.

the flood of modern speculation. A common weapon against
Cartesians in those latter days was an accusation of Spinozism,
which was repeated likewise against their successors.

Of these the foremost in age and fame was the great experi-
mentalist Will.- Jac. 's Gravesande, who had visited England as
secretary to the ambassadors sent to compliment George I. on
his accession to the throne. Called to a chair of astronomy
and mathematics at.Leyden in 1717, he was the first on the
Continent to teach the natural philosophy of his revered friend,
Sir Isaac Newton.* From 1734 to his death in '42 he also
lectured on Mental and Moral Philosophy, and here he was evi-
dently inspired by the doctrine of Leibnitz, as vulgarised in the
writings of Christ. Wolff. Thenceforth the professor of Philo-
sophy in the United Provinces was a physicist in the first place.
Logic had, since the disgrace of Peripatetic lore, lost much of its
attractions. So had Metaphysics, when the students of nature
began to give up even Cartesian hypotheses, and attempting to
proceed by the light of experience alone cared for abundance
of ascertained facts rather than systematical completeness of
theory. Eeason had ceased to assert its omnipotence, though
it retained its feeling of responsibility and a distrust of theories
not altogether " clear and distinct ". Accordingly, on ethical as
wrell as metaphysical subjects, it was fain to retire upon safe
generalities, getting clear of troublesome questions by a non
liquet, or an appeal to Christian 'revelation. The title of Eclectic
came again into favour, and Cicero was hailed once more as the
model of a philosopher. Calvinism, too, had lost much of its
rigidness, and could hardly find fault with a Philosophy so
modest, and so ready to stand sentinel against the many sad in-
fidels of the day. In this way, the eighteenth century, together
with part of the next, as represented by our Academical Philo-
sophers, became an age of innocence, blissfully unaware of the
real difficulties of human thought, and wondering with a placid
smile of superiority at the eccentricities of past and present in-
novators. Well-disposed students doted on the plausible com-
monplaces of preceptors like Me. Engelhard (Groningen 1728-

* An older Dutch Newtonian, who shewed experiments relating to the
new theories in private, was Bern. Nieuwentijt (1654-1718), M.D. and
alderman of Purmerend, a pupil of de Voider and Kranen, and as such
an ardent Cartesian in his youth. Dislike of hypotheses, and love of
experiment, as practised even by Senguerd, made him turn to the
Latin works of English authors. Of his two chief works in Dutch,
one, on the evidence from nature for the existence of a Deity, was trans-
lated into English, and largely borrowed from, it is said, both by Paley
and Chateaubriand. The other, printed after his death, is a treatise on
mathematical method in refutation of Spinoza.

Philosophy in the Dutch Universities. 97

65), Jo. Lulofs (Leyden 1742-68),* Dion, van de Wijnpersse
(Gron. 1752-69, Leyden 1769-1805), Jo. Fred. Hennert (Utrecht
1764-1804), Jo. Theod. Eossijn (Harderwijk 1765-75, Utrecht
1775-1815), Bern. Meuhoff (Deventer 1775, Harderwijk 1775-
1818), all men of learning and sense, but without the spirit of
speculative enterprise. The savage disputes of old, between
schoolmen and inquirers, had died out long ago. Instead of
them, essays and dissertations found plenty of cultivated readers
outside the Universities, and their writers were encouraged to
stand up for religion and morality by promises of gold medals
and fine type. There were the Society of Sciences at Haarlem,
Teyler's Society in the same place, the Society for the
Defence of Christianity at the Hague, the Stolpian Fund at
Leyden, all established in the latter half of the century, and
holding out their yearly prizes. Among their early laureates
one of the most esteemed was the Mennonite preacher, Dr Allard
Hulshoff (d. 1795), from the Wolffian school of Engelhard, and
even professors like van de Wijnpersse and Dan. Wyttenbach,
more celebrated as a philologer, were proud of their approval.
Turning over the leaves of their stately quartos and octavos, we
now vainly try to appreciate endless rehearsals, in wordy Latin
or indifferent Dutch, of the same worn-out demonstrations.
Surely the worthy prizemen's success must have been something
like that of the redoubtable Father Provincial,f " qui super duas
disputationes strenue se habuit contra haereticos, et siiperdisputamt
eos omnes, sed noluerunt ei credere ipsi infideles".

In point of fact, I suspect the best men of that period to have
shared Euhnkenius's opinion : " suavitatem fructumque philo-
sophiae positum esse in ratione et forma, non in materia et argu-
mento; quippe de cujus veritaie omnia esse incerta ".{ Even Franc.
Hemsterhuis (1721-90), the professed Platonist, who despised
Cicero as a philosopher, would have Philosophy entirely separated
from Science, and told his readers that the human soul was
designed to contemplate and to enjoy, and not, as it seemed, to
understand its objects. In spite of a slight tinge of the doctrine
of Spinoza, he draws the regulation dogmas of moderate eigh-
teenth-century Deism from the depths of his inner conscious-
ness, and for his much-admired speculations on love he is
indebted, rather than to the Symposium, to his innocent flirt-

* One of Lulofs's pupils was Elie Luzac the Wolffian, Doctor of Law
and printer at Leyden, who wrote in French, besides other works, a
refutation of Lamettrie's L'Homme Machine, entitled L'Homme plus que
Machine (1748).

t Epistt. Obsciir. Viror. I. 49.

t Wyttenbachii Opuscula I. p. 535, in Vita Euhnk.

7

'98 Philosophy in the Dutch Universities.

ings with Mesdames de Galitzin and Perrenot.* Still the
classical studies revived by his father Tiberius (1685-1766) had
the good effect of discrediting the mock mathematical demon-
strations of the Wolffian imitators. Also, the contemporary
Scotch thinkers began to be noticed by men like Hennert •(• ;
and on the whole, by various influences, Philosophy in the Uni-
versities themselves was brought near to a level with polite
literature. " Clearness and distinctness," a by-word ever since
Descartes, assumed the meaning of plainest possible intelligi-
bility. Only the language of the lecture-room remained Latin,
though it rarely attained the accomplished elegance of Wytten-
bach's Praecepta Philosophiae Lcyiccce (Amst., 1781).

When Kant emerged into Euiopsan celebrity, his works were
received in these parts with more doubt than applause. Except
for a rectorial oration of Ant. Chaudoir at Franeker (1792), and
the lectures of Hennert and the young Ger. van der Voort at
Groningen (1790-93), he was barely mentioned by the official
men. At Amsterdam he met with an active apostle in Paulus
van Hemert, formerly a professor at the Eemonstrant Seminary,
who published a couple of treatises (1792 and '96) and six
volumes of a magazine (1799-1803), in which he was joined by
a small number of rising talents. When their journal proved
too heavy for its intended readers, van Hemert tried a more
literary and popular one, which by his ready wit was kept alive
for four years more. In those same years (1804-8) some of the
best Groningen undergraduates carried on a junior Kantian
Society. Provoked by the contemptuous treatment of received
opinions and their timid advocates in the Amsterdam publica-
tion, van de Wijnpersse in his extreme old age published some
anonymous remarks on the dangerousness of the Critical doc-
trine (1805), and Wyttenbach (1807) attempted to ridicule the
new metaphysical fever, upbraiding Kant for ignorance of his-
tory and van Hemert for neglect of Latin, discourteousness, and
oblivion of personal benefits. A fierce literary war between the
veteran with his school and the Kantian chief was kept up in
Latin during the next seven years. After this, the movement,
always limited to a small circle, slowly died out in the country.
The last Kantian relic was an orthodox village clergyman named

* As to the Platonic dialogues of Madame Wyttenbach, they are but
clever exercises in French composition.

t Will. Laur. Brown, who died in 1830 as Principal of Marischal
College at Aberdeen, was born at Utrecht in 1755, and officiated there
as Professor of Moral Philosophy, etc., from 1788 to '94, using Hutche-
son as a textbook. Beattie's Elements of Moral Science were trans-
lated under Hennert's auspices, and published in 1795. But the Scotch
influence is visible, even in 1781, in the latter's Apliorismi.

Philosophy in the Dutch Universities. 99

le Eoy, who persisted in considering his master the destroyer of
Kationalism, as showing by his sceptical arguments the necessity
of a supernatural revelation.

Napoleon, during his short occupation of the country
(1810-13) was pleased to abolish two of its Universities, degrade
Utrecht to the rank of an ecole secondaire (whatever that might
moan), and incorporate Leyden and Groningen as academies
with his comprehensive Universite de France. As a consequence,
the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, once the nursery of unbigoted
thought and general culture, was cut asunder on the new French
plan into one of Science and another of Literature. After the
downfall of the Empire, the Eoyal Decree of Aug. 2, 1815, on
University Education, ratified this disruption, but introduced the
titles of Facultas Disciplinarum Mathematicarum et Physicarum
and Facultas Philosophiae Theoreticae et Literarum Humaniornm.
In all the five faculties the degrees of Candidate and Doctor
were to be obtainable by stated examinations ; but students of
Divinity or Law had first to take a special degree in Literature,
and those of Medicine a similar one in Science. Besides, to
keep up a connection between the great divisions of university-
work, there was introduced an elaborate system of certificates of
attendance on lectures in different faculties. For instance, while
philologers were examined, everyone else had to produce
his certificate in Logic ; Metaphysics and History of Philo-
sophy were examination-subjects for the literary doctorate, but
the lectures must be attended by students in natural science
and in theology as well. The whole form of education set forth
in the new Decree was an ingenious compound of the old plan
of a liberal education and the novel one of mere professional
training ; and in the course of sixty years it has proved a prac-
tical failure. First, the arrangement of Grammar Schools was
for the most part left at the mercy of municipal authorities,
under whose too often tradesman-like rule sound classical in-
struction was allowed to decline by degrees. From 1845 to '49
a Government Commission was appointed to examine for matri-
culation, and thus set up a fixed standard of proficiency ; but
this was soon discontinued, and matters were left to grow worse
than ever. Seeing men admitted to the University from imperfect
schools or scanty private tuition, parents began to think it a wise
thing not to detain their boys in the higher forms of well-con-
ducted establishments. The old custom of lecturing in Latin,
sanctioned as a rule by the Decree of 1815, had to be abandoned,
not so much because of modern notions as of deficient under-
standing of the language. A more serious disadvantage was the
neglect of a thorough training of the mental faculties, owing in
part to the multiplicity of subjects gradually introduced into

100 Philosophy in the Dutch Universities.

preparatory schools for the mistaken purpose of a many-sided
instruction. Secondly, the literary propaideia, as it was called,
at the University could not answer its aim because the same
teaching had to serve for future philologists and for everyone
else ; also because the plan had been subsequently improved
upon by a separate examination in mathematics. Undergra-
duates felt that only the very best of them could really satisfy
the conditions of the system ; and hastened to get rid of their
mathematical and classical obligations anyhow.* In the third
place, certificates of attendance appeared to mark a subject as
being of little importance, and it was hard to refuse them, espe-
cially where other duties rendered such attendance a positive
burden, and many without their own fault were ill-prepared to
derive a real benefit from what they were commanded to hear.

Under this system, philosophical teaching was naturally
esteemed by most young men a kind of troublesome " survival "
from the dark ages, and had moreover to be kept down to the
level of intellects little accustomed to serious exertion. Of the
four subjects mentioned in the Decree, Ethics was after a time
left off as a useless duplicate of Moral Theology, and Meta-
physics generally coalesced with History of Philosophy. Nor
was there much chance of rivalry of opinions in the same place.
For as the State was at the charge of maintaining three Univer-
sities,'f' there must needs be a limited number of chairs, and in
one instance, at Utrecht, Philosophy was divided for some years
between the professors of Mathematics and of Greek. Am-
sterdam, being a mere city Athenaeum, trusted as of old to
its physicist, until it happened to meet with an orientalist,
Dr. Taco Eoorda, much interested in philosophical studies ; J
and since he left the place in 1843, both branches of learning
have been represented in combination by his three successors,
now all employed as professors at Leyden, but of whom only
one continues to teach Philosophy.

* At Leyden, from Sept. 1876 to June '77 (the unit of University
time always embracing a whole year), there were 118 examinations by
the Literary Faculty, of men destined for the study of Law. Four of
these passed their propaedeutical stage " summa cum laude" seventeen
" non sine laudibus" sixty-three passed without comment, and thirty-
four were plucked.

t Leyden, Utrecht, and Groningen. Moreover there were at first
the State Athensea of Harder wijk and Franeker, abolished in 1818
and '43. •

J A paper of his, on the present condition of Philosophy in the
Netherlands, appeared in I. H. Fichte's Zeitschrift, Vol. X. (1843). He
wrote in Dutch on Psychology (in the German manner) and the Philosophy
of Language. For the last thirty years of his life, he was the chief
representative of Javanese philology.

Philosophy in the Dutch Universities. 101

In practice, lecturers on Logic had the option either to
attract an audience by avoiding technicalities and by a plentiful
sprinkling of literary condiments, or to stick to their subject
and drive most of their hearers away. One of them, who tried
to take a middle road between the two extremes, and to give
some value to his certificates by a little private examination,
found the outlines of Formal Logic looked up to as little short
of the Differential Calculus. As for the Metaphysical course,
it had to be sweetened with historical matter, and hardly left a
vestige in the youthful mind beyond a few dates and ready-
made formula?. There was no time to give anything like a
complete survey ; anyone taking an interest in philosophical dis-
cussions felt extra time spent on them as detracted from his
proper avocations. Also, Divinity professors took to giving
parallel lectures under the title of Natural Theology ; and for
the sake of the philological students and their final examinations
the best plan was after all to devote the one year that was
available to an account of Greek philosophy from Thales to
Aristotle.

Of the dozen or so of professors representing Philosophy
during this last period, none became properly followers of the
great contemporary German schools. It is true that the well-
read Jac. Meuwenhuis (Deventer 1816-22, Leyden 1822-43),
after admiring Geo. Hermes of Bonn, took some part in recom-
mending the views of Krause, as explained in French by
Ahrens ; also, the present titulary at Utrecht was at one
time their eloquent advocate. Again, the liberal Catholic, F. C.
de Greuve (Groningen 1831-62), gave some evidence of a
leaning towards Hegelianism. Others, like the lofty-minded
Mart, des Amorie van der Hoeven (prof, of Law, Amsteidam
1848-68), were deeply impressed by the German speculations ;
but their allotted place was not in a philosophical chair.* On
the opposite side, divines like E. A. Borgerf scornfully warned
their countrymen from wasting their attention on those foggy
and comfortless foreign productions ; and even one of the old
Kantian set of van Hemert, J. F. L. Schroder (Utrecht, 1817-
44), turned out in his mature age to be an anthropologist of the
common-sense and common-place school. A sound mathema-
tician, a man of most extensive reading, and an earnest and
amiable moralist, he held his own beside the popular Ph. W. van
Heusde (Utrecht 1804-39), a pupil of Wyttenbach and an unceas-

* For this reason I must also refrain from reporting on the original
attempt of one of van Hemert's old comrades, Dr. J. Kinker (d. 1845), to
complete the Kantian system in his Essai sur le dualisme de la raisoa,
humaine, published after his death in an unfinished state (1850-52).

f Disputatio de Mysticismo, Harlemi, 1819, Hagae Com., 1820.

1 02 Philosophy in the Dutch Universities,

ing expounder on the nature and history of Man, who inspired
his hearers with an ardent love for Plato without penetrating
very far into the depths of that master mind.* After these,
Utrecht had the good fortune to obtain the services of Dr. C.W.
Opzoomer (1846). By his fluent and tasteful lecturing -many
have learnt to admire a form of doctrine derived in the main from
Comte and J, S. Mill, but supplemented by a divorce between
scientific and religious truth, so as to find room for a broad type
of Protestantism. One of the leaders of the " Modern " party
in the Church, he has also distinguished himself as a commen-
tator on Dutch Civil Law, and as a careful student of Modern
Literature. Like his two predecessors, he has earned the fame
of a promoter of intellectual life far beyond his official sphere,
and spokesman of a goodly number of our most cultivated
men. - From his school came forth the Chevalier van der Wijck,
professor at Groningen since 1863, who appears to turn his
attention chiefly to the propagation and improvement of modern
British Psychology.

Outside of the Universities, various thinkers have found an
echo in the country. From 1828 to '30, and again in '36 and
'37, a Hegelian periodical was published at the Hague by a
small body of believers. Among the material supporters of
Comte there were certain military officers in the Dutch service,
and more than once the Positivist doctrines, both original and as
reformed according to M. Littre, were recommended to our
notice. They even contrived to present themselves in the form
of a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Divinity.^ Others
again looked for their guidance to the systems of older ages.
Dr. A. J. Yitringa made interest for the emanation-theory of
Plotinus, and Dr. J. van Vloten devoted many years to the task
of getting credit for our own Spinoza as the Philosopher of the
Future.J A variety of heterodox opinions, from Deism to Se-

* Initia Pliilosophiae Platonicae 1827-36, 2d ed., 1842. Characterismi
principum Philos. veterum 1839. In his Dutch works, especially the
School of Socrates (1834-9), of which there exists a German translation,
he advises his countrymen, on the strength of a theory of national capa-
bilities, to abstain from competition with others in the field of inde-
pendent philosophical research, and study the ancients merely for their
own edification. His tomb was inscribed with a sentence of his own :
" How could he be called a philosopher who does not believe as a
child ? "

t .Dr. 1'Ange Huet, Leyden 1866.

J Of purely historical contributions, I need only mention the Frag-
ments of Xenophanes, Parmenides. and Empedocles, edited (1830-38) by
S. Karsten, the pupil and successor of van Heusde ; the dissertation of
his son H. T. Karsten, de Platonis quae feruntur epistolis (Traj. 1864),
and the remarkable studies of the late P. A. S. van Limburg Brouwer
on Indian and Chinese speculations, published in the Oids (Guide)

P-Uilosopliy in the Dutch Universities. 103

cularism, were advocated side by side in the volumes of the
Dageraad (Dawn), a special journal appearing at Amsterdam for
several years since 1856. Throughout our theological and
general literature there are indications of a sincere interest in
certain philosophical questions, much desultory reading about
them, and a desire to have them answered to one's personal
satisfaction. The self-contented " Eclectic " or " Christian
Philosopher " of the last century, though still largely repre-
sented in the ranks of elderly clergymen and jurists, is now be-
coming a figure of the past. In his place, drawing-room free-
thinkers would compound for a similar makeshift, the " Poet
Philosopher," and their friends in the laboratory try to construct
a creed out of the tentative assumptions of Science. But habits
of scientific thoroughness, acquired by steady application to any
class of problems, give rise to a demand for something of a quite
different type. "Where methodical research is attempted, it
remains to be seen whether the rising generation will avoid the
slough of sceptical despondency and find its way to rational
convictions of its own.

From the first of October of this present year our Universities
will be subjected to the Law of April 28, 1876, and the Eoyal
Decrees appertaining thereto. The main feature of this law-
considered by many to be a patched-up compromise between
contradictory principles — appears to be an absolute division of
labour. The Grammar School, or Gymnasium, as reformed
within the next four years, is to be the place for liberal educa-
tion, and to absorb all that went under the name of literary
propaideia ; whereas the University becomes the place for such
professional training as requires some knowledge of Latin and
Greek — a mere aggregate of special schools. Certificates of
attendance are abolished altogether. The five Faculties remain
as they were. Only that of Divinity is loosened from all con-
nection with church or sect, leaving its former dogmatical and
practical teaching to be pursued in ecclesiastical seminaries ;*

monthly magazine, and intended apparently to invalidate the vulgar
conceptions of human nature and self-evident truth.

* Institutions of this kind, mere schools without living in common,
have been kept up for many years in close connection with the Athenaeum,
at Amsterdam, by the Remonstrants, Mennonites, and Lutherans. Nor
are the scholarship and social status of their ministers in any sense in-
ferior to those of the clergy turned out by the universities. There is no
state church in this country since 1795; so legislation is but consistent
in placing all denominations on the same footing. The present Remons-
trant Professor of Divinity is established at Leyden, and without belong-
ing to the University, took a share in its teaching as if appointed to an
extraordinary chair. Under the new Law he is to hold office in the
University as well, on the strength of his happening to be our one

104 Philosophy in the Dutch Universities.

and in those of Law, Natural Science, and Literature, men may
follow different paths and obtain different degrees. Instead of
one kind of Philosophiae Theoreticae Magistri, Liter arum Humani-
orum Doctor es, as ordered in 1815, we are in one Faculty to
have special Doctors of Classical, of Semitic, and of Dutch
philology, of that of the East-Indian Archipelago, and of
Philosophy. The latter will be different from anything yet
known in history. A young man of eighteen, fresh from
his Gymnasium, is to be instructed in Logic, Psychology,
and the history of Greek and Eoman Philosophy, and then to
take the degree of Candidate. By another examination, con-
cerning Mediaeval and Modern systems, and Metaphysics, " in its
full extent and all its applications," together with a dissertation
to be argued on for an hour, he may conquer the title of a
Doctor, and afterwards — repent of his neglected education. Cer-
tainly such a scheme did not come into being through any
oversight on the part of those who will have to carry it
out. The only chance of counterbalancing its evil effects
would be in a combination of the Philosophical with some
other curriculum; provided one could afford to stay for a
couple of years beyond the usual time. Philosophy being
thus pushed aside into a corner of the academical system,
should try to get a voluntary hearing from the best students
of every class ; but then there is the difficulty of finding
suitable hours, and procuring due consideration for intricate
problems without the inducement of some present reward. The
student of Classical Literature alone will be obliged to acquire
some notion of Ancient Philosophy for the sake of his first
degree. Perhaps the cause of independent thought will be best
served by carefully written books for private reading. Philo-
sophy at large can dispense with Universities, but Universities
that try to dispense with Philosophy will be found in the long
run to tamper with the mainspring of their own constitution.

J. P. K LAND.
Ley den, August, 1877.

specialist in the History of Eeligions. Among the old philological and
philosophical professors of the same denomination were Jo. Clericus (le
Clerc, 1684-1736), the friend of Locke, Dan. Wyttenbach (1771-79),
and Paulus van Hemert (1790-96).

VII.— CEITICAL NOTICES.

Des Societes Animates : Etude de PsycJiologie Comparee. These
soutenue devant la Faculte des Lettres de Paris. Par ALFRED
ESPINAS, Professeur de Philosophic au Lycee de Dijon. Paris :
Germer Bailliere, 1877.

M. Espinas takes possession, in the name of a new science, of
ground that is all but unoccupied. The study of the social ways of
animals has not indeed been neglected, and in the case of many
species has been pursued by skilled observers. But it has been
treated mainly as an appendix to Natural History, and in the spirit
of that method. The movement which has converted this tract of
knowledge into a fruitful field of speculation has derived its impulse
from two very different quarters. The foundation of a Social
Science almost under our eyes has taught us what to look for in the
lower forms of social life. But it is chiefly to the discovery of the
organic connection between man and the non-human animals that
the subject owes a scientific status. Mr. Darwin has himself applied
his principles of Natural Selection and Sexual Selection to the eluci-
dation of many of its phenomena. M. Houzeau has in various re-
lations exhibited the continuity between animal and human societies.
Signor Zannetti has compared the animal and human forms of the
family, with the view of educing the laws which govern both. And
Mr. Spencer, while ostensibly dismissing the subject as having only a
preliminary interest, has vindicated its importance by devoting an en-
tire division of his Principles of Sociology to establishing the analogy
between the social organism and animal organisation. M. Espinas is
under obligations to several of his predecessors, especially to Mr.
Darwin and Mr. Spencer; but his conception of the subject is his
own. Widening it at the lower extremity so as to take in the lowest
animal existences, and tracing without a break the lines of connection
between these and the highest mammals, he has aimed at constituting
this branch of inquiry into a homogeneous whole, with defined
limits and a peculiar province, which may fitly be named Animal
Sociology.

Comte has somewhere speculated on the reasons why man alone of
all the animals has succeeded in forming societies. As a matter of
fact, there is no animal that has not formed societies, which are
proportionate — excepting among the more predatory species — in point
of size, complexity, and compactness, to its rank in the scale of
nature. No living being, says M. Espinas, is alone. From the
lowest to the highest, all the animals are to be found, at some
moment of their existence, sharing a common life. We may even
see reason to conclude that, so far from association being the flower
and crown of the animal kingdom, society is the primary fact, and
families and individuals secondary and tertiary — that societies are
not " formed out of aggregations of families," and families out of

106 Critical Notices.

groups of individuals, but that families and individuals are special'sa-
tions of societies and have been developed within them. Sir H.
Maine has exhibited a time when individuals did not (in a socio-
logical sense) exist, and families were the units of the State, while
Mr. McLennan's remarkable inductions carry us back to a remoter
period when families were not yet distinguished within the tribe and
the tribe was all-in-all. M. Espinas's researches seem to furnish a
basis for theories which have still a certain character of empiricism,
by unfolding a far more distant epoch when in a physiological sense
the individual did not yet exist, and when the animal organism was
an ' undifferentiated ' mass which contained within itself the germs at
once of family and individual.

Societies are normal or abnormal. They are normal when formed
by animals of the same species which cannot live independently of
one another. They are abnormal when formed by animals of unlike
species which live together rather from convenience than by necessity.
M. Espinas begins with the latter, which fall into three groups.
Parasitism is an enforced association in which a smaller animal lives
attached to the body of a larger and preys upon that. It is the
antipodes of the social life, since it degrades both parasite and prey ;
its sociological significance is that it is a prolongation of the struggle
for existence sustained against superior new species by the inferior
ones already in possession of the earth. Resembling the chase in, its
lower forms, in its higher it approaches the second group. Gum--
mensalism occurs when an animal lives on the remains of another's
meals. Both groups lack the essential elements of society, but their
discussion may be defended on the ground that they are not without
analogies in human societies, and because they shade off insensibly
into the third group, with which real association begins. When
animals of similar habits come together in similar circumstances,
voluntary amicable relations never fail to arise between those species
which have nothing to fear from one another and have the same
enemies. As they render one another services, this mode of union
has been named Mutualism. Its lower forms are well known, and
we pass at once to the highest of all. Domestication is not indeed a
voluntary association at the outset ; but its success and its continuance
rest on a powerful hereditary tendency which is found in the free
state among all the animals that have been domesticated — the instinct
of voluntary subordination to the stronger and more intelligent. The
early emergence of this instinct is deservedly signalised by the author,
because it is the chief basis of even human government, which, if it
rests partly on the possession of force by rulers, rests yet more on the
willing submission of the ruled. As felt by one animal for another
of the same species, it is comparatively primitive : so far down does
hero-worship go. As felt by animals for man, it is obviously acquired,
and M. Espinas speculates ingeniously on the mode of its acquisition.
He produces facts which suggest that man acquires dominion over a
herd of animals by living their life and thus becoming half an animal
himself, and in virtue of his superiority taking the place of the

Critical Notices. 107

natural head of the troop. Such conquests are in a single known
instance made by one animal over another of a different species. It
is the less surprising that they should occur among ants because, as Sir
J. Lubbock has recently contended, the disproportionately large brain
and developed social ways of the ant give it a plausible claim to rank
next to man. The characteristic facts are that ants of certain species
rear in their nests the pupae of other species, that the latter perform
duties which have caused them to be denominated slaves, and that
this practice is continued from generation to generation. In seeking
to explain the instinct which a practice so transmitted implies, M.
Espinas comes upon the latent controversy which divides the evolu-
tionists. It is not always easy to reconcile Mr. Darwin's different
statements, but his view may be taken to be that the mental faculties
throughout the animal kingdom have been acquired and perfected
mainly by natural selection. Mr. Spencer, on the contrary, is under-
stood to ascribe organic development in a great degree, and mental
evolution wholly, to inherited increase of function produced by the
continued exercise of an organ adapting itself to surrounding condi-
tions. In dealing with the problem before us, as well as generally,
M. Espinas rather pointedly rejects Mr. Darwin's solutions, and
accepts, though not avowedly and with the omission of essential parts
of it, the doctrine of Adaptation.

His criticisms on the application of the theory of Selection need not
detain us. One of them has been answered in anticipation by Mr.
Darwin, another by the author himself at a later stage, and a third
seems to rest on a misconception of the theory. Still it may be
admitted that the attempts of Darwinians to explain the origin of the
mental powers have been more hypothetical than demonstrative, and
it may be doubted whether success is possible until the theory becomes
more specific. At all events the field is open for alternative explana-
tions. In opposition to what he would doubtless style physical hypo-
theses, M. Espinas propounds " une tentative d'explanation psycliolo-
gique ". The gist of it is that animals of a certain degree of intelligence
perform, from an excess of energy, (this must be the assumption) a
large number of experimental actions pour voir — ' out of curiosity,'
that the ant possesses this degree of intelligence, and that the actions
by which the ant acquires and domesticates slaves are a series of such
experiments, each of which demands but small power of adaptation, but
which culminate in the acts characteristic of domestication. The criti-
cisms that the amount of energy possessed by inferior organisms is rarely
in excess of their absolute needs, and that curiosity is not a characteristic
of the lower intelligences, might be accentuated if the defects of
the hypothesis were not more serious. M. Espinas apparently does
not (at least at this point — he does afterwards) see that new powers
are acquired only under pressure of some necessity, and that this is
as essential a part of Mr. Spencer's as of Mr. Darwin's theory ; and
he accordingly fails to state what are the new conditions to which the
ant must adapt itself, or what advantage it gains by so doing. It is
an equally fatal objection that he altogether omits the element of

108 Critical Notices.

inheritance, so that he is obliged to assume that successive generations
of ants go through the same processes in the same order without any
organic tendency thus to repeat them. This is no accidental omission
of an element which has only to be added to make the hypothesis a
sound one. It is a consequence of the theory of adaptation, according
to which the instincts of neuter ants must have been acquired by these
ants performing new actions which gave rise to new nervous connec-
tions ; but as neuters leave no offspring, the new nervous structures can-
not have been inherited. The way in which the principle of selection
enables Mr. Darwin to get over this difficulty may be the true solution
of the problem, or it may be only a speculative tour de force, but it
must be acknowledged that however probable the doctrine of adapta-
tion may appear — and its probability increases as we ascend the scale,
though Mr. Eomanes's recent experiments show that it is applicable
as far down as animals with only the rudiments of a nervous system
— it has peculiar obstacles to encounter in seeking to explain the facts
of instinct in ants.

In passing to normal societies we are met by the question — what
are the limits of the Social Science 1 Assuming (and the assumption
can be better justified by results than by reasoning) that associations
of animals fall within them, how far down the animal scale are we to
go 1 At the bottom of it are to be found individuals which are each
"a minute group of living molecules or physiological units". Are
such associations to be regarded as societies 1 and is the individual
itself a society 1 M. Espinas rests an affirmative conclusion mainly
on the ground that our notions of individuality are narrower than the
facts, that the individual is variable and individuality relative, and
that the so-called individuals are really groups of individuals of a lower
order. It is a perfectly valid argument, but the inclusion of such
groups will be best vindicated if they are shown to be regulated by
laws similar to those which regulate the admittedly social groups.
Again, if such animal forms, are societies, are not plants societies too 1
M. Espinas admits that this may one day be shown, and that the study of
them in this relation will then become a part of the Social Science ; but
it would seem that the fact has been already demonstrated. And lastly,
to drive the wedge home, if animals and plants are societies, are not
masses of inorganic matter also societies 1 It does not seem conclusive
to reply with the author that the latter are not living beings, when
every day the division between living and not-living is becoming
fainter. Erom nations to nebulee, from the ordered dance of the
atoms to the most spiritual relations which bind man to man, there
is nowhere any such breach of continuity that we can say, on this
side of the line there are associations which we can call societies, and on
the other aggregations which are something quite different. Stretched
to this extent the word society loses its meaning, and there is some
reason for agreeing with those who confine it to human associations,
and who describe inquiries into pree-human aggregates as Prse-sociology.
But the study of the higher aggregates will be empirical unless it is
based on that of the lower, and it is probable that we shall have not

Critical Notices. 109

one or two but a series of sciences dealing with the successive groups.
Each of these will demand a distinct order of inquirers — physical,
chemical, biological, and sociological, each acquainted with the results
reached by the others, and when some approach to completeness has
been made, and the gulf which separates the different sciences has
been bridged, we may have a single science dealing with the whole
range of the phenomena.

In the meantime we must follow M. Espinas, who begins with
associations of biological units, or, as he names them, Societies of
Nutrition. Nutritive societies are so-called because the end which their
associated existence subserves is the nutrition of the individuals com-
posing them. This which is the final cause of the earliest and simplest
associations, remains the basis of the highest and latest. As we rise
from Nutritive to Eeproductive, and from Eeproductive to Relational
Societies, it indeed becomes more and more subordinated, as the re-
lations among the individuals become less and less material. But
it never ceases to be the foundation of even human association, and it
is from this root that all other ends and relations — even the most
spiritual — have grown. Societies which are solely nutritive have this
character in common that the individuals composing them have been
attached to one another from their birth and have never lived
isolated : societies are primary. They fall into two classes. (1) Those
without vascular communication, as the various orders of Infusoria.
They are formed by segmentation : the parent mother-cell splits into
a considerable number of cells which remain connected with one
another, among the lowei orders by simple juxtaposition, among the
higher by an organic bond of a simple kind. The social unity of such
groups is still feeble : their co-operation is hardly discernible. The
individuality of the parts, which is in direct proportion to the unity
of the whole, is equally feeble. The causes of such groupings have
still to be discovered, but it may be assumed, in accordance with
the theory of selection, that individuals so feeble have survived
in virtue of their association. (2) Societies with vascular communi-
cation, comprising Polypes, Molluscs, &c. The form of association ex-
hibited by these is constituted by the grouping of individuals which
are united not only by the juxtaposition of their elements and the
connection of their tissues (as in the case of animals without vascular
communication), but even more by the permanent junction of their
cavities. The true " social bond " is consequently, according to M.
Espinas, the liquid which passes from one to another, and maintains
the supply of nutritive elements. They are so arranged by M.
Espinas as to exhibit successively higher degrees of the division
of labour and organic cohesion, and the gradual formation of a
nervous system, or its rudiments, with corresponding functions.
In the later stages these combined processes result in the for-
mation of a so-called individual (as M. Espinas would say, a
collective individuality) or social unit. The important thing to be
noted is that the organs and offices which we name social institutions
and functions are already discernible in the parts composing the

110 Critical Notices.

individual. How the composite individual subsequently develops in
converse with other such individuals activities like those going on
\vithin itself is a problem which touches the roots of Social Science.

Animal associations which have nutrition for their object give rise
by a slow and gradual transition to associations for the purpose of
Reproduction. The connection of parts which is life-long in the earlier
forms tends to dissolve; the communication of the individuals is
momentary and often renewed instead of being lasting ; and the
individuals begin to lead independent lives. This separation takes
place in close parallelism with the rise of sexual organs, which is
again explained as a development of the division of labour. Their
tendency to unite is accounted for by the fact that they are the
descendants of individuals which were in permanent organic union,
and are thus divided halves which are necessary to one another's
existence and constitute a whole when united. If we might assume
as prevailing among animals nutritively associated something corres-
ponding to the instinct of self-preservation, then the sexual instinct
might be explained as a modification of that primitive instinct. But
M. Espinas is convinced that the physical explanation accounts only
for the origin of the appetite, and that its ma'ntenance depends upon
certain " psychological bonds ". These consist in manifestations of
an aesthetic kind addressed by the male to the female, which may be
arranged in the order of their decreasing materiality — caresses, odorous
emanations, displays of colour and form (or costume), song, and lastly
motions, at first simple but becoming more and more combined.
Answering to these powers of expression, there must be in the female
corresponding faculties of appreciation — more or less subtle senses,
which have been at least developed by means of sexual selection.
That they were also so originated even M. Espinas (who usually shies at
Darwinism) inclines to conclude ; but if (as seems to be the case) many
.of these manifestations are only the more ordered exercise of functions
necessary for subsistence, their origin might be better elucidated by
an expansion of the theory by which Mr. Spencer has explained the
acquisition of the musical faculties.

The union of male and female is the first stage in the constitution
of the Family. The second is the association of parents and offspring,
Analogous to the fact which we meet with in human societies, that it
is the relationship of children to mothers which is alone primitively
recognised, it appears that the first form of this association is that of
the mother and her offspring : it is only in the higher societies that
the male becomes a permanent member of the family. A physical ex-
planation is here, as everywhere, to be given. The offspring are at
first but a continuation of the bodies of their parents, as colonies of
cells were originally part of the parent cell, but the female remains
longer physically attached to her offspring than the male. It is on
this basis that M. Espinas explains the origin of the maternal affection :
love of offspring is love of an "extended self ". By successive de-
velopments and specialisations of this instinct the family gains an in-
creasing unity in time and space. Under its auspices industry arises,

Critical Notices. Ill

from the necessity of preparing a shelter for the young : perhaps it
would be more exact to say that it has two origins, the other being
the procuring of food. Property arises out of industry, but only out
of the two-fold form of it just mentioned. The accession of the male
marks a new phase in the growth of the family. At first he plays a
preponderant part, just as in barbarous societies kinship solely through
males is substituted for kinship through females. The paternal
affection springs up in the same way as the maternal. It is first ob-
servable in fishes, the males of which fecundate the eggs. They are
thus veritably part of his own body, and are cared for as such : pater-
nal love of offspring is also love of a prolonged self. What here
wants explanation is the exclusion of the female from the care of the
young. Subsequent developments of the paternal instinct (as in birds)
M. Esp'inas explains as due to the desire for domination and the love of
property (both specialisations of the instinct of self-preservation), but
it is probable that the organic affection to which it owes its origin is
•never afterwards quite absent. Organised by this instinct the family
attains still greater complexity and compactness, and prepares the way
for associations of a higher type.

The Tribe has been until lately supposed to be a development of the
family. It is not the least of M. Espinas's services to Sociology that
he takes away the bottom from this theory. He clearly shows that
where the family has acquired a high degree of unity (as among birds)
the formation of a tribe rarely happens. On the contrary, hordes
usually arise where promiscuity or polygamy prevails, as among the
less predatory mammals. The full-grown family and the tribe are
mutually hostile. No explanation of this is attempted, but it appears
to be a law of nature that instincts have to be developed to excess
before they are fitted to play a simply co-ordinate part. The maternal
affection at first acts alone, reaches a high pitch, and then disappears
for a time ; the paternal affection at first alone operates and carries the
organisation of the family to a point incompatible with a collective
existence ; then the instinct of sympathy, which had been leading an
embryonic life, definitely emerges, and forms the tribe. We cannot
follow M. Espinas in his analysis of this affection, but in no part of
the work is his psychology more original or more suggestive,

In a closing chapter the author sums up the results of his inquiries
in a number of "laws," necessarily of a rather vague character, de-
scriptive of the nature, origin, development, and duration of animal
societies. The conclusion that a society is a living organism, which
has progressed from a state in which the relations among its members
were physiological to one in which they are psychological, may be
taken as approximately true, with the qualifications that the terms
1 living ' arid ' organism ' have connotations of a somewhat lower order
than the facts, and that while the relations are slightly psychical from
the outset they remain partly physical to the end. Most instructive
applications of this general result to the theories of mind and morals
conclude the work.

Even the foregoing rapid analysis may have served to show that M.

112 Critical Notices.

Espinas's volume is one of first-rate importance as a contribution both to
social and mental science. Large and original in design, the execution
of it may be said to be worthy of the plan. It is not indeed without
defects : theories are started only to be dropped ; hypotheses are laid
down in one chapter and thrown over in another ; and objections (as
for example to Natural Selection) are repeatedly made throughout the
work and repeatedly refuted in other parts of it. But these and
similar inconsistencies may perhaps be ascribed to the circumstances
under which the essay was produced and the restraints of the author's
official position.

J. COLLIER.

Logisclie Studien. Ein Beitrag zur Neubegriindung der Formalen
Logik und der Erkenntnisstheorie, von F. A. LANGE. Iserlohn :
J. Baedeker, 1877.

THIS posthumous fragment is worthy, both in matter and style, of
the author of the History of Materialism. The Editor, H. Cohen,
tells us that it was completed three weeks before its author's death,
but that it was begun before the preparation of the second edition of
the History ; and he remarks that its main principles are those which
permeate Lange's Philosophy, and that accordingly the friends of the
History of Materialism may take it as the exponent of the historical
critic's systematic views. With these remarks we fully concur. It
is an invaluable key to the History, especially to the most interesting
part of it which deals with Kant and his influence.

The gist of the book is to show that the intuition of Space is the
source of the apodeictic not in Mathematics only, as Kant held, but
in Logic also. This is shown, first, by an appeal in detail to what we
are conscious of in our own minds when we engage in the processes
of Formal Logic ; and, afterwards, by entering into what we may
call the metaphysic of Space. The elegance with which these two
portions of the present work are connected is very characteristic of
Lange, in whom metaphysic always holds its legitimate place of style
in relation to matter.

The work begins with a criticism of the apodeictic in the ordinary
Metaphysic. The fact that metaphysicians are not agreed, proves
that we must not look for the apodeietic in their various systems, for
the apodeictic is self-evident and beyond dispute. The metaphysicians
have had it so much their own way since Aristotle's time that the
mere form of deduction has come to be identified with the apodeictic,
however disputed in each system the principles may be and the
conclusions derived from them. The professor of a systematic meta-
physic thus elevates himself above the man of science to whom he
denies the apodeictic. It is the object of Lange in the present work
to vindicate against this professorial apodeictic that of paQr)/u.<niKrj
aKpipo\<xyia. He might, we think, have made out even a stronger
case than he has done against the systematic metaphysicians. He
accuses them of holding Aristotle's theory of eVurr^ui/ in an age when

Critical Notices. 113

it is no longer merely naif to do so. But it is surely true that they
have perverted the theory by giving an extended sense to eVurr^iw,
which Aristotle practically limits to mathematics. We do not wish
to be thought ungrateful to a book so full of suggestions as the
present ; but we cannot help expressing our regret that it does not go
into the subject of Aristotle's theory of the method of geometry.
His theory, which has not received the attention which it deserves
from his commentators, interesting independently, seems to us to
gain a special interest when viewed in connection with Lange's
remarks on Formal Logic, of which Aristotle is the author. But
before attempting to supply this omission, we must state Lange's view
of the nature of the apodeictic in Formal Logic, and his criticism of
Aristotle's view on the subject.

Kant showed that mathematical judgments are synthetic a priori,
but maintained that logical propositions are analytic, implying the
Principle of Contradiction. But all apodeictic truths are synthetic.
Mathematical truths are syntheses a priori by means of the intuition
or perception of Space. Logical truths are syntheses a priori by
means of the same intuition (pp. 8, 9). As the necessary deductions
of mathematics are derived by the way of self-evident sight from the
immediate perception of the simplest geometrical shapes, into which
the less simple diagrams are broken up — these simplest shapes being,
as Kant expressed it, perceived in pure intuition ; as Dugald Stewart
expressed it, hypotheses ; as Lange expresses it, variable in imagina-
tion within the limits of a notion (pp. 22, 28, 47), — so, too, the
processes of Formal Logic derive their necessity from the perception
of figures in Space which are immediately seen to include totally or
partially or to exclude other figures. This immediate perception, is
the only ground of the apodeictic. Even the Principle of Contradic-
tion itself reposes on this ground, and its mechanical employment in
Reduction must not be allowed to mislead us as to the ultimate
ground of the apodeictic in that process (pp. 26, 27). Similarly we
can manipulate numbers mechanically in counting (p. 21); but the
small numbers which are our apxai in arithmetic are originally given
in space-intuition (p. 141). Aristotle's logic is, however, essentially
one of intension — TO A Kmy/opwai Kara rov B. But this comes from
his metaphysic. A is of the essence of B. The modern friends of the
Aristotelian metaphysic who regard it as the ' apodeictic science ' par
excellence, attempt to exhibit it as the ground of the apodeictic in his
logic also. But although doubtless in Aristotle metaphysical forms
enter largely into logic, yet there is a marked difference, ignored by
his modern followers, between his Technik and his Erkenntnisstheorie.
Although the metaphysical theories of essence and of bvvup.i<i and
eVe'/><ye/a play an important part in his analytic, and although his
logic may be therefore styled one of intension, yet he does not
ground its necessity on metaphysical principles but on the exhibition
of tho extent of notions — i.e., on the intuition of Space. Hence his
logic has a value quite independent of that of his metaphysic (pp.
10, 17).

8

114 Critical Notices.

The Syllogism, Lange points out, obliges Aristotle to abandon
the metaphysical theory of intension in favour of that of exten-
sion. Instead of TO A KcmyyopeiTat Kara TOV B we have ev o\w TUJ
fieffia K. T. X., where the apodeictic is evidently based upon the im-
mediate perception of circles or some such representative figures. He
gives no proof of the First Mood of the First Figure. He regards it
as self-evident that if C is wholly in B and B wholly in A, then C is
wholly in A (p. 21). This substitution of extension for intension
noticed by Lange in Aristotle may be paralleled in Hansel's Prole-
gomena Logica. When treating of judgment, Mansel takes an attri-
butive view of predication, but the dictum de omni et nullo afterwards
obliges him to interpret propositions in extension. It would be going
too far however, Lange admits, to suppose that Aristotle consciously
recognised in spacial representations tha ground of the necessity of
the moods of the First Figure. But it is significant that he con-
sidered them the most perfect moods and reduced the others to them.
Even in his theory of predication, however, Lange finds evidences of
space-intuition. Circle S is moved into circle P on Lange's theory.
Aristotle moves P to S — v\y is actualised in an individual (p. 11).
This reconciliation is far-fetched, we think. There is little analogy
between movement in space and ' movement ' from potentiality to
actuality. The Aristotelian theory of predication, as such, cannot, we
think, be represented by figures in space ; it is only when the pro-
position becomes the premiss, or when he converts it, that Aristotle
interprets it in extension — as Ueberweg (Logik, § 84) remarks : " The
possibility of making the predicate substantive is a tacit pre-supposi-
tion (in conversion) but is not farther discussed". To "make the
predicate substantive " is to view it as a class of things occupying a
definite space. But Aristotle did not realise the fundamental im-
portance of this view to Logic as an apodeictic system ; though
it unconsciously dominates his Technik.

Lange, however, does some injustice to Aristotle in ascribing his
reading of predication in intension entirely to his metaphysical pre-
suppositions. Aristotle's theory of predication was really a protest
against metaphysic or the dominion of mere words. Because Antis-
thenes the Cynic believed that every word stood for a thing or substance,
and that one substance could not pass into or become another sub-
stance, he denied entirely the possibility of predication ; and for
exactly the same reason Plato, who wished to show the possibility of
predication, had recourse to his myth of the peOegi? of the individual
in the separate essence of the Idea. That the doctrine of Ideas was
closely connected with the difficulty about predication is a view
supported by the fact that Antisthenes and Plato were bitterly
opposed, and that the former wrote a work called Sd6W ?} Trepi TOV
ffi/TtXtV1" against the Ideas. (See Mullach, Fragm. Vol. II., pp.
270, 282.) In the Metaphysics, Aristotle can scarcely be said to have
seized the altered point of view regarding predication necessary to an
effective criticism of the Ideas. McOfgi? merely becomes the passage
from diW/ifv to evepyaa. The difficulty is antedated but not removed.

Critical Notices. 115

But in the Categories — whether or not the version we have is directly
Aristotle's, does not make much difference here, we think — a new
point of view is gained : the Noun is distinguished from the Adjec-
tive. ' Man ' looks like a noun, but is really an adjective. It is an
aspect of ' this man ' : CJTI fie T*OJ/ ftevrepwv ovct&v 0cuVer<u [lev ofiotta? TO)

<yt a\ij0*9 • d\,\a /ua\\ov jrolov TL arjpaivet (Cat. 3). ' Man' is

an adjectival noun or common term connoting attributes and denoting
individuals, and as such it is distinguished by him in this passage
from a simple adjective like ' white ' which has merely connotation.
Even in the Metaphysics this point of view seems to be seized in at

least one passage — Met. vi. 14 : ideal airuvrn e'£ wv avOpwiro? — all the

various aspects or qualities of man will, on Plato's theory, be separate
Ideas. The importance of the Aristotelian theory of Categories then
is that it draws once for all a distinction destructive of the Platonic
and many other word-mythologies.

We have thus attempted to trace the history of the Aristotelian
theory, of predication as attribution in order to substantiate our
remark that Lange is not quite fair to Aristotle when he con-
nects that theory entirely with his metaphysical pre-suppositions.
Aristotle's new theory of predication was a most important advance
in the struggling science of Grammar, or the art of clear thinking.
It was a contribution to the possessions of the human race quite
as valuable as his Technik ; and so far, we can only admire the
inconsistencies which Lange has pointed out in the Aristotelian
logic. With regard, however, to the undoubtedly metaphysical
elements kin Aristotle's logic, Lange's remarks are, we think, most
valuable. Aristotle's great error, he says (p. 33), was to transfer
subjective elements to things — e.g., Possibility and Necessity, and in
this way his formal Technik was seriously affected. With regard to
Possibility — we can now say that the sight of the acorn suggests
the thought of the oak ; but the thought does not alter the acorn
which is still an acorn (p. 37). We can dispense with the cate-
gory of Possibility. But Aristotle's conceptions are destroyed by
being explained in modern phraseology. His Weltanschauung was
entirely different from ours. We, believing in the necessity of
natural causes, may explain the Svvau.iv as " some of the conditions of
a thing " and the subjective uncertainty of its actual development.
But this was not Aristotle's view (pp. 38, 39).

Again, (p. 84) his view that the peffov ought to be the ' real cause' is
a piece of Platonism. He ranked Induction so low that he did not see
the scientific importance of the conclusions of the Third Figure, and gave
an inferior place to <rv\\o7/ff/ito< e'f eiKo-ncv ical 07/ptctW. But modern
discoveries have almost universally been made by media which have
not been the ' real causes ' (p. 89). Even mathematical proof in
many cases does .not take the 'real cause' — e.y., where the method
is apagogic, or where one construction is preferred to another merely
on account of its greater clearness (p. 90). With regard to these
Hiilfsconstructionen, we may say in passing that we think Lange is

116 Critical Notices.

scarcely correct in calling them media at all. They are merely con-
ventional mechanical ways of breaking up difficult diagrams into
their simple spacial elements. These elements are our media or ap\ai.
Our conclusions are the development of their assumed or seen pro-
perties, and they may correctly be described as the ' real causes ' of
these conclusions. However, notwithstanding his theory of the
' real cause/ Aristotle, as Lange well points out (pp. 85, 86), gives
few examples of syllogisms in which the pcaov is the 'real cause,'
and yet his examples are formally correct. Here again his Technik
asserts itself as something distinct from his metaphysic. The intuition
of Space then is the ground even of ancient Logic ; and modern Logic,
with the same ground consciously or unconsciously taken, develops
itself in two — we in England may suppose — opposite directions.
Figures in Space necessitate the view of the universal as a collection
of resembling individuals. The Aristotelian TIS which is distributive
has given place to the modern some or at least some, (pp. 70, 72)
which is collective. Thus the logic of Figures in Space connects
itself with modern Induction. It also exhibits Logic as deriving its
apodeictic character from the only fountain of the apodeictic — the
intuition of Space, and thus makes it an integral part of the new
Kantianism.

We must pass over, with bare mention, many interesting points of
detail raised in the Loyische Studien — e.g., the practical value of the
different Syllogistic Figures (pp. 80, 81); the proof by diagrams of
conclusions not allowed by the Aristotelian Logic (p. 83) ; the relation
of the Particular Judgment to Induction (p. 57) ; that the apodeictic
judgment is not more necessary than the assertory (pp. 41,. 92); that
contrary opposition is extralogical (p. 107); on the 'intuitions' of
the Logic of Probabilities- — coins, dice, balls — which give it its apo-
deictic character (p. 114). We must pass over these and other points,
and proceed to give our reasons for believing that the derivation of the
apodeictic from the intuition of Space was not so strange to Aristotle's
mind as to exclude the likelihood of his having consciously based
some part of his Technik upon it. We must remember that Aristotle
was the inventor of Formal Logic, and was therefore more likely than
Kant, who received it by tradition, to understand the real ground of
its necessity.

The geometer's ap-^at according to Aristotle are the simple figures,
e.g., triangle, (An. Post. ii. 7,) the definitions of which he assumes.
These figures are &i afaipetreu)* — abstract, and their real nature is
comprehended at a glance — TO il ia-nv OVK a<ty\oi/ (Eth. vi. 8, 6).
In Met. ii. 3 he derives the necessity of mathematical proof from the
abstractness of its objects — i.e., from their plainness at first sight :

TVJV ft aK(nf$o\o'yiav TIJV fAadrjuarncjjv OVK eV airuaiv ctTramjTeov, aXA,' eV

rotv fiij e'xov<ni> vKvjv. Geometrical proof consists in breaking up a
difficult diagram into simple figures, the spacial properties of which
we can take in at a glance — in drawing lines which enable us to see
the demonstration. Met. viii. 9 : evpiffKeTm £e KOI TCI dia^pap/u.(iTa

Critical Notices. 117

i/f't/ £' evvwap^fi fivvapjfi. $ia it £i'o opOai TO tpi'ytavOVf (Eud. i. Prop.
32.) cm at TTCfit ftiav ffri^fji'tju rytaviai iffai bvo opOal's. ei ovv fivi^Kto ij

Trepl T^V 7r\cvpav I & 6 v T i av r^v ei-Bvi ^\oc. The geometer's
circle is seen or imagined by him as it really is, and is therefore the
essential source of his necessary demonstrations of its properties —
TO KVK\W eii/ai Kdi xinc\o<f TO a?''To' (Met, vi. 10). If we remember that
Geometry was to Aristotle the a7ro'gt<|f«? par excellence, and that the
apx*l °r simple figure seen or imagined is seen or imagined in its
naked essence, his theory of the ' real cause ' in airo^ei^ will not
appear so metaphysical as Lange represents it to be. Mathematical
truths then according to Aristotle derive their universality and neces-
sity from the plainness with which we can imagine the elementary
figures always in exactly the same way. His theory is that afterwards
advanced by Dugald Stewart; and it does not seem to differ essenti-
ally from Kant's. Kant's ' pure intuition ' — perhaps too severely
criticised by Lange (pp. 132, 3) — is after all a name for the power
we have of imagining perfectly regular figures. As Lange indeed
admits — Kant seems to include Imagination under Intuition, and it
is through Imagination that the theorems of geometry and logic
obtain their necessary character (p. 131).

Space then is the source of the a priori, and whatever science can
be connected even by conventional and arbitrary assumption with
Space-intuitions, becomes apodeictic. Formal Logic deals with objects
generally, Geometry with the shapes and sizes of objects, and Arith-
metic with the sums of equal objects. Time is derived from the per-
ception of movement in Space (p. 147). Here the theory might be
supposed to end naturally. But it is in Lange's manner to give his
reader the metaphysical sensation of a wide and solemn prospect from
the scientific eminence to which he has conducted him. Why is
Space the fountain of the Apodeictic 1 Because it is the intuitional
form of my Ego (pp. 137, 8). The ego which by association of
ideas connects itself with, my bodily states is not the ego of know-
ledge — the subject to all objects, my bodily self among the rest.
There is an empirical distinction between the bodily self and the
so-called outer world ; but this merely empirical distinction has been
transferred by a confusion of thought to the absolute ego, the subject
which is never object, which is thus distinguished from the non-ego.
Thus to distinguish it is to enter upon the path of baseless speculation.
The only content of the absolute ego — the subjective pole of Know-
ledge — is the great totality of the World as perceived in Space
(p. 138) ; for this transcendental ego (p. 148) is nothing but the en-
tirely unknown counterpole of objective perception. The bodily self
is one of its objects in the world of appearances which is our experi-
ence and our all. But as the empirical or bodily self is developed,
great part of experience is opposed as something foreign and external
to what we suppose to be ourselves — the bodily self. Thus Space
also becomes apparently foreign and external to us ; and yet it is the
norm of the operations of the understanding, which on account of
their universality and necessity must be determined by the constitu-

118 Critical Notices.

tion of the Subject. Kant (pp. 135, 6) held that Synthesis — the
unity of the manifold — conies from the Subject. But it may well
be that it is through this Synthesis that the empirical and conscious
Subject first emerges, and with it necessarily also the Object of its
consciousness. In the perception of Space we have the archetype of
this fundamental Synthesis. Hence it is through it alone that all
syntheses are possible. We cannot explain this unity of the mani-
fold, but we can see it represented in Space. Here we feel the secret
of Lange's style. A technical discussion brings us upon what we
ventured to call a wide and solemn prospect. To think that the
measureless space which I see is the archetype of myself ! A shudder
runs through the literary nervous system not unlike that which runs
through the physical when one looks over a precipice.

J. A. STEWART.

Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann.
By FRANCIS BOWEN, A.M., Alford Professor of Natural Keli-
gion and Moral Philosophy in Harvard College. London :
Sampson Low & Co., 1877.

PROF. BOWEN says, in his preface, that it has not been his " pur-
pose to write a complete history of modern philosophy," and that
he has aimed at being something more than a commentator, hold-
ing it to be " a duty frankly to avow and earnestly to defend the whole
doctrine which appeared to him to be just and true ". How far his
work is from being a complete history of modern philosophy may be
indicated in his own words : — •

" I have said little about Hobbes or Locke, Hume, Reid, or Hamilton
•whose writings are accessible to all, and who ought not to be studied by
thoughtful and earnest inquirers at second hand. But the great names
of Descartes, Spinoza, and Malebranche, of Leibnitz and Kant, of Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel, are little more than names with most English
students," &c. (Preface.)

Our author cannot mean that the works of Descartes and Kant are
inaccessible to the thoughtful and earnest inquirer, nor that such a
personage may rest content with second hand knowledge of them ; so
that it is difficult to find in the above passage a reason why, in a
volume which discusses Descartes and Kant pretty fully, Locke and
Hume are almost unnoticed. Whatever be the case in America, the
English public in these islands is calmly indifferent to the accessibility
of Hume, and 1 believe the British student gives as much or more
attention to Kant. The omission is the more noticeable because a
whole chapter is devoted to Berkeley, whose works may also be
called accessible, and deserving the personal application of an anxious
inquirer ; especially noticeable because Berkeley's historical importance
must, in spite of his great discoveries, be considered less than Locke's
or Hume's, since the influence which he might otherwise have directly
exercised upon philosophy was presently, for the most part, absorbed into

Critical Notices. 119

Hume's. And Hume's influence was so great that how a student
unacquainted with his doctrines can be made to understand Kant, is
itself a matter not easy to understand.

As to the other side of the book, on which the author appears as
something more than a commentator, its characteristics, too, may be
indicated by a quotation from the preface : —

" Earnestly desiring to avoid prejudice on either side, and to welcome
evidence and argument from whatever source they might come, without
professional bias, and free from any external inducement to teach one
set of opinions rather than another, I have faithfully studied most of
what the philosophy of these modern times and the science of our own
day assume to teach."

Thus disclaiming prejudice, he continues, not without a trace of
emotion : —

" And the result is, that I am now more firmly convinced than ever
that what has been justly called " the dirt-philosophy " of materialism
and fatalism is baseless and false."

He then declares himself a Christian ; and accordingly the work is
to a great extent apologetic from that point of view.

It occurs to me to ask what that " professional bias " can be which
is mentioned in the above quotation. Is it possible that, as American
students sometimes assert, a " Unwersitats-Philosopliie" such as stirs
the indignation and darkens the prospects of Eadicals on the European
Continent and is not without example amongst ourselves, exists even
in the land of the free 1 This question was suggested by the first
sentence of our author's account of Schopenhauer (chap, xxi.), where
he says that he had hesitated long before introducing any account of
Schopenhauer's writings into this work. " To analyse them, even
for purposes of censure and refutation, seemed too much like promot-
ing the dissemination of evil." .For this is just the attitude of mind
which the great pessimist ascribed in an exaggerated form to the German
professors of his day. And then one could not help wondering
whether a dread of disseminating evil had suppressed a chapter on
Hume ; though, of course, on remembering that other reasons, how-
ever unsound, had been given in the preface, the wonder subsided.

Since now this work has avowedly two aspects, it will be well to
consider it in both — first as a history of philosophy, and then as a
contribution to philosophy. And since as a history it contains no
ambitious theory of how philosophy must necessarily have grown
and developed, our task under this head will be to examine, as
well as space permits, how far the exposition is impartial and trust-
worthy. But before entering upon a course which may perhaps lead
to fault-finding, it may be said at once that the book is always read-
able. Very few books of the sort are as little likely to make a
beginner think philosophy harsh and crabbed ; and so, if it is not
altogether satisfactory itself, it may do good service by inducing its
readers to pursue the subject elsewhere.

In an interesting chapter on Descartes, the author finds that —

120 Critical Notices.

" The great defect of the Cartesian philosophy is, that it takes little
notice of the idea of cause, and does not disentangle or present to dis-
tinct consciousness the great law of causality, though the whole system
unconsciously pre-supposes the validity of this principle, not only as a
law of thought, but also as a law of things " (p. 30).

And he charges Descartes with confusing " the relation between
substance and attribute with that between cause and effect". By the
law of causality, Prof. Bowen, I believe, does not mean the law of
phenomenal antecedent and consequent, but a law expressing the
necessity of an efficient noumenal cause. But in any sense it can
hardly be maintained that Descartes' system only unconsciously pre-
supposes such a principle. For although in the Discourse on Method
it is not so explicitly stated as could be wished, it elsewhere has due
prominence given to it. In the Principles of Philosophy, I. § 49, the
axiom ex nihilo nihil fit is stated first in a list of eternal truths ; and
in II. § 36, Descartes says that it is intuitively evident to himself
that God was the first cause of motion, having created matter with a
certain quantity of motion and rest, which He has since preserved un-
changed, thus manifesting His own unchangeableness ; and he then
goos on, in §§ 37-8, to state the first law of secondary causes, and to
illustrate its quantitative aspect in the case of projectiles. The point
appears important to Prof. Bowen, because he says that Descartes'
expressions on this subject led to Spinoza's Pantheism, of which he
has the deepest horror. But Descartes, when using the strongest
expressions, as when he says that God upholds the world by the same
action by which he originally created it, is careful to add that this
view has the general sanction of theologians (Discourse, Pt. 5). It
cannot be denied, of course, that the relations of the attributes to
substance in Spinozism is derived from the relations of the three
substances— the dependence of mind and matter on God — in Cartes-
ianism ; but that Descartes adopted this conception immediately from
the current theology is equally indisputable. And the difference
between Spinoza's and Descartes' views is not less obvious than the
derivation. For Descartes conceives of God in relation to mind and
matter far less frequently as the substance of substances, than as the
cause of effects ; in so far, of course, as cause and substance are
transcendentally distinguishable.

The tone of the chapter on Spinoza, elsewhere called " the remorse-
less Jew," and " the infidel Jew," seems to me unfairly disparaging ;
too much is made of his indebtedness to Descartes as a thinker ; and
his " irreproachable character " is accounted for by his having
wanted the physique of a healthy sinner ; " leading the life of an
anchorite, not from principle or by any effort of self-denial, but simply
for want of liking for the ordinary enjoyments of mankind ". That
ill health and virtue naturally go together is, however, contrary alike
to reason and experience ; it is not every invalid of whom it can be
said that " he conciliated not only the goodwill, but even the strong
affection of the few ordinary persons with whom the seclusion of his
life allowed him to come in contact " (p. 60). Prof. Bowen's account of

Critical Notices. 121

Spinoza fails, like many others, by regarding him chiefly as a metaphy-
sician, and almost forgetting that he was a moralist. Has any one
explained why the Ethics of Spinoza has nearly always been treated as
a volume of metaphysics 1 Is it that critics have not had patience to
read far enough, or that dislike of the heretical metaphysician has
made them willingly forgetful of the saintly moralist, or that the
nature -of substance and attribute is so supremely interesting to man-
kind that the conduct of life is comparatively unimportant 1 There
are several mistakes in Prof. Bowen's chapter. Speaking of Spinoza's
system as dependent on definitions, he says : —

" Spinoza has no right subsequently, at the conclusion of his philosophy,
to pass from his ideal distinctions to the world of real things, and take
for granted that he has proved human beings and other finite existences
not to be substances in any sense — i.e., not to be realities — because he
has shown that they are not substance in his sense " (p. 63).

But, in the first place, reality and substance are not synonymous,
and Spinoza does not deny the reality of finite existences "in any
sense": they are real to him as Modes of the Attributes of God. And,
secondly, Spinoza does not take for granted the passage from his
ideal distinctions to the world of real things at the conclusion
of his philosophy ; but, quite early in the Ethics (Pt. II., Prop. 7),
supposes himself to prove that the order and connection of ideas and
of things is the same. Again, describing the necessity of natural law
according to Spinoza, our author writes : —

" Every volition even, every act of a conscious agent, is preceded by
certain states of mind, all involuntary, on which it is necessarily conse-
quent; and these mental states are the inevitable results of physical
changes in the world without," &c. (p. 70).

But Spinoza says (Ethics, Pt. III., Prop. 2), the Body cannot deter-
mine the Mind to thought, nor the Mind the Body to motion. I must
admit that in the last paragraph of the chapter (p. 72) Prof. Bo wen
shows himself aware of the truth on both points. But an historian
cannot atone for having stated something wrongly on one page by stat-
ing it aright without any reference on another.

After a chapter on Malebranche we find one on Pascal : and our
author's reason for giving so much space to one who is not usually re-
garded as marking an epoch in philosophy, is that he was the true
originator of the " Philosophy of the Conditioned," which became a
favourite doctrine with Hamilton. This is especially important, he
thinks, because Mill attributed Hamilton's difficulties in dealing with
the conception of Infinity to his ignorance of mathematics, whereas
here we have them in Pascal, one of the greatest mathematicians. It
is a little surprising that although Hamilton, when trying to show
that his doctrine was as old as Philosophy (Discussions, Appendix I.),
quotes from Pascal, he nowhere refers to one or two passages produced
by Prof. Bowen (Pensees, Art. II.) which would have been much in
point. It does not, however, surprise me that Mill did not notice
them : for if I have the right passage (the almost total absence of re-

122 Critical Notices.

ferences is a grave defect in this book) the particular difficulty which
he attributes to Hamilton's ignorance of mathematics lay in conceiving
how one infinite could be less than another (Examination, p. 536,
3rded.); and these difficulties are not those which Hamilton may
have taken hint of from Pascal. I regret to add that Prof. Bowen
ascribes to Hamilton a mistake in the statement of his doctrine which
was not one of those that he fell into : he represents him as supposing
the infinitely great to be the contradictory of the infinitely small (p.
94). When Prof. Bowen has dissipated this illusion by re-perusing
Hamilton's sixth Lecture on Logic, he may consider whether he has
not himself fallen into a very similar error in attempting to state the
doctrine at p. 93. It is a doctrine dear to him ; for, " of course,"
he says, it "is destructive of Empiricism. All the space of which we
have had experience, either through the senses or by the imagination,
is finite or limited." Astounding ! No tidings that ever reached us
from the New World have so stimulated our curiosity to visit it. The
boundaries of space are there the most familiar objects of contempla-
tion. This must give the inhabitants an unfair advantage over
Europeans in philosophising on the subject.

In the chapter on Leibnitz we read that the Monadology was " in
the main a deduction from the doctrine of Innate Ideas, and from
the Principles of Sufficient Eeason, &c.," but whoever turns to La
Monadologie, § 7, must perceive that the doctrine of Innate Ideas is
an immediate deduction from the nature of Monads.

In the chapter on Berkeleyanism, Professor Bowen takes occasion to
denounce the " monstrous Egoistic Idealism, or Solipsismus, of Fichte,
J. S. Mill, and the Positivists, who by denying both substance and
cause, thereby deny the existence of any Non-Ego," &c. (p. 150). Dis-
missing the Positivists as an indefinite group of persons who, if really
guilty of such incredible inconsistency, are justly to blame, it may be
observed with reference to Fichte that to deduce is to establish,
not to deny ; and that the Non-Ego, cause and substance were, as he
supposed, deduced in his system. Fichte did not, indeed, attribute
original reality to the Non-Ego ; but he was not singular in that ; no
one who believes in an Absolute Being, under whatever name, can
attribute original reality to another. Surely it was enough that the
Non-Ego was, for Fichte, necessary to the Ego's self-consciousness,
and thereby necessarily partook of its absolute reality. Does any or-
thodox theologian venture to ascribe more reality than that to all
creation 1 Similarly of Mill : he did not deny the existence of either
substance, or cause, or Non-Ego ; but only endeavoured to analyse
them into their simplest elements, and to find expressions for them in
accordance with the principles of a particular school of philosophy.
Such a sentence as the above suggests that the writer has not mastered
either the expressions or the ideas of any school but his own.

He might at least have been careful in little matters ; but he cannot
be trusted to state correctly the smallest detail. The form of Kant's
Prolegomena, he says, is synthetical (p. 158) : that it is analytical
Kant himself takes the trouble to tell us in his preface. The whole of

Critical Notices. 123

Vol. III. of K. Fischer's History of Modern Philosophy is, he says, de-
voted to the Critique of Pure Reason (p. 160) : only 'half of it is so
devoted. Professor Bowen himself has live chapters on Kant, of which
it can only be said that they are well worth correcting. Perhaps the
best chapters in the book are the three on Schopenhauer : the worst
is certainly that on Positivism.

After a ludicrous introduction, in which we read that a react'.on
" has brought back in all its essential features the philosophy of the
eighteenth century ; " that Mr. Darwin " repeats Helvetius and Lord
Monboddo " ; that Mr. Spencer " develops at great length the noted
hypothesis of Condillac ; " that Prof. Huxley's sensible wish to be
wound up every morning " to think what is true and do what is right,"
was such as "a Danton or a Desmoulins might have uttered while
projecting the September massacres" (p. 261): — after this, we find
Positivists distinguished into the disciples of Comte, and a group of
thinkers who, our author says, are really disciples of Hume. From,
the account of Comtism proper take this choice sentence : its theology
" inculcates the systematic worship of that gigantic idol representing
humanity at large, or the whole human race, which Hobbes of Malrnes-
bury called ' the Leviathan/ " &c. Perhaps that is enough. For the
outer Positivists, really disciples of Hume, Professor Bowen takes J.
S. Mill as their type, and associating with him Mr. Spencer, Mr. Lewes,
Mr. Darwin, Profs. Helmholtz, Huxley, and Tyndall, empties his quiver
at them indiscriminately. It would be well to re-write this chapter,
or omit it altogether, from another edition.

We must now try to summarise Prof. Bowen's own views. He holds
that our ideas of substance and cause are given in the self-consciousness
of the Ego. In volition we are immediately conscious of originating
force ; and since matter and motion are reducible to forces, and these
forces to one, we must infer that this also is the manifestation of a
Will. Our author is a staunch upholder of Free Will ; and the idea
of invariable natural law determines him to strong language : "If
one could believe it — thank God that I do not ! — it would drive
him to suicide " (p. 71). It may be inferred from many indications
that these chapters were originally lectures.

Innate ideas (which, with the testimony of consciousness, play a
prominent part in our author's reasoning) are to be known by the mark
of universality and necessity : but whether he holds that what is in-
conceivable is non-existent or absurd, cannot be clearly ascertained.
For at p. 59 we read :

" I accept, therefore, the doctrine of Pascal, Hamilton, and Mansel.
There is an absolute necessity, under any system of Philosophy whatever,
of acknowledging the existence of a sphere of belief beyond the limits
of the sphere of thought."

But when at p. 67 it becomes desirable to overwhelm Spinoza, we
read :

" It (Spinoza's system) annihilates both God and the universe, by re-
solving both into the inconceivable abstraction of a universal Substance,
which is to us, because inconceivable, a nonentity."

124 Critical Notices.

Prof. Bowen, in all his encounters with Empiricists and Positivists,
never explicitly refers to the Association of Ideas until p. 448, in the
last chapter but one (on Hartraann) ; and there he seems to think that
Memory is better explained by the agency of " The Unconscious "
— seems, I say ; for indeed, whilst reading such a book, one begins at
last to doubt the testimony of consciousness. Of inherited experience
he can never have heard : for, at p. 270, he quotes from Mr. Spencer :
" ' The gradual accumulation of experiences, however, and still more
the organisation of experiences ' " — and adds — " that is, we suppose,
the progress of Science ". He might have learnt better from Cosmic
Philosophy, the meritorious work of his countryman, Mr. Fiske. Il-
lustrating the view that we know universals before particulars, by the
growth of language, he says :

" Every object that the young child sees is thing — something ; next, it
knows hard things and soft things; next, wood, iron, and stone; next,
tables, chairs, clocks ; and last of all, papa's own arm-chair"

If this were true, we might surmise that that Stoic who, dissatisfied
with TO ov as the 'Sum mum Genus, superseded it with TO TI, adopted
the idea from his baby. But it is not true of British babies, nor per-
haps of any, unless their minds have been precociously and perversely
developed by being confronted on every hand with the limits of space.
On the whole it must be said that Prof. Bowen's erudition is
deficient in accuracy and perception, and probably a little one-sided.
The errors noticed above are not a tithe of what could be produced from
his book ; and some of the sins of commission imply that the sins of
omission are not without their own sufficient reason. Occasionally,
too, in his pages we meet with words of aspect strange. If Prof.
Bowen would rather be called a " speculatist " than a thinker or philo-
sopher, perhaps he is right ; but he ought not thus to nickname
others unless he is sure they would like it.

CARVETH EEAD.

Thoughts on Logic ; or, The S,N,I,X, Propositional Theory.

London: Triibner, 1877.

IN this anonymous little essay an attempt is made to work out a
new and comprehensive theory of the logical proposition. The prin-
ciples from which the author starts are the following : (1) That the
proposition expresses affirmatively some relation between two objects
regarded as totalities ; (2) that the objects as totalities are the subject
of the proposition, while the predicate is the special relation affirmed
to exist between them ; (3) that all relationships are reducible to the
four of Substitution, Exclusion, Inclusion, and Intersection, symbo-
lised by the letters S,X,N,I. He endeavours to show that these rela-
tionships contain all that can be expressed in judgments, that they
simplify the doctrine of inference, and that they obviate many of the
difficulties inherent in the ordinary doctrine of the proposition. It
must be specially noticed that in order to make his theory workable,
the author is compelled to put a quite peculiar meaning upon the

Critical Notices. 125

logical symbol some. He thinks some is used in two senses, as a
specific or particular some, and as the sign of partition, in which case
it is equivalent to some only. It is difficult to understand what is
meant by some as a specific quantity, especially as the author seems
to think that when so employed it is equivalent to a universal. In
no sense whatever is this the ordinary logical doctrine. According to
it, some is always indefinite and equivalent to some at least, it may
be all.

Substitution, Exclusion, Inclusion, and Intersection are the well-
known relations between notions or concepts in Extension. When
applied to judgments, even if the view be admitted that the judgment
does express relations of classes, it is easily seen that they are far from
being simple. In point of fact they are highly complex, and to be
of service at all in the process of inference require to be ex-
pressed in the propositional forms of the old and new Analytic.
Take for example Inclusion, p includes d. The full meaning of this
thought, as the author himself admits, is — All 8 is only some p, Some
P is not 8, and when we infer we are invariably employing one or
other of them. So too the Intersective relation, 8 intersects p, is not
a simple thought but highly complex. Strictly analysed it yields
Some 6 is some />, Some 8 is not all p, Some 8 is not some p, Some p is
some 8, Some p is not all 8, Some p is not some 8. A further judgment
which, according to the author, is given in Intersection, viz., that of
inclusion between each total class and a part of the other, is merely
an illustration of the ambiguity attaching to the word all. In true
logical judgments all is distributive ; in the supposed judgment of
Inclusion it is collective.

We object then to the proposed classification of judgments on the
ground that the relations affirmed are complex and must be expressed
in the ordinary propositional forms before they can be applied. This
objection would hold good, even if it were admitted that the logical
judgment does express relations between objects thought as wholes.
But such a definition of judgment, practically identical with Hamil-
ton's view, seems far from satisfactory. Does it throw any light on the
nature of the relation between subject and predicate in the judgment
some flowers are white, to say that this is equivalent to flowers and
white objects intersect ?

Apart from the main idea of the book there are certain minor points
open to discussion. The particular meaning put upon some and the
use of some only as a simple symbol seem to us erroneous. Some only
really yields a double judgment, the I and 0 of the Aristotelian logic.
The relation of Substitution is a most perplexing one. It is, according
to the author, both extensive and intensive. Now in a judgment of ex-
tensive substitution, can it be said that we affirm a relation between two
objects 1 There is only one object. Substitution, as the writer seems
to grant, is only denominational. But he also advances a peculiar
doctrine as to particular intensive substitution, which we have the
greatest difficulty in comprehending. The example given (p. 63) :
" JSron-lovers of Turkish rule include Gladstone ; non-lovers of Turkish

126 Critical Notices.

rule include Carlyle; .*. certain Gladstone and Carlyle substitute "-
throws no light on the matter. Indeed the writer is throughout far from
clear with regard to intension. Holding that all relationships are re-
ciprocal (e.g., if A substitutes B, then B substitutes A), he maintains
that in Inclusion the reciprocal relation is that between intensions.
Now, either he has a doctrine of intension entirely at variance with
ordinary logic, or he must solve the question whether an intensive
judgment can be quantified. If one reflects on the meaning of in-
tension, one readily sees that it cannot possibly be quantified. Some
humanity, e.g., is quantified only in words : a few of the attributes
making up humanity is not logically equivalent to some humanity.
Hamilton himself never attempted to apply his doctrine of quanti-
fication to the so-called comprehensive judgment. When we attempt
to throw a particular judgment into intensive form, the perplexity
becomes greater. How shall we express some flowers are white
intensively? It cannot be, as the author seems to say (p. 34),
some white things have the attribute florality, for here the sub-
ject is in extension. Shall we say some whiteness is florality ? This
is doubly absurd. In short the intension of some A is precisely the
intension of all A ; and the particular extensive judgment has no exact
counterpart in comprehension. It may be pointed out in addition
that if judgments of the forms All d is />, Some & is p, could be expressed
in comprehension, they must be analytic. In no synthetic judgment
can it be said that the intension of the subject includes that of the
predicate.

While giving the author all credit for ingenuity we cannot avoid
the thought that his labour has been to a large extent wasted. The
relationships insisted on are not simple but complex ; when analysed
or expressed they yield no results beyond the eight forms of Hamil-
ton's Analytic ; and so far as we have tested the forms of syllogism
proposed by him, we have only found reason to dissent from those
which are distinctively new. The idea of carrying the relations be-
tween concepts into the theory of judgment is hardly a novelty :
Twesten, for instance, discusses the question and rejects the very four
relations here given ; and the view of intensive inclusion as the con-
verse of extensive inclusion, though not in so many words stated by
Hamilton, is found clearly expressed in Spaldiiig (Logic § 49).

E. A DAMSON.

VIII.— NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

The Genesis of Primitive Thought. — It is somewhat to be regretted
that Mr. Tylor, in his interesting notice of Mr. Spencer's Principles
of Sociology (MiND, No. VI.), has not dwelt more fully on the main
points in dispute as to the genesis of primitive thought. While
justly claiming that Mr. Spencer's teaching agrees with his own as
regards the origin of Animism — certainly a point of great importance,

Notes and Discussions. 127

he has scarcely given due prominence, or at least due discussion, to
what is most original in Mr. Spencer's account of the growth of the
primitive man's conception of nature. In two ways Mr. Spencer is
strikingly original : first, in repudiating the ordinary doctrine of a
primaeval Fetishism — the doctrine that man in his earliest state
necessarily ascribed life to lifeless things, and imagined living wills in
all objects ; secondly, in attempting to explain this habit of vitalising
lifeless objects, and all that is commonly named primitive Anthro-
pomorphism, as solely the result of the belief in ancestral ghosts.
The deep and increasing interest of the subject prompts me to offer a
few remarks on the genesis of primitive modes of thought as viewed
under these new lights.

By discarding primaeval Fetishism, Mr. Spencer, it seems to me, has
made a great advance towards a truer conception of primitive culture
than has hitherto been attainable. The doctrine has long been
assumed or asserted by anthropologists, but has never been supported
by good evidence. For, though the habit of attributing life and
feeling to lifeless things is indeed universal among savage and barbaric
races at the present day, and prevailed, we may infer, among the
early ancestors of all existing races, in all its manifestations it
presents the characters less of a primary than of a secondary habit of
mind — the source of a system of extra-beliefs superimposed on deeper
beliefs, and inconsistent with these though existing along with them.
As Mr. Spencer has pointed out, it is incredible that man at any stage
should have been ignorant of the distinction between things living
and lifeless — a distinction necessary for his self-preservation, and one
which almost all the lower animals more or less clearly recognise.
!N"ay, it might perhaps be more reasonable to maintain that the habit
of vitalising lifeless agents really depends on a too absolute contrast
of lifeless and living things as respectively characterised by inertness
and spontaneous motion. Conceiving lifeless things as wholly
incapable of self-originated motion, the primitive man could only
explain their sudden and life-like actions, when such occur, by attri-
buting to them life and will, or imagining some living entity r.s
acting upon them. If this were so, it is easy to see that the doctrine
of souls, by affording a simple and universally applicable means of
artificially vitalising lifeless phenomena, would foster the habit to any
extent. Some evidence in favour of this view may be found by
examining the later developments of primitive philosophy, — such as the
doctrines of a Vital Principle and the Lawlessness of Volition — which
part the living from the dead or inert by an absolute line. It was
left for modern science to remove the hard-and-fast dualism of
primitive thought, and demonstrate the identity of vital and physical
forces.

Mr. Spencer seems less successful in working out his conception of
Animism as sufficient to account for all primitive Anthropomorphism.
Most readers will agree with Mr. Tylor that the processes of verbal
confusion by means of which he conceives the transformation of
ancestor-worship into Anthropomorphism to be effected, afford a very

128 Notes and Discussions.

inadequate explanation of the facts. No one can doubt that the
belief in souls, though it has not created, has yet greatly fostered the
habit of ascribing life to lifeless things ; but the chief difficulty now
encountered by the students of primitive culture, is to determine what
other elements have combined with Animism to produce a mental
habit at once so persistent and so unreasonable. Mr. Tylor, who
would hesitate to express an opinion that had not been well con-
sidered, still, in spite of Mr. Spencer's reasoning, holds by the notion
of a direct personifying and myth-making tendency, on the ground
that "to both the child and the savage, human will is the first-
conceived source and reason of action ". To conceive the Sun or the
Sky, the Woods or the Rivers, " as great beings acting by will, and
able to do good or harm to men," " is the easiest way in which rude
minds can contemplate them ". It may be objected to this doctrine,
that if, as we above supposed, lifeless things are clearly distinguished
from living things by the primitive mind, such a fanciful way of
conceiving them could not be the easiest way. Even in the rudest
mind it would demand an " effort of imagination ". Possibly, how-
ever, the doctrine of a direct personifying tendency may be reconciled
with the denial of a primeval Fetishism, if we suppose that, though
the primitive man has no tendency to regard inert bodies as alive, the
sudden and seemingly spontaneous motions of many lifeless things
will naturally suggest to him the presence of life. Mr. Fiske says
primitive Anthropomorphism is simply a corollary from the Relativity
of Knowledge : all things known to man are known in terms of
human feeling and perception, and, while civilised minds have come
to conceive physical forces as mere impersonal pressures and resist-
ances, the natural tendency of primitive minds is to regard lifeless
bodies as impelling or resisting one another by conscious effort. This
is an explanation having a certain plausibility ; but we have already
seen cause to discredit any account of Anthropomorphism which
represents it to be a necessary and primary mode of thought.
Professor Max Miiller and others have proved with abundant illustra-
tion that Language has had an immense influence in developing
Anthropomorphism. Metaphors drawn from the actions of men and
animals must, it is obvious, have aided the habit of vitalising lifeless
things, if they did not actually give rise to it. So must verbal mis-
understandings. On the other hand, there appears no ground for
believing with some writers that gender-terminations in names
have given rise to Vitalism ; much less, that they have descended
from a time when all lifeless things were distinguished according to
sex. Philologists have shown that genders vary in number in
different languages ; that their existence is due to mere linguistic
accident, and not to any primaeval personalising of nature. Some of
the Emotions favour the vitalising habit. Affection, dislike, and
anger are often called forth by lifeless objects, and may readily
suggest a possibility of their being returned. The social instincts in
general, and each man's absorbing interest in the doings of his fellow-
men, tend to the same result. Indeed, of all possible factors of the

Notes and Discussions. 129

personalising habit, probably one of the most powerful is the instinct
of expression-reading — the well-organised power which all men seem
to possess of interpreting human looks and gestures. To this faculty
Anthropomorphism gives unconscious exercise. We may perceive
how automatically it comes into play, on reflecting how apt we are
to discover in lifeless things the semblance of human features.

Whether these suggestions give ground sufficient for a theory of
the genesis of all Anthropomorphism and Vitalism can only be
determined by further investigation. We may hope in time to under-
stand primitive thought much better than we do at present, for it has
a logic of its own, and though very unreasonable is not irrational.*

A. C. OUGHTER LONIE.

* This Note was in type some months ago, but at the last had to be
left over from No. VIII. Even if it had appeared in October, its author
(as I afterwards learned) would not have seen it, for he had died some
weeks before. Mr. Oughter Lonie, whose life was thus cut short, after
a lingering illness, at the age of 26, had been a very distinguished
student of philosophy at the University of St. Andrews, whence he
passed to Edinburgh to make a special study of geology. A career
as a practical geologist was opened for him, but he preferred
to return to the field of philosophical work. In the new edition of
the Encyclopedia Britannica he wrote the article on 'Animism,' and the
remarks appended to its expository part give evidence of a power of
thinking that might have come to much. All those who knew him
speak with admiration of his intellect and character, and his untimely
fate has blasted many hopes. EDITOR.

Development of the Sense of Colour.- — In the October number of
the XlXth Century Mr. Gladstone has an interesting and very learned
paper on the Colour-Sense, in which he endeavours to prove that the
Homeric Akhaians had little or no perception of colours as such, but
merely a power of distinguishing light and shade. This view appears
to me extremely untenable, and I hope at some future time to give
reasons on the other side at greater length. Meanwhile, I seize the
opportunity kindly accorded me by the Editor of MIND to summarise
with necessary brevity the arguments which may be offered against it.

There is every reason to think that the perception of colours is a
faculty which man shares with all the higher members of the animal
world. In no other way can we account for the varied hues of
flowers, fruits, insects, birds, and mammals, all of which seem to
have been developed as allurements for the eye, guiding it towards
food or the opposite sex. The facts of mimicry, often minutely
faithful in every line, spot, hue, and shade — as abundantly illustrated
by Messrs. Darwin and Wallace — point in the same direction : for
such careful imitation would have been useless unless it aided the
mimicking organism in eluding the vigilance of enemies. To come
to specific cases, Sir John Lubbock's experiments show clearly that
the social insects have a colour-sense essentially identical with our

130 Notes and Discussions.

own : while some special instances of their discriminativeness in
flowers go far to prove an intensely accurate power of perception.
Amongst vertebrates, birds and mammals give many signs of con-
siderable colour-sense, as witness the antipathy of male ruminants to
the sight of scarlet, and the readiness with which birds distinguish
fruits, &c. How otherwise could we explain the very definite and
gorgeously-arranged colours of the peacock, the argus-pheasant, and
the mandril 1 Even among reptiles, Kiihne has recently shown *
that frogs (unless blinded) exhibit a preference for blue over green
glass, special care being taken to exclude all possibility of error
through differences of diathermancy, &c. ; and it is noticeable that
these two colours are the very ones which Mr. Gladstone looks upon
as the last to be discriminated. Finally, in the eyes of nocturnal
vertebrates, such as owls and bats, we find an absence of certain struc-
tures (the cones) which are held to be the organs for the perception of
colour, and a presence of certain others only (the rods), which are held
to be those for the perception of light and shade alone. But in man
and most other mammals, both sets of organs are found, and I believe
the nature of their separate functions has seldom been doubted. From
these various cases (only briefly selected out of hundreds that might
be alleged) we are justified in concluding that the colour-sense is a
faculty far more ancient than the development of man, and not (as
Mr. Gladstone argues) one but lately evolved.

Again, if we look at the various races of men — since Mr. Gladstone
would probably refuse to accept an argument drawn from. Darwinism
— we shall find very low types of humanity possessing a colour-sense
far more acute than that which Mr. Gladstone assigns to the semi-
civilised Homeric Akhaians. My own observations on negroes (made
in order to test Mr. Gladstone's earlier utterances on the same subject)
convinced me that they possess exactly the same sensations in this
matter as the ordinary European. They can distinguish in just the
same way between primaries, secondaries, and even more delicate
hues. A visit to the Ethnological Eoom at the British Museum will
show that the Polynesians, North American Indians, Mexicans, and
Peruvians, have or had the power to distinguish red, yellow, green,
and blue. Furthermore, to go back in time, the Egyptian wall-
paintings, papyri, mummy-cases, &c., are decorated with an infinite
number of shades and mixed colours, which reach their highest
development under the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties (surely quite
early enough for Mr. Gladstone), and become less intense and varied
at a later date. Among them, the greens, blues, yellows, and their
compounds, are especially noticeable for their delicacy and variety.
As to the beads, they are almost as beautiful and diversified as those
now manufactured for the Central African trade. I think nobody
can look at the Egyptian remains in the British Museum — still less
at the great collections of fac-similes — without recognising not only
colour-perception in a high degree, but also remarkable taste in blend-

* Untersuch. aus dem Physiolog. Inst. in Heidelberg, Band i., Heft 2.

Notes and Discussions. 131

ing and delicacy of hue. On the other hand, chiaroscuro is totally
wanting ; so that, if we were to argue from the single case of Egyptian
painting, as Mr. Gladstone has argued from the single case of Homeric
poetry, we might arrive at the diametrically opposite conclusion, thart
early man possessed a developed colour-sense, but no perception of
light and shade.

How then are we to explain the singular fact, which Mr. Gladstone
undoubtedly succeeds in proving, that the Homeric ballads contain
few actual colour-epithets 1 In the following manner, it seems to me.
Language is at any time an index of the needs of intercommunication,
not of the abstract perceptions, of those who use it. ^ow, in nature,
the bright-coloured objects are chiefly flowers, fruits, birds, butterflies,
autumn leaves, and other organic products, of little practical im-
portance to the Akhaian warrior. The objects which he needs to
describe are earth, sky, clouds, sea, men, arms, cattle; all of them
indefinitely coloured, and many of them liable to great changes in
light and shade, or great variations between individuals. Hence tho
need for colour-terms does not practically arise. Again, the growth
of colour-terminology seems to me to be greatly dependent upon the
art of dyeing, and the consequent use of pigments for human decora-
tion. In our own time, such colours as mauve, magenta, solferino,
ecru, &c., only come to have names as fashion introduces them into
dress : and the vocabulary of artists, house-painters, milliners, and
drapers, is much richer in colour-terms than that of ordinary Euro-
peans. So the two words which most express colour in the
Homeric ballads are those which refer to the dye of the Tyrian murex
and the so-called vermilion. Both of these were probably more or less*
reddish ; and we know from modern experience that reds and purples
are the colours which children and savages most admire. I have tried
elsewhere to account for this preference : it is sufficient here to note
that red seems everywhere the earliest colour used for decorative pur-
poses. On the whole, I think we may conclude that while a loose
chromatic sense is to be attached to two or three Homeric words, the
majority of visual epithets occurring in the ballads are to be accepted
as referring to light and shade alone ; because the need for colour-
terms was not yet felt among a race of non-manufacturing warriors,
and because the gleam of bronze, the light of day, the bright or
lowering sky, the indefinite hues of man and horse and cattle, were
far more relatively important than the pure tints of flowers and
insects, or the almost unknown art-products of Egypt, Phoenicia, and
Assyria. As for the range of Homeric colour-epithets, I think it
sufficient to note that we ourselves talk of a red sky, red wine, rwd
bricks, a red cow, red lips and red Indians ; or of blue heavens, blue)
sea, blue eyes, blue frock-coats and blue slate.

It will be obvious that I have only given such principal headings
as seem indispensable, and have been precluded from further illustra-
tion by want of spa.ce. But the three points I have tried to make
out are briefly these; (1) That colour-perception is a common pos-
session of men and animals ; (2) That it is therefore, a fortiori, a

132 Notes and Discussions.

common possession of all normally-developed men; (3) That the
want of colour-epithets in the Homeric poems is due to a defect of
language rather than of perception, such as might naturally be ex-
pected from the circumstances of their authors. As to the existence
and personality of a Homer, that is quite outside the present question.*

GRANT ALLEN.

* A short notice of the two tracts, by Dr. Hv Magnus of Breslau, which
called forth Mr. Gladstone's recent utterance on the subject, will be
found below under the head of New Books. Prof. Robertson Smith, in
a letter that appeared in Nature of Dec. 6th, gives brief expression to
a view of the question essentially the same as Mr. Allen's (whose Note
was independently written some weeks before), and cites a most interest-
ing passage from Athenaeus, Deipnos. xiii., 81, which proves that the
Greeks themselves were perfectly well aware of the looseness of their
poetic vocabulary of colour. EDITOR.

" Transposition of Traces of Experience." — To the process thus
aptly designated Mr. Verdon devotes a short paragraph in his valu-
able article on " Forgetf ulness " in the last number of MIND. In
each instance of its occurrence, as there represented, we find involved
two objects of memory, — (1) a pair of words, syllables, or sounds,
and (2) their order in a sentence. The former of these, viewed in-
dependently, are supposed to be perfectly well remembered : failure
of memory exhibits itself only in respect of the latter. The writer
adds that "the whole family of Malapropisms is nurtured upon this
peculiarity ". Now this general statement may or may not be true in
its fullest extent ; but before we admit its truth, we must at any rate
examine many other typical examples of transposition than those of
the exact kind indicated by Mr. Yerdon.

At the outset, ' Malapropism ' may be referred to a more general
1 Maladroitism/ which brings dumb actions within our purview. In
fact, the transposition of these is often more striking, and sometim'es
more amusing, than that of words. Thus a man shall, like "Will
Honeycomb, be standing by a river-side with his watch in one hand
and a pebble in the other : he shall " squirr away his watch " into the
water, and shall (" with great sedateness ") pocket the pebble. Here
the two familiar actions transposed correspond to the two remembered
words above referred to, and just as these may be accurately spoken,
so may those be accurately performed. But here, and generally, the
order of combination is totally new, — an arrangement proposed, and
not formerly learnt. How far, then, and in what sense, is a perturba-
tion of that order chargeable upon failure of memory ] Shall we say
that an order of procedure is directed by the mind and instantaneously
forgotten 1 or is, perchance, the apparently perturbed order of pro-
cedure the one actually directed, while forgetfulness relates to the
positions of the objects, — it being momentarily forgotten that the
watch lies (say) in the right hand, and the pebble in the left ] And

Notes and Discussions. 133

what, if those positions have not been accurately perceived? Can
that be, strictly speaking, forgotten which has never really been
apprehended 1

In a certain sense, indeed, we may be said to forget everything but
the object on which the mind is, at each successive instant, actually
fixed ', nevertheless mistakes that fall within the present moment (this
being understood to correspond with a material rather than a mathe-
matical point) are generally charged upon want of attention. It
would seem sometimes, as if the mind, after directing the performance
of two actions, instead of superintending the performance, leaves the
limbs to act, so to say, automatically ; and these excite that action
first which, from a nerve-and-muscle point of view, is the more im-
portant, or to which the more energetic impulse has been given. Or,
again, the operations of the mind being much more rapid than the
movements of its material agents, these — the limb, the 'tongue, the
pen — necessarily lag behind, and are continually tryihg, as it were, to
catch it up by leaping to that point in the line of thought to which
the mind has preceded them ; while the mind is as continually run-
ning back to bring them up abreast of itself. When these two move-
ments occur simultaneously the result is some more or less grotesque
transposition.

Hence, a general condition of complete interchange of two such
actions, words, or what not, is that they fall pretty close together, —
close, i.e., ia time. If hand or tongue lags behind by any long
interval, the mind, in reverting. to its agent, usually discovers, and if
possible rectifies, the first mistake, or at any rate prevents the perpe-
tration of the counterbalancing one. This is nearly always the case
in the comparatively slow process of writing. In a rapid succession
of actions, moreover, the attention may be forcibly recalled by the
oddity or physical effects of the first mistake. Thus, a friend of
mine, dressing in great haste, and intending to use his shaving-brusli
and tooth-brush in succession, dashed the former vigorously into his
mouth. Need it be added that he did not apply the other to his
chin 1

But this uncompleted interchange must, in the case of words, be
discriminated from a species of Malapropism in which no interchange
is either intended or possible ; as e.g., when Mrs. Malaprop herself
talks of the burning lather running down Mount Vociferous. Here
we step over our bounds into the region of what the Germans call
VoUcsetymologie, and find ourselves among linguistic phenomena of
the " sparrow-grass " type. A foreign or strange word (never cor-
rectly apprehended) is assimilated to a native or familiar one ; and
then some absurd reason is invented for the special application of the
latter.

But purely phonetic interchanges may certainly be embraced under
the general process. These, although curtly dismissed by Mr. Verdon,
are perhaps more interesting and linguistically important than any
others. The accidental slips (for example, with their 7^'s), to which
the best-educated people are liable, are indeed mere trifles, and are

134 Notes and Discussions.

explicable in the same way as the interchanges above referred to.
But in other classes of society real or apparent varieties of such pho-
netic interchange, which I have elsewhere designated " Cross Com-
pensation" (Grimm's Law, Trubner, 1876) have established them-
selves as dialectic characteristics. Thus the plant-seller that haunts
our ways all the summer vociferates " Eoots for your gsadmg all
agrowz^ and ablowm " ; and the lavender girl that follows him sings
" sweet-smell^ lav^X7der," &c. This class of instances, therefore,
offers for investigation not only an origin but a history.*

The object of this note, however, is not (as is obvious enough) to
investigate these curious phenomena, so much as to suggest that
they deserve investigation. If Mr. Vcrdon, or some other professed
psychologist, would subject them to a thorough discussion, he would,
besides amusing himself, instruct inquirers in other lines of study
(language, for example) which, without being purely psychological,
necessitate a frequent reference to psychological principles.

T. LB M. DOUSE.

Prof. Jevons's criticism of Boole's Logical System. — The appear-
ance of a new edition of Prof. Jevons's Principles of Science shows
that his partial adaptation of Boole's system has gained a wider cir-
culation than its original, and renders not inopportune a. few words,
on the two men.

In the preface to this second edition Prof. Jevons. says : "As ta
my own views of Logic, they were originally moulded by a careful
study of Boole's works, as fully stated in my first logical essay ". So
it has seemed best to me to go back to this Pure Logic of 1864, and
taking his first and last works together, to discuss carefully his-
criticisms of Boole. In both books one is struck by. the fact that
Prof. Jevons has never risen from the conception of the old
Algebra of Number to the idea of Algebras in general. For
him " all the wondrous branches of mathematical calculus " are
merely developed Arithmetic (P. of S., p. 162). Yet he appreciates
the importance of Descartes' mathematical discovery without noting
that it was really making a new Algebra, the Algebra of Geo-
metry, introducing the directed line, the variable, &c., and not
being a mere outgrowth from the old Algebra of Number. He men-
tions also the new Algebra of Quaternions, which contains laws flatly
contradicting those of number, yet he does not draw the obvious
conclusion. Finally, though Boole's Algebra of Logic is founded on
the condition x* = x or x (1 — x) = 0, which is not true of numbers
in general, Prof. Jevons persists in considering it "a numerical
system ".

What would he say of Grassmann's system, of Mr. Spottiswoode's

* Many examples may be collected by the student of English popular
idioms. A collection from the German dialects has recently appeared in
Herr J. F. Krauter's treatise Die Lautverschiebung, pp. 60-62.

Notes and Discussions. 135

little paper on Eecent Algebras, finally of the Linear Associative
Algebras of Prof. Peirce 1 Are they all the same old original Algebra
of Number 1 As Prof. Peirce says : " Qualitative relations can be
considered by themselves without regard to quantity ; the algebra of
such inquiries may be called logical algebra, of which a fine example is
given by Boole ". Yes, in spite of Prof. Jevons's continued mistakes
on this point, what Boole actually did was to create the first and greatest
Algebra of Logic. And now we are able to rate at their proper worth
all attempts to " divest his system of a mathematical dress ".

From this foundation we are ready to take up in order the objec-
tions made by Prof. Jevons to his master's system, and I think we
shall see that nearly all of them are mere corollaries of his First Objec-
tion, which itself is untenable. It has reference to the old question
about the proper method of expressing alternatives. In popular
usage, says Prof. Jevons (Pure Logic, p. 77), " the meanings of terms
joined by ' and ' ' or ' vary from absolute identity up to absolute
contrariety". But, as Mr. Yenn says (MIND IV., p. 489) — "The
really important thing is to improve upon popular vagueness, by
keeping prominently before the mind the fact that there is this ambi-
guity. This is just one of the things that symbolic language can and
should do, and Boole's expressions have the merit of great clearness
and precision here. Sometimes what we mean is ' A or B or, it may
be, both ' ; sometimes ' A or B but not both '. These are surely such
distinctive meanings that it is a real blemish in common language to
merge them together, for we certainly ought to know, in any given
case, which of the two we have in mind. This Boole indicates by
always using a(l — b) -f b(l — a) for the exclusive sense, and a -f-
1(1 — a) for the non-exclusive." I perfectly agree with Mr. Venn
that Boole is here quite unassailable, yet Prof. Jevons's Second and
Third Objections depend directly upon this First, and vanish into thin
air with the hook on which they hung.

He words the Second Objection thus : " There are no such opera-
tions as addition and subtraction in pure logic," for which statement
his proof is that in his Logic, which leaves the alternatives
indefinite, one cannot safely subtract. This looks like an argu-
ment against himself, and is certainly no argument against Boole.
Again, acknowledging that "subtraction is valid under the. logical
restriction that the several alternatives of a term shall be mutually
exclusive or contrary," he tries still to uphold the point by saying
that the result of the subtraction can be obtained by combination.
What of that? In arithmetic the result of multiplication may be
obtained by addition. Does that prove that there is no such operation
as multiplication in arithmetic ?

The Third Objection hangs likewise on the untenable First.
Boole found he could make a more perfect system by postulating that
each two terms must be logically distinct, and so in his system there
was no such thing as what Prof. Jevons has named the Law of Unity,
(A + A = A) Making what seems to me a puerile application of
this law to a system which expressly excludes it, he says that x — x

136 Notes and Discussions.

+ x must not in Boole's system reduce to + x, as it would if it ever
could occur there, but by the application of this law (from another
system) it must reduce to 0.

The Fourth and last Objection in his Pure Logic is also to a
certain extent, I think, founded on a misconception. Logic is
primarily no more an algebra than chemistry. It was simply a science
capable of having an algebra made for it, and so in making the first
Algebra of Logic, Boole was called upon to settle once and for all the
meaning of the symbols he chose to employ in his system. Very
wisely he settled most on the ground of analogy to the interpretations
adopted in the oldest algebra, and thus g- received the meaning of
' some,' an indefinite class term. But his critic understands this to
mean that wherever J appears " we must have another distinct system
by which to get that meaning ". Two sections before the conclusion
of his book he adds : " Supposing it prove true that Prof. Boole's
Calculus of 1 and 0 has no real logical force and meaning, it cannot
be denied that there is still something highly remarkable, something
highly mysterious in the fact, that logical forms can be turned into
numeral forms, and while treated as numbers, still possess formal
logical truth". This would indeed be highly mysterious if Boole's
algebra had no real logical meaning, but the mystery vanishes when
we recognise that the algebra which Boole made for logic was sub-
jected to such laws of operation that, had we desired to apply it to
numbers, unity and zero would have satisfied all its requirements.

So much for Prof. Jevons's Logic of Quality. I will simply add
that he transfers the same objections to his Principles of Science, 2nd
Ed., pp. 68-71, &c., and that they gain no force in the transfer.

In his Elementary Lessons in Logic (1870), I will notice only this one
sentence, p. 191 : — "Dr. Boole regarded Logic as a branch of Mathe-
matics and believed that he could arrive at every possible inference
by the principles of Algebra ". Here again, Mathematics and Algebra
are taken for science of Number ; but it entirely misrepresents Boole,
to whom Mathematics had a meaning almost as broad as to Prof. Peirce,
who scouts the idea that its range is limited to quantitative research.
"Mathematics," according to Prof. Peirce, "belongs to every inquiry,
moral as well as physical. Of some sciences, it is so large a portion that
they have been quite abandoned to the mathematician. Such is the
case with geometry and analytic mechanics. But in many other
sciences, as in all those of mental philosophy and most of the branches
of natural history, it is of no practical value [at present] to separate
the mathematical portion and subject it to isolated discussion."

Prof. Jevons himself has had this fact at last forced to some degree
upon his attention, for at p. 155 of his new edition of the Principles
of Science, he quotes this sentence from Boole, which he should have
noticed thirteen years ago : — " It is not of the essence of mathematics
to be conversant with ideas of number and quantity ".

Reading on from p. 155 to p. 162, we may notice that Prof. Jevons's
whole doctrine of the nature of Number grows out of his study of the
Algebra that Boole made for Logic. He even goes so far as to say,

Notes and Discussions. 137

p. 158 : "I conceive that all numbers might be represented as arising
out of the combinations of the Logical Alphabet, more or less of each
series being struck out by various logical conditions ". Does it not
seem a little more rational to suppose that if we have a series of four
terms, we already have the number 3, and do not, as he says, get it
" from the condition that A must be either B or C, so that the com-
binations are ABC, ABc, A&C ".

Boole discovered that an algebra, in order to be fitted for ap-
plication to Logic, must recognise the law AA = A, or (as he better
expressed it) x2 =x, or x (1 — x) = 0 ; which combines two laws since
it expresses what in Prof. Jevons's notation would be written Aa = 0,
and it was called by Boole the Law of Duality as showing that we
always naturally perform dichotomy, dividing the universe into x and
not x, so that x (1 — x) = 0, — a thing cannot be both x and not x.
Boole thought that only two numbers obeyed this formal operative
law x* = x, namely 1 and 0. But Prof. Jevons discovers, p. 161,
that, "In reality all numbers obey the law. ... In short, twice
two is two, unless we take care that the second two has a different
meaning from the first." If every second 2 must have a different
meaning from the first 2, how is it that the one can be substituted for
the other wherever it occurs? Is this not rather a forced way of try-
ing to prove the statement at p. 156 : " Number is but logical discri-
mination, and algebra a highly developed logic ". He goes on (p. 162) :
" Mathematical symbols then obey all the laws of logical symbols ".
If this is true, we must credit Boole with one more great discovery in
Pure Mathematics, for he brought to light a fundamental law of
number, x2 = x, which no one before him had suspected, and which I
cannot believe even on Prof. Jevons's assurance.

At p. 113, he says generally of Boole : "It is a wonderful evidence
of his mental power that by methods fundamentally false he should
have succeeded in reaching true conclusions and widening the sphere
of reason". For my part, I did not know that any mental power
would enable methods fundamentally false to produce invariably true
results.

GEORGE BRUCE HALSTED,
Fellow of the John Hopkins University, Baltimore.

Mill's Theory of the Syllogism. — In Mill's famous chapter on the
Functions and Logical Value of the Syllogism, it seems to me that he
has included under the Syllogism two things that ought to be kept
separate and distributed under different heads in the logical system.
Perhaps I may even go the length of saying that what he gives as
Syllogism, is not properly Syllogism at all ; but I will at the outset
confine myself to the assertion that what he gives is the least promi-
nent fact in the theory of the Syllogism.

The first of the two objects of the Syllogism, the one that Mill sets
forth almost exclusively, is to exhibit the full form of the Deductive

138 Notes and Discussions.

process in its simplest type : ' Men are mortal, kings are men, kings
are mortal '. It is an interesting and useful part of Logic to explain
in what consists a scientific deduction, or inference from generals to
particulars, as in the onward march of a deductive science. You must
first obtain somehow a general rule or law \ you must next prove an
identity between a given instance and the subject of the rule or law,
and the identity being made good, you may apply the predicate of the
general law to the subject of the new instance. You identify kings
with the objects named men, and you pass over to kings the predi-
cate of the law, mortality.

Now, I apprehend that this explanation, although valuable as a part
of Logical Method, and undoubtedly connected with the Syllogism, is
the thing that is least present to the mind of the Syllogistic logician.
It belongs almost entirely to the matter of reasoning, and scarcely at
all to the form. It fastens the attention upon the two circumstances, in
the matter, necessary to a good deduction — the truth of the principle
and the relevance of the case to be brought under it ; the one circum-
stance to be made good by a material induction, the second circum-
stance dependent on a material identification — the examination of
actual kings with a view to identify them with men at large. In the
engrossment of the mind with these two grave determinations, the form
is left almost entirely out of sight. The case has been chosen so as to
make the least possible demand upon the consideration of form. The
question as to a proper formal relation between the premisses and the
conclusion is rendered dormant, because the relation is so simple and
obvious as not to constitute a question.

Now it is to this simple type of reasoning, in which all that is
characteristic of Syllogism escapes attention, that Mill confines his
view ; on it he makes out Syllogism a pctitio principii, as commonly
viewed, and indicates the solution by recalling to mind the proper mean-
ing of a general proposition.

The second meaning of Syllogism, then, is informal relation be-
tween the premisses and the conclusion, whatever the matter be. If all
syllogisms, all cases of argument or inference, were of the type of
Barbara, I doubt whether Syllogism would ever have been invented.
Not that in Barbara there is not an element of form ; but that being
so easy, we need not even be conscious of it. But the inventor of the
Syllogism was awakened to the fact that in many kinds of reasoning,
not unfrequent in their occurrence, the formal relation of premisses to
conclusion was puzzling and uncertain, not to say misleading ; and he
set his great ingenuity to work to exhaust the varieties of legitimate
formal relations, to reduce them under heads, and to ascertain what
characteristics of propositions they grew out of. I apprehend that the
machinery of Figures and Moods, resting as it does on the Conversion
of Propositions, of various quantity and quality, is the most strict and
proper expression of the Syllogism. This part of reasoning is found to
make a study of itself ; and its expounders are not to be held as
denying the necessity of looking to the matter on the proper occasion.

On this view, the theory of the Syllogism is not the whole theory

Notes and Discussions. 139

of the proof of a conclusion from its premisses : it is the theory of one
part of the proof, which in some instances is so evident as not to make
a question at all, but in other instances is so embroiled with per-
plexity in the verbal statement, as to demand the help of a rule or
formula such as is furnished by the detailed figures and moods. If
logicians have been too exclusively occupied with this formal condition
of sound inference, that is their infirmity. Any formalist that chooses
to state his position guardedly, could, in answer to the charge of
petitio principii, retort upon Mill the equally grave accusation of
ignoratio elenchi.

The solution of the difficulty attending the material inference, for
which Mill deserves and has received the highest praise, grows out of
the sound view of general names and propositions, which any thorough-
going nominalist would be likely to bring to the light. I apprehend
that the place of this explanation in a logical system is antecedent to
Syllogism ; it would properly fall under the Name, or at least under
the Notion or Concept, and would be carried from thence to the Pro-
position. In laying down the characteristic of the general proposition,
the warning should be given that the generality is to a certain extent
a fiction ; the affirmer of the proposition, ' All matter gravitates/ is
speaking of some things that he knows and of a great many things
that he does not know : his proposition is a mixture of the actual and
potential ; it affirms what is to be when the case arises ; when any new
piece of matter is found, the proposition is to apply to that. A patent
of peerage is given for those that are not yet born ; it is therefore, in
one sense, an empty behest : there is as yet nothing corresponding to
the term.

When this is seen to be the character of the general proposition, the
inference from it is no longer a repetition of the major. The major is
whoever shall be descended from a given person; the minor is — a child
has been born to that person ; the conclusion greets this child as the
future peer. The process of investing the newly discovered individual
with the attributes belonging to the previously known individuals of
the same kind is something to be gone through ; it is not mere empti-
ness or nonentity.

A large part of Mill's chapter is occupied with illustrating Material
Deduction. He described very justly what this consists in, namely,
examining whether the new case possesses the marks that identify it
with the rule, or with the individuals that give the meaning to the
rule. Now, this I hold to be extraneous to the consideration of the
Syllogism, on any admissible view of it. I maintain this on two
grounds : first, it is not of the same kindred as Syllogism ; second, it
is of the kindred of Induction.

If Syllogism be, to use De Morgan's expression, ' the form, the
whole form, and nothing but the form,' Material Deduction can have
no place in it. But the obverse position is more instructive. Is
Material Deduction of the kindred of Induction 1 To answer this, we
have only to reflect that an induction is the material comparison of in-
dividual facts, carried on till we are satisfied that we have established

140 Notes and Discussions.

a coincidence (or non-coincidence) between property A and property B
such as we can rely on in all future cases ; so that whenever A turns
up, we assume at once that B is (or is not) there also. Now Deduction
is the ingathering of the new cases ; and the logical part of the opera-
tion lies in the material inspection of each suggested case to see whether
it is or is not an A — the comparison of it with the previously recog-
nised A's. Just as Induction is a comparison of like instances, so
Deduction is a comparison of like instances. The induction has arisen
by finding the resemblance of A, C, D, E : the deduction finds the
resemblance between X and 'these others ; the mental exercise is there-
fore one and the same. It relies upon the same species of ability, it
incurs common liability to mistake, and is fenced by the same safe-
guards. The only respect where it fails is in not looking to the con-
junction of A and B ••• this, however, is merely to confine the process,
without altering the character of it.

Although Deduction is thus of a kindred with Induction, it farther
resembles Classification, which is also a process of the matter — a com-
parison of facts in their concrete character. It contains the process
that Induction and Classification agree in — the making sure of a re-
semblance between particulars. If Induction is made to precede Classi-
fication, the process is first brought on the stage under Induction; if the
order were changed, it would in substance be brought up under Classifica-
tion. Still, it would re-appear under Induction ; and the place for it is
not difficult to assign. If we refer to Mill's chapter on the Deductive
Method, we see that he brings in this method after he has finished his
Experimental Methods. We see also that his idea of the Deductive
Method is " to find the law of an effect from the laws of the different
tendencies of which it is the joint result ". This supposes that the
laws of the tendencies have been previously ascertained by Induction,
and are now to be extended by Deduction. The first stage of the de-
duction is to follow out each separate law by itself : to hunt out new
applications by new identities. Great discoveries and important verifi-
cations may be effected by going in the track of a -single induction, by
gathering in the remote and unthought-of instances ; as when Newton
pushed gravitation to such recondite consequences as the precession of
the equinoxes. There is thus a department of "deductive inquiry and
proof anterior to Mill's calculation of combined tendencies. This de-
partment has no place in Syllogism, it has no* relation to any Syllo-
gistic operation ; it is the same comparison of instances as is employed
in building up an induction. "Whatever is proper to be said about it,
whatever directions may be given for it, should be at the point where
Mill's Deductive Method is launched, and just before his problem of
computing combined tendencies. If nothing needs to be said about it,
so much the better ; but something is actually said by Mill — in the
wrong place.

It was considered by many — most emphatically so by Grote —
that Mill had introduced for the first time a unity into Logic, had
bridged the chasm that separated the Inductive from the Syllogistic
Logic. In my opinion, this cannot be done, and should not be

Notes and Discussions. 141

attempted. Eeal or Material Deduction should certainly be made con-
tinuous with Induction and with Classification, but Syllogism stands
apart from them all ; it is as far off from Deduction, in Mill's render-
ing, as it is from Induction. The consideration of the formal relation
of the premisses to the conclusion, which the inversions of language
compel us to regard as a serious study, has nothing in common with
the Logic of Matter, in any one of its three divisions — Classification,
Induction, Deduction. It walks by the side of these, and is no farther
connected with them than as ministering to a common purpose. I
could not assign any reason for the particular place or order of the
Syllogism in Mill's Logic or in any of the systems that include Indue- [f
tion. It might be just as well at the end as at the beginning. Its
entire absence would not be felt in any of the problems of Induction
or of Classification. It gives a discipline altogether apart.

It may, therefore, in my opinion, be justly objected to Mill's chap-
ter, first, that the ideas, which are individually sound and valuable,
are taken out of their proper places, and put together in an incon-
gruous compound ; and second, that the title is a misnomer : there is
nothing actually said as to the Functions and the Value of the Syllo-
gism. A. BAIN.

/. 8. Mitt's Philosophy, tested ~by Prof. Jevons. — It has been under-
stood for some time that Prof. Jevons was engaged in a critical
scrutiny of Mill's philosophical writings, and recently, in the new
edition of his Principles of Science, he announced his intention of
publishing a book on the subject. The incidental criticisms on Mill
that lie scattered through his previous works had hardly justified the
anticipation of very important results from the more formal scrutiny
when it should appear ; nor was the specimen he gave of it a few
weeks ago, on occasion of a controversy in the Spectator about Mill's
doctrine of Religion, encouraging, for he then laid himself open to
a very smart rebuff from his adversary. Now, in the Contemporary
Review of December, he returns to the charge, and, after rehearsing
shortly (with some difference) the Spectator dispute and sounding
a preliminary flourish, he brings out one of his greater guns and
fires it off against Mill. At the same time we are promised a whole
series of papers, to follow on the present one which deals with Mill's
view of the foundations of geometry. So the regular battle, or rather
bombardment, must be Understood as begun, and begun it certainly
is with no ordinary fury. The plan of attack has its disadvantages,
but at all events it leaves the assailant time for reflection after
delivering his fire, and it may not be amiss that a bystander should
venture to interpose with a few words at the first pause.

For about twenty years past, so we are told, Prof. Jevons has been
a more or less constant student of Mill's works, and during the last
fourteen years he has been compelled, by the traditional requirements
of the University of London, to make them at least partially his text-j
books in lecturing. Some ten years of study passed before he " begai

142 Notes and Discussions.

to detect their fundamental unsoimdness," and during the last ten
years the conviction has gradually grown upon his mind that " Mill's
authority is doing immense injury to the cause of philosophy and good
intellectual training in England ". Able writers have fired this shot
or that into " the sand of his foundations," but " the assault must be
made directly against the citadel of his logical reputation ". "For
my part," exclaims Prof. Jevons, " I will no longer consent to live
silently under the incubus of bad logic and bad philosophy which
Mill's works have laid upon us ". " The disconnected and worthless
character of his philosophy " shall at length be exposed. As for his
logic — his logic indeed ! " There is nothing in logic which he has not
touched, and he has touched nothing without confounding it."

lt is all very curious : curious that it should have taken ten years to
discover Mill's defects ; curious that in ten years more it should not
have been discovered that all of them that are real have been well-
known to philosophical inquirers for a long time past, and that the world
has by no means stood still the while. Is it not the fact that those
who think most highly of Mill are some of those who differ most gravely
from him? They think of him as one who gave an unsurpassed expression
— an expression that will now probably never be surpassed — to the philo-
, sophy of individual experience, but they have left this behind. They are
^perfectly familiar with all the inconsistencies that Prof. Jevons would
[ |now laboriously bring to light ; and yet they can honour the man who,,
from the point of view that satisfied all the masters of English thought
before him, first set himself in a serious spirit, since the sciences have
grown, to devise a comprehensive theory of scientific knowledge. His
friend, Prof. Bain, who stands perhaps nearest to him in point of
logical theory, is far from agreeing with him altogether, (as this
very number of MIND bears fresh witness), and never was beholden
to him in psychology : rather it was Mill that here professed
himself the learner to the last. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Lewes — to
say nothing of younger men — have gone ways of their own that
are very different from Mill's, and which he was little disposed to
follow. Many will acknowledge that they have learned from him,
but is it possible to name one thinker orwteacher of any standing who is
j prepared to subscribe himself Mill's disciple 1 For whose benefit, then,
one wonders, is this series of papers to be written 1

No doubt, his books are much in the hands of students; but there
is a good reason for that. Since Mill's System of Logic appeared, has
there been any other work half so well fitted to stimulate thought on
the subject 1 -Prof. Jevons appears, by his way of printing the word,
to have some special contempt for Mill's assumption of having pro-
duced a " system ". If this is what he means, surely never was con-
tempt so little in place. Mill's book is a model of orderly methodical
exposition, and, though never specially intended for academic use,
fairly conquered the attention of teachers and students It must
havq been because of its inherent merits, for no writer could
have started from a more unfavourable position than Mill or cared less,
in edition after edition of his work, to make it accessible to the mul-

Notes and Discussions. 143

titude. Accordingly, it is open to any one at any time to oust the
book from its academic standing. One has only to write a " system "
as carefully articulated as Mill's, as clearly grounded in its philosophi-
cal basis, and, if it reflects the present enlarged conceptions of Expe-
rience as faithfully as Mill's philosophy embodied those of a past
time, no fear but the writer will quickly deliver the Universities from
their " incubus " — particularly if he has an intimate knowledge (Mill
had none) of students' needs. For the present, if it be the fact — as
Prof. Jevons has somehow convinced himself though he must be
singular in his belief — that the voice of Mill alone is heard in the
schools, let us be thankful that it is no worse than it is. AVe may
remember, too, that it is the way of academic instruction to lag
somewhat behind the pace of advancing inquiry.

,,- At this time of day there is no need to spend many \vords on the
j objections brought by Prof. Jevons against Mill's view of geometrical
j| science. The case is very cleverly put and will duly impress the ima-
/• gination of all those who can believe with himself that the like was
|, never heard before ; but everytMngJiL-his-^gunient that has any force
has been urged by others over and over again, and what is new is not
very happily urged. His great point is to show that Mill, after assert-
ing that perfectly straight lines do not really exist, ends by implying
and even asserting that they do exist, because the imaginary lines with
which the geometer is said to work (or " experiment ") are declared to
" exactly resemble real ones ". But here he misconceives Mill's plain
meaning to begin with, and before he reaches his conclusion he has to
interpolate a premiss for which Mill is not in the least responsible.
In denying (with whatever reason) that straight lines really exist,
Mill never says that we have no perception of lines as apparently
straight. So, when he comes to deal with the imaginary lines by
which he supposes the geometer able to increase his experience inde-
finitely, he may very well say that these exactly resemble the lines
that are perceptibly (without being really) straight. The premiss
interpolated^ by Prof. Jevons, in order to convict Mill of self-contradic-
tion, is fneassertion that " if these imaginary lines arc not perfectly
straight tHey will not enable us to prove the truths of geometry";
but of course Mill would allow nothing of the sort. Did he not from
the first declare, with Dugald Stewart, that there is a purely hypo-
thetical element in the definition of geometrical figures, and that it is
this, and not anything we can actually see or imagine, that enables us
to prove the truths of geometry 1 (See moreover a note added to his old
statements in the latest edition of the Logic, p. 261.) However it is no
affair of mine to defend Mill's positions. I, for one, cannot think
of basing the knowledge of .geometrical principles on individual
experience, least of all on that kind of passive experience, received by
way of the senses, which Mill, without making proper use of the
psychology he accepted, generally was content to assume. That all
his ingenuity should fail to prove his case, and that, in his anxiety to
solve so great a difficulty, his very ingenuity should land him in such
really discrepant assertions as Lange, for example (Gesch. des Mate-

144 Notes and Discussions.

rialismus, Vol. II., p. 18), points out, is only natural. I will add but
one other remark on Prof. Jevons's polemic, namely, that he seems to
me particularly unfortunate in singling out for especial rebuke that
which Mill calls "geometrical experimentation" with imaginary lines.
Mill there had come imperfectly (as I have elsewhere tried to show,
art. "Axiom," Encycl. Brit., ed. 9th) upon an equivalent for that work
of the " productive imagination" which plays so important a part in
Kant's classical explanation of geometrical synthesis. He had come
upon it imperfectly because he did not ground this process of free
" experimentation," as he might have done, in the psychological fact
that we apprehend extension through muscular activity that we
consciously put forth, and not through any sensations passively
received. But his recognising the process at all was a proof
of no ordinary insight ; and if Professor Jevons would only think of
it as something not quite absurd, he might arrive at some rational
explanation of the difference that he always notes in his own works,
but never in the least accounts for, between geometrical and physical
induction.

And this last observation suggests the one other word I will take
the liberty of addressing to my friend Prof. Jevons on the present
occasion. It will doubtless occur to many readers that Mill's vehement
critic comes upon him after all only in the guise of Nemesis for his
own treatment of Hamilton. Neither am I one of those who rate
the Examination of Hamilton most highly. But if to some extent
Mill did then no better than Prof. Jevons is now doing, in one respect
he did in that book very well. In the midst of all his criticisms on
Hamilton, he offered some very notable independent contributions to
philosophical theory ; and but for the Examination we should not
know Mill's mind on many of the most pressing questions of philosophy.
Whole chapters and many parts of chapters are constructive. Now
may one hope that Prof. Jevons will not fall below this example 1
He is very indignant over Mill's " false empirical philosophy," but
guards himself against being supposed to deny the experiential
foundation of all knowledge ; and the caveat is very much in point from
one who can write about the senses and what we get from them in
the naif way of the author of The Principles of Science. Will he
then, for once in a way, tell us quite plainly what he considers are all
the elements of a true empirical philosophy It If he does, he will
supply a much-needed foundation for his logical theories, and, though
the work would be done better without the accompaniment of
a war-dance over the prostrate form of Mill, he has a right, if he
pleases, to that kind of amusement. If he does not, his exhibition
may win him a great deal of applause from the prejudiced and the
unthinking, supposing always that he manages to remain to the end
as piquant as in the first act ; but at the end, Mill will be found to
hold just the place that he holds now in the estimation of all serious
thinkers who know what is and what is not. Will Prof. Jevons
retain his place ?

EDITOK.

IX.— NEW BOOKS.

Lessing : his Life and Writings. By JAMES SIME. 2 vols. London :
Trubner & Co., 1877. Pp. 327, 358.

LESSING is a name which, in addition to its charm for lovers of
literature in general, has special attractions for the student of philo-
sophy, and English readers are to be congratulated on the almost
simultaneous appearance, though at this late hour, of two accounts of
the man and his work — Miss Zimmern's, which for some time has been
announced, and Mr. Sime's. Mr. Sime's volumes embody the results of
careful scholarship and independent reflection. He renders, on the
whole, ample justice to the philosophical side of his subject. Chapter
xxix., which treats of Lessing's philosophy, with which chapter xxvii,
containing an account of The Education of the Human Race, should
be taken, defines Lessing's position in relation to the leading philo-
sophic questions of his day. Lessing was one of the first to f owaaularte
that idea of progress which was one of the most valuable products of
eighteenth century thought, although Mr. Sime appears to go too far
when he says that "in The Education of the Human Race, the idea of
progress was first formally stated," and that it became the possession of
cultivated Europe, through Lessing and Herder. It is probable that
Priestley — who wrote before Lessing and who stimulated Condorcet
— did as much at least as Lessing to give shape and stability to the
new doctrine. In the more abstract department of philosophy,
Lessing's services consist mainly in the exposition and popularisation
of Spinoza, a thinker whose claims up to that time had been grossly
neglected. Lessing had found his way to Spinoza out of the
intricacies of the dominant Leibnitzo-Wolffian philosophy, and the
little he has left us in writing and recorded conversation illustrates, as
Mr Sime very clearly points out, the condition of mind of one who
was a careful and thoughtful learner from both Spinoza and Leibnitz,
a learner who drew now from the one, now from the other, without
seeking to reduce the ideas thus acquired to a harmonious and
systematic shape. Of Lessing's work in .^Esthetics, which is, perhaps,
after all his most valuable bequest to students of philosophy, Mr
Sime gives us a full and appreciative account. The method followed
in the Laolcoon, and in the Hamburg Dramaturgy, was nothing less
than a fruitful discovery in the science of criticism, as the permanent
results attained amply testify. No doubt Lessing's field of observation
was limited, and in the case of dramatic theory he was (as the present
writer has elsewhere maintained) unduly influenced by classic
authority. Yet, though some of his conclusions may at first appear
narrow and arbitrary to us, this generally arises from the fact that he
is not concerned to limit and qualify the principles he reaches. All
art is a compromise between many principles or ends, and this Lessing
knew well enough, though he had no special occasion to enforce the

10

146 New Books.

truth. This fact, however, does not preclude the possibility of
reaching conditions which on the whole, and when there is no
special reason to override them, mark off certain forms of art from
others. We could wish that Mr. Sime had criticised both the Lao-
koon and the Dramaturgy with a fuller recognition of the essential
character of art principles. Had he done so, he would not so lightly
have rejected some of Lessing's conclusions respecting the visual arts
as wholly arbitrary, merely because he was able to find a number of
exceptions to Lessing's rule even among works admitted to be excel-
lent. Thus, for instance, it may be, on the whole, undesirable to
present the fugitive and evanescent in permanent pictorial representa-
tion, even though Mr Poynter, for the sake of a rich and striking
effect, chooses to represent Atalanta in the act of stooping to pick up
the golden apple as she runs. On the whole, however, Mr. Sime's
remarks on Lessing's theory of art are just and discriminating. [J. S.]

New and Old Methods of Ethics, or " Physical Ethics " and "Methods
of Ethics ". By F. Y. EDGEWORTH, M. A. Oxford and London :
Parker & Co., 1877. Pp. 92.

THIS is an attempt to mediate between the conceptions of a Physi-
cal and an Introspective Ethics as represented by Mr. A. Barratt and
Mr. H. Sidgwick, and also to develop these conceptions more fully
than has yet been done. Section I. takes up the principal points at
issue between these two writers. Intuitivism as defined and justified
by Mr. Sidgwick is defended as against the Egoistic Hedonism of
Mr. Barratt. At the same time the possibility of placing an ade-
quate ethical doctrine on a physical basis is fully maintained. The
conditions necessary to this perfection of ethical science are said to
be : (1) That all non-hedonistic action (if such there be) is of the
nature of personal or ancestral habit ; (2) that the physical conditions
of the genus non-hedonistic action and the species sympathy are
discoverable ; (3) that the physical conditions of this perception of
Tightness (sentiment of duty, &c.) are discoverable. The writer
seeks to obviate the objection of J. S. Mill (repeated by Mr. Sidg-
wick) that the imperatives of Ethical Science cannot be deduced from
propositions relating to matters of fact. Under Section II. various
points raised in the Methods of Ethics are more directly dealt
with. By far the largest part of this section is taken up with an
elaborate attempt to " extricate a clear, and, as it may be termed, a
mathematical conception of exact Utilitarianism ". Setting out from
Bentham's formula " the greatest happiness of the greatest number "
(which though unsatisfactory is said to contain implicitly the idea of
an exact Utilitarianism) and fully equipped with the latest conceptions
of psychophysics as defined by Eechner, Wundt, &c., and with those
formulae of the calculus of variations which are applicable to the
problem, the writer reaches a number of conclusions respecting the
best possible (that is the most felicific) distribution of the external
means of happiness. These results " neither unexpected nor yet

New Books. 147

distinctly foreseen by common sense " may be gathered up as follows :
(1) In the case of races or societies so nearly related in the order of
evolution as the Aryan, equality of distribution is the law; only
when there is a great interval (as between highly civilised races and
savages) is the superior class to be privileged. (2) Population ought
to be limited. (3) As to the quality of the sentients or recipients,
this should be as high as possible, as measured by the scale of Evolu-
tion (which tends to increase indefinitely the capacity for happiness) ;
but if number and quality should ultimately come into competition,
the indefinite improvement of quality is no longer to be wished.
That is to say, if in a stationary state of industry an increase of
culture, owing to its material cost, is only possible by means of a
diminution of population, it should not be aimed at. " Not the most
cultivated coterie, not the most numerous proletariate, but a happy
middle class shall inherit the earth." The pamphlet contains a large
number of suggestive criticisms on other recent ethical writers besides
the two put prominently forward.

The Methods of Ethics. By HENRY SIDGWICK, M.A., Prselector in
Moral and Political Philosophy in Trinity College, Cambridge.
Second edition. London: Macmillan, 1877. Pp. 469.

THE alterations and additions in the second edition of Mr. Sidg-
wick's Methods of Ethics are so extensive that the Supplement (issued
in a separate form, for the convenience of possessors of the first edition)
runs to over 120 pages: there is, however, no important change of view
on any essential point, and the additions being mostly substitutions,
the volume is not increased in size. Nearly half of the new matter
belongs to Book I. The introductory chapter has been nearly re-
written, and § 1 of ch. ii. entirely ; the latter now containing a much
more luminous discussion of the relation of Ethics to Politics both
from the Utilitarian and Intuitional points of view. Ch. iii. again,
on "Reason and Feeling," is almost all new, and gives a more thorough
and distinct account of the author's theory of Reason as a moral
faculty, which is the key of his position. Perhaps the most serious
change of opinion which the new edition shows is contained in ch.
iv. on "Pleasure and Desire " (§ 1). Mr. Sidgwick formerly main-
tained that the psychological doctrine that volitions are always
determined by the greatest pleasure (or relief from pain) in prospect is
incompatible with any Method of Ethics except Egoistic Hedonism.
But this he has seen fit to retract, on reflecting that to conscientious
persons the pleasurableness of conduct is more or less dependent on its
Tightness. Ch. v., on " Free Will," in spite of some difference in the
exposition, is not materially altered. Towards the end of ch.vi.§ 2, a short
paragraph on the evolutional interpretation of "Conformity to Nature "
deprecates any hasty assumption that we may identify " what ought
to be " with " what certainly will be ". Amidst the new matter in
ch. vii. occurs the significant remark that "the notion of self-realisation
is. to be avoided in a treatise on Ethical method, on account of its in-

148 New Books.

definiteness ". The chief additions in Book II., chs. ii. and iii., are
foot-notes in answer to objections urged by Mr. Green. A clearer
account of the notions of Motive and Intention has been inserted in
Book III., ch. i. In ch. ii., § 2, an alteration appears in the definition
of Virtue. In ch. xiii., there are extensive modifications: the intuitive
principle, that it makes no difference to the general sum of good to
what subject any part of it belongs, is perhaps less distinctly expressed
(§ 3); and the misunderstood passage (§ 5) concerning the "suppression
of Egoism " has itself been suppressed. Readers of MIND will recog-
nise in ch. xiv. some ideas which were published in No. V, in an
article by the author on " Hedonism and Ultimate Good ". Interest
in the alterations in Book IV. will probably centre in the last chapter :
it has been re-cast, but the doctrine of the " Dualism of Practical
Reason " remains.

The Principles of Science : a Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method.
By W. STANLEY JEVONS, LL.D., &c. Second edition, revised.
London and New York : Macmillan & Co., 1877. Pp. 786.
THIS second and cheaper edition has been revised throughout and
appears with a great number of verbal and other changes, but none of
them radical. In a new preface (pp. xxvi.), the author gives a
number of interesting historical references, and replies to some of the
critics of his first edition. It appears that the well-known (third)
Lord Stanhope long ago busied himself, among his other inventions,
with a mechanical device for the representation of logical inferences,
and, his Demonstrator (as he called it) having lately been placed with
his papers in the hands of the Rev. R. Harley, F.R.S., some account
of it may shortly be expected. The other historical matter of chief
importance into which Prof. Jevons enters is Leibnitz's anticipation of
the Principle of Substitution, to which his attention has been called
by Prof. Adamson. He replies to his critics (among others his critic
in MIND, No. II.), in a very candid spirit, though he shoots rather
wide of some of the objections urged against him. One or two of the
corrections suggested in this journal he has accepted. It is a pity,
when he was about it, that he did not accept some others. We are
still, for example, told, at p. 63, that a valid conclusion may be
obtained from two negative premisses, when it is plain that either
there are four terms, or if three terms then only one negative premiss.
Also, at p. 58, where he gets the conclusion A = B from the two
premisses A = AB, B = BA, he still goes on to say, with a singular
inversion of the plain meaning of words, followed at once by an
absolute refutation of himself, that " the conclusion is more simple
and general than either of the premisses, and contains as much infor-
mation as both of them put together". How can a compound be
"•more simple" than its elements 1 How can a special relation that
holds only under two relations taken together be " more general " than
either of them? Or how can that which "is more simple and
general than either of the premisses " contain " as much information
as both of them put together "1 This, of course, is but a sample of

New Books. 149

what must happen, if one will start, in Logic, from A = B as a
" Simple Identity ". A simple identity it may be, but Prof. Jevons
himself here proves it to be anything but a simple proposition. No
doubt, however, a change at this point would have been very radical.

Life and Habit. By SAMUEL BUTLER. London : Triibner, 1878.

Pp. 307.

AN attempt by the author of Erewhon to consider, in a popular
way, whether the unconsciousness, or quasi-unconsciousness, with
which we perform certain acquired actions, throws light on embryo-
logy and inherited instincts, also upon the question of the origin of
species and the continuation of life by successive generations. The
phenomena of heredity he finds to be so like those of memory, and to
be so utterly inexplicable on any other supposition, that it is " easier to
suppose them due to memory in spite of the fact that we cannot
remember having recollected, than to believe that because we cannot
so remember therefore the phenomena cannot be due to memory ".
Our inherited experience was gained by us when we were in the
persons of our forefathers. The accumulation of variations which in
time amounted to specific and generic differences of living things, was
due to intelligence and memory in the creature varying, rather than
to natural selection. " Life is that property of matter whereby it can
remember. Matter which can remember is living; matter which
cannot remember is dead."

Diseases of the Nervous System: their Prevalence and Pathology. By
JULIUS ALTHAUS, M.D., &c. London: Smith, Elder & Co.,
1877. Pp. 366.

THE author has " endeavoured to elucidate the part played by
diseases of the Nervous System in national pathology, and to show
the laws to which their occurrence and fatality are subject ". He has
also "fully entered into the special pathology of the several diseases
of the nervous centres". " The pathology of peripheral nerve-diseases,
and the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of the entire class of these
maladies will be considered in a subsequent volume."

What is Play? Its bearing upon Education and Training. A
Physiological Inquiry by JOHN STRACHAN, M.D. Edinburgh :
Douglas, 1877. Pp. 108.

A VERY interesting and, in the main, a wise little book. Taking
Play to mean all " active exercise in the young, prompted by natural
inclination and producing pleasure," the author first shows its impor-
tance for bodily " development," as opposed to mere " growth " (such
as goes on without development in a bedridden child). He then
passes to Play as an exercise of the Mind, and comes to the conclusion
" that exceptional mental development is always preceded, and is
indeed produced, by an exceptional amount of exercise in play of
the special faculties concerned ". Play is, in fact, found to be in all

150 New Books.

cases a preparation for "Work, differing from work only in its motive
and object; and the different play-instincts both of the sexes and
of individuals should be regarded by the educator as indications of
the right courses to follow in express training.

TJieism : being the Baird Lecture for 1876. By EGBERT FLINT, D.D.,
LL.D., Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh,
author of The Philosophy of History in Europe. Edinburgh
& London : Blackwood, 1877. Pp. 432.

" The lectures in this volume have been delivered in Glasgow, St.
Andrews and Edinburgh, in connection with the lectureship founded by
the late Mr. James Baird of Auchmedden and Cambusdoon. They will
be followed by a volume on Antitheistic Theories, containing the Baird
Lectures for 1877."

"Contents: (1) Issues involved in the question to be discussed —
Whence and how we get the idea of God. (2) General idea of Eeligion
— Comparison of Polytheism and Pantheism with Theism — The three
great Theistic Eeligions — No religious progress beyond Theism, (3) The
nature, condition and limits of theistic proof. (4) Nature is but the
name for an effect whose cause is God. (5) The argument from Order.
(6) Objections to the argument from Order examined. (7) Moral
argument — Testimony of Conscience and History. (8) Considerations of
objections to the Divine Wisdom, Benevolence and Justice. (9) A priori
theistic proof. (10) Mere Theism insufficient."

In an appendix (pp. 323-425) the author has a number of notes,
chiefly controversial, on different philosophical aspects of the question.

The Causationdl and Free Will Theories of Volition: being a re-
view of Dr. Carpenter's Mental Physiology. By MALCOLM
GUTHRIE. London : Williams & Norgate, 1877. Pp. 106.

The author supplies the following statement : —

"Part I. is an exposition of the Causational Theory, followed by a
reply to the objections brought against it by Dr. Carpenter, namely :
(1) That it involves Materialism. (2) That it makes man an automaton :
the employment of which term in modern discussions is condemned,
while in practical use it is shown to be identical with either * causation'
or 'involuntary'. (3) That Choice is incompatible with Causation;
the reply being that choice is the exercise of Practical Eeason, which is
defined. (4) That Effort is incompatible with Causation; the reply
being the suggestion of a motive having for its object the effectuation
of Volitions. (5) That on the Causational Theory there can be no
blameability or responsibility.

" Part II. is a statement of the Free Will Theory, with an examination
of the terms employed. Then follows a criticism of the Self-Deter-
mining Power to ascertain where the breach of continuity of sequence
occurs, showing that the said power must eventually be regarded as a
faculty having its due place amongst others. The concluding section,
shows by means of extracts from Dr. Carpenter's work, that, whatever
it is, it is subject to laws of Heredity, Education, Adaptation, &c., the
same as every other human activity.

"An appendix contains a criticism of Mr. Bradley's Ethical Studies,
Essay I. ".

New Books. 151

Die geschichtliche Entwicltelung des Farlensinnes. Von Dr. HUGO
MAGNUS, Privatdocent an der Univ. Breslau. Leipzig : Veit,
1877. Pp. 56.
Die Entwickelung des Farbensinnes. Von Dr. H. MAGNUS, &c. Jena :

Dufft, 1877. Pp. 22.

WORKING on the basis of historical research laid down by Geiger
(Zur EntivickelungsgescliicJite der Mensclilieit), Gladstone (Homeric
Studies) and others, Dr. Magnus, in these two tracts, reaches the
following conclusions : — (1) In the earliest stage of the development
of the colour-sense, red was the only colour recognised as such, while
even this was not clearly distinguished from brightness or mere
light; at this stage the single function of the retina was sensi-
bility to different quantities of light. (2) In the succeeding stage,
the sense of colour was more sharply differentiated from that of
light, red and yellow now being discriminated from mere brightness.
(3) In the next stage, the light and dark shades of green became
distinguished as indepsndent colours, the first from pale yellow and
the second from darkness in general. (4) Finally, in our own stage,
blue and violet are recognised as colours, though these are not yet
perfectly separated except by the more cultivated eyes. That is to
say, the course of development of the sense of colour has corresponded
with the prismatic order, beginning with the colours (reds) most rich in
light and gradually arriving at those (violets) of feeblest light-intensity.
These facts are thus conceived by the author. The sensibility to
colour is a higher function of the retina, which appears only when its
irritability or excitability has been increased and made more delicate-
through the incessant action of the light-stimulus. "As an im-
mediate consequence of this intensified and refined activity, the
retina acquired the capability of distinguishing the colour of the
impinging rays as well as their light-intensity." Dr. Magnus
illustrates the relation here assumed between the sense of colour and
the condition of excitability produced through light-intensity, by a
reference to the familiar fact that even to our developed organ
coloured light loses its colour when (as reflected by objects in evening
dusk) it falls below a certain intensity or degree of luminosity. The
author conceives that the peripheral regions of the developed retina
which are very inferior in the discriminative sense of colour represent
a past stage of development of the eye as a whole. Wisely per-
haps, he does not seek to bring his results into connection with
either of the. two principal theories respecting the physiological
conditions of sensations of colour which are at present in vogue in'
Germany. It might be found that they are capable of being more
fully interpreted either by the hypothesis of Young and Helmholtz —
that different colours involve different nerve-elements, or by the theory
of Wundt — that all differences of colour-impression depend on the
form of excitation of the same elements. Dr. Magnus cannot be said
to supply an adequate physiological interpretation of his facts, though
he has certainly rendered good service in preparing the way for such
an interpretation. [J. S.]

152 New Books.

GedanTten uber die Socialwissenschaft der Zultunft. Von PAUL v.
LILIENFELD. 3 Bde. Mitau : Behre, 1873-7. Pp. 399, 455,
484.

THESE volumes start with the conception of Society as a real
organism, and attempt to work out this point of view upon the
methods proper to the Natural Sciences. The treatise commences
with a demonstration that Society consists of individuals in the same
manner as the physical organism is made up of cells, and that the one
is real in the same sense as the other. With this idea the author
seeks to exhibit a thorough-going identity between the laws of Nature
as they exist in the case of its highest development, Society, and in
its lower stages, including the individual human being. The first
volume is entitled " Human Society as Real Organism ; " the second,
" The Laws of Society ; " the third, " Social Psychophysics ; " and a
fourth is promised upon " Social Physiology ". The first three parts
are worked out with great minuteness, the connecting thread being
the conception of a real analogy between the individual and the social
group as the essential foundation of the Social Science of the future.

Das Problem einer Naturgeschichte des Weibes. Historisch und
kritisch dargestellt von FRIEDRICH VON BAERENBACH. Jena :
Dufft, 1877. Pp. 126.

NOT intended as a solution of the problem of a Natural History of
"Woman — for which the author invokes the exertions of an inquirer
like Mr. Darwin — but as a statement of what it must involve as the
preliminary step towards determining her true social position.
The author got his impulse from Schopenhauer and Michelet, who,
in spite of their differences, seemed to him to work in the same
scientific direction. Among English writers, he is most beholden to
Prof. Huxley.

Vortrdge und Abhandlungen. Von EDUARD ZELLER, 2te Sammlung.
Leipzig : Fues's Verlag (R Reisland), 1877. Pp. 550.

IN this second series of collected essays (sixteen in number) by
Prof. Zeller, rather more than half are on philosophical subjects.
The last four are academic addresses that excited much attention at
the time of their delivery, and it is well they are now reproduced in
a form that will henceforth make them accessible for ^reference : " On
the problem of Philosophy and its relation to the other Sciences "
(1868); "On the present position and task of German Philosophy "
(1872); "On the meaning and problem of Theory of Knowledge"
(1862) with "Additions" (1877) ; "On the Teleological and the
Mechanical explanations of Nature as applied to the Universe " (1876).
The series opens with a long discussion " On the origin and essence
of Religion" (1877), followed by a paper on " Religion and Philo-
sophy among the Romans " (1865). The subject of another essay is
" Lessing as a Theologian " (1870).

News. 153

Kant's Begriindung der Ethik. Von Dr. HIRMANN COHEN, ord.
Prof, der Phil, an der Universitat zn Marburg. Berlin :
Diimmler, 1877. Pp. 328.

THE acknowledged leader of the Neo -Kantian movement in Ger-
many here follows up his classical interpretation of Kant's Theory of
Experience with an exposition of the fundamental principles of the
Kantian Ethics. Prof. Wundt's general sketch of the movement in
the last number of MIND may, it is hoped, be supplemented before
long in these pages by a fuller appreciation of the later Kantian
literature, and then will be the time to do justice to Prof. Cohen's
varied activity. The preface of his new work contains a short but
very striking defence of his philosophical position. Eejecting the
imputation of aiming at a mere " Kant-philology," he does not hesitate
to declare that Kant's " Transcendental Method " must henceforth rank
as of no less account for Science in general than the fundamental
logical principles themselves ; and that the advancing philosopher of the
present day has a duty in relation to Kant like that of Newton's suc-
cessors in physics to the author of the Principia. " Kantian philosophy
is nothing else than philosophy as science," and the essence of science
is to be steadily progressive from positions already won. As regards
the special subject of his present work, the author holds it to be no
accidental sign of the truth of the Critical Method that it bases the
possibility of an Ethics in the Doctrine of Experience. To exhibit
Kant's foundation of Ethics is to show Ethics based in the Theory of
Knowledge.

Die Vorsolimtische Pliilosophie der Grieclien in Hirer organischen
Gliederuny. Dargestellt von S. A. BYK. Zweiter Theil : " Die
Monisten'". Leipzig : Schiifer, 1877. Pp. 240.

THE author's first part appeared in 1876 and treated of " The
Dualists," meaning those Pre-Socratic thinkers who assumed "a
material foundation of all things, and by the side of this a principle
of motion standing in no logical connection with it." By " Monists "
he means those who assumed "either one absolute principle only, or, if a
motor principle besides the absolute foundation, then one implicated
in the very conception of it ". As such " Monists," the author passes
successively in review (1) The Eleatics, (2) Heraclitus, (3) Leucippus,
and Democritus, (4) The Sophists.

X.— NEWS.

Mr. Douglas Alexander Spalding, well-known of late years for his
observations on the first movements of young animals, died on October
31, at Dunkirk, on his way to the Mediterranean coast, where he was
to spend the winter for the sake of his health. He had long suffered
from pulmonary disease, before he was thus cut off at the age of 37.

154 News.

His first observations were brought before the British Association in
1872, and afterwards worked up into an article on * Instinct ' in
Macmtilan'g Magazine of Feb. 1873. Some farther observations,
communicated to the British Association in 1875, were published in
Nature, vol. viii., p. 289. All of them were very carefully made, and
they may be held to have finally established what had often been
asserted before but as often doubted or denied — the power of certain
lower animals, especially birds, to perform extremely complex
movements of an appropriate character on the first suggestion by way
of the senses. It was when Mr. Spalding went on to theorise upon
his observations that he became a less satisfactory guide. His facts did
not, as he supposed, in the least touch the Berkeleyan theory of vision,
regarded (as it should be) as an explanation of certain facts of
conscious perception in human beings. And when he rode off upon
his summary conclusion that " animals and men are conscious
automata," he became a warning example of a certain tendency to
premature and hasty speculation adverted to in some earlier pages of
the present number. He not only fancied that nobody had ever
dreamt of such an idea before, when in fact the whole Cartesian
and even the Leibnitzian school had asserted (upon grounds
of their own) a thoroughgoing parallelism with no cross-action of
the physical and mental in man ; and he not only went the length
of doubting whether there were five people alive who were able
to understand the conception. What was far more serious — he him-
self seemed to become incapable of taking an interest in anything else,
and spent in an iteration of generalities (in critical notices of books for
Nature) powers which, even in the short time allotted to him, might
have solved several other questions of biological fact as satisfactorily as
the first he attempted. Mr. Spalding who, though born in London,
belonged to Aberdeenshire and spent his early years in Aberdeen,
began life under great material disadvantages, and raised himself
through his own exertions.

The remarkable paper by Dr. G. M. Beard on ' Trance,' reported
upon in MIND, No. VIII., p. 568, has now been published in a
separate form (Pp. 47, New York : Putnams' Sons) under the title
The Scientific Basis of Delusions. It is " designed as an introduction to
a work on the Philosophy of Delusions, which will aim to unfold in
detail the phenomena of the Involuntary Life, including Trance, and to
give practical suggestions for the reconstruction of the principles of evi-
dence in their application to history and to logic, to science and to law ".

A Chair of Logic and Moral Philosophy has at last been instituted
in King's College, London ; and the Rev. H. W. Watkins M.A.,
Chaplain and Censor of the College, has been chosen to fill it.

The Wliyte Professorship of Moral Philosophy in the Univer-
sity of Oxford being vacant, through the clerical preferment of the late
incumbent, Rev. J. R. T. Eaton (appointed in 1874), Mr. T. H. Green,
of Balliol College, editor of Hume's philosophical works, has just
been elected in his place.

News. 155

The Chair of Moral Philosophy in Trinity College, Dublin, is vacant
through the retirement of the Rev. Dr. Mclvor, who has served the
statutory period of five years for which it can (with re-elegibility) be
held.

Mr. Malcolm Guthrie (31 Stanley Road, Bootle) sends the following

" suggestion " : —

" In Liverpool we have formed a small society of six or ten members
called the ' Philosophy Reading Club '. Our plan is to take some work
of philosophical importance and, after reading a chapter at home, to
examine and discuss it at our weekly meetings. The advantages of this
systematic and combined study over individual desultory studies are
obvious. I have no doubt you would be willing to put your readers in
different localities into communication with each other for that or
similar purposes."

JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.— Vol. XL, No. 3. Schelling
—'The Method of University Study' (Lect. 4th, trans.). Von Hart-
mann— ' On the True and False in Darwinism' (Sections trans.). Her-
bart — ' Application of Mathematics in Psychology' (trans.). W. T.
Harris— ' Michael Angelo's Fates'. G. S. Morris— ' The Life and
Teachings of Spinoza'. D. W. Phipps — 'Kant's Transcendental
^Esthetic'. Kant — 'Anthropology (trans, continued). Notes and
Discussions, &c.

REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. — 2me Annee, No. X. H. Lotze— ' Sur la
Formation de la Notion d'Espace '. M. Straszewski — ' La Psychologic
est-elle une Science'? D. Nolen — ' L'Idealisme de Lange '. Notes et
Documents— ' Cause et Volonte,' par Alexander Main. ' Malebranche,
d'apres des manuscrits inedits,' par C. Henry. Analyses et comptes
rendus. Rev. des Periodiques. No. XI. Dr. Ch. Richet — ' La Douleur :
Etude de Psychologic Physiologique ' . G. Seailles — ' L'Esthetique de
Hartniann ' (I). Notes et Documents — ' Sur 1'iltude du Caractere,' par
le Dr. G. de Bon. Varietes — ' P. Pomponazzo et ses recents interpretes
italiens,' par L. Mabilleau. Analyses et comptes-rendus. Rev. des
Periodiques. No. XII. Seailles — ' L'Esthetique de Hartmann ' (II). D.
Nolen — ' Le Mecanisme de Lange '. P. Regnaud — ' Etudes de Philo-
sophic Indienne : L'Ecole Vedanta '. P. Beraud — ' Le Moi comme
Principe de la Philosophic '. Notes et Documents — ' Le Sens Commun :
Essai d' explication physiologique,' par F. Paulhan. Analyses et comptes-
rendus. Rev. des Periodiques.

LA CRITIQUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.— Vlme Annee, Nos. 33-47. C. Re-
nouvier— ' Le Cours de Philosophie positive est-il encore au courant
de la Science ? ' (33, 34) ; ' Le positivisme juge par M. Huxley — Les
sciences naturelles et les problemes qu'elles font surgir ' (36) ; ' Descartes
fondateur de la physique, d'apres Huxley ' (40) ; ' La question de la
mort traitee scientifiquement ' (41, 42, 47); 'Examen des Principes de
Psychologic de Herbert Spencer : Principes de la logique ' (38),
L'emploi des expressions mathematiques ' (42), 'La Perception —
L'origine des connaissances ' (45) ; ' Les labyrinthes de la rnetaphy-
sique : L'mfini et le continu — Une evolution personelle ' (44, 46). F.
Pillon— ' Monadisme et materialisme ' (38) ; ' La doctrine de Schopen-
hauer sur le libre arbitre : La conscience de la liberte ' (39) ; ' De quel-
ques objections au langage psychologique de Hume ' (40) ; ' La classi-
fication des elements de la connaissance selon Hume ' (46, 47).

156

LA FlLOSOFIA DELLE SCUOLE ITALIANE.— Vol. XVI. Disp. 2. L.

Ferri — 'L'io e la coscienza di se'. T. Maniiani — 'Delia psicologia di
Kant' (III. e ultimo). V. — 'L'idea panteistica nell' eta inoderna '. T.
Mamiani — ' Ancora del niiovi peripatetici secondo la Civiltd Cattolica '.
F. Acri — 'Assioco ovvero della morte, dialogo di Eschine'. N. N.—
* Appuriti sul Darwinismo'. Bibliografia, &c.

ZEITSCHRIFT FCR PHILOSOPHIE, &c. — Bd. LXXI. Heft 2. T. v.
Varnbiiler — ' Das reine Seyn : Organische Synthese oder Schema ? ' H.
Ulrici — ' Der Begriff der Eiitwickelung als philosophisches Princip '.
E. Dreher — 'Zuin Verstandniss der Sinneswahrnehmungen ' (I.). P.
Schroder — 'Das Verhaltniss der Causalitat zur objectiven Welt*. Re-
censionen. Bibliographic .

ZEITSCHRIFT FUR VOLKERPSYCHOLOGIE u. SPRACHWISSENSCHAFT. —
Bd. X. Heft. 2. H. Siebeck — ' Die asthetische Illusion und ihre psycho-
logische Begriindung. (Auf Anlass von : Volkelt, Der Symbolbegriff in
der neuesten dEsthetik.)' J. B. Meyer — ' Das Wesen der Einbildungskraft :
eine psychologische Betrachtung '. W. Dilthey — ' Ueber die Einbil-
dungskraf t der Dichter. (Mit Bucksicht auf Hermann Grimm, Goethe. )'
Beurtheilungen.

VlERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FtJR WISSENSCIIAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. — II.

Heft 1. H. Siebeck — 'Die metaphysischen Systeine in ihrem gemein-
samen Verhaltnisse zur Erfahrung ' (I). A. Schaffle — ' Ueber Recht
und Sitte vom Standpunkt der sociologischen Erweiterung der Zucht-
wahltheorie '. Schmitz-Dumont — 'Deduction des dreidimensionalen
Raumes'. B. Erdmann — 'Die Gliederung der Wissenschaften '. C.
Goring — ' Ueber den Begriff der Erfahrung ' (Schluss). K. Lasswitz
— ' Zur Verstandigung iiber den Gebrauch des Unendlichkeitsbegriffs '.
Recensionen. Selbstauzeigen. Philosophische Zeitschriften. Bibliograph-
ische Mittheilungen.

Corrections. — Prof. Wundt wishes to have it mentioned that in his
article on ' Philosophy in Germany' in MIND, No. VIII. p. 515, he errone-
ously ascribed to Prof. J. B. Meyer the discovery that it was the Wolffiau
Tetens from whom Kant borrowed his classification of the mental
faculties. The discovery was made by Prof. J. E. Erdmann ; see his
Grundriss der Gesch. der Philosophie, §§ 292, 7 ; 301, 2. Prof. Meyer,
in referring to Tetens, supposes that Kant may also have reached the
same result independently.

In No. VIII., p. 576, 1. 9, for forms read focus; p. 577, 1. 35, for

affected read effected.

No. io.] [April, 1878.

MIND

A QUARTERLY REVIEW

OF

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.

I.— NOTE-DEAFNESS,

FOR many years past, since the celebrated case of Dalton and
the researches of George Wilson brought the subject into pro-
minence, the common visual abnormality known as Colour-blind-
ness or Dichroism has largely engaged the attention of physio-
logists and psychologists ; and their observations have been of
great value in suggesting new and luminous views with respect
to the nature and mechanism of colour-perception. But there
is a somewhat analogous auditory abnormality, which I believe
to be at least equally common, yet of which I have nowhere
seen any definite account. We often hear it said in conversation
that such and such a person " does not know one note from
another" ; but most people seem to understand this statement
merely as applying to a knowledge of the written musical
symbols, not to the sounds which they represent. I have been
led, however, to make inquiries into some such cases, and I find
that the remark is literally true, in its widest acceptation, of
many persons ; in other words, that not a few men and women
are incapable of distinguishing in consciousness between the
sounds of any two tones lying within the compass of about half an
octave (or even more) from one another. Upon this abnormality
I have ventured to bestow the name of Note-Deafness ; and I
propose in the present paper to give a detailed account of
one such instance, in a person whom I have had abundant
opportunities of observing and experimenting upon. I need

12

158 Note-Deafness.

hardly point out, at the present day, the value of such special
observations. All psychologists are now agreed upon the neces-
sity for a greatly extended study of individual peculiarities : and
I shall be glad if the case which I am about to detail arouses
other workers to similar examinations of very unmusical persons
amongst their acquaintance.

My subject is a young man of thirty, sufficiently educated to
comprehend and answer in psychological terms all inquiries
made of him, and with a competent knowledge of the physio-
logical mechanism of hearing. From his youth upward he had
never taken any interest in music : but it was not till a couple
of years ago that he began to suspect a physical malformation as
the basis of his indifference. Since that time he has been sub-
jected to a number of experiments, and with the following
results.*

If any two adjacent notes upon a piano be struck, he is quite
incapable of perceiving any difference between them. After
careful and deliberate comparison, many times repeated, he
believes the two sounds to be exactly alike. If the same notes
be sung by the human voice, he is equally unable to discriminate
between them. And if one of the notes (as for example, C) be
struck, and the other (D) be sung, he does not perceive any
greater incongruity than when the same note (C) is both struck
and sung.

Further, if any note, say C, is played on the piano, and another
note at a considerable interval, say E or A in the same octave, is
subsequently played, he cannot notice any difference between
them. As the interval enlarges to an octave or more, as from G
to C' or A', he becomes gradually aware of a difference in pitch.
And when notes separated from one another by very considerable
intervals are struck, as for example C and C" or A", he is con-
scious of a very distinct unlikeness. In short, while he can
perceive variations in pitch, when extremely great, he cannot
perceive those minor variations which constitute what we call
notes.

Between the highest and lowest tones on a piano, he notices a
very great difference : and between the middle octave and either
of the extremes, he can also observe a strong contrast. But
when the notes are played in succession from one end of the
key-board to the other, he can nowhere perceive any distinct
line of demarcation between one tone and its neighbour. In-

* I have to thank my friend, Mr. G. J. Komanes, F.L.S., for kind assistance
in performing most of the experiments hereafter detailed, and for affording
me the use of the necessary apparatus. My acknowledgements are also due
to Mr. F. Galton, F.R.S., who very kindly gave me the benefit of his advice,
and helped me in the performance of one valuable experiment.

Note-Deafness.

159

stead of the notes being separated sharply from one another in
consciousness, like strips of coloured paper arranged in prismatic
order, they merge indistinguishably into one another, like the
colours of the prismatic spectrum itself. To him, three succes-
sive notes are not three clearly marked individual sounds, but
rather resemble three pieces of blue ribbon, so nearly alike in
shade that the eye cannot tell with certainty whether they are
the same or not.

This incapacity for distinguishing between tones of slightly
different pitch is not, however, the same in every octave. Ex-
periment revealed the fact that ill the middle octave of an
ordinary piano, my subject was able dimly to discriminate
between notes having the interval of a third from one another ;
that in the octaves immediately above and below the middle,
the utmost power of discriminating sank to a third-and-a-half or
a fourth ; and that in the highest and lowest octaves it required
a full seventh or more to impress his ear with a consciousness of
distinct difference. The following diagram roughly represents
these variations of discriminativeness — C standing for the middle
octave ; C' C" C'" for the octaves above ; and C, C/7 C,,, for the
octaves below, respectively.* It must be understood that, in
each case, the line represents the utmost limit of conjectural
discrimination.

c,,

c"

3rd

4th
5ih
6th
7th
8uc

s

^— N

w

/

/

\

J

/

\

/

\

/

\

* I have been strongly urged by a scientific authority of the greatest weight
in these matters to construct a regular curve with a large number of
ordinates, obtained by an application of Fechner's Calculus of Uncertainty to
the present case. But, in spite of the great temptation to give an
appearance of mathematical accuracy by such treatment, I have decided
only to draw up a rude diagram of the sort here presented. In fact, the
simulation of accuracy in such a case can only be delusive. My subject lias
to strain his attention painfully in order to perceive any difference whatso-
ever at the points indicated, and his answers, even so, are never very certain.

160 Note-Deafness.

It should also be noticed that in attempting to distinguish
between varying pitches he was greatly influenced by the volume
of sound. Thus, on a piano, where the volume could be kept
pretty constant, his discrimination was more uniform than with
the human voice, where differences of intensity confused him
sadly. Indeed, his judgment of pitch seemed in every case to
be largely supplemented by other considerations. For instance,
he could recognise the notes on a piano much better than on a
violin, because in the latter instrument his attention was dis-
tracted from the pure musical effect by the scraping and twang-
ing noises which necessarily accompany the tones. So, too, in
the human voice, he was misled by those inarticulate and
unmusical puffs or hisses which may be perceived along with
every note. Evidently his ear is far more sensitive to these non-
musical noises, relatively to pure tones, than is the case with
normal persons. Thus, in the highest notes on a piano, he could
hear a mere thud of the hammer, without any musical tone ; and
if a very shrill whistle was held close to his ear, he could only
notice a puff of air, which overbore in consciousness the weak
musical tone ; while he could readily detect the latter when the
whistle was removed to a short distance, so as to lessen the
volume of the puff. This compensatory sensitiveness to indefinite
noises seems to serve him in place of timbre as a means of re-
cognising different voices or musical instruments. A piano is,
for him, a musical tone, plus a thud and a sound of wire-works ;
a fiddle is a musical tone, plus a scraping of resin and cat-gut ;
while an organ is a musical tone, plus a puff of air and an in-
distinct noise of bellows.

It might be supposed that mere carelessness of observation
led to this want of musical discrimination. Such, however, is
not probably the case. As a boy, my subject was trained to
sing with the remainder of his family, but never succeeded in
learning anything in the way of music. At sixteen, being un-
aware of the radical nature of his deficiency, he took regular
lessons for some time, but was given up as incorrigible. Later
on in life, he put himself to the trouble of learning the notes on
the piano mechanically, in order to understand the theory of
sound, and experimented to some extent with acoustical instru-
ments. It was a series of observations made on the siren and
Savart's wheels that first suggested to him the extent of the
difference between his own auditory capabilities and those of
normal individuals.

If a large number of ordinates were employed, they would suggest an idea
of absolute certainty at each stage, which could only mislead a reader who
had not himself watched the experiments.

Note-Deafness. 161

His attempts at singing, indeed, form some of the most in-
structive phenomena in the whole case. He will sing " God
save the Queen" with scarcely a single note correct, and even
the few which coincide with the true ones seem to have come
right by accident. If a scale be sung to him, and he be asked
to repeat the same sounds afterwards, he will utter the articulate
words " Do, re, mi" &c., but run up and down the scale in a dis-
orderly manner, singing tones which do not stand in any musical
relation whatsoever to one another.

Passing from the perception of separate tones to their effects
in combination, experiments revealed the fact that a discord was
no more unpleasant to him than a consonance. Though he was
warned, so far as language would permit, of the sort of sound
which he ought to expect in a discord, he could not perceive any
of that roughness or harshness which was pointed out to him.
Any two notes sounded together seemed equally agreeable to
him, or, to speak more correctly, equally indifferent.

In order to test his power of discriminating between harmonies
and discords, he was tried with a pair of movable organ-pipes,
which could be made to produce beats of any desired frequency.
It was found that when the beats were very conspicuous to an
ordinary ear, he heard them readily and distinguished them as
interruptions of the sound : but when they were more frequent,
he did not find them disagreeable, though he still cognised them
intellectually as a blurring of the sound, which he compared to
the buzzing of a bee : and when they sank to a mere discord, he
could not • observe the roughness at all, nor indeed could he
clearly distinguish very rapidly recurring beats while still mode-
rately audible as such to normal ears.

The natural interval of an octave does not affect him at all
differently from any other interval. He can perceive no greater
resemblance or congruity between C and C', than between C and
D' or C and E'. In short, the whole distinction of notes, based
upon numerical ratios and their corresponding nerve-fibres, is
completely lost upon him ; and he can only apprehend that of
pitch, based upon large absolute differences of frequency.

As regards the general capabilities of hearing, my subject does
not seem to differ much from ordinary persons. Several tests,
both of distance and lowness, were employed, and they resulted
in a conviction that his power of distinguishing non-musical
sounds is up to the average, and his hearing is unusually acute.
Tried with one of Mr Galton's little instruments for testing the
limits of auditory impressions, he was able to hear notes quite as
shrill and quite as low as most other people. For the resonance
of a vibrating string and the ticking of a watch, he was rather
beyond the average in acuteness. But he is a bad mimic of

162 Note-Deafness.

voices or dialects, and speaks French, to which he has been
accustomed from childhood, with a decided English accent.
However, as he is himself conscious of the two last-named facts,
and can notice the badness of his own imitations, this defect lies
more probably in the motor mechanism of speech than in the
sensory mechanism of hearing.

With reference to the aesthetic results of these abnormalities,
my subject is almost totally careless in the matter of music, for
which he has no appreciation whatsoever. He recognises a con-
siderable number of tunes when played or sung, but he seems to
do so by the time alone. Whenever a piece specially strikes
him, it is a lively air from an opera bouffe, or the rollicking
chorus to an old English song in which the time is strongly
marked. He is equally pleased with the piece if it is played or
sung out of tune, and enjoys it just as much when he sings it
himself to notes of his own composition. He can distinctly
appreciate, however, the beauty of a single note, struck in isola-
tion, and perceives its aesthetic superiority to a mere noise. He
likes the sound of a full and rich tone, produced by striking a
finger-glass ; and he is fond of church bells and chimes. He
has also a delicate ear for metre in poetry, and is attracted by
the music of Catullus, of Tennyson, and of Swinburne.

As to the hereditary aspect of the case, I have not been able
personally to make observations upon other members of his
family, but they have obligingly supplied me with the following
particulars in answer to inquiries by letter. The father was
quite unmusical, but not note-deaf, being able to distinguish
between two adjacent notes on the piano, though incapable of
observing any special relation between a tone and its octave.*
The mother " is fond of music, vocal and instrumental, but does
not sing or play except after a poor fashion". The remoter
ancestors are described as being, on the whole, markedly un-
musical. Of the children, a brother was at the same stage as the
father, but exceeded him in the ability to tell when a singer was
out of tune. The sisters are all more or less musical, and one of
them possesses a fine voice. But it is worth notice that one of
my subject's sisters had no aperture in the right ear, the auditory
meatus being closed by a membrane ; a fact which may possibly
point to some hereditary defect in the structure of the organ.
Unfortunately, no operation was ever performed upon her, so
that it is impossible to say whether the internal ear was normal
or otherwise. On the whole, the family is described as " in this
respect only very moderately gifted ".

*His own words are, " I cannot perceive any greater likeness between
the two C's than between C and B".

Note-Deafness. 163

I have been careful thus to place before the reader all the
facts of the case, unencumbered by any hypothetical explana-
tions, because whatever may be the value of my theory on the
subject, the facts themselves must possess a great interest for all
inquirers into the nature of our sensory system. But I shall
now venture to offer a few suggestions as to the possible
physical deficiences which underlie the above-noted psychical
peculiarities.

Two principal explanations may be advanced. Either the
deficiency may be in the peripheral organs or it may be in the
nervous centres. We may examine each hypothesis separately.

If the deficiency is in the peripheral organs, we may plausibly
account for it thus. While in the normal ear each one of Corti's
organs may be supposed, on Helmholtz's theory, to be tuned in
harmony with a very limited range of tones — or, in objective
phraseology, to be capable of vibrating sympathetically with air-
waves having very nearly its own natural rate of oscillation
only, — we may suppose that in the case under consideration
each one of Corti's organs is badly tuned, so that it can answer
to a large number of tones — or, in objective phraseology, can
vibrate sympathetically with air-waves possessing a consider-
able range of frequency. If this view be taken, we can under-
stand why notes lying close to one another on the gamut do not
arouse differential sensations, because they would both, in that
case, stimulate the same fibres ; and it would be necessary to
take notes whose frequencies differ widely from one another in
order to stimulate separate fibres each time, and so arouse a
differential sensation. Again, on the same hypothesis, we can
understand why the octave is not perceived by my subject as
more congruous than any other interval ; because the harmonics
of each note would stimulate not only the fibre, ordinarily
assigned to them, but also adjacent fibres, and so a fifth or a
seventh would be indistinguishable from an octave. Lastly, this
view accords best with the fact that my subject does not notice
any superiority in a consonance over a dissonance ; because, if
the system of damping in Corti's organs was deficient, we may
suppose that the very faint interruptions which are the cause of
discord would not have sufficient duration to allow of a cessation
in the vibratory motions of the organs, and these would conse-
quently yield a continuous state of consciousness, undisturbed
by that roughness which results from intermittent stimulation.
The point in frequency of beats at which they ceased to be
distinguishable would be, in that case, the measure of the
damping powers possessed by the organs.

If, on the other hand, we assume that the deficiency exists in
the nervous centres, and suppose them to be so ill-differentiated

164 Note-Deafness.

that they do not yield separate sensations for the stimulation of
each separate fibre, we shall be enabled to explain all the pheno-
mena except one, in a way that is perhaps simpler of compre-
hension. We may then imagine that each fibre is excited in
the same manner as in normal cases, but that some ataxy of the
centres prevents the stimulations from being differentially cog-
nised. This explanation would accord well with the known
phenomenon of diplacusis, where a single note is heard as of
different pitch by the right and left ears respectively : in which
case we can hardly avoid the supposition that corresponding
fibres on each side are irregularly connected with non-corres-
ponding central ganglia. But there will still remain the difficulty
—why does not a dissonance produce its ordinary unpleasant
effect ? I do not see how we can escape this problem, except
by supposing a peripheral malformation : and as, for this parti-
cular ear, we are compelled to assume it in the one case, perhaps
it is simpler to assume it as the cause in all the others.

And now I should like to point out the special bearings of
this abnormality upon aesthetic questions. In the first place,
the instance I have given shows how largely our aesthetic feel-
ings may depend upon peculiarities of sensation alone, uncom-
plicated by emotional or intellectual differences. My subject is
often " much annoyed by the imputation of bad taste " which is
cast upon him whenever he says that he " does not care for
music". This imputation might fairly be made if he deliberately
preferred bad music to good. But, as a matter of fact, the whole
sensuous basis of music is utterly blank to him. He must not
be expected to admire delicate shades of expression which he
literally and really cannot hear. Again, what we call lad taste
means in most cases the deliberate preference for combinations
which arouse low, vulgar, or common-place emotions, over those
which arouse high, sympathetic, or delicate emotions : but in
my subject's case, most musical combinations can evidently rouse
no emotions at all, and so he cannot fairly be credited with any
kind of taste, good or bad. I believe inquiry would reveal
the fact that many others are similarly situated, but do not
really know the nature of their own deficiency. Such persons
are very little likely to turn their attention to questions of
sound ; and it was the mere accident of the bent taken by his
physical inquiries that led my subject to investigate his own
case. There is therefore every reason why psychologists should
hunt up these unmusical persons, and experiment upon them in
the same manner as has been adopted in the present instance.

But while my subject is incapable of appreciating music, he
can enter into all those aesthetic auditory feelings which are not
based on the sensuous groundwork of harmony and discord. This

Note-Deafness. 1G5

is the case both as regards the pleasure derived from simple tones,
the pleasure derived from metrical arrangement, and (to some
slight extent) the pleasure derived from the higher undiffer-
entiated emotional element in music. There is even a certain
"compensatory" heightening of his gratification in the second of
these instances at least.

First, as to simple tones. If we accept the theory of Helm-
holtz, that noises are heard by means of the vestibule, while
musical sounds are cognised through the instrumentality of the
cochlea, it will follow that the nerves in the latter portion of the
ear, being less frequently stimulated than those of the former
part, will give rise to more pleasurable sensations. This effect
we might naturally expect to remain, whatever might be the
peculiarities of minor organisation within the cochlea itself.
And the facts in the present case exactly coincide with this
supposition. All musical tones are in themselves pleasing to
my subject ; and he is even able to discriminate between a rich
and a poor note ; presumably because the former calls into action
an immense number of Corti's organs, while the latter, though it
probably rouses sympathetic vibrations in a larger. area of those
organs than would be the case in a normal ear, yet affects a
smaller total of fibres than a note with numerous harmonics.

Next, as to the perception of time and metre. One constantly
hears it said by persons unaccustomed to psychological analysis —
that is to say, by ninety-nine out of a hundred educated men —
" What a curious thing that So-and-so, who writes verses, or
who is so fond of poetry, should not care for music 1" In reality,
there is very little connection between the two sources of pleasure.
The one is mainly sensuous in its ground- work, and depends upon
the phenomena of harmony and discord ; ^the other is mainly
intellectual in its ground-work,* and depends partly on the fact
of expectation, and partly on that of symmetrical recurrence. As
my subject is unable to recognise tunes by the notes, and is con-
sequently forced to recognise them by their time alone, his ear
has been considerably trained in this direction. But the fact
that the two are usually combined in music makes most people
unable to distinguish analytically between them ; and they con-
sequently express great surprise when they find a capacity to
appreciate the one, without the capacity to appreciate the other.
"Whereas, analogy would lead us to expect that a person whose
attention was never distracted by tune would become unusually
discriminative of delicate effects in metre. This I believe to be
the case with my subject.

* I say " in its ground-work" in either case, "because of course the higher
effects of both are neither sensuous nor intellectual, but purely emotional.

166 Note-Deafness.

Finally, as to the higher emotional element in music. Mr.
Herbert Spencer has shown how the emotional expression of
music is derived from the emotional expression of everyday life.
But it is, so to speak, the ultimate outcome of that expression,
pushed to the very highest pitch of delicate discrimination.
Accordingly, we cannot expect that persons with less than
average auditory endowments will be sensible to more than its
broadest distinctions. And this is just the amount of apprecia-
tion exhibited by my subject. He can to some extent recognise
the general tone of a piece — lively, gay, bright, subdued, tender,
solemn, or majestic : but he cannot recognise those minor changes
of feeling which are exhibited within the limits of a uniform
composition. Of course his discrimination of the prevailing tone
is largely due to time and degree of loudness ; but it seems also
to be influenced to some extent by the general pitch of the piece,
and by the alternations of high and low notes. And it is notice-
able that while he cares very little or not at all for purely
musical pieces, where everything depends upon that delicate
distribution of harmonies which is to him an absolute blank,
he is slightly affected by bright popular tunes, in which the
emotional element is pronounced, and in which rapid and strik-
ing variations keep alive the attention by the diversity of their
arrangement. To put the matter simply, he understands in
music only the part that is not strictly musical. And, as might
be expected, he generally speaks in a rather monotonous voice,
little modulated by emotional tones.

There are two other facts in connexion with this case worth
notice for their wider psychological bearing. The first is this :
my subject seems absolutely indifferent to the vast mass of
musical sounds. If he is engaged in mental work, and a German
brass-band or a barrel-organ is grinding discord under his very-
ears, he is quite unconscious of the fact until his attention is
called to it. He suffers much from headache ; but even in that
m6rbid state of nerve, when noise is so intensely painful to most
of us, he " would not perceive a drum-and-fife band just outside
his window unless somebody happened to notice it in speaking
to him ". Music, in fact, under ordinary circumstances, quite
escapes his observation. The second point is the converse aspect
of the same peculiarity. Whenever circumstances compel his
attendance at a concert, a choral service, or a musical party,
where no other occupation is possible, he suffers from the most in-
tense ennui, which " becomes after a time almost unsupportable".
The music being an absolute matter of indifference to him, the
effect is the same as if he " were made to sit quietly in an attitude
of attention for two or three hours, while nothing whatsoever
was taking place".

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 167

In conclusion, I should like to add that if any competent
physicist or physiologist wishes to verify any of the above state-
ments, or try any further experiments, I would endeavour to
make arrangements with my subject for -the purpose, on re-
ceiving a communication to that effect.

GKANT ALLEN.

II.— THE QUESTION" OF VISUAL PERCEPTION
IN GEKMANY. (II.)

IN my first paper on this subject an attempt was made to give
a rough sketch of the field of experimental research recently
worked by the physiologists. The fruits of these labours have,
as was there hinted, been turned to different accounts, since
they have been taken up and embodied in quite dissimilar
theories of the visual space-perception. In the present paper I
purpose giving some account of these rival modes of interpreta-
tion, and indicating, as impartially as possible, what seems to
be the relative value of these hypotheses.

It will be convenient to group these theories, after the
example of Helmholtz, in two main divisions, the Innate or
Intuitive and the Derivative theories ; or, to adopt the German
expressions the Nativistic and the Empiristic or Genetic theo-
ries. By the former are meant those modes of interpreting the
phenomena which lay most emphasis on certain supposed
instinctive dispositions and innate organic arrangements ; by the
latter those which accentuate the effects of experience, expe-
rience being of course conceived to be possible prior to the
formation of the visual perception of space. The first class
regard this perception more as something originally given, the
latter conceive of it as a gradual process of growth or acqui-
sition.

This division is necessarily a very rough one. The Nativists
have always allowed that our visual knowledge of space owes
something to experience, recollection, and inference. On the
other hand the Empirist is now able, by means of the hypothesis
of evolution and the law of heredity, to accept in a modified
form some of the positions of the other side.

After reviewing the principal theories on the two sides, I will,
in conclusion, touch on their relation to the space-problem as
raised philosophically by Kant. With that problem the ques-
tion between the Nativists and Empirists is, as we shall see, by
no means identical.

168 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

I. The Nativists.

Beginning with the Nativists, we find a series of ingenious
attempts to recast the innate hypothesis in accordance with the
results of a progressive observation of the phenomena. We must
content ourselves with considering some of the main develop-
ments of this theoretic movement.

The basis of the intuitive theory was laid by Johannes
Miiller,* who sought to bring the physiology of the senses into
agreement with Kant's peculiar conception of space as a sub-
jective mental form.-f- This he did in the case of visual percep-
tion by supposing that the retina has a direct knowledge of its
own local arrangements. An impression on the retina — that is,
a sensation of light — is regarded by Miiller as a perception of
the condition of a particular nervous fibre,J and the excitation
of any retinal element necessarily involves the consciousness of
its local peculiarities. And this perception of the local order of
the various parts of the retina is all that is immediately seen in
visual perception. " The retina," he says, " sees in every field of
vision only itself in its spacial extension in the condition of
excitation (Affection)!' It is sensible of itself when most at rest
and perfectly closed, as " spacially dark".

This primitive subjective intuition gives immediately the
relations of space in two dimensions, including relative position,
distance, and apparent magnitude. Only since the retinal
picture inverts the real object, this subjective form does not
accurately teach the property of direction (right, left, &c.). The
reference of this intuitive form to external objects is regarded by
Miiller as an act of inference depending on recollected expe-
rience. Thus the erect position of objects, their distance, and so
their real magnitude, have to be learnt. Single vision, or the
combination of the impressions of the two retinas in a percep-
tion of one object in one and the same space-position, is thus
accounted for by Miiller. The corresponding or identical
elements of the retinas have from the first the same space-con-
sciousness. This arises from the fact that in the cliiasma (the
point of intersection of the optic nerves) each fibre coming from
the brain splits up into two threads running to identical points.
Hence the two impressions coalesce in a single perception. This

* Zur vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtssinnes, p. 56 ; Handbuch der
Physiologie, II., pp. 262, 350, 361.

t This is asserted by thinkers as different as Helmholtz and Stumpf. Oil
the other hand, W. Tobias thinks Kant stands to Miiller in the relation of
a midwife rather than of a father. (See Grenzen der Philosophic, pp. 106,
107.)

J This is pointed out by Ueberhorst, Die Entstehung der Gesichtsivahrneh-
mung, p. 129.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 169

is the first form of the Theory of Identity, a hypothesis which
has vigorously maintained its place in German physiological
speculation.

Midler's way of regarding the visual intuition of space as sub-
jective or retinal has been adopted by only a small number of his
followers. Some of the physiologists who immediately succeeded
him endeavoured by means of it to explain certain of the more
intricate facts of vision. Thus, for example, Kecklinghausen
ingeniously argued that the discrepancy between the apparent
and the real right angle arises from the fact that the surface of
the retina and the axis of vision meet obliquely, and as a conse-
quence of this the optical images of the lines containing a right
angle in the retinal image could form an oblique angle. A
curious development of Miiller's theory of retinal perception
appears in the doctrine of Ueberweg* that the magnitude which
we attribute to our retina, after the analogy of the image of the
retina of other persons, does not constitute its true circumference;
that this latter rather coincides with our whole field of vision ;
and that, conversely, the apparent magnitude of an external
object is in reality only that of its actual retinal image.f A
survival (in a modified form) of this subjective theory will be
found in the doctrine of monocular space-perception held by
Hering and Kuiidt, of which I shall speak presently.

It may be supposed that this notion of a subjective or retinal
form of space which has to be referred to external objects by
help of experience, would not permanently satisfy the nativists
themselves. It would seem more natural and consistent to
extend the innate capacity of the retina by attributing to it an
original perception of the space external to itself ; and this was
done by means of the Theory of Projection J which was main-
tained in Germany by Tourtual, as also by Volkmann in one of
his earlier works. According to this hypothesis the retina has
an innate capability of projecting its impressions outwards in
the divisions of certain straight lines, as the axes of the imping-
ing pencils of rays.§ This theory was clearly an extension of

* Zeitschrift fur rationelle Medicin, Vol. V., pp. 268-282.

t This bold idea is criticised by Stumpf, Ueber den psychologischen Ur-
sprung der Raumvorstellung, pp. 191, 192. Mr. Monck appears to put forward
a doctrine of a perception of the retina not very different from that of
Ueberweg, Space and Vision, p. 34 if.

J This is Wundt's name lor the theory (Physiol. Psychologic, p. 632).
Helmholtz uses the expression to denote the empirical doctrine that impres-
sions are referred to points of external space by help of certain mental
processes, as distinguished from the hypothesis of identity (Physiol. Optik,
p. 441).

§ Or the lines of vision (Visirlinien), i.e., the normals passing through
the centre of curvature which_nearly coincide with these axes.

170 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

the idea that space is originally seen, since it makes instinctive
the perception of direction and of the erect position of objects
which Miiller had regarded as acquired. According to this
hypothesis objects are seen single, not because their images fall
on identical points, but because the rays impinging on the two
retinas meet in the object which emits or reflects them.

A closer study of the phenomena of binocular vision showed
that both the Theory of Identity and that of Projection in their
earlier form were beset with insuperable difficulties. It is
obvious that the latter fails to account for the presence of double
images. If the retinal images are through an innate tendency
projected in the direction of the rays or lines of vision, we ought
(as Wundt observes) to see everything single under all circum-
stances (since the rays always intersect in the luminous point).
This difficulty was felt by Nagel, who endeavoured to modify the
theory. According to him the two retinas are projected indepen-
dently on different spherical surfaces, having the points of intersec-
tion of the lines of vision — approximately the centres of the eye-
balls— as their centres. These surfaces intersect in the point of
fixation ; and in the case of vision with parallel axes, meet in a
single plane.* While the Projection-theory accounts for the
coalescence of the retinal images but not for the facts of double
vision, the Theory of Identity, though explaining in the main
the facts of double vision, fails to clear up the phenomena of
single vision in the case of disparate (non-identical) points.
Briickef attempted to obviate this difficulty by saying that the
coalescence of impressions in these cases may be effected by
ocular movements which successively bring all points of the
object on the identical centres of the yellow spots (points of
fixation). This supposition was plainly disproved by the experi-
ments of Dove with momentary electrical illumination.J
(MiND No. IX., p. 22.)§

A further modification of the Theory of Identity had there-
fore to be made before it could be accepted as an adequate
interpretation of the facts. This has been attempted by one or
two recent writers with very considerable ingenuity, and a fine
appreciation of the complexity of the phenomena needing
explanation. I refer more particularly to the hypotheses put
forth by Panum and E. Bering, who not only seek to bring the

* Nagel called this process of projection a " constructive " operation. He
took a considerable step in the direction of the Empiristic hypothesis by
affirming that this projection took place by -help of the muscular feelings.
See his work, Das Sehen mit zwei Augen, pp. 5, 99 ff.

t Miiller's Archiv, 1841, p. 459.

j Berichte der Berliner AJcademie, 1841, p. 252.

§ Further references to my previous article will be made under the form
No. IX.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 171

hypothesis of Identity into agreement with the results of recent
research, but carry out the nativistic method yet more con-
sistently by attributing to the retina an innate perception of
distance, or the third dimension of space.

Panum* accepts so much of the hypothesis of Projection as
to refer the perception of height and breadth (two dimensions of
space) to an innate and specific mode of feeling the relation
of the single retinal points to their lines of projection.-)- At the
same time he accepts and modifies the hypothesis of Identity
by saying that with every point of the one retina there is co-
ordinated from the first, not simply an identical point, but a
corresponding circle of sensation ( Empfindungskreis) . When
identical points are excited we must see single ; with correspond-
ing points (those contained in the corresponding circle) we may
see single. What determines whether this coalescence shall
take place in the case of corresponding points which are non-
identical, is the presence in the circle of sensation of a con-
tour resembling that of the given point a of the other retina. At
the same time different feelings of depth or distance would
arise according as the point a combined with this or that point
of its circle of sensation. This perception of depth or solidity
is called by Panum a sensation or synergy of " the binocular
parallax ".J By means of these innate capabilities of the retina
Panum seeks to cover the intricate phenomena of the limits of
single vision, and the perception of relief (No. IX., pp. 18-22).
In addition to these innate capabilities or energies of the retina,
he postulates " a binocular energy of colour combination," by
help of which two colours seen binocularly are able to mix, and
also " a binocular synergy of alternation," which is to account
for the phenomenon of non-combination or rivalry of the two
fields (No. IX., p. 23). In this way Panum endows the retina
with quite a wealth of distinct innate powers. He may be
taken as the most consistent and courageous representative of
the nativistic hypothesis.

* Physiologische Untersuchungen ueber das Sehen mit zwei Augen, pp. 59,
82 if.

t This is said to arise out of " a definite co-ordination and quality of
the nerve-elements of the central region of the opticus ".

J By the expression " binocular parallax " is meant the circumstance that
an object point lying behind or before the point of fixation will project its
image on points of the two retinas unequally distant from the centres.
The effect of this may be either a perception of double images, or one of
relief or solidity. The stereoscopic arrangement imitates this, by causing
the image of a nearer or more distant point of the scene to fall on the two
retinas at unequal distances from their centres instead of on corresponding
regions.

172 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

The peculiar theory by which E. Hering* attempts to inter-
pret the facts of visual perception may be looked on as the most
able and convincing presentation of the nativistic point of view.
It allows more to the empirists than Panum's hypothesis, and
by carefully marking off the region of innate perception and
empirical acquisition, seems at first sight well fitted to resolve
the difficult questions here at issue.

Bering's theory sets out with the conception of an original
and purely sensuous form of space, which has to be filled in and
completed by elements of experience. This space is not subjec-
tive in the sense of Miiller's doctrine that the retina has an
original knowledge of its own local arrangements and spacial
dimensions. It is from the first intuited as a form or mould
into which objects may be projected. It is true that, when
dealing with the construction of the monocular field, Hering
argues as though the retina had a direct consciousness of its own
spaciality ; yet, as Helmholtz points out (Physiol. Optik, p.
594) this idea appears to stand in direct contradiction to his
main theory as expounded in connexion with binocular
vision.']'

According to this main theory, the original sensorium has
consciousness, but not self-consciousness. It feels (empfindet)
light and space, but does not place itself over against that which
is felt as an ego. Hence it does not see things in this or that
(absolute) direction, since direction pre-supposes a reference of
all space-relations to an ego as a centre. We can only speak of
the spacial relations which objects have among themselves in
this original subjective visual space. As, however, there must
be some starting-point to which all spacial relations have to be
referred, we may most conveniently select the main point (Kern-
punkt) of the field of vision, that is, the point which answers
to the centre of the yellow spot of both retinas. This point has
no definite place, and can, like every other point of the field,

* Beitrage zur Physiologic. The theory is summed up in section 124.
Some of its positions are adopted by Mr. T. K. Abbott in his Sight and
Touch.

t Hering introduces this idea of the retina's knowledge of its own spacial
relations in order to explain the illusions of the single eye in the estima-
tion of linear magnitude, &c. (See No. IX., p. 9.) He supposes that the
eye measures the distance of two retinal points, not according to the length
of the retinal arc, but according to that of the chord. This becomes shorter
— in relation to the arc — as the distance of the two points increases. Hence
the excessive estimation of a divided, as contrasted with an undivided, line,
of acute as contrasted with obtuse angles, and so on. This theory, which
is also maintained by Kundt, is well criticised by Helmholtz, Physiol.
Optik, pp. 571-2, and by Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, p. 569.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 173

only be spacially determined in relation to other points simul-
taneously felt.*

The images of the various retinal points group themselves
about this main point by help of certain " space- feelings ". Every
retinal point has first of all a peculiar value of height and
breadth (two dimensions) which increases with the distance of
the point from the centre of the yellow spot, and which is of an
opposite nature in the case of points above and below, to the
right and the left of this point. These feelings of height and
breadth constitute " the feeling of direction " for the place in
the common field. Identical points have the same values. In
this way the retina is able to order its impressions in two direc-
tions.

In addition to these two " space-feelings " there is a third —
namely, the feeling of depth. This feeling is of equal but
opposite value in the case of identical points, so that their com-
bined value is zero. Symmetrically lying points of the two
retinas are in all respects equivalent. The value of the inner
retinal semicircles is positive — that is, answers to greater depth
or distance ; that of the outer semicircles is negative, answering
to greater proximity.f Identical points, having the depth-value
zero, appear through an immediate act of sensation in a plane
called the main surface in the field of vision. J

This surface has at first no definite distance. There is in this
primitive vision of space no reference to far and near. This
arises only after the mental image ( Vorstellungsbildj of our own
body is on every occasion " built " into the visual space. This
same recognition of the body as a starting-point in visual space
is the basis of the sense of direction (absolute direction) which,
as Hering himself has shown (No. IX., p. 13), is estimated as
diverging or radiating from a point lying midway between the
centres of the two eyes.§

At the same time Hering allows much to the influence of

* Hering distinctly says that in this subjective space we have nothing to
do with. " absolute determinations answering to real space," but only with
" relations of single points among themselves ".

t The meaning of this will be seen by a reference to the fact that if a
given point a is fixated, a point 6, lying behind a, will project its images
on the two inner halves of the retina, while another point c, lying in front
of (t, will be imaged on the two outer halves.

J The only points which have the same values of height, breadth, and
de; >th, are those lying in the middle longitudinal (vertical) section of the
retinas.

§ Before this representation is added, the eyes see in parallel directions.
The representative image of the body is of course itself visual. Hering
thinks it is only a want of imaginative power which prevents us from
adding a complete intuition of our body to the visual field as we do in
dreaming.

13

174 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

later acquisition in rendering precise the perception of distance *
So, too, lie recognises the effects of experience in the combina-
tion of the images of disparate retinal points in single percep-
tions. Herein he differs from Panum. He seems to hold,
however, that with growing practice in attention double images
might be distinguished where they now appear to the ordinary
observer as inseparable.

Only one other theory on the nativistic or intuitive side
needs to be dwelt on here. This is the doctrine of visual space
recently unfolded by Stumpf in his able and interesting volume,
Ueber den psycliologischen Ursprung der Raumvorstellung.
Stumpf's work is largely critical and polemical, and his own
theory is given rather as a supplement to his systematic discus-
sion of the various rival hypotheses. Moreover the author is
not, like the writers just enumerated, so immediately concerned
with an interpretation of facts reached in a special department
of scientific research, but rather aims at giving greater philoso-
phic precision to the problem of our space-knowledge. Never-
theless, since it is so closely related in its main features to some
of the preceding nativistic theories, it will be well to include it
in our present review.

Stumpf holds firmly to the notion of an original sensuous
space. He is, further, very clear as to the non-existence of any
original knowledge of retinal space. Extension and quality
(light, colour) are " psychological parts " — that is to say, insepar-
able— and so " partial contents," and are to be contrasted with
" independent contents," which may be separated. The presen-
tation of space in two dimensions (Fldclienvorstellung') is original
or intuitive, though it depends on certain physical causes or
stimuli. Thus, instead of Lotze's acquired mental local signs
(vide infra) he would postulate certain physical local signs —
namely, the local separation and order of the nerve-fibres them-
selves.

Depth or distance (third dimension) is directly felt in sensuous
intuition like the other two dimensions.-)- It is originally felt
by the single eye, and not first by the two eyes. Like the other
dimensions too, it has its physical causes or stimuli. Eespecting
these stimuli, Stumpf expresses himself with considerable
diffidence. He seems disposed to allow most weight to the
circumstance of accommodation, which may, by altering the

* Nevertheless he altogether rejects the idea that this is assisted by any
kind of motor feelings, the existence of which he denies.

t Stumpf has an elaborate argument in favour of the proposition that
distance is originally given in visual sensation. One of the reasons urged
is that the perception of a surface, since it involves two sides, must also
involve depth of distance.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 175

degree of tension of the retina, modify in some way the optical
nervous process. According to this view we see originally a
distance which varies with the degree of accommodation. Yet
Stumpf does not finally decide between this hypothesis and
that of an original intuition of some single distance (adopted by
Hering). For the rest, he allows a large part in the develop-
ment of our mature perception of distance to those elements of
association (distinctness of image, feeling of convergence, &c.), on
which the Empirists are wont to insist (see p. 217 ff.).

Among the circumstances which thus determine or render pre-
cise the perception of distance is that of binocular parallax. This
physical element affects consciousness by partially or completely
separating the. retinal images of a point lying before or behind
the point of fixation. The conscious feeling thus arising (either
a sense of confusion in the image or a perception of distinct
images) is associated with the idea of a definite distance through
the representation of a certain alteration in the mode of fixation.

But now comes a difficulty. If we first present to the eyes a
concave surface, and then its obverse convex side, or if we ex-
change the two stereoscopic pictures of a concave surface, the
retinal images of the points about the centre (fixation-point) will
fall in the second case on regions of the two retinas exactly
corresponding to the regions affected in the first instance.* Yet
we are at once able to say, even with a momentary electric
illumination, whether the points are nearer or further than the
centre of the object fixated. Why should these two composite
impressions be distinguished at all, seeing that pairs of correspond-
ing points are affected in the two cases ? Further, how is it we
know that this difference is one of before and behind the fixation-
point ? Stumpf answers the first of these questions in the same
way as Helmholtz by saying that the impression of the one retina
is or may be consciously distinguished from that of the other. The
second question he answers by he]p of the following hypothesis,
which is essentially the Projection-hypothesis as modified by
Nagel : — Each retina from the first projects its images by an
immediate act of sensation on a spheroidal surface (concave)
lying at a certain distance.f The two surfaces intersect in the
point of fixation. As a consequence of this we are able to give
a different place (namely, one before and behind the fixation-

* That is to say, a point p will in the second case image itself on a point
of the left retina exactly corresponding to (that is, equi-distant from its
retinal centre with) the point of the right retina which received the image
of p in the first case. Similarly with respect to the point of the right retina
excited in the second instance.

t One must suppose this to be given by the degree of accommodation (see
before).

176 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

point) to the double images arising in the two cases just
described. What the difference of distances between the two
points thus distinguished actually amounts to must, of course,
be learnt by means of the associations already referred to.

With respect to the much-vexed question of single and double
vision, Stumpf follows closely in the wake of Bering and the
other advocates of the Theory of Identity. Like Hering, he
appears to think that the power of recognising double images
may be indefinitely increased by exercise. He allows, further,
a considerable part to the imagination, as guided by past experi-
ence, in the fusion of the impressions of disparate (non-corres-
ponding) points. Stumpf thinks there must be a physical cause
for this identity of localisation, and he is inclined to content
himself with the bare fact of the local similarity of the corres-
ponding fibres, leaving undetermined the question whether they
preserve their symmetrical position throughout their course, or
even become united in single fibres (as Mliller assumed).

Fully to criticise the theories here roughly outlined would
require too much time. It may be well, however, to mention
two or three principal objections to which the nativistic hypo-
thesis, in the several forms in which it has so far presented itself,
appears to be specially exposed.

(a) First of all, then, it has not, in the judgment of such
trained observers as Helmholtz, Wundt, and others, fulfilled the
first conditions of a scientific hypothesis, by reconciling itself
with all the ascertained facts.* Thus, for example, Helmholtz
brings forward as an objection to Hering's doctrine — that we
measure linear magnitude by the chord which unites the two
extreme retinal points affected — the fact that the illusions to be
explained by this curious hypothesis occur just as certainty
when the difference between the length of the chord and of the
arc is no longer distinguishable (Physiol. Optik, p. 572). Again,
the theory of Identity cannot be said to have adapted itself to
the fact emphasised by Helmholtz, that not only the images of
disparate points sometimes coalesce, but those of corresponding-
points are sometimes seen double. The circumstances called in
to explain these discrepancies (want of attention, inaccurate
fixation, &c.), do not, in the light of the collective evidence, appear

* It must be allowed, however, that the testimony of different observers
respecting facts is far from being as uniform as one could wish. To give a
single instance : Helmholtz asserts that vertical magnitudes — e.g., the
height of a mountain — appear greater wThen seen indirectly on the confines
of the field than when viewed directly. Classen in his last work (rule
infra) denies this, and maintains exactly the reverse. Objects are said to
look smaller, and especially shorter, in indirect than in direct vision.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 177

to be at all as influential as they are here represented. Once
more, Helmholtz and Wundt urge against Bering's hypothesis
of feelings of depth, that according to this theory the double
images of a side-point at a distance from the observer unequal
to that of the point of fixation ought to appear at different
distances, whereas Hering himself admits that this is not so as
a rule.*

(b) In the second place, it may be objected to this hypothesis
that it is beset with certain inherent difficulties. Thus, in each
of the forms it assumes above, it postulates the existence of an
innate intuition which is in its nature very hard to conceive.
How, for example (to take Miiller's form first), is the mind to
intuite the spacial relations of the retina, except it has at the
same time some vague knowledge of the space beyond ? or how
are we to conceive Bering's Kernfldche lying at a wholly inde-
finite distance ? The difficulty in the case of Bering's doctrine
is even greater probably than in that of Miiller's hypothesis.
In truth, Bering's hypothesis appears to involve the fallacious
assumption that there can be an idea of distance in general
apart from particular distances.f

(c) Again it may be asked how we are to conceive the relation
of this primitive perception or " sensation " of space to the later
and acquired perception which is incorporated into it. It
appears to me that in this respect, too, the later developments of
the Nativistic hypothesis have rather increased than diminished
the difficulty. If the mind has originally a knowledge of a
circumscribed section of space (retinal space), we may perhaps
understand how it learns to extend this presentation, just as a
child can easily go on to understand months and years if it
starts with a clear idea of days. But how are we to conceive
the indefinite space-feelings of Bering expanded into the clear
and determinate perceptions of the mature organ ? or how
imagine Stumpf s perceptions of the spheroidal surfaces taken up,
BO to speak, into our ordinary intuitions of distance ? There
must surely be something in common between the original and
the acquired factors in this composite perception of distance.
But if so, is it not a little improbable that the original element
is wholly distinct and sui generis ?

Just as it is difficult to conceive the acquired element com-

* Helmholtz argues, too, against Nagel's hypothesis of Projection that
there is in reality no such distinct perception of the different distance of
the two double images as this theory requires. The same objection would
appear to apply to Stumpf s modification of this hypothesis. (Wundt
just refers to this last as identical with Nagel's.)

t Stumpf of course escapes this difficulty by assuming that one particular
distance is felt in every case, answering to the state of accommodation.

178 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

bining with and giving substance, so to speak, to the original
sensuous element where the two do not interfere with one
another, so it is difficult to understand how so much of the
primordial intuition becomes overpowered by the added factors
when these admittedly clash with the former. Helmholtz lays
great emphasis on the fact that according to the concessions of
the Nativists the original intuition is constantly overpowered
by elements of association.* He disputes the assertion that
sensations can ever be thus displaced by associated representa-
tions.-^ At least we may, as he remarks, naturally expect that
the original intuition (e.g., that of double images) should persist,
even as an illusion.

(d) Lastly, supposing that this difficulty of co-ordinating the
original intuition and the subsequent acquisition could be sur-
mounted, it would still be an objection to this theory that the prim-
ordial visual intuition here assumed is a pure supposition, of the
real existence of which we have not the least evidence, when
we might reasonably look for such, and which is constructed
solely for the purpose of accounting for the facts. This
objection applies to Hering's notion of a Kernflaclie, and to
Stumpf s hypothesis of spheroidal surfaces, as well as to Miiller's
doctrine of an original perception of the retina itself,! and
to the curious array of innate cognitions attributed to the
retina by Panum. All such hypotheses are in their nature too
fanciful to supply an adequate scientific solution of the problem.
At least we have no business to resort to them until we are
certain that known facts and laws are unequal to the task of
solving this problem. This is the position taken up by the
Empirists, and we have now to inquire how far they have suc-
ceeded in accounting for the phenomena by help of known
physiological and psychological processes.

II. The Empirists.

The common basis of principle adopted by the Empiristic or
Genetic method may be briefly summed up as follows : — Space
is not, as the Nativists say, originally seen (like colour). It is a
mental growth or acquisition, depending on a number of elemen-

* See his able criticism of the Nativistic Hypothesis (Physiol.
441, 442 ; cf. Wundt, Physiol. Psychologie, pp. 636, 637).

f I do not here examine the worth of this statement. It has been ably
criticised by Stumpf. (See my Sensation and Intuition, p. 67.)

J The idea of an instinctive projection of the retinal images in the direction
of the rays or lines of vision appears to me to be simply an extension of
Miiller's theory that the mind (apart from objective observation of other
eyes) knows immediately what takes place within and without the organ in
the process of visual stimulation.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 179

t'ary experiences. Among these the feelings which accompany
the action of the ocular muscles play the most important part.
The locality given to the impressions of the various retinal hbres
is not original, but is built out of motor experiences. The im-
pressions of the two retinas are not inseparably connected by
any innate anatomical arrangements, but are originally distinct,
and combine only under the influence of experience. The visual
perception of spacial relations, though mediated by certain
ocular feelings, includes associations with extra-optical facts.
This is especially apparent in the case of direction in relation
to our body and of distance.

While there is this general agreement in the method pursued,
there are not wanting numerous points of difference. These
will emerge in the consideration of the particular systems.
Some are comparatively unimportant, as the exact nature of the
muscular feelings, or the extent to which actual movement enters
into visual estimation (No. IX., pp. 7-9). Others again are more
important, as, for example, the question how the retinal elements
reach their developed local sensibility, and what may be the
nature of the mental process by which our space perceptions are
formed. A still more vital point is, how far the visual percep-
tion of space is assisted by certain innate dispositions.

The empiristic line of investigation can be traced back be-
yond Johannes Miiller. As early as the year 1811, Helmholtz
tells us, an attempt was made by Steinbuch ( Beitrdge zur Phy-
siologic der Sinne) to deduce the phenomena of space from
the movements of the eyes and the body. The resumption
of this mode of inquiry after the influence of the Kantian
philosophy on physiology was itself due to a new philosophic
influence. It was Herbart's peculiar theory of space which
gave the impulse to recent empirical investigation. According
to this theory, which sets out with the unity of the mind, all
presentations (Vorstellungen) are successive, and only become
ordered in the form of space when they constitute a reversible
series. Herbart at the same time regarded movement as an
essential factor in the development of the space-intuition.
Hence under his influence physiologists were led to set out with
the idea of an original qualitative difference of sensations only, and
to construct the perception of space out of motor experiences.

The empiristic or genetic direction in the domain of physio-
logical optics has been followed more or less fully by a consider-
able number of writers, including among others Volkmann,
Meyer, Lotze, Cornelius, Nagel, Classen, Wundt, and Helmholtz.*

*• Not that these are all to an equal extent empiristic. The presence of
nativistic elements has already been shown in the case of Volkmann and

180 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

I do not intend to give an account of the particular form of
the Empiristic doctrine propounded by each of these writers.
It may suffice to select three who have done most to develop
the empirical view, and whose speculations have had the greatest
influence. I refer to Lotze, Helmholtz, and Wundt.

Lotze* set himself more especially to discuss the problem
how we come to order the sensations of colour in the superficial
field of vision. This problem is that of Herbart, and was
discussed by Waitz and Cornelius before Lotze.-f- By these the
question was answered with the help of Herbart's doctrine of the
unity of the mind. This metaphysical basis is dispensed with
by Lotze. He departs from the Herbartian stand-point still
further in that he rejects the theory that a perception of spacial
relations (the coexistent) can arise out of a reproduction of
serial or successive feelings^ Lotze does not attempt to explain
how it is that the mind is compelled to construct its intuition
of space. He only seeks to indicate the means by which this
is effected. These he finds in certain feelings connected with
the muscles. In thus deriving the local discrimination of the
retina from motor experiences, Lotze clearly places himself at
the genetic or derivative point of view, even though he will not
allow that our perception of space is a pure product of such
simple experiences.^

Lotze thus explains the process by which the eye learns to

Nagel. Classen has done much to work out the derivative view ; never-
theless, in a recent work (Physiologic des Gesichtssinnes zum ersten Mai
begriindet auf Kant's Theorie der Erfahrung, 1876) he attaches himself to
the Kantians. Wundt speaks of Volkmann and Classen as occupying a
middle position between Nativism and Empirism.

* Lotze's theory of tactual and visual localisation is found in its earlier
form in his article, 'Seele und Seelenleben,' in R. Wagner's Handworterbuch
der Physiologie, and in his Medicinische Psychohgie, Book II. p. 328 seq. More
recent utterances are to be found in a communication printed as an ap-
pendix in Stumpf s volume, and in an article headed ' De la formation
de la notion d'Espace ' in the Revue Philosophique (October, 1877).

t Lotze's historical position is clearly indicated by Ueberhorst, Die Entste-
hung der Gesichtswahrnehmung, p. 161 ff. His doctrine is sharply distin-
guished from that of Herbart and of Waitz by Wundt. (Op. cit., pp. 493,
494.)

J His chief argument is that were it so, we should give a space-order to
our sensations of tone (in singing the scale). The same argument is deve-
loped by Stumpf as an objection, not only to Herbart's theory, but also to
that of Professor Bain. (Op. cit, pp. 33 and 55.) It is also adopted by
Wundt. (Op. cit., p. 494.)

§ Lotze tells us these local feelings are not the causes, but only the occa-
sions of the mind's construction of space, which involves in addition to these
the mind's own activity. Stumpf speaks of Lotze's local signs as * psychic
stimuli.' The notion that the mind exerts a unique activity in the forma-
tion of the space-intuition out of motor feelings is adopted by Ueberhorst
who postulates the existence of a ' locating activity ' (ortsdzende Thatigkeit).

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 181

localise its impressions : " Every stimulus a effects first of all a
sensation a which changes into another /3, when the quality of
the a passes into another ~b ; but besides this, every stimulus
excites a second sensation v, which is dependent on the point
excited N, and which changes into TT if IV passes into P, or more
correctly, if the stimulus wanders from the point N to the other
point P. Accordingly, every impression which is to undergo a
localisation, is to be regarded as an association of two impres-
sions, which disturb one another just as little as two associated
representations mutually modify their content ".

The question now arises wherein consists this added sensation
v, which is called by Lotze the 'local sign' of a sensation. This
is not derived from the nature of the particular retinal point N
excited, but from its connexion with the system of ocular
muscles, and the reflex movements which are thus produced.
The excitation of a given retinal point is organically connected
with that particular combination of muscular actions necessary
for bringing this same stimulus on the centre of the yellow spot.

The further question arises whether these local signs are
physical or mental ? Lotze had first of all (Ned. Psychol.,
p. 350) described them as ' impulses ' (or ' tendencies ') to an
actual movement of the eye. This expression was criticised by
Stumpf ; and in his latest utterance Lotze distinctly calls them
' feelings of movement '. In the eye of the new-born child the
stimulation of a particular point in the outlying region of the
retina is followed by the actual execution of the appropriate
movement. This movement produces a definite feeling of
movement, which cannot be further defined except by saying
that it is a mode in which we are affected (" erne Art wie uns zu
Muth ist"), and which differs from other modes when other
movements are carried out.* In later life, when two or more
points are simultaneously stimulated with equal strength and
consequently no movement follows, the feelings of movement
previously experienced cling to the impressions. In this way
the eye learns when in a state of repose to localise the various
impressions which fall on the retina.

These local signs compose a graduated system corresponding
to their respective movements. If we think of the retina as a
circle, then for all points which lie on the same radius the quan-
tity of movement towards the centre will be different ; for all
points equidistant from this centre, but lying on different radii,
the direction of movement will vary; for points on different

* Lotze supposes that the action of a given muscle (or set of "muscles) is
somehow distinguished from that of others, though he objects to the idea
that an adequate cause of this difference in feeling is the local separation
of the muscles and motor nerves.

182 The, Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

radii and at different distances from the centre, both the quantity
and the direction of the movement will vary. The feelings of
movement vary in quantity and quality according to the mag-
nitude and direction of the movements, and consequently exactly
correspond to these last in the case of the various retinal points.

While Lotze has thus made use of the feelings of movement
to account for the monocular construction of space in two dimen-
sions, Helmholtz,* gathering up the results of many previous
workers, has sought to apply a similar method of resolution to
all departments of vision. More than this, Helmholtz is not;
like Lotze, hampered with any metaphysical presuppositions
respecting the nature of the soul. He follows the empirical
psychology of J. S. Mill rather than the metaphysical psychology
of Herbart.

Helmholtz sets out with the proposition that our sensations
are for our consciousness signs, the meaning of which is left to
be learnt by our understanding. Thus through experience we
Learn what impression an object which we see would make on
our eye or other organ of sense, if we were to move the eye or
body. The sum of all these possible sensations is our presenta-
tion (or representation) of the body. The only psychical
activity required is that known as the reproduction of asso-
ciated ideas. This conception accounts equally well for the
correct perceptions of objects in normal circumstances, and also
for those illusions which arise when impressions are produced
in an exceptional way, e.g., by pressing on the back of the eye-
ball, or by covering the eye with prisms (No. IX., pp. 12, 13, 15).
Since this transition from sensation to associated idea is capable
of being unfolded and expressed as an act of inference, while at
the same time (in our mature minds at least) there is 110 distinct
consciousness of the elements of immediate sensation and mediate
representation, we may speak of the process as an " unconscious
inference ".•(•

The feelings which lie at the basis of the visual perception of
spacial relations are first of all those which depend on the part
of the retina stimulated. These are the local signs. They differ
altogether in the two retinas. Respecting their exact nature
Helmholtz does not think it needful to express himself. He
simply says they need not be arranged in a graduated system,

* The theory of Helmholtz is unfolded in various parts of his work
Handbuch der physiologischen Optik, see especially § 26 and § 33. See also
his Populdre wissenscliaftliche Vortrage, Second Series, p. 63, ff.

t Helmholtz seems to me to be misrepresented when he is made to say
that such processes actually take place as inferences in the unconscious
regions of the mind. All that his words involve is, that these unanalysable
acts are susceptible of being expressed as inferences.

The Question of Visual Perception in G-ermany. 183

as Lotze supposes, but might be promiscuously distributed in
any way whatever.

Besides these local feelings of the retinal fibres, there are
those which accompany muscular activity. Helmholtz here
distinguishes ( a) the consciousness of the intensity of our voli-
tional effort, or the degree of innervation ; (b) the feeling of the
tension of the muscles, that is the force with which they strive
to work ; and (c) the consciousness of the result of the effort
(shortening of the muscle, altered tension of the contiguous
parts, &c.). He makes most use of the first order of feelings.

Our monocular knowledge of space in two dimensions arises
through the co-operation of movement (No. IX., pp. 5-7). These
movements follow definite laws, not because of any innate
anatomical arrangements (as is proved by the possibility of de-
viating from the normal combinations, though there may
be an inherited tendency to follow out these combinations
as the most easy. By help of these movements the eye
learns the order of the points in the field of vision, that is to
say, " what local signs of the sensations correspond to the points
which are immediately adjacent to one another". In other
words, after moving the eye over objects and afterwards fixating
them, we ascertain " how two points which we have learnt by
movement to be adjacent are represented in the motionless
image of the eye ".*

The localisation of impressions is thus definitely referred to
certain feelings in some way connected with the stimulation of
the various fibres. Helmholtz warns us, however, against sup-
posing that the monocular field is constructed by a summation,
so to speak, of the characteristic feelings of the nervous elements
as though they constituted units of superficial space. He points
to the fact that in the case of the retina, like that of the skin,
the smallest distinguishable magnitudes (as determined by a
bare discrimination of points) do not appear equally great at
all parts of the sensitive surface.

In this way the relative position of points in any section of
the visual field viewed at one moment is ascertained. In order
to determine absolute direction, that is the direction of any given
section of the field and its objects in relation to our body, the
feelings of innervation (effort of will) must co-operate. This is
proved by the facts of paralysis, giddiness, &c., already referred to
(No. IX., pp. 10, 1 l)."f* The judgment reposing on these feelings

* The meaning of this might be clearer. It seems to imply that the
original local discrimination only becomes effective when associated feelings
of movement (Lotze's local signs) are superadded.

t According to Helmholtz, these facts prove conclusively that it is the
feeling of innervation, or volitional strain, and not any feeling attending

184 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

must, however, be constantly controlled by the result, that is,
the transposition of the retinal images which follows the inner-
vation. Helmholtz explains the visual perception of distance
(monocular and binocular) much after the manner of English
associationists.

He thus accounts for the complicated phenomena of double
and single vision. The sensations of the two retinas are per-
fectly distinct from one another. They combine in single percep-
tions only when, owing to a predominance of associations, they
stand as signs of single objects. This accounts for the normal
coalescence of impressions of corresponding or identical points,
for the fusion of the impressions of disparate points in the
perception of relief, and for the alternation of visual impression
when the two fields are made quite dissimilar (rivalry of fields).
Lastly, since this binocular perception is resolvable into an
inference from past experiences, we are able to understand the
variations which occur in the observation of double images, and
of the rival fields, under the influence of a more or less vivid
imagination and strenuous act of attention.*

If Lotze represents empirical psychology, burdened with sur-
vivals of Herbart's metaphysics, and Helmholtz empirical
psychology in its older form as taught by the Mills, Wundt
may be taken as representing this same psychology as enlarged
and corrected by the addition of the ideas of racial experience
and inherited acquisition. In thus taking his stand on the doc-
trine of evolution, he is able to mediate between the nativists
and empirists.

Wundt-f- separates himself from Helmholtz and the English
associationists on the following grounds : (1) In our visual per-
ception of space we are said to infer from facts of past expe-
rience. But apart from the difficulties attending the conception
of ' unconscious inferences/J the question still remains how such

the tension or actual contraction of the muscles, which is the basis of this
sense of direction.

* Helmholtz adds (Populate Vortrage, 2nd Series, p. 86) that, since the
similarity of localisation of corresponding regions of the two retinas does
not rest on sensation, the original comparison of different linear magnitudes
in each separate field cannot repose on immediate sensation. It is a little
curious to find Mr. Abbot (Sight and Touch, p. 48) saying that single vision
has never been explained on the derivative theory, without making any
reference to Helmholtz's elaborate argument. This is the more remarkable
as Mr. Abbott draws largely on the Germans, and even extracts two or
three facts from Helmholtz's great work.

t I have confined myself here to Wundt's last and principal work, Grund-
ziige der physiologischen Psychologie.

t In an earlier work, Vorlesunyen uber die Menschen- und Thier-Seele (p. 58
ff.), Wundt himself distinctly accepted the idea of the logical or inferential
character of the process in the perception of space-relations, and conceived
this process as extra-mental or unconscious.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 185

pre-spacial experience (whether visual or tactual, &c.) is
possible. The doctrine of Helmholtz requires the supposition
of an innate spacial interpretation of tactual sensations, and if
this is so, it is hard to see why the same is not to be assumed in
the case of the eye. Wundt is thus in favour of an indepen-
dent knowledge of space-relations by the eye. (2) He objects,
to the term ' association ' for the process by which the space-
perception arises. Association has to do only with representa-
tions which can be consciously distinguished, whereas our per-
ception of space is made up of a number of sensations which
fuse in a new and apparently simple mode of consciousness.
The term Wundt adopts for this process is 'synthesis'.

Wundt's theory takes its start from Lotze's idea of local signs,
only he thinks the differences in the feelings of ocular move-
ment are inadequate to account for our construction of spacial
extension. To these active feelings must be added certain
passive sensations which constitute the real local signs of the
several retinal elements, and through the coalescence of which
with the active feelings the extensive form of the visual field
arises.*

The local signs of the retina were found by Wundt in an
earlier work (Beitraye zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung, p.
145, if.) in a certain 'local colouring' of the retinal sensations,
that is to say, in the qualitative peculiarities of the sensations
depending on the region of the retina affected."]* In his latest
work, however, with which we are here concerned, he attaches
less importance to these,J and lays most stress on the sensations
of touch which accompany ocular movements and depend on the
varying pressure exerted on the sensitive parts of the orbit.

With these sensations are combined certain motor feelings,
namely, those of innervation which accompany the process of
central innervation in the act of moving the eye to the particular
point indicated by the retinal impression. These feelings,
unlike Lotze's * feelings of movement,' are said to differ in their
degree of intensity only, and not according to the direction of
the movement, that is to say, the particular muscles acted upon.

* Lotze postulates such passive sensations as a factor in the local signs of
the tactual surface.

t Thus it is known that the qualitative discrimination of impressions (i.e.,
the sense of colour) becomes less fine as we pass from the centre to the peri-
phery of the retina : a purple, for example, is seen as violet, then as blue.

J Wundt thinks we may judge of the distance of a point seen indirectly
from the fixation-point more accurately by means of these qualitative
differences of the retinal impression than of the sensations of touch. On
the other hand we judge of relative direction by help of the tactual sensa-
tions. The same sensations tell us which of the two eyes is affected, and
give us absolute direction and the erect position of objects.

186 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

The peripheral local sensations would of themselves give us
the direction, but not the distance, of a point from the point of
fixation. On the other hand the central feelings of innervation
would supply us only with magnitude, and not with direction.
The local signs form a continuum of two dimensions (answering
to the vertical and horizontal directions). These dimensions,
however, are heterogeneous since the local signs vary in a
different way with every change in direction. The feelings of
innervation, forming a continuum of one dimension, and measur-
ing this heterogeneous continuum of the local signs in all direc-
tions, refer this continuum to a homogeneous continuum of two
dimensions, that is to say, to a spacial surface.

The visual perception of space is thus regarded by Wundt as
a product of the same mental process (synthesis of peripheral
sensations and central feelings of innervation) as the tactual
perception. What distinguishes the former from the latter is
the reference of this complex of sensations to a single point, the
retinal centre. This relation, which subserves the accurate
measurement of the field of vision, and which first renders pos-
sible the functional combination of the two eyes in a double-eye,
has its roots in the laws of ocular movement (those of Bonders
and Listing, No. IX. p. 5).

Since these laws have their foundation in an innate central
mechanism, it must follow that the individual brings into the
world with him a perfectly developed disposition to an immediate
spacial arrangement of his sensations of light. At the same
time it is probable that this innate mechanism itself has been
slowly formed during the development of the species as an
adaptation to the requirements of distinct vision with the double
eye.*

In this way arises the monocular field having the retinal centre
as its dominant position. The most general form of this field is
the spherical surface lying about the centre of rotation of the
eye. The distance of the point of fixation is of course limited
by the state of accommodation of the moment.

A nearer determination of the field is effected in binocular
vision in accordance with the law that both eyes continually
possess a common point of fixation. At the same time the form
of the field becomes more variable, since the common point of

* In this way Wundt would explain that peculiar adjustment of the
forces of the ocular muscles rolling the eye upwards and downwards, to
which he refers the single eye's error in the appreciation of the vertical,
and which he thinks is clue to the ancestral habit of moving the common
point of fixation of the two eyes over receding lines in the plane of the
ground (No. IX., p. 20, note).

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 187

fixation may wander over surfaces of the most unlike form.*
Accordingly the combination of the systems of local signs of
both eyes with the feelings of innervation is a variable one.~J* As
to what combination of local signs and what combined feeling of
innervation actually ensue, this is commonly determined by the
course of the lines of fixation (contours of objects) in the
common field. That is to say, those points are co-ordinated
which answer to the same object-points. At the same time
through the normal conditions of vision, certain limits are set to
this rule ; and further, the local signs of those points which
answer to the usual form of the field (e.g., the plane of the
ground) combine more easily than others. In this way Wundt
seeks to interpret the phenomena of single vision and its limita-
tions.;!; \

Thus in the case of binocular vision we have to do with a
more complicated synthesis than in the case of monocular
vision. This may, for the sake of a clearer apprehension, be
divided into two actions (which, however, are not to be thought
of as actually distinct), a first through which, by means of the
local signs and feeling of innervation of the first eye, the position
of a given point a in relation to the point of fixation is deter-
mined, and a second through which then, on the addition of the
second eye, the situation of the point of fixation as well as that
of the point a in relation to the observer, is first determined.

Those directions in the field are preferred to all others, the
perceptions of which by the eye in motion and at rest agree
with one another. These are the lines of direction§ passing
through the point of fixation, and which in narrow regions are
straight lines. Only such small lengths are made use of in
measuring out the field, and hence the straight line is for the
eye the natural element of measurement. The nature of these
lines of direction has its physiological ground in a peculiarity of
our muscles, namely, that of turning their points of attachment

* When there are no circumstances (contours, fixation-points) determin-
ing the double eye to select any particular surface, its field is to be regarded
as a spherical surface, of which the point midway between the two centres
of rotation is the centre.

t In general the local signs of points of equal height or depth are co-
ordinated, whereas the lateral distances of points whose local signs com-
bine may vary considerably. In every such variation the feeling of inner-
vation of the double eye is different.

t Wundt sums up the facts under the following law : The excitation of
such points as correspond to single object-points in the great majority of
instances produces a simple perception more easily than that of other points.
This covers the facts of identical (symmetrically lying) points, as also those
of points which only combine under some special influence (contour in
relief).

§ Equivalent to the ' great circles' mentioned in No. IX., p. 6, first note.

188 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

(Ansatzpurikte) round fixed axes. This property, then, must be
regarded as the reason why visual space, just like tactual space,
is a plane one ; that is to say, since the straight line is the
element, the constitution of the surface of the field of vision re-
quires three dimensions.

Lastly, our visual perception depends on the influence of cer-
tain associations, which, owing to their later appearance, and
also to their great variability, must be regarded as of a secondary
kind. Such for example is the influence of the numerous inci-
dents which make us interpret a drawing as a representation of
solid objects lying at very unequal distances from us.

In looking over these various attempts to derive the visual
form of space from elementary feelings, we are struck by the
part allotted to ocular movement and its attendant feelings.
The study of the laws of ocular movement, and of their bearing
on our visual space-construction, must be regarded as an inv
portant addition to the English empirical doctrine.

This doctrine, starting from the Berkeleyan idea of visual
language, has assumed somewhat hastily that the content of our
visual perception is wholly extra-optical,* that is to say, consists
of representations of tactual and motor experiences of the moving
organs. There seems good reason to suppose that the feelings
connected with ocular movement would of themselves (apart
from limb-movement) serve to generate a kind of space-con-
sciousness. The close analogy between the muscular actions of
the eye and those of the tactual organs (brought out by Wundt)
supports the view that each of these senses might independently
attain a space-perception having certain properties in common.')'

* This does not apply to all English derivativists. Professor Bain, for
example, distinctly recognises the co-operation of elements furnished by
ocular movement.

t This recognition of ocular movement as an independent source of
space-consciousness obviates many of the difficulties in the way of the Berke-
leyan or derivative theory. Wundt's reasonings respecting the delicacy of
the eye's motor discrimination (No. IX., pp. 8, 9) show that the superiority
of the eye's perception, as compared with that of touch — a fact emphasised by
Messrs. Abbott & Monck — is not incompatible with the theory which de-
rives the essential content of space from motor experience. And even if it
be true, as Professor Mahaffy contends (Kant's Critical Philosophy, Vol. I.,
Part I., pp. 118, 119), that the eye perceives forms on a small scale before it
perceives them on a large scale (a proposition which seems very doubtful),
Wundt's measurements provide a way of avoiding the conclusion that the
first visual perception of form is retinal and not motor.

At the same time it is well to add that the derivative view does not de-
pend on the accuracy of Wundt's reasoning. Even if, as Helmholtz seems
to hold, the retinal discrimination surpasses the muscular, it does not follow
from this that the retinal sensation furnishes any part of the material of
our space-perception. It is quite open to the derivativist to say that the

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 189

What such an isolated visual space-consciousness would amount
to, we can never expect to know, since it is vain to hope for cases
answering to those of Cheselden and Franz, with the difference
that the development of the visual organ precedes that of the
organs of touch and movement.

We may, however, infer that at least such a visual perception
would lack all sense of the third dimension or distance. One
fails to see how the materials of feeling at the command of the
eye could ever generate a consciousness of near and far. Wundt,
who appears to regard the visual perception as complete, has by
no means satisfactorily made out a case in favour of an inde-
pendent presentation of distance. There is nothing in the feel-
ings of accommodation to suggest distance, while the feelings of
convergence are simply a mode of the same feelings which give
us the two dimensions.* More than this, it seems probable
that even the well-marked antithesis involved in our conception
of superficial space, the vertical and the horizontal, would not
emerge with any degree of distinctness in a purely visual space. f

With respect to the nature of the feelings attending move-
ment, it will no doubt be for a long while a matter of dispute
whether the feelings of innervation postulated by Wundt have
any real existence.^ On the other hand, it may be contended
that Wundt ignores a part of the elements immediately given in
the feelings of movement. It is not improbable that if there is
a mode of consciousness attending the process of central (motor)
innervation, this varies in character with the direction of the
movement, that is to say, with the muscles innervated. And
even if it were not so, it is to be supposed that the actual con-
traction of a particular muscle is attended somehow with a dis-

essential content of the space-consciousness is extra-retinal (motor experience
of the eye, the hand, &c.), that the local reference involved in our developed
retinal sensibility rests on a process of association with this motor expe-
rience, and yet that this sensibility may supply a finer scale or measure
than the motor sense itself. In other words, it is possible to conceive that,
when once we have learned to interpret those local differences of retinal
sensation which answer to distinctly felt motor differences, we may carry
the process further, and give a motor significance to still finer retinal dis-
criminations.

* I confess that Wundt's argument :n support of a visual space of triple
dimensions is by no means very clear.

t Wundt, so far as I understand him, says that this antithesis is given
in the tactual sensations accompanying ocular movement. But this is by
no means self-evident, unless we suppose the upper and the under regions
of the orbit to be already adequately distinguished by help of extra-optical
experiences. It seems to me that the antithesis might be more easily given
by Lotze's feelings of movement than by Wundt's sensations of pressure.

J Their existence is called in question by Lotze, Revue Philosophique
October, 1877, p. 359.

14

190 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

tinctive feeling, which would be the rough germ of the sense of
direction.

This naturally leads us to remark on the theories of local
signs just reviewed. The working out of this side of the deri-
vative theory is of great value. That the eye at rest does per-
ceive relative direction and distance is certain ; and it remained
for the derivativists to account for this local consciousness attach-
ing to the various parts of the retina. It may be said, as Eng-
lish psychologists are wont to say, that the visual perception of
a point in indirect vision as lying to the right or left of the
centre of the field, and at a certain distance from the same, in-
volves a reference to experiences of the motor organs. Yet it is
all but certain (as I have observed) that this reference is mediate
in character, and proceeds by way of a more direct representa-
tion of a sweep of the visual organ itself.

As to the exact nature of these local signs, there is no doubt
ample room for different theories. It may be said, however,
that Lotze's scheme seems preferable to that of Wundt, in that
it finds the materials of the sense of direction in the feelings of
movement and not in tactual sensations. Only one would be
inclined to add that these representations of ocular movement
are something more than signs, since they include a part of the
space-intuition itself.*

We now pass to the further question, to which these observa-
tions naturally lead up, how we are to conceive the mental
process by which the space-perception arises. This will depend
in part on the content we give to the space-presentation. Thus
Wundt, who appears to make this content altogether optical,
naturally objects to such expressions as 'unconscious infer-
ence/ ' transition from sensation to associated idea.' Yet it is

* Thus I find myself able to recognise, as a part of the content of the
locality of a point at a given distance to the right of the centre of fixation,
a certain kind and amount of ocular movement. To Lotze, of course, these
local signs have in themselves no properly spacial character. This is seen
plainly enough in the fact that the feelings of movement, in the case of the
visual construction of space, have as their equivalents in the tactual con-
struction certain passive sensations (attending the varying tensions of the
skin, &c.), which sensations clearly do not involve a spacial or
extensional consciousness. The 'feelings of movement' are to him
signs which have first to be interpreted by the constructive
mind. Helmholtz, who (as Stumpf remarks) does not define the
sense he gives to the term ' local sign,' seems to lean to the idea that
there are, antecedently to the growth of Lotze's 'signs' (feelings of move-
ment), certain purely qualitative differences of sensation dependent on the
retinal region stimulated. If this is his meaning, one could interpret the
influence he assigns to ocular movement in developing local discrimination
as the superposition of representations of movement on these unknown
peculiarities. Yet his language is by no means clear on this point.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 191

perhaps possible to present this very process of a reference to
ocular movement as an operation analogous to an inference or a
sequence of associated mental states. A perfect following out of
the doctrine of the correlation of mind and body enables us to
regard a process of association in its narrow sense, in which the
mental elements are distinctly present, as but one case of a more
general process, namely, the co-ordination of cerebral actions
which, according to the degree of their connexion, and the
rapidity of their sequence, have, as their mental correlatives,
sometimes distinct feelings or ideas, sometimes an inseparable
mass of feelings, and sometimes simply that mode of con-
sciousness which belongs to the second and more enduring
action. In this way one might conceive, for example, of the
transition from some purely qualitative peculiarity of a retinal
sensation (answering to the region stimulated) which was once
an element of consciousness, but is now lost beneath the more
important added element, namely, the representation of a
definite kind of movement*

By the use of the term 'synthesis,' however, Wundt expresses
more than a peculiarity in the mode of combination, namely, the
heterogeneous character of the elements which compose the
space-perception. His doctrine thus distinctly raises the ques-
tion : Is space a product of anyone kind of experience (motor) ?
— Are its characteristics given in any one mode of feeling ; or
does it arise from a combination and fusion of heterogeneous
feelings ? Each view has its difficulties. If, as our own psycholo-
gists appear to say ,f the essence of space is motor experience, which
touch-impressions only serve to define, the objection is urged, e.g.,
by Wundt himself, that we cannot conceive any such motor ex-
perience except as already constituted by the idea of space. J
On the other hand, the hypothesis of heterogeneous elements

* These remarks meet "Wundt's objection to the use of the term ( associa-
tion'. It must be added that Wundt is not exact when he speaks of his
synthesis as one of sensations. The only elements of sensation are the feel-
ings of ' local colouring,' while those of touch (pressure) and innervation
are representative or ideal.

t There is no doubt some uncertainty respecting this point. Even Pro-
fessor Bain, who makes the muscular sense the great generator of our
space-consciousness, seems to allow that tactual impressions, as elements of
a series which can be indefinitely renewed in the forward and backward
direction, and as coexistent feelings, give the finish, so to speak, to the
perception of extension. Mr. Spencer lays most stress on this last factor.
Not to speak of the yet more fundamental objection recently urged by

(Unraumlichkeiten) ought to be called transcendent rather than empiristic.

192 The Question of Visual Perception in G-ermany.

burdens us with the mystery of what may be called a psychical
form of spontaneous generation.

I am far from saying that either of these objections is fatal.
It seems perfectly conceivable that there may be moments or
aspects of the feelings accompanying movement which imme-
diately yield a vague consciousness of spacial properties or rela-
tions. That we are unable to reproduce these elementary feel-
ings and perceptions is no objection to this theory, since ex
liypotliesi they have long since been taken up into more com-
plex mental products. On the other hand, it is at least possible
(if it were not rendered highly probable by a number of facts)
that the coalescence of a mass of feelings may give rise to a
mode of consciousness very dissimilar to the elements. The
difficulty of imagining such a chemical fusion is greatly reduced
when some of the elements may be supposed to contain the
rough germ of the resulting quality.*

It may be well to add that, as long as either of the rival sup-
positions can hold its ground, any hypothesis of a special space-
constructing or locating activity, such as that vaguely hinted at
by Lotze, and more distinctly put forward by Ueberhorst, must
be regarded as premature. Such a hypothesis is clearly a de-
parture from the stand-point of the derivative theory, and a step
in the direction of the intuitional theory.

On the interesting question, how far the construction of visual
space is aided by inherited dispositions, little needs to be said.
Wundt's view of an innate motor mechanism, the result of a
gradual ancestral adaptation, so far as it is proved by the facts
(No. IX. p. 5), seems to be thoroughly credible. This idea is far
from endowing the infant with an a priori form of space. It
simply gives him a facility in reconstructing his extended world.
It is noteworthy that a writer like Wundt, who in his last great
work ever keeps the doctrine of organic evolution in view, is
contented with assigning so modest a part to ancestral experi-
ence and inheritance in the individual's perception of space.
He not improbably feels the difficulties besetting the hypothesis
of a transmitted blank space- form.*)*

* Wundt appears to overlook this altogether. He thinks an adequate
explanation of space is found in the very fact of the coalescence (synthesis)
of heterogeneous elements, and he expressly argues against Lotze that his
local signs already carry the germ of space-consciousness. But is not this
their chief merit 1

t An extension of this mode of derivation, not more rash than that of
Wundt's just spoken of, would be the reference of the reflex connexion be-
tween the stimulation of a given retinal point and the movement needed
to shift the impression to the centre of the retina, to an ancestral habit,
itself the result of a slow acquisition.

The Question of Visual Perception in Germany. 193

III. Relation to the Kantian Problem.

In concluding this brief review of the German theories of
visual perception, it may be well to add one or two remarks on
the relation of the question here in dispute to the philosophical
problem of space as denned by Kant.

Although Kant gave the impulse to these physiological in-
quiries and speculations, it by no means follows that the pro-
blem with which the physiologists concern themselves is the
Kantian. In truth we may rather expect the opposite, since
questions of physiology and empirical psychology are quite dis-
tinct from properly philosophical questions. This remark has
been insisted on with characteristic energy by W. Tobias, who
resolutely combats the idea that the question of Nativism and
Empirism is the Kantian problem at all. (Grenzen der Pliilo-
sopJiie, chap, iv.) He says the point of dispute is " purely em-
pirical," " purely one of natural science," namely one concerning
an order of events in time (p. 110). Let us see how far this is
correct.

There are two things to be distinguished here — the originality
of the idea of space, and its subjectivity. Kant asserts the
former, in so far as he says that no sensuous experience is
possible without the form of space. Now the derivative theory
distinctly maintains the existence of sensation prior to the
construction of the space-idea. Even the modest assumption
made by Lotze that sensations of colour are present in the
infant mind before the local signs develop themselves — is to a
certain extent a negation of the Kantian idea. The question,
then, though undoubtedly one of events in time, as Tobias
asserts, distinctly touches one part of the Kantian problem.

The essence of Kant's doctrine however relates to the question
of the independent reality of space. Let us see whether the
dispute just reviewed has any relation to this question.

We may here distinguish between two kinds of reality, phe-
nomenal or relative, and noumenal or absolute. To these there
correspond two questions : ( a) How does visual space acquire
that phenomenal reality which all agree in attributing to it ?
This question may be otherwise put : How do we come to see
objects (phenomenal realities) in space ? (b) The second ques-
tion is : Does visual space answer to any noumenal reality wholly
independent of the mind ?

(a) It is clear that the peculiar doctrine of the Nativists pro-
vides no way of answering the first question. The mere fact of
an original sensuous space contains no explanation of the objec-
tivity (phenomenal reality) given to the intuition. On the
other hand, the empiristic doctrine in one of its forms (as ap-

194 The Question of Visual Perception in Germany.

proximately represented by Helmholtz) does offer an explana-
tion of this reality.* The reality of visual space to the modern
English followers of Berkeley means the opposition of certain feel-
ings (motor and tactual) to the present consciousness which merely
represents these. Thus the reality of. the space we see, and at
the same time the externality in space of the objects we see, are
accounted for in the very process of explaining the space-per-
ception itself.

It remains, therefore, a question how the Nativists are to
account for the reality of visual space, and at the same time
for that correspondence between visual perception and tactual
experience, which the Empirist is able to regard as involved in
the very genesis of the former. In order to do this they must have
resort to some properly metaphysical hypothesis. The reality and
unity of space may be referred (as by Kant) to a single subjec-
tive form, which is applied alike to all varieties of sensation,
and the application of which itself gives reality (objectivity) to
impressions. Or they may be explained by saying that each of
the senses immediately perceives one and the same nournenal
reality.

(b) We are now prepared to see what the question between
Nativisrn and Empirism has to do with the ontological problem
respecting the independent reality of space. As I have just
hinted, the Nativist may be just as easily a Eealist as an Idealist
(Kantian). In either case the originality of the visual percep-
tion, and its agreement in the case of vision and touch, would be
equally well accounted for. On the other hand, the derivative
theory, so far as it resolves the external space perceived in vision
into a phenomenal reality (motor and tactual experience), may
be said to discountenance the idea of a noumenal space by render -
ing it an unnecessary hypothesis. Yet, as I have remarked, the
derivative view does not necessarily identify visual space with
any definite mode of (represented) experience. Lotze, for ex-
ample, says that visual space is something quite different from
the feelings of movement which subserve its construction. Con-
sequently the question still remains open whether the idea is
purely a mental (subjective) creation, or answers to something
independent of the mind. Thus just as it is possible for a
Nativist to be a Eealist, so it is possible for an Empirist to be
a Kantian Idealist.

It may perhaps be objected that the derivative theory, by
speaking of distinct sensory nerves and muscles — that is to say

* Of course this does not apply to the theories of Wundt and Lotze,
which regard visual space as different in kind from the experiences out of
which it is constructed.

Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza. 195

of objects having spacial relations — as the antecedents of our
space-consciousness, does all the time assume the independent
and absolute existence of that very space the origin of which
it seeks in a certain mode of feeling. To this it is enough to
reply, that workers like Helmholtz and Wundt occupy them-
selves solely with the empirical problem of accounting for the
genesis of the space-perception in the individual mind, viewed
as an objective process, that is to say, by another mind. To A,
with his developed space-consciousness, the rise of B's space-con-
sciousness presents itself as a sequence of definite feelings on
definite material processes (nerve-stimulations) in space. B is able
to view the genesis of A's space-consciousness in a similar way.
Now it may be that the observer in each of these cases is, after
all, conceiving under these material processes in space nothing
but a mode of his own (or some third person's) feelings (motor
and tactual). And thus it is clear that the genetic method, in
connecting the perception with certain physical antecedents,
makes no assumption respecting the independent existence of
space.

JAMES SULLY.

Ill— NOTES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA

IN the spring of last year I had the honour of giving a Friday
evening discourse on Spinoza at the Royal Institution which
is printed very nearly as it was delivered in the Proceedings of
the Royal Institution (Vol. VIII., p. 363). The wise custom
which as a rule confines the length of such discourses to
one hour imposed on me an amount of condensation which,
however necessary for the spoken word, would be needless
and unsuitable in a paper intended for the readers of MIND.
The present article contains a more developed statement of
points which, at the Royal Institution, I could merely indicate.
In the course of my work on the subject I have received valu-
able communications from several friends, and I take this op-
portunity of acknowledging once for all in a general form obli-
gations which it would be difficult to specify accurately or
adequately in detail.

It may be taken as determined beyond question that in the
Ethics of Spinoza we have one of the most remarkable achieve-
ments of constructive philosophic genius ever given to the
world. In philosophy, however, as in literature and art,
the power which stamps a man's work as eminently his own is
to be sought not in the part but in the whole, and a true
master's fame has nothing to fear from the utmost that critical

196 Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza.

research can do in tracing back to their sources the elements he
wrought upon. As Prof. Land of Leyden well says (in his
recently published lecture, Ter Gedachtenis van Spinoza, where
much valuable matter, both historical and critical, may be found
in a small compass), " originality consists, not in a man's pro-
ducing every element of his work by himself, but in his binding
together existing elements in a new combination which bears
the stamp of his individuality, and leaves its mark behind it in
the work of others ". The steady light of great men's renown
shines on long after the passing dazzle of so-called originality
has disappeared. After all, what would a perfectly original idea
be but an idea having no relation to the time, place, and
circumstances in which it was put forth, and therefore hope-
lessly barren ? True creation is not to make out of nothing, but
to make new life out of the heritage of the past. In Spinoza's
case there has been too much dazzle ; the system of the Ethics
seemed to have sprung from his brain armed at all points, and
his conceptions, while they stood out in abrupt and isolated
grandeur, have been more admired than appreciated. Leibnitz
indeed asserted, and it has remained a sort of tradition in a
certain school of philosophy to assert, that Spinoza did nothing
but carry to an extreme development one side of the principles
of Descartes. This position seems to me, I confess, so untenable
that I can only wonder at its being still maintained by any
competent person. M. -Francisque Bouillier (Hist, de la Philo-
sophic Cartesienne) adheres to it with very little qualification,
and in particular minimises the importance of Spinoza's Jewish
predecessors. It is fair to note that Dr. Joel's evidence was not
before him. But Prof. Caird, with that evidence before him,
has also taken the same line in his article on ' Cartesianism ' in
the Encyclopaedia Briiannica. I can account for it only by the
exigencies of some pre-conceived or pre-adopted theory of what
the history of philosophy ought to have been.

There is no doubt an unmistakeable Cartesian element in
Spinoza, more especially in his form and method; and Des-
cartes may also claim — what is more important than any
particular doctrine — to have taught him that philosophy must
thoroughly assimilate the lessons of natural science before she
attempts any flight outside their range. The most striking
specific points of Spinoza's philosophy remain, however, un^
accounted for by Cartesian sources, or by any other sources
that were open to him in common with the general world
of letters. Only of late years the riddle has been solved,
partly by the discovery of new materials for the history of
Spinoza's own thought, but chiefly by the light thrown upon
his already known works from an unexplored and, strange to

Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza. 197

say, unexpected quarter. It was for a long time assumed by
historians of philosophy that, after he was cut off from the syna-
gogue of Amsterdam, Spinoza had no further use for Jewish
learning save for polemical purposes ; and the assumption was the
more convenient, inasmuch as that learning was outside the
accustomed lines of western culture, and not easily accessible to
any but Orientalists. It was reserved for scholars of Spinoza's
own race to make good the share of the Jewish philosophers of
the Middle Ages in the quarries whence the stones of his build-
ing were hewn. This work, begun by Auerbach, has been lately
carried out by Dr. Joel of Breslau, who in a series of valuable
monographs (now collected)* has given us a far juster notion
than was before attainable of the resources Spinoza had at his
disposal in the modern literature of his own people. I will now
give a condensed account of the results of this line of inquiry,
so far as known to me at present, collected from Dr. Joel's work
and elsewhere. The simplest way is to take the leading names
of medieval Jewish philosophy in chronological order.

1. Avicebron.-^

Ibn-Gebirol (d. at Malaga 1070) belongs to the earliest gene-
ration of Jewish philosophers, and is not the least striking
figure among them. There is reason to think that some at
least of his ideas found their way to Spinoza, but it was by a
strangely circuitous road. In his day the Aristotelian doctrine,
which so long held undisputed sway in both Jewish aud Catholic
schools, was still struggling with Neo-Platonism, and it was
chiefly with Neo-Platonic materials that Ibn-Gebirol constructed
his own brilliant and rather eccentric speculations. Honoured
but little among his own people, he was soon overwhelmed
in the Peripatetic flood, and entirely forgotten as a philosopher.
Meanwhile his principal work had been translated into Latin
under the name of Fons Vitce, and became well known to the
founders of the Scholastic philosophy. The author's name was
concealed under the Latinised Avicebron, and by a sort of un-
reasoned mental attraction he was set down as belonging to the
Arabian group headed by Averroes and Avicenna. It was
only in late years that the sagacious industry of the late
Dr. Munk re-discovered in the unknown Avicebron the Jew Ibn-

* Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophie, Breslau, 1876. I cannot lielp
finding one fault with Dr. Joel's work: he seems to assume that all his
readers will be Hebrew scholars, and often gives long extracts without a
translation.

t See Munk, Melanges de Philosophic juive et arabe ; Lewes, History of
Philosophy, II. 61.

1-98 Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza.

Gebirol. The Fons Vitce, however, fell in due time into the
hands of Giordano Bruno, who received it with a much more
kindred spirit than Aristotelian orthodoxy had done. Bruno
repeatedly cites Avicebron. with approval, and there is a good
deal of likeness in the general strain of their speculation. The
ideas thus taken up were passed on in turn to Spinoza, who can
never have even suspected how much nearer to him their real
source was. Spinoza's relation to Giordano Bruno has been
exaggerated in some quarters and ignored in others. It is
enough to say, however, that there is no external probability
against Spinoza having been acquainted with the main contents
at least of Bruno's works, and the internal evidence in favour of
it is all but irresistible. It may remain, perhaps, an open ques-
tion whether Spinoza had read the actual text of Giordano
Bruno, though there is no reason why his knowledge should not
have been at first hand. There can also be little doubt that
the terminology of Spinoza's metaphysic (as to attributes and
modes) was suggested by Giordano Bruno. But of Spinoza's
precision in the use of terms there is no trace in Bruno, who is
everything but systematic.

The element specially contributed from this quarter to
Spinoza's philosophy is that which has caused it to be commonly
ranked as pantheism — the speculative delight in the conception
of the world as an infinite unity, wherein all the varieties of
finite existence are welded into one without losing their reality.
Spinoza's philosophy is utterly remote from the Oriental pan-
theism which denies reality to finite things. People who talk of
" Pantheism from the Vedas to Spinoza " for the purpose of
showing that Spinoza produced only a new variety of ancient
error show nothing but that they have either neglected to pro-
cure ordinary information, or are incompetent to discuss philo-
sophy at all. It is needless to remark that the pantheism of
developed Hindu philosophy is in fact later than the Vedas by
a number of centuries not yet accurately determined. It is
surprising, however, to find such a writer as Prof. Caird coun-
tenancing the vulgar error by speaking of "the Spinozistic
pantheism that reduces the world and the finite spirit to an
illusion". We shall shortly see that another Jewish predecessor
may likewise claim a share in this element.

2. The Jewish Peripatetics.

Partly coinciding in time with Catholic Scholasticism, but with
its rise and culminating period nearly a century earlier, a series
of Jewish philosophers in Spain, Provence, and the East, did
work which has a far more important place in the general history

Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza. 199

of philosophy than has commonly been allowed to it. The task
they set themselves was the same in kind as that of the School-
men, who, in spite of religious difference, joined hands with them
the common ground of Aristotle, and used their work with
>pen acknowledgment and respect. They strove, in one word,
systematise theology on an Aristotelian footing. For this
purpose it was necessary to embark on a critical and philo-
sophical interpretation of Scripture ; and in this undei taking the
comparatively undefined character of Jewish orthodoxy secured
them a certain amount of freedom.* Or rather philosophy pre-
sented itself to Jewish speculation as an enlightened interpreta-
tion of the hidden meaning of the law. Thus Moses ben
Maimon and Ibn Ezra were leaders in biblical criticism no less
than in philosophy. The ideas they put forward in this field
were to be carried out to their full development in the Tractates
Theologico-Politicus. Spinoza's object is indeed opposite to that
of Maimonides ; so far from finding philosophy in the Scriptures,
he maintains that it is idle to seek it there ; and the sharpness
of his criticism on Maimonides's artificial system of interpretation
has probably distracted attention from that which they really
have in common. Maimonides' work was continued by Levi
ben Gerson, or Gersonides (born at Bagnal in Provence in 1288,
living in 1340), who, professing tobe a mere interpreter of the Scrip-
tures and to rely on them as the source of every kind of know-
ledge, was at the same time more thoroughly Aristotelian than
his predecessors. The discovery of Aristotelian metaphysics in
the Song of Solomon was probably the extreme feat of the
Jewish theologico-philosophical dialectic.

The influence of these writers on the purely philosophical
part of Spinoza's work was comparatively slight : it is perhaps
not too much to say that there are only traces of it in the Ethics.
Still the points of affinity are notable. The following are
specimens of those which may be found in Maimonides' great
work, the More Nebuchim.^-

The will and the wisdom of God are regarded as inseparable.
And not only is there no real distinction between the divine
attributes, but no attribute whatever can be predicated of God in

* The Mahometan schools enjoyed the same advantage. Strictly speaking,
neither Judaism nor Islam has any dogmatic theology at all. At the same
time there must have been in practice a good deal of restraint. Maimonides
expressly warns his readers that on many points he will be deliberately
obscure ; and Ibn Ezra could only hint with elaborate mystery that " the
Canaanite was then in the land" could not have been the language of
Moses' generation. The intervals of absolute silence in his commentary on
Isaiah are even more significant.

t Edited by Dr. Mimk, sub tit. Le Guide des tfgares, with literal French
translation.

200 Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza.

the ordinary sense — even eternity and existence, as applied to
him, are merely homonymous with the same terms in any other
application (c. 56 et alit.~). This however is by no means pecu-
liar to Maimoriides.

The existence of God is involved in his essence ; otherwise of
the existence of any finite creature, which may be considered as
an accident in the logical sense (cc. 57, 58).

God coexists with the creation as its cause in actu, not as a
cause in potentia, which precedes the effect in time.*

Perfect intellect forms no conception of good and evil, only of
true and false. Such was the first state of Adam. Good and
evil belong to the region of probable opinion (c. 2).

Dr. Joel also calls attention to Maimonides' reflections on
final causes as being fitted to prepare the way for Spinoza's
entire rejection of theni.f

3. Don Chasdai Creskas.

Chasdai Creskas (of Barcelona,^, circ. 1400) broke with the
Peripatetic tradition to strike out an independent line of his
own. Several of the most characteristic points of Spinoza's
philosophy — some already well developed — are found in his Or
Adonai (1410).

He censures as fallacious the notion of infinite extension being
made up of measurable parts (SpinOza, Eth. i. 15, schol., Ep. 29) :
he also holds matter to be eternal, the act of creation consisting
only in the ordering of it ; and maintains that the material world,
being (as known by revelation ?) good in its kind, partakes of
the Divine nature. The contrast of this with the Cartesian
theory of substances distinct in genere probably had something
to do with Spinoza's conception of extension as an attribute
co-equal with thought.

Again, the perfection of God consists not in knowledge, as the
Aristotelians say, but in love. This love is what determines
God to creation as a necessity of his nature, and nevertheless
an act of will. Love being the chief attribute of God, the perfec-
tion of any creature depends on the extent to which it shares in
this : thus the love of God (for its own sake, not as a means of
salvation) is the chief end of man. Here we get some light on
the fifth book of the Ethics of Spinoza, which has always seemed

*Cap. 69. One may be allowed to note (though not here relevant)
Maimonides' answer to the standing question why the world, if created in
time, was created at one time rather than another. He says it is just like
asking why there exists a certain number, neither more nor less, of

individuals of any kind — e.g., the fixed stars.

t Zur Genesis der Lekre Spinoza's (in Beitrage

zur Gesch. d. Philos.)

Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza. 201

to me the most obscure part of his philosophy both in itself and
in relation to the rest. Perhaps Orientalists may have yet more
to tell us on this head.

Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is Chasdai's thorough de-.
terminism. He explicitly denies that any event, whether
depending on human choice or not, can "be called possible or
contingent in an absolute sense. It is inconceivable, he says,
" that two men, being themselves of like temper and character,
and having before them like objects of choice in like circum-
stances, should choose differently". Volitions are determined by
motives as much as anything else in nature is determined. An
act of free will is free in so far as it is not compelled, but neces-
sary in so far as it is not uncaused. Reward and punishment
are themselves parts of the necessary order of things, attached
however by Providence, for reasons of policy, to those actions
which are free in the popular sense — that is, which are deter-
mined by a state of mind involving the love of God or its
contrary. The argument on this topic seems to be fully worked
out, and to deal with most of the points that have been made in.
later controversy on the subject. Chasdai holds fast, it must be
remembered, to the idea of designed order in the universe, though
final causes in the ordinary sense are as it were swallowed up
in the absolute, self-sufficient necessity by which God's love
manifests itself. Thus he cannot be regarded as a forerunner of
Spinoza's system ; Spinoza took the suggestions in detail and
worked them into a systematic connexion of his own, which
would probably have found little favour in Chasdai's eyes.

As to Descartes, Spinoza's philosophical relation to him has
been so amply discussed that there is no occasion to dwell on it.
I doubt, however, whether justice has been done to the scientific
side of it. A clear grasp of physical conceptions and a careful
avoidance of mistakes in physical science are prominent in Spin-
oza's work. That the spirit of exact science must go before the spirit
of philosophy, if philosophy is to be more than a plaything, was a
precept which Spinoza might learn from Descartes, and from him
alone. I must add nevertheless that I do not agree with those
(including Dr. Joel) who hold that Spinoza was at any time a
Cartesian. All the evidence we have goes to show that such a
time, if any, must have been exceedingly short. The early
Essay on God and Man is little, if at all, more Cartesian
than the Ethics in its general principles, though doubtless much
more Cartesian in detail. The account of the passions follows
pretty closely Descartes' Traite des Passions : yet the differences
are already important. Of Descartes' elaborate physiological
explanations there is not a word, an omission which we may

202 Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza.

fairly interpret by the light of Spinoza's later criticism.
Descartes asserts that all the passions are in themselves good,
and only their excess is harmful ; sorrow has its place no less
than joy, and is even " en quelque fac^on premiere et plus
necessaire ". Spinoza denies it even more sharply than in the
Ethics, rejecting hope, fear, and all passions derived from them,
as unworthy of a wise man's life.

As to the Principles of Cartesian Philosophy, I can see no
sufficient reason for doubting Spinoza's own account of the
circumstances under which that work was produced. He was
unquestionably not a Cartesian when it was put into shape for
publication; and if we may trust his own words, he was not so at
the time of giving the private lessons that were the foundation of
it (Ep. 9). In short, at the most important time of his growth
Spinoza necessarily breathed a Cartesian atmosphere, just as a
century and a half later he would have breathed a Kantian
atmosphere : but it is a long way from this to making out a case
of subordination or even of direct descent.

When everything has been said about the sources of Spinoza's
philosophy, or rather of the several elements combined in it, the
whole remains as much his own as ever. Nothing more strongly
shows its individuality than the extreme difficulty of making it
fit into any of the usual classifications. It has been called by every
possible name, but the more one considers it, the more it refuses
to be put into any of the pigeon-holes labelled with words in ism.
Every name is found to halt somewhere in the application except
those which are too vague to convey any real information. There
is no pleasure and small profit in discussing the various attempts
of critics to rnete Spinoza with their various little measures. It
is simpler to give the reader an earnest warning once for all not
to take upon trust any statement, especially any hostile state-
ment, of Spinoza's doctrines. The use of good expositions is to
send one to the text ; and this is eminently the case with
Spinoza. I know of hardly any philosopher since Plato who
loses so much in being reported at second-hand.*

The reader of the Ethics is startled almost at the threshold —

* The best general account is Kuno Fischer's. Of distinctly adverse
critiques the best I know is Saisset's ; for M. Paul Janet's excellent
papers on Spinozism can hardly be classed under that head, though
his philosophy is widely different from Spinoza's. One or two which have
lately appeared in sectarian journals in this country are beneath serious
notice. John Howe's Living Temple (1702) deserves remark as containing the
first English polemic against Spinoza. The argument never gets beyond
the definitions of substance and attribute. Howe shows no sign of really-
understanding Spinoza, and I suspect that he had not read more than the
first Part of the Ethics.

Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza. 203

many I believe are deterred — by the theory of the Attributes.
This, if it is nothing else, is one of the most brilliant tours de force
ever achieved in metaphysics. Looking at the matter in a purely
scientific spirit, I suppose we must not approve tours deforce on
any terms. Yet it is impossible to refrain from admiring a
flight of speculation which is guided in the very height of its
daring by the finest possible sense of the dangers to be escaped
on either hand. In the light of more recent controversies one is
almost tempted to call it a prophetic tact. Those who maintain
that the methods of scientific inquiry, if good for anything, are
good for the whole field of human knowledge, have ever been
assailed by the cuckoo cry of materialism. They are charged
(in almost every case most unjustly) with seeking to reduce all
being to that which can be touched and tasted arid handled.
Spinoza soars at one stroke to a height where this cackling is
inaudible. The material world, or to speak with Spinoza, the
world perceived under the attribute of extension, is complete in
itself ; the laws of matter and motion are our sole and sufficient
guides to the understanding of it. But this is not the whole
world. Extension is only co-ordinate with thought and with
infinite other aspects under which existence may present itself
to other intelligences than ours. Extension is not after the
other attributes, but it is not before them. The universe in its
conceivable though not imaginable fullness is infinitely beyond
any sensible world. Whatever else Spinoza's system may be, it
is not materialism or naturalism. We know, again, how many
flying from the Charybdis of materialism have been wrecked on
the Scylla of idealism. They have sought to bring the unruly
world of things into subjection by making it out a mere creature
of thought. They have turned the realities of common life into
a phantom show deceiving the self that brought them forth.
But a sure Nemesis awaits all such attempts to spurn the condi-
tions of existence : the self thus made the measure of all things
has at last no assurance of its own reality. The cure prescribed
for materialism turns out to be the heroic remedy of absolute
scepticism, and from this worst fate of all a fresh escape has to be
sought in some violent assumption. A very few bold and honest
speculators, such as Fichte, make their assumption openly, but
as a rule it is more or less elaborately disguised. Spinoza saw
the net spread for the tribe of modern idealists, and he would
have nothing to do with a phantom universe. Extension is as
real as thought, or rather they are one and the same reality. I
am real in exactly the same sense that the world I live in is
real, and we are each other's sureties, if the expression may be
allowed, that the whole thing is not one vast illusion. It is
needless to say however that this language is not Spinoza's ;

204 Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza.

the questions it suggests are nowhere explicitly discussed by
him. For my own part I do not think any theory of perception
can be satisfactory which treats man as a mere individual. I
believe that a human being's assurance of the reality of things
outside him is inseparably connected with his assurance of the
reality of other people, and I half suspect that the latter really
comes first. Some social feelings are probably inherited, and
social feelings involve the belief that your fellow is as real as
yourself. But to dwell on this would take us much too far from
Spinoza.

The question remains, and is a fair one, whether Spinoza's
metaphysic, though it steers clear of subjective idealism as well
as of materialism, is not in some sense idealist after all. The
infinite attributes — which are of no practical use, as our know-
ledge is limited to those of extension and thought — seem at first
sight designed to avoid such a result. The ideal or psychical order
of the universe is merely one of infinite orders, all strictly homolo-
gous with one another and with the ideal order, while differing
in kind. So in plane geometry we may conceive figures similar
and similarly situated to those we are dealing with to be re-
peated in an infinite number of planes other than the plane of
the paper. But the descent from this conception to our finite
experience is not made out. I do not mean only that no reason
is given why finite things should exist at all, why there
should be variety among them, why they should be as they are
and not otherwise, and the like. That class of questions may
well be put aside, and Spinoza did expressly put them aside, as
being irrational (Ep. 72), and accordingly divers ingenious per-
sons have first assumed that Spinoza meant to answer such
questions, and have then proved, much to their own satisfac-
tion, that he did not succeed in answering them. But the
relation of thought to the other attributes remains obscure.
Man is an extended and thinking being, and nothing else.
How does Spinoza account for his being nothing else? What
becomes of the infinite modes of other attributes correspond-
ing to the mode of extension which is the human body ?
Spinoza seems to say that each of these has a finite mind
to itself : and that besides all these there is an idea or
mode of thought* not in any finite mind (in infinito Dei in-
tellects) which in some way more eminently corresponds with
all the homologous modes of the other attributes.! This leads

* Idea in Spinoza's usage=mode of the Attribute cogitatio, not necessarily
in a human or conscious mind. It would include Prof. Clifford's " elemen-
tary feeling " or " piece of mind-stuff ".

t Correspondence between Tschirnhausen and Spinoza (Ep. 67, 68).
Ifp'noza's answer is only a fragment, and I must confess that after repeated

Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza. 205

us into regions where articulate speech becomes impossible, and
we can only manipulate symbols of imaginary quantities. Mean-
while the definition of Attribute is itself idealist in its language :
" Per attributum intelligo^ quod intellectus de substantia percipit
tanquam eiusdem essentiam constituens ". This seems to cut
the ground from under the equality of the Attributes ; and if
they are not equal, their infinity will hardly serve its pur-
pose. Now the insoluble puzzles we have just glanced at
arise wholly from the infinity of the attributes — in other
words from the attempt to make the world of experience carry
the burden of worlds beyond experience. The real working
parts of Spinoza's system, which are naturally concerned only
with the world we do know, remain substantially unimpaired
when these brilliant but dangerous ornaments are given up. The
conception of Substance and Attribute taken not merely from the
definitions, but as we find it worked out in the second and third
parts of the Ethics, leads to such a view of the relations of mind
and matter as is now called Monism ; and herein Spinoza's posi-
tion is at least compatible with an idealist Monism such as my
friend Professor Clifford has lately advocated. Some such conclu-
sion, I believe, is that to which philosophy and science are now
converging. The dualism of matter and mind is becoming not only
inadequate but unthinkable. Mr. Lewes, Mr. Spencer, Professor
Huxley — yea, the new Oxford school of Hegelians, though in a
speech hard to understand — are all telling us the same story in
their different ways. The greater part of what is denounced as
" scientific materialism" is only very good Monism. If any one
expects to build up a soul out of soulless atoms, it is not Prof.
Tyndall or Prof. Huxley. The life-potent atom of the Belfast
address is not a piece of the old material substance of the
schools. It is rather a monad instinct with its share, however
lowly, of mind, soul, spirit, or whatsoever name may be given to
that very certain reality which finds its highest known mani-
festation in the consciousness of civilised man. We can now
less than ever admit a break in nature in either the material or
the mental aspect of life : neither can we stop even at the old
break between the organised and the unorganised world. It will
one day be understood that Mr. Darwin has made materialism
impossible. The people who still cry materialism may perhaps
not find scientific idealism much more to their taste : but that is
another matter.

Let us turn to Spinoza, and we shall find that the
very keystone of his psychology is this principle of con-
consideration I do not fully understand it. I doubt whether Spinoza was
quite satisfied with it himself. See Ep. 72.

15

206 Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza.

tinuity, apprehended with a firmness of mental grasp, and
carried out to its results with a thoroughness and clearness
which have been surpassed by no modern writer. The distinc-
tion between mental and material phenomena, which forces
itself upon man as soon as he begins to think at all, leads him
to conceive of mind and matter — the regions of inner and outer
experience — as two distinct worlds set over against one another
and separated by a great gulf. The philosophers of all ages
have busied themselves with attempts to bridge this gulf, which
have all failed. We are delivered from floundering in pathless
contradictions, and consequent invocations of some deus ex
machina, only when we perceive that the gulf itself is the
creature of our own thought. The question put in the dualist
form — How does Mind act upon Matter ? — is irrational and in-
soluble. The Cartesians and afterwards Leibnitz, perceiving this
but clinging to the notion of mind and matter as distinct
entities, were led to the devices of Occasional Causes and
Pre-established Harmony.* Spinoza, for his part, rejects the two
entities. The distinction between the physical and the mental
order of phenomena is made sharper than ever : no link in the
one series can be a link in the other, so that to speak of will, for
instance, as possibly a form of energy is to put words together
without meaning : but this is just because the two series are the
diverse expressions of one and the same reality. If the rough
comparison of the clock may pass muster at all, we must speak
not of two clocks, but of one clock with two faces.-)- It will be
observed that Spinoza does not assume an unknowable reality
behind the manifestations. I think he would have said, agree-
ing herein with Berkeley, Terrier, and idealists generally, that
unknowable reality (that is, unknowable absolutely, not merely to
us) is a contradiction in terms. Now I am far from saying that
Monism, in Spinoza's or any other form, is demonstrated. It
seems very doubtful whether any proposition about the relations
of mind and matter is capable of demonstration. We may be
satisfied if we get a conception which is consistent in itself, in-
volves the least possible amount of assumption about the ulti-

* The doctrine of occasional causes is not in Descartes himself : he seems
to have formed no distinct theory. Leibnitz's simile of the two clocks is also
found in Cartesian writings. See the quotation from the editor of Geulincx's
posthumous Ethics in Bouillier's Hist, de la Philos. Cart&ienne, I. 305
(3d ed).

t For the fuller setting forth of all this see Mr. G. H. Lewes's last volume
of Problems of Life and Mind. Compare also Dr. S. E. Lowenhardt's
Benedictus von Spinoza in seinetn Verlialtniss zur Philosophie und Natur-
forschung der neueren Zeit, Berlin, 1872 — where the harmony of Spinoza's
doctrines, especially on this point, with modern science, is discussed with
much vigour and ability.

Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza. 207

mate nature of things, and above all conforms to the scientific
postulate of continuity. Prof. Tyndall has observed (Fortn. Rev.,
Nov. 1877, p. 607) : " It is no explanation to say that the objec-
tive and subjective effects are two sides of one and the same
phenomenon". If I may say so without presumption, I entirely
agree. It is not an explanation, but a statement which puts us
on our guard against fallacious shows of explanation and helps
us to see that no real explanation is possible, or that the
further question (to take it in Prof. Tyndall's form) : " Why
should the phenomenon have two sides ? " is in its nature un-
answerable. The point of the monistic hypothesis, it must be
repeated, is that the two-sidedness does not emerge abruptly in
the consciousness of vertebrate animals or at any other point in
the scale of organic nature, but runs through all phenomena
whatever. The water that "runs into frost-ferns upon a window-
pane " certainly does not think. It is fairly certain that it does
not in the popular sense feel. But that it does not in some
sense feel appears to me a very rash assertion indeed, and
savouring of a dogged and desperate materialism. And it is of
no possible scientific use. The monistic conception may at least
serve to keep the provinces of physics and metaphysics distinct,
and (if I may repeat an expression I have used elsewhere) to save
metaphysics from degenerating into bad physics. And it has a
real practical value in teaching us what to expect and what not
to expect from physiology. It shows us the importance of
observing vital phenomena from the physical side, while it
guards us against materialism. This did not escape Spinoza,
who says — after asserting the exact correspondence of body and
mind, as representing a substantial identity* — " Hence we
understand, not only that the mind of man is united to the body,
but what is to be understood by this union : yet the same
cannot be understood adequately or distinctly without first
having an adequate knowledge of the nature of our body : "
and he goes on to state, briefly but unmistakeably, that every-
thing has a share of life, and that the degree of life depends on —
or rather is — the degree of organisation, f The power of the
psychological method thus obtained is shown by the ease with
which, a few propositions later, Spinoza anticipates the modern
doctrine of Association, and that on its physiological side.J:

Even more remarkable is the theory of Desire in the third
part of the Ethics, and the treatment of the Passions founded

* Mind and body are "unumetidemindividuum, quod jam sub cogitationis,
jam sub extensionis attributo concipitur". Eth. ii. 21, schol.
t Eth. ii. 13, schol.
j Propp. 17, 18.

208 Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza.

upon it. For the scientific worth of Spinoza's results it is
enough to quote the testimony of Johannes Miiller : — " With
regard to the relations of the passions to one another, apart
from their physiological conditions, it is impossible to give any
better account than that which Spinoza has laid down with
unsurpassed mastery. In the following statement I shall there-
fore confine myself to giving the propositions of Spinoza on that
subject."* And this he does accordingly, without further
criticism or comment.

Spinoza reduces the passions to the elements of pleasure, pain,
and desire. Pleasure is defined as the passage from less to greater,
pain as the passage from greater to less perfection. This is
singularly like the account of pleasure and pain lately given by
Mr. H. Spencer on biological grounds — namely, that pleasure is
originally correlated to actions beneficial to the organism, pain
to those which are injurious to it. Desire does not mean for
Spinoza a desire of pleasant things as such. All living things,
whether conscious or not, have appetite — a physical impulse
determined by the universal tendency or effort, as Spinoza calls it,
towards self-preservation. Desire is conscious appetite, and as
such is prior to the voluntary pursuit of pleasant things as
pleasant. Pleasure and desire are related not as cause and
effect, but as effects of a common set of causes or functions of
the same conditions. This appears to me truer, deeper, and
more fruitful, than the current modern notion that desire con-
sists in the conscious pursuit of something already deemed to
be pleasant. Spinoza's conception is also far more consonant
with what science has now taught us to think of the history of
life on the earth. The self -preserving effort of all things — "conatus
quo ^unaquaeque res in suo esse perseverare conatur " — does not
seem, as it stands in the Ethics, to be sufficiently connected with
the living world. There is a gap left open between the idea and
the facts. But the wonder is that Spinoza left it open exactly at
the right place. He could not have filled it in adequately with
the materials he had, and he had the wisdom to let it wait. The
theory of Evolution has now supplied the moving force that was
wanting. The impulse, older by countless ages than conscious
desire, older even than anything to which we grant the name of
life—

" The will to live, the competence to be,"

this is now in the sight of all men, even as it was for Spinoza's
keener vision, the root of all action and of all that makes the
world alive. If Spinoza had not the advantages of modern
supporters of evolution, he was free from some of their tempta-

* Miiller, Physiol. des Menschen, vol. ii., p. 543.

Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza. 209

tions. He never hypostatises the universal conatus, as some
have done in our own day, into a sort of unconscious Providence,
nor does he fall into a confused nature-worship. Still less
does he discover in all the workings of the world the vast plot
of a blindly- cunning power to deceive every creature into
keeping up the supreme evil of life. For him the universe
and the natural order of things are in themselves neither
good nor bad, those terms having no meaning except in relation
to the welfare of some individual or kind.

True to the principle of continuity, Spinoza does not hesitate
to carry this same conception into the field of moral action.
Here as elsewhere the self-preserving conatus is the ultimate
fact of life. " The foundation of virtue is no other than the
effort to maintain one's own being, and man's happiness consists
in the power of so doing."* But this does not lead — as might
be supposed, and is now and then supposed by persons who have
not read Spinoza to the end —to a system of selfishness or even
of rational egoism. For Spinoza treats morality from a com-
pletely social point of view, as the business not of the individual
simply, but of the individual living in a society in whose welfare
he must find his own. He does not stop to prove that it is for
the interest of the individual to promote the common weal ; he
simply appeals, in effect though not in express terms, to the fact
of experience that man is a social animal. " Homini nihil
homine utilius." In this frank assumption of the essentially
social character of morality he is at one with the Stoics.

Throughout his ethical doctrine, indeed, the parallel with the
Stoics is of the most striking kind. The Stoic principle of " fol-
lowing nature " as explained by the Stoics themselves, is really
identical with Spinoza's "suum esse conservare". In both systems
we start from the position that as a matter of fact man's nature
is social : and then the application of the general principle to
man as a social animal leads to the conception of morality and
virtue as aiming at the welfare of the community before that of
the individual. The reasonable man (" qui ex ductu rationis
vivit," and, by a still more singular coincidence with Stoic speech,
" homo liber") must seek his own weal in the common weal. In
both systems again, all men, good and bad, fulfil in some way the
universal and necessary order, being themselves part of it ; but
the righteous man fulfils it with willing consciousness, thus
doing a service which is perfect freedom, and therein finds his
sure and sufficient reward. Can all this be coincidence ? At
first sight it is hard to think so ; but on the whole I do so
think, for the very reason that the resemblances go so deep

* Eth. iv. 18 schol.

210 Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza.

down. They are not of the kind that would result from a
second-hand acquaintance with Stoicism, such as might be got,
for instance, through Cicero. If it were so, one would find Stoic
forms and phrases, or at least reminiscences of them. But
Spinoza's language is all his own. And an acquaintance at first
hand is very unlikely. Of Plato or Aristotle, at least, Spinoza
must have known very little to speak of them as he does, putting
them aside as mere fathers of scholastic figments, not to be
listened to by reasonable people (Ep. 60, ad fin.). And there is no
reason to suppose that he thought later Greek philosophy more
worthy of attention. "We have, moreover, his own statement
that his knowledge of Greek was imperfect.

In his estimate of the extent to which the conditions of happi-
ness are under man's control, Spinoza goes a good way with the
Stoics, and with them also he qualifies the practical effect of this
estimate by saying that the life of wisdom, though possible, is so
hard that very few find it. There is, however, nothing to corres-
pond to the famous paradoxes. These were simply unflinching
deductions from the teleological optimism which was a funda-
mental principle of the Stoic system but has no part in Spinoza's.
Epictetus would preach to a man with a toothache that toothache
is not really an evil, but is to be accepted as a necessary part of
an order whicli is absolutely good. Spinoza would say that the
facts constituting a toothache are, in themselves, as part of the
order of nature, neither good nor bad ; but he would not dispute
that they are bad for the organism in which they happen. Still
the Stoics had got the root of the matter in seeing that it was
absurd to complain of the universe for giving one a toothache.
Man has no rights against the universe — and owes it no duties.
It may be objected that Stoicism even with nature- worship is
Hard enough, but Stoicism without nature-worship would be
intolerable. This however is to mix up philosophy and poetry.
No doubt it is undesirable to think and speak scientifically at
all times, just as society would become impossible if every man
always stood on his strict rights. The popular and poetic
language which admires, exalts, or even adores the order of nature
is fit and laudable in its place. But the prosaic reason of the
facts behind it is that, being born into an order of things we did
not make and cannot unmake, we have to conform to it at our
peril ; which being so, the only rational thing to do (as M.
Renan somewhere says) is to make the best of the necessity and
be wise with a good grace. And on this ground there is no fear
that the poets and prophets will ever cease to be welcome.

It is not in the cosmical but in the social order that we must
look for the full harmony of reason and feeling, the reconcilia-
tion of science and poetry. In the common weal of our fellow-

Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza. 211

men, and in that alone, can we find a true and sufficient law of
life, proposing an unlimited field of labour for the reason, and
an unlimited scope for the best affections of our nature. Im-
pelled by the sympathies laid up within us by the thoughts and
deeds of the past, and guided by the ever ripening wisdom de-
livered from generation to generation, it is for man to seek his
inheritance in fulfilling that law, and therewith to be content.
If any think they are assured of something more, we grudge
them not their hopes. But let them not force their promises
upon us, nor forbid men to love one another without first loving
some inscrutable ideal. Let them not disparage the plain
grounds and sanctions of human morality to exalt the virtues of
their supernatural remedies for our ills. Eighteousness and
goodwill among men are too precious to be the monopoly of any
sect or persuasion ; they will not be tied down to an assent, real
or nominal, to speculative propositions. Speculation is doubtful
and divided ; experience, continuous, certain and fruitful. Mor-
ality, being founded on experience, can be in no real danger
from speculation. To cry down speculation in the interest of
morality is the act, if sincere, of a shallow and fickle mind to
which the foundations of morals are but casual and arbitrary
ordinances. If insincere, I know of only one name by which
honest men may call it.

FKEDERICK POLLOCK.

NOTE. — A very brief indication of modern authorities on Spinoza (besides
those already cited in the course of the foregoing paper) may perhaps be
useful.

The biography prefixed to the last edition of Auerbach's translation of
Spinoza's works (Stuttgart, 1871), together with the preface, contains either
explicitly or by reference almost everything necessary to be known. The
translation itself is scrupulously exact, and may be consulted with great
advantage. The version of the recently discovered works is by Professor
Schaarschmidt, of Bonn, and as to the Tractatulus de Deo et Homine probably
represents a better recension of the original text than has yet been published.

Dr. A. Van der Linde's Benedictus Spinoza : Bibliografie (The Hague,
1871) gives a classified catalogue, as exhaustive as human industry can
make it, of everything published of and concerning Spinoza down to the
date. (The same author's earlier book on Spinoza, Gottingen 1862, con-
tains the curious and formerly little known history of the Spinozistic
heresies which sprang up in the Reformed Church of Holland in the 18th
century.)

The second edition of Dr. J. van Vloten's book (Baruch d'Espinoza zijn
leven en schriften ; in 2d ed. the title is changed to Benedictus de Sp. naar
leven en werken) appeared in the same year. There is unfortunately no
translation of it. It is the best if not the only comprehensive account
of Spinoza's life and philosophy yet produced in a literary and untechnical
form. Dr. Van Vloten's chief weakness, in my opinion, is one which he
has in common with Dr. Lowenhardt, whose book has already been men-
tioned. He tries now and then to be more Spinozist than Spinoza
himself, or rather to make Spinoza so.

212 The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms.

Dr. Hugo Ginsberg has brought out a new edition of the Ethics and
Letters with useful prolegomena (Leipzig, 1875-6 : see Mr. A. B. Lee's notice
in MIND, No. VI., p. 273).

A recent and very full monograph on the philosophy is Theodor
Camerer's Die Lehre Spinoza's, Stuttgart, 1877. I have been able as yet to
make only a slight examination of this. The criticism is minute and in-
genious ; so minute that a reader not already familiar with Spinoza would
be in some danger of not seeing the wood for the trees, and so ingenious as
rather to exceed the bounds of profitable discussion. Herr Camerer seems
to have a predilection for difficulties, and to choose the more involved and
troublesome view of Spinoza's meaning wherever there is any choice. In
at least one place (Etli. ii. prop. 21) he forces upon Spinoza, in my opinion,
a difficulty which Spinoza was especially careful to avoid. As to the
general interpretation of the system he seems to stand at the opposite ex-
treme to Dr. Van Vloten.

The bicentenary commemoration at the Hague has given rise to a good
deal of occasional and controversial literature, much of it bearing only re-
motely on Spinoza and his doctrines. One ultramontane journal devoted
several articles to violent abuse not only of M. Renaii — to whom it denied
even the merit of a commonplace sophist — but of his style, which it dis-
covered, much to its own satisfaction, to be " flasque et enerve". Dr. H. J.
Betz's little book (Levensschets van Baruch de Spinoza, met een Jcort overzicht
van zijn stelsel" The Hague, 1876) may be mentioned as of permanent
value»

IV.— THE OEIGIN AND MEANING OF GEOMETEICAL
AXIOMS. (II.)

MY article on ' The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical
Axioms ' in MIND No. III. was critically examined by Professor
Land in No. V., and I will now try to answer his objections.
We differ substantially on two points. I am of opinion that the
recent mathematical investigations — or, as they have been
called, " metamathematical investigations " * — as to wider
kinds of geometry, have established the following proposi-
tions : —

(1) Kant's proof of the a priori origin of geometrical axioms,
based on the assumption that no other space-relations can be
mentally represented., is insufficient, the assumption being at
variance with fact.

(2) If, in spite of the defective proof, it is still assumed hypo-
thetically that the axioms are really given a priori as laws of
our space-intuitions, two kinds of equivalence of space-mag-
nitudes must be distinguished : (a) Subjective equality given by
the hypothetical transcendental intuition ; (b) Objective eguiva-

* The name has been given by opponents in irony, as suggesting " meta-
physic" ; but as the founders of "Non-Euclidian Geometry" have never
maintained its objective truth, they can very well accept the name.

The, Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms. 213

knee of the real substrata of space-relations, proved by the equa-
lity of physical states or actions, existing or going on in what
appear to us as congruent parts of space. The coincidence of
the second with the first could be proved only by experience ;
and as the second would alone concern us in our scientific or
practical dealings with the objective world, the first, in case of
discrepancy, must be discounted as a false show.

For the rest, it is a misunderstanding on Prof. Land's part if
he thinks I wished to raise any objection to the notion of space
as being for us an a priori and necessary, or (in Kant's sense)
transcendental, form of intuition. I had no such intention.
It is true, my view of the relations between this transcen-
dental form and reality, as I shall set it forth in the third
section of this paper, does not quite coincide with that of
many followers of Kant and Schopenhauer. But space may
very well be a form of intuition in the Kantian sense, and yet
not necessarily involve the axioms. To cite a parallel instance,
it undoubtedly lies in the organisation of our optical apparatus
that everything we see can be seen only as a spacial distribution
of colours. This is the innate form of our visual perceptions.
But it is not in the least thereby predetermined how the colours
we see shall co-exist in space and follow each other in time. And
just so, in my view, the representation of all external objects in
space-relations may be the only possible form in which we can
represent the simultaneous existence of a number of discrete ob-
jects, though there is no necessity that a particular space-percep-
tion should co-exist with or follow upon certain others ; e.g., that
every rectilineal equilateral triangle should have angles of 60°,
whatever the length of the sides. By Kant, indeed, the proof
that space is an a priori form is based essentially on the position
that the axioms are synthetic propositions a priori. But even if
this assertion with the dependent inference is dropt, the space-
representation might still be the necessary a priori form in which
every co-extended manifold is perceived. This is not surrender-
ing any essential feature of the Kantian system. On the con-
trary, the system becomes more consistent and intelligible, if
the proof of the possibility of metaphysic derived from the
evidence of geometrical axioms is seen to break down. Kant
himself, as is well known, limited the scope of metaphysical
science to the geometrical and physical axioms. But the
physical axioms are either of doubtful validity, or they are
mere consequences of the principle of causality, that is to
say, of our intellectual impulse to view everything that hap-
pens as conforming to law and thus as conceivable. And
as Kant's Kritik is otherwise hostile to all metaphysical
reasoning, his system seems to be freed from inconsistency,

214 The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms.

and a clearer notion of the nature of intuition is obtained, if
the a priori origin of the axioms is abandoned, and geometry
is regarded as the first and most perfect of the natural sciences.
I pass accordingly to the proof of the two theses enunciated
above.

Kant's proof of the a priori origin of the geometrical axioms
is based on the assertion that it is impossible to form a mental
representation of space-relations at variance with Euclid's geome-
try. But the "metamathematical" investigations passed under
review in my former paper have shown that it is quite possible
to devise and consistently work out systems of geometry that
differ from Euclid's both in the number of space-dimensions and
in their axioms, with their related systems of mechanics. I
myself have tried to show what would be the sensible appear-
ance of objects in spherical or in pseudospherical space. The
mathematical correctness of those geometrical deductions (carried
out for the most part analytically) is, as far as I can see, beyond
question, and the like may be said as to the perfect validity of
the corresponding systems of mechanics, which afford the same
degree of free mobility for solid bodies, and the same independ-
ence of mechanical and physical processes on mere position, that
are presupposed in the Euclidian geometry. Nor is there the
least difficulty or uncertainty as to the nature of the space-
perceptions that human beings would have in such other cir-
cumstances. In particular, Beltrami's discovery of the way
of representing pseudospherical space in a sphere of Eucli-
dian space shows directly what would be the appearance of
optical images in pseudospherical or spherical space. Every
optical image of objects at rest as seen by a spectator at rest
would, in fact, be exactly the same as that of the corresponding
representation in Beltrami's sphere as seen from the. centre
(supposing always that the distance of the two eyes may be
neglected in comparison with the imaginary radius-of-curvature
of the space). There would be a difference only in the order of
succession of the image?, according as the observer or the solid
objects moved. Nothing would be changed but the rule for
inferring what images would succeed others in case of movement.
And, as I have maintained, such differences are not necessarily
considerable, nor need they excite attention. Men lived for a
long time on what they thought was the flat earth, before they
discovered its spherical form, and they struggled long enough
against this truth, just as our Kantians at the present day will
not listen to the possibility of representing pseudospherical
space. The discrepancies in pseudospherical space would be of

The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms. 215

a somewhat similar kind, and not necessarily more striking (if
the measure-of-curvature tallied) than are those betrayed by the
spherical surface of the earth to an observer whose movements
are limited to a few miles.

In discussing the question whether space-relations can be
imagined in metamathematical spaces, the first thing to settle
is the rule by which we shall judge of the imaginability of
an object that we have never actually seen.

I advanced a definition which was to the effect — that for
this we need the power of fully representing the sense-impres-
sions which the object would excite in us according to the known
laws of our sense-organs under all conceivable conditions of
observation, and by which it would be distinguished from other
similar objects. I am of opinion that this definition contains
stricter and more definite requirements for the possibility of
imagination than any previous one, and, as far as I can see,
Prof. Land does not contend that these requirements cannot be
satisfied for objects in spherical or pseudospherical spaces. At
the same time, the representation of objects that we have often
perceived, or that resemble such in whole or in parts, will neces-
sarily be superior in one respect to the representation of
objects of which this cannot be said, namely, in the swiftness
and ease with which we can imagine beforehand the various
aspects of the objects under different conditions of observation,
or run them over in memory. This ease and swiftness in the
imagination of an object never actually seen, will be wanting just
in proportion as the observer has more rarely perceived and
less carefully apprehended anything like it. Now we have
absolutely never had before us constructions of three dimensions
in spherical or pseudospherical space. The geometer, however,
who has trained himself in the power of representing surfaces
that can be bent without stretching and without change of their
measure-of-curvature, as also the figures that can be drawn upon
them, finds relations in these that are closely analogous to the
relations in those other spaces. The physiologist too who has
studied the combinations of sense-impressions under every pos-
sible variety of conditions, such as never occur in daily experience,
is more practised in representing unusual (but yet strictly deter-
minate) series of sense-impressions than one who has never had
the same training. I may perhaps be pardoned, then, if I do not
see why the fact that I come " fresh from the physiology of
the senses " to epistemological inquiries should be a positive bar
to my dealing with such questions as the one before us.

Since, then, the metamathematical space-relations have never
been actually perceived by us, we are not to expect to have that
power of swift and easy representation of the varying aspects of

216 The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms.

objects in them that can come only from daily experience and
practice. The utmost we can expect is to arrive by slow steps and
careful reflection at a full and consistent representation of the cor-
responding series of sense-impressions. But in point of fact, we
strike upon as great and similar difficulties of representation when
we seek to figure to ourselves the course of a greatly knotted
thread, or a many-sided crystal model, or a complex building
that we have never seen, although the possibility of figuring ail
these is proved by the fact of actual perception.

Unfortunately, Professor Land does not say whether he has any
objection to my definition of imaginative representation, nor does
he himself offer any other, though he several times hints that he
means something different by " imaginability". Thus, at p.
41, he says : " We do not find that they [the non-Euclidians]
succeed in this [making metamathematical spaces imaginable],
unless the notion of imaginability be stretched far beyond what
Kantians and others understand by the word." At the same
place, he asserts that only that which can be connectedly con-
structed in our space can be regarded as " imagined". He adds
at p. 45 : " Non-Euclidians try to make imaginable that which
is not so in the sense required for argumentation in this case".
If by " argumentation" is here meant the discussion of the ques-
tion whether our conviction of the actual validity of Euclid's
axioms in our objective world justifies a conclusion as to their
a priori origin, I am of opinion that my definition of imagin-
ability is the only one that can decide the question. If we
should define thus : " Nothing is to be held as imaginable in
space, of which we cannot actually construct a model with
existing bodies," — all discussion of the question in dispute is, no
doubt, cut short ; but then this imaginability, ascribed by the
definition to Euclid's space alone, affords not the least ground
for deciding whether its origin is to be sought in a law of the
objective world, or in the constitution of our minds. Accord-
ingly, I do not believe that Professor Land means to postulate
this, though his words bear the interpretation. I can only
suppose him to object to my definition of " imaginability " that
it does not include a reference to the apparently spontaneous
readiness with which the various aspects of any common object
are represented when we have sensible experience of some one
of them. But we know that such an association of different
impressions can be acquired and strengthened by frequent repe-
tition ; as, notably, between the sound of a word and its mean-
ing. I therefore do not see that we have the right to consider
this readiness of suggestion as essential to imaginability. The
fact, moreover, that Lobatchewsky, in the way of pure synthesis,
that is to say, by means of actual geometrical constructions,

The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms. 217

worked out a complete system of pseudospherical geometry,
agreeing exactly with the results of analytical inquiry, shows
that such a geometry can be grasped in all its details by the
imagination.

As regards the use of analytical methods in metamathe-
matical inquiries, this is justified by the circumstance that we
have here to do with the representation of an object that has
never been perceived — an object whose notion, or (so to speak)
architectural plan, has first to be developed, to be shown in-
herently consistent, and to be elaborated so far in detail as that
for every particular case it is made clear what the corresponding
sensible suppression would be in the circumstances. Now,
this ideal development of the ground-plan is best attained by the
methods of analytical geometry, securing as these do most effec-
tively universality and completeness of demonstration. No doubt
a manipulation of notions by means of the calculus does not
suffice to prove the existence of the object so treated, but the
process is sufficient to the extent of proving the possibility of a
consistent series of sensible pictures ; whence it follows that the
space-relations actually perceived in a real world by organs
analogous to our own might correspond with a geometry dif-
ferent from Euclid's.

Since then the relations obtaining in metamathematical spaces
of three dimensions satisfy the conditions of imaginability re-
quired by my definition — and more cannot be demanded in the
case of objects never actually perceived — Kant's proof of the
transcendental character of the axioms and their a priori origin
must be pronounced insufficient.

II.

In this second section I will start from the position that Kant's
hypothesis of the transcendental origin of the geometrical axioms
may be correct though not proved, and will consider of what
value this immediate knowledge of the axioms would be in
judging of relations in the objective world. I will also, in
the first instance, adhere to the realistic hypothesis and speak
its language, assuming that our sensible impressions are caused
by things really existing in space and acting upon our senses.
My object in so doing is merely to take advantage of the simple
and intelligible speech of common life and of physical science.
I regard this view of things, however, expressly as hypothetical,
and I mean afterwards to drop the realistic hypothesis in my
third section, when I will repeat my exposition in abstract
language, without any assumption as to the nature of real exist-
ence.

218 The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms.

First of all, we must distinguish between equality or congru-
ence of space-magnitudes as dependent on the assumption of
transcendental intuition, and their equivalence as determined by
measurement with physical instruments.

I call physically equivalent those space-magnitudes in which
under like conditions and within like periods of time like
physical processes take place. The process most commonly
employed, with due precautions, for the determination of phy-
sically equivalent space-magnitudes is the transference of solid
bodies from one to the other, that is to say, measurement with
compass and rule. Otherwise, experience teaches us generally
that all space-magnitudes that have been proved equal by a suffi-
ciently exact method of physical measurement, manifest equiva-
lence under every other kind of physical treatment. Physical
equivalence of two space-magnitudes is thus a perfectly definite
objective attribute of the two, and clearly there is nothing to
hinder us from investigating experientially how physical equi-
valence of one pair of magnitudes is dependent on physical
equivalence of other pairs. This would yield a kind of geometry
which, in distinction from the geometry founded on the sup-
posed transcendental intuition of space, I will for the time being
call physical geometry. This in its procedure would have all the
character of a physical science.

As soon as we have found the proper physical means for
determining whether the distances of any two pairs of points are
equal, we shall also be able to distinguish the case where three
points, a, b, c, lie in a straight line, because then there will exist
no point distinct from b having the same distances as ab and be
from a and c.

We should then be able to seek three points, A, B, (7, equi-
distant from one another as angles of an equilateral triangle, and
upon the rectilineal sides, AB and AC, two other points, I and
c, equidistant from A. Upon this the question would arise
whether the distance bc=Ab=Ac. Euclidian geometry answers,
yes. Spherical geometry would say that be > Ab, when A b < AB;
pseuclospherical geometry would say the opposite. Here then, at
our first steps, we should find we had to settle our axioms.

I have chosen this example because the question is only about
equality or inequality of distance between pairs of points or, in
the case of the three points in one line, about the determinateness
or indeterminateness of their position, and no complex construc-
tion has to be imagined. That the supposed transcendental
knowledge of axioms cannot be brought to a decision in this
case, because it involves the behaviour of physical bodies, is
granted by my opponent.

But my opponent is of opinion that besides this physical

The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms. 219

geometry which takes account of the physical (as well as the
geometrical) properties of bodies, there is also a pure geometry
grounded solely on transcendental intuition — that we have, apart
from experience, a representation of geometrical bodies, surfaces,
lines, that are absolutely rigid and immovable, and yet may stand
in the relation of equality and congruence. I add that we are
bound to claim absolute exactness for this transcendental repre-
sentation of straight lines, equal distances or equal angles ;
otherwise, we could not say whether two straight lines prolonged
to infinity will intersect once only or twice, or whether every
straight line that cuts one of two parallels must also cut the
other lying in the same plane. Now, supposing we had
satisfied ourselves, on stronger grounds than have ever yet been
adduced, that we do possess intuitions of this kind, we should in
fact be in a position to work out a transcendental geometry, and
then insure its physical applicability to the space-relations of
physical bodies, provided it could be determined that the magni-
tudes which appear to us as equal in transcendental intuition
are also to be recognised as physically equal. It is evident,
however, that this question cannot be decided by pure space-
intuition. Perhaps then by experience ? But how ? When
we rely directly on our sense-perceptions, we are very clumsy
in our comparison of lengths or in estimating faint curvatures
of line, and since our ability in both kinds of appreciation in-
creases with practice, it is probable that to a great extent, if not
wholly, it has been acquired by previous training and by the use
of physical means. The retina, in fact, or the hand, is like a
compass that we carry about with us.

There would still remain the application of geometrical reason-
ing, based upon the axioms, whereby we might infer the equality
of two lengths or angles not directly measured. But to be able
to apply the transcendental axioms we must already have estab-
lished the equality of a number of lengths or the straightness of
a number of lines, which could be done again only with the help
of physical instruments ; and we must thus, in reasoning from the
physical equality of some magnitudes to the abstract geometrical
equality of others, employ the very proposition we wish to
prove.

Supposing physical geometry had discovered as laws of nature
a number of universal propositions exactly corresponding with
the transcendental axioms, the most that could be maintained
respecting the assertion that space-magnitudes equal to one
another in transcendental intuition are also physically equiva-
lent, would be that it was an hypothesis that led to no contradic-
tion. But this would not be the only hypothesis that could be
made. The correspondence would also hold if (as I showed in

220 The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms.

my previous article) physical space were taken as the image of
transcendental space in a convex mirror.

That physical geometry and the supposed transcendental
geometry need not be in correspondence, is clear from the
fact that we can represent them as not corresponding. The way
to make apparent the in congruence is implied in my former
exposition. Let us suppose physical measurements in corres-
pondence with a pseudospherical space. The sensible appearance
of such a space, observer and objects both being at rest, would
be the same as if we had before us in Euclidian space Beltrami's
spherical model with the observer at the centre. But with every
change of the observer's position, the centre of the projection-
sphere would necessarily keep pace, and the whole projection
would be dislodged. An observer, therefore, whose space-per-
ceptions and judgments of magnitudes either depended on trans-
cendental intuition or were the result of past experience in the
sense of Euclidian geometry, would have the impression, as he
moved, of seeing all objects changing position in a determinate
way, and expanding or contracting differently according to the
difference of direction. In like manner, though the quantitative
relations are different, we see even in our actual world the
apparent relative position and size of objects vary with the
difference of distance as we move. Now, as a matter of fact, we
are able to judge from the varying visual pictures that the
objects about us do not change their relative position and size, so
long as the perspective transpositions correspond exactly with the
law we have found to hold in all previous experience for objects
at rest ; we are able also, on the other hand, to infer a motion of
the objects whenever there is a departure from this law. And
just so, I, who accept the experiential theory of perception, believe
that any one who could pass from Euclidian into pseudo-
spherical space would at first indeed think he saw apparent
movements, but very soon would learn to accommodate his judg-
ment of space-relations to the new conditions.

I am quite aware, however, that this assumption is one that
is formed by mere analogy from what we otherwise know of
sense-perception, and cannot be experimentally proved. So
let us suppose that the judgment of space-relations could not
possibly become modified in such an observer, from the fact
of its being connected with native forms of space-intuition.
Nevertheless he would quickly discover that the motions he
believed he saw were only apparent motions, because they
would always be reversed when he returned to his first posi-
tion ; or a second observer would be able to declare that
every thing remained at rest while the other changed his
place. Thus scientific inquiry at all events, if not immediate

The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms. 221

perception, would quickly determine what were the physically-
constant space-relations, just as by scientific investigation we
know that the sun stands still and the earth revolves, although
the sensible appearance of the earth standing still and the sun
going round in twenty-four hours remains.

What I have said up to this point would, if I rightly un-
derstand him, be assented to by Prof. Land, for he himself,
following out the example of ( Dr. Mises/ adduces a case of a
similar sort. But then it will follow that the supposed transcen-
dental intuition a priori becomes reduced to an objectively
false show, from which we have to free ourselves and which we
must try to forget, as in the case of the apparent movement of
the sun. There would then be an insuperable contradiction
between spacial equivalence as it appears to the native intuition
and that which is manifested in objective phenomena. Our
whole scientific and practical interest would be centred in the
latter. The transcendental form of intuition would exhibit
physically-equivalent space-relations only in the way that a
map exhibits the surface of the earth — small pieces and strips
correctly, larger pieces of necessity falsely. There would not then
be a question only as to manner of representation, which neces-
sarily implies some modification of the subject represented, but
the relations between the appearance and the reality would be
such that, while there was agreement within certain narrow
limits, the representation would be false on a larger scale. In
Prof. Land's example of dwellers on a spherical surface, he
escapes this conclusion by falling back on Euclidian space of
three dimensions. But in the case of pseudospherical space of
three dimensions, if we wish to figure limited portions of it in
a non-curved space, we must betake ourselves to a non-curved
space of four dimensions, and must in any case one way or the
other transgress the geometry of Euclid.

From these considerations my conclusion is as follows : — If
we really had an innate and indestructible form of space-intui-
tion involving the axioms with it, their objective scientific
application to the phenomenal world would be justified only in
so far as observation and experiment made it manifest that
physical geometry, grounded in experience, could establish
universal propositions agreeing with the axioms. And this
condition coincides with Elemann's postulate, that the measure-
of-curvature of our space must be determined empirically, by
measurement. All measurements as yet have shown no deviation
from zero in the value of this measure-of-curvature. We can
therefore regard the Euclidian geometry as objectively valid
within the limits of our present powers of exact measure-
ment.

16

222 The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms.

III.

The discussion in the second section has been confined to
the objective sphere, and conducted from the realistic point
of view of natural science, whose aim is to comprehend or grasp
conceptually the laws of nature. Towards this end perceptive
knowledge is either only a mere help or, as the case may be, a
false show to be got rid of.

Now Professor Land thinks that in my exposition I confused
the notions of " objectivity" and " reality" ; that when I asserted
that geometrical propositions could be tested and verified by
experience, I assumed without foundation " that empirical know-
ledge is acquired by simple importation or by counterfeit, and
not by peculiar operations of the mind solicited by varied impulses
from an unknown reality" (MiND V., p. 46). If Professor Land
had been acquainted with my different writings upon the
Theory of the Senses, he would have known that I myself
have always been combating the very assumption he would
ascribe to me. I did not refer in my article to the difference
between "objective" and " real,"* because it seemed to me to be
of no importance for the investigation in hand. To justify this
opinion of mine, let us now drop out of sight the hypotheti-
cal element in the realistic view and show that there still
is a perfectly sound meaning in seeking for a physical equi-
valence of space-magnitudes, and in deciding by experience
as to the truth of propositions that correspond in import with
the axioms.

The only assumption we still maintain is that of the law of
causation, to the effect, namely, that all mental states having the
character of perception that come to pass in us do come to pass
according to fixed laws, so that when different perceptions super-
vene we are justified in inferring therefrom a difference of
the real conditions determining them. As regards these con-
ditions— the reality proper that underlies the phenomena —
we know nothing : all opinions we may entertain on the sub-
ject are to be regarded only as more or less probable hypo-
theses. But the assumption is the fundamental law of our
thinking : if we surrender it, we abandon the very notion of
comprehending things at all. I lay stress, then, upon the fact
that no assumptions are made here as to the nature of the con-
ditions under which the mental presentations arise. The hypo-
thesis of subjective idealism is equally admissible with the
realistic view, the language of which we have been employing.

* The German word used by me, and translated "real" in the English,
was " wirklich", i.e., " that which works or acts". " Wirldich" has not the
implication of "independent existence" that " real" has.

The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms. 223

We might assume that all our perceiving is but a dream, only a
thoroughly coherent dream, in which presentation after presenta-
tion is evolved according to strict laws. In this case, the reason
of the appearance of any new mental state having the character
of perception would have to be sought in the fact that certain
other perceptions, joined perhaps with a consciousness of certain
voluntary impulses, had gone before in the dreamer's mind. What
we call laws of nature on the realistic hypothesis would on the
idealistic be laws governing the succession of mental states hav-
ing the character of perception. And here, with reference to the
question treated above in my first section, I will farther observe
that in dreams we fancy ourselves perceiving as well as thinking ;
that is to say, some of our states arise with the constraining
character of perception, others without this as a free play of repre-
sentation (so far as in the waking state this may be called free).
The question, therefore, whether by giving rein to the imagina-
tion we might call forth such a series of representations as would
correspond, in perception, to a pseudospherical space, retains its
full meaning on the idealistic hypothesis.

Now we find, as a fact of consciousness, that we think we
perceive objects occupying determinate positions in space. If an
object appears thus in one particular part of space and not in
another, this must depend on the kind of real conditions that
evoke the presentation. We must conclude that other real con-
ditions might have existed fitted to produce a perception of the
like objects in a different position. In the world of reality
there must be some causes or aggregates of causes determining
at what particular place in space an object shall appear to us.
These I will designate, for shortness, topogenous moments, i.e.,
circumstances determining space-perception. We know nothing
of their nature ; we know only that the occurrence of spaci-
ally different perceptions involves a difference of topogenous
moments. Also there must be different causes in the sphere of
the real, when at the same place we think we perceive sub-
stances with different qualities. I will call these Jiylogenous
moments, i.e., circumstances determining the perception of
material things. New names are chosen in both cases, to avoid
the misleading associations of current expressions.

If now we perceive and affirm anything that involves
space-relations, the real meaning of our words no doubt
is nothing more than that between certain topogenous
moments, the nature of which is unknown to us, a cer-
tain relation holds, whose nature also is unknown. Hence
Schopenhauer and many followers of Kant have been led to
the improper conclusion that there is no real content at all
in our space-perceptions, that space and its relations are purely

224 The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms.

transcendental and have nothing corresponding to them in the
sphere of the real. We are, however, justified in taking our space-
perceptions as signs of certain otherwise unknown relations in
the world of reality, though we may not assume any sort of
similarity between the sign and what is signified. But if only
so much stands fast — that to unlike signs there correspond unlike
objects and to like signs there correspond objects that are like
in a certain relation or complex of relations, although we may
not be able to define it at the time — this will suffice to yield us a
real content. The same holds for space-perceptions as for quali-
ties of sensation. Blue and red are qualities of sensation only ;
nevertheless we are justified in maintaining that a blue surface
is physically different from a red surface. When we observe
that the most diverse physical processes may go on during equal
periods of time in similar fashion at different, but congruent,
parts of space, the real meaning of such a perception is, that
there may be in the sphere of reality equal sequences
and aggregates of hylogenous moments combining with certain
distinct groups of topogenous moments, which latter we then call
physically-equivalent. We may thus discover by observation
what special figures appearing in our perception correspond with
physically-equivalent topogenous moments ; and experience tells
us that they are equivalent for all physical processes.

Now in the case of the equilateral triangle, above, the question
is only about (1) equality or inequality of distances, i.e., physical
equivalence or non-equivalence of the systems of topogenous mo-
ments corresponding with these, and (2) determinateness or indeter-
minateness of the position of a point, -i.e., of its topogenous moments.
These notions of determinateness and equivalence in relation to
particular sequences we can, however, apply also to objects of un-
known character. And I thence infer that the science which I
have called physical geometry consists of propositions of real
content and that its axioms are determined by relations that
hold in the sphere of the real.

Nevertheless, a geometry based on transcendental intuition is
conceivable also. We have only to assume that, without phy-
sical measurement, the intuition of the equality of two space-
magnitudes is developed immediately by the manner of action
of the topogenous moments upon our consciousness, and that the
magnitude of the apparent distance of every pair of points
depends by the same formula on any three functions of the
topogenous moments of each of the points, as the distance in
Euclidian space (according to the Pythagorean proposition)
depends on the three right-angled co-ordinates of each point. If
such a law were given immediately for the perceived distance,
our intuitions of space would necessarily satisfy the axioms of

Philosophy in ^Education. 225

Euclid, however the topogenous moments of the separate points
might be in the sphere of the real ; for the whole of Euclid's
geometry may be developed from that formula for the distance
of two points. But then the question would arise whether the
equality of the perceived distance and the physical equivalence
of the distance depend on the same function of the topogenous
moments or not. That is a question that goes beyond the
province of space-intuition, and can be decided only by physical
investigation. If there is agreement, the fact would have to be
signalised as a law of nature, or, as 1 called it in my former
paper, a pre-established harmony between intuition and the real
world.

Thus I think I have sufficiently proved that the propo-
sitions put forward by me in that paper rest upon no confusion
of the " objective " and the " real ". By way of conclusion I
will bring my results once more together : —

(1) There exists in any case the science that I have called
physical geometry, and its general propositions are products of
experience.

(2) The assumption of a knowledge of axioms by transcen-
dental intuition apart from all experience is (a) an unproved
hypothesis, and (b ) an unnecessary hypothesis, since it explains
nothing in our actual knowledge of the outer world that cannot
equally be explained without its help : also, as regards our
objective knowledge, (c) a wholly irrelevant hypothesis, since
the propositions it includes can be applied to the relations of the
objective world only after their objective validity has first been
independently proved.

The presumed transcendental knowledge of axioms can thus
have at the most an educational value, as helping to a first notion
of space-relations.

H. HELMHOLTZ.

V.— PHILOSOPHY IN" EDUCATION.
I.

How is Philosophy to be taught ? and what is its educational
value ? are questions which by their form suggest answers
•similar to those given to like inquiries regarding the Classics,
Modern Languages, Natural Science, and History. Accordingly
we find our modern compendiums of Philosophy for beginners
treating Philosophy as a system of facts to be learned, and
apparently assuming that these facts have an educational
value similar in kind to that of historical or scientific facts.
And here the modern compendium merely develops in greater

226 Philosophy in Education.

detail a point of view which seems previously to have recom-
mended itself to the experience of the philosophical world. The
lectures of professors of Philosophy have always been attended
by the majority of students in the same spirit as those of the
professors of other subjects. In finding an answer to so prac-
tical a question as How is Philosophy to be taught ? we must
not neglect a consensus of such generality as this ; we must be
prepared to find that to some extent at least Philosophy can be
taught in the same way, and with the same results as a language
or a science. But, while attaching due weight to this general
recognition of the Teacher of Philosophy, we must not allow
ourselves to be carried away by the methodical form of the
modern compendiums. Their form has evidently been consciously
borrowed from the sciences, and must not be taken as evidence
for more than that certain individuals think that Philosophy
can be taught like one of the sciences.

There is, however, another point of view which is supported
by much experience in the philosophical world. According to
it Philosophy is not like a period of history or a language in
which progress is measured by increase in the amount of intel-
lectual associations. It rather resembles good health which is
constitutional ; or at least good taste, which is imperceptibly
acquired by habituation. It partakes more of the nature of
character than of knowledge. This view has its finest expres-
sion in Plato's identification of Philosophy with Sia\€Kri,/cij
and epw? — earnest conversation between sympathetic friends.
A man does not know what he really thinks and feels till he
converses earnestly with his friend. What he really thinks and
feels at such a time, not what he gets passively from a book, is
his philosophy. But this conversation is possible only to men
who have lived long and virtuously in a well-ordered state, and
who have been successful students of the sciences, and have
gained experience of human nature. Hence Philosophy cannot
be taught to youths like geometry, for youths have no expe-
rience of life, and Philosophy is a sort of esoteric experience of
life, which at last enables a man to play an individual part in
the serious conversations of his friends. A man's philosophy
dies with him ; for it is his knowledge of himself, his peculiar
way of testing what he hears by reference to his own experience;
it is the easy movement of his cultivated faculties stimulated by
the presence of his friend. Aristotle too seems to hold that
Philosophy is not a system of knowledge, but a spirit developed
in cultivated society, by which a man knows himself and
achieves his own freedom. In the life of pleasure a man makes
himself a means to the gratification of his desires ; in the life of
ambition, a means to social success. If the sources of pleasure

Philosophy in Education. 227

or tlie objects of ambition be withdrawn, such a man is helpless.
But the /3i09 OewpriTiKos is self-sufficing. In it a man makes his
own true self the object of his thought and desire. And yet
goodness and good sense are the necessary foundations of this
life. Aristotle goes as far as to say that iroX-nncrj is the art or
science of the Summum Bonum. Although on his principles
this statement cannot be taken strictly — there being no art of
such a divine function as VOTJCTIS vorja-ew — yet it is highly sig-
nificant that dewpia is viewed as impossible for man except in
society. Sewpia like SiaXe/crncij is the highest result of the
experience of a long and brilliant life. The nexus of Aristotle's
system is missed, I think, by those who lay stress upon his
occasional comparisons of the human dewprjTitcos with the Divine
Being. The decoprjTLtcos is not a solitary thinker who is engaged
in working out a system of philosophy for himself. He stands in
the closest philosophical relations to his city and his friends.
He [is the man of culture who engages in politics without
making them his trade or his amusement. His political action
has not a self-regarding end — 77801/77 or ripr}, but an ideal end —
evSawovta in which many participate in a brilliant city. In
war such a man is dvSpeios. He meets danger Sta TO KCL\OV —
to preserve and illustrate the brilliant everyday life of his city ;
not to avoid personal disgrace or obtain personal honour. He
is a patriot and no mere duellist. $i\ia is the bond which
unites such men. It is in converse with his friend that a man
learns to know himself.

Philosophy then according to Plato and Aristotle would seem
to be a mental and moral attitude, the result of long experience
rather than any definite body of doctrine which might be directly
taught like a language or a science. But perhaps all this is too
vague at the present day, and requires for its appreciation actual
experience of the conditions of the old Greek political life. The
experience of the present seems to favour another view, for we
have Professors of Philosophy, who teach in much the same way
as professors of other subjects. They teach Formal and Material
Logic, Psychology, Ontology, Ethics, and the History of Philo-
sophy. Can these subjects be taught profitably or at all to
youths ? and if so, how ? Does the study of these subjects by
youths add to their knowledge of facts, or strengthen their
minds as instruments ? Does it correct any mental or moral
bias likely to be contracted from the exclusive study of objective
facts ? Does it under any circumstances lend itself to supersti-
tion ? If, under these heads, we find the various philosophical
subjects, as studied by youths, unsatisfactory, we shall be
obliged to return to the view which we have just left — that
Philosophy is not learned like a language or a science ; to see

228 Philosophy in Education.

if after all we cannot discover in it something applicable to
modern no less than to ancient Greek life.

Let us begin with the History of Philosophy. The success
which in recent times has attended the employment of the
Historical Method in so many fields of inquiry has doubtless
had much to do in making the History of Philosophy popular as
an introduction to philosophical studies. But it perhaps does
not follow, because one who traces the history of a word studies
Philology, that one who reviews the history of an opinion, or
rather has it reviewed for him, studies Philosophy. The fact
indeed seems to be that the educational value of a course of the
History of Philosophy is very small, because the pupil does not
know what it is about. He is invited to study the development
of opinions, before he knows what an opinion is in the philo-
sophical sense. Aristotle's doctrine of the futility of teaching
Moral Philosophy to youths who are yet ignorant of the moral
on is applicable to Philosophy as a whole. The ? History of
Philosophy presents the pupil with a phantasmagoria of views
which he cannot help regarding as severally untrue and unreal.
Thales, he is told, made Water his principle, and Parmenides the
One ; the Eealists said that Universals are real things, and the
Nominalists that they are words ; Clarke's standard is the
Fitness of Things, and Bentham's Utility. Views presented
thus make no impression, but are merely learned by heart, like
the names of chief cities and the rivers on which they stand in
the old-fashioned geography books. Instead of beginning a boy
with the map of the world before he knows what a map really
stands for, we ought, it is now admitted, to begin him with a
map of his own parish, and show him on it the road by which
he walks to school. Now in Philosophy also, if it is to be of
any educational value, we must begin the pupil with his own
parish. We must appeal to his personal knowledge and
interests. That the History of Philosophy owing to its wide
range and necessarily sketchy nature cannot do this is, I think,
evident. From beginning to end in most cases the youth re-
mains in entire ignorance of what his teacher is talking about.
And it is a mistake to suppose that if we make the exposition
simpler the pupil will understand better. The simpler the
History of Philosophy is made, the more abstract it becomes. If
in the course of his History the teacher, from taste or for some
other reason, loiters round about some particular philosopher,
and gives the pupil a view of his concrete personality and cir-
cumstances, there is then some hope ; the pupil may be able to
exercise his dramatic faculty, and in his own little way, re-
present the philosopher in question. But as a rule he is hurried
on from hieroglyphic to hieroglyphic without being put in pos-

Philosophy in Education. 229

session of the key to open their secret. If, as is sometimes the
case, certain of the views thus presented to the beginner manage
to make an impression on his mind, it is a false one. The
beginner in Philosophy has not had the experience necessary to
one who would deal successfully with such a complicated system
as the growth of man's thought on the highest subjects. He
can take in only the simple or abstract. But there are few
subjects which can be presented in an abstract manner without
being entirely changed and falsified. There are few subjects in
which it is possible to neglect all but one or two aspects. Where
we are concerned with the personality of a thinker — for this is
what the History of Philosophy is really concerned with — we
must be able to enter fully into that personality; his ( points of
contact ' with his predecessors and successors, of which we hear
so much in histories of Philosophy, really affect his surface only ;
and to study him with special reference to his l place ' in the
History of Philosophy, is consequently to take an abstract
view of him. It is useful to abstract the phenomena of wealth
from the other sociological phenomena from which they are
never actually separated, and thus construct the abstract science
of political economy ; it is useful to abstract the space-
occupying properties of bodies, and construct the science of
geometry ; but only because wealth and magnitude are pro-
perties which can be clearly perceived in the midst of others.
An epitome of a philosopher's system drawn to exhibit his
' place in the History of Philosophy' is not a property which can
be thus abstracted from his life and writings. These must be
studied in the concrete. They are misrepresented by the
epitome in a way that actual bodies are not misrepresented by
geometry, or trade by political economy ; and tins is the
practical reason against the epitome. And further, the general
objections to an epitome of philosophical views acquire increased
force when we consider that it is intended for the use of those
whose tendency is to exaggerate its abstractness. A boy may be
a mathematician, as the author of the sixth book of the Ethics
remarks, but cannot be a philosopher, because the objects of
mathematics are SS afyaipeaews — abstract or simple, whereas the
principles of philosophy or science, as of good sense, are gained
by lengthened experience. Now the beginner will regard the
views which are presented to him in a history of Philosophy as
being much less complex in their relations than they really are —
much less complex even, than the compiler of the history in-
tended to represent them ; he will treat them as so many separate
abstractions, clearly-cut shapes, from which, if he is ingenious,
he will start to deduce necessary conclusions, as a geometer
starts from his definitions. I have heard of a young Berkeleyan

230 Philosophy in Education.

who apprehended his author's theory of matter in such an
abstract manner as to be able to prove from it the truth of the
doctrine of transubstantiation. He will perhaps construct for
himself a theory of the development of Philosophy — not a dim-
cult task where the organisms arranged are abstractions framed
at will ; and he will thus probably give his mind a twist for life.
He will have become prone to mere assertion, and careless of
matter of fact. On these grounds then I think that to begin the
teaching of Philosophy with a sketch of the History of Philosophy
is a futile, when it is not a mischievous, procedure. The History
of Philosophy is only for ripe students.

Another branch which beginners are often taught is Psycho-
logy or the Science of Mind. This, it may be urged, is good.
If Philosophy has for its purpose to make us thoughtful, to rescue
us from the tradition of phrases, and commonplace immersion
in the mere manifold of sense-experience, then surely it is good
to make the learner think from the first about the powers and
limits of his own mind. This contention is more specious than
sound, for it is made without reference to the way in which
beginners inevitably look at their own minds, as at everything
else — in an abstract way. They acquiesce in striking aspects.
Where, as in geometry, a striking aspect is also an important
property, and separable without distortion, youths are successful.
But they are prone to separate aspects, where this cannot be
done without falsification. In his primer of Psychology the
beginner is probably told that the mind has the three powers
of Thinking, Feeling, and "Willing : he hears a great deal about
Mental Association, Generalisation, and perhaps Judgment,
Eatiocination, and the rest. These terms become to him the
names of sharply defined entities ; his text-book, if a modern
one, of course warns him against the error of so regarding these
terms ; but his experience is not sufficient to enable him to
profit by the warning. He continues to encumber his memory
with a fantastical Ptolemaic-like system of the mind. How
deep and lasting is the impression made by such early-formed
systems of the mind is proved by the nature of the criticisms
which make up all but the best philosophical polemics. These
criticisms one and all fail in taking opponents too literally.
Instead of seeing an intellectual or, it may be, an emotional point
of view in an opponent's statement about conscience, or whatever
it happens to be — instead of taking the statement in connexion
with the man and his life and times, they see only an entity
which has no business to be where it is in the system, and must
be turned out. Like the Stoics ridiculed by Plutarch, such per-
sons make the mind of man into a wooden horse or a zoolo-
gical garden.

Philosophy in Education. 231

But, it may be said, we begin the pupil with a concrete Psycho-
logy— with Comparative Psychology and Physiological Psycho-
logy. H ere he will be engaged from the very first in a real science.
To this it may be answered, why not make him study chemistry,
which is easier than the physiology of the brain and anthro-
pology, if it is your object to make him study a science ? But
let that pass. The fact remains that comparative psychology
and mental physiology are advocated for beginners. The fol-
lowing considerations have convinced me that their tendency is
most unfortunate — that they lay the foundations of a low
scientific morale, inspiring the neglect of stringent canons of
truth. To be other than mischievous, scientific training must
be exact. We cannot entertain as relevant the plea that mental
facts are by nature vague, and that mental science consequently
cannot be expected to come up to the exactness of the objective
sciences. The same plea might with equal justice be urged by
the spiritualist against the scientific man who demands that
spiritualistic phenomena, so-called, shall submit to the same
tests as physical phenomena. If Psychology is a science, it
must realise the character of the other sciences. In the first
place — it cannot claim to be considered an abstract science like
political economy, and screen its inexactness and vagueness by
the plea that its conclusions are ex Tiypofhesi only approximately
true. There is no real parallel between Psychology and Political
Economy. The phenomena with which Psychology has to do
are so inextricably blended together that there is no practical
justification of the attempt to separate one set of them for treat-
ment by itself in vacuo, as there is for the separate treatment of
wealth to the neglect of the other sociological phenomena. By
treating wealth separately, we arrive at valuable practical results.
Eational Psychology — the spirit of which too often animates its
professed opponents — has not been justified by results. It has
not given us any nearly true description or laws of mind.
The ' Laws of Mental Association,' as we have them in our books,
seem to me to reproduce merely in a more specious form the
abstractions of the Eational Psychology of the past. These
latter abstractions, once created, were often left to stand by them-
selves for what they were worth. But the ' Laws of Mental
Association' are systematically employed as principles of psycho-
logical explanation, and have thus become the sources of the
multiplication of abstractions. They are too general, as they at
present stand, to serve as principles in such a concrete inquiry
as that regarding the precise nature and genesis of this or that
mental state. Doubtless each particular mental state has its
laws ; but we do not know them. When Cuvier deduced the
marsupial type from the examination of a fossil jawbone — a

232 Philosophy in Education.

deduction afterwards verified by the discovery of the entire
skeleton — he was enabled to do so because he knew from pre-
vious observation the precise law connecting a particularly-formed
jawbone, with a particular type of skeleton. It would not
have availed him much to know generally that every jawbone
implies an entire skeleton. But this seems to be the amount
of knowledge deemed sufficient by the manipulators of the
' Laws of Mental Association'.

In the second place, Psychology does not realise the type of an
experimental science. An experimental science has to do with
objects which are so definite that there is no danger, with proper
care, of mistaking one for another — with phenomena which
recur exactly as they have before occurred. It demands exact
measurements, giving results which may be expressed mathe-
matically, and thenceforth constitute the principles of a deduc-
tive extension of the science. Take, for example, that branch of
physics of which the spectroscope is the instrument. Here we
have certain lines always recurring exactly as they have before
occurred, which cannot be mistaken one for another, and the
intervals of which can be measured. The identification of an
absorption-line observed in the solar spectrum with a bright
line caused by the flame of a known substance burnt in lamp
depends for its success upon the definiteness of the pheno-
mena, their constancy, and the possibility of exact measurements.
The lines of iron, for example, are very numerous, and are dis-
tributed in complex groups over several parts of the spectrum ;
to detect iron in the sun implies that these lines in their arrange-
ment and distances are constant, and that exact measurements
are possible. Now let us ask regarding mental phenomena — Are
they so definite that there is no danger, with proper care, of
mistaking one for another ? Do they recur exactly as they have
before occurred, like the lines of iron in the spectrum ? Or is
memory, which in Psychology takes the place of natural recur-
rence, of such a character as never to present us with the same
object a second time ? There can be little doubt, I think, as to
the answers to be given to these questions. Psychology is not
a science after the type of spectroscopy.

Bat perhaps Psychology realises the conditions of a compara-
tive science, like biology. What are these conditions ? The
objects must be so definite and constant that not only we shall
not mistake them one for another, but that we shall be able to
detect their minutest properties ; for the classifications required
by biology often depend on the detection of rudimentary organs
of a very minute kind, and exhibit series of organisms and
organs passing into one another by fine gradations. It is the
definiteness of these objects and their constancy under minute

Philosophy in Education. 233

examination which render a science of biology possible. And
moreover they are objects which repay the minutest examination,
for they are ' Natural Kinds/ and their properties are inexhaus-
tible. Had examination sufficiently minute to detect obscure
rudimentary organs been impossible, biology could not have
reached its now leading conception of development, founded as
that conception is upon such discoveries as these — that the
flowers and fruit of plants are modified leaves — that the wing-
cases of beetles are transformed branchiae. Now can Comparative
Psychology satisfy the foregoing conditions ? Are the mental
states which it tries to classify and arrange serially in the order
of development so definite as not to be mistaken one for another?
Is their nature constant ? Do they lend themselves to minute
examination with a view to the detection of rudimentary organs
so essential to a classificatory science such as Psj^chology pro-
fesses to be ? We fear that rudimentary organs are little
known in Comparative Psychology — that it makes much greater
use of what Mr. Darwin calls analogical or adaptive resemblances
— that in short all its cetaceans are fishes. It is easy to see how
precarious must be the thread which guides the comparative
psychologist in tracing a mental state back to its origin. He can
pass from one link to the next only on the strength of some
resemblance — and what if the resemblance be merely 'analogical'?
At some stage or other of his investigation, owing to the nebu-
lous nature of his objects, he is morally certain to be thus drawn
from the path ; and even if he did keep to the path, his success
could not be verified — could not be distinguished from failure.
In one word, Psychology is not a comparative science because
it cannot detect rudimentary organs, its objects not being
' Natural Kinds,' but phenomena which change and vanish under
the attempt to examine them. This, I think, is what must be
said of the scientific claims of Psychology. To begin philosophi-
cal instruction with it is mischievous. The crude admixture of
psychology which finds a place in so many of our elementary books
is of course indefensible as information offered to beginners. They
know nothing of physiology from direct observation, and are
simply demoralised by being made to commit its language to
memory. They create for themselves a mythology of the nerves
— as essentially metaphysical as the mythology of the faculties
against which they are warned ; they learn the too-easy lesson
of accepting mere assertion for discovery, and the loose concate-
nation of ideas for progress in investigation. The proper time
to study Psychology is not before, but after a man has become
acquainted with the facts and methods of some one of the
sciences properly so called, or at least has gained ordinary ex-
perience of the kind of evidence required by practical men of

234 Philosophy in Education.

-culture for alleged facts and events. As it is, however, Mental
Science (we shall speak of Logic afterwards) is the science
with which the majority of educated men — those whose education
has been literary and not properly scientific, or mathematical —
are principally acquainted. They know nothing of chemistry, or
physics, or biology, or other objective science, but they have read
some mental science in early youth. It is the only type of a
science which is present to their minds through life. Such per-
sons cannot fail to have an erroneous conception of the nature
of a science. Many of them accordingly pass easily on to onto-
logical fields, in which all can be proved to the satisfaction of
those who do not know what proof is, and who have never
learned the first lesson of criticism — that the procedure of the
natural sciences is merely a consistent illusion when employed
in a region beyond the limits of possible experience.*

* In a rejoinder to a paper by the present writer in MIND, No. IV., M.
Straszewski, writing in the Revue Philosophique for October 1877, seems to
labour under a slight ignoratio elenchi. The present writer maintained in
that paper that the objects (in the plural) of Psychology — meaning the
various conscious states — are not definite enough, clearly and distinctly
enough perceived, to admit of scientific treatment. But M. Straszewskirs
paper proceeds upon the assumption that the present writer asserted that
the object (in the singular) of Psychology — meaning its ryeVo? or sphere,

consciousness — is not rounded-off . He accordingly is at pains to show that
consciousness is sui generis, and — on the principle, I suppose, of /*«'« ciria-
7rjur) eye? fye'i'ovs— that therefore Psychology is a science. But the proposi-
tion ' Every science has a separate field ' cannot be thus converted simply.
While allowing with M. Straszewski that the field of consciousnesses
separate from all others, and while admitting that if there were a science in
this field it would be virtually an independent one, I hold that there is no
science in this particular field, because the objects or phenomena contained
in it are of a nebulous character. The tides e.g., are sufficiently themselves
to be treated by a distinct science, if we knew enough about them. In
short, M. Straszewski transforms 'Every eTriarrjui) has its 76Vos' into 'Every
fye^os has its cVwrn^Mf*. His article is a fine example of the prevalent
malady of supposing that the words of science have a charm to bring form
out of any matter. Because the methods of the objective sciences are so
successful, we are told that we must also apply them in the explanation of
Mind. This mere recommendation, expanded at length, is the real founda-
tion of the opinion that Psychology is a science ; for Comparative Psychology
after all never gets farther than prolegomena to the effect that the methods
of the organic sciences have effected marvels, and that accordingly we must
compare mental states in the various stages of their development, that we
must deduce results from the Laws of Mental Association, and then verify
them by observation, and so on with the whole vocabulary of the compara-
tive sciences. But this Science of Mind terminates with these prolegomena,
which might equally well serve as prolegomena to any other comparative
science. The few illustrations given of the development of conscious states
as such cannot serve as evidences of the existence of a science of them, because
conscious states as such are not minutely known and definite organisms
which can be serially classified and whose rudimentary characters can be

Philosophy in Education. 235

But still the fact remains that Mental Philosophy has been
and is taught with profit to many. Its scientific aspect must
therefore be a false appearance which it puts on, and its real
nature must be after all what the highest Greek experience felt
it to be. It must be an ^o? and not a body of doctrine. In
order to discover the nature of this rjOos, we have to inquire how
a man may become better otherwise than by increasing his
knowledge of facts, and acquiring technical skill, virtuous habits
and good manners. It is obvious that it is possible to be excel-
lent in all these respects without being thoughtful — without
reflecting upon one's knowledge or habits. It is the function of
philosophical education to encourage this habit of reflection. In
a former paper in this journal I attempted to show that in Eng-
land Locke and his two great successors are chiefly significant
for performing this function ; and all great philosophers are, I
think, significant in this same way. During the iSocratic age
this function was performed with accessories which cannot now
be adequately reproduced. The enthusiasm which made a man
aware of his real thoughts and feelings, and the shame of pre-
tended knowledge exposed, were accessories of the dialogue
which made it the most effective means of awakening reflection.
But before these emotional accompaniments of reflection could
be experienced, the young man must have already acquired the
reflective or philosophical rjOos to a considerable extent. We
have here to inquire how reflection may be aroused in a mere
beginner, in one who is entirely immersed in matter. How
shall we suggest to him that the things which his senses present
are not exhausted by eye and touch — that it is also possible to
think about them ? Especially, how shall we suggest the idea
that moral distinctions have more than a particular significance ?
He accepts as ultimate facts that this neighbour is fond of
money, and that other vain ; that so and so risked his life in

detected. Where Psychology really does good work, as in the hands of
such observers as Weber and Feclmer, it is not concerned with conscious
states viewed in themselves, and in their relations among themselves, but
with those only which can be distinctly connected with bodily stimuli. But
when M. Straszewski brings forward the undoubtedly scientific discoveries
of this Psychophysics as conclusive against my general position, he is un-
faithful to the truth from -which he himself starts, and which he accuses me
of denying, that consciousness is a ^/eVos distinct from the physique, &c.
My position is that Psychophysics is scientific ; but that the prolegomena
which I have mentioned are not prolegomena to it, but are an essentially
metaphysical attempt to extend the methods of the good sciences to a v\ij
(not the sensations of Psychophysics, but the higher conscious states as such)
which is receptive of scientific forms in a sense as illusory, so far as
exact science is concerned, as that in which noumena were receptive of the
Categories of the Understanding in the scholastic metaphysic discredited
by Kant.

236 Philosophy in Education.

attempting to save another's life, and that so and so embezzled
trust-money. He is evidently no moralist. But the beginning
of Moral Philosophy is to frame for ourselves ideal embodiments
of the more striking characters known to us, as we have it done
in the fourth book of Aristotle's Ethics and in Theophrastus —
to dramatise them, to think and feel about them. ' Poetry is
more philosophical than History ' ; philosophical education con-
sists in withdrawing the pupil's mind from the mere particu-
larity of ' history ' or ' personal talk,' to ' poetical ' objects, crea-
tions, works of art. How then is this education to be begun ?
Not, we think, as might at first sight seem proper, by presenting
to the pupil moral creations like Aristotle's for his contem-
plation. He would be sure to treat them not as creations
but as particular men described. As Plato felt, poetry is not
for the vulgar, who receive its myths or creations for facts. The
beginner must first be made aware that it is possible to think
about things which are not directly objects of sensation. This
can be best done, I think, by means of Formal Logic.

In Formal Logic the beginner is introduced to a system of
objects which are not objects of concrete sensation. He begins
to think. It might of course be possible to make him think in
other fields, to withdraw his mind from its immersion in sensible
particulars to the consideration of their constant relations or
laws. But we have seen that youthful thinking is necessarily
abstract; to make the beginner think by instructing him in
the laws of natural phenomena would accordingly be dan-
gerous— he would think by means of notiones tenure abstracted.
Hence the advantage of first stimulating reflection, or with-
drawal from the purely naif objective point of view, by means
of the abstractions of Formal Logic which stand by themselves
and are less likely than other abstractions to falsify the be-
ginner's view afterwards of any class of objects. That a new
epoch is made in the mind of a youth who studies Formal Logic
sufficiently far to become interested in its details is matter of
common observation. Excelling in the study of ra &' a(f>ai-
pecreco?, he has them here in their safest form. The abstractions
of mathematics would not serve our purpose of supplying him
with a gymnastic preparatory to real reflection afterwards on
the manifold of the natural and moral worlds. Mathematical
reflection is too special in its reference. But Formal Logic is a
general gymnastic for the philosophical life. It is a means of
laying the foundations of the habit of occupying the mind with
other objects than those presented to the senses. At the same
time it can easily be cast aside when it has performed its gym-
nastic function. It is a system of abstractions, and as such can
be easily apprehended by the young ; but it is a system of

Philosophy in Education. 237

abstractions which does not necessarily falsify any realities, and
indeed illustrates Grammar with which the pupil is already
acquainted. Formal Logic makes a boy reflect upon Language
with which he is already familiar ; the habit of reflection thus
formed will afterwards operate upon experiences which he has
not yet felt, although he may know their names. Of course
Formal Logic must be taught with great caution, lest it
should supply the framework of a Rational Psychology or of
a Metaphysic afterwards. It is merely gymnastic, and ought to
be cast aside before a constitutive use can be made of its formulae.
Applied Logic, however, is, I think, under all circumstances
dangerous for mere beginners in Philosophy. It comes forward
expressly to give rules of scientific procedure. But the pupil is
ignorant of the sciences, and can only derive injury from
learning their methods by heart. He will be sure to take an
abstract view of these methods, and to ignore the v\r] which
forms the real difficulty in scientific investigation. The Logic
of the Sciences ought to be left till a comparatively late period
in the philosophical education. But it generally follows
immediately upon Formal Logic. The pupil is introduced to
methods which he receives in the same abstract way as he
receives the formulae of Pure Logic. But there is this difference
between these formulae and the scientific methods, that the
former are best treated in an abstract way, whereas the latter,
by being so treated, lose their value. They are valuable only to
one who can clothe them with his own concrete scientific
experience. A beginner, if he is to study the Logic of the
Sciences at all, ought to read works like Herschel's Discourse on
the Study of Natural Philosophy, or Darwin's Origin of Species or
Coral Reefs, where the scientific methods are immanent in the
concrete experience. Works which exhibit these methods
nakedly, valuable as they may be for the more advanced, are
unfitted for beginners, because they encourage their natural
tendency to take an abstract and premature view of concrete
sciences which they have not studied. The system, in short,
which teaches the methods of the sciences to those who are
ignorant of the facts of the sciences cannot be defended from the
educational or any other point of view.

I should trust then to Formal Logic, which ought to be learned
at school, to give the beginner's mind the necessary gymnastic
preparation for Philosophy. But, although he has practised the
gymnastic, he has not yet begun Philosophy. How shall we
now proceed ? Metaphysics, Psychology, the Logic of the
Sciences, and the History of Philosophy, are all out of the
question. They all lend themselves to, and exaggerate the
natural tendency of the young and inexperienced to abstract or

17

238 Philosophy in Education.

thin thinking. We must make the pupil, who now has had
some practice in the form of reflection, acquainted with one of
the great masters of reflection in the reality of his own writings.
We must, in short, make him read a Classic — critically, and
with a view to all its merits, literary and ethical among the rest.
One of the lessons, for example, which the young Englishman
will learn from the study of Locke's Essay will be to admire the
man. This is perhaps the nearest thing we now have to the
Socratic Dialectic, that living philosophy between friends —
master and disciple. But the classic which we put into the
hands of our pupil must not be one which reveals itself easily
and at once. That would be prjropiKr), and not SiaXe/cTifctf. It
must be a book which makes its reader feel that he is being
examined by it rather than reading it. To illustrate what I
mean — Locke's Essay is better for the philosophic novice than
Berkeley's Principles. Accordingly, not to frustrate this dialec-
tical function of a great classic, the teacher in explaining it
ought to avoid giving his pupil, at first, views of the ensemble,
and to confine himself to the removal of particular difficulties.
There are philosophical classics which have been rendered
educationally worthless by the essays prefixed to dominant
editions of them. With regard to the choice of a classic to
begin philosophy with — this is not of nearly so great importance
as the avoidance of mediocre writers. Philosophical education
may be generally described as the study of the great philosophers,
just as education in natural science is the study of nature. Yet
there are reasons to determine the choice of a classic. The
philosophical r)6o<? does not supervene by a miracle ; it is the
development of the pupil's previous education. Hence for those
whose school -training has been classical, Aristotle's Ethics, is, I
think, far the best book, especially if it be connected by means
of the Politics with the student's previous knowledge of Greek
history and life, which, owing to their remoteness and the splendid
literary medium through -which he has been accustomed to -see
them, have already acquired an ideal and artistic form in his
mind. In the Politics and Ethics he will find this form elabor-
ated for him by a master's hand ; he will be introduced to a
world of moral creations, and will experience a curiosity which
he never before experienced in connexion with the mere objects
of ' personal talk '. He will perhaps feel something akin to that
Wonder, which is said to have been the beginning of the Greek
Philosophy of Nature, when he thus finds himself in the world
of the higher nature with its various moral forms definite after
their kinds, and revealing an order and an end of which the
natural world is a type with its plants and animals, all after
their various kinds, realising definite forms and limits of growth.

Philosophy in Education. 239

There is surely something in this large vision of moral order and
purpose to impress one whose eye has hitherto only wandered
from neighbour to neighbour, regarding their various characters
as all equally natural, and all equally inexplicable in their par-
ticular isolation.

If it be asked — What is the use of the philosophical ^09
thus produced by the study of the great philosophers ? I ask in
turn — What is the use of Music or Poetry ? The question is
meaningless. The philosophical rjdos, like poetical taste, is a
form of the higher life. Few men can be creative in the philo-
sophic fine-art ; but many can derive profit from the study of
philosophic creations. But as these creations are presented in
a literary form from which it is impossible to abstract them
without distortion, those who would study them with profit must
approach them in the literary spirit in which they were con-
ceived by the artist. This is particularly important in the study
of Plato, whose Ideas are misunderstood without literary tact ;
of Aristotle, whose system is much more poetical than it seems ;
and of Kant, in whose ethics Duty stands to everyday life in
much the same figurative relation in which it stands to the stars
in Wordsworth's ode. Greek Philosophy cannot be assimilated
without Greek Philology ; and our great English philosophical
classics must be read with a sense of the literary temper pro-
duced by the peculiarities of the times in particular writers.
These peculiarities being small relatively to the present time as
compared with those which moulded the form of Greek literature
are less easily detected by us ; and hence it happens that Greek
Philosophy is easier for beginners than English Philosophy.
Many youths have received the true philosophic shock from
Aristotle ; but Butler's Sermons, with all their greatness, are at
first only sermons. Considering the previous school and univer-
sity training of our beginners in philosophy, I think then that
it is wise to make philosophical education at first an extension
of their Greek reading, and to begin them, as at Oxford, with
Aristotle's Ethics. In the Scottish Universities the system of
separate years and classes encourages the study of Philosophy per
saltum. A student there seldom, I fear, feels the continuity of his
Greek and Moral Philosophy classes. With regard to German
Philosophy — it is not for English beginners. Very few of them
know German, and therefore cannot study a classic written in
that language ; and no classic can be translated. The avidity
displayed at present by mere beginners in some quarters for the
English tincture of certain German philosophies partakes more
of the nature of an epidemic than of a genuinely philosophical
movement. It is a movement which, contrary to what I con-
sider to be the proper order of philosophical education, brings

240 Philosophy in Education.

the pupil at the very first face to face with abstractions which
he is compelled, at his time of life, to receive as real things.
He cannot be made to feel, as when he studies Formal Logic,
that he is engaged in a mere exercise of gymnastic. He lays
the foundations of superstructures which would have astonished
the original German philosophers.

Teachers and students of Philosophy fall into all the evils of
sectarian narrowness and animosity when they forget, as they
too often do, that the philosophical training is after all a literary
training, and is concerned with moods of mind rather than with
objective truth — that it is as much beside the mark to wrangle
over the truth of a Philosophy as over the truth of Paradise
Lost. People of defective culture accuse poets and artists of
misrepresenting facts. Poets can only demoralise such people,
and ought to be expelled from their Eepublic. It is criticism
which distinguishes moods of mind from objective truths or facts,
and which shows, on the one hand, that a mood is often mistaken
for a fact, and on the other hand that a mood has its own inde-
pendent value, and that it is irrelevant to ask concerning some
moods whether they answer to facts or not. The former of these
two functions of criticism is generally distinguished from the
latter as the philosophical from the literary. In Bacon, Des-
cartes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume we trace the development of
philosophical criticism. In Kant we have not only the culmina-
tion of previous philosophical criticism, but also an indication of
the essential connexion between the philosophical and the
literary points of view. He showed that the old scholastic Meta-
physic of the Understanding is an illusion, but, by the role which
he assigned to the Ideas of the Eeason, indicated the reality of
another Metaphysic constituted by the play of the fancy and
feelings, and finding its expression in religion, morality and art.
The lesson which he thus implicitly conveys is that it is by
entering into the fancy and feelings of a philosopher, as these
have given themselves literary expression in his writings, that
we shall best understand his philosophy and derive philosophical
benefit from it.

Thus we are brought round again to our conclusion that Philo-
sophy must be first studied in those authors whose literary
spirit is most easily caught by students with a certain previous
training. Philosophy is the study, in their full concreteness, of
the writings of the great philosophers. There is no Philosophy
to be derived by a beginner from the Epitome and the Primer.
The study of these belongs to the Pathology of Philosophy, and
may be taken up by mature students who have a taste for
specialisation.

J. A. STEWART.

Philosophy in Education. 241

II.

A timely question is raised in the foregoing paper, and
answered with great directness and vigour. The question is
opportunely raised at a time when the Civil Service Commis-
sioners, whose sway gains with every year upon the higher in-
struction of the country — as new classes of appointments are
thrown open to competition — have decreed that Moral Science
shall cease to figure by the side of Logic in the scheme of the
long-established Indian examination, giving place to Political
Economy. This change was invoked with more than prophetic
exactness by Mr. A. J. Balfour in the Fortnightly Review of
August last, before the issue of the revised scheme, and its sig-
nificance is not the less that a year earlier another public body,
the University of London, as noted at the time in these pages
(No. IV., p. 577), was moved in whatever spirit to throw away
one of the chief distinctions of its examination-system when it
ceased to require of all candidates for the degree of Bachelor of
Science some knowledge of Logic and Psychology. Now comes
Mr. Stewart's argument, conceived from a quite independent
point of view, yet so running in part — where he puts for-
ward Logic but makes conditions about Philosophy — that it
might be read almost as a justification of the precise action of
the Civil Service Commissioners (or Indian Secretary). Such
an apparent consensus of opinion is too remarkable not to require
.some consideration of its grounds. There may also be some use
in confronting with the recommendations of an Oxford lecturer
those which a different kind of practical experience would suggest
to another teacher. And in a journal that was founded mainly
on the faith of the existence of a properly scientific doctrine of
mind, it seems right not to pass over some observations that
Mr. Stewart makes by the way on the character of Psychology.

First, a few words on the opinion expressed by Mr. Balfour in
the course of a general argument on the Indian examination. In
his judgment, Moral Science — meaning Metaphysics and Ethics —
fails to satisfy every one of the conditions of a good examination-
subject, while Political Economy satisfies them all. The effort of
memory, he says, in mastering the subject, should be small com-
pared with the effort of intelligence ; it should be easy to dis-
tinguish an answer that shows a merely skilful use of the
memory from one that shows an intelligent grasp of the sub-
ject ; and there should be substantial agreement respecting the
body of doctrine in which the examination is held. Waiving
the point whether in this last respect Political Economy does at
the present day stand in a better position than Moral Science,
I should doubt whether his third condition is of as much prac-
tical importance for the ends of a selective examination as he

242 Philosophy in Education.

deems it, while as to the other conditions it surely might be con-
tended that they are very exceptionally satisfied by Moral
Science. There can be no question of " mastering" this subject
by effort of memory, nor will an examiner, if he knows his busi-
ness, have much difficulty in judging whether a student is merely
remembering or understands a philosophical doctrine. The
question, however, that I should like to put to Mr. Balfour is
whether it is his opinion that Moral Science should not be
studied at all by the class of men whence Indian civil servants
are drawn. If this is not his meaning, the true way of dealing
with the examination should rather be to make it more strin-
gent. What I suppose Mr. Balfour really to mean is that a
smattering of philosophical knowledge is not, like some other
smatterings, a harmless mental possession ; and this may be
freely allowed. It is an evil if hitherto men have been tempted
to " get up" a little Moral Science, under the impression that it
was an easy way of securing marks. Whether the marks were
secured or not, the men are likely enough to have suffered
mentally and morally by the venture. But the remedy is to
take care, by the nature of the examination if not otherwise,
that candidates shall have gone through some real and deliberate
study. If it be said that this cannot be provided for, but rather
the subject must be dropt out of the examination-scheme as not
a " good" one (in the sense of Mr. Balfour's conditions or any
other), the effect will be to confirm those people in their opinion
who think that the public competitive system attains its end at
a ruinous sacrifice. The mechanical exigencies of the system,
thus applied, might easily prove the death of higher academic
culture in the country. It may not be desirable that as many
youths should take up with Philosophy as with Mathematics or
even Political Economy, but those who follow the philosophic
call that comes early to some should not therefore be excluded
from the public services.*

Coming now to Mr. Stewart, I find much to agree with in his

* It is only an act of bare justice to acknowledge that the Civil Service
Commissioners show the most anxious desire to secure an effective system
of examination, and to this intent are never slow to modify their practical
regulations in the light of new experience. Nor can it be doubted that
the present change in the scheme of examination-subjects — a far more
serious matter than a change of working-rules — is meant in the interest of
thoroughness. But has it been duly considered in the light of its effect
upon the higher instruction of the country ? The lowering of the maximum
age of candidates for Indian Civil Service appointments, from 21 to 19,
makes an important difference in the case of this particular examination ;
still the change, as affecting one of the recognised branches of academic
instruction singly, is ominous all the same, and it will press hardly upon
students in those parts of the country where Philosophy is studied most
and earliest.

Philosophy in Education. 243

positions. It is a very senseless or even mischievous proceeding
to begin the study of Philosophy with a general view of his-
torical systems ; nor could the reasons against such a course be
more forcibly or accurately expressed than by him. It may also
be, and doubtless it often happens, that a beginning is made
with Psychology in circumstances such that the step is as inap-
propriate as he describes it. Neither is any fault to be found
with his recommendation to begin with a course of Pure Logic :
some teachers do this regularly with great advantage to their
students, and even boys and girls at school, as Mr. Stewart
rightly urges, may thus be led on, almost insensibly, from their
grammatical lessons to a first understanding of the philosophical
point of view. As little would one think of contesting his view
of the general mental discipline that comes of really intimate
converse with any of the master-spirits whose thought is of the
cast that withstands all change of time.

Is Philosophy, however, only such an rjOos as Mr, Stewart
would make it? The analogy with Poetry has its foundation.
In the depths of your being you feel thus or thus, and if you
have the gift of utterance you burst forth in measured strain or
lacking spontaneity you revel in this or that poetic creation of
others. So of one's philosophy it may be said that it is
simply how one tends to think of all things — the general and
ultimate expression of one's intellectual personality. You cannot
prove a philosophical as you prove a scientific theory : you take
it or leave it. Still a philosophical, like a scientific, theory
assumes to be a subjective expression of objective fact. One
studies the system of a philosopher not expecting to have one's
assent extorted as by scientific demonstration, but yet with the
aim of being brought to a state of intellectual acquiescence. It
is therefore no matter of indifference what systems of philosophy
we shall study. The classical student will very naturally turn
to the Republic or the Ethics, and if he really enters into the
mind of Plato or Aristotle, will end by being more than a
scholar ; but if his first object is to obtain philosophical insight
— help and inspiration in comprehending himself and the world
that he knows by common or (as even a classical student may
to some extent know it) by scientific experience — he is more
likely to find what he seeks in thinkers nearer to his own time
and circumstances. So it is very well that the " young English-
man" should learn to admire the sterling qualities of Locke's
nature, intellectual and moral, as they shine forth from the pages
of the Essay; but he may be helped to see farther into things
and have more guidance in ordering his life if he will study those
masters who think on a basis of better- ascertained experience, phy-
sical and psychological, than Locke did. It is thetrue Oxford note

244 Philosophy in Education.

that is heard in Mr. Stewart's injunction — "Bead a Classic".
Classics, whether ancient or modern, are worthy of all regard,
and it may be hoped that by this time we are all alive to the
duty of assimilating into our consciousness whatever is best in
the record of human thought. But the philosophical craving, once
it is really awakened in any mind, is not to be satisfied by the
aesthetic contemplation of a past thinker's work, be he called
Locke or Aristotle. Philosophy is not therefore Literature,
because there are theoretic as well as practical grounds for dis-
tinguishing it from Science.

Even when he appears to be pleading the cause of true as
against sham science, the ways of study at Oxford are still
uppermost in Mr. Stewart's mind. It is in the interest of
Science, not of Literature, that he deprecates the practice of
beginning a philosophical course with the study of Psychology,
and is led on to urge his objections against the claim of psycho-
logical doctrine to rank as scientific. These will be considered
presently in their material import. Viewed in their educational
bearing, their force seems wholly to depend on one assumption
— that the average Oxford student with his public school train-
ing in classics or mathematics represents the case of all youths
who are brought into contact with philosophical questions
through the portals of Psychology. Put the case that a student,
besides being fairly read in ancient or modern literature, is
acquainted not only with the principles of mathematical reason-
ing but also to some extent with the experimental methods of
physics and chemistry and even with the procedure of biology-
how will he suffer in intellectual character by being set to see
the processes of science brought to bear on the facts of subjective
consciousness? If he knows nothing of the ways of science
except what he can learn from Euclid, he may indeed be exposed
to the dangers which Mr. Stewart forcibly depicts, but the fault
lies with his previous training rather than with Psychology,
which might perhaps, by the very nature of things, be no more
strict a discipline than Mr. Stewart would make it without there-
fore either losing the character of Science or ceasing to be the
best introduction to the study of Philosophy. It might be
supposed too, from the vehemence of Mr. Stewart's argument,
that in this country great numbers of students are every year
being set to learn from psychological primers, and that all of
them, by reason of an exclusively literary or merely mathe-
matical training, are exactly in the condition to have their minds
hopelessly perverted in the process. So far as I know, there
exists no psychological primer in the language ; the number of
students, in England at least, that take in any way to Philo-
sophy, is relatively very small; the number of philosophical

Philosophy in Education. 245

students anywhere in Britain that are introduced to Philosophy
through Psychology is not great ; and those of them who in such
a case use books like Mr. Spencer's Psychology and Prof. Bain's
larger or smaller treatises are not in general so ignorant of
physical science as to be in serious danger of misunderstanding
everything in the direction of Mr. Stewart's fears. At least, if
they study with a teacher who himself understands, they may
easily enough be kept from taking everything in an " abstract "
sense — so far, that is to say, as they ought to be : physical science
when it experiments, biology when it experiments or compares,
neither of them can help " abstracting ".

The indictment brought by Mr. Stewart against the scientific
standing of Psychology comes altogether to something like this :
Psychology is not a science, because it is neither abstract like
Mathematics or Political Economy, nor experimental like
Physics or Chemistry, nor comparative like Biology ; because,
that is to say, it deals neither with such a mere aspect of things
as number or figure or such a separable phenomenon in social
life as wealth, nor with manageable and measureable physical
events, nor with organic forms which if they grow and change
have an inexhaustible variety of perceptible attributes preserving
fixed relations with one another at every stage. And it is all
quite true: Mind is no such quality of objective things as even
life, to say nothing of physical motion or figure and number.
Mind is the name for just that which is most opposed to what
we call objective qualities (though these themselves in ultimate
philosophical analysis are easily shown to have an expression in
terms of mental experience). But what follows ? That there
can be no such thing as true statements regarding mind as it
appears in you and in me and all our kind ? That your subjec-
tive experience and mine have not common limits and are not
developed according to definite laws the same for us both —
laws and limits alike ascertainable ? That, in short, there is
nothing that can be called psychological science; but if we
would take heed of our inmost nature it must be in the way of
personal fancy guided by the example of some classical
philosopher, ancient or modern ? So Mr. Stewart seems to
think. But not so think all the best philosophic heads of
English name for some two centuries back. Not so think in
ever increasing force the most active spirits of other countries
where the philosophy of subjective fancy has taken its boldest
flights. These have laboured and labour with the difficulties of
subjective observation which they know to be most real, and
with the graver difficulty of verifying or proving universally
valid the relations which the introspective observer finds or
thinks he finds among the facts of his own conscious experience.

246 Philosophy in Education.

They have gradually, as the objective sciences, especially physi-
ology, have been slowly developed, acquired the habit of giving
greater fixity to their subjective expressions by connecting them,
wherever possible, with phenomena of the bodily life — a practice as
perfectly legitimate from the scientific point of view as anything
could be. They have also, in the most recent time, come to see
that mind may be studied not only in its direct bodily mani-
festations but also in its products — in manners and customs,
social or religious, and in all the variety of objective phenomena
that are the special care of the anthropologist and comparative
psychologist ; which is again a practice the legitimacy of which
cannot reasonably be questioned if it results in the least grain of
insight. When all is reckoned, the insight acquired is doubtless
defective enough, and the most hopeful psychologists who are
wise have the fullest sense of what remains to be done before
the scientific title of their doctrine will gain general recognition.
At present, imperfect as the doctrine is in many ways, its
scientific title is denied less on that account and less on account
of the real difficulties that must ever beset its procedure, than
simply because its subject-matter (as its champions even more
than its foes will contend) is disparate from that of any other of
the sciences commonly allowed. Unfortunately, also, with this
disparateness of psychological facts and with the acknowledged
difficulty of verifying general assertions about Mind, there exists
for every man the most perfect facility of expression respecting
his own inner experience, which may be straightway taken as
representative of all. Hence a popular opinion, laid hold of and
systematically applied by some metaphysical thinkers, that a
special or technical science of Mind is a superfluity. Mr.
Stewart is not of that opinion, for he desiderates the science he
denies ; but the way he would have Philosophy studied seems
curiously well calculated for hindering the growth of an effective
Psychology.*

* The really serious charge, not overlooked by Mr. Stewart, that may
be urged against Psychology as it now stands, touches the vagueness
and generality of its statements. Even in the most scientific of modern
psychological treatises there appears little disposition (as the Scotch say)
" to condescend upon particulars," and it does not very plainly appear
in the books what advantage is gained by restricting the search to phe-
nomenal explanation after the approved manner of the positive sciences,
instead of having recourse to metaphysical entities like the " faculties "
of -the older theorists. No doubt, the business of a scientific manual or
theoretic treatise is not to deal with special cases, but to embody general
results and to enunciate abstract laws. The true sign, however, that
laws proper have been established in any subject, is when they lend
themselves to the explanation of particular phenomena, and inevitably
suggest deductive applications to be verified by actual experience. The
true sign that a science has reached (in its measure) the positive stage,

Philosophy in Education. 247

For my part, be the imperfections of present Psychology what
they may, I cannot hesitate to maintain that with Psychology
and nothing else the beginning of express philosophical study
should be made. Whether or not it may be expected that men
will agree in philosophical as in scientific matters, I differ from
Mr. Stewart in assuming that it is desirable they should; because
Philosophy aims at the expression of a certain kind of truth and,
though there may be different kinds of truth, there is but one
truth of the same kind. Besides, it has always lain in the notion
of Philosophy that the insight obtained should be subservient
to conduct, and this makes philosophising a serious business in
life, not a mere piece of self-indulgence. Assuming, then, that
men are to be brought, as far as may be, to agreement in philo-
sophical conclusions, I desire that the beginning of philosophical
study should be made upon ground where agreement is most
easily attainable, and this is afforded by Psychology. But here
a particular conception of Psychology is, no doubt, implied, and
this should be well understood. It is implied that Psychology,
while it has an altogether peculiar matter in dealing with the
subjective life of consciousness, is brought into relation through
Biology with the positive sciences that deal with objective fact,
and is, in its own measure, amenable to the recognised conditions
of scientific procedure. Now this renders necessary, as a pre-
liminary to psychological study, some course of scientific train-
ing. Certainly, as Mr. Stewart urges, the student should not
be left to learn from the statement of psychologists what Science
is (or is not). But I would add, neither should the student be
allowed to take up Philosophy or Psychology without something
more than what Mr. Stewart seems to think may serve instead
of scientific training — some " ordinary experience of the kind of
evidence required by practical men of culture for alleged facts
and events". That means, I suppose, either that the study
should be deferred till men have been about in the world, or that
an acquaintance with good literature will afford the neces-
sary experience. The one supposition amounts to an exclusion
of philosophical study from the academic course altogether ; the
other is based on what seems to me the mistaken conception of

is when its cultivators are moved to essay all kinds of special investiga-
tions, and recognise clearly the practical bearing of its principles. In
proportion as this journal is made the vehicle of publication for re-
searches into the special phases of mental life, will it prove the scientific
character of Psychology, and so fulfil the prime object of its institution.
Or, again, in proportion as English psychologists trust themselves to
give direction to the educators of youth, will it appear whether those
" Laws of Association " which they have put forward as determining
all natural development of consciousness and more particularly all intel-
lectual synthesis, are truly the ultimate scientific principles they suppose.

248 Philosophy in Education.

Philosophy that pervades Mr. Stewart's paper. The truest
friend of philosophical study, at the present day, will, I think,
be the most anxious to contend for a preliminary basis of pro-
perly scientific culture. If Philosophy may be understood as
rational interpretation of the universe in relation to man, it is of
the utmost importance that philosophic thinking should work
upon that knowledge which is surest — and this is Science. To
say this is not to exclude Literature and History from the
philosopher's preparation. The true nature of man is not to be
learnt apart from the record of human actions in History and the
expression of human sentiments and opinions in Literature. But
the key to the philosophic interpretation even of Literature and
History (their enjoyment is another matter) is to be found in the
scientific habit of mind, and this can be gained only by a study
of the special or positive sciences. While, therefore, I contend
for beginning a philosophical course with Psychology in the
interest of definiteness and with a view to unanimity, I assume
that Psychology — so special or complex if it is viewed (in its
place after Biology) as an objective science, so unique and hard
to grasp if it is viewed as the science of subjective experience —
will not itself be the first scientific doctrine to which the student
is introduced. If it be, the very advantage sought for in mak-
ing it the first stage of a philosophical discipline is rendered im-
possible. If, on the other hand, it is itself regarded as the
natural term of a general scientific training, the dire effects
fancied by Mr. Stewart are in no way to be feared, even though
it were true that psychological results could be made no more
definite than he finds them.

The case for Psychology is in truth extremely plain and
simple. In Philosophy we are going to consider what may be
said more or less determinately concerning the whole frame of
things and man's relation thereto ; and we can proceed in either
of two ways. We may begin in haphazard fashion, looking at
the universe of being from this particular side or that, according
to the fancy and temperament of the thinker. Or we may be
guided by the thought that well-ascertained knowledge, to which
we give the name of Science, has become possible under certain
conditions of purely phenomenal consideration, and, as it is
clear that our mental life in its various phases must contain an
expression for all that is known, felt, or aimed at in relation to
the world of being, we may seek to come at our ultimate com-
prehension of this through the most strictly scientific considera-
tion that may be attainable of the facts and laws of mind as it
appears. This psychological science is no't in itself Philosophy,
but there is no philosophical question whatever that has not
its roots in some fact or facts of mental experience, and,

Philosophy in Education. 249

however difficult it may be, men can, if they try, come
to something like agreement here, and may then be impelled
towards the same philosophical conclusions beyond. This
is the great and fruitful idea that has inspired all characteristi-
cally British thinking for more than two centuries past, and it
has been a truly philosophical conception even in those cases
where the thinker has sought to merge everything in mere
Psychology, and failed to mark where he crossed the border-
line. It has preserved English philosophers from many a pit-
fall that has received less wary thinkers, and, as it arose in Locke
and others from their having regard to the first great achieve-
ments of modern science, so in these latter days, when the
natural sciences have had, as it were, a new birth, it has gained
widely upon men's minds, and become the dominant conception
in Philosophy.

If Psychology (with due preparation) is taken first in a philo-
sophical course, Logic will naturally follow next. Should the
formal doctrine, as Mr. Stewart suggests, have entered into the
school- work, so much will have been gained, but, if not commu-
nicated earlier, it can no longer be deferred. The importance of
Logic as a preliminary to philosophical thinking is accurately
described by Mr. Stewart; or it may be regarded as a constituent

Eart of Philosophy. There is not a more intelligible, or, when
drly understood, a more satisfactory definition of Logic than to
view it as the doctrine regulative of thinking (or general know-
ledge) with a view to truth. From this point of view, its rela-
tion to Psychology and also its distinctive character are at once
clearly seen. For the regulation of thinking it is necessary to
understand how thinking naturally proceeds ; at the same time,
psychological insight does not of itself supply regulation. Ee-
gulation is a practical requirement, not a simply theoretic or
scientific conception, and as applied to a phase of mental life
corresponds with the strict notion of Philosophy. Logic, in rela-
tion to Psychology, may therefore be regarded as a department
of Philosophy, — and this entirely without prejudice to another
view according to which it may be taken as the most general of
the abstract sciences, more general (in the sense that it deals
with wider and simpler objective relations) than Mathematics, as
Mathematics is more general than Physics. The conditions of
Truth or true knowledge — Science as opposed to Opinion — being
the concern of Logic viewed as a philosophical discipline, the
discipline must be not less wide than are the varieties of truth.
There is truth, as we say, to one's self and truth of fact, or
(otherwise expressed) truth of consistency and real or objective
truth. Formal Logic determines the condition of self-consist-
ency, and is very properly taken first, because the prime concern

250 Philosophy in Education.

with all of us, born as we are into the social state, is to work
out more or less fully the meaning of the general assertions com-
municated to us that make far the greatest part of all we call
our knowledge, and to apply general rules of practical conduct
which it was never left to each of us to devise. But it is quite
necessary to follow up Formal Logic with that other doctrine of
Applied or Material Logic (or however else it is called) to which
Mr. Stewart so pointedly refers. The study of such books as
Mill's Logic, or Prof. Jevons's Principles of Science, in their me-
thodological parts, may have little meaning for minds that know
nothing of the special sciences ; but students who have even a
small acquaintance with scientific facts are very profitably led
to consider the principles of evidence upon which they are re-
ceived with a confidence varying in different kinds of matter,
since the very same principles are involved in all the real
inferences drawn in common life. At the same time it may be
readily granted that to catch the true scientific spirit it is
necessary to follow a master like Mr. Darwin at his work,
be it coral-reefs or carnivorous plants that he is for the time
investigating with an almost unconscious perfection of method ;
though the real appreciation of what in him has become art
is greatly helped by foregone express study of Methodology.
The class of inquiries coming under the head of Theory
of Knowledge, it should also be added, falls to be introduced
at this stage. The most scientific part of Philosophy proper
is naturally associated with the logical determination of the
conditions of Science.

On the same level with Logic and in a similar relation to
Psychology stands Ethics. The student is not fit to enter upon
this department of philosophical discipline without such prelim-
inary training as has here been sketched, but with such training
I do not see in what respect — as, for example, want of as much
knowledge of the world as he may afterwards acquire — he is now
unfit to be introduced to it. Now or at any time, however,
he ought, in my opinion, to be introduced to ethical ques-
tions, not upon any interest he may happen to feel or be
induced to feel in a particular work, whether of Aristotle or
another, but definitely in relation to the original start in Psycho-
logy. Human action needs to be regulated as well as simply
accounted for, and the philosophical theory of its regulation is
Ethics, but for this it first needs to be explained in its natural
manifestations. In a complete philosophical course, the student
would also have presented to him the theory of the regulation
of Feeling as far as this has yet been worked out, on a psycho-
logical basis, in ^Esthetics.

What remains, as it seems to me, is that at this stage and not

Philosophy in Education. 251

before — at all events not before Psychology has been followed
up by Logic in its broader interpretation — the study of History
of Philosophy should be seriously taken in hand. And I do not
hesitate to say, with all the fear of Mr. Stewart upon me, that
the study should in the first instance be made quite comprehen-
sive and general, and that only afterwards should come that
special occupation with this thinker or the other which with
Mr. Stewart is the beginning and end of philosophical discipline.
I would add too — what has been already remarked in another
connexion — that when it comes to this it is no matter of indif-
ference who the thinker is that should thus be assimilated into
the student's mind. As we have to think nowadays in reference
to a quite different experience from that of two or three, not to
say twenty or more, centuries ago, it behoves the student ta
begin his special study of philosophers with a master not too far
removed. The English student, supposing him to have become
moderately familiar with the recent work of his own country-
men at the earlier or more positive stages of his philosophical
course, cannot procure himself at once so much elevation of view
and so much serious discipline in regard to the intellectual needs
of the present time as by a thorough study of Kant at first hand.
What knowledge of previous speculation is necessary for the
understanding of Kant will have been obtained in the course of
that general view of the development of philosophical thinking
which is here supposed to have gone before.

The reason for studying Philosophy proper in its History
is not far to seek. Even Science cannot be intelligently laid
hold of without some notion of the way along which the present
state of knowledge has been reached. Much more will it be an
aid to philosophical insight to mark the past phases of specula-
tion. Though there is no greater error than to suppose that
there has been no movement in philosophical thinking or that
there has been movement but no progress, it is not to be thought
that a serious philosophical doctrine that fully satisfied the
human mind at any stage of its development, can be discounted
like the first rude representation of fact in early Science, or that
it retains a purely antiquarian interest only. As Philosophy,
though also a representation of a certain kind of fact, is essen-
tially a representation that keeps terms with human feeling and
human aspiration — is, in point of fact, subjectively determined —
we are to expect in this department of human conceiving a
certain recurrence of typical modes of interpretation that can
never lose their value for different classes of minds, and thus an
amount of guidance from the historical past which is not to be
expected elsewhere. Nor, for my part, do I see how Philosophy
proper (or Metaphysic in its stricter sense) can profitably be

252 Critical Notices.

conveyed to students except in the critico-historical fashion.
Even if a teacher, in these critical rather than constructive days,
seeks to expound his ultimate view of things to a class of
students, it is to them but one other added to the tale of historical
systems, and the chances, in any particular case, are against the
supposition of its being of equal value with the greater philo-
sophical constructions that have weathered the storms of time.
As the crown of a philosophical education, students are to be
taught to think for themselves ; and to this end there seems no
other way but that of bringing before them a representation of
the thinking of the best minds of the race. On this vital point
there is no difference between Mr. Stewart and me. I object
only to the arbitrary way in which he seems to shut up the
student to converse with this single thinker or that, whereas I
would give the student, after due preparation, the free choice of
all. And as a last word I repeat after due preparation —
scientific and other.

EDITOR.

VI— CKITICAL NOTICES.

Der OperationsJcreis des Logikkalkuls. Von Dr. ERNST SCHRODER,
ordentlichem Professor der Mathematik an der Polytechnischen
Schule in Karlsruhe. Leipzig : Teubner, 1877.

This tractate, of only 37 pages, contains the clearest and most ele-
gant exposition yet given of the mathematical or algebraic doctrine of
logical reasoning. In essentials the author agrees with Boole, and his
\vork may be regarded as in many points a simplification, in some
points a rectification, of the elaborate processes first fully stated in
the Laws of Thought. To Boole's method Schroder objects that the
several steps in the symbolical processes are not in themselves inter-
pretable or intelligible, and that certain elements are introduced and
employed which cannot but be regarded as altogether foreign to the
nature of logical inference. In place of Boole's algebraic method,
he would therefore substitute forms capable of symbolic statement
and subject to definite symbolic laws, but deduced carefully from the
nature of the quantities symbolised, and at each stage intuitively inter-
pretable.

Schroder, like Boole and all who have adopted the quasi-mathe-
matical view of logical processes, starts from the consideration of
classes as the elements of reasoning. Classes of things are the only
logical quantities and the laws of symbolic operation are immediate

Critical Notices. 333

expressions for the various relations of classes to one another. In
this mode of restricting attention to the quantitative relations of
classes, Schroder agrees in the main with E. Grassmann, to whom he
refers, and to whom some of the theorems in the work are due.
Grassman's Begriffslehre oder Logik, the second part of a more
comprehensive treatise on quantitative reasoning in general
(Die Formenlelire oder Mathematik), deserves attention. He ap-
pears to have written in ignorance of any previous at-
tempts at symbolical representation of reasoning, and it can hardly
be said that he has worked out his principles to their full extent.
Most of the theorems stated in the Logik with considerable display
of mathematical proof, are merely translations into symbols of the
ordinary logical laws of relation between notions in extent. When
the same quantitative method is applied to content, the results are
not generally of much value. Grassmann expounds no general
theorem of elimination which can be made of service in the solution
of complicated problems, and though he has handled syllogism, the
results are not of the first importance.

Taking as the foundation for his logical calculus the view of
symbols as representing classes, the symbolic laws and processes are
with Schroder dependent on the nature of class relations. In section
first, the specifically logical processes are stated as four in number :
two direct — Multiplication or Determination, and Addition or Collec-
tion ; two indirect or inverse — Division or Abstraction, and Subtrac-
tion or Exception. The inverse processes however may be superseded
through the operation of a fifth process, Opposition or Negation. In
section second, the longest of the four, the principles of the calculus,
so far as the direct processes are concerned, are stated with the need-
ful definitions, postulates and axioms. The explanations of symbolic
Addition (a + b) and Multiplication (city, together with the proofs of
the cumulative (ab = ba; a + b =? b + a) and associative [a(bc) =
ab(c) ; a + (b + c) = (a + b) + c\ laws of these two processes do not
essentially differ from those of Boole. On page 12, however, is given a
theorem which is not directly used by Boole ; the omission, indeed, is
one of the peculiarities of Boole's system. It is an evident deduction
from the relation of super- and sub-ordinate notions, and may be
stated symbolically thus : a = a + ab.

The introduction of the negative of any term leads to a statement
of the useful principle that of one and the same class-symbol or of
equivalent class-symbols the complements are equivalent, complement
being that class-symbol which added to any other gives the result 1 or
the universe of thinkable things, or which multiplied into the other
gives the result 0 or the non-existent. It follows that of each term
there is only one negative ; thus a + a} — 1 ; aa± — 0.

Theorem 14 (p. 14) is substantially Boole's formula for the develop-
ment of any logical function, but it receives a somewhat different
statement, thus : " Any class b can be expressed in a linear homo-
geneous manner with regard to any other class a in the form
b = xa + ya1}" x and y being indeterminate class-symbols which may

18

254 Critical Notices.

have the values 0 or 1. The proof given is elegant ; and a useful form
of equation, b = (ab + ua^a + (a-J) + va)al} is deduced from it.

Theorem 15 gives a very simple explanation of the rule for
multiplying developments according to the same arguments. The
result of the multiplication is found by multiplying the coefficients
of the similar terms.

Theorems 17 to 20 are the most original in Schroder's work. In
17 it is shown that any logical equation a — b is capable of being
resolved into the form

ab± + a^b = 0 ; ab + a^ = 1 ; (a + b^ (a± + £>) = !.

By this theorem he is able to dispense with the process of trans-
position, which can only be employed under definite conditions.

In resolving these equations the negatives of complex terms are
constantly involved. Theorems 18 and 19 contain methods for
finding these negatives. " The negative of a product is the sum of
the negatives of the factors," (ab)± = al + b1-) " the negative of a sum
is the product of the negatives of the members," (a + 5)j = a^.
Similarly the negative of a developed term is found by substituting
for all the coefficients their negatives ; thus (ab± + a^b^ = ab + a^ ; for
the first member may be regarded as completely developed with
regard to one of the quantities, though it is not developed with regard
to both.

These propositions lead to the fundamental theorem of Elimination
and by simplifying this process they render superfluous much of the
algebraic machinery introduced by Boole. Theorem 20 is thus
stated : " The equation xa + ya^ = 0 is equivalent to the two equations
xy = Q and a = uxi + y) u being an arbitrary class." Since u + y=u

second equation may be written in the forms a — (u + y)xlt or
a = u(y-L + y)x1} or a = ux]yl + y.

The inspection of this theorem shows us that by its means we can
eliminate any given term from any equation (xy = 0 being the result
of eliminating a) of the given form, i.e., since by theorem 17 any
equation can be thrown into this form, we can eliminate any term
from any logical equation. In the same manner we can state any
logical quantity in terms of all the others involved in the original
equation. The close relation between this method of elimination and
that stated by Boole does not require to be pointed out.

The third section of the work applies the method to one of the
more complicated examples solved by Boole. The superiority in
logical intelligibility of Schroder's solution must be admitted; its
superiority in brevity is not so clear.

Section fourth takes up the inverse processes of Subtraction and
Division, shows how these are capable of being brought under the
same forms of solution as have been expounded for Addition and
Multiplication, and points out the peculiar condition, that of disjunctive
relation between the terms, necessary for applying them.

As has been said the peculiar merit of Schroder's method is the
closeness with which it keeps to the logical realities expressed in

Critical Notices. 255

mathematical symbols. It is thus in every sense of the word a logical
calculus ; no law or process is admitted which has not a logical signifi-
cance, and there is no step taken which is not susceptible of interpre-
tation in logical language. Thus it approaches more closely to Prof.
Jevons's method of indirect inference than to Boole's algebraic forms,
and it enables us to perceive with more clearness than was possible in
the case of Boole's logic, the worth of the symbolic representation of
reasoning. Apart from any opinion as to the nature of the judgment,
and therefore without pronouncing upon the philosophic validity of
the doctrine that all logical quantities are classes, we must admit that
after the preliminary process of throwing the premisses into quantita-
tive form has been gone through, the symbolic method allows us to deal
easily and compendiously with highly complex and involved reason-
ings. If we represent notions by symbols and their relations by
algebraic signs, and if by introducing contradictory terms we can state
exhaustively possible alternatives, then we can avoid the confusion
incident to carrying the whole signification of our notions through
the train of reasoning. But there is no more generality in the sym-
bolic laws and processes than in the logical laws and processes which
they express. We have in no sense brought logic under a more general
quantitative science, as at first sight appeared to be the case with
Boole's method. Even the process of elimination, which in Boole
was effected by devices only dimly recognisable as logical, is in
Schroder's system nothing but a complex application of the ordinary
formal rules of logical inference. It is a convenient mechanical con-
trivance, founded on logical forms, and capable of translation into
them.

A competent review of these various attempts to simplify logical
processes by the use of algebraic symbols is a desideratum in logical
literature.

E. ADAMSON,

De la Conscience en Psycliologie et en Morale. Par
BOUILLIER. Paris : Germer Bailliere. 1872.

The word Consciousness, according to M. Bouillier, has many signi-
fications, but is to be used as expressing " simple, spontaneous con-
sciousness, embracing all internal phenomena and all mental states " —
as the primitive fact of the intellectual and moral life, the condition,
the essence even, of every idea and of every feeling. It is not
definable ; its omnipresence renders circumscription impossible.

The beginnings of consciousness are slow and gradual. The first
sensation is a vague impression of easiness or uneasiness, followed
immediately by, if not contemporaneous with, the faintest perception
of resistance on the part of the bodily organs or of a foreign body.
The beginning of consciousness coincides with the beginning of
existence ; the moment of conception is also the moment of the first
consciousness. This is the boldest hypothesis but also the best and

256 Critical Notices.

most philosophical. Maine de Biran is right when he says : " To live
is to feel".

What is the place of consciousness in a theory of the human mind 1
Is it, or is it not, a special faculty? If consciousness is a special
faculty it ought to be conceivable at least apart from any other
faculty. But it is not so. ISTo psychological analysis, however subtle,
can make it appear that to think and to know that one thinks, to will
or to feel and to know that one wills or feels, are not one and the
same thing. Leibnitz and Kant, when they speak of " imperceptible
perceptions " and " unconscious representations," are not, indeed,
speaking with rigorous exactness, but they do not mean to identify
themselves with those who hold that consciousness is a special faculty
of the mind. They only mean, by these phrases,/acfe on the threshold
of consciousness, but not outside it. Others, however, Schelling,
Schopenhauer, Herbart, Hartmann, &c., hold that consciousness is an
ordinary but not necessary accompaniment of mental operations.
But this is not the case. All possible diminutions in the conscious-
ness of such and such an idea or sensation are conceivable, provided
these diminutions do not reach the extreme limit of zero — in which
ease nothing would remain to which the name of sensation or idea
could be given without the most singular abuse of reasoning and
language. There is no ground whatever for any distinction between
consciousness and the phenomena of consciousness.

Again, if consciousness is a special faculty it ought to have its own
object, its distinct domain. But there is no such object, and no such
domain. All facts, known or felt, are facts of consciousness, but there
are no facts which can be called peculiarly its own. Consciousness is
not a newr element added to other psychological elements to enlighten
and complete them, to make them facts of consciousness ; it is the
generative and essential element of all the powers of the soul, of
sensation and volition notxless than of intelligence itself.

Consciousness is not, then, a special faculty. Far from being shut
up, so to speak, in any one part of the soul, it is that which envelops
it, that which contains all its phenomena and all its faculties. Far
from representing only one class of phenomena and being only one
special faculty, all phenomena and all faculties are but its transforma-
tions and modifications. Consciousness is not a part of the Ego, it is
the Ego in its entirety — the stuff of which it is made. It is not only
the connecting link, but the very essence, of the powers of the soul —
the reality of realities, the fact of facts.

English psychology generally, looking at the soul from the outside,
if we may so say, sees nothing but phenomena, relations, laws of
association j it finds no being, no faculties, nothing but apparitions
and trains of apparitions. For it is only within that the reason of
these phenomena can be found, and the force which produces and
governs them. But an appeal to consciousness itself brings out the
fact that we feel this force within us, perceive it clearly, in its per-
manence and identity, through and over all the phenomena which pass
and vanish incessantly.

Critical Notices. 257

If only phenomena are found in us, so much the more will nothing
but phenomena be found in the outer world. If we have not seized a
reality in ourselves, a being which is ourselves, how can induction
lead to the apprehension of any reality whatever outside of us 1 Mill
flatters himself that he has provided for everything, saved everything,
by his wonder-working mechanism of the Association of Ideas, " per-
manent groups," the " permanent possibility " of sensations — as if
these possibilities did not demand some permanent reality always
capable of exciting them in us in the same manner and in the same
circumstances. One sees very well how an Ego of simple phenomena
can lead to nothing but a Non-Ego of mere appearances. But, look-
ing within, we find that something more than phenomena is given us,
something which is the ground of all phenomena ; we are conscious,
in short, of being one, identical, and essentially active — of force, life,
thought. This is the direct testimony of consciousness itself ; and
those who expect to behold the true nature of the soul outside of this
immediate testimony resemble the man who wished to be at the
window to see himself passing in the street below.

But does consciousness reveal to us nothing but our own being I
Have we, or have we not, an immediate perception of the external
world ; or rather, of something which is not us but which exists not
less really than ourselves 1 Has consciousness anything whatever, or
has induction, on the contrary, everything, to do with our knowledge
of the world without us ? The answer is : that which is immediately
given us, that which cannot be separated from the feeling of ourselves,
is the fact of a reality which limits and circumscribes our own \ that
which is the domain of experience is the interpretation of the signs,
images, sensations, ~by which this reality successively manifests itself.
At the very dawn of consciousness we have a perception of resistance,
we feel the conflict of two forces, the rubbing of what is ourselves
against something which is not us, which reduces us to our true
dimensions — whatever may be the nature, and whatever the properties
otherwise, of this Non-Ego. Such is the element of truth which lies
in the Natural Eealism of Hamilton, on the one hand, and the Ideal-
ism of Mill on the other.

One question only remains : In striking consciousness from the list
of intellectual faculties do we efface it from the science of mind 1 By
no means. If consciousness is to be erased from the list of the
faculties of the soul it is not because it is nothing ; it is, on the con-
trary, because it is everything. It is consciousness" which perceives,
wills, remembers, feels, &c. — always the same at bottom, but receiving
different names according to the diversity of its operations and modi-
fications. Therefore we are to place it above all the faculties, not as
the first amcng them but as the one principle from which they all
emanate — the centre whence they all radiate, or better still, the com-
mon essence of which they are only modifications, varying under the
influence of the activities within and the impressions from without.

The second part of M. Bouillier's book is an interesting discus-
sion of the moral progress of the race, but is more literary than philo-

258 Critical Notices.

sophic, and therefore less demanding exposition here. A word of
criticism upon the portion now summarised. The author does well to
insist upon regarding consciousness as the true life-stuff, the reality of
realities, the one permanent fact in the midst of ever-varying pheno-
mena, Being firm and sure — in opposition to all those who talk
loosely of " trains of ideas " and " streams of consciousness " without
establishing or even postulating any solid ground on which these trains
may move, over which these streams may flow. But in h4fe anxiety
to establish this unity of existence as constituted by consciousness, it
seems to me he has failed to perceive that the primitive act of con-
sciousness which he himself adduces is not really simple but complex.
The feeling of easiness or uneasiness, in which he recognises the germ
of what afterwards becomes full-grown consciousness, is not a simple
feeling : it involves at least a feeling of resistance, which again
involves that of force — it also involves a consciousness of effort,
which again involves that of will, however rudimentary : all this, at
any rate, however much else. The passage of a living being out of ab-
solute unconsciousness into consciousness, M. Bouillier rightly regards
as inconceivable ; but it is scarcely less so than his own theory of the
growth of this highly complex being of ours out of that mathematical
point of feeling which he assigns as the root of the whole. And so
with that knowledge of the external world which, according to our
author, is given by immediate perception : it is much greater than
that which he concedes. The consciousness of something which limits
and circumscribes me involves also the perception of movement, force,
and all the essential qualities of matter. On no basis less solid and
broad than this could we have constructed, however gradually, the
whole edifice of the outer world as we feel it and see it now. The
truth is, the ultimate fact given in and by consciousness is not a
simple unity — the unity of a unit, so to speak — but the steady action
and re-action of two ever-present realities, an indivisible duality of
self and not-self, each under its twofold aspect of subject and object.
That this conception is not foreign to M. Bouillier's mind, as it
certainly need not be to his philosophy, there are more passages than
one in this little book which go to prove. In any case, his work
merits the attention of psychologists both on account of the questions
it raises and the manner in which they are treated.

ALEXANDER MAIN.

Du Plaisir et de la Douleur. Par FRANCISQUE BOUILLIER. Paris :
Hachette, 1877.

Here the author's first care is to mark the equivoques which even
yet disturb psychological language, and keep up the confusion of two
orders of phenomena so profoundly different as representative and
affective facts. Eliminating every representative element he defines
sensibility as the power of experiencing pleasure and pain. We cut
off, he says, from sensibility all that belongs to the body, all ideas,
even the humblest and most confused, and all determinations of the

Critical Notices. 259

will, and leave, as its share, only pleasure and pain. These cannot
be defined ; they are only as we feel them, and all definitions are but
repetitions of the words to be defined. There is pleasure whenever
the activity of any living being is exercised in accordance with its
nature — i.e., in accordance with the preservation and development of
its life ; there is pain as often as this activity is turned aside from its
end and hindered by any obstacle either from within or from without.
M. Leon Dumont's theory, that pleasure depends upon an increase of
vital energy and pain on a diminution, goes right in the teeth of ex-
perience. Existence itself is only possible on condition that there be
both increase and diminution. The normal activity, then, unchecked,
the evolution of the being according to its law, or this same activity
hindered and thwarted, is the one cause, rule, and measure of all
pleasures and of all pains. Pleasure is the free play of all the springs
of life.

The primary pleasure is the love of life, the primary inclination is
the tendency to persevere in being. All pleasures, as well as all pains,
whether organic, or moral, or intellectual, spring from the movement
of this essential activity towards its end.

There are no purely passive pleasures. Whenever we analyse the
so-called charms of idleness, of repose, of reverie, we always find
that it is not idleness which really pleases, but an activity or occupa-
tion to owr mind, proportioned to our taste and our strength. The
idleness which charms is always, strictly speaking, work more or less
attractive. Yoltaire is right, when he says, " Man is born for action
. . . Not to be occupied, and not to exist, are for him the same
thing."

There is pleasure even in pain ; the chief cause of which lies in the
increase, the extraordinary excitation, of activity, in the little shocks
which are given to our entire being by the feeling of our own pains
or the tragic spectacles which present themselves to our eyes.

In the same way are to be explained the pleasures of sympathy ',
which, at first sight, would seem, because of their character of disin-
terestedness, to owe their origin to something else than our personal
activity and the love of our own being. But the love of our own
being comprehends all that reproduces the image of it, all that seems
to us as the outside-extension of it. What pleases or pains us in
others is precisely what pleases or pains us in ourselves — the different
changes, the free or impeded manifestations, the successes or reverses,
of a spontaneous activity like our own, in its struggles with that which
surrounds, encloses, clogs it. As the root of social morality is indi-
vidual morality, so the root of sympathetic sensibility is personal
sensibility.

Activity, the essence of the soul, is not subject to suspension or in-
termission : whenever we seek to surprise the soul we always perceive
it either acting or re-acting, causing movement and life, or thought
and will. There is, therefore, no state of indifference for a conscious
being; sensibility is present at every moment of our existence; it is con-
tinuous, like the activity from which it emanates. Prof. Bain's doctrine

260 Critical Notices.

of states of neutral excitement is self-contradictory. There are degrees
of sensibility, but there is no absolute extinction of it. It is omni-
present, and continuous without a break. We live and move in the
midst of it ; our whole being is, so to speak, bathed in it.

But, strictly as pleasure and pain are related to each other, there is
nevertheless an order of precedence between them ; one of them is the
primitive fact, the antecedent, the other is the consequent. The pri-
mitive fact is pleasure ; pleasure precedes pain, as movement precedes
hindrance and arrest. Of the two great modes of sensibility pleasure
is the positive, pain the negative.

The quantity of pleasure is greater than that of pain ; for, if pain is
hindrance, arrest, destruction of life, how could it prevail over plea-
sure without the species ceasing to exist 1

There are two possible modes of classifying the phenomena of sen-
sibility : the one according to Intrinsic characters, the other according
to Extrinsic. The latter is to be preferred. Classification to any pur-
pose can only be made by marking the causes of pleasure and pain —
the different energies of the soul on which they depend, the different
modes of activity which are inseparable from the objects which excite
them. There are four principal modes : Instinctive, Habitual, Intel-
lectual, and Voluntary, activity. All other classifications, such as
those of Hartley, Bentham, and others, are either too detailed or
arbitrary.

Such is a very brief summary of a most interesting and able work.
The least satisfactory part of the book is that in which the author
offers his classification of the facts of sensibility. If pleasure depends
upon the balanced activities of the living being, it follows that the
rank of the various pleasures is to be determined by the intensity and
variety of the forces which the individual is able to keep in free play.
It remained for M. Bouillier, therefore, to point out the objects which
have been found to call forth most readily this intensity of energy,
and to set working most freely these various forces. This he has not
done, the division he has himself made affording only the faintest
suggestion of such a classification, if it does even that much. But he
seems to me to have thoroughly secured his central position, that sensi-
bility to pleasure and pain mingles with all our acts and envelops our
entire being — is, in fact, one with consciousness itself. There is, how-
ever, other ground taken up in the course of his argument which must
be regarded as much less tenable. For example, there is a tendency all
through to consider sensibility as a real fact, a true something, quite
apart from all its objects — an ultra-metaphysical tendency, in short,
curiously running parallel with a decided bent towards modern views
and the concrete treatment of philosophical questions. But surely the
humblest fact or act involving conscious activity involves also a know-
ledge, however limited and dim, of something acted upon. The
attempt to look upon the phenomena of pleasure and pain as purely
subjective must prove a failure ; the merest rudiment of sensibility
implies a consciousness not only of a body but also of an external
world in contact with it. And even M. Bouillier is forced to admit

Critical Notices. 261

as much, practically at least, when he comes to classify the pleasures
and pains : finding little help here in purely subjective considerations,
he proceeds to arrange his phenomena according to the nature of the
objects to which they stand related. But why should this be neces-
sary if these phenomena are bond-fide facts apart from all objects 1
Were M. Bouillier to carry out his theory to its legitimate extent,
with a full knowledge of all that the simplest act of consciousness in-
cludes, he would be led to apply his conception to all the objective
elements inseparably linked to the most primitive facts of sensibility,
and thus to ground the phenomena of pleasure and pain in the very
nature of things, instead of confining them to the conscious activities
of living beings — an extension which would make the theory philoso-
phical in the highest sense, as embracing the facts of all existence in-
stead of narrowing itself to a consideration of those only to which it
has hitherto pleased most thinkers to attach the conceptions of con-
sciousness and life. He and M. Dumont would then be at one in
their last issues, although, in all other respects, the theory of the work
before us will be found to cover the facts of experience most com-
pletely, and to be most coherent throughout.

ALEXANDER MAIN.

Die Lehre Spinoza's. Yon THEODOR CAMERER. Stuttgart : Cotta,

1877. Pp. 300.

THIS is an exposition of Spinoza's thought in its matured and final
form, that is, an analysis of the Ethica merely, leaving untouched the
dark but interesting problem of the origins and growth of the great
philosopher's system — a problem to which it is to be hoped the author
will now apply himself. And it is an exposition merely, the author
avowedly restricting himself to just so much of criticism as is neces-
sary for a thorough characterisation of the doctrines under examina-
tion. It is perhaps the most thorough and penetrating analysis of
Spinoza's system ever written. Much of the exposition is of course
debarred from any claim to newness ; but, even when on well-trodden
ground, the thorough grasp of his subject and careful statement that
the author everywhere maintains would suffice to make his work
useful ; whilst in not a few instances we find a new light cast upon
dark places. The chief novelty is in the treatment of the " essentice"
and the " two divine causalities". Props. 21 to 23 of Eth. I. deal
with an " infinite divine causality," whose object is " infinite modi " ;
whilst Prop. 28 deals with a " finite divine causality," whose
object is " finite modi ". Camerer shows very instructively that
amongst the infinite modi we have to place the essentice rerum, the
essences, or Wesenheiten, of things. Throughout his exposition of
Spinoza's ontology, of his doctrine of cognition, of his theory of the
passions, and of his ethics proper, Camerer never loses sight of this
principle, that the essential of things are infinite modi — a method of
exposition which seems to articulate the system more closely than it
has ever been articulated before ; whilst in some cases, as in the treat-
ment of Eth. V., 23, it affords standing-ground for a new point of

262 Reports.

view. The ground is now quite cut from beneath the feet of those
critics, of superior penetration, who would like to make us believe
that they have here caught Spinoza in the uncandid act of setting up
a merely specious immortality of the soul. The " aliquid ceternum "
that survives the body is the " essentice " that we meet with on the
very threshold of the EtJdca ; it is an inherent and indispensable
part of the system. Moreover, not only does this essence of the man
survive the destruction of the body : it remains self-conscious too —
with a self-consciousness that is personal and individual ; (and this
for more reasons than one, for which we must refer the reader to pp.
121 to 123 of Camerer's essay). The Ethica may, and does, contain
obscurities and inconsistencies and faulty reasoning, but from the
beginning to the end it certainly does not contain an uncandid word.
As regards criticism, Camerer's exposition gives, of itself, the fol-
lowing chief results : — (1) The Unity of the Attributes in the Sub-
stance, and the consequent relations of the products of the different
Attributes, are not thinkable in the manner in which Spinoza requires
us to think them. (2) The Unity of " the two divine causalities "-
infinite and finite — and of their products, is not demonstrated, and
the relations of the Infinite and Finite in the world remain a mystery.
(3) The relation of the Personal to the Universal, of the individual to the
species, remains obscure. Though not possessing the point and bril-
liancy of style of Kuno Fischer's essay, Camerer's style is clear and
precise ; his book is a most thorough piece of work, and cannot be too
warmly recommended to all who care to understand Spinoza perfectly.

ARTHUR BOLLES LEE.

VII.— EEPOETS.

Detection of Colour-Blindness. — A little work by Dr. J. Stilling,
Die Prufung des Farbensinnes beim Eisenbalm- und Marinepersonal
(Cassel, Fischer, 1877), though published for a purely practical
purpose, to test the Colour-Sense of railway servants and pilots, and
so avert the danger which arises from mistakes with reference to
signals, has still considerable interest for all psychological students
whose investigation lead them into the region of analytical inquiry on
actual sense-perceptions. It consists of a few pages of letterpress, in
German and English (the latter not always very intelligible), accom-
panying three chromo-lithographic plates, which form the real raison
d'etre of the publication. The plates are extremely ingenious, and
admirably adapted for the purpose which they are intended to serve.
The first contains four rectangular figures, made up of small chequered
squares, in alternate shades of light and dark green ; amongst which
a few dull red squares are arranged in the form of certain alphabetical
letters, printed in exactly equivalent shades, so as to be quite indis-
criminable by any difference save that of colour. Had the letters
been simply lithographed on a uniform green gronnd, the overlapping
of pigment and the variation of light and shade might have afforded a

Reports. 263

clue by which the colour-blind subject could decipher the figures.
But the device of definite squares, enclosed by thiii black lines,
deprives the observer of all such aid, and throws him back upon the
pure colour-perception of red and green. The second plate contains
similar figures in brown and red ; while the third rings the changes
upon certain arbitrary symmetrical shapes, so as to supply a device for
testing children or adults who cannot read. These tables are useful
only for the detection of red-green colour blindness. Another set,
sold separately, affords like means for discovering the existence of that
rarer abnormality, blue-yellow colour-blindness. It is much to be
desired that a few competent psychologists should use these plates for
a series of careful observations, noting the results numerically. The
currently accepted statistics as to colour-blindness are by no means
free from doubt ; and many useful experiments might be tried on
young children, very illiterate rustics, and inhabitants of various out-
lying parts of Britain, such as Cornwall, Wales, the Highlands, and
Connemara. But this is a work which of course demands co-opera-
tion. At the present moment, when so much interest is felt in the
question of primitive colour-perception, might not the Anthropological
Institute do something to promote or suggest the employment of these
or similar tests by travellers amongst low-type savages? We are
still sadly ignorant with regard to the actual sense-perceptions of the
human race generally, and a little inquiry in this direction on the
part of those who have the opportunity, might throw much fresh light
on nianv disputed questions.

G. A.

A contribution to the Theory of Sleep. — Dr. A. Striimpell communi-
cates to Pfliiger's Archiv XY., p. 573, the following short note : —

" In the autumn of 1876 a lad of sixteen was admitted into the clini-
cal ward at Leipsic, in whom a number of sense-disturbances became
gradually developed to an extent that is very rarely observed. The skin
over the whole body was in every respect perfectly insensible. TLe
strongest electric currents, or a burning taper held to the skin, could not
excite pain or any kind of tactile sensation. A like insensibility was shown
by almost all the accessible mucous membranes of the body. The sensa-
tions comprised under the name of 'muscular feeling' were also entirely
wanting. The patient, when his eyes were shut, could be carried about the
room, and his limbs could be placed in the most uncomfortable positions,
without his knowing anything about it. Even the feeling of muscular
fatigue was lost. There was also complete loss of taste and smell, with
amanrosis of the left eye, and deafness of the right ear.

" In short here was an individual possessing only two channels of commu-
nication with the outer world—the right eye and the left ear. These two last
channels could also at any time be easily closed, and thus the effects of com-
pletely isolating the brain from all external sensible stimuli could be observed.

" I have frequently made the following experiment, and often showed it
to others, always with the same result. The patient's seeing eye being ban-
daged and his hearing ear stopped, after a few (generally two or three)
minutes the expressions of surprise and the uneasy movements at first
excited would die away, his breathing would become quiet and regular, and
he would })Qfast asleep. The possibility was thus realised of sending one

264 Reports.

artificially to sleep, merely by withholding from the brain all stimulation
through the senses.

" The awaking of the patient was as interesting as his going to sleep.
He could be roused only by some auditory stimulation, as a shout into his
hearing ear, or by letting light fall upon his seeing eye : no pulling or
shaking had any effect upon him. When left alone, he would wake ' of
himself in the course of the day — only after a sleep of many hours — either
through some ' internal stimulation' or (as the brain gradually became more
excitable) through slight external stimuli that could not be kept from act-
ing upon the senses still remaining to him."

Dr. Striimpell promises to give elsewhere a circumstantial account
of this most interesting case, and the observations it suggests are
better deferred till the fuller information is supplied. The present
short note was furnished at the request of Prof. Pfluger, to whose
view of sleep (Archiv X. 468 ; see MIND I. 134) it lends support.

Teleological Mechanics of Life. — Professor Pfliiger of Bonn has
recently published in his Archiv (XV. 57) a memoir under the
above title, continuing the series of wider speculations for which
he has long been distinguished among physiologists. One note-
worthy feature of the memoir is the repeated reference which the
author makes to the biological doctrines of Aristotle as embodying
ideas of permanent scientific value. The paper also contains, among
the illustrations or evidence bearing on its main thesis, some sugges-
tions of independent worth on particular questions of physiological
psychology.

With regard to the vital processes in general, Pfliiger starts
from the position that, as a rule, only those combinations of
" causes " are realised that are most favourable to the animal's welfare,
and he proceeds first to consider the general phenomena of mind and
instinct as exhibited by the lower animals and men. Consciousness
of some sort, however obscure, must be ascribed to the lower animals
when it is seen how in them, as well as in men, action varies with
circumstances for the greatest possible benefit of the system. Whether
every cell in the body has its beneficial or purposive (and therefore
rational) work guided by some faint glimmer — as the work of the
ganglion- cells of the central nervous system proceeds in the full light —
of consciousness, is a question not to be answered. But at all events
there is no need to assume (as Aristotle did) a psyche as the immediate
cause of the vital phenomena, if all purposive acts of the system can
be referred to "an absolute mechanics ". Indeed, it will then rather
become a question whether " the conscious psyche " itself is not a
natural phenomenon analogous to the " rational " work of all vital
organs. As a matter of fact many processes go on in the central
nervous system which, while either unknown to the ego, or at any rate
performed without foresight and calculation, have yet as their direct
and necessary result conscious perceptions and volitions which the
wisest reflection could not make more effective for their ends. Such
are the so-called instincts of animals. According to Pfliiger, "a
rational instinctive act is willed by the conscious ego, but not

Reports. 265

motived or induced by foregone conscious reflection," and the selec-
tive action which astonishes us so much in the apparent actions of
animals would, he thinks, if we had more exact knowledge of the
relations of atoms and molecules in the living cell, be found every-
where in the organism. As one remarkable example of instinct
observed by himself, he mentions the case of a young turkey hen
which, though never fertilised, laid sixteen eggs, and then beginning
to brood went on sitting steadily on her nest, or if forcibly removed
returned passionately to it for weeks after all the eggs had gradually
been taken away. Here the instinctive act of brooding was not oT.ily
consciously willed, but vehemently maintained, though the proper
aim of the act was frustrated from the first, and at last (by removal of
the eggs) was no longer present to consciousness. So in like manner,
continues Pfluger, in man too there arise thoughts and wishes that
result in the most rational and really purposive acts, while yet the
true ends are not the motives present to consciousness. Changes of
diet with the seasons, changes of occupation, the shrinking (with
dizziness) from precipitous places, the aversion to contact with the
dead or diseased or to creeping things, the shivering from cold, the
craving for light, the curious scanning of new objects and surroundings
— are some of the instinctive acts in man occasioned by present feeling,
but having for their real ground the self-conservation of the individual.
Other instincts subserve the continuance or improvement of the
species, such as personal adornment with reference to the sensibilities
of the other sex, the sense of shame (found also in lower animals) in-
volving selective choice of partners, dislike of deformed individuals,
&c. The new-born child sucks by an instinct, i.e., voluntarily and
with pleasure, not as a reflex- machine (which is the common physio-
logical opinion). Maternal love is another instinct ; and indeed, from
birth to death man (as well as the lower animals) is far more depen-
dent on instincts than is commonly supposed. All of them, as intro-
spection shows, proceed from some internal or external excitation of
the senses, with which are joined images and dispositions that deter-
mine the will according as they are agreeable or the reverse. When
there is no past experience that can be subjectively revived, as in the
first flight of the butterfly, we must suppose a motor impulse deter-
mined by muscular feeling — a volitional energy of definite quality
followed by definite movements, like the impulse to stretch the limbs
on awaking from sleep. There is of course no intention in the insect
to fly or in the suckling to drink — only a determinate impulse, with a
feeling of pain till the ego re-acts in a determinate way. The effects
of the particular acts are matter of experience, but the " first volun-
tary acts " themselves are conditioned by the organisation in such
manner as is necessary and advantageous for the animal's well-being.

After the lengthy excursus thus summarised — an excursus which
contains many interesting observations, but which is not marked by
much precision in the use of psychological terms — Pfluger proceeds
to enunciate what he calls the ' Teleological Law of Causation,' im-
plied in these actions of all the obscure forces : — The cause of every want

266 Reports.

of a living being is also the cause of the satisfaction of the want. By
. " cause of the want" he means any state supervening in an organism
that must for the weal of the individual or species be transformed
into another state. Within this supreme principle, he formulates two
' Laws of Teleological Mechanics '. These are : — (1) When the want
affects one particular organ only, this organ alone procures the satis-
faction of it ; (2) When the same want affects a number of organs at
once, a single organ very often procures the satisfaction of it for all.

In support of the first of these two laws, he refers to the movements
of the iris necessary for regulating the amount of light on the retina :
these are not determined (as might be expected) by the direct action
of light on the cells surrounding the pupil, but are operated through
the brain from the optic nerve itself whose interests are concerned, for
when the optic nerve is blinded the movements do not occur. Again,
the juices secreted by the alimentary canal are poured forth only on
occasion, and in proportion to the amount, of the stimulus supplied
by substances present in the canal. The bladder and rectum act only
when full ; the presence of semen determines the generative act. The
living cell itself regulates the flow of oxygen to it ; and expenditure
of energy, as by a muscle, not only entails proportionate restoration
but also gradual increase of the store. Extirpation of one of two
related organs may be compensated by increased activity or even struc-
tural development of the other.

The second law is exemplified by the way in which the general want
of nutrition in the frame is supplied through particular affection of the
vagus nerve or its medullary centre, appearing in consciousness as the
feeling of hunger ; also the feeling of thirst, connected with only one
nerve that suffers with all the other tissues from want of water, deter-
mines a general supply. The movements of respiration are another
instance in point, not being determined by continuous periodic action
of the respiratory centre in the medulla oblongata, but being accom-
modated to the extremely variable wants of the bodily system, in respect
of the two distinct phases of the respiratory function — the taking-Tip
of oxygen and the giving-off of carbonic acid : want of oxygen in the
system excites the nerve-cells of the respiratory centre to increased
activity, and excess of carbonic acid has also a stimulative effect,
resulting in increased expiration.* But the most striking exemplifica-

* Pfliiger here, in order to contest an opposed view of Hermann's as to the
respiratory action, makes a long digression which possesses an independent
interest. His object is to establish that whatever causes a sudden and
considerable increase in the excitability of nervous matter, does also at
the same time actually excite it. This, he says, is beyond question, because
all living nervous matter is as a matter of fact constantly in a state of
excitation. So-called repose of nerve is but a different degree of activity.
There is always a faint ringing in the ears which may be heard in stillness
if it is attended to. There is always a faint sensibility at any point of the
tactile surface to which attention is directed, in the absence of all external
stimulus. In the eyes, besides the so-called ' light-chaos ' when the eyelids
are shut, there is also the state of blackness^ which, as Helmholtz maintains,
is an actual sensation — being limited to the natural field of vision and not,

Reports. 267

tion of the law is seen in the work done by the central nervous system
for all other organs or the body generally. " Infinitely varied is its
activity in relation to the wants of the individual. The conscious
psycliQ itself seeks constantly,t often in the most complicated ways, to
secure the welfare of the Ego and bring about the most favourable
conditions for the satisfaction of its wants." Instinct, as before urged,
is in many cases a true guide, the mechanics of this regulation being
relatively simple, as based on the principle of pleasure and pain;
for, as a rule, all acts conservative of the individual or species
are pleasurable, and the contrary ones painful, while the way to
self-destruction is barred by the strong impulse of self-preservation even
in states of hopeless misery. In man, however, the egoistic impulse, in
the complex circumstances of human life, often determines a temporary
sacrifice for a greater gain in the future, unlike the lower animals that
are impelled always by the needs of the moment, except as they are
guided by instinct. There is also the still higher human develop-
ment attained by some individuals — of self-sacrifice for others : virtue
then has cut itself wholly loose from its egoistic root so far as the in-
dividual's personality is concerned.

In conclusion, Pfliiger seeks to give precision to his view of the
animal mechanism by a comparison with the performance of a highly
elaborate musical box. The various melodies may represent the
various bodily processes in the animal necessary for satisfying inci-
dental wants and meeting occasional disturbances, but the mechanism
in the animal is such that the structural or functional change which
brings on or constitutes the want touches (as it were) the knob that
starts the melody proper for the occasion. However, disturbances
may occur which there is nothing in the vital mechanism to meet, or
an action may go forward in circumstances where it is unnecessary or
even injurious. The work of the organism, in fact, shows a pur-
posiveness that is by no means absolute, but present only under cer-
tain presuppositions ; and this stamps it as of a purely mechanical,
and in no respect arbitrary, character. How the teleological me-
chanics, such as it is, arose is one of the hardest of questions. Em-
pcdocles supposed that numberless lumps of varied living matter were
at first produced by nature and then perished, till at last some happened
to arise that were capable of existing in the circumstances that were.
But in strictness no living thing is capable of existence ; all perish in-
evitably sooner or later. Rather we must conceive as a necessary attri-
bute of the prima materia, from which all life has proceeded, this— -

for example, extended to the back of our bodies. Pfliiger's own interpre-
tation of black in relation to white is that they are true opposites (as
commonly supposed), depending on different states of excitation in the
sense-organ ; and in support of this view lie forcibly urges the analogy of
cold in relation to heat, nobody ever doubting that cold in itself is as much
a sensation as heat is. There is indeed, as he says, more than a mere
analogy between the two cases ; for the eye, according to the development-
theory, is to be viewed as a modified piece of the skin, and it is the same
physical agent that excites the sensation of temperature in the skin and of
light in the eye.

268 Reports.

that by virtue of the succession of its changes all in the end leading
to death it could produce its like before passing away. The first
living matter must have been able to take in nourishment, to grow, to
propagate, and to act purposively in relation to its environment. The
deepest lying problems of physiology are thus in fact given along with
the primordial living matter. In an earlier memoir (X., p. 251 ' On
physiological Combustion in Living Organisms ') Pfliiger started an
hypothesis as to the processes determining the creation of living things,
which, he thinks, opens up at least the possibility of understanding
how the greatest of all events in the world could have come to pass in
harmony with the law of causation and all known experience.

Sensory Functions of tlie Spinal Cord. — The foregoing Report
should interest all readers who are concerned in the question of Ani-
mal Automatism, discussed in the last number of this journal on
occasion of Mr. Lewes's Physical Basis of Mind. The related question
as to the presence of a sensory function proper in the lower nerve-
centres, to which Mr. Lewes gives so much prominence, is also
touched upon in Pfliiger's memoir, and a short summary may here be
given of his observations on a point which, in 1853, he was the first
among recent physiologists to raise. He has not, he tells us in a note
at p. 61 of his present memoir, where he uses the word " Brain" for
the whole central nervous system, changed his original opinion as to
the sensory functions of the spinal cord. Almost all physiologists are
in error as regards the movements of headless or brainless animals.
Self -observation alone can show what movements are reflex, i.e., pro-
ceed without will, and what do not proceed without will. Every
polyp shows an Ego divisible into a number of Egos, as a magnet may
be broken up into a number of magnets. If the cerebrum were the
only seat of psychical energy, how about the amphioxus that has no-
thing but a spinal cord 1 It may also be noted that in some fishes
not only the fore brain but also lower portions of the central nervous
system have a hemispherical development. If such lower animals
are regarded as mere reflex-machines, then also human beings for
weeks after birth must be pronounced equally mindless, for the human
infant cannot till after some weeks perform even so simple an opera-
tion as scratching. The brain, it should be remembered, is developed
along with the spinal cord, and consists, as far as we know, of abso-
lutely the same elements. Nobody denies that the central nervous
system is the seat of the psychical functions ; but the cord is part of
it. It has been proved that the nerves of the trunk have their cen-
tral ends in the cord and not in the brain. Why then is the psyche
to be supposed immediately connected with the brain and only me-
diately with these ? Many judge the question on purely hypothetical
assumptions as to the nature of the psychical process, though this is
the greatest of riddles for which nobody has the least shadow of a
solution. Some like Du Bois-Reymond would even put forward as
scientifically established facts views that are certainly not proved — as
if there were an end of controversy on the subject !

Reports. 269

In the following number of the Archiv (XV. 149), Du Bois-Key-
niond repels this charge of having made light of Pfluger's objections
to the Keflex Theory. In the only printed reference he ever made to
the subject ( Leibnizische Gfedanken in der neueren Naturwissenschaft,
1871), his real intention was to represent Pfluger's assumption of sensory
functions in the spinal cord as the express alternative to the notion of
a pre-established harmony of reflex arrangements, supposed to account for
the purposive movements of headless animals. And when he treats the
subject in his lectures he is in the habit of closing in some such
fashion as this : Either we must suppose the soul divisible, or that in
the beginning God provided the frog with a reflex mechanism ar-
ranged for the occasion of a physiologist cutting off one of its feet and
dropping vinegar upon the other. Du Bois-Reymond thinks he could
not more strongly show the disputed condition of the question.

Pfliiger accepts the correction, and goes on to elucidate farther his
own position, in view of the ironical ascription often made to him of
having discovered the " spinal cord soul ". It is certain, he says,
that particular conscious, i.e., mental (seelische) states of varying in-
tensity and quality succeed each other in us, and are only so long
observed as the brain-matter is in normal condition and alive, that is
to say, is normally nourished and respires. It is certain also that
these states stand to the brain as vital process to organs. It is, on
the other hand, a hypothesis, to ascribe them to an immaterial soul or
spirit. " Soul " can only in strictness be used for the fact of con-
scious excitation in the central nervous system. Though conscious-
ness has no means of investigating itself, any more than a hand can
grasp itself, and thus far remains unexplained, it is not therefore
outside the pale of the causal law of nature, without which there can
be no scientific inquiry.

The real ground of the opposition to his view lies, Pfliiger thinks,
in its consequences. It undoubtedly implies that separated parts of
the same central nervous system, so long as they remain alive, may be
psychically excited apart from each other, or that consciousness is
divisible. The fact is evident in the division of lower animals. How
is such a result conceivable 1 " In any psychical nervous mass appear-
ing as a continuous aggregate, the vibrations of all molecules are
plainly accommodated to one another. This solidarity of dynamical
equilibrium, this harmony of all integrant parts, is the foundation of
the individuality and unity of consciousness."

The excitation of psychical matter — matter, that is to say, whose
work is joined with consciousness — comes to pass thus. The cere-
brum consists of the most unstable sort of living matter, which is con-
stantly being decomposed with great rapidity by heat, while this dis-
sociation takes place more slowly in the spinal cord, though more
quickly there than in any other living matter. The brain thus con-
stantly appears spontaneously active and propagating its excitations,
which maybe received from the sense-organs, to the other parts of the
central nervous system, including the spinal cord. And the specific
character of this central excitation is to be accompanied by consciousness.

19

270 Notes and Discussions.

The more the central nervous system is cut away from before back-
wards, the more torpid and sleepy one of the higher animals will be-
come, and the less complex will be its external psychical acts, though
always relatively rational in their character. An amphibian retaining
only the spinal cord is sunk in a deep torpor. But every stimulation
of the sensory nerves causes an excitation of the cord, which is forth-
with, as in the brain, associated with consciousness. The cord is thus
momentarily roused from its torpor and, however abnormal the cir-
cumstances may be made, reacts according to the principle of pleasure
and pain in movements of the limbs that resemble voluntary move-
ments as one egg resembles another. Pfliiger therefore regards the
movements as reactions of a sensitive being. The reasons that can be
given are neither more nor less valid than for the ascription of mind
to animals generally. In neither case is there absolute proof.

VIII. —NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

Presentative and Representative Cognitions.— Mr. Spencer's division
of cognitions (into Presentative, Presentative-Eepresentative, Repre-
sentative, and Ee-representative) when simplified, marks two general
classes — Presentative and Eepresentative. The facts that representa-
tion is so essential a factor in all our mental processes that practically
there is no purely presentative cognition, and that presentative know-
ledge is found also in the midst of representation have together re-
ceived illustration in a former paper (' Knowledge and Belief,' MIND
No. VII). Yet to the end of showing their mutual relations and their
significance in the elaboration of knowledge, it is desirable to note a
little further the characteristics of each and the differences between the
two.

Knowledge as a product consists of products or results of acts of
cognition. What is termed a cognition is a preserved result of an act
of cognising. Such a preserved result is only the original cognising
act repeated with a difference of feeling which is also cognised (I do
not here go outside of consciousness). Accordingly, a mental product
elaborated and preserved is a representative cognising act, or, as we
say, a representative cognition. It must then be observed that
elaborated knowledge — as a product of knowing — consists wholly of
representative cognitions, and that presentative knowledge cannot
strictly be considered as in any sense a product. Products of know-
ing are cognitions stored up, so to speak, and the moment the produc-
ing becomes a product, it passes from the category of presentative to
that of representative knowledge. A product is a productum — in a
past tanse. Indeed even in describing presentative knowledge we are
in truth describing representative ; for we are dependent upon our re-
collection for the accuracy of our descriptions, and recollection is the
exhibition in the mind of representative cognitions. We are thus led
up to the same tangle into which we are always brought when we
attempt to solve the problem of memory. Eeproduction is a repro-

Notes and Discussions. 271

duction of a past experience, and is hence apparently subordinate to
an original present experience; and yet the knowledge that a representa-
tion is a representation seems to be equally ultimate and fundamental.
But in full view of this difficulty it is nevertheless useful and pro-
bably indispensable to make a distinction between presentative and re-
presentative knowledge, thus forming two distinguishable though
inseparable classes of cognitions. To avoid misconception, however, I
repeat that what is termed presentative knowledge is after all an
artificial class of representative knowledge, and that the former is not
and by its very nature cannot be retained as a product while remain-
ing presentative.

Presentative knowledge, or the presentative element in knowledge,
is largely distinguished from the representative by its greater vivid-
ness. A thing which we see is more vivid than an idea of that thing.
The idea is a copy fainter than the original impression. Sometimes
the idea approaches the sensation so closely in the matter of vividness
that the two are confounded, as in hallucinations of various sorts
embraced under strong emotions ; the man under the influence of fear
thinks he sees a ghost, the drunkard beholds as realities, horrid, dis-
tressing phantoms. But as a rule presentative cognitions may be
readily distinguished as such .from the higher degree of vividness
which the impression has to the mind.

Presentative cognitions are immediate, representative are mediate.
We are said to know a thing immediately when we cognise it in
itself ; mediately, when we cognise it through something numerically
different from itself. When one sees a book upon the table, the colour
is immediately cognised : on the contrary when the mind has the
thought or idea of a book, the book itself being absent, that thought
or idea is immediately cognised ; but the actual phenomenon of colour
is mediately cognised through the idea. Immediate cognition involves
the present fact of the existence of a thing ; mediate cognition in-
volves the belief in the past, present, or future existence of the thing.

Presentative cognitions are relatively more simple, and representative
cognitions are relatively more complex. In the first place representa-
tive cognitions have a double character which presentative are with-
out ; for every representative cognition is also a presentative one when
considered merely as a mental phenomenon. My remembrance of a
house is a representative cognition, so far as it refers to the reality of
a house known by me ; in the degree that it is an idea of the mind it
is presentative. In the second place presentative cognition gives no
opportunity for the combination and recombination, the differentiation,
and integration, which is conspicuous in representative knowledge.
When through the associating processes knowledge attains as a pro-
duct great complexity, it is through representative rather than pre-
sentative cognition. The higher processes of abstraction, generalisa-
tion, comparison, reasoning, and the like, work out their results
through representative and re-representative combinations.

In presentative cognitions the continuing present impression is the
primary object of cognition ; whatever there is of representation (and

272 Notes and Discussions.

the latter is never absent) is secondary and subsidiary to the continu-
ance of the present experience. In looking at a light, my remembrance
of the light being present a moment ago is secondary to the present
impression of the light and aids in connecting together the moments of
continuance. On the other hand, in representative cognition, the
primary object of cognition is the past impression ; the present idea is
secondary to the reality recalled. In remembering John Smith, the
actual John as known by me in time past is the primary object of
cognition ; the present idea of John Smith is only accessory to the re-
cognition of the past experience. So also in believing that something
will occur in the future, the occurrence which will be actual is the
main object of cognition, while the present idea of that occurrence is
but an adjuvant thereto.

It has been already implied that prevailingly presentative cognitions
are more original, and prevailingly representative more derivative.
The meaning of the terms suggests this. It might then be said per-
haps that presentative cognition is the absolutely original factor of
knowledge and that representative cognition is wholly derivative. Yet
so far as we can discover, no cognition at all is attainable without re-
presentation. We are thus forced to a contradiction ; but it is only the
contradiction to which we are always brought, if we attempt to pass
out of the sphere of the relative. It is the same difficulty which arises
in attempting to conceive of a beginning. "We are all the time posit-
ing a beginning of things, but on reflection we are not able to under-
stand how a beginning is possible ; ex nihilo niliil fit. We say there
must have been a point when arose the first item of knowledge ; that
item was a presentative and original cognition ; but in order to any
cognition or consciousness at all we find that there must be a repre-
sentation of former cognition. We can only assert then that the mind
makes a fundamental distinction between presentative knowing and
representative knowing ; that the terms are each necessary to and ex-
clusive of the other ; that in the products of knowing, some cognitions
are more prevailingly presentative and some more prevailingly repre-
sentative ; that the former are relatively original, the latter relatively
derivative.

Presentative cognitions may be either sensational or ideal, presenta-
tive cognitions being sensations cognised or ideas ; representative
cognitions are ideal only. It is probable, however, that this difference
is one of degree rather than of kind ; a sensation is a mental
phenomenon, so also is an idea which is a faint repetition of the sensa-
tion. The antithesis, however, is useful in giving a more complete
view of the difference between the two classes of cognitions now under
review, though it conveys no information not conveyed by the terms
presentative and representative.

There are no degrees of intensity in cognition ; the intensity is a
matter of feeling concomitant with cognition. The terms vividness
and faintness, before made use of, depend for their meaning somewhat,
if not entirely, on concurrent feeling, and for the subsistence of the
phenomena marked by them feeling must of course be invoked. The

Notes and Discussions. 273

terms definitencss and clearness (in the sense of definiteness) apply
properly to cognition ; a cognition may be definitely marked or may
be indefinite according as it is sharply separated from some other
cognition or blends insensibly with that other. In respect to definite-
ness and clearness, presentative knowledge is the superior, for repre-
sentative knowledge carries with it a vast collection of partially
integrated, ill-defined cognitions associated together into a mass whose
parts are full of confused suggestion not easily bounded or confined.
Some representative cognitions, however, of more simple character are
definite, as the recollection, for instance, of a familiar face ; likewise
some presentative cognitions are very indefinite as the cognition of an
organic feeling of discomfort ; but on the whole the rule prevails as
stated.

Inasmuch as knowledge is a growth from relative simplicity to com-
plexity, the most natural division of cognitions is one based upon
relative complexity; but since presentative and representative cognition
are so inextricably involved with each other in fact, separating the
two in classification is no easy matter. In truth, the separation must
be somewhat arbitrary, and lines, if drawn at all, must be drawn with
only an approximate correctness. Rough groupings may be made,
however, of cognitions both presentative and representative according
to the degree of their complexity, and such groupings may be service-
able, though liable to frequent revision and change of boundaries.

Presentative cognitions then may be divided according to com-
plexity into five grades or degrees, as follows : —

Presentative Cognitions of the First Degree — those cognitions in
which the mind is occupied with localising upon the body a single
sensation, as a burn on the hand or a beam of light on the eye. In
these cognitions the representative element is at its minimum.

Presentative Cognitions of the Second Degree — those cognitions
wherein the mind cognises a plurality of sensations, localising them
upon the body, as when one cognises simultaneous pains in two different
points of the body, or when one cognises a body by its touch and
smell together, having reference still to the localisation of the sensa-
tions. In these cognitions the representative element is more pro-
minent, for to cognise two things as co-existent the mind is obliged to
represent one of them in contemplating the other, turning from one to
the other alternately ; this alternate representation is in addition to
the continuous representation in the case of each object by which that
object as single is kept before the mind.

Presentative Cognitions of the Third Degree — those cognitions in
which the mind cognises a single object in its unity as something
external to the mind and apart from its sensational effect upon, the
organism. These cognitions are the ordinary objects of perception
taken singly, as a tree, a house, a block of wood, a leaf, and so forth ;
they are the presentative-representative cognitions of Mr. Spencer, in
which the mind is supplying all the time more or less from past ex-
perience. In viewing a brick we see only three sides of it perhaps,
the other three being concealed from view ; these latter we supply

274 Notes and Discussions.

from our representative knowledge. Our perceptions of solidity, dis-
tance and direction in given instances are of this degree. The repre-
sentative element is here quite conspicuous.

Presentative Cognitions of the Fourth Degree — those cognitions
whereby the mind cognises a plurality of objects as external to the
mind, as when, for instance, I look from my window and see a row of
houses, several trees, a church tower, fences, arbours, vines, red and
gray clouds. Our presentative cognitions of the external w^orld
generally range in this degree.

Presentative Cognitions of the Fifth Degree — ideas of the mind
cognised as ideas or mental phenomena. Here presentative cognition
and representative cognition seem to meet, the same cognition having
both a presentative side and a representative. The connexion of pre-
sentative and representative cognition in this manner is not precisely
the same as in the case of sensations cognised ; there is something
superadded. In the latter case the presentative cognition, namely the
sensation cognised, is sustained and kept before the mind as a whole
by a continuous representation of the preceding presentation, but the
representative cognition is not the same with, but different from, the
presentative cognition — an idea which goes alongside of the sensation.
In the case of an idea not directly connected with a sensation there is
a closer union of component parts, so that the same phenomenon seems
both representative and presentative — presentative as a present mental
phenomenon and representative as the medium through which a past
phenomenon is recalled. In sensations occur presentative cognition
and representative in alternation or running side by side ; in ideas we
have all that there is in sensations and a mediate cognition besides.

Representative cognitions may be divided in like manner into six
grades or degrees, to wit : —

Representative Cognitions of the First Degree — those cognitions
which are representations of a single item of presentative cognition
considered as a whole, as the recollection of a picture, a face, a feature,
a flower, a leaf, a sound, a specific pleasure or pain.

Representative Cognitions of the Second Degree — those cognitions
which are representative of a plurality of items of representative
cognition considered as wholes ; as the recognition of the several
parts of a picture or of several pictures, of trees, houses, fences,
events, or trains of events which actually have been experienced.

Representative Cognitions of the Third Degree — those cognitions
which are combinations of parts and wholes of presentative cognition
so as to present recognitions not as wholes, reproductions of any
exactly correspondent whole of experience, but in which the consti-
tuent parts can still be traced definitely to their sources in experience,
as in cognising a particular man with a particular horse's head, or in
placing a particular tree we have seen in a valley upon a neighbour-
ing mountain, or in transferring mentally and combining different
parts of different landscapes, or making in the mind a different
arrangement of the objects in a room.

Representative Cognitions of the Fourth Degree — those cognitions

Notes and Discussions. 275

which are combinations of parts and wholes of presentative and re-
presentative cognitions such as form general and abstract notions of
which the constituent parts do not represent any assignable whole of
experience, and cannot as a rule be traced definitely to their sources.
These cognitions are expressed in their various sub-degrees of com-
plexity by general and abstract names — man, tree, house, dog, truth,
virtue, justice.

Representative Cognitions of the Fifth Degree — those cognitions
which are combinations and associations of notions in couples with
reference to their agreement and difference ; as when on seeing an
object it is recognised and classed under the general notion tree, or
when on cognising a given act it is pronounced virtuous or vicious.
This class includes judgments and the products of reasoning.

Representative Cognitions of the Sixth Degree — those cognitions
which are a complex of all or most of the preceding classes as in the
most elaborate products of imagination. We have a cognition of this
grade in the picture of a city whose foundations are precious stones
— jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, &c., whose gates are pearl and
whose streets are gold, of which I am a resident, or my brother or wife,
and in which all the dwellers are perfectly happy and virtuous, where
there is perfect freedom and order, where God reigns and of which He
is the light.

These remarks upon the respective characteristics of Presentative
and Representative knowledge may thus be summed up : —

(1) Presentative and representative cognition exist together; neither
is found by itself alone in experience ; that which is called presenta-
tive is only relatively presentative ; that which is called representative
is only relatively representative.

(2) Presentative cognition does not exist as a . product, strictly
speaking ; as soon as it passes into a product at the command of the
mind, it becomes representative. Nevertheless, through the power of
representation we can retain, recall, and classify it by itself.

(3) Presentative cognitions are relatively vivid ; representative, re-
latively faint. Presentative, as presentative, are immediate ; repre-
sentative as such are mediate. Presentative cognitions are relatively
simple, representative are relatively complex. In presentative cogni-
tions the continuing impression is the primary object of cognition,
the representative element is secondary ; in representative cognition
the past impression is the primary object, the present continuing
idea is secondary. Presentative cognitions are commonly held as
original, representative as derivative ; in a qualified and limited sense
this is correct. Presentative cognitions may be either sensational or
ideal ; representative cognitions are ideal only. Presentative know-
ledge is in general more clear and definite ; representative generally
more obscure and indefinite.

(4) Presentative and representative cognitions may be grouped in
classes, but roughly and without very definite and certain lines of
divisions. The most natural classification is according to complexity.
By this standard five degrees of relatively increasing complexity may

276 Notes and Discussions.

be made of presentative cognitions and six of representative. These
are susceptible of very minute subdivisions. *

As far back as the eleventh century the Schoolmen observed a dis-
tinction to which, though its consequence was overlooked for a period,
philosophy has returned and upon which as fundamental and indis-
pensable the science of knowledge grounds itself — the distinction
between the knowledge of a thing present as it is present (cognitio rei
praesentis ut praesens est) and the knowledge of a thing not as it is
present (cognitio rei non ut praesens est) ; a distinction so important
that, in the language of Sir William. Hamilton, without it " the whole
philosophy of knowledge must remain involved in ambiguities ".

DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON.

The Philosophy of Ethics. — I desire to explain very concisely two
points in my article in the January number of MIND, on which I
seem to have been misunderstood.

The first point relates to the distinction between desiring an
object and regarding it as an end of action. My critic in the Spec-
tator, January 12th, appears to think that I hold these operations to
be the same, and very naturally takes exception to a doctrine which
must spread confusion through every part of Ethics. But in doing
so he mistakes my meaning. Without asserting that it is possible
to desire an. object and not at the same time to " posit it" as an end of
action (a nice point in psychology, with which I do not meddle), I
state confidently that the two acts are altogether different ; as will at
once become obvious to any one who doubts it, if he will consider
that we may desire an object intensely, and yet put it very low down
in the scale of ultimate ends, while on the other hand we may put it
very high up in that scale — even at the very top — and desire it very
faintly, or not desire it at all. This is, of course, the explanation of
the fact that we so often know the good and do the evil. Our desire
for a lower object overcomes what we call our " better judgment," i.e.,
our judgment that some incompatible object is preferable to it.

I may point out that no writer can be clear or consistent in his
statements on these subjects, except (so to speak) by the help of his
reader. The problem is to describe moral or ethical judgment with-
out using the word " ought," a word which of course necessarily begs
the whole question. In doing so it is absolutely requisite to use
such words as " desire " and " prefer," but these words are am-
biguous. "Desire" may mean "wish for" — may be the genus of
which "appetite" is one species — and in that sense, in which I use
it here, must be most carefully distinguished from " the regarding
an object as an end of action ". But it may also, without doing any
violence to common usage, be used in this latter sense ; so that a
writer is almost forced by the poverty of technical language to use the
same word for two things, which it is absolutely necessary for him
to keep altogether distinct in his own mind and in that of his readers.

The second point I wish to touch upon refers to my classification
of ethical maxims or propositions into moral and non-moral or im-

Notes and Discussions. 277

moral ones ; and I am asked whether it would "be proper, in virtue of
this classification, to use the word " ought " when speaking of the
second or non-moral and immoral group. To put the question in a
concrete form — would it be correct, on my theory, to say of a man so
filled with resentment that revenge is to him the highest ultimate end,
that he ought to revenge himself on his enemy ?

I reply that the question cannot be answered without some pre-
liminary explanation. For the person who puts the question may
mean three things by the word "ought," and may be in search therefore
of three different pieces of information. (1) He may want to know
whether revenge is in accordance with the recognised moral laws of
the community : and the answer to this question (if he happens to be
living in England in the nineteenth century) is in the negative. (2)
He may want to know whether revenge is consistent with the
moral laws which /, the person to whom he puts the question, re-
cognise as binding : and in this case, as it happens, the answer is
also in the negative. Or (3) he may want to know whether the pro-
position prescribing revenge stands in the same ethical relation to the
injured man, as the propositions prescribing benevolence, (for example)
do to the philanthropist to whom the happiness of others is the highest
end in itself ; and this question I answer in the affirmative; while I
further add that the benevolent man can state no reason for his bene-
volence which the revengeful man cannot parallel with an exactly
similar and equally philosophic reason for his revenge.

ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR.

Ethics and Psychogony. — The world has no doubt become rather
weary of the doctrine of Evolution, and inclined to rebel against its'pre-
tensions to revolutionise mental and moral science. When the first shock
of a new revelation is over, reaction is sure to follow ; and I believe
that one of the reasons why Mr. Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics was
so warmly welcomed, apart from its intrinsic merits, was the relief that
men felt at getting back into the old paths of self-introspection and
common sense, and their pleasure at seeing Evolutionism boldly sent
about its business as a mere intruder whose information was not asked
or in any way relevant. No doubt in the Second Edition this has
been a good deal altered ; the author having, as he tells us in his
preface, been led to attach somewhat more importance to the theory
of Evolution than formerly : but he still seems to hold that if " men
do not now normally desire pleasure" — " to say in answer that all men
once desired pleasure is from an Ethical point of view irrelevant." It
would seem therefore that although he now to some extent admits
Psychology to Ethics he would still exclude Psychogony from both.

A still stronger expression of the same view is propounded in Mr.
Balfour's article in the last number of MIND. Having distinguished
between causes which produce and grounds which justify a belief, and
assigned the first to Psychology and the second to Philosophy, he says
that with regard to ultimate beliefs, of which the differentia is " that
there are no grounds for believing them at all," the business of

278 Notes and Discussions.

Philosophy is not to account for or prove them, but simply to dis-
engage them and exhibit them in systematic order. Applying this to
the Philosophy of Ethics, and remarking that ethical propositions
differ from scientific as not stating facts but duties, he concludes that
the ultimate principles of Ethics are sui generis, prescribing certain
ends as ends-in-themselves, and that " the origin of an ultimate
Ethical belief never can affect its validity". The functions of a
moralist are therefore not to account for the origin of these ultimate
beliefs, or to prove them, or " to justify the judgments which declare
which of two final ends is to be preferred," but simply to clear up
these ends and judgments and apply them.

Now whether the nature of moral obligation be a problem of Ethics
or of Psychology is a mere question of names, (though surely it is
hardly questionable that Ethics means more than Casuistry, and in-
cludes an inquiry into the 'connotation' as well as the 'denotation' of
virtue) : but when it is said that " the origin of an ultimate ethical
belief can never affect its validity," that is a statement of fact, and
a statement which I venture to controvert. I think I can best put my
argument in the shape of illustrations.

Suppose a creditor, having after long balancing of accounts arrived
at the sum due to him and entered the result in his ledger, came to
be cross-examined some years afterwards as to the class of items in-
cluded in this balance and the principle on which it was made, and
that he had then forgotten all about it, even the very fact that he had
made it. Suppose now that there was handed to him the paper on which
his previous calculations were written, showing all the items which he
had added and subtracted, and a total result corresponding to that
entered in the ledger ; would this paper be or be not useful to ' assist
his memory,' and if his recollection had gone beyond recovery, would
it or would it not (supposing its genuineness proved) be relevant to
the inquiry what was represented by the entry in the ledger 1 Or
suppose a mathematician of authority had worked out an intricate
formula and published it, and that this was afterwards found in a
certain instance to produce an anomalous result ; suppose on this that
a friend could find his manuscript calculations showing that the result
depended on limitations and conditions wrhich he had omitted to ex-
press in it, and which explained the anomaly in the particular instance :
would this be irrelevant 1 If the evidence were excluded, it would be
sure to be thought that he had other grounds for his result which
were unknown, and which if known might very likely be convincing ;
and we should thus be reduced simply to a balance of authority with-
out the power of verification.

But Mr. Balfour will perhaps object that these are instances of a
belief not 'ultimate' but only derivative. I might answer — ' That is the
very question at issue : till the entry in the ledger and the published
formula were explained, they were ultimate : they were shown to be deri-
vative only by being derived, and this is just what we propose to do
with Ethical formulae'. But let me take another example. No one
can deny that the sensation of hearing is ' ultimate'. Does Mr.

Notes and Discussions. 279

Ealfour insist that Acoustics shall deal only with sounds as heard and
refuse all information as to vibrations 1 If so, does he remember that
by the theory of vibrations various sensations of hearing have been
predicted, as for instance the combination of two sounds to produce
silence 1 Or would he say that a man has not a better knowledge of
music if he understands the physical conditions of harmony and
timbre, or the mathematical relations of the musical scale 1 Or take a
kindred science to Ethics. There are many maxims or formulas which
may be called ' ultimate principles' of British Politics, and there are
'legal maxims' which maybe called 'ultimate principles' of British
Law. But would Mr. Balfour say that the meaning or purview of
these, or even of an Act of Parliament, which is an ' ultimate
principle' in writing, can be accurately known without a consideration
of the constitutional and legal history of England 1 If so, how does
he account for the prejudice against doctrinaire statesmanship, and
the shudder which an Englishman feels at any ' theory' of Politics 1
And if Politics is clearly not bound down to a number of ' ultimate
principles,' why should Ethics be so bound 1

Speaking generally, I contend that in order to understand the
meaning and limits of any proposition it is necessary to know the
grounds of that proposition ; and that if no grounds for it are now
apparent, as Mr. Balfour holds to be the case with ' ultimate beliefs,'
the only chance is to ascertain if possible what were the grounds on
which the proposition was first believed — in other words to examine
its origin. Of course a proposition believed at first on grounds either
bad or insufficient to justify it in its full acceptation may afterwards
be justified on good and sufficient grounds ; but if no new grounds are
discovered, it retains only what validity was given it by the old. If
these be forgotten, so that the belief comes under the definition of an
' ultimate belief,' and all evidence to refresh the memory is to be re-
jected as ' irrelevant,' man simply becomes chained down to any
illogical belief which his ancestors may have acquired, and the very
fact of its being illogical is that which makes him unable to get rid of
it, for being a fallacy 'there are no grounds for believing it at all,' hence
it is an ' ultimate belief and no spuriousness of origin can affect its
validity. ' "We have it now/ as Mr. Sidgwick would say, ' what does
it matter how we got it1?' I on the contrary contend that the existence
of a belief is no proof of its truth, unless (and I make the exception
only for the sake of argument) it cannot be shown how the belief
could have arisen otherwise than on the assumption of its truth. If
it can be accounted for as a natural product, but a fallacy, that dis-
poses of any evidence drawn from the fact of its existence.

To apply this to Ethics. Let us grant that there are certain
' ultimate ethical beliefs or propositions' of which the differentia is
the word 'ought,' and for which no reason or ground can now be
givent by Introspection : — let us also grant that the problem of
Ethics is not the definition of Virtue, but the enumeration of virtues.
Now I allege that by going back to the time when these beliefs first
appeared, I can show that the meaning of ' ought' was derived from

280 Notes and Discussions.

certain simpler elements of anticipations of pleasures and pains, and
that I can ascertain the grounds on which the propositions in question
were first believed and stated : I further say that as no other grounds
can now be given for them, these original grounds must be taken to be
the only measure of the validity, intent, and extent of the propositions
in question : I therefore argue that it is only by reference to these,
original grounds that the man who has to apply these propositions,
namely the moralist, can guide himself, and I conclude that know-
ledge of the origin of moral judgments is of primary importance to
Ethics. As one cannot truly understand the character of an individual
man without having watched its growth or being told his history, so
it is impossible to appreciate the moral nature of mankind, or reconcile
its dicta, unless we study it not anatomically only, but physiologically,
by retracing the steps of its development. Or to take Mr. Sidgwick's
instance : I admit, not indeed in his words that ' men do 'not now
normally desire pleasure alone but other things such as virtue', but in
what I 'conceive to be the correct expression of the fact, that men do
not now normally take pleasure in sensual gratification alone, but in
other things also such as virtue. But I say that, if I can prove that
the pleasure we now take in virtue originally came from and now re-
presents the pleasure which virtuous action produced, I add a valuable
piece of information to the man who is inquiring what is the nature of
virtue ; for surely, if I show that moral ' good' was made out of
pleasures, I thereby disprove the theory that it contains anything
else, just as if I show that water is made out of oxygen and hydro-
gen only, I disprove the theory that it contains carbon. I do not
of course argue that in mental chemistry the compound is the exact
sum of the components ; but only that there is nothing more in the
compound than in the components. By habit part of the com-
ponents may disappear from consciousness, but no new element can be
added. The motive to action need not contain all its original con-
stituents, but it must represent them, and can be nothing but pleasure
of some kind.

In Mr. Edgeworth's interesting essay on New and Old Methods of
Ethics, noticed in the last number of MIND, the author suggests
an "eirenicon" between Mr. Sidgwick's view and my own, namely that
" non-hedonistic preference is ancestral habit". I fear I cannot accept
this. Eor I do not admit that " habit is an exception to or a modifi-
cation of the general hedonistic rule": £o far as there is any preference
or motive at all for an habitual action, I hold that preference or
motive to be hedonistic ; the only difference being that the pleasure
habitually produced by the action is associated with the action itself,
so that the action itself becomes an object of desire apart from its
consequences. The same thing I hold to be true with regard to the
emotions and affections, for not only do I say with Mr. Edgeworth,
that these emotions and affections are " generated by association with"
(or rather of) " experienced pleasure" and pain ; but I add that being
thus conglomerations of ideal pleasures and pains, they are themselves
pleasurable or painful, and thus, as sources of action, are no exception

Notes and Discussions. 281

to the hedonistic rule. Habit, whether individual or ancestral,
operates in my view to transfer on the one hand the pleasurable idea
from the end to the means, from the object to the action which secures
it ; and to fuse together on the other hand, or ' psycho-chemically'
combine, a number of elemental feelings into a compound feeling or
emotion. Thus as new organs or faculties, physical, mental, or moral,
are evolved, their exercise becomes directly or in itself pleasurable or
painful : and it is by this process and not by any supposed ' non-
hedonistic preference' that I would explain the phenomenon of the
fixed idea, and the other phenomena which Mr. Edgeworth thinks call
for explanation. At the same time I gladly admit that the question
is "to be decided by careful observation, not off-hand by definition" ;
and if my comparison of a thermometer (MiND VI., p. 173) had been
put forward as an a priori proof that desire or action followed the
greatest pleasure, I think Mr. Edgeworth's criticism of it, as open to
refutation by a discovery similar to that of water not expanding as its
temperature is raised from 32° to 39°, would be decisive. It was
suggested not as an inflexible standard, but as "the only practical
measure" which we have ; and if any man can show a clear instance
of ' non-hedonistic preference ' I shall be quite ready to correct the
measure, and register the exception. But I say that the phenomenon
of aKpaaia is not such an exception, because what the measure pre-
tends to register is not pleasures-in-themselves (if I may so speak), that
is, considered as all equally distant* and equally certain ; but their
motive force under particular circumstances, namely those of the actor
at the moment of action. Of this latter motive force it seems to me,
as I said, that in fact the only practical measure which we have " is

* Mr. Edgeworth says that I suppose motive force " to diminish, like the
attraction of bodies, with the distance, in the inverse ratio of the square of
the distance in time," and- naturally appends a note of admiration. But I
specially pointed out that, time having extension in one dimension only,
the function involved was probably that of the simple inverse ; and what I
suggested was that the attraction of pleasure might vary not with the
inverse distance alone, but according to some law involving some function
of that quantity together with other quantities, one of which I mentioned
(MiND VI., p. 174). However on reconsideration I see that the hypothesis,
even as so stated, is incorrect ; for it expresses a law of equal distribution
of force not in one, but in two dimensions, in which the equidistant points
form a circular line, just as the Newtonian law expresses it in space, which
is of three dimensions, and in which the equidistant points form a spherical
surface. For extension in one dimension there are no equidistant points,
the force is theoretically independent of distance ; and I come therefore to
the conclusion that to a perfect or omniscient mind of infinite duration the
motive power of foreseen pleasure would not vary with its distance in time,
and that the effect of ' perspective,' which experience points to, is due to
our mental imperfection and finiteness, and depends primarily on difference
of probability, and only mediately (because of the uncertainty of life and
the shortness of foresight) on remoteness in time. This correction however
does not affect my explanation of aKpaaia ; whatever be the cause why re-
mote pleasures have less motive power than proximate, there can be no
doubt of the fact.

282 Notes and Discussions.

in ourselves the resultant desire, in others the resultant action," and
that it is primd facie a gojd measure is shown "by the acknowledged
general correspondence of desire and idea of pleasure. Until an ex-
ception to this correspondence is proved, the measure must be taken
to be as good a measure as a pair of scales : should such an exception
be proved it may turn out to be no more or even less trustworthy than
a water-thermometer.

As I have been led to mention Mr. Edgeworth's essay, I should like
to make two remarks on his ' Calculus of Hedonics,' which seems to
me both ably conceived and interesting. The first is that the mere
statement of the problem ' to divide a certain quantity of material of
pleasure among a number of men so as to produce a maximum of
pleasure' is sufficient to show that it is a problem of Politics not of
Ethics. The State only can apply the problem : the State only is
concerned in solving it. My second observation is that to make the pro-
blem at all practical, pain-stuff, or labour, as well as pleasure-stuff, must
be included in the distribuend,* and if the problem as modified be * to
make such a distribution as to produce a maximum surplus of pleasure
over pain,' the conclusion reached is favourable to Egoism. For if I
do my sum accurately (as to which I am not sufficiently at home in
the Hedonic Calculus to feel very confident), the answer to the
problem, supposing the capacity for pleasure and pain to be constant,
would be that the labour must be concentrated as much as possible, or
at least up to a certain limit, and the means of pleasure applied first
in alleviating the pain of labour, and then equally divided ; and
supposing the capacity to vary, those who have the least capacity
should be made to do the work, and the pleasure-stuff after paying a
certain amount of wages to the workers, should go to those who have
the greatest capacity for pleasure. This then, if the calculation be
correct, is the meaning of ' Exact Utilitarianism' when the principle
is applied as nearly as may be to actual facts. Now if we assume, as
seems (speaking generally) to be the fact, that the higher a being in the
scale of evolution, the higher its capacity for ' pleasure, the result
pointed out is just that which is produced by the * struggle for exist-
ence,' or Egoism ; but is not that which would be produced if moral
practice followed ordinary Utilitarian principles : for in that case the
best individuals would be those who would most readily do more than
their share of work and give up their share of pleasure to the rest, so
that the lower natures would monopolise the pleasure-stuff and the

* Practically the problem is still more complex, for the sum of pleasure-
stuff and pain-stuff is itself not constant but must be determined so as to
supply a maximum answer to the problem stated in the text. It may be
that more labour might be applied so as to produce more pleasure than the
pain it cost the labourer. If so, it must be exacted, and so on until the
turning-point be reached at which this is no longer the case. Further, it
is evident that the higher pleasures, such as those of affection and virtue,
can hardly be said to come from pleasure-stuff at all, certainly not to be
proportional to it ; and similarly with pains : so that the problem as stated
is only a small portion of the real problem of producing a total maximum
surplus of pleasure.

Notes and Discussions. 283

higher the pain-stuff, the most infelicific instead of the most felicific
arrangement. The moral I would draw is this : If ' Exact Utilitarian-
ism' be the end of Politics (as is plausible), it is best attained by non-
interference with nature to any extent further than to secure fair play
in the struggle for existence by eliminating, so far as they do not
affect merit, the accidents of wealth, rank and so forth and confining
the struggle to merit only, and so to hasten the course of development :
if it be the end of Ethics (which I deny), Utilitarian Ethics will best
attain its end by practising its own 'preachment' of self-abnegation,
and doing all it can to forward that vulgar form of Egoism of which
the maxim is success. If it continue to urge men to sacrifice their
interests to others otherwise than as the best means to their own
success, the best men (who alone will obey) will get less than their
proper share, and the total maximum will be spoilt. Thus it would
seem that the ' exact ' application of the principle of Utility to Ethics
is possible only through some method of Egoism.

ALFRED EARRATT.

J. S. Mill's Philosophy tested by Prof. Jevons. — In Prof. Jevons's
review of Mill's arguments respecting the ground of our belief in the
axioms of Geometry, there occurs a very extraordinary misappre-
hension. The proposition which Mill seeks to establish (Logic, Book
II., c. v., §§ 4, 5), is that these axioms are "experimental truths;
generalisations from observation. The proposition, Two straight
lines cannot enclose a space — or in other words, Two straight
lines which have once met, do not meet again, but continue to
diverge — is an induction from the evidence of our senses". With
his usual clearness, he proceeds to state the objection most
likely to be made to this view. His theory being that " we see
a property of straight lines to be true by merely fancying ourselves
to be looking at them," this probable objection is that, if such be the
case, " the ground of our belief cannot be the senses or experience ; it
must be something mental," for " experience must be real looking ".
This statement of objections is continued thus : —

" To this argument it might be added in the case of this particular axiom
. . . that the evidence of it from actual ocular inspection is not only
unnecessary, but unattainable. What says the axiom ? That two straight
lines cannot enclose a space ; that after having once intersected, if they are
prolonged to infinity they do not meet, but continue to diverge from one
another. How can this, in any single case, be proved by actual observation \
We may follow the lines to any distance we please ; but we cannot follow
them to infinity : for aught our senses can testify, they may, immediately
beyond the farthest point to which we have traced them, begin to approach
and at last meet. Unless, therefore, we had some other proof of the impos-
sibility than observation affords us, we should have no ground for believing
the axiom at all."

I must call attention to the fact that the whole of this passage is
contained in a single paragraph. The first sentence of the next para-
graph runs thus : —

284 Notes and Discussions.

" To these arguments, which I trust I cannot be accused of understating, a
satisfactory answer will, I conceive, be found, if we advert to one of the
characteristic properties of geometrical forms."

Can any one having these two paragraphs before his eyes doubt that
the whole of the first is a representation of the arguments of a sup-
posed objector ? If proof of so palpable a fact be required, is it not
sufficiently furnished by the words which I have italicised, which dis-
tinctly imply that what has gone before is the objection 1 This expo-
sition closely followed by criticism is eminently characteristic of Mill.

'Now observe Prof. Jevons's reading of this very clear passage which
he himself quotes in full at p. 174. He claims to have convicted
Mill of gross inconsistency. For was it not said that the axioms are
inductions from the evidence of our senses 1 And are we not now
told that we " must have some further proof . . . than obser-
vation affords us " 1 Unfortunately, of the two statements quoted in
proof of the charge of inconsistency, one is not a statement of Mill's
opinion at all. He quotes it as the statement of a supposed opponent,
and immediately proceeds to reply to it. Prof. Jevons mistakes the
exposition for the reply, supposing the latter to begin with the
words, " "What says the axiom," etc. Yet surely this is a mistake
which a moment's glance at the context, and especially at the words
which I have italicised, ought to have prevented.

No doubt, if the " essential illogicality " of Mill's mind can be
proved by ascribing to him a statement which he represents as that of
an opponent, Prof. Jevons will succeed in his undertaking. It may
be some comfort to Mill's disciples to reflect that, on these principles,
their revenge is equally easy.

ARTHUR STRACHEY.

Since the publication of my articles on Mill's Logic in the Contem-
porary Review of December and of January last, I have been puzzled
by the position taken up in regard to them by some of Mill's admirers.
They were well aware, they say, of Mill's inconsistencies, and they
see no reason why such petty criticisms should be brought against a
great logician. " They are perfectly familiar," says my friend and
colleague, the Editor of MIND (No. IX., p. 142), "with all the incon-
sistencies that Prof. Jevons would now laboriously bring to light ; and
yet they can honour the man, &c." This is perplexing ; for if the
Editor is familiar with the inconsistencies, these must really exist.
But, as logicians, surely we are nothing if we are not logical, and if
Mill really has fallen into the inconsistencies which I have pointe4
out, and shall point out, his work may be a suggestive piece of criti-
" cism, it may be a powerful polemic, an instructive review of logical
doctrines, — anything else you like to call it, but not "a system" of
logic.

The Editor appears to be annoyed that I have occasionally printed
the word "system" between inverted commas, and he wants to know
whether I mean anything by it. Of course, I mean a great deal — that
what is called by Mill a system, is as far from being a system as it is

Notes and Discussions. 285

possible to conceive. The Editor says, indeed, " Mill's book is a
model of orderly methodical exposition". He must have written this,
it is true, before my second article was published, in which I showed
that Mill first treats the relation of Resemblance as a minor and ex-
ceptional matter of fact ; that in the third book he makes it the pivot
of his methods of induction ; while lastly, in the 24th chapter of his
third book, he discovers that it is seldom regarded as a subject of
science. Is this orderly methodical exposition 1 Or is it methodical (
to_jmake induction rest upon the law of causation^ and the law of
causation upon induction ? Or to make induction consist in inference*
from particulars to particulars in the second book, and then to dis-l
cover, in the third book (chapters first and second), that the character-l\£)
istic quality of induction is to obtain a general result from particular )
instances. But these and other specimens of systematic thought will
require much analysis.

To turn now to the subject of geometrical reasoning, I deny
altogether that the Editor has met even the two cases of inconsistency
which he has selected from those I pointed out. I proved by minutely
authenticated extracts, that Mill positively denied the existence of
real straight lines in nature ; he says, nevertheless, that we learn the
properties of straight lines by mental experimentation on the images
of straight lines in the mind; as we cannot follow straight lines
ocularly to any great distance, we follow them in imagination, and
try what will happen; these imaginary lines, he says, exactly re-
semble real ones, a fact which, curiously enough, we learn by
observation ; it follows unquestionably that, if we discover in these
imaginary lines the properties of straight lines, they must be really,
that is perfectly straight ; if so, the real ones, which they exactly re-
semble, must be perfectly straight. There is no possibility of escape
from Mill's statements. The Editor, indeed, ingeniously suggests,
that " in denying (with whatever reason) that straight lines really
exist, Mill never says that we have no perception of lines as apparently
straight. So, when he comes to deal with the imaginary lines by
which he supposes the geometer able to increase his experience inde-
finitely, he may very well say that these exactly resemble the lines
-that are perceptibly (without being really) straight." That is to
say, Mill after having made geometrical reasoning the crucial test of
his philosophy, having written several laborious chapters on the sub-
ject, and having had seven opportunities of revising those chapters in
new editions, leaves us still to judge of his doctrine, not by what he
has so abundantly said, but by what he has left unsaid. He may
have meant, in some of his phases of thought, that lines were per-
ceptibly straight to us, when they were not really straight ; but, after
studying his statements perhaps more closely than any one ever did
before, I do not think that the distinction is alluded to by Mill. The
Editor gives no reference, and apparently means that Mill might now
urge this, if he were alive, because he has not said anything to exclude
him from such a position.

This, however, I can hardly admit ; because, if the Editor means

20

286 Notes and Discussions.

»

that when a line is apparently straight, our mental image of it is not
perfectly straight, this image will not serve the purpose of the direct
mental experimentation advocated by Mill ; but if the image is that
of a perfectly straight line, then Mill denies its existence, saying,
" Since, then, neither in nature, nor in the human mind, do there
exist any objects exactly corresponding to the definitions of geometry
— &c." (Book II., chap. 5, section 1, beginning of third paragraph.)
Nobody ever undertook a more hopeless task than to try and reconcile
Mill's statements. His principal doctrine is that we can empirically
learn the properties of geometrical figures, although there are no such
figures to apply our eyes and minds to.

After thus showing that Mill might have said and meant what he
did not say nor apparently mean, the Editor suddenly disclaims any
.desire to defend Mill: — "However it is no affair of mine to defend
Mill's positions. I, for one, cannot think of basing the knowledge of
geometrical principles on individual experience, least of all on that
kind of passive experience, received by way of the senses, which Mill,
without making proper use of the psychology he accepted, generally
was content to assume." It seems, then, that the Editor approver
neither of the substance of Mill's doctrines, nor of the manner in
which he expounded them ; he has always been familiar with the
inconsistencies which I point out, and moreover there, are discrepant
assertions which Lange has established. I fail to see then on what
grounds the Editor objects so much to my attack. If Mill's doctrine
is really wrrong and his exposition often self-contradictory, surely the
worst I can do is to waste powder and shot — a matter for my own
consideration.

Finally, the Editor gives me a few words of advice, and hints that I
shall not retain my place, unless after criticising Mill, or rather, I
suppose, wliile criticising Mill, I imitate him in reconstructing the
damaged edifice of philosophy. The Editor asks (p. 144) : " Will he
then, for once in a way, tell us quite plainly what he considers are all
the elements of a true empirical philosophy 1 " To which I answer,
plainly enough — certainly not ! Is no man to be a critic, unless he is
prepared at once to propose a complete system of philosophy ? Is a
mathematician not to point out the blunders of a brother mathemati-
cian, unless he presents at the same time a mathematical theory of the
Universe ? Such a demand would render all criticism impossible, and
without criticism we should still be speculating about the philoso-
pher's stone, alchemy, realism, and all the absurdities of the scholastic
age. In philosophy as well as physical science, truth has continually
arisen from the freedom of criticism, and from conflict of opinion.

But I may be allowed to point out that I can hardly be charged
with avoiding the labour of constructive writing. In the Principles
of Science, the second edition of which is noticed and criticised in two
separate parts of the same number of MIND,* I have given my view

* The acute objections of Mr. George Bruce Halstecl, of the John Hop-
kins University, to my criticism of Boole's Logic (MiND, No. IX., p. 134)
certainly demand a careful answer. While admitting that I may have

Notes and Discussions. 287

of the true forms of reasoning, both deductive and inductive. In
typographical extent my book amounts to about two thirds of Mill's
System ; moreover, it is almost wholly constructive. I purposely
avoided JMiirs manner of mixing up controversy with exposition,
because it is not calculated to lead to clearness of vision. Much_of
the mystification which overcomes the readers of Mill's works, arises
fro^^^eJ^ctJbhat^Mill is always controversial. He never lays down
the bases of a scientific position in a colourless and impartial manner.
In almost every paragraph he has a fling at some real or imaginary
opponent ; indeed the whole " system " is an avowed piece of polemi-
cal writing. In the Autobiography (pp. 225-227) he candidly explains
that the purpose of his book was to overthrow the great intellectual
support of false doctrines and bad institutions. Now I respectfully
decline to follow Mill's example, or the Editor's advice. In the
Principles of Science I have done as much constructive logical work as
I feel able to do at present, and now I intend to do some destructive
work, without mixing together two utterly distinct kinds of composi-
tion.

It is true that I have never attempted to assign " all the elements
of a true empirical philosophy". The. Editor, while asking whether I
will do it, knows that I shall not accept the challenge, since I have in
fact, in the Principles, (and anew in replying to his critique in the
preface to the second edition) disclaimed any attempt to get to the
basis of reasoning. Whether in future years I shall do anything
more satisfactory to the Editor, depends upon length of life, and upon
various circumstances over which no one has control. My own belief
is that false philosophy generally arises from premature attempts to
solve what is yet far beyond our ken. Thales was a very wise man,
no doubt, but he made the mistake of propounding a philosophy of
nature. Moisture, he held, was the origin of all things. This grand
doctrine seems to me to bear about the same relation to the present
bodies of physical science, as the metaphysical doctrines of a Mill, or
a Kant, or a Hegel, will bear to the true philosophy of a future age.
I^decline to meddle with Permanent Possibilities of Sensation, or with
sucTTloIty7 themes as the Knowable and Unknowable, the Absolute,
the Unconditioned and the like. Even " all the elements of a true
empirical philosophy" are beyond my comprehension. __ Enough for
mejMLcan firmly plant a few footsteps in the ground already trodden
by JoEn Herschel, by. Boole, or by De Morgan. But however this
'may be, I claim the right to expose the mystification and the bad
logic of Mill, independently of any efforts at constructive thought.

W. STANLEY JEVONS.

[Nobody could have a better right than the distinguished author of
the Principles of Science to reclaim against the observations that I pre-

formerly interpreted Boole's use of the word Algebra too narrowly, I do not
allow the correctness of Mr. Halsted's other objections. The points at issue
cannot be dismissed in an off-hand manner, and involve questions of depth
and difficulty.

288 Notes and Discussions.

sumed to make on the opening scene of his campaign against Mill, and
with his rejoinder the incident might well be regarded as closed, so far
as this journal is concerned. I shall hardly, however, be thought to
abuse an editor's proverbial privilege if, after he has thus formally dedi-
cated himself to the work of destruction, I add one ' last word' or two.
I see no occasion to recur to his criticism on Mill's view of geometri-
cal science, being content to leave that matter as it stood between him
and Mill, and to leave, the particular point I formerly noted as it now
stands between him and me. (How little careful he was at another
point in the original attack is noted by a different hand on a previous
page.) Neither will I enter upon his second article : I have seen already
in print two pointed exposures of his misreading of Mill's plain meaning
as to the relation of Resemblance, and what is the use of a third ? But
I say (or repeat) of his enterprise generally that it betrays a serious want
of perception. Whatever Mill's philosophic sins may be, he does not
wield anything like the kind of despotic sway that could alone excuse
this violence, of attack; and Prof. Jevons ought to know it. Or if he
does not know it, and is really convinced that no more pressing work
lies to hand to be done, then it cannot be amiss to give him warning
that he must not be astonished if he finds his labour disregarded by
philosophical workers who, while thankful to have learned from Mill,
do not need now to be told that his theory of knowledge was insufficient
and landed him in conclusions not always consistent either among them-
selves or with fact. At the end of his second paper in the Contemporary
Review, Prof. Jevons says, not without a touch of pathos, that intensely
believing as he does that the philosophy of the Mills, both father and
son, is a false one, he claims, almost as a right, the attention of those who
have sufficiently studied the matters in dispute to judge the arduous
work of criticism he has felt it his duty to undertake. I can only re-
mark that I am surprised at this time of day that he should expect it,
and I do not think he will get it.

He, on his side, appears to be surprised that those whom he styles
"admirers" of Mill should concede the presence of inconsistencies in
that thinker, and not see that there is an end of his character as a
logician. But suppose one should say that the writer who makes the
contradictory statements noted in MIND, No. II., p. 212, or those noted
at p. 216, and again (on their repetition in a new edition of his work) in
No. IX., p. 148, with many more like them, cannot have done admirable
work in logic. The saying would be obviously unjust. Suppose one
went still farther and said that such a writer could be no logician. The
saying would refute itself by its extravagance. Yet both sayings would
be exactly in the manner of Prof. Jevons as regards Mill.

Concerning "destructive work" in Philosophy there is, finally, this

,' remark to make. Prof. Jevons will find it hard to show that the cause

of truth has ever been advanced by such purely negative criticism as he

is now attempting. The Nouveaux Essais of Leibnitz was a very effective

piece of negation, but chiefly by reason of the positive doctrine suggested

»' or expressed at every step of the discussion. So with Mill's own Ex-

\ cmiination of Hamilton, as I have before observed. Whether Prof. Jevons

I is right in what he now says about Mill's manner of writing generally,

must be left to the judgment of the impartial reader. It is quitq true

that Mill had an essentially dialectical mind and e^Arg-^inf.n p.WrnP-gg

of view through conflict; but it was only for the sake" of clearness that

he engaged in conflict, and he did emerge. In his way^^was acfln-

fitructiye thinker. He had thought out his philosophy. Jrrof. ifevons

fancieTtfiat if a man has written with a constructive intention about

New Books. 289

logical forms, scientific method and the like, he has purchased the right
to do nothing but destroy in the philosophical field. But this is to mis-
take. No man really constructs Jin logic, who does not lay a philo-
sophical basis : ancTso > t'ar from Tmo wing that Prof. Jevons would decline
the challenge to declare himself on fundamental questions, I desire once
more in all earnestness to urge upon him that nothing so nearly concerns
his reputation. He has gone much too far already in these matters to
have it in his power to affect all this modesty of purpose. Or is it
seriously meant that he must "decline to meddle with" questions of
philosophy ? Why then meddle with the philosophy of Mill ? The able
specialists in whose steps he professes to tread were wiser in their
generation. — EDITOR.]

IX.— NEW BOOKS.

Life and Letters of James Hinton. Edited by ELLICE HOPKINS, with
an Introduction by Sir W. "W. GulL London : Kegan Paul &
Co., 1878. Pp. 371.

The short memoir of James Hinton (by Dr. J. F. Payne) that ap-
peared in MIND II. upon his unexpected death, is proved by this
most interesting book to have been as correct in its statement of the
main incidents of his life as it was clear and accurate in its indication
of his point of view in philosophy. Sir "W. Gull, one of Hinton's
most intimate friends, gives now another admirable presentation, in
short compass, of his characteristic manner of thinking. The Editor's
part is throughout performed with great tact and discrimination. The
book is a worthy record of a life of consuming intellectual activity
directed by a nobility of purpose rarely equalled among men.

A Monograph on Sleep and Dream : their Physiology and Psychology.
By EDWARD W. Cox. London : Longmans, 1878. Pp. 91.

" Sleep and Dream are familiar physical and psychical conditions,
disputed by none and which cannot be ascribed to prepossession,
dominant ideas or diluted insanity," says the author, apparently having
in his mind some others which can be so ascribed. The conclusion he
comes to at the end of his investigation is that " Sleep indicates a
dual structure — that mind and body are not one ; " while Dream
seems to prove to him farther that there is an ' I/ which, because
it " views and remembers the action of the brain (which is the material
organ of the, mind), cannot be the brain itself nor the mind itself, but
must be something distinct from either, although intimately associated
with both." Presently, however, this "I" or "Soul" or "Spirit"
appears, in the author's view, to fall together again with " Mind," for
we hear of man as being simply " a living soul clothed with a material
body ". Anyhow, of this soul " the molecular body is but the incrus-
tation, the atoms agglomerated into molecules at the point of contact
with the molecularly constructed world in which the present stage of its
existence is passed " ; while the existence of soul itself " can be proved
in precisely the same manner as the existence of electricity and

290 New Books.

magnetism and heat ". These views " caused considerable discussion "
when set forth by the author to " The Psychological Society of Great
Britain," of which he is President.

The Evolution of Morality. Being a History of the Development of
Moral Culture. By C. STANILAND WAKE. 2 vols. London :
Triibner, 1878. Pp. 505, 474.

The object of this work is to show how far the doctrine of Evolu-
tion is applicable to the field of morals. It is assumed that certain
principles of man's being are brought into active operation in the par-
ticular line or direction named " moral," by influences that are chiefly
social. The treatment is as far as possible historical ; the moral ideas
entertained by peoples of different degrees of culture being first set
forth, before the endeavour is made to explain their origin. The morality
of all primitive peoples was found to have much in common, and as no
general and connected description of it existed, it was determined at the
risk of interfering with the general aim of the work to supply this defi-
ciency. The aim, however, was to trace the general progress of moral
development, and not to explain completely the special phases of it
exhibited by different peoples, as, for example, the more culti-
vated Mohammedan nations among which no new moral feature
emerged. The moral teachings of Greek philosophy are not specially
considered, because it is doubtful how far they directly influenced the
popular morals. Sexual morality is frequently referred to by the way,
but the full treatment of " what has become in modern thought almost
a separate branch of morals " is left over, as also the related question
of the " Fall ". In the later chapters an attempt is made not only to
explain the religious and moral phases of modern peoples in the light
of the experiences of past ages, but also to forecast the future advance
of mankind on the path of religious and moral culture. The ground
covered by the author may be judged from the following headings of
his chapters : ' Modern Theories of Morals ' ; ' The Sense of Eight ' (a
long account of the morality of the uncultured races, in four chapters) ;
* Genesis of the Moral Idea ' (two chapters) ; ' The Altruistic Senti-
ment ' ; Special development of Altruism ' ; l Positive Phases of
Morals ' ; ' Doctrine of Emanations ' ; ' Hinduism ' ; ' Buddhism ' ;
' Mithraism ' ; ' Christianity '; ' Positivism '; ' Religion and Morality'.
A sufficiently conglomerate production, yet withal a valuable collection
of facts.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing : His Life and his Works. By HELEN
ZIMMEBN. London : Longmans, 1878. Pp. 446.

Miss Zimmern's book, long announced and wholly written before
the appearance of Mr. Sime's larger biography noticed in the previous
number, is a very straightforward and satisfactory presentation of its
subject in general, but does not contain much reference to the philo-
sophical thinking of Lessing. There is a curious remark about
Spinoza's Ethica on p. 435.

New Books. 291

A Dictionary of English Philosophical Terms. By FRANCIS GARDEN,
M. A., Sub-dean of Her Majesty's Chapels Royal, &c. London,
&c. : Rivingtons, 1878. Pp. 161.

The present little volume will hardly disprove Professor Adamson's
assertion in a former number, when reviewing a new edition of the
late Dr. Fleming's more pretentious work, that Vocabularies of Philo-
sophy are generally of little value. Nevertheless philosophical
readers may find here and there in its pages some new information
worth remembering, and they will come across observations that do
credit to the author's judgment. His reading cannot be called wide at
any stage, and in particular there is little trace of familiarity with
recent philosophical literature (after Coleridge and Hamilton), but he
gives interesting references to some of the earlier and less-known
English writers in philosophy or theology, and as far as he goes he is
careful and accurate. It would be easy to point to omissions, as, for
example, when speaking of Optimism and declaring that he is " not
aware that the question is now frequently raised," he has nothing at
all suggested to him about Pessimism ; or to quite ineffective state-
ments like this about Monad — " A unit — the term is a technical one
in ancient Greek theology and in a different application in the philo-
sophy of Leibnitz." Under Subject, he notes a passage in the Lectures
on Metaphysics, Vol. I., p. 162, where (without check from his
editors) Hamilton seems to betray ignorance of the transposition that
has taken place since the Scholastic period in the use of the words
' subject' and ' object ' ; and the point is sufficiently remarkable. But
it might have been added that in the later-written Note B. at the end
of Reid's Works (p. 806), the exact history of the words is very fully
given by the learned thinker.

Phases of Modern Doctrine, in relation to the Intellectual and Active
Powers of Nature and Man. By JAMES HAWKINS. London :
Longmans, 1878. Pp. 304.

" In the foregoing pages of this little work, we have humbly endeavoured
to show that although intellect is an independent growth ; civilisation the
erratic outcome of issues ; religion, like speech, a human invention slowly
but perpetually on the change ; and that science has itself become almost
a visible deity — there are still a great number of mysteries connected with
the intellect of Nature which science with all its tests and experiments, and
philosophy with all its explorations, know nothing at all about. Neither
can science nor philosophy throw the least gleam of light upon that deeply-
recessed spirit-life, the soul, considered as human reason, or the true and
only motive power of the intellect in man."

Das Leben der Seele, in Monographien iiber seine Erscheinungen und
Gesetze. Von Prof. Dr. M. LAZARUS. Zweite, erweiterte und
vermehrte Auflage. Bd. II. Berlin : Diimmler, 1878. Pp.
406.

The first volume of this new and greatly changed edition of the
author's well-known work (originally published rather more than

292 New Books.

twenty years ago) appeared in 1876, as noted at the time in MIND.
This second volume was meant to include, besides the three mono-
graphs— ' Mind and Speech,' ' Tact,' ' Blending and Co-operation of
the Arts' — originally composing it, a fourth 'On the Origin of Morality'
(presumably, the same as that published separately by the author in
1860 and again in 1867). As it now appears, however, the volume
is wholly taken up with the first of the four subjects. The Science of
Language has in recent years become so greatly developed, that the
author could not within shorter compass attain his object of giving a
commensurate expansion to the psychological treatment- In the
present monograph, as throughout his whole series, he seeks " not only
to elucidate the particular subject in hand but to draw out from it the
general laws of mental life," and many doctrines, including that of
Heredity, merely foreshadowed twenty years ago, have now to be fully
considered. Besides an Introduction and Conclusion, the treatise has
five parts : (1) Relation between Mind and Body ; (2) Origin of
Speech ; (3) Acquisition and Development of Speech ; (4) Influence
of Speech on Thought (Geist) ; (5) Congruence of Speech and
Thought and the question of Mutual Understanding (Verstdndniss).
What strikes the author most at the end of his inquiry is the fact
that many points of doctrine formerly supposed to be best established,
have been reduced, in the progress of investigation, to the state of
inchoate opinion. It will be remembered that Steinthal, co-editor with
Lazarus of the Vierteljahrssclirift fur Volkerpsychologie u. Spracli-
wisxenschaft, lately published his maturest views on Language in a
new edition of his Ursprung der Sprache (MiND VI., p. 276).

Die Philosopliie in Hirer Geschichte. /, Psychologie. Von Dr.
FRIEDRICH HARMS, ord. Prof, an der Univ. zu Berlin. Berlin :
Grieben, 1878. Pp. 398.

In opposition to the all-engrossing Empirisin of the present day, the
author contends for the independence of Philosophy as a distinct form
of science with a method of its own conformed to the peculiarity of its
subject-matter. He lays particular stress on the necessity of supple-
menting the natural by the historical sciences for the true appreciation
of facts, and holds that there can be no true Philosophy if the notion
of experience is limited to our knowledge of nature. In the develop-
ment of Philosophy itself, historical consideration must go hand in
hand with systematic construction ; and accordingly the author pro-
ceeds in his present volume to consider specially the historical deve-
lopment of Psychology, which, being with him a discipline subordi-
nate to Philosophy, reflects in its changing doctrines the change of
philosophical views. How completely the theory of the nature of the
soul is determined by the general philosophical conception (physical
and metaphysical) appears, according to the author, in the Greeks who
had no Psychology but as a department of Physics. Later on, three
periods in the history of Philosophy are to be distinguished, headed
by Augustine, Descartes, and Kant. With Augustine begins the

New Books. 293

psychological and subjective way of cognition. Descartes destroyed
the notion of a mere difference of degree between mind and body, and
first (?) established their difference in kind. Kant rejected the
" psychologism " as well of Leibnitz as of Locke and Hume, which
made Psychology either the foundation of Philosophy or a Meta-
physic of the Sciences, and worked out Criticism instead as a Trans-
cendental Philosophy. " Within German Philosophy since Kant
three forms of Psychology have appeared. One treats it as the doc-
trine of the faculties and activities of the soul, whereon its life de-
pends. A second seeks to deduce the necessary stages of development
in the history and life of the soul from its action and end. The third
is Herbart's mechanics of representation. All three are based on
general principles and processes of cognition, and arise in the applica-
tion of these to psychical experience."

Zur Erkenntnisstheorie und Ethik. Drei philosophische Abhand-

lungen. Von Dr. J, H. WITTE, Docenten der Phil, an der Univ.

Bonn. Berlin : H. R. Mecklenburg, 1877. Pp. 122.

THREE Essays by the author of Salomon Maimon (see Prof. Wuiidt's

article in MIND No. YIIL, p. 515), in continuation of the line of

thought opened out in his Vorstudien zur Erkenntniss des unerfahr-

baren Seins (1876). He then dealt with (1) the Problem of Philosophy

and the value of History of Philosophy, (2) Modern Philosophy before

Kant and the Critical point of view. Now his subjects are (1) the

beginning of the Critical Philosophy and the Introspective Inquiry

into the Apriori, (2) the doctrine of Reasoning, (3) Moral Freedom

and the Organic view of things (apropos of Kant and Trendelenburg).

In Sachen der Psyclwpliysik. Von G-. TH. FECHNER. Leipzig :
Breitkopf u. Hartel, 1877. Pp. 223.

THE venerable author contributes to the VierteljalirsscJirift fur
wiss. Philosophic, II., 1, the following statement: —

"The author's Elemente der Psychophysik, published in 1860, has in some
respects been favourably received and in other respects has met with, op-
position. So far as he is aware, his principle of the measure of sensa-
tion, based on the functional relation between sensation and stimulus,
has never yet been directly opposed ; also the psychophysical methods
of measurement (partly original and partly wrought out after others)
which lead to the measure of sensation, have been generally accepted.
But all the more strongly have objections been raised against his state-
ment of the laws determining the dependence of sensation on stimulus,
from which he follows out the measure of sensation; and also against his
translation of this dependence into a corresponding dependence of
sensation upon psychophysical activity, which involves his view of the
quantitative ground-relation between body and mind. These objections,
urged chiefly by Helmholtz, Aubert, Mach, Bernstein, Plateau, Bren-
tano, Delboeuf, Hering and Langer, have gradually grown to such a head
that the whole psychophysical system of the Elemente may seem to
be thereby not only shaken but undermined. The opposition of the
three last-named inquirers is the most serious, while Bernstein, Delbceuf
and Hering have set up altogether new points of view in place of the
author's. However, he has not been able to persuade himself of the

21

294 New Books,

validity either of the objections, so far as they touch really fundamental
points, or of the new views his opponents would substitute ; and this is
what he sets out in the present little work, besides giving a critical
exposition of the later experimental researches on Weber's law."

Psycliologische Analysen auf pliysiologischer Grundlage. Ein Ver-
such zur Neubegriindung der Seelenlehre. Yon ADOLF HORWICZ.
Zweiter Theil, zweite Halfte. ' Die Analyse der qualitativen
Gefuhle.' Magdeburg : Faber, 1878. Pp. 524.
The first and general part of this important psychological work appeared
in 1872, followed by the special analysis of Thought or Intelligence in
1875. The remainder of the work, to include, as then announced, the
analysis of the Feelings, Desires and General Moods or Dispositions
(Gesammtzustande), was to have appeared shortly afterwards, but the
execution of the author's plan has been delayed, and the present
volume, notwithstanding its size, includes only the treatment of the
Feelings. These, in their qualitative aspect, are divided by the author
under four heads : (I) Sense-Feelings, (2) Aesthetic Feelings, (3) In-
tellectual Feelings, (4) Moral Feelings. The treatment especially of
the Moral Feelings (interpreted in the widest sense) is very elaborate.
In dealing with the Sense-Feelings the author shows, as in his earlier
parts, an intimate acquaintance with the physiological investigations
of his countrymen. The whole work is marked by considerable
originality, and may at some future time receive the detailed notice
which it deserves as a characteristically German attempt to investi-
gate the phenomena of mental life in the spirit of positive science.

X.— NEWS.
Mr. Leslie Stephen sends the following note : —

"Mr. Carveth Bead, in the last number of MIND, objects to Prof.
Bowen's use of the word ' speculatist ' ; and it must be admitted that the
word has now come to be an Americanism. Like other Americanisms,
however, it may be defended by good English authority. It is not in
the early editions of Johnson's Dictionary, but it is used by the lexico-
grapher himself. Thus in the Rambler, No. 54, he says : ' Though the
speculatist may see the folly of terrestrial hopes, fears and desires, every
hour will give proofs that he never felt it.' Johnson uses the same word
elsewhere, as also the less familiar ' controvertist'. It is to be found in
other writers of the time, as Tucker, Priestley (I think) and Cowper.
The last says in the ' Progress of Error,'

' ' ' Fresh confidence the speculatist takes

From every hairbrained proselyte he makes. ' "

The John Stuart Mill memorial statue, in bronze by Mr. Woolner,
has now been erected on the Thames Embankment, near the Temple.
The surplus of the memorial fund, amounting to about £500, will be
made over to University College, London, for the foundation of a
yearly Scholarship of not less than <£20 in Philosophy of Mind and
Logic. In making this disposition of the money, rather than giving
it for Political Economy, the Committee was partly guided by the

News. 295

assurance conveyed to it of the opinion held by Mill himself as to
the superior educational value of Logic. The Stuart Mill Scholarship
will thus be attached to the academic chair that was endowed by
Grote on his decease, and that had its scope defined originally by
James Mill fifty years ago (in a paper from which some extracts were
made in MIND IV., 533).

Ernst Heinrich Weber, author of the famous article ' Tastsinn,' in
Wagner's Handivorterbuch der Physiologie, upon which has followed
so much fruitful investigation in psychophysics by himself and others,
died at Leipsic (where he had been professor from 1821) on January
26, at the age of 83.

A Committee (says Nature) has been formed at Konigsberg to erect
a fitting monument on Kant's grave. The city authorities have
headed the subscription list with a sum of 4000 marks (<£200).

The first number of ' Brain ; A Journal of Neurology,' edited by
Drs. Bucknill, Crichton-Browne, Terrier and Hughlings-Jackson,
and published by Messrs. Macmillan & Co., is announced to appear
on April 1st. The Journal will be continued quarterly, and will in-
clude in its scope all that relates to the anatomy, physiology,
pathology and therapeutics of the Nervous System. " The functions
and diseases of the nervous system will be discussed both in their
physiological and psychological aspects ; but mental phenomena will
be treated only in correlation with their anatomical substrata, and
mental disease Avill be investigated as far as possible by the methods
applicable to nervous diseases in general."

Hume's Treatise of Human Nature (Part L, ' Of the Understand-
ing ') is now for the first time translated into French, by MM. Re-
nouvier and Pillon, in a handy volume, published at the Bureau of
their weekly journal La Critique Philosophique. The volume in-
cludes also a revised translation (Me'rian) of the Inquiry concerning
Human Understanding, and a general Introduction from the pen of
M. Pillon. This translation is a new evidence of the extraordinary
philosophical activity displayed by M. Eenouvier and his fellow-
worker ; and they now promise to supplement their weekly discussion
of philosophical and political subjects by a quarterly issue, to begin
in May, of six or seven sheets bearing specially on the field of reli-
gious criticism.

JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. — Vol. XI. No. 4. Hegel — ' Sym-
bolic Art' (transl.). Kant— * Anthropology ' (transl.). Schelling— ' The
Method of University Study ' (transl.). J . Hutchison Stirling — ( I am
that I am' (poem). Goeschel — 'The Immortality of the Soul' (transl.)
. . . V. Hartmann — 'Darwinism' (transl.). Rosenkranz — 'Hegel and
his Contemporaries ' (transl.). Notes and Discussions. Book Notices.

REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. — 3me Annee, No. I. Herbert Spencer — 'Etudes
de Sociologie ' (L). Dr. Ch. Richet — ' Sur la methode cle la Psychologic
physiologique '. J. Delboeuf — ' La loi psychophysique et le nouveau livre
de Fechner ' (I.). A. Gerard — ' Les tendances critiques en Allemagne :
Hehnholtz et du Bois-Reymond '. Analyses et Comptes-rendus (Grant

296 News.

Allen, Physiological Esthetics, &c.}. Rev. des Periodiques. No. II. H.
Stpencer — 'Etudes de Sociologie' (II.). J. Delboeuf — 'Laloi psychophy-
sique et le nouveau livre de Fechner ' (fin). P. Regnaud — * Philosophic
Indienne : Les dogmes de 1' ^cole Vedanta '. Varietes — ' Un theologien
philosophique : D. F. Strauss'. Analyses et Comptes-rendus. Corres-
pondance — ' La Psychologic physiologique ' (Egger, Richet). No. III. P.
Mantegazza — ' Essai sur la transformation des forces psychiques '. L.
Carrau — * Moralistes Anglais contemporains : M. H. Sidgwick ' (L). H.
Spencer — ' Etudes de Sociologie ' (III.). Notes et Discussions — ' Les
Mathematiques et la Psychologie' (P. Janet). Analyses et Comptes-
rendus. Revue des Periodiques.

LA CRITIQUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. — Vlme Annee, Nos. 48-52 ; Vllme
Annee, Nos. 1-6. F. Pillon — ' Quel est le veritable pere de la psychologic
associationiste 1 ' (48) ; La fin de I5 ordre moral ' (49) ; * Importance de la

personelle

la peinedemort traitee scientifiquement ' (51, 52) ; 'Examen des Principe*
de PsycJiologie de Spencer : La connaissance du monde externe ' (2),
* Idealisme et Realisme — Le principe de 1' Inconcevable ' (3), ' Le Realisme
transfigure ' (6) ; 'La question de la certitude ' (4, 6). W. James (Cambridge,
Mass.) — ' Quelques considerations sur la methode subjective '.

ZEITSCHRIFT FUR PHILOSOPHIE, &c. — Bd. LXXIL, Heft 1. G. F.
Rettig — ' Ueber alria im Philebus '. Th. T. Varnbiiler — 'Exacte Begriindung
der absoluten Philosophic ' (III.). E. Dreher — ' Zum Verstandniss der
Sinneswahrnehmungen (II.). F. v. Barenbach — 'Das Ding an sich als
kritischer Grenzbegriff' . R. Schellwien — 'Zur Genesis u. Kritik der
Erkenn-tnisslehre. H. Ulrici — ' In Sachen der wissenschaftlichen PhUoso-
sophie '. Recensionen. Bibliographie.

PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE.— Bd. XIII. Heft 9. H. Jacob! — ' Dio
Gottesidee in der indischen Philosophic '. Recensionen u. Anzeigen (v.
Hertling, Uber die Grenze der mechanischen Welterldarung ; Schmidt,
Leibniz u. Baumgarten ; Kischner, Leibniz* Psychologie u. G. W. Leibniz ;
Noack, Philosophie-geschichtliches LexiJcon, &c.\ JBibliographie. Phil.
Vorlesungen an den deutschen Hochschulen im Wintersemester 1877-8.
Heft 10. K. Bohm— ' Zur Theorie des Gedachtnisses u. der Erinne-
rung .' 0. Liebmann — ' In Sachen der Psychophysik '. Zur Spinoza-
Literatur : Zehn Schriften von u. iiber S., angezeigt von C. Schaai'-
schmidt. Bibliographie, &c. Bd. XIV. Hefte 1, 2. C. Schaarschmidt—
' Vom rechten u. vom falschen Kriticismus '. C. Stumpf — ' Aus der vierten
Dimension '. R. Eucken — ' Untersuchungen zur Gesch. der altern deutschen
Philosophic, (I.) Johann Kepler'. Recensionen u. Anzeigen (Grote,
Moral Ideals; Caspari, Grundprobleme der Erkenntnissihdtigkeit ; Knauer,
Ikr Himmel des Glaubens ; Spencer, Principien der Biologie ; Rosenkranz,
Neue Studien, Bd. III., &c.). Bibliographie, &c.

VlERTELJAHRSCHRIFT FUR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. — Bd. II.

Heft 2. W. Wundt — ' Ueber den gegenwartigen Zustand der Thierpsy-
chologie '. H. Siebeck — ' Die metaphysischen Systeme in ihrem gemeinsa-
men Verhaitnisse zur Erfahrung ' (II. Schl.). H. Vaihinger — 'DerBegriff
des Absoluten (mit Riicksicht auf H. Spencer)'. H. "Weissenborn —
' Ueber die neuern Ansichten vom Raum und von den geometrischen
Axiomen ' (I.). Recensionen. Selbstanzeigen.

ERRATUM IN No. IX. P. 36 1. 36— /or implicitly read explicitly.

No. IT.] [July, 1878

MIND

A QUARTERLY REVIEW

OF

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.

I.— CONSCIOUSNESS OF TIME.

IT is indisputable that our consciousness of the passage of
time is determined by our consciousness of the sequence of
events. We have only to reflect on the oblivion to time
which is one characteristic of profound sleep, or of the total
unconsciousness of its passage that occurs during coma, to
perceive that our appreciation of time is nothing more than a
mental abstraction of the sequence-relations among the events
which have been presented to consciousness during the interval
contemplated. Indeed this truth is so obvious that it has
hitherto prevented psychologists from making any further ana-
lysis of our time-consciousness. Having explained its essential
character, there seems at first sight no reason for further
enquiry, and therefore, so far as I am aware, no one has ever
waited to ascertain whether this explanation is complete, in the
sense of leaving nothing further to be explained. But I think
that a few moments' reflection will show that we are far from
having explained all the facts of our time-conscibusness when
we refer them to the general principle above stated. For,
granting that our time-consciousness is a mental abstraction
of the sequence-relations among events, the question immedi-
ately arises, Are the events which by their sequence determine
our time-consciousness all of equivalent value in so doing ? In
other words, is it only the quality of number that gives to these

22

298 Consciousness of Time.

events their time-measuring property, or are there likewise
other qualities in these events which may give them as time-
measures a differential value ? Now, if number is the only
quality whereby successive events determine our apprecia-
tion of the passage of time, it is evident that there is
110 need for further analysis in the psychology of time-con-
sciousness, for in this case time-consciousness would merely be
a mental abstraction of the number of events which by their
sequence generated our time-consciousness of the interval during
which they were taking place. But, on the other hand, if
number is not the only quality whereby successive events
determine our appreciation of time, it is evident that an in-
teresting question for psychological analysis is opened up ; for
in this case it remains to ascertain the other quality or qualities
in successive events to which their differential value as time-
measurers is due. Let us then, in the first place, interrogate
consciousness with the view of ascertaining whether it is number
alone that gives to successive events their property of generating
in consciousness our appreciation of time.

Almost as soon as this question is carefully put, consciousness
replies that the mere number of successive events is certainly
not the only factor in determining their influence on our esti-
mate of the time during which they were taking place. We
have but to reflect on the extraordinary discrepancies in our
estimate of time when we compare such experiences as the fol-
lowing. Suppose we have to row or to run a race concerning
the result of which we are anxious, how great a contrast there
is between the apparent duration of the five minutes before the
start — which seem like an hour — and the five minutes during
which we are actively engaged in the race. The same incredible
discrepancy in our estimate of time is observable shortly before
and shortly after the commencement of a competitive examina-
tion, or even of a public lecture. Again, how different is our
estimate of time when we take a solitary " constitutional"
walk, and when we return over the same ground with an intel-
lectual companion. And, to give only one other instance, how
interminable the time seems while we are waiting an hour or
two at a country railway station, as compared with a similar
interval after we have met a friend in the train and are passing
through novel and beautiful scenery. Now in all these cases —
and scores of others might be added — it is the interval during
which there is a comparative absence of events that appears so
protracted, while the similar interval which immediately suc-
ceeds it, and which by comparison appears so brief, is an interval
which is crowded with striking events, or a succession of vivid
states of consciousness, Thus I think there can be no question

Consciousness of Time. 299

that it is not number alone that gives to successive events in
consciousness their character of time-measurers. But, before
proceeding to a further analysis, it is desirable to be a little
more explicit about the term " successive events." All that can
be properly denoted by this term as above used is successive
states of consciousness, and it is in this sense that I shall use
the term throughout. This being understood, it may be objected
to the above illustrations that as consciousness can only exist in
virtue of a perpetual change of states, it is really inaccurate
to speak of a greater number of such changes taking place in
any given interval of time than in any other interval of equal
duration. Into this question, however, it is not necessary to go,
because even if the point were conceded that in equal intervals
of time consciousness undergoes equal numbers of changes, it
would only tend to emphasise my statement, viz., that as equal
intervals of time may appear to be of very different durations, the
mere number of the changes of our states of consciousness during
the intervals compared cannot be the only factor in determining
our appreciation of their respective lengths. This latter position
then being now established, the problem which we have to solve
is merely this — What other qualities besides that of the number
of their changes give to states of consciousness their value as
time-measurers ? From the examples above cited, there would
at first sight appear to emerge the very paradoxical inference,
that the more vivid the states of consciousness, and the more
abrupt their changes, the less is their value as time-measurers.
This would be a very paradoxical inference, because, if the con-
sciousness of time is determined by the number of changes in
our states of consciousness, d priori we should expect that the
more decided these changes are, and the consequently deeper
impression which in memory they leave of their occurrence, the
greater would be their value as time-measurers. But there is, I
think, a road of escape from this paradoxical inference ; and, as
in all such cases, this road consists in the recognition of an ad-
ditional cause. Before stating this additional cause, however, I
should like to show that if examples are chosen in which its
disturbing influence is absent, the h priori expectation above
mentioned is found to be realised. Thus, for instance, it is a
familiar observation that in childhood the years seem of much
longer duration than in manhood ; and the reason of this I take
to be that, life being new to children, they derive strong im-
pressions from numberless events which produce no such im-
pressions in adults. Again, a day's railway travelling in a new
ccn&itry appears of longer duration than a day which is employed
in our ordinary avocations, and especially so to persons who are
not accustomed to railway travelling. And this is doubtless

300 Consciousness of Time.

due to the comparatively novel order of changes in our states of
consciousness which a day's railway travelling entails. Similarly
I have often heard persons who habitually live in the country
remark that a day spent in London sight-seeing appears to them
very protracted. And numberless other instances might be
given to show that when the disturbing cause which I am about
to consider is absent, a long series of abrupt changes among
vivid states of consciousness has, as we should expect, a greater
value in generating time-consciousness than has a similar series
of slight changes among comparatively faint states of conscious-
ness.

I. will now proceed to state what I conceive to be the disturb-
ing cause which in numberless cases gives rise to what I may
term abnormal time-consciousness as its effect. Every scientific
experimenter must be able to recall instances in which it was
necessary for him to note the passage of successive seconds
during a greater or less interval of time ; and, if so, he can
scarcely fail to remember how interminably long such an in-
terval appeared. But if any one who reads this paper should
not have had any actual experience of this kind, it will be very
easy for him to make a trial, by laying his watch on the table
and resolving to keep his whole attention fixed on the move-
ments of the minute hand for an interval of five or ten minutes,
without allowing any other thoughts to enter his mind ; the
time will then appear to him incredibly long. Now, why should
this be ? for it is evident that in such a case there are no vivid
or abrupt changes of conscious states ; on the contrary, the ex-
periment is marked by the strenuous endeavour to prevent any
such changes. The answer I believe to be, that such changes
of consciousness as occur under these circumstances all belong
to one class — viz., those which have reference to their own
sequence, or, in other words, to the passage of time.* And

* It will conduce to clearness in what follows if I speak of the contem-
plation of the passage of time as a reference by consciousness to the sequence
of its own states. But in thus speaking I would not, of course, be under-
stood to mean that the reference thus made by consciousness is made con-
sciously. Our cognisance of the passage of time is determined by our taking
a retrospect of the changes in our states of consciousness which have oc-
curred between two points of the linear series. As each change occurs, it
leaves behind it in memory a faint record of its occurrence, and it is the
sum-total of these records in memory which enable us to take cognisance
of time. Consequently, when our attention is fixed upon the passage of
time as itself the subject of contemplation, although we are not consciously,
or knowingly, contemplating these subjective sequence-changes which de-
termine our cognisance of the passage^of time, it must nevertheless be due
to their occurrence that the time on which our attention is fixed is appre-
ciated. Therefore, when our attention is fixed upon the passage of time,
consciousness may properly be said to be engaged in an act of introspection.

Consciousness of Time. 301

this I hold to be the disturbing cause of which we are in search :
in whatever degree states of consciousness have reference
to their own sequence, in that degree is their value as time-
measurers enhanced. At all events, in my own case I have in-
variably found this formula to apply ; and I cannot but think
that psychologists will find on enquiry that it is a general prin-
ciple. Why it should be so I can scarcely venture to explain,
unless it is that time-consciousness, being nothing more than
the memory of a series of successive changes in consciousness,
when the attention is particularly directed to the occurrence of
such changes, so that these changes themselves form the whole
content of consciousness, the fact of their sequence-relation is
more indelibly impressed on memory ; and thus on taking a re-
trospective estimate of their number we greatly exaggerate it.
But, however this may be, I am pretty sure of the fact, that our
time-consciousness is made up of two factors, which are in a
large measure complementary to one another. For, our appre-
ciation of time being nothing more than our generalised recol-
lection of the number of changes which have taken place in our
states of consciousness, one of the factors determining our appre-
ciation of time I hold to be the vividness of the conscious states
and the abruptness of their changes, which cause them to stand
out prominently in our retrospective survey ; and the other fac-
tor I hold to be the degree in which the states of consciousness
have had reference to their own sequence, which has the effect
of engendering in consciousness a disproportionate estimate of
the number of their sequence-relations.

It is needless to dwell on the operation of the first of these
two factors, because, as before stated, this is the factor which all
psychologists will be prepared to concede as obvious. But
with regard to the other factor I may offer a few general re-
marks. In the first place, I believe it is owing to this factor
that observation, as distinguished from action, makes time seem
long. For during action consciousness is largely occupied with
effecting whatever adaptations — psychical or mechanical — we
may happen to be engaged upon; while during observation
consciousness is free to contemplate, with a much more undivided
attention, the sequence-relations of whatever phenomena we
may happen to be observing. Hence, notwithstanding that
during a period of activity we are usually subject to more in-
tense and abrupt changes in our states of consciousness than we
are during a period of passively observing, and notwithstanding
that on this account the more obvious factor of our time-con-
sciousness must be more intensely operative in the former than
it is in the latter case, nevertheless, it is in the latter case that
time seems longest, because the less obvious factor of our time-

302 Consciousness of Time.

consciousness is here more intensely operative than it is in the
former case. So that our estimate of time during a period of
action or of observation respectively would seem to be deter-
mined by the proportional value of the two complementary
factors of our time-consciousness.

As another general example of the action of the less obvious
factor, I may allude to a circumstance which I think will scarcely
be disputed, viz., that in all cases where we " look forward " to
the passage of a given interval of time, and so unduly occupy
consciousness with the sequence-relations among its own states,
the given interval seems to vary inversely as the degree of our
desire for it to terminate — that is, as the earnestness with which
our attention is fixed on the passage of time. A good example
of this quantitative relation is to be found in our experiences
while railway-travelling ; for, however long the journey may be,
the latter portion of it seems more tedious than the former ; so
that, for instance, if the journey is of two hours' duration, the
last hour seems longer than the first one, but if the journey is of
twelve hours' duration the second hour seems no longer than the
first one, while the twelfth hour seems very protracted. Now
the explanation of this I believe to be, that as the end of our
journey approaches we "look forward" to its termination more
persistently than at any other time during its progress. And it
is to be observed, as we should expect, that it makes little or no
difference whether our desire for the rapid passage of time is
determined by the anticipation of an agreeable or of a disagree-
able event ; waiting for the arrival of a very dear friend who
has been absent for a long time, for instance, seeming quite as
remarkable, in the respects we are considering, as waiting for an
examination. Moreover, it is to be further observed, as we
should also expect, that the element of definiteness in the time
which we1 have to wait makes a great difference in our estimate
of its duration. Tor instance, I have several times observed
that if I know there is an hour to wait for a train, the time
seems much longer than if I have to wait an hour for a train
•which is overdue, and the approach of which — there being no
telegraphic communication — the officials are momentarily ex-
pecting. And this difference is easily explained, if we reflect
that in the former case there is no occupation for consciousness
in the direction of hope ; whereas in the latter case the con-
sciousness of the passage of time is partly obliterated by the
continuous state of expectation from moment to moment which
to a large extent monopolises consciousness. And, lastly, there
is still one other point to be observed, viz., that on taking a re-
trospect of a given interval of time, it occasionally happens that
it may be made alternately to look longer or shorter, according

Consciousness of Time. 303

as we contemplate it in relation to one class or to another class
of ideas which we experienced during that interval. Thus, if a
man takes a retrospect of the interval of time during which he
has been harrassed by a law-suit, it may appear longer when
contemplated in relation to the suit than if contemplated in re-
lation to other more agreeable events which transpired during
the same period. And I believe the explanation of this to be
that, by his recollection of the law-suit, he recalls by association
a massive body of ideas, all of which were more or less intimately
associated with his previous desire for the rapid termination of
the suit ; while in the case of the more agreeable events his as-
sociations have no reference to any such time-elements.

In conclusion, if this analysis is correct, a question arises as
to the relative values of the two factors of our time-conscious-
ness. Now, without pretending to answer this question with
any degree of precision, I think it is evident that the factor
which I have called the reference of states of consciousness to
their own sequence, is, or admits of becoming, a much more im-
portant factor — at any rate, for short intervals of time — than the
complementary factor which depends on the vivid character of the
states of consciousness and the abrupt character of their
changes. Thus, for instance, an exciting series of events, though
they tend by their exciting character to make the time during
which they occur seem slightly longer than a similar interval of
time spent in a somewhat less exciting way, nevertheless do not
make it seem so long as the same interval of time spent in a
condition of ennui. For while the exciting character of the
events completely excludes all inversion of consciousness upon
its own sequence-changes, the state of ennui consists in such an
inversion of consciousness whereby we are rendered perpetually,
though vaguely, cognisant of subjective sequence-changes. Thus
it would seem that when the contemplation of such subjective
sequence-changes is completely shut out from consciousness,
even though these changes are replaced by the most vivid
changes of another order, our consciousness of the passage of
time is not so marked as it is in the presence of such contem-
plation ; and hence the apparently rapid passage of time during
interesting work or exciting action, as compared with the lang-
u'eilig character of ennui. To " kill time" is merely to transfer
our states of consciousness from reference to their own sequence,
to a reference of some other kind, however interesting or exciting*

GEOKGE J. EOMANES.

* Certain narcotic drugs, such as the extract of Indian hemp, when taken
in sufficient amount to cause dreaming, are said to make time appear enor-
mously long. This effect is doubtless due to the stimulating action of tho
drug causing an unusual number of vivid changes in the states of conscious-

II— EDUCATION" AS A SCIENCE. (III.)*

IN Education, there has to be encountered at every turn the
play of Motives. Now the theory of Motives is the theory of
Sensation, Emotion and Will ; in other words, it is the psycho-
logy of the Sensitive and the Active Powers.

THE SENSES.

The pleasures, the pains and the privations of the Senses
are the earliest and the most unfailing, if not also the strongest,
of motives. Besides their bearings on self -preservation, they
are a principal standing dish in life's feast.

It is when the Senses are looked at on the side of feeling,
or as pleasure and pain, that the defectiveness of the current
classification into five is most evident. For, although, in the
point of view of knowledge or intellect, the five senses are the
really important approaches to the mind, yet, in the view of
feeling or pleasure and pain, the omission of the varied
organic susceptibility leaves a wide gap in the handling of the
subject. Some of our very strongest pleasures and pains grow
out of the region of organic life — the Digestion, Circulation,
Respiration, Muscular and Nervous integrity or derangement.

In exerting influence over human beings this department of
sensibility is a first resource. It can be counted on with more
certainty than perhaps any other. Indeed, almost all the punish-
ments of a purely physical kind fall within the domain of the
organic sensations. What is it that makes punishment for-
midable, but its threatening the very vitals of the system ? It is
the lower degree of what, in a higher degree, takes away life.

ness ; for on recovery the intoxicated person is said often to remember
having imagined a vast number and variety of successive experiences. This
distorted appreciation of the passage of time, owing to increased activity of
cerebral action, may, I think, be instructively contrasted with the extra-
ordinary accuracy of such appreciation which is displayed by some idiots.
Here we have exactly the opposite mental condition to that which is pro-
duced by Indian hemp, &c.; for among idiots of a low type there is not
much variation in the degree of their mental activity at different times, and
as the stream of their consciousness is thus always more or less on a dead
level, an act of retrospection affords a more trustworthy measure of time
than it does in the case of an individual whose intellectual life is of a more
varied character. Dr. Langdon Down tells me that those of his patients
who display the faculty of " guessing the time" in a marked degree, are so
little prone to conscious mental effort that in order to insure a correct
answer they have to be first aroused to reflect by shaking. This fact shows
on how dead a level their conscious life must be — thus allowing no oppor-
tunity for the occurrence of great variations in either of the factors of time-
consciousness. And probably the same explanation applies to the accurate
appreciation of time which is displayed by certain animals.
* Continued from MIND, No. VI.

Education as a Science. 305

For example, the Muscular System is the seat of a mass of
sensibility, pleasurable and painful : the pleasures of healthy
exercise, the pains of privation of exercise, and the pains of
extreme fatigue. In early life, when all the muscles, as well as
the senses, are fresh, the muscular organs are very largely
connected both with enjoyment and with suffering. To accord
full scope to the activity of the fresh organs is a gratification
that may take the form of a rich reward ; to refuse this scope is the
infliction of misery ; to compel exercise beyond the limits of the
powers is still greater misery. Our penal discipline adopts the
two forms of pain : in the milder treatment of the young, the
irksomeness of restraint ; in the severe methods with the full-
grown, the torture of fatigue.

Again the Nervous System is subject to organic depression ;
and certain of our pains are due to this cause. The well known
state denominated ' Tedium ' is nervous uneasiness ; and is
caused by undue exercise of any portion of the nervous system.
In its extreme forms, it is intolerable wretchedness. It is the
suffering caused by penal impositions or tasks, by confinement,
and by monotony of all kinds. The acute sufferings of the
nervous system, as growing out of natural causes, are represented
by neuralgic pains. It is in graduated artificial inflictions
operating directly on the nerves by means of electricity that we
may look for the physical punishments of the future, that are to
displace floggings and muscular torture.

The interests of Nourishment, as against privation of food,
are necessarily bound up with a large volume of enjoyment and
suffering. Starvation, deficiency and inferiority of food, are con-
nected with depression and misery of the severest kind ; in-
spiring the dread that most effectually stimulates human beings
to work, to beg, or to steal. The obverse condition of a rich
and abundant diet is in itself an almost sufficient basis of enjoy-
ment. The play of motives between those extremes enables us
to put forth an extensive sway over human conduct.

An instructive distinction may be made between Privation
and Hunger ; likewise between their opposites. Privation is the
positive deficiency of nourishing material in the blood ; Hunger
is the craving of the stomach at its usual times of being supplied,
and is a local sensibility, perhaps very acute, but not marked by
the profound wretchedness of inanition. There may be plenty
of material to go on with, although we are suffering from
stomachic hunger. Punishing, for once, by the loss of a meal
out of the three or four in the day is unimportant as regards the
general vigour, yet very telling as a motive. Absolutely to
diminish the available nutriment of the system is a measure of
great severity ; to inflict a pending hunger is not the same thing.

306 Education as a Science.

When we unite the acute pleasures of the palate with
stomachic relish and the exhilaration of abundance of food
material in a healthy frame, we count up a large mass of
pleasurable sensibility. Between the lowest demands of sub-
sistence, and the highest luxuries of affluent means, there is a
great range, available as an instrumentality of control in the
discipline of the young. The usual regimen being something
considerably above necessaries, and yet beneath the highest
pitch of indulgence, room is given to operate both by reduction
and by increase of luxury, without either mischief or pam-
pering ; and the sensibility in early years being very keen in
those heads, the motive power is great. Having in view the
necessities of discipline with the young, the habitual regimen
in food should be pitched neither too low, nor too high to per-
mit of such variations. It is the misfortune of poverty that
this means of influence is greatly wanting; the next lower
depth to the delinquent child is the application of the stick.

These are the chief departments of Organic Sensibility that
contain the motives made use of in reward and punishment.
The inflictions of caning and flogging operate upon the organ of
the sense of touch, yet, in reality, the effect is one to be classed
among the pains of organic life, rather than among tactile sen-
sations ; it is a pain resulting from injury or violence to the
tissue in the first instance, and if carried far is destructive of
life. Like all physical acute pains it is a powerful deterring
influence, and is doubtless the favourite punishment of every
age and every race of mankind. The limitations to its use
demand a rigorous handling ; but the consideration of these is
mixed up with motives afterwards to be adverted to.

The ordinary five Senses contain, in addition to their intel-
lectual functions, many considerable sensibilities to pleasure and
pain. The pleasures can be largely made use of as incentives
to conduct. The pains might of course be also employed in the
same way ; but with the exceptions already indicated they very
rarely are. We do not punish by bad odours, nor by bitter
tastes. Harsh and grating sounds may be very torturing, but
they are not used in discipline. The pains of sight reach the
highest acuteness, but as punishment they are found only in
the most barbarous codes.

Postponing a review of the principles of punishment generally,
we approach the most perplexing department of motives — the
higher Emotions. Few of the simple sensational effects are
obtained in purity, that is, without the intermingling of emotions.

THE EMOTIONS.

One large department of Psychology is made up of the classi-

Education as a Science. 307

fication, definition, and analysis of the Emotions. The appli-
cations of a complete theory of Emotion are numerous, and the
systematic expansion must be such as to cope with all these
applications. We here narrow the subject to what is indis-
pensable for the play of motives in Education.

Eirst of all, it is necessary to take note of the large region of
Sociability, comprising the social emotions and affections. Next
is the department of Anti-social feeling — Anger, Malevolence, and
Lust of Domination. Taking both the sources and the ramifica-
tions of these two. leading groups, we cover perhaps three fourths
of all the sensibility that rises above the senses proper. They do
not indeed exhaust the fountains of emotion, but they leave no
others that can rank as of first-class importance, except through
derivation from them and the Senses together.

The region of Fine Art comprises a large compass of plea-
surable feeling, with corresponding susceptibilities to pain ;
some of this is sensation proper, being the pleasures of the two
higher senses ; some is due to associations with the interests of
all the senses (Beauty of Utility) ; a certain portion may be
called intellectual, the perception of unity in variety ; whilst
the still largest share appears to be derived from the two great
sources above described.

The Intellect generally is a source of various gratifications
and also of sufferings that are necessarily mixed up with our
intellectual education. Both the delights of attained knowledge,
and the pains of intellectual labour have to be carefully counted
with by every instructor.

The pleasures of Action or Activity are a class greatly pressed
into the educational service, and therefore demand special con-
sideration.

The names Self-esteem, Pride, Vanity, Love of Praise, express
powerful sentiments, whose analysis is attended with much
subtlety. They are largely appealed to by everyone that has to
exercise control over human beings. To gratify them is to
impart copious pleasure, to thwart or wound them is to inflict
corresponding pain.

Mention has rot yet been made of one genus of emotion,
formidable as a source of pain, and as a motive to activity,
namely, Eear or Terror. Only in the shape of re-action or
relief is it a source of pleasure. The skilful management of
this sensibility has much to do with the efficient control of all
sentient creatures, and still more with the saving of gratuitous
misery.

Our rapid review of these various sources of emotion, together
with others of a minor kind, proposes to deal once for all, and in

308 Education as a Science.

the best manner, with the various educational questions that turn
upon the operation of motives. We shall have to remark upon
prevailing exaggerations on some heads, and the insufficient
stress laid on others ; and shall endeavour to unfold in just propor-
tions the entire compass of our emotional susceptibilities avail-
able for the purposes of the teacher.

The Emotion of Terror.

The state of mind named Terror or Fear is described shortly
as a state of extreme misery and depression, prostrating the
activity and causing exaggeration of ideas in whatever is related
to it. It is an addition to pain pure and simple — the pain of a
present infliction. It is roused by the foretaste or prospect of
evil, especially if that is great in amount, and still more if it is
of uncertain nature.

As far as Education is concerned, terror is an incident of the
infliction of punishment. We may work by the motive of evil
without producing the state of terror, as when the evil is slight
and well denned ; a small understood privation, a moderate dose
of irksomeness, may be salutary and preventive, without any
admixture of the quakings and misery of fear. A severe inflic-
tion in prospect will induce fear ; the more so that the subject
does not know how severe it is to be.

In the higher moral Education, the management of the passion
of fear is of the greatest consequence. The evils of operating
by means of it are so great that it should be reserved for the last
resort. The waste of energy and the scattering of the thoughts
are ruinous to the interests of mental progress. The one certain
result is to paralyse and arrest action, or else to concentrate force
in some single point, at the cost of general debility. The tyrant,
working by terror, disarms rebelliousness, but fails to procure
energetic service, while engendering hatred and preparing for
his overthrow.

The worst of all modes and instruments of discipline is the
employment of spiritual, ghostly, or superstitious terrors. Unless
it were to scourge and thwart the greatest of criminals — the
disturbers of the peace of mankind, hardly anything justifies
the terrors of superstition. On a small scale, we know what it
is to frighten children with ghosts ; on a larger scale is the
influence of religions dealing almost exclusively in the fear of
another life.

Like the other gross passions, Terror admits of being refined
upon and toned down, till it becomes simply a gentle stimula-
tion ; and the re-action more than makes up for the misery.
The greatest efforts in this direction are found in the artistic
handling of fear, as in the sympathetic fears of tragedy, and in the

Education as a Science. 309

passing terrors of a well constructed plot. In the moral bearings
of the emotions, its refined modes are shown in the fear of giving
pain or offence to one that we love, respect, or venerate. There
may be a considerable degree of the depressing element even in
this situation ; yet the effect is altogether wholesome and
ennobling. All superiors should aspire to be feared in this
manner.

Timidity, or susceptibility to fear, is one of the noted differ-
ences of character; and this difference is to be taken into
account in discipline. The absence of general vigour, bodily
and mental, is marked by timidity ; and the state may also be
the result of long bad usage, and of perverted views of the world.
In the way of culture, or of high exertion in any form, little is
to be expected from thoroughly timid natures; they can be
easily governed, so far as concerns sins of commission, but their
omissions are not equally remediable.

The conquest of superstitious fears is one of the grandest
objects of education taken in its widest compass. It cannot be
accomplished by any direct inculcation ; it is one of the in-
cidental and most beneficial results of the exact study of nature,
in other words, science.

The Social Motives.

This is perhaps the most extensive and the least involved of
all the emotional influences at work in Education.

The pleasures of Love, Affection, Mutual Kegard, Sympathy,
or Sociability, make up the foremost satisfaction of human life ;
and as such are a standing object of desire, pursuit, and fruition.
Sociability is a wholly distinct fact from the prime supports of
existence and the pleasures of the five senses, and is not, in my
opinion, resolvable into those, however deeply we may analyse it,
or however far back we may trace the historical evolution of the
mind. Nevertheless, as the supports of life and the pure sense
agreeables and exemptions, come to us in great part through the
medium of fellow-beings, the value of the social regards receives
from this cause an enormous augmentation, and, in the total,
counts for one paramount object of human solicitude. It
would appear strange if this motive could ever be overlooked by
the educator, or by any one ; yet there are theories and methods
that treat it as of inferior account.

The vast aggregate of social feeling is made up of the intenser
elements of sexual and parental love, and the select attachments
in the way of friendship, together with the more diffused senti-
ments towards the masses of human beings. The motive power
of the feelings in education may be well exemplified in the in-
tense examples ; we can see in these both the merits and defects

310 Education as a Science.

of the social stimulus. The Phcedrus of Plato is a remarkable
ideal picture of the study of philosophy prompted by Eros, in
the Grecian form of attachment. The ordinary love of the sexes,
in our time, does not furnish many instances of the mutual
striving after high culture ; it may be left out of account in the
theory of early education. We frequently find mothers applying
to studies that they feel no personal attraction for, in order to
assist in the progress of their children. This is much better than
nothing ; a secondary end may be the initiation and discovery
of a taste that at last is self-subsisting.

The intense emotions, from the very fact of their intensity,
are unsuited to the promptings of severe culture. The hardest
studious work, the laying of foundations, should be over, before
the flame of sexual and parental passion is kindled ; when this
is at its height the intellectual power is in abeyance, or else
diverted from its regular course. The mutual influence of two
lovers is not educative for want of the proper conditions. No
doubt considerable efforts are inspired ; but there is seldom suffi-
cient elevation of view on the one side, or sufficient adaptability
on the other, to make the mutual influence what Plato and the
romancists conceive as possible. By very different and inferior
compliances on both sides, the feeling may be kept alive; if more
is wanted, it dies away.

The favourable conjunction for study and mental culture in
general is friendship between two, or a small number, each natu-
rally smitten with the love of knowledge for its own sake, and
basing their attachment on that circumstance. A certain amount
of mutual liking in other respects perfects the relationship ; but
the overpowering sensuous regards of the Platonic couple do not
furnish the requisite soil for high culture. As a matter of fact,
those attachments, as they existed in Greece, prompted to signal
instances of self-devotion in the form of surrendering worldly
goods and life itself ; and this is the highest fruit that they have
yielded in later times.

The remaining aspect of sociability — the influence of the
general multitude — holds out the most powerful and permanent
motive to conduct, and is largely felt in education. In the pre-
sence of an assembly the individual is roused, agitated, swayed ;
the thrill of numbers is electric ; in whatever direction the in-
fluence tends, it is almost irresistible. Any effort made in the
sight of a host is totally altered in character ; and all impressions
are very much deepened.

Having in view this ascendancy of numbers, we can make a
step towards computing the efficacy of class teaching, public
schools, and institutions where great multitudes are brought to-
gether. The power exercised is of a mixed character ; and the

Education as a Science. 311

several elements admit of being singled out. The social motive,
in its pure form of gregarious attraction and mutual sympathy,
does not stand alone. Supposing it did, the effect would be to
supply a strong stimulus in favour of everything that was sup-
ported by common consent ; the individual would be urged to
attain the level of the mass. The drill of a regiment of soldiers
corresponds very nearly to this situation ; every man is under
the eye of the whole, and aspires to be what the rest are, and
not much, if anything, beyond : the sympathetic co-operation of
the mass, guides, stimulates, and rewards the exertion of the in-
dividual. Even, if it were the destination of a soldier to act as
an isolated individual, still his education would be most efficaci-
ously conducted in the mass system ; being finished off by a
certain amount of separate exercise to prepare for the detached
or independent position.

In every kind of education in classes, the social feeling, in the
pure form now assumed, is frequently operative ; and the results
are as stated. The tendency is to secure a certain approved level
of attainment : those that are disinclined of themselves to work
up to that level are pushed on by the influence of the mass. If
there were no other strong passions called out in society, the
general result would be a kind of communism or socialism
characterised by mediocrity and dead level ; everything correct
up to a certain point, but no individual superiority or distinction.

The influence of society as the dispenser of collective good and
evil things, in addition to its operation in the affections and sym-
pathies, is necessarily all-powerful in every direction. If this
stimulus were always to coincide with high mental culture, the
effect would be something that the imagination hardly dares to
shadow forth. It is, however, a power that may be propitiated
by many different means, including shams and evasions ; and the
bearing upon culture is only occasional. Nevertheless, the
social rewards have often served to foster the highest genius —
the oratory of Demosthenes, and the poetry of Horace and of
Virgil — a form of genius notoriously allied with toil and perse-
verance of the most arduous kind. The same influence, working
by disapprobation and approbation combined, is, as I contend,
the principal generating source of the ordinary moral sentiments
of mankind, and the inspiration of exceptional virtues.

The Anti-Social and Malign Emotions.

The emotions of Anger, Hatred, Antipathy, Eivalry, Con-
tumely, have reference to other beings, no less than Love or
Affection, but in an opposite way. In spite of the painful in-
cidents in their manifestation — the offence in the first instance,
and the dangers of reprisal — they are a source of immediate

312 Education as a Science.

pleasure, often not inferior, and sometimes superior, in amount
to the pleasures of amity and gregarious co-operation. In numer-
ous instances, people are willing to forego social and sympathetic
delights to indulge in the pleasures of malignity.

In the work of discipline the present class of emotions occa-
sions much solicitude. They can in certain ways be turned to
good account, but for the larger part the business of the educator
and the moralist is to counterwork them as being fraught with
unalloyed evil.

Being a fitful or explosive passion, Anger should, as far as
possible, be checked or controlled in the young ; but there are no
adequate means, short of the very highest influence of the parent
or teacher. The restraint induced by the presence of a dread
superior at the time does not sink deep enough to make a habit;
opportunities are sought and found to vent the passion with
safety. The cultivation of the sympathies and affections is what
alone copes with angry passion, both as a disturber of equani-
mity, and as the prompter of wrong. The obverse of ill-temper
is the disposition that thinks less of harm done to self, and more
of harm done to other people ; and if we can do anything to
foster this disposition, we reduce the sphere of malignant pas-
sion. The collateral incentives to suppress angry passion in-
clude, besides the universal remedy of disapprobation, an appeal
to the sense of personal dignity and to the baneful consequences
of passionate outbursts.

The worst form of malignant feeling is cold and deliberate de-
light in cruelty ; all too frequent, especially in the young. The
torturing of animals, of weak and defenceless human beings, is the
spontaneous outflow of the perennial fountain of malevolence.
This has to be checked, if need be, at the expense of considerable
severity. The inflictions practised on those that are able to re-
criminate, generally find their own remedy ; and the discipline
of consequences is as effectual as any. By having to fight our
equals, we are taught to regulate our wrathful and cruel pro-
pensities.

The intense pleasure of victory contains the sweetness of
malevolence, heightened by some other ingredients. The pros-
tration and destruction of an enemy or a rival is, no doubt, the
primary situation where malevolent impulses had their rise ;
and it continues to be perhaps the very strongest stimulant of
the human energies. Notwithstanding its several drawbacks,
we are obliged to give it a place among motives to study and
mental advancement. In the fight and struggle of party con-
tests, the pleasure of victory enters in full flavour ; and in the
competitions at school, the same motive is at work.

The social problem of restraining individuals in their selfish

Education as a /Science. 313

grasping of good tilings — the mere agreeables and exemptions of
the senses — is rendered still more intractable by the craving for
the smack of malevolent gratification. Total repression has been
found impossible ; and ingenuity has devised a number of outlets
that are more or less compatible with the sacredness of mutual
rights.

One chief outlet for the malevolent impulses is the avenging
of wrong, whether private or public. A convicted wrongdoer is
punished by the law, and the indignation roused by the crime
turns to gratification at the punishment. In the theory of penal
retribution, some allowance is claimed for the vindictive satis-
faction of the public. To think only of the prevention of crime
and the reformation of criminals, and suppressing all resentful
feeling, is a severe and ascetic view, beyond human nature as at
present constituted. The privacy of the punishments of crimi-
nals, in our modern system, is intended to keep the indulgence
within bounds.

A wide ideal scope is given to our resentful pleasures in his-
tory and in romance ; we are gratified by the retribution inflicted
upon the authors of wrong. Narratives of evil-doers and of their
punishment are level to the meanest capacity; this is the sort
of history that suits the imagination even of children.

The highest refinement of the malevolent gratification I take
to be the emotion called the Ludicrous and the Comic. There is
a laugh of vindictiveness, hatred, and derision, which carries the
sentiment as far as it can be carried without blows. But there
is also the laugh expressed by Playfulness and Humour, in
which the malignant feeling seems almost on the point of dis-
appearing in favour of the amicable sentiment. It is of some
importance to understand that in play, fun, and humour, there
is a delicate counterpoise of opposing sentiments, an attempt to
make the most of both worlds — Love and Anger. The great
masterpieces of humour in literature, the amenities of everyday
society, the innocent joyousness of laughter — all attest the
success of the hazardous combination. Nothing could better
show the intensity of the primitive charm of malevolence, than
the unction that survives after it is attenuated to the condition
of innocent mirthfulness. When the real exercise of the de-
structive propensity is not to be had, creatures endowed with
emotions still relish the fictitious forms. This is seen remark-
ably in the amicable ' play ' of puppies and kittens. Not baing
endowed with much compass of the caressing acts, they show
their love by snarling, and sham biting ; in which, through their
fortunate self-restraint, they seem to enjoy a double pleasure.
In the play of children, there is the same employment of the
forms of destructive malevolence, and so long as it is happily

23

314 Education as a Science.

balanced, the effect is highly piquant. By submitting in turn
to be victimised, a party of children can secure, at a moderate
cost to each, the zest of the malevolent feeling ; and this I take
to be the quintessence of play.

The use of this close analysis is to fix attention upon the
precarious tenure of all these enjoyments, and to render a precise
reason for the well-known fact that play or fun is always on the
eve of becoming earnest ; in other words, the destructive or
malevolent element is in constant danger of breaking loose from
its checks, and of passing from fictitious to actual inflictions.
The play of the canine and the feline kind often degenerates in
this fashion ; and in childish and youthful amusements it is a
perpetual rock ahead.

It is no less dangerous to indulge people in too much ideal
gratification of the vindictive sentiments. Tales of revenge
against enemies are too apt to cultivate the malevolent pro-
pensity. Children, it is true, take up this theme with wonderful
alacrity ; nevertheless it is a species of pampering supplied to
the worst emotions instead of the best.

One other bearing of Irascibility on Education needs 'to be
touched. When disapproval is heightened with Anger, the
dread inspired is much greater. The victim anticipates a more
severe infliction when the angry passion has been roused ; hence
the supposition is natural, that anger is an aid to discipline.
This, however, needs qualifying. Of course any increase of
severity has a known deterrent effect, with whatever drawbacks
may attend the excess. But anger is fitful ; and, therefore, its
co-operation mars discipline by want of measure, and want of
consistency ; when the fit has passed, the mind often relapses into
a mood unfavourable to a proper amount of repression.

The function of anger in discipline may be something very
grand, provided the passion can be controlled. There is a fine
attitude of indignation against wrong that may be assumed with
the best effect. It supposes the most perfect self-command, and
is no more excited than seems befitting the occasion. Mankind
would not be contented to see the bench of Justice occupied by
a calculating machine that turned up a penalty of five pounds,
or a month's imprisonment, when certain facts were dropped in
at the hopper. A regulated expression of angry feeling is a
force in itself. Neither containing fitfulness, nor conducting to
excess of infliction, it is the awe-inspiring personation of Justice,
and is often sufficient to quell insubordination.

The Emotion of Power.

The state named the feeling or emotion of Power expresses a
first-class motive of the human mind. It is, however, shown,

Education as a Science. 315

with great probability, not to be an independent source of emo-
tion. It very often consists of a direct reference to possessions
or worldly abundance. In other cases, I cannot doubt that the
pleasure of malevolent infliction is an element; the love of
domineering, or subjecting other people's wills, would be much
less attractive than it is, if malevolent possibilities were wholly
left out.

Power in the actual is given by bodily and mental superiority,
by wealth, and by offices of command. Hence it can be enjoyed
in any high degree only by a few. It is, however, capable of
great ideal expansion; we can derive gratification from the
contemplation of superior power, and the outlets for this are
numerous, including not merely the operations of living
beings, but the forces of inanimate nature. Eor example, the
Sublime is an ideal of great might or power.

We have now almost, but not quite, led up to the much-urged
educational motive, the gratification of the sense of self-activity
in the pupils. This must afterwards undergo a very searching-
examination. Let us, however, first briefly review another lead-
ing class of well marked feelings, those designated by the
familiar terms — Self-complacency, Pride, Vanity, Love of Ap-
plause. Whether these be simple or compound in their nature,
they represent feelings of great intensity, and they are specially
invoked in the sphere of education.

The Emotions of Self.

'Self is a very wide word. 'Selfish,' 'Self-seeking,' 'Self-
love,' might be employed without bringing any new emotions to
the front. All the sources of pleasure, and all the exemptions
from pain, that have been or might be enumerated, under the
Senses and the Emotions, being totalised, could be designated
as ' Self ' or ' Self-interest '. But connected with the terms
Self-esteem, Self-complacency, Pride, Vanity, Love of Praise,
there are new varieties of feeling, albeit they are but offshoots
from some of those already given. It is not our business to
trace the precise derivation of these complex modes, except to
aid in estimating their value as a distinct class of motives.

There is an undoubted pleasure in finding in ourselves
some of those qualities that, seen in other men, call forth our
love, admiration, reverence, or esteem. The names self-com-
placency, self-gratulation, self-esteem, indicate emotions of no
little force. They have a good influence in promoting the
attainment of excellence ; their defect is ascribable to our enor-
mous self-partiality : for which cause they are usually. concealed
from the jealous gaze of our fellows. It is only on very special
occasions that persuasion is made to operate through these

316 Education as a Science.

powerful feelings ; they are too ready to turn round and make
demands that cannot be complied with.

A still higher form of self-reflected sentiment is that desig-
nated by the Love of Praise and Admiration. We necessarily
feel an enhanced delight when our own good opinion of self is
echoed and sustained by the expressions of others. This is one
of the most stirring influences that man can exert over man. It
exists in many gradations, according to our love, regard, or ad-
miration for the persons bestowing it, as well as our dependence
upon them, and according to the number joining in the tribute.

The bestowal of praise is an act of justice to real merit,
and should take place apart from ulterior considerations. But
in rewarding, as in punishing, we cannot help looking beyond
the present ; we have in our eye merits that are yet to be
achieved. The fame that attends intellectual eminence is an
incentive to study, and the educator has this great instrument
at his command.

Praise to be effectual and safe has to be carefully apportioned,
so as to approve itself to all concerned. As the act of praising
does not terminate with the moment, but establishes claims for
the future, thoughtless profusion of compliment defeats itself.
Praise may operate in the form of warm, kindly expression, and
no more ; in which sense it is an offering of affection, and has a
value in that character alone. A pleased smile is a moral
influence.

Discipline, properly so called, wrorks in the direction of pain ;
pleasures are viewed in their painful obverse. The positive
value of delights is of consequence as the starting-point where-
from to count the efficacy of deprivations. The pains opposed
to the pleasures of Self-esteem and Praise are among the most
powerful weapons in the armoury of the disciplinarian. They
are the chief reliance of such as deprecate corporal inflictions.
Bentham's elaborate scheme of discipline in the ChrestomatJiia
is a manipulation of the motives of Praise and Dispraise, which
he would fain make us believe to be all-sufficient.

Of the two divisions of the present class of emotions, namely,
Self-Esteem on the one hand, and Desire of Praise on the other,
the opposite of the first — Self-reproach, Self-humbling — is very
little under foreign influence. To induce people to think meanly
of themselves is no easy task ; with the mass of human beings
it is well-nigh hopeless. Any success that attends the endea-
vour is an offshoot from the second member of the class under
discussion, namely, Dispraise, Depreciation. There is no mistak-
ing our aim here ; we can make our power felt in this form,
whether it has the other effect or not. People live so much on
one another's good opinion that the remission tells in an instant ;

Education as a Science. 317

from the simple abatement or loss of estimation there is a de-
scent into the depths of disesteem with a result of unspeakable
suffering. The efforts that the victim makes to right himself
under censure only shows how keenly it is felt. There can be
little doubt that on the delicate handling of this instrument
must depend the highest refinements of moral control.

The Emotions of Intellect.

The pleasurable emotions incident to the exercise of the In-
tellectual Powers have not the formidable magnitude that we
have assigned to the foregoing groups. Indeed, on the occasions
when they seem to burst forth with an intense glow, we can
discern the presence of emanations from these other great foun-
tains of feeling.

It is an effort of prime importance to trace exhaustively the
inducements and allurements to intellectual exertion. What are
the intrinsic charms of knowledge, whether in pursuit or in pos-
session ? The difficulty of the answer is increased rather than
diminished by the flow of fifty years' rhetoric.

Knowledge has such a wide compass, embraces such various
ingredients, that until we discriminate the kinds of it, we cannot
speak precisely either of its charms or of its absence of charm.
Some sorts of knowledge are interesting to every body ; some
interest only a few. The serious part of the case is that the
most valuable kinds of knowledge are often the least interesting.

The important distinction to be drawn here is between In-
dividual or Concrete Knowledge, and General or Abstract Know-
ledge. As a rule, particulars are interesting as well as easy ;
generals uninteresting and hard. When particulars are not
interesting, it is often from their being overshadowed by generals.
When generals are made interesting, it is by a happy reflected
influence upon the particulars. It would serve nearly all the
purposes of the teacher to know the best means of overcoming
the repugnance and the abstruseness of general knowledge.

Waiving for a time the niceties of the abstract idea, and the
obstacles in the way of its being readily comprehended, we may
here adduce certain motives that co-operate with the teacher's
endeavours to impress it. A little attention, however, must first
be given to the various kinds of interest that pertain to Indi-
vidual or particular facts.

Any kind of knowledge, whether particular or more or less
general, that is obviously involved iu any of the strong feelings
or emotions that we have passed in review, is by that very fact
interesting. Now a great many kinds of knowledge are impli-
cated with those various feelings. To avoid pains, and obtain
pleasures, it is often necessary to know certain things, and we

318 Education as a Science.

willingly apply our minds to learn those things ; and the more
so, the more evident their bearing upon the gratification of our
desires. A vast quantity of information respecting the world,
and respecting human beings, is gained in this way ; and it con-
stitutes an important basis of even the highest acquisitions.

The readiness to imbibe this immediately fructifying knowledge
is qualified by its being difficult or abstruse ; we often prefer
ignorance, even in matters of consequence, to intellectual labour.

All the natural objects that bear upon our subsistence, our
wants, our pleasures, our exemptions from pain, are individually
interesting to us, and become known in respect of their special
efficacy. Our food, and all the means of procuring it, our cloth-
ing and shelter, our means of protection, our sense-stimulants,
are studied with avidity, and remembered with ease. This
department of knowledge, notwithstanding its vital concern, is
apt to be considered as grovelling ; it has, however, the recom-
mendation of truth. We do not encourage ourselves in any
deceptions in such matters ; and, if we make mistakes, it is
owing to the obscurity of the case, rather than to our indiffer-
ence, or to any motive for perverting the facts. Indeed, this is
the department that first supplied to mankind the best criterion
of certainty.

There is a different class of objects that appeal, not to the
more pressing utilities of subsistence, safety, and comfort, but to
the gratifications of the higher senses and the emotions ; the
pleasures of touch, sight and hearing ; the social and antisocial
emotions. These comprise all the more striking objects of the
world : — the sun and celestial sphere, the earth's gay colouring,
and sublime vastness ; the innumerable objects, inanimate and
animate, that tickle some sense or emotion. In proportion as
human beings are set free from the struggle for subsistence, do
they lay themselves open to these influences, and so enlarge the
sphere of natural knowledge. Individual things become interest-
ing and known from inspiring these feelings. . The culminating
interest, however, is in living beings, and especially persons of
our own species. The intellectual impressions thus left upon us
are lively, but not necessarily correct to the facts.

However all this may be, it is to individual things that we
must refer the first beginnings of knowledge, the interest and
the facility of acquisition. There are great inequalities in this
interest and consequent facility ; many individual objects inspire
no interest at all in the first instance ; while some of these
become interesting afterwards, in consequence of our discovering
in them relationships to things of interest.

One notable distinction among the objects of knowledge is
the distinction between movement or change, and stillness or

Education as a Science. 319

inaction. It is movement that excites us most; still life is
rendered interesting by reference to movement. We are aroused
and engrossed by all moving things; our attention is turned away
from objects at rest to contemplate movements ; and we imbibe
with great rapidity the impressions of moving objects.

This brief survey of the sphere of Individuality and of the
various attractions presented by individuals is preparatory to
the consideration of the most arduous part of knowledge — the
knowledge of generals or Generality. All the difficulties of the
higher knowledge have reference to the generalising process —
the seeing of one in many. The arts of the teacher and the ex-
positor are supremely requisite in sweetening the toil of this
operation. At the present stage, however, the question is
to assign the motives connected with general knowledge as
distinct from individual knowledge.

General knowledge, represented by Science, consists in hold-
ing together, by a single grasp, whole classes of objects, of facts,
of operations. This must, by the very nature of the case, be
more severe than holding an individual. To form an idea of one
tree that we have repeatedly surveyed at leisure round and
round, is about the easiest exertion whether of attention or of
memory. To form an idea of ten trees partly agreeing and
partly differing among themselves, is manifestly an entirely
altered task ; it is to exchange comparative simplicity for
arduous complexity ; yet this is what is needed everywhere in
the higher knowledge.

The first emotional effect attendant on the process of generalis-
ing facts, and serving to lighten the intellectual burden, is the
flash of identity in diversity, an exhilarating charm that has
been felt in every age by the searchers after truth. Many of
the grandest discoveries in science have consisted, not in bringing
to light any new individual fact, but in seeing a likeness between
things formerly regarded as wholly unlike. Such was the great
discovery of gravitation. The first flash of the recognition of a
common power in the motions of the planets and the flight of a
projectile on the earth was unutterably splendid ; and after a
hundred repetitions, the emotional charm is unexhausted.

With the emotion of exhilarating surprise at the discovery of
likeness among things seemingly unlike, there is another grate-
ful feeling — the relief from an intellectual burden. This appears
at first sight a contradiction to what has been already said re-
specting the greater laboriousness of general knowledge : but the
contrariety is only apparent. To contract an impression of one
single individual, after plenty of time given to attend to it, is
the easiest supposable mental effort. But such is the multi-
plicity of things, that we must learn to know, and remember,

320 Education as a Science.

vast numbers of individuals ; and, we soon feel ourselves over-
powered by the never-ending demands upon us. We must
know many persons, many places, many houses, many natural
objects ; and our capability of memory is in danger of exhaustion
before we have done. Now comes in, however, the discovery of
identities, whereby the work is shortened. If a new individual
is exactly the same as the old, we are saved the labour of a new
impression ; if there is a slight difference, we have to learn that
difference and no more. In actual experience, the case is that
there are numerous agreements in the world, but accompanied
with differences ; and while we have the benefit of the agree-
ments, we must take notice of the differences. What makes a
general notion difficult is that it represents a large number of
objects that, while agreeing in some respects, differ in others.
This difficulty is the price that we pay for an enormous saving
in intellectual labour.

The overcoming of isolation in the multitude of particulars, by
flashes of identity, is the progress of our knowledge in one direc-
tion ; it is the satisfaction that we express when we say we
understand or can account for a thing. Lightning was
accounted for when it was identified with the electric spark :
besides the exhilarating surprise at the sameness of two facts in
their nature so different and remote, men had the farther satis-
faction of saying that they learned what lightning is. Thus
"by discoveries of identity we are enabled to explain the world,
to assign the causes of things, to dissipate in part the mysterious-
ness that everywhere surrounds us.

When a discovery of identification is made among particulars
hitherto looked upon as diverse, the interest created is all-suffi-
cient to secure our appreciation. This is the alluring side of
generalities. The repugnant aspect of them is seen in the
technicalities that are invented to hold and express them —
general or abstract designations, diagrams, and formulas. When
it is proposed to indoctrinate the mind in these things, by
themselves, and at a stage when the condensing and explaining
power of the identities is as yet un awakened, the whole
machinery seems an uncouth jargon. Hence the attempt to afford
relief to the faculties by teaching the dry symbols of Arithmetic
and Geometry through the aid of examples in the concrete, and
in all the abstract sciences to afford plenty of particulars to
illustrate the generalities. This is good so far; but the real
interest that overcomes the dryness arises only when we can
apply the generalities in tracing identities, in solving difficulties,
and in shortening labour ; an effect that comes soonest to those
that have already some familiarity with the field where the
formulas are applicable. The liking for Algebra and for Geometry

Education as a Science. 321

proceeds apace when one sees the marvels of curious problems
solved, unlikely properties discovered, among numbers and
geometrical figures. A certain ease in holding in the memory
the abstract symbols, after a moderate application, is enough to
prepare us for a positive relish in the pursuit. Such is the case
with generalities in all departments. If we can hold on till they
bear their fruits in the explanation of things that we have
already begun to take notice of, the pursuit is sustained by a
genuine and proper scientific interest, whose real groundwork,
however, deeply hidden, is the stimulus of agreement among
differing particulars, and the lightening of the intellectual labour
in comprehending the world. These are the feelings that have
to be awakened in the minds of pupils when groaning under the
burden of abstractions.

The opposition of the Concrete and the Abstract, while but
another way of expressing the opposition of the Particular and
the General, brings into greater prominence the highly composite
or combined character of Individuality. The individual thing is
usually a compound of many qualities, each of which has to
be abstracted in turn, in rising to general notions ; any indi-
vidual ball has, in addition to its round form, the properties
called weight, hardness, colour, and so on. Now this composite
nature, by charming several senses at once, gives a greater
interest to individuals, and urges us resist that process of de-
composition, and separate attention, to which are given, the
designations, 'abstraction' and ' analysis'. It is for individuals in
all their multiplicity of influence that we contract likings or
affections ; and according as the charm of sense, and especially
the colour sense, is strong in us, we are averse to the classing or
generalising operation. A fire is an object of strong individual
interest : to rise from this to the general notion of the oxidation
of carbon under all varieties of mode, including cases with no
intrinsic charm, is to quit with reluctance an agreeable contem-
plation. The emotions now described — the pleasure of identity,
and the lightening of labour — are of avail to counterwork this
reluctance.

The second of the two motives that we have coupled together
—the easing of intellectual labour — may be viewed in another
light. When objects are viewed as operating agents in the
economy of the world, as causes or instruments of change, they
work by their qualities or powers in separation, and not by their
entire individuality or concreteness. An iron bar, or a poker, is
an individual concrete thing ; but when we come to use it, we
put in action its various qualities separately. We may employ
it as a weight ; in which case its other properties are of no
account : we use it as a lever, and bring into play simply its

322 Education as a Science.

length and its tenacity. We can put it in motion as a moving
power, wherein its inertia is alone taken into account, with
perhaps its form. In all these instances, the magnetical and the
chemical, and the medicinal properties of iron are unthought of.
Now this consideration opens up an important aid to the
abstracting process, the analytic separation of properties, as
opposed to the mind's fondness for clinging to concrete indi-
viduality. When we are working out practical ends, we must
follow nature's method of working ; and as that is by isolating
the separate qualities, we must perform the act of mental isola-
tion, which is to abstract, or consider one power to the neglect
of the rest. When we want to put forth heavy pressure, we
think of various bodies solely as they can exert weight, however
many other ways they may invite or charm our sense. This is
to generalise or to form a general notion of weight ; and the
motive to conceive it, is practical need or necessity.

This motive of practical need at once brings us to the very
core of Causation, viewed as a merely speculative notion. The
cause of anything is the agent that would bring that thing into
being, suppose we were in want of it. The cause of warmth in
a room is combustion properly arranged ; we use this fact for
practical purposes, and we may also use it for satisfying mere
curiosity. We enter a warm room; we may desire to know how it
has been made warm, and we are satisfied by being told that
there has been, or is now somewhere, a fire in communication
with it.

Thus it is that in proportion as we come to operate upon the
world practically ourselves, and from that proceed to contemplate
causation at large, we are driven upon the abstracting and
analysing process, so repugnant to one large portion of our feel-
ings. Science finds an opening in our minds at this point, when
otherwise we might need the proverbial surgical operation.

These observations will serve to illustrate the working of the
emotion named Curiosity, which is justly held to be a great
power in teaching. Curiosity expresses the emotions of know-
ledge viewed as desire ; and more especially the desire to sur-
mount an intellectual difficulty once felt. Genuine curiosity
belongs to the stage of advanced and correct views of the
world.

Much of the curiosity of children, and of others beside chil-
dren, is a sham article. Frequently it is a mere display of
egotism, the delight in giving trouble, in being pandered to and
served. Questions are put, not from the desire of rational in-
formation, but for the love of excitement. Occasionally, the
inquisitiveness of a child provides an opportunity for imparting

Education as a Science. 323

a piece of real information ; but far oftener not. By ingeniously
circumventing a scientific fact, one not too high for a child's
comprehension, we may awaken curiosity and succeed in
impressing the fact. Try a child to lift a heavy weight first by
the direct pull, and then by a lever or a set of pulleys, and
probably you will excite some surprise and wonder, with a
desire to know something farther about the instrumentality.
But one fatal defect of the childish mind is the ascendancy of
the personal or anthropomorphic conception of cause. This no
doubt is favourable to the theological explanation of the world,
but wholly unsuited to physical science. A child, if it had any
curiosity at all, would like to know what makes the grass grow,
the rain fall, the wind howl, and generally all things that are
occasional and exceptional ; an indifference being contracted
towards what is familiar, constant, and regular. When anything
goes wrong, the child has the wish to set it right, and is anxious
to know what will answer the purpose ; this is the inlet of prac-
tice, and, by this, correct knowledge may find its way to the
mind, provided the power of comprehension is sufficiently
matured. Still the radical obstacle remains — the impossibility of
approaching science at random, or taking it in any order ; we
must begin at the proper beginning, and we may not always con-
trive to tickle the curiosity at the exact stage of the pupil's under-
standing. Every teacher knows or should know the little arts
of giving a touch of wonder and mystery to a fact before the
explanation is given ; all which is found to tell in the regular
march of exposition, but would be lost labour in any other course.
The very young, those that we are working upon by gentle
allurement, are not properly competent to learn the ' how ' or
' wherefore ' of any important natural fact ; they cannot even
be made to desire the thing in the proper way. They are open
chiefly to the charm of sense novelty and variety, which together
with accidental charm or liking impresses the pictorial or con-
crete aspects of the world, whether quiescent or changing, the
last being the most powerful. They farther are capable of under-
standing the more palpable conditions of many changes, without
penetrating to ultimate causes. They learn that to light a fire
there must be fuel and a light applied ; that the growth of
vegetables needs planting or sowing, together with rain and
sunshine through a summer season. The empirical knowledge
of the world that preceded science is still the knowledge that
the child passes through in the way to science ; and all this may
be guided so as to prepare for the future scientific revelations.
In other respects, the so-called curiosity of children is chiefly
valuable as yielding ludicrous situations for our comic literature.

A. BAIN.

Ill— THE OEIGIN OF THE SUBLIME.

THERE is perhaps no feeling in our nature more strangely com-
pounded and more indefinably singular than that which we call
the Sense of the Sublime. It is not exactly pleasurable, and
yet it certainly is not painful. It has many elements in common
with fear, many in common with reverence, and not a few in
common with beauty. Yet it stands apart from all three, in an
isolated corner of its own, and it has seldom received any fitting
attention at the hands of scientific psychologists. Most writers
have classed it roughly amongst the aesthetic feelings, but hardly,
I think, with sufficient reason. Perhaps an analysis of its origin
in the human mind will lead us to a truer notion of its nature
and functions.

If we go back to the very first germ from which the feeling of
the Sublime has been developed, we must seek it lower down in
the animal scale than the limits of humanity itself. The desire
to produce an effect is one which man shares with many of the
higher vertebrates. If we watch monkeys at play, we shall
notice how keenly they enjoy the power of startling or surprising
their fellows. They love to pull one another's ears unexpectedly,
to jump on a sudden from a height, or to make a smaller com-
rade squeak aloud with pain. Dogs are equally anxious to
obtain notice by jumping over a stick, or exhibiting their skill in
tricks. Many animals evidently delight in the loudness of their
own roar or cry, while still more strut proudly about in the
triumph of victory over their rivals. In many ways birds and
mammals show us that they understand and appreciate the
simpler pleasures of power and display. And as all power is an
index of success in the struggle for life, this feeling is clearly
conducive to the preservation of individuals or races in whom it
exists, and consequently is continually strengthened under the
selective action of survival of the fittest.

When we come to the younger members of our own species,
we find similar feelings more developed, and more highly
evolved. Babies in arms will crow with delight at knocking
down a tea-cup, or making a loud noise. Schoolboys enjoy no-
thing so much as a crash or bang — they are perfectly happy
with an ounce of gunpowder or half-a-dozen squibs ; and they
delight in rolling big stones down hillsides, or driving horses and
cows full-pelt across a meadow. An exhibition of what they can
do is their greatest ' pleasure : and this feeling, again, is clearly
one which contributes greatly to the success in life of those races
which possess it.

Hence arise two or three important impulses, which pave the
way for the sense of Sublimity. One very conspicuous method

The Origin of the Sublime. 325

>f proving one's prowess is by the performance of deeds requiring
strength and skill. Every savage is proud of his warlike
achievements, and is urged on by the admiration of his fellows.
This admiration itself has a double origin : it is partly selfish,
depending upon the fact that a strong and brave man is a shield
and buckler to every member of his tribe ; and it is partly sym-
pathetic, in an incipient degree, depending upon the conscious-
ness of self-approval for similar qualities in one's own case.
The earliest embryo of the Sublime is doubtless to be sought in
this savage appreciation for the brave warrior of one's tribe.
The man whose strong arm comes in to save one from the club
of one's foe, deserves lasting gratitude and admiration. The
hero who leads the attack against the enemy, and successfully
carries away cattle and wives, is an object of respectful awe.
The Hector who alone wards off from his Troy a myriad of
Myrmidons, demands the obeisance of cowards and women.

Probably this is the only form of the Sublime which is reached
by the lowest types of humanity. We can hardly imagine the
early races, who are still represented by Veddahs and Andam-
anese, admiring the vault of heaven or the foaming cataract, the
lofty mountain or the angry sea. Yet even in this primitive
germ, we see the main traits which mark the feeling of Sublimity
in its highest flights. It is a mixture of love and dread. The
savage knows the value to himself and his fellows of the strong
warrior, and treats him accordingly with genuine respect ; but
he knows also how dangerous is his anger, and regards him con-
sequently with awe and reverence. His feeling is very different
from that with which he thinks of his enemy — there, hatred and
fear are unqualified by that respect which is begotten from the
hope of aid ; but it is also very different from that with which
a civilised man thinks of his friend — pure affection, unmixed
with fear. Perhaps the nearest emotion within the range of our
own experience is that which a child entertains towards his
parents. In a crowd of strangers he clings to them as known
friends, but he never forgets that they are also the dispensers of
punishment, and keepers of the whip.

There are few societies of men in which the strongest has not
come in time to occupy the post of chief or king. As this posi-
tion strengthens and hardens down by custom, the feeling of awe
and respect deepens. The absolute monarch, with power of life
arid death over every subject, is a natural object of dread. Yet
he is also the leader of the host, the dispenser of favours, the
divider of the spoil. If implicit obedience to his' will is de-
manded of all, yet that obedience, when willingly granted,
generally secures benefits for the subject. And as the tribe
profits by its discipline and its military organisation, there will

326 The Origin of the Sublime.

naturally grow up in all successful predatory tribes, an intense
feeling of loyalty and reverence for the king — a loyalty cul-
minating in that of the Fijians, who consider it an honour to
become food for their chiefs. The second stage in the evolution
of the Sublime is found in the veneration for the savage king.

But when the king dies, he does not utterly pass away.* A
new king rises in his place, who was once his subject, and who,
dreading him during his lifetime, now still more dreads and
reverences his surviving ghost or double. The people too, who
fear the new king, must still more fear the ghost which the king
himself is afraid to displease. Yet their feeling is not wholly
one of terror. The ghosts of enemies are indeed objects of un-
mitigated dread ; but the king of their own people, though terrible
as all ghosts are, nevertheless aids them in the fight, and drives
away the evil spirits of the hostile tribe. He can be propitiated
with gifts, and he is still the powerful if somewhat uncertain
friend of his former subjects. As in life he was harsh yet invalu-
able, so in the spirit-world he is easily offended yet placable to
his tribesmen, and their steadfast ally" against all enemies,
earthly or ghostly. And inasmuch as this feeling, too — by binding
together the tribe, and adding a supernatural element of subor-
dination to the natural one of kingship— increases its organisa-
tion, and strengthens its hands against aggressors, it, like the
former ones, is perpetually developed and deepened through the
natural selection of those societies which most display it. The
third step in the evolution of the Sublime is the mixed feeling of
fear and hope with which savages regard the earliest god, the
ghost of their deified chieftain.

By this time the sense of Sublimity has reached a very con-
siderable distinctness. It is true that it still confines itself to
human or quasi-human attributes, and that the infinitely wider
Sublimity of nature is as yet all but unperceived. We shall see
hereafter how that conception is gradually developed through
the anthropomorphic mode of envisaging the inanimate world
which springs from the extension of the ghost-theory. For the
present we may confine our attention to the expression of Sub-
limity at this, its third, stage. The tales which savages tell, and
the songs which they sing around their evening fire, all bear
upon the mighty deeds of kings, heroes, and gods — the three
being almost indistinguishable in the earliest types. The South
Pacific myths which Mr. Gill has collected and published, or the
New Zealand stories narrated by Sir George Grey, show us a
conception of the Sublime which never rises above this simple

* I had better here acknowledge, once for all, my obligations to Mr.
Herbert Spencer's Principles of Sociology, on which I base the whole of my
theory, so far as regards the compaiutive science of religions.

Tlu Origin of the Sublime. 327

level. These races have no great architectural piles which might
aid them in extending the feeling to inanimate masses, nor have
they progressed to the anthropomorphic conception of natural
forces, which enables other stocks to embrace the thunder and
the storm, the seething ocean and the driving cloud, within the
limits of their sense of Sublimity. Among all the embryonic
literature of tribes in the stage of theology here contemplated
which has yet been rendered accessible to European readers, I can
find scarcely a touch that reveals any admiration or awe for the
might of the external universe. The strength of men, the
terrible deeds of gods, the ghosts of men, are held up to the
wonder and veneration of every hearer ; but not a trace can be
found of any reverential feeling for the grandeur and majesty of
the mighty world around them.*

A little higher up in the scale of development, however, the
spiritual agency widens its sphere of operations. Without
inquiring into the vexed question of how the ghost or deity
comes to be identified with the moving power of inanimate
nature, it will be sufficient 'for our present purpose if we recog-
nise the fact that he does come to be so identified. The howling
of the wind is the voice of a god ; the rumbling of the thunder
is his angry roar ; the tempest on the ocean is stirred up by his
trident ; he dwells in the flaming volcano, and his blast drives
aloft the molten lava ; he lies under the roots of mountains, and
when he turns upon his side an earthquake rends their bases.
If the gods were only this, however, they would be merely an
object of unmixed dread and horror ; the feeling of Sublimity
would never reach any higher development, and hatred or abject
fear would take its place. But the gods have also their kindly
side as before. It is they who send the rain and the breeze ; it
is they who grant plentiful harvests and abundant flocks ; it is
they who are the dispensers and distributors of all good things.
The Eoman Ceres fills the garners, and Dionysus swells the
grapes of Hellas. Some of them are identified with the greater
natural agents whose beneficence is obvious and undoubted.
One is the warm sun who shines on the fields and gives the
pleasant light of day. Another is the bright and changeful moon
who comes to the aid of man in the darkness of night. A third
is the clear open sky above, whence fall the quickening showers
that nourish the crops. Every day yields abundant proof alike
of their might and their good-will. Zeus may indeed collect the
angry thunder clouds and blast the mountain-top with his fiery
dart ; but he oftener smiles benignly on his children, with that

* Even where a tinge of the Sublime in nature is cast upon the story by
a passing expression, we must guard against the possible danger of reading
our own ideas into the simple and positive language of the savage.

328 TJie Origin of the Sublime.

serene brow which well befits the father of gods and men. Awe
for their power mingles strangely with hope of their favour in
the minds of their votaries. Mighty and strong and irresistible
they are ; yet they may be turned aside by prayer and propi-
tiated by the savour of perfect lambs and bulls.

How enormous is the amplification which this anthropomor-
phic envisagement of nature gives to the sphere of the Sublime we
can see at a glance. The savage who has only just progressed
beyond the first stage of the ghost-theory can hardly stand awe-
struck before the majesty of nature. The thunder is doubtless
very terrible to him, and the- cold wind very unpleasant ; while
the warmth of the sun and the coolness of the breeze are agree-
able and grateful to his senses : but as he does not connect them
with any underlying power, they seem to him no more than so
much dead fact, without complex emotional implications. As
soon, however, as he learns to see in these manifestations the
acts of some occult and invisible being, he cannot fail to compare
their vastness and might with the smallness and weakness of
his own powers. His idea may still be a childish and an
unworthy one ; he may still fancy that these unseem spirits can
be deceived and cajoled by the most transparent trickery ; he
may still hope to outwit them through craft or to frighten them
with threats ; but nevertheless he must recognise them as some-
thing vastly greater than mere human kings ; he must take the
decisive step which definitely marks off the god from the simple
ghost.

If we examine such a monument of the differentiated theolo-
gical stage as we possess in the Homeric ballads, we shall see
how deep a hold the sense of Sublimity has there obtained over
the awakening intelligence of men, no longer barbaric, but far
on their wTay to an advanced culture. But we shall also find
these four first developments of the feeling — awe towards the
hero, towards the king, towards the gods, towards the divine
motive power in nature — filling the whole field to the exclusion
of all those more complex and elevated factors which enter into
the composition of the Sublime in its highest forms. The wrath
of Achilles, the waving plumes of Hector ; the strong warriors
of yore, amongst whom Nestor fought ; the heroes of elder days,
Bellerophon, Tydeus, and the might of Heracles ; wide-ruling
Agamemnon, Priam, and Memnon, and all the Zeus-nurtured
kings ; the gods of Olympus, of Hades, and of Ocean ; Ares
stalking before the hosts of men ; Phoebus Apollo, angry in
heart ; Zeus assailed by the Titans who pile Pelion upon Ossa,
or calling to his aid Briareus of the hundred hands ; — in all
these we see the feeling of awe and reverence for the strong man,
the chief, the king, the deified hero, and the god whose human

TJie Origin of the Sublime. 329

origin is forgotten in the dimness of past centuries. But if we
look for any sense of admiration towards the great moving
powers of nature, we shall find it only under an anthropomorphic
guise. Poseidon the earth-shaker rouses the white billows on the
limitless deep : Apollo the far-darter drives his golden car
through the divine aether : Zeus the loud-thunderer collects the
black clouds and darts his angry bolts upon the perjurer's head.
Yet amid all this wealth of anthropinistic sublimity — a wealth
which perhaps no other literature can equal in its own way —
we miss any feeling for the sublime of nature in repose, any
sense of grandeur in sea and sky and mountain, apart from the
great shadowy beings who dwelt within them and gave life and
motion to their mighty masses.

And here again we see how intimate is the connexion
between the feeling of the Sublime and the sentiment of sub-
ordination. The Homeric Achaean is after his kind a law-loving
man. He feels and recognises the necessity for union under a
lawful chief. The rule of many is not good ; let one alone be
king whom Zeus appoints. The king it is who guards the divine
laws, derived from Zeus. It is folly to disobey the word of one
who reigns over many islands and all Argos ; for a king is much
the stronger when he is wroth with a man of low degree. Yet
the king's sternness does not disguise the fact of his usefulness
both as warrior and as leader. Nor is his power entirely his
own ; he holds it on sufferance of Zeus, who will not allow his divine
laws to be lightly set aside. The gods themselves, too, are often
harsh, yet they are kindly in their softer moods. Angry Phoebus
sends a pestilence, but he may be propitiated with hecatombs,
and with a lustration whose sanitary effects must obviously be
useful in checking the arrows of the god. Zeus watches over
the faith of treaties, and punishes the perjured head. Artemis
avenges the loss of chastity. Demeter puts forth the green corn ;
Athene gives the olive ; Dionysus sheds his wine into the vats.
With the might of Ares men conquer in battle ; by the counsel
of Pallas they speak words of wisdom in the Agora. In one
way or another every one of these beliefs gives some point of
superiority to its votaries, by hedging round with sanctity an
ethical observance, by promoting a useful social custom, or by
giving confidence in war or debate to the warrior and the
orator. And with every such advance the feeling of Sublimity
must grow more and more definite, more and more structurally
innate, in the minds of each new generation amongst the suc-
cessful races of mankind.

If we step aside for a moment from our main line of exposi-
tion to compare the monarchical Achaean ballads with the later
democratic Athenian drama, we shall see how the change of

24

330 The Origin of the Sublime.

political circumstances influenced the sense of the Sublime.
The Attic tragedians show us a measured and self-respecting
religious feeling, 'which pays all due honour to the gods. But
the reverence of the king has passed away. We do indeed see
traces of the legendary monarchical feeling, introduced as his-
torical colouring ; but the democratic sympathies of the writers
crop out at every turn. Agamemnon treading on the carpet,
Ajax mad, Xerxes and Atossa infatuate and defeated, the ragged
heroes of Euripides, the ribald irreverence of Aristophanes, are a
few indications of the change. The heroes speak in noble and
austere language, but it is the language of moral suasion, of
deliberate counsel, of thoughtful resolve. When Ajax lies un-
buried, when Philoctetes is cajoled into the power of his enemy,
when Antigone is dragged away to slaughter, when Polyxena
is torn from her mother's arms, all the sympathies of the audience
are with the oppressed against the tyrants. But when we turn
to divine matters, the spirit of subordination is once more
apparent. Prometheus welters on the snowy rocks of Caucasus,
a rebel against the irresistible might of Zeus ; Orestes is driven
madly over the stage by the awful figures of the Eumenides,
until he clears himself of blood-guiltiness before the solemn
tribunal of Phcebus ; Pentheus is torn piecemeal by the
Bacchants for daring to interdict the holy orgies of Dionysus.
Even if we compare the tragedians among themselves we see
somewhat the same differences in the earlier and the later.
^Eschylus the religious conservative is full of awe for gods and
heroes, of respect for time-honoured institutions, of modified
veneration for the great rnonarchs of early legend; but Euripides
the philosophical radical loves to exhibit the folly and the
passions of kings, and has little reverence even for the great gods
themselves. Occasionally, too, in the works of the glorious
Athenian period we find tinges of a higher and grander Sublime ;
as in that marvellous lyrical spectacle, the PersaB, where the
poet impresses upon his audience a full appreciation of that
noble sight, a free people banded together under their own
chosen leaders, fighting for liberty and culture against the
aggressive hordes of a barbaric despot. "We too have a master,"
says the free Hellene to the Oriental tyrant, " whom we serve
far better than your slaves serve you, and his name is Law ".

But we must return from this digression to follow out the
development of the Sublime in its regular historical course.
There is another element of sublimity which has arisen earlier,
perhaps, than those already considered, but which introduces a
somewhat different original factor, and so has been postponed to
the present place. I mean the element of material bigness in
human or natural products. To put the difference briefly we

The Origin of the Sublime. 331

may say that the elements we have so far examined depend for
their impression on force ; while the present one depends on
size.

Originally, we saw, the notion of the Sublime took its be-
ginning from the effects which a man could produce, and
especially from the strength or agility of the strongest. Thence
it progressed to the power of kings, of ghosts, of gods, and of
natural agents aiithropomorphically conceived. In all these
cases it is evident that the main idea is one of superior force,
exercised in a manner not wholly adverse, or rather partially
beneficent, to the individual, the tribe, and the race of men
generally. But how did the sense of Sublimity come to entwine
itself around the physically big, viewed in repose ? I think this
element of the Sublime is itself ultimately resolvable into the
same admiration for superior force, always, of course, in alliance
with the subordinative sentiment, governmental or religious.
Let us see how.

Among the commonest instances of that love for the produc-
tion of an effect, which we took as the psychological starting-
point of our inquiry, is the erection of a conspicuous mass of
matter. Children make sand-heaps and big snow-balls, or build
card-houses and castles of bricks. Savages pile barrows over
their dead, raise huge cairns on mountain tops, and lift massive
stones into cromlechs, avenues, and monolithic circles. In all
these acts, they can gratify the natural love of effect, the desire
to do something which shall produce a striking and noticeable
change in the surrounding scene. Especially do piimitive men
enjoy the power which they thus possess of giving a perman-
ence to the form which they impress on large masses of matter.
But when we reach the developed kingly stage, we find this
impulse taking a fresh start in the direction of vicarious effort.
A great king shows his power by the number and strength of
his subjects, the implicit obedience of his vast armies, the
hundreds of captured cities, the thousands of slaughtered or
mutilated foes ; but he can also show it by building for himself
or his ancestors, palaces, temples, tombs, and colossal statues.
Hence we find that almost all great despots erect huge piles of
architecture to demonstrate their might, and strike wholesome
awe into the breasts of their subjects. Whether we examine
the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Memnon, and the temples of
Karnac, or turn to the winged bulls and sculptured courtyards
of Nineveh, we shall notice alike that architecture is devoted to
the aggrandisement of the king and the due subordination of the
subject. The lesson preached in every bas-relief and every
painting is the same : obey the great king who is the taker of
cities and the ruler of peoples. If from the palaces and tombs

332 The Origin of the Sublime.

we turn to the temples, we find the religious tie added to the
governmental. A huge hall, with row after row of mighty
granite columns, and a colossal figure of the tutelary god, strikes
deep reverence into the mind of the beholder. In whatever
part of the world we look, we see the same story repeated.
From the caves and topes of India to the pyramids and temples
of Mexico, we see architecture everywhere allied with despotism
and the religious subordination. Even in republican com-
munities, like Athens and Koine, the sacred use survives, and
the home of Athene on the Acropolis or of Jupiter on the
Capitol peers down with lordly disdain upon the lesser roofs of
men and citizens.

Indeed, it would be interesting, did space permit, to point
out how very close and almost invariable is the connexion here
hinted. It would be necessary then to show how imperial
Eome, with her Domus Aurea, her Colosseum, her Baths, her
Triumphal Arches, her Basilicas, followed in the wake of ancient
Memphis and Babylon : how, in later times, the Medici adorned
Florence, and then Rome : how Louis XIV. had his Versailles,
and Napoleon III. his new Paris. We might pass over to the
mosques with which the Mughal dynasty adorned the plain of
Delhi, and to the palaces and pagodas of Pekin. And we might
glance at our own European Cathedrals, and trace the changed
aspect of governmental machinery in the Parliament Houses of
Westminster, the Capitol at Washington, or the disproportionate
and costly mass of Gothic edifices which the Canadians are rais-
ing for public offices at Ottawa. But such a survey would detain
us too long, and the instances thus rapidly cited will serve to
suggest to the mind of the reader how large a share, in the
development of the political and ecclesiastical restraining
system, has been borne by mere mechanical vastuess in the
machinery employed.

Now, with the growth of such massive and laborious piles
must come the appreciation and admiration for their size and
structure. The boy when he has rolled his big snowball, the
savage when he has lifted on end his monstrous monolith, the
despot when he has heaped his colossal pyramid, each stands by
to admire his work, and feels his heart swell with pride at the
effect of his personal or vicarious labours. The boy's comrades,
the savage's fellows, will join him in a sympathetic appreciation;
while the subjects of our primitive despot will see another mark
of that god-like power and infinite superiority which is daily
impressed upon them in ten thousand ways. Whoever looks
upon their piles, even to this day, cannot fail to think upon the
thousands of workmen, the years of toil, employed in raising
those solid blocks of granite, one above another, to so lofty a

The Origin of the Sublime. 333

height. And on those who lived amongst them, and saw with
their own eyes, year after year, the Great Pyramid rising slowly
towards the sky, some vague feeling of awe for the visible symbol
of majesty could not fail to be impressed. We can hardly
doubt, I think, that the admiration for what is vast in the outer
world must be ultimately traced back to the admiration for what
is vast in the works of man : just as we have already seen that
the forces of inanimate nature only excited wonder and rever-
ence when they came to be figured in terms of human force.
Children admire a big building or statue long before they have
developed the feeling of admiration for a mountain or a water-
fall.

It is hardly necessary to add that the skill, the mechanical
power, and the organisation, evolved during the gradual growth
of such works, themselves form useful aids to the race in the
struggle with other races, and ultimately beget that higher
civilisation which enables its possessors to compete on terms of
immense superiority with every inferior type of humanity.

As yet, however, we have not seen how the sublimity of
nature-in-repose first comes to be appreciated. In modern
times, the most obvious instances of the Sublime which strike
us are those of ice-clad mountains, tottering crags, deep ravines,
cataracts like Niagara, the broad expanse of ocean, and the
starry vault of heaven. Yet not one of these seems to produce
much effect upon men up to a very high pitch of culture. The
Greeks and Romans, even, were little impressed by them. The
Alps they regarded mainly in the utilitarian light of so much
useless ice and snow, placed on the highroad to Gaul and Ger-
many. Mountains are to them nothing more than mere barriers;
their epithets are mostly shadeless, barren, inhospitable, chilly.
The ancient cultivated nations admired much the picturesque
in scenery or in man's handiwork, and the grand in human
nature or divine beings : but they cared little for mere vastness
in the external world. There is a certain mode of reviewing
our own feelings on the subject which, I think, will show us the
reason for this difference.

Very few people feel any thrill of Sublimity as they look over
a very wide and flat plain, a level expanse of sand, or a calm
and unbroken stretch of sea. But if in the midst of the plain a
few bold rocks rise threateningly on high, their admiration is at
once arrested. The position of the rocks inevitably suggests
some vague notion that they were put there ; and in this sug-
gestion we get a point of comparison with human force : while
the flat plain seems, so to speak, as though it were nodwrally
there, and does not at all vividly suggest the notion of any
human or supernatural agency at work. So, too, with the sea :

334 The Origin of the Sublime.

while it remains calm, we see in it only a beautiful field of soft
blue colour ; but when a tempest raises its waves, we picture it
to ourselves as angry, as violent, as a living thing; we compare
its roar, its sweep, its tremendous energy, with the puniness of
our own arms, of our drifting ships, and of our beaten break-
waters. Again, in proportion as the mass of a mountain is great,
and its sides abrupt, we think more and more of the gigantic
power which would be required to pile it to such a height. But
we do not see the power at work. If, however, we watch a
volcano in eruption, the feeling of Sublimity is enormously
increased. In fact, wherever there is an actual display of
energy, the sense of Sublimity is most strongly aroused : where
the energy is only suggested, the emotion is comparatively
vague : and where energy does not enter at all into the idea,
Sublimity is not suggested by the mere bigness of an external
object. We require some hint which will assimilate the object to
a human product before we can find in it a germ of the Sublime.
Now to all modern minds the notion of the world as created,
as made by God, has been familiar from childhood. The idea of
force exerted in raising every mountain, in planing every crag,
in scooping out every ravine, is immediately suggested to our
minds together with the objects themselves. I do not say that
we all accept the direct theory of creation in its crude form :
but even those of us who have substituted the scientific concep-
tion of natural causes for the older belief in personal divine
intervention, still carry about with us predispositions of thought
which were contracted under the earlier creed. Indeed, we see
the energies involved even more clearly than do those persons
who still envisage them in the vague metaphors of religion.
When we stand in the riven gorge of Pfaffers or the water- worn
ravine of the Niagara, we can realise the endless working of that
slowly encroaching power with far greater vividness than the
unscientific thinker can give to his verbal picture of rocks rent
asunder by the finger of God. Yet the old school and the new
school of riloderns are alike in this, that they see indications of
moving energy, natural or supernatural, in every conspicuous
mass of the material universe. The ancient cultivated races, on
the other hand, seldom or never inquired how the universe
came to be there or assumed its existing form ; they accepted
it simply as given, or if they made any conjecture on the sub-
ject, they concluded that it had been there as it was, from
eternity.* We of to-day, whether we see in a mountain a piece

* Sucli exceptional cases as that of Lucretius — an embryo Laplace or
Darwin — will be noticed hereafter. For the present it will be sufficient to
observe that such persons had a feeling of the Sublime infinitely raised
above the average level of their time and race.

The Origin of the Sullime. 335

of God's own handiwork or a product of enormous eruptive
forces, at any rate think of it as raised : the Greek or the Koman
simply thought of it as lying. And if we go back to the origin
of this feeling on our part, I believe we must seek it in the
Hebrew cosmogony. For when we search for any sense of Sub-
limity in the old world at all comparable to that which is
common in the new, we find it only in the wonderful prelude of
Genesis, the mystical visions of Ezekiel, and the thundering
periods of Job.

The mere savage never asks who made the world. If you
put the question to him, he thinks it childish and absurd : — the
world was always there of course. Even to the Greek and the
Eoman, the gods were a part of the world : — they sprang from
it, they moved in it, but they did not make it. The universe
was as objective to Zeus as to his worshipper : it lay quite
outside the sphere of divinity. The gods wrought on it as man
wrought on it : it was their material, and they gave it sometimes
a new shape. But that short declaration, " In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth," contained the germ of a
whole new development for the sense of the Sublime. Even
Longinus noticed the wonderful majesty of the primaeval fiat —
"Let there be light, and there was light". Indeed, monotheism
in every way offers immense opportunities for the evolution of
the Sublime. By substituting for the many opposing and
mutually-limiting gods of the polytheist a single supreme and
infinite God, it concentrates on one point all the veneration and
love of his worshippers. And when this God comes to be con-
ceived as the maker and architect of the universe, the sense of
his irresistible might becomes overwhelming. Nature is thought
of as his outer manifestation. The heavens declare the glory of
God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork. They are the
work of His fingers : the moon and the stars He has ordained.
The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, the world and
they that dwell therein. By the word of the Lord were the
heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His
mouth. When He speaks out of the whirlwind to Job, man
learns his own weakness and folly, by the measure of his maker.
" Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ?
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest ? "
Behemoth and Leviathan testify to His might. The mountains
skip before Him like a calf ; He rideth upon the heavens, and
the earth is His footstool, the hill of God is as the hill of
Bashan, an high hill as the hill of Bashan. There is more true
sublimity in half a dozen Psalms or four chapters of Job than
in all the odes of Pindar and all the tragedies of ^Eschylus.

But here again, as in every other case, we find an under-

336 The Origin of the Sublime.

current of love and trustfulness, half hidden beneath the sense
of reverence. The God who created heaven and earth is
emphatically the God of Israel. He has made an everlasting
covenant with His chosen people. He is not a man that He
should lie, and He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.
But His mercy endureth forever ; He hath not despised nor
abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath He hid His
face from him. " The Lord is my shepherd," the poet can sing ;
"I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters." " I, even I," says
Jehovah, by the mouth of His prophet, " am He that comforteth
you : who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that
shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass,
and forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched forth the
heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth ?" In every line
of the Hebrew poetry and every page of the Hebrew chronicles
we see this overwhelming conception of the might and majesty,
the loving care and protection, of the God of Israel.

It is needless to point out how this feeling, too, was an
element of success in the battle of races. The monotheistic
creeds have spread irresistibly from Hindustan to California,
and have proved by incontestable results their ability to hold
their own in conflict with every inferior faith. Nowhere can
the heathen oppose a solid front to the aggressive hosts of
Christianity and Islam.

The modern world, nursed upon the grand utterances of the
Hebrew bards, has imbibed the sense of the Sublime almost
with its mother's milk — nay, one may even say, before it. For
every one of us is now born into the world with a hereditary
capacity for that mingled feeling of awe and security which
constitutes the essence of the Sublime. The feeling is not
entirely pleasurable ; it is partly ethical and subordinative. It
passes very readily into fear and distress, as in the case of a
thunderstorm, a tempest at sea, or a volcanic eruption. Even
such a terrific gorge as the Via Mala, or such a cataract as the
St. Lawrence rapids, is rather frightening than impressive. Cliffs
and crags give us a more agreeable sensation viewed from a
slight distance than when we stand just beneath their threaten-
ing mass. But they all yield us a certain sympathetic pleasure
as evidences of power, natural or divine. The stock reflection
of moralists on all such subjects is the puniness of man and the
power of his great Creator. I find in a little guide-book to
Niagara eight pieces of verse by different hands, every one of
which turns as a pivot upon the self-same idea. The religion
which for twenty centuries has taught us to see everywhere
some token of the greatness and goodness of God, is now

The Origin of the Sublime. 337

engrained in our nervous systems, and produces its effects un-
consciously in our everyday life.

A last question remains. Will the sense of Sublimity decrease
as the notion of fixed law supersedes that of capricious divine
interposition ? There are good reasons for thinking that it will
not.

The progress of scientific thought has opened before us a field
for the exercise of our faculty of Sublimity almost as new and
extensive as that which was laid open by the monotheistic creed
and the doctrine of creation. The microscope has revealed to
us the marvellous intricacy of coral and shell and zoophyte : it
has shown us the feathery scales on the butterfly's wing, and the
countless facets of the insect's eye : it has made visible the
minute structure of every animal tissue, and the complicated
architecture of every vegetable fibre. In each of these the man
of science saw fresh proofs of design and power, which have
slowly led the way towards a new conception of Sublimity.
Meanwhile, the telescope enlarged our view from the solid
firmament of the Psalmists to the boundless realms of space
which the eye of a Newton or a Herschel sees peopled with
innumerable suns, and countless systems of eddying worlds.
Geology taught us to look back, not over a few thousand
measurable years, but over immeasurable seons of historic
time, stretching back into a vast and unknown past. And now
we have learned to picture our earth as a speck of matter
floating in an ocean of space, and our era as a second of time
marked on the infinite dial of eternity. Through a boundless
void which our miles cannot measure, through an endless period
which our centuries cannot gauge, we see the workings of that
infinite, absolute, unknowable Entity, which manifests itself
eternally in the heavens and the earth and the soul of man.
We spell out its operations in the fiery sea from which sun
and planet drifted towards their appointed centres ; in the slow
growth of living forms upon their cooling crust ; in the myriads
of beautiful beings which people a drop of water ; in the noble
aspirations and earnest moral yearnings of the human race.
Surely our idea of the ultimate Being has not been lowered or
degraded by this vast extension of our knowledge and our vision !

But perhaps it may be objected that we have here only the
awful side of the Sublime and not its comforting or protecting
aspect. Perhaps to a certain extent this is true : and indeed,
every step in the evolution of the feeling has made the centre
round which it gathered more awful because more absolutely
and indefinitely powerful. But at the same time, each step has
brought with it a limitation in the capriciousness, the favourit-
ism, the uncertain demeanour of the being— man, king, ghost,

338 The Origin of the Sublime.

or god — towards whom the sentiment was principally directed.
And in this last substitution of a Power working through
knowable laws, for a Power working by inscrutable volitions,
we get a further advance in the same direction. There is an
element of pleasure in the certainty and security of Law. No
comet now brings war or pestilence ; no portents and prodigies
disturb our peace and demand propitiatory sacrifices. We rest
on the safe ground of known causes : and when danger threatens
we can meet it by our own manful endeavours, not by slavish
submission. Pestilence can be warded off by sanitary care ;
famine by wise precaution ; war by prudent and moral self-
restraint. The great Power which underlies the universe will
not repent of acts done or wreak capricious vengeance on
offenders. We can go on fearlessly upon our path, obedient to
the great natural laws without us, and the ethical principle
which is developing within us ; and we need tremble at no
bugbear of superstition, as we pursue our onward and upward
course, towards fuller knowledge and purer life.

And here we may turn back to notice how the truest concep-
tion of the Sublime has always been that of those men who were
most in advance of their age. The poet who knew that the best
of omens was to fight for one's fatherland — the prophet who
knew that God would have righteousness and not burnt-offerings
— these are they who feel the deepest thrill of the Sublime, and
speak it out clearest for our hearing to this day. And among
the solid matter-of-fact Eoman people, the solitary singer whose
words still ring in our ears for their sublimity was the one who
knew the reasons of things and trampled under foot fears and
inexorable doom and greedy Acheron's din. He it was, who,
like some Laplace bom out of due season, beheld the atoms
drifting through the mighty void, and discerned with his eyes
the beginning of things. And vaguely as he saw these truths,
yet he felt among the blind and ignorant multitude like one who
sitting safe upon some jutting peak beholds the tempest-driven
mariners out at sea tossed by the waves and vainly stretching
their hands to their painted gods. As Lucretius felt the beauty
and sublimity of the Grseco -Roman myths not less but more
than other men, so may we well suspect that science will give
us in the future not a lower but a higher appreciation of the
Sublime, throughout that immeasurable universe which she is
daily opening more and more clearly to our dazzled and as-
tonished gaze.

Yet from beginning to end we see that the sense of Sublimity
is everywhere allied with the regulative principle of subordina-
tion. The laws of nature rule us now as firmly and inexorably
as the savage chieftain rules his naked subjects. And by

Intuition and Inference. 339

obeying and conforming to those laws we can secure ourselves
life and happiness ; while by opposing and transgressing their
teaching we have our punishment in death and misery. The
true place of the Sublime in the scheme of our faculties is next to
the regulative and directive ethical feelings : though it forms a
connecting link between these and the aesthetic sense in its
proper acceptation.

GRANT ALLEN.

IV.—INTUITION AND INFEBEiNCE.

I. — INTUITION.

THE meaning of the term Intuition and the scope and limits
of the mental capabilities represented thereby have long been
unsettled in philosophical speculation. Of so much importance
has the name become that its adjective characterises a distinct
(or supposed distinct) school in philosophy, whose members
claim a proper extension of the denomination beyond what is
allowed by their antagonists. With almost all Tntuitionalists
the name Intuition covers much more than their opponents allow
that it can include ; in what respects they make such an
extension we shall presently see. The applications of the term
Inference have not been subject to so much doubt and uncertainty
as have those of Intuition, though, indeed, it should be said that
the fundamental facts of inferential knowledge are not yet so
completely laid bare as to leave nothing further for the explorer
to do. TJ:mtionn^^ usually are contrasted with each

' separate ajid antithetical modes of mental

_

experience. Intuition is generally^ referred to asjprimary and
fmjjgmental^ while Inf erencej^ accounted secfmrjpTy nnrl anp^r-
structiver~Eut as far as one has been made dependent upon the
other, mankind has been disposed to measure Inference by
Intuition rather than Intuition by Inference. Intuition has been
regarded as a source of or method of obtaining transcendental,
pure, and trustworthy knowledge ; while Inference has been
esteemed to yield only experiential, mixed, and uncertain
information. Intuition is thus held to be the more important,
partly because the knowledge it gives is considered to be
primary and partly because that knowledge is deemed more
clear and certain. Another and very .potent reason for the
empressement with which Intuition has been treated lies in the
fact that men have been alive to the convenience of possessing a
standard superior to and independent of Inference, to which they

340 Intuition and Inference.

might appeal when bias or interest called for the establishment
of a point and inferential processes failed to yield the desired
results. Deeming it a matter of importance, therefore, to
ascertain, if possible, the true significations of these words and
to analyse the mental acts, states, or products for which they
stand, we will devote some pages to such a task.

Upon one thing in regard to Intuition the philosophers have
been almost universally agreed, namely, that we do cognise by
Intuition the phenomena of the external world and the
phenomena of our own minds. Whether in seeing a tree we
cognise anything more than the phenomenal qualities, and, if we
do, whether we cognise intuitively or inferentially, are questions
in regard to which there has been dispute, and which are not
altogether easy of settlement ; but as to the phenomena there is
no question and can be none, save in the misunderstandings of
people who, like Dr Johnson, think they are refuting Berkeley
by kicking a stone. Nobody has been found, I believe, to set
forth that we know phenomena otherwise than by Intuition.
Accordingly in this investigation of the meaning of the term and
the sources and nature of the power, we may take our departure
from this point, looking for the essential import of the name in
that to which by universal consent it is correctly applied,
and leaving for subsequent elucidation the extent and confines of
its proper employment.

Etymologically considered, the word Intuition means a
beholding, and it usually has been construed to designate an
immediate beholding. This immediacy of cognition seems to be
the essential character of an intuition. There is nothing
intervening between the cognising mind and the object of
cognition ; the mind looks directly upon that object. I move my
arm: I am conscious directly of the movement. Something strikes
my foot : I cognise the pain immediately. A ray of light
reaches my eye : I apprehend the colour without any intervening
medium. I close my eyes and reflect; I remember what
happened yesterday : that there is a mental action I am aware
immediately; in having an idea I know that I, have an idea, at
once and indubitably. All these are instances of presentative
phenomenal cognitions ; thus out of the fact in regard to which
all thinkers are consentient we obtain for Intuition both illustra-
tion and definition. It is perhaps allowable to assume here that
the immediacy is the essence of the term in all cases where the
cognitions though not presentative are claimed to be and are called
intuitive. It is said, for instance, that we know Being intui-
tively, meaning that we know it in the clearest and completest
manner in which we know anything, that is to say, immediately.
Tor we know what we know intuitively "without the inter-

Intuition and Inference. 341

vention of any other idea "; and, to quote further the words of
Locke — " this kind of knowledge is the clearest and most certain
that human frailty is capable of. This part of knowledge is
irresistible, and like bright sunshine forces itself immediately to
be perceived as soon as ever the mind turns that way; and leaves
no room for hesitation, doubt, or examination, but the mind is
presently filled with the clear light of it. 'Tis on this intuition
that depends all the certainty and evidence of all our knowledge,
which certainly every one finds to be so great that he cannot
imagine, and therefore not require a greater."* If then it be
allowed (and it will hardly be disputed) that by intuitive is
meant " the clearest and most certain" knowledge, and that such
knowledge is the clearest and most certain as is cognised
"without the intervention of any other idea," immediateness
may be accepted as a criterion of intuitive cognition, and Intui-
tion may be defined as " immediate beholding ". It is hence
apparent that the question to be settled in a given case of doubt
as to whether anything is an intuition or not, is simply whether
the given object is cognised immediately or mediately : if the
former the cognition is intuitive, if the latter it is not intuitive.

What cognitions then are immediate ? At least all cognitions
so far forth as they are presentative : if such are not immediate,
no cognitions are immediate, and the word is destitute of mean-
ing. In discussing representative cognitions (MiND, No. X, p.
270) it has been noticed that they have in a marked degree both
a presentative and a representative side. In their presentative
aspect, they are ideas as phenomena irrespective of their signifi-
cation; as representative, they are reproductions of former
experience known as such. I think of a rose seen yesterday and
not now present : this idea of a rose is a presentative experience
in so far as it is a mere mental phenomenon ; that I have this
idea I cognise immediately ; but in so far as I cognise the idea
as a representation of yesterday's experience, the cognition is
representative, and such a cognition of the prior experience is
effected through the medium of the present idea. In representa-
tive cognition, therefore, so far forth as it is representative, we
must be said to re-cognise a fact through the intervention of a
present idea. Representative cognition is hence mediate.

In the distinction between presentative and representative
knowledge lies the entire difference between immediate and
mediate cognition, and thus between intuitions and those
cognitions which are not intuitive. Just here lies the solution of
the whole difficulty in which metaphysics has been involved
over intuitive and non-intuitive knowledge. It is the neglect of
this distinction and the want of a sufficient understanding of the

* Locke : Essay concerning Human Understanding, Bk. IV., cli. 2, §1.

342 Intuition and Inference.

» growth, of representative cognition, its differentiations and
| redintegrations, that has led men to such contradictory and con-
fused notions of the meaning of Intuition. It is attention to this
j difference and careful association of intuition with presentative
/ j knowledge and non-intuition with representative, that will alone
: keep the mind free from confusion upon this topic. To the
extent that a cognition is presentative, it is intuitive ; in the de-
gree that it is representative, it is not intuitive. In order to
make this truth plainer, and to support it, we will now review
the different degrees of presentative and representative
cognitions in greater detail, and after such an examination we
I shall be able, as there arises occasion, to note the aberrations of
1 philosophers on the subject, seeing how and where they have
departed from the narrow path, adherence to which (in my
judgment) can alone save the traveller from becoming entangled
, in a pathless maze.

r But a word is needed in this place in regard to the co-ordinate
I subject of this essay. If Inference be opposed to Intuition, so
I that the two exclude each other, the former must be separated
J from presentative cognition and ranked with representative.
°\ And this seems presumptively the proper course to take.
Certainly when we infer a thing we do not behold it immediately,
but mediately; and when we intuite any object we do not infer
anything so far as we intuite it. Inference may take place
collaterally, but that which is intuition is outside and exclusive
-of whatever inference there may be. Yet we are not at present
prepared to say that inference is co-extensive with representative
cognition ; for though it appears that every inference is mediate
cognition, it is not yet evident that every mediate cognition is
an inference.

Leaving the subject of Inference, however, for subsequent
treatment, let us now examine some intuitions and so-called
intuitions. It will readily be admitted that cognition is almost
wholly intuitive in the lowest grade of presentative cognition,
wherein the mind occupies itself with localising on the body a
single sensation, as a burn on the hand. The sensation of the
pain in the member is apprehended intellectually by intuition ;
the representative element is least evident. But even in these
simplest intuitions the question meets us — What is it we im-
r mediately behold ? If it be replied that we intuite the sensation,
j it is necessary to know what is the sensation. So far as it is
j feeling, we feel it ; so far as it is cognition, and subject to
* analysis, we may ascertain the elements of which the cognition
\ is composed. In a preceding essay (" Knowledge and Belief,"
MIND, No. IX.) it has been found that every act of knowing (and
believing as well) involves certain fundamental relations present

Intuition and Inference. 343

and cognised ; the relations of which we are conscious are
Agreement, Difference, Time, Representation, and Power, these
names being general expressions to designate the relations
cognised in every act of knowing. We have an intuition of things
involving these relations. • We do not immediately cog-
nise agreement in general, difference in general, time in
general, and so forth, but we behold intuitively an object pre-
sented as the same with itself, as different from another beside
it, as continuing, and as succeeding or preceding another. By
analysis we discover these general and fundamental constituents of
every cognition; that is, we discover them by reflection, which is to
say, mediately. What we intuite is in each case certain sensations
cognised by ourselves. In each individual experience we have
an intuition of something agreeing with something, something
differing from something, something represented, something con-
tinuing, and something succeeding something, while in the con-
sciousness of something we have also what has been termed
consciousness of power, active and passive; but the expressions by
which we describe these experiences mark generalisations which
are not intuitive.

It must not escape attention that there exists also from the
very dawn of consciousness, even in the cognitions most charac-
teristically presentative, an element of representation which is
not immediate. Every item of conscious experience requires,
representation in order that there may be any continuity of ex-
perience. Hence there are no unmixed intuitions^; intuition is
su^eeAecLJi^repj^erita^ Intuitive cog-
nitions alone would be like flashes ~ of lightning in the night,
for a moment illuminating, but after an instant going out, and
leaving only thick darkness. Where the representative con-
stituent is less prominent than the presentative the cognition
may be called prevailingly intuitive, but in all cases there is an /
element not intuitive. (J

Since in all cognition there is a discrimination between self
and not-self, between the phenomena of mind and not-mind, it
follows that at every instant of conscious experience we intuite
a difference between the Ego and the Non-Ego. It is important
that the character of this intuition be not misunderstood. In
describing an intuition we are forced to use language which
makes a cognition not immediate but mediate ; we can only
treat of immediate cognitions by mediate ones ; we can know
that we have presentative experience only by representative
cognition. The cognition signified by the term Ego embraces a
series of experiences terminating at the present moment; equally
so the cognition made manifest by the name Non-Ego. If we
speak of knowing the Ego and the Non-Ego by intuition, we

344 Intuition and Inference.

shall be almost certain to err unless we keep in mind this fact.
We do not know by intuition that the Ego of to-day is the Ego of
yesterday, nor that the Ego of yesterday is different from the
Non-Ego of to-day, nor that the Ego of yesterday is different
from the Non-Ego of yesterday; for such knowledge is dependent
upon representation. We merely cognise intuitively at each
successive moment of time, so small as to be definitely inappre-
ciable, that Ego am other than Non-Ego. In no way different
is the discrimination intuitively made between the phenomena
which connect directly with the external world and those which
appertain exclusively or concurrently to mind. Whatever in-
tuitions we have of space, matter, force, time, and motion, are
intuitions only of space, matter, force, time, and motion, as in
and composing each external object or phenomenon we cognise.
From moment to moment we have intuitions, presentative ex-
periences, which representation discovers to involve these rela-
tions. We have no intuition of space in general, force in general,
motion in general, but only intuitions of something extended,
something resisting, something moving. We shall have occasion
to refer to these cognitions of space, force, motion, &c., in a sub-
sequent paragraph, and till then we will dismiss them from con-
sideration.

We now pass to a higher grade of presentative cognitions,
namely, those in which a plurality of sensation is distinguished
and localised upon the body. How far do we cognise intuitively
the prick of a pin upon the hand and the simultaneous impact
of a stone or block of wood upon the foot, supposing that neither
of the two sensations is so intense as to overpower the other, nor
so faint as to be unheeded in the presence of the other ? The
answer to this question is implicated in the reply to be given to
the more general query — What is co- existence ? The answer to
the latter interrogation is perhaps not yet to be considered settled.
It seems to have been pretty well made out, however, that co-
existence is but a form of succession. In such a view a cognition
made up of two simultaneous sensations would have in its com-
position a larger amount of representation than where a single
sensation is cognised. For, in order to sustain the two together,
a representative cognition must alternate with a presentative in
very close succession : while sensation A is present sensation B
must be represented in association, and while sensation B is
occupying present attention there must be a mental reproduction
of sensation A in contiguity therewith ; the mind passes from A
to B and from B to A, giving specific present attention to each
in turn and losing sight of neither. In the cognition of co-
existent phenomena there is accordingly an additional grain of
representation over the preceding case, and hence a less amount

Intuition and Inference. 345

of intuition. But if, on the other hand, it finally be made evi-
dent that co-existence is not resolvable ultimately into succession,
but that the mind actually and literally can apprehend two
things at the same time, the intuition involved in the cognition
of co-existent sensations would be of precisely the same character
and in precisely the same degree as in the inferior grade (in
complexity) of preservative cognitions which was noticed in
paragraphs just preceding; the amount of representation relatively
to the amount of presentation would be the same in both in-
stances.

A still more complex degree of cognition occurs in the per-
ception of external objects. In viewing a book lying on the
table I do not see the under side of it at all, yet I am perfectly
well assured that if I turn the book on the edge I should see
something substantially like what I now see. I have an intuition
of the upper surface, but I mentally complete the book by re-
producing my past experience of the structure and form of
books. When therefore I say I intuite a book before me (if such
a verb may be formed), I do not speak correctly. The proportion
of representation in the cognition is not so large as when I think
of a book, none being before me, yet it is considerably larger than
when I apprehend a pain in my head, or a pain in my head and
the pleasurable odour of a rose co-existently or successively.
Therefore, in perceiving whole objects in nature, I cognise a
portion immediately and with this immediate cognition I cognise
another part mediately. Perception of objects is hence partially
intuition and partially not intuition. Of course, where there is
a plurality of objects cognised, there is an increase of complexity
in the cognition, but the relative proportion of immediate and
mediate cognition remains about the same ; at any rate, what-
ever difference there may be is not of a sufficiently distinctive
character, in kind, to need more particular explanation.

In the case of ideas considered as mental phenomena irrespec-
tive of their representative aspect, the same line of observation
may be pursued. Every such cognition is immediate or mediate
according as it is viewed; there is a sort of double consciousness
which has not been resolved into anything more ultimate — so to
speak, a consciousness of presentation and a consciousness of re-
presentation. But even when we are regarding an idea simply
as a phenomenon, the peculiarity must be noted that even on
the presentative side there is also representation, else the idea
could not continue as an idea but would be evanescent and in-
cognisable.

Having now run over the different ranks of presentative cog-
nitions, let us turn to those characteristically representative, in
order that we may have opportunity to see in greater detail what

25

346 Intuition and Inference.

cognitions cannot in any sense be said to be intuitions. The
simplest representative cognitions need not detain us long.
[Recollections of events or trains of events, appearances or col-
lections of appearances, are not intuitive. In remembering a
man whom I met on the street the other day, in recalling the
features of a landscape I saw last summer, in reviewing the
scenes of my school-days, in reproducing in idea as well as I am
able the pains of a fit of sickness or the delights of a concert or
spectacle, I have no intuition, but only a mediate cognition of
the past experience. These things are matters of remembrance
or recollection ; nobody claims that the name intuition is appli-
cable to them (excepting always the consideration of these cog-
nitions simply as ideas).

Eepresentative cognitions, wherein parts of experiences are
transposed and transferred from one connexion to another, but
so preserved in their integrity as to be traceable and recog-
nisable, exemplify a higher degree of complexity in cognition,
but exhibit nothing essentially different from the last case as
regards the points now under consideration. There may be in
my room a bust of Washington and one of Lincoln, and I can very
readily imagine the Washington head on the Lincoln shoulders
or vice versa. It is evident, however, in my mind that the head
I put on Lincoln's shoulders in idea is a representation of the
head which I have seen on the Washington bust. I simply
make a constructive junction of two mediate cognitions. There
is no intuition but the intuition of an idea of a bust made up as
aforesaid. In all the varieties of representative cognitions thus
far noticed, there is no disagreement among philosophers as to
the fact that the cognitions are not intuitive.

Advancing a little further in the course of the elaboration of
knowledge, we meet with combinations of parts and wholes of
experience into new wholes, forming what are known as general
and abstract notions. These may occur alone or in couples,
which unite cognitions of varying generalities in judgments. As
to the character of general and abstract notions, there have
existed wide differences of opinion. Some thinkers have con-
sidered them to be intuitions par eminence, while admitting
their generality and abstractness ; others have denominated
some particular cognitions of this class intuitions, while they
have denied the name to the fellows of these cognitions. Corres-
pondingly, those judgments which express general knowledge
have often been called intuitive, and it seems as if the higher
and more far-reaching the generality the more confidently the
term has been applied. In fact, nearly all cognition whatever
reaching in complexity beyond that characterised in the last
paragraph, has at some time and by some one been dubbed in-

Intuition and Inference.

347

tuitional. But all those cognitions which are marked by general
and abstract names, even those indicated by the names Being,
Time, Space, Substance, Motion, Power, Force, The Infinite, The .
Absolute, The Beautiful, The True, The Good, and the like, are
reached by abstraction and generalisation; they are thus represen-
tative, hence mediate, hence not intuitive. This conclusion, how-
ever, does not determine whether or not they are innate, necessary,
or universal. That such cognitions have been held intuitive is
owing to the fact that thinkers have failed to apprehend the
difference (or to keep it before them) of an act of present appre-
hension and the results of remembering, connecting, abstracting
from, and generalising such acts ; also to the fact that thinkers
from a hazy, mystical habit of thought, from the fear of conse-
quences to some of their prejudices, and from a want of careful
observation and profound analysis, have been led to assume the
existence of a super-sensible undefined faculty of the mind to
see by " the mind's eye" what they have crudely imagined ought
to be seen, or what they would like to have seen.

"We may be asked here what disposition is to be made of
axioms ? The whole is greater than a part; Two straight lines
cannot enclose a space; If equals are added to equals the sums will
be equal, will be cited. The answer to be given to such queries
is that axioms are generalisations or expressive of generalisa-
tions. If the first proposition were This whole now before me is
greater than its part, we might consider that the cognition repre-
sented by the phrase was intuitive, but as the axiom stands (and
if it were not in that form it would not be an axiom), the mean-
ing is not the whole before me, but all wholes that I have ever
seen or shall see, all wholes in fact that anybody has seen or can /
conceive of. Now, without discussing the origin of such cog- /
nitions as are called axiomatic, it may at least be asserted gene-
rally that our cognition of their truth is not a matter of know-
ledge but of belief. We believe that all wholes are and will be
found to be greater than their parts. We associate together in
thought a number of wholes. But association and belief are not
allied to immediate cognition; belief is always mediate cognition.
Similar observations may be made of the other axioms men-
tioned ; also of any others that might be mentioned. They are
generalisations from experiences which are intuitive, but are not
themselves the experiences. To call them intuitions is to con-
found important distinctions of knowledge, and work confusion.

Dismissing the axioms, it may be observed that in comparing
objects and referring them to classes, or in cognising objects as
comprehended under classes, as when we say Trees are green,
Apples are sweet and sour, Man is mortal, the predicates are
always highly representative and the subjects may be so. The

V

348 Intuition and Inference.

prevailing character of the cognition is thus representative and
mediate, and the knowledge as a product is mediate. Here we
shall probably have no one to contradict us. And much more is
such a characterisation applicable to chains of reasoning as

^ syllogisms. Eeasoning is held by all to be mediate cognition.

l.But in passing to the highest grade of representative cognitions,
wherein general notions and particular cognitions are combined
in forms making highly complex wholes which have no corre-
spondent reality, in maintaining that intuition is absent except
as to the ideas considered as phenomena, we might again en-
counter opposition from those esteeming that man has a " reason"
or " intellectual intuition ". Many think their visions are reve-
lations of a reality transcending experience. Some religious
enthusiasts would claim that their imaginative nights in the
portrayal of the glories of God's kingdom are intuitive cognitions
of supermundane realities. Such descriptions as those given in
the Apocalypse of St. John might be cited as examples. Whe-
ther or not there may be realities of which the luxuriant imagery
of the Book of Eevelation is symbolical, is a question open to
debate, but it is perfectly obvious that, while as wholes these
*J descriptions do not raise cognitions corresponding to experience,
/ they are composed of elements which experience affords. The
parts of the pictures are parts of remembered experiences ; the
terms used to describe the wholes have primary reference to ex-
perience and derive their meaning from experience. The repre-
sentative character of such cognitions thus appears plainly
enough, and while it may be possible that what they image may
become presentative, that they are immediate cognitions of
realities, seen intuitively, cannot soberly be maintained for an
instant.

Having now reviewed the several classes of cognitions, we
have seen what are intuitions and what are not intuitions ; and
while no cognition is wholly intuition we have observed in what
ones the intuitive character is sufficiently prevailing to warrant
applying the name intuition to the whole. The poet says that
"Knowledge is of things we see." * In these words, when
properly interpreted, there is the soundest philosophy. I know
of no more important reform required in the use of terms as
affecting thought than the restoration of the words intuition and

/intuitive to their proper and original signification. It is a reform

/ imperatively demanded. Unless they can be rescued from such

uses as they are made to subserve when they designate general

notions, they had better be discarded altogether. Undoubtedly

some will contend, while conceding the primitive meaning of

intuition and intuitive to be what is here set forth, that after all

* Tennyson : In Memoriam.

Intuition and Inference. 349

in practical use the words have become so modified as to make
them the most suitable for expressing all fundamental truth.
When a word has acquired a fixed signification, even though
that be quite a different one from its earlier denotation or con-
notation, it is often better, these people would say, to accept the
situation than to try to restore what has been lost. Often, but
not always — and while remark of this kind would be quite true
in many cases, it is nevertheless not pertinent to the present
one. If no reform were made, but the evil practice of which I
am complaining were to become universal, there would still be
need of a distinction to be drawn between presentative know-
ledge and that of representation, and the application of the term
immediate to presentative knowledge would be likely still to
continue. Unless then it can be restricted to presentative
knowledge an entanglement of meanings is inevitable, for we
could scarcely divest intuition of its meaning of immediateness.
We should all the time, therefore, be confusing presentative
with representative knowledge, but the distinction between the
two lies at the foundation of all scientific classification of pro-
ducts of the intellect, and to obliterate it or confuse it is to de-
stroy or confuse the very science of knowledge. It would be
far easier hence to confine the words in question to their ob-
vious and primary meaning than otherwise to avoid the con-
fusion and trouble sure to result from extending them beyond
this sphere of application. It is certainly worth our while,
therefore, to endeavour to suppress the illegitimate employment
of which I have spoken. It may be suspected ...that men — not
understanding the nature of belief and not regarding belieJLas_..
conveying certitude equally with TmnwlArlg^ fp.p.ling_that there
are certain truths necessary and urn' versa.], and apprehending
atscTthat presentative cognition is vivid, certain and indisput-^
able— have, in order to convey and secure the impression that
ffiose necessary_truths are equally vivitLand certain, appropriated
the terms intuitive and intuition from their reference to presenta- ^
tive knowledge, to characterise thp. others. If, however, the mind •
can be lecTto see that we may be as certain of what we believe (
as of what we know, and that a truth may be necessary and
universal without being intuitive, we shall perhaps find it less
of a task to persuade people to relegate the name intuition and
its kindred adjective to their original and only justifiable use of
designating cognitions which are characteristically presentative.

DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMSON.

V.— THE NEGATIVE CHAEACTEE OF LOGIC.

AMONGST tlie difficulties which a student of Logic has to
encounter, it will be generally admitted that one of the most
persistent and perplexing is that of keeping steadily in view
the exact nature and limits of his own inquiry. Certain other
sciences — especially Psychology and Metaphysic — are so closely
related to Logic, correct answers to their questions are so im-
portant to it, that in spite of the greatest possible care there
must always be considerable danger of confusion.

At present, however, the danger, instead of being met and
fought against, is rather overlooked. Our great authorities, in
treating of the subject, fall into the oversight so often committed
by those whose early difficulties are past and forgotten, of
disregarding the difficulties of beginners. A statement of the
province of Logic is usually found either in the introduction
alone, or in the appendix also, to a work on the subject : the
limits of the inquiry are discussed once for all and the results
of the discussion thrown into the form of a neat definition, and
then the student is supposed to be fully equipped for his task.
During the rest of his progress he will receive little or no direct
help in keeping those limits clearly before him. The teacher,
feeling himself safe, does not realise how near the danger
is to the pupil : he forgets that his own feeling of
safety is, so far as it is at all justified, in a great measure due to
a multitude of past victories of which that definition is to him
an artificial memory ; while to the pupil it is only an abbreviated
register, carrying far less meaning in the first place, and in the
second place demanding for the remembrance of that meaning
an appeal not to past personal experience, but to sympathy and
faith.

It is not, then, against the correctness of such definitions as 'the
Art and Science of Seasoning,' or ' the Science of Evidence/
that any objection will here be raised, nor even against their
utility for some who are already masters of the science ; but
against their utility for beginners, and in fact for all who have
not (literally or metaphorically) lived through the process of
creating them. I would suggest that the student might with
advantage be provided with some map calculated to warn him
away more unmistakeably from the borderlands, some definition
which should direct his attention more centrally on his own
science ; until the habit of voluntarily concentrating himself on
his own work and of answering, in the name of Logic, only
logical questions, has become to him a second nature.

It is here contended that the chief danger to beginners is that

The- Negative Character of Logic. 351

of habitually conceiving the science of Logic in a too positive
aspect. And the more enthusiastic and eager they are for the
study, perhaps the more is this error likely to entice them. I
They are constantly forgetting that Logic is — to use Mill's j
excellent simile — only a judge : they fail to distinguish clearly I
between the functions of legislature, judge, counsel, solicitors, /
witnesses, and plaintiff or defendant.

Now, neither the definition 'Science of Reasoning,' nor 'Science
of Evidence' is of any value in keeping this most important
distinction prominent : other persons besides the judge are
supposed to make some use of ' reason' ; ' evidence ' has to be
not only sifted, but also found and produced. But it is distinctly
the sifting of evidence that Logic properly attempts : the
discovery, not of valid arguments, not of true conclusions, but of
the validity or invalidity of given arguments to prove the truth
of given conclusions. The function of Logic is to sit still and
weigh evidence already produced, not to run abroad and find it :
to distinguish, amongst arguments already urged, the good from
the bad, not itself to aim at reaching a conclusion ; to discover
not the whole truth of any question raised, but only such truth as
is proved by the evidence before the court ; not necessarily to
emerge from 'unknown' into 'known,' but to make sure at
least of not emerging into certain particular forms of 'mistaken'.
Logic is only a supplementary engine of discovery : not the well
from which Truth is drawn, but the filter through which the
natural and impure fluid must run, and cast off its impurities,
before becoming of the best use to us. f

It cannot, of course, be asserted that no reference to this fact |
is to be found in our leading works on Logic. Mill has already
furnished us with the simile of the judge ; and for half a page or
more, in his Introduction, he enlarges the expression, turning it
round on all sides, and emphasising it with his usual happy
command of language. In many scattered passages too, throughout
his book, he stretches out a hand to hold us back from at least
one kind of questions extra-logical.

And most other writers on the subject have, in one way or
another, recognised this limitation of their field. As Logic is
" the common ground on which the partisans of Hartley and of
Reid, of Locke and of Kant, may meet and join hands," so this
view of Logic is one in which Material, Formal, and Conceptualist
Logicians do actually agree : the only difference on the point —
and that an individual rather than a party one — consisting in
the different degrees of persistency with which the view is held. ,
Logicians are not divided into those who admit the truth of the -/
view and those who deny it, but into those who often, and those
who seldom, remember it or care to make it known. Where

352 The Negative Character of Logic.

even our best modern text-books chiefly fail, is in treating us
too much as if we had already learnt the fact ; and, whether
because of the very absence of opposition, or for some other
reason, the student is certainly credited with more knowledge of
his province than he actually possesses.

Now there are two obvious methods in which a person may
distinguish accurately between good arguments and bad. He
may either pay more attention to the marks of valid or to those
of invalid evidence : and having learnt the marks of either, he
may apply his test to any evidence brought before him ; and with
equally certain, and equally valuable, results.

At present the former method is the one most in vogue. The
main portion of all our leading modern works on Logic is
devoted to the marks of valid, or fruitful evidence. Fallacies
are relegated to a book by themselves, after the chief labour of
the system is completed : even the mention of them is introduced
more or less apologetically, as a necessary sacrifice to old
customs. Mill, for instance, gives to the practice of devoting
"one considerable section" to the subject, the faint praise of
being "too well worthy of observance to allow of our departing
from it"; and in a later passage he says that it is " not
unimportant to consider what are the most common modes of
bad reasoning". Bain tells us distinctly that the whole of the
second, third, and fourth classes in Mill's table of Fallacies
"might with the utmost propriety be absorbed into the body of
the work," and that the only plea which can be urged for
mentioning the first and fifth classes, as Fallacies, is the difficulty
of treating them from the positive side, under either of the
heads, Deduction or Induction. "Some doubts," he adds, "might
be raised as to the logician's title or obligation to enter upon the
subject, but there could be none as to his allocating a distinct
chapter to the consideration of it."

This plan of 'absorbing' as many fallacies as possible, and
hiding the rest away in a corner, appears to me misleading. The
directly contrary plan is the one here proposed.

Contrariorum eadem est scientia, and at first sight it might
seem immaterial which of these methods we follow. Whether
we separate the bad arguments from the good, or the good from
the bad, the separation takes place equally : and this, as we have
just said, is the whole duty of logicians. Even further, it has
been plausibly argued that the negative ' not- valid,' like all
negatives, covers an infinite number of possibilities, and that
therefore its marks are not so definite as are those of valid
evidence, and the individuals belonging to the class cannot be
so exhaustively catalogued. We will take the latter of these
objections first.

The Negative Character of Loyic. 353

To say that because the class of not-valid arguments is
numerically larger than the class of valid ones, therefore its
marks are less definite, is to fall into the old error of supposing
that classes are made first, and class-marks discovered afterwards ;
and to suppose that the marks of invalid evidence are at all less
easily discovered than those of valid, is to overlook the Principle
of Eelativity. It is true that arguments vitiated to some extent
by some fallacy or other, are potentially an infinite class, and in
actual life are far more often met with than arguments perfectly
sound in every part : but on this account we have more, not
less, experience of the individual members of the former class,
greater, not less, acquaintance with them. The point is, however,
in this place at least, immaterial : what we are here concerned
with is the fact that it is exactly as easy, neither more nor less,
to decide that a given argument does not, as that it does, prove a
given conclusion. The extent of our knowledge of the one truth
is the measure of our knowledge of the other : for ' the other' is
in strictness only ' the same in different words'. Whenever we
have reason to know one truth, we have reason to know its
counterpart. The infinity of the possible forms of error does
not mean an infinity of marks : it is nothing more than the
infinity which belongs to every class denoted by a general name.

As regards the objection that it makes no matter whether we
search in the mixed heap of arguments for the good or for the
bad, so long as we do make the separation, it is perfectly true
but beside the point. We are looking now for some means of
confining the logician's attention to the given heap, not only for
a means of enabling him to sift the heap when he has already
learnt that that is what he has to do. We cannot indeed know
the marks of bad evidence without at the same time knowing,
by implication, the marks of that which is good ; but we can
search directly for the one, and thereby search only indirectly for
the other. We can cultivate, in short, one or the other of two
distinctly contrary habits of thought.

Now the decision whether we shall habitually search for bad
or for good evidence, will be found, I think, to make an
important difference in the results attained. -Owing, probably,
to the ' inherent activity ' of human nature, those who look upon
Logic as the_ science of (positive) evidence — who habitually
search for the marks of valid arguments — are as a matter of
fact extremely apt to run outside such evidence as is brought to
them for judgment, into the infinite field of that which may
possibly be found : in other words, to take upon themselves the
work of searching for evidence, as well as the judging of it when
produced. By means of this ' positive' habit of mind, the student
is often led to think that his duty as logician is not only to

354 The Negative Character of Logic.

discover which amongst given arguments are safe from all known
forms of error, but that he is bound to do more — to exhaust
the universe of possible arguments, and to tell us, without
the help of gradual elimination, which out of an infinite
possible number are true. From this habit hardly any
logician is quite as free as he might be, and to it we may trace,
more or less directly, a good deal of the distrust and disfavour
with which the science is popularly viewed. To revert to Mill's
simile, the people would have a strong objection to a judge who
neglected his own duty through taking upon himself the functions
of some other person, — especially if he claimed to perform this
extraneous work with judicial authority. Is it not at least
possible that the habit of viewing Logic from the negative side
would have a strong tendency to control this wandering, and to
bind the mind down to the examination of a definite amount of
evidence ?

It is not, however, only to the beginner quci beginner that the
| negative method of studying Logic will be useful, for it is in this
j shape chiefly — as the enemy of Fallacy — that Logic can be most
| readily and suitably applied in actual life. As we have already
\ remarked, the great majority of arguments daily met with are
far from being perfectly sound and valid. Fallacy, in some
shape or other, meets us at every step. The actual work
which any one who tries to apply Logic, whether in everyday
life or in science, will find himself chiefly engaged upon,
is that of continually refusing to accept rash assertions
rather than admitting safe ones ; guarding and waiting rather
than striking or discovering. Logic is, from the nature of the
surroundings, essentially negative in its most practical applica-
tion ; and the positive method of studying it, even if the special
dangers be avoided, is wasteful of time in translation for daily
use. To discover fallacies, to reject false arguments, to eliminate
definite errors from infinite possibilities of error, is the essence of
the application of Logic. Discretion is our motto rather than
valour.

What, then, exactly, is the remedy proposed ?

In the first place, a definition might be framed, with very

^ little alteration of the best existing definitions, and yet so as to

i make the essential negativeness of Logic far more prominent.

j Instead of the 'Art and Science of Eeasoning,' we might say the

Art and Science of guarding Reasoning ; instead of the Science

/ of Evidence, the Science of sifting (or filtering) Evidence ; simp-

\/ lest and least mistakeable of all, perhaps, would be the Science

of avoiding Fallacy.

\*/ In the second place, the whole subject might be treated from
F the negative side. We might study the science of sifting evi-

The Negative Character of Logic. 355

dence by first learning directly the marks by which to distinguish
individual fallacies amongst a mixed mass of evidence, good and
bad — just as, if we are filter-makers, we pay attention to the
means for detaining impurities, and let others search for the
purest water they can find. A whole system of Logic might be
arranged, with the avowed intention of keeping this purpose
continually in view ; and, if the subject were treated at all, we
might set apart, in a few chapters at the end, a list of rules for
finding sound arguments by any other means than elimination,
as a gift, extralogical, to such as are then ready to leave the
study of Logic, and proceed into some other special science.

Throughout the system two facts should be kept ready for
immediate production whenever there is a suspicion of their
being wanted: first, that Logic has a certain really useful ,
function to perform; and secondly, that that function is the /
cleansing of evidence, not the production of it : that the duty of ?
Logic is not itself necessarily to prove anything, but to wait /
until some one else, or one's positive self, professes to have done /
so, and then examine whether that profession is correct : that the/
question which Logic attempts to answer is not " What is tbfi-facl/
of the matter ?" but "What right haisj^he spe^kexJo-say ' Therel
fore su^^id_suc3iiajhfi]^^!ir ^n an7 better plan be sugges-
feTKhan to cultivate a negative, impartial, judicial frame of mind,
a habit of directing the attention not so much towards the pos-
sibility of establishing a given conclusion, as towards the dis-
covery, by gradual elimination, of the conclusion, if any, which
may already claim to have been established? We must be pre-
pared, when necessary, to admit without a struggle that up to a
given moment no conclusion has been established on either side.
Often there will be a presumptive conclusion, but sometimes not
even that. Let the logician when sitting as logician, like the
judge when sitting as judge, feel neither the State's obligation
nor the suitor's desire to reach som,e conclusion or other, and he
will be rendering better service both to State and individual
than if he attempts to do more than his allotted share of the
work, while the public have penetration enough to recognise
this fact, and to feel more respect for the logician's office when
it is neither used as a cloak for usurping supreme authority,
nor degraded and wasted by attending in person to work which
can be more economically, and probably even better, done by
deputy.

It must not be supposed, however, that the negative treatment
of the subject will be pure gain. No doubt there are pitfalls
and chances of error in this plan of study as in any other. I
only maintain that its dangers are on the whole fewer, less
serious, and more easily avoided than those produced by the

356 The Negative Character of Logic.

method usually adopted. They may be, in fact, all traced up to
one error, and that error combated by means of a full prelimi-
nary explanation of the true meaning (in this connexion) of the
term 'negative'. As soon as the student has mastered the fact
that on the one hand this change in the treatment of the sub-
ject is no material innovation — that none of the truths already
discovered in Logic are in any way materially affected, or their
truth diminished, by being viewed from the reverse side ; and
on the other hand, that Logic is none the less a valuable science
because essentially a negative one, — he will be guarded against
all the dangers which are likely to befall him: and to make these
two points clear can surely be no hard task.

A few years ago, there appeared a leader in the Times, on the
subject of railway brakes, stating with evident seriousness that
a brake which only slackened the speed of the wheels was more
efficacious than one which stopped them altogether, because in
the former case the wheels were an active element in the stoppage
of the train. It is not often, of course, that we find the fallacy
so nakedly and grossly stated, but still there is a widespread
undercurrent of a notion that what is stationary is not effective:
and it might be useful at the outset to render impossible for
ever in the future, in any shape whatever, this false use of the
word 'negative' to imply uselessness. The best way, perhaps,
would be to show in their true light both the hasty generalisation
and the verbal ambiguity, from one or other of which the mistake
certainly springs : to point out that the name is properly applied
here not in its possible meaning of opposition to the wide positive
which includes the narrower positive-negative pair, but in this
narrower meaning itself: and to remind the reader that in
this narrower meaning it is a great over-generalisation to say
that what is negative is useless. There are occasions when
standing still is the best thing we can do, and in the hasty
inferences which take place in actual life, these occasions occur
often enough to render a purely precautionary science useful.
In our reasonings the spur and the whip are already supplied in
profusion ; what we chiefly need is reins. Our natural tendency
is to generalise, to infer, to believe, on the smallest provocation.
There is water everywhere, and although it would be an exagge-
ration to say that not a drop is fit to drink, yet we are all con-
tinually swallowing a good deal that is hardly clear. The
utility, then, is manifest, of paying serious attention to our
filter ; of making the detection of the different kinds of Fallacy
the framework of the study of Logic. Directness in application,
as well as steadiness of aim, will be the clear result.

The following rough outline will sufficiently explain the pro-
posed treatment : —

The Negative Character of Logic. 357

At the top of our filter, where the arguments are first poured
in, might be placed a layer of material competent to detain those
forms of error which are most dangerous, or most frequent :
lower down might come, in regular order, means of absorbing
forms which are less to be feared. Thus, Fallacies of Confusion
will occupy the chief position, Ignoratio Elenchi (including all
kinds of verbal ambiguity) being at their head : next in import-
ance will come Petitio Principii, including some forms, such as
Platitude, vo-repov Trporepov, and Occult Causes, not usually
classed along with it : and last, as least widespread and dange-
rous, will come such of the Fallacies of Ratiocination as remain
over when Confusion has been subtracted. The treatment of
Inductive Fallacies is, of course,J/he most difficult_j)arfc of the_
work It will be found that Mill s d priori class are in reality a \
part of these, and a decidedly puzzling class to fight against 1
effectively ; since they, even more than Fallacies of Confusion, \
hate the light, and wander in obscure corners of the mind, /
returning often, as ghosts, long after their substantial forms are
dead and buried. -Moreover, it must always be impossible to
fix the exact point at which a theory shall firsYbe considered
proved, jin Induction /complete and sound.

But we shall find that by far the Targe majority of arguments '
are purified long before they reach even the second layer. In
nearly every case where a difference of opinion appears to exist,
such difference is not so large or so important as the disputers
think : but what is large is their misunderstanding of the true
question at issue. When that point is once definitely settled,
the fiercest opponents generally become polite.

Three main questions stand out prominently whenever a
doubt arises : — (1) What is the point at issue ? (2) What is
the evidence asserted ? (3) What is the answer which that
evidence allows ? By dividing and subdividing these three
questions, a complete list of all possible kinds of logical Fallacy
would be drawn up.

ALFRED SID G WICK.

VI— BUTLER'S ETHICAL SYSTEM.

PEOBABLY no writer on Ethics has ever had so large a number
of professed followers as Bishop Butler, and he is still regarded
by many as having left behind him a system of Ethics which is
in substance complete, and admits of little or no improvement
save in the mode of exposition. I do not doubt or deny that
he possesses many merits as an ethical theorist, while in the
department of practical Ethics he will usually be found a safe
guide. But it is a totally different question whether he has
placed the Science of Ethics upon a safe and durable basis, and
it is to that point mainly that the following remarks will be
confined. Butler cannot, of course, be blamed for not taking
into consideration the Association or Evolution Theories of the
origin of the Moral Sentiments. They were not before him when
he wrote, and in the hands of some of their advocates, at least,
they do not affect the questions of Moral Obligation or Immu-
table Morality at all. With such writers these theories belong
to Psychology not to Ethics, and it is therefore surprising that
Sir James Mackintosh, for example, should have regarded it as a
defect in Butler's system that he did not enter into an exposition
of the Association Theory. That theory as expounded by
Mackintosh leaves the real questions of Ethics exactly where it
found them, and any interest it has is purely psychological.

" There are two ways," says Butler in the Preface to his Sermons,
" in which the subject of morals may be treated. One begins
by inquiring into the abstract relations of things, the other from
a matter of fact, namely, what the particular nature of man is,
its several parts, their economy or constitution, from whence it
proceeds to determine what course of life it is which is corres-
pondent to this whole nature. In the former method the con-
clusion is expressed thus, that vice is contrary to the nature
and constitution of things ; in the latter, that it is a violation
or breaking in upon our own nature." As Butler chiefly
proceeds upon this latter method, I shall consider it first.

Human nature, according to Butler, is a " system, constitution,
or economy," which is thus explained. " It is one or a whole
made up of several parts, but yet the several parts, even con-
sidered as a whole, do not complete the idea unless you include
the relations and respects which those parts have to each other."
But even this is not all, for he proceeds to say that " as every
particular thing, both natural and artificial is for some use or
purpose out of and beyond itself, we may add to what, has been
brought into the idea of a system, its conduciveness to one or
more ends". Merely calling attention for the present to the

Butler's Ethical System. 359

words I have italicised, I pass to liis illustrations. First lie
instances a watch : I need not dilate upon the parts and their
relations. The end is to keep time, which is plainly not an
object to the watch itself, but to the maker or owner. The
second is Human Nature. The parts here are — "appetites,
passions, affections, and the principle of reflection," which last
is afterwards identified with Conscience or the moral faculty.
Then come the relations of the parts to each other, " the chief of
which is the authority " (elsewhere called supremacy) " of
reflection or conscience". Lastly, we have the end. From
the very structure of the system it is plain that virtue is
the end to which it is directed. Virtue consists in
obeying one's conscience. The superiority of conscience to all
the other principles in human nature is, as Butler says in a
note to the Third Sermon, " the chief respect which forms the
constitution," and hence the constitution is adapted to virtue.
It is no objection to this that all men do not in fact become
virtuous. Every work of art is liable to be out of order. The
watch may go fast, or slow, or stop altogether, without ceasing
to be a watch. If it be answered that this doctrine represents
the Deity in the light of an unskilful watchmaker, or an owner
who did not know how to alter or mend his watch, it is not
difficult to see what Butler's reply would be. Virtue is a volun-
tary act, or a series of voluntary acts, and the will is free.
There could be no virtue without free-will and free-will
implies the possibility of vice. Admitting this to be true, it
brings out one important point, in which the analogy to a watch,
or any other work of art fails ; and this Butler digresses from
his main object to insist on. " Our constitution," says he, " is put
in our own power. We are charged with it and accountable for
any disorder or violation of it." Charged with it by whom ?
Accountable to whom for any disorder in it ? Plainly to the
maker of it, who organised it for " a purpose out of and
beyond itself". I shall return to this point ; but in the mean-
while I may remark that there is another important respect in
which the analogy fails. The parts of a watch or any other
work of art are physically separable, and capable of independent
existence. But the notion that the various faculties, appetites,
and passions of the mind are so many distinct entities existing
in the mind, has long since been exploded. The whole mind
thinks, remembers, loves, fears, wills, and judges. Hence when
we speak of the supremacy of conscience or of any other part
or faculty of the mind over the other parts, our language is
metaphorical only and not literal, as it would be in speaking of
works of art. In a strictly scientific work such metaphors
should be laid aside, and the doctrine expounded in terms that

360 Butlers Ethical System.

do not even apparently involve the supposition of faculties
existing as separate entities. I presume this could be done with
Butler's theory of the Supremacy of Conscience, but I have found
such difficulty in doing it that I think it wiser to leave that
task to some more ardent disciple. Again, how is the Freedom
of the Will involved in the Supremacy of Conscience ;
and if not, how can it be imported into the notion of virtue ?
Butler might perhaps answer that virtue consists in a series of
efforts of free-will aiming at giving conscience in fact that
supremacy which God intended that it should have ; but if such
was the intention of the Deity, would it not have been more effec-
tually accomplished by abolishing free-will and making conscience
necessarily supreme in all cases ? Here we are trenching on
the old question of the origin and permission of evil ; but I think
Butler was bound to give further explanations on this subject.

To resume. In the beginning of the Second Sermon, Butler
gives a further exposition of this method. " If the real nature
of any creature leads him, and is adapted to such and such pur-
poses only or more than any other, this is a reason to believe
that the Author of that nature intended it for those purposes ;"
to which he goes on to add that the more complex the consti-
tution is " the stronger is the proof that such end was designed".
Here nothing is proved, except that God designed virtue as the
end of Human Nature considered as a system or constitution.
It is true that Butler speaks of the perfection of such a system
both in the Sermons and the Analogy. But this by no means
identifies his system with those in which Perfection is repre-
sented as the end of morals ; for the only perfection of which
Butler speaks, is perfection as an instrument — perfection in
reference to the end " out of and beyond itself," for which the
Author of the system intended it. " The most exact proportion
possible," he tells us (Analogy, part i., ch. 5),, is that " most
exactly adopted to the intended state of life,' and the main
purpose for which our lives are intended is the practice of virtue.
But the question immediately arises, Why should I seek to
accomplish the end for which my Maker designed my constitu-
tion ? The answer must either be, because it is right, or because
by doing so I shall obtain the largest amount of pleasure, and the
least amount of pain for myself. Possibly a firm believer in the
Divine Benevolence as Butler was (at least in his Sermons) might
reply, because by doing so I shall benefit mankind at large most
effectually. I presume no one would answer, because my incli-
nation to do so is stronger than the contrary inclinations.
Butler at all events could not, because a large proportion of
what he has written is directed against yielding indiscriminately
to the strongest inclinations.

Butler's Ethical System. 361

Turning then to the other answers, if we adopt the first, what
has been the use of this whole argument from the constitution
of human nature, final causes and the will of the Deity ? The
only test of what is right in this system is that conscience tells
me so, and I might as well have appealed to the oracle at first
as at last. Then whatever conscience tells me, it tells me with
equal authority, and unless it commands nothing except to
carry out the will of the Deity, as manifested in the structure
of the human constitution, it cannot be the sole rule of morality
to carry out this one command. The other two answers are
equally unsatisfactory. I have various other ways of estimating
the probable result of my actions as regards pleasure and pain,
and if to obtain the former and to avoid the latter is to be my
ultimate aim, why am I to neglect these ? and the same thing
may be said of my endeavours to promote the happiness of
others. Finally, if our only reason for acting virtuously is that
virtue is the end to which God has adapted the human consti-
tution, whatever answer I may give to the question, Why am I
bound to carry out the wishes of the Deity ? the same answer
would apply to every other instance in which the Divine Will
is manifested to us, whether by the voice of nature or by reve-
lation. Therefore the great moral rule should not be to carry
out the Divine Will as manifested in our constitution, but to
obey the Divine Will generally. And Butler himself (in his
Analogy) treats the foreseen pleasures and pains which are the
consequences of our voluntary actions as instances of divine
rewards and punishments. If so, we should pay as much regard
to them as to the development of our constitution in the direc-
tion indicated by its designer.

Accordingly when Butler comes to deal with the question
of Moral Obligation, his treatment of it is by no means satis-
factory. Man, he tells us, is by nature a law to himself, inde-
pendently of rewards and punishments. This is not very
definite. " Your obligation to obey this law is its being the law
of your nature. That your conscience approves of and attests
to such a course of action, is itself alone an obligation." Here
apparently morality is set up on a basis independent of the
Deity and of His design in framing the human constitution — in
which case all that has been written about that constitution is so
much waste paper, and Butler's second ethical method is aban-
doned. But he goes on : " Conscience does not only offer itself
to show us the way we should walk in, but likewise carries its
own authority with it, that it is our natural guide, the guide
assigned to us by the Author of our nature ". Here we get back
again to the Deity ; and it is impossible to ascertain whether
Butler's answer to the question, Why am I bound to be virtuous ?

26

362 Butler's Ethical System.

is because it is right, or because God commands it. Moreover, it is
impossible to found an immutable morality binding on all
rational beings, upon the design with which the Deity framed
the human constitution. " Though," says Butler, in a note to
the Twelfth Sermon, " the good of the creation be the only end
of the Author of it, yet he may have laid us under particular
obligations, which we may discern and feel ourselves under, quite
distinct from a perception that the observance or violation of
them is for the happiness or misery of our fellow-creatures.
And this is in fact the case ; for there are certain dispositions of
mind, and certain actions which are in themselves approved or
disapproved by mankind abstracted from the consideration of
their tendency to the happiness or misery of the world — approved
or disapproved by reflection, by that principle within which is
the guide of life, the judge of right and wrong ; " of which he
goes on to give several instances.* His explanation is, that as
we are not competent judges of what is on the whole for the
good of the world, the Deity appointed these immediate ends
for us to pursue to supply the want of broader views and a more
matured judgment. The virtues which he mentions, as instances
— fidelity, honour, and strict justice — are not then good in them-
selves, but only good in relation to a further end, viz., the general
happiness of all creation. But conscience judges them to be
right in themselves without any reference to this further end, and
indeed without seeing it at all. It is plain then that the recti-
tude of an act (as judged of by conscience, which is Butler's
only criterion), is not any absolute property of the act itself, and
that acts which we judge to be right in themselves, would from
the point of view of a higher order of rational beings, possess
no such quality, but be merely useful as a means. Indeed some
actions of this kind might even prove to be wrong ; for it
would be going pretty far to lay down that by pursuing these
immediate ends we invariably contribute to the ultimate end.
That is not the character of any known empirical law. If
the immediate end keeps us straight in ninety-nine instances
out of a hundred, it is a very good substitute for ignorance
and groping in. the dark ; but what then becomes of Immutable
Morality ?

Here are difficulties enough and difficulties which seem appli-
cable to any ethical theory that could be based on the second
of Butler's methods. But in addition to this, Butler vacillates
in his account of the human constitution itself. We have seen
him declaring that conscience has a natural superiority over all
the other principles of our nature; and that doctrine is frequently

* See too the passage from the Essay on Virtue, which is quoted further
on in this paper.

Butler's Ethical System. 363

repeated in his pages.* This idea of the superiority of one
faculty to another, where the former evidently is not the
most powerful (at least in some men), being new, Butler lays
hold of another instance to make it more intelligible to his
readers — the superiority of self-love to natural propension. Ha
might of course have said that, while superior to the lower
parts of our nature, self-love was it self subject to the supre-
macy of conscience, but he does not say so. He stops at the
point, " Seasonable self-love and conscience are the chief or
superior principles in the nature of man, because an action may
be suitable to this nature, though all other principles be violated,
but becomes unsuitable if either of these is ". It seems to me
that the causal relation of the two parts of this sentence has
been reversed ; but at all events we have now got two chief or
superior principles instead of one, and the original argument that
virtue was the end for which our nature was designed, is in danger
of being invalidated by the introduction of the second superior
principle. Butler's mode of evading the difficulty is as follows :
" Duty and interest are perfectly coincident, for the most part in
this world, but entirely, and in every instance, if we take in the
future and the whole, this being implied in the notion of a good
and perfect administration of things ". That is a practical, per-
haps, but not a theoretical solution of the problem, and it is
only satisfactory to a theist and a believer in a future life. But
Ethics is a science intended for every one, and which it is
desirable to keep clear of theology as far as possible. This
indeed on the method on which I am now commenting cannot
be done, for the whole argument turns on the supposition that
the human constitution was framed by some one who had a par-
ticular end in view in framing it. Nevertheless, Butler is anxious
to make his principle of the Supremacy of Conscience appli-
cable to the case of a sceptic or an atheist. He deals accordingly
with that case, in connexion with Shaftesbury, in his Preface.
It may seem, no doubt, says he, if I am not a believer in a future
life and a moral government of the world, that in some parti-
cular instances it will be for my interest to disobey my conscience;
but I never can be quite sure that it will be so, because the
results of my actions as to pleasure and pain can only be fore-
seen with probability, not with certainty. Now the obligation
to obey my conscience is absolutely certain and known ; there-

* When we meet with such phrases as, " Had it strength as it has right,
had it power as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the
world," we may ask who tells us that it has right or authority in the
sense in which that word is opposed to power ? The answer is clearly, The
moral faculty itself tells us so. But in that case what faculty informs us
of the superiority of self-love ?

364 Butler's Ethical Si/stem.

fore, this " certain obligation would entirely supersede and
destroy the uncertain one, which yet would have been of real
force without the former ".* But probabilities sometimes rise so
near the level of certainty, that for all practical purposes there
is no distinction between them ; and if the obligation to self-
love be really the higher or superior obligation, it surely ought,
when made out to a high degree of probability, to be suffered to
determine the will. That there are exceptions to the happiness
of virtue in this world, Butler himself maintains (Analogy,
part i., ch. 3); and surely, in the case on which he principally
insists, it could be foreseen and predicted with very consider-
able confidence, that it would not be for the happiness of
vicious men (in this world) to reform. But suppose the
(probable) obligation to act viciously from self-love remains,
what is the consequence ? We should then, says Butler, be
" under two contrary obligations, i.e., none at all ". Yes, if the
two were of equal strength, or rather of equal authority ; but
are they ? Butler himself tells us the contrary. " It may
be allowed," he says, in his Eleventh Sermon, " without
any prejudice to the cause of virtue and religion, that our
ideas of happiness and misery are of all our ideas the nearest
and most important to us ; that they will, nay, if you
please, that they ought to prevail over those of order and
beauty, and harmony, and proportion,f if there even should be,
as it is impossible there ever should be, any inconsistence
between them ; though these last, too, as expressing the fitness
of actions, are as real as truth itself. Let it be allowed, though
virtue and moral rectitude does indeed consist in affection to
and pursuit of what is right and good as such, yet, that when
we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves,
this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced that it will be
for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it." The con-
cluding words no doubt save the system from falling into com-
plete selfishness. We are under an obligation to obey our
conscience in cases (if there be any) where we shall neither gain
nor lose upon the whole by so doing ; but still I can hardly see
how the foregoing passage can be reconciled either with Butler's
supposed cardinal doctrine of the Supremacy of Conscience, or
with his argument in favour of virtue from the consideration of

* Butler in this passage speaks of the obligation to conscience as being
" the most near and intimate," but he makes no use of this phrase after-
wards, and decides the question on the issue of certainty versus proba-
bility only.

t The whole context shows that Butler means to identify these terms
with rectitude and virtue, which certainly does not look very like a doctrine
of Immutable Morality.

Butler's Ethical System. 365

the human constitution and the end for which it was designed
by its author.

There are some expressions in the Sermon last cited also,
which might lead us to think that Benevolence, no less than
Conscience and Self-love, was a superior principle in human
nature, while the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Sermons might lead
us to ascribe a like character to the Love of God ; but I do not
intend to enlarge on minor inconsistencies, if inconsistencies
they be. I may also notice a mode of getting over the difficulty
of two superior principles, which turns up incidentally in the
Essay on the Nature of Virtue appended to the Analogy. It
is there maintained, that " the faculty within us which is
the judge of actions," — that is unmistakeably the principle of
reflection or conscience of the Sermons — " approves of prudent
actions and disapproves imprudent ones as such, and con-
sidered distinctly from the happiness or misery which they
may occasion". If this be so, it might be contended that
self-love was not of itself a superior principle in human
nature, but that its superiority consisted in this, that Con-
science— the true supreme principle — approved of actions
directed towards its gratification. But Butler has nowhere
said that this reflected supremacy is the sole superiority which
self-love possesses over the lower passions, and in some of
the passages already referred to he says the reverse. In fact, in
the Sermons he made use of the superiority of self-love to illus-
trate that of conscience, as being the more evident of the two.
Again, in the Analogy itself, he maintains that there are excep-
tions to the happiness of virtue in this world, and of course
in such cases prudence would lead a man who disbelieved in a
future state to act viciously, i.e., to do what conscience disapproves
of. Hence it appears that, if conscience does approve of pru-
dent actions as such, it can only be under the condition that
they are. consistent with the three other cardinal virtues of
Butler, "justice, veracity, and regard to the common good".
When the prudent action conflicts with these, conscience
disapproves of it, notwithstanding that is seen to be prudent;
and, therefore, the conflict of the two superior principles is not
removed. Butler, moreover, in this very Essay seems disposed
to place prudence on a lower ground than the other virtues, con-
trary to the passage which I have quoted from the Eleventh
Sermon. As a further instance of his vacillation on the subject,
I may refer to his answer to the objection, " that so far as a course
of behaviour materially virtuous, proceeds from hope and fear,
so far it is only a discipline and strengthening of self-love " — in
the fifth chapter of Part I. of the Analogy (where by the way he
assumes that such a course may form virtuous habits, contrary to

366 Butler's Ethical System.

what he had already laid down in the same chapter). " Eegard
to our own chief interest" is there described as an essential
element in a right character. Why ? Because Conscience
approves of it ? Or because it proceeds from the other superior
principle, Self-love ? I do not think the passage supplies any
answer.*

I turn then to Butler's second method, and here the
phrase " the abstract relations of things " (borrowed probably
from Clarke) is so indefinite in its meaning, that it is only to be
understood by examining the special exemplifications of it that
occur in the Sermons. Of these, I think there are but two, one
in reference to compassion, and the other in reference to resent-
ment. The first of these (Sermon VI.) commences — " To these
considerations drawn from the nature of man, must be added
the reason of the thing itself we are recommending, which
accords to and shows the same ;" and then follows a proof of the
utility of exercising compassion with the conclusion — " So that
it is not only true that our nature, i.e., the voice of God within
us," (this phrase frequently occurs in Butler and confirms my
view, that the argument from the nature of man is really an
appeal to theological considerations) " carries us to the exercise
of charity and benevolence in the way of compassion or mercy,
preferably to any other way; but we also manifestly discern
more good done by the former or, if you will allow me the
expressions, more misery annihilated and happiness created ".
The other application of the method occurs in the Ninth Sermon,
in the paragraph commencing — '' In showing the unlawfulness of

* It may perhaps be thought that, in the foregoing discussion, I am in
error in taking as Butler's definition of virtue, " a course of action of which
conscience approves," and that the true definition is " a course of action
suitable to our nature, considered as a system or constitution," or, as some of the
ancients put it more briefly, " a life according to nature". I do not think
that such is Butler's ordinary meaning of the term. He certainly frequently
identifies it with that which the moral faculty approves, e.g., where he says,
in the Essay on the Nature of Virtue : " Nor is it at all doubtful in the
general what course of action this faculty . . . approves or disapproves ;
for as much as it has been disputed wherein virtue consists . . . there
is in reality an universally acknowledged standard of it." But suppose the
contrary, and what is the result of Butler's ethical method 1 Simply, that
starting from a definition of virtue different from the ordinary one (for that
mankind in general mean by virtue that which they regard with moral
approbation, seems to be incontestable), he arrives at the conclusion that the
two definitions will coincide in result. Define virtue as that which accords
with human nature as a constitution, and the question, What obligation am
I under to act virtuously 1 remains as unanswered as before, I cannot
discover that any such obligation can be derived from this notion of a con-
stitution, whether referred to its Author or not. Yet the object of Butler's
two methods, is to lead to "our obligations to the practice of virtue."
(Preface to Sermons).

Butler's Ethical System. 367

revenge, it is not my present design to examine what is alleged
in favour of it from the tyranny of custom and false honour,
but only to consider the nature and reason of the thing itself " ;
and then follows an argument which aims at proving the greater
utility of foregoing than enforcing vengeance on those who have
injured us. The ethical method then, which starts from " the
abstract relations of things," is simply that which starts from
the principle of general utility ; and the reason of the designa-
tion is explained by a passage in the Twelfth Sermon. " It
might be added," writes Butler, in this paragraph, " that in a
higher and more enlarged way of consideration, leaving out "
(that is, abstracting from) " the particular nature of creatures,
and the particular circumstances in which they are placed,
benevolence seems in the strictest sense to include in it all that
is good and worthy " ; and he goes on to apply this to the Deity
and higher orders of rational beings. But how are our obliga-
tions to virtue made out by proving its general utility, i.e., that
it benefits others ?* If it be said that the moral faculty approves
of benevolence, why not have appealed to this faculty at once ?
If all our obligations to virtue are to rest ultimately on the
supremacy of conscience, what do we gain by proving that the
course of which this faculty approves is either consonant to our
nature considered as a system or constitution, or that it tends to
the general benefit of mankind ?

Both of Butler's ethical methods then leave us exactly
where we began. Moral obligation must be at last taken
per saltum as involved in the Supremacy of Conscience, of
which (as Butler contends) we have a direct perception,
and these preliminary discussions about human nature and
uility only serve to keep the real point of the system out of
sight. Moreover, according to Butler, this argument from the
abstract relations of things does not lead to the practice of all
virtue; for he is careful to tell us in a note to this Twelfth
Sermon, which I have already quoted, that the moral faculty
approves and disapproves of many actions, without any reflec-
tion on the benefit or injury which will result to man-
kind from their performance. There is an equally decisive
passage in the Essay on Virtue : — " The fact then appears to be,
that we are so constituted as to condemn falsehood, unprovoked
violence, injustice, and to approve of benevolence to some pre-
ferably to others, abstracted from all consideration which conduct
is likeliest to procure an overbalance of happiness or misery.
And, therefore, were the Author of Nature to propose nothing to

* How, moreover, is this method to be made consistent with the
superiority elsewhere attributed by Butler to the principle of self-love, and
with his doctrine that prudence is a virtue ]

368 Butler's Ethical System.

himself as an end but the production of happiness, were his
moral character merely that of benevolence, yet ours is not so.
Upon that supposition, indeed, the only reason of his giving us
the above-mentioned approbation of benevolence to some per-
sons rather than others, and disapprobation of falsehood, unpro-
voked violence and injustice, was that he foresaw this constitu-
tion of our nature would produce more happiness, than forming
us with a temper of mere general benevolence. But still, since
this is our constitution, falsehood, violence, injustice, must be
vice in us, and benevolence to some preferably to others, virtue,
abstracted from all consideration of the overbalance of good and
evil which they may appear likely to produce." How is the
argument from the abstract relations of things applicable here ?
It certainly is not the ground of approval or disapproval, and
I cannot see how it is the ground of obligation. I have already
noticed the bearing of such passages on the doctrine of Immu-
table Morality, which, notwithstanding, Butler unmistakeably
upholds. Thus, in the concluding chapter of the Analogy, he
tells us that he has omitted a thing of the utmost importance —
" the moral fitness and unfitness of actions prior to all will what-
ever, which I apprehend as certainly to determine the Divine
conduct, as speculative truth and falsehood necessarily determine
the Divine judgment " ; and then he gives the application of this
principle to the subject before him thus : " There is in the nature of
things an original standard of right and wrong, in actions inde-
pendent of all will, but which unalterably determines the will of
God to exercise that moral government over the world which re-
ligion teaches ". But how can we attain to such a standard, or even
learn its existence, if our moral approbation and disapprobation
are mere matters of Divine appointment, the reasons of which
are concealed from us ?

My conclusion is that neither of Butler's methods leads to
anything, and that at the end of both he is compelled either to
take moral obligation for granted, or else to abandon his methods
and appeal to the moral consciousness directly — an appeal the
force of which is weakened, not strengthened, by the process
which leads up to it. Further, not only are his methods fruit-
less, but in attempting to work them out he falls into numerous
inconsistencies, and in consequence his ethical system is in
many respects incomplete, if not erroneous. He has no doubt
left us some excellent observations and some valuable analyses;
but the latter sometimes tell against him as well as in his
favour. For instance, in distinguishing particular propensions
from self-love, he says the difference becomes obvious as soon
as we distinguish between the appetites themselves and
" endeavouring after the means of their gratification ". Now

Political Economy as a Moral Science. 369

this seems to me to be exactly the distinction which the
advocate of the Selfish System must make in order to give his
principle any appearance of plausibility. If he maintained that
the pain of hunger was the result of general self-love, he would
make himself ridiculous ; but he might contend, with some
appearance of truth, that all our endeavours after the means of
gratifying hunger (or any other passion) proceeded from his
single principle. I have, however, already occupied so much
space, that I shall not pursue this topic any farther.

W. H. S. MONCK.

VII.— POLITICAL ECONOMY AS A MOEAL SCIENCE.

To those who are interested in Economic Science, few things
are more noticeable than the small hold which it has upon
the thoughts of our generation. Legislation has been directly
influenced by it in the past, and the results of the application
of its doctrines are manifest in every department of our laws ;
yet, in spite of its triumph in this region, we find a widespread
tendency to look on its teaching with suspicion, whilst one of
our greatest modern writers impugns its fundamental principles,
month after month, with the applause of a large circle of culti-
vated readers. Petitions from various trading interests — as
recently from the watchmakers — show that the mercantile public
are not swayed by it ; working-class leaders notoriously dis-
regard it, and foreign statesmen do not pretend to listen to its
preachings. Those who regard the teachings of the science as
not only true but important truths, cannot ignore the general
neglect into which it has fallen, and it behoves them to investi-
gate the cause of it. When a case is argued fully, as that of
Political Economy has been during the last century, and the
listeners remain unconvinced, there seem to be only two possible
alternatives — either that the statements are untrue, or that they
have been badly expressed. The latter appears to me to be the
true explanation, and this paper is not an attempt to establish
any new doctrine, but only to express the old truths in a better
way. It merely claims to delineate a new method of treatment,
and indeed one that is not wholly new : at most it seeks to
maintain consistently a point of view which has been fitfully
adopted in popular treatises on the subject.

I. — Various views of the Science.

(a.) In its earliest beginnings, in the dark ages which preceded
Bp. Berkeley, Hume and Adam Smith, Political Economy,

370 Political Economy as a Moral Science.

with its mercantile system, was a science of things. Value was
supposed to be an intrinsic quality of certain objects ; and a
nation seemed to become rich by getting objects which possessed
this quality in a high degree. All the ingenuity of the day was
directed to the acquiring of valuable objects, at first by the
somewhat crude method of compelling merchants to bring gold
here and forbidding them to take it hence, till at length Sir
Thomas Mun showed the shortsightedness of this policy, and
explained how gold might be made to flowjnto the country.
Then followed attempts to protect native industry, as the means
for manipulating the exchanges and obtaining a large share of
objects of high intrinsic value.

(b.) Though Adam Smith proved the untenableness of the old
views, and dwelt on the fact that a nation which has many not-
very-valuable things is richer than one which has a few very
valuable ones, he hardly saw the true theory which, while
implied in much of his teaching, was explicitly stated by
Eicardo. Value is not a quality, but a relation — a relation
between this object and desirable things in general. This being
so, we cannot found our science on a mere consideration of things :
we must look at that which gives a value to the things, and
that is, the competition of actual owners and would-be owners.
We have not to do with the mere practical usefulness of
the objects, still less with intrinsic valuableness, but with a
value which is conferred upon useful objects by the competition
of various human beings who find difficulty in obtaining them.

It is thus that the questions of exchange have come to be
fundamental ones in the science, since competition lies at the
root of the notion of value. What J. S. Mill calls the " neces-
sities created by social arrangements," has made exchange a
fundamental fact in all the production of wealth. It is not
wholly possible to distinguish the competition of man with
man which drives most of us to work, from the competition
of seller with seller which drives down price. The free flow of
labour from one employment to another, the free flow of capital
also, are assumptions which the doctrines of Eicardo involve : each
individual human being is represented as the owner of some-
thing, of labour which he exchanges for sustenance, or wealth
which he advances in return for the products of labour ; by their
competition with one another, the share of each competitor and the
value of objects are determined. The ordinary doctrines of the
school of Eicardo are expressed with some confusion in the
popular text-books on the subject ; to these we shall shortly
revert. But with the view of exposing the inadequacy of this
teaching ib may be best to refer to it in the clear and consistent
shape in which it has been worked out by Professor Jevons. He

Political Economy as a Moral Science. 371

insists that Political Economy portrays the "mechanism of
interests," and is properly a mathematical science, dealing with
quantitative differences. Since each individual is swayed in his
commercial transactions by considerations of utility, i.e., by the
anticipation of greater or less quantities of (high or low)
pleasure, the ratio of exchange is said to be determined by the
competition of various individuals or groups of individuals,
guided solely by considerations of utility.

Numerous objections may be urged against the science when
thus treated. One of the commonest is perhaps a sentimental
one — that Political Economy is a science of selfishness ; and
though Professor Cairnes has repudiated this charge on the
ground that the science is merely descriptive and does not enjoin
any kind of conduct, the mode of treatment before us gives some
colour for the ordinary view. Professor Jevons speaks of the
science as if it were utilitarian ; but only the cruder forms of
Utilitarianism concern themselves solely with degrees of inten-
sity ; and our attention is concentrated on the motive — indi-
vidual gain, rather than the end — the happiness of the greatest
number. This gives economical teaching — when considered in
its moral aspect — the appearance of mere Egoism ; and Egoism,
if speculatively justifiable, is repugnant to the popular conscious-
ness. Most of the socialistic antagonism to ordinary Political
Economy is due to the belief that it is at root egoistic, and has
regard to the wealth of individuals at the expense of the well-
being of the community.

But there are more weighty objections. Mr. Bagehot pointed
out* that there have seldom been circumstances in the past
history of the world when the conditions which are tacitly
assumed by Kicardo have been present. The free play of compet-
ing interests, the free flow of capital to different channels and of
labour to different employments, have had no place in the indus-
trial condition of the great mass of mankind ; for competition
has rarely superseded the determination of the ratio of exchange
by custom.

If the science, thus treated, is inapplicable to semi-civilised
human beings, it is certainly defective as a representation of
English industry to-day. Even in this country, the free action of
competitive individualism is very considerably modified by other
influences besides the remnants of feudal feeling. The presence
of Trades' Unionism and its curious effects in modifying the
character of competing groups is a case in point : not less marked
are the interferences with the freedom of judgment of capitalists
caused by the factory acts and similar legislation.

To these charges we may add one more : the teaching of the
* Fortnightly Review, 1876.

372 Political Economy as a Moral Science.

school of Eicardo is psychologically incorrect. The increase of
pleasure and increase of pain may possibly be the motive of all
human effort, but the forms under which it manifests itself are
most diverse. The self-interest of the non-unionist is qualita-
tively different from that of the man who merges his own indi-
vidual interest in that of his society : we cannot regard them as
merely quantitatively distinct. Still more, the self-interest of the
man who spends his days in incessant toil, is different in kind from
that of the man who undergoes the privation of supplying his
neighbour with the means of working. One man's estimate of
pleasure and pain leads him to marry and settle down now, and
remain a labourer all his days ; another prefers to wait and
save for years, and to rise to a better position eventually ; but
we cannot say that the man who rises in the world has a greater
regard to pleasure and pain than the other : he is influenced by
a different kind of enjoyment, and a different kind of privation;
the motives which lead to labouring or to saving capital are
different in kind, not merely in degree. If, as Mill contended,
axiomata media are needed for utilitarian Ethics, they are
equally necessary for utilitarian Political Economy. We cannot
exhibit economical phenomena as the effects of different mani-
festations of one force which is applied with different degrees of
intensity, but must regard them as due to the interaction of
many forces which are qualitatively, not merely quantitatively,
distinct. This attempt at unreal simplification appears to me
to be the fundamental error which has given the science an
immoral guise while limiting its scope. The distorted treatment
has made Political Economy an inadequate science, even for our
own day, rather than one which explains that development of
industry which has accompanied the developing powers of man.
(c .) This attempt to review the methods of treatment that have
proved unsatisfactory may have already pointed out the direction
in which we must apply ourselves if we would discover a better.
Economists have too long considered human beings as tending to
act from one impulse, and have taken for granted that the
external phenomena of wealth are due to this one invariable
motive; they have thus been contented with examining the
laws which may be observed among these external phenomena.
But it may be a question whether the science has not been
confined too exclusively to things outside us. In undergraduate
days, one was sometimes struck with the wide difference between
this and the other subjects which were grouped as Moral
Sciences : it had indeed to do with human beings, but the whole
character of the study was diverse, and there was. a certain
relief in turning from the hopeless bewilderment of various
analyses of conscience to the absolute clearness of Eicardo's

Political Economy as a Moral Science. 373

Principles of Taxation. It may be doubted, however, whether
this clearness is not attained by removing the difficulties before
entering on the discussion. With the view of simplifying the
problems, a pyschological assumption is made— more often
tacitly than not — and a large number of lucid deductions are
drawn. Might it not be better if Economy made less pretence
to precision, and attended more carefully to the diverse
activities of human nature ? Political Economy has been a
science of things, and discoursed of intrinsic value ; it has been
a science of mechanism, and explained the interaction of
competing interests ; may we not treat it as a moral science
which considers the resources of human nature for the satisfying
of human wants ] Political Economy has to do with such of the
resources — the activities and capacities — of human nature as
are employed in the satisfying of human wants : it is not
concerned with things as valuable in themselves — that delusion is
done with forever — but with human powers working on things
and giving them their worth : it has not to do with human
atoms impelled by one force, but with the many powers which
are common to all human beings, while they are more highly
developed as civilisation advances. If this view of the subject
removes the appearance of Egoism, it also gives the science a
closer relation to actual life, both past and present. There may
have been a state of society when practically, things had a fixed
value, and the old thoughts were true ; there have been signs of
a time when there wTas no society and a competing individualism
was the order of the day, and the doctrines of Ricardo repre-
sent the truth then. But our science need not be limited to any
one of these conditions of mankind if it fixes its attention on the
human powers that are at work in every stage of civilisation.
Political Economy, as a Moral Science, may express general
truths, while by other methods of treatment it is limited to
special states of society and cut off from all relation to History.

II. — General Principles.

These considerations seem to establish a primd facie case for
at least some new method of treatment ; and we may proceed to
attempt a new presentation of old truths by delineating, very
briefly, some leading doctrines in the form they would take as
part of the science of the resources of human nature. To this
view of the subject an objection at once occurs ; we are concerned,
not with thoughts and feelings — mental or moral powers — but
with things. The growth of wealth implies changes in the
material universe : it is for material wealth that men strive, and
the resources of human nature may be very considerable, but
they are not capable of filling a mouth, not to mention a pocket.

374 Political Ecomony as a Moral Science.

But though this is true, the fact remains that these material
objects are not only valueless in- themselves, but useless in-
themselves ; they become useful from the fact that there is a
man to use them. To one who does not know their use, they
are worthless ; and the increase of knowledge means, as Bacon
saw, the increase of power over nature to turn material things to
our uses. Things in-themselves have no place in our science ;
only material objects as known, and material objects as used.
We do not need to cumber our discussion with any distinction
between Mind and Matter, still less need we confuse it by trying
to treat of both together : we shall include all that is needed for
the study of the subject if we think of the resources of human
nature, among which we may include its knowledge of nature and
inclination to use it.

This may be a hard saying to those who have accepted the
teaching of the common text-books ; but we are not at issue with
ordinary language, if we have gone beyond popular thought. A
wealthy man is simply one who has many satisfactions, and the
certain expectations of satisfactions to come : we may say that
wealth consists of all pleasures present or expected which are
embodied in a material form, rather than that it consists of
"every commodity which has an exchange value". This is no
mere quibble : so far as the latter statement is not a meaningless
truism, it accentuates commodities rather than the feelings of
human beings, which are the reasons of their worth. The thing
in-itself has no value, only pleasure in the thing ; and more
than this, we buy or sell not merely the thing, but the
expectation of pleasure embodied in the thing. When John and
Thomas bargain as to a watch, there are at least as many
possibilities of confusion as there are when they talk on other
subjects.* There is John's expectation of the usefulness of the
watch to him, there is Thomas's expectation of being able to get
more from some one else : on both sides there are ideal elements,
and the thing in-itself — the real watch — is only the centre round
which these subjective expectations cluster : so, too, the dis-
appointment of a bad purchase is due, not to any change in
the commodity, but to finding that the actual pleasure does not
come up to the expectation.

So long as we assert that wealth consists of commodities, so
long will it be impossible to divest men wholly of the belief that
value is an inherent quality of objects, or to enforce clear ideas
of the nature of wealth. Wealth consists of satisfactions
embodied in objects ; and the distinction is important when we
remember that many exchanged commodities are not themselves
the embodiment of any pleasure, but rather of abstinence from
* Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

Political Economy as a Moral Science. 375

enjoyment. The result of our toil — the satisfaction of our wants
—is surely to be classed differently from the commodities which
we merely use for producing that result: the one is but the
means to an end, the other is the end itself — a distinction which
is sufficiently recognised in the common view of a miser as one
who makes his means an end. Commercial crises would bear
one out in saying that capital invested in a business is not wealth
unless it can be realised into a form which gives security for the
satisfaction of wants. If we only talk about commodities we
ignore the different functions which commodities are made to
serve in accordance with human activity : our science, by
attending merely to the embodiment, has neglected distinctions
among the powers embodied ; and it is with these activities that
we propose to deal.

Energy. There is little difficulty in perceiving the influence
which drives human beings to work : want is the occasion of all
human energy, just as it forces the birds of the air and beasts ot
the field to spend weary hours in the pursuit of prey. The wants
of the savage are scarcely greater than those of the animal, — only
a little food and a little shelter, — yet the privation he endures
and the drudgery he undergoes in his spasmodic and frequently
relaxed efforts to obtain the necessaries of life, are immeasurably
greater than those which are required to satisfy the wants of,
the civilised man in constant employment. The life of a North
American Indian is not an easy one : it is one of wasted and
misapplied exertion, and the greatest change in the civilisation
of a tribe must occur, when they learn wisdom enough to devote
themselves to regular work, and develop the mental quality we
term Energy.

Patience. The capacity for regular work not only implies a
growth of wisdom, but a development of other qualities as well.
From no form of tillage, or other employment, can we obtain
immediate results : in all of them we need Patience to wait,
willingness to work now, for the gain of a distant day. It
is partly because they have no capacity for waiting that the
American Indians prefer a life of hunting and semi-starvation.

We may see, then, that before human beings can engage in
any regular work at all, two things are absolutely necessary, —
the Energy to engage in industry and a capacity for patient
waiting. When either of these is wanting, there may be
predatory or nomadic existence, but never any advance in the
arts and comforts of life. Not less true is it that within all the
various branches of our giant industry, these two factors are found :
Labour in its countless forms is but the agent of intelligent
industry, Capital is the representative of Patience, which is
willing to wait for the results of work.

376 Political Economy as a Moral Science.

c. Appropriation. To these two factors in the satisfaction of
want we may add a third : the recognition of the right of private
property has been one of the most potent economical influences
the world has ever seen. With the ground of that right, and
the precise nature of that right, we have nothing to do : it may
suffice to say that there was a time in most, if not all, settled
Aryan villages, when communism and custom ruled the day,
and that, so far as we see, no great expansion of industry was
possible till this system yielded to that of private property. The
recognition of this right affects both the factors we have already
considered, for neither Energy nor Patience can fail to be
stimulated by the expectation of appropriating the reward. Of
course, Appropriation is implied in the satisfying of any wants ;
but it is only when society has developed to some extent that
the influence of the ' desire of having ' can be distinguished
from that of physical needs and greeds. When we have thus
added Appropriation as a stimulus to greater Energy and greater
Patience, we seem to have given a sufficiently complete account
of all the powers involved in the production of wealth.

Our account of the matter has certainly differed from that of
the popular text-books which insist on labour, capital, and land,
as the requisites of production. That analysis has a suspicious
•appearance of being drawn from the -three classes of our
community rather than from a scientific consideration of the
case. Besides, the classification is very liable to be misunderstood.
To the socialist, it may well seem as if labour were the only
active factor in the production of wealth ; capital and land being
mere conditions of its exercise — just as noise accompanies the
motion of a carriage : he is told that capital is " the result of
labour " ; and it is therefore obvious that capital could not have
been needed for labour in the first days of human life, and that
it cannot be necessary for the production of wealth. Still,
further, the classification is redundant : capital often takes the
form of land, and one cannot separate the two factors in
considering the production of a load of hay. Labourers in all
cases supply a portion of the capital — their clothes, themselves ;
and some economists use this term to describe their acquired
skill. It is almost harder to carry out the distinctions clearly
when we come to objects which are used partly for pleasure and
partly for gain — say a horse with which a farmer hunts and which
he also uses on business errands. Here it is obvious that the
" distinction between capital and non-capital depends solely on
the intentions of the owner " (Mill). ' Capital ' is only a symbol
of human power, it is the physical embodiment of Patience :
' Land ' is a symbol for the Appropriation of natural gifts that
is implied in all production, and which in its more definite

Political Economy as a Moral Science. 377

shape stimulates rapid production. Both of these are imperfect
symbols, the use of which generates confusion ; we might
perhaps talk of ' Labour ' without misconception, though after
all it is of mental Energy and of moral Energy that we must
think when we use the term, rather than of mere muscular
power. Attention to these forces of human nature will assist us
in other parts of the subject.

The importance of Energy and Patience for the produc-
tion of wealth are obvious, but there are still some who
think the Appropriation of natural gifts mere robbery. It
does not lie within our province to justify it on general
grounds ; nor need we content ourselves with the assertion that
private property is a fact, and must be taken as such ; rather we
may say it is a fact which has justified itself, for it is a pre-
requisite without which exchange can scarcely exist at all.
The benefits that have accrued from trade would have been
impossible unless for the prior admission of the principle — thai;
the possessor of goods may use his own judgment about what he
does with them. In the communal stage, exchange must be
almost wholly unknown, and as a matter of fact the traveller in
India has often considerable difficulty in obtaining the simplest
and most abundant articles in a village where this phase stiU
lingers, and where appropriation is not yet developed. There is
no need to repeat the common demonstration that neither party
loses by an exchange, and that generally speaking both parties
gain, in order to prove the benefits which it can confer in satis-
fying human wants. Only let us beware of overlooking the
recognition of the rights to appropriate and to dispose of ones
possessions as one sees Jit, on which the whole system depends.

The latter gives us a clue to the whole subject of exchange.
In the simplest case of barter, the man who is content to wait
and who is least anxious for the exchange, is at an enormous
advantage in obtaining favourable terms ; and the important
thing to notice in every instance of exchange is the judgment of
the less eager possessor as to the time to sell and the rate at
which to sell : this really determines that the exchange shall
take place at all. We have heard enough of the " mechanism
of exchange," and the equation of supply and demand ;
it is perfectly obvious that the quantity supplied at a given
rate equals the quantity demanded at that rate at each
moment of buying and selling ; but after all, this is a mere
description of the fact, not an explanation. If any body under-
stands the matter better for having it thus described, by all
means let us formulate it thus, and draw our diagrams to express
it more obviously. It is still true that the explanation lies
deeper ; there is an equation at each moment of exchange, but

27

378 Political Economy as a Moral Science.

what equates it ? The possessor of the article chiefly-sought-for
supplies it in such a quantity and at such a rate as he deems
likely to satisfy the demand, or it may be to create a demand.
He judges of the sources from which the article may be drawn,
of the probable desire of the buyer or the public to possess it,
and having considered these things to the best of his ability, he
offers the article at a given rate : if he has made a mistake either
as to the sources of supply or the wishes of the buyers, he is
forced to alter his terms.

In ignoring this power of judgment it seems to me that cur-
rent Political Economy has once more landed itself in a difficulty,
through striving at too great precision. In the actual trade of
the world, there cannot be this definite weighing of supply and
demand ; the equation holds for a moment, and in the next
transaction there is a slightly modified equation ; there is move-
ment, change throughout the whole market, and business-capa-
city lies in estimating these changes, in catching the first signs
of them or reading any indication of a possible alteration in the
sources of supply or in the probable demand. If this is the main
element in the actual fact of exchange, it must also be the central
idea in our science if it is to explain, not merely to describe ;
and the best explanation will be found, not in analysing the
conduct of competing units, but in trying to classify the motives
at work in the mind of the man of greatest business-capacity or
of best judgment. Without pretending to any completeness we
may arrange the principal motives in such form as this —

/ C a. A monopoly.

I 1. Sources of supply. •< 6. A partial monopoly.
I. Circumstances 1 I c' °Pen competition.

which affect they ( a. No increase possible.

judgment of the^ 2. Conditions of supply. •< 6. Increase at increased cost.
seller. i (c. Increase at diminished cost.

(

3. Probable demand with ( £ ^^ ] price

II. Circumstances resulting from C 1. To consumer.

the misjudgment of another •< 2. To other possessors.
seller. ( 3. To himself.

The tabulation of the main points to be considered now-a-
days has led us to use terminology which seems hardly suitable
for exchange in all times and places. At the same time, if we
think of the seller as the possessor of the article that is more
desired, we may say that the same elements are implied in the
simplest case of barter. The recognition of the right to private
property coupled with the right of judgment about one's pos-
sessions, involved as they are in the very possibilities of exchange,
are the clue with which we must work in simple and in com-
plicated cases too. The clear connexion of the two rights may

Political Economy as a Moral Science. 379

be most clearly seen when we remember that after all it is just
where the judgment of the possessor has not free scope in
determining exchange that the right to private possession seems
imperfect.

This brief account of the factors at work in the satisfying of
human wants would not be complete without some consideration
of those developments of human resources which are only found
in civilised communities, and by which the power of energy and
capacity for patience may be indefinitely increased.

SMIL That Skill increases human powers of production
surely requires no remark. Skill in organising labour, and
applying it with due division and wise combination for the
accomplishment of ends, has had results which are familiar to
all readers of the Wealth of Nations. Of the value of personal
intelligence and of the cultivation of a knowledge of scientific
principles, our generation are fully convinced, as the arguments
of the favourers and opponents of compulsory education alike
testify. We are told on all hands that if England is to retain
her place in the first rank of mechanical industry, her workmen
must possess more education and thus be provided with greater
Skill. And in so doing they do wisely ; in these days it is not
mere bone and muscle which we want ; with mighty physical
forces adapted to every day task we rely less than formerly on
brute force ; we merely want the adjustment of natural forces to
materials furnished by nature, and it is by the development of
Skill, not by the multiplication of labourers, that the national
Energy is increased. Those who talk as East Anglian labourers
and Chelsea prophets have done about the worth of a human
being, forget how much more worthy the skilful man is : they
forget too that a rapid increase of population in a country where
a Poor Law exists has a tendency to lower the standard of Skill
and the national Energy : parents cannot afford the due training
of their numerous progeny, and the nation if repleted with
muscle is not replenished with Skill.

Trust. The increase of the power of waiting by means of
Trust is another feature of modern industry ; great are the oppor-
tunities for borrowing other people's capital, and using their
powers of Patience for our own ends, on the faith that they will
share in our expected wealth. These facilities render it possible
for any manufacturer to extend his operations suddenly, and to
take immediate advantage of any new opportunities of gain that
may turn up. In this way the Patience of the country can
be easily directed into new channels or transferred from one
employment to another. Just as by Skill, Energy is economised
through being wisely applied and wisely organised, so by Trust the
Patience of the country is economised, and men wait for results

380 Political Economy as a Moral Science.

in those departments of industry where the best returns are to
be had for the privation undergone. Its function in facilitating
the exchange of goods — the way in which this new factor affects
the judgment of the seller, — would require a long discussion to
elucidate fully ; countless questions about credit and crises are
connected with it, and must be passed over now.

Such are the principal human powers which are at work in
satisfying human wants ; they have been exhibited in a consis-
tent shape in their mutual relations, and hints have been dropped
as to the place which each leading doctrine might hold when
treated from this point of view. I would claim that nothing
of economical importance need be omitted in working out the
subject thus, and that no assumption has been made which is
inconsistent with any condition of human development, high or
low. By avoiding the temptation to unreal precision we may
attain to a doctrine which, unlike the current abstractions,
is widely true, while at the same time it harmonises with our
ordinary talk. This last is no small advantage, and it was in
the attempt to discuss economical questions with practical men
that I was first led to see the convenience of treating Political
Economy as a Moral Science. We may now test our representa-
tion by the means it affords for treating special questions with a
fresh light ; in so doing we shall encounter the difficult problems
of the distribution of wealth.

III. — Treatment of Special Questions.

Trades' Unions. There are very many points of interest
connected with these associations which we might discuss ; but
we shall limit ourselves to the question how far they can " better
the condition of the working classes ". There are probably some
who use this phrase, to whom it does not seem a truism — who
would feel it almost a quibble — to say that we cannot better
their condition unless we first better them. The common belief
is precisely the reverse, that we must have better houses, shorter
hours, &c., and that then we shall have more opportunity for self- *
improvement, that better conditions are the first step to better
men. It may be so, but unless the self-improvement comes
quickly the improved condition cannot be retained ; it is only by
self-betterment that the better condition can be secured
permanently.

For after all there cannot be a greater share of goods for each,
unless there is a larger stock to be divided : it is, as we have
seen, by the increase of Skill that human labour is for the most
part improved in its powers; and, other things being equal,
there is no better source to which we can look for the satisfaction
of human wants than increased Skill ; it is by this means that a

Political Economy as a Moral Science. 381

greater permanent supply can be obtained, and a larger share
given to each. It may indeed be said that there is another way
of enlarging the gains of the labourers — not by increasing the
wealth of the world, but by altering the proportions in which it
is divided, and that by aiming at this we may better the condition
of the labourer without waiting for the more tedious process of
bettering himself. Yet after all the bargain between the
capitalist and the labourer — however we interpret it — is a case
of exchange, and must come under the general delineation of
exchange which we have given above. The better man, either
he who has most Skill, or he who has most independence and
ability to wait, will be in the best position for making terms
with his employer. In so far as Unions have succeeded in
raising wages, it may be said that they have done so because
their members have been made self-reliant men : in so far as they
can retain these advantages, it must be because their members
are more skilful than they were, — because having what is more
valuable to dispose of, they can afford to drive better terms in
the bargain. The strength of a Union depends on the Skill of
those united as well as on the strength of the bond between
them : mere union may overcome divided employers, but only
skilled union can hold its own against federated ones. Mere
reliance on each other must be in the long run as futile as isola-
tion has proved, unless there is Skill in each other on which they
can rely : this and this only can serve as a vantage ground from
which to dictate better terms. How far this is recognised by
working-class leaders does riot concern us at present, though
there have been signs recently that some of them are more keenly
alive to it than is generally supposed.

Capital. A whole network of confusion runs through the
recent discussions on capital. There are those who speak of all
capitalists as usurers that " exploit " the labour of their
fellow-men while performing no service themselves : but those
who regard the right of a man to keep wrhat he has worked for
as " the corner stone of all economy "* should not deny the right
of a man to keep what he has waited for. Take the first dozen
men who pass Temple Bar and offer them their choice of a
sovereign to-day or a guinea this day six months, and if any man
undertook the risk and privation of waiting he would have fairly
earned his reward. The new materialistic Economy tells us that
the capitalist merely supplies money, that it is labour which
imparts value to the objects, not dead money, which has only a
conventional not intrinsic worth. To which we may reply, it is
Patience which the capitalist exercises ; what he supplies is the
ability to wait for the results of labour : for this capacity of

* Mr Riiskin.

382 Political Economy as a Moral Science.

waiting he claims his gains, and it is according to the anxiety
involved that he is rewarded. If any movement render this
reward doubtful the capitalist must have a greater inducement
to make him wait in troublous times : a crusade against the
" tyranny of capital " would frighten capitalists for a time at
least, and compel them to seek better terms from the self-
destroyed labourer : this would be no mere attempt at a better
division of goods, but an attack on one of the fundamental
requisites of production — the capacity for waiting.

Other writers see a danger, not in the greatness, but in the
smallness of the capitalist's reward. They affirm that the rate
of profits is diminishing, and assert that the time is at hand
when no one will longer undertake the risk of waiting for such a
small reward. The former part of this statement is undoubtedly
true : so far as labour is expended on the soil, the rate of return
for increased exertion is not proportionately greater : even in the
manufacturing districts there is a reflection of the rural
difficulties, in the greater price of coal and material, and
only a diminished surplus can be appropriated as the reward of
waiting. But there is an error in looking solely to the rate of
profit obtainable, and not to other sides of the question as well.
The truth seems to be that the capacity for waiting increases, in
spite of the diminished reward ; and in some cases of a
diminished rate of profit, e.g., when it is due to increased
security, the capacity for waiting is not affected by it at all.
However low the rate of profit may be, we are not near the
" stationary state," so long as men are willing to save from their
increase and add to their capital.

Again we are told that capital is being driven from the country
by the action of Unions. They certainly may affect the rate of
reward in one department of industry so seriously that capital will
be withdrawn, but it need not necessarily lie idle. It will — so far
as it can be realised — seek other employments, and so long as the
capacity for saving survives, we need have no fear of inability to
set labour in motion. The change in the rate of reward could
not be a general one — certainly not a permanent one, unless
there was a growth in the Skill of the proletariate, and
consequently in their power of driving a bargain. With that
change there would also have come an increased stock of wealth
to be divided ; nor, as long as we see that the capacity for
waiting has survived the pressure of the diminishing return from
land, need we fear that it would be destroyed by a re-adjustment
of the rewards of Patience and Energy.

Population. The Currency offers a tempting field for discus-
sion at present, but we must draw these remarks to a close with
a brief allusion to another burning question. The law of popu-

Political Ecommy as a Moral Science. 383

lation grievously needs to be restated in the form in which it
was first uttered by Mai thus. He spoke of the evil of popula-
tion increasing more rapidly than the means of subsistence. To-
day we hear men talk of the increase of the human kind as if it
were a positive evil ; men enunciate doubtful physiological
statements and more than doubtful moral doctrines as to the
means of preventing this curse. In all this we have a narrow
view of man, as a slave of his appetites and physical conditions.
Is this so ? Is it not rather true that there are boundless
resources in human nature for the increase of Skill and Trust,
the development and economising of Energy and Patience, and
thus for the continued satisfying of human wants ? The capa-
cities of human nature may be developed so as to supply in-
finitely multiplied needs. It is not an increase of population
that is an evil, but a disproportionate increase, and the cure for
this evil lies, not in bowing to the limits at present set by climate
and soil, but in developing those human powers — including that
of self-control — by which men have hitherto succeeded in
overcoming nature. If want increases more rapidly than
resources do, misery must ensue ; but the ratio may be altered in
either of two ways, and the permanent remedy lies in developing
the resources more rapidly, rather than in trying to suppress
the wants.

W. CUNNINGHAM.

VIII.— CKITICAL NOTICES.

Traite de la Nature Humaine (Livre premier, ou 'De 1'Entendement'),
traduit pour la premiere fois, par MM. CH. RENOUVIER et F.
PILLON, et Essais PJiilosophiques sur 1'Entendement (traduction
de Merian corrigee). Avec une Introduction par M. F. PILLON.
Paris : Au Bureau de la Critique Phttosophique, 1878. Pp.
Ixxii., 581.

Hwne-Studien. I. Zur Geschichte und Kritik des modernen
Nominalismus. Yon Dr. ALEXIUS MEINONG. Wien : Gerold's
Sohn, 1877. Pp. 78.

THE revival of interest in Hume's philosophy is one of the most
marked features in the thought of the present day. At home, though
he never was put outside the philosophic pale (as foreign critics are
rather prone to suppose), it is true that, since the generation of the
Reids and Beatties and Campbells whom he so greatly exercised, he has
seldom been either consciously followed or expressly opposed ; and
the more remarkable therefore is that new interest, variously
begotten, which has resulted already in the edition of his philosophical
works so elaborately prefaced by Prof. Green. Nor is the interest less
signal abroad, as shown by the two works here thrown together,
though they are only the latest among many similar evidences.

M. Pillon, in his striking Introduction, tells us plainly why he and
his master, M. Renouvier, have joined to produce this first French
translation of the work of Hume's youth. M. Renouvier's doctrine is
not such a mere outgrowth from the Critical Philosophy as to be in
relation with Hume's thought only through Kant. While holding
fast by the " Apriorism " and all the ethical implications of the
Kantian doctrine, M. Renouvier's philosophy is a system of pure
phenomenism, and rejects the notion of Substance which Kant brought
back in the guise of the noumenal thing-in-itself after it had been
expelled by Hume. From Locke through Berkeley to Hurne
as well as Kant, and from Hume and Kant to M. Renouvier, in
whom the differences of these two become reconciled, — lies, we are told,
the progress of the critical idea in modern philosophy. This may be
a somewhat exclusive reading of the post-Kantian movement, ignoring
the not less remarkable phenomenism (upon a Kantian basis) of Mr
Shadworth Hodgson, to say nothing of the similar doctrine struck out
already in Kant's day by that acutest of his critics, the Jew Salomon
Maimon, whose anticipation of his own thinking Mr Hodgson so
generously acknowledges in his new work, The Philosophy of Reflection.
But the succession has the merit of placing Hume in a light not more
striking than true, and it adequately explains the anxiety of M.
Renouvier and his able and indefatigable associate, M. Pillon, to
make Hume known in France by that earlier and greater Treatise of
Human Nature, which alone contains his critical doctrine of Substance.
The relation between the Treatise and the later Inquiry (which very

Critical Notices. 385

soon passed into French as into other languages, to the gratification of
Hume's whim that by it alone he should be judged) is on the whole
very accurately conceived by M. Pillon ; and, if he contends for the
philosophical superiority of the earlier work, while asserting their
general identity of spirit, he is careful to note also the occasional
points where (as on the subject of psychological causality) the shorter
Inquiry is more explicit. He omits, however, in this connexion all
reference to the passages that serve to determine the extent of Kant's
acquaintance with Hume, though nothing so nearly concerns his own
view of Hume's importance in the general critical movement. If, as
the internal, even more than the external, evidence seems to make
sure, Kant knew nothing of the Human Nature, it was open to M.
Pillon to urge that Kant lagged behind in respect of the doctrine of
Substance, because he was ignorant of Hume's advance.*

M. Pillon's criticism on Hume's philosophical doctrines is in general
not less forcible than his exposition of these is admirably concise ; but
the justice of his view that " Sensationism " reached its final expres-
sion in Hume and stood self-convicted of insufficiency, depends on
what meaning is given to that word. Hume did unquestionably carry
to a legitimate conclusion Locke's statement of the sources of human
knowledge, and, either failing to account for the plain facts of our
intellectual consciousness or accounting for them only by a surrepti-
tious assumption of other principles, may truly be said to have
demonstrated the insufficiency of Experientialism as it was then
understood. But it is not therefore clear that the alternative to
" Sensationism " lay in such a system of " Apriorism " as Kant set in
its place, and his followers, critical or criticist, would in different forms
still maintain. The Experientialism now once more in the ascendant
is neither that of Locke and Hume, nor, however allied in spirit, related
to it in the way of affiliation. Appearing as the natural reflex of
general scientific progress in the interval, it conceives the whole ques-
tion of Knowledge in a larger way. It does not dream of tracing the

* The internal evidence consists chiefly of the two points : (1) that Kant
charges Hume with discussing the question of the validity of human
knowledge not in its full generality, but upon the single issue of causation
— which is true of the Inquiry ; (2) that he declares Hume to have recognised
only a logical necessity in mathematical cognition — which is again true of
the Inquiry, but the Inquiry only. M. Pillon sets out the very different view
of mathematical judgments to be found in the Human Nature^ without
remarking the curious change — being a reversion to Locke's position — that
had taken place in Hume's mind as to this part of his doctrine before the
Inquiry appeared. The Human Nature was not translated into German
till 1790-1 ; the Inquiry was accessible to Kant in Sulzer's translation from
1755. (This last date is wrongly given as 1775 in the English translation of
Ueberweg's Geschichte.)

Mr Sh. Hodgson, in the preface to his new work, p. 14, has some
admirably pointed sentences on Hume, but appears to overlook the
evidences just quoted when he says : — " The Hume that belongs to the
history of philosophy, the Hume that roused Kant from his 'dogmatic
slumber,' will always be best known to us from the Treatise of Human
Nature."

386 Critical Notices.

growth of consciousness in the individual, psychologically, from the
occurrence of a hap-hazard series of impressions passively received, or,
philosophically, of making the individual's subjective experience the
test of scientific truth. "When M. Pillon contends against Hume for
" categories, concepts, forms and laws of mind " or what not, in supple-
ment to discrete sense-impressions, he puts only in one way what
experientialists at the present day put in another when, besides
crediting the individual with a personal activity, and besides allowing
for inherited predispositions, they farther suppose a non-personal
element of knowledge in the slowly developed social tradition of lan-
guage, &c., moulding into common forms the product of each indi-
vidual's reaction upon his incidental experience. And if it should be
said that this amounts to an abandonment of the position to the
adversary, the reply is that the rationalist has had gradually to
abandon more and more of his pretensions from the time when expe-
rience was counted as nought towards the result of knowledge, till
now he is left only with an assumption of barren forms which, though
truly not explicable from individual experience, are there chiefly as a
datum to be accounted for by reference to the slow deposit of expe-
rience in generation after generation. But, however it be with this
question of principle, M. Pillon, it must be granted, follows his master
M. Eenouvier in giving something more than merely formal answers
to the questions that occupy the modern psychological school, and
there are several passages in this Introduction well deserving of close
attention as examples of a remarkable, and as yet too little known,
phase of contemporary thinking.

Hume's doctrine of Abstract Ideas (on which M. Pillon has some
acute remarks) is selected by Dr. Meinong as the central subject of the
first in a series of Hume-Studies, which he has begun to contribute
to the Proceedings of the Vienna Academy. The doctrine, while set
out in a very characteristic and important chapter of the Human
Nature, is one of those that have no place in the Inquiry, and Dr.
Meinong's view is that the question of the true relation of the two
works can be brought to a settlement only by such an exhaustive
scrutiny of their differential parts as he here begins. His tractate
(published separately as above) has, however, also the more general
character of a contribution to the history and criticism of Modern
Nominalism. Thus, he enters somewhat minutely into Berkeley's
theory of Abstract Ideas, with which Hume so expressly connects his
own, and this of course carries him farther back to Locke, whom
Berkeley expressly opposed. Then, although it seems to be his
opinion that Hume omitted his earlier doctrine from the Inquiry
because of its manifest imperfections, Dr. Meinong believes that he
finds distinct traces of its influence on the views of later English
psychologists. And he also includes, within his brief but closely-
argued essay, an independent discussion of the question at issue.

In his critical exposition of the historically connected views of
Locke, Berkeley and Hume, Dr. Meinong offers some fresh observa-

Critical Notices. 387

tions; as when he very neatly remarks on Locke's paradoxical
statement as to the difficulty of forming the general idea of a triangle
(which " must be neither oblique nor rectangle, neither equilateral,
equicrural, nor scalenon, but all and none of these at once "), that it
is based on a confusion of the extent with the content of a notion.
It was against this and other statements of Locke's that Berkeley
directed his famous protest so often cited as an enunciation of
thoroughgoing Nominalism ; but Dr. Meinong points out that in
reality Berkeley lays no positive stress upon the function of language
in generalisation, neither asserting that names alone are general (the
true note of Nominalism according to Dr. Meinong) nor even main-
taining that names are an indispensable help to conceiving, though
it is true that on the one point of the use of language in symbolic
thinking he goes to exceptional lengths. Hume, therefore, who
does take his stand upon the generalising agency of language, was
in error when he supposed that he was simply passing on and
confirming the doctrine of Berkeley • and to him, rather than to
Berkeley, says Dr. Meinong, should be assigned the name of the
father of Modern Nominalism.

This last remark, in the connexion in which it is made by Dr.
Meinong, is not without its justification. "While Hume expressly
declares that "a particular idea becomes general by being annexed to a
general term, that is, to a term which from a customary conjunction
has a relation to many other particular ideas and readily recalls them
in imagination," Berkeley supposes generalisation to consist in the mere
representation (suggestion) of a number of particular ideas on occa-
sion of one, and takes representation by means of a name (which is
itself a particular idea) to be only one case in which the principle
applies, though it is that one which, according to him, has misled
Locke and others into thinking that the mind has hold of properly
abstract ideas in correspondence with the names. Dr. Meinong,
however, is surely somewhat at fault, when upon that single ground
he enthrones Hume in place of Berkeley and would have it that all
later nominalists are what they are because of Hume's example. To
say nothing, in the first instance, of an influence from Hobbes (who,
before Locke, might be expected to figure in a historical view of
Modern Nominalism), what real evidence is there that the thinkers
who have come after Hume have been specially affected by his nomi-
nalistic utterances ? Dr. Meinong refers but to four — the two Mills,
Prof. Bain and M. Taine (whom, though a Frenchman, he very pro-
perly classes with the English succession). Now among these he finds
the younger Mill to be in strictness more conceptualist than nomi-
nalist, but in any case to have held a view of abstraction and generali-
sation very different from Hume's. James Mill and, in one place,
Prof. Bain, are found expressing opinions that have some affinity
with parts of Hume's doctrine, but there is not the least proof of
direct obligation in either case. Finally, of M. Taine, Dr. Meinong
can only say (with questionable correctness) that his Nominalism
goes farther than Hume's, and is of a type that hardly any thinker of

388 Critical Notices.

mark would now care to approve. There is in reality, so far as
regards the Mills, much more evidence, both external and internal,
of influence from Hobbes than from Hume, and the truth about the
English thinkers generally is rather this, that from the days of
Hobbes (to go no further back) they have all been nominal-
istic in spirit. Locke, despite his occasional lapses into ultra-
conceptualism, is in the main almost ultra-nominalist, and this
most probably in unacknowledged dependence on his predecessor.
Berkeley, though most concerned to establish against Locke the
individualised definiteness of mental representations, shows himself
anything but oblivious of the haunting presence of language
with every act of general intellection. Only if Nominalism is defined
— with apparent sharpness but really without point — as meaning that
nothing is general but names, can it be a question whether Berkeley
and Locke are nominalists, and when it is so defined it may well be
doubted whether Hume is in truth more nominalist than they.
Nominalism would seem to be strictly enough understood when taken
as the view according to which the mind is declared impotent to know
generally, or to conceive, without the help of some system of definite
particular marks and signs.

The outcome of Dr. Meinong's very careful inquiry as regards
Hume in particular, is that he fails by not taking account of the
intension of concepts and by seeking to explain their extension from
association of ideas. Hume is supposed by Dr. Meinong to be the
first who made Association a general principle of psychological
science,* and to have been misled into applying it without due discrimi-
nation. The principle, it is urged, cannot account for that aspect of
the notion which is called its extension, because this, unlike the in-

* M. Pillon, in a short paper entitled ' Quel est le veritable pere de la
psychologic associationiste ' 1 (La Critique Philosophique, 27th Dec., 1877),
makes a like claim for Hume, and blames Mill and others for ascribing so
much importance to Hartley. Now it is true that Hume published his
Human Nature eleven years before Hartley's Observations on Man, and Mill
is clearly wrong in point of fact, when he says that Hartley " was the man
of genius who first clearly discerned that the great fundamental law of the
Association of Ideas is the key to the explanation of the more complex
mental phenomena" (Pref. to his father's Analysis, 1869). But, on the
other hand, there is every reason to suppose that Hartley, who so scrupu-
lously makes his acknowledgments to Gay, borrowed nothing whatever from
Hume ; and Mill's very statement proves how much more potent Hartley's
influence has been than Hume's upon the later associationists like himself.
Everything, in fact, goes to show that Mill got his impulse through
his father from Hartley and Hobbes, rather from Hume ; while as for
Associationism, its true origins are to be sought farther back than in Hume.
Berkeley is implicitly a thoroughgoing associationist, and Locke himself,
when he speaks (with still earlier sensationalists) of ' compounding,' has
partial hold of the general principle of mental synthesis called later on,
by Hume and others, Association of Ideas. (This last phrase, it has often
been remarked, heads a chapter in Locke's Essay, but only with a quite
special reference to the explanation of mental idiosyiicracies in different
people.)

Critical Notices. 389'

tension, has no ideal fixity but is liable to vary indefinitely with real
experience (p. 30). Perhaps I fail to apprehend Dr. Meinong's true
meaning here ; but if not, the observation does not seem very much
in place. The fact that the extension is really indefinite is not incon-
sistent with the supposition that the concept became formed in the
mind by a more or less definite association of particular resemblances
or resembling objects. Nor, on the other hand, is the intension either
so ideally fixed as to be practically unchangeable, or itself not amen-
able to Association (in this case ' contiguous'), whenever it involves a
synthesis of a number of attributes found to be conjoined in experience.
Hume's doctrine is imperfect in many ways as an account of the
psychological formation of the concept, but its fault does not lie in
the part assigned to Association (whether by similarity or contiguity).
It fails chiefly by not carrying out that reference, begun by Berkeley,
to the function of Attention, which is the positive factor in the act
of Abstraction.

One word, before closing, on Dr. Meinong's valuable discus-
sion of the material question. His solution of the various dis-
putes as to the relation in knowledge between the General and
Particular on the one hand and the Abstract and Concrete on the other
is, in my judgment, essentially correct. There is no generalisation
without abstraction, but abstraction is possible without generalisation.
Abstracts may well be singular, and, whether singular or general, they
are not confined to mere attributes of concrete objects. Generals are
always abstract. Concretes are always individual or singular, but the
knowledge of them includes only in each case such conjunction of
attributes as directly impresses the senses. Individuals are mostly
known in a form more or less abstract. These are a few of Dr.
Meinong's positions, and the others to be found in his pages, though
they do not exhaust the subject, make up a very important contribution
to its scientific determination. In particular may be noted his criti-
cism of the common dictum that extension and intension vary inversely
— a dictum which, if it implies that all generals are abstract, no less
implies that all abstracts are general. Dr. Meinong offers a better
statement of the conditions under which the dictum is applicable than
is to be found, I think, in any of the books. His Hume- Studies,
if they may be judged by the first of them, promise to be deserving of
all attention. EDITOR.

Die Forschung nach der Materie. Yon JOHANNES HUBER. Miinchen :
Ackermann, 1877. Pp. 109.

HERR HUBER'S essay, which though small in compass is a most
weighty contribution to the question of sense-perception, opens with a
rapid sketch of theories of matter. The modern semi-physiological
view of perception which limits our knowledge of matter to the states
of sense-consciousness produced by vibrations from the external world,
is stated with particular care, as in it the author finds the special

390 Critical Notices.

deficiency which it is the object of his work to supply. It is clear,
he points out, that if we are absolutely confined to the changes of
sense-consciousness, we can through them attain no knowledge of
what lies beyond and gives rise to them. Either then by thought we
obtain a knowledge of things, in which case the independent existence
of thought must needs be granted, or the doctrine which professes to
explain the content of consciousness from mechanical movements must
be acknowledged to be entirely without scientific basis. It is well, we
think, to lay stress upon this dilemma, for we are too much accus-
tomed to find consciousness explained with the one hand as the result
of external action, while with a dexterous turn of the other hand
external facts are transformed into conscious states.

Accepting, then, as his stand-point, the existence of Thought distinct
from the states of sense-consciousness, Huber proceeds to analyse more
carefully what is really involved in Perception, or cognition of external
fact. The two forms of perception, Space and Time, he examines
historically and critically, with the conclusion that both are pheno-
menal or subjective but rest upon or correspond to certain real rela-
tions. Thus Space is the mode in which the co-existing manifold of
sensation is grouped or reduced to the unity of consciousness. It
therefore depends upon a real multiplicity or plurality of real objects,
which determine the manifold of sensation, and involves the unity of
self-consciousness. Similarly Time is the mode in which are grouped
successive changes in states of consciousness ; without the repre-
sentation of continuity in the series of mental states, we could have no
knowledge whatsoever of any one of them. As with space, it rests
upon an objective fact — change or motion in real things, and
involves the unity of the thinking subject.

The existence in us of these two phenomenal modes of representing
the real proves the existence of a multiplicity of things external to us.
How are such things to be thought 1 As Forces, or Causes : for the
only function we have yet ascribed to them is that of giving rise to or
causing sensations. In themselves spaceless and timeless, the atoms
in reciprocal action give rise to those primary mechanical relations
which are the fundamental notions of physical science. But it is
apparent that the mechanical view which explains all phenomena
by reference to change of position in space can by itself yield no
ultimate explanation of its own principles. We are driven to regard
mechanical causality as secondary in nature — as a consequence of the
original form or properties of the world of atoms. Further, no purely
mechanical interpretation is possible of qualitative differences, or of
the movements of living and thinking beings. Changes in the inner
condition of the atoms are incomprehensible as alteration of space-
relations, for the atom is unextended. We must, in order to reach a
final explanation, ascribe to these atoms psychical characteristics ; we
must think them as monads. The properties which physical science
ascribes to the ultimate elements of matter, such as extension, elasti-
city, inertia, &c., cannot belong to these elements in themselves : they
are but the modes under which the reciprocal actions of the monads

Critical Notices. 391

appear to sense. The inner side of action is a psychical process ; only
the outer takes on a mechanical form. Matter, then, ' is only a
phenomenon of our sense-consciousness, and it is critical reflection
upon this phenomenon that leads to the assertion of the existence of
immaterial atoms or monads. The reality of these assumed causes is
guaranteed by the validity of the thinking process which affirms them.
But the phenomenal reality is conditioned by the reciprocal action
of the atoms, and as no mechanical explanation of this action is
possible, it must be ascribed to the inner tendency of the monads
themselves. Causality is immanent in them, because each forms part
of a whole, is incomplete in itself, and strives after the complement of
its existence. Mechanical attraction, chemical affinity, and animal
desire are essentially the same — efforts towards completion, towards
restoration of the higher unity of which the individual is a part, and
through which it comes to full being. Behind matter then, which is
only a sense-phenomenon, there lie psychical processes of which it is
the external manifestation. The material and the psychical are but
two sides of the same reality, differing in their mode of appearing.

To many thinkers such a view of reality seems to involve rejection
of natural law. How can there be regular, constant connexion of
phenomena, when these are due to psychical forces ? To this Huber
answers by first pointing out that regularity or conformity to law in
the phenomenal world rests upon the supposition of fixity in the
number, quality and relations of the primitive monads. But these
monads do not furnish an explanation of their own being ; we are
driven to postulate a unity of principle out of which they have sprung,
and this fundamental unity must be in its nature psychical. The primi-
tive soul ( Urseele) cannot be conceived as immanent in the monads,
nor can the monads be regarded as originating by the self-diremption
of the primitive monad. The production of the monads must then be
ascribed to a creative act, by which the uncreated monad gives rise to
the many and still retains its own unique being. But such a produc-
tive act can only be the work of thought, of soul as thinking, vov*.
The ultimate principle, then, to which our logical thinking conducts
us, is the absolute spirit, self-determining and all-creative. "Our
reason, to which in the course of its researches the universe first
appeared as a huge mechanism of inanimate atoms, then as the recip-
rocal action of intimately connected elements, then as the organic
complex of animated (beseelter) members or monads, finds ultimately,
as the principle of mechanism, chemism and psychical organism,
Thought, which as original is not, like human thinking, limited to
reflection upon what is already given, but must be regarded as
absolutely self -determining and productive " (p. 109).
. It will be seen that Herr Huber's essay is one of the most vigorous
statements of a view already familiar to philosophy, and now finding
its way into the realm of natural science. We should have been glad
to have had from the author a more particular examination of the part
played by thought in reflecting upon the phenomena of sense-
consciousness. Despite all that has been written upon the principle

392 Reports.

of causality, we cannot think that the difficulties connected with it
have been so cleared up as to permit us without further question
to apply the principle to determine the existence of objects con-
fessedly not given either in time or space. The reasoning by which
space is shown to involve multiplicity of reals seems also to want further
explanation. That the intuition of space involves intuition of a mani-
fold is evident ; that this manifold is itself not in space, and that the
space -manifold must be due to a real multiplicity not in space, are
propositions by no means self-evident. Temporal simultaneity of
sensations is not, we must consider, sufficient ground for representa-
tion of these as in space.

There remains, too, the difficulty which is peculiar to all monistic
schemes. They do not render any explanation of the acknowledged
difference in kind between material and psychical. It is hardly suffi-
cient to say that these are but diverse modes of appearance of the same
unity, for the diversity of appearance is exactly the diversity in need
of explanation.

Minor difficulties remain in plenty : e.g., the principle that as each
monad is part of a whole it is incomplete and strives after full being,
cannot be at once accepted ; but without dwelling on these, we may
conclude by recommending the essay to the attention of all who are
interested in the present remarkable rapprochement between physics
and metaphysics.

ROBERT ADAMSON.

IX.— EEPOETS.

AN INFANT'S PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE.

THE following notes were made in humble following of Mr. Darwin's
and M. Taine's example, at first for my own amusement and without
any distinct purpose of letting them go further. I found, however,
that they grew under my hancls, and that the Editor of MIND thought
further contributions on the subject of children's mental growth would
be desirable. Here I have kept in the main to the one point of lan-
guage, and though I have probably omitted much, I think I have set
down nothing as fact which has not been actually and distinctly ob-
served. Exact dates I have not attempted to give, conceiving that
they would be of no use unless for the comparison of a very large
number of observations. Children differ so much in forwardness that
the time of particular acquisitions seems of little importance as com-
pared with their order. Though I have no pretensions to skill in
phonetics, I thought it at least desirable to use some consistent nota-
tion for the sounds actually produced. For this purpose I have taken
the Indian Government system, with a few additional signs which
will speak for themselves. I may explain that in this notation, while
a, t, are the long Continental a and i, unaccented a is not the short

Reports. 393

Continental «, but the obscure or neutral vowel ( Urvocal) heard in
English "at," "that," "but," when not emphatic; when strongly given,
it becomes the full sound of u in emphasised "but ". Thus the Pun-
jaub, Lucknow, Kurrachee, of popular use become in the official
spelling Panjdb, Lalchnau, Karachi. "Governor and Company"
would be written Gavarnar and Kampani. The vowel-sound in
" bank," which does not occur in Indian languages, could be
expressed only by some special symbol. I use d for the broad
sound of a in " fall ". Words in italics are in the Indian Govern-
ment spelling. Words between inverted commas are in ordinary
English spelling.

Age, 12 months. M-m often repeated; Bd bd repeated an indefinite
number of times.

M-m generally indicated a want of something. Bd bd was (1) a
sort of general demonstrative, standing for the child herself, other
people, or the cat (I do not think she applied it to inanimate objects) ;
(2) an interjection expressing satisfaction. Both sounds, however, .
seemed often to be made without distinct intention, as mere exercise
of the vocal organs.

1 3 m. Dd da; Wa wa (water, drink) ; Wall wall, with a guttural
sound distinct from the foregoing (dog, cat) ; Nd nd (nurse — of course
as proper, not generic name).

Dd da was at first a vague demonstrative. I noted, however, with
a query, man as a second and specialised meaning. About six weeks
later it became a distinct proper name for the child's father, and has
been consistently so used ever since. By this time the significance of
pictures was in a general way understood. The child said wall wall
to figures of animals, and attempted to smell at trees in the illustra-
tions of the Graphic. (Six months later she pretends to feed the
dogs in a picture.) The fact is curious, having regard to the inability
of adult savages, as reported by many travellers, to make anything of
even the simplest representations of objects. About this time the
ticking of a watch gave great pleasure, and for some months after-
wards the child constantly begged to have one put to her ear, or still
better, to have it in her hand and put it there for herself. Five or
six months later she had left off asking for it.

15m. M-m discontinued. Sometimes bd bd used instead; some-
times she simply cried for a desired object.

Imitative sounds to represent dog, cat, sheep, ticking of clock.
Wah wah, miau, soon became generic names of dog and cat (wall
wah, which at first included cat, becoming appropriated to dog). I
think, however, wall wall would include any middling-sized quadruped
other than a cat or a sheep. As to cat, her name for it became
a few months later aya-m or ayd-m, which so far as I know she
invented for herself. The conventional "gee gee" for horse was very
soon understood by her, though she could not form the./ sound. She

28

394 Reports.

recognised a zebra in a picture alphabet as " gee gee," and showed
marked dissent when told it was a zebra.

These imitative sounds were all learnt on the suggestion of adults, but
studied from the real sounds ; for as made by the child they are de-
cidedly nearer to the real sounds than the baa baa, &c., used by adult
voices.

" Baby" (or rather be U). This word was now formed with fair
success, but soon dropped for a time. About a month afterwards it
was resumed, and became the child's name for herself. This was long
before she attempted any other dissyllable. It was pronounced, how-
ever, rather as a reduplicated monosyllable.

16m. Bd (ball), sometimes ba. Td (1, thanks; 2, take, when
offering something) : this was deliberately taught her.

Playing with a ball became a favourite amusement at this time.
She would throw a ball out of window and expect it to.be returned.
When we tried a regular game of ball she seemed to think the point
of the game was to get possession of the ball and keep it. A certain
capacity for dramatic play was now first observed. The child knew
the various animals in a toy menagerie by name, and would make
believe to feed them with a spoon. About a month later she was
taught a piece of rudimentary drama. The picture of the " little boy
that cries in the lane" and gets no wool had fixed her attention in a
book of nursery rhymes, by this time constantly in hand, and now, on
being asked, What does the little boy that cries in the lane do ? she
puts up her hands to her eyes and whimpers. She laughs afterwards,
which I think is fair evidence that she understands the performance
and considers it a good joke.

1 7 m. Ni (knee). This is a real word used in a special, and at the
same time extended, meaning. It signifies : Take me on your knee and
show me pictures ; and also expresses in a general way the idea of
something (generally the cat) being on a person's lap, so that ni not
unfrequently means : / want to see the cat on your lap. She also
puts a toy dog on her knee and repeats ni several times with great satis-
faction. About this time " baby'' came to be freely used as an im-
perative or desiderative, combined with movements or' gestures indica-
ting an object — the sense being, / want that.

17-18 m. Md md, mother. I have no note of when this word
began to be used (probably it was some months before this), but it was
well established by this time at latest.

Na ni or nd ni (granny).

Pi (please). On learning to say " please" in this fashion the child
left off putting her hands together to ask for things, which she had
been taught to do before she could speak.

Pe pe, pencil (only once heard).

Pd pa. This was taught her as a synonym for dd dd, but she
would not use it. Both "paper" and " pepper" (as common objects

Reports. 395

at the breakfast table) became in her mouth something not easily dis-
tinguished from pa pa. This may perhaps account for her unwilling-
ness to take up the new name.

Ba or bo, book.

" More," or rather md, often prolonged to md-a or mo-a — to ask
for more of some food, &c., or to ask for any action that pleased her
to be repeated. This word enabled her to form an approach to a sen-
tence : thus md . . . ma md ("more, mama").

Td td (taught her as the usual baby word for good-bye, but ex-
tended by herself) ; always distinguished from the single td noted
above. Td td not only is used to say good-bye, but expresses the
general, idea of going out of doors. Thus she says td td to her peram-
bulator, and on seeing one take up a hat or overcoat.

A final nasal sound is now produced : she tries to say " down,"
what she does say being roughly ddo — take me down from my chair
— a very frequent request, as she can by this time walk easily, and is
fond of running about the room.

The vocabulary is now increasing fast, and almost any word pro-
posed to the child is imitated with some real effort at correctness.
The range of articulate sounds is still very limited : a, a, i (short and
long) are the only vowels fully under command ; d occurs in a few
words, and is the usual result of attempts to form o : thus, nd — nose.
The long sound of English i (ai) cannot be pronounced ; when she
tries to imitate it she says id or i-a. No approach is yet made to the
peculiar English short sound of a in such words as hat, bat. Of con-
sonants g, I, r (the true consonant initial sound; the final semi-vowel,
as in more, poor, is easy enough to her), and sibilants, aspirates, and
palatals are not yet mastered. " Guy" (a younger cousin's name) is
called dd, or perhaps rather da, the d or d produced far back and ap-
parently with effort ; Jc is also produced far back in the mouth, with
an approach to t. Final consonants are seldom or never given, and
the vocabulary is essentially monosyllabic, the only exceptions being in
in the nature of proper names ("baby," nd-ni, nd-nd), and even these are
reduplicated monosyllables rather than dissyllables proper. She once
said " lady" pretty well, but did not take it into use. No construction
is yet attempted ; the first approach to a sentence above noted has not
been repeated. Even with these resources the child already contrives
to express a good deal, filling up the meaning of her syllables with a
great variety of tone, and also with inarticulate interjections. Im-
patience, satisfaction, disappointment, amusement, are all very well
marked ; and perhaps even intellectual dissent (in the case of "zebra"
and "gee-gee," see above).

After this time (viz., her 18th birthday, reckoning birthdays by
calendar months, as for this purpose is convenient), the child's progress
became much more rapid, and it would not have been possible to take
down all her new words without giving much more and more con-
tinuous attention than I had at my disposal. I also doubt if anything
would have been gained by it. The subsequent notes must be taken
as being rather selections than a full record.

396 Reports.

18-19^m. "Poor" (should perhaps have been set down earlier):
no appreciable difference from ordinary adult pronunciation. Dam
(gum), a word of large significance ; see next paragraph.

" Poor" was taught as an expression of pity, but extended to mean
any kind of loss, damage, or imperfection in an object, real or supposed.
Some of her reasons for assuming imperfection were curious. She
said " poor" to the mustard-pot and spoon, taking, as we suppose, the
moveable spoon for a broken part. " Gum," on the other hand, with
which toys are often mended, is conceived as a universal remedy
for things broken or disabled. Later (at 22| months) she says
" poor " to a crooked pin, and on my beginning to straighten it,
" dada mend ".

The sound of g is now coming, and a final nasal is developed.
" Down" is pretty well pronounced. Ding = dinner — not the meal or
meal-time, but a toy dinner service.

Be be = biscuit, with desiderative-imperative tone and meaning.

19m. 0 sound now distinctly made, and g distinct by the end of the
month. " Guy" is now gd instead of da. A final I once or twice ob-
served : t'dl = shawl. Final t distinctly made: hat or hot (hot). Soon
afterwards p (in "top" pronounced tap or top)', pu = ioot'f after master-
ing final t she said fat. The monosyllabic form (one consonant and
one vowel) still prevails. K is a favourite sound, and she has several
words formed with it which are carefully kept distinct. Ku — stool.
Kah (later had) = cod [liver oil], which she considers a treat. Ko =
" cosy" (on teapot) ; later ka-zi or ka-zhi. Kd = cold. Kd led = chocolate.
KM-en or kli-en = clean; her first real dissyllable, for so she pronounced
it Be for biscuit has now become bek. Stiad (thread). She has now
observed the process of sewing, and tries to imitate it. Things broken,
etc., are now divided into those which are to be mended with dam and
those which are to be mended with stiad. Approach to chu (sugar) and
shu (shoe, also sugar) sometimes <juite distinct. I also note "jar" as
well said, but s, sh, ch, j, are on the whole indistinct, and attempts to
form them give curious palatal and sibilant sounds which I cannot
write down. W, v, f, are now formed, but not well distinguished.
Vdk or wok = walk, fak = fork. Here also we get intermediate sounds.
The w is often more German than English, though she cannot have
heard the German w spoken.

The fork is a toy fork in the set of things generally called ding or
din. But fdk has another unexpected meaning. The child likes to
look at an old illustrated edition of Dr. Watts's poems, and she has
turned " Watts" also into fdk. It is possible, as M. Taine suggests,
that to her there is some shade of difference in the sounds which
escapes adult ears. At 20 months 25 days she said vats or vats.
" Walk" has its proper sense as a mode of motion, opposed to riding, in
perambulator for herself or in carriage for others. She is much inte-
rested in watching callers going away, and says to them dyi dyi or
zhi zhi (gee-gee) . . . wdk, as if to ask how they mean to go ; or perhaps
merely to. show her knowledge. Sometimes she begins to say td td to

Reports. 397

a visitor, not that she is tired of his or her presence, but that she
wants the amusement of seeing the departure.

She has learnt to repeat no no after she has been told not to do
something, as an act of assent to the prohibition, and she seems to
take pleasure in saying no no to the cat.

20 m. Dash or ddsh = dust. Ta'sh or td'sh, learnt, I think, from
" touch," one day repeated several times without assignable meaning,
and then dropped. Task, however, is adopted for (mous)tache.
N.B. — Final sibilants are more under command than initial. Final g
now produced : geg = fizgig (toy so called).

At this time a sudden advance was made to dissyllables. Several
words were produced with success on or about the same day : " Fanny,"
honey, money" (these two learnt from the rhyme of " Sing a song of
sixpence "), very distinct. " Money," however, seems to be confused
with " moon" : when told to say moon she says money. Others
are attempted with more or less success : as fd-wd, flower ; la-ta.
letter ; ha-pi, happy (taught her as opposite of " poor," but I doubt if
she sees the meaning. She has taken up lia-pi to stand for " empty,"
which we tried to teach her, and in that sense uses it without
prompting.) Bd-ta, butter. The child's own name, Alice, is given as
A-si, or perhaps A-si (later d-si). As to sound, she is now acquiring
the English long sound of i (ai). R is still impracticable, and
attempts to form it sometimes give d (but this was very transient, and I
soon became the common substitute) : compare the converse Bengalese
treatment of Skr. d, which I believe is in Bengal regularly pronounced
as r. " P'ram," for perambulator, becomes thlam : the t/i, with an
extra aspiration, almost x&- A few weeks later this was simplified
into IMam. There seems to be a difficulty about initial vowels : " egg"
becomes Her/ (or perhaps yleg would be nearer), which I can only write
symbolically : the sound marked as II or yl is something like the
Spanish II with an aspiration. A few days later the initial sound was
more sibilant and less vocal, say (symbolically) zhy.

Early in March (at 20 months) we noted the first attempt at
sustained conversation. The child was looking, or pretending to look,
for a lost object on the floor. We told her she would get her hands
dirty. On this she exclaimed, in a tone of dissenting interrogation,
" Dirty !" (da-ti), and then, after looking at her hands, holding them
out to us, and with triumphant affirmation, "Clean!" (kle'n). Here we
have not merely vocal signs, but intercourse by speech — one may say
an elementary form of repartee and argument. She can now say " yes "
(es, or is, sometimes as) and " no " in answer to questions with fair
intelligence, though she sometimes answers at random, and sometimes
gives the wrong answer on purpose for a joke. One of her new words
is fa-ni (funny), which she uses in a wider sense than adults, for
anything that pleases and surprises her. The imitative name for the
cat is dropped, and she now says (for " pussy") pu-si (u as in South
German, coming very near to i). " Funny" is also used to disguise
fear, e.g., on being introduced to a strange dog. When left to play

398 Reports.

alone she talks to herself constantly. The staple of one of these
monologues (Mar. 10) was d-did (formed on "0 dear"). I half
suspect a dramatic intention in her proceedings.

The peculiar short sound of English a (represented by ce in Mr
Ellis' general notation) is now forming. She can say " hag " nearly
like an adult. But as a rule she still substitutes (Indian^ a or d,
saying, e.g., "cub/' or "kahb," for "cab".

21m. Progress is now less marked and rapid. "New words continue
to be acquired, but the power of putting them together does not seem to
increase much. The child is, however, now more or less able to answer
direct as distinguished from leading questions. Thus, when she had
been paying a visit to some relations and cried to go home, she gave
afterwards (Mar. 17) a pretty connected account of it in monosyllabic

answers. Q. : What did you do to-day at V — A. : Klai

(" cry "). Q. : And what did you cry for 1 — A. : Ham ("home," i.e.,
I cried to go home). Also, when told not to handle a forbidden
object, such as a knife, she will say, in a tone of intelligent acquiescence:
no — dd da (i.e., I may not have that, but dd da may). One trisyllable
is in common use : Tenisi = Tennyson, an illustrated edition, which
divides her attention with Vats (Watts).

As to sounds, r is generally replaced by I, or II, or (approximately)
hi : hlan or II an = " run ". The prosthetic initial sound for words
beginning with vowels is now zh, or an aspirated y.

She begins, too, to put now and then a substantive and adjective
together : " clever baby," " happy man " (in picture) ; the meaning of
which she now seems to understand well enough.

2 1 1 m. There is now a distinct advance in constructive power. Sub-
stantives and adjectives are freely put together (e.g., "dirty boots"), and
I have noted oue instance of the use of a real predicate so as to form a
complete proposition. The child had been told, half in joke, that cabs
were dirty as compared with her perambulator. Eor some days she
had been accustomed to say " dirty " on the mention of cab, " clean "
on the mention of perambulator. Now she made the whole statement
for herself : Kdbz dati Mam* Jclin (" cabs dirty, peram' clean "). She
still talks constantly to herself, and with a continuity giving more or
less evidence of continuous trains of thought. I am informed of dra-
matic conversations with her doll, such as pretending to make it look
at things, and describing them to it.

The doll furnishes an illustration of the process of making generic
names. A doll was named " Bessie," in honour of the donor : some
time afterwards another doll was given by another person. The child
insisted on calling this " Bessie," too. She does not seem to feel the
want of a specific distinction between the two dolls : when she does
wish to speak of one as distinct from the other she says " other Bessie ".

* Simple Jc is now substituted for the initial Jch in this word ; which again,
as noted above, had replaced a more complicated aspirate sound.

Reports. 399

In like manner, bet (bacon) is used with a generalised meaning, nearly
= o\l/oi'} to denote any dish that appears at breakfast.

22m. Vocabulary and power of expression are gradually and steadily
extending. A certain number of the words called symbolic by some
recent philologists have been mastered : " now," " there," " other," or
" Another," are in constant use ; the child often says " there it is " (in
the compendious form, zlidtis), and almost always adds " now " to the
statement of anything she wants (e.g., " Bring — cake — now ").
" Again " is also in use, though not quite so much. The following
approach to a complex sentence is reported : " Out — pull — baby — pecs"
(spectacles). Simpler combinations are freely used : subject and verb,
as " run away man "; or, subject, verb, and regime, as " mama get
Bessie ". The sense is generally optative or imperative, but sometimes
indicative. She often says es es (yes) to emphasise her demands, as :
" Es es — baby's book there ".

Articulation is firmer, and very distinct. She says " good-bye "
better than most adults, but making two separate words of it, and
dwelling strongly on the "good". The vowel-range is increased, but
a, d are still favourite sounds. Of consonants ch, j, and th (both
sounds) are still imperfect (th hard mostly becomes 6', th soft, z), and
consonantal r is not yet formed at all.

At 22 months 1 day, a real verbal inflexion was used. She said of
a younger child, " naughty baby"; and being asked why it was
naughty answered without hesitation : Maid (cried). That she
appreciates the general force of the inflexion is shown about a week
later by her using " corned " for the participle " come ".

At 22 months 10 days, a sentence is noted ex relatione, containing
not only a direct but an indirect regime; "Annie — gave — baby —
sugar "; and again, a day or two later, " Dada give bdtd (butter, i.e.,
bread and butter) baby ". Talk to the doll is now very common, as :
" Bessie look," *' Bessie walk away " : sometimes the child repeats to
the doll what has been said to her by elders. She also puts the doll
to bed, takes it out for a walk and brings it home, etc. On one
occasion she scolded it for two or three minutes, saying " naughty
Bessie" with much gravity. We could not discover what the
supposed offence was. I may observe on this that I have no reason to
doubt that all the play with her doll is purely and consciously dramatic,
not animistic ; in other words, I have seen nothing to indicate a belief
that the doll is really alive, nor is there, so far as I can observe, any
tendency to attribute life to other inanimate objects. I think the child
is perfectly aware of the difference between animals and things, though
I am unable to give specific reasons for this impression. " Again " is
now used to strengthen " more " : when she wants anything repeated
she says " more 'gain ". The following is an actual short conversation,
on seeing an ivory ring spun teetotum-wise : " Baby do't. . . [after
failure to make it spin herself] more 'gain. . . . ma-ma 'gain.
. . . ma-ma do't. . . . [then turning to another object of
interest] . . baby's bdts (basket) . . ma-ma, take off cover".

400 Reports.

Command of general and symbolic language continues to make almost
daily progress. Zdt sing (that thing) is now used to call attention to any
desired object the name of which has not been mastered.

At 22J months, besides the dramatic play with the doll, we have
now some quasi-dramatic imitation of grown-up people's action. For
some time the child has been accustomed to bring the newspaper to the
breakfast table, and she always pretends to read it herself before
handing it over. To-day, seeing her mother writing, she scratched
the paper with a dry pen, saying, " Baby laii (write) ma-ma's letter ".

23 m. Fluency and command of language increase. We note the
first appearance of a question, viz. : " Where's pussy 1 baby look up
'tairs."

The palatals, dental aspirates, and the peculiar English short a (as
in "hat") are still imperfect, and r is represented by I. When s
comes before another consonant, one of the two is dropped. K is in
some words confused with p or f. She says "oken" for "open,"
"kek" for "take".

The child takes pleasure in quasi-dramatic games and actions with
her parents as well as with her doll. Sometimes, when saying good-
night, she pretends to refuse a kiss and lets me make a fausse sortie,
as if annoyed or indifferent, and then calls " dada come back" (or
" corned," for she uses this form for present and past indiscriminately,
which compels me to set a lower value on her appreciation of inflex-
ions), and gives the kiss after all. (At 23 \ months, however, she uses
"made" correctly.) I think she considers the thing a joke, but not
without a shade of fear that it may be taken seriously. The last time,
she completed the performance by saying "goody girl" in a tone of
extreme self-complacency.

Seeing lines of dots on a printed page, thus (in a table of

contents), she said, " Oh ! pins," and made repeated attempts to pick
them out. This would seem to have some bearing, however slight, on
the gradual character of the process by which our vision of solid
objects and perceptions of things as in three dimensions, is acquired.

She now has a settled formula to ask for things she wants, and also
to express acquiescence when told she is not to have them, e.g., " baby
have pupa (pepper) ", "baby have papa no." The "no" is not given
as it would be by an adult, as a distinct exclamation following a pause.
There is no stop and no raising of the voice. When she is impatient,
" baby have, baby have, baby have," is rapidly repeated. She is very
persistent in trying to get a desired object, and if she cannot have it
at once does not give it up, but proceeds to make the best terms she
can; e.g., she asks for bacon, and is told it is not for her, but her
parents must have it first. She answers, "then baby have bacon ".
Here is an elementary notion of bargain and compromise. The child
is already 7ro\niKov %wov.

Bacon has lost its former generality, meats which appear at break-
fast being now divided into egg, bacon, sis (fish), and beef. Once,
after calling a new dish " bacon," and being corrected, she said " bacon

Eeports. 401

no" — recognising, one may say, the logical division into bacon and
not-bacon. The child is now able, however, to take up new words
very quickly. She has reached, so far as concerns the names of
things, the advanced stage of knowledge in which the provisional
character of generalisations is recognised.

At about 23 months 10 days she cried violently on finding that her
doll's head was coming off, and was pacified only when it was put out
of sight with a promise that it should be mended. Her own report of
the cause of her grief was " Bessie's head poor ". The dramatic per-
sonification of the doll may probably count for something in this.
But one is not strictly entitled to assume that she would cry less for
damage to any other toy.

There are increasing signs of a desire to find explanations. Seeing
in an illustrated advertisement a device of a griffin rampant supporting
a kind of banner, the child invented a meaning of her own for it :
11 pussy ling (ring) bell ". The figure of a man making pottery, which
was part of the same advertisement, became " man open door," so as
to form a single composition with the griffin. On hearing sounds in
the street, knocks at the door, &c., the child readily (and as a rule
spontaneously) assigns causes for them, saying "band/ "organ,"'
"man," "post," &c., as the case may be. Strange sounds, and at
times sounds of a known class coming from an unfamiliar direction,
appear to frighten her.

I should add that the greater part of these notes was already
written before I saw M. Bernard Perez' very interesting book, Les
trois premieres annees de V Enfant (Paris 1878). I have retouched
and rearranged them as little as possible, preferring the certainty of
leaving them in an inartificial state to the risk of spoiling by manipu-
lation whatever value they may possess as records made at the time.

!Y POLLOCK.

Note-Deafness. — As a sufferer from the infirmity discussed by Mr.
Grant Allen in the last number of MIND, I have read his suggestions
as to its cause with much interest, and subjoin a few particulars for
comparison with the case he has described. The writer's parents were
both of average musical capacity, with constitutional tendency to
deafness on one side. Two brothers with at least average hearing for
ordinary sounds, are altogether wanting musically. As a child the
writer was frequently treated for deafness; at three-arid-twenty enlarged
tonsils were removed, since when attacks of deafness have been rare,
and always consequent on a cold. This, so far as it goes, tends to con-
nect insensibility to quality of sound with defective sensibility to
quantity — unlike Mr. Grant Allen's case, where the hearing was more
than ordinarily acute. Like his subject, the writer is conscious of
the difference between a full rich tone and the reverse; but finds
music at its best only a pleasant noise, and the wailing of an ^olian
harp as significant as an elaborate melody. The tone of different
bells is also scarcely distinguishable. The defect was naturally dis-

402 Reports.

covered at an early age in the process of "learning music". Operatic airs
played through by note — and even learnt by heart— might be strummed
in the very same arrangement by half-a-dozen schoolgirls without leaving
any mental impression of the sound or sense of the air ; this would be
recognised, if at all, by extra-musical considerations, such as the
relative position of a shake or a run or rest. In playing from memory
the ear gave absolutely no help : there was some recollection of the
printed notes, but for the most part it was an affair of physical asso-
ciation between different movements of the fingers. At the same
time, the attempt to distinguish the sound of different chords, after a
painful effort of attention, always ended in a random guess. No
interval less than a fifth can be distinguished with any degree of
certainty, and even in the case of greater intervals the ear is easily
misled by added volume, or force in striking the higher note. The
theory of music or " thorough bass," taught not very scientifically,
threw no light on the darkness, the writer composing chords and
sequences by rule, and failing altogether to apprehend how other
pupils either struck out the exercise at once on the piano, or at least
verified and corrected by ear what they had written by rule. By
contrast with the complete absence of the sense of tune, the sense of
time seems fully developed, though it is probably not above the
average, and does not include a very correct ear for metre or quantity
in verse. Eegard for other people's ears prevented any attempts at
singing, and the writer is conscious of complete inability to go up
or down the scale in an orderly manner ; nevertheless, there is a
dim sense of difference between singing in harmony with other people,
and singing out of relation to them. The feeling bears no resemblance
to the musical perception of a discord ; it is vague, and — unscientific
as such a description may seem — rather suggests an affection of the mus-
cular than the auditory sense. Not to make too much of the matter,
if anyone else were singing a correct second, the writer has an impres-
sion (which may be unfounded) that she would be conscious of any
failure to keep in unison. It is a question, however, whether this con-
sciousness might not be rather connected with the more or less dis-
ciplined movements of the throat than with aural perceptions (cf. the
feeling of " keeping step "). As to the alternative explanations offered
by Mr. Allen— ataxy of the nervous centres and malformation of
Corti's organs — the writer has always instinctively inclined towards
the former ; the only difficulty alleged is that of explaining the
indifference of the note-deaf to a discord, and this hardly seems greater
on one hypothesis than on the other. We know that the cause of a
discord is such or such interruption of an orderly series of vibrations ;
but is not the sense of discord rather that of a jar or grate than of an
interruption 1 An ear that does not perceive the natural harmony of
congruous vibrations must fail, by the same incapacity, to discern the
harshness of incongruous combinations ; it receives the sound without
apprehending its special qualities. It is hard to say whether note-
deafness most resembles colour-blindness or short-sight ; a short-sighted
person sees a blurred outline vaguely filled in; where to sounder organs

Reports. 403

there appear a number of sharply-defined details. Similarly the note-
deaf hear a successi6n of sounds, within which a number of related
gradations are apparent to normal ears ; but here the analogy stops,
for it certainly appears that the distinction between a scale and a
symphony is as special as that between green and yellow. Perhaps it
would be worth while, from this point of view, to try the effect of an
ear-trumpet or microphone, so as to ascertain whether the differences
between a magnified third and a magnified fifth was more perceptible
than that between ordinary sounds. It is to be hoped that the pro-
gress of science may suggest some mode of vivisection which may
throw light on these interesting questions ; but if the present high
degree of musical sensibility is a development, and the primitive
savage as insensible to musical intervals as Mr. Allen's subject and
the present writer, it would probably be agreed that the change is
more likely to have taken place in the elaboration of nervous
sensibility than in the physical structure of the ear.

EDITH SIMCOX.

In the Scottish Musical Times for June 1878, after some extracts
from my article on ' Note-Deafness' in the April number of MIND, a
case somewhat similar to that of Miss Simcox is given in detail, from
which the following passages are extracted. The person referred to, a
pupil of the editor of the paper, thus describes her own auditory
powers : —

" If a note be struck on the piano I cannot tell which one it is, nor
do I know the difference in sound of one note from another. I never
recognise a tune either in singing or playing. If any one played a
tune which I had been practising for ever so long, I should not know
it. When practising, I do not know whether I am playing in tune or
not, nor do I notice wrong notes unless they make a horrible discord.
I am fond of listening to music for a reasonable length of time, but
would tire sooner than most people."

To this account the editor adds the following remarks, among
others : —

" We have personally tested this young lady's musical capabilities,
and can safely assert that, so far as discrimination is concerned, she
gives a moderately accurate account of herself. . . . She plays the
piano as well as most pupils who have studied in the popular way for
two, three, or even four years ; and she reads much more easily than
the average of such pupils. . . . Having explained the production
of voice in singing, we directed that long notes should be practised.
After five or six lessons the result has been as follows : — She has
succeeded in singing the notes G, D, and E sometimes in accurate
tune, but never to be relied upon. After various experiments we find
that these are the notes upon which the voice is used in speaking.
Our pupil cannot say that the notes of a perfect fifth or an octave are
different ones when they are struck on the piano separately, while she
recognises their harmony when sounded together. At the same time,
she readily recognises the difference of vocal sounds (or rather that

40-1 Notes and Discussions.

they are not the same, for she has no idea of the amount of difference).
She immediately recognises the difference between harmony and
discord, and has a limited perception of difference between all sounds,
except those of a fifth or an octave."

It will be observed that this instance differs in some important par-
ticulars from that originally recorded by me, especially in the ability
to discriminate between harmonies and discords, which in my subject's
case was entirely wanting. GRANT ALLEN.

IX.— NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

The Genesis of Disinterested Benevolence. — Disinterested benevo-
lence, about the genesis of which so much has been written, is a name
for two distinguishable things. It is in some cases meant to desig-
nate that feeling which prompts us in a special instance to do good to
some individual object. In other cases, the same name is applied to
the quality of the mind which predisposes to all special benevolent
impulses. But these two are of course not the same thing, and when
I inquire into their origin I shall have to consider them separately.
This, however, I shall do in an order the reverse of that commonly
adopted, beginning with the special sentiment, and then inquiring into
the general quality of the mind.

Benevolence, in the first sense, may be defined as the wish that the
object of this feeling may be well. — as the wish for the welfare of
something. In so far as, with a certain class of beings, welfare is
accompanied by pleasure or happiness, benevolence is a wish for the
pleasure or happiness of the object. But I should think it a great
mistake to define it in this latter way. It would reduce the field of
benevolence by excluding all inanimate beings, and make the defini-
tion far too narrow. Benevolence, I assert, can be felt quite as well
towards inanimate non-sentient beings as towards sentient organisms.
It can be felt towards any being of which it is believed that its wel-
fare or perfection can be procured. As the parent towards his child,
the master towards his dog, so the sculptor feels benevolence towards
his statue, the author towards his book. The perfection of it makes
him happy, its imperfection or destruction causes him pain. Whether
the object is a living being or not, whether it is real or imaginary, the
sentiment of benevolence is the same in all cases.

Disinterested I shall call such benevolence, if its origin cannot be
traced directly to some egoistical motive or to some other moral or
aesthetic feeling. Gratitude, which is dictated by a feeling of equity,
admiration, which takes its orgin in an aesthetic judgment, or the
aversion to inflict pain, which is the result of our habits, I shall not
call disinterested benevolence, and in this short essay I do not in-
quire into their origin.

To explain the growth of the special sentiment of disinterested

Notes and Discussions. 405

benevolence I must assume a certain number of qualities of the mind,
the existence of which, however, has generally been admitted. Whe-
ther these qualities are native or acquired is here of no importance ;
all I require is that they be found in man very soon after his birth.
These qualities are, first, the impulse towards self-preservation and
self-augmentation inherent to every living organism, and without
which it could not exist and develop itself ; the wish to be and to be
more and more, in a word, to grow. The second quality of mind
which I have to assume is the consciousness of existing, not only as a
passive sentient being, but as an active being too. And these two
qualities once admitted, there follows from them a third, which is the
wish to exist as an active being either actually or potentially, to be
either acting or capable of acting — the wish for power. The fourth
quality is that known under the name of capacity of associating ideas,
and the fifth the capacity and tendency of the mind to fuse or confuse
such associated ideas, so as not to distinguish them any longer from
one another. The first four qualities just enumerated have long ago been
generally admitted and amply illustrated. The fifth, that of confusing
ideas, has likewise been admitted ; it has even been most admirably
illustrated in the works of many a- philosopher of great repute, but I
am not aware that its importance for morals has ever been sufficiently
insisted upon.

The specimen case of confusion is that between the ego and the
body. All men in early life confuse the two notions of self and body,
and most men continue to do so for ever. Here already the confusion
produces a kind of disinterested benevolence ; we feel well inclined
towards our body irrespective of any advantage to ourself.

But it is not from this simplest form of the mental quality that
moral benevolence takes its rise. Besides the confusion just spoken
of, there is another, the outflow and consequence of that between body
and mind, nearly as common among children and uneducated men.
It is the confusion between the acts of ourself, of our mind, and those
of our body ; between intended effects and willed acts.

This confusion is to be found in the laws of all rude and semi-
barbarous nations. Their criminal codes punish the result of an act
irrespective of the intention of the agent ; they make, for instance, no
difference between murder and manslaughter. In more civilised
countries, where generations of lawgivers have for centuries developed
the theory of criminal responsibility, the law is even now far from
perfect. The result of an act, even when not intended, continues to
be taken into account for punishment. A man who would be let off
with a small fine for an illegal act producing no direct harm would be
fined more heavily, or even imprisoned, if by such an act some harm
was unintentionally done. Even if the legislator wished to correct
this irrational state of the law, the general opinion of the uneducated
majority would prevent him from doing so. It will be long ere the
theory of criminal responsibility is generally understood.

But if in criminal law, which it is the interest of so many persons
to clear up, the confusion still exists, how much the more will it con-

406 Notes and Discussions.

tinue in those matters where no great interest is at stake 1 If a man
kills another man, fear of punishment, fear of his own conscience, will
prompt him to consider whether the death was intended or not, whe-
ther he is guilty of murder or of simple manslaughter. But if a man
by mere chance does some good to another man, there is nothing
which incites him to a similar mental effort, while on the contrary
the agreeable sense of power which the consciousness of the effect
produces, the gratitude of the benefited individual and the approba-
tion of society, will make the idea that he is the author of the benefit
pleasant to him and prevent him from too closely analysing his
motives. He will easily assume that he is the author of the benefit,
and so it happens that when an act of his body has produced a bene-
ficial result upon some one else, an average man thinks that he him-
self has done good to that individual.

From this confusion real disinterested benevolence will take its
origin. The agreeable sense of power, produced by the unintended
beneficial effect, will continue as long as the agent can remember that
eifect. This, however, will only be the case if the benefit persists for
some time, so that it may hereafter be remembered, and it will be all
the more the case, if that benefit continues for a long time so as to be
actually perceived. There is then an inducement so to act that it
may persist. This inducement is of course very weak at first, and
will produce no action if there is not a considerable spontaneous
energy. But there is already a germ of benevolence, the wish that a
benefit conferred upon some individual may subsist. And if this
sentiment under favourable circumstances produces further action,
this time intentional, it will become stronger thereby ; far more power
is felt to be exerted and more interest is consequently felt in the effect.
The wish to maintain the effect increases in proportion to the exertions
already made, and it may finally become strong enough to overcome
counteracting influences of considerable moment.

But this is not all. As it is a condition of the persistence of the
beneficial effect, that the being upon whom it has been produced con-
tinues to exist, a secondary wish, very slight at first, will be generated,
that the whole individual may continue to be. At the same time that
the wish for the persistence of the beneficial effect becomes stronger,
this secondary feeling augments and may produce action tending to
the conservation and the welfare of the individual benefited. But as
soon as the fact is realised that good has been done to the whole indi-
vidual, this new secondary benefit will become the starting-point of a
growing disinterested benevolence, directed no longer towards a single
quality but towards the whole being. The secondary feeling may now
grow much quicker than the primary one, which may in due time
be entirely forgotten, and nothing will remain but true disinterested
benevolence towards the individual. A benefit conferred by mere-
chance has produced true devotion.

To illustrate my meaning, which otherwise might remain obscure,
let me adduce an example. A man had to throw away some water,
and, stepping out of his house, threw it upon a heap of rubbish, where

Notes and Discussions. 407

4 some faded plants were nearly dying. At that moment he paid no
attention to them, took no interest in their pitiable state. The next
day, having again some water to throw away, the man stepped out at
the same place, when he remarked that the plants had raised their
stems and regained some life. He understood that this was the result
of his act of the day before, his interest was awakened, and as he held
a jar with water in his hand, he again threw its contents over the
plants. On the following day the same took place ; the benevolent
feeling, the interest in the recovery and welfare of the plants augment-
ed, and the man tended the plants with increasing care. When he
found one day that the rubbish and plants had been carted away, he
felt a real annoyance. The feeling of the man in this case was real
disinterested benevolence. The plants were neither fine nor useful,
and the place where they stood was ugly and out of the way, so the
man had no advantage from their growth. Nor had the man a general
wish to rear plants, for there were a number of other plants sorely in
want of care, but to which the man did not transfer his affection. He
had loved those individual plants ; the benevolence towards the effect
he had at first produced had by confusion become benevolence towards
the plant itself, and the first feeling had been entirely forgotten.

In this case there was a complete confusion between the effect and
the recipient of it, rendered easy by the fact, that by continuing the -
special benefit, the whole welfare of the plant was assured. But such
is not always the case. If the benefits have all been of one and the
same kind, if the benefactor has been prevented from extending the
sphere of his beneficial action, the feeling of benevolence will remain
in its primitive state, directed towards one quality of the individual.
However strong it may become, it will never extend to the whole
being.

Cases of this kind are by no means rare, but they are generally
misunderstood. We assume that A feels benevolence towards B, and
that if he lays so much stress on a single quality of the latter, this
arises from an error of judgment as to what is good for B. In reality
the error of judgment is ours, and the man whose folly we condemn
is intellectually quite in the right. Having never learned to love B
but only to love one of his qualities, A favours this latter even to the
detriment of the holder.

In the first example adduced by me, benevolence took its origin in
a chance act, no effect at all having at -first been intended. This is
not necessarily the case. A benefit may be intended in a limited
degree, for instance as an equivalent for a benefit received. The
spring of action here is gratitude, based on equity. But while this
benefit is conferred, a benevolent feeling, first, towards the special
quality furthered, and, finally, towards the whole individual, may
arise in exactly the same manner in which it arose from a chance act.
Gratitude will be forgotten and disinterested benevolence felt instead.
One moral feeling has here given rise to another; equity to disinte-
rested benevolence. In our social system this latter genesis will be
most common ; it is only where social relations are rare, that benevo-

408 Notes and Discussions.

lence will commonly be produced as a consequence of a chance act.
But in all cases, it will be a necessary condition to the perfection of
the feeling, that it be extended to the whole individual, as else it may
often tend rather to injure than to favour this latter.

My meaning, I hope, is now sufficiently explained. It remains to
be seen how far my theory is in accordance with the known facts
about benevolence. For this I hold to be the indispensable test of
every psychological theory — that it will offer an easy explanation of
the facts known from experience ; and this test I shall now apply.

The strongest feeling of benevolence on record is probably the love
a mother bears to her infant child. The strong feeling that she has
given it life, that the child is her creation, explains the energy of the
affection. This is further strengthened by the consciousness, that by
nourishing and tending her child she confers constantly new benefits,
indispensable to its welfare. But as the child grows up, this benevo-
lent feeling may, with mentally undeveloped persons, lose much of its
power. When the child becomes independent, when it is no longer
in want of the maternal care, the maternal affection will cool down or
turn towards a younger child still in need of its mother's help. This
is already apparent in the lower races of mankind, but much more so
among the higher animals. Among these latter a mother will risk her
life to defend her young, but when they are grown up, she does not
care for them in the least.

Among uneducated people paternal affection is seldom very strong
towards an infant. Some culture of mind is necessary to realise all
the indirect benefits the father at first confers. But when the direct
influence becomes considerable, the paternal affection augments and
may assume a very great energy. Among animals paternal affection,
I think, exists only in those species in which the father assists the
mother in rearing and feeding the little ones, as for instance among
birds.

During the proscriptions of Marius and Sulla, there were many sons
who out of fear gave up their father, but it was never known that a
father had denounced his son ; a fact that somewhat startled the
Roman moralists, who were unable to explain it. Upon my theory
the explanation is easy enough. In Eoman society the son could
confer no benefit upon his father, and the mere feeling of gratitude for
the benefits received from the parent was not sufficient to counter-
balance the fear of the bloody edict. Filial affection can indeed
become very strong, but whenever it does, it is easy to perceive that
the parent has in some way become dependent on the child — has
received benefits from him.

The relations between man and wife are such that the two are
called upon to complete one another — that they have a fair oppor-
tunity of conferring great benefits without a corresponding sacrifice or
exertion. The facility renders the feat all the more attractive, and
strong affection follows upon it.

That friendship is based upon numerous mutual benefits is a fact
daily seen. Prevent a friend from doing you good, impress him with

Notes and Discussions. 409

the idea that he is of no use to you, and his affection will cool. But
ask a man for little services he is ready to render, let him know and
keep in his mind that he has conferred a benefit upon you, and he will
like you all the more for it, become interested in your welfare, and
finally feel real devotion for you. I have never known the experi-
ment to fail.

In public life those who receive the greatest benefits from the com-
munity are not the men most ready to make any sacrifice for the general
good. Patriotism, I think, is not exactly rampant in workhouses,
though the inmates owe everything they enjoy to the munificence of
the public. The pauper who has done no good to his country, who,
on the contrary, is a continual burden to it, feels no benevolence
towards it.

On the other hand, a man in the higher ranks often enters the
public service, either to earn in an easy way a sufficient income or out
of ambition, and in order to gain fame. If such a man by his energy
or by some distinctive talent becomes useful to the State, in most cases he
will become a really patriotic citizen. The official will devote more
than the strictly due time and energy to the fulfilment of his task, the
statesman will give up his personal ambition, and often risk what
must be dear to him, popularity and power, in order to carry the
measures he thinks necessary to the welfare of his country.

And when some extraordinary man has made a discovery, has in-
troduced a measure or proclaimed a truth beneficial to the whole
world, the sentiment that he has been useful to so many millions of
people gives a distinctive character to his benevolent impulses. Such a
man, the benefactor of humanity, will refuse his sympathy to no part
of it ; he will at once feel benevolence towards any man with whom
he comes into contact. He knows that he has done him some good,
and is well inclined towards him.

I hope I have now shown that my theory agrees with the facts
known by experience, that it can bear the crucial test. That being
so, I think myself entitled to hold that the genesis of every single
benevolent sentiment is that some good is done to an individual,
either unintentionally or from another motive than that of disinterested
benevolence, as from gratitude, sense of equity, religious feeling or
hope of advantage, and that the benefit itself being loved by its
author, this love or disinterested benevolence is by confusion extended
to the individual upon whom the benefit has been conferred and
maintained. It now remains for me to explain, how from single
benevolent feelings there arises a general benevolent disposition, how
the benevolent character is formed.

I think we shall again have to trace back the origin of the benevo-
lent disposition to confusion. After having felt benevolence towards
a number of individuals of a class, we come to confuse them with one
another, and to transfer part of our feeling to the whole class. When
any member of it presents itself, benevolence is. at once excited.

That such is the case will appear more clearly if we remember how
often we are favourably disposed towards a perfect stranger, simply

29

410 Notes and Discussions.

because in his outward appearance, his manner, his voice, or any other
characteristic, he is like some other person we love. We have a con-
fused but strong benevolent feeling towards a cluster of attributes
belonging to the friend we have learned to cherish. Some of these
attributes are suddenly and strikingly presented to us, and we feel
well-inclined towards them. We confuse the attributes with the
present possessor of them, and benevolence is felt towards the stranger.
In this case the genesis is so clear, the confusion so glaring, that they
cannot be overlooked. In other cases they will not be so apparent,
but the process will be the same. The cluster of attributes — man,
Englishman, or man of a certain type — is liked, because a number of
persons dear to us possess these attributes. Men of another type or
nation are often not liked at all, even by such people as are generally
considered benevolent. The difference in this case is stronger than
the likeness, and no confusion is made. What, holds good of men
holds good equally of all other beings. I have observed this genesis
in myself ; formerly rather hostile to dogs, now that I have a dog
myself, I feel well inclined towards the whole canine species, but
most to that part of it which has some characteristic feature in common
with my favourite. This then is the genesis of the benevolent dispo-
sition, that after having by confusion become well inclined towards
certain things, we feel the same benevolence towards each of their
attributes ; when we find these attributes in other things, we feel
equally well inclined towards them, and by confusion extend this
benevolence to the individual possessing the attribute. Hence it
follows that the greater the diversity among the individuals towards
whom we acquire a benevolent feeling when young, the wider the
range of our sympathies, of the benevolence we feel at once towards
those with whom we come in contact — a fact of some importance in
educational science.

I do not know whether I shall have convinced my reader of the
soundness of my theory. Limited space and an inadequate power
over the language may have prevented me from attaining this end.
But the question is so important that even tha mere suggestion of a
possible theory might be accepted as of some use towards the final
solution of the problem, and as such I offer the foregoing pages.

PAUL FRIEDMANN.

Mr Sully on Pessimism. — I hope that the appearance, in a recent
number of this Eeview, of Professor Bain's observations on Mr
Sully's important work will not make it seem presumptuous in me
to offer a few further remarks upon it.

Were I to pass the most general criticism I could think of on Mr
Sully's book, I should say that its true subject hardly corresponds
with its title : it is in fact better than its promise. To be sure, most
of its historical and critical matter is concerned with Pessimism ; but
along with this, and continuing when this is done with, runs a
discussion of wider scope. Optimism, too, has its history briefly

Notes and Discussions. 411

narrated, is examined, and rejected. It is made quite clear that the
, author rejects, in their extreme form, both these opposite estimates of
the world. Still, what with the title of the book and the principal
incidence and merciless rigour of its polemic, it often looks as if the
author held a brref against the Pessimists ; and sometimes one is not
quite sure that the situation has not really a little disturbed the
impartiality of his judgment. This is the more to be regretted,
because, although just at present Pessimistic views are (perhaps but
temporarily) prominent in literature ; in England, at least, it is
Optimism much more than Pessimism that needs to be made to know
itself, and that piecemeal and exactly, not by mere declamation, — of
which there has been enough, with small result. Accordingly, it
appears to me that it would have been better to criticise under some
other title both Pessimism and Optimism (the historical matter might
perhaps have formed a separate volume), and then to start anew to
estimate scientifically the worth of life. As it is, a scientific estimate
of the worth of life occupies the latter half of the work ; and this,
although it receives a suggestive rather than an exhaustive treatment,
is the true pith and essence of the whole. It is here that the author's
best powers come into play ; and it is this portion of it which makes
the work most valuable at present, and must give it its permanent place
and importance in philosophic literature.

In attempting to estimate the worth of life, Mr Sully first examines
the method of summing up particular pleasures and pains, in order, if
possible, to strike a balance ; and he rejects it, for the present at least,
as impracticable for many reasons : since we do not yet sufficiently
understand the causes of pleasure and pain, nor their comparative
frequency in nature, nor can we precisely remember or compare our
own experience, nor interpret that of others.

He next tries whether any better result may be obtained by
substituting for scattered pleasures to be sought and pains to be
avoided, a more coherent idea of Happiness as an end. His idea of
Happiness deserves attentive consideration. It is not merely, as usual
with Hedonists, net Pleasure ; but, whilst ultimately resolvable into
pleasure, is immediately conceived as the sum of the permanent causes
of pleasure (such as Health, Wealth, &c.), and these ranked as objects
of desire in the order of their importance. The last point raises a
doubt whether such an idea can be definitely framed as long as the
hedonistic calculus remains impracticable ; for how without it can we
compare the values of the permanent causes of pleasure 1

I But this difficulty does not really much affect Mr Sully's purpose :
for the chief advantage which Happiness, as something permanent,
has over fugitive pleasures is, that it offers a better mark to the man
who tries to make a good thing of the world, whether or not it be so
in its own character. And here the author brings out the curious
infelicity of the German Pessimists' choice of Will as the principle of
the world and fountain of evil. For it is precisely Will which must
enable us to escape from evil, if any escape is possible. Even admitting
that the causes of pain in the world are more numerous than the causes

412 Notes and Discussions.

of pleasure, still, if we are allowed to assume (what the sane absolutely
will have granted them) that pleasures have a real existence and a
positive value, it is the part of Will to select these pleasures springing
scantily by the way, as one plucks a bouquet in a weedy garden.
Pessimists who call the Will blind, and identify it with Ken1 ex Action,
Gravitation, and Heat, find it easy to overlook this fact ; but such
confusion of language has no foundation but the Afachtspruch of a
system-maker — a rude denial of one of the oldest and best established
distinctions in Mental Science.

Will is, in fact, a source of good in two ways : first, as deliberate
choice ; and, secondly, because activity is itself to a great extent
pleasurable. Whilst the Pessimists describe all work as irksome and
painful, the pleasure of activity is a topic which Mr Sully dwells on so
much, and returns to so often, that the more torpid sect of mankind
must suspect a prejudice of the active temperament.

To return to the author's idea of Happiness : much as I admire it,
I cannot heip feeling that it is dwelt on somewhat too much to the
exclusion of countervailing considerations. The pessimistic reader
will certainly reflect that there exist in Nature permanent causes
of pain as well as of pleasure ; some of them constantly apt to
frustrate the efforts of the intelligent Will, some of them quite above
the Will, and for ever beyond its reach. And thus to confront the
idea of Happiness, there arises the menacing idea of the world's Misery.
It seems a thankless task to construct this idea, though it would have
to be done in making a complete estimate of life's value. Here it will
suffice to indicate the elements of misery that correspond with the
powers which Mr Sully enumerates as some of the elements of
Happiness. Over against Wealth we may set the principle of
population and the practical exhaustibility of our planet's resources.
The first of these Mr Sully notices, and justly observes that it is within
the control of an intelligent community : but the second he does not
enough consider, and perhaps it will prove less amenable to reason.
He next lays stress upon Interests, or permanent spheres of grateful
activity : but in the other scale lies the fact that few have the power
of choosing their chief sphere of activity, their business ; and that of
these few the most must exercise their choice before they know either
themselves or the world. And of other interests the principal,
Politics, whilst daily becoming more pressing, is daily becoming less
grateful, because the possible influence of an ordinary man grows daily
less : whilst the casting vote on every question falls into the hands of
a mob compounded of the residuum and the scum. Art and Science
require what few possess, leisure — to say nothing of sensibility and
intelligence. Thus, as Wealth is opposed by social pressure and the
poverty of the earth, Interests are opposed by social pressure and the
poverty of the spirit.

Wealth and Interests our author calls external factors of Happiness :
the internal may be summed up under Culture, or the attainment of
permanent spiritual possessions. First, there is Moral Culture : and it
certainly surprises me to find hardly any allusion to the opposite of

Notes and Discussions. 413

this. For the chief internal factor of Misery is Sin, a permanent
cause of suffering equally important to theologian and naturalist :
and the sense of this has surely been a perennial source of the deepest
Pessimism. And so every other sort of Culture finds its own particular
Satan within, whose writhings grow more horrible the more
narrowly he is imprisoned and bound. Schopenhauer's doctrine of
the fixity of character is one of the many half-truths that make his
writings plausible.

The task of harmonising the various elements of happiness, allotting
to each its place in a scale of values, and regulating our endeavours
accordingly, we have seen to involve at present an insoluble problem.
To lay a plan of life, too, is perhaps harder now than it was a thousand
years ago ; for although we know more of the world and what may
happen in it, we are at the same time exposed to the incursions of
unforeseen influences from a far more complex and more extensive
region. And, finally, the higher powers of Will, to which Mr Sully
rightly attaches such importance, the power of wisely confroll ing desire
and regulating attention, is the possession, and, I fear, the wish of very
few. To wish for anything men must know what it is ; but it may
be doubted whether the majority are yet able to grasp the idea of
self-control in its widest sense ; for although it has again and again been
presented to them, they have never retained it, but have readily
surrendered it a prey to the narrow and vulgar glossing of tenth-rate
interpreters.

Moreover, there is a conspicuous element of most men's ideal
happiness, which our author does not mention, namely, Superiority.
And this omission the Pessimist, whose possible reflections I am.
representing, may attribute to conscious weakness ; for superiority in
one man can only be gratified at the cost of correlative inferiority in
others, usually in many others, though each of the many may desireto
rule as strongly as the one, or may resent his supremacy as deeply as
he prizes it. Our country, as perhaps about to become " one vast
camp," is a comfortable prospect to those who expect to pose amidst
it in commanding attitudes, but less exhilarating to citizens who prefer
to be their own masters. The passion for power over others may still
be needed for the welfare of society : but nevertheless it must be
eradicated before social welfare can be complete. Here, then, we have
a permanent power which is at once an element of the happiness of
some and of the misery of many others ; and at once a condition and
an obstacle of progress.

Still, the world may improve. Mr Sully is ready to grant (rather, I
imagine, for the sake of argument, than that he really thinks so) that
in the experience of mankind hitherto there has been no balance of
pleasure ; and yet, he urges, it may be well for the world to have
existed, if such an excess of pleasure can be secured hereafter as to
leave a favourable balance on the whole. For the erroneous doctrines
of Optimism and Pessimism, therefore, he would substitute Meliorism.
And here the chief difficulty seems to be this : — We saw above that
an obstacle to culture was want of leisure, and that leisure and wealth

414 Notes and Discussions.

were both dependent upon a decrease of population. But if the
population should decrease enough to lessen the pressure of competition,
•would not that result in a retardation of progress 1 ' No/ say some,
' for progress no longer depends on competition and the destruction of
the incompetent, so much as upon education and conscious effort at
improvement.' But that thought hardly reaches the bottom of the
matter: for what makes people resort to education and self-improvement,
what but the fear of competition 1 How many would be at the pains —
irksome and bitter it is to them — to educate their children, or
themselves if they were not convinced that it is their only hope of
success 1 Thus the apparent displacement of Natural Selection by
direct adaptation really comes to no more than this, that the forces of
Natural Selection have reflected themselves in almost everybody's mind.
So far, then, as the increase of happiness depends upon the
development of individuals, it depends also upon the maintenance of
competition ; so far as it depends upon the increase and diffusion of
wealth and leisure, it requires the decrease of competition. From these
data, we cannot expect happiness to increase as fast as the species
develops ; and a process of development must be slow which depends
upon the impulse of forces (such as the love of Superiority) that at
the same time retard it. So. much longer must the world endure to
enable the future to make amends for the past.

And even then how unfair it must seem • though the dead do not
feel it, nor shall we when our turn comes to be as they are. How
unjust of Nature that nothing but the joys of men unborn should
recompense their fathers' sorrows ! That yet unrealised happiness is
something to us who foresee it — far off its coming shines ; but what has
it been to them who did not foresee it, but prepared its way — like
hordes of slaves doing a work whose purpose is hidden from them —
driven by despotic instincts, arbitrary passions, and every sort of
uninterpreted illusion 1 For whence but from their accumulated
afflictions could the feelings which we call our noblest have sprung 1
The bitterness that sweetens so much aesthetic ecstacy is the salt stain
of innumerable tears. "What hope and folly, what disappointment,
what yearning and remorse must have commingled and distilled in
human hearts before the first notes of Lohengrin could awaken there
such an exquisite response ! And they who prepared that cup never
tasted it, but were only sickened with its crude ingredients. I believe
the recollection of such things will sadden mankind for ever. Unless
they can feel that the past also was for its own sake not in vain, they
must dwell in the shadow of an inexpiable wrong. And when
the ignorant admiration and hollow mimicry which now serve instead
of reverence for the past, have been outgrown and abandoned, men will
not forget the debt they owe it ; but will exhort one another to bear
it in mind, will appoint days of commemoration, will desire even
passionately to have shared those sufferings, and will pay with fasting
and sacrifice just homage to the dead.

In conclusion, I may observe that Mr Sully has not shown so fully
as he mi^ht have done the importance of his subject, especially at the

Notes and Discussions, 415

present hour : it is, of course, clear to himself, but he has neglected to
impress it upon the reader. I suppose it is not too much to say that
there are now in Europe more people than ever before who do not
expect another life ; to whom, therefore, for the sake of both
themselves and their descendants, the worth of this life is all in all.
Upon this supremely interesting subject few books exist that can
pretend to be impartial ; and the present work is, as far as I know, by
much the best of them.

CARVETH BEAD.

Prof. Jevons on Mill's Experimental Methods. — Professor Jevons's
review of Mill's theory of Induction (Contemporary Review, April,
1878) seems to me to omit one or two considerations which are indis-
pensable to a full statement of the doctrine, and consequently to
involve some misapprehension of Mill's meaning. The gist of the
article is given in the following sentences : — " These methods (the
Experimental Methods) are the only means of proving the connexion of
cause and effect ; yet the methods depend for their validity upon our
assurance of the certainty and universality of that connexion " (p. 89).
" The Experimental Methods are of no validity, until we have proved
a most general, in fact an universal, law, which can only be proved by
these methods " (p. 91). The first of these sentences everyone will
recognise as familiar in the System of Logic \ the second must come, I
think, with a shock of surprise to most students of Mill, for they are
very well aware that according to him this universal law is never
exactly proved, and does not stand to the methods in the relation of
proof to the thing proved. On the strength of the apparent contra-
diction, however, Prof. Jevons rejects Mill's theory of Induction as
being inherently inconsistent.

Confining attention solely to the question of consistency, I
have in the first place to point out that Prof. Jevons has not
taken into due account the fact that according to Mill the belief
in Universal Causation is a slow growth. It is an integral part of the
theory that originally generalisations from experience were determined
solely by psychological motives — by belief grounded on association ;
and that such belief did not involve universality of causation, but
merely uniformity in the class of objects observed. Only after such
generalisations had been made to a considerable extent, and had been
verified by experience, could the principles on which they rested bo
applied more widely. Not until the belief in uniformity had attained
the dimensions of an assumption that all natural phenomena were
subject to law, could a philosophy of induction be constructed. The
methods of scientific induction might very well be applied in particular
cases, and with merely particular import, before the assumption of
general uniformity was made. Difference, e.g., is the most familiar
mode in which the more obvious and palpable connexions of cause and
effect would be discovered, but it could not be generalised into a

416 Notes and Discussions.

method, applicable to all phenomena, unless the assumption were
made that all phenomena were subject to law. This is Mill's persis-
tent contention. He repeatedly points out that inductive generalisa-
tions not involving the universal law are essential preliminaries to
any statement of inductive methods which involve that law. I would
refer in support of this to Logic, Vol. L, 345 n., 355, Yol. II., 99 n.t
101 n., 104-5 (7th ed.), passages which completely dispose of the
argument on pp. 96-7 of Prof. Jevons's article.

It seems to me, in the second place, that Prof. Jevons, in sup-
posing that we must have proved the Law of Causation before the
Methods are valid, misapprehends Mill's theory. The peculiar
relation between the universal law and the methods may, I think, be
put in the following way. The methods are canons or rules of
evidence, specialised statements of the signs of causal connexion. If
our evidence exhibits certain signs, or satisfies the requirements of the
methods, then we assume that causal connexion obtains among the
phenomena, for this reason, that in such a case either causation is
proved or the general law of causation is disproved. We do not say
that causation is proved in this particular instance because causation is
"universally true, but we show that the evidence either warrants causa-
tion or disproves the universal law. In other words, our inductive
reasoning exemplifies the special relation between the major premiss
and conclusion of any reasoning.

It may be asked, why do we assume one alternative rather than the
other 1 The answer to this will, I think, bring out a certain ambiguity
in the word proof, which seems to have misled Prof. Jevons. The
only reason is that the evidence for universal causation is incommen-
surably greater than the evidence against it. But the only evidence for
an ultimate law of experience is conformity with fact ; and to say that
the evidence for universal causation is exceedingly great — so great as
to be practically conclusive — is merely to say that mankind have so
steadily found their inductive assumptions verified by experience that,
in any instance where law is not at once apparent, the hypothesis of
absence of law is not even momentarily admitted. Proof of all subor-
dinate laws is given by comparison of the evidence in favour of them
with the universal law, while the establishment of such laws lends
additional strength to the belief in general conformity to rule. It is
evident, then, that to Mill proof of the law of causation can never be
in one sense absolute, for we have not exhausted the universe of facts
(see close of Bk. III., ch. xxi.), but that the certainty with which it
is held grows with experience, and has become so strong as to be-
equivalent in its effects to the certainty of a demonstrated doctrine.

I cannot think that Prof. Jevons has given due weight to this
relation between the Universal Law and the Methods. Neither the
note to p. 94 of his article, nor his reply (Academy, 4th May, 1878)
to a critic who had correctly but in an objectionable manner called
attention to the point, can be regarded as dealing satisfactorily with a
question which is fundamental. Much of what Prof. Jevons rather
rashly throws out with regard to the possible growth of the theory of

Notes and Discussions. 417

induction in Mill's mind might have been spared had he fairly weighed
such a passage as the following : — " Neither would it be correct to say
that every induction by which we infer any truth, implies the general
fact of uniformity as foreknown, even in reference to the kind of
phenomena concerned. It implies, either that this general fact is
already known, or that we may now know it : as the conclusion, The
Duke of Wellington is mortal, drawn from the instances A, B, and C,
implies either that we have already concluded all men to be mortal,
or that we are now entitled to do so from the same evidence. A vast
amount of confusion and paralogism respecting the grounds of induc-
tion would be dispelled by keeping in view these simple considerations "
(Vol. I. 345 n.).

It would require an article fully as long as that of Prof. Jevons, if
one were to follow him into the minor points raised. But I should like
to say that the absurdity detected by him in the passage quoted from
Mill (p. 90, G.R.) seems due to some rather arbitrary interpretation
of the words ' general law ' ; that to base scientific induction on the
unscientific is exactly the ._saiu£L-pr.ofiesa^ which has jprodluced^the/
doctrine of Probabilities, — both are but good sense reduced to rule ;
and that, despiteTlie awful fate predicted in his last sentences for all
who base induction on causation, I should maintain not only that ,
every inductive generalisation involves the assumption of Uniformity,
but that the Inverse Doctrine of Probabilities is in precisely the same
case. J

EGBERT ADAMSON.

Necessary Connexion and Inductive Reasoning. — Were the question
asked — What it is in the attitude of logicians that seems to me to
make the inquiries advanced in this paper indispensable to the progress
of logical theory 1 I should be disposed to return the following
answer : The weightier matters of the law are not receiving sufficient
attention. While the theory of Evolution, that era-creating discovery
of the present century, is being so largely verified in physical science
and even in that department of physiology embraced by psychological
inquiry, in Logic, the Scientia Scientiarum though it has been called,
it has not yet been successfully shown to be the law regulating all
intellectual processes. It is true, the a posteriori school of logicians,
guided by this luminous principle, has met with considerable success
in prosecuting its inquiries ; nevertheless, the opposite school, I
venture to assert, still retains hold of enough of the truth to justify
its position. The Lualaba of so-called transcendental truth has not,
as yet, been identified with the Congo of generalisation from ex-
perience. This identification, I need not say, would, at any time, be
a consummation devoutly to be wished, but more especially so when,
as now, a crisis is impending, and when the extravagant procedure of
certain imaginative votaries of science has called forth even from so
advanced and fearless an inquirer as Prof. Yirchow a warning to keep
within the fortified lines of objective truth ; and when, therefore, the

418 Notes and Discussions.

guiding light of the true Sdentia Seientiarum seems to be so much
needed. What leaves to logicians of the a priori school a cause still
to uphold is, I believe, the fact that such explanations as their
opponents have been able to give of inductive knowing fail to satisfy
the implicit convictions of the mind. While, for ages, the domain of
reasoning has been largely explored in connexion with deduction and
general truths, it is only in modern times that induction a*nd the
concrete or the individual have had much attention yielded to them.
The differentiating processes, the working-classes of the human
intellect, which, in the order of evolution, seem to be prior to the
generalising operations, still await their full explication. This incom-
pleteness in the fundamental truths of Logic produces obscuring effects
upon the whole science, and causes logicians to be divided in opinion.
This, at a period when the civilised world threatens to separate into
two hostile camps — authority versus free inquiry, is by all real lovers
of truth to be deplored.

Truths are usually divided into necessary and contingent — which are
here called related terms, contingent being regarded as equivalent to
non-necessary, and non-necessary to contingent. Some, however, con-
tend that there is no sufficient reason for dividing truths into neces-
sary and contingent. Any truth, regarded as such, is, they hold,
necessarily true. To say that a truth is contingently true is to imply
that it is open to doubt. This, however, is not what is meant by a
contingent truth. Contingency as applied to truth is not usually
understood as a synonym for probability, because many a contingent
truth is true beyond all question, is, indeed, necessarily true. For
instance, it is as true that a <£5 note remains in my purse as long as I
can manage to keep it there, as it is true that a whole is greater than
its part. What, therefore, is the precise meaning to be attached to
the terms necessary and contingent as applied to propositions 1 By
the former, I understand a necessary connexion between one thing
and another ; by the latter, a contingent connexion. The question
here to be discussed, then, is, How is necessary connexion perceived 1

Two facts being observed as merely joined together, we have but
an indefinite notion, perhaps, of the nature of the union that subsists
between them, unless it happens to be previously known to us. This
prior knowledge forms the mental nexus- by means of which we deter-
mine the nature of such union, as regards necessity or contingency.
How is this nexus obtained 1 *

* This application of a mental nexus is deduction ; the simplest form of
which, it appears, is reading out, as we have occasion, what a universal or
a general proposition declares as to each case to which it is judged to apply.
It rains, some one informs me. Rain constitutes one of the terms of the
proposition ^implicitly contained in the mind for the most part) "All
ram wets," therefore, I conclude, this rain wets, and I never think of going
out to ascertain the fact— I feel certain of it.

It is commonly held that deduction involves syllogising. This I fail to
perceive. When a chain like Judaea, Samaria, Galilee is given, I perceive
that Judaea is mediately joined to Galilee ; when I do this I syllogise, but

Notes and Discussions. 419

The only idea of a nexus derivable from simple perception is what
may be called indefinite or historical. If I perceive, in this way, that
A is joined to B, I am made aware of no more than the simple fact of
their historical union ; and if I thus perceive that A is joined to B
invariably in numberless instances, still this adds nothing to my idea
of their Jiexus, except that it is a constant and general one, any more
than producing ciphers to any extent will yield anything more than a
multiplicity of ciphers. Some, however, hold that the notion of
necessary connexion is due to nothing else than the constant repeti-
tion, without exception, of A + B : that this organises in the mind,
by the law of habit, an invincible tendency to think of A + B as inse-
parable. Now what clearly indicates the erroneousness of this view are
the facts that follow. In the first place, the notion of necessary con-
nexion is not enforced by every instance of invariable uniformity of
connexion, by the constant rising of the sun, for example. In the
second place, uniformity of connexion is not realised wherever the
notion of necessary connexion is enforced, for one instance, completely
attested, of what is required to prove necessary connexion does as
well as a million. At the time alluded to by the poet when he sang — •
Sic fatus, meritos aris mactavit honores,
Taurum Neptuno, taurum tibi, pulcher Apollo,
Nigrani Hyemi pecudem, Zephyris felicibus albam —

there could have been no belief to any extent in laws of Nature —
uniform connexions ; yet the feeling of necessary connexion, in single
and familiar class instances, was, I feel convinced, as strong then as
it is now. In the third place, the notion of necessary connexion is
enforced where facilities are afforded for framing a contrary notion,
where there are not wanting analogies or models to assist us in imagin-
ing the two things as existing apart, and where it is indispensable to
ascertain that such a conception of them is excluded. It would be
quite possible, for instance, to suppose that oxygen and hydrogen
might unite in other proportions than 8 of the former to 1 of the
latter to form water, were not the supposition excluded by accurate
knowledge.

The fact is, the notion of necessary connexion enters most intimately
and largely into the daily experience of every man, woman, and child.
Implicitly though it be, we realise the notion every time we perceive
that an object rests upon a base, or hangs from a support. When,
for instance, we see a statue resting on a pedestal, we are wont to say
that the statue depends for support upon the pedestal. But in this
and all kindred instances, what do we immediately perceive] Simply
that the statue and the pedestal are in contact, the former above, the

there is here no deduction. These two processes are, indeed, in numberless
cases combined, but while deduction, in its simplest ibim, is determining,
by means of a mental nexus, that two things are connected, but not by a
middle link, it cannot involve syllogising, for that, in its elementary form,
is perceiving that two things are joined by a middle link, or medium of
any kind, as A in B in C, therefore, A in 0 ; or A in B, C in B, therefore,
A and C co-existing, &c., &c.

420 Notes and Discussions.

latter below. But in this, there is no detection of the fact that the
pedestal supports the statue, and before this idea can be acquired
there must be a further exertion of mind ; there must be a direct per-
ception to the effect that when the pedestal is slipped from under the
statue, the latter, unless otherwise sustained, falls to the ground. We
have then before the mind the two lines of immediate perception,
positive and negative, out of which is evolved the complex perception
that the statue depends for support upon the pedestal; in other
words, is so connected with the pedestal (first premiss) as not to be
able, without the same, to maintain its position (second premiss).
Simple perception enables us merely to ascertain that 2 + 3 makes 5,
and, again, that in the absence of either 2 or 3 the sum 5 ceases to
exist. But when simple perception has done so much it has reached
its limit. It is by mediate or inductive perception, by comparing
v ' together the above data, that we are enabled to get a knowledge of the
A , * necessary connexion which subsists between 2 + 3 and 5. By simple
/ • \ perception we know only that two straight lines do not enclose space.
' It is by inductive perception we know that they cannot do the same.

~No\v notice that the reasoning involved in these and kindred in-
stances has, in my opinion, no necessary connexion with generalisation.
It is induction in single instances, or in the Category of Difference,
which, in the order of evolution, as it seems to me, is, with one ex-
ception, prior to the Category of Resemblance,* to which generalisation

* It seems to me that all thought moves in two Categories, that of Diffe-
rence, and that of Kesemhlance.

Two indispensable elements of all intellectual operations are discrimina-
tion and identification.

An object, as presented to sense, is cognised by the intellect as a Whole.
This Whole is discriminated, the Whole from its parts, these from each
other, and the Whole and its parts from other Wholes. This act of the in-
tellect, which is discriminating judgment, I place in the Category of Diffe-
rence, although in common with every operation of the intellect, in so far
as there must be identification of the manifestation of this moment with
that of the latest, later, late, past manifestation, it is, indeed, in the Category
of Resemblance.

Discriminating judgment I call perception, and hold that it is expressed
by the Proposition regarded as singular.

Conception, which is the operation to which we owe general notions and
common terms, and which, as a judgment, I hold is expressed by the Pro-
position regarded as general, I place in the Category of Resemblance.

Now, it seems to me, that in logical order, the order of evolution, Con-
ception presupposes Perception. In time, indeed, they may be contempo-
raneous ; nevertheless, there must be two or more percepts to form a con-
cept. A A A, to Perception, single objects become to Conception, because
they resemble each other, one whole. Thus, A A A to Perception become
to Conception A's.

Perception, Induction, and Syllogising, in the order of evolution, I look
upon as being, in the first place, in the Category of Difference, and, there-
fore, singular.

When Conception operates in conjunction with these operations, they
become plural, general, and move also in the Category of Resemblance, the
Whole of Extension.

Notes and Discussions. 421

exclusively belongs ; and this mode of reasoning in single instances,
which I am inclined to call Singular Induction, seems to be a process
taking place in millions of minds that seldom from this foundation
attain to universal propositions and laws of Nature, being content
simply to reason from the old to the new when the latter presents
itself. The burnt child, for example, dreads the fire long before it
dreams of launching out of this painful experience into the full stream
of universal law. In this sense, I have no doubt, as Macaulay con-
tends, " that the inductive method has been practised ever since the
beginning of the world by every human being ". Tracing induction,
then, farther back than the outlying islands of inference from parti-
culars to particulars, I contend that its mainland consists of single
instances, that it has its root in the Category of Difference. According
to my thinking, all the operations of the intellect, apart from Concep- /
tion, the generalising process, are singular. At the root of all thought, ;
especially reasoning, we have nothing but isolated singulars, standing,
like so many piers of a bridge, aloof from each other, waiting for the
superstructure that is to unite them, singulars which suggest no in-
ference whatever from this instance to that, from these particulars to
those. All reasoning from one instance to another involves an effort ]&
of conception. When, by Singular Induction, I ascertain that A is /
necessarily connected with B, and when, by Conception, I note the
existence, as mere historical connexions, of other instances of A + B,
namely, similar instances, I extend to them the necessary union that,
in the case of the first A + B, I have inductively proved. Here, how-
ever, observe that it is only when we have, as a foundation, an induc-
tion proving necessary connexion that we are fully entitled, in every
case, to generalise from this to that. According to this view, then,
generalisation is not the first, but the second step in inductive reason-
ing.

Inductive generalisation carried out to its full extent I would call
Universalisation. When, either among co-existences, or among ante-
cedents and consequents, necessary connexion is inductively established,
the inquiring mind tends to generalise ad infinitum, and express the
result in a universal proposition. " Necessity and universality,"
Hamilton observes, " may be regarded as co-incident. For when a
belief is necessary it is eo ipso universal, and that a belief is universal
is a certain index that it must be necessary. (See Leibnitz Nouveaux
Essais.) " There is much truth in these words, but they seem to me
incorrect in stating that necessity and universality are co-incident.
Necessity, by which I mean the belief in necessary connexion, origi-
nates in the Category of Difference, that is, among single instances,
whereas universality, by which I mean the belief in universal con-
nexion, is in the Category of Resemblance, and the latter, I cannot
avoid thinking, presupposes the former, except indeed in so far as the
conscious identity of every mental operation with itself from time to
time is a fundamental law of mind.

It has been stated above that necessity and contingency, as here
used, are related terms. This is shown to be the case in the following

422 Notes and Discussions.

. manner : If, to adopt J. S. Mill's notation, we compare instances of
v / ABC abc, BC be with instances of ABC abc, BC abc, we must perceive
^ that, in the former example, a kind of connexion is to be detected as
existing between A and a quite distinct from that found to exist be-
tween A and a in the latter example. I have elected to call the con-
nexion between A and a, in the former instance, necessary, and the
ground of universalisation, but, in the latter, non-necessary or contin-
gent, and the ground of limited generalisation only ; for I quite fail
to Understand how these two kinds of connexion can be confounded,
or even treated as of no weight. I also fail to perceive how the terms
necessary and contingent, so long in vogue for expressing this distinc-
tion, can well be changed for the better.

When it is clearly understood that, by induction, we cognise two
kinds of connexion, necessary and contingent, it will be all the easier
to realise the function fulfilled by the universal proposition in reason-
ing. That function appears to be to certify that induction, in certain
instances, has established necessary connexion so thoroughly that the
work need not be repeated when cases coming within the ideal or
potential extension of the universal proposition present themselves in
reality. Here it is well to observe that any number of inductions
proving contingent connexion only do not afford a proposition fulfilling
functions similar to the above.

The method by which the universal proposition is reached may be
thus set forth : When necessary connexion is proved by induction, the
supposed negation, in any case, of such a connexion is felt to be anti-
inductive, and, therefore, not to be conceived as true, but the affirma-
r tion, in any supposed case, is never felt to be anti-inductive, even
when multiplied indefinitely ; on the other hand (and the contrast is
instructive) when contingent connexion is proved by induction, the
supposed negation of such a connexion is not felt to be anti-inductive,
and is, therefore, perfectly conceivable. It is quite open for us to
imagine that the sun, some time or other, will not show his light, but
it is quite out of our power, I say, to conceive that 1 + 1 can, in any
part of the universe, present itself to any being endowed with intelli-
gence as making what is known to us as 3. Why ? Because such a
supposition is anti-inductive.

It is held by some that the universal proposition guarantees the
truth of every proposition that can be deduced from it. ]STow this
guaranteeing force does not reside in the inferentially generalised con-
tents of the universal proposition, but in such of its contents only as
are proved by induction to be necessary connexions. If the cases
which have undergone inductive scrutiny be A A A, &c., and the
ideal cases inferentially generalised from them be a a a, &c., the gua-
ranteeing force, as J. S. Mill contends, does not reside in the latter,
but solely in the former. There is, however, this important fact to be
noticed : the universal proposition serves to measure the amount of
guaranteeing force that resides in A A A, &c., and registers the belief
that it is unlimited, and, therefore, of course, competent for every
conceivable case of deduction to which it may be applied.

Notes and Discussions. 423

While maintaining the doctrine of induction herein advanced, I
would not have it supposed that I am claiming for elementary induc-
tion all that inductive research is usually understood to embrace. If
a chemist, in an unexplored region of the globe, were to pick up some
new substance, and find, after carefully analysing it — the accuracy of
the analysis being confirmed by other chemists — that it was composed
of certain elements, this being established by valid induction, he
would naturally make a statement, which would be virtually universal,
that the substance A consists of such and such elements. This state-
ment, however, would afford no information as to the quantity in
which the new substance existed. The naturalist's description of that
extinct race of birds called the dodo aims at being a universal state-
ment, as much as his description of the rook tribe which darkens our
fields. But such a universal statement, in the one case, conveys no
information as to the extinction, or, in the other, as to the super-
abundance of the birds mentioned. The two lines of investigation
here indicated both come under the head of inductive research, but
while the one is inductive reasoning, the other is, more properly, sta-
tistical observation.

Singular Induction, as it presents itself to my mind, involves a rule
of the very highest importance. Macaulay, in his Essay on Bacon,
says : " Here is an induction corresponding with Bacon's analysis, and
ending in a monstrous absurdity. In what then does this induction
differ from the induction which leads us to the conclusion that the
presence of the sun is the cause of our having more light by day than
by night ] The difference, evidently, is not in that part of the pro-
cess for which Bacon has given precise rules, but in a circumstance
for which no precise rule can be given." This latter statement, I
confidently submit, is an error, arising from the failure to discover
that Induction has its root in single instances., When it is seen that
this is the case, the following Rule cannot fail to shine out of the dis-
persing mist : — The medium through ivhich the positive and negative
premiss of an induction are compared must be really or virtually one.
Tested by this Rule, such reasoning as the following is found to be
fallacious, because there is no medium of comparison, as demanded by
the Rule : This country prospers, and has protective duties ; that
country does not prosper, and has no protective duties : therefore, this
country prospers because it has protective duties. By the words
" virtually one," in the Rule, are meant two media which so nearly
resemble each other, like two new sovereigns of the same coinage, that
practically there is no difference between them. Thus, if it were pos-
sible to find two lads so like in capacity, age, and disposition, as to be
proximately identical, and these lads were educated, the one according
to the classical, the other to the scientific system, we might conclude,
with close approach to accuracy, that any peculiarities manifested by
the lads as compared with each other, would be due to the system
under which each lad had been educated. But if the lads were so
differently constituted as to be opposites to each other, no valid in-
duction could take place.

424 New Books.

j But how is it that deduction, if, in the order of evolution, it sup-
poses induction, arrived at the purely formal stage of development
before the latter 1 This is to be accounted for by the fact that the
problems which were found approachable at the dawn of inquiry were
of the kind to demand deductive rather than inductive treatment; the
induction that they involved was implicit or spontaneous only, of that
sort, for example, which brought forth the axioms and definitions of
Euclid. Since universal propositions of the first instance, demanded
as a starting point for deduction, were thus acquired, they came, be-
cause of their occult origin, to be called self-evident truths, and, in
course of time, rational intuitions, a priori judgments, and various
other names signifying that, as to origin, they are independent of ex-
perience, and are not derived, according to the order of evolution,
from single instances. As questions involving more inductive treat-
ent came within reach, induction of the statistical order began to be
iveloped, giving rise in course of time to that stage which the a
•iori school describe as incomplete or material induction. But if the
)Ctrine contained in this paper be correct, it follows that there is no
ason for limiting universal truths to the sphere of logical and mathe-
atical necessity, and for demanding for them any higher origin than
duction. The universal truths of chemistry seem to me to be
founded on precisely the same evidence as the universal truths of geo-
metry. A Law of Nature, if proved by induction to be a necessary
connexion, stands exactly on the same foundation, as to evidence, as
2 + 3 equals 5. Even the Laws of Identity, Contradiction, and Ex-
cluded Middle are, to my thinking, first, simple perceptions giving
birth to conceptions ; secondly, singular inductions ; thirdly, univer-
salisations flowing from the latter source.

From the brevity I have imposed upon myself, I am conscious that
I have net done full justice to the doctrine here advanced; I have,
however, recounted its leading features ; and after pondering over
these for more than a quarter of a century, I venture to think that
logicians are called upon to reckon with them before they can confi-
dently affirm what Induction is and is not. W. GEO. DAVIES.

XL— NEW BOOKS.

The Philosophy of Reflection. By SHADWORTH H. HODGSON, Hon.
LL.D., Ed in., Author of Time and Space, The Theory of Prac-
tice, &c., 2 vols. London: Longmans & Co., 1878. Pp. 441,
312.

" The purpose of these volumes," says Mr. Hodgson in his very
striking Preface, " is, first, to lay down the outlines, principles, and
method of a system of Metaphysic, basing it upon known facts of
consciousness ; next, to show that this system necessitates the concep-
tion of a Constructive Branch of philosophy, dealing with phenomena
which are but very partially accessible to us ; and lastly, to combine
these two branches (the latter given in merest outline) into a single

New Books. 425

System of Philosophy ". The present work, following upon its two
predecessors, completes for the author a cycle of thought, and he
declares, as the result of his whole speculative effort, that " we are at
last in possession of a metaphysical system which will not have to be
reversed, however much it may in the future be enlarged and differen-
tiated ". By Metaphysic or Metaphysical Philosophy he means " that
analytic branch of knowledge to which Physic leads, and which in
order of study comes after physical knowledge ; but while allowing,
and even claiming for, it the character of a doctrine of Existence, he
means existence that is relative and phenomenal, and thus distinguishes
metaphysic from all that has been understood (since Aristotle) under
the name of Ontology. The principle he claims to " have established
beyond the possibility of reversal is that of Reflection". " Reflection
is the foundation of metaphysic, because, being the moment of dis-
tinguishing the objective and subjective aspects of phenomena, it gives
us our notion of existence as well as cognition, and that in the largest
sense of the term existence, so that we cannot speak or even frame a
notion of anything beyond it." Also, by his distinction of Nature
and History (expounded in MIND, Nos. I.-III., as in the present work),
he claims to have drawn a firm line between Science and Philosophy
without sacrificing the necessary independence of either ; while, in
the sketch he attempts of the Constructive Branch of Philosophy,
he shows why the ontological questions are not soluble in their old
shape, and also in what shape they are conceivably soluble. After
otherwise presenting the principal features of his system, Mr. Hodgson,
in his Preface (to which attention is now confined), goes on to speak
of the sources of his Philosophy. He set himself in these days,
after Hegel and Schopenhauer, to carry farther the critical strain in
Kant's speculations in the manner (as he has since discovered and
heartily acknowledges) adopted already in Kant's later years by the
Jew Salomon Maimon. The philosophical inspiration came upon him,
however, from Coleridge. From Coleridge he has learnt " everything "
— notably, the two principles of reflection and of distinction of insepar-
ables, but, most of all, " the intimate union between the intellectual
and the emotional elements in human nature ". With Coleridge he
would maintain that " the emotions, and among them the religious
emotions, are as deeply inwoven in the structure and mechanism of
consciousness as any feature of sense or reason," carrying us down
" into the heart of things, the hidden springs of Being, the inmost
nature of the Existent ". And, in fine, it seems to him that the two
questions of supreme practical importance, in relation to philosophy,
at the present time are these : — (1) " Have we or have we not valid
reasons for conceiving of ourselves and the actual world in which we
live as surrounded by an unseen, but in its nature phenomenal, world,
of which ours is the seen part and with which it has real but unseen
relations ? " (2) " Can we treat that unseen world, simply because
it is unseen, as if it were not existent ? " His affirmative answer to
the first is implied in the putting of the second question, and to this
his answer, closing a remarkable utterance, in a most impressive No.

30

426 New Books.

On the Theory of Logic : An Essay. By CARVETH KEAD. London :

Kegan Paul, 1878. Pp. 258.

The readers of MIND had a foretaste of this Essay in No. VI., and
later on it will receive the critical notice which its importance deserves.
It is a fruit of the studies made by the author three or four years
ago, when holding a travelling scholarship from the Hibbert Trust

The Elements of Inductive Logic, designed mainly for the use of
Students in the Universities. By THOMAS FOWLER, M.A., Pro-
fessor of Logic in the University of Oxford. Third Edition,
corrected and revised. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1876. Pp.
xxviii., 360.

This new Edition of Prof. Fowler's well-known and useful Manual
(appearing only now, though dated 1876), is prefaced by some
pointed observations on the "inconsistencies and paradoxes" into
which Professor Jevons has fallen in his Principles of Science, when
treating of the validity of inductive inferences, of the relation of
Induction to Deduction, &c. Various alterations and additions have
been made throughout the work, rendering it still more effective than
hitherto for students' purposes.

BACON'S Novum Organum, Edited with Introductions, Notes, &c., by

THOMAS FOWLER, M.A., Prof, of Logic in the University of

Oxford. Oxford : At the Clarendon Press, 1878. Pp. 619.

A very elaborately annotated edition, replacing the older Clarendon

Press edition by Mr Kitchin. The Notes and Introduction together

are intended as " a commentary which, besides explaining the

difficulties of the work (by no means few or small), should also present

Bacon in his relations to the History of Philosophy, Logic, and

Science". Prof. Fowler has put into the seventeen distinct sections

of his Introduction (amounting in all to 151 pp.) the results of much

inquiry, which it may be possible on another occasion to appreciate

with due care.

A Candid Examination of Theism. By PHYSICUS. (Vol. IX. of
the English and Foreign Philosophical Library.) London :
Triibner & Co., 1878. Pp. 197.

An essay of marked ability, that does not belie its title. It
examines in six chapters — (1) various Illogical arguments in favour of
Theism, (2) the argument from the existence of the Human Mind,
(3) the argument from Design, (4) the argument from General Laws,
(5) the logical standing of the question of the being of a God, (6) the
argument from Metaphysical Teleology ; and in a final chapter sums
up to a conclusion mainly negative. The essay was written several years
ago, before the publication of Mill's posthumous treatise. Arr Appendix,
expository of a fallacy in Locke's use of the argument against the
possibility of matter thinking on the ground of its being inconceivable
that it should, is followed by four supplementary essays : (1) examining
Mr Spencer's Theistical argument with reference to Mr Fiske's

New Books. 427

" Cosmic Theism " built upon it ; (2) examining Prof. Flint's Theism ;
(3) on the speculative standing of Materialism; (4) on the Final
Mystery of Things.

Insanity in Ancient and Modern Life, with chapters on its Prevention.

By DANIEL HACK TUKE, M.D. London : Macmillan & Co.,

1878. Pp. 226.

The author deals in Part I. with the * Prevalence of the Causes of
Insanity among the Nations of Antiquity/ and enumerating as general
causes — intoxication, defective nourishment, inter-marriage, emotional
disturbance, and intellectual strain, finds evidence that, if not largely
active in primitive races, they became distinctly so among such cultured
peoples as Egyptians, Jews, Greeks, and Eomans. In Part II., treating
of ' Insanity in relation to Modern Life,' he finds, after making every
possible deduction, " that there is reason to fear some real increase of
occurring insanity " in this country. In Part III. he gives practical
advice with a view to ' Self -prevention of Insanity '.

The Final Philosophy, or, System of Perfectible Knowledge issuing
from the Harmony of Science and Religion. By CHARLES
WOODRUFF SHIELDS, D.D., Professor in Princeton College (New
Jersey, U.S.). London : Trubner & Co., 1878. Pp. 609.

The scope of this large treatise will be understood^from the following
Table of Contents : —

" Introduction— The academic study of Christian Science. Part I. The
philosophical parties as to the relations between Science and Religion —
Early conflicts between them, or the historical causes of their present
disturbed relations— rModern Antagonism between them, or the battle of
Infidels and Apologists in each of the sciences, in philosophy, and in
civilisation — Modern Indifferentism between them, or the truces of
Sciolists and Dogmatists in the sciences, &c. — Modern Eclecticism between
them, or the exploits of Religious Eclectics in the sciences, &c. — Modern
Scepticism between them, or the surrender of Religious Sceptics in the
sciences, &c. Part II. The philosophical theory of the Harmony of Science
and Religion — The Umpirage of Philosophy between Science and Religion
— The Positive Philosophy, or theory of Science as ignoring Revelation—-
The Absolute Philosophy, or theory of Omniscience as superseding Revela-
tion— The Final Philosophy, or Theory of Perfectible Science as concurring
with Revelation — Philosophia Ultima: project of the perfected Sciences
and Arts."

Live Questions in Psychology and Metaphysics. By Prof. W. D.

WILSON. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1877. Pp. 164.
Six lectures, selected from the author's Courses on Psychology and
Metaphysics with History of Philosophy, as delivered to his
classes in Cornell University. The first three are psychological, and
treat of Sensation, Consciousness, Volition; the special aim of the
author being to sift the various explanations that have been given of
these fundamental facts, in the hope of clearing them of some con-
fusion and error. Thus in regard to Sensation he remarks on the
absence of any clear definition of its meaning, whether as referring to

428 New Books.

an act fundamentally distinct from perception, or as implying that
along with the latter it goes to make up one complex act. He him-
self proposes to limit the signification of the term to " any state of either
of the two lower nerve-centres, which has been recently produced ".
Perception, on the other hand, is an act of the mind, consequent on a
sensation reaching the hemispheres of the brain. So in regard to
Consciousness he observes that several different and conflicting inter-
pretations have been given to the term, and then proceeds to argue
that consciousness is not essential to sensation, either as an element
or as a sign. The last three lectures are devoted to the consideration
and proposed solution of the three great questions in Metaphysics —
the Nature and Origin of Knowledge, the Ground and Extent of Cer-
tainty or Absolute Truth, and the Nature and Limits of Real Causes.

L* Imagination. Etude psychologique. Par HENRI JOLY, Prof esseur a la
Faculty des Lettres de Dijon. Paris: Hachette, 1877. Pp.264.
M. Joly's work, written with delightful facility of style and with
fine pyschological insight, contains a very thorough study of the
various forms of Imagination in health and disease. Opening with a
chapter on the relation between Sensations and the Images formed
from them, M. Joly puts forward as explanation of the production of
images the general law that each organ struggles to live its own life,
to develop and maintain itself, and to continue its normal activity
even under unfavourable circumstances. Thus the organs which under
external stimulus are concerned in the production of sensations tend
in the absence of these conditions to resume the mode of action to
which they have become accustomed. The various forms of Imagination
are then traced under three heads : (1) "Where the images mingle
with our ordinary intelligent life without disturbing it or suspending
its normal activity (Imagination in health) ; (2) Where the image
does not put an end to the activity of sense or reason, but so
interferes with them that their normal order is reversed (Hallucinations,
Madness) ; (3) When the image is so powerful that it veritably
suspends in whole or part the exercise of the other mental functions,
even of the senses ; our mental life is replaced by a secondary mode
of existence, dominated throughout by some fixed image or idea
(Somnambulism, Ecstasy). These three forms are then treated with
considerable detail. Beginning with Somnambulism, M. Joly points
out how the remarkable phenomena of intensified sensibility,
manifested even in the absence of the normal conditions of
experience, may be explained by the action of the image which is
dominating the mental life of the somnambulist. The receptivity to
impressions in such circumstances is determined to one definite
direction, that which harmonises with the ruling idea. Numerous
illustrations of this principle are given, and the facts of induced
somnambulism or magnetic sleep are brought forward in support of it.
In the following chapter (iv.) the author lays down as the conditions
of Hallucination, cerebral excitement, suspension of external impres-
sions, and the involuntary exercise of memory and imagination. He

New Books. 429

shows very clearly how the fixed idea comes to be projected and
objectified through the withdrawal of corrective impressions and the
enfeeblement of attention and volition. Chapters v. and vi., on
Dreams, Unreflective Imitation, and Credulity, are pleasantly written,
but contain nothing of importance. Chapter vii. deals fully with the
action of the senses as determining the number, quality, and
peculiarity of the images, and conversely with the action of images as
leading to imitation of observed movements, to the actual experience
of imagined sensations and motions, and to the production of states of
feeling corresponding to expressive acts. The remaining four chapters
contain remarks on imagination as manifested in Natural Expression,
in Art, Literature, and Science.

Dei Concetti direttivi di John Stuart Mill nella Logica e nella Psico-
logia. Nota del Prof. ALESSANDRO PAOLI. Roma: 1877. Pp.23.
The author divides his essay into two parts. In the first, examin-
ing Mill's estimate of the value of names and the nature of general
ideas, he maintains that names cannot be held to signify things or
to refer directly to physical facts, and further that they cannot be
taken as the data of Logic. For the purposes of thought a sensation
has no other value than what it derives from its relation to other
sensations, and the knowledge of any object or physical fact is
moulded by the conditions in which it is presented to the mind.
The true foundation, therefore, for the rules of Logic is to be found
not in names, but in the conceptions which are acquired in the
process of scientific thought. When Mill attributes the decline of
Logic within the last two centuries to the mistake of comparing two
ideas instead of two phenomena in a proposition, he seems to the
author to fall himself into a mistake. The older logicians erred, not
in seeking to establish a relation between two ideas instead of two
phenomena, but in adopting traditional ideas instead of following
the advance of thought and recognising that Logic is subject to modifi-
cation and correction from the progress of knowledge. In the second
part of his essay Prof. Paoli discusses Mill's psychological doctrines.
He contends that Mill by giving undue regard to phenomena and
their laws has landed himself in contradictions, and misconceived the
nature of the connexion existing between Logic and Psychology. The
belief in the External World, the conceptions of time and space, and
knowledge generally, are not to be explained by a mere fusion and
union of representations ; there must also be the perception of their
contiguity, and the exercise of judgment.

Die Eihik David Hume's in Hirer geschichtlichen Stellung, Nebst
einem Anhang uber die universelle Gliickseligkeit als oberstes
Moralprincip. Von Dr. GEORG VON GIZYCKI. Breslau : L.
Kohler, 1878. Pp. xvii., 357.

"In this treatise the author seeks to contribute to the due appreciation and
true historical understanding of Hume's ethics in Germany. The Introduc-
tion deals with the doctrines of the most important English moral philoso-
phers, viz., Bacon, Hobbes, Cudworth, Clarke, Wollaston, Cumberland,

430 New Books.

Locke, Shaftesbury, Butler, Hutcheson (pp. 1-30). Next follows the
exposition with detailed criticism of Hume's ethics (pp. 31-196). In.
conclusion, a short survey is taken of the chief ethical theorists after Hume,
viz.) Smith, Haitley, Mackintosh, Bentham, J. S. Mill, and Darwin. The
essay appended (pp. 245-357) is only loosely connected with the main
treatise. The contents are : — I. Arguments for the Principle of Universal
Happiness (1) from the comparative study of morals and moral systems, (2)
from the notion of an ultimate scientific principle, (3) from the fundamental
constitution of will, (4) from general considerations pertaining to
natural philosophy ; II. Denomination of the Principle ; III. The Nature
of Happiness ; IV. Why Ethics cannot rest upon the mere feeling of
Duty ; Y. Vindication of the Principle against misunderstandings and
objections."

KANT'S Prolegomena, fyc. Herausgegeben und historisch erklart.

Von BENNO ERDMANN. Leipzig : Voss, 1878.

" This edition is based on the view that the Prolegomena is composed of
two parts essentially different in origin and tendency. Kant first intended
a mere extract from the K. d. r. V. This was in great part completed, when
he was moved by the Gottingen criticism to make insertions and additions of
a historical and polemical cast. The different parts are separated accord-
ingly in this edition. The Introduction (pp. 128), besides justifying the
division, gives an outline of Kant's development from 1780 to '82, with a
minute investigation of the relation of the Prolegg. to the first edition of the
K. d. r. V., resulting in conclusions not a little different from the views
hitherto prevalent as to the doctrine of the Ding-an-sich and Kant's relation
to Hume. (1) It is shown that Kant in 1781 connects his idealism exclusively
with the result of the ^Esthetic, and employs it in the Dialectic only against
the psychological paralogisms and cosmological antinomies. The conclusions
of the Analytic are conceived in an empiristic sense only. Owing thft
to the Gottingen criticism and other attacks, there takes place in the Prolegg.
a change of doctrine, the attempt now being made to combine in a new way
the assumption of active things-in-themselves, never doubted by Kant, with
the conclusions of the Analytic. (2) It is shown, by a reference to Kant's
ownacount of his development in the Dorpat MSS., that his veering-round
in 1769 was not determined by Hume but by the doctrine of the Antinomy,
and that the emancipative influence of Hume was not felt till 1772 (after
the letter to Herz). Kant regarded himself therefore not as the opponent
but as the follower of Hume."

Zur Grundlegung der Psych ophysiJc. Kritische Beitrage. Von

GEORG ELIAS MULLER. Berlin : Griebeu, 1878. Pp. 425.
" The first section treats of the psychophysical methods of measurement ;
the author, among other things, trying to show that the l method of mean
errors ' can give no trustworthy results, and also that the ' method of just
observable differences ' and the ' method of true and false cases ' must be
otherwise applied than hitherto. The second section subjects to a detailed
consideration and critical sifting the whole series of experiments as yet under-
taken in relation to E. H. Weber's law ; and the third is occupied with its
interpretation. It is shown, against Hering, Langer, Brentano, Delboeuf,
and others, that the approximate validity of Fechner's formula of measure-
ment follows as a more or less probable consequence from the facts of
Weber's law ; but that Fechner's psychophysical conception of the formula
is far less probable than a physiological interpretation, and cannot be main-
tained without modification. The fourth section treats of the practical
value of Weber's law."

XII— NEWS.

Mr W. H. S. Monck has been appointed to the Chair of Moral
Philosophy in Trinity College, Dublin, in succession to Dr. M'lvor.

Dr. Alexius Meinong, author of the Hume-Studien noticed in the
present number, has qualified as Privatdocent in the University
of Vienna.

The monument to be erected next year to Giordano Bruno at Eome
will be supplemented by another national memorial of the
philosopher. Professor Fiorentino has been charged by the Minister
of Public Instruction with the preparation of a complete edition of his
works. The Roman Opinions, of May 3rd, contains a description by
Prof. Berti of some unedited works of the philosopher existing in
autograph MS. in the Library of St. Petersburg.

The rendering of Mr Spencer's ' System of Philosophy ' into other
languages proceeds apace. Dr E. Gazelles, in France, and Dr B.
Vetter, in Germany, have just completed the translations of the
Principles of Biology. The series of chapters on ' Ceremonial
Government,' begun in the January number of the Fortnightly Review,
will enter into Vol. II. of the Principles of Sociology ; the old mode
of serial issue of parts to subscribers being now discontinued. These
chapters are appearing simultaneously also in an American, a French,
a German, an Italian, a Hungarian, and a Russian journal.

JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Vol. XII. No. 1. — W. James
— ' Spencer's Definition of Mind '. Hegel — ' Symbolic Art ' (transl.). Th.
Gray — ( The Nation and the Commune '. Rosenkranz — ' Pedagogics as a
System' (paraph.). G. B. Halatead— ' Boole's Logical Method'. Notes
and Discussions. Book Notices.

REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. — 3me Annee. No. IV. Ch. Leveque — ' L'Ato-
misme grec et la Metaphysique '. J. Sully — ' Le Pessimisme et la Poesie '.
L. Carrau — ' Moralistes anglais contemporains : M. H. Sidgwick ' (fin).
Analyses et comptes-rendus (H. Spencer, Principes de biologie ; Smiles, Le
Caractere, &c.) Notices bibliographiques. Rev. des Periodiques. No. V.
H. Marion — ' John Locke, d'apres des documents nouveaux ' (H. R. F.
Bourne, Life of John Locke). H. Spencer — ' Etudes de Sociologie ' (IV., V.).
P. Regnaud — ' Philosophe indienne : La Transmigration '. Analyses et
comptes-rendus. Rev. des Period. No. VI. A. Burdeau — ' Le Tragique
comme Loi du Monde, d'apres Bahnsen '. A. Espinas — ' Etudes nouvelles
de Psychologic comparee ' (Tissot, De V Intelligence et de rinstinct dans
Vhomme et dans I' animal, 1878 ; Vignoli, Delia legge fondamentale della
Intelligenza nel regno animale, 1877). H. Marion — * John Locke, d'apres
des doc. nouv.' (fin). Observations et Documents — ' Le Sens de 1'Espace,
d'apres M. E. de Cyon '. Analyses et comptes-rendus.

LA CRITIQUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.— Vllme Annee, Nos. 7-19. C. Renouvier—
' A propos de la peine de mort' ( 7) ; 'La question de la certitude ' (10, 13, 18) ;
' La psychophysique appreciee d'apres la doctrine mathematique ' (12) ; 'La

432 News.

caracteristique du crime capitale ' (17). F. Pillon — ' Quelques mots de M.
Littie sur le libre arbitre (8) ; ' La methode en biologie — Cuvier, Blainville,
Comte' (9) ; * Le centenaire de Voltaire et de Rosseau ' (9) ; ' Voltaire et
Rosseau juges par Comte' (13, 14) ; Frederic Bastiat' (15); ' Hommage a
Voltaire ' (19). P. Dupuy — ' Opposition du catechisme et de la morale
rationelle ' (11). Ch. Pellarin — 'Voltaire et Bossuet d'apres la, Revue des
deux Mondes' (19). Bibliographie (A. Mouchot, La reforme cartesienne
etendue aux diverses branches de Mathematiques pures (8) ; Ch. Secretan,
Discours laiques (15) ; B. Perez, Les trois premieres annexes de I' Enfant (17)).

LA FILOSOFIA DELLE ScuoLE iTALiANE. — Vol. XVI., Disp. 3. G. Jan-
delli— 'Del Sentimento ' (III.). T. Mamiani— ' Filosofia della Religione.'
A. Martinazzoli — ' Del primo conosciuto e del primo inteso .' F. Bertinaria
— ' II problema dell' incivilmento '. Carteggio. J. C. Doni — ' Del Corag-
gio, Trattato morale'. N. N. — 'Appunti sul Darwinismo'. Biblio-
grafia, &c. Vol. XVII. Disp. 1. La Direzione — ' Avvertimento allettore'.
T. Mamiani — ' Se il bello sia progressive '. G. M. Bertini — ' Sulla filo-
sofia moderna contemporanea '. M. J. Monrad — ' L'idealismo assoluto '.
L. Ferri — ' I limit! dell' idealismo '. J. C. Doni — ' Del coraggio '. L.
Ferri— ' La filosofia scozzese e il suo ultimo storico, M'Cosh '. Biblio-
grafia, &c. Disp. 2, T. Mamiani — ' Le due psicologie ', A. Marconi —
' La critica nella questione della spiritualita dell' anima umana '. E.
Bobba — ' La dottrina della liberta secondo Herzen et Spencer in rapporto
colla morale '. C. Cantoni— ' G. M. Bertini '. Bibliog., &c.

PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. — Bd. XIV., Heft 3. H. v. Kleist—
' Plotin's Kritik des Materialismus '. Recensionen u. Anzeigen (Harms,
Die Philosophic in ihrer Geschichte ; Kapp, Grundlinien einer Philosophic der
Technik ; Deussen, Die Elemente der Metaphysik ; Barach, Kleine philos.
Schriften ; Pfenninger, Der Begriff der Strafe ; Espinas, Des Socie'te's
animates). Litteraturbericht (Flint, Theism, &c.). Bibliographie, &c.
Heft 4. A. Franck — ' Ueber E. v. Hartmann's Phil, des Unbewussten '.
A. Stadler — ' Ueber die Ableitung des psychophysischen Gesetzes '. Rec.
u. Anzeig. (Gwinner, Schopenhauer's Leben ; Fontana, Idea, per una filosofia
della storia; Hartmann, Das Unbewusste vom StandpunJcte der Physiologic, u.
Descendenztheorie ; Hoffmann, Philosoph. Schriften). Horwicz, Bohm —
' Zur Theorie des Gedachtnisses u. der Erinnerung ' (Replik, Duplik).
Bibliog. Heft 5. K. Ch. Planck — ' Das Causalgesetz in seiner rein
logischen u. in seiner realen Form '. L. Weis — ' Herder u. die moderne
Naturphilosophie '. Rec. u. Anzeigen. (Michelis, Die Philosophic des
Bewusstseins ; Meinong, Hume-Studien ; Rabus, Philosophie u. Theologie;
Schramm, Die Erkennbarkeit Gottes in der Phil. u. in der Religion ; Erdmann,
Grundriss der Gesch. der Phil. 3te Aufl.) Litteraturbericht. " Bibliog.

VlERTELJAHRSCHRIFT FtJE, WlSSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. — Bd.

II. Heft 3. W. Windelband— ' Ueber den Einfluss des Willens auf das
Denken '. H. Vaihinger — ' Das Entwickelungsgesetz der Vorstellungen
iiber das Reale' (I.). H. Weissenborn — 'Ueber die neueren Ansichten
vom Raum u. von den geometrischen Axiomen ' (IL). Recensionen.
Selbstanzeigen.

ZEITSCHRIFT FUK, PHILOSOPHIE, &c. — Bd. LXXII., Heft 2. F. Ber-
tram—' Die Unsterblichkeitslehre Plato's ' (L). Th. v. Varnbuler— ' Das
reine Denken '. E. Dreher — ' Zum Verstandniss der Sinneswahrneh-
mungen ' (III.). M. Schasler — ' Zur Geschichte der Ironie '. H. Ulrici —
' Psychophysische Fragen u. Bedenken '. K. Kehrbach — ' Replik, &c. '.
Recensionen. Bibliographie.

No. 12.] [October, 1878.

MIND

A QUARTERLY REVIEW

OF

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY,

I—THE MUSCULAR PERCEPTION OF SPACE.

THE intuitive school, Hegel alone excepted, have always held
with Sir William Hamilton, that it is " truly an idle problem to
attempt imagining the steps by which we may be supposed to
have acquired the notion of extension ". Yet it is precisely this
problem that, during the last few decades, has become the centre
of all psychological investigation. In this new direction of
thought is involved, to some extent, a change of philosophical
base and method. So suggestive are the new facts which have
already crowned its researches, that the growing school of
Ideal-realism begins to hope for an entire re-statement, if not
indeed a partial solution, of the Wissenscfiaftsletire itself.
Reacting from the world-bestriding generalisations of the
system-builders of the heroic age of German philosophy, and
working with a true analytic microcosmic zeal, more to be
expected under the influence of Berkeley than of Kant, and none
the less truly philosophical because led by specialists, the new
method has at least impressed one wholesome moral. Henceforth
philosophers will beware of such words as ' simple/ ' immediate,'
' necessary,' ' ultimate,' on the one hand, and ' inconceivable/
' impossible/ ' unknowable/ on the other, as applied to any
forms or products of thought.

Every muscular contraction, with which the most rudimentary
known psychic elements of space-perception appear to be

31

434 The Muscular Perception of Space.

somehow connected, consists of a very complex train of material
changes. Which of these give rise to the feelings of fatigue and
tension, and to the knowledge of the position of our limbs ?
Some have believed these sensations to be due largely to the
skin. Van der Kolk observed that when a mixed nerve sent
motor fibres to a muscle, it very often sent sensitive fibres to the
overlying skin. Schiff* ascribes muscular sense, in part, to the
pressure of the belly of the contracted muscle upon the inner
tissues of the skin, its stretching and the friction of its moving
ends against surrounding softer membranes. Even rheumatic
pain, according to Schiff, is seated in morbidly sensitive cutaneous
nerves. The movements of the eye are brought to consciousness
by nerves surrounding the bulbus. Folding, stretching or
pressing the skin near the joints gives rise to sensation of motion
in the limb. Leyden-f- observed that if the skin was fully
etherised, although difference in weights could be estimated
with great accuracy, there were motor disturbances, arising, no
doubt, chiefly from a diminished sense of position in the limbs.
On the other hand, Bernard^ stripped the skin from the limbs of
a frog, and found its powers of swimming were not affected for
some time, till, owing to the action of the water, the irritability
of the muscles and the excitability of the nerves were lost
together, while, if the sensitive roots of the sciatic nerve are cut,
all the animal's movements become immediately ataxic. Again,
it is urged by many physiologists that the Pacinian bodies, lying
abundantly as they do about the joints, with the delicate
leverage of their capsules, may give us no inaccurate knowledge
of the position of our limbs, and even the tension of our muscles.
It is quite possible that they contribute to muscular sense, but
that they do so only incidentally we may infer from the fact that
they are found in the mesentery and along the intercostal nerves
where they cannot have this function, and from the general mode
of their distribution and the degree of their sensitiveness.

That touch and muscular sense are very intimately connected
in every form of animal life, and that the former often acts
vicariously for the latter must be fully admitted. The skin is
also very sensitive over those parts which admit of the greatest
variety and freedom of motion. But that no kind of cutaneous
manipulation can give rise to any kind of muscular sensation,
almost all observers are agreed. The points where the skin is
most sensitive to discrimination of pressure, the forehead, lips,
cheeks, &c., are by no means those where muscular sense is most
acute. Weber concluded that we could distinguish differences
of J in weight, and only of J in pressure upon the skin, but it

* Muskel u. NervenphysioL pp. 156, ff. f Virclwufs Archiv, Bd. 47.

\Physiol. du Systeme Nerveux, I., p. 251.

The Muscular Perception of Space. 435

may be safely said that, although others have reached quite
different results, no one has yet entirely eliminated elements of
touch from experiments upon muscular discrimination, whether
produced by active or passive movements.

Some investigators, especially Wundt,* make the chief
elements of muscular sense central instead of peripheral,
ascribing it to a feeling of innervation. We have a more or less
immediate sense of force, it is said, the various degrees and
directions of which are distinguished and also associated with
experiences of different kinds of movements, and which perhaps,
if it be volitional, is directed by an ideal representation of the
movement intended, and of which, after it has been executed, we
receive more or less accurate tidings from the sense of touch ;
while, from the time which intervenes between the act of will
and the resulting modifications of peripheral sensation, farther
details of tension, resistance and rapidity of motion are inferred.
The hypothesis of a feeling of innervation, as an ulterior
explanation of most, if not all, of the facts of physiological
psychology, we regard as marking one of the most important
epochs in the history of philosophy. Even as crudely conceived
by Schiff, it is a constant function of muscular sense, which
nevertheless contains elements quite as specific and distinct
as sight itself, and conditioned directly by the state of the
muscular fibres. Eeserving for the present the discussion of this
point, we will only mention here the important experiments of
Bernhardt,f who found that we could distinguish weights nearly
as well when the muscles of the arm were contracted by
electricity as when they were stimulated by the will, and the
fact that even the pains of cramp, tenesmus, colic, &c., which
have no conscious innervation, are not only felt but are of very
distinguishable degrees of violence, as, for instance, in the peculiar
case of hemicrania, which long ago led Du Bois-EeymondJ to
assume the existence of sensitive fibres between those x>f the
muscle and irritated by them.

When we remember how constantly sleeping or waking
consciousness is modified by the state and action of the visceral
organs, and then reflect that the muscles constitute about
one-half the bulk of the entire human body, and that, according
to the computation of Helmholtz, one-fifth of all its energy,
measured by foot-pounds, goes out in muscular work, we may
fairly claim, without exhausting the method of exclusion with all
its asserted proxies and auxiliaries, that the presumption is
strongly in favour of a special muscular sense. More recently,
however, its existence has been placed almost beyond doubt by

* Physiologische Psychologie, pp. 288, ff. t Archivfiir Psychiatric, 1872.
J Archivfiir Anatomie, 1874.

436 The Muscular Perception of Space.

the classic experiments of Carl Sachs.* The anterior sciatic
roots of a frog \vere severed upon one side and, after twenty-four
hours for recovery, the animal was made as sensitive as possible
by a subcutaneous injection of strychnia. In this way, even the
fall of a pin upon the table several feet off, or the voice of the
operator, is often sufficient to cause the reflex cramps which are
to be used as indices of the irritation of sensitive nerves. Upon
the motionless limb, the long sartorius muscle, chosen because
its nerves are mostly near the centre, is dissected out upon an
isolating plate of glass, till it is connected with the body, which
is still further protected from irritation by an envelope of
blotting paper, only by its slender nerve-fibre itself. Du Bois-
Eeymond had shownf that the strongest irritation of a motor
root causes little or no effect in an animal similarly prepared.
Sachs, however, found that very slight irritations, first by
electricity, then by ammonia (which stimulates only muscular
fibres), applied at the nerveless ends of his preparation, caused
reflex convulsions over the entire body of the frog ; which must
therefore, in the latter case, be caused by the contraction as such.
The physiological proof of the existence of centripetal or sensitive
fibres in the muscle itself, at least within the perimysium, could
hardly be more complete. The present writer should, however,
admit that his attempts to verify this experiment have been
extremely unsatisfactory. To his knowledge, indeed, it has never
been done.

The anatomical proof of the existence of special sensitive
fibres in muscles was scarcely less conclusive. When motor
roots are cut from the spinal cord, which is their nutritive centre,
very striking microscopic changes take place in the peripheral
portions, which have long been observed, the precise nature of
which, however, is a matter of much difference of opinion
among anatomists. The fibres are first inflamed, then shrink
and shrivel, becoming dull and opaque, till finally, in from four
to eight weeks, all distinction of parts is lost in a kind of fatty
degeneration. After the effects of such a section, Sachs studied
the minute ramifications of the nerve of the same muscle, and
found that two, out of about twenty of its fibres, showed no sign
of the degeneration which had destroyed all the rest. These he
inferred must therefore be derived from the posterior or
sensitive roots. The converse experiment was far less satisfac-
tory. This, however, should be expected. The section of the
posterior roots must be made below the spinal ganglia, their
nutritive centre, and it is almost impossible to make sure that
some motor roots of the same muscle have not also been severed.

*Archiv filr Anatomie, 1874.
^Untersuchungen iiber thier. Elek., Bd. II., s. 600.

The Muscular Perception of Space. 437

Moreover, it is far harder to follow degenerate among sound
fibres than the reverse. The course of the sensitive fibres may
even be traced after they have joined the main trunk through its
decomposing substance. And, finally, the sensitive roots after
section are perhaps kept from decaying by streams of irritation
from the intact motor roots, or from the muscle itself, while no
such conservative influence can pass from sensitive to motor
fibres. Indeed Colastine* has found that there was no de-
generation of the peripheral part after severing the olfactory
nerve. Sachs finally succeeded in irritating the nerve fibres
singly and found that, while most caused the muscular fibres with
which they were connected to contract, a few had no such power.
In 1872 Odenius. and a few months later, though in-
dependently and by a quite different microscopic method and
more minutely, Sachs, traced and described these supposed
sensitive fibres and found them the same for all vertebrate
striped muscle. They leave the large motor trunk and, instead
of ending like its roots very soon after entering the muscle in
short, blunt, medullated, dichotomising stems, they soon lose the
medullary sheath, and, running over long spaces of interstitial
tissue, end, sometimes by turning loosely and irregularly about
the outside of a primitive bundle, like a tendril, following its
course for some distance, sometimes after countless dendritical
branchings by being lost in the meshes of connective tissue or the
sarcolemma, while sometimes, after meandering freely between,
they appear finally to enter the muscular fibres themselves. These
minute pale soft fibres, sometimes given off in considerable
numbers, often anastomose, and seem to end in plexuses or even
in irregular loops, although Sachs was rarely certain that he had
found a veritable fibre-end. That he did so seems highly
improbable, for mineral or acid re-agents, as he himself admits,
are very apt either to destroy or fail clearly to stain fibres of less
than '001mm. in diameter. Odenius could find no real division
of the axis-cylinder, which he believed with Schultze to be itself
composed of fibrillse. After losing the perineurium together
with the medulla, the enclosing membrane often cannot be
distinguished from its contents, so delicate is it. After their
primary and secondary divisions, the course of these fibres is
often marked by very peculiar round or biscuit-formed bodies,
probably not gangliar in their nature, and not so much
interrupting the continuity of the fibre, as springing from its
sheath, though many times its diameter. Finally, it should not
be forgotten, as an additional proof that these are really sensitive
fibres, that they have been found to be most numerous in the
muscles of the eye.

*Archivfilr Anat. u. Physiol, 1875.

438 The Muscular Perception of Space.

This hasty sketch of the present condition of the question of
muscular sense brings us to our first enquiry, viz., how do the
changes caused in a muscle by motor innervation excite its
sensitive fibres ? If we wind a string in several spirals about
the chest and inhale a full breath, it will slip about four inches
for each of the coils which will be drawn slightly nearer each
other, while if the string be thoroughly acoustic we can hear the
muscular tone with a simple arrangement at the other end.
This, like most illustrations, although it conveys a general
notion of what takes place, is yet wrong in every detail as an
image of the action of a sensitive nerve. The coils by which it
encircles the belly of muscular fibres are extremely irregular.
Often its course is parallel to them, and sometimes the direction
of the coils is reversed, many minute threads passing off more or
less diagonally. If these fibres stretch during contraction with
the increasing diameter of the fibres they enclose, and if this
form of irritation is the immediate datum of the conscious
sensation of motion, then either the latter must infer one
dimension of space from another, the motion of the limb from
the swelling of the muscle, or else the inherent difference between
the psychic and the neural aspect, or "infinitesimal event,"
involves at bottom that between one dimension of space and
another more magnified. The same would also be true of fibres
running transversely across a large number of muscular bundles.
But the chief change is a diminution of length. In most muscles,
owing to their form, this is several times the change in their
diameter. Indeed, an ordinary muscle, if isolated, may often
shorten three fifths of its length, while the fact that the course
of a sensitive nerve is so much more extended after leaving its
motor trunk than that of the motor roots themselves, indicates
that it can shorten with and like the contractile wave ; while if,
as would seem to be the case, the motor branches end, not only
more briefly, but nearer the centre of the muscle, they would
have almost entire immunity from the systematical shortening.
Furthermore, it seems possible, from Sachs's isolated irritations,
and from the gradual increment of the first stage of ascent in the
muscle-curve, that the waves of contraction in the different
fibre-bundles do not actually coincide, some fibres beginning to
contract a little before and some a little after the instant when
the index rises from the abscissa-line on the revolving cylinder.
Thus, in case of a nerve in contact with both a pre-punctual and
a belated contractile fibre, the intensity of the above mode of
irritation would be vastly increased.

These then are the psycho-physical factors of what we shall
call the first muscular sense. We have seen motion in the
terminal organ directly transferred to nervous elements with less

The Muscular Perception of Space. 439

change than a sound wave undergoes in being reproduced in the
nerves of Corti's arches, or on the recording cylinder of a
phonograph. It is from such neural modifications that we get
what Bain somewhat inaccurately calls the " sense of range ".
We may weight or fatigue our hand, or force it into any
unnatural position, and yet we can make a dozen marks with a
pencil, of any prescribed length, with nearly as much accuracy as
in the natural way, so thoroughly is this sense intellectualised or
abstracted from other muscular feelings on the one hand, and
from the more immediate sensation of shortening fibres on the
other. That it is isolated from the former, we regard as one of
the most conclusive proofs that innervation is as inadequate to
account for the details of muscular sense or feeling, as a father's
account of the time and amount of remittances would be as a
record of his son's expenses.

Careful measurements with muscles immersed in fluids have
shown that they undergo a diminution of volume amounting to
about one thousandth of their bulk during contraction. As they
are composed of three fourths water which the greatest pressure
can reduce only about five hundred-thousandths, it is evident that
there must be considerable change in density of their substance.
This is easily felt in the hardening of contracted tissue, and
varies with the degree of tension or resistance, rather than with
the amount of shortening, and may be approximately measured
by increased blood-pressure. Any such change would of course
be greatly augmented along the crest of each wave of contraction,
near the contractile elements ; and, in a substance where every
tissue must be more or less strained, as the fluid conformed to
the law of hydrostatic pressure, those that were softest would
suffer greatest change of form. Along the track of the sensitive
nerves, apparently attached to their sheath and not interrupting
their course but easily slipping over their surface, are the oval
or spindle-shaped bodies* above mentioned. They appear
enclosed in a hyaline coat, and with a semi-transparent,
granular, rather than cellular, content. The finer structure of
these pads, although they are very large compared with the fibres
they enclose, is entirely unknown. Now may they not be
analogous to the tactile corpuscles in structure, though adapted
here in the centre of the muscle to respond not so much to
contact as to pressure ? Sensitiveness to weights when lifted
follows the same psychophysical law as weights estimated by
cutaneous pressure, with this remarkable coincidence. At the
lower end of the former series, up to three hundred grains,
Fechner found an increase of discriminative sensibility, which he
was entirely unable to explain, except by suggesting an analogy

*Archivfilr Anatomic, 1874, pp. 666-7.

440 The Muscular Perception of Space.

with the immense increase of sensitiveness near the threshold of
the touch-scale, known as the phenomena of tickling,* where, up
to a certain point, mechanical compression of the terminal
substance diminishes sensibility. Farther than this, both alike
are inexplicable. If we suppose that, in a free unloaded
contraction, a less number of fibres actively shorten than when
there is great resistance to be overcome, then the number of
these bodies irritated as well as the intensity of their irritation
may help our discriminations doubtless in the perception of
weight far more than in feelings of range or fatigue. How
independent this second muscular sense is, appears in the fact
that it makes no appreciable difference in the accuracy with
which we discriminate two weights, whether we lift them through
five or through twenty inches, or, within certain limits, whether
we are fresh or fatigued. It is to this sense mainly, that we owe
the conception of force, the origin of which empirism could
never otherwise explain. If the first muscular sense gives us
the data for the perception of empty space, it is this which
makes possible the knowledge of matter as occupying space,
resistant, acting upon us. Though less endurable, recoverable
and independent of the actual presence of objects than the "sense
of range," it is perhaps no less susceptible of culture, as we may
see in the familiar case of the postman who judges with great
accuracy whether a letter weighs more or less than half an ounce.
That the above are the respective physical conditions of the
two spacial sensations of muscles is made still more probable by
the fact that all other known changes in a muscle during
contraction either lack the necessary degree of concomitancy, or
else the interval between the threshold of sensation and that of
pain, in which every kind of perception is lost, is too narrow to
be assumed as a basis of such wide ranges of sensation. Heat,
for instance, is mainly produced during muscular contraction,
but no degree of heat or cold, even though causing the muscles
to slightly stretch or shorten,"]" awakens any sense of motion or
resistance. Even the skin which is exposed to far greater ranges
of temperature can discriminate differences of only about half a
degree. The amount of heat produced by muscles is not a
measure of the work they do.| It is given off more rapidly
with the same amount of rise near the summit than at the base
of the muscle-curve.§ Whether, then, all the nervous and other
forces causing contraction become heat on their way to external
work or not, has no more to do with the sensation of the latter
form of motion than with the action of polarised light on the
cross-plates. Here, at least, there is no reason to believe we

* Psychophysik, I., pp. 182, ff. f Samko-vvy, Arch. /. d. ges. Physiol. IX.
t Fick, Beitmge, § 156. § Nawalickin, Archivf. d. ges. Physiol. XIV.

The Muscular Perception of Space. 441

infer molar from a feeling of molecular motion. The same may
be said of acids and other products of decomposition, which, by
acting on the almost naked axis-cylinder of the assumed sensitive
nerves, probably cause the sense of muscular fatigue. This feeling
is, no doubt, clearly correlated with that of innervation, but our
judgment of motion or weight, instead of conforming to the
curve of fatigue, is, up to a certain limit, scarcely affected by it,
while, if the sensitive data were the ratio between processes or
products of nutrition and retrograde metamorphosis, then again
the psychic verdict in any given case would be either infinitely
complex or else fluctuating with every change in its physical
basis. So, too, of the more painful and undiscriminating
muscular feelings, such as excessive fatigue, cramp, &c. Whether
these are located in the tendons, as Wundt believes, or depend
upon the extent of grey tissue involved in their conduction, as
Burkhardt conjectures, or, as many anatomists suppose, are
caused by lesion of tissue or of nervous anastomoses in interstitial
tissue itself, or by mere excess of the same causes as in normal
activity give us true muscular sensations, it is enough to assert
their undisputed psychic independence in kind.

Finally, we may add that, while the latest anatomy of
muscular fibres suggests the presence of yet more ultimate
nervous elements peculiarly adapted to irritation by tension and
pressure, our conclusion is not likely to be affected by any
solution of such outstanding questions of myophysics as the pre-
existence of muscular currents, the presence of a parelectrotonic
layer, the number and nature of cross-discs, &c. Gerlach*
believes that the fields of Cohnheim, which are light-coloured
demarcations of primary bundles of muscular fibrillse seen by
cross -sect ions, are due to nervous substance which must be
conceived as spread over the single sarcous elements as a
perfect sheath. Engelmann'sf ingenious theory assumes that
the anisotropic or doubly refracting substance is the seat of
contractile power, and acts by filling itself with fluid to three or
four times its former bulk, while he has observed the isotropic
substance to shrink and shorten, sometimes as much as 85 per
cent., the former growing bright while the latter is growing dark,
thus accounting partially for the homogeneous mid-stadium of
Merkel. Such changes are far greater than those which take
place in the fibre as a whole, and if these are immediately
recorded upon sensitive nervous tissue it must be by pressure
and tension as before, but vastly augmented, and still furnishing
the required extensive and intensive series.

Muscular sense is thus absolutely unique in that the

* Berlin. Klin. Wodiensclirift, No. 45.
•\Mikroslcopische Onderzoekingen, II., 2.

442 The Muscular Perception of Space.

incommensurability between the form of external excitation and
subjective sensation found in every other sense does not exist
here. It is the motion of the limb, the muscle, the nerve-end
itself, which responds by the feeling not of heat, light or sound,
but of motion again. This sense is not a mere sign of some
unknown Ding an sick. Movement, as perceived directly by-
consciousness, is not even found heterogeneous in quality when
perceived indirectly by the special senses of sight and touch.
No degree of subjective or objective analysis, though it may
simplify and intercalate any number of forms, can change its
essential character as motion. This, together with its ento-
peripheral nature, gives it a high degree of non-inferential
immediacy, ci priori to the action of any special sense. We can
thus strictly say of muscular activity, what Schopenhauer*
asserted of our knowledge of the whole J}ody, though in a much
stricter sense than his.

In man the muscular sense is only rudimentary. Its sensitive
fibres are best studied in the lower vertebrates. Before and
during the development of sight and perhaps touch, which have
largely superseded it in man, it must have played a very
important part as the chief sensation of animal life. If we
assume a nervous system, made of relatively simple arcs and
centres, a reflex act would originate with the irritation of a sensi-
tive fibre. This might be very slight; whether or not the fibre
itself add to the intensity of the irritation, the ganglia through
which it passed would augment the disturbance, and the
contraction of the muscles at last, besides being an explosion far
greater than can be explained by the amount of irritation, would
also, in the lower forms of life, modify, or perhaps even convulse
the organic processes of circulation, digestion, &c. Thus we may
conceive that the first sensation would rise above its threshold,
out of the general reverberation of nervous shocks and pulses,
during the muscular crisis of a sensori-motor process. The
sense of motion was probably the first as well as the most
immediate of all the senses which we have or can directly
reproduce.

The experiments of Exnerf tend to confirm this view. He
found that the direction of a moving point of light could be seen
in less than the smallest interval of time that could be
distinguished between two successive points of light, in different
parts of the retinal field. There is an interval where, while each
spark is seen in its place, motion is seen between them, as if one
would spring over to the other, and only from the direction of
this motion can it be inferred which spark appears first. More-

* Welt als With u. Vorstellung, I., § 18.
t Wien. Sitzungsbericlite Bel. LXXII. 3, and Pfliiger's Archw, 1875-6.

The Muscular Perception of Space. 443

over, the peripheral retina often sees motion as such with hardly
any perception of form or brightness. This is partly cause and
partly effect of its feeble localising power. This quality of the
eye is more and more pronounced as we descend the scale of
animal life, till we reach the faceted eye of insects which see
almost nothing but motion; their vision being, as he concludes with
Mtiller, mosaic, while the refractions of the anterior media are so
confusing as to deprive them of any adequate perception of form.
Certain kinds of motion, he believes, have negative after-images.
From this he concludes that the eye, so to speak, tends to see
successive impressions as motion where none really exists.
Vierordt,* also believing that motion is not a perception but an
immediate sensation not implying any inferential knowledge
whatever of time and space, enumerates a number of false
sensations, persisting against adult insight, which he regards as
accidentally uncorrected residua of primitive and pure sense-
impressions. If, e.g., we move the little finger to and from the
rest, the latter seem to move ; if we draw the point of a stick
across the back of the hand while the arm is extended and
unsupported, the hand itself seems to move against the stick ; if
we hold the end of the finger motionless against the forehead and
shake the head, the finger seems to move, &c. The content of
these motor feelings is far different from the developed form of
actual or visual space. It is a mere niclit-zusammenfliessen of
the yet more elementary series of sensations of which they are
indissolubly composed, while both rest and punctuality are
inferences. It only remains to trace the process by which the
child comes to objectively interpret and measure these vague
and isolated motor feelings. The author thus postulates a
nativism which grants not only that there is nothing spacial in
the intellect which was not first in sensation, but also that
sensations may themselves be indefinitely compounded of psychic
minima, each, however, having the spacial quale.

But it is not merely in these lower and exceptional forms, or
even as dependent upon sensible muscular fibres, that motor
feelings exist. While out of the sensations of pressure and
tension which follow arrested motion, arises perhaps the first
rudimentary perception of an external world, developing from
general epiperipheral feeling into the special senses with ever-
increasing discriminations and extraditions, — reactions also,
increasing in complexity, specialty and seriality, have not ceased
to respond, in a generic and diffused way, to every changing
shade of sensation.

It is probable that there is a constant influx of nervous energy

*'Zeitsinn,' 1868, and Zeitschrift fur Biologie, XII.

444 The Muscular Perception of Space.

into the muscles.* In reading Hermann's ingenious experi-
ments, it is impossible not to be impressed with the fact that
the current he fails to observe may either be so weak or so
absorbed by inner work as to elude his most delicate measure-
ments, just as supposed electrical changes in nerve-fibre concur-
rent with sensation are far beyond the reach of any galvano-
metric test. If there is a pre-existent constant current in the
muscles, it is thus probable that it enters along the highly
conductive nerve-tracts, as the electrical organs of fishes are
charged from the terminal plates. Again, although it is proven
that under certain circumstances nerves may conduct both
ways, and that sensitive and motor functions may even be
exchanged, there are abundant indications that centripetal and
centrifugal functions are never indifferent. In glands, which in
many respects are similar to muscles, regular electrical functions
have been proven, indicating that stimulation from the nervous
centres is constant.^ The fact that, of two nerve-muscle pre-
parations, the one with the longer tract of nerve attached dies
first, seems best explained by assuming some sort of current
from the nerve flowing into and exhausting the muscle below
the extremely variable threshold of contractile excitation. The
fact of muscular tonicity then is best explained by assuming
such a current identical, or more probably concomitant, with
electrical changes.

This motor innervation, commonly perhaps rising to changes
of muscular tension, responds to every variation of sensation.
Thus we may explain the great increase of blood-pressure
following the irritation of sensitive nerves. J How irrepressible
such reflexes are, is best seen in the subtle muscle-language of
gesture, facial expression, inflexion, &c. How wide a range they
have had in the past, we see in imitation and pantomimic speech,
and perhaps in the animism of primitive races who imitate the
movements and forms of external objects till, by a vivid imagina-
tive transference, inanimate things seem living beings like
themselves. How unconscious it may be, we can infer from
" planchette," table-tipping, the divining-rod, &c. How minutely
and accurately these changes may be perceived even in others,
may be seen in the phenomena of mind-reading, and the game of
" blindfold seek,"J as well as in automatic gestures of all sorts.
How impossible absolute immobility is in tonic muscles, may be
seen in fixating a star of small magnitude, which we shall find
to twinkle more and more obviously because attention has made
the muscles of the eye more tense and therefore more tetanic, so

* Bain, Senses and Intellect, § 25.

t Rosenthal, Muskeln u. Nerven, pp. 208. ff.

J See Carpenter's Mesmerism and Spiritualism.

The Muscular Perception of Space. 445

that the eyeball swerves as the phases of their vibration inter-
fere and coincide, the ray falling now on, now between, the
sensitive elements of the retina. For such a protocol of facts —to
which we might add those diffused sensations which give us
knowledge of the position of our limbs, the feeling of general
muscular vigour or languor, the soothing sense of rest and we
know not how many more, very low in the scale of ideal re-
coverability, of specific qualitative character and localisation —
every punctual or non-spacial theory of the soul affords no
rational heuristic. Colours and tones would mix, as Fechner
well urges, were it unextended. Neither can we call the brain
alone the organ of mind. We could rather believe with Professor
Bowen in " the omnipresence of the thinking self, one and
indivisible in the whole organism ".

The Association-philosophy has taught us how indissolubly
the terms of a psychical synthesis may be welded together till
what is in fact the result of generations of training or experience
appears simple and innate. Abiunt studia in mores is the
formula of all mental growth. It is the very law of intel-
ligence as of nature to conceal or destroy the stages of its own
development by consolidating and then relegating to lower centres
long processes once conscious, so that the psychologist is con-
fronted not merely by missing links but by what seems an
impassable chasm between the phenomena of matter and those
of mind. It is the converse of this process, however, which we
hold to be of prime importance for the theory of space-perception.
As what was once a conscious act may now have become secondary-
automatic, or even reflex, so what was once a pronounced
muscular effort, semi-convulsive it may be in intensity, is now
' abridged to a mere form of motor-ideation, the neurosis of which
is an innervation perhaps below the threshold of every form or
degree of muscular contraction or tension. It seems not impos-
sible, as we shall see later, that this abridgement or repression
or elimination of provincial or eccentric co-operation may be
carried so far as to be quite independent of the existence of
muscles concerned. " The degree of consciousness is inversely
proportional to the amount of external diffusion in action."*

In accordance with this are the well-known views of Hugh-
lings Jackson,f that the units or substrata of mind are sensori-
motor processes. In reproducing a word in consciousness, e.g.,
not merely the auditory but the articulating centres are con-
cerned. Not merely are all visual impressions in fixed associa-
tion with certain ocular motions, but our idea of an object, as a
ball, however indistinct, is made up of impressions of surfaces

* Ferrier, Functions of the Brain, p. 286.
f Clinical and Physiological Researches in the Nervous System, I.

446 Tlie Muscular Perception of Space.

and ocular adjustments. As our ideas of the primary qualities
of matter, size and form, are acquired only by motions, motor
centres must act if we see or think of material objects, while
sensations alone are known only indirectly, and can give us but
the secondary properties of matter. Bain asserts that in every-
thing that concerns visible movement and form the muscle-
consciousness is the inseparable element, while Lewes concludes
that every psychical fact is a product of sense, brain and muscle-
work. Wundt lays essential stress upon the fact that attention
involves motor activities,* while Ferrier's experiments may be
said in a general way to have identified the centres of conscious-
ness and of motion.

How inexpugnable motor elements are from what we are
wont to regard as the simplest sensations, almost countless
optical experiences, beginning for instance with the Bonders-
Listing laws, might be cited to show. Helmholtzf argues that
the mind neglects and loses in its development every element of
sense-perception that it cannot utilise in the knowledge of
external objects, especially intensity, which is inversely as
perception, so that a pure sensation can only be brought to con-
sciousness by ingenious artificial means. All possible truth is
practical. To ask whether our conception of chair or table
corresponds to the real chair or table apart from the uses to
which they may be put, is as utterly meaningless and vain as to
inquire whether a musical tone is red or yellow. No other con-
ceivable relation than this between ideas and things can exist.
The unknowable is what I cannot react upon. The active part
of our nature is not only an essential part of cognition itself, but
it always has a voice in determining what shall be believed and
what rejected.

Thus at length we are brought to our first thesis, which is
that, on the basis of such researches as have been enumerated,
we are now warranted in assuming that every sensation of
motion is itself spacial. The burden of proof indeed now lies
with those who assert that, because space is the logical prius of
motion, it is added to or imposed upon non-spacial sensations as
an intelligible form by the mind. It will at least be evident
why we claim for the psychologico-genetic aspect of the space-
question absolute precedence over the metaphysical. It is true
that space by no means implies or necessitates motion, but it is
impossible even for an adult analytic mind to conceive of motion
without space. The feeling of motion we have shown is the
simplest, earliest, most universal, known psychic rudiment of
animal life. It is distinguished from every other sensation in
being identical with its objective cause or aspect, which is also
* Physiol. Psychol, p. 793. f PhysioL Optik, pp. 431, 443.

The Muscular Perception of Space. 447

motion. That motion felt is not the same as motion seen is of
course admitted. The external existence of what is imaged on
the retina as a moving limb is far more indirect and inferential
than the relatively immediate muscular sense of that motion. ' A
state of rest in our own body or in external things, the percep-
tion of any denned and static form whatever, and, most of all,
the very possibility of unspaciality or punctuality must be
subsequently inferred as negative instances from indeterminate
extension and movement. These indeed, for an elementary
consciousness which rises above its threshold only during crises
of bodily activity, would be nothing more or less than abstract
transcendental deductions.

A man moves his foot, and the impression of swelling,
shortening fibres is transmitted through five feet of nerve-fibres
to a sensitive point in the brain, and there we may suppose the'
motion of the foot, in an entirely different plane and dimension
of space, is inferred. But, if we may imagine any first sensation
to arise in some simpler form of animal life, it would be there
unrelated and alone in its new, vacant, but conscious horizon.
It could have no quality even of pleasure or pain, no reference
to anything before or after; for these imply comparison and
relation. There would be only a vague area of nerve-muscle
substance, feeling its own motion as it moved. Its changes of
form would be isornerically identical with its change of state.
No matter whether we regard the psychical factor as the cen-
tralisation of a more diffused sentiency about the seat of greatest
or more heterogeneous changes, or conceive the whole body
made a sensorium by a sudden multiplication of disturbance or
shocks, extending to its more and its less stable molecules alike.
The materialist might prefer to say the molecular registers or
" perceives " its molar equivalent of motion, as, e.g., heat registers
foot-pounds. We however choose to say that the soul-life,
whatever its nature, begins, so far as its origin has yet been
traced, in contractile tissue, and that, before discriminating
parts, form, limb, position, occupied from unoccupied space, or
even an external from an internal world, it has an intuition of
undefined extension more absolute and immediate than any
other. There is a reciprocity, a direct envisagement, a dialectic
indifference, in fact, of organism and intellectual function. If
subject is not one with object at some point in primordial space-
perception it must remain eternally divorced from it in all the
derived unities of external perception or reason. Here alone,
though in a spacial respect only, subject, as it were, concurs with,
is coincident with, pervades object. They are notyet distinguished
or drawn apart, each by its own different cohesions and associa-
tions with members of their own series, until, though primarily

448 The Muscular Perception of Space.

of the same essential nature, each becomes more and more
exclusive of the circumscribed aggregate of activities which
makes up the other.* Each may here be conceived as indif-
ferently content and background to the other.

If there is an unbroken succession of nervous changes as a
material condition of sensation, no matter how variable the ratio
between the two, then spaciality is as inseparable an attribute of
motor feelings as of force or matter. This tertium quid of equi-
pollency postulated at some point in the history of organic life is
indispensable for any psychological theory of the origin of
space-perception which establishes at the same time its objective
validity.

That there can be no pre-spacial motor feeling, that, just as
all knowledge becomes sensation when viewed from a higher
standpoint, so muscle-sensation contains an element of cognition
of its own bodily substratum, in which certainty may be almost
inversely as exactness, we may now assume as evident. It is
also plain that the primitive and generic form of sensation just
characterised, in which we believe the full solution of the space-
question to lie, as it were, pre-formed in embryo, must be
evanescent. New sensations would follow arising from new
relations. Comparison and repetition would add intensive
quality to the mere sense of formless extent. Instead of being
only empty forms of self-assertion, experience and elaboration
would make them into signs of external activities. As con-
ducting fibres and sentient cells become mo're distinct and more
numerous, psychical life, which we may conceive as beginning
in muscular substance, would retire from muscle to nerve and
from nerve-fibres to nerve-cells, or rather ascend and unfold in
these more special organs. Almost every property possessed by
nervous is now found in muscular tissue, and vice versa. Her-
mannf finds slight electrotonus in muscles, and TschirjewT| has
proved their independent irritability and also that nerves like
muscles are irritable transversely. Both exhibit like pheno-
mena of pulses of negative variation. With two or three
exceptions, partly explicable on mechanical grounds, all poisons
act on them similarly. Hallsten believes the axis- cylinder to
consist of protoplasm capable of a peculiar wave-like motion.
Over against these analyses the chief difference, besides that of
bulk, appears to be that the active elements of nerves are
inclosed in relatively thicker and more resistant substance which
fits them to conduct isolated currents of disturbance, while in
muscles the interstitial tissue is relatively flexile and conforms to
the motion of the active elements, causing contraction.

*See Spencer's Psychology, Vol. I., Part ii., ch. 1. f PJliiger's Archiv, VI.
J Archiv fur Physiologic, 1877.

TJie Muscular Perception of Space. 449

Be this as it may, suppose all sentiency relegated from
muscles to the nervous system alone,* and irritability and
sensibility distinguished and separated. Even then we might, if
disposed, fall back on Brown Sequard'sf assumption that, because
the length of the twitch of the secondary muscle is increased by
overloading the first, muscular sense must be caused by negative
variation ; or we might with Gubler, who regards recurrent
sensibility as a reiiex phenomenon, prefer to assume a nervous
circuit completed peripherally by intermediate cells, like the grey
matter of the spinal marrow diffused and dissociated^ A com-
plete neural circulation, however, is by no means the necessary
condition of a sensibility independently located in eccentric
portions of the human body such as Mr. Lewes supposes. It is
of course possible that sensation accompanies the isomeric wave
as it runs through the fibres, but it is certainly no less probable
that it accompanies the chemical changes thus caused in central
cells. If the hypothesis of specific sensibility assumed also
uniformity in the centripetal wave and its rate, and if sensation
occurs only in cortical cells, then they could of course be dis-
tinguished only by local signs minutely differentiated over the
three hundred square inches of grey substance upon which
their irritations were projected. But it is far less probable that
sensation is thus immediately and discriminatively cognisant of
molecular neural processes, than that the inseparable motor
impulses which attend every form of external stimulation is the
immediate cause or object of sensation. Wundt has shown how
every form of reflex reaction is strongly inhibited by attention ;
but that the incipient motor impulse, though repressed, is never
wholly eliminated, is no less certain. If the connexions between
sensQry cells are excited, activities chiefly inhibitory are caused.
Inhibition, however, is not the destruction but the storing-up of
energy, and is attended not by the discharge but by the increased
tension of relatively large and strongly acting motor cells, whose
connexions with each other are mainly summative.§

The conclusion which we thus reach harmonises in the main
with the deductions of Trendelenburg, though we cannot see
more than an analogy between the movement of thought and
material motion ; and though we can by no means admit that
space is primitively inferred as a mere external condition of
motion, yet it is certain that all attempts to derive or construe
motion into non-motive terms are idle. Movement explains all
things. Molar is explained by molecular, known by hypotheti-

* Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 2nd Series, p. 221.
t Lectures on the Physiol. and Pathol. of the Central Nervous System.

\ See Vulpian's Systeme Nerveux, pp. 144, ff.
§ See Wundt, Mechanik der Nerven, 2te Abtli., s. 133.

32

450 The Muscular Perception of Space.

cal motion, while motion, by which all things are known, must
itself be self-known.*

In fine, then, we believe it demonstrated, in a sense far more
fundamental than that conceived by Bain, that empirism is no
more able to explain space than force without muscles, that
sensitive elements of contractile tissue constitute the peculiar
organ of a space-perception d priori to the experience of the
special senses, and which it is theirs to elaborate externally and
measure each in its own typical way. If this be true, physiolo-
gical psychology is already able to challenge the dogmatic
dualism of the scientific school of metaphysicians, who, assuming
with Prof. Tyndall that the essential principles of nature are
already discovered, assert two series of events, each of the
innumerable terms of which is at the same time indissolubly
mated yet absolutely incommensurate with a corresponding term
of the other series. This mild and ancient artifice, instead of two,
might have given us five worlds. If we assume the touch of two
smooth substances to be respectively a right and a left hand spiral
motion, and the taste of two to be in the one case an acid, in the
other an alkaline reaction, and so on with all the senses, there
is a five-fold incommensurability. Instead of one there are five
impassable gulfs with no conceivable relation among them save
that of empirical association. Even so far as it is a matter of
belief, we prefer to plight our allegiance to a program of work
yet to be done though it were far more indefinite than it is,
rather than to face a blank wall of nescience whereon no other
record can be read than that there the limits of individual
development or culture were mistakenly and arrogantly asserted
to be the limits of possible knowledge. Psychology is no longer
content to hold belief in an external world as a mere act of faith
or opinion. She postulates an ultimate Monism, and hopes one
day to prove a rightful title to the bold nomenclature of the
Identity-philosophy. Now, with true Socratic irony, she dares
to take for the most part the attitude of ignorance towards an
absolute philosophy, and a yet more absolute science. Whether
she will disclose the Messianic function and gladden the long
travail of thought by new-dispensing the transcendent secret of
reason incarnate in organic life, the future alone can tell.

G. STANLEY HALL.

* Logische Untersuchungen, Bk. I., cc. v., vi.

II— EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. (IV.)*

I NOW proceed with the review of the Emotions, as motives in
Education.

Play of the Emotions of A ctivity.

Nothing is more frequently prescribed in education than to
foster the pupils' own activity, to put them in the way of
discovering facts and principles for themselves. This position
needs to be carefully surveyed.

There is, in the human system, a certain spontaneity of action,
the result of central energy, independent of any feelings that
may accompany the exercise. It is great in children ; and it
marks special individuals, who are said to possess the active
temperament. It distinguishes races and nationalities of human
beings, and is illustrated in the differences among the animal
tribes ; it also varies with general bodily vigour. This activity
would burst out and discharge itself in some form of exertion,
whether useful or useless, even if the result were perfectly
indifferent as regards pleasure or pain. We usually endeavour
to turn it to account by giving it a profitable direction, instead
of letting it run to *waste or something worse. It expends itself
in a longer or shorter time, but while any portion remains,
exertion is not burdensome.

Although the spontaneous flow of activity is best displayed
and most intelligible in the department of muscular exercise, it
applies also to the senses and the nerves, and comprises mental
action as well as bodily. The intellectual strain of attention, of
volition, of memory, and of thought, proceeds to a certain length
by mere fulness of power, after rest and renovation ; and may
be counted on to this extent as involving nothing essentially
toilsome. Here, too, a good direction is all that is wanted to
make a profitable result.

The activity thus assumed as independent of feeling is
nevertheless accompanied with feeling, and that feeling is
essentially pleasurable : the pleasure being greatest at first.
The presence of pleasure is the standing motive to action ; and
all the natural activity of the system — whether muscular or
nervous — brings an effluence of pleasure, until a certain point of
depletion is arrived at.

If, further, our activity is employed productively, or in
yielding any gratification beyond the mere exercise, this is so
much added to the pleasures of action. If, besides the delight
of intellectual exercise, we obtain for ourselves the gratification
of fresh knowledge, we seem to attain the full pleasure due to
the employment of the intellect.

* Continued from MIND, No. XI.

452 Education as a Science.

Much more, however, is meant by the gratification of the
self-activity of the learner. That expression points to the
acquiring of knowledge, as little as possible by direct
communication, and as much as possible by the mind's own
exertion in working it out from the raw materials. We are to
place the pupil as nearly as may be in the track of the first
discoverer, and thus impart the stimulus of invention, with the
accompanying outburst of self-gratulation and triumph. This
bold fiction is sometimes put forward as one of the regular arts of
the teacher ; but I should prefer to consider it as an extraordinary
device admissible only on peculiar occasions.

It is an obvious defect in teaching to keep continually
lecturing pupils, without asking them in turn to reproduce and
apply what is said. This is no doubt a sin against the pupil's
self-activity, but rather in the manner than in the fact.
Listening and imbibing constitute a mode of activity ; only it
may be overdone in being out of proportion to the other exercises
requisite for fixing our knowledge. When these other activities
are fairly plied, the pupil may have a certain complacent
satisfaction in his or her own efficiency as a learner, and this is a
fair and legitimate reward to an apt pupil. It does not assume
any independent self-sufficiency ; it merely supposes an adequate
comprehension and a faithful reproduction of the knowledge
communicated. The praise or approbation of the master, and
of others interested, is a superadded reward.

Notwithstanding, there still remains, if we could command it,
a tenfold power in the feeling of origination, invention, or
creation ; but as this can hardly ever be actual, the suggestion is
to give it in fiction or imagination. Now, it is one of the
delicate arts of an accomplished instructor to lay before his
pupils a set of facts pointing to a conclusion, and leave them to
draw the conclusion for themselves. Exactly to hit the mean
between a leap too small to have any merit, and one too wide
for the ordinary pupil, is a fine adjustment and a great success.
All this, however, belongs to the occasional luxuries, the bon-bons
of teaching, and cannot be included under the daily routine.

It is to be borne in mind that although the pride of origina-
tion is a motive of extraordinary power, and in some minds
surpasses every other motive, and has a great charm even in a
fictitious example, yet it is not in all minds the only extraneous
motive that may aid the teacher. There is a counter motive of
sympathy, affection and admiration for superior wisdom, that
operates in the other direction ; giving a zest in receiving and
imbibing to the letter what is imparted, and jealously restraining
any independent exercise of judgment such as would share the
credit with the instructor. This tendency is no doubt liable to

Education as a Science. 453

run into slavishness and to favour the perpetuation of error and
the stagnation of the human mind ; but a certain measure of it
is only becoming the attitude of a learner. It accompanies a
proper sense of what is the fact, namely, that the learner is a
learner and not a teacher or a discoverer, and has to receive a
great deal with mere passive acquiescence, before venturing to
suggest any improvements. Unreasoning blind faith is indis-
pensable in beginning any art or science ; the pupil has to lay
up a stock of notions before having any materials for discovery
or origination. There is a right moment for relaxing this
attitude, and assuming the exercise of independence ; but it has
scarcely arrived while the schoolmaster is still at work. Even
in the higher walks of university teaching, independence is
premature, unless in some exceptional minds, and the attempt to
proceed upon it, and to invite the free criticism of pupils, does
not appear ever to have been very fruitful.*

Play of the Emotions of Fine Art.

This is necessarily a wide subject, but for our purpose a few
select points will be enough. The proper and principal end of
Art is enjoyment ; now whatever is able to contribute on the
great scale to our pleasure, is a power over all that we do. The
bearings on education are to be seen.

The Art Emotions are seldom looked upon as a mere source
of enjoyment. They are apt to be regarded in preference as a
moral power, and an aid to education at every point. Never-
theless, we should commence with recognising in them a means
of pleasure as such, a pure hedonic factor, in which capacity they
are a final end. Their function in intellectual education is the
function of all pleasure when not too great, namely, to cheer,
refresh, and encourage us in our work.

There are certain general effects of Art that come in well
at the very beginning. Such are symmetry, order, rhythm,

* It would lead us too far, although it might not be unins tractive, to
reflect upon the evil side of this fondness for giving a new and self -suggested
cast to all received knowledge. It introduces change for the mere sake of
change and never lets well alone. It multiplies variations of form and
phraseology for expressing the same facts, and so renders all subjects more
perplexed than they need be ; not to speak of controverting what is
established, because it is established, and allowing nothing ever to settle.
Owing to a dread of the feverish love of change, certain works that have
accidentally received an ascendancy, such as the Elements of Euclid, are re-
tained notwithstanding their imperfections. The acquiescent multitude
of minds regard this as a less evil than letting loose the men of action and
revolution to vie with each other in distracting alterations, while there is no
judicial power to hold the balance. It is a received maxim in the tactics of
legislation that no scheme, however well matured, can pass a popular body
without amendment ; it is not in collective human nature to accept any-
thing simpliciter, without having a finger in the pie.

454 Education as a Science.

and simple design and proportion; which are the adjuncts of the
school, just as they should be the adjuncts of home life. Pro-
portion, simple design, a certain amount of colour, are the
suitable elements of the school interior ; to which are added
tidiness, neatness, and arrangement, among the pupils themselves;
only this must not be worrying and oppressive.

In the exercises suited to infants, Time and Ehythm are
largely employed.

Of all the fine arts, the most available, universal and
influential is Music. This is perhaps the most unexceptionable
as well as the cheapest of human pleasures. It has been seized
upon with avidity by the human race in all times ; so much so
that we wonder how life could ever have been passed without
it. In the earlier stages, it was united with Poetry, and the
poetical element was of equal, if not of greater power than the
musical accompaniment. As the ethical instructors of mankind
have always disavowed the pursuit of pleasure as such, and
allowed it only as subsidiary to morality and social duty,
the question with legislators has been what form of music is
best calculated to educe the moral virtues and the nobler
characteristics of the mind. It was this view that entered into
the speculative social constructions of Plato and Aristotle.
Now, undoubtedly the various modes of music operate very
differently on the mind ; everyone knows the extremes of
martial and ecclesiastical music ; and fancy can insert many
intermediate grades.*

For the moment, a musical strain exerts immense power over
the mind, to animate, to encourage, to soothe and to console. P>ut
the facts do not bear us out in attributing to it any permanent
moral influence ; nothing is more fugitive than the excitement
of a musical performance. Excepting its value as a substantive
contribution to the enjoyment of life, I am not able to affirm
that it has any influence on education, whether moral or
intellectual. Certainly, if it has any effect in the moral sphere,
it has none that I can trace in the sphere of intellect. As a
recreative variety in the midst of toil, it deserves every encomium.
In those exercises that are half recreative, half educational, as
drill and gymnastic, the accompaniment of a band is most

* Plato, in the Republic, wishing to train a vigorous and hardy race,
interdicted not simply the unfavourable musical strains, but the instruments
most adapted to these. He permits only the lyre and the harp, with the
panspipe for shepherds attending their flocks ; forbidding both the flute
and all complicated stringed instruments. Disallowing the lugubrious,
passionate, soft, and convivial modes of music, he tolerates none but the
Dorian and the Phrygian, suitable to a sober, resolute, courageous frame of
mind ; to which also the rhythm and movement of the body is to be
adapted. (Grote's Plato, III. 196.)

Education as a Science. 455

stimulating. In the Kindergarten it is well brought in, as the
wind-up to the morning's work. But music during ordinary
lessons, or any sort of intellectual work, is mere distraction, as
everyone knows from the experience of street bands and organs.

Excess in the pleasures of music, like every other excess, is
unfavourable to mental culture. But some of the most intel-
lectual men that ever lived have been devotees of music. In
the case of Luther it seems to have been incorporated with his
whole being ; Milton invoked it as an aid in poetic inspiration.
These were men whose genius largely involved their emotions.
But the musical enthusiasm of Jeremy Bentham could have no
bearing on his work, farther than as so much enjoyment.

Poetry is Music and a great deal more. Its bearings are more
numerous and complicated. In the ruder stages of music, when
it accompanied poetry, the main effects lay in the poetry.
The poetic form — the rhythm and the metre — impresses the ear,
and is an aid to memory ; whence it has been transferred from
the proper themes of poetry to very prosaic subjects by way of
a mnemonic device. The subject-matter of poetry comprises
the stirring narrative, which is an enormous power in human
life, and the earliest intellectual stimulus in education.

Play- of the Ethical Emotions.

The feelings called Ethical, or Moral, from their very meaning
are the support of all good and right conduct. The other
emotions may be made to point to this end, but they may also
work in the opposite direction.

When the educator describes these in more precise and equi-
valent phraseology, he generally singles out regard to the pleasure
and displeasure of parents and superiors, together with habits or
dispositions towards obedience; all which is the result of culture
and growth.

Any primitive feelings conspiring towards good conduct must
be of the nature of the sympathies or social yearnings ; whifch
are called into exercise in definite ways, well known to all
students of human nature. By far the most powerful stimulus
to acts of goodness towards others, is good conduct on their side ;
whoever can resist this, is a fit subject for the government of
fear and nothing else. The law says ' Uo unto others, as ye
would that they should do unto you '. The lower ground of
practice is ' Do unto others as they do unto you '. This is as
far as the very young can reach in moral virtue.

It is too much to expect in early years generous and disinter-
ested impulses, unreciprocated. The young have little to call
their own ; they have no means. Their fortune is their free,
unrestrained vivacity, their elation, and their hopes. If they

456 Education as a Science.

freely give up any part of this, it is in consideration of equiva-
lent benefits. They are susceptible of being worked up to
moments of self-renunciation, in which they may commit their
future irrevocably, without knowing what they are about. But
they cannot be counted on for daily, persistent self-restraint,
willingly encountered, unless there be some seen reward, present
or in the distance. It takes a good deal to bring any one even
up to the point of fair and full reciprocity of services in all
things.

The Feelings as appealed to in Discipline.

The survey that has now been made of the sensibilities of the
hum an mind available as motives, prepares for the consideration
or Discipline in teaching. The instructor finds that, in school
and for school purposes, he has to restrain all the
unrulj|roulses, and to overbear the sluggishness of the
youthful nafctire. To succeed in this requirement, many arts are
employed, corresponding to the wide compass of sensations and
emotions that agitate the human breast.

The question how to maintain discipline among masses of
human beings is of very wide application, and is therefore the
subject of a great variety of experiments. In the wide field of
moral control, it includes a principal function of government,
namely, the repression of crime ; a department that has lately
received much attention. To collect all the lights furnished in
each of the spheres where moral control has to be exercised, is
to contribute to the illumination of each. There has, un-
doubtedly, in former times been very great mismanagement in
almost every one of the regions of repressive authority ; in the
state, in the family, and in the school, in all which an excess of
human misery is habitually engendered by badness in the
manner of exercising control. It is perhaps in the family that
the mischief is most widely spread and most baneful.

By degrees we have become aware of various errors that ran
through the former methods of discipline, in the several institu-
tions of the state, as well as in the family. We have discovered
the evil of working by fear alone, and still more by fear of
coarse, painful, and degrading inflictions. We have discovered
that occasions of offence can be avoided by a variety of salutary
arrangements, such as to check the very disposition to unruly
conduct. We consider that a great discovery has been made in
regard to punishments, by the enunciation of the maxim that
certainty is more important than severity ; to which should be
added, proportion to the offence. We also consider that by a
suitable training, or education, the dispositions that lead to
disorder and crime, can be checked in the bud ; and that until

Education as a Science. 457

there has been room for such training to operate, the mind
should not be exposed to temptation. We have become
accustomed to lay more stress in cultivating the amicable
relations of human beings, all which tend to abridge the sphere
of injurious conduct on the part of individuals.

The consideration of discipline in Education supposes the
relation of a teacher to a class ; one man or woman exercising
over a body of pupils the authority requisite for the work in
hand. Nevertheless, it is not lost time to advert, in the first
instance, to the maxims pertaining to authority in general.

Authority, government, power over others is not an end in
itself ; it is but a means. Farther, its operation is an evil ; it
seriously abates human happiness. The restraint upon free
agency, the infliction of pain on individuals, the setting-up a
reign of terror — all this is justified solely by the prevention of
evils out of all proportion to the misery that it inflicts. This
might seem self-evident ; but is not so. The deep-seated male-
volence and lust of domination in the human mind makes the
necessity of government a pretext for excesses in severity and
repression ; to which must be added the opportunity of preying
upon the substance of the governed.

Mankind have had their eyes gradually opened to this state
of things ; the philosophy of society now endeavours to formulate
the limits to authority, and to the employment of repressive
severities. Not only is it restricted to the mildest penalties
that will answer its purpose ; but its very existence has to be
justified in each case.

Authority is not necessary to every teaching relation. A
willing pupil coming up to a master to be taught, is not entering
into a relationship of authority : it is a mere voluntary compact,
terminable at the pleasure of each. There is no more authority
over the assemblies of grown men to hear lectures, than over the
worshippers at church, or the frequenters of the play. There is
nothing but the observance of mutual toleration and forbearance so
far as requisite to the common good ; if tins were grossly violated,
there would be an exercise of power either by the collective
mass themselves, or by summoning the constable to their aid.
No authority is lodged in the lecturer, preacher, or performer, to
repress disturbances.

Authority first appears in the family, and is thence transferred
with modifications to the school. It is between these two
institutions, that the comparison is most suggestive. The
parent's authority is associated with sustenance, and has an
almost unlimited range ; it is tempered by affection, but this
depends upon mutuality of pleasure-giving, and supposes a
limited number. The teacher's authority has nothing to do with

458 Education as a Science.

sustenance, his is a duty undertaken for payment ; it is sub-
sidiary to the single object of teaching a definite amount of
knowledge ; it wants the requisites of affection ; the numbers
are too great, and the mutual concern too restricted ; but
affection is not wholly excluded, and in certain well-marked
cases it may play a part.

On the other hand, the family and the school have some
important agreements. They both deal with immature minds,
for whom certain kinds of motives are unsuitable. Neither can
employ motives that are applicable only to grown men and
women ; they cannot appeal to consequences in the distant and
unknown future. Children do not realise a remote effect, and
they fail even to conceive many things that will one day have
great power over their conduct. To talk to them about riches,
honours, and a good conscience is in vain. A half holiday is
more to them than the prospect of becoming head of a business.

The position of immaturity is attended with another pecu-
liarity, namely, that the reasons of a rule cannot always be
made apparent. Sometimes they can, if not to the younger,
at least to the older children. This is a highly prized aid to
obedience in every department of government.

There are many important points of agreement in the exercise
of authority in every sphere — the family, the school, the relation
of master and servant, ruler and subject whether in the state at
large or in any subordinate societies. For example: —

(1.) Eestraints should be as few as the situation admits of:
the multiplication of grounds of offence is a great evil, and yet
exceedingly natural.

(2.) Duties and Offences should be definitely expressed, so as
to be clearly understood. This may not always be possible to
the full extent ; but should be always aimed at.

(3.) Offences should be graduated according to .their degree of
heinousness. This too needs clearness of discrimination and
definite language.

(4.) The application of Punishment is regulated according to
certain principles, first clearly pointed out by Bentham.

(5.) Voluntary dispositions are to be trusted as far as they
can go.

(6.) By organisation and arrangement, the occasions of
disorder are avoided. Quarrels are obviated by not permitting
crowds, jostling, and collisions. Dishonesty is checked by want
of opportunity ; remissness, by the watchful eye and by
definite tests of performance.

(7.) The awe and influence of authority is maintained by a
certain formality and state. Forms and ritual are adapted to all
the operations of law : persons in authority are clothed with

Education as a Science. 459

dignity and inviolability. The greater the necessity of enforcing
obedience, the more stern and imposing is the ritual of authority.
The Romans, the greatest law-giving people, were the most
stately in their official rites. A small portion of formality
should accompany the slightest forms of authority.

(8.) It is understood that authority, with all its appurtenances,
exists for the benefits of the governed, and not as a perquisite of
the ruler.

(9.) The operation of mere vindictiveness should be curtailed
to the uttermost.

(10.) So far as circumstances allow, every one in authority
should assume a benign character, seeking the benefit of those
under him, using instruction and moral suasion so as to stave
off the necessity of force. The effect of this attitude is at its
utmost, when its limits are clearly discerned, and never passed.

(11.) The reasons for repression and discipline should, as far
as possible, be made intelligible to those concerned ; and should
be referable solely to the general good. This involves, as a part
of national education, a knowledge of the structure of society, as
being a regulated reciprocity among all its members, for the
good of each and of all.*

* Whoever occupies a position of authority ought to be familiar with the
general principles and conditions of Punishment, as they may be found set
forth in the Penal Code of Bentham. The broad, exhaustive view there
given will co-operate beneficially with each one's actual experience. I
make no apology for presenting a short summary of his principles.

After precisely defining the proper ends of Punishment, Bentham marks
the cases unmeet for Punishment. First, where it is groundless : that is,
where there never has been any real mischief (the other party consenting to
what has been done), or where the mischief is overweighed by a benefit of
greater value. Second, where it is inefficacious : including cases where the
the penal provision has not come before the offender's notice, where he is
unaware of the consequences of his act, or where he is not a free agent.
Third, cases where it is unprofitable: that is, when the evil of the punishment
exceeds the evil of the offence. (The evils of Punishment, which have to
be summed up and set against the good, are (1) coercion or restraint, (2)
the uneasiness of apprehension, (3) the actual suffering, (4) the suffering
caused to all those that are in sympathy with the person punished.) Fourth,
cases where Punishment is needless: as when the end can be attained in
some cheaper way, as by instruction and persuasion. In this class, Bentham
specially includes the offences that consist in disseminating pernicious
principles in politics, morality, or religion. These should be met by
instruction and argument, and not by the penalties of the law.

Under what he calls the expense or frugality of Punishment, Bentham
urges the necessity of presenting to the mind an adequate notion of what a
punishment really is. Hence the advantage of punishments that are easily
learnt, and remembered, and that appear greater, and not less, than they
really are.

Next as to the main point, the measure of Punishment. First, it should
be such as clearly to outweigh the profit of the offence : including not
simply the immediate profit, "but every advantage, real or apparent, that

460 Education as a Science.

The points of comparison and contrast between the school and
family have been noted. The more special distinction of the
school, as compared with relations of authority in general, is
resolvable into its main object — Instruction, for which the con-
dition that needs to be imposed is Attention and Application of
mind, with a view to permanent intellectual and other impres-
sions. To evoke, charm, cajole, compel this attitude, is the first
aim in all teaching. The hostile influences to be overcome are
such as physical inability and exhaustion, irksorneness in the
work, diversions and distractions from other tastes, with the
natural rebelliousness of human beings under authority.

has weighed as an inducement to commit it. Second, the greater the
mischief of the offence, the greater is the expense that it is worth while to
be at, in the way of punishment. Third, when two offences come into
competition, the punishment for the greater should be such as to make the less
preferred ; thus robbery with violence to the person, is always punished more
severely than simple robbery. Fourth, the punishment to be so adjusted,
that for every part of the resulting mischief, a motive may be provided to
restrain from causing it. Fifth, the punishment should not be greater than
is needed for these ends. Sixth, there should be taken into account the
circumstances affecting the sensibility of the offenders, so that the same punish-
ment may not operate unequally ; as age, sex, wealth, position. Seventh, the
punishment needs to be increased in magnitude as it falls short of certainty.
Eighth, it must be further increased in magnitude as it falls short in point
of proximity : penalties that are uncertain and those that are remote,
correspondingly fail to influence the mind. Ninth, when the act indicates
a habit, the punishment must be increased so as to outweigh the profit of
the other offences that the offender may commit with impunity : this is
severe, but necessary, as in putting down the coiners of base money.
Tenth, when a punishment well fitted in its quality cannot exist in less
than a certain quantity, it may be of use to employ it, although a little
beyond the measure of the offence : such are the punishments of exile,
expulsion from a society, dismissal from office. Eleventh, this may be the
case more particularly, when the punishment is a moral lesson. Twelfth,
in adjusting the quantum, account is to be taken of the circumstances that
render all punishment unprofitable. Thirteenth, if in carrying out these
provisions, anything occurs tending to do more harm than the good arising
from the punishment, that thing should be omitted.

In regard to the selection of punishments, Bentham lays down a number
of tests or conditions whereby they are fitted to comply with the foregoing
requirements. First, is the quality of Variability : a punishment should
have degrees of intensity and duration ; this applies to fines, corporal
punishment, and imprisonment ; also to censure, or ill-name. Second,
Equability, or equal application under all circumstances : this is not easy
to secure ; a fixed fine is an unequable punishment. Third, Commen-
surability : that is, punishments should be so adapted to offences, that the
offender may clearly conceive the inequality of the suffering attached to
crimes of different degrees of heinousness ; this property can be grafted on
the variable punishments, as imprisonment. Fourth, Characteristicalness :
this is where something can be found in the punishment, whose idea
exactly fits the crime. Bentham dilates upon this topic, in order to
discriminate it from the old crude method of an eye for an eye ; cases in
point occur abundantly both in the family and in the school. Fifth,

Education as a Science. 461

The arts of proceeding are not the same for a single pupil,
and for a class. For the single pupil, individuality may be
studied and appealed to ; for the class, individualities are not
considered. The element of number is an essential feature;
carrying with it both obstructions and aids, and demanding a
very special manipulation.

It is in dealing with numbers that the teacher stands dis-
tinguished from the parent, and allied to the wider authorities
of the State ; exercising larger control, encountering greater risks,
and requiring a more steady hand. With an individual pupil,
we need only such motives as are personal to himself ; with
numbers, we are under the harsh necessity of punishing for
example.

Good physical surroundings are known to be half the battle.
A spacious and airy building ; room for the classes to come to-
gether and depart without confusion or collision : these are
prime facilities and aids to discipline. Next is organisation, or
method and orderly arrangement in all the movements ; whereby
each pupil is always found in the proper place, and the entire
mass comprehended under the master's glance. To this follows
the due alternation and remission of work, avoiding fatigue and
maintaining the spirits and the energies while the teaching lasts.

After the externals and arrangements come the Methods and
Arts of Teaching, considered as imparting lucidity to the ex-
planations, and easing the necessary intellectual labour of com-
prehension. If to this prime quality can be added extraneous
interest or charm, so much the better ; but not to be at the
expense of clearness, the first condition of getting through the
subject.

The personality of the teacher may be in favour of his influ-
ence ; a likeable exterior, a winning voice and manner, a friendly

Exemplarity : this is connected with the impressiveness of a punishment ;
all the solemnities accompanying the execution increase this effect.
Bentham, however, did not sufficiently consider the evils attending too
great publicity, which have led to withdrawing punishments from the gaze
of the multitude ; it being simply intimated that they have been carried
out. Sixth, Frugality : or making punishments less costly to the State, as
when prisoners are employed productively. Seventh, Subserviency to
Reformation : by weakening the seductive, and strengthening the preserving
motives ; as in giving habits of labour to the idle. Eighth, Efficacy in
Disablement : as in deposition from office. Ninth, Subserviency to Compensa-
tion : as by pecuniary inflictions. Tenth, Popularity. Bentham lays much
stress upon the popularity and unpopularity of punishments, whereby the
public sympathy may work for or against the law ; when a punishment is
unpopular, juries are reluctant to convict, and public agitation gets up for
remission of sentence. Eleventh, Simplicity of Description : under this
head, Bentham comments upon the obscure and unintelligible descriptions
of the old law, as capital felony, prcemunire. Twelfth, Itemissibility, in case
of mistake.

462 Education as a Science.

expression, when relaxing the sternness of authority. This is
the side of allurement or attraction ; the other side is the stately,
imposing, and dignified bearing, by which the master can imper-
sonate authority and be a standing memento to the evil-disposed
of the flock. It is seldom given to one man or woman to display
both attitudes in their highest force ; but wherever, and to
whatever extent, they can be assumed, they constitute a barrier
to disaffection and remissness.

Any prominent displays of swagger and self-conceit operate
against the teacher's influence, and incite efforts to take him
down. It is possible to temper authority with an unassuming
demeanour.

Much of course depends upon tact : meaning by that a lively
and wakeful sense of everything that is going on. Disorder is
the sure sequel of the teacher's failure in sight or in hearing ;
but even with the senses good, there may be absent the watchful
employment of them. This is itself a natural incapacity for the
work of teaching ; just as an orator is sure to fail, if he is slow
to discern the signs of the effect that he produces on his
audience. A teacher must not merely be sensitive to incipient
and marked disorder ; he must read the result of his teaching in
the pupils' eyes.

That quietness of manner that comes not of feebleness, but of
restraint and collectedness, passing easily into energy when
required, is a valuable adjunct to discipline. To be fussy and
flurried is to infect the class with the same qualities ; unfavour-
able alike to repression and to learning.

Any mistake, miscarriage, or false step, on the part of a
teacher, is for the moment fatal to his ascendancy. Such things
will happen, and they render undue assumption all the more
perilous.

The stress of the teacher's difficulty lies in the heavings of a
mass or multitude. The working of human beings collectively,
is wholly distinct from their individual action ; a new set of
forces and influences are generated. One man against a multi-
tude is always in the post of danger. As units in a mass, every
individual displays entirely new characters. The anti-social or
malevolent passion — the delight in gaining a triumph — which is
suppressed in the individual, as against a more powerful in-
dividual, is re-ignited and inflamed in company with others.
Whenever a simultaneous charge is possible, the authority of a
single person is as nought in the balance.

It is often said that the teacher should get the collective
opinion on his side — should, in short, create a good class-opinion.
It is easier to deserve success in this than to command it. The
fear is that, till the end of time, the sympathy of numbers will

Education as a Science. 463

continue to manifest itself against authority in the school.
There will be occasions when the infection of the mass is a
stronghold of order, as when the majority are bent on attending
to the work, and are thwarted by a few disturbers of the peace ;
or when they have a general sympathy with their teacher, and
merely indulge themselves in rare and exceptional outbursts.
While a teacher's merits may gain for him this position of
advantage, more or less, he is never above the risks of an out-
break, and must be ready for the final resort of repression by
discipline or penalties. He may still work by soothing applica-
tions, gentle and kindly remonstrance ; he may check the spread
of disaffection by watchful tactics, and by showing that he has
the ringleaders in his eye ; but in the end he must punish.

It is this position of constant preparedness for disorder, some-
times in isolated individuals, and sometimes in the mass, that
demands an air and manner betokening authority, and carrying
with it a certain hauteur and distance ; the necessity for which
is the stronger, as the warring elements are more rife.

The discipline of numbers is impeded by two sorts of pupils :
those that have no natural liking for the subject, and those that
are too far behind to understand the teaching. In a perfectly-*
arranged school, both sorts would be excluded from a class.

The foregoing considerations lead up to the final subject —
Punishment ; in administering which the practice, of Education,
as well as of other kinds of government, has greatly improved.
The general principles of punishment have been already
enounced. We have to consider their application to the school.
But first a few words on the employment of Eeward.

Emulation. — Prizes. — Place-taking.

All these names point to the same fact and the same motive
—the desire of surpassing others, of gaining distinction ; a
motive that has already been weighed. It is the most powerful
known stimulant to intellectual application ; and where it is in
full operation, nothing else is needed. Its defects are (1) it is
an anti-social principle, (2) it is apt to be too energetic, (3) it is
limited to a small number, (4) it makes a merit of superior
natural gifts.

It is a fact that the human intellect has at all times been
spurred to its highest exertions, by rivalry, contest, and the
ambition of being first. The question is whether a more
moderate pitch of excellence, such as befits average faculties,
could not be attained without that stimulant. If so, there would
be a clear moral gain. Be this as it may, there is no need to
bring it forward prematurely, or to press its application at the
beginning. In the infant stage, where the endeavour is to draw

464 Education as a Science.

out the amicable sentiments, it is better kept back. For tasks
that are easy and interesting, it is unnecessary. The pupils that
possess unusual aptitude, should be incited to modesty rather
than to assumption.

The greater prizes and distinctions affect only a very small
number. Place-capturing, as Bentham phrases it, affects all
more or less, although in the lower end of a class position is of
small consequence. Too often the attainments near the bottom
are nil. A few contesting eagerly for being first, and the mass
phlegmatic, is not a healthy class.

Prizes may be valuable in themselves, and also a token of
superiority. Small gifts by parents are useful incitements to
lessons ; the school contains prizes for distinction that only a
small number can reach. The schoolmaster's means of reward
is chiefly confined to approbation, or praise, a great and flexible
instrument, yet needing delicate manipulation. Some kinds of
merit are so palpable as to be described by numerical marks.
Next, in point of distinctness, is the fact that a thing is right or
wrong, in pajt or in whole ; it is sufficient approbation to pro-
nounce that a question is correctly answered, a passage properly
•explained. This is the praise that envy cannot assail. Most
unsafe are phrases of commendation ; much pains is needed to
make them both discriminating and just. They need to have a
palpable basis in facts. Distinguished merit should not always
be attended with paeans ; silent recognition is the rule, the
exceptions must be such as to extort admiration from the most
jealous. The controlling circumstance is the presence of the
collective body ; the teacher is not speaking for himself alone,
but directing the sentiments of a multitude, with which he
should never be at variance ; his strictly private judgments
should be privately conveyed. Bentham's " Scholar-Jury
Principle," although not formally recognised in modern methods,
is always tacitly at work. The opinion of the school, when at
its utmost efficiency, is the united judgment of the head and the
members, the master and the mass. Any other state of things
is war : although this too may be unavoidable.

Punishment.

The first and readiest, and ever the best, form of Punishment,
is Censure, Eeprobation, Dispraise, to which are applicable all
the maxims above laid down for praise. Definite descriptions of
definite failures, without note or comment, are a power to punish.
When there are aggravations, such as downright carelessness, a
damaging commentary may be added ; but in using terms of
reprobation, still more strict regard has to be paid to discrimi-
nation and justice. The degrees of badness, are sometimes

Education as a Science. 465

numerical, as by the quantity of lesson missed, and the repeti-
tion of inattention ; this very clefiniteness literally stated is
more cutting than epithets.

Strong terms of reproof should be sparing, in order to be more
effective. Still more sparing ought to be tones of anger. Loss
of temper, however excusable, is really a victory to wrong-
doers ; although for the moment it may strike terror. Unless a
man is of fiendish nature throughout, he cannot maintain a
consistent course, if he gives way to temper. Indignation under
control is a mighty weapon. Yet it is mere impotence to utter
threats when the power of execution is known to be wanting.
There is nothing worse for authority than to over- vaunt itself ;
this is the fatal step to the ridiculous.

Punishments must go deeper than words : indeed, the efficacy
of blame depends on something else to follow. Bearing in mind
what are the evil tendencies to be encountered in school
discipline — want of application being the most constant — we
may review the different kinds of penalties that have been
placed at the disposal of the schoolmaster. The occasional
aggravation of disorder and rebelliousness has also - to be
encountered, but with an eye to the main requisite.

Simple forms of Disgrace have been invented, in the shape of
shameful positions, and humiliating isolation. As appealing to
the sense of shame, these are powerful with many, but not with
all: their power varies with the view taken of them by the
collective body, as well as with individual sensitiveness. They
answer for smaller offences, but not for the greatest ; they may
do to begin with, but they rapidly lose power by repetition. It
is a rule in punishment to try slight penalties at first ; with the
better natures, the mere idea of punishment is enough : severity
is entirely unnecessary. It is a coarse and blundering system
that knows of nothing but the severe and degrading sorts.

Detention from play, or keeping-in after hours, is very galling
to the young ; and it ought to suffice for even serious offences ;
especially for riotous and unruly tendencies, for which it has all
the merits of " characteristicalness". The excess of activity and
aggressiveness is met by withholding the ordinary outlets.

Tasks or impositions are the usual punishment of neglect of
lessons, and are also employed for rebelliousness ; the pain lies
in the intellectual ennui, which is severe to those that have no
liking for books in any shape. They also possess the irksomeness
of confinement and fatigue-drill. They may be superadded to
shame, and the combination is a formidable penalty.

With all these various resources ingeniously plied — Emulation,
Praise, Censure, Forms of Disgrace, Confinement, Impositions —
the necessitv for Corporal Punishments should be nearly done

33

466 Education as a Science.

away with. In any well-regulated school, where all the motives
are carefully graded, through a long series of increasing privations
and penalties, there should be no cases but what are sufficiently
met. The presence of pupils that are not amenable to such
means is a discord and anomaly : and the direct remedy would
consist in removing them to some place where the lower natures
are grouped together. Inequality of moral tone is as much to
be deprecated in a class as inequality of intellectual advancement.
There should be Reformatories, or special institutions, for those
that cannot be governed like the majority.

Where corporal punishment is kept up, it should be at the far
end of the list of penalties ; its slightest application should be
accounted the worst disgrace, and should be accompanied with
stigmatising forms. It should be regarded as a deep injury to
the person that inflicts it, and to those that have to witness it —
as the height of shame and infamy. It ought not to be repeated
with the same pupil : if two or three applications are not enough,
removal is the proper course.

The misfortune is that in the National Schools, the worst and
most neglected natures have to be introduced : yet they should
not brutalise a whole school. Even when children are habituated
to blows at home, it does not follow that these are necessary at
school ; parents are often unskilful, as well as hampered in all
their circumstances, and emergencies are pressing ; the treatment
at school may easily rise above the conduct of the family. In
many instances the school will be a welcome haven to the
children of troubled homes ; and lead to the generous response
of good behaviour.

In point of fact, however, the children of wretchedness are
not always those that give trouble, nor is it the schools where
these are found that are most given to corporal punishments.
The schoolmaster's most wayward subjects come often from good
families ; and they are found in schools of the highest grade.
There should be no difficulty in sending away from superior
schools all such as could not be disciplined without the
degradation of flogging.*

* Testimonies are adduced from very distinguished men, to the effect
that without flogging they would have done nothing. Melancthon,
Johnson, Goldsmith, are all quoted for a sentiment of this kind. We
must, however, interpret the fact on a wider basis. There was no
intermediate course in those days between spoiling and corporal punishment :
he that spared the rod hated the child. Many ways can now be found of
spurring young and capable minds to application ; and corporal punishment
would take an inferior position in the mere point of efficiency.

It is not to be held that corporal punishment, to such extent as is
permissible, is the severest form of punishment that may be administered
in connexion with the school. For mere pain, a whipping would often be

Education as a Science. 467

The Discipline of Consequences.

The idea of Rousseau that children, instead of being punished,
should be left to the natural consequences of their disobedience,
has much plausibility, and is taken up at the present day by edu-
cationists. Mr Spencer has dwelt upon it with great emphasis.

One obvious limitation to the principle is that the results may
be too serious to be used for discipline : children have to be
protected from the consequences of many of their acts.

What is intended is, to free parents and others from the odium
of being the authors of pain, and to throw this upon impersonal
agencies, towards whom the child can entertain no resentment.
But before counting on that result, two things are to be weighed.
For one, the child may soon be able to see through the device,
and to be aware that after all the pain is brought about by
virtue of a well-laid scheme for the purpose: as when the
unpunctual child is left behind. The other remark is that,
the personifying or anthropomorphic tendency being at its
greatest in early years, every natural evil is laid to the door of a
person known or unknown. The habit of looking at the laws of
nature, in their crushing application, as cold, passionless,
purposeless, is a very late and difficult acquirement, one of the
triumphs of science or philosophy : we begin by resenting
everything that does us harm ; and are but too ready to look
round for an actual person to bear the brunt of our wrath.

A further difficulty is the want of foresight and foreknowledge
in children : they are unable to realise consequences when the
evil impulse is upon them.' This, of course, decreases by time ;
and according as the sense of consequences is strengthened,
these become more adequate as a check to misconduct. It is
then indifferent whether they are natural or ordained.

Among the natural consequences that are relied on as correc-
tives of misbehaviour in the family, are such as these: going
with shabby clothes, from having spoilt a new suit ; getting no
new toys to replace those that are destroyed. The case of one
child having to make reparation to another for things destroyed,
is more an example of Bentham's "characteristical" punishment.

In school, the discipline of consequences comes in under the
arrangements of the school for assigning each one's merit on an
impersonal plan ; the temper or disposition of the master being
nowhere apparent. The regulations being fixed and understood,
non-compliance punishes itself. A. BAIN.

chosen in preference to the intolerable irksomeness of confinement during
play or after hours, and of impositions in the way of drill tasks ; while the
language of censure may be so cutting as to be far worse than blows.
What is maintained is that these other punishments are not so liable to
abuse, nor so brutalising to all concerned as bodily inflictions.

III.— INTUITION AND INFERENCE.

II. INFERENCE.

THERE has never been that uncertainty and confusion in the
use of the term Inference which has prevailed in the case of its
companion, Intuition. There never has been serious dissent
from the explanation that an inference is a proposition which is
received as true in consequence of the admitted truth of some
other proposition. To explore and make evident the psycholo-
gical processes which constitute the act of inference is, however,
a work which has not been thoroughly carried out. As a
consequence it happens that the scope of the term has been
rather too restricted than too greatly enlarged, and we shall not
find error in the way of its improper application so much as in
the failure to embrace within it much that there belongs. It
will be for us to study here the nature and character of the
mental process which makes inference, and see what is concerned
in the act of inferring.

Our task is somewhat simplified by our ability at the outset
to dismiss peremptorily the whole general division of presenta-
tive cognitions from our consideration. Intuitions are not
inferences. What is apprehended presentatively, in common
parlance, we know ; we do not infer it. In every presentative
experience there is indeed a representative element which is not
intuition ; but in saying that intuition is not inference I do not
mean to include that constituent : so far forth as a cognition is
presentative it is not inferential. We are hence to seek for
inferences in the other grand division of cognitions. Inference
must be representative cognition of some sort. Is all represen-
tative cognition inference, and are the terms convertible ?

In answer to this question another may be asked, namely,
whether if we were called upon to characterise representative
cognition to distinguish it from any other kind, we should
not invariably denominate it inferential. We have already
noted the difficulties in the way of designating it as intuitional,
and there seems to be a naturalness and fitness in terming such
knowledge inferential. It behoves us, therefore, to examine the
grounds of the appropriateness of such a designation. The
matter will be elucidated by the examination of some represen-
tative cognition, as that of a picture I saw yesterday. On a
recollection of it I hava a cognition in my mind of which, as
being present, I am conscious. Besides the consciousness of the
present cognition, I know that it represents an experience I had
yesterday. My mind is, so to speak, carried back to the past
experience which I infer that I had. By the medium of a
present idea the mincl is carried back or over to the past

Intuition and Inference. 469

sensation. The expression 'mind is carried back' is indeed
figurative, but there is no other which indicates better the
character of a representation. Representation itself is unana-
lysable ; we only know that this cognition in our minds is a
second presentation, a re-presentation. The idea of a picture is
not that picture, but is a copy, as it were, of the picture and
known to be such. In representing the picture the mind refers
the present idea to a past sensation which it infers. It cannot
be said that the one is carried back any more than the other is
brought forward; the process is wholly beyond the reach of
further analysis, as appears probable. All that can be said is, it
is different from immediate beholding.

With the representation of a cognition there will be certain
judgments involved. The picture is represented, and with the
representation I judge that I saw it, that it existed, &c. These
judgments are all inferential ; the existence in the past of what
we remember is inferred by virtue of our remembering, and, in
proportion as our memory of the circumstance is strong or weak,
the inference is to us conclusive or inconclusive. We infer that
we had certain sensations and infer the existence in the past of
objects which afforded such sensations. So plain and distinctive
a case of representation as that of representation of a sensation
thus carries with it inference as a part of the experience, and, in
fact, as constituting the same. If we take away the representa-
tive cognition, there is no inferring ; if we subduct the inference,
either there is no cognition at all or it becomes intuitional.

Now since the instances wherein we find the purest represen-
tation reveal inference as an essential part of the cognition, and
since all cognition which is not representative is immediate or
presentative, from which latter inference is always distinguished,
it would seem to be clear that the act of inferring is neither
more nor less than representative-cognising. Nothing more is
needed to confirm this conclusion than to see whether in the
progress of knowledge, in the ratio in which the representative
element varies, the character of the knowledge is correspond-
ingly inferential. The earlier parts of this essay and the
expositions in two preceding essays, to which I may perhaps be
allowed to refer ('Knowledge and Belief,' MIND, No. VIL, 'Presen-
tative and Representative Cognition/ MIND, No. X.), tend to
make out this latter. The complexity of cognitions depends
upon their degree of representativeness ; and only in this
complexity do we find any call for inference. We cognise
through media when we infer, and the less complex and less
highly integrated those media, the less inference and reasoning-
are conspicuous. But the media through which we cognise are
representative cognitions in different stages of integration. And

470 Intuition and Inference.

given a power of representation and the processes of association
of similars and contiguities, psychologists have recently shown
how all reasoning is explicable. Both Mr. Bain and Mr.
Spencer, as well as the two Mills, have fully developed this
branch of mental activity. The processes of association are not
other kinds of knowing but are the process of cognition itself,
and of the growth, accumulation, and integration of cognitions.
From all these considerations, therefore, we are pointed to the
inevitable conclusion that inference as a mental process is
identical with representative cognition.

For still further confirmation, let us dwell for a moment upon
two or three examples of representative cognitions which might
at first thought seem to be in no sense inferences. For example,
the phrase / had a father would appear to be the statement of a
fact, and not at all inferential. It is certainly true, the popular
mind might say, that I had a father ; there is no doubt of it ;
the expression is moreover an independent statement, not an
inference from any other. In response, it should first be said
that the truth or falsity, the certainty or doubt, attending a
proposition do not depend upon the absence of inference ; what
we infer may be as true and as certain as what we intuite. I
infer that, if all men are mortals, some men are mortals, and this
latter conclusion is not more doubtful than my intuition of the
light — indeed some would claim the certitude of the latter to be
inferior. In the second place, let us see whether, even if there
are no explicit premisses for the assertion, there are not some
implicit. The cognition expressed by the proposition / had a
father is a complex one, made up of sundry minor ones. Father
expresses the fact of paternity, a general notion derived from
various experiences. Certain events are observed to follow certain
other events ; an association of two individuals of opposite sex,
fecundation, conception, and birth follow each other in regular
sequence ; we generally infer sexual intercourse from the parties
living together ; fecundation and conception as consequences are
wholly matters of inference ; so also birth as following therefrom
is inferential. Now that these same processes are gone through
with in the cases of all human beings is inferred from a univer-
sal experience, or one so general and uncontradicted as to
warrant the inference that it is universal. Thus that all human
beings have fathers is an inference. Moreover, that I am a
human being is also an inference derived from a comparison
of myself with others I see about me ; that I existed yesterday
or in any past time is also an inference from my memory.
Accordingly we observe that the proposition I had a father is a
conclusion from a number of implicit premisses, themselves
matters of inference. The cognition, therefore, expresses a series

Intuition and Inference. 471

of inferences which are involved in its meaning and without
which it would have no signification whatever. It is itself an
inference from the premisses just set forth. Even so simple a
recollection as / went to London is made up of inferences. That
there is a place called London is an inference from common
testimony ; that I visited a certain town on a particular occasion
I infer from a remembrance of a set of occurrences to me ; that
this town is the one called London I infer from testimony
likewise.

Again take a cognition which is not expressly a judgment.
It will be asked, what possible inference is there about the
notion marked by the name house ? This is the name of a single
notion formed by the representation of a number of particular
experiences generalised. It cannot be called an inference
(some will say), and its presence in the mind is not evidence of
a process of inference. Yet I think a little reflection will
convince one that this cognition is not attainable without a
series of inferences. In the cognition there is a conscious
representation of experiences ; the general notion is one
representative of particular sensations had by me in time past ;
there are implied judgments at least that I had such sensations,
and in this case of the existence of objects causing those
sensations ; but, as has been already remarked, these latter are
inferential judgments. So that in the cognition of a house, were
we to take away the judgments of past experience and existence,
there would be no cognition present at all ; and the presence of
that cognition involves and requires these inferences. In.
representing house, I infer that I have seen houses and that they
existed, and these inferences are a necessary part of the cognition.
Here as elsewhere the act of representative cognising is an act
of inferring. Equally is this true of other general notions.
The word white stands for a cognition of some particular white
tiling which is a representation of or resembles something I have
seen; also the co-ordinate cognition that there are numerous
objects which agree with this in being white ;— both of these
cognitions are inferential.

Once more, the comparison of a present object with an absent
one, so far as representation is involved, demands inference. All
identifications require inference unless the objects identified are
all present, and even then inference is not dispensed with, for
we are obliged to infer that the objects remain the same from
moment to moment. If I say This is a horse, there is a degree
of inference not difficult to trace. I infer that the image I have
in mind of the characteristics of horses had a reality corres-
ponding to the object now before me, agrees with or is like a
large number of other objects I have seen and other men have

472 Intuition and Inference.

seen ; those other objects are not present, and unless I can infer
the likeness and that such objects have existence or had it, I am
not entitled to say TJiis is a horse. Again, therefore, we see
that so far as a cognition requires for its explanation the power
of representation, it requires inference.

Further illustration may be found in going over carefully the
objects of belief, as has been done elsewhere (MiND, No. VII.).
We shall in every case see that wherever there is belief, there is
inference. In the examples immediately antecedent we have
examined some of these cases, and it is hardly necessary to
review in detail all cases of belief. They substantially embrace
beliefs in existences and events which have been experiences to
me or some one else or which may become such experiences.
That there have been any existences or events within my
experience or within the experience of any one, is inferential (as
has been explained) ; so also is the belief that anything may be
expected to come within the experience of any person. But it
will be remembered that the acts of representative cognition and
belief we discovered to be the same ; therefore, we again make
an identification of inference and representative cognition.

If the analysis thus far made be correct, there are sundry
corollaries which may follow whose importance is considerable,
and which when expressed make still clearer the truth of what
has been stated in regard to inference. Eeferring now to the
fact previously brought out that representative cognition while
distinguishable from presentative does not exist without the
latter; that every cognition, every item of knowledge as a
product, requires both presentation and representation; that
consciousness itself would become unconscious were it not for
both, — it will appear that inference is an ultimate and primordial
act of mind and involved in all cognition. It is unanalysable,
and itself a prime factor in consciousness.

Still further, it appears that the psychological processes of
belief and inference are the same and that the attributes of the
one may be ascribed to the other. For in a preceding essay
(MiND, No. VII.) we learned the correspondence between belief
and representative cognition, and observed that what could be
attributed to the one of those two could be attributed to the
other. We have thus made out three operations to be essentially
the same, nariiely representative cognition, belief, and inference ;
the one is not present without the others ; representative
cognition would not be such without belief and inference, belief
would not be belief in the absence of representative cognition
and inference, inference is not inference at all without represen-
tative cognition and belief. But while, therefore, these three
terms refer to the same mental operation, they are nevertheless

Intuition and Inference. 473

eacli applicable to somewhat different phases of it. Bepresenta-
tive cognition is the generic term applicable to an act of
representative apprehension, as such, irrespective of relations
and expressions : House, tree, I had a father, I lived in Boston,
Trees have foliage, Men are mortal, alike mark representative
cognitions. When an agreement or disagreement between two
distinct cognitions is apprehended, if the resultant cognition is
prevailingly representative, it is, when expressed, a belief. The
name Belief, when applied to an expressed product of cognition
is attached to a proposition ; when applied to the cognitive
operation itself, it is a judgment, not a single notion. / lived
last week ; I shall be living in ten years ; London is the largest
city of England; Balthasar Gerard assassinated William the
Silent ; Men are mortal, are propositions which are distinctively
expressive of belief. When instead of one judgment made
without dwelling upon its antecedents or consequents, there
occur two or more following each other, the mind passing from
one to the other with a dependence of the consequent upon the
antecedent, we denominate the consequential judgment with
reference to the other an Inference : / lived last week (for I
remember sensations occurring to 'me then) ; I shall l>e living in
ten years (for men generally live to the age I shall have then
reached) ; London is the largest city of England (as trustworthy
authorities have stated) ; Balthasar Gerard assassinated William
the Silent (for the concurrent word of many historians may be
relied upon) ; Men are mortal (since universal experience has been
that men have not lived beyond a certain maximum of years) — all
these are inferences from the judgments expressed by the
propositions in parentheses, or others similar to them. Every
proposition, consequently, which is characteristically representa-
tive may be regarded either as the expression of belief or of
inference from implicit premisses. The word Inference, however,
as characterising a proposition, is usually restricted to a conclusion
from premisses found in the discourse in which the proposition
occurs, and some of which at least are explicit and the others
readily suggested by the context.

If there should arise in the mind of any one at this point a
question why the mind cognises a dependence of one cognition
upon another, the answer would be that this is explained by the
laws of association. There are countless representative
cognitions passing through the mind between which no relation
of dependence exists; we do not say we infer one from the
other. If I were to say, Men are mortal, therefore dogs have tails
— we should hardly be justified in calling either cognition an
inference from the other. I might nevertheless connect these
two facts in thought so as to infer one from the other, and though

474 Intuition and Inference.

that would not make the inference a valid one, it would still be
truly an inference. If I should for any reason come to establish
a firm association between these two facts, so that when one
was suggested the other should follow it, it would thus be
entirely possible for me to infer one from the other. In this
way all inferences are created and sustained. If there be a
sufficiently strong association by contiguity and similarity, the
established connexion will govern the transfer of the mind from
one link to another. Representative cognition explains the act
of inferring ; the laws of association show how particular
inferences come to be made and to exist in the manner in which
they do.

The elaboration of inferences in the mind takes place most
conspicuously and chiefly through the association of similars.
Where the mind passes directly from one object to a second,
identifying the one with the other, the process is commonly
spoken of as Immediate Inference; where it arrives at its
conclusion only through the intervention of a third or mediate
object, the proceeding is denominated Mediate Inference.
Although these distinctions have been very generally made
in treatises on logic, I conceive them to be highly objectionable,
for all inference, as we have seen, is mediate, that termed
immediate being only relatively so — relatively simple and direct
as compared with the other. If there be occasion, a distinction
may be made and preserved in terms like Simple Inference and
Complex Inference, indicating a difference in complexity, but no
distinction should be allowed as to the nature of the process.
The process of immediate inference is precisely the same as that
of mediate inference, and both of them are mediate. In the
first case, A suggests its similar B, two are compared directly
and an agreement cognised between them. Now agreement
means that in so far as two objects agree they are identical, and
one may be substituted for the other. Power of substitution is
the very essence of agreement, though logicians have not always
noted the truth. To Professor Jevons the world is much
indebted for the first explicit and complete enunciation of this
doctrine (Substitution of Similars and Principles of Science).
If then an agreement be cognised between A and B so that
A = B, that B — A is not another cognition but a different
expression of the same cognition. The mind through the
presentative ideas a and b infers the equality of A and B the
objects. Thenceforth A and B are associated and one may be
substituted for the other, as regards quantity; the cognition
instead of being |^AJ and [B] becomes |~A|B] and [B| AJ-
Thus far so-called Immediate Inference. If now [B] has been

Intuition and Inference. 475

found equal to [c], instead of our thinking simply B = C, the
association of B at once arises in the mind and we think
| A | B ) = |C|_Cj or unite the cognitions in groups like the fol-
lowing, |EJC| [A[B|C| [A|C| |C|A|, &c.; that is A = B,

B = C . • . A = C. We have, as it were, a double of B com-
pared with C. What is affirmed in quantity of B may be
affirmed of its other self its substitute A. The three objects
[A] [B] and [c] are brought together in the mind, and a link
of connexion is forged between them all ; what may be affirmed
of A (we are now speaking of quantity) may be affirmed of
B and C ; what may be affirmed of B may be affirmed of A and
C ; and what may be affirmed of C may be affirmed of A and B.
This is the first step in Mediate Inference. In the two cases,
the one of immediate and the other of mediate inference, there
is no difference in the kind of the process, but only a difference
in the complexity and the length of the movement. When C
is finally brought into the mind, its being equal to A is just as
immediate an inference as that A = B ; the mediateness consists
in the fact that B was first necessary in order to suggest C —
that the mind starting from A went to B and through B brought
up C for identification with A. In an extended series of medi-
ate cognitions, the process is one of repeated identifications, and
a gathering together and carrying along all that have previously
been gained to the next new case ; this is more laborious, and
when the end of the course has been reached the process appears
longer, and, so far as we can determine, is longer than if the
inference were an immediate one ; but each new inference made
in the process is just as much immediate and no more so than
the inference A = B . • . B = A. Mediate inference, then, is
only a series of immediate inferences, and immediate inferences
are mediate or representative cognitions. I believe that A (object)
= B and B = A, or though the ideas a = b, b = a, I infer
that A = B ; this is the simplest step in inference. By
the same cognition I infer B — A ; this is the second step.
I then carry along A and B as equals to C, and identify C with
A and B simultaneously, by the same cognition pronouncing
that C = B and C = A ; this is the third step. The first of
these steps is representative cognition ; the second is so-called
immediate inference ; the third is so-called mediate inference —
all of them are but different degrees of representative cognition.
When by so-called mediate inference, which I should prefer
to call discursion, A is found equal to C, the intervening link B
may come to be discarded altogether. This operation is all the
time going on in mental experience. Truths are reached by a

476 Intuition and Inference.

discursion through other truths and then the middle truth is
dropped out of consideration (except perhaps in analysing the
steps by which we arrive at the conclusion). Identifications
are first made through suggesting media and afterwards are
directly apprehended. For instance, experience has established
the truth that rattlesnakes are poisonous. I see a certain snake
different from any I have ever seen before, but which, from
reading and information acquired viva voce, I esteem to be a
rattlesnake. I then infer the reptile before me to be poisonous.
There is thus established an association between a reptile of a
certain appearance and the attribute poisonous ; so that the next
time I see a snake of that peculiar appearance I infer it to
be poisonous without necessarily first considering that it is a
rattlesnake. In truth, what is termed mediate inference occurs
only where knowledge is partially integrated. When we are
reasoning we are feeling our way to knowledge, or are confirm-
ing, establishing, and explicating knowledge; when we have
settled the points about which we reason, and have laid out the
results, we infer directly and necessarily according to our
established associations, and what before has been the conclusion
of a discursion in thought passes into the category of uncontra-
dicted and even necessary truth.

Having now shown to the best of my ability the nature,
sources, and more rudimental developments of inference, I have
done all that is contemplated in this essay. The further
exposition of the course and the products of inference embracing
the subject of proof, the validity of inferences and the ramifica-
tions and classifications of inferential knowledge, so far as the
same may be made the subject of distinctive and separate
arrangement* belongs to treatises on logic and will not be
pursued here. Our examination has gone far enough to illustrate
the psychological character and place of Inference, its connexion
with, and at the same time its opposition to, Intuition. To show
that other minds have seen in somewhat the same channel as
my own, regarding inference, I shall take the liberty of quoting
(though without stopping to criticise), as bearing upon the subject
and the views here maintained thereon, two or three sentences
from a noteworthy article in the St. Louis Journal of Speculative
Philosophy, by C. S. Peirce (Vol. II., pp. 140, 154) and a passage
from the treatise on Logic in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, both
of which will be seen to harmonise substantially with this
exposition, and may be esteemed corroborative in some degree of
the correctness of the positions here taken. Says the former :
" All mental action is reducible to the form of valid inference ".
" The association of ideas consists in this, that a judgment
occasions another judgment of which it is the sign. Now this is

Intuition and Inference. 477

nothing less nor more than inference." " Inference is only a
transition from one cognition to another." The writer in the
Encydopcedia remarks : — " Logic evolves not laws which govern
any one fact of mediate thinking taken singly, but relations
between two or more such facts or laws which govern the
derivation of one such fact from another or others. That
which logic scrutinises is not one fact of thought, but a process
constituted by a plurality of such facts. It considers thinking
as knowledge or cognition, that is as having objects which are
truths, but it assumes and systematises those laws only in virtue
of which, one or more facts of knowledge being given, other facts
of knowledge may be elicited from them. . . . Psychologi-
cally or subjectively considered, discursive thought exhibits no
distinctive characteristics beyond those which belong to it as
being necessarily mediate or representative. It is always
resolvable into a series of judgments. Its peculiarity lies in the
relation between the constitutive judgments ; it is a relation in
which the objective side is the more prominent of the two. We
might say, indeed, that the relation subsists not between the
acts of judging but between the judgments ; not between one
mental fact and another but between their several results or
products."

Single terms, names, and words are not usually held as
standing for inferences ; that all the cognitions indicated by
these symbols involve inferential cognition, however, may be
repeated. The proper sphere of inference is judgment, and, as
the writer in the last quotation seems to imply, not single
judgment, but the relations between judgments. A proposition
then is the characteristic expression of an inference. On the
other hand single terms rather than propositions are the most
appropriate expressions of intuitions. Probably the words
indicating the purest intuitions are the exclamations as ah ! oh !
The personal pronouns as /, thou, he, and the demonstratives
this, that frequently designate primarily an intuition ; concrete
names applied to an individual present, or a present experience,
as John, house, fire, cold, are symbols of intuition. General names
as such are marks of cognitions characteristically inferential;
abstract names do not stand for intuitions at all. It is hardly
proper to call any proposition intuitive. Even so simple and
apparently immediate cognition as that expressed by A is A is
as much inferential as intuitive — indeed, more so, for it depends
for its validity upon the prior proposition A is. A is A is an
inference meaning, So long as A is, A is A. The thought /
exist is intuition mixed with inference ; for existence is general
in its meaning and hence representative. I only intuite that
/ am I by the prior cognition / was I at various preceding

478 Intuition and Inference.

moments ; while, as a proposition, / exist stands for a presenta-
tive mixed with a representative cognition. Of course proposi-
tions imply intuition, but if we call them intuitions we are led
into difficulty by the necessity of using the very same propositions
as inferences. If we say A is A, standing for an intuitional
cognition, is itself properly to be called an intuition, or that its
prevailing character in general is intuition, we are met by such
cases of its use as the one above taken, A is A, for A is.
Evidently in this latter use A is A is an inference and inferential.
Similarly every proposition may point primarily either to an
intuitive or an inferential act of the mind, according to
circumstances. Inasmuch, however, as propositions for the
most part convey general knowledge and are highly representa-
tive, if they were as a class to be characterised by either of the
two terms before us, the adjective inferential would be the more
fitting. Most propositions can at once be shown to be inferences
from implicit premisses. Language derives its value from the
fact that it is general and common. Its office is to preserve and
communicate, but this requires that it shall stand for representa-
tive cognitions. The meaning of a word is its general connotation,
its representative character. A. pure intuition cannot be
expressed at all by language, any more than it can be found
alone in mental experience.

We are now prepared for a brief summary to fix more clearly
in mind the results attained in this essay.

First. Intuition is a cognitive act of immediate beholding,
inference is a cognitive act of mediate beholding. Intuition
corresponds with presentative and inference with representative
cognition ; the two are antithetical and mutually exclusive.

Second. Both intuition and inference are present in every act
of cognition, varying as presentative and representative cognitions
vary. No cognition is purely intuitive or inferential, but the
prevailing character may be one or the other ; a cognition may
be relatively intuitive or relatively inferential. If either
intuition or inference were wholly absent there would be no
cognition at all but an absence of consciousness. Both are
ultimate and unanalysable mental operations.

Third. Inferring and believing are the same cognitive act,
both being phases of representative cognition. In believing, the
mind dwells upon two cognitions seen to agree or differ, without
considering attentively the relations of those two cognitions to
anything save each other. In inferring, the mind connects two
pairs of cognitions and cognises a relation of agreement in
difference between them. Every representative cognition may
be viewed as a belief or as an inference ; every belief may be
regarded as an inference and every inference as a belief.

Intuition and Inference. 479

Fourth. The formation and establishment of particular
inferences as permanent products is the work of association,
according to the laws of contiguity and similarity, the latter
being the chief and most conspicuous process. The simplest
and most direct inference lies in the cognition of identity or
similarity between two objects, the essence of the agreement
being the cognition of interchangeability between the two, so
that one may be substituted for the other. As other associations
are joined this process is repeated, and the mind advances
discursively from one cognition to the other, carrying over to
the conclusion what is in the premisses. As associations become
more firmly established and many connexions are made,
intermediate links are dropped and inference direct assumes the
place of discursive inference : the latter is characteristic of the
acquiring, confirming, and arranging of knowledge ; the former
occurs as a perfected result of the associating processes.

Fifth. Intuition is more characteristically expressed by single
terms, inferences by propositions ; no language, however, stands
exclusively for either, but all language indicates both, since in
every cognition the two are inextricably involved. In discourse,
nevertheless, those propositions are commonly called inferences
which are connected in dependence upon other propositions, the
whole indicating a passage of the mind from one to the other in
the relation of dependent and principal ; with such the science
of logic deals.

Dugald Stewart in a most remarkable and instructive passage
(Philosophy of the Human Mind, Part II., ch. 2,) has, I think,
approached more nearly than any other before his time (save
perhaps Locke), and more nearly than the most who have since
lived and written, to the true solution of the problems concerning
the nature and connexion of the intuitive and ratiocinative
powers of the mind. Stewart saw the intimate connexion of
intuition and inference, though from their constant presence
together he erroneously considered that there was no radical
difference between them, and though he did not clearly and
distinctly apprehend in their details the complete operation of
the laws of association and of the representative powers in the
production of all varieties of reasoning.

DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON.

IV.— -TKANSCENDENTALISM.

THAT the pure empiricism still in fashion among scientific
philosophers leads naturally to scepticism is a fact which has
been familiar to certain schools of thought ever since Hume
presented it to the world stripped of its plausibilities. It is
hardly to be believed that so subtle a thinker did not himself
perceive the ultimate consequences of his reasoning. He must
have been perfectly aware that on his system a philosophy of
science was impossible ; nevertheless, his " Essay on Miracles "
and occasional announcements, such as that with which he ends
his Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, appear to have
quite convinced natural philosophers that his scepticism merely
undermined religion, a result which to most of them was a cause
of very moderate uneasiness. If, however, they ignored, and
still ignore, the wider reach of that engine of destruction, it has
not been for want of telling.

Hume himself makes no effort to conceal it, and the sneer
with which he informs the students of science that theirs is the
only kind of knowledge worth pursuing, is scarcely less obvious
than that with which he tells the theologian that the most solid
foundations of religion are " faith " and " divine revelation ".
But Hume's own view of his position is not the only, nor even
the main, evidence for the sceptical nature of the conclusions to
which his theories necessarily lead. On that scepticism, as we
have been informed with sufficient iteration, is founded the
whole imposing structure of modern German philosophy; and
modern German philosophy, whatever be its value, is not
a phenomenon which easily escapes notice. If it gives
little light it .is not because it is hidden under a bushel.
In all probability, however, its very magnitude has prevented
it from materially influencing the course of scientific philo-
sophy in this country ; and I believe I may almost say
from permanently influencing scientific philosophy even in
Germany. A man may be forgiven if, before seriously attempt-
ing to master so huge a mass of metaphysics, composed
of several inconsistent systems, difficult of comprehension from
their essential natures, still more difficult from the extraordinary
jargon under which the ingenuity of man has concealed their
import — he may be forgiven, I say, if he pauses and considers
whether the time may not be better spent in. reading something
he is more likely to understand. It is, however, unfortunate
that this pardonable, and even laudable, caution should have
prevented so many people from trying to comprehend the exact
difficulty which Kant and Kant's successors saw in the empiri-
cism of Hume, and the extremely ingenious method which they

Transcendentalism. 481

adopted in order to avoid it ; for when these are understood it
becomes at once plain that the difficulty is a real one, and that
the solution offered of it, at any rate, deserves consideration.

The relation in which Kant stands to Hume is not a topic
which it is necessary for me to discuss ; nor, if it were, could I,
it need hardly be said, add anything to what Mr. Green and Mr.
Caird, not to mention previous commentators, have already
written on the subject. My purpose is to examine the answer
which, as I suppose, a transcendentalist would make to the
sceptic on the two points of causation and the existence of an
independent world.

Now the usual way in which the transcendental problem is
put is, " How is knowledge possible ?" and, taking transcenden-
talism as an answer to Hume, this, the usual way, is also the
most natural, because it was Hume's theory of the origin of
'knowledge which led necessarily to scepticism. As, however,
the sceptic need not put forward any view of the origin of
knowledge, the question should rather be stated, How much of
what pretends to be knowledge must we accept as such, and
why ? My business, therefore, is to extract from the answer
which the transcendentalist gives to the first inquiry, an answer
which shall, if possible, satisfy the second ; and for this purpose
it is necessary to make a slight, though only a slight, change in
the usual mode of stating his doctrine.

In a former article in MIND (No. IX.) I insisted on the
obvious truth that every tenable system of knowledge must
consist partly of premisses which require no proof, and partly of
inferences which are legitimately drawn from these. What, then,
on the transcendental theory, are our premisses, and by what
method do we derive from them the required conclusion ?

If we were simply to glance at transcendental literature, and
seize on the first apparent answers to the questions, we should
be disposed to think that the philosophers of this school assume
to start with the truth of a large part of what is commonly
called science — the very thing which, according to my view of
the subject, it is the business of philosophy to prove. " Respect-
ing pure mathematical and pure natural science," says Kant
(Critique, p. 13, Tr.), " as they certainly do exist, it may with
propriety be asked how they are possible ; for that they must be
possible is shown by the fact of their really existing." " The
question, How is knowledge possible ? is not," says Mr. Green
(Contemp. Review, Dec. 1877), "to be confused with the
question upon which metaphysicians are sometimes supposed 'to
waste their time, Is knowledge possible ? . . . Metaphysic
is no superfluous labour. It is no more superfluous, indeed,
than is any theory of a process which without theory we already

34

482 Transcendentalism.

perform." Passages of this sori would almost lead one to
conclude that the business of transcendental speculation was
not to justify beliefs, but to account for their existence : to tell
us how we do a thing, not whether we ought to do it : a view
by which, apparently, philosophy is regarded as dealing with
the laws of thought much as physiology deals with the laws of
digestion. If this were so, transcendentalism might be an
important and useful department of science, but it could have
nothing to do with the subject of this essay. It would answer
no doubt, it would solve no difficulty. But, in truth, the
language often used by Kant and echoed above by Mr. Green, if
not incorrect, is certainly misleading. Transcendentalism is
philosophical, in the sense in which I have ventured to use the
term ; it does attempt to establish a creed, and, therefore, of
necessity it indicates the nature of our premisses and the
manner in which the subordinate beliefs may be legitimately
derived from them.

On the first point its statements are not, indeed, explicit and
categorical; but this is simply because, for historical reasons,
the philosophic problem has. not been presented to it exactly in
the shape which makes such statements necessary. Nevertheless,
all I suppose that a transcendentalist would postulate in the
first instance, or rather all that each man who studies his
system is required to postulate, is that he knows, and is certain
of, something; he is conscious, for example, or may be conscious,
that he perceives a coloured object, or a particular taste ; in
other words, he gets some knowledge, small or great, by
experience.

This very moderate concession, then, being granted, as it
must be granted, by the sceptic, the next question that arises is,
How can any knowledge worth speaking of be inferred from
such premisses? It is in the answer to this that such force and
originality as there may be in transcendentalism is really to be
found ; and it is here that the full meaning of the question
which is placed at the head of that philosophy becomes
manifest. " You allow," we may suppose a transcendentalist to
say, "You allow that experience is possible; you allow that
some knowledge, though it may only be of the facts of
immediate perception, can be obtained by that channel. I
therefore ask you how that experience is possible — in what it
essentially consists : and whatever fact or principle I can show
to be involved in that experience — whatever I can prove must
be, if that experience is to be — of that you must, in common
consistency, grant the reality." A principle so proved is said to
be " transcendentally deduced;' and it is the validity of that
deduction in the cases of causation and the existence of an

Transcendentalism. 483

independent world that we are now more particularly to
examine.

The whole value, then, of the transcendental philosophy, so
far as the questions raised in this essay are concerned, must
depend on its being able to show that the trustworthiness of
these far-reaching scientific postulates is involved in those
simple experiences which everybody must allow to be valid. If
it cannot prove this, it may still be a valuable contribution to a
possible philosophy ; it may still show by its searching analysis
all that is implied in the existence of nature, as we ordinarily
understand nature, and of the sciences of nature as we are
taught to accept them : but more than this it cannot do ; it
cannot show either that such a nature exists, or that our
accounts of it are accurate ; it cannot, in other words, supply us
with a philosophy adequate to our necessities.

Before going on to consider the general value of this method,
or the success of its application in particular instances, it may
be well to give some examples of its reasonings by which its
precise character may be more clearly understood. Here, for
instance, is one taken from Kant's proof of the principle of
substance (Critique, pp. 140-141, Tr.) : —

" Change cannot be perceived by us except in substances, and origin or
extinction in an absolute sense, that does not concern merely a determina-
tion of the permanent, cannot be a possible perception, for it is the very
notion of the permanent which renders possible the representation (percep-
tion) of a transition from one state into another, and from non-being into
being, which consequently can be empirically cognised only as alternating
determinations of that which is permanent. . . . Substances (in. the world
of phenomena) are the substratum of all determinations of time. . .
Accordingly, permanence is a necessary condition under which . alone-
phenomena, as things or objects, are determinable in a possible experience."

Now the point of this demonstration lies, as the reader will
see, in showing, or attempting to show, that experience of
change is not possible unless we assume unchanging substance.
Therefore, if we can experience changes (as we most certainly
can), we are forced also to admit the existence of that without
which change would have no meaning.

Here is another argument of the same kind respecting
causation which I quote from Mr. Green's Introduction to
Hume (pp. 273-4) :—

" A uniformity which can be thus (i.e. by a single instance) established
is, in the proper sense, necessary. Its existence is not contingent on its
being felt by any one or every one. It does not come into being with the
experiment that shows it. It is felt because it is real, not real because it is
felt. It may be objected, indeed, that the principle of the ( uniformity of
nature,' the principle that what is fact once is fact always, itself gradually
results from the observation of facts which are feelings, and that thus the
principle which enables us to dispense with the repetition of a sensible ex-
perience is itself due to such repetition. The answer is, that feelings which

484 Transcendentalism.

are conceived as facts are already conceived as constituents of a nature.
The same presence of the thinking subject to, and distinction of itself from,
the feelings which renders them kno wable facts, renders them members of a
world which is one throughout its changes. In other words, the presence
of facts from which the uniformity of nature as an abstract rule is to be
inferred, is already the consciousness of that uniformity in concrete."

In this extract the argument is, that facts are unknowable,
i.e., are no facts for us, except as members of a uniform nature.
We may be as certain, therefore, of the uniformity of nature as
we are certain that we can know facts ; which is another way of
saying that we need have no doubt about the matter at all.

These quotations are not long enough, perhaps, to do full
justice to the argument of which they contain one statement ;
but they are long enough to show of what sort the argument
in either case is. And the essential force or point of those
arguments, as against the sceptic, seems at first sight to lie in
this : the sceptic, in questioning any principle, is shown to be
making *an illegitimate abstraction from the relations which
constitute an object, an abstraction which is illegitimate, because
it renders the object meaningless and unthinkable. He has to
choose, therefore, between altogether giving up the reality of the
object, or admitting a principle implied by one of the relations
of which that reality can be shown to consist. He cannot, in
all cases at least, do the first ; he is bound, therefore, to do the
second.

Now, before proceeding to examine the force of this
reasoning, as it is employed in proving particular points, one
difficulty must be discussed which attaches to it generally.

When a man is convinced by a transcendental argument, it
must be, as I have explained, because he perceives that a certain
relation or principle is necessary to constitute his admitted
experience. This is to him a fact, the truth of which he is
obliged to recognise. But another fact, which he may also find
it hard to dispute, is that he himself and, as it would appear, the
majority of mankind have habitually had this experience without
ever consciously thinking it under this relation ; and this second
fact is one which it does not seem easy to interpret in a manner
which shall harmonise with the general theory. The transcen-
dentalist would, no doubt, say at once that the relation in
question had always been thought implicitly, even if it had not
always come into clear consciousness ; and having enunciated
this dictum he would trouble himself no further about a matter
which belonged merely to the " history of the individual ".
But if an implicit thought means in this connexion what it
means everywhere else, it is simply a thought which is logically
bound up in some other thought, and which for that reason may
always be called into existence by it. Now, from this very

Transcendentalism. 485

definition, it is plain that so long as a thought is implicit it does
not exist. It is a mere possibility, which may indeed at any
moment become an actuality, and which, when once an actuality,
may be indestructible ; but which, so long as it is a possibility,
can be said to have existence only by a figure of speech.

If, therefore, this meaning of the word implicit be accepted,
we find ourselves in a difficulty. Either an object can exist and
be a reality to an intelligence which does not think of it as
under relations which, as I now see, are involved in it, i.e.,
without which I cannot now think of it as an object ; or else I
am in error, when I suppose myself and other people to have
ignored these relations in past times. If the first of these
alternatives is true, the whole transcendental system, as I
understand it, vanishes in smoke ; if the second, it comes into
apparent conflict, not only with science, and with the avowed
scientific opinions of many of its disciples, but with the later
form of the Transcendental Philosophy itself. For by that
system the development of thought is in stages ; it is driven on
by its own proper nature from one stage to another till the
highest of them is reached, where alone it can find rest and
satisfaction. But those who believe most firmly in this theory
by no means intend to assert as an historical fact that every
thinking being is intellectually restless until he has grasped the
Philosophy of the Absolute. What they must rather be held to
mean is, that the inadequacy and self-contradiction of a universe
thought under any of the lower categories can be demonstrated,
and when demonstrated to me or any other thinking being, I or
he may be obliged to seek repose by including the contradictory
elements under some category which shall reconcile them in a
higher unity ; but they must admit that, as a matter of fact, this
demonstration has been vouchsafed to few. There are not many,
for example, who, whatever their perplexities, can find in-
tellectual satisfaction in such a formula as this : " The universe
is the process whereby spirit externalises itself, or manifests
itself in an external world, that out of this externality, by a
movement at once positive and negative, it may rise to the
highest consciousness of self" (Caird's Kant, p. 427). The
great body of mankind certainly prefer a contradiction which
they do not see, to a reconciliation which they do not
understand ; and what I desire is not to be shown how, on
transcendental grounds, such a position is untenable, but how
its existence, as a fact, is to be consistently accounted for. The
analogy of the ordinary logic is here misleading. It is true, no
doubt, that we may intelligently hold premisses without
perceiving all or any of the deductions which may be legitimately
drawn from them, and that, in asserting the premisses in such a

486 Transcendentalism.

case, we implicitly assert the conclusion ; but this presents no
difficulty, because it is not the recognition of the conclusion
which makes sense of the premisses. In transcendental reasoning
the case is exactly the other way. The ground, and the whole
ground, on which we are forced by that reasoning to recognise
the reality of certain relations, is, that without those relations
the object of which we have experience would be as nothing for
us ; it would have neither meaning nor significance ; and what I
wish to know is, "how it happens that the object appears to be
" something " to so many people who are wholly innocent of any
knowledge of those relations by which it is said to be constituted.
If there is any value in this objection, it would apparently
follow from it that movement or inference in this logic is an
impossibility. So long as the transcendentalist refuses to move
• — so long as he merely declines to abstract the relations by
which an object is already constituted, — he stands, perhaps, on
firm ground ; but directly he tries to oblige us to think a thing
under new relations, his method becomes either ineffective or
self- destructive. If, on the one hand, we can think the object
not under these new relations, there is nothing in the method to
compel us to do so ; for the method consists in showing that
without this new relation the object would not exist for us as
thinking beings. If, on the other hand, we cannot think it
except under these new relations, then, either we were not
thinking it before or the relations are not new ; and in either
case there is no- inferential movement of thought from the known
to the unknown.

From these reflections it would appear that the transcen-
dentalist must either give up the seeming fact on which his system
depends, or explain away a seeming fact which is inconsistent
with it. The first fact is, that a given relation is necessary to
constitute a knowledge of an object ; the second fact is, that a
great many intelligent beings, and the transcendentalist himself
during the earlier part of his life among the number, appear able
to know it out of this relation.

Now, one solution of this difficulty has been already disposed
of ; it has been shown, or rather stated (for the assertion requires
no proof), that a thought which is merely implicit is really no
thought at all ; it is a creation of language, which can constitute
nothing, because it is nothing. It may, however, perhaps, be
said that the thought is neither merely implicit nor wholly
explicit, but exists in a kind of intermediate stage between
nonentity and the fulness of clear consciousness ; a stage in
which it is strong enough, so to speak, to " constitute an object,"
but not strong enough to be known to the individual for whom
it performs this important function.

Transcendentalism. 487

This is apparently one of the views taken by the transcen-
dentalist ; for Kant says, with the approval of Mr. C air d, that
" the consciousness (of a unity) may be but weak, so that we
become aware of it only in the result produced, and not in the
act of producing it ; but that, nevertheless, the unity of
consciousness must always be present, though it has not clearness
sufficient to make it stand out" (Caird's Kant, p. 395). In
other words, the unity of consciousness which is necessary for
the existence of any experience may lie hidden, like a drop of
some powerful chemical reagent, until its presence is made certain
by the analysis of its results.

Such a theory as this requires us to hold that thought may, so
to speak, diminish the amount of its being till it ceases to be
known as thought, though not to behave as such ; and no doubt
the first half of this statement is correct. That a sensation can
be weaker or stronger, can change its intensive quantity (to use
the technical expression), is of course plain. It can also be
thought of under more or fewer relations. And in both these
ways it may be said to have varying degrees of being. The
same may be said, mutatis mutandis, of thought. According as
we fix our attention on the relation rather than on the things
related, so we may, I suppose, say that our consciousness of the
relation increases or diminishes ; but the utmost diminution of
which the consciousness is capable without annihilation makes
no alteration in its quality ; and if the consciousness vanishes,
the thought must vanish too, since except on some crude material-
istic hypothesis they are the same thing. This quantitative or
intensive diminution of being, then, will not explain the apparent
fact that so many people do not feel the necessity of thinking-
things under their necessary relations.

The second manner in which any object of thought can be
imagined to vary its being depends on the number of relations
by which it is qualified ; and in this respect thought also, not
less than sensation, may be said to increase or diminish.
Eelations may be compared and classed — that is, may be
thought under relation not less than feelings ; and as, no doubt,
a relation which is not so compared and classed cannot be an
object of thought, cannot be known as a relation, it may be
supposed that here we have a definition of that intermediate
stage which is required to smooth our own difficulties. Every
man, it may be said, really thinks objects under the relations
which seem to us, who have been enlightened by transcend-
entalism, to be necessary ; but he is not aware that he does so,
because he has not taken the trouble to consider them from the
points of view from which alone they can appear as relations to
him. But if this be true, what becomes of the identity of the
and the intelligi ?

488 Transcendentalism.

If relations can exist otherwise than as they are thought, why
should not sensations do the same ? Why should not the
" perpetual flux " of unrelated objects — the metaphysical spectre
which the modern transcendentalist labours so hard to lay, —
why, I say, should this not have a real existence ? We, indeed,
cannot in our reflective moments think of it except under rela-
tions which give it a kind of unity ; yet once allow that an
object may exist, but in such a manner as to make it nothing
for us as thinking beings, and this incapacity may be simply
due to the fact that thought is powerless to grasp the reality of
things.

The transcendentalist, then, would seem peculiarly bound to
admit what no philosopher, perhaps, would be disposed to deny,
that thought which is not known as thought cannot properly be
said to exist at all. He is therefore reduced to one of two
alternatives. Either he must maintain that it is an error of
memory and observation to suppose that every intelligence does
not at all times think objects under their necessary relations, or
else he must hold that a necessary relation is not a relation that
is actually required to constitute an object for a thinking being,
but is only one which, upon due reflection, a thinking being is
unable to make abstraction of.

The first of these alternatives is somewhat too violent a
contradiction of that experience which it is the business of
transcendentalism to justify, to be seriously maintained by
transcendentalists. Accordingly we find them admitting the
fact that necessary relations are not always thought as qualifying
the object they are supposed to constitute ; in other words,
accepting the second of the alternatives mentioned above, but at
the same time declining any responsibility concerning a circum-
stance which, according to them, has to do only with the
" history of the individual ".

" The ' I think,' " says Kant (I am quoting Mr. Caird's translation,)
" must be capable of accompanying all my ideas, for otherwise something
would be presented to my mind which could not be thought ; and that is
the same thing as to say that the idea would be either impossible or, at
least, it would be nothing for me." Again, " All ideas have a necessary
reference to a possible empirical consciousness . . . but, again, all
empirical consciousness has a necessary reference to a transcendental
consciousness. . . . The mere idea ' I,' in reference to all other ideas
(whose collective unity it makes possible), is the transcendental conscious-
ness. This idea may be clear (empiric consciousness) or obscure. This we
do not need to consider at present, nor even whether it actually exists at
all ; but the possibility of the logical form of knowledge rests necessarily on
the reference of it to this apperception as a faculty." " In other words,"
says Mr. Caird, commenting on this passage (Philosophy of Kant, p. 396),
" Kant is here examining what elements are involved in knowledge, and
therefore does not need to consider how far the clear consciousness of them
is developed in an individual, nor indeed whether the individual ever actually

Transcendentalism. 489

develops that consciousness at all. The individual (the sensitive being who
becomes the subject of knowledge) may be at different stages on the way to
clear self-consciousness. He may be sensitive with merely the dawning of
consciousness : lie may be conscious of objects, but not distinctly self-conscious;
or he may be clearly conscious of the identity of self in relation to the
objects. Thus we can imagine him to have many perceptions which he
has not distinctly combined with the idea of self ; or we may even suppose
him (like children in the earliest period of their life) not to have risen to
the idea of self at all, to the separation of the Ego from the act whereby the
object is determined. But we cannot imagine him to have in his
consciousness any ideas that are incapable of being combined with the idea
of self : for such ideas would be ideas incapable of being thought, incapable
of forming part of the intelligible contents of consciousness : they would be
for us, as thinking beings, ' as good as nothing '. Though, therefore, we can
think of an experience in which all the elements which the critical philo-
sopher distinguishes are not consciously or separately present to the
individual, we cannot think of an experience which does not imply them
all."

From these extracts it would appear that both Kant and
Kant's latest expositor are agreed in thinking that all that is
required to constitute a perception — in other words, an experience
— is not that the object of that perception should actually be
thought in the relations which we are told are necessary to make
it an object, but only that it should be capable of being so
thought. But with such an admission the whole transcendental
argument appears to me to vanish away. The rules which
thought was supposed to impress upon nature, according to which
nature must be, because without them she would be nothing to
us as thinking beings, — these rules turn out, after all, to be only
of subjective validity. They are the casual necessities of our
reflective moments — necessities which would have been un-
meaning to us in our childhood, of which the mass of mankind
are never conscious, and from which we ourselves are absolved
during a large portion of our lives. To argue from these neces-
sities to the truth of things is merely to repeat the old fallacy
about innate ideas in another form ; for if thought does not make
experience (and it appears that in any intelligible meaning of
that expression it does not), then there is no reason for supposing
that experience need conform to thought.

The net result of this discussion appears, then, to be that,
according to transcendentalism, relations are involved in experi-
ence in at least two ways, the difference between which, though
it is never recognised by that philosophy, is exceedingly impor-
tant. According to the first way, an explicit consciousness of
the relation in question is a necessary element in every possible
experience ; without it the experience would be " nothing to us
as thinking beings," and by it, therefore, the experience may
very fairly be said "to be constituted". But the number of
relations, necessary in this sense, cannot be large, even according

490 Transcendentalism.

to the transcendeiitalists themselves ; nor can the necessity ever
be established by argument, since the mere fact that somebody
who knows the meaning of the words he uses disputes it, proves
that it does not exist. If a man does not find that a particular
relation, about which there is a question, is involved in his ex-
perience, an argument founded on the fact that no experience is
possible which is not in fact constituted by an explicit con-
sciousness of such a relation, is not likely to convince him that
it is there. The mere consideration that proof is required makes
proof impossible.

The second way in which a transcendentalist regards relations
as involved in experience differs from that just discussed in
several important particulars ; for whereas in that the explicit
consciousness of the relation was required to constitute the
object, in this all that is required is that the object must be
capable of being thought under the relation. It is plainly incor-
rect to describe the relation in this last case as " constituting
the object " ; it cannot even be said that the capability of being
thought under the relation necessarily constitutes it ; for
according to the transcendentalist, esse is equivalent to intelligi
—that is, an object is as it is apprehended by a thinking being,
and since a thinking being can, as is admitted, apprehend it
without in all cases perceiving the capability, this cannot be
required to render the object real. By what proof, then, is
this necessary capability established ? How is it involved in
experience ? I can imagine no other general answer to these
questions but this : The transcendentalist, in bringing an object
into " clear consciousness," finds himself unable to make abstrac-
tion of a certain relation, and he thereupon proceeds to elevate
this incapacity into a universal or objective rule, in defiance, as
it seems to me, of the fact which he himself acknowledges, that
other intelligences are in no way restrained by the same limi-
tations.

Enough has perhaps been said about this general objection
(if it be an objection) to the transcendental method, and it is
now time to follow the philosophers who employ it in their
special endeavours to show that when the nature of experience
is once brought to the " clear consciousness " of the reader, he,
at any rate, can be in no further doubt as to the necessity of
regarding objects in space as independent, and all objects what-
ever as subject to the law of universal causation.

Kant's " Refutation of Idealism " was only introduced into the
second edition of the Critique, and was the main occasion of
Schopenhauer's assertion that Kant had changed his view, be-
tween the first edition of that work and the second, respecting
the external world. I understand, however, that this is not

Transcendentalism: 491

admitted by his later critics ; that they regard the " Eefutation"
as satisfactory in itself, and as harmonising with the general
course of its author's speculations ; and that the proof of
Realism contained in it is the one on which they would be
disposed to rely. As such, therefore, I am forced to criticise it.

I say forced, because it is somewhat unwillingly that I go
to Kant direct for the statement of an argument, partly because
there is never any security that his disciples will admit that his
reasoning in any particular case is in consonance with the rest of
his system ; partly because his obscurity is so great that his critics
are as likely to be attacked for not understanding his arguments
as for not having answered them, a proceeding by which what
was intended to be a philosophical discussion is suddenly con-
verted into an historical one. Yet the defects of his exposition
are so great that no care will really avert this danger ; for he
has contrived to state a theory — of great difficulty in itself, and
of which his own grasp does not appear to have been at all
times perfectly sure — in language which always seems to be
struggling to express a meaning which it can never get quite
clear, and which possesses in an astonishing degree the peculi-
arity of being technical without being precise.

As, however, I am not acquainted with any neo-Kantian
statement of the transcendental argument on this subject, it is
to Kant himself that I must appeal, and fortunately the formal
proof of Eealism which he has advanced is so short (apart from
the elucidatory notes) that I can quote it entire. It runs as
follows : —

THEOREM.

" The simple but empirically determined consciousness of my own existence
proves the existence of external objects in space.

PROOF.

" I am conscious of my own existence as determined in time. All
determination in regard to time presupposes the existence of something per-
manent in perception. But this permanent something cannot be something
in me, for the very reason that my existence in time is itself determined by
this permanent something. It follows that the perception of this permanent
existence is possible only through a thing without me, and not through the
mere representation of a thing without me. Consequently, the determination
of my existence in time is possible only through the existence of real
things external to me. Now, consciousness in time is necessarily
connected with the consciousness of the possibility of this determina-
tion in time. Hence it follows that consciousness in time is necessarily
connected also with the existence of things without me, inasmuch as the
existence of these things is the condition of determination in time. That is
to say, the consciousness of my own existence is at the same time an
immediate consciousness of the existence of other things without me."
(Critique, Tr., p. 167.)

This proof, it will be observed, is transcendental, i.e., its
method of procedure is to show that an experience which we

492 Transcendentalism.

certainly have — that, namely, of the series of our mental states
as they occur in time — is impossible unless the thing to be proved,
which is stated (though, as we shall see, incorrectly stated) to
be the existence of external objects, be admitted. And the
demonstration consists of two steps. First, it is asserted that
the experience of a succession of things in time is impossible
except in relation to something permanent, or, in other words,
that the perception of change is inconceivable unless we at the
same time perceive something which does not change. And in
the second place, Kant goes on to say that, since that which
changes in this case is myself (my phenomenal self), since the
" things " which succeed each other in time are my own mental
states, the unchanging object to which they are referred must be
outside myself; that is, must be the external object whose
existence was to be proved. So that if we immediately
perceive the one, it can only be on condition that we im-
mediately perceive the other also.

Sucli is the formal answer which Kant has given to Idealism ;
but it is not in this way only that he has treated the question,
since in his proof of the principle of Substance (which precedes
the " Eefutation " in the Critique) he has brought forward
arguments which, if sound, would seem to render any further
refutation superfluous. For the "First Analogy of Experience"
asserts this, " That in all changes of phenomena substance is
permanent ; and the quantum thereof in nature is neither
increased nor diminished." (Critique, p. 136.) And as by
substance Kant means something which, if it is not (as I think it
is) exactly equivalent to what is commonly called matter, is at
any rate the genus of which matter is one species ; clearly this
proposition is absolutely inconsistent with Idealism in the sense
in which I use the term. If matter is permanent and indes-
tructible, we need not further trouble ourselves as to whether
there are or are not in nature other things besides our conscious
states.

The proof of this principle of Substance, which I give partly
in Kant's words, partly in Mr. Caird's, and partly in my own,
runs somewhat in this way :

All phenomena exist in time. Change is only conceivable in an un-
changing time. But this time is not, and cannot be, itself an object of
perception, but is rather a form given to the relations of perception, which
presupposes that they are otherwise related. They must be otherwise related
as determinations of a permanent substance. As all times are in one
time, so all changes must be in one permanent object. The conception of
the permanence of the object is implied in all determination of its changes.
Change involves that one mode of existence follows another mode of exis-
tence in an object recognised as the same. Therefore a thing which
changes, changes only in its states or accidents, not in its substance. An
experience of absolute annihilation or creation is impossible, for it would

Transcendentalism. 493

be an experience of two events so absolutely separated from each other that
they could not even be referred to one time. The " First Analogy," there-
fore, is a deduction from the possibility of experience, and requires no
empirical proof. When a philosopher was asked ' What is the weight of
smoke 1 ' he answered, ' Subtract from the weight of the burnt wood the
weight of the remaining ashes, and you will have the smoke '. Thus, he
presumed it to be incontrovertible that even in fire the matter (substance)
does not perish, but only the form of it undergoes a change. (Gf. Grit., p.
136 ; Caird, p. 453.)

The reader will at once perceive that while there is much that
is common to the " Eefutation " and the " First Analogy," there
are some arguments and doctrines peculiar to each, a fact which
makes the satisfactory discussion of the question rather difficult;
because while it is impossible to treat the two arguments as
identical, it is somewhat clumsy and would lead to a good deal
of repetition to consider them altogether separately. The most
convenient course, perhaps, will be first to consider the points
which are to be found in both, and then to proceed with the
examination of their mutual relationship and with what is
special to each.

The first difficulty which occurs to me, and which perhaps
others may feel, refers to that " transcendental necessity " which
is the very pith and marrow of the whole demonstration, both
in the " Refutation " and in the " First Analogy ". Is it really
true that change is " nothing to us as thinking beings " except
we conceive it in relation to a permanent and unchanging
substance ? For my part, however much I try to bring the
matter into " clear consciousness," I feel myself bound by no
such necessity. For though change is, doubtless, unthinkable,
except for what Mr. Green calls a " combining " and, therefore,
to a certain extent, a " persisting consciousness," and though it
may have no meaning out of relation to that which is " not-
change," this " not-change " by no means implies permanent
substance. On the contrary, the smallest recognisable persist-
tence through time would seem enough to make change in time
intelligible by contrast ; and I cannot help thinking that the
opposite opinion derives its chief plausibility from the fact that
in ordinary language permanence is the antithesis to change ;
whence it is rashly assumed that they are correlatives which
imply each other in the system of nature. It has to be noted
also, that Kant, in his proof of the " First Analogy," makes a
remark (quoted and approved by Mr. Caird) which almost seems
to concede this very point, for he says (Grit., p. 140): " Only the
permanent is subject to change : the mutable suffers no change,
but rather alternation; that is, when certain determinations
cease, others begin ". Now there can be no objection, of course,
from a philosophical point of view, to an author defining a

494 Transcendentalism.

word in any sense he pleases : what is not permissible is to
make such a definition the basis of an argument as to matters
of fact ; yet the above passage suggests the idea that Kant's
proof of the permanence of substance is not altogether free
from this vice. If (by definition) change can only occur in the
permanent, the fact that there is change is no doubt a conclusive
proof that there is a "permanent". But the question then
arises, Is there change in this sense ? How do we know that
there is anything more than alternation which (by definition)
can take place in the mutable? All transcenderitalists convince
by threats. " Allow my conclusion," they say, " or I will prove
to you that you must surrender one of your own cherished
beliefs." But in this case the threat is hardly calculated to
frighten the most timid philosopher. There must be a
permanent, say the transcendentalists, or there can be no
change ; but this surely is no very serious calamity if we are
allowed to keep alternation, which seems to me, I confess, a very
good substitute, and one with which the ordinary man may very
well content himself.

To those who agree with the preceding account of our
intellectual necessities, who can either conceive change without
permanence, or are content to get along with the help of
" alternation," it will seem absolutely fatal to the whole Kantian
argument, both in the " First Analogy " and the " Refutation".
To those who do not agree, it will only be a difficulty in so far
as the existence of any mind unconscious of transcendental
necessities is inconsistent with the transcendental theory — a
point I have already discussed. But let us pass over this, and
grant, for the sake of argument, that change in general, or the
succession of. our mental states in particular, can only be
perceived in relation to a permanent something ; then I ask
(and this is the next most obvious objection) why, in order to
obtain the permanent something, should we go to external
matter ? As the reader is aware, the "pure Ego of apperception"
supplies, on the Kantian system, the unity in reference to which
alone the unorganised multiplicity of perception becomes a
possible experience ; and it seems hard to understand why that
which supplies unity to multiplicity, may not also supply
permanence to succession. Kant has, indeed, anticipated this
objection and replied to it ; but as I understand the objection
much better than I do the reply, I will content myself with
giving the latter, without comment, in Kant's own words :

"We find/' he says, "that we possess nothing permanent that can
correspond and be submitted to the conception of a substance as intuition,
except matter. ... In the representation /, the consciousness of my-
self is not an intuition, but a merely intellectual representation produced
by the spontaneous activity of a thinking subject. It follows that this /

Transcendentalism. 495

has not any predicate of intuition, which, in its character of permanence,
could serve as correlate to the determination of time in the internal sense — in
the same way as impenetrability is the correlate of matter as an empirical
intuition." (Critique, p. 168.)

Though I do not profess altogether to understand the reason-
ing, it is, at all events, clear from it, that " the permanent "
whose existence in demonstrated, must be an object of perception,
a fact which is also evident from various passages in the proof
of the " First Analogy," as, for instance, this : " Time itself
cannot be an object of perception. It follows that in objects
of 'perception, that is, in phenomena, there must be found a
substratum," &c. (Critique, p, 137.) It is difficult to see
indeed how that which is a quantity, incapable of either
increase or diminution, can be other than an object of per-
ception— it cannot at all events be a concept — and we may,
I think, assume from the whole tenor of Kant's argument, as
well as from his categorical assertions, that the substance of
which he speaks is a phenomenal thing. But if it be perceived,
and if it be a phenomenon, where is it to be found ? In the
perpetual flux of nature/ where objects do indeed persist for a
time, but where (to all appearance) nothing is eternal, who has
had experience of this unchanging existence ? By a dialectical
process, probably familiar to the reader, we may with much
plausibility reduce what we perceive in an object to a collection
of related attributes, not one of which is the object itself, but all
of which are the changing attributes or accidents of the object.
But if this process be legitimate, the " substratum " of these
accidents is either never perceived at all, or at all events is only
known as a relation. In neither case can it be the permanent
of which Kant speaks, since in the first case it is riot an object
of immediate perception; in the second it can hardly be regarded
as an object at all.

" But (it may perhaps be replied), by a remarkable coincidence,
science has established by a wide induction the very truth which
Kant attempts to prove a priori. When men of science tell us
that matter is indestructible, it is to be presumed that they
attach some meaning to the phrase, and are referring neither to
a metaphysical substance nor to an evanescent appearance.
When Kant uses the same phrase, it may be supposed that he
refers to the same object." For my own part, I confess to a
rooted distrust of those remarkable coincidences between the
results of scientific experiment and a priori speculation ; nor
does a closer examination of this particular case tend to allay
the feeling. It is true, no doubt, that science asserts matter to
be indestructible ; but what is the exact meaning of the phrase,
and what is its evidence ? Can we perceive any thread of

496 Transcendentalism.

identity running through all the various changes which (what
we describe as) one substance may undergo ? To a certain
extent science assures us that we can. There are two, though,
so far as I know, only two attributes of matter, namely, its
relation to a moving force and its power of attracting and being
attracted by other matter, which never alter ; or — to put it more
strictly — if we take a certain "area of observation" (say a
closed vessel) out of which matter cannot pass and into which it
cannot enter, then, whatever changes occur within this, the
matter there, whether always the same or not, never varies in
respect of these two properties. But it has to be observed, that
though we can directly perceive both velocity and weight, the
fact that there are unchanging relations between a given portion
of matter and a given force, or between two portions of given
matter, can only be established by an elaborate process of
inference involving a large number of assumptions. It might
therefore be plausibly contended that, though they are perceived,
their permanence is not, so that they cannot properly be said to
form any permanent element in perception. Passing over this
possible objection, however, and granting, for the sake of
argument, that we directly perceive the permanence of these two
properties of matter, it is still clear that, since these are the only
two properties of which we can say as much, either they must
constitute matter, or matter, in so far as it is permanent, cannot
be an object of perception. The first alternative is inadmissible,
because these properties are merely relations between certain
portions of matter and something else. The second would seem
to be inconsistent with the Kantian proof.

The reader will understand that I am not here contending
that Kant's conclusion is inconsistent with science, or that the
scientific inference is wrong, either in its method or its results.
My point is rather this : — Though Kant does not, of course,
conclude to the necessary permanence of matter merely from its
permanence in perception, nevertheless its permanence in
perception would seem to be involved in his proof. Now I
assert that what we perceive, in so far as it is perceived, is
either not matter or is not permanent ; and I maintain that an
examination of that part of the ordinary scientific or empirical
proof which bears on the question really confirms this view.

It may perhaps be thought (and some of Kant's expressions
countenance the view) that he means to say no more than that
we perceive the permanent substance by means of certain of its
accidents. But this seems to raise new difficulties. First, how
is the phenomenal substance, thus mediately known, to be
distinguished from the noilmenal substance, which, if it be
known at all, is known precisely in the same way ? Why

Transcendentalism. 497

should we suppose it to be in time or space ? Why should we
suppose it to be a quantity ? And how, finally, can we say,
with any meaning, that such a substance is phenomenal at all ?
To put the matter in one sentence : When Kant says that " all
determination in regard to time presupposes the existence of
something permanent in perception," if his assertion is to be
taken literally, it is in contradiction with experience, for there is
nothing permanent in perception, unless we choose to describe
the relations of matter to force and other gravitating matter in
that way ; if, on the other hand, he means that what we perceive
indicates the existence of something permanent, he has first got
to prove the fact, and has then got to show that the permanent
whose reality is thus established is identical with the external
world of science and common sense ; and lastly, to point out
how we can be said to be " immediately conscious " (Critique,
p. 167) of that which we only know through, and by means of,
its attributes.

Such, then, are the chief objections which, as I think, apply
with equal force to the " First Analogy " and the " Eef utatioii ".
Before going on to explain two further difficulties, which are
particular in their nature, let me point out a curious consequence
which may be extracted from the two demonstrations considered
together.

Kant's argument in the " Refutation " consisted, it will be
recollected, in showing that we could have no experience of our
own changing mental states unless we perceived some perma-
nent object outside us ; while in the " Analogy " his argument
involved the assertion that all changes are but the determinations
of some permanent substance, which itself never changes.
According to the " Analogy," therefore, our changing mental
states, like all other changes, must be determinations, or, as they
are usually called, accidents, of a permanent substance ; while,
according to the " Refutation," this permanent substance must
be an object of perception independent of us and outside us in
space, — in other words, matter. Between them these two
propositions would seern to furnish a complete transcendental
proof that our conscious states are mere accidents of matter ; so
that the crude materialism of certain physiologists, far from being
the rash, not to say meaningless, conclusion of an unphilosophic
empiricism, is demonstrable d priori ^by the most approved
critical methods !

The only further remark I have to make on the " First
Analogy " is of the nature, perhaps, of a verbal criticism. Kant
speaks throughout of matter as if it were a definite quantity in
nature, a quantity which could neither be increased nor
diminished. But this would seem to be inconsistent with his

35

498 Transcendentalism.

theory that a vacuum is impossible, because if matter is
wherever space is, it must, one should think, be not less impos-
sible to conceive the first as a totality than it is to conceive the
second ; and the words " increase " and " diminution " must be
altogether meaningless in their application to a quantity whose
amount is necessarily indefinite. Kant's expression, therefore,
is a somewhat loose one, and he must be held to mean simply
that matter exists, and that no portion of it can be created or
destroyed. I may add that in his discussion of a vacuum he
points out that matter may be a quantity in more than one way,
but that neither in the " First Analogy " nor the " Eefutation "
does he explicitly tell us in which way it is incapable of dimi-
nution. It would be interesting to know this, in order that his
results might be compared with the results at which, by very
different methods, men of science have arrived.

My concluding criticism refers to the "Eefutation," and I
must ask the reader to turn back to it, and to compare the thing
which Kant announces his intention of proving, with the thing-
he professes to have proved. In the " Theorem," the thing to be
demonstrated is the existence of external objects in space ; in
the " Proof," the thing actually demonstrated is the existence of
things without me, — " without me " being evidently equivalent
to "other than my conscious states, as determined in time".
Now if these two expressions really meant the same thing, any
further refutation of idealism would be perfectly superfluous.
No human being that understood the meaning of his own words
would for a moment deny that there were objects in space, and
therefore without him in the sense of being outside his body.
The real question is this — Does being in space and outside the
body imply that the extended and external object is outside the
mind, and other than one of a series of conscious states ? The
realist asserts that it does ; the idealist asserts that it does not ;
and to assume, as Kant appears to do, that the one proposition
is very much the same as the other is, in reality, to beg the
whole question at issue. For unless Kant's intention is merely
to demonstrate the existence of extended objects, which it is
equally unnecessary and impossible to do, it must, I suppose, be
to show that their existence is independent of their being per-
ceived,— neither beginning with it nor perishing with it ; and in
order to do this he must prove, from his point of view, two
things. The first of these is, that the consciousness of one's
own existence in time is only possible on the supposition that
something permanent exists outside, i.e., other than, one's self ;
the second is, that this permanent and independent thing is
extended matter. The evidence for the first of these positions '
I have already considered; the evidence for the second is no-

Transcendentalism. 499

where explicitly stated ; but I cannot help suspecting (though it
seems scarcely credible) that Kant absolved himself from pro-
viding any, by quietly taking for granted that "outside " in one
sense is equivalent to, or, at all events, necessarily implies,
" outside " in the other. With the difficulty which most philo-
sophers feel in understanding how that which is an immediate
object of perception can be other than in consciousness, a difficulty
which is certainly not lessened by the Kantian theory of space,
Kant himself makes no attempt to deal.

I turn now from the transcendental proof of an External
World to the transcendental proof of the Law of Causation.

In his proof of the law of Causation, contained in the " Second
Analogy of Experience," Kant, if I understand him rightly,
adopts two lines of argument, the one on which he appears to
lay most stress being consistent neither with itself nor with the
other. In discussing it I am unfortunately deprived of the
assistance of Mr. Caird, who, in the exercise of his discretion as
an expositor of the Critical Philosophy, has chosen practically
to ignore it. I will not venture to determine whether in so
doing he has or has not somewhat transgressed even the very
wide limits allowed him by the plan of his work ; but lest
the reader should imagine that the absence of the argument I
am about to state from the commentary, implies its non-existence
in the original, I will ask him to consult the Critique (p. 142),
and see whether it may not be attributed to Kant with as much
plausibility as any in the whole range of the work. It runs
as follows — I give it partly in my own words, partly in Kant's,
though the italics are always mine : —

" Our apprehension of the manifold of phenomena is always successive."
But sometimes we regard this manifold of phenomena as constituting an
object (say a house), sometimes as a series of evenly (as when a ship is seen
to float down a river). Subjectively, in apprehension, these two series
would seem to be of the same kind ; objectively, as every one knows, we
widely distinguish them. We no more suppose that the upper story of
the house, if we begin looking at it at the top, is a phenomenon preceding
in time the ground floor, than we suppose the ship is at the same time at
two different places on the river. Yet in consciousness we perceive the
ground floor after the upper story, exactly as we perceive the ship lower
down the river after we perceive it higher up. The problem then
that requires solution is this : How do we distinguish, as in experience we
certainly do distinguish, the first series from the second ] And Kant's
answer is that we can only distinguish them if we regard the order of the
first series as arbitrary, and that of the second as subject to a rule. " In
the former example my perceptions in the apprehension of the house might
begin at the roof and end at the foundation, or vice versd ; or I might
apprehend the manifold in this empirical intuition by going from right to
left or from left to right. Accordingly, in the series of these perceptions,
there was no determined order which necessitated my beginning at a certain
point in order empirically to connect the manifold." In the second case
the order is objective : it in no way depends on the mode in which we

500 Transcendentalism.

choose to represent it ; and this can only be if we suppose that it occurs
in conformity with a rule or law. And this becomes at once apparent, if
for an instant we try and imagine the contrary to be the case. " Let us
suppose that nothing precedes an event upon which this event must follow
in conformity with a rule. All sequence of perception would then exist
only in apprehension, that is to say, would be merely subjective, and it could
not thereby be objectively determined what thing ought to precede and
what ought to follow in perception. In such a case we should have nothing
but a play of representation, which would possess no application to any object.
That is to say, it would not be possible through perception to distinguish
one phenomenon from another, as regards relation of time ; because the suc-
cession in the act of apprehension would always be of the same sort, and
therefore there would be nothing in the phenomenon to determine the suc-
cession, and to render a certain sequence objectively necessary. And, in
this case, I cannot say that two states in a phenomenon follow one upon
the other, but only that one apprehension follows upon another. But this is
merely subjective, and does not determine an object, and consequently can-
not be held to be cognition of an object — not even in the phenomenal
world. Accordingly, when we know in experience that something happens,
we always suppose that something precedes, whereupon it follows in con-
formity with a rule. For otherwise I could not say of the object that it
follows ; because the mere succession in my apprehension, if it be not deter-
mined by a rule in relation to something preceding, does not authorise suc-
cession in the object. Only therefore in reference to a rule, according to
which phenomena are determined in their sequence, that is, as they happen,
by the preceding state, can I make my subjective synthesis (of apprehension)
objective ; and it is only under this presupposition that even the experience
of an event is possible."

Starting then from the succession in apprehension, or the sub-
jective succession of phenomena, Kant had to distinguish from
it — first, the objective coexistence which constitutes a thing in
space, a house, a tree, and so forth ; and second, the objective
succession which constitutes a series of events. As I pointed
out in the argument on the independent world, he does not, so
far as I know, furnish any principle of objective coexistence,
but in the law of causation he finds the principle of objective
sequence. Or, to put it in a transcendental form, he holds that
the experience of (objective) events is only possible if we pre-
suppose the law of causation, and as we certainly have such an
experience, &c.

Now, regarded as a proof of the law of universal causation,
the argument I have just stated is scarcely worth criticising.
In the first place Mr. Caird, after Schopenhauer, admits that the
conclusion is inconsistent with one of the premisses. If it can
be said to prove that sequence in the object is " according to a
rule," it is only by showing in the first instance that sequence
in the subject is arbitrary ; so that the causation proved is at
all events not universal. But in the second place, it does not
prove, or attempt to prove, that there is actually an objective
sequence according to a necessary rule, but only that if there is
an objective sequence it must be according to a necessary rule,

Transcendentalism. 501

because otherwise it could not be distinguished from the sub-
jective sequence. Now these are very different propositions ;
and the second or conditional one might be admitted to its full
extent, without admitting the truth of the first or unconditional
one, which is for purposes of science the proposition of which
proof is required.

The second proof which Kant gives of the principle of
causality is so hidden away in the recesses of the first, that
some doubt might perhaps be thrown on whether he intended
formally to put it forward as a proof at all. The fact that it is
in direct contradiction to the first proof, does not perhaps go far
towards helping us to a decision on this point ; but in any case
the matter is not of much importance, as I am more concerned
with the meaning which the post-Kantians extract from his
writings, than with that which he himself intended to put
into them.

The first proof attempted to show that the experience of an
objective sequence was only possible if it was distinguished from
a subjective sequence by being according to a rule. The second
proof attempts to show that no sequence can be experienced
except on the same terms. It is plain, therefore, that the
second proof aims at demonstrating a causation which is
universal, and which cannot, therefore be reconciled with the
partial causation contemplated by the first. It only remains for
us to examine whether it is more satisfactory. I give it entire
in Mr. Caird's words. (Phil, of Kant, pp. 454-5.)

" The judgment of sequence cannot be made without the presupposition
of the judgment of causality. For time is a mere form of the relation of
things, and cannot be perceived by itself. Only when we have connected
events with each other can we think of them as in time. And this connexion
must be such, that the different elements of the manifold of the events are
determined in relation to each other in the same way as the different
moments in time are determined in relation to each other. But it is obvious
that the moments of time are so determined in relation to each other that
we can only put them into one order, i.e., that we can proceed from the
previous to the subsequent moment, but not vice versa. Now, if objects or
events cannot be dated in relation to time, but only in relation to each
other, it follows that they cannot be represented as in time at all, unless
they have an irreversible order ; or, in other words, unless they are so
related according to a universal rule, that when one thing is posited some-
thing else must necessarily be posited in consequence. In every
representation of events as in time, this presupposition is implied ; and the
denial of causality necessarily involves the denial of all succession in time."

It appears to be asserted in this proof that we cannot con-
ceive succession, unless we suppose that there is a necessary
order in phenomena to enable them, so to speak, to correspond
with and fit into the necessary order in the moments of time.
" Events are determined in relation to each other in the same

502 Transcendentalism.

[i.e., I suppose, some corresponding] way, as the different moments
in time are determined in relation to each other." But in so far
as I can attach any definite meaning to these words at all, they
seem to distinguish two things which are really the same, and
to confound two things which are really distinct. The " order "
of events and the " order " of moments are not two kinds of order
but one kind, and if we assert that two events succeed each
other, we are describing precisely the same relationship between
them as when we assert that two moments succeed each
other. When, on the other hand, we assert that one event is
the cause of another, we assert not only this actual succession,
but also, by implication, a similar succession whenever an event
resembling the cause or first term in the relationship may happen
to occur. But this relationship is so far independent of time,
that though it must occur in some time it may occur in any time,
and it in no way corresponds with the relation between actual
successive events or successive moments which can never be
repeated, because the related terms can never recur. Event A
and moment a are followed by event B and moment I. This
happens once actually and, if you please, necessarily; but it
never happens again. The events vanish into the past as cer-
tainly as -the moments in which they occur, and they can as
little be recalled. But all this has nothing to do with causation.
What the principle of causation, strictly speaking, asserts is, not
that if event A recurs it will be followed by event B, for event
A cannot possibly recur; but that if an event similar to A
recurs, an event similar to B will certainly follow : and Jiow this
second hypothetical assertion is involved in the categorical asser-
tion of a simple historical succession between actual concrete
events and moments, altogether passes my understanding.

The transcendental view appears to be that, because there is
a necessary order between successive moments, therefore there
must be a necessary order between successive events ; and this
desired necessity can only be found in the principle of causation.
But if there was no causality at all, the order of events would
still be just as much or just as little necessary as the order of
moments. An event is what it is because it happens when it
does. A moment is what it is because it occurs when it does.
Neither the one nor the other could occur at any other time,
simply because by so doing it would cease to be itself. It is
true of course (and this is no doubt the cause of all the con-
fusion) that we habitually talk of the same event as occurring at
different times, while we make no such assertion respecting par-
ticular moments. But this is simply because the whole essence
of a moment consists in the time at which it occurs, whereas it
is commonly the case that this is the least interesting of all the

Transcendentalism. 503

relations which constitute an event, and the one of which it is
therefore most often convenient to make abstraction. Nor is it
to the purpose to say that events cannot be dated in relation to
time, but only in relation to other events; because in every
sense in which this can be asserted of particular events, it can
likewise be asserted of particular moments. If, therefore, this
fact necessitates causation in the one case (which, however, I
deny), it must necessitate it also in the other — which is absurd.

Other objections besides these might no doubt be taken
against particular points in the transcendental proof, but the
best refutation of it is to be found in its own version of its
general nature and object. That object is simply to show that
a clear idea of succession is impossible except to those who first
regard phenomena as necessarily connected according to the
principle of causation ; which again is as much as to say that
by far the larger part of mankind have no clear idea of succes-
sion at all. And when I say the larger part of mankind, it
must be remembered that in that majority are included not
only all those who do not believe in the universality of
causation, but also almost all those who do ; since I will
make bold to say that the greater number of these, however
much they turn their minds to the nature of succession in time,
do not find involved therein the principle of cause and effect.
This necessity, then, under which the transcendentalists labour,
if it is to be of "objective" application, and is to have any
philosophic value at all, requires us to believe that mankind lias
been, and is, suffering under a very singular illusion respecting
the clearness of its own ideas, on a point which is commonly
thought to be so simple as to defy further analysis. This by it
itself is sufficiently hard to believe ; and the difficulty does not
diminish when we come to examine the matter more closely.
For what does the supposed necessity oblige us to hold ? That
when we perceive two events in succession, the first is the cause
of the second ? Not at all. But that when we perceive two
events in succession, there exists someivhere a cause for the
second — a cause possibly (indeed, probably) of which we are,
and shall remain for ever, ignorant ! So that what the tran-
scendental doctrine comes to is this, that we can have, and do
have, an idea of succession which is not causal, but that we
cannot have such idea, at least in " clear consciousness," which
does not involve the idea of some other succession which is
indeed causal, but one element of which is, or may be, quite un-
known to us !

On the whole, then, I cannot agree with Herr Kuno
Fischer that Kant's "giant strength" (Fischer's Kant, Tr. p. 118)
has been very happily employed in this attempt to place the

504 Transcendentalism.

doctrine of causation beyond the reach of sceptical attack ; on
the contrary, it seems to me that all the difficulties inherent in
the transcendental method, and all the confusion and obscurity
which are so often to be met with in Kant's use of that method,
are strikingly exhibited in his treatment of this central and
important principle. It is commonly asserted that it was Hume's
theory (that our expectation or belief in the uniformity of Nature
is the result of habit) which suggested to Kant the necessity of
finding some more solid basis on which to rest our systematic
knowledge of phenomena. If so, it is unfortunate that it should
be precisely at this point that the ingenious and important
method of proof which it is his chief glory to have invented,
most obviously and completely breaks down.

I have only to point out, in conclusion, that had the tran-
scendental demonstration been as sound in all its parts as Herr
Kuno Fischer and Mr. Caird suppose it to be, the thing proved
is not sufficient by itself to serve as a basis for scientific
induction.

All that Kant can be said, on the most favourable view of his
reasoning, to have established is that, to use his own words, " the
phenomena in the past determine all the phenomena in suc-
ceeding time " ; or, as Mr. Caird phrases it, " the subseqent state
of the world is the effect of the previous state ". But something
more than a fixed relation between the totality of phenomena
at one instant and the totality of phenomena at the next
instant, is required before we can, in the scientific sense of the
expression, assert that these are " laws of nature ". A law of
nature refers to a fixed relation, not between the totality of
phenomena, but between extremely small portions of that
totality ; and it asserts a fixed connexion, not between individual
concrete phenomena, but between classes of phenomena. Now
by no known process of logic can we extract from the general
proposition, that " the subsequent state of the world is the
effect of the previous state," any evidence that such laws as these
exist at all ; and what is more, this general proposition might be
perfectly true, and yet the course of nature might be, to all
intents and purposes, absolutely irregular, even to an intelligence
which, very unlike our own, was able to grasp phenomena in
their totality at any given moment. For "regularity" is an
expression absolutely inapplicable to series in which there is no
kind of repetition ; and we have no reason for supposing — from
the point of view of science we have every reason for not sup-
posing— that the world will ever return exactly to the same
state in which it was at some previous moment.

If therefore we have grounds for believing that the states of
the universe at two successive instants are connected only as

Philosophy in Italy. 505

wholes, and not necessarily by means of independent casual
links between their separate parts, then of such a universe we
could say, perhaps, that its course through .time was determined,
but we could not say that it was regular, nor would it be pos-
sible for a mind, however gifted, to infer, by any known process
of reasoning, its future from its past. .

ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR.

V.— PHILOSOPHY IN" ITALY.

DURING the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while the
field was occupied in France and England by the schools of Des-
cartes and Locke, followed by the scepticism of Hume and by
the Encyclopedic, and while Leibnitz and Wolff nourished in
Germany, Italy had no speculative movement of its own.
penetrating to the depths of the national thought, and constitut-
ing a true tradition of philosophical study. On the decline of the
splendid era of the Eenaissance, when the arms of the foreigner
were pressing heavily on the Peninsula, civil and political
liberty died out, and with it all intellectual life, save only what
still managed to survive in the departments of history and
natural science. We were then as if cut off from the current
of Modern Philosophy. The germs deposited by our thinkers
of the second half of the fifteenth century ripened and bore
fruit elsewhere. With us there remained only the galvanised
Scholasticism of the Jesuits. Giovan Battista Vico, a solitary
genius and pioneer of modern thought, died poor and uncom-
prehended. When the revolutionary storm of 1789 burst upon
us, we were so flooded by French ideas, that at the beginning
of this century those Italians who did not j)rofess the theology
of the Church of Eome were, with few and rare exceptions,
followers of the Encyclopedic, Condillac and Cabanis. Genovesi
at Naples, and Gioja and Eomagnosi in the north of Italy
(though the last-named refuted the theory of Transformed
Sensation), applied the principles of Sensationalism to psychology,
and to political economy with the other social sciences. Judicious
writers, of no great speculative originality but of extensive and
solid learning, and aiming at essentially practical ends, they
betrayed in every portion of their works, even to their frenchified
style, the influence of foreign contemporary authors. A doctrine
which, though not unaffected by Kant's philosophy, might yet
be said to be in part original and Italian, first appeared in
the writings of the Calabrian, Pasquale Galluppi. Then,
in 1830, the Abate Antonio Eosmini of Eovereto (long before

506 Philosophy in Italy.

his death) published at Eome his Nuovo Saggio Bull' origine delle
idee, and this, followed by the works of Vincenzo Gioberti,
started the only philosophical movement that has exercised any
wide influence on our national thought and life.

I. This movement, which occupied the whole of the second
quarter of the present century, succeeded in giving a kind of
unity to speculative studies in Italy by trying to reconcile the
traditions of the past with the new needs of the present,
Catholicism with Philosophy, and native with foreign thought.
To give effect to this attempted reconciliation, and to render it
an active element in the national restoration, it was enough that
it should be thought possible ; which it was — under the in-
fluence of that sentiment and those political ideas which are
the historical factor that must be kept constantly in view for the
right understanding of the various manifestations of intellectual
life in Italy. But of our three principal philosophers, Eosmini
and Gioberti alone exercised a wide civil and political influence.
The doctrines of Galluppi had a character and purpose
essentially speculative. Bom in 1770, and reaching the age of
49 before the publication of his Saggio filosofico sulla Critica
della conoscenza, Galluppi did not come to be known throughout
Italy till 1827, while his influence, especially in the north, was
soon superseded by that of Eosmini and Gioberti. Eosmini, with
a mind of greater power and breadth, conceived in his youth the
system which occupied his mind all through life, and as a
man, as a philosopher, as the founder of a monastic order, and
as the intimate friend of the most illustrious men in Italy, he
wrought far more deeply on his fellow-countrymen. The course of
events and the tendencies of European culture from 18 15 to 1830
favoured the direction which he gave to Italian thought, and its
counterpart is to be found in the line taken about the same time
in literature by Manzoni (afterwards a friend and disciple),
following in the wake of the German Eomanticists. It was a
reversion to the Christian Idealism of the Middle Ages, of which
the tradition still lingered in a portion of the Italian clergy, and
at the same time it was an attempt to bring into greater
prominence the Platonic element in this doctrine, harmonising
it as far as possible with the spirit of modern philosophy and
polity.

This purpose is especially discernible in Gioberti, joined with
a much more pronounced tendency to identify religion and
philosophy and make them the spring of a new national life.
In his works written during exile in France and Belgium
(1833-48), he plants himself, as it were, on the height of the
Christian idea of creation ex nihilo, and surveys, in one wide
sweep, all the consequences that seem to him to flow from this

Philosophy in Italy. 507

principle in every department, whether of philosophy, or science,
or polity. It is well-known what an impulse was given to
the revolution of 1847-48 by his Primato morale e politico degV
Italiani. The proposition maintained in this eloquent book —
that Italy, as being the custodian of the most ancient
religious and moral ideas and the see . of the Pontificate
their interpreter and depositary, is the first nation in the
world — was only a splendid dream ; but the immense force
with which this dream worked on the minds of Italians,
creating in them for the moment a wonderful unity of as-
piration, was due to its being the truest expression of the
want which then began to make itself felt in every part of
Italian life — the want, namely, to convert all the memories of
our past into a living present power. Now the past, whose
memory lingered most vividly in Italy, especially amongst the
common people and the clergy, was that of our mediaeval
commonwealths united, in their best and earliest days, under
the protecting power of the Pope. Turning, then, to this
Guelph tradition, at once religious and liberal, and pointing to
it as the only signal of concord between divided parties, as the
only way out of the darkness of plot and conspiracy into the
open light of a great and united national enterprise, the school
of Manzoni and Pellico (with which also Cesare Balbo partly
sympathised) was able, by help of Gioberti, to put itself at the
head of the political movement of 1847, and to give it the
first and strongest impulse. Till then the Platonic-Christian
Idealism of Eosmini had continued mainly speculative, or
had only been able to lift a part of the clergy out of the
Scholasticism of the Jesuits into a purer and freer thought.
Through Gioberti it passed at once to the heart of Italian life,
and diffused itself through a great part of society. The works of
Gioberti, even the most abstract like the Introduzione allo studio
della filosofia, being read and criticised from one end of Italy to
the other, re-awakened the interest in speculative studies that
had been slumbering so long. They also prompted a wider
study of the works . of Eosmini, which, owing to their some-
what severe and systematic character, were for long confined
to a small circle of readers. Eosmini, who combated the
doctrine of the temporal power of the Popes in his work
Delle cinque piaglie della Chiesa, himself took part in the
political events of 1848, when he was sent to Home by
Gioberti, then the minister of Charles Albert, to induce the
Pope to take part in the war against Austria and to establish
the bases of an Italian league. At that time Terenzio Mamiani
was constitutional minister of Pius IX. These three leaders of
our philosophical movement, forgetting the controversies that

508 Philosophy in Italy.

had hitherto divided them, now worked towards a common end
in the interests of Italy. For the first time in history
there was presented the example of a revolution promoted
by speculative ideas, in harmony for a time at least with
facts, and going very far to realise the perilous Platonic
ideal of a nation headed by a philosophical mind. Nor was
this a merely accidental feature of our national revival ; it
was rather the ultimate expression of the most general fact
embodied in it, at once supplying the key to its whole mean-
ing and revealing the constant tendency of all the moral and
intellectual forces in the country to subserve one great political
aim — the attainment of unity and independence. Literature,
operating through the classical and romantic schools of Parini
and Alfieri onwards to Manzoni, Niccolini and Giusti, had
paved the way for the revolution among the cultured and
citizen classes ; and in the same direction the people, the clergy,
and even the Pope himself, were led under the combined
influence of philosophy, literature and religious feeling.

II. The issue of that revolution is known to all. 1848 and
1849 mark an epoch in the history of our modern thought and
literature, the effects of which are still felt by us. The deep
sense of disappointment under the hard test imposed on the
ideals of our poets and philosophers by the contact of events,
and the new direction given to the National Union party after
1852 by the hand of Cavour, had a powerful influence on our
literature in separating it entirely from politics, by which till
then it had been dominated, and also on our philosophy in estrang-
ing from the doctrines of Eosmini and Gioberti all (especially
clerics) who had given a welcome to them solely because they were
a compromise between theocracy and liberalism, between religion
and science. No sooner did this compromise appear to be, as it
really was, an impossibility, and come under the condemnation
of Rome, than timorous minds quitted the camp of philosophy
for that of faith, the ranks of Christian Platonism for those of
Aristotelianism and the Scholastic Thornism professed by the
Jesuits, who had been combated to the death by Gioberti and in
their turn had never ceased to combat him.

It was opposition of another kind that was offered to the
doctrines of Rosmini and Gioberti by those, who either had
adopted them because they were an advance upon scholastic
dogmatism in the direction of modern philosophical principles,
or who had kept aloof from them in the very name of those
principles. This opposition was all the more serious because it
derived its force from the contradiction inherent in the
doctrines in question — the contradiction, namely, between
mediaeval dogmatism and the critical spirit of modern philosophy,

Philosophy in Italy. 509

between the principles of Catholic theocracy and those of liberal
thought. These two irreconcilable elements had been, so to
speak, laid the one above the other in the philosophy of
Eosmini and Gioberti, but the dogmatic and theological element
had greatly the preponderance. How this came to pass is easy
to see. We were the last to join the movement of modern
intellectual life, and, like a man awaking from a long sleep who
takes a backward glance over the road already travelled before
resuming his journey, our thought, which had hardly been
awakened by Galluppi, turned with Eosmini and Gioberti to the
philosophy of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church ; for in
them was presented a tradition of well-defined doctrine and the
only tradition which since mediaeval times had not entirely died
out in our schools. Towards the close of 1834 Terenzio Mamiaiii,
then an exile at Paris, set himself to take up again the thread
of our traditional speculation at the point where it had been
broken off in those philosophers of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries who were the forerunners of the modern era. At that
time Mamiani professed the philosophy of Experience (a doctrine
nearly related to that of Galluppi), and in the name of this
philosophy, which he thought more consonant both with tradition
and with the genius of our people, he desired to wrest the
direction of the Italian philosophical movement from the hands
of Eosmini and Gioberti. But this design of his was not, and
could not be, accomplished in the conditions of philosophical
study then existing in Italy. The daring speculations of
Leonardo da Vinci, of Bernardino Telesio, of Bruno, of
Campanella, the predecessor of Bacon and Descartes, had not
left among us any point of support, any philosophical tradition
whatsoever to which this new intellectual movement might
attach itself. The only philosophical tradition besides the
Thomism professed by the Jesuits, which had never al-
together died out in Italy especially among the clergy,
was the Christian Platonism of the Fathers and Doctors,
particularly St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Bonaventura,
and to some extent also St. Thomas. It is well known
how highly Yico esteemed Plato, and how much he meditated
upon the Fathers and Doctors. Among the principal repre-
sentatives of Idealism in union with Catholic doctrines, in the
second half of last century, were Cardinal Sigismondo Gerdil
(whose influence on philosophical teaching was felt chiefly at
Bologna, Eome, and Turin), and Vincenzo Miceli, parish priest
of Monreale in Sicily, where he had many disciples. If then it
be remembered that in Italy even till well into the present
century, philosophy had scarcely got out of the hands of the
clergy and the seminarists ; that to the clergy belonged Eosmini

510 Philosophy in Italy.

and Gioberti, and the majority of their followers ; and that one
of the chief aims of the teaching of these philosophers was to
bring about that reconcilement of reason with religious authority
that had already been tried by the Scholastics, — it is not at all
surprising that the theological element should be found to
predominate greatly over the rationalistic. Excepting Galluppi,
a layman, and one who keenly felt the influence of the Ka-
tionalism of the preceding century and of Kant's Kritik,
we cannot say that either Gioberti (at least in his early
works) or Eosmini himself, however much he owned to
having received powerful impulses from Kant, was deeply
impressed by the spirit of modern philosophy. Now and again
they touch its threshold and cast glances over it, but they
lack the courage to pass within. In more than one place in
the Nuovo Saggio Rosmini is moved by an impartial love of
scientific inquiry — that same speculative need which prompted
Kant to ask : " How is the fact of knowledge possible ? " But
it is only in the external form and expression given to the
critical problem, and in some of the conclusions arrived at, that
he comes near to Kant. The substance and foundation of the
Nuovo Saggio are drawn from the theological and dogmatic
ontology of the Christian Fathers and Doctors. With them the
author is substantially at one as regards the ruling motives of his
inquiry, and he never allows the freedom of his thought to go
the length of admitting that anything can be true to a philo-
sopher which is incompatible with religious faith. That is to
say, Eosmini regards the agreement of the latter with the results
of philosophical investigation as a postulate. Gioberti, in his
earlier works, goes even farther than this. Not only does he
identify philosophy and religion, but he recognises in the spirit a
faculty sui generis, superior to reason and having the super-
natural for its object. Viewing the doctrines of Eosmini and
Gioberti mainly from this point of view, Cousin, therefore, had
ground for asserting that Italian thought was still "in the
bonds of theology ".

III. Of all our thinkers, Galluppi, is in many respects the one
most penetrated by the secular and modern spirit. For him the
examination of the validity and limits of knowledge is not
merely the principal, but the only, question of philosophy—
which he denned as " the science of human thought ". A born
psychologist, a clear, calm and rigorous reasoner, he directed all
his investigations towards one object, namely, that of showing
how from the feeling of the Ego and its modifications (identified
by him with consciousness) come all the materials of our ideas,
and how these, stored up by the imagination, and separated and
combined by voluntary analysis and synthesis, build up the

Philosophy in Italy. 511

whole system of our cognitions. This doctrine touches Kant's
Kritik at some points, and resembles it in its more general
features, but differs in its foundation, and still more in its con-
clusions. Galluppi does not allow that there are any true and
proper a priori notions other than these two — desert and duty.
The theoretic activity, according to him, is receptive and not
spontaneously productive. The form of knowledge is derived
and extracted from the matter of experience, which contains it,
- as it were, in germ ; and though for the elaboration and trans-
formation of this matter there is need of subjective elements, the
synthetic unity of thought, presupposed by this elaboration, is
based upon the metaphysical unity of the Ego, conceived as a
thing-in-itself. Thus Galluppi's Subjectivism trenches on a
psychological Realism, and he is brought near to Reid and
the Scottish School, to whom he gave much study. Among
his propositions, these two recur most frequently : " Sensation is
objective"; "Thought is reality in itself". Galluppi had an
extensive and precise acquaintance with the history of modern
philosophy, and it is one of his chief merits that he was the first
to introduce and diffuse its study in Italy.

In Rosmini and Gioberti, Critic is expanded and exalted into
a true and proper Metaphysic ; the doctrine of knowledge, or
Ideology, while holding always the first place, is brought into
close union with the doctrine of being, or Ontology. Of the two,
Rosmini is more nearly related to Kant, alike in native intellect
and power of introspective analysis, and in his way of setting
forth and handling the critical problem. In this respect superior
to Galluppi, who confounds consciousness with feeling, Rosmini
sees with Kant that the whole problem of knowledge reduces
itself to the inquiry how by the concurrence of sense and intel-
lect things, which are apprehended simply as representations and
intuitions, come to be understood, to be thought and conceived as
objects, according to certain necessary and universal laws ; that
this knowability can come to things of sense only through the
intellect and consciousness ; that the union of the one with the
other, of the matter of knowledge with its form, is possible only
through the medium of a primitive judgment, of which the
subject, particular and singular, is given by sense-intuition, and
the predicate is furnished by the mind ; wherefore, to know is to
judge. Kant and Rosmini thus agree in keeping the critical
problem within the limits of psychology ; they both recognise
the ideal form of knowledge as its true constitutive part ; both
regard synthetic a priori judgments as essential to its produc-
tion. Rosmini, however, restricts these to one, while he gives to
the form of knowledge an origin and a value very different from
what the Kritik assigns. According to him Kant's capital

512 Philosophy in Italy.

defect consists in not having reduced to a minimum the formal
part of knowledge and in not having deduced it from a single
principle. This is what the Italian philosopher attempts to do,
and on this he grounds the claim he makes to superior originality
in the Nuovo Saggio. He aims at showing that all Kant's forms
and categories presuppose one single and simplest form, that,
namely, of mere possibility and ideality, the idea of indeterminate
being, which is inborn, and which becomes determinate in its
union with the real, given by sensation. The essential constitu-
tive act of all knowledge, therefore, consists of a primitive and
direct synthetic judgment, in which the idea of existence is
added as a predicate to sensation ; an act, which is completed in
intellectual perception, and is expressible by the formula — " That
of which I am sensible exists ".

So far the difference between Eosmini and Kant will not
seem very great. But it becomes a substantial one, when we
consider the value he assigns to the form of knowledge and the
source from which he derives it. From this point of view the
Italian philosopher is seen to be essentially dogmatic as regards
both the ground and the spirit of his doctrine. In Kant, the
doctrine of knowledge is the base and condition of the
doctrine of existence ; Metaphysic presupposes Critic. With
Eosmini, the reverse order is the proper one. The end
constantly aimed .at by him is to establish the reality of know-
ledge, by giving to it an object that is necessary, infinite, and
superior to thought. This object o£ thought, the ideal indeter-
minate existence, is divine in its origin ; it is " the light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world ". It acts as the
mediator between our mind, which intuitively perceives it as a
universal idea, and the reality of particular things, which comes
to us solely by feeling. This doctrine, while it does not seem to
me to succeed in establishing the objective truth of knowledge
and inclines to a mystic Idealism, is yet far enough removed
from the deeper meaning of the Kritik, to which, however,
some of its Italian interpreters would fain accommodate it. The
essence of the Kantian doctrine, as shown by Fichte, consisted
in regarding knowledge and its laws as a product of the mind's
proper activity. The Eosminian theory, on the other hand,
really would make the divine light of intellect to descend from
above upon the human mind, and by it be received and reflected
on sensible things.

Gioberti, in the first form of his philosophy, started from an
innate ideal intuition. However, in opposition to Eosmini, he
maintained that as the divine ideal could not be manifested to
us without a manifestation at the same time of the divine
reality, the infinite Ens became the natural object of our mind

Philosophy in Italy. 513

both as an idea and as a reality, distinct from finite existences
yet so far related therewith as to produce them by free creation
ex nikilo. This native intuition of creation, which reaches back
to the first beginnings of thought, but which, though it is implied
in every conception, is first clearly revealed to the matured and
scientific consciousness that explains and demonstrates it, takes
the form of a primitive synthesis, or first judgment, to which
Gioberti gives the name of ideal formula : The Ens creates the
existent. It is the fiat of Genesis placed at the head of all
science. And it is to be noted, that while for Eosmini the
synthesis of the ideal with the real is effected by the mind in
intellectual perception, and sense-experience furnishes the second
element ; for Gioberti, on the other hand, this synthesis is already
given as a primitive intuition, which containing it contains also the
confused ideal apprehension of every finite reality, and becomes,
if I might so call it, an a priori anticipation of experience.
Feeling does nothing but add the fact of perception to these its
prior and essential conditions. Thus the whole activity of
scientific thought is reduced to the function of translating into
reflective form the internal speech of an immediate and divine
revelation, with which corresponds external speech — language that
serves as an indispensable medium to the operation of reflection,
and is itself of divine origin ; for according to Gioberti man was
created with the faculty of speech. It is easy to see, then, that
for him science is essentially an a priori process, starting as it
does from the Absolute, from the idea, which stands first in the
logical and psychological order of cognitions. Further, the
introspective inquiry into the facts of mind must reduce itself to
a very small matter in a system whose principle is so far
removed from experience, analysis, and accurate and patient
induction.

In this respect, indeed, Gioberti's teaching marks a distinct
retrogression in the history of our more recent thought. With
Galluppi and Eosmini the faculty of observation and critical
analysis is supreme, and some parts of Eosmini's Nuovo Saggio,
and of his Psychology, Anthropology and Logic may rank with
the best productions of modern philosophical thinking. Vincenzo
Gioberti joined to some of the most brilliant qualities of the
philosopher all those of the orator ; great elevation of feeling ; a
wide and happy perception of the relations binding ideas and
facts ; a power of soaring to the highest pinnacles of thought,
and thence taking in at a glance a vast range of practical
applications and consequences ; also, a great fervour and sin-
cerity of convictions, which he had the art of communicating in
their full intensity to the reader's mind. But with all these
qualities, he had not the patient persevering force of thought

36

514 Philosophy in Italy.

that advances with slow but sure step, and regards truth, not as
a haphazard and fortuitous conquest, but as a legitimate
possession, reserved for him alone who can vindicate his claim
to it by the best reasons. No modern philosopher, not even
Schelling himself to whom he bears some resemblance, delights
more than Gioberti in imaginary syntheses, lacking the due
preparation of careful analysis. Hence the cordial and, as
Schopenhauer would say, the truly theological hatred with
which he pursues psychology and psychologists, particularly
Descartes, their father. The influence of the Giobertian school
(which from 1842 to 1850 was considerably larger than the
following either of Eosmini or Galluppi) was very hurtful in
two ways. It diverted attention from serious and patient
thought, and from the psychological inquiries started by
Galluppi and Eosnjini ; while its return to the theological
dogmatism of the Middle Ages could not but provoke a
reaction as extreme as had been the enthusiasm with which
it was originally embraced in the political excitement of the
time.

IV. I have already pointed out that the occasion of this re-
action was the events of 1848 and 1849, and that its true efficient
cause was the contradiction that underlay the principles and
elements composing the new Italian philosophy. What has
been said is sufficient to show that the first impulse to this
philosophy and the form of some of its principal problems were
certainly derived from Kant's Kritik ; but that the matter and
spirit of its doctrines, with their tendency towards certain final
conclusions, came to it from Catholic theology. The modern
element overspread the old, but did not succeed in interpenetrating
it. It has been said of Galluppi and Eosmini that they were
Kantians without knowing it, and the observation, apart from
the conclusions that are sought to be drawn from it, has a
basis of truth ; but the fact that, " without knowing it," they
were in contact with modern philosophy, while they were
moved by principles diametrically opposed to it, is the very
reason why they are so far separated from it both in substance
and in spirit. Nevertheless, theirs is the merit of having opened
out for Italian minds a way by which to enter the current of
modern ideas. They showed their countrymen what maturity of
thought was necessary before they could assimilate the products
of modern philosophy and civilisation.

The maturity of mind and culture developed in Italy
especially during the second quarter of the century was
not, however, wholly or even in greater part the work of
philosophy and science, as was the case in Germany. With us
it was mainly the result of political revolution and of the closer

Philosophy in Italy. 515

jr

sympathy which this set up between our national spirit and
that of the other European peoples. The revolutionary
movements extending from 1821 to 1847, the price we had to
pay for the work of renovation that gradually penetrated to
every part of Italian society, were the means of introducing
modern principles ; and this more by way of sentiment,
literature and art, than of speculative and abstract thought.

After G-enovesi, Komagnosi and Galluppi, who belonged
rather to the age of 1789, philosophy long remained too much
occupied with a priestly " vision of the Absolute and eternal
ideas," to be able to appropriate whatever of a more modern,
youthful, and promising spirit was stirring in the breasts of the
new Italian generation, and stamping them with a mark of its
own. This it was that caused the doctrines of Eosmini and
Gioberti, notwithstanding the favour shown them at the beginning
of the revolution of 1847-48,to have the power only of starting it,
not of directing it, and still less of conducting it to a definite
issue. Giuseppe Mazzini and, in a different way, the author of
Arnaldo da Brescia, took from the outset a much clearer view of
the course and probable outcome of Italian affairs. They felt
that the principles with which philosophy, in Gioberti, had
placed itself at the head of the national movement, no longer
represented the deeper convictions of that portion of society
which alone was fitted to conduct the revolution to an end and
establish a new order of things. The ideas of the more youthful
and energetic minds in Italy had kept pace with those of French
society from 1830, while in those provinces of the north and
south where the German philosophers were most studied the
atmosphere of thought was very different from that in which the
doctrines of Eosmini and Gioberti sprang up. Whether
monarchists or republicans, classicists or romanticists, the
" Unionist Liberals " were all agreed on one point — to break, with
the past and with Eome in politics, and in philosophy to liberate
human reason from every kind of religious authority and
theological bondage. The Encyclical of the 29th April, 1848,
revealing the impossibility of any kind of agreement between
the Pope and the national party, only confirmed from without
what had already been felt and foreseen by many. And, however
the various parties might differ in their view of the means, the
end that sooner or later became clear to the minds of all was
the necessity of giving the lead of the national movement, in the
order of ideas as well as of facts, to the secular principle : Eome
must be left aside. This, which was really the overthrow of the
political and philosophical creed proclaimed in Gioberti's Pri-
mato, was the program of the great Unionist party that from
1850 onwards had its centre in Piedmont, its arm in the Eoyal

516 Philosophy in Italy.

House of Savoy, and its head in Cammillo Cavour. The fact
that this party should, at so short an interval from the illusions
of 1848 and 1849, have been able so clearly to see the goal
towards which the nation was tending, shows how ripe was its
consciousness of the new times, with their new needs and
interests. But to my mind still more notable is the fact that
the first inspirer and apostle of this new national enterprise,
the unification of Italy through the instrumentality of the house
of Savoy, was none other than Gioberti himself, who foretold it
in his Rinnovamento, written at Paris, where he had gone on a
diplomatic mission after the battle of Novara, and where he
remained a voluntary exile till his death in October 1852.

V. Gioberti's posthumous works, the Protologia, published
by his disciple, Giuseppe Massari, in 1857, made up though
they be for the most part of fragments, and certainly con-
taining no well-defined body of doctrine, yet suffice to show
us how the same change that had come over his political ideas
since 1849 had affected (but perhaps a little earlier) the founda-
tions of his speculative thought. This change was not, and could
not be, an evolution from the previous doctrines professed by the
philosopher of Turin ; it was rather their antithesis. In the
Rinnovamento the headship of Papal Rome and the superiority
of the spiritual over the temporal power, proclaimed by the
Primato, gave place to the headship of Piedmont and the libera-
tion of the State from the Church. In the Protologia not only
was religion no longer, as it had before been, identified with
philosophy, but it was entirely separated from it, and so far from
the authority of faith being allowed to bear down the free
examination of reason, it was put under subjection, reason being
endowed with full power to interpret and explain from its
proper data the existence and truth of religion. This new
conception of Gioberti's in regard to the value and power of
reason substantially modified his teaching, at the same time that
it brought him very near to Hegel. To the Italian philosopher
the Absolute Idea became what it was to the German — the
essence and basis of things and of spirit. It is no longer opposed
to finite thought, by which it is intuitively, though vaguely,
perceived as an object superior and external to itself, but it is
transformed into an absolute thought, which is inherent and
immanent in human thinking, and creates it, or, as Gioberti
says, posits it. The dialectic law of this absolute thought is the
law of things and of being ; human reflection, aided by language,
only serving to translate the infinite idea into conceptions and
their signs, without however being able at any time to reach its
deeper meaning. In his doctrine of the creation likewise,
Gioberti takes up different philosophical ground in the posthu-

Philosophy in Italy. 517

mous works from that first occupied by him. While remaining
faithful to his " ideal formula," and attempting every mode of
escape from Pantheism, he admits the existence of a substantial
relation between the world and God, who is for him the infinite
in action, in whom the finite exists potentially as an indefinite
possibility, previous to its determination outwards and its limita-
tion in action. In its potential aspect, therefore, the Universe is
God himself; and Gioberti does not hesitate to name it with
Cardinal di Cusa " a potential God," a " Deus contractus ".

This doctrine is a bold attempt to reconcile Plato with Hegel
and with the principles of Christianity, from which Gioberti did
not even now dare to break away altogether. The • imperfect
form in which it was left at his death, makes it impossible to say
with certainty what place it might have come to occupy in the
history of modern philosophy, had he been able to attain to a
full understanding of the new direction and tendencies of his
thought. But amid all the passionate disputing that goes on in
Italy between those who deny any substantial novelty to the
posthumous works, and those who would make out their coin-
cidence with Hegelianism, one thing at least is clear, that in
them the rationalistic element prevails greatly over the dogmatic
and theological, however much the philosopher may still strive
to reconcile the two. His mind, large as his heart, seemed
destined to be the living embodiment of the mind of his country ;
and, just as between 1833 and 1846 his thought was crowned by
the Utopian idea of an agreement with the past and with Koine
that paved the way for the revolution by mediating between the
clergy and the people, so now after the sad experience of facts he
found himself irresistibly impelled to make common cause with
those who had their gaze turned towards the future only. Proof
of this appears in the friendship that bound him during the last
years of his life to various republicans — among them Giorgio
Pallavicino. The Correspondence of the philosopher with the
democrat of Genoa, lately published at Milan by B. E. Maineri,
is one of the most interesting books that can be read by those who
desire to know thoroughly the latest period of our revolution.
Between the author of the Rinnovamento and the young national
party there was, however, one great difference, which Pallavicino
has expressed by saying that he never could understand how the
philosopher who could jest with him about the Eternal Father
and hell-fire, should have had lying open on the bed, whereon
he was found dead, the Promessi Sposi and the Imitatio Christi.
It is clear that, however far Gioberti did advance in the direction
of rationalism, he was never able unreservedly to accept or tran-
quilly to adopt all its principles and their consequences ; and on
the whole his posthumous works proved more a hindrance than a

518 Philosophy in Italy.

help to Italian thought. Falling under the Eomish censure,
interpreted in quite opposite ways by Gioberti's old disciples
and by the Hegelians, they indicated but did not throw open
that new way which, without breaking the continuity of Italian
thought, might bring it into relation with modern philosophy.
They only served to bring out more absolutely the contrast
between those who wished to keep our philosophy entirely
separated from that of the rest of Europe, and those who were too
eager to introduce a foreign element into it, without due pre-
paration and without regard to the national genius.

VI. From what has been said up to this point it will be appar-
ent, however, that such a contrast as this was inevitable, and that
it was bound to manifest itself in full force after 1849, when the
consciousness of modern principles and ideas, which had been at
once a cause and an effect of our political movements, was
revealed in all its fulness to a new generation, born and brought
up in their midst. This result was greatly promoted by the
study of foreign philosophies, especially that of Germany, which
for more than twenty years had been prosecuted with an in-
terest growing ever stronger with the development of our
thought. Even before the year 1840, the Abate Alfonso Testa,
of Piacenza, had combated the doctrines of our philosophers with
the weapons of Transcendental Idealism, of which he published
a critical examination in 1843. At Naples, where Galluppi, the
first to diffuse the study of the English philosophers and of
Kant, had taught, and where a contemporary of his, Ottavio
Colecchi, of Abruzzo, had professed the Kritik, there began to
be formed, shortly before 1848, a Hegelian school, which in-
cluded the two brothers Silvio and Bertrando Spavento, Francesco
De Sanctis, Cammillo De Meis, Antonio Tari, Mccola Marselli,
and others of less note. These introduced Hegelianism not only
into our abstract philosophical studies, but also, and in my
opinion with greater fruit, into our literary and historical criti-
cism. The school was scattered by the events of 1848. Some
of its adherents languished for long in wretched prisons, where
they sought comfort in philosophy ; others betook themselves to
Piedmont, and amongst these was Bertrando Spaventa, who
remained there till 1860, and there published the first of his
writings on the history of Italian philosophy. The judgment he
then uttered — a judgment, however, which he afterwards sub-
stantially modified — was to this effect : " The Italian philosophy
rejects the principle of the modern world, and denies science,
for it denies the idea of the spirit as a thing identical with
liberty, 'or rather liberty itself; it denies the absolute nature of
thought, the dialectic essence of which is the very essence and
dialectic of being; it denies the identity of the divine and

Philosophy in Italy. 519

human nature," &c., &c. Thus wrote Spaventa in 1850, con-
demning the Italian school in the name of Absolute Idealism.
In 1851 and 1852 appeared La Filosofia della Rivoluzione, by
Giuseppe Ferrari (London), and La Filosofia delle Scuole Italiane,
by Ausonio Franchi — two books in which the doctrines of
Eosmini, Gioberti, and Mamiani were absolutely combated and
refuted in the name of a critical Scepticism, which started at
once from the principles of the Encyclopedic and from those of
Kant. Differing in intellectual disposition no less than in the
results of their doctrines, Ferrari and Franchi were at one in
rejecting the speculations of our native philosophers as opposed
to the spirit of modern philosophy. Ferrari, however, who in
previous writings had confuted Eosmini, now adopted some of
his psychological doctrines. Franchi's first work was a lively
polemic directed against G. M. Bertini, then a follower of
Gioberti, in which he condemned the doctrines not only of his
adversary but of all the Italian schools, and summed up his
opinion thus : — " Modern philosophy has not yet become possible
in Italy ".

Thus, of a sudden, after 1849, arose two diametrically oppo-
site philosophical movements. On the one hand stood the schools
of Eosmini and Gioberti, professing to be in harmony with faith
— Italianissimi ; on the other there was the Eationalism of
the new followers of the German doctrines — Hegelians, Kantians,
Sceptics. I . designate the two opposed parties in this way,
because it was the principle of national tradition, rejected by the
one and exaggerated by the other, that mainly divided and
still divides them. And indeed their relative position is such
that it can be rightly understood only by those who look back to
the intellectual and political conditions of Italy at that time.
For, viewed solely in its speculative aspect, the difference
between the two schools might have left some path open, if not
for reconciliation, at least for peaceable co-operation in the same
intellectual work — the development of our thought. They had
more than one principle in common, and more than one point of
contact with modern philosophy ; whilst the grafts which modem
thought had inserted into the old trunk of the scholastic
mediaeval tradition, whence sprang the doctrines of Eosmini and
Gioberti, might perhaps have grown and spread till the whole
had been renewed. But this could have come to pass only if
the absorption of the modern elements by our national thought
had been effected in a continuous manner, and if those who
introduced the doctrines of foreign schools had first spent upon
them the analysis and criticism necessary to render them fit for
assimilation by the Italian mind. Now it so happened that
neither of these conditions was satisfied. Eosmini and Gioberti

520 Philosophy in Italy.

had distinguished disciples, but no true and proper successors ;
and the political and intellectual changes that went on after 1849
extinguished all the life and original activity in their schools.
The disciples clung to the words of their masters, and rejected
all innovation and all impartial study of foreign doctrines. The
sentiment and the idea of " Italianism " in philosophy, which
were certainly exaggerated by Gioberti but yet when he wrote
had some justification, became in some of his followers a
prejudice and a pretext for narrowness of mind and ignorance of
all modern culture. And, on the other hand, most -of those
who at that time tried to introduce the German philosophy
among us had no sufficiently broad and clear idea of the end
they aimed at and of the means by which it might be reached ;
or, if they had such an idea, they certainly did not succeed in
realising it. At the close of 1855, Euggero Bonghi, the
distinguished translator of Plato and Aristotle, in his youth the
disciple and friend of Eosmini, and now one of the most
illustrious of the writers and politicians of the moderate party,
spoke in this strain : — " Those who now try to propagate and
insinuate German doctrines in Italy do not seem to have
sufficiently considered the natural difference between the Italian
and German minds, and between the languages by which they are
expressed". And elsewhere he speaks of them as "more
inclined to appear profound than to make themselves intelligible".
The upholders of Italian doctrines erred in despising the German
philosophy, while they did not know it ; the Hegelians and
Kantians erred in wishing to make Italians think wholly in the
manner of Germans. To many Giobertians and Eosminians the
German philosophy appeared not only as the opposite of that
professed by their masters, but also as the absolute negation of
every religious and moral principle and of all science. In the
eyes of Ausonio Franchi, on the other hand, Eosmini's system
and Gioberti's first speculations were confounded with the
Traditionalism of Father Giovacchino Ventura and the Scholastic
Thomism of the Civilta Cattolica, which had been started in
1850 by the Jesuits at Naples to support the reaction then in
full course and the temporal power of the Pope.

The absolute impossibility of uniting to one end and in one
common work the two opposite schools that thus struggled for
supremacy in Italian thought, was made clear when Terenzio
Mamiani founded at Genoa in 1850 an Academy of Italian
Philosophy. During the five years of its existence this Academy
grappled with various important questions, and helped by its
valuable publications to promote among us the love of
philosophy. It cannot be said, however, either to have given a
vigorous mental impulse, or to have realised the hope of its

Philosophy in Italy. 521

founder, that the best Italian minds might in this way be brought
into a fruitful union of speculative and moral studies, and to an
agreement on certain supreme truths, common to natural reason
and philosophic thought, and forming, as it were, a perennial
tradition of science raised above the contention of systems and
schools. Even if such a general and indefinite aspiration
could have been realised at all, it was little fitted, especially at
that time, to give unity of direction to the efforts of an Academy
which embraced men of absolutely contradictory opinions in
philosophy. The struggle which they kept up for the leadership
of Italian thought was one of life and death, admitting neither
truce, nor compromise, nor reconciliation. The Academicians,
as one of them, Bertrando Spaventa, said, had nothing more in
common than their assembly-hall. There they met, and called
each other friends, colleagues, associates ; but with the best
intentions in the world they yet could never manage to
understand one another. They formed an Academy of Italian
Philosophy for the simple reason that they were born and settled
in Italy. So far the Academy only too faithfully reflected the
state of minds throughout the country.

VII. The founder and president of the Academy, in his desire
to imbue it with a broad and conciliatory spirit, began from that
time to put forward the doctrines to which he had himself
been led by a slow evolution of thought through the various
phases of the philosophical movement started by Galluppi. A
follower of the experimental school during the first years of
his exile in France, Count Terenzio Mamiani had gradually made
his way towards an idealism, which, without losing sight of
the national tradition and of Christianity, aimed at becoming
entirely independent of revelation and theology. This rationa-
listic tendency became more and more manifest in Mamiani's
writings ; and succeeding, as he did on the death of Eosmini
and Gioberti, to their position of influence, he has given a very
powerful impulse to the national thought. To the authority
exercised by his genius, his teaching, and the purity of his
political life, Mamiani, as a writer and philosopher, adds the
attractions of an artist. An elegant poet and polished prose
writer, he has ever been the most illustrious representative of
that classical school which was headed by Alfieri and which, by
going back to the forms of antique art and the study of the men
of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, re-invigorated the
national sentiment by means of literature. Of this school'
Mamiani has in all his writings been, so to say, the philosopher ;
his ideal always being that close union of Christian and modern
thought and feeling with the forms of antique art aimed at by
those writers of the Eenaissance, with whom, as I have before

522 Philosophy in Italy.

said, lie seeks to restore the continuity of philosophical tradition.
Among his works composed at the time of full vigour, two in
particular reveal this intention, and have procured him the
greatest amount of fame- — / Dialoghi di scienza prima, where he
happily imitates Plato ; and the Inni sacri, in the manner of
Homer and Callimachus, but with their subject borrowed from the
Christian legends so intimately bound up with the traditions of
our country and people.

Mamiani professes himself a Platonist, in as far as he
maintains, contrary to all critical and empirical schools, the
absolute objectivity of ideas. And the fact that he has by new
arguments demonstrated this objectivity and placed it beyond
the pale of doubt, constitutes, as he believes, the chief claim of
his doctrine to stand as true and original. It does not, in
his opinion, contradict the doctrines of Rosmini and Gioberti,
but completes these while tempering their excesses, and thus it
closes the period in our speculation which opened with Gal-
luppi.

His doctrine of consciousness is directed towards the same
end that Rosmini and Gioberti had in view when they com-
bated the Kritik — namely, to prove with full certitude that
we apprehend directly the infinite reality and the finite
reality. It thus reduces itself to two main points, perception
and intelligence, or ideal vision, and is wholly dependent on two
principles, whereby Mamiani seeks to reconcile Plato and
Aristotle : Every universal is ante rem ; Every cognition is post
rem. In other words, every idea considered in itself is
universal, necessary, immutable, and, as such, objective, indepen-
dent of thought, and underived from sense : and on the other
hand, no idea is innate — all are preceded by sense-perception,
which is the occasion of their appearing before the mind and
being determined as the truth of the things presented by
experience. Thus, by means of ideas as well as by sense-
perceptions, human consciousness receives into itself the real,
the noumenon. Like Reid, Mamiani excludes from percep-
tion all intervention of conceptions and representative ideas.
It is according to him an immediate relation of the spirit with
reality ; it is an act s-ui generis and in the highest degree
simple ; a mental intuition, by which in our sense-affections we
are made aware of the action of the exciting forces and
substances. Such an action is involved in the passivity of
sensation, and is perceived by us in conjunction therewith,
but we cannot by means of this inward intuition penetrate to
the substances which operate upon us. They and our spirit,
which sometimes modifies them and sometimes is modified by
them, are joined in a relationship, in which the acts only

Philosophy in Italy. 523

are united and reciprocally penetrative, while the substances
and subjects remain incommunicable.

To this relation, which unites our spirit to sensible reality
through experience, there corresponds another which unites it to
absolute reality through ideas. The idea, according to Mamiani,
is the Absolute in as far as it appears and announces itself to the
intelligence ; it is the mental form of the Absolute, which is
determined in particular ideas, each of the latter expressing ad
intra the eternal possibility of a finite thing, and ad extra its
concrete reality, which however is given only in the fact of
experience. Thus in the truth of ideas the mind intuitively
perceives the real existence of the Absolute, but it apprehends
only its presence, and, as it were, touches its surface without
being able to pierce with the eye to its mysterious depth, or to
comprehend its perfections and attributes, which are represented
by the ideas only in a symbolical and analogical fashion. In
this, as in other parts of his doctrine, Mamiani takes a path
midway between Rosmini, who denies to man the intuition of
absolute reality, and Gioberti, who goes so far as to concede to
him the perception of the divine substance. He has tried with
all his might to fix the extreme limit of the mind's intuition of
the Absolute ; but (as might be expected) has been able to give
a merely imaginative representation of it.

The fundamental doctrine of Mamiani, and the point towards
which he has rallied all the powers of his mind, is the demon-
stration of the real presence of the Absolute in the ideal
representation— a demonstration which at bottom is the
celebrated argument of St. Anselm, modified and reproduced in
a new form. Mamiani wishes to prove that every idea (and
not merely the idea of God) includes a necessary truth, which,
as such, is inseparable from an eternal, absolute, and self-
existent object. The unity of ideas constitutes the totality of
truth, which is therefore inseparable from and convertible with
the reality of the Absolute. Assuming the Principle of Con-
tradiction, he maintains that, if every necessary and absolute
truth did not subsist in a real eternal object, it would become
contradictory, for it would both exist and not exist at the same
time. However, he does not pretend to deduce the existence
of the Absolute from a higher principle; he only wishes to prove
that it is the postulate and condition of every ideal truth (not
excluding the Principle of Contradiction itself), and that thus
the Absolute is immediately and intuitively perceived by us.

Mamiani has written a Cosmology, which he thinks the most
novel part of his philosophy and by which he intended to supply
a substantial defect in the systems of Rosmini and Gioberti.
The following are some of its chief features. Starting from the

524 Philosophy in Italy.

idea of the good and its relation to the creative act, which he
regards as necessary, he thence advances to the conception of
the world as an indefinite multitude of monads, or simple
activities, which act upon each other, and are united under
the active influence of the infinite, whose perfections they come
to share by an indefinite progression thitherward. This cosmic
progression Mamiani tries to demonstrate d priori, by basing it
on the idea of the infinite as well as on that of nature ; then he
traces it up to the highest grade of things, to wit, the region of
moral existences, which are immediately subject to it. Having
thus raised himself to a philosophy of history, whose funda-
mental conception is the organic unity of mankind, he sets him-
self to enumerate the laws of its development, and the forms
it has assumed in different nations and in their mutual historical
relations. The Italian philosopher's speculations on the subject
of the vicissitudes and destinies of mankind, though preceded
by those of Vico and Eomagnosi, are in part original. They find
their completion in the doctrine set forth in his work Di un
nuovo diritto europeo (1859), which was translated into French,
and is well known outside Italy.

His general philosophy may be studied in his Confessioni di
un Metafisico (1865), in his Meditazioni Cartesiane (1869), and in
his last work, Compendio e Sintesi della propria filosofia, ossia
nuovi Prolegomeni ad ogni presente e futura Metafisica (1876).
Except on the one head of the relation of philosophy to faith,
his doctrine has a common origin with the systems of Eosmini
and Gioberti, and it leans towards mysticism by reducing the
mind's activity in cognition to very small limits. Its psycholo-
gical basis is rather weak, and in this respect it is inferior to
the doctrine of Eosmini.

Mamiani is a man of a lively and versatile mind, and of an
indefatigable activity. Professor of Philosophy of History in
the University of Turin from 1837 to 1850; in 1860*Minister
of Public Instruction in the first Italian Cabinet, presided over
by Cavour ; next, Italian Ambassador in Greece and afterwards
in Switzerland; then Councillor of State at Florence and now at
Eome, he has until last year taught in the Athenseum of the
latter city, and is at the present moment one of the most active
workers connected with the Filosofia delle Scuole Italiane. This
Eeview, which is known to the readers of MIND, is the most
important of the Italian periodical publications devoted to
philosophy. Mamiani's fellow-workers have full liberty of
thought and discussion, but though some of them profess very
different doctrines from his, they rally round him as the most
influential representative of that speculative movement which
helped forward our national resurrection, and awoke us from an

Philosophy in Italy. 525

intellectual torpor of more than two centuries. Mamiani's
labours within this movement would, I believe, have had much
more effect, if he had professed all along >in his writings a well
defined doctrine, and if in the excess of his attachment to our
traditions he had not too rigidly condemned all foreign philo-
sophy, especially that of Kant. Notwithstanding this, however,
he certainly cannot, as many others of our philosophers can,
be charged with having refuted modern doctrines without
knowing them. The spirit of free yet conscientious criticism
which characterised his first onslaughts on Rosmini and G-ioberti,
has remained with him throughout the long controversy which as
an old man he has maintained with the Hegelians and Positivists,
while the activity of his mind has only increased with years as he
has seen the adherents of a purely Italian philosophy range
themselves about him in two sections ; on the one hand
being the avowed opponents of Hegel and Comte, on the other
those who without swearing to their words are yet eager to
assimilate the results of modern thought.

VIII. Of the latter section of thinkers several have been invited
by Mamiani to co-operate in the Filosofia delle Scuole Italians, and
they have taken part in it to a considerable extent. Among the
most notable of these have been G. Battista Bertini and Francesco
Bonatelli. Bertini, who died a couple of years ago, was a man
of acute mind, and a most earnest searcher after truth. After
his first work, Idea d'una filosofia della Vita (1850), which
Franchi took as the subject of his criticism, he wrote no
more purely philosophical books ; but it is certain that with
ripening knowledge he drifted away from the doctrines of
Gioberti more and more in the direction of a rationalistic
theism, which to some extent agreed with the theism of
Mamiani, though it was more largely influenced by modem
philosophy, especially that of Germany. A learned Hellenist
and vigorous critic, Bertini turned his attention chiefly to the
History of Philosophy. His work on the Greek philosophers
anterior to Socrates, based on the text of the fragments collected
by Mullach, is our best work relative to that period of ancient
speculation. He was particularly interested in morals, and
in the religious problem, on which he wrote at length and
had much' discussion with Mamiani, who has often treated
the subject in the Filosofia delle Scuole Italiane. His post-
humous work, II Vaticano e lo Stato (1877), recommends to
enlightened and liberal Catholics a reform that should purify
their religion and aim at bringing it into harmony with reason
and the moral sense. Bertini was professor of History of
Philosophy in the University of Turin.

Bonatelli, professor of Philosophy in the University of Padua,

526 Philosophy in Italy.

belongs to the Herbartian School, from which he has borrowed in
particular his psychological doctrines, while endeavouring to
bring them into harmony with the autonomy of moral acts and
with religious faith, which he professes with the deepest convic-
tion. His two principal works are Pensiero e Conoscenza and La
coscienza e il meccanismo intvriore, to which he has lately added
a long essay on Hartmann, show him to be possessed of a refined
if not original mind, with much acuteness of observation and a
sound knowledge of the History of Philosophy.

Much nearer to Mamiani stands Luigi Fern, professor of
Philosophy in the University of Eome. Having prosecuted his
early studies at the Ecole Normale of Paris, he was confirmed in
his natural bent for psychological observation and for that
accurate historical analysis of systems of which the French have
furnished us with many examples. Ferri adheres substantially
to the Idealism professed by Mamiani, though with a certain
reservation as to the psychological portions of that doctrine, to
which he would give a more solid basis by the study of the
phenomena of consciousness. What conclusions he may ulti-
mately arrive at by this study, which seems to me to indicate a
change in his thought brought about by the German and English
psychology, do not yet appear. Ferri's principal work is the
Essai sur I'histoire de la fhilosophie en Italic au dix-neuvi&me
siecle (1869), and it is certainly the most complete and solid
history that has yet appeared in regard to our contemporary
philosophy. Here it is faithfully delineated both in its inner
development and in its relations to Italian political movements
and to the part played in them by our philosophers. And yet
the author, I think, is open to the charge of having represented
these as more in unison than they really were with the spirit of
Modern Philosophy, and of having exaggerated its influence on
the dogmatic and theological element in their doctrines. Ferri
has also given much study to the philosophers of the Renaissance.
His latest work is the publication of the MS. of a treatise by
Pompouazzi, In libros de Anima, discovered by him in the
Angelica Library at Eome, and elucidated in an important
memoir, wherein he maintains that Pomponazzi's doctrine and
his interpretation of Aristotle's theory of the intellectual soul
never varied. On this subject he has recently engaged in a lively
polemic with Prof. Florentine.

Domenico Berti, a man of much influence from his genius and
learning as well as the position he holds among our politicians
of the moderate party, is specially known by his historical
labours. At first a teacher of the doctrines of Rosmini in the
University of Turin, he has gradually arrived at the conception
of a close harmony between philosophy and the results of the

Philosophy in Italy. 527

natural sciences. But he has rather indicated than formally
expounded his philosophical opinions, and he is best known by
his Vita di Giordano Bruno, a solid piece of work that throws
much new light upon the mind and labours of the unfortunate
philosopher of Nola. It was the author's intention to follow up
his biography of Bruno by the exposition and criticism of his
doctrines, but as yet the promise remains unfulfilled. Berti was
professor of History of Philosophy in the University of Eome
till a year ago, and is the author of two other important works
on the philosophers of the Eenaissance. One of these is entitled
Coper nico e le vicende del sistema copernicano in Italia, nella
seconda metcu del secolo XVI. e nella prima del XVII., &c.
(1876) ; the other, Processo di Galileo Galilei pubblicato per la
prima volta (1876). The latter has been subjected to very
severe criticism by German scholars, calling forth Gebler's recent
publication, Die Acten dcs Galilei' schen Processes, nach der
vaticanischen Handschrifl herausgegeben (Stuttgart, 1877). Berti
was for some years Minister of Public Instruction.

By the side of these men, who without cutting themselves off
from the Italian speculative tradition are more or less in contact
with the method and principles of Modern Philosophy, are some
others, who either continue to follow the doctrines of Eosmini
and Gioberti, or who, rejecting its systematic form, adhere to its
dogmatic and theological substance and to the postulate of a
necessary agreement between reason and faith. At Turin
Eosmini's doctrine had from the first one of its main centres ;
and there it was long taught by G. B. Peyretti, lately dead. He
and Profs. Pestalozza and Corte have expounded it in an ele-
mentary form, and their manuals have been adopted as text-
books in most of the Lyceums of Piedmont, Lombardy, and
Tuscany since 1860. In the University of Pisa the Eosminian
doctrine is at present professed by Paganini, author of a work
that treats of its relation to theology. In the southern provinces
the philosophy of Gioberti's first works fs still professed by some,
chief among whom are, in Sicily, the Abate Vincenzo Di
Giovanni, professor in the Lyceum of Palermo, author of nume-
rous careful works on the History of Philosophy, and at Naples
by the Abate Vito Fornari, an imaginative and elegant writer,
more of a theologian than a philosopher, and known by his
Dialoghi dell' Armonia universale (1862), by a treatise on L'Arte
del dire, and by a Vita di Cristo, of which only two volumes
have as yet appeared. Formerly a pupil of Fornari, and now a
professor in the University of Bologna, Francesco Acri has given
proof of a rare knowledge of German doctrines and of the history
of philosophical systems, in regard to which he has in various
writings emitted certain novel and rather noteworthy ideas.

528 Philosophy in Italy.

In Tuscany, where there is some repugnance to speculations
of too abstract a nature, and where the school of Galileo by
means of the Accademia del Cimento created a strong tradition
of experimental study, a ready welcome was given to Galluppi.
Later arose some followers of Rosmini, chiefly attracted by his
psychological doctrines. The philosophy of Gioberti, especially
that of his first writings, has been taught from youth upwards by
Augusto Conti, now professor of Philosophy in the Higher
Institute of Florence, and well-known outside of Tuscany.
A Catholic by conviction and sentiment, and, like Rosmini
and Gioberti, nurtured in the study of the Fathers and
Doctors, he professes doctrines that accord with the main
truths of Christianity, while they are declared by him to be
contained in the natural consciousness of every man, so as to
need only recognition from science. Philosophy, according to
him, presupposes and has for its material the natural certitude of
truth given to us by the three relations of thought — to
mind, to human society, and to God. These relations provide
the philosopher with five criteria, namely, evidence and the
love of truth, the authority of common sense and of the learned,
and the authority of Revelation. Evidence is the primary
criterion ; the others are secondary and subsidiary. This
doctrine, expounded in the work entitled Evidenza, amore e fede
o i Crilerii delta Filosofia (1872, 3rd ed.), is substantially at
one with that of Rosmini and Gioberti as to the necessity of
making its ultimate agreement with revealed truth the postulate
of every scientific demonstration. Conti, however, goes farther
than this, and not only does he not recognise any natural
intuition of God, or of divine ideas, but he would make
Philosophy entirely independent of any kind of systematic form,
by distinguishing the truths which he calls substantial and
theorematic, as being naturally known and demonstrated and
beyond the pale of doubt, from the problems, which are given
over to the examination and judgment of philosophers. In what
way and how far lie would thus restrict the liberty of scientific
reflection and lower its value, does not sufficiently appear ;
there is, however, according to Conti, a " perennial and
progressive Philosophy," which is not to be confounded with
sects and erroneous systems. The latter confound and derange
the order of the truths of consciousness, which they fail to
comprehend in all its relations ; the former faithfully traces out
this order without confounding or denying it in any part.
Philosophy is " the science of God, of the world and of man in
their universal order, present to human consciousness " ; its true
method consists in the recognition of the nature and sequence of
the universal relations existing between ideas and things, setting

Philosophy in Italy. 529

out from the examination of inner facts, and rising thence to the
highest notions of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, and
lastly applying these to the scientific knowledge of God, the
world, and man, and to the reasoning of the three arts, Logic,
^Esthetics, and Morals. This large design has been realised by
Conti in a series of works (9 vols.) comprehending Elementary
Philosophy and Higher Philosophy, divided into Dialectics,
^Esthetics, and Morals. He is besides the author of a History
of Philosophy (the only one yet written in Italy), in which he
follows out the " perennial tradition " of speculative thought,
and, distinguishing it from the " sects " which deny and modify
natural and revealed truth, finds its completest and highest
realisation in the Fathers and the Doctors of the Church,
especially St. Thomas. Conti exercises a great personal influence
by the precision of his thought,, his remarkable power of
expression, and the strength of his convictions. His Elementary
Philosophy is taught by many disciples in our Lyceums.

IX. At the head of the opposition, by which the doctrines of
Kosmini, Gioberti, and Mamiani have found themselves con-
fronted since 1850, stand, as I have already said, the Sceptics
and Hegelians. Sceptical criticism is represented by Ferrari and
Franchi. At bottom the doctrine expounded by Ferrari in his
Filosojia della Eivoluzione is the phenomenalism of Protagoras,
reanimated by the Criticism of Kant and the Empirism of the
eighteenth century. The conception round which it moves is
that of the perennial incessant change pervading everything,
facts as well as ideas, Logic as well as Nature. For, on the one
hand, says Ferrari, the very logical laws, which would seem to
reveal to us a close relation of identity between the essential
elements of our ideas, are vain and fallacious, and, when
subjected to analysis, disclose irreconcilable antitheses and
antinomies ; and, on the other hand, everything in Nature is
subject to change, alteration, contrast, and thus is averse from
that unity which thought looks for in facts by representing them
to itself and explaining them scientifically by their laws.
Contradiction is therefore the law of being, and should be
accepted without any attempt at its removal. Antinomies do
not, as Kant sought to prove, occur only in the principal ideas
of reason, but also in all ideas, and in all facts, and furthermore
between ideas and facts; so that Logic and Nature are
contradictory in themselves and between themselves, and
thought, which would dominate facts by 'applying itself to their
real elements, is of necessity involved in error. Ferrari
consequently entirely denies the possibility of science, and
concludes that all we have to deal with is facts, or rather their
appearances (existence and appearance being the same), and that

37

530 Philosophy in Italy.

thought, so far from wishing to dominate phenomena, should be
subordinate to them, and confine itself to the examination of
their infinite varieties and contrasts, accepting, without pre-
tending to penetrate, the hidden revelations of Nature. Thus by
an opposite route Scepticism arrives at the same point as
theological Dogmatism — sentiment and faith, the credo quia
absurdum of Tertullian, a maxim often repeated by Ferrari.
He is best known by his works on the Philosophy of History,
and by his doctrine of " political periods," with which he tries
to measure arithmetically the different phases of the life of
nations. A pupil of Eomagnosi's, long resident in France, where
he was much appreciated, he returned to Italy in 1859, was
professor of Philosophy of History at Milan, Florence, and
Borne, and a deputy of the Extreme Left till his death last year.
Ferrari was a man of a powerful and original mind, but
undisciplined and impatient of the rigorous examination of facts,
so that also in his political forecasts he often went astray.

Owing to the very abstract form of his doctrines, Ferrari has
exercised but little influence among us. It has not been so with
Franchi, a lively and exact writer, ever aiming at one object —
the utter demolition of what he was the first to call the
Philosophy of the Italian Schools, and which he identifies
throughout with the Scholasticism and Theology of the Church
of Rome. I have already allowed that there is a foundation of
truth in this harsh judgment of Franchi's ; but yet he goes too
far, and, looking only to the substantial agreement between
Italian doctrines and Catholic dogma, he fails to take sufficient
account of the elements derived from Modern Philosophy, of the
impulses given by Galluppi, Gioberti, and Eosmini, and. above
all, of their historical value as paving the way for the national
revolution and arousing us from our secular slumber to a new life
of thought and action. To condemn them, however, without
appeal, it is enough for Franchi that they should substantially
agree with the Catholic creed, no matter what amount of liberty
of thought and inquiry and what rigour of method our
philosophers may have employed. In this intemperance of
criticism we recognise the truest expression of the negative
reaction that followed the attempt made by Eosmini and
Gioberti to reconcile Catholicism with Philosophy. The reaction
was all the greater in Franchi's case from the depth and
passionateness of his early faith ; for he was educated in an
ecclesiastical seminary, and wore the priest's habit before laying
it aside when severe inward struggles landed him in Rationalism :
he dropped also his very name of Cristoforo Bonavino, calling
himself henceforth Ausonio Franchi. His other works, besides
the Filosofia delle Scuole Italiane, are La Eeligione del secolo

Philosophy in Italy. 531

XIX., the Razionalismo del popolo, the Senlimento, two volumes
of Lezioni sulla Storia della Filosqfia moderna, and the Teorica del
G-iudizio. In this last he criticises the synthetic judgments cb
priori of Kant, and expounds the docrines of the philosophers
who have treated of the subject. Born for controversy, which
he manages with rare skill and vigour, Franchi, as a philosopher
and psychologist, has no doctrines of his own, and fluctuates
between the Criticism of Kant and a mild Sensationalism,
in which feeling is substituted for sensation as the basis of
the phenomena of consciousness. His thought borrows force
and life from the ardour of his convictions, which however
is prone to excess and gives to his style a declamatory tone.
He is a professor in the Scientific and Literary Academy of
Milan.

Franchi has followers in various parts of Italy ; but he has
not, nor ever could have, a school. In fact the only speculative
doctrine, opposed to that of our philosophers, which has formed a
school among us is Hegelianism. Started in Naples previous to
1848, it has flourished there since the political overturn of I860,
and now has its centre in the University, where it is taught by
Augusto Yera and Bertrando Spaventa. Of the two, Vera is the
true and leading representative of the school, both because he
professes its doctrines more faithfully, and because to his
influence as a teacher and writer he adds the authority of a name
well-known beyond Italy. There is no need to mention to the,
readers of MIND the many writings by means of which the
translator of Hegel has so powerfully aided in the diffusion of his
doctrines both in Europe and in America ; for he has not limited
himself to illustrating and defending these, but has also to some
extent developed them by thought of his own. Among con-
temporary philosophers Vera is one of those who have cut
themselves most adrift from the idea of nationality, though
he did publish some years ago an important work on one
question of special interest to Italy — the freedom of the Church
in relation to the State. He has always refrained from any
direct examination of the doctrines of our philosophers, to whom
he allows no speculative value whatsoever. This severe
judgment on Galluppi, Rosmini and Gioberti finds expression in
a work, entitled La Philosophic contemporaine en Italie ; Essai
de Philosophie Hegelienne (Paris, 1868), written by Raffaele
Mariano, a pupil of Vera's, and the author of other works, in
which the principles of Hegelianism are applied to the religious
and political problems of our time. Among the followers of
Hegel we should mention also the late Marchesa Marianna
Florenzi Waddington, a lady of the highest culture and the author
of various works, in one of which an attempt is made to

532 Philosophy in Italy.

reconcile the doctrine of the immortality of the soul with the
principles of absolute idealism.

The theoretical and doctrinal part of Hegelianism, however,
has been of less account among us than the applications made
of it in the field of historical and critical studies, which have
been to some extent revived by its influence. Did space permit,
I might speak of Francesco De Sanctis as one who under
inspiration from Hegel led the way to a broader and more
philosophical literary criticism than reigned in our schools in
the first half of the century. Moreover, Hegelianism has,
though in a less degree, influenced the relations of philosophy
to the physical sciences, as shown in the writings of Cammillo
De Meis, professor of History of Medicine in the University
of Bologna. His aim has ever been to harmonise the specula-
tions of philosophy with the results of experimental research.
Thus in his work, / Tipi animali (of which as yet only one
volume has appeared), he proposes a solution of the problem of
the variation of species which, without repudiating the empirical
data of Darwin's discoveries, would subject them to the superior
requirements of a strictly scientific demonstration. The
work to which De Meis chiefly owes his fame is his Dopo la
Laurea, a kind of autobiography descriptive of his youthful
studies and the state of his mind on quitting the University.
It gives a vivid picture of the Italian mind between 1848
and 1860.

I have already appealed to the judgment of one of our most
illustrious living writers, Ruggero Bonghi, as to the reason why
the labours of the Hegelian school have borne less fruit among
us than might have been expected. The merit that certainly
belongs to it of having brought Italian into immediate contact
with German thought, of having infused into the inert mass of
our philosophical studies a new vein of stirring and refreshing
ideas, of having for the first time opened out to our view the
broad prospect of that historical method which is the glory of
modern science — this undeniable merit of the Hegelian school
would have seemed to the impartial historian all the greater, had
more account been taken by it of the natural and traditional dis-
position of the Italian mind, and had the attempt not been made
to introduce foreign ideas among us as if they were so much
merchandise. Moreover it dogmatised at least as much as its
opponents, and that too at a time when it ought rather to
have trained our minds to that critical analysis and those
psychological inquiries from which alone we could derive solid
preparation for the modern scientific method. But indeed in
Italy our minds were so little inclined to criticism that it was
very natural, or I might say necessary, for many to pass per

Philosophy in Italy. . 533

saltum from the theological dogmatism of the ontologists to
another dogmatism of an opposite but no less absolute kind ;
and even now, though the most faithful followers of the
Hegelian school have dropped many of their southern fancies,
the identity of being and not-being and the evolution of the
Absolute are regarded as the last word of science — as so many
articles of faith. This, it will be said, is a necessary consequence
of the systematic spirit. The evil, however, was that, whereas
for the Germans Absolute Idealism was the last stage of one of
the broadest and most liberal speculative movements on record,
for us, on the other hand, it was only an importation, accepted
for the most part by its followers without examination, and for
no other reason than that it represented a faith opposed to
that which had hitherto been preached to them ; accepted too
as the latest outcome of modern speculation, though the
doctrine was already superannuated in Germany, and no longer
responded to the needs of European thought.

Bertrando Spaventa saw this more clearly than any of the
other Hegelians. Stepping in between the partisans of an
exclusively national philosophy and the strict Hegelians, who
took no account of our intellectual traditions, he recognised the
need of linking our thought once more to that of the other
nations of Europe, whilst, at the same time, he clearly saw that
we could enter into the spirit of Modern Philosophy only by
preserving the consciousness of our speculative thought in its
entirety and in all its historical continuity, and by taking up
again the thread of our philosophical tradition at that point
where it had been in relation with the thought of other nations.
The same position had been already maintained by Mamiaiii
as against Rosmini ; but it was taken up anew by Spaventa,
after 1850, and defended with much power. In his view our
philosophers of the Renaissance mark the point in history to
which Italian thought must turn to find again the consciousness
of itself and of its traditions, and above all Giordano Bruno and
Tommaso Campanella are important as initiators of modern
thought. He regards Bruno as the precursor of Spinoza, and
Campanella as the precursor of Descartes. In Vico, who followed
these at a long interval and rose to a general conception of man
and history, Spaventa sees the final outcome of their doctrines,
and an indication from afar of the Idealism of Kant.

This view has been traced by Spaventa in one series of his
Saggi, which throw much light upon the history of modern
philosophy, and are certainly the best of his writings. These
are only one part of his work, however ; the other being given
up to an attempt to discover in the doctrines of our latest
philosophers, especially Gioberti, an intimate connexion between

534 Philosophy in Italy.

Italian speculative thought and modern philosophy. I have
already remarked that in his earliest writings Spaventa agreed
with Vera and the other Hegelians in excluding Galluppi,
Eosmini and Gioberti from the history of modern speculation.
But he confesses that riper study has convinced him that our
philosophers not only felt Kant's influence, but were, unknown
to themselves, urged by an irresistible logical necessity to the
same critical results ; that Galluppi was a Kantian without
being aware of it ; that Eosmini gave to the problem of know-
ledge the same solution as Kant ; and finally that Gioberti is in
his early works a Spinozist, in his posthumous a Hegelian.
Such are the main conclusions reached by Spaventa in that
part of his historico-critical essays, where he searches out and
not seldom finds the subtlest analogies between the speculations
of Italian and Germany philosophers ; but here his criticism is
undoubtedly at its weakest. That our philosophical thought
indeed was influenced by the same speculative needs as
had determined the Kritik of Kant, and that especially
Galluppi and Eosmini, in applying themselves to the problem of
knowledge, were so far linking themselves to modern Philosophy,
are facts which no impartial critic would deny. But that
Eosmini and the author of the Primato can be called Kantians
or Hegelians, that the matter and, what is of more consequence,
the spirit of their speculations substantially agree with the
modern German philosophy, are what no criticism, however
ingenious, will ever succeed in proving.

As a philosopher, Spaventa has no doctrines peculiar to him-
self. Substantially he is a follower of Hegel, but this does not
prevent him from adopting any good thing that other schools
may offer, as, for example, the Herbartian, whose psychology he
highly appreciates. But it is in the field of critical History of
Philosophy that he has exercised most influence as a teacher
and a writer. His ideas in regard to the philosophers of the
Eenaissanee have found their most faithful interpreter in Fran-
cesco Fiorentino, professor in the University of Pisa, and best
known by his two valuable works on Pomponazzi and Telesio,
which are both marked by care and originality of research in
regard to the schools of Padua and Cosenza. Fiorentino has
also recently published a book of Elementi di Filosofia, for use in
the higher instruction, in which, while substantially following
Kant, he partly adopts in psychology the doctrines of Herbart,
and in logic the theories of Mill. He is conductor of the Gfior-
nale Napoletano, which in its philosophy represents the views of
Spaventa's followers.

X. In Italy as elsewhere the advance in historical and critical
studies is bound up with the rise and spread of the Positive

Philosophy in Italy. 535

Philosophy. I purposely make use of the term Positive (which
in England is rejected "by Experientialists) for two reasons :
first, because the positivist doctrines came to us directly
from France, being from the first nothing but an echo of Comte's
ideas ; and secondly, because, in regard to the meaning of the
word Positivism, there has been, and still is, in the minds of
many in Italy some confusion of schools and doctrines that are
at one in rejecting metaphysics but in other points are widely
different. This confusion is to be attributed rather to the
meagre philosophical culture of the Italian people, than to any
fault in those who first introduced the new doctrines among us.
Before 1870, attention had been drawn to these by Pasquale
Villari, the well-known historian of Savonarola and Machiavelli,
in an essay published in the Politecnico of Milan, and by Aris-
tide Gabelli in his work entitled L'Uomo e le Scienze morali.
Both these writers, but especially Villari in his historical studies,
adhere substantially to the doctrines of Comte, while endea-
vouring to harmonise them as much as possible with the tradi-
tion of our experimental schools. Till a few years ago, however,
the literature of the young Italian Positive School was not of
much account ; not that there was any lack of writers, but
they did not form a true and distinctive school. With-
out any clear or definite notion of their philosophical tendencies,
they lost themselves in useless generalities about method,
categories of cause, substance, being, &c., and declaimed against
the doctrines of their opponent without inquiring whether in the
field of Experiential Philosophy and with the aid alone of scien-
tific method, it were possible, or had elsewhere been tried, to
give a doctrinal form and development to Psychology and the
other moral sciences. The new and fruitful direction which
these had taken in England, without abandoning the tradition of
the school of Locke, Hume, and Hartley, was almost unknown
in Italy till shortly before 1870 ; the number of readers of
Spencer, Bain, or Lewes being very limited, while Stuart Mill
was known chiefly by his Liberty and his economic writings.

The extension of the national culture and the new impulse
given to philosophical studies by advance in the historical and
physical sciences have contributed much to change this state of
tilings. The influence of the doctrines of Comte, an almost
absolute one at first, has been superseded in our Positive School
by that of the English philosophy. And now it may be said
that the latter is more known and studied among us, especially
by the general body of the intelligent public, than is the German
philosophy. The followers of the latter are to be found chiefly
in the universities, while Mill, Spencer and Bain are the names
of highest repute amongst our most cultured classes and the

536 Philosophy in Italy.

students of the historical and social sciences. I will not say,
however, that these, or at least the greater part of them, fully
understand the position of the English Experiential School, or
its relation to the history of contemporary philosophy — to
Empirism and Materialism on the one hand and to metaphysical
and theological Dogmatism on the other. For it is not unusual
to find Buchner, Comte, and Spencer quoted in some volume or
journal as members of the same school, and to hear it asserted
by writers of repute that the English school identifies physiology
with psychology. So true is it that few in Italy, even among
the learned, have been able to free themselves from all dogmatic
prejudice and to see that the experimental study of subjective
phenomena may have a rigorous scientific form independently of
any definite solution of the problem of being.

Nevertheless a few recent publications of the Positive School
in Italy deserve to be noticed. One of these is Niccola Mar-
selli's Scienza della Storia, intended by the author to be the
introduction to a work on the Philosophy of History not yet
published, and containing an exposition and acute examination
of the doctrines held on that subject : Marselli is a follower
both of Hegel and Comte. Another is Ardigo's La Psicolvgia
come scienza positiva (1871), the first attempt in Italy to give a
definite shape to the principles and consequences of Positivism.
Starting from the doctrines of the English School of psychology,
taken in conjunction with the recent researches of Helmholtz
and Fechner, Ardigo aims to rise above both Materialism and
Spiritualism to the conception of a " psychophysical reality ".
His work reveals a mind of speculative power and aptitude for
subjective analysis.

In our prosecution of psychological inquiry two facts have to
be noted as promising well for the future of our philosophical
studies. The one is the appearance of writings, mostly by
young men, in which psychological observation is subjected to a
division of labour and limited to the rigorous analysis of single
phenomena or single groups of phenomena. Of such writings
one of the most noteworthy is that by Dr. Paolo Eiccardi,
entitled Saggio di studii e di osservazioni intorno all' attenzione
nell' uomo e negli animali (Modena, 1877). The other and
still more significant fact is the exhibition by philosophers and
men of science of a disposition to find in Psychology and
Anthropology a common field of inquiry and study, which
cannot fail to bear fruit. For on the one hand we have the
recognition of the necessity of never separating the study of
psychical from that of physiological, ethnical, and historical
facts ; and on the other, we have the avowal of the value of
subjective observation together with the application of the strict

Philosophy in Italy. 537

rules of the inductive method. It is some years since the cele-
brated Accademia dei Lincei of Eome, at the suggestion of its
president Quintino Sella, instituted a new section for the moral,
historical and philological sciences ; and philosophy is now re-
presented in it by Mamiani, Eerri, and Berti. Then again, the
Italian Society of Anthropology and Ethnology, which meets at
Florence, at one of its latest sittings changed its title to that of
the Society of Anthropology and Comparative Psychology, in-
tending thereby to mark its desire henceforward to add the
culture of Philosophy to its previously restricted field of external
and physiological inquiry. This change, it may be noted, was
effected at the instance of Prof. Mantegazza, President of the
Society, a distinguished physiologist and writer of works on
hygiene, and of Prof. A. Herzen, well known by his Analisi
fisiologica del libero arbitrio.

XL In conclusion I would remark that, while there is thus
a certain amount of activity in philosophical studies, there is
as yet in Italy no true and proper speculative movement.
The facts here brought forward will, I venture to think,
have made it apparent that for twenty years and more
the conditions surrounding our thought have been little in
its favour, and have tended to check rather than promote
its vigour. Looked at from any point whatsoever, the doctrines
of Galluppi, Eosmini, and Gioberti have been the only product
of speculation which Italy of itself has yielded during this
century ; and it was only so long as they were the expression of
a great moral and political crisis, and responded to a living
national want, that they were able to hold sway over the realm
of thought. After 1850, overtaken by the spirit of the new
times, they found themselves confronted by the Critical
Scepticism and the Hegelianism which then began to make head
in our midst. The division which thus sprang up was an
irreconcilable one, and proved fatal to our thought by wasting
its energies in barren contentions. German speculation had
passed by a slow and gradual evolution from Leibnitz and
Wolff through the criticism of Kant and the systems of Fichte
and Schelling to Hegel ; but not till the close of its splendid
course did this great idealistic movement in its final outcome
cross the Alps. Introduced among us it found our minds, by
long habituation to theological dogmatism, little, if at all,
trained to severe criticism and rigorous analysis, and disposed to
make philosophy a question rather of nationality than of science.
Between the " ideal intuition " of Eosmini and Gioberti and
the " idea " of Hegel there was no middle term possible ; hence
there was no possibility of a serious and fruitful discussion
between the followers of the two schools, nor any common ground

538 Philosophy in Italy.

of agreement or of study. The one maintained an exclusively
Italian tradition ; the other repeated foreign doctrines. The,
attempts which both made to restore life and movement to
Italian thought, without abandoning tradition, and to naturalise
the philosophy of Hegel among us, have been attended, as yet
at least, w^ith no general or lasting results. And this, either
because our minds were already exhausted, surfeited or
distracted, or because we altogether lacked that spirit of
application and discipline, which has contributed so much to the
progress of science in Germany.

What we really stand in need of is the thorough scientific
preparation that comes of patient observation, pyschological
analysis, and a loyal and willing acceptance of whatever conclu-
sions the strict application of scientific method may yield ; and,
fortunately, the signs are not wanting that such a process of
preparation is at last making way in our midst. This is attested
by the increasing interest displayed in psychological research,
and by the attention bestowed on the History of Philo-
sophy, ancient and modern, as shown by the recent pub-
lication of various valuable translations of ancient philo-
sophers, and by the production of numerous special historical
works and monographs. Of the German philosophers Kant
alone can be said to supply a key to the history of
modern philosophy, and as in Germany so with us he
is now the chief object of study. Side by side too with the
increasing knowledge of foreign languages grows our capacity
for assimilating the ideas which they embody ; while the habit
of free thought is becoming confirmed, in proportion as the
impulse to the study, of the great philosophical, religious and
social problems, that formerly came entirely from without, is now
more and more begotten of the activity and growing energy of
our own national life.

G. BARZELLOTTI.

VL— CRITICAL NOTICES.

On the Theory of Logic : An Essay. By CARVETH READ. London :
KeganPaul, 1878.

I can here discuss only a few of the points raised by Mr. Read in
his very thoughtful and suggestive essay.

The general view which he takes of the subject is that which may
be called the objective or matter-of-fact view. Of this view Mill is the
best known exponent in England; for although, as Mr. Read very
fairly objects, he departs from this standing-point in his definition of
the science, he preserves it with great consistency throughout nearly
all the discussions in his volumes. It is not of course implied by Mr.
Read that this subject-matter of Logic lies, so to say, outside of the
human faculties, or can ever be anything but relative to those
faculties. It is merely the position and mode of treatment appropriate
to the science which is here discussed. " We may call it a postulate
of the Abstract and Objective Sciences, that the subjective element
may be neglected : we write, Such is the course of Nature ; not, Thus
it appears to us." With this I find myself in entire accordance. At
the same time, it seems to me as if this objective view was pushed
almost too far ; as if the author were attempting, partly in expression,
partly in his mode of treatment, to lay aside more completely than is
possible, the human or relative element in a system of Logic. Thus he
always seems to regard the 'Term' as being a phenomenon itself,
instead of being our representative merely, whether in thought or in
language, of the phenomena. Thus he says : " How feelings are terms
hardly needs pointing out " ; and again : " As the likeness and
unlikeness of terms in general is the fact which gives existence to
classes, so the likeness and unlikeness of compound terms gives rise to
those classes which are based on many attributes " ; also : " A class
consists of terms united by (1) likeness among themselves, (2)
unlikeness to others " ; whilst his * Table of Terms ' corresponds in
consequence broadly with what Mill offers as a catalogue raisonne of
existences in general, in substitution for the Categories. This is
perhaps merely a matter of language, but it is surely an innovation,
and one which leads to a redundancy in our objective nomenclature
and a deficiency in our subjective (for what technical logical equivalent
have we then left for the old ' term,' or ' name,' as it is more loosely
called ?). Moreover such a usage seems distinctly liable to lead to
confusion when we have to talk of essences, and some slight trace of
such a confusion I cannot but think is perceptible in this essay.
Where are the properties of the essence to be sought — in the phenomena
themselves or in our names for them 1 In the former, no doubt ; but
what Mr. Read does not seem to me to bring out clearly enough, is how
largely the particular selection of them is our own ; relative that is,
not to human faculties in general, but to the particular needs and
circumstances of the people who use the name. Some such expression
therefore as * the connotation of a class name ' or of a * term/ in its

540 Critical Notices.

common sense, is, I think, much preferable, as better serving to fix and
call attention to this fact.

With every wish to make our treatment and point of view as
objective as possible, it seems to me that there are a variety of points
in which relativeness is practically forced upon us. For instance, the
group of attributes which make up the connotation of a general term
are decided by convention, tacit or avowed ; they are those which are
* generally accepted ' as distinctive and determining. But this
convention, of course, lets in considerations of time and circumstance.
That accession of new information would affect our decision about the
connotation is always admitted, for the newly discovered attributes
may force their importance and number upon the attention. But there
is an even more important cause of change of convention than this,
though it is often overlooked. A change in our point of view may
considerably alter the order of importance of the attributes. What,
for instance, is the definition of an ellipse, that is, the connotation of
that term 1 To an ancient it was regarded as the curve obtainable by
a plane section of a cone. It was one of the conic sections. But this
is not the modern meaning ; so far from it, that the fact of the ellipse
being so obtainable only comes out, later in our study, as a remote
corollary by mathematical deduction. It would now probably be
defined as ' a plane closed curve of the second order ' ; for our whole
way of regarding geometry has been affected by the introduction of
Cartesian co-ordinates. What may be the next similar change in our
point of view and consequent definition must be left to advanced
geometricians to determine. The same change of view may be
detected in the classifications of biology. What we may term the
' chasm of separation ' theory of Natural Kinds, so familiar to readers
of Mill, is being very generally abandoned. We do not now seek for
that indefinite number of attributes which are to distinguish class from
class ; we do not even try to arrange and group our natural classes in
accordance with their possession of the greatest number of important
attributes. At least their importance is not one which would strike
any ordinary eye.* What the classifier mostly aims at now, and what
he is considered to have been unconsciously aiming at for some
previous time, is to arrange the classes in accordance with their actual
affinity by relationship and origin, genealogically that is. This point
of view, depending on the theory of Evolution, may be the final one,
but no one would yet venture to assert this positively. We are there-
fore to some extent in a difficulty when asked to say what is the
essence, meaning, or connotation of any general term. We cannot say
that it comprises all the attributes possessed in common by the objects
in the corresponding class, for these may be infinitely numerous ;
moreover we should thus be losing the very useful distinction between
real and verbal propositions. Nor, again, can we seek it in the

*See this very clearly brought out in Mr. A. R. Wallace's Tropical
Nature, where he shows that in many cases some of the least obvious and
striking, and, in any common sense of the word, important, attributes are the
most valuable for the purposes of the scientific classifier.

Critical Notices. 541

attributes ' universally understood ' by the term, for there is no such
general consensus. We can really only seek it in the attributes
generally assigned by those who are competently informed upon the
subject. Within these limits of time and place there doubtless is some
extent of agreement. This may not sound a very philosophic
explanation, but it is best to avow it as the most tenable which is open
to us.

Another expression which raises somewhat similar difficulties is
that of ' Compatibility '. As Mr. Read says : " Relations of classes
that may coincide are compatible ". " Relations that cannot coincide
are incompatible." I have no wish to quarrel with these terms,
or abolish them from Logic : in fact we could not well get on
without them. But they cannot be properly explained without
taking into account not merely the objective attributes of the
phenomena but also our own recognition and appreciation of these
attributes. Looked at objectively, relations that ( cannot coincide '
are simply those that never do coincide. There is no further
meaning in the impossibility, and it is therefore adequately ex-
pressed by an ordinary universal negative. But what are, in them-
selves, relations that ' may coincide ' 1 As Bishop Butler says, things
are what they are ; any two relations either do or do not, wholly or
partially, coincide, and could therefore be expressible by one or other
of the A, E, I, 0 propositions. Any use therefore of the word ' may '
is an introduction into the question of human ignorance about these
relations, and a departure so far from strict objectivity.

Mr. Read has not indeed overlooked these considerations. He says
(p. 157) : — " We must distinguish three conditions of a phenomenon :
(1) As it really is ; (2) As we know it ; (3) As our knowledge of it
is expressed". The first of these means of course as the thing
is phenomenally, not as it is per se ; it means, that is, the know-
ledge which creatures with our faculties might eventually hope
to attain to about it. But the second needs, I think, some ex-
planation ; ' as we know it ' may mean anything or nothing,
according to the persons referred to. The distinction here, as just
remarked, is not the absolute one between the phenomenal and the
noiimenal, but the very relative one between the better and the worse
known phenomenal. We ought therefore, I think, to have it clearly
pointed out that the purely objective view has been here set aside, and
that some convention has to be admitted as to the quantity of know-
ledge which may be postulated in reference to the phenomena, just
as was found to be the case in reference to the definition of any term.

Mr. Read's discussions upon the subject of Causation seem to me
very sound and useful, and to mark all that advance upon the older
views which one would expect in a thoughtful student of the principles
of modern physical science. Mill's view, as we understand him to
say, is essentially the popular view ; though refined, generalised, and
rendered as rigidly and scientifically accurate as it admits of being.
But it implies something discontinuous ; the cause and the effect are
events, that is, are fragments of experience broken off and regarded as

542 Critical Notices.

something separate and distinct each from the other. We have not
sufficiently prominently set before us that absolute continuity of
development which now finds expression in the doctrine of the
Conservation of Energy. For ordinary purposes the ordinary view is
necessary. It is only in terms so expressed that we can put and
answer the question, What is the cause of such and such an occurrence ?
i.e., How can it be brought about or avoided1? And the well-known
* Four Methods ' represent this view, carefully guarded, and advanced
to the furthest point to which it is capable of being pushed. But
when we proceed to subject it to close scientific scrutiny, we find that
it is far from being capable of bearing the whole weight which it is
attempted to put upon it. To mention no other instances, we should
say that such puzzles as whether the effect can continue to persist after
the cause has ceased, and whether an interval (however small) must
exist between the cause and effect, have no other origin than this.
They arise out of the attempt to combine a definition of cause, grounded
on popular usage and limited by popular needs, with the rigid analysis
and minute accuracy claimed by abstract scientific principles.

On the same grounds Mr. Read sees his way to getting rid of a dis-
tinction which must have before now seemed groundless to close
thinkers, that, namely, of Plurality of Causes, or, as he terms it,
Vicariousness of Causes. From the practical point of view the
recognition of this vicariousness is abundantly useful, and indeed
necessary. A man is found dead : what is the cause of his death ?
Was it accident, violence, suicide, or what ? In this sense of the term
many causes are possible. But, as soon as any one who is imbued with
the conception of an orderly continuous evolution of phenomena comes
to scrutinise these terms, he fails to see in ' cause ' more than what
goes before, and in ' effect ' more than what comes after ; and mere
sequence in time can produce no such essential distinction as to admit
of Plurality of Causes and exclude Plurality of Effects. Insist on
taking account of every antecedent and of every consequent, and either
term of the pair will necessarily imply the other. No one cause could
venture to take the place of any other cause in hopes of producing the
same effect ; but every difference of antecedent must imply a difference
of consequent, and vice versa.

The part of Mr. Bead's essay which is most original is that in which
he discusses the nature of syllogistic reasoning, but the treatment
seems to me too brief to do full justice to his views. Working mainly
on the lines of Mr. H. Spencer, he differs from him on one important
point, viz , the number of terms employed in the syllogism. The follow-
ing extract (p. 240) contains, I think, the gist of his reasoning : —

" To take an example : how many terms has this syllogism 1
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, Helleuicity : and either way
the three terms slide one into the other, as one shuts up a telescope.

Critical Notices. 5 43

According to Mill's Axiom, the correlation might be symbolised thus [in
Mr. Read's symbols *] —

\ Humanity w Hellenicity.

Mortality, f

This, however, does not represent a relationship of classes at all ; but only
the concomitance of certain three qualities in the members of one class,
namely, Greeks. For Hellenicity is not concomitant with all Humanity,
nor Humanity with all Mortality. The evidence thus adduced for the
mortality of Greeks is, the mortality of Greeks and no more : but mueh
more is intended when it is argued that Greeks are mortal, because all men
are. To rely on Mill's Axiom is to lose all that evidence of the mortality
of Greeks which is derived from the mortality of the rest of mankind.

So far then I agree with Mr. Spencer that Mill's view is in-
sufficient :...."

As I have said, the treatment here seems far too brief to dc itself
justice ; at least, after perusing the passage a great many times, I have
failed to understand it. In the first place, the words, " this, however,
does not represent a relationship of classes at all," would seem to imply
that Mill regarded syllogism, in accordance with the old view, as being
primarily a matter of reference of classes to one another. But this can
scarcely be meant, for Mill's view that propositions are nearly always
to be interpreted (especially as regards their predicates) in connotation
rather than in denotation, and his consequent rejection of Aristotle's
Dictum, are too well-known for this to be possible. Then, again, with
regard to the statement that " the evidence thus adduced for the
mortality of Greeks is, the mortality of Greeks and nothing more ".
Let us take a still narrower case, that, namely, of an individual instead
of a class. When we thus infer the mortality of Socrates instead of
that of Greeks generally, is it meant that "the evidence thus adduced
for the mortality of Socrates is, the mortality of Socrates and nothing
more," — Socrates, say, being still alive 1 If so, Mr. Bead would, we
may apprehend, naturally have chosen such an example, for it would
have raised a far stronger objection, amounting in fact to .a reduction
to absurdity. But what else it can mean I do not see.

Mr. Bead's main reason is presumably given in his remark that " the
differential nature of Greeks is here omitted ; wherein perhaps there
may lurk something incompatible with mortality ". True, there may ;
this is a contingency which can never be entirely obviated when, as
here, we are supposed to be applying the syllogism to a new and
unobserved case, or at least to be giving such an exposition of it as will
suffice to cover new cases. ISTo induction can be absolutely certain.
Mr. Bead seems to be omitting from consideration the fact that in the
wide group denoted by { men ' we have already taken account of a
multitude of precisely similar ' differential natures ' among other

* w is the sign of co-existence, v of succession.

544 Critical Notices.

nations, — Romans, various kinds of barbarians, and so on. If there
were any reason to suppose that Hellenicity is specially antagonistic to
mortality, it would show that our induction was being extended to a
hazardous case, no doubt ; but this does not appear to be a fair general
ground of objection to the theory. And there seems another flaw in
this objection. When Mr. Read speaks thus of Hellenicity, — the
differential nature of Greeks, — is he not presupposing more knowledge
than we have a right to expect 1 What, in fact, is HellenicityJ and
what is the convention about the number of attributes to be included
in this term1? When we speak of Humanity and Mortality, all is
clear enough ; the previous inductions which decided that man is
mortal may be supposed to have settled and defined these terms
accurately already. But then a new man, a Greek, comes before us :
can we fairly assume that we are already so familiar with him and his
fellow-countrymen as to know distinctly what is meant by Hellenicity ?
The old class-theory of the syllogism would not demand this : Greeks,
in respect of their denotation, might be known possibly by some casual
attribute easy of observation ; but when we speak of Hellenicity we
surely mean to refer to the essential attributes of the term, and this, as
already remarked, is a matter demanding a very definite convention and
agreement.

It will be best to take a new example, both to get rid of the
inveterate associations connected with man and his mortality, and to
see how the newly observed case looks when it is presented to us
without being already ticketed with a familiar name. Suppose, then,
that we have arrived at the conclusion that all cruciferous plants are
wholesome, or at least harmless. A shipwrecked crew on some desert
island light upon a species of the cruciferae, and infer that they may
proceed to eat it. Now what corresponds to ' Hellenicity ' here is the
group of determining characteristics of this new species. But what do
these sailors know of these characteristics 1 It would be an ill thing
for them if they had to wait for such information before feeling sure of
their inference. All that they observe is Crucifericity, if one may
so call it (with which we suppose them already familiar), plus a multi-
tude of other attributes, some of them accidental to the individual,
others common to, and characteristic of, its species. But they have no
means of distinguishing between the accidental and the essential, and
therefore no power of taking account of any such bundle of attributes
as would correspond to the Hellenicity of the last example.

Mill's explanation of such an example is, I think, plain, and we can
easily see where he gets his three terms of the syllogism. We have
observed that the attributes of the crucifera are accompanied by whole-
someness :— there we have two terms. The new plant or plants yield
the third term ; the exact extension of which is perfectly immaterial,
that we care to observe is the presence of the cruciferous attributes'
the additional presence of other attributes as well, which serve to make
a third term of it, does not really concern us. Equally easy is it to
see where Mr. Spencer finds his four terms. The first two are the same
as above. The third term becomes a third, not merely on account of

Critical Notices. 545

the non-cruciferous additional attributes, but also because (as he main-
tains) these cruciferous attributes themselves are not the same as those
which yield the induction expressed in the conjunction of the first two
terms, but merely like them. The fourth term is the ' wholesome-
ness ' of the new plants ; which, like their cruciferous attributes,
merely resembles the former observed wholesomeness.

But how does Mr. Read get his five terms of the syllogism 1 Four
I can see clearly enough ; but the fifth, which is yielded by
distinguishing, in the former familiar example, between Hellenicity
and Hellenic Humanity, seems to me to rest upon an illusion caused
by our long familiarity with two distinct names. When we come to
deal with a new example we have not even the names whereby to
express the corresponding distinction, and it is difficult to see how more
than four terms can be conceived as necessary.

Mr. Read's formal statement of his principle, or ' Rule of Quinque-
terminal Correlation,' as he designates it, is as follows : — " A Term
which coexists with a second Term — that second Term and a third
being severally the same as a fourth and a 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". It
is not easy to apply this rule to the example I have proposed, from
want of the requisite names, so we must revert to the old example.
The five terms here are respectively, Hellenicity, Hellenic Humanity,
Mortality of Hellenic Humanity, Non-Hellenic Humanity, Mortality
of Non-Hellenic Humanity. Of these, the fourth and fifth correspond
to the first pair, or relation, of Mr. Spencer ; the first and second
(taken together), and the third, correspond to his second pair ; — these
two pairs, or relations, on Mr. Spencer's scheme, being recognised as
' like ' one another. It is just this subdivision by Mr. Read of the
first member of the second pair into two, Hellenicity and Hellenic
Humanity, which seems to me unnecessary, and in most cases
unattainable, at least with any accuracy. . When we observe our new
case, I do not see why we need do more than recognise in it the same
(or the like) attributes as we had already perceived in former cases.
Its additional or specific attributes do not concern us ; if we are
drawing the conclusion about an individual we do not want them, and
if about the whole of a new species, the determining characteristics of
that species may be unknown as yet.

One other novelty in Mr. Read's system is his symbolic expression
of the various kinds of relation (such as similarity, coexistence, &c.)
which are required to be expressed in that extended view of the
reasoning process taken by Mr. Spencer. These have been introduced
into the extract quoted above, arid were set out by Mr. Read himself
in MIND VII. It is hard for those whose business requires them to
keep in mind a number of distinct sets of symbols, Hamilton's, Boole's,
De Morgan's, Jevons's, and so on, to regard entirely without prejudice
the introduction of a new set. But laying this prejudice aside, Mr.
Read's seem to me decidedly suitable and good.

J. VENN.

38

546 Critical Notices.

Les trois premieres annees de VEnfant.\ Par BERNARD PEREZ.
Paris : Germer Bailliere et Cie, 1878. Pp. xiv. and 294

M. Bernard Perez belongs to the unofficial but already important
school of French thinkers who welcome and appreciate to the full Mr.
Darwin's work. They are paying it the best kind of tribute by carrying
out its principles in researches of their own, and M. Perez has here
given us an excellent study of human development on what one may
call Darwinian lines. It is a series of careful and well-considered
observations on the natural history of the children of civilised
European parents during the first three years of life. We may assume
that all the subjects observed were the children of persons of a certain
standing and culture ; but whatever hereditary differences may be due
to ancestral education and refinement probably do not come out until
a much later time, or at all events may be neglected in the present
rough state of our knowledge.

A study of this kind may be arranged chronologically or analytically;
it may follow the history of the child from birth onwards, which
seems the natural way when only one individual is dealt with, or it
may be distributed according to the several functions and activities
whose development is observed. M. Perez, having it would seem a
rather extensive acquaintance with small children, has adopted the
latter method, which enables many distinct observations to be
conveniently grouped. This entails indeed a certain amount of
repetition, from which M. Perez has very wisely not shrunk on the
necessary occasions. At the same time he proceeds from the simpler
to the more complex functions, thus following the order of growth as
far as his method allows.

He begins with the first evidences of sensibility to the influence of
the outer world — the earliest pleasures and pains of taste, touch, heat
and cold, sight, hearing, and smelling. He goes on to the appearance
of the passions in a rudimentary form. Fear, jealousy, anger, are all
noted at two months old and even less. St. Augustine was much shocked
by the sight of two children fighting for the breast at a very early age,
and found in it a proof of original sin. The observation is perhaps the
earliest on record, except the case of Jacob and Esau, but does not
deserve much credit from a scientific point of view. M. Perez does
not notice it, possibly for that reason. Curiosity, the association of
pleasant or painful sentiments with particular objects, and the dawn of
the social feelings, are then passed in review. As to animals, M. Perez
thinks they are to a child's mind mere playthings, more amusing
because they afford more variety. Probably this is so for some time :
but at a later stage the dog or cat is treated very much like a person.
I have seen a child of two years old gravely attempt to make the cat
look at pictures, offer its doll to be kissed, and the like. But (in
confirmation of M. Perez) a few months earlier one of the same child's
ambitions in life was to stand on the cat's tail, and she obviously could
not see why it should object. As to human sympathies, children are
unfeeling, " par defaut d'experience et faiblesse de jugement " : they
can be much affected by real or supposed pains of which they have*

Critical Notices. 547

some experience in their own persons. A child that has just cried at
being dipped in the sea will cry again when the nurse dips herself for
her own pleasure ; and M. Perez gives a similar instance from a friend's
notes.

The next topic is " motricite'," the development of motions both
Hfeflex and voluntary. Here Mr. Darwin's materials are freely used, and
M. Perez adds some notes of his own on the early biography of two
kittens. He compares their progress with the much later and more
conscious advances of an infant learning to walk. As to voluntary
activity in general, M. Perez' position is that " la volonte est toujours
determinee par un sentiment, qu'il soit ou non clairement apercu par la
conscience". The practical conclusion, justly insisted on as of great
importance, is that the will must be educated through the emotions, and
education of the emotions can hardly begin too soon. The growth of
self-consciousness, attention (which English nurses call "taking
notice " ), and memory are then traced ; and chapters which are both
instructive and amusing are given to association, the formation of
general ideas, and comparison. M. Perez treats comparison as an
outgrowth of abstraction ; I should myself be disposed to think that
abstraction involves the perception of resemblance, the perception of
difference being an ultimate element in consciousness itself. But this
belongs to general psychology, if not to metaphysics. And besides M.
Perez is dealing with the comparison of feelings already grouped into
concepts. A droll example is given from the bewilderment of a child
of eight months, who was unable for several minutes to make out that
two grey cats of about the same size were not one and the same. The
first effect on its mind must have been something like Kehama diving
into the realm of Yama by eight gates at once.

Under the head of imagination we have a rather miscellaneous list
of notes, including the beginnings of dramatic play. M. Perez notices
a curious point, which must be familiar to even casual observers, and
which many of us may remember in our own persons ; I mean the
fixed obstinacy of children in requiring to have a song or story in the
exact form in which they first heard it. It is a letter-worship of the
most rigorous kind, and the habit endures almost into years of
discretion ; in some cases probably longer. My own recollection
informs me distinctly enough of a little boy who, long after he could
read, assumed everything he saw in print to be absolute truth. Is not
this rather a poverty of imagination than a positive manifestation of
it] There is the power of conceiving the story or statement and
making it a mental possession, of retaining what is put in. But there
is also the incapacity for entertaining anything different ; whatever is
first put in occupies as it were the whole field, and maintains a
possessory title, however acquired, against all new comers.

On the point of generalisation, M. Perez differs from the opinion of
Max M'uller and Taine, that no general ideas can be formed without
words ; he accepts M. Taine's instances, but interprets them otherwise,
holding that "le mot progresse comme I'id6e et par I'ide'e". In tho
chapter on judgment we have further excerpts from the biography of

548 Critical Notices.

the two kittens already mentioned, and some very curious facts from
M. Houzeau on the powers of certain animals to count. There is
distinct evidence that mules can count up to five. Mankind are long
in/learning this art. It is said that European children cannot count
>n with intelligence under the age of 6 or 7 years. A little friend of
M, Perez, two years and a half old, had no notion of what was meant
by three days. It had to be paraphrased to him as " demain, demain,
et encore demain ".

We pass on to the more complex feats of reasoning and language.
M. Perez has some excellent remarks on the folly of repressing the
mental growth of children by too much supervision ; he counsels a
"vigilant and benevolent neutrality, not occasional despotic inter-
ference ". On the formation of language, M. Taine's notes, which have
already been before the readers of the MIND, are in part reproduced.
Attention is called to the monosyllabic character of infantile language,
which I have myself found very conspicuous. Occasion is found for
another valuable practical remark, that early facility in talking is by
no means a safe measure of real intellectual progress. " Plus un enfant
est intelligent, moins il se paie de mots, plus il faut que les mots
signifient quelque chose pour qu'il les apprenne, et c'est pourquoi il
n'en apprend qu'a mesure qu'il se fait des idees nettes des objets."
One of the greatest dangers in early education is the filling of children's
ears and mouth with words they do not (or even cannot by any
possibility) understand. The relatively very late place of " 1'idee du
moi " — I-making, as the Indian philosophers called it — in the growth
of the individual mind is carefully brought out. M. Perez thinks that
even when "I" does come to be used, it is at first only as a proper
name; a synonym for the "Paul" or "Mary" with which the child
formerly spoke of itself in the third person. And indeed it is pretty
obvious that, being unique as a generic name both in meaning and in
usage, the term " I " cannot be grasped in its full import without a
considerable intellectual effort. The general sense of personality, the
feeling of an individual existence to be maintained and the self-
regarding desires which flow from it, are of course much earlier. Has
any language yet been found in which the personal pronouns are
defective-, or show any clear traces of their date of formation ? The
point seems worth attention.

The last chapter deals with the rudiments of the moral sense, and
lands us on the threshold of adult psychology. Some anecdotes are
given which show the uses of a cat— especially a cat " qui n'est pas
endurante " — in the moral education of a masterful child. In the case
of an only child the cat is indeed the only power that can make itself
respected on a footing of independent and equal rights. Probably a
dog would not do so well ; dogs are too long-suffering.

M. Perez' book is very pleasant reading, and neither its interest nor
its uses ought to be confined to students of psychology. I hope that
it may find its way to the hands of many parents both in France and
elsewhere.

IT. POLLOCK.

Critical Notices. 549

SEBASTIANO TURBIGLIO : Le Antitese tra il Medioeva e I1 Eta Moderna
nella Storia delta Filosofia in ispecie nella dottrina morale di
Malcbranche. Roma, 1877.

The author of this work is professor of the history of philosophy in
the University of Kome. He has devoted himself with great zeal to
the study of the history of modern philosophy, and during the last
twelve years has published several works which, although small in size,
are weighty with the results of intense and subtle research. His
History of the doctrine of Descartes and of its logical development in
the chief representatives of the Cartesian School, his Experimental
Philosophy of John Locke reconstructed a priori, and Spinoza and the
transformations of his thought, will be acknowledged to be remarkably
able treatises even by critics who find their value lessened by the
presence and operation of certain principles which the author has,
unfortunately perhaps, adopted as essential to true historical criticism.

The work now to be noticed is dedicated to Prof. Zeller of Berlin,
whom Signer Turbiglio regards as an illustrious example of the highest
type of the historian of philosophy, and whose banner he professes to
have chosen as his own, while indicating that he differs from him on
some secondary points. An attentive examination of the work itself
will probably convince most persons that he has underestimated the
differences between his views and those of Prof. Zeller as to the method
and principles of the history of philosophy ; these differences being
more numerous than he himself seems to suspect, while some of them
are certainly not secondary but fundamental. There follows a long
preface, and obviously the work has been written rather for the sake of
the preface than the preface for the sake of the work. Here the author
explains the principles on which he has proceeded in his former publi-
cations, and endeavours to vindicate and establish them. He hopes
thus to show the futility of the criticisms directed against his treatise
on Spinoza by Ulrici in the Ztitschrift fur Philosophic, by a writer in
the Westminster Review, by M. Espinas in the Revue Philosophique,
and by the author of the notice in MIND V., who may as well confess
himself, since the notice happened to be unsigned, to be the same
person as the present reviewer. But, however it may be with the
others, the writer of the notice in MIND has certainly not found in
Signor Turbiglio's lucid exposition any reason to modify his judgment.
He can assent to few of the so-called principles which are there
presented ; from most of them he decidedly dissents. For example, he
cannot admit that the historian of philosophy ought to abstain, as
Signor Turbiglio thinks, from inquiries regarding the truth and value
of the systems which he analyses and reconstructs ; that historical
criticism is independent and exclusive of scientific criticism. Signor
Turbiglio perceives that the history of no science could be written on
this principle, but he believes that the objects of philosophy are merely
general ideas formed by the synthetic power of the mind, while the
sciences are conversant with particular facts and the real relations
which unite them. Is this, however, not merely to urge in support of
an error another, or rather, by implication, a whole series of other

550 Critical Notices.

errors 1 That the objects of philosophy are general mental conceptions,
— that the objects of the sciences are particular facts, — that the history
of philosophy is essentially different from the history of a science, —
that philosophy ought to be regarded by its historians otherwise than
it has been regarded by all men who seriously philosophised, namely,
as the search for ultimate truth, — and that history may have its
standard in itself apart from the reality and value of that of which it
is the history, — are all propositions involved, and even more or less
explicitly avowed, in the argument of our author, while they seem to
his reviewer to be subjective and unprovable dogmata which it is
necessary to repudiate in the interests of genuine historical research.
Again, Signor Turbiglio directly combats the view of Zeller that the
free-will or personality of philosophers must be treated by the historian
of philosophy as among the causes of the development of speculative
thought. He holds that liberty must be eliminated, and that the
history must be regarded as a necessary process. But his reasons for
this seem unsatisfactory. Were it even true, as he supposes, that the
history would be more easily and thoroughly explicable if personal
forces did not require to be taken into account, it by no means follows
that the convenience of the historian has actually been consulted,
while the supposition is itself a most questionable one. The
argument from the logical character of the development of Cartesianism
in its chief representatives shows that the history of philosophy is a
rational process, but not that it is an involuntary one. The historian
has no right to assume either liberty or necessity as a principle.
Perhaps he has no need to infer either as a consequence.

The most distinctive of Signor Turbiglio's principles is the difference
between the apparent and the real in philosophical systems. It has
gradually attained its present dominant influence over his mind. In
his work on Cartesianism it was present only as the idea that there
was an impersonal and necessary evolution of thought from represen-
tative to representative of the school. In that on Locke it appeared
as the thesis that Locke willed one thing and performed another, —
believed that he had built up a system by patient induction when that
system was really the result of a continuous deduction. In the treatise
on Spinoza it came still more clearly to light in the doctrine of a real
and an apparent Spinoza, In the work before us it is formulated and
defended as a fundamental principle of the highest importance. Has
the course of Signor Turbiglio been in this respect a growth in truth
or error 1 I confess that I think it to have been the latter. He seeks
to establish his opinion by showing that the distinction between
appearance and reality is recognised in all the sciences. But he
overlooks two weighty considerations. First, he fails to observe that
even in the sciences the distinction is neither essential nor definite,
arising entirely from the relativity of knowledge. Truth to a dull
and feeble sense is not truth to one which- is acute and strong ; truth
to sense is not truth to intellect ; every cognition when transcended
and replaced by one more comprehensive and adequate is supposed to
have been reduced from the rank of an expression of reality to that of

Critical Notices, 551

an expression of appearance. It will be observed, however, that here
there need not be merely two, but, may be, an infinite number of stages,
and that the lowest stage of so-called appearance may be as real as that
highest stage which is supposed to be reality merely because it has not
yet been transcended. Again, he fails to recognise that even if the
distinction for which he contends could be traced in the objects of
astronomy, chemistry, biology, &c., it would not follow that it could
be traced in consciously and carefully constructed systems either of
science or of philosophy. Is there a real and an apparent Newton in
the Principia, or a real and an apparent Laplace in the Mecanique
celeste ? If not, how is there a real and an apparent Locke in the Essay
concerning Human Understanding, or a real and an apparent Spinoza
in the Ethica ? The proper comparison is obviously between philosophy
and science as existing in a mind or expounded in a book, not between
philosophy and the objects of science. The transition from things to
thoughts involved in Signor Turbiglio's argument renders it irrelevant
and inconclusive. I do not admit, then, that two philosophies can be
evolved out of one. When Signor Turbiglio attempts to do this, as
in the case of Spinoza, it is by a rearrangement or reconstruction of the
philosopher's thoughts, which seems to me necessarily to alter their
signification. ISTo more was meant than this when I said that he had
" arbitrarily, although most ingeniously, rearranged the thoughts of
Spinoza, and given the words in which Spinoza expressed them a new
meaning in their new connexion". No "grave accusa" or " acerba
censura " was in the least implied, but merely dissent from a method
or principle of retrospective reconstruction. Signor Turbiglio's critical
honesty and conscientiousness are as manifest as his ability.

The rest of the treatise consists of three parts, the first treating of
the genesis of modern philosophy, the second of the pantheistic idea
in the modern age, and the third of the evolution of the moral idea in
Malebranche. Several of the generalisations in them appear to have
been derived from an inadequate survey of the relevant facts, but
every chapter is so full of independent views and so richly suggestive
that justice could be done to the book only by a long review, instead
of a mere notice. The work is one to be cordially recommended.
Its author is a man of genuine talent both as a thinker and a writer.
All who are acquainted with what he has already done will rejoice to
know that he has it in view to publish the results of his studies on the
philosophy of the Renaissance.

E. FLINT.

Die Axiome der Geometric. Eine philosophische Untersuchung zur
Riemann-Helmholtz'schen Raumtheorie. Von Dr. BENNO ERD-
MANN, Privatdocenten der Philosophic an der Universitat zu
Berlin. Leipzig : Voss, 1877.

This is a valuable monograph, intended to reconcile the diverse
opinions touching the philosophical import of the new non-Euclidean
geometry. According to Dr. Erdmann, the axioms of Euclid give

552 Critical Notices.

rise to questions concerning both their systematic connexion and their
origin and meaning. Besides the axioms applicable to quantities of
any sort, there are others stating properties of space. The chief
difficulty was always felt about the eleventh axiom, which, involving
the notion of parallels and the sum of the angles in a triangle, stood
altogether apart, and could neither be dispensed with nor logically
connected with any other fundamental dictum. At last, from the
speculations of Lobatschewsky, Bolyai, and Gauss, it appeared that a
consistent geometrical doctrine may be evolved from an hypothesis in
contradiction with the said axiom ; and soon after, the late Bernhard
Eiemann discussed space in general and showed that those contradic-
tory systems, Euclidean and Imaginary Geometry, are the expressions
of different kinds of space that we may in turn assume as existing.
Continued chiefly by Beltrami and Helmholtz, these researches have
finally led to a comprehensive theory that may be termed Pangeometry,
and is discussed at length in Dr. Erdmann's second chapter (pp. 84-88).
Although admitting that our presentation of space is an intuition
sui generis, the author observes that we have in particular not only
intuitions of lines, triangles, &c., but concepts of such as geometrical
species, and that these may be treated not only as concepts of space
but of quantity, so as to be determinable by algebraic formulas.
JSrow in the same manner we may form a concept of our universal
space as of a quantity : viz., a continuous quantity, of which the
elements are universally determined by three commensurable variables,
and with a constant measure of curvature equal to zero. Generalising
the number of variables into n, and omitting the amount of the
curvature, we obtain a summum genus of spaces with a constant cur-
vature, and hence, by replacing the number three, we come down to
a concept that embraces our own space as well as spherical space with
a positive, and pseudospherical space with a negative, measure of curva-
ture. So Pangeometry branches out into different alternatives, of which
Euclidean geometry is but one, and .by the light of this discovery the
traditional axioms may be reconstructed so as to determine the kind
of space considered in our usual geometry, and provide the elements
for its production. Restoring the intuitional character which we dis-
regarded while treating of space merely as a sort of quantity, our
common space is described as " a threefold extended complexity, con-
gruent in itself and flat (endless)". All this would be perfectly
clear, if we were only taught how to conceive a measure of curvature
without recurring to intuition.

In a third chapter (pp. 89-135) the philosophical consequences of
the new doctrine are discussed. Thinkers now all but universally
admit that our spacial presentation cannot be the simple repetition of
an arrangement of real things that affect our senses. On the other
hand they will be ready to concede that it is dependent not only on
a predisposition or capacity of our mind, but also on the nature of
impressions that prompt the mind to form its presentations. From
the fact of Pangeometry we learn that our mental predisposition in
itself admits of more than one sort of spacial intuition, so that it

Critical Notices. 553

must needs be the impressions that determine the specifically Euclidean
properties of our actual image of the world. So much for empirism
as against nativism in psychology. Turning to the epistemological
question, Dr. Erdmann shows that our presentations may be viewed
either as dependent on or independent of the things represented ; and,
in another respect, either as faithful likenesses of things, or as repro-
ductions only of their form (say, of quantitative relations of space,
time, and law), or else, as mere indications of their presence, that vary
together with the nature of things, while differing from them in nature
altogether. Accordingly, "empirism" may be subdivided into sen-
sualism, formal empirism, and apriorism ; and, on the same principle,
"rationalism" into the doctrine of pre-established Imrmony, formal
rationalism, and absolute rationalism or nativism. It is true that few
historical systems tally exactly with these distinctions. Most of them
offer a compromise between two or more of the typical doctrines,
which it will be well, for clearness' sake, to resolve into its con-
stituents. So much we see already, that the modern geometry is
incompatible with any kind of "rationalism". Choosing between
the possible sorts of " empirism," Riemann and Helmholtz declare for
its formal variety, whereas our author offers his reasons for adopting
what he terms apriorism, though he grants that even sensualism,
" the naive assumption of the unscientific consciousness," is not repu-
diated by the new mathematics.

In the fourth chapter (pp. 136-174) Dr. Erdmann draws up his
conclusions in the regular form of a philosophical theory of geometry.
His readers will find that there are few philosophical treatises,
especially in German, so skilfully arranged and neatly worded as this
little book, to the merits of which it is impossible to do full justice in
a brief notice like the present.* Of course, the author will not expect
to have silenced all opponents. As such we may already point out
A. Weissenborn in Avenarius's Vierteljahrschrift (II., 2 and 3), and
Albrecht Krause in a separate publication, f On his own part, the
present writer may be excused for briefly stating the cardinal doubts
that remain with him unshaken even after both Dr. Erdmann's mono-
graph and Prof. Helmholtz's second paper (in MIND X.).

To borrow the terminology just explained, the characteristic feature
of Kant's space-theory appears to be not " rationalism " but
" apriorism ".J In the third section of his last article, Prof. Helm-

*It is hardly worth while to enumerate oversights. P. 51, in fine, the
words Nenner and Zahler ought to change places ; cf. p. 57. P. 90, 1. 10,
read : der eine jener Fragen. Of material difficulties I mention merely as an
example the "rigorous definition" on p. 155 : " A straight line is one of
which every linear element has zero for its constant measure of curvature ".
Now, a measure of curvature, according to pp. 51 and 57, is conceived by
means of radii, and how to conceive radii except as a kind of straight
lines?

•\Kant und Helmholtz iiber den Ur sprung und die Bedeutung der Eauman-
schauung und der geometrischen Axiome. Lahr : Schauenburg, 1878.

J See, e.g., Kant's Werlce, III., p. 154, Kosenkr : "All knowledge of

554 Critical Notices.

holtz himself shifts his position for a moment from " formal " to
" aprioristic empirism ". That sensual experience is a conditio sine
qua non for the actual occurrence of spacial intuitions, is also a point
of Kantian doctrine.* And Dr. Erdmann adopts Prof. Hemholtz's
statement, f that Kant differs from the true nativists in this respect,
that he only avers space-intuition to be a form of our receptivity,
without assuming particular spacial intuitions as innate. Up to this
point it would seem that we all four agree. Only, the new geometry
(of which Kant had a presentiment as early as 1746, Werke, V., p. 27)
appears to both our Berlin thinkers to open a prospect towards a more
precise distribution of parts between mental constitution and outward
influences, which I must persist in considering as wholly delusive.
Supposing it could be proved, as they contend, that our mind taken by
itself is equally open to the intuitions of all or several of the kinds of
space defined by Pangeometry, then indeed it would follow that our
actual beholding of a world in Euclidean space ought to depend on
something in the impressions that codetermine our consciousness from
without. Bat the difficulty is that the proof we require cannot really
be given. First of all, in this order of investigations we have no right
to appeal to physiological or psychophysical research, however
admirably conducted, because this necessarily proceeds on the
assumption of objective space, and the appeal is of no avail unless
we could consider objective space as equivalent in some sense to
absolutely real space, — which, as involving a begging of the question,
we are not at liberty to do. Speaking critically, as we must do in this
case, a space inhabited by an intelligent being cannot be shown to
have any connexion with a space conceived in that being's mind. So
the one legitimate way open to our speculators is to argue from the
possibility of imagining other relations of space beside those of
Euclid. Against such arguing I need not urge that this possibility is,
even in the case of Prof. Helmholtz, but a very limited one. Even if
fully admitting that the imaginative powers of highly cultivated men
may be expanded so far as to embrace spherical, pseudospherical, and
perhaps other spaces of three dimensions with the same ease as that to
which we are all accustomed, we should be compelled to ask whether
they owed that expansion to an emancipation from the narrowing
influence of constant Euclidean experience, or rather to a more
advanced development from the data of Euclidean experience itself.
There is a vast difference between the notion of what our mind may be

things merely from pure intellect or pure reason is nothing but appearance,
and truth is only in experience ".

* Werke, II., p. 340, Eosenkr : "Space— considered before any things that
determine (fill or limit) it, or rather, which give an empirical intuition in
accordance with its form — is (under the name of absolute space) nothing but
the naked possibility of outward phenomena. . . . The empirical
intuition is^not a compound from phenomena and space (or observation and
empty intuition), . . . but both are combined in one and the same empirical
intuition, as its matter and form respectively."

t Erdmann, p. 105 ; Helmholtz, Handb. der physiol. Optik, p. 441.

Reports. 555

in itself capable to perform, and what it may be trained to achieve
subject to the express condition of beginning with an experience that
provides an Euclidean basis and no other. Anybody studying those
modern mathematical theories — of which I nowise would disparage the
technical importance — will perceive .their continuous generation out of
the old geometry. Indeed it is from Drs. Helmholtz and Erdmann
themselves that we learn to understand them in that light. With the
facts before us, why should we hold Pangeometry to exist by virtue of
our mental nature in spite of habits acquired by impressions from
without, rather than to be a logical outgrowth of Euclidean geometry,
which latter we acknowledge as the joint produce of mind and impres-
sions ? It is true that in the latter case the old question returns,
unsolved as before : How much in our experience is due to the nature
of mind and to solicitations from the outside respectively ? But it may
be better for philosophy to recognise this present state of things than
impatiently to accept from physical science a sort of solvitur amlmlando.

J. P. K LAND.

VII.— KEPOETS.

Consciousness under Chloroform. — Under this title Mr. Spencer has
just added to the Appendix of Vol. I. of the Principle* of Psychology,
the following remarkable record of experience with his observations
on it : —

A University graduate whose studies in Psychology and Philosophy
have made him an observer able to see the meanings of his experiences,
has furnished me with the following account of the feelings and ideas that
arose in him during loss of consciousness and during return to consciousness.
My correspondent, describing himself as extremely susceptible to female
beauty, explains that "the girl" named in the course of the description was
an unknown young lady in a railway carriage which brought him up to
town to the dentist's. He says his system resisted the influence of chloro-
form to such a degree, that it took twenty minutes to produce insensibility :
the result being that for a much longer time than usual he underwent
partial hypersesthesia instead of anaesthesia. After specifying some dread-
ful sensations which soon arose he goes on to say : — " ... I began to
be terrified to such a wonderful extent as I would never before have guessed
possible. I made an involuntary effort to get out of the chair, and then —
suddenly became aware that I was looking at nothing : while taken up by
the confusion in my lungs, the outward things in the room had gone, and I
was ' alone in the dark J. I felt a force on my arm (which did not strike
me as the surgeon's ' hand,' but merely as an external restraint) keeping me
down, and this was the last straw which made me give in, the last definite
thing (smell, sound, sight or touch) I remembered outside my own body.
Instantly I was seized and overwhelmed by the panic inside. I could feel
every air-cell struggling spasmodically against an awful pressure. In their
struggle they seemed to tear away from one another in all directions, and
there was universal racking torture, while meantime the common foe, in
the shape of this iron pressure, kept settling down with more and more
irresistible might into every nook and crevice of the scene. My conscious-
ness was now about this : I was not aware of anything but an isolated

556 Reports.

scene of torture, pervaded by a hitherto unknown sense of terror (and by
what I have since learnt is called ' the unity of consciousness ': this never
deserted the scene, even down to the very last inaudible heart-beat). Yet I
call it a 'scene,' because I recognised some different parts of my body, and
felt that the pain in one part was not the same as that in another. Mean-
while, along with the increased intensity of convulsion in my lungs, an
element of noise had sprung up. A chaotic roaring ran through my brain,
innumerable drums began to beat far inside my ear, till the confusion
presently came to a monstrous thudding, every thud of which wounded
me like a club falling repeatedly on the same spot. . . .

" From this stage my lungs ceased to occupy me, and I forget how the
struggle finished. There was a sense of comparative relief that, at any rate,
one force was victorious, and the distraction over ; the strange large fright
that had seized me so entirely when I felt myself ensnared into dark suffo-
cation was now gone also, and there was only left the huge thudding at my
ears, and the terribly impetuous stroke of my heart. The thudding gradu-
ally got less acutely painful, and less loud ; I remember a recognition of
satisfaction that one more fearful disturbance was gone. But, while the
thunder in my ear was thus growing duller, all of a sudden my heart sprang
out with a more vivid flash of sensation than any of those previous ones.
The force of an express engine was straining there, and like a burning ball
it leapt from side to side, faster and faster, hitting me with such superhuman
earnestness that I felt each time as if the iron had entered my soul, and it
was all over with me for ever. (Not that ' I J was now any more than this
burning hot heart and the walled space in which it was making its strokes :
the rest of ' me ' had gone unobserved out of focus.) Every stroke produced
exquisite pain on the flesh against which it beat glowing, and there was a
radiation, as from a molten lump of metal between enclosures. Presently
the unbearable heat got less, and there was nothing remaining except a
pendulous movement, slackening speed, and not painful. Of nothing
beyond was I conscious but this warm body vibrating : not a single other
part of me was left, and there was not a single other movement of any sort
to attract my attention. A fading sense of infinite leisure at last, in a
dreamy inaudible air ; then all was hushed out of notice.

"... There was the breaking of a silence that might have been
going on for ever in the utterly dark air. An undisturbed empty quiet
was everywhere, except that a stupid presence lay like a heavy intru-
sion somewhere, — a blotch on the calm. This blotch became more
inharmonious, more distinctly leaden ; it was a heavier pressure, — it is
actually intruding further, — and before almost there* was time to wonder
feebly how disagreeable was this interruption of untroubled quiet, it
had loomed out as something unspeakably cruel and woeful. For a
bit there was nothing more than this profoundly cruel presence, and
my recognition* of it. It seemed unutterably monstrous in its nature,
and I felt it like some superhuman injustice; but so entire had been
the still rest all round before its shadow troubled me, that I had no
notion of making the faintest remonstrance. ... It got worse.
. . . Just as the cruelty and injustice became so unbearable that I hardly
could take it in, suddenly it came out a massive, pulsating pain, and I was
all over one tender wound, with this dense pain probing me to my deepest
depths. I felt one sympathetic body of atoms, and at each probe of the
pain every single atom was forced by a tremendous pressure into all the
rest, while everyone of them was acutely tender, and shrank from the
wound — only there was nowhere to shrink. A little before, I had merely

* If there were a noun belonging to the verb ' to be aware of ' like Recog-
nition ' to ' recognise, ' it would be the one to use here.

Reports. 557

felt the cruel element, in helpless passivity ; now, a still more crushing probe
came ; for an instant it forced all my atoms into one solid steel-mass of
intense agony — then, when things couldn't go much further, and all must
be over, a sense of reaction emerged ; there was a loosening, and I was
urged into relief by uttering from my very depths, what seemed not so
much (at first) a piteous remonstrance as a piteous * expression ' (like an
imitation) of the pain : in fact, the sense of woe had got also outside, and I
heard it, a very low, infinitely genuine, moan. . . . The next second
there was a change : hitherto it had been pain partout — now there came a
quick concentration, the pain all ran together (like quicksilver), and I
suddenly was aware that it was (localised) up on the right ; while simul-
taneously with this recognition of locality, a feeling of incipent resistance
began to be in other parts (not that I felt them except just as other parts) of
me from which the pain had receded. The pain itself was no less intense,
rather more vivid, only I seemed to take it in a more lively manner : my
uttering of a moan was no longer a mere faithful representation out into
the air of what was inside me, but I had a slight sense of making an appeal,
for sympathy : to whom or to what I did not know, for there was no one
or anything there. I was just going to utter a yet louder moan — as a fresh
fearful imposition of force plunged into me — when, there in front of me,
to the left of my pain, was that girl, with those lovely ankles, and the
graceful Zingari brown stockings. ... I felt, as distinctly as if some
had told me aloud, that I would not make any cry, that it was not the
thing.

" Now came an agonizing cold wrench, and two or three more successively,
in such a hideously rough fashion, that the girl went, and everything was
tortured out of me but the darkness and the gigantic racking swaying
torture which was excruciating my right side. An iron force like a million-
horsepower had hold of me, and I was being pulled" upwards and out of
where I was, while I myself seemed another million-horsepower which
would not be pulled : the pain was something to be remembered. But up
I came, the darkness got denser (I went so fast) ; it was vibrating, the dense
agony vibrated faster ; I was quivering, struggling, kicking out ; everything
was a convulsion of torture, my head seemed to come to the surface, a glimpse
of light and air broke on the darkness, voices came through to me, and
words ; I recognised that a ' tooth ' was being slowly twisted out of my jaw,
then I groaned imploringly, in true earthly style, as if this was too much,
and I ought to be let alone now I was getting my '. head ' out ; then I
swallowed in air, made an exertion with my ' chest ' found my ' arms ' were
pressing something hard, grasped the ' chair ' and pushed myself up out in
bewildered light, just as the dentist threw away the second right molar
from the upper jaw."

Concerning this account it may be remarked, on the one hand, that the
higher consciousness seems not to have been wholly abolished ; since there
remained certain emotions and certain most general ideas of relation to
objective agents. ' On the other hand it is to be doubted whether the partial
consciousness which the narrator had during anaesthesia, is not, in the de-
scription, eked out in some measure by the ideas of his recovered consciousness
carried back to them. Be this as it may, however, it is clear that certain
components of consciousness disappeared and others became extremely
vague, while a remainder continued tolerably distinct. And there is much
significance in the relations among them : — 1. There ceased earliest the
sensations derived from the special senses ; then the impression of force
acting on the body from without ; and, simultaneously, there ceased the
consciousness of external space-relations. 2. There remained a vague,
sense of relative position within the body ; which, gradually fading, left at

558 Reports.

last only a sense of those space-relations implied by consciousness of the
heart's pulsations. 3. And this cluster of related sensations produced by
the heart's action, finally constituted the only remaining distinct portion of
the Ego. 4. In the returning consciousness we note first a sense of pressure
somewhere: there was no consciousness of space-relations within the body.
5. The consciousness of this was not a cognition proper. In an accom-
panying letter my correspondent says of it: — " 'Recognition' seems to imply
installation in some previously-formed concept (talking in the Kantian
way), and this is just what was not the case : " that is, consciousness was
reduced to a state in which there was not that classing of states which
constitutes thought. 6. The pain into which the pressure was transformed
was similarly universal instead of local. 7. When the pain became localised
its position in space was vague : it was " up on the right ". 8. Concerning
the apparition of "the girl," which, as my correspondent remarks, seems
to have occurred somewhat out of the probable order, he says in a letter :
— ' ' I did not recognise her ' under any concept ' — what I saw seemed to be
almost unassisted intuition in the Kantian sense." 9. The localisation of
the pain was at first the least possible — the consciousness was of that part
versus all other parts unlocalised.

These experiences furnish remarkable verifications of certain doctrines set
forth in the Principles of Psychology. This degradation of consciousness by
chloroform, abolishing first the higher faculties and descending gradually to
the lowest, may be considered as reversing that ascending genesis of conscious-
ness which has taken place in the course of evolution ; and the stages of
descent may be taken as showing, in opposite order, the stages of ascent. It
is significant, therefore, that impressions from the special senses, ceasing early,
leave behind, as the last impression derived from without, the sense of outer
force conceived as opposed by inner resistance ; for this we saw to be the
primordial element of consciousness. (§ 347.) Again, the fact that the
consciousness of external space disappeared simultaneously with the con-
sciousness of external force, answers to the conclusion drawn that space-
ideas are built out of experiences of resistant positions, the relations among
which are measured by sensations of muscular effort. (§§ 343, 348.)
Further there is meaning in the fact that a vague sense of relative position
within the body survived ; since we concluded that by mutual exploration
there is gained that knowledge of the relations among the parts of the
body, which gives measures through which the developed knowledge of
surrounding space is reached. (§§ 344, 345.) Once more we get evidence
that the Ego admits of being progressively shorn of its higher components,
until, finally, the sensations produced by the beating of the heart, remain
alone to constitute the conscious self : showing in the first place, that the
conscious self at any moment is really compounded of all the states of con-
sciousness, presentative and representative, then existing (§ 219), and
showing, in the second place, that it admits of being simplified so far as to
lose most of the elements composing the consciousness of corporeal existence.
Whence it is inferable that self-consciousness begins as a mere rudiment con-
sisting of present sensations, without past or future. Lastly, we have the strik-
ing testimony that there exists a form of consciousness lower than that which
the lowest kind of thought shows us. The simplest intellectual act implies
the knowing something as such or such — implies the consciousness of It as
like something previously experienced, or, otherwise, as belonging to a
certain class of experiences. But we here get evidence of a stage so low that
a received impression remains in consciousness unclassed : there is a passive
reception of it, and an absence of the activity required to know it as such
or such.

Beports. 559

The Semicircular Canals and the " Sense of Space ". — M. Elie de
Cyon, who in 1873 published in Pfliiger's Archiv an important
research into the functions of the semicircular canals, has since then
continued his investigations, and arrived at new or more developed
results which he has recently set forth, first in the Comptes Rendus
(1877), and more fully in a graduation-thesis presented to the Paris
Faculty of Medicine (Recherches experimentales sur les fonctions des
canaux semi-circulaires et sur leurrole dans la formation de la notion
de I'espace, 1878).

His earlier results were, shortly, these : —

(1) Through the semicircular canals we obtain a series of uncon-
scious sensations bearing on the position of the head in space.

(2) Each canal has a strictly determinate relation to one of the
dimensions of space.

(3) The loss of equilibrium and other disorders of movement
observed upon section of the canals are due to disturbance of the
normal sensations of which they are the organ.

These results were opposed to the views of earlier observers, more
especially of Flourens, who led the way in 1828 by declaring the canals
to have a moderating function in regard to the co-ordination of
movements effected by the cerebellum, and of Goltz, who in 1868
( Pfliiger's Archiv III.) pronounced the canals to be themselves the
organs of equilibrium and of the co-ordination of movements. Cyon's
other researches had led him wholly to disbelieve in the existence of any
special organ of co-ordination for all the movements of the body, and
he could only judge (so far agreeing with Goltz) that in point of fact
the preservation of the bodily equilibrium did depend on the
maintenance of the head's position, since the marked disorder wrought in
the latter by section of the canals was found to affect the former so
seriously. The positive feature of Cyon's view of the canals was the
relation he sought (as far as he then could) to establish between the
apprehension of space in three dimensions and the reception of
(unconscious) impressions from the three canals in their different
planes.

As to the precise conditions under which the impressions were
received, he then, in his published memoir, hazarded no opinion,
though Goltz had asserted as part of his theory that the (co-ordinating)
function of the canals was called into play by the pressure of the
endolymph on the ampullae as it varied with the movements of the
head. But later investigators — Mach, Crum Brown, and Breuer —
having meanwhile connected this supposition of Goltz's with a new
theory of the canals, namely, that they are the organs of the sense of
accelerated movement and rotation, it was in this special regard that
Cyon was moved to resume and carry further the whole investigation.

He now finds, by a most varied series of experiments, a complete
confirmation of the opinion he had originally, in 1873, been driven to
entertain but refrained from expressing — that the cause of the
excitation of the canals is not to be sought, with Goltz, in varying
pressure of the endolymph; also, that the supposition is equally

560 Reports.

inadmissible in any of its modified forms as adopted by Mach and the
others. The theory these put forward as to the function of the canals
must also be rejected, on a variety of grounds. Thus it is found that
vertigo continues to be produced by rotation after section of the nerve
going to the canals. Again (Cyon urges), the canals are equally
developed in animals, like frogs, that do not naturally rotate the head,
and cannot therefore be supposed to have any special connexion with
this kind of movement ; while neither can a sense of acceleration be
allowed, as the theory requires, to the exclusion of a sense of speed,
nor, involving, as it obviously does, a number of conscious factors, can
it be thought of as seated in the canals which themselves give rise to
no conscious sensation.

Reverting, therefore, to his original view, Cyon finds, by a new
series of experiments on pigeons (extending, as his earlier ones did
not, to the superior vertical canal), that section of any two symmetrical
canals excites oscillations of the head in the plane of the said canals,
and this he lays down as an absolute law admitting of no exception.
The movements of the body, in the like circumstances, are less easy to
analyse, but have, speaking generally, the same direction as those of
the head. Destruction of the whole six (membranous) canals with
their ampullae, when successfully performed, leaves the pigeon, after a
time of indescribable motor disturbance, in the state as of one that has
to learn to move, to stand upright, &c. : gradually it acquires a certain
power of standing and \valking, if it has the use of its eyes, but it can
never again fly. Unilateral section is attended in general only with a
passing disturbance, even when it extends to all three canals ; but the
operation discloses — what Cyon (previously following Goltz) had not
before observed — disorder of bodily equilibrium apart from any change
in the head's attitude.

So much for pigeons. Experiments on rabbits, while yielding
similar results with minor differences, reveal a new fact to which
Cyon attaches special significance, namely, ocular movements apart
from movements of the head, while varying, like the others, in
direction according to the different canals excited. Cyon had always
surmised that there must be a connexion between the canals and the
oculo-motor centres, considering the importance of the part played in
the perception of space by " the unconscious sensations arising from
the ocular muscles themselves or their centre of innervation ". Now
that every excitation of the canals, however small, is actually found to
produce contractions and innervations in the ocular muscles, he regards
it as- incontestable that the nerve-centres for the canals are in intimate
physiological relation with the oculo-motor centre, and consequently
that the excitation of the canals enters into the determination of our
space-notions. This, accordingly, is his formal conclusion : —

" The semicircular canals are the peripheral organs of the sense of
space ; that is to say, the sensations excited through the nerve endings
in the ampullae of the canals serve to form our notions of the three
dimension of space — the sensations of each canal corresponding with
one of the dimensions. By means of these sensations there is formed

Reports. 561

in our brain the representation of an ideal space, to which are referred
all the perceptions of our other senses concerning the disposition of
objects around us and the position of our body among these objects."

Cyon proceeds next to explain and justify this position in relation
to the current theories of space-perception, leaving over, however, for
separate treatment its more purely philosophical implications. Taking
Helmholtz and Hering as representatives of the empiristic and of the
nativistic theories, respectively, in their most developed form, he
agrees with Helmholtz in rejecting Bering's view that every optical
sensation, at any point of the retina, has bound up with it a definite
spacial reference ; but, while admitting that the empiristic theory
accords altogether better with accepted physiological notions and with
observed facts, he does not see, any more than Lotze (whom he
quotes at length), how it can account for a representation of space in
three dimensions from sensations of muscular innervation, with or
without the association of ' local signs '. Instead, however, of there-
fore declaring the problem insoluble by physiological psychology and
falling back upon a native mental faculty or tendency to perceive
impressions under the form of space, as Lotze does, Cyon maintains
that all the difficulties disappear if only it is admitted that we possess an
organ " specially destined to furnish us with the sensations that serve
to form the notion of a space in three dimensions," like the
semicircular canals. The disposition of the nerves in the canals being
in three planes perpendicular to one another — planes that in all
vertebrates correspond, he says, exactly with the three co-ordinates of
space — we can very well, Cyon thinks, understand how the " uncon-
scious sensations of extension" that we get differently from each
canal, " may be used by our intelligence for the construction of a notion
of space " ; and he would even maintain that " no other sense presents
so intelligible a relation between representation and sensation as does
the sense of space," upon this view of it. So extended, the empiristic
theory becomes perfectly satisfactory. The sensations of muscular
innervation, aided by ' local signs,' which that theory puts forward,
have a real significance when space itself in three dimensions is proved
to be an independent " acquisition of our intelligence due to the special
sensations of a peripheral organ, just as the notions of colours, sounds,
&c., are ". And " this ideal space of three dimensions, the notion of
which is formed by means of the sensations received from the three
canals, serves of course equally well for determining the relation of
objects in the external world by touch " or by whatever other senses,
as some think, may be called into play for the purpose.*

In the remaining sections of his dissertation Cyon first sets himself
to explain the phenomena of visual vertigo, produced by sudden
stoppage of rotation round the longitudinal axis of the body ;
describing the state as one in which " the whole of space seems to us

* Cyon also makes the remark, which doubtless he intends to follow out
when drawing his promised philosophical conclusions, that his view explains
the tridimensional character of Euclidean space ; the geometrical axioms
being imposed by the limits of our sense-organs.

39

562 Reports.

to turn within another imaginary space, in a direction opposite to that
of the movement of our body ". He rejects as insufficient the common
view — which makes this vertigo dependent on movements of the
eyeballs, causing us, in the absence of the normal sensations of innerva-
tion, to ascribe the movement of the retinal images to a movement of
the external objects themselves ; and would account for this and all
other illusions of movement by disharmony between our perceptions at
the time and our standing representation of ideal space obtained, as
above, through the semicircular canals. The demeanour of animals
whose canals have been operated on has all the appearance of being due
to vertigo — a vertigo that must, he says, be ascribed to the disordered
" sensations of space," whether or not accompanied b}T oscillations of
eyes and head intensifying it. As for these muscular accompaniments,
Cyon now believes he is in a position to say generally not only that
they are secondary but that their diversity in different classes of
animals depends on what the muscles are that are habitually employed
by the animal for orientation in space. Thus while in pigeons, with
excessively mobile heads, the disordered motion following upon the
operation appears chiefly in the head-muscles, in rabbits it is the
highly developed oculo-motor apparatus, and in frogs (with almost
immobile head) it is the muscles of the body that are most affected by
destruction of the canals. Altogether the results of lesions of the
canals, from this point of view, may be thus summarised : (1) Visual
vertigo produced by disharmony between space as seen and the ideal
space; (2) False notions thence resulting as to the position of the body
in space ; (3) Disorder in the distribution of the force of innervation to
the muscles.

What now may be supposed the normal excitant of the nerves in the
canals, resulting in the sensations that serve thus for the construction
of space? Though the hypothesis of Goltz and Mach — as to varying
pressure of the endolymph upon the ampullae with movements of the
head — must be rejected, Cyon thinks the nerve-endings in the ampullae
and canals are sufficiently exposed otherwise to mechanical stimulation.
The otoliths, found not only in the saccules but also in the ampullae
and the canals themselves, are liable to vibrate with every movement,
active or passive, of the head ; and, besides, the numerous epithelial
cells in the canals, so strangely formed and disposed in relation to the
nerve-ends, may very well be a means of exciting the nerve-fibres
that oscillate in the liquid. Nor need the excitations be only through
motions of the head : the air-waves, both when sonorous and not, may
also be efficient (in which connexion the faculty of recognising the
direction of sound, so highly developed in savages and some animals,
may be called to mind).

The sensations themselves that arise, continues Cyon, being
unconscious, as the sensations of innervation also are, their character
cannot be very particularly described. But, he urges, if it be
remembered that sensations never are anything more for our intelligence
than distinct signs whereby we form our representations, on the one
hand it is not at all necessary for the formation of our notions of space

Reports. 563

that the sensations excited through the canals should contain in their
nature " the idea of an extension " ; while yet, on the other hand, the
anatomical disposition of the nerves here, in three planes perpendicular
to one another, gives a quite exceptional "facility of deducing the
formation of the representation from the nature of the sensations ".

Belonging to the eighth pair-, with the nerve of hearing that goes
to the cochlea, the nerve of the canals is commonly also called auditory ;
but there is no longer any excuse for this confusion. The destruction
of the canals does not destroy hearing ; and while in the lower grades
of animal life, where the cochlea first disappears, the faculty of hearing
seems to disappear also, the more indispensable power of orientation in
space remains in connexion with the canals and saccules that persist
still. There should, therefore, be distinguished from the nerve of
hearing in the eighth pair (which has besides, in fact, two origins) the
" nerve of space " — " serving for the orientation of the body in space in
animals, as in man for the formation of the notion of space ".

The foregoing summary of the main points in Cyon's important
dissertation should suffice to show that psychologists can no longer
afford to neglect, as they have mostly done hitherto, the series of
physiological inquiries into the functions of the semicircular canals, of
which his is but the latest and most thorough. If there is any meaning
in the psychologist's reference to organic conditions, it is impossible, in
the face of the facts noted above, not to allow that in the semicircular
canals we have to do with organs of great importance for the
psychophysical theory of objective perception. In saying this,
however, one may well refuse to fall in straightway with Cyon's
particular interpretation of the facts. Saying nothing of difficulties in
the facts themselves, which Cyon skims over with a strange unconcern
— as when he assumes that the symmetrical pairs of vertical canals
have common planes — what is to be made of his space-sensations that
are unconscious but yet discriminable 1 And how concede the
absolute analogy he would establish between space and any other
sensible experience 1 To say, as he does, that the unconscious
character of the canal-sensations is no greater difficulty than in the case
of the feelings of muscular innervation will not avail him, because
those who attach real importance to these in the development of our
space-perceptions hold them to be conscious states as much as any
passive sensations ; while, as for the other point, his own assertions
may be turned against his view that space is just such another sensible
experience as sound or colour. Though he sometimes speaks of space
as a simple datum in consciousness on occasion of the stimulation of
the canals, its organ, his common expression is the much more careful
one— that the canals yield directly only those (unconscious) sensations
out of which, as signs, the notion of space is formed. But here,
surely, is a great difference. When colour or sound is referred to a
physical organ, the meaning is that upon occasion of that organ being
stimulated there does, in point of fact, arise in consciousness a feeling
of a certain definite quality ; and though we may speak of a " notion

564 Notes and Discussions.

of colour" as becoming "formed," this is only as a generalised
expression of the variety of colours immediately perceived — not as if
the experience of colour itself were a mental construction out of simple
and different elements of experience. So much, however, is this the
case with space, upon Cyon's view, that he holds it quite unnecessary,
for the due and normal formation of the "notion" out of the
" sensations," that the nature of these should contain at all " I'idee
d' etendiie ". Be it so : but then the difference between our experience
of space and the passive sensations stands plainly confessed. And
there is another objection with which Cyon must reckon. Why, if,
as he allows, it is possible to form a notion of space out of elements
not containing in themselves "the idea of extension," should it be
impossible, as the empirists hold, to construct the notion out of feelings
of innervation, &c. 1 The whole point of his case against them lies in
the disparateness between the elements they assign and the result they
profess to attain. But his elements are disparate too. Either,
therefore, the empiristic position is not so untenable as he represents
it, or it is made no whit stronger by the addition of any such
" space-sensations " as he assumes by way of the semicircular canals.,
and there is no alternative but, with Lotze, to declare the problem
insoluble in terms of experience. This, an opponent might say, is
what Cyon in the end practically does — after all the trouble he has
taken to establish his new and all-important empirical factor.

EDITOR.

VIII.— NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

Logic and the Elements of Geometry. — Dr. Hirst, on retiring lately
from the presidency of the Association for the Improvement of
Geometrical Teaching, has taken notice of some observations made
by me, in the first number of this journal, with reference to the
Logical Introduction to the Syllabus of Plane Geometry issued by
the Association in 1875. As it is very important that logical theorists
on the one hand and scientific workers or teachers on the other
should lose no opportunity of mutual understanding, Dr. Hirst's
remarks are (with his permission) here reproduced from the Associa-
tion's Report for this year, and some words of explanation are
appended in reply. Dr. Hirst says : —

" The Editor of MIND, after drawing attention to the diversity of
meaning attached by geometers on the one hand, and pure logicians
on the other, to the words ' converse ' and ' obverse,' concedes that
these terms are so appropriate for his purpose that the geometer is
fairly entitled to appropriate them in his own sense. Immediately
afterwards, however, he protests against what he considers to be an
error on our part, but what in reality is no error at all, but a necessary
sequel of the concession he has just made. With regard to the two

Notes and Discussions. 56£>

propositions which stand first in our Logical Introduction — the typical
forms of which, if you remember, are —

(1) If A be B, then C is D.

(2) If C be not D, then A is not R

he deems it inaccurate to say, as we do, that they are contrapositive
each of the other. He admits that the second is contrapositive to the
first, but denies that the first is contrapositive to the second, and this
because the process of contraposition is, to him, obversion followed
by conversion, and not conversion followed by obversion. He
overlooks the fact, however, that these processes of obversion and
conversion, as understood by the geometer, may be applied in either
one or the other order, successively, without at all altering the final
result ; so that if once the propriety of terming the second of these
propositions the contrapositive of the first be conceded, it can no
longer be contested that the first must also be termed, by the geometer,
the contrapositive of the second. Of course, it is admitted, on both
hands, that these two propositions are logically equivalent, and
therefore it might, at first sight, appear that the question at issue is
merely one of terminology. This is, however, by no means the case.
In fact, the writer himself admits that ' this is no mere question of
naming,' and he justly observes that ' if it is important for learners to
distinguish between a geometrical process and one purely logical, as the
placing of this Logical Introduction at the head of the Syllabus implies
that it is, there can be no controversy as to the necessity of exactly
determining the character of the logical processes involved'. On
this point I can only say that it was unquestionably cur intention that
the teacher should supply the determination here desiderated. It was
not thought consistent with our purpose, however, to introduce these
explanations into the Syllabus, and I, for my part, regret that such
was the case, since our omission has led to misapprehensions of a still
graver character than the one I have now alluded to. I was hardly
prepared to find that, ' in default of special instructions,' even an
accomplished logician finds himself unable ' to draw from the
examples of contraposition signalised throughout the Syllabus, a
consistent notion of the process,' and I was still less prepared for
the authoritative declaration that ' it is impossible to frame any
notion of the process of contraposition which shall apply, as required
in the Syllabus, equally to affirmative and negative propositions '.
Let us see if the geometer's notion of contraposition — for a notion
he certainly has— is really so restricted. He first of all distinguishes
carefully between the two parts or statements involved in every
theorem ; the truth of one of these — the predicate — is asserted to be a
consequence of the truth of the other — the hypothesis. Now to
each of these two statements, no matter whether it be of an affirmative
or negative character, there is a distinct opposite, by which I mean a
statement which directly contradicts the original. This granted, the
process of contraposition may be said to consist, simply, in the formation
of a new theorem whose hypothesis shall be the opposite of the
predicate of the original, and whose predicate shall be the opposite of

566 Notes and Discussions.

the former hypothesis. From this it will be seen that the process is
not affected in the least by the affirmative or negative character of
either the hypothesis or predicate. It is further obvious that the
process of contraposition, thus denned, is a composite one. It consists,
in fact, of the interchange of hypothesis and predicate, which is
conversion, accompanied by the denial of hypothesis and predicate,
which in itself constitutes obversion. And it is moreover evident,
lastly, from what has been explained, that it is a matter of perfect
indifference which of the two last-named, successive processes we first
apply ; so that if of two theorems one is the contrapositive of the other,
then from our point of view, necessarily, the first is also the contra-
positive of the second ; in other words, the relation we characterise by
the term contrapositive is a perfectly reciprocal one."

Thus far Dr. Hirst. In reply, I may perhaps be allowed to
remind those who take an interest in this subject that the point
of my observations was to urge the advantage and even necessity of
extending the reference so laudably made in the Syllabus to the
processes of logical transformation of propositions. The occasion
was of this kind. While some steps are marked off in the Syllabus
as purely logical and are called by their recognised names, certain
other processes of an extra-logical character are called by the name
of the logical processes to whose type they may be said to approach.
Thus the purely logical process in passing from (1) to (2) above is
called, as logicians now call it, Contraposition, but the logicians' word
Conversion is employed to mark such a step as that from If A is B,
C is D to If C is D, A is B, which is not good in logic. Now, as
explained in my original Note and here repeated by Dr. Hirst, I did
not complain of this ; and indeed it was I that recommended to the
Association the use of the logical word ' obverse ' (for what in the
previous modern books was very perversely called ' opposite ') in a like
transitive application. But then it clearly becomes very important
that there should be no confusion between the original and derived
use of the words, and I did not see how this could be avoided except
by a more explicit statement of the fundamental logical processes
than the SylldbiLs offered.

How real the danger is, Dr. Hirst must pardon me for thinking
that his own remarks now show. When I say that Contraposition
involves first Obversion and then Conversion, he, having occasion to
use these latter words, as a geometer, in the extra-logical sense, sup-
poses that I must mean them thus here, and blames me for not seeing
that the geometer may apply the processes indifferently in any order.
But if Contraposition is, as all allow, itself a purely logical trans-
formation, there can be no question of resolving it into anything but
logical Obversion and Conversion ; nor can the fact that the geometer
may equally well begin with either of his steps first, in any way affect
my logical statement. I deny, of course, that the logical process of
Contraposition consists of the two extra-logical processes in any order.
If (1) is 'obverted' into If A is not B, C is not D, no doubt this
being logically converted becomes (2); but, as is very properly re-

Notes and Discussions. 567

marked in the Syllabus, the first step is not warranted in logic, and
it surely cannot be assumed in order to arrive at the legitimate contra-
positive. If, on the other hand, we begin by 'converting' (1) into
If 0 is D, A is B, here no doubt, with the help of the original
proposition, we are entitled to pass to the so-called ' obverse ' If C is
not: D, A is not 13, but the extra-logical ' conversion ' was illogical.
Either way, then, it is no true account of Contraposition to say that
it consists of Obversion and Conversion in the extra-logical sense
given to them by the geometer. Contraposition can be understood
as involving Obversion and Conversion only in the strict logical sense ;
and in this sense the question of order is not indifferent. You can
get (2) from (1) logically only by Obversion followed by Conversion;
you can get (1) from (2) logically only by Conversion followed by
Obversiou. If in either case the order of procedure is reversed, the
result would be quite different, Now, if there happen to be reasons
for calling by the name of Contraposition that order of procedure in
which Obversion is taken first, the name cannot without confusion be
applied to the reverse order which yields a quite different result ; and
this is what I maintained when I denied that the passage back from
(2) to (1) is properly to be described as Contraposition, and declared it
impossible to frame any notion of the process that shall apply equally
to affirmative and negative propositions. Dr. Hirst, indeed, gives us, in
ether language, a view of Contraposition that seems to apply generally ;
but, however it may meet the practical requirements of the geometer,
it only discloses anew the logical difficulty. When he divides a
theorem into the two parts which geometers (again making perverse
use of logical language) call hypothesis and predicate, and tells us to
substitute the ' opposite ' of each for the other in Contraposition, how
is it known that this is an admissible substitution 1 The geometer will
not be able to reply without entering into precisely those elementary
logical considerations which it was my plea to have explicitly set
out at the beginning of a geometrical course.

The particular point at issue — whether the passage from (2) to (1)
above may equally well with the passage from (1) to (2) be described as
Contraposition — is settled for the logician (to whom the question be-
longs) by a reference to the origin of the process so named. Contra-
position arose out of Conversion. While the typical propositions A, E, I
might all be converted in one way or another, the particular negative O
— Some S is not P — proved inconvertible. Was there then no way of
making the subject S stand as predicate t Yes : by obverting the
proposition into what used to be called its ' equipollent ' Some S is
not-P, this could be converted (as /) into Some not-P is S; and the
process was called Conversion by Negation or Contraposition, also in
course of time simply Contraposition. No sooner, however, was it
recognised, than the question must arise whether it was applicable to
0 only. It could not, indeed, be applied to /, because / being
obverted into 0 could not then be converted ; but it could be applied
to A and E. Only, whereas in Conversion A suffered (being degraded
from All S is P into Some P is S) but E retained its universality

568 Notes and Discussions.

(No S is P becoming No P is S), — in Contraposition, on the other
hand, while A retained its universality (All S is P becoming No not-P
is S), E suffered (being degraded from No S is P into Some not-P
is S). Now, upon this showing, it is quite clear, as I argued originally,
that theorem (2) above, corresponding as it does with the categorical
E, cannot by this way of Contraposition be brought to (1). It can be
brought to (1) only by being first converted and then ob verted — a
perfectly valid logical transformation, but not Contraposition. When
contraposed, (2) becomes the very different proposition In some case
when A is not B, C is not D. In short, (1) and (2) cannot be called
mutually contrapositive except by a new definition of Contraposition,
which shall make it cover Obverted Conversion as well as Converted
Obversion. Is such a definition possible 1 Of course, it is possible —
at the expense of logical usage : when I declared it impossible, it was
on the supposition that logical usage should be maintained. Is it
advisable as well as possible — advisable, that is to say, for the practical
purposes of the geometer ? I care not even if this should be asserted,
because I am sure that the definition cannot be satisfactorily given
except as based upon such an explicit reference to the fundamental
processes as would satisfy any logician — when the whole business,
indeed, becomes "a mere question of naming".

I end with one more remark, already thrown out in MIND III.,
p. 425, but which, in view of these misunderstandings, I would now
accentuate. It is that geometers should abandon the use of the
logical terms converse and obverse for extra-logical relations. The
terms inverse and reciprocal, used by M. Delboeuf in his Prolegomenes
philosophiques de la Geometrie (Liege, 1860), p. 88, are equally sig-
nificant, while they lead to no confusion with the purely logical
processes that should be familiar to every scientific reasoner — Obver-
sion and Conversion as well as Contraposition. EDITOR.

Hegelianism and Psychology. — Some books that have lately
appeared in Germany — Prof. C. Hermann's Der Gegevsatz des
Classischen u. Romantischen in der neuern Pliilo^ophie (1877), Hegel
u. die logische Frage in der Gegenwart (1878), and Dr. G. Biedermann's
Philosophic aJs Begriffswissenschaft, Th. I. (1878)— are remarkable
as indicating a revival of interest in a view of philosophy which has
been, so far as the public is concerned, extinct there for at least a
quarter of a century. Prof. Hermann and Dr. Biedermann both
accept the fundamental positions of Hegelianism, while they differ
from Hegel, and from each other, in their views of the dialectical
method which springs from these positions. How far they are
right or wrong in their criticisms on this head, we will not here
inquire ; but there is some interest in the view taken by both of the
significance of the system in its relation to Kant and to empirical
psychology.

Hume's method was substantially the one which is common to all
empirical science. Mind and externality, wrhich, taken per se, are
mere abstractions, are for him (to use Berkeleian language) phases of

Notes and Discussions. 569

that percipi which is their esse, and his method of investigating
knowledge is to treat it as itself an object of knowledge, as something
given, and, in a sense, external to the mind which is observing it. To
this procedure Kant took exception, on the ground that it was
incapable, from its very nature, of returning an answer to the question,
How is knowledge itself constituted 1 It is probably true that Kant
was justified in his objection, in so far as he meant that Hume's
method, in making the act of knowing itself an object of knowledge,
could never comprehend it as the active synthesis, in which, according
to the former, all existence finds its ultimate meaning and constitution.
When we make the act of knowing itself an object of knowledge, we
do not observe it in the aspect in which it is the esse of existence, but
we at once come under the necessary condition of all experience, the
separation of the known object from the knowing subject as distinct
from and independent of it. And if Hume ever intended to transcend
this separation he certainly failed. Kant, accordingly, seeing that
ordinary psychology could never throw7 any light upon the relation of
subject and object, and finding, as he thought, a certain universality
and necessity in mathematical and causal judgments, which was
inexplicable from mere experience, laid hold of these as points from
which the metempirical conditions and elements of knowledge could
be inferred, and through this method arrived at the conclusion that
knowledge or experience (Berkeley's pericipi in its widest sense) was
constituted by the logical determination of the vague manifold of
sensations in certain definite and primary syntheses of pure thought,
in time and space, the two a priori forms of sensibility. There can be
no doubt that, although Kant professed to arrive at this conclusion
strictly by means of his critical method, he really did so by the help
of the old psychological procedure, and the confusion arising from this
fact was intensified by the vague meaning of the two words
'universality' and 'necessity', Kant might just as well, so far as
metaphysical results were concerned, have started from any other point
in experience (e.g., the conception of quality), but he was led specially
to the consideration of mathematical and causal relations by Hume,
and his critical method consequently retained (as indeed from its
nature it was bound to do) a decidedly psychological character and
tendency.

Hegel, having had this brought under his notice by the immediate
successors of Kant, and particularly by Schultze, Maimon, and Fichte,
seems to have set his mind towards getting entirely rid of the
psychological character of Kant's system, and accordingly he denied in
toto the possibility of ascertaining the metempirical constitution of
knowledge by inferring the conditions of its possibility from the facts
of experience. Seeing that the g«as/-separation made by Kant
between the faculties was only possible so long as they were conceived
as, in some sense, objects of experience (i.e., known in time), Hegel
adopted the only method left open to him, in treating the categories,
the forms of sensibility (time and space) and, in fine, the whole of the
constituent factors of knowledge, as logically reducible to intelligible

570 Notes and Discussions.

relations, contained in and forming a dialectical chain, each link of
which presupposed, and, at the same time, was presupposed by, every
other, — a doctrine suggested to him, no doubt, by the Aristotelian
theory of the active reason. Starting with the most empty category,
that of being, he shows that it is meaningless except as, by dialectical
implication, involving and involved by every higher category ; and
this, it may be remarked, is really the only sense in which Hegel can
be said to have propounded a doctrine of evolution.

Kant had thought it necessary to reserve a vague manifold of
sensation, which the intelligible syntheses of pure thought might
qualify and so give meaning to, but Hegel, considering that this
reservation arose from the fact that Kant had never got away from the
psychological standpoint, declared that that vague manifold had no
meaning or existence except as constituted by intelligible relations, and
that the reason of the impossibility of clearly tracing out the categories
in nature was that the position of the categories of nature, in the
dialectical development of the notion, was that of the contingent or
dialectical correlative of the abstract relations of logic, the categories
of spirit dialectically combining the two, just as becoming combines
being and not-being. Space and time, the ground-relations of nature,
imply an externality which makes it impossible to do more than
trace in a shadowy form their dialectical relation among the categories
of nature.

Hegel's philosophy is thus a theory of perception in which there is
no other element but mind, and in which that word means, not, as
with Kant, individual intelligence, but absolute intelligence, which
realises itself in and constitutes the individual. Things-in-them selves
are of course meaningless abstractions for a system in which knowledge
is the ultimate reality, embracing existence within itself. The
individual is a moment in its dialectical development, and is
characterised by the distinction between subject and object, the mark
of its finiteness. But, at the same time, in individual knowledge the
absolute mind reaches self-consciousness.

These are the principles which Prof. Hermann and Dr. Biedermann in
the main accept, although they differ from them in the schemes of
their dialectical methods. Strange as they appear, they are really,
when carefully assimilated, intelligible and complete as a system of
metaphysics, but what they fail to afford is a solution of those great
problems of empirical psychology out of which all philosophy really
takes its rise. Kant met Hume upon psychological ground in the
case of questions arising within the sphere of experience, and his
philosophy is therefore of great psychological interest. But Hegel, in
abolishing the psychological side of Kant's system, abolished, as it
appears to us, every point of contact with that English empiricism
against which the latter had directed his attacks, and out of which his
theory of knowledge may be said to have arisen. Empirical psycho-
logy, involving, as it does, a distinction between subject and object,
is for Hegel no doubt a branch of knowledge, falling within that
sphere of the timed arid spaced, that contingency, which has a place as a

Notes and Discussions. 571

logical moment in the Hegelian dialectic, but it is really nothing more.
It has no special interest as throwing light on the problem of the
constitution of experience, towards which it stands in just the same
position as any other branch of empirical science, and is really no more
akin to philosophy proper than is, for example, physiology. The
individual has, for Hegelianism, two sides; one, in which it transcends
and exists apart from time, and is of interest as a logical moment in the
system of the absolute ; the other, in which it is known as existent in
time, and in which it belongs more or less to the sphere of nature and
contingency. It is in this latter aspect alone that it is an object of
experience, and it, ipso facto, is, as such, dialectically unintelligible.
It may be quite true that in the constitution of the most incleh'nite
sensation there are involved intelligible relations, but these relations,
on Hegelian principles, can never be exhausted or systematised, nor
can empirical psychology either deny their existence or take account of
them. It may be tiue that thought constitutes its object by processes
which do not lie within the sphere of time, but for empirical
observation, which can take account only of temporal co-existences and
sequences, this fact has no significance. The two views of mind belong
to different spheres, and the onus probandi of showing that they come
into any conflict, or even contact, lies upon those who say that it is a
fault in empirical psychology that it looks at no method but its own.
It is enough to say that its justification as against the post-Kantian
German philosophy appears to rest upon precisely the same grounds as
the justification of every other branch of empirical science.

R B. HALDANE.

The Mule of Three in Metaphysics. — I expected to see in a later
number of MIND some reference to the argument set forth in the
concluding section of Prof. Clifford's article " On the Nature of
Things-in-themselves," contained in No. IX. ; but such expectation
not being realised, I venture to take the matter up myself.

I cordially agree with the whole of the article in question except the
section above-mentioned ; but in that section there seems to me to be
a glaring non-scquitur. Towards the close of the preceding section
Prof. Clifford enunciates the proposition "that every motion of matter
is simultaneous with some ejective fact or event which might be part
of a consciousness ". Note the word " motion " not only here, but also
in Prof. Clifford's corollary, No. 2, in the same section.

The proposition which prefaces the last section is the most important
one in the whole article, being the one the author aims to prove.

The first objection I have to raise is to the following phrase : — "A
moving molecule of inorganic matter does not possess mind or conscious-
ness ; but it possesses a small piece of mind-stuff". I presume Prof.
Clifford here means that the mental eject corresponding to the motion
of a molecule of inorganic matter is not a conscious one ; but his
proposition, in the way he states it, implies that each molecule carries
about with it in its travels something that would still be attached to
it if it ceased to move. Here lies a fallacy. Prof. Clifford seems to

572 Notes and Discussions.

have forgotten his own statement that the motion of matter is the
concomitant of the ejective fact.

The same fallacy lurks in the subsequent argument. The supposition
is made " that I see a man looking at a candlestick ". A " cerebral
image " is formed in the neighbourhood of his optic thalami. " This
cerebral image is a certain complex of disturbances in the matter of
these organs"; and yet we are told in the next breath — "Both the
candlestick and the cerebral image are matter ". Here again is the
fallacy. The cerebral image is not matter but a complex of molecular
movements— an important distinction.

Prof. Clifford then proceeds to point out that, besides the cerebral
image and the candlestick, there are a mental image and an external
reality, and that " the external reality bears the same relation to the
mental image that the (phenomenal) candlestick bears to the cerebral
image". So far all is well. But now Prof. Clifford repeats the fallacy
above-mentioned, viz., that "'the candlestick and the cerebral image
are both matter ; they are made of the same stuff ". But even apart
from this objection, his conclusion — " Therefore the external reality is
made of the same stuff as the man's perception or mental image,
that is, it is made of mind-stuff " — does not follow at all. This will
be seen more clearly if we put the argument in symbolical language : —
Let A = the external reality,

B = the candlestick, or my perception of the external reality,
C = the man's cerebral image as a possible perception of mine,
D = the man's mental image.

Then as B : C : : A : I) ; and therefore B and C being made of the
same stuff (matter), A and D are also made of the same stuff (mind).
The general proposition implied is that, if the same relation subsists
between any two things, A and D, as subsists between two others, B
and C, then, if C is made of the same stuff as B, D must be made of
the same stuff as A, or vice versa. This general proposition Prof.
Clifford does not attempt to prove, though it stands in need of proof.

Again, even if the general proposition were true, it does not apply
here, because B and C are not made of the same stuff, one being
matter and the other motion.

The only tenable conclusion that Prof. Clifford can, in my opinion,
arrive at, is that (quoting his own words), " as the cerebral image
represents imperfectly the candlestick, in the same way and to the same
extent the mental image represents the reality external to his
consciousness". In other words, the agreements and differences
obtaining in consciousness correspond to agreements and differences
obtaining in a world outside (or rather independent of) consciousness.

JNO. T. LINGARD.

The Foundation of Arithmetic. — "Wherein (asks Mill) lies the
peculiar certainty always ascribed to the sciences " of Geometry and
Arithmetic ? " Why are they called the Exact Sciences ? Why are
mathematical certainty and the evidence of demonstration common

Notes and Discussions. 573

phrases to express the very highest assurance attainable by reason 1
Why are mathematics . . . considered to be independent of the
evidence of experience and observation, and characterised as systems
of necessary truth V The rational curiosity expressed in these queries
\vill find small satisfaction in the answer of Mill, who replies that
the " character of necessity ascribed to the truths of mathematics, and
even, with some reservations, the peculiar certainty attributed to them,
is an illusion ; in order to sustain which it is necessary to suppose
that those truths relate to, and express the properties of, purely ima-
ginary objects ".

Like most of those who have addressed themselves to this abstruse
and complicated inquiry, he has encumbered his path by aiming at
once at a general solution of the problem, and framing the discussion
in terms intended from the first to meet the case of both demonstra-
tive sciences. But the more abstruse is a subject, the easier it is for
error to slip in under the cover of generalities, and it will greatly
increase our chances of success if we confine our attention in the first
instance to the more simple conception of dumber, and afterwards
turn, with whatever insight we may have obtained into the evidence
of arithmetical certainty, to the more complicated relations of Position j
and Figure. The doctrine of Mill is, that Arithmetic, in the same sense
as Mechanics or Optics, is an inductive science, resting on what are
falsely called definitions, but are in reality generalisations from
experience, inasmuch as they are to be understood, not merely as pro-
positions explaining the meaning of the names Two, Three, Four, &c.,
but also as covertly assuming the existence of real things corresponding
to such a meaning. " We may call ' Three is two and one ' a defini-
nition of Three ; but the calculations which depend on that proposi-
tion do not follow from the definition itself, but from an arithmetical
theorem presupposed in it, viz., that collections of objects exist, which
while they impress the senses thus °0°, may be separated into two
parts, thus oo 0. This proposition being granted, we term all such
parcels Threes, after which the enunciation of the above-mentioned
physical fact will serve also as a definition of the word Three."

The truth of the covert assertion thus implied in the definition of
each specific number is a truth " known to us by early and constant
experience, an inductive truth ; and such truths are the foundation of
the science of Number. The fundamental truths of that science all
rest on the evidence of sense ; they are proved by showing to our
eyes and our fingers that any given number of objects, ten balls for
example, may by separation and rearrangement exhibit to our senses
all the different sets of numbers the sum of which is equal to ten ".

Thus, according to Mill, the way in which we learn that the addi-
tion of a fresh ball to a group of two will produce a group of three
and not of four, or that a group of four things may always be divided
into two groups of two each and not into a group of two and one of
three, is by inveterate experience only — by constant observation of the
result when groups of actual objects are so combined and decomposed, ,
just as we learn that sugar is sweet or snow cold. The bare statement

574 Notes and Discussions.

of such a conclusion in reference to numbers within easy grasp of the
imagination should be sufficient to show that there must be some
secret flaw in the reasoning which leads to so glaring n.jpar.fld.pv. The
source of the confusion in the mind of Mill may be traced to his fun-
damental doctrine " that no definition is ever intended to explain ajiil
unfold the nature of "a thing". ^All definitions are of names, and
names only ; but in some definitions it is clearly apparent that nothing
is intended except to explain the meaning of the word ; while in
others, besides explaining the meaning of the word, it is intended to be
implied that there exists a thing corresponding to the word." Defi-
nitions of this latter description consist of two parts ; first, a proposi-
tion enouncing the meaning of the term defined, " which gives infor-
mation only about the use of language, and from which no conclusions
affecting matters of fact can possibly be drawn," and secondly,
a covert postulate affirming " the real existence of things possessing
the combination of attributes set forth in the definition," a fact which
may lead to consequences of every degree of importance, and, if true,
may be sufficient on which to build a whole fabric of scientific truth.

isTow in the first place it cannot be admitted that definitions are of
names only and never of things, that no definition is ever intended to
unfold the nature of a thing. Whenever the word to be explained is
the name of a thing of which the person to be instructed has no
previous knowledge, the meaning can only be conveyed by explaining
the nature of the thing signified. I explain the meaning of the word
dragon, for example, to a person who has no conception of such an
animal, by the definition — A dragon is a serpent which breathes
•flame ; from which he will learn at the same time the meaning of the
word dragon and the nature of the thing signified, without reference
to the question whether such a creature actually exists or ever has
existed or not. The hearer, who takes his notion of a dragon from
this definition, will see a priori that every possible dragon must be a
serpent and must breathe flame, because what he understands by a
dragon is a creature characterised by the combination of those attri-
butes ; and if ever a dragon is to be found in actual existence, it must
necessarily be by the apprehension of both the attributes in question.

In the same way it will be seen that every definition, rightly under-
stood, must necessarily hold good of everything signified by the term
defined, that is to say, that everything comprehended under that de-
signation must inevitably be possessed of the character detailed in the
predicate of the definition, because it is only by the exhibition of that
character that it is made an example of what is signified by the term
defined. Thus every definition, after it has performed its primary
duty of indicating the sense in which the term defined is to be under-
stood, will, when converted into an universal proposition, be recognised
as a necessary truth, provided that the subject of the proposition, so
understood, affords room for the question of the truth or falsehood of
assertions concerning it. If no such thing as a dragon is to be found
in the world, it cannot be said that the proposition, Every dragon
breathes flame, is either true or false. It is manifest, however, that

Notes and Discussions.

575

the real existence of things signified by the term defined can be
secured by no postulate or assumption, but only by positive knowledge
of some individual in actual existence. The condition, then, which
converts the definition of a dragon from an exposition of the meaning
of a word into an assertion of positive fact will be no assumption of
the real existence of serpents breathing flame, but the discovery of an
animal so characterised in actual existence.

Whether the definition is to lead to a real advance in knowledge, or
to remain a barren explanation of what is denoted by a certain term,
must depend upon the question whether or no it is possible to deduce
from it any attribute of the species defined that must not itself be
directly apprehended in the recognition of an individual of the 'species
in actual existence. If it could be shoAyn that the notion of some
ulterior attribute, not necessarily present to the mind in the conception
of a serpent breathing flame, such for instance as the notion of carrving
a hidden jewel in its head, was logically involved in the conception of
a dragon, it would be manifest to those who followed the demonstra-
tion, that every actual dragon (if such there were in existence) must
necessarily carry a jewel in its head, and the insight into that necessity,
on the occurrence of an actual dragon, would give knowledge of a fact
not directly perceived in the apprehension of that particular animal.
But no conclusion of such a nature can be drawn from the definition,
from which it can only be inferred that every dragon is a serpent and
that it breathes flame ; both of which propositions, to one who takes
his conception of a dragon from the definition, are manifest truisms.

On the other hand the conclusions of Arithmetic confer a real ad-
vance in knowledge, because they predicate conditions of this or that
particular number, which are not necessarily brought before the mind
in the mere course of the operation by which the subject of the con-
clusion is recognised in actual existence. If each successive member
of the series, one, two, three, four, &c., is defined by the continual
addition of one to the preceding number, it will be easy to show from
the definitions that any given number is the aggregate of various com-
binations of inferior numbers ; that the number thirteen, for example,
is the aggregate of seven and six, and the knowledge of this relation,
in the mind of a person who is acquainted with an actual group of
thirteen things, will show him with absolute certainty that that par-
ticular group may be broken up into a group of seven and one of six ;
a fact not necessarily made apparent in the mere numeration of the
group of thirteen.

In our system of instruction Arithmetic is taught as an art and not
as a science. The propositions of the addition and multiplication
tables are given out as the tools with which the scholar is to work,
without any attempt to deduce them from a logical analysis of the
numbers themselves. But that is because Arithmetic is taught at so
early an age that it is more important to fix the elementary relations
of number in the memory of the scholar than to educate his power of
speculative thought, and not from any inherent difficulty in a com-
plete demonstration.

576

Notes and Discussions.

Number is the attribute apprehended by the process of counting,
which consists in the recognition of successive objects as things of a
certain kind, taking note, at the recognition of each fresh individual,
of the extent to which the repetition of the kind has been previously
carried. When the attention is simply directed to the fact of repeti-
tion, without distinguishing the degree to which it has been carried,
the aggregate series is conceived as consisting of many things of the
kind in question, and the contrast between the aggregate object ap-
prehended in such a manner and that to which attention is directed
at each repetition of the kind, gives rise to the conception of the latter
as individual or one. Thus the idea of unity consists in a mental re-
ference to the possibility of repetition of the kind to which the object
is referred, or, what amounts to the same thing, in the negation of
actual repetition, the negative character of the idea being witnessed
by the form of the word individual — what is not broken up or divided
into many. We should never have conceived an object as one unless
we had previously had experience of something apprehended as many,
but as soon as the notion of one has been evolved or abstracted in the
way above-described, we see that many consists of one and one and
one, and so on, until the entire group has passed under review. It is
this relation between the ideas of plurality and unity which is ex-
pressed by Cousin under his somewhat mystical formula of the two
contrasted orders of ideas ; in the order of Time, he says, the idea of
unity presupposes that of multiplicity, but in the order of Reason,
multiplicity presupposes unity.

The lowest degree of plurality is where there is a single repetition
of the kind ; where a group consists of one object and one other of
the same kind. The numerical character of a group of this nature is
designated by the term Two, which may accordingly be denned by
the proposition

Two is the aggregate of one and one, or, compendiously,
Two is one and one.

Our conviction that one and one are two, does not arise from uniform
experience that a group of two things may always be decomposed in
the form of one and one, but from consciousness, on the contempla-
tion of our own thoughts, that what we mean by two is nothing else
than the aggregate of one and one. In apprehending a group as con-
sisting of two things, we do but bring under review at a single glance
the elements which have been apprehended, in however transitory
a manner, as one and one.

Having thus attained to the conception of the number two, we may
imagine the addition of another unit to an ideal group of two, which
will thus be enlarged to an assemblage of one and one and one, pre-
senting to the mind the fundamental aspect of the number designated
by the name of Three.

In like manner the mental association of an additional unit with a
group of three will constitute a group of one and one and one and one,
to which we give the name of Four, and so, by the addition of one to
the highest number of which we had previously formed a definite con-

Notes and Discussions. . 577

ieption, we might continuously advance to the conception of a number
ine degree higher, so long as we were able to keep accurate count of
no precise amount of repetition by which that particular step in the
mmerical scale was characterised. But such a limit, without some
Artificial aid of the memory, would very speedily be reached, and in
;he lowest stage of mental cultivation would probably not be placed
)eyond the number three or four. The requisite aid, however, is not
far to seek, and is found by all the families of man in the quinary
division of the hand, the fingers of which afford a ready scale on which
to tell off the units of any group, up to five, of which one might wish
to take count. Thus beginning with the thumb of the left hand, the
first finger would mark a single repetition of the kind under enumera-
tion, or a second member of the group ; the middle finger a second
repetition, or a third member of the group, and in this way primitive
man would learn to associate a definite amount of repetition with each
of his fingers, and might attain to a clear conception of the first five
numbers antecedent to the use of any vocal designation. But sooner
or later the demands of language would give rise to the use of spoken
names, one, two, three, four, five, denoting the numbers told off on
each successive finger ; and these, being constantly repeated in regular
order, constitute a series so rooted in the memory that each name serves
at once to bring before the mind the preceding portion of the series,
and thus affords a standard of the extent of repetition to which it cor-
responds, as distinct as that supplied by the fingers passed over in
telling numbers on the hand. When the fingers on one hand are ex-
hausted, we may either go through a second series with names of the
form five-one, five-two, five-three, &c., which are actually found in
many rude dialects, or the higher numbers may be told off on the
other hand with a fresh set of names, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
corresponding to the fingers of the second hand.

When the ten digits are exhausted, we advance, by the continued
addition of one, to the conception of higher numbers under designa-
tions of the form, ten-one, ten-two, &c. ; two-tens, two-ten-one, &c. ;
three-tens, &c.; ten-tens, ten-ten-one, &c.; and so on, to an indefinite
extent, using the convenience of compendious names for such of the
powers of ten as may be convenient for resting-places in the process
of numeration.

The composition of such a system of numbers is enounced in the
following definitions : —

(2^ Two is the aggregate of one and one, or, shortly,
Two is one and one.

(3) Three is two and one, &c.

(11) Eleven is ten and one, &c.

(20) Twenty is ten and ten, or two tens, &c.

(100) A Hundred is ten tens, &c.

By reference to these definitions the numerical value of all arith-
metical expressions may be ascertained or compared with each other,
because the definitions afford the means of reducing each of the
systems in question, when necessary, to its constituent units, or of

40

578 Notes and Discussions.

building it up out of them, and thus of ticking off against each other
the systems to be compared, unit by unit. To show, for example, that
seven and six are thirteen, we have, by defn. (8),

Seven and one are Eight.
Adding one to each side,

Seven and one and one are Eight and one,
Or, by defns. (2) and (9),

Seven and two are Nine.
Adding one again,

Seven and two and one are Nine and one,
Or, by defns. (3) and (10),

Seven and three are Ten.
And so on, till we come to

Seven and six are Thirteen.

As the number of a set of things depends exclusively upon the
length of the series, one and one and one, &c., where each ' one ' of
the series answers to an individual of the enumerated class as it is
successively brought under review in the process of counting, without
reference to any difference between one individual and another, it is
plain that the aggregate number of the class can in nowise be affected
by the order in which the individuals of the series are counted. If I
have a series of balls, black, white, green, and red, the aspect under
which I regard them in counting will be, one and one and one and
one, whether I take them in the order of black, white, green, red, or
of red, green, white, black. And so, if I jumble together a set of (in)
white balls and a set of (n) black ones, the tale of the whole will be
the same, whether in counting I pick out first the white and then the
black, or first the black and then the white. In other words, the sum
made by the addition of (n) to (m) is the same as that made by the
addition of (m) to («), or algebraically,

m + n = n + m.

In a similar way it may be shown that the product of two factors
(m) and (n) is independent of the order in which the factors are taken ;
that (») times (m) is the same as (m) times (n) ; or algebraically that
nm = mn.

Suppose that we have five groups of seven balls each, it is obvious
that the number will be seven times as great as if there were only one
in each group, when the number would be only five in all ; so that
five times seven is the same as seven times five. Or to take the
question more in detail, let the balls of each group be marked 1, 2, 3,
&c., 7. Then there will in the aggregate be five ones, five twos, &c.,
and five sevens; making seven sets of 'five each. Thus it appears,
from the nature of the conception, that things which are known as
making five groups of seven each may be otherwise arranged in seven
groups of five each, or, in other words, that five times seven is equal
to seven times five.

If now we look back for a summary answer to the inquiry with
which we set out, we find that our assurance in the universal truth of
Arithmetic arises from seeing that the numerical equations which

New Books. 579

form the body of the science are necessary consequences of the funda-
mental constitution of the numbers in question, as distinguished in
thought or apprehended in actual existence.

The conception of every phase of Number consists, as we have seeiiH
in a reference, more or less explicit, to a succession of units of definite
length, wholly independent of the nature of the enumerated objects ; I
and the demonstration of the numerical equation consists in showing,J
from the essential constitution of the numbers concerned, that the
units contained in the combination on one side of the equation may
be otherwise arranged in the groups indicated by the numbers on the
other side. We show, for instance, that 7 times 8 is 56 by taking the
units contained in 7 rows of 8 each, and showing, from the definitions,
that they may be arranged in 5 rows of 10 each and one of 6. "We
find, from a gradual decomposition of the conceptions, that the mental
operation, by which we enumerate the aggregate of seven groups of
eight each, whether of balls or books or anything else, is identical
with that by which we enumerate a group of 56, and thus we know
with absolute certainty that things which are given us in the form of
seven lots of eight each may be enumerated under the form of fifty-
six. HENSLEIGH WEDGWOOD.

IX.— NEW BOOKS.

Darwinism tested ~by Language. By FREDERIC BATEMAN, M.D., &c.
With a Preface by Edward Meyrick Goulbourn, D.D., Dean of
Norwich. London, &c. : Eivingtons, 1877. Pp. 224.
The author's special argument is imbedded in a number of observa-
tions on the doctrine of Evolution generally. He seeks to establish
three positions : (1) that articulate speech is a distinctive attribute of
man, the ape and lower animals possessing no trace of it ; (2) that it
is also a universal attribute, all races having either a language or the
power of acquiring it ; (3) that the faculty of speech is immaterial.
This last proposition is opposed by the author to all the different
attempts yet made to assign a local seat of speech in the brain : the
pathological and other evidence, he maintains now, as he has
maintained before, is dead against them all, Broca's included. The
positive import of his proposition is thus disclosed : — " With these
facts before me, I am tempted to ask whether speech, like the soul,
may not be an attribute — an immaterial nescio quid, the comprehension
of which is beyond the limits of our finite minds ". He further
declares for a spirit " or organ of God-consciousness " in man, which
" differentiates him from the brute " possessing only a body and soul.
Upon this it occurs to one to ask what Dr. Bateman means by " soul "
in the earlier sentence. If he means all that is not body in man, he
degrades the " spirit." with the animal life, into a mere " attribute " —
which looks very like materialism. If, on the other hand, he means
the kind of life we share with animals, — how, by comparing language

580 New Books.

therewith, does he establish its distinctively human character? And,
once more, is it language or is it spirit (" the organ of God-conscious-
ness ") that we are to take as the really differential element in man's
nature 1 Dr. Bateman is not a very careful reason er or writer.

The Dean of Norwich, who stands forward as sponsor for the work,
argiies about Evolution in Dr. Bateman's general strain, only more
pointedly.

General Sketch of the History of Pantheism. 2 vols. Vol. I. From
the Earliest Times to the age of Spinoza. London : Deacon &
Co., 1878. Pp. 395.

The anonymous author describes his work as " merely an outline or
epitome of a history," and as " chiefly a compilation, taken more
frequently from translations and abridgements of the originals than
from the originals themselves ". After compiling in regard to Oriental
and Greek Pantheism and sketching, in a fashion of his own, " the
paganisation of Christianity and consequent decay of Pantheism " as
far as the Rise of Scholasticism, he passes by a sudden stride to
Servetus, Bruno, and Vanini, and will resume with Spinoza. It
cannot be said that he compiles with such discrimination as to justify
his work.

Proteus and Amadeus : A Correspondence. Edited by AUBREY DE

VERB. London : Kegan Paul & Co., 1878. Pp. 184.
A veritable correspondence, under assumed names, carried on in
1876 between two friends — twenty years before pupil and master in
a Catholic College — on the Existence of God and the human Soul.
Proteus, the pupil, had strayed into " materialism " and Darwinism,
accepting them intellectually but unhappy over them. Amadeus seeks
to maintain the old orthodox positions against the modern objections.
In the end the pupil is more than shaken ; Darwin, as he allows,
having " been hewed to pieces " for him by the master's " and Mivart's
sword," and even Evolution being " emasculated and left harmless
henceforth for ever ". But still he cannot quite come back to the fold.

On the Nature of Things. A Science Primer. By JOHN G.
MACVICAR, A.M., LL.D., D.D. With Illustrations. Edinburgh
and London : Blackwood & Sons, 1878. Pp. 112.

" This work is grounded on the belief of an Almighty Being possessing
unity, omnipresence, and ever-blessedness, and awarding existence to a
creation for the sake of manifesting Himself and extending blessedness
beyond Himself, and, in a word, to be a mirror of Himself, so far as the
finite can bear a likeness to the Infinite. After setting out with this
cosmical law of assimilation, by its aid alone bearing on only one kind of
created substance or energy (' rnind-stuff '), the author deduces the creation
of the world of Spirits, and as their home the Universal Ether or medium
of light. Then, as a beautiful cloudwork in the azure of the Spirit World,
he gives the genesis of Matter and the molecular system, culminating in
this planet in the construction of the myo-cerebral organism, whose
characteristic function is to construct a powerful tissue of organised ether or

New Books. 581

the matter of light, which, being unified in its focus of vital action into an
element of energy so powerful as to have recovered the primal attribute of
energy — namely, mental power — is a spirit. And thus creation, after a
lapse into matter, becomes the mother and nurse of spirits again, destined,
if the design of the Creator is fulfilled, to find a home in heaven, the realm
of light, and there to experience the final fulfilment of the cosmical law of
assimilation and be blessed for ever.

" The author, anticipating the criticism that all this is merely the fond
imagination of one who disregards the now prevailing views of men of
science, and who still clings to his theological education, has devoted more
than half the volume to the verification of his theory by a detailed appeal to
natural phenomena and experiments in physics and chemistry, which his
theory enables him to deduce and account for, but which the most recent
speculations in the science of the day leave still in the dark."

Comparative Psychology ; or, TJie Growth and Grades of Intelligence.
By JOHN BAS'COM. New York : Putnam's Sons, 1878. Pp. 297.

The author in his preface says : —

"Without tracing the history of intelligence, we are not prepared to
decide what is primitive and what is acquired, what is original material
and what is the deposit of growth. The empiricist cannot be fully and
fairly met without travelling with him these spaces of evolution, and de-
termining at least their general character and laws. This I have undertaken
in the present volume. It is my purpose to test the nature and extent of
the modifications put upon human psychology by its relations in growth to
the life below it, and in doing this to reach a general statement of each

stage of development I have derived great benefit from many

forms of the Empirical Philosophy : these I cheerfully acknowledge, while I
must remain its unflinching adversary. The Intuitional Philosophy can
and should appropriate these excellent fruits, and this volume is the result
of such an effort.'5

The Balance of Emotion and Intellect : An Essay introductory to the
Study of Philosophy. By CHAELES WALDSTEIN, Ph. D.
London : Kegan Paul & Co.

" The title of this forthcoming Essay indicates that it is meant to form an
introduction to the study of philosophy. Its object is to contribute to the
development of the philosophical attitude of mind. The author first
attempts to counteract prevailing fallacies with regard to the false opposition
of Emotion and Intellect, Common and Scientific Thought, the Exact
Sciences and Philosophy. He then gives a short Sketch of the History of
Philosophy."

Moralische Brief e. Von A. HORWICZ. Magdeburg : Faber, 1878.

Pp. 126.

The author of Psychologische Analysen here appears in the character
of a censor, exposing the sores of the German body politic, and only
not despairing of his country's future. The Germans, he declares,
are suffering from " blue-devils," manifested especially in the socialistic
madness. The follies and affectations of fashion have laid hold on
men and women alike. Trade and industry are vitiated by decep-
tion and sham. And while a gross materialism is the only creed of
the masses, true culture in the higher grades is becoming ever more

582 New Books.

rare. The socialistic movement, fraught to the author's imagination
with all evil, he considers the natural outcome of the political and
religious radicalism and scepticism which the masses have by this
time learnt from the reckless outpourings of writers like Heine, Borne,
&c. in a former generation. (He does not, apparently, connect it all
with the oppressive military system and the unhinging effect of wars.)
At the end he gives practical recommendations for the development
of the civic virtue that he finds wanting, and in these there is much
wisdom. Especially striking, and even powerful, is his statement
of the individual's relation to society (§ 7).

Hegel und die logisclie Frage der Philosophic in der Gegenwart. Von
CONRAD HERMANN. Leipzig : Schafer, 1878.

" Hegel's logic was admired in its time as one of the greatest productions
of the human mind. Since then there has been a reaction in favour of the
common or formal logic of Aristotle. The present book is an attempt to
carry out farther the thought of the Hegelian logic on a changed and
improved basis. The whole position of Hegel in the history of modern
philosophy is, in the author's view, analogous to that of Plato in antiquity.
Just as Plato's logical doctrine attained its higher development in.
Aristotle's, so (the author thinks) does Hegel's point to a higher truth of
philosophy and scientific use of the thought- principle."

GIACINTO MONTANA: L'Epopaea e la Filosofia della Storict.
Mantova, 1878.

This book is a sequel and supplement to the Idea per una Filosofia
della Storia, published by the author two years ago, and noticed in
MIND Y. History is viewed by him as either the progressive
apprehension or the progressive realisation of the Idea or Absolute
Being, — the development either of a contemplative or of an active
principle. The former is to be studied in the history of religion and
of science, the latter in the history of art, industry and commerce.
The true philosophy of history he believes to be that which flows from
the general philosophy of Plato, Vico and Mamiani. His admiration
of it is intense, but his delineation of it is vague. He has, however, a
wide knowledge of historical phenomena and the power of eloquently
describing. On this account the present work is valuable, although it
does not directly contribute much, perhaps, to the advancement of the
philosophy of history. Its general aim is to show that in the history
of epic poetry there are to be traced a humanitarian evolution of the
Absolute and a progress both of intelligence and of liberty, both of the
contemplative and the active principle ; the priestly or hieratic class of
epics corresponding to the former and the martial or warrior class to
the latter. In the first four chapters the phantasy, the beautiful, the
sublime, the ideal in primitive poetry, and the heroic in primitive
poetry, are the subjects discussed. The following chapters have more
special themes, namely, the Eamayana, the Mahabharata, the Greek
epics, the Latin epics, the cycles of (mediaeval) Christian poetry, the
epic cycles of paganism as influenced by Christianity, the Shahnameh,

News. 583

the ideal in art at the epoch of the Renaissance, the romantic poems,
and modern Christian epic poetry. The last chapter treats of the
relation of epic poetry to the philosophy of history. The work is one
which the general reader is sure to find both interesting and instructive.

R. F.

CARLO CANTONI : Giuseppe Ferrari. Milano, 1878.
This is a memoir read before the Institute of Lombardy. It
commemorates the character and services of a man who has secured for
himself a permanent place in the history of Italian philosophy.
Scepticism has had few more subtle or thorough representatives than
the late Signor Ferrari. Although he held many strange philosophical
and political opinions and wanted sobristy of judgment, he was a man
of most original and vigorous genius, an indefatigable labourer in the
cause of science and progress, and the author of many learned,
ingenious and brilliant works. Italy may justly cherish his memory
with gratitude and pride. In this memoir the history of his outward
life is clearly narrated, his character is sympathetically and judiciously
delineated, and almost every work he wrote is summarised with great
skill and judged with great equity. Signor Cantoni has admirably
performed the duty devolved on him. It will interest those who are
acquainted with his work on Yico, on the whole the best which has
been written on the great Neapolitan, and his Elementary Course of
Pldlosopliy , — a book which if well translated would be very useful to
students and teachers, — to learn that he is at present engaged on a
Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Kant, soon to appear in two
volumes. R. F.

X.— NEWS.

Mr. Grant Allen has nearly completed a volume for Messrs. Trubner
on The Colour-Sense, its Origin and Development. He seeks to trace
the causes and reactions of the colour-sense in insects, fishes, reptiles,
birds, and mammals, and criticises adversely (as he has already shortly
done in MIND IX.) the "historical development theory" of Magnus.
Magnus's tractate has just been translated into French, with an intro-
duction by M. Jules Soury (Germer, Bailliere).

Miss Hopkins is about to publish with Messrs. Kegan Paul & Co.
a collection of the late James Hinton's Essays, uniform with the
lately published Life and Letters.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has been made a Foreign Associate of the
Accadcmia dei Lincei.

The statue-model by M. Frederic Hexamer of Paris has been
selected by the Spinoza Committee at the Hague from among those
sent in for the second competition (which had become necessary), and
the artist is now commissioned to prepare one on a larger scale.

THE JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Vol. XII., No. 2.
J. Watson—' The World as Force '. Von Hartmann— < The true and false

584 News.

in Darwinism ' (transl.). Hegel—' Of the Classic form of Art ' (transl.).
Fichte—' Criticism of Schelling' (transl.). F. A. Henry— ' Christianity
and the Clearing-up '. Schelling — * The Historical Construction of Christi-
anity' (transl.). Notes and Discussions. Book Notices. No. 3. J. E.
Cabot — ' Some considerations on the notion of Space '. W. James —
'Brute and Human Intellect'. Hegel— 'Of the Ideal of Classic Art'
(transl.). Rosenkranz — 'The Form and the Limits of Education' (para-
phrased from Rosenkranz's Pedagogics as a System). Fichte — 'Criticism of
Schelling ' (transl.). Notes and Discussions.

REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. 3me Annee. No. VII. G. Compayre —
' Origines de la Psychologic evolutionniste : La psychologic de Lamarck '.
T. V. Charpentier — ' La Logique du Hasard, d' apres John Venn '. D. Nolen
— ' Les nouvelles philosophies en Allemagne'. Notes et Documents —
'Le sens musculaire, d' apres G. H. Lewes'; P. Tannery, ' Essais sur le
Syllogisme, I. Les trois figures '. Analyses et Comptes-rendus. Rev. des
Period. No. VIII. H. Spencer— ' Etudes de Sociologie' (fin). Th.
Ribot — ' Les theories allemandes sur 1' Espace tactile '. T. V. Charpentier
— ' La Logique du Hasard, d' apres John Venn ' (fin). Analyses et Comptes-
rendus (Ferrier, Lectures on Cerebral Localisation, &c.). Rev. des Period.
No. IX. W. Wundt — ' Sur la theorie des Signes locaux '. N. Grote —
' Essai d' une classification nouvelle des Sentiments '. F. Paulhan — ' La
theorie de 1' Inconnaissable de H. Spencer'. Notes et Documents —
V. Egger, 'Les lapsus de la Vision'; P. Tannery, 'Application de 1' Algebre
au Syllogisme '. Analyses (Flint, Theism, &c.). Rev. des Period.

LA CRITIQUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. Vllme Annee, Nos. 20-32. C. Renou-
vier — ' L' appreciation des degres de culpabilite ' (20) ; ' Le principe de
contradiction, le principe de F inconcevable et la these du premier com-
mencement' (21) ; 'Examen critique des principes de psych ologie de H.
Spencer : classification, &c.' (22), ' La question de la certitude ' (24), ' La
volonte ' (25) ; ' La question de la certitude : Les postulats et le libre
arbitre ' (31), ' Le libre arbitre fondement de la certitude ' (32). F. Pillon—
' Frederic Bastiat ' (23, 31, 32). Bibliog. (Lafitte, La Revue Occidentals (26) ).

LA FILOSOFIA DELLE SCUOLE ITALIANE.— Vol. XVII., Disp. 3. G. Bar-
zellotti — 'La critica della conoscenza e la metafisica dopo il Kant'. C.
Cantoni — 'G. M. Bertini' (II.). P. Ragnisco — 'Le cause finale in Platone
e in Aristotele '. J. C. Doni — ' Del Coraggio '. Bibliografia, &c.

ZEITSCHRIFT FUR VOLKERPSYCHOLOGIE u. SPRACHWISSENSCHAFT. —
Bd. X., Hefte 2, 3. F. Misteli— ' Einiges zur Casuslehre '. M. Holzmann
-' Der sogenannte Locativ des Zieles im Rigveda und in den homerischen
Gedichten '. G. v. der Gabelentz — 'Ein Probestiick von chinesischem
Parallelismus '. Beurtheilungen (Kussmaul, Storungen der Sprache, &c.).
Br.— ' Nachtrage zur Lehre vom Stottern'. H. Steinthal— ' Anmerkung '.

PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE.— Bd. XIV., Heft 6. Baumann—
' Kurze Darstellung der Philosophic Franz v. Baader's '. Recensionen und
Anzeigen (Tobias, Grenzen der Philosophic; Spir, Denken u. Wirklichkeit ;
Eucken, Gesch. u. Krit. der Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart ; Pfleiderer, Die
Idee eines cjoldenen Zeitalters ; Spitta, Die Schlaf u. Traumzustande der
mensch. Seek; Binz, Ueber den Traum. Literaturbericht (Sir A. Grant,
Aristoteles (iibers.), &c.). Bibliographic, &c. Heft 7. C. Schaarschmidt—
'Zur Widerlegung des subjectiven Idealismus'. Recensionen u. Anzeigen
(Cohen, Kant's Begrundung der Ethik; Ueberhorst, Die Entstehung "der
Gesichtswahrnehmung ; v. Stein, Ueber Walirnelimung ; Baeumker, Des
Aristoteles Lehre von den aussern u. inneren Sinnesvermogen ; Pivany, Entste-
hungsgeschichte des Welt- u. Erdgebaudes u. der Organismen). Bibliog.

G L ; ; Str 5 1973

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