Full text of "Mind"
HANDBOUND
AT THE
UMVERSITY OF
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
ABERDEEN :
A. KING AND CO., PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
EDITED BY
GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON,
PROFESSOR IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
VOL. VIII.-I883.
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON
AND 20 SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
1883.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII,
ARTICLES.
PAGE
ALLEN, G. Idiosyncrasy 487
BAIN, A, On Some Points in Ethics 48
CAIRD, E. Professor Green's Last Work .... 544
*/ EDITOR Psychology and Philosophy ..... 1
GURNET, E. " Natural Religion " 198
HALL, G. S. Reaction-time and Attention in the Hypnotic
State. . 170
HARPER, T., S.J. The Word 372
^MAITLAND, F. W. Mr. Herbert Spencer's Theory of Society 354, 506
>MARTIN, M. On Some Fundamental Problems in Logic . 183
PEARSON, K. Maimonides and Spinoza . . . . 338
x SIDGWICK, A. Propositions with a View to Proof . .22
SIDGWICK, H. A Criticism of the Critical Philosophy . 69, 313
STIRLING, J. H. The Question of Idealism in Kant: The
Two Editions 525
WALLACE, W. Ethics and Sociology 222
AVARD, J. Psychological Principles . 153, 465
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
ADAMSON, R. Mr. H. Sidgwick on the Critical Philosophy . 251
/ Kant's View of Mathematical Premisses and
Reasonings ...... 424
BAIN, A. Mind and Body 402
Is there such a thing as Pure Malevolence ? . . 562
BOSANQUET, B. Our Right to regard Evil as a Mystery. . 419
BRADLEY, F. H. Is Self-Sacrifice an Enigma? . . . 258
Is there such a thing as Pure Malevolence?. 415
Sympathy and Interest .... 573
GURNEY, E. The Utilitarian ' Ought ' 101
HODGSON, S. H. Subjectivity in Philosophy : a Reply . . 92
MERCIER, C. Mr. H. Spencer's Classification of Cognitions . 260
VI CONTENTS.
PAGE
*/ MONCK, W. H. S. Kant's Theory of Mathematics . 255, 576
KEAD, C. On the English of " Ding-an-Sich " . .412
/ SIDGWICK, H. Kant's View of Mathematical Premisses and
Eeasonings 421, 577
TARBELL, F. B. Hypothetical Syllogisms .... 578
CRITICAL NOTICES.
ADAMSON, R. E. Caird, Hegel 432
ALLEN, G. M. Guthrie, On Mr. Spencer's Unification of
Knowledge . . . . . .116
BAYNES, H. M. C. Abel, Linguistic Essays . . . .291
BURNS-GIBSON, J. The Alternative : a Study in Psychology . 109
St. G. Mivart, Nature and Thought . . 284
,, A. Eosmini Serbati, The Origin of Ideas
(Trans.), 1 438
DAVIDSON, T. Sancti Thomce Aquinatis, Doctoris Angelici,
Opera Omnia, I. (Ed., Zigliara) . . . 610
DAVIDSON, W. L. J. Yeitch, Hamilton .... 289
HODGSON, R. Essays in Philosophical Criticism . . . 580
MACALISTER, D. J. B. Stallo, Tlie Concepts and Theories of
Modern Physics . . . . .276
MONCK, W. H. S. T. K. Abbott, The Elements of Logic . 603
POLLOCK, F. J. Martineau, A Study of Spinoza . . .104
v /" READ, C. B. P. Bowne, Metaphysics : a Study in First Prin-
ciples . . . . . . . .119
A. Barratt, Physical Metempiric . . . .268
SORLEY, W. R. F. Jodl, Geschichte der Etliik in der neuern
Philosophie 295
SULLY, J. G. H. Schneider, Der menschliche Wille vom
Standpunkte der neueren Entioickelungstheorien 126
VENN, J. Studies in Logic 594
WALLACE, E. A. W. Benn, The Greek Philosophers . . 426
WALLACE, W. H. Vaihinger, Commentar zu Kants Kritfic
der reinen Vernunft, L, 1, 2 . . . 440
WHITTAKER, T. H. Sommer, Ueber das Wesen und die
Bedeutung der menschlichen Freiheit und
der en moderne Widersacher . . . 298
A. Bolliger, Anti-Kant, oder Elemente der
Logik, der Physik, und der Ethik, I. . 446
A. Meinong, Hume-Studien, II. . . 606
CONTENTS. vii
NEW BOOKS.
PAGE
Barlow, J. W. The Ultimatum of Pessimism . . .134
Beard, C.TJie Reformation of the 16th Century, $c. . . 619
Benn, A. W.The Greek Philosophers 306
Bergmann, J. Die GrundproUeme der Logik . . . 309
Bithell, JLThe Creed of a Modern Agnostic . . .456
Bradley, F. H. The Principles of Logic .... 454
Bray, C.The Science of Man (2nd Ed.) .... 455
Bryant, W. M. Philosophy of Landscape Painting . . 456
Buccola, G. La Legge del Temiio nei Fenomeni del Pensiero . 460
Caird, E. Hegel 307
Cantoni, G.Emanuele Kant, II 310
Cappie, J. The Causation of Sleep (2nd Ed.) . . .307
Cesca, G. L ' Evoluzionismo di Erberto Spencer . . .143
II nuovo Realismo in Ger mania ed Inghil terra . 309
Le Teorie della Local izzazione spaziale. . . 460
Cocker, B. F. The Student's Handbook of Philosophy Psy-
chology 139
Courtney, W. L. Studies in Philosophy, Ancient and Modern 133
Delboeuf, J. Elements de Psychophysique, $c. . . . 620
Ecker, A.Lorenz Oken (Trans., A. Tulk) .... 618
Fechner, G. T. Revision der Hauptpunlde der Psychophysik . 457
Ferri, L. La Psychologic de V Association ... . . 308
Fischer, K. Geschichte der neuern Philosophic, III., IV. (3rd
Ed.) 458
Galton, F. Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development 453
Gizycki, G. v. Grundzilge der Moral . . . . . 459
Gough, A. E. The Philosophy of the Upanishads, fyc. . . 136
Green, T. H. Prolegomena to Ethics (Ed., A. C. Bradley), . 454
/ Ground, W. D. An Examination of the Structural Principles
of Mr. H. Spencer's Philosophy . . . 617
Gunther, A. Anti-Savarese (Ed., P. Knoodt) . . .140
Gumplowicz, L. Der Rassenkampf . . . . .621
Hackel, E.The Pedigree of Man, $c. (Trans., E. Aveling) . 456
Handley, M. S. First Lessons in Philosophy . . . 618
Hartinann, E. v. Die Religion des Geiste-s . . . . 139
Herbart, J. F.Sdmmtliche Werke (Ed., K. Kehrbach) I. . 140
Herford, C. H. The Stoics as Teachers . . . .136
Horny, F. W. Die Utilitarische Moralphilosophie in England 141
y/ Kant, I. Prolegomena and Metaphysical Foundations of
Natural Science (Trans., E. B. Bax) . . . 617
Vlll CONTENTS.
PAGE
Land, J. P. K, &c. Spinoza (Ed., W. Knight) ... 135
Lotze, H. Gescliichte der deutschen Philosophic seit Kant . 142
Grundzuge der Naturphilosophie . . . . 309
Grundzuge der Logik u. Encycl. der Philosophie . 458
Grundzuge der Metaphysik . . . . .620
Maudsley, TL.Body and Will 461
Meinong, A. Hume-Studien, II. . . .... 308
Menger, C. Ueber die Methode der Socialwissenschaften, fyc. . 459
Mlinz, W. Die Grundlagen der Kant' schen Erkenntnisstheorie 142
Naville, E. La Physique modern e 457
Neudecker, G. Grundlegung der reinen Logik . . . 141
Oldenberg, H. Buddha : His Life, his Doctrine, his Order
(Trans., W. Hoey) 137
N/ Owen, J. Evenings with the Skeptics 305
Patanjali Yoga Aphorisms, fyc. (Trans., E. Mitra) . . 619
Piper, P. Die Schriften Notksrs u. seiner Schule, I., 1 . . 309
Porter, N. Science and Sentiment, fyc. . . . .138
Powell, J. W. Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, $c., 1879-80 308
Kau, A. Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophie . . . .141
Eibot, T. Les Maladies de la Volonte .... 457
Eosmini Serbati, A. The Origin of Ideas (Trans.), I. . . 306
Schuyler, A. Empirical and Rational Psychology . . 139
v/Sidgwick, A. Fallacies 621
Spinoza Ethic (Trans., W. H. White) 454
v Stallo, J. B. The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics . 133
^ Stock, St. G. Attempts at Truth 136
Strieker, S. Studien liber die Association der Vorstellungen . 142
Veitch, J. Hamilton . . 135
,, Sir William Hamilton . . . . .456
Wallace, E. Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle (3rd Ed.) 455
Ward, L. E. Dynamic Sociology 619
Watson, J. Schelling's Transcendental Idealism . . . . 137
Essays in Philosophical Criticism (Ed. , A. Seth & E. B. Haldane) 135
Studies in Logic (Johns Hopkins University) . . .456
COEEESPONDENCE.
H. T. PARKINSON T. DAVIDSON. On Father Pesch . . 144
MISCELLANEOUS . 150, 311, 462, 622
No. 29.] [JANUARY, 1883.
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY,
I. PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
I desire to offer, in the following pages, some remarks on
a question that has found definite expression from the time
of Kant, if not earlier, and that claimed attention before
now in a journal calling itself a Keview of Psychology and
Philosophy. Though not wholly passed by in the few words
of general preface with which MIND was started seven years
ago, the question how Psychology and Philosophy are re-
lated to one another, so as to be coupled at all and coupled
in this particular order, deserves at this time a more careful
consideration. But, after an editorial experience of so
many years, a preliminary word or two of retrospect over
the course that is past will not be thought irrelevant to the
present discussion. How far does experience seem to have
justified the idea of founding a philosophical journal in
England and making it in the first place psychological ?
I will not conceal my own feeling of disappointment that
there has not been more of positive contribution to psycho-
logical science in its pages. If they have faithfully reflected
the amount of psychological activity in the country, it can-
not be said that this has been appreciably increased in the
last seven years, because of the opportunity here afforded to
any psychologist of bringing the results of his inquiry under
the notice of other students. The Journal has not yet suc-
1
A PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
ceeded in fostering if it might have been expected to foster
such habits of specialised investigation in psychology as
are characteristic of the workers in other departments of
science. There is little sign in our midst of the disposition
(or, perhaps, the ability) to work on such special lines of
psychological research as other countries give evidence of. 1
Investigations like those which are being systematically
pursued at Leipsic and elsewhere in Germany are not yet
undertaken in any of our universities or colleges ; and
monographs on particular phases of mental life have been
notably more frequent of late in France (as well as in
Germany) than in this country. 2 The reason is, perhaps,
not far to seek. Our academic posts are few altogether,
and have in general such multifarious duties attached to
them as do not favour the concentration required for this
kind of work. But the disposition is, after all, the main
thing, and here it is to be noted that in so far as it is still
the influence of what is called the " English Psychology "
that maintains the interest there is amongst us in the posi-
tive investigation of mind, this does not tell in the way of
stimulating to special inquiry. For all the name it has
made in the world, English psychology has never been
remarkable for its elaboration in detail. Some few special
questions it has been led by historic circumstances, if not by
accident, to investigate in a more thorough way ; but in the
main its reputation has been founded on the enunciation of
general principles which, while directly psychological in their
import, have been thought of rather for the philosophical
application to which they appeared to lend themselves.
Treatises on Man or Human Nature, Essays or Inquiries on
Understanding generally, Analyses of Mind in all its aspects
these have formed the staple of English productions in
this field. So, at the present time, it is rather the recon-
sideration of the psychological point of view, whether in
reference to philosophy or in reference to the range of
mental inquiry as newly enlarged by the biological principle
of evolution ; or it is the revision of the whole psycho-
logical field with a view to including and ordering the great
mass of new facts that have been brought to light, chiefly
from the physiological side ; or, again, it is the application
(too long delayed) of psychological principles to the practical
1 Exception should be made for Mr. F. Galton's researches on Generic
Images and on Automatic Representation, noticed in MIND XVL, 551, the
former of the two being followed up by him in MIND XIX., 301.
2 Mr. Gurney's elaborate Power of Sound is one instance of the kind of
special treatise here meant ; Mr. Sally's Illusions is another.
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 3
work of education it is these various tasks that are now
engaging the attention of those who set store by the tradi-
tion of " English Psychology ". But there is other work to
be done also, and we shall soon fall too far behind in the
scientific race if we have not our own record of positive
results to show.
Otherwise, it may perhaps be claimed that the past
volumes of MIND have not succeeded one another to no
purpose. They have kept English readers, for the last
seven years, better informed than they would else have been
of the psychological and philosophical movements in other
countries, and they have given a representation that cannot
be called other than impartial of the manifold currents of
thought running among the English-speaking race here and
in America. If at times some forms of opinion have seemed
to assert themselves more than others, the fault lay with the
others that chose to assert themselves less. It became clear
from the beginning that the number of English thinkers, at
the present day, who cared to have a clearly denned psycho-
logical basis was very small : not that any can be without
their psychology, but that most are of opinion either that it
supplies no basis for philosophical consideration or that they
can get on very well without thought of it. All who had
anything serious to say have, therefore, from the first been
encouraged to deliver themselves of their message, whatever
it might be ; and while I reflect with satisfaction that the
chief opponent, in this generation, of the English philoso-
phical tradition was using the Journal for the exposition of
his matured conclusions when a cruel fate snapt on a sudden
the thread of his life, I can truly say that no philosophical
contribution offered has ever been declined on the ground of
its being of one cast of thought rather than of another. As
this has been the rule in the past, so is there a fixed deter-
mination that it shall be in the future. Nor does compre-
hensiveness of this kind mean philosophical indifference
the absence of all conviction in one who seeks to practise it.
It may, perhaps, be taken rather as a sign of understanding
that in philosophy there is room for differences of view,
which need clearing in relation to one another while they
remain differences. There is urgent need, in the present
state of philosophical speculation, for that free and direct
interchange of thought from opposite sides which MIND has
done something to promote and may yet do more. Mutual
understanding not agreement is the object to be first
striven for. It is with some thought of helping in that
direction that the following pages are now written.
4 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
When Psychology is distinguished from Philosophy and
the question is raised whether there is any special relation
of the one to the other, it is Empirical Psychology that is
to be understood the science of mind worked out in the
way of the natural sciences, if not regarded as itself one of
them : Eational Psychology has always been taken as philo-
sophical or nothing. Now of empirical psychology Kant, in
a well-known passage near the close of the Kritik d. r. V.
(' Architectonic of Pure Reason '), has declared that it is
nothing to philosophy proper or metaphysic, any more than
the empirical study of nature is ; or that if it may continue
to get a little attention from the philosopher, this is only
upon sufferance, and until it is taken vigorously in hand by
the specialist and turned into Anthropology, as a complete
scientific doctrine of man.
It is a remarkable saying of Kant's, and not least remark-
able is the prospect held out of a wider science of man
within which any scientific psychology must fall. The
declaration as to Anthropology proves more than his own
treatise on this subject, full of genuine observation as it is
how thoroughly he understood what work had to be done in
the way of science for a comprehension of human nature :
no mere collecting and sifting of objective facts, but also
work of psychological (subjective) analysis conducted ac-
cording to the methods of positive scientific inquiry. Nor
in denying philosophical import to psychology, was Kant in
the least unaware of the special claims that might be set up
for the science in this respect. He begins the passage by a
reference to the expectations which in that very age had
been formed, that psychology might be able to achieve for
metaphysical insight what the method of U priori speculation
was being abandoned for having failed to effect. Kant, we
know, had himself for a time snared the opinion, borrowed
from German psychologists of that day, like Tetens and
others, more perhaps than from Hume and Locke, that a
scientific doctrine of mind must be placed first in any philo-
sophical discipline. But also from Locke and to some
extent from Hume (at least Hume of the Inquiry) he had
had occasion to learn what they had to urge to the same
effect ; and if, in the end, he declares roundly that meta-
physic has nothing to do with psychology, it is done with
his eyes hardly less open than if he had had before him all
that later psychologists of whatever different schools
British or Continental have since sought to demonstrate
to the contrary. At the same time, it is of interest as well
as to the point to remember that Kant himself lies under
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 5
the imputation of remaining too much influenced by the
idea with which he was once infected that psychology is
the foundation of all genuine philosophy. If some regret
that he ever outgrew the idea and did not spend himself in
giving it effect, others find in the rags and tatters of psycho-
logical doctrine which he could never throw off the explana-
tion of all his shortcomings as a philosopher.
It is certainly to Locke that we must go back to find the
beginnings of the opinion that philosophy should start from
what is now called (though Locke did not call it) psycho-
logical inquiry. There is in Hobbes, in the previous genera-
tion, more express inquiry of the psychological sort, but not
Eirsued with any such directly philosophical purpose,
ocke, with the definite aim of furnishing a theory of the
validity and limits of knowledge, elects to proceed by what
he calls the " plain historical way " of a consideration of its
origin ; in other words, he seeks to solve the philosophical
question of the import of knowledge by reference to the
psychological question of its coming-to-pass. The idea
worked so powerfully that, in the next generation, we find
Berkeley solving the religious question of the relation of the
creature to the Creator through a philosophical theory of
knowing and being suggested by a special inquiry in the
psychology of vision ; and Hume, in turn, declaring that,
while even such sciences as mathematics are in a manner
dependent on the science of man, this is still more true of
properly " philosophical researches," which can be conducted
only after a scientific understanding of human nature, to be
attained by the same way of " experience and observation "
as had been found effective in other sciences. When Hume
thus wrote, Locke's idea of psychological inquiry had been
caught up in a still more positive spirit by Hartley, and
through Hartley more than Hume it has worked upon those
who in this century have advanced farther upon the way of
thinking that has become stamped as characteristically
English. Even the reaction against Hume's philosophical
conclusions, in Scotland, started from a not less emphatic
assertion of the need of resting philosophy upon an inductive
science of mind ; and meanwhile, by the middle of last
century, Locke's idea was being ardently worked out also in
France, Germany, and Italy. It was thrown into the shade
by the Kantian conception of Critical philosophy and re-
mained in abeyance during the whole period of eager
speculation that followed ; but all the while, in Germany,
psychology was making way as positive science by the
labours of Herbart and his school, and in time it came again,
6 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
first through Beneke (under the direct influence of Locke)
and afterwards in connexion with the forward movement of
physiological science giving a new definiteness to psycho-
logical results, to be regarded as of special significance for
philosophy.
What is, then, the exact import of the idea thus intro-
duced by Locke into the stream of philosophical thought ?
It is (so far as philosophy turns upon the problems of know-
ledge) that, before attempting to determine what can be
known ultimately of things, investigation shall be made of
the human faculty of knowing by the same method that has
been found effective in the region of the positive sciences.
Locke was deeply impressed by the scientific achievements
of his century, culminating in the work of Newton, and,
while declaring that for himself philosophy is turned from
direct speculation about things into general theory of know-
ledge as complementary to the special sciences, he is most
of all decided on the point that such philosophical theory can
be wrought out only after scientific account has been
rendered of mind. This is his really characteristic idea ;
for the conception of philosophy as theory of knowledge in
relation to the sciences is equally proclaimed by Kant later
and had already been shadowed out earlier by Descartes.
To arrive at philosophical conclusions that might the more
readily command assent because drawn from a basis of
properly scientific results about mind, which could no more
be contested than any results of mathematical or physical
science such is the idea of Locke and his followers. It
gets the pointed expression before quoted from Hume, and
it has determined the form of all homespun English thought
ever since. It is not that in putting psychological con-
siderations in the front the English thinkers have eschewed
the work of philosophy ; for they have never hesitated
to pronounce on ultimate questions, it being rather their
conception of the range and limits of psychology that has
remained uncertain. But there has been a common per-
suasion among them that there is need of a definite scientific
platform from which to start upon the search for philoso-
phical comprehension, if anything that can be called know-
ledge more than subjective opinion is to come of the
quest. So far, again, as philosophy is to provide guidance
as well as insight has in view not only rational interpreta-
tion but conduct and aspiration here also the thought has
been that beginning should be made with scientific investi-
gation of the processes of feeling or impulse natural to man.
The idea, however, is one thing, and another thing is the
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 7
carrying of it out. It may be possible, as we shall see, to
maintain in the present scientific era the advantage or even
necessity of basing philosophical consideration upon psycho-
logical inquiry, and yet it may be allowed that the idea, as
originally struck out at another time of strenuous advance in
science, has never hitherto been circumspectly enough put
in practice. Locke and his followers to the present day
have proceeded in a manner that has laid them open to a
kind of criticism that apparently makes an end of their
pretensions to rank as a serious philosophical school. The
criticism directed by Green against Locke and Hume tells
also, as it was plainly meant to tell, against Mill and others
in this generation who, working at philosophy from the
standing-ground of psychology and making whatever pro-
gress in either department, have been hardly more careful
than Hume or Locke to draw a clear line between natural
science of mind (or man) and the ulterior consideration of
things in relation to mind. The point" of the criticism
urged by Green (after Kant), with a massive persistence
that stamps it as an original philosophical achievement, is
too well-known repeated as the argument has lately been
in these pages to need more than general indication.
Locke and the others are charged with assuming for the
explanation of mental experience that which is itself
unintelligible except as the result of a mental function.
They would account for mental experience, including
thought, by supposing a world of ' objects ' acting upon a
mind or a multitude of minds, when it can be shown that
the very things or objects assumed are themselves mental
constructions dependent on the activity of that thought
which is in this wa'y to be explained. The moral is that in
no such way as the English school has trodden can the
work of philosophy be performed, but only by a path at
least as different as that which Kant had in view, when he
scouted the notion that the least philosophical importance
could be attached to psychological (or anthropological)
science.
So far as it bears against Locke in particular, the criticism,
it must be allowed, is not to be repelled, if it were any-
body's business at this time of day to defend the language
or the thought of his Essay, so wavering and uncertain as
both plainly are. Indeed, it is one view to take of the
work of his immediate successors, Berkeley and Hume,
that they did something to obviate, by anticipation, the
objections that can be urged with incontrovertible force
against his shifting positions. But neither did Berkeley
8 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
and Hume define their ground with sufficient care, nor
proceed far enough in the way of systematic construction,
to evade the criticism as it was to be levelled also against
them. Berkeley with his religious and Hume with his
dialectical aim had neither of them in view, to the same
extent as Locke himself, a positive solution of the philoso-
phical problem of knowledge in keeping with the facts of
psychological science. If no more could be said for the new
method in philosophy than they were at pains to urge, there
was need enough for Kant's newer way. As for the later
English thinkers, if they continued to maintain the psycho-
logical starting-point, they were bound at least to bring
their doctrine face to face with Kant's theory of knowledge
in detail, since never before, from any point of view, had the
work of philosophical analysis been carried so far. Their
failure to do this has, more than anything else, weakened
the impression that might otherwise have been wrought by
the signal advances they have made or rendered possible in
constructive interpretation beyond their pre-Kantian com-
patriots. And thus the hostile criticism directed against
these has seemed by no means wanting in point against
themselves. Can it in any way be met ?
Those who would still in these days cling to the English
tradition or rather uphold the idea of it all the more in the
changed conditions of the time changed alike by the
widened scientific inquiry and by the deepened philosophical
thought of the last hundred years may (as it seems to me)
materially strengthen their position by making more express
distinction of Psychology and Philosophy than has been
usual in this country. It is a mistake to think of psycho-
logy, because it is concerned with mind, or natural science
of man, because it deals with man, as meeting all the re-
quirements of philosophy. Nor is the difficulty met by such
a vague use of the word Metaphysics as satisfied Mill (as
well as Hamilton and Mansel) : the name is misleading when
applied to psychology, and confusing when it is held to
justify the conjoint treatment of epistemological or onto-
logical with psychological questions. ' Philosophy of Mind '
or ' Mental Philosophy ' might seem to lend itself better to
the double use, because it may stand for psychology like
' Natural Philosophy ' (in the English usage, after Newton)
for physics, while opening at the same time a vista of ulte-
rior or deeper consideration in the word Philosophy ; but
nothing is gained by the attempt to combine under one
designation what it is of the first importance, for clearness
of view, to separate. Till psychology and philosophy are
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 9
kept well apart, neither the one nor the other can have fall
justice done to it. Any advantage there may be in passing
to the one through the other is certainly imperiled, if there
is the least pretence made that the psychology is already
philosophy. Let us, first, try to define the true character
and position of Psychology, and if we find it to be science of
altogether exceptional scope, bringing it into special relation
with philosophy, let us next determine the meaning that
may be attached to Philosophy in relation to psychology.
Psychology, by itself, is, in the first instance, positive
phenomenal science positive as to its method, phenomenal
as to its subject-matter. Its method does not differ from
that of other positive sciences, like biology or chemistry,
except as the method of any science is modified by the
peculiarity of its subject. As phenomenal science, it is occu-
pied with a particular class of facts, taken just as they
present themselves. Phenomenal facts are appearances
(aspects) of things, or occurrences in things as they appear.
What is the meaning of ' thing' or ' appearance' or ' aspect'
these are questions which the particular science dealing
with any class of facts leaves wholly aside. In so proceeding,
the sciences may all be said to begin quite arbitrarily, because
the questions are real and remain open ; but the method is
justified by the results. It is notorious that all the positive
sciences, from mathematics onwards, have become consti-
tuted and made way just as they have cut themselves loose
from that kind of deeper inquiry. Psychology, too, is science
only upon those terms. Not that, in placing it thus far on
a level with the other sciences, we commit ourselves to the
position that mind is merely such another aspect of things
after life (the subject of biology), as life is after material
constitution (the subject of chemistry), or material constitu-
tion is after motion (the subject of physics). It will pre-
sently be argued that there is something in Mind, as the
subject-matter of psychology, unlike anything else, that sug-
gests the need of some other kind of consideration ; while
the fact, evident from the first, that the events or states (or
however they are called) which psychology investigates, are
apprehended only in the peculiar attitude of introspection,
makes already a profound difference. Still there is a definite
sense in which we may speak of mental phenomena as of
vital, structural or other phenomena ; and in this sense, we
are entitled, nay bound, from the scientific point of view, to
make all necessary assumptions, were it only to get language
in which to state our results.
The psychologist seeks to assign the natural conditions
10 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
under which mental experience, as we are each (subjectively)
aware of it, arises or comes to pass. For this he as readily
assumes ' objects ' (in the sense of material things) as any
other man of science, and with as little prejudice to the
deeper question what an ' object ' is or how it can be known.
It is plain fact that, but for the presence of what we call
external objects in relation with the bodily organism (ano-
ther object, also in its way external), certain of the mental
events which the psychologist has to study those that are
called by the general name of Sense do not come to pass.
There is no way of rendering a scientific account of these
(that shall be more than a bare subjective description) except
in terms of the physical circumstances plainly involved.
The circumstances, when more closely examined, are found
to consist of physiological processes in an organism, in rela-
tion with such physical processes as science discovers upon
resolution of the ' objects ' of our common or natural expe-
rience. Advanced so far as to substitute the exacter expres-
sion for the vague opinion of common life that our bodies
are somehow implicated with other bodies in the production
of conscious experience, the psychologist has then obtained
a definite clue for the scientific resolution of the whole
complex of mental experience which offers itself to intro-
spective observation. Those facts of mental life (subjectively
apprehended) are first to be dealt with where there is clear
evidence of physiological process that can be assigned, and
afterwards those where the physical conditions are of a more
hypothetical character but can yet be imagined in continuity
with those that are more evident ; the same order of treat-
ment (from Sense, through Perception and Representative
Imagination, to Thought), once it is thus suggested, being
confirmed by reference to the historical development of the
individual and the race. Nor are the results arrived at less
purely psychological because of the regard had to physical
conditions. It is not the mere fact of natural concomitance
between physical event and mental event that is in this way
to be established, though it is of scientific interest and im-
portance to ascertain the particulars of such concomitance,
as a subsidiary result of the inquiry. The psychologist's
reference to physical conditions, so far as it can be carried
through, is everywhere made for the elucidation of the facts
of subjective consciousness. It is these that he aims at
classifying with a view to explanation, and the explanation
consists at last in the establishment of laws of mind laws
which are ' natural,' but still of subjective import. There
is thus a perfectly legitimate ' natural science ' of mind (or
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 11
man), against which, so long as it gives itself out for nothing
else, there lies no more objection than against any other
positive science. It is a legitimate and also, from any point
of view, a necessary task to determine the conditions under
which and the manner in which our conscious experience
(as introspectively observed) naturally proceeds. The cir-
cumstance that the peculiar attitude of introspection must
be taken up before the facts to be accounted for are appre-
hended, complicates the inquiry with special difficulties but
does not alter the methodological conditions under which it
may, and (if it will be scientific) must, be pursued.
But if psychology is thus, in its way, natural science, it is
more also, or rather it leads to more. Mind, however it
may be taken as the name for a peculiar class of (subjective)
phenomena in relation with other (objective) phenomena,
has also a wider implication. The ' other phenomena '
meaning such ' objects ' or objective appearances as physical
science investigates out of all relation to the fact of their
appearing have, as the very name ' phenomenon ' implies,
their mental aspect. They may be viewed as themselves
part of our mental experience : not that this can happen at
the moment when they are being taken as the physical con-
ditions of the subjective facts which as psychologists we are
for the time investigating, but that they can in turn be con-
sidered as subjective facts to be investigated. The object
(physically understood) which as acting upon the organism
gives the only means of stating in scientific terms how we
come, naturally, to have such a subjective experience as we
call sensation, cannot fail, in the course of the inquiry, to
appear as itself also matter for psychological consideration.
To be regarded as the condition of our having, in certain
circumstances, the particular kind of conscious experience
called sense, it must come within conscious ken; that
is to say, it admits of statement in terms of another
kind of conscious experience, called perception, which has
equally to be treated by the psychologist. Or the case may
be put otherwise, thus. The psychologist, in giving account
of sensation as a rudimentary kind of subjective experience,
has to face the question how sensations appear all, more or
less, as objectively referred or projected in an extended order
some appearing so much as sensible qualities of external
bodies that it is only by an express effort that they can be
thought of as sensations, others appearing indeed as sensa-
tions but thought and spoken of as ' bodily ' from being
either localised definitely on the surface of the organism or
vaguely referred to some internal part. This is the psychology-
12 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
cal (as opposed to the philosophical or metaphysical) question
of Perception, admitting, when so stated, of a strictly scien-
tific solution. But what a transformation does such an
extension of the psychologist's view not work ! Not a
single physical object or fact, as given in common experi-
ence or investigated in natural science, or again as assumed
for psychological science itself, but now presents itself as a
problem to be solved in terms of properly psychological,
which is to say, conscious experience. There is, obviously,
no science like this Psychology, whose subject-matter, how-
ever at first distinguished from that of other sciences, is
seen, as we advance, to include (in a manner) the subjects of
them all; which begins with assumptions like the other
sciences, but after a time turns round and investigates its
own assumptions as no other science does or can. Mathe-
matics, physics and all the rest do each their appointed
work and have nothing to say to the conditions under which
their own or the others' work is appointed. Psychology
alone, in doing its work, finds itself occupied (in a manner of its
own) with the very matter of the others. Number and space,
motion, material constitution, with every other aspect of
things that is or can be conceived to be the subject of direct
positive investigation, are in all their varied modes at the
same time facts of conscious experience in all strictness,
mental phenomena, of whose elements and composition
account may be rendered from the psychological point of
view. If such account may be given, how can Psychology
be spoken of as if it were only one among the other sciences,
touching the philosopher, who comprehends things univer-
sally, no more nearly than any other ? Psychology is not
philosophy, but with Mind for its subject its scope cannot
be less wide than the scope of philosophy. That is not to
be said of any other science.
It is no wonder, indeed, that psychologists have slipped
into philosophical consideration as other men of science
have not, or that those philosophers who set store by scien-
tific psychology have not been too careful to distinguish and
separate the one kind of consideration from the other. If
philosophy is, on the theoretic side, the comprehension of
things as known, and, on the practical side, the valuation of
things as ends to be striven for, what more natural than
that the scientific investigation of the various phases of our
complex mental life distinguished, so far as they can be
distinguished, under such heads as knowing, feeling and
willing should be mixed up with or have mixed up with it
the philosophic inquiry? The conjunction is much to be
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 13
deprecated, when we see how it gives occasion for groundless
objections against the method of psychology as science. It
is equally to be deprecated, if it can be shown to impede the
free exercise of philosophical thought. But the fact that
psychology and philosophy so readily intertwine is surely an
indication of some special affinity between them. Let us
now take up the question of their relation from the side of
Philosophy. We have seen psychology refuse, because of its
subject, to be classed as merely one science among the
others. How shall we understand Philosophy in relation to
the sciences generally, and more especially in relation to
that science of psychology whose scope widens out into an
all-comprehensiveness vying with that of philosophy itself?
Locke, who first, in whatever inarticulate fashion, pro-
claimed the necessity of starting with psychology, had a
clear notion of the function of Philosophy in general, which
his followers have too much lost sight of, some in their
efforts to improve his psychological ground-work, others in
their predominant concern to work out special theories of
ethics or of logic from psychological data. If we discount
Hume's Treatise of Human Nature because of its equivocal
import, there has not been since Locke's Essay any work of
comparable range in general philosophy produced by an
English thinker from the psychological point of view. Be-
yond psychology, English thinkers have occupied themselves
mainly with Ethics, till Mill in his Logic essayed the special
philosophical task of providing a theory of scientific proof;
or if the present day has witnessed more than one notable
achievement in general philosophical construction, these
have not been projected directly, if at all, upon Lockian
lines. Locke's notion of philosophy is of a general Theory
of Knowledge wrought out, with psychological data, as com-
plementary to the positive sciences. While this or that
science is concerned with a particular department of experi-
ence or aspect of things as we find them, it is the business
of philosophy to investigate the possible range of experience,
to distinguish between what can and what cannot be known,
and in particular to determine the conditions and content of
real knowledge all upon foregone psychological inquiry of
the positive sort. Now this is the view of philosophy (on its
theoretic or speculative side) that will force itself most
directly upon anyone who, being interested in mind as a
subject of science among other subjects of science, cannot
help seeing that mind has also a deeper implication which
no positive science can resolve.
Apart from any question of psychology, it is notorious that
14 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
(speculative) philosophy has in modern times changed its
character from a theory of Being into a theory of Knowing.
This has been mainly due to the rise and development of
the positive sciences, as appears not less clearly in Kant's
than in Locke's statement of the philosophical problem.
The sciences are there as so many bodies of coherent doc-
trine about this or that kind of fact. The more special of
them presuppose and are advanced by help of the more
general, but, as has been already remarked in another con-
nexion, not one of them (always excepting psychology) has
any light to throw upon the matter or assumptions of the
others. They employ a language which none of them
(unless, again, psychology) is in any way able to explain :
'object,' 'thing,' 'substance,' 'quality,' 'aspect,' 'pheno-
menon,' 'relation,' 'cause,' &c., &c. how can any of the
sciences proceed without the use of such words as these, but
which of the sciences has any account to give of them?
Clearly, then, there is just as much need of a theory of the
conditions of knowing anything as there is of a theory of
this or that kind of thing. The theory of this or that kind
of thing (as found) is what we call a science. The farther
indispensable theory of what the meaning of science or any
kind of knowledge is, may or must be called Philosophy. So
far all are agreed who will think of philosophy in relation to
science ; and not only (though more) in modern times, for,
with a less definite conception of special science, Aristotle
also had his view of ' First Philosophy ' as general theory
of knowledge. Consider now the science of psychology in
particular. Psychology also, as dealing with a special kind
of fact, needs to be supplemented (as science) by philosophical
consideration. But psychological fact includes the very
function of knowing, which is the subject of philosophy. A
different statement of the relation of philosophy to psycho-
logy is, then, required than in the case of other science.
There it was enough to say that philosophy has the task of
analysing to the bottom the conceptions and assumptions
which the sciences generally or any sciences in particular
employ without being able to give account of them ;
being thus fundamental theory of science while science is
theory of things as they appear. Here, where the particular
science (psychology) and philosophy have both to do with
the fact or function of knowing, the statement must be that
they have a different kind of account to give of it. And
there is room for such difference. When psychology has ex-
plained knowledge as a phase of conscious experience naturally
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 15
conditioned, there remains for philosophy the question of
its import or validity as knowledge.
The distinction may, first, be made plain by an example.
As we have already had occasion to note, the psychologist is
met at the earliest stage of his inquiry, when treating of
sense, by the remarkable fact that sensations, which he
must regard by themselves, analytically, as purely subjective
states of feeling (arising in physical and physiological cir-
cumstances that can be assigned), do yet appear in actual
experience with varying characters some vaguely and others
definitely referred to parts of the physical organism, while
still others are projected so as to appear naturally as qualities
of external things. We need not pause now to state the
case in all its variety more exactly : it is met by the psycho-
logical distinction of perception (sense-perception) from sen-
sation, perception being a cognitive or intellectual process
resulting in what are best called percepts. A percept is a
particular fact of intellectual experience, as singled out for
investigation when it can be proved to be essentially com-
plex, however apparently simple. Now in any such percept,
as, for example, a definitely limited portion of space, or a
particular object in space with a variety of sensible qualities,
the psychologist's interest ends when he has shown what
elements (not farther analysable) of sense it involves and
under what laws these come to be so ordered or fused as
they appear in natural experience. The psychologist's inte-
rest ends and just then the philosopher's interest begins.
Both agree in regarding the portion of space or sensible
object as percept, that is to say, as fact of conscious experi-
ence, not (as in physical investigation or common life) as
fact or thing out of relation to mind. But while the psy-
chologist has in view the percept only as it is perceived and
explains how the perceiving comes to pass (in me or in you),
the philosopher asks what the perceiving imports (for you
and me equally) in particular whether it means or need
mean, as it is commonly taken to mean, a thing independent
of the perception of either of us. What is the space or
object that we perceive ? What more is there in it as per-
ceived, than as fancied? If said to be real or objectively
valid (as a subjective fancy is not), what makes it so ? These
and the like questions, which it is not for the psychologist
to answer (though it were allowed that he can best put them
in train for answer), touch the very heart of what we mean
by Knowledge. We may view knowledge as mere subjective
function, but it has its full meaning only as it is taken to
represent what we may call objective fact, or is such as is
16 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
named (in different circumstances) real, valid, true. As
mere subjective function, which it is to the psychologist, it
is best spoken of by an unambiguous name, and for this
there seems none better than Intellection. We may then
say that psychology is occupied with the natural function of
Intellection, seeking to discover its laws and distinguishing
its various modes (perception, representative imagination,
conception, &c.) according to the various circumstances in
which the laws are found at work. Philosophy, on the
other hand, is theory of. Knowledge (as that which is known).
But, if we thus take philosophy as Theory of Knowledge,
beyond psychology, it needs to be denned on other sides
also : in relation to Logic, accepted as this has been for
philosophical doctrine by none more expressly than by Mill
and others among the later representatives of the psycho-
logical school; and, again, in relation to Metaphysic, the
most widely accepted synonym for anything that can be
called Philosophy. What we may leave aside, on the pre-
sent occasion, is the question what other definite lines of
philosophical thought are opened up for the psychologist by
the other phases of mental life which he distinguishes, from
Intellection, as Feeling and Will. It, of course, follows that
there are such other lines, when it is seen how the psycho-
logy of Intellection passes into philosophical Theory of
Knowledge; but the present object is not to lay out the
whole philosophical field only to indicate a point of view.
There is special need of distinction between Logic and
Theory of Knowledge ; for some (as Hegel) would use the
very name Logic for philosophy when conceived as Theory
of Knowledge, and others (as Mill), while retaining the
traditional conception of Logic, though widening it in a cer-
tain admissible way, are found importing into the exposition
(as in Mill's chapter iii, " Of Things denoted by Names ") a
series of considerations which are plainly extra-logical and
can only be called epistemological. And, from any point of
view, is not Logic a philosophical theory of knowledge?
What is valid knowledge ? When is knowledge valid so as
to command universal assent ? What is known truly and
what not truly ? These questions, which we have used to
express the problem of philosophy as opposed to psychology,
seem to apply equally to the problem of Logic. Logic is un-
doubtedly concerned with validity of knowledge. But know-
ledge to the logician is what is more particularly called
Thought ; some saying this expressly, others meaning
Thought generally when they adopt the more special name
of Reasoning, and others implying the same thing when
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 17
they speak of logic as having to do with validity of Inference
(formal and material) or the conditions of general Proof.
Now if we substitute the word Thought, which properly
means general intellection or intellection "by way of concepts,
for the word Knowledge in the questions just repeated, to
make them more accurately express the subject-matter of
Logic, we get at once a clue to its distinctive feature as
compared with Theory of Knowledge.
Logic, while equally with Theory of Knowledge to be
distinguished from psychology as occupied with the philo-
sophical question of validity, is to be distinguished from
Theory of Knowledge in having to do with the validity of
Thought only as it is general. This view of Logic, as having
for its subject the import of the generality of general know-
ledge, agrees either with the limited conception of the
doctrine as Pure or Formal Logic or with its range as
widened to include Applied or Material Logic. Even
when applied to this or that particular kind of matter, Logic
goes no farther than to determine the conditions of valid
general statement (as deductively or inductively obtained) in
the particular kind of matter. It does not probe the deeper
questions remaining for Theory of Knowledge in regard to
any matter of thought. It belongs, for example, to Material
Logic to explain the form, mainly deductive, that geome-
trical reasoning assumes and to determine the conditions of
the valid proof of general statements in geometry ; but what
space may in the last analysis be, whether it is a subjective
form of our sense-perception or has any kind of extra-
mental reality these are questions which do not concern
the logician except in so far as the answer given to them in
ultimate philosophical analysis can be shown to affect the
question of the form of general statements in geometrical
science. This it very well may or indeed inevitably must
do : the present contention by no means is that Logic is not
related to Theory of Knowledge. Not only, in the view here
suggested, may Logic be regarded and treated as a special
department of the general philosophical theory, but, even
when constituted into a separate doctrine (sometimes called
a special science, though it is no science as mathematics and
the rest are), it may constantly have to reckon with episte-
mological considerations as the practice of all logicians
shows who (like Mill) do not confine themselves to the
mere form of thought. All the same, it is not to be con-
founded with Theory of Knowledge. It deals so exclusively
with the one aspect (generality) of such knowledge as it
deals with at all that, unless it be denied that this should or
2
18 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
can be investigated apart, the line of demarcation is clear ;
and as it has not been doubted, from the time of Aristotle,
that the aspect is one that can be treated apart, so neither
will anybody doubt that it should be so treated who is
interested in making knowledge scientific and is alive to the
fact that it is of the essence of Science to be general.
If philosophy as Theory of Knowledge is thus perfectly
consistent with or even includes the traditional conception
of logic as a department of philosophical doctrine, we may
next see that it consists as well with the conception of philo-
sophy as Metaphysic, though taken in no sense short of
that which is otherwise expressed as Ontology or Theory of
Being. This sense of the word Metaphysic, historically best
justified, is also that which is suggested by analogy with the
meaning of Physic. Physic (in its widest application) is
concerned about the being of things as they appear about
things only as they appear but yet as they appear to be.
Metaphysic, as going beyond Physic, has then to do with
the being of things as they are or with their being as the
ground of their appearing. But how can such a notion of
philosophy as ontological doctrine be entertained at this
time of day? It is not only English psychologists, content
with their ' mental phenomena,' that have abjured ontolo-
gical consideration. When Kant substituted criticism of
pure reason for dogmatic assertions about a sphere of super-
sensible existence, did he not establish for evermore that not
Being but Knowledge was the proper subject of philosophy ?
The critical inquiry which he thus put foremost did not,
however, preclude Kant from following it up with a ' Meta-
physic ' (of Nature as well as of Morals) as the proper fulfil-
ment of philosophy ; and nothing hinders the philosophic
thinker who begins by defining his task (in relation to
psychology) as Theory of Knowledge, from considering it as
Theory of Being (Ontology) also. The one, indeed, is in-
evitably the other. The thing that is known, is known to
be. The thing that is, is not otherwise than it is known.
What it is important to understand what has come in the
progress of modern philosophy to be clearly understood is,
that no dogmatic assertion of Being is philosophically admis-
sible. Before it can be determined what in any ultimate
sense is, what the modes of Being are, it must first be deter-
mined what the modes of Knowing are, what in the ultimate
sense is known. This is the idea common to the Critical and
to the Psychological school of philosophy. But that is no
philosophy which, after considering, by one method or
another, what it is to know anything and what is or can be
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 19
known, starts back from declaring what then must be
understood really to be. Philosophy has not only to give
the ultimate analysis of things in abstract terms (of subjec-
tive import), but must render account of the concrete
realities of everyday experience, which in the truest sense
are for us all because it is to them (animate or inanimate)
that all human interest attaches because it is they only
that are conceived as having an intrinsic or extrinsic worth.
The philosophy that attempts this is metaphysical in facing
a problem that can be expressed in no terms of physical
science. It is ontological in seeking to appreciate the ulti-
mate meaning of whatever can be said to be.
It seems, then, that there is nothing within the possible
range of philosophy that need remain sealed for the thinker
who starts from the psychological base more than for any
other. In point of fact, the * English ' thinkers, when in the
properly philosophic vein, have no more than others been
slow to declare how they conceive of things as, in the last
resort, being. They are only chargeable with having
allowed themselves to be led, by their method of approach-
ing philosophical questions, into an unsystematic and dis-
jointed treatment of them. The advantage to be obtained
by a clear distinction of Philosophy from Psychology would
tell in favour of both, but especially of Philosophy which thus
far has had its development most hampered in a conjunction
which has not seldom been a confusion. There is nothing to
hinder the thinker who works up to philosophy by way of
psychology from grappling with the general problem of
Knowledge, in as thorough a spirit of system as has marked
any of those, from Kant onwards, who have thought it the
chief merit of their philosophy that it has been wrought out
on a plane immeasurably higher or deeper than the level at
which psychologists creep along. There is nothing to
hinder, and his very psychology should rather urge him on
to the work of systematic interpretation, for which it sup-
plies the means as well as the motive. At least it is plain
that no psychological thinker need philosophise less syste-
matically than Kant, whose whole scheme of critical inquiry
has its stages psychologically determined.
But, after all, the question is not whether psychologists
can become philosophers as, of course, they can if they
will, or even whether psychologists are inevitably deter-
mined, as other scientific inquirers are not, to pass from
conclusions of science to the probing of human knowledge
to its foundations. The real question is whether the philo-
sopher in this (or other) part of his task is specially helped
20 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
by foregone psychological consideration ; and this has not yet
been directly met. The previous remarks, however, would
seem to warrant an affirmative answer. If it can be shown
(as here it has been suggested) that there is no problem of
philosophy which the psychologist does not have specially
forced on his attention at one or other stage of his science,
while his science gives him the means of considering it with
a definiteness of insight and in a methodical spirit which
interest in the deeper meaning and issues of things does
nothing of itself to guarantee, then it cannot be otherwise
than helpful to come to the work of philosophy from the
side of psychology. Though philosophical questions are not
to be solved under the same conditions of strict verification
as are possible in phenomenal science, philosophers as well
as scientific men desire to gain universal assent for the solu-
tions they propound. Philosophy, however differing from
science in its subject-matter, yet aims at the form of science.
It has been advanced most permanently, in all ages, by
those thinkers who were familiar with the best information
their time afforded in the way of special science. If, then,
it appears that there is one science which, while it is related
to the other sciences in method, has so far common subject
with philosophy that it is with Mind they are both (in what-
ever different way) concerned, the methodological advantage
of working into philosophy through the science of psychology
is hardly to be denied even though the practical proof may
yet remain to be given by psychologists that they can be as
thorough and comprehensive as they have hitherto been
sober and cautious in their philosophic thinking.
Meanwhile it may be observed how psychological science,
working within its own limits, has obtained results whose
philosophical import is in surprising agreement with con-
clusions which it is thought the greatest triumph of a very
different method to have been able to establish. Any regret,
indeed, that may be felt at the isolation in which English
thinkers have held themselves from the Kantian movement
in philosophy being content to work on from their psy-
chological base as if it had never been questioned is
tempered when it is seen what independent progress they
have been able to make upon their own line towards a
common goal. That is no argument for maintaining the
isolation, but may be held to prove that the method of
psychological approach is not philosophically valueless, and
gives ground for the belief that it has only to be more
systematically followed out for the achievement of as great
results as have ever been claimed for another way, while in
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 21
this way the results are more likely to secure general ac-
ceptance. Let us, in concluding these remarks for the
present, note but two points in the philosophical theory of
knowledge which, since the time of Kant, may be regarded
as placed beyond reasonable question : (1) that we know
Space, abstractly, as a ' form ' inclusive of sensation and,
actually, as one great continuum (percept, not concept) within
which all sensible objects are ordered ; (2) that anything to
be definitely called Object, as a sensible reality for all men
alike, is a complex product of thought-activity working
under common conditions in all. Now nothing is more
remarkable than the different accounts which the earlier
and the later English psychologists give of the perception
of space and of ' external objects '. Compare with Locke's
crude notion of space, as a direct and simple datum of touch
or sight, the present psychological theory that we acquire
perceptive consciousness of it by active synthesis, through
muscular organs, of elements of (passive) sensation ; or,
again, compare with even Hume's insight (so greatly
marked beyond anything in Locke or Berkeley) into the
processes of intellectual elaboration involved in objective
perception, the grasp that psychologists now have of the
representative factors that more than any presentative
elements explain how the percept appears as it does. I do
not say, here more than before, that the psychological are
the philosophical questions, but I say that there is no
aspect of the philosophical questions which may not be
better understood and more definitely treated because of
the psychological insight that has been gained. There is
nothing in Kant's philosophical analysis of either fact of
cognition nothing, that is to say, which from the point of
view he places himself at may be unquestionably maintained
for which a positive psychological warrant cannot now be
assigned ; while it is psychology that gives the clearest
demonstration of the limits that should be placed upon his
assertions (especially as to the universality of the space-
form as regards ' external ' sense). If that be so, Psycho-
logy is amply avenged upon him for his despite.
EDITOB.
II. PKOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PKOOF.
THAT the view taken of the Proposition depends largely
on the purpose for which it is required, is not perhaps likely
now to be seriously disputed. As Mr. Venn notices, 1
" Logicians have beer; too much in the habit of considering
that there could be only one account given of the import of
propositions," whereas "when we are discussing methods
rather than theories, this is not necessarily' so ": it is not
that one view is right and all the others wrong, but rather
that correct views may be as numerous as the different
purposes that can be set before us.
For the purpose of dealing with the dangers of Proof,
including thereunder all dangers to which a thesis, or as-
serted judgment, is liable, the most important fact about
propositions seems to be the power which they give us
(when their truth is believed) of passing from the known
to the unknown. There are two distinct ways in which
they do this, one of which may be called 'implication,' 2
and the other ' material indication ' ; the former being the
case where by merely analysing the meaning of a name or
proposition we either arrive at or guarantee certain of its
less obvious consequences ; while ' indication ' (in general)
includes this case and also the commoner one where we
obtain the same power, not by mere analysis of the meaning,
but by viewing one fact as material evidence for another,
evidence asserted as strong enough to stand against all
hostile criticism. The proposition ' man is fallible ' might
be an instance of either of these modes of indication, ac-
cording as the notion ' fallibility ' did or did not enter into
the special meaning postulated for the name ' man '. If we
pass to new knowledge 3 by analysing the old, we do not
1 Symbolic Logic, chap. i.
2 Cf. Mr. H. MacColl, in MIND, No. XVII., p. 45. The chief point
where I differ from the view there set out seems to be in holding that
' implication,' both in its ordinary sense and as interpreted by Mr. MacColl,
requires a too nominalistic view of the import of the proposition. Again,
while ' indicates ' is forced enough, when applied to the singular (or
(formally) apply to more men than one. But in other respects I follow Mr.
MacColl very closely, and am much indebted to him.
3 The question whether, by analysis merely, we can ' increase our know-
ledge' is as ambiguous as the question whether by digestion we can
PEOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF. 23
reach a new theory, but the application of an old one :
while the attempt to prove by way of implication is, of
course, either to argue in a circle or to appeal ad hominem :
material indication is the sole means either of really passing
from unknown to ' theorised,' or from theorised to known,
so far as knowledge is capable of being guaranteed.
If we elect to consider propositions solely as regards their
function of end or means in the practical process of Proof,
three chief consequences follow :
First, we are free from that main difficulty surrounding
the question what exactly is a Judgment ; the difficulty
namely that all judgments must be supposed rangeable on a
scale of completeness or finish, the ends of which scale are
not satisfactorily marked out.
Secondly, the distinction between Keal and Unreal pro-
positions rises into considerable importance ; the latter
name being here used to express all kinds of apparent pro-
position (i.e., of sentences, containing nominative case and
verb) which are incapable of Proof or Disproof.
And thirdly, we are under strong temptations to adopt
that view of the import of propositions which consists in
holding, not that ' something ' is spoken of, and a predica-
tion made about it, but that two ' things ' (in a sense to be
presently explained) are spoken of, and a relation of some
kind asserted or denied to exist between them.
Taking these three points in order, we may dismiss the
first and second with merely a few words of explanation.
It needs no lengthy process to show that any judgment, to
be capable of being made a thesis for Proof, must be at
least so far finished as to be expressible in the form of a
proposition ; and on the other hand that although inquiry
into its justification can in one sense never be completely
ended, yet a stage may come, in the history of any reasoned
belief, when instead of confessing reluctantly that only
' practical certainty ' is achieved, we more fairly express the
facts by boldly claiming that none but ' theoretical doubts '
can any longer exist. At any rate, rightly or wrongly,
assertions are sometimes allowed to pass for true ; and a
judgment is a thesis, only when capable of expression in
intelligible language and while the need for Proof is felt.
Next, the name ' unreal ' as here applied to propositions
is somewhat wider than what is usually meant by ' verbal '.
' increase ' the food we swallow. We get a new, and firmer, grasp of old
material. Though we may of course add to our power of applying
knowledge, by analysing accepted truths, this merely points to the
thoughtlessness with which we habitually bolt our axioms whole.
24 PKOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF.
Usually the distinction between real and verbal is taken to
correspond precisely to that between accidental and essential
propositions, verbal propositions being restricted to mean
such only as are tautologous. Thus ' a triangle is a three-
sided figure ' is commonly given as a typical example of the
verbal proposition. But for our purpose we need some
name to express indiscriminately all kinds of apparent
assertion which are unsusceptible of Proof, and in order to
avoid ambiguities I propose to call these ' unreal ' rather
than verbal. It is not necessary here to face the question
as to the means of distinguishing in practice unreal proposi-
tions from real. Such inquiry belongs by right to the
methods for detecting fallacies. But it may be well briefly
to indicate the heads under which unreal propositions will
be conveniently divided.
In the first place comes the familiar case, already noticed,
of tautologous, essential, or analytical propositions. On
these, nothing need here be said, except that, in our view,
a definition may be asserted as a ' real ' proposition whose
subject is ' the meaning (whether best, usual, or special) of
the word '.
In the second place we must certainly describe as unreal
those propositions which in any manner involve a contra-
diction in the assertion made. Here the unreality flows
from precisely the same source as in essential propositions.
The question of their truth is pre-judged already in the
definition of the terms employed, and hence they contain no
subject-matter for Proof.
And thirdly we must include the case where, from one
cause or another, any term used in a proposition fails to
convey intelligible meaning. There is, so far as I am aware,
no special name in use for this kind of unreal assertions as a
class, although certain forms of them have (very properly)
earned the name of mysteries. These too, from the nature
of the case, may safely sing in presence of the robber
Doubt. So far as they are consistently incomprehensible,
so far the question of their truth or falsity can clearly not
be raised, except in words. Their acceptance indeed, as a
formula, may show a willing and tractable spirit, and they
may to that extent have a value : but such acceptance
differs of course from belief in being admittedly a voluntary
act, and not a mere immeritorious and reluctant yielding to
the brute weight of evidence. It is unnecessary here to
occupy space with examples of these three familiar kinds of
pseudo-proposition.
Now, as to the Import. It is on all hands admitted
PEOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF. 25
that every proposition, so soon as understood, may be
divided into two parts, the Subject, or name of the ' thing '
primarily spoken of, and the remainder of the sentence, or
the words expressing the whole assertion made about such
Subject. If we denote the Subject by the letter S, we may
denote the remainder of the proposition by the letter J,
the judgment made about the S.
In so general a science as logic, or since the province
of logic is not yet clearly marked out, let us say in so
general a science as that of Evidence or Proof we find
ourselves constantly brought up against the difficulty of
obtaining words wide enough to include all that we mean.
Thus though assertion always asserts ' something ' of ' some-
thing ' else, though ' everything ' may have assertions made
about it, yet it seems hardly safe to say that assertion is
always about ' things ' ; unsafe at least without explaining
that ' thing ' is here used in the widest possible sense. Not
merely every thing (as commonly understood, namely every
material object) may be the S of a proposition, but literally
everything or anything, that can be named at all ; everything
that can be spoken of, whether objective or subjective, real
or imaginary, whole or part, great or small. The universe
itself is a ' thing ' in this sense, and so is every portion of it.
Time and space are things in this sense, and so is the year
1882, or the point of the pen with which I write : so is the
heat of to-morrow's sun, or the justice shown in my friend's
remarks of yesterday : so is the word ' Logic,' or the
meaning of that word, or the relation between its meaning
and something else, or the character of that relation, or the
fact that the character of that relation is beyond my power
to state. We need some name thus to express in general,
' anything that may be spoken about,' and in spite of the
possibly misleading associations of the word here chosen
(which at first sight may seem to demand tangibility almost,
or at least visibility or weight) there is really no other name
that will mislead so little. If we may say ' everything '
in one word, shall we not say ' every thing,' in two ? At any
rate such employment of the word will here be postulated
in default of any other name to serve the purpose required.
Mr. Venn, in his Symbolic Logic (chap, i.), discusses three
distinguishable views of the import of propositions the
predication view, the class-inclusion and exclusion view, and the
compartmental view ; finally adopting the latter as best suited
to the purposes there aimed at, and especially to the solution
of intricate artificial problems. But there is a fourth theory
which, though agreeing with the compartmental view in one
26 PEOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF.
of the main points in which it differs from the older doctrine
namely, in considering that every proposition has (at least)
two subjects, each term being the name of a ' thing spoken
about ' yet seems to me to differ from it fully as much as
the predication- view and the class-view differ from each other.
That theory, suggested in Mill's system, 1 stated very broadly
by Mr. H. Spencer, 2 and more recently worked out into
considerable detail by Mr. Carveth Bead, 3 may be described
as the relation-view of propositions, and may be briefly ex-
plained as considering that every proposition really asserts
the manner in which two nameable things are related to
each other e.g., as resembling or differing, and to what
extent ; as successive or simultaneous in time, or conjoined
in space, and whether invariably so, or otherwise.
It is usual in logic to divide what was above symbolised
by J into (1) Copula, and (2) Predicate, and if it were possible
to keep these names while avoiding ambiguity, I would
gladly do so. But though ' Copula ' might fairly be used to
express ' relation asserted,' it seems impossible to divest the
name ' Predicate ' of its etymological associations so as to
view it as really the name of another ' thing spoken about '.
We must therefore here adopt another symbol, and perhaps
the letter 5> is as little ambiguous as any. Under the rela-
tion-view, then, the form of proposition would be, not S
copula P, but S copula <
The difference, other than formal, between this and the
compartmental view appears to me to consist chiefly in the
greater variety of assertion allowed for here. The com-
partmental view deals (directly) only with the relation of
class inclusion and exclusion : the relation- view considers
this as one possible relation amongst others. A further
difference a formal one, however may perhaps be found in
the fact that under the relation- view the unit of assertion is
a single pair of related terms, while under the compartmental
view there is no limit to the number of terms that may be
(symbolically) combined into one proposition. The com-
partmental logic provides " a place and a notation for the
various combinations which arise from considering three,
four or more classes," and it is easy to see therefore that so
far as the purpose for which logic is required is that of
unravelling complicated class-relations deductively, nothing
1 Namely in his use of the relations of co-existence, sequence, causation,
and resemblance.
2 Principles of Psychology, Part VI., chap. viii.
3 Essay on the Theory of Logic.
PKOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF. 27
could be better adapted to such purpose than the view thus
named and utilised in the work above referred to. But as
Mr. Venn, in more than one place, 1 is careful to notice, these
developments of logic are more interesting on the theore-
tical than on the practical side. As he points out "it is
very seldom that intricate logical calculations are prac-
tically forced upon us ; it is rather we who look about
for complicated examples in order to illustrate our rules and
methods". What logic as a practical science is chiefly
occupied with is the determination, when any Thesis and
any Eeason are before us, of the further assertion (if any)
required to stop all gaps in conclusive reasoning. And for
this purpose, the compartmental view will, I think, only
help us so far as expressing descriptively the single, though
important, relation called by Mr. Carveth Bead " essential
co-existence," and more familiarly known as class-inclusion.
Of the three theories discussed by Mr. Venn, there can be
little doubt that the one which, as he says, has been deter-
mined by the ordinary needs of mankind, is on the whole
the best adapted for practical purposes.
It was said above, that, with the view of forwarding the
practical side of the science, we are under strong temptations
to adopt the relation-view of propositions. But it must not
be supposed that we need therefore discard the traditional
doctrine as erroneous. More fully, what was meant is that
if we wish to classify propositions for purposes of Proof,
simplification as far as possible becomes in the highest
degree important. Instead, for example, of having two sorts
of propositions, categorical and hypothetical, in only one of
which the names S and P are employed, while in the other
we have to speak of antecedent and consequent ; and instead
of accordingly having two sorts of syllogisms, with separate
sets of rules, S and & will apply to all propositions, whatever
their grammatical form, and the syllogistic process becomes
a single one. Again, under the predication- view, the Predi-
cate in propositions asserting causation can hardly help
becoming exceedingly unwieldy, and the central point of the
assertion is often rendered obscure. Take such propositions
as 'the sudden thaw was the cause of the flood,' or 'where
the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together,'
and ask what the predication view makes of them. In all
propositions where causal sequence is referred to, the obvious
primary meaning is that two ' things ' (usually events, but
sometimes objects or qualities) are somehow connected, and
1 E.g., Introd., p. xviii : also chap, v., p. 119.
28 PEOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PBOOF.
not that one thing (the S) deserves to have a certain com-
plicated assertion made about it.
It must be added, however what remains in fact as the
best practical excuse for the predication-view that often
one of the ' things spoken of ' is more directly spoken of than
the other. One of them forms the datum, or starting point
for the assertion, while the other forms its goal. Thus S
may denote an observed or known event, and Jj its supposed
cause or effect ; as in ' this death points to foul play,' or
1 the war will disturb all prices ' : or S may be the name of
something quite familiar, and S> one of its less obvious
causes, consequences, or concomitants, or less familiar
names ; as in ' tubercle is due to organic germs,' or ' strikes
are ruinous to the country,' or 'gold has specific gravity
19'34,' or 'whales are mammals '. Although in short every
relation is, strictly speaking, two-sided, not every assertion
intends to concern itself equally about both its possible
aspects. If S ' resembles ' S> f r example, it certainly can-
not be denied that the latter also resembles the former, and
yet our whole concern in making the assertion may be to
bring the former just within the range of what we know
(or suppose to be true) of the latter ; our knowledge of S> as
regards the relation to a third term, Z, being in some way
better established than our knowledge of S. Again, if S
' indicates ' S, the latter ' is indicated by ' the former ; but
the main purpose of indication is, of course, to point from
sign to thing signified. The former is the datum, the latter
the goal.
The relations that may exist between S and &, as thus
understood, are of course extremely numerous. That is to
say, we can, if for any purpose it be desirable, distinguish
an endless number of them. S may, for instance, be the
father of S>, or his mother, child, wife, &c., or larger than
S), or less ambitious, or may live next door to >, or may be
related to him, or her, or it, in a million different ways.
For our purposes, however, it will fortunately be sufficient
to make only the broadest subdivision.
Main Kinds of Thesis.
The most important distinction among kinds of real
assertion is undoubtedly that between Positive Assertion
otherwise called ' affirmation,' and bare Denial. Certain
propositions, instead of committing the assertor to any
definite statement of the relation between S and &, are
content to say merely that some definite assertion, taken as
PBOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF. 29
already made about them, is untrue. These will be called
denials : all others will be called positive assertions, or
* affirmations '.
It is a matter of some difficulty to mention any special
grammatical form as fairly representative of the denial,
since even sentences containing the negative particle ' not '
in close connexion with the verb, or the quantification ' no/
before a noun, or a ' negative name ' as &, are very fre-
quently used to express a positive assertion as here defined.
Thus we may say ' that is not bad,' or, ' no pen can
attempt to describe the scene,' or, ' he is unskilful, worth-
less, disagreeable, incompetent,' &c., without at all intending
to confine ourselves to bare denial of something either
actually or only presumably said before. The grammatical
form of the proposition, though often useful as a hint towards
the meaning in this respect is at best an uncertain guide ;
nor can even the whole context be taken as in every case
complete evidence of the real intention.
The two distinct intentions do however exist, and are to
some extent inferrible from the words employed. Where
the intention is doubtful there is nothing to fall back upon
except an express declaration by the speaker as to the sense
in which the proposition is put forward. At present how-
ever we are not concerned with the means of arriving at the
intention, but only with classifying those distinguishable
meanings which have importance for the doctrine of Proof.
Of these the most important is the distinction between
positive assertion and bare denial. And we may now pro-
ceed at once to examine more in detail the manner in which
this distinction runs across the others.
Next in importance is the opposition between Law and
Fact asserted; or as it may be otherwise called, between
abstract and concrete propositions. The most general of all
relations, asserted or denied, is that which for want of a
better name, may in the meantime be called ' Indication ' or
'Essentiality'. The copula 'indicates,' as here understood,
includes the copula ' is ' (as in ' S is P '), stretching however
beyond the usual interpretation of the latter. By calling
this the most general relation it is meant that, with the one
doubtful exception of the purely quantitative relations (the
laws of which are amply developed in mathematics and
require notice only in a more comprehensive scheme than
can here be attempted), every proposition may be viewed as
saying that one thing indicates, or does not indicate, a
certain other.
The apparent rashness of this statement will serve at least
30 PEOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF.
to show where the difficulty lies. Some word is wanted for
the purpose of generalising, in one expression, several kinds of
assertion which are commonly described by different names ;
no word appears better suited for the purpose than 'indi-
cates,' and yet even this would certainly not be sufficient
without some explanation. By means of a symbol indeed,
it would be possible to avoid ambiguity, but since the symbol
must have a name, we could not altogether escape the use of
language, and could only strive, while using it, to avoid any
misleading associations.
The chief difficulty really consists in stretching the name
* indication ' to cover both abstract and concrete propositions.
It is easy enough to see how every Law asserted may be
viewed as an indication, since the primary purpose of every
law is, of course, to be interpreted or applied : hence the S
of every abstract proposition is expressed either directly as a
* general name' (simple or complex), or else and especially
where it is a proposition is generalised by means of an 'if
or ' where ' or ' when,' &c. But when we come to speak of
concrete propositions the word * indicates ' draws us into
clumsiness of expression at once. This case of death, no
doubt, may indicate (or point to) poison, or my pulse at the
present moment may indicate (or show) the absence of
fever, or yesterday's panic in the city may indicate (or
foreshadow) a future crop of bankruptcies ; but it is un-
doubtedly clumsy to say that our enemy ' indicates the
qualities of ' a fool : we habitually condense these four words
into the one word ' is '.
Nevertheless, with this apology, I propose to use the
name * indicates ' in default of a better to fit all cases.
Much of the difficulty may be removed by remembering
that it is only in abstract propositions that S is really a
sign, in the ordinary sense of the term : it is only there, at
least, that it is intended to be used as a sign, or mark, or
label, bearing a recognised meaning. The essential char-
acteristic of concrete propositions is that their S cannot be
said, in general, to indicate the S, hut only by virtue of all
the special circumstances bound up along with it. It may
indeed be on general grounds only that we in fact believe
this or that concrete proposition as, that the panic will
produce a crop of failures : but this does not appear in the
statement. In the concrete proposition we distinctly assert
the possession of something over and above mere general
grounds, namely a full review of all the special circumstances.
In spite of any hidden facts, we assert our judgment as de-
serving of belief.
PBOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF. 31
The relations, then, which are thus to be included under
the name of ' indication ' are those of Dependence l (whether
causal or logical) and of Classification. By an assertion of
causal Dependence is meant an assertion that two ' things '
usually events but sometimes objects or qualities are
causally connected so that one of them is to some extent
an indication of the other, whether a sign in the strict sense,
or merely a symptom. Some things in nature are found or
supposed to be marks or signs of others, as a falling baro-
meter indicates a coming storm, or as breathing indicates
that life is not extinct, or as every existing human being
indicates the prior existence of a pair of human parents.
By an assertion of logical Dependence is meant an as-
sertion that the truth of one proposition follows from that
of another, or that the meaning of one name is included in
that of another. Most names and propositions are intended
to bear a meaning that is, to mark or signify notions or
facts and some propositions are intentionally put forward
as guaranteeing the truth of others. Thus the name ' In-
tolerance ' may be intended to include the notion ' active
hostility ' ; or the assertion ' he is coming ' the fact ' he is
not here ' ; or again the assertion ' he is a man ' may be
employed to guarantee the truth of the assertion ' he is
fallible '. By an assertion of Classification is meant the
extremely frequent case where a ' thing ' is said to deserve
a certain name, or to bear ' essential resemblance ' to another
thing, or to belong to a certain class, or to possess a certain
quality, or to have another thing ' co-existing ' with it ; as
in ' gold is an elementary substance ' or ' belongs to the
class elements,' or ' the state essentially resembles a family,'
or ' every rose has its thorn '.
The word ' indicates ' being used, then, in this extended
meaning, the assertion that one ' thing ' (S) indicates, or
does not indicate, another (S), is sometimes made generally
(i.e., ' universally ' or wherever such S may be found or
occur) as in ' all men are fallible,' or ' death when accom-
panied by certain symptoms always points to arsenic,' and
sometimes of a particular case alone, as in, ' this man has
made a mistake,' or ' this death is due to arsenic '. The
former kind of proposition will be here called abstract, the
latter concrete.
The abstract proposition may be expressed indifferently in
any one of a number of various grammatical forms, perhaps
the commonest of which are those familiar types (denoted
1 Cf. Wundt, Logik, pp. 179-186, 277, 281, Ac.
32 PKOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF.
under the traditional scheme by the letters A and E) whose S
is the name of the members of a class, ' all ' or ' none ' of whom
' are ' P. Thus ' all men are fallible,' or ' no men are secure
against fallacy ' are simple, straightforward examples of the
assertive abstract proposition. In both cases the attribute
* humanity,' wherever found, is said to indicate the attribute
'liability to error'. Another common form which the
abstract proposition takes is where the S consists of what is
sometimes loosely called an abstract name, as ' honesty ' or
'theft'. Thus we might assert that 'honesty is the best
policy,' or that ' theft cannot prosper long ' ; meaning, in
the two cases respectively, something rather more clumsily
expressible as that honest actions, in general, 'indicate'
success as likely to follow, and that dishonest actions, in
general, ' indicate ' that (in spite, it may be, of temporary
success) ultimate failure is probable. Of course these and
similar sentences may contain other meanings also may
even be used ironically but in so far as they are used to
express the meaning here spoken of, to that extent they are
what we here call assertive (or affirmative) abstract proposi-
tions. Again the adverbs ' always ' and ' never ' are very
largely used to express the copula of assertive abstract in-
dication, as in ' bread always falls upon the buttered side/
or ' a story never loses by re-telling '. And again another
still commoner grammatical form in use is the conditional or
hypothetical sentence, beginning with 'if or 'when' or
' where ' or ' while,' etc., as in ' if it rains in Ceylon it pours/
or ' when poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the
window/ or 'where there is smoke there is fire/ or 'while
there is life there is hope ' : in each of these cases the
purpose of the proposition may be to assert of one ' thing '
that it universally indicates another, whether in the past,
present or future relatively to itself. We need not follow
these grammatical variations into further detail : enough
has been said to illustrate them for the purpose required.
The concrete proposition on the other hand contents
itself with a less apparently sweeping assertion. It says,
not tjiat S, wherever found, indicates Sk, but that in this
particular instance it does so. Looking at all the circum-
stances, the present dearness of money indicates a coming
panic, the circumstances of this man's death point to some
kind of poison, the latest political movement indicates dis-
sension in the cabinet, or deserves the name of revolutionary
or reactive, or whatever else it may be. The difference is
perhaps best expressible by saying that while in the abstract
assertion S is spoken of (but by no means really conceived)
PKOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PBOOF. 33
apart from any surrounding circumstances which may serve
to individualise it, in the concrete assertion the reverse is
the case : we here say that taking all special circumstances into
account this S indicates
Corresponding to abstract assertions there are abstract
Denials ; and of these, two kinds may be distinguished.
Sometimes we deny a law by asserting that there are ex-
ceptions to it, sometimes (e.g., frequently in classifying or
name-giving propositions) by asserting that it totally fails ;
or in other words, that ' some difference exists between S
and S> ' The former kind of denial may be called exceptive;
the latter an assertion of difference.
As to the exceptive denials, perhaps the most frequent
grammatical form which these take is that known under
the traditional arrangement as the particular proposi-
tion l : e.g., ' some negroes are fairly intelligent ' or ' some
Mexicans are not habitual liars '. Again the adverb
1 sometimes ' or ' sometimes not ' is frequently used in
exceptive denials ; and again the expressions ' > is quite
compatible with S ' or ' S is by no means necessarily 5> ' ;
and again the expression ' all . . . are not,' as in ' all that
glitters is not gold ' ; and various other forms, such as, for
example ' there are lawyers and lawyers '. Here also no
form of words is by itself perfectly unambiguous : we often
need something else to show whether the proposition is really
intended as assertive or as a bare denial. But on the whole
and roughly, the particular proposition may be taken as most
nearly typical of this class. No fruitful distribution of any
proposition into its component parts, it must be remembered,
can ever be made until the real intention of the speaker is
clear.
As to ' assertions of difference ' here, as the name chosen
may help to show, there is some difficulty in placing them
quite clearly in the class of mere denials. The justification
for doing so lies however in the fact that without some
supposed belief that, for the purpose in hand, no difference
1 Cf. Symbolic Logic, chap, vii., p. 161 : " It can extinguish no class,
and establish no class, and has therefore no categorical information to give
the world." The particular proposition, as actually employed, no doubt
serves several other purposes also, notably that of registering our first
vague grounds of Inference as contrasted with anything deserving the name
of grounds of Proof. Finding two * things ' frequently or even occasionally
conjoined, we often begin to get upon the track of some law, and eventually
we may rise thereby to the power of making and perhaps proving, some
abstract assertion regarding them. But regarded as positive assertion,
this is too vague to be called a ' thesis '.
34 PKOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF.
exists (i.e., that S ' indicates ' 3) the assertion of difference
is too trivial to have any practical value, since points of
difference may always be found between two ' things ' how-
ever nearly alike. Hence the essential purpose of these
assertions is to contradict something already supposed to be
believed. The sole practical use of the assertion of difference
is either to break down a supposed analogy or to deny the
applicability of a name, i.e., the right of a thing to belong
to a certain class ; and this whether the proposition be
abstract or concrete. Thus we might say ' national
government is a different thing from family government '
(abstract), or ' whales are not fishes ' (abstract), or ' the
Kilmainham arrangement was not a compact ' (concrete), or
' the case of Mr. A. is different from that of Mr. B.'
(concrete). These propositions merely say that S differs
from 3>- For further examples of this form of denial we
may take such expressions as ' seeing is a different thing
from believing,' or ' liberty is one thing and licence quite
another,' or even perhaps ' force is no remedy ' though
this last phrase has no doubt been more often used to
express a vague law that ' force indicates probable con-
tinuance of the evil ' than merely to deny an assertion to
the contrary, or to correct the use of a name. As this last
example may serve to show, there is sometimes a difficulty in
deciding whether a given sentence is really an assertion that
S indicates the absence of something (as ice, for instance,
indicates the absence of a certain degree of heat), or a mere
assertion of difference between S and , But this is a
difficulty which cannot be remedied by simply refusing to
notice it. The possibility of misunderstanding the real
intention of a given set of words, is one that can hardly too
often be brought to mind.
Corresponding to concrete assertions there are concrete
denials ; and of these again two kinds. We have just spoken
of the concrete assertion of difference, and, after what has
been said of assertions of difference in general, the nature
of the first kind of concrete denials will be sufficiently
clear. Nor is there much difficulty as to the other kind.
It follows from the nature of concrete assertion that these
cannot be at all described as exceptive since there is no
law to which they directly take exception. Perhaps the
best name for them is ' Simple denials '. These also are
found in various grammatical forms, but the commonest is,
no doubt, where ' not ' is added to the verb, as in ' this
was not due to drink,' * the crisis will not be followed by
any important change,' * it is not accompanied by much
PKOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PBOOF. 35
danger after all/ etc. Also in this sense a negative name as
S may be sometimes used, though perhaps rarely. Thus in
saying ' the door is unfastened,' we might conceivably intend
merely to deny the opposite assertion, but more probably
the intention would be to convey a positive assertion of our
own. When the distinction that has here been drawn
between concrete and abstract propositions is clearly kept in
view, it becomes sufficiently easy to recognise the simple
concrete denial.
The abstract proposition is, then, the assertion or denial
of any general law in nature, of however narrow sweep
or insecure stability : the concrete proposition is the asser-
tion or denial of a single fact. The concrete proposition
takes a concrete S ' this man/ ' these instances/ ' my
lecture yesterday/ ' your hope of success/ and tells us what
these ' indicate ' forwards in time, or backwards or contem-
poraneously. And here must be noticed an objection which
may possibly be raised at first sight to this use of the word
* concrete '. A man it may be said is clearly concrete
enough, and so perhaps is an instance ; but a lecture is not
that dangerously near the abstract, and ' hope/ ' success/
are not these purely abstract terms ? The answer is that no
word (when used in a proposition and it is only when so
used that we are here concerned with them) is in itself either
abstract or concrete, but its context makes it so. Any word
may be either, according to the purposes of our assertion.
We may speak of man or of men in the abstract, in spite of
the solid flesh belonging to each individual ; and on the other
hand, by hedging in a so-called ' abstract name ' with the
help of a demonstrative pronoun, or in whatever way the
resources of language will allow us to apply such name to
some actual concrete case, we destroy for the time its
abstract nature, and the proposition as a whole becomes
concrete. If I make an assertion regarding the ' truth ' of
some particular story, I state no law, and deny no law, but
confine my remarks to one particular concrete fact. The
underlying meaning of ' abstract ' is always ' detached from
special circumstances ' or ' generalised/ and so long ago as
Berkeley's time, our limitations in conceiving anything in
the abstract have been clearly shown. We cannot conceive
things in the abstract, but we can make abstract assertions
regarding them can sometimes say, that is, how they will
behave, or how they should be explained, or designated,
under all circumstances indifferently ; and where we speak
of this man, your hope, etc., we include special circumstances
which ' man ' and ' hope ' by themselves would lack.
36 PBOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF.
Whether or not 'hope' in the abstract may tell flattering
tales habitually, we say that taking all the present circum-
stances into account it does so here. The S of a con-
crete proposition differs from that of the corresponding
abstract one in being saddled with all the individual peculi-
arities of the given case. And on this account the concrete
assertion differs from the abstract one in being less easy
either to prove or disprove, since surrounding circumstances
are nearly always wide enough to contain something that
even science fails to reckon.
It is evident also that, so long as the meaning is clear, the
grammatical form of the sentence categorical or hypotheti-
cal, simple or complex, A or E, etc., is not of the slightest
importance as regards this distinction. The proposition, for
instance, ' murder will out ' is for purposes of Proof the
same whether expressed in this fashion or in the shape ' all
murders are eventually discovered,' or ' no murders re-
main undiscovered,' or ' murder always comes to light,'
or ' murders never remain hidden,' or ' when (or if)
murder is committed, detection is sure to follow,' or in
whatever way it may suggest itself to rhetorical ingenuity
to clothe the same meaning. At the root of all abstract
propositions lies the formula ' S (universally) indicates S> ' J
and this whether & be past, present, or future relatively to
S, and whether the name of either be positive or negative.
In each case S (in general) is said to be a sign or mark of 5>>
whether in the past, present, or future relatively to itself.
Where S is found, & (it is asserted) may be looked for.
Abstract propositions play an important part in proof
whether proof of other abstract propositions or of concrete
ones. They summarise, in a compact and convenient form,
whatever general knowledge of nature we have already
obtained, and serve as tests to which to bring any new
assertion propounded for proof. The establishment of these
is of course the centre of interest for science. It is through
the existence of such ' dependences ' that all explanation
and prediction become possible, and our consistent recog-
nition of them constitutes the main difference between our
conception of nature as a network of uniformities, and the
earlier notion, so inevitable to savages, of a world governed
by caprice or luck.
Concrete propositions on the other hand, although con-
stituting in one sense the foundation for science, find their
main interest, as subject-matter for proof, in a less exalted
region. Although in common life also the truth of general
laws (more or less vague perhaps in their statement) may to
PROPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF. 37
no small extent be debated, yet the bulk of the questions
arising there for settlement are of a concrete character ; and,
roughly speaking, the commoner the life the more relatively
frequent are the concrete assertions put forward. Whether
this or that thing, person, or definite group, did act in such
and such a manner, or does possess such and such qualities,
whether this or that individual action, event, or ' accident/
was due to such and such causes, or will have such and
such results ; these are the most frequent questions about
which in daily life doubt arises, and which press for settle-
ment and proof. Every one of these is concrete, an
assertion directly regarding individual fact, not general law,
and as such is marked off by a chasm as wide as any that
can be made in logic, from the propositions above denned
as abstract. Between concrete and abstract knowledge,
however, in respect of their attainment and growth, there
has been mutual aid and mutual criticism so far back as can
be traced at all. No doubt, in one sense, concrete know-
ledge (or something separated from knowledge only by im-
perceptible degrees) is earlier in time, just as common life
is earlier than science. But in both there are now in-
numerable shades of development or completeness. It may
be safe to say perhaps that from concrete sensations the
first predisposition for abstract knowledge arose, and that on
crude concrete perceptions, aided by such predisposition, the
first crude abstract guesses were formed. But the history
of knowledge, from the earliest evidence attainable, is a
record of the alternate and mutual production, correction,
and illumination, of one kind of judgment by the other.
Whatever may be true of the earliest concrete assertions, at
the present time every concrete assertion put forward as a
thesis carries with it a remote and indirect reference to
numerous ' laws ' assumed. It professes, by implication,
the knowledge not only of a law but of conflicting laws, by
means of which the special circumstances can be allowed
for and a total balance struck. Thus the concrete proposi-
tion, when so far developed as to become a thesis for Proof,
is always rich in overtones. The abstract proposition also,
certainly, professes an acquaintance with concrete facts, but
not quite in the same manner as the concrete proposition
professes a knowledge of the laws of nature as bearing on
the special circumstances of the case under consideration;
for, since the abstract proposition expressly avoids saying
anything about special circumstances, the assertion made is
almost infinitely simpler. Practically of course the over-
tones in a concrete assertion are largely overlooked, but it is
38 PEOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PKOOF.
their existence which constitutes the chief weakness of
unaided common sense. What seems to common sense
more indisputable than that this given action is a case of
' firmness ' or ' strength of character ' or ' courage ' ? Per-
haps a deeper insight would show that among the special
circumstances must be included ignorance of conflicting
claims, or ignorance of danger.
There still remains to be noticed that very common
form of proposition, which, when two concrete things are
already given as having occurred or as existing, successively
or simultaneously, asserts causal connexion between them.
When we say for instance, ' your hasty speech was the
cause of all the disturbance,' or ' it is this pillar that
supports the building,' is the assertion properly abstract, as
implying some law, or concrete inasmuch as it speaks directly
and expressly of individual facts ? Such propositions, I hold,
may be used for either purpose, or for both together. It is
difficult to say for which they are most often applied, or even
which is most often their primary meaning. On the whole
one would be perhaps inclined to call their concrete meaning
primary, and to say that the abstract meaning was rather
insinuated or implied than directly intended as an assertion.
But in practice it will be found that these assertions are
largely used for apparently confirming, by means of facts
experienced, causal laws already more than half believed.
And since the abstract meaning has a wider importance,
and since moreover if an assertion be true in the concrete
there must also be some true abstract assertion behind it,
it seems best to view these as capable of both a concrete and
an abstract meaning, the disproval of either of which would
disprove both. For convenience, then, we may speak of
them as abstract-concrete propositions, if it be clearly under-
stood that they form no new distinction in kinds of meaning,
nor interfere with the division already made (of meanings,
not of forms of words) into abstract and concrete. 1
Succession and Co-existence.
There are not many minor distinctions of meaning in
propositions, that call for notice here. It seems necessary,
however, to mention briefly the distinction between proposi-
tions asserting Succession (whether backwards or forwards
in time) and those asserting Co-existence ; or, as they are
more commonly called, assertions regarding causation or
causal sequence, and assertions which merely name, or classify,
1 See Note , p. 39.
PKOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF. 39
the S, or which state some of its constant concomitants with-
out necessarily attempting to trace them to a parent cause.
Such importance as the distinction has, for us, flows from
the fact that according to the nature of the assertion in this
respect is to some extent its liability to special dangers.
Wherever indication is asserted, whether in abstract or
concrete propositions, all importance turns of course on the
degree of trustworthiness of the sign 1 : some signs being
more certain than others, but even a vague symptom being
better than none at all. And according as the assertion
points backwards or forwards in time (S a sequent of S, as in
' valleys indicate prior denudation ' ; or S an antecedent of
S, as in ' Deficient education indicates future increase of
crime ') is it to some extent open to special and different
dangers : propositions pointing backwards being liable to
the danger of overlooking ' plurality ' of causes ; and propo-
sitions pointing forwards, to that of overlooking the liability
of one cause to be counteracted by another.
Thus, to take first abstract assertions, it is seldom we can
say that any given S invariably indicates the past existence
of any given jj unless indeed the S employed be so vaguely
defined as to be of very little practical service. Every event
(S) we may, no doubt, assert (within the widest empirical
limits) indicates the past occurrence of some other event, the
1 We must here use * sign ' in an extended meaning also to correspond to
* indication ' : so as to say that in every proposition, abstract or concrete, S
is the ' sign ' and the thing signified or ' signification '.
* (From p. 38.) We thus get six main kinds of Keal Proposition :
43 (1) Abstract Assertion (or indication). [S, in general, indicates
>.] E.g., l children never think of others '.
02
H (2) Exceptive abstract Denial. [S fails as a general indication
of J?.] E.g., 'some children are unselfish'.
3
Q -(3) Abstract assertion of Difference. [S differs from ?.] E.g.,
whales are not fishes '.
d
Q
_"-g - (4) Concrete Assertion (or indication). [This S ' indicates '
E.g., ' this was due to carelessness '.
-(5) Simple Concrete Denial. [This S fails to 'indicate'
E.g., 'this was not due to carelessness'.
-(6) Concrete assertion of Difference. [This S differs from
E.g., ' John and William are not alike '.
40 PBOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF.
essential part of which recurring S will recnr : true, but we
do not often find this doubted. The point of practical
importance is what prior events does S indicate. Or, again,
every existing human being has certainly had (i.e., indicates
the prior existence of) a human grandfather : this also is too
axiomatic to convey practical information, though we may
want to know the name or the special characteristics of the
grandfather in question. Almost but not quite equally rare
is it to find complete invariability of sequence asserted
(except thus vaguely) when the reference is forward in time.
A shot through the heart or brain is perhaps invariably
followed by death, and if there were interval enough between
the two events we should say the former indicates the latter
as sure to happen : but favourable seed-time does not
necessarily indicate abundant harvest, since in the interval
some unforeseen counteraction may arise, or at the seed-time
itself along with certain favourable conditions there may
have been an unsuspected enemy sowing tares. So, again,
we may often predict too vaguely to be of much real service.
Sunshine, we know, for instance, always follows rain, and
may be expected sooner or later, but what we most want to
know is when to hope for it, or under what exact conditions ;
if within our power to compass.
Accordingly, abstract assertions of succession are com-
monly made with a large margin for the unforeseen. We
feel fairly contented in obtaining any hint of ' law ' any
knowledge, that is, which may form a basis for even im-
perfectly secure inference and proof. The only alternative
to ' Chance ' * is often ' Tendency,' and in our gladness to
escape from Chance we dignify this as ' Law '. An abstract
assertion pointing backwards has, then, to deduct from the
trustworthiness of its asserted indication in order to allow
for the possibility of other causes producing the same effect;
and this even where we possess a real ' Causal Law '. It is
a real law for example that a certain dose of a certain poison
(barring antidotes) invariably causes death. But still we
are very far from being able to say that death wherever
found indicates the past presence of this particular poison.
And in like manner every abstract assertion pointing for-
wards in time has, almost in proportion to its definiteness
^ 1 By ' Chance ' is meant in this connexion no more than the ''contra-
dictory opposite to ' known law '. Some law there is (now-a-days) always
assumed to be, but that the conjunction is due to ' Chance,' means really
that no amount of limitation of S or of > will give us a known law
between the two things so designated.
PEOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PKOOF. 41
and consequent practical value, to allow for possible anti-
dotes or counteraction.
In abstract assertions of co-existence we can attain much
greater certainty of indication, but even here large use is
made gratefully of incomplete laws indications only roughly
trustworthy, true only on unexpressed conditions. We may
know for instance that boys ' as a rule ' are mischievous,
and may make real use of the knowledge, without being at
all able to generalise the exceptions so as to state a quite
invariable law. If we could truly say, e.g., ' all boys except
those who are physically deformed are mischievous,' our in-
dication would be of far greater value than while we can only
say ' the majority ' or ' all but comparatively few ' or any
other vague limitation.
In the concrete proposition, on the other hand, (except as
will be presently seen, in the case where S is said to deserve
the name 5>)> there can be no talk of the assertion being
roughly true. The given S was either as a fact preceded by
S or not ; Sk either will or will not be among its consequents
in time. Here accordingly it becomes still more important
to recognise the ' plurality ' of causes and their liability to
counteraction ; and hence the purpose of distinguishing the
two kinds of assertion, namely those with a backward and
those with a forward reference assertions explanatory or
detective, and those which predict. As regards the descrip-
tive or classifying proposition (where S is said to deserve the
name of ,)> here a little more latitude seems inevitable.
Names are altogether so loosely applied their correct mean-
ing varies habitually within such wide limits that, in giving
S a name not already assumed to belong to it of right, we
may well be content, in many cases, to come somewhere
near the mark. Is this man civilised, intelligent, learned,
unsteady, idle, brave ? Even when we judge his character
accurately in fact, very many of such questions might admit
of the double answer, Yes and No.
As, then, in the case of explanatory or detective proposi-
tions the main difficulty flows from the ' plurality ' of causes,
and in predictive propositions from the liability of one cause
to be ' counteracted ' by others ; so in propositions of co-
existence the danger is that of taking for essential some-
thing that is accidental merely i.e. of believing ' always '
when the real truth is ' sometimes'. For if the proposition
be concrete (as ' this man is a fool ') it still professes abstract
knowledge knowledge of the essential qualities which go to
form the meaning of the predicate in question. 1
1 See Note *, p. 42.
42 PBOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF.
The Law of Counter-indication.
As the presence of one thing may indicate the presence of
another, so may presence indicate absence, or absence in-
dicate presence, or absence indicate absence. All these are
of course equally assertions of indication. Thus a negro's
coloured skin may be asserted to indicate the presence of a
cheerful temperament, or the absence of certain other
qualities ; and the absence of pain, in certain cases, to indicate
the presence of paralysis or the absence of inflammation.
On any view of logic, the real pons asinorum is the group
of facts here to be generalised under the one 'Law of
Counter-indication V This law may be said to lie directly
at the root of the ordinary doctrines of Conversion and
Contraposition, of Hypothetical Inference and Proof, and
consequently of the first and second figures of the Syllo-
gism ; and in a less direct manner its importance is trace-
able throughout. Difficult though it is to state the law
in perspicuous language, and intricate though some of
1 Mr MacColl, who formulates essentially the same law (loc. cit. p. 54)
adopts for it the name of ' Contraposition '. But Contraposition, in its
usual meaning seems never to have had quite so wide an application, and
therefore I think ' Counter-indication ' less ambiguous.
* (From p. 41.) Putting the results of this section into a table we get :
Real Propositions
(Whether abstract or concrete, assertive
or negative ; the symbol covering
both assertion and denial of indication.)
Of Succession Of Co-existence
I
Predictive Descriptive, Classifvii
tive
I
Explanatory and Predictive Descriptive, Classifying, and Connecting
Detective I
(S past jb) (S future ) (S present )
[E.g., 'Valleys are [Kg., 'Deficient [E.g., 'Gold is an elementary sub-
due to prior education fav- stance',
denudation'. ours crime'. 'Business qualities and the sanguine
* This mark was ' This law will temperament go together.'
not caused by not pacify Ire- ' This man is busy.'
ice.'] land.'] ' Whales are not fishes.'
' This is not my hat.']
And from this table, combined with the former one, and with the further
cross-division resulting from ' laws only roughly true,' a full table of the
questions arising for Proof may now be readily drawn up.
PEOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF. 43
its consequences may be, the law itself is really extremely
simple, and once grasped can hardly be forgotten after-
wards. It needs, however, some special definition in order
to overcome in the first place the difficulties of statement.
The language used in the first paragraph of this section is,
until further explained, hardly general enough to express all
that is intended, and is only chosen because no other names,
more comprehensive than ' presence ' and ' absence,' appear
to be available. The presence or the existence of a thing or
quality, the happening of an event, the truth of an assertion,
stand on one side of the opposition intended, as contrasted
with the absence or the non-existence of a thing or quality,
the non-happening of an event, the untruth of an assertion.
And, for brevity and convenience merely, I wish for present
purposes to extend the use of the two terms chosen, in order
to cover these diverse meanings. Accordingly such assertions
as that 'human beings indicate human parents,' or that 'the
existence of discontent in India indicates bad government,'
or that ' the falling of a stone indicates the force of gravity,'
or ' if he is well he will certainly go/ &c., are all cases of
' presence ' indicating ' presence ' in the sense intended. And
so with the indication of absence by presence, and of absence
or presence by absence. The two words are not to be
understood as strictly limited to their ordinary sense, but as
stretched to include the wider meaning postulated as above
for the sake of simplifying the expression.
Now since we mean by S the whole of that ' thing '
which constitutes the sign or datum, and by Sb the whole of
that which the sign signifies, it is clear that if we employ
symbols to express respectively that thing the presence or
absence of which may indicate S>, and that thing the presence
or absence of which may be indicated by S, we cannot use
S and 5> themselves for such a purpose without incurring
misinterpretations. Instead of them it would be better,
where necessary, to use the corresponding small letters s
and 8. Thus if the presence of a steady pulse indicates
absence of fever, ' steady pulse ' and ' fever ' are respectively
s and J3, ' the presence of a steady pulse ' is S, and ' the
absence of fever ' is S- Finally if we call that S or S
which expresses the presence of s or S a positive one ; and
that which expresses their ' absence ' a negative one ; and if
we call their positiveness or negativeness their quality ; and
the change from positive to negative, or from negative to
Eositive, a change of quality ; the law may be stated as
)llows :
All indication of S> ty S (affirmed or denied} is expressible as
44
PKOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF.
indication of S ly g> (affirmed or denied) if, and only if, the
quality of both 8 and fo changed.
The table given below 1 expresses the results of the law
concisely, but a few examples will help to make them clear.
Take first the assertion that ' every corrupt tree bringeth
forth evil fruit ' (i.e., presence of corruption in the tree indi-
cates ditto in the fruit), then the equivalent form of this,
and the sole indication implied, would be ' absence of cor-
ruption in the fruit indicates absence of corruption in the
tree '. What the proposition does not tell us, but what may
perhaps be known to be true from other sources, is either
that corruption in the fruit indicates corruption in the tree
(i.e., ' every tree that bringeth forth evil fruit is corrupt ')
which, of course, would be the simple converse of the
original proposition, or that soundness in the tree indicates
soundness in the fruit, which would be the ' reciprocal '.
Prom the original proposition we can indeed get the denial
of any such law as that corruption in the fruit indicates
soundness in the tree (i.e., ' some corrupt fruit is the off-
spring of a corrupt tree ') ; but this, being a denial, is not
itself a statement of indication : the sole indication is that
which in the A and propositions is usually called the
contrapositive, in / and E the simple converse, and which
in all propositions is here called the counter-equivalent.
Or take next the assertion that ' light-haired races are not
given to revenge ' (i.e., light hair roughly indicates absence
1 Thus, if we write * non-S ' for * negative S ' or ' absence of s,' and the
same with J ; the sole equivalent of :
(1)
S indicates S>
is
Non-S indicates Non-S
(cf. contraposition of A)
*
S non-S,
>'
S Non-S
(cf . simple conversion of E)
(3)
Non-S S,
Non-S S
(cf. exclusive disjunction)
(4)
Non-S non-S,
> s
(cf. No. 1, above)
And the sole equivalent of :-
(5)
S fails to indicate S,
is
Non-S fails to indicate Non-S
(cf. contraposition of 0)
(6)
S non-S,
'
S Non-S
(cf. simple conversion of I)
(7)
Non-S S,
:
Non-S S
(cf . No. 3, above)
(8)
Non-S non-S,
> s
(cf. No. 5, above)
PROPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF. 45
of revengefulness). Of this the formal equivalent would be
that the presence of revengefulness roughly indicates dark-
ness of hair (' revengeful races are not light-haired '). This
example serves well to bring into relief a fact which interferes
largely with what may be called ihe positive utility of the law,
the fact, namely, that s is often a mark whose presence
or absence is much easier to recognise than that of 35. It is
easier to see at a glance whether or no a man is light-
haired than whether or no he is revengeful, and we
should therefore more often argue from S to non-S,
than from S to non-S. The chief value of the law is
rather restrictive than inferential, namely to prevent our
supposing the ' reciprocal ' necessarily true. The readiness to
accept the ' reciprocal ' as equivalent is one of the strongest
tendencies in human nature, and also (perhaps, indeed, this
is the main explanation of the fact) one of the most fruitful
as regards the earliest guesses at unknown truth : for though
S> (or non-S) may not exactly indicate S (or non-S), it is often
so closely connected with it by causation that in finding where
such indication fails we hit upon the real law. Nevertheless,
in Proof as distinct from Discovery, the tendency is fatal, and
needs to be held in severest check. A certain proportion of
indications there are a comparatively small proportion
however 1 which do, as a fact, cut both ways ; thus, no
doubt, even more than roughly speaking, evil fruit indicates
an evil tree. So too while a certain label on a bottle shows
that it came from a certain firm we are also often told, in the
same breath, that ' without it, none are genuine ' ; and while
equilateral triangles are equiangular, equiangular triangles are
equilateral. But none the less is it unsafe to generalise, as
the uninstructed mind is apt to do from these occasional
cases, that mutual indication is the rule, and one-sided
indication the exception. Probably the prevailing attitude
amongst the illogical is best expressed as the belief that any
law, in the absence of proof to the contrary, involves a ' fair
presumption,' at least, that the reciprocal is true; while
fair presumption is not worth distinguishing from ' practical
certainty ' : the real fact being, of course, that the most an
abstract indication ever involves (and that not always) is a fair
presumption that the question as to the ' reciprocal ' is worth
the labour of investigation. It seems unnecessary here to
say more about the practical value of the law of counter-
indication : it merely binds up into one scheme rules whose
utility is well-known. This is the case at least as re-
1 See Prof. Bain on 'Material Obversion, 3 Logic, i., p. Ill '. also Wundt,
Logtic, pp. 214, 245, 317, &c.
46 PEOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PKOOF.
gards the universal affirmative and the particular negative:
perhaps, however, the ease with which the exclusive disjunc-
tive is commonly liable to be taken for the mere assertion of
difference may be a less familiar fact.
Nor need we here set out examples in all the eight
varieties introduced by varying the quality of S and 5>, and
by the difference between assertion and denial of the indica-
tion. But it remains to ask how far the law is applicable to
concrete propositions. The answer seems to be that, though
formally implied, the counter-equivalent is in concrete pro-
positions never directly needed. This is in fact the extreme
case of what was noticed in the example of the light-haired
races. If S be a concrete ' thing,' we have other marks,
more readily applicable than non-S, by which to prove its
absence : it is in fact known to us mainly by means of its
attendant circumstances as a whole ; and 5> is only one of
these, and (by hypothesis) not the most familiar. We can,
indeed, apply counter-indication to concrete matter in some
such way as this : suppose the concrete proposition to be
1 this murder indicates greed of gold ' ; if we are certain of
this, and also of the fact that in a given prisoner's case the
greed of gold was absent (non-S), we no doubt may infer that
this murder was not (non-S) committed by him. But here
of course it is not ' this murder ' whose existence we get
denied, but the truth of the theory that it indicates the
prisoner as its cause : it seems that the result is obtained
circuitously, by means of the abstract indication involved
namely, ' anyone who committed this murder must have had
a greed for gold,' or ' the abstract possibility of this murder
indicates such motive,' and this motive was absent in the
case before us : hence, in the case before us ' this murder '
was absent too. This is rather a highly elliptical syllogism
than a case of immediate inference.
There is one further precaution to be observed in using the
law a precaution, however, which is probably too simple to
require notice, except so far as symbols are employed. And
perhaps the reader already recognises 1 that half the mental
confusion that exists is really due to the use of symbols,
whether such symbols are imposed upon us by the real need
for abbreviation (as e.g., in the case of general names), or by
what may appear to be the wanton pedantry of logicians.
It is easy enough, for instance, to see that the proposition
* every man is an animal,' does not imply that every animal
is a man, though possibly some people might be puzzled by
the question if A and B were substituted for man and
1 With Mr. Keynes, MIND XV., 366.
PEOPOSITIONS WITH A VIEW TO PEOOF. 47
animal. Latet dolus in generalibus. But here the source of
possible confusion to which I wish to draw attention is that
due to the ^me-element in indications. Where propositions
of co-existence are in question, no difficulty can possibly
arise, but in the case of succession it may be worth while to
notice that where S indicates (or fails to indicate) future S>,
non-5 indicates (or fails to indicate) past non-S, and where S
indicates (or fails to indicate) past &, non-S> indicates (or fails
to indicate) future non-S. Practically, where actual examples
are employed, the danger is not likely to arise ; but, in the
absence of an express caution, there might perhaps be a
tendency to suppose that ' S indicates future & ' i s equivalent
to ' non-S indicates future non-S ' ; with which indication
(as would be seen at once when translated into full language)
it has really nothing to do.
There remains little more to be said, in this place, 'about
the subject-matter of Proof, except to admit as unmistake-
ably as possible that the view of propositions here taken, and
the classification here made, is far simpler than would be re-
quired for almost any purpose other than ours. For Psycho-
logy certainly, and also for the doctrine of Inference in general
(as contrasted with reflective Inference, or Proof), very much
more would be needed. But in Proof we start always with
some completed judgment, some judgment developed so far as
to be expressed, reflected upon, and its validity called in
question : hence the growth or formation of the judgment
from its earliest traceable stages is of no direct concern to us.
Many of the varieties of grammatical structure correspond
roughly to shades of meaning which vary both in definite-
ness, in strength of assertion, and in richness of implication.
These are in themselves of high importance : but before the
interest in these arises, we need to keep perfectly clear the
first broad distinction between proven and not-proven. For
such a purpose, the plan which commends itself alike to com-
mon-sense and to logic is that of treating the proposition as
something put before us in an already formed condition ; put
forward, that is, as conveying intelligible meaning and
deserving intelligent belief. By considering it a pretender to
these qualities, and then proceeding to inquire how far it
actually falls short of attaining them, we best arrive at some
notion of its real position on the long scale between worth
and worthlessness. Keeping this end in view, we start fair
to consider in detail the series of possible objections that can
be brought against any thesis set up as worthy of belief.
ALFEED SIDGWICK.
III. ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
I have been recently struck with the persistent endeavour
to father upon Bentham the " Greatest Happiness of the
Greatest Number " in its most literal interpretation. I have
often wished that we could collect his various expressions at
different times, and add to these what we know from private
sources ; the effect of which would be to dispel for ever the
notion that he would take away the happiness of a small
number, in order to make a greater total, when it was spread
over the larger number. We know well enough that he
confined himself, ultimately, to the simple expression
" Greatest Happiness " ; and for his more particular views
as to the distribution of happiness, we must be guided by the
general drift of his writings. Any one referring to the
Morals and Legislation sees that his use of the Greatest
Happiness test was, in the first instance, negative. It was
set in opposition, on the one hand, to asceticism, and, on the
other to the systems that, in Bentham's view, evaded all
appeal to a test.
I think Bentham's mistake, so far as he was mistaken,
consisted in the positive employment of the phrase "Greatest
Happiness". He drifted imperceptibly into the untenable
ground, that the Moralist, or Moral Legislator, passes through
his hands the entire happiness of mankind, and distributes
it with such skill that the individuals are provided for in the
best possible way ; in fact, economises the collective means
of the human race. And it must seem to any one, that
paternal, maternal, grandfatherly, grandmotherly legislation,
all together, at their utmost stretch, are as nothing to this
enormous assumption of plenary powers. My opinion is
that as soon as we rid the ground of systems that set aside
human happiness as an end, and we propose to work the test
positively, the very first thing is to distinguish between the
forms of happiness that come properly under ethical con-
sideration, and those forms that lie wholly or partly out of
the ethical province. The vast problem cannot be simplified
too soon.
In effect, Bentham had to come to this, but not until he
was deeply committed to the theoretical error, and so had
laid himself open to an infinity of criticism that should have
been avoided. One mode of confirming the wrong impres-
sion was his following up his announcement of the Greatest
Happiness principle with an exhaustive catalogue of
ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS. 49
Pleasures and Pains, unqualified by any statement of limita-
tion to the purposes of Ethics properly so called. It is quite
evident that Ethics has to do with the pleasures and pains
of mankind, but it is equally evident that each one of us has
a large sphere of individual option and self-guidance ; where,
in short, we are happy or miserable after our own way.
Within this sphere, we may be moved by information, and
advice, and example, but not by ethical dictation. A good
Hedonistic calculus would be available in both regions ; but
is not necessarily the same for both.
Although the distinction between the ethical and non-
ethical province of Happiness is slurred over at the com-
mencement, by Bentham and others, it inevitably re-appears
in the details, but not to the same advantage as if it were
posited from the first. A haziness has already over-spread
the Ethical Problem, and remains about it to the last.
Two departments of knowledge are preparatory to Ethics
however we may treat it ; these are Hedonism and Sociology.
Both have to be constantly appealed to, and they are,
therefore, either pre-supposed, or else discussed as the
occasion requires. The best plan of bringing them forward
would be to make a preparatory survey of each, carried so
far as, and no farther than, they are actually needed for the
purpose in hand. A Hedonistic introduction would force
on the discrimination between Ethical and non-Ethical
Hedonism, and might thus save the main subject from the
evils of confusing the two. The preliminary Sociology
would probably confirm the distinction in a way of its own,
while serving many other purposes. Indeed, the Sociology
would be necessary to complete the Hedonistic survey,
although not necessary for the commencement of it.
Of these two preliminary subjects, Sociology we know in
some measure, but what of Hedonism ? Is there any scientific
treatment of it now in existence. The supporters of Utility
have been always aware that a theory of Happiness was
involved in the carrying out of the system. Paley, accordingly,
tried his hand in the matter, but what he did rather weakened
than strengthened his main position. Bentham's scheme
was much more elaborate and thorough, but, except in his
doctrine of Punishments, he did not carry it out to Ethical
applications. John Mill's attempt to sketch the constituents
of happiness was not a success. Deterred by such examples,
Mr. Sidgwick has gone to the other extreme, and has set
forth the difficulties of Hedonistic calculation with such
unqualified vigour, as almost to amount to a reductio ad absurdum
of all ethical reasoning. Any one professing to found a
4
50 ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
scheme of Hedonism could hardly do better than start from
his arguments for its futility, and endeavour to rescue some
fragments from the wreck.
If, after a fair trial, we are obliged to pronounce a
Hedonistic science unattainable, the consequences are some-
what serious. If I am not allowed to lay down any definite
formula as to the production of human happiness, I must
refuse to be bound by the very indefinite formulas in general
circulation. If I cannot state with some precision, for
example, the relations between happiness and work or
occupation, I cannot allow to pass unchallenged such vague
commonplaces as that work is a sovereign remedy for any
and every form of misery.
In aifirming the impossibility of a Hedonistic science, the
fact is overlooked, that science has many degrees. The
termination of the human race will not see a science of
Pleasure and Pain made as definite as the sciences of Heat and
Chemistry ; but we may conceivably improve upon the crude
statements of the unscientific multitude, and every such im-
provement is so much science. To draw a distinction
between two things hitherto confounded, or to qualify a rule
that previously was unqualified, is to make a real advance,
however many more advances may be desirable. The remark
obviously applies over the entire compass of the mental and
social sciences.
It is my present purpose, however, to widen the issue, and
to dwell upon the relations of our existing Psychology as a
whole to our existing Ethics. In so doing, I shall refer for
illustrations to Mr. Leslie Stephen's Science of Ethics. While
greatly admiring the ability of the author's handling of many
of the topics that came within his range, I am compelled to
differ in some respects both from his method and from his
conclusions, and I find that my difference mainly turns upon
his mode of bringing in Psychology to the elucidation of
Ethics.
If I were to begin a work on Ethics, I should like to follow
the mathematician who had read Virgil, and ask myself what
I mean to prove. The end is the clue to the means. Ethics
in the hands of one class of writers, as Adam Smith, Dugald
Stewart, and Mackintosh, means the discussion of the two
questions of the Moral Sentiment and the Ethical Standard.
The second of these must come up under almost any mode
of treating Ethics. The first is not so pressing ; but, in the
new Evolution Ethics, it is included equally with the
Standard. Psychology by itself, and also in company with
ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS. 51
Sociology, is obviously needed in all discussions respecting
both questions.
While these old-standing disputes are not the whole of
Ethics, they are pre-supposed in every region of the subject.
Thus, to mention some of the other lines of treatment. The
reason or justification of the existing Ethical Code is what
largely occupies Mr. Stephen's work, and is necessarily the
substance of the common didactic treatises. Paley's defini-
tion of Moral Philosophy couples our Duties with the reasons
of them.
Again, supposing we are dissatisfied with the existing
Ethics in some points, we are bound to justify that dis-
satisfaction and to propound a plan of Ethical Eeform. If
Mill had written his work On Liberty, according to his first
conception of it, as privately stated, namely " to point out
what things society forbade that it ought not, and what
things it left alone that it ought to control " he would have
produced a work on Ethical Keform, instead of simply plead-
ing for Liberty as such. His new rules that he wished to
impose are simply named, without reasons or expansion,
although requiring a no less ample treatment than the rules
that, under the name of Liberty, he desired to see revoked.
And, in this department also, the questions of the Moral
Faculty and the Moral Standard come up, with all their
Psychological and Hedonistic implications.
Farther, the Classification of Moral Duties, followed out
into minute detail, is a branch of Ethics too much slurred
over, and deserving of a specific treatment. The various
Ethical problems would still crop up, but they should be
kept in subservience to the main purpose. To start from the
usual threefold division of the cardinal virtues Prudence,
Justice, Benevolence and to divide and subdivide, until we
reach the more concrete and recognised designations of virtue
and vice is a task fitted for the acutest mind. Nothing that
can be called thorough or satisfactory has yet been achieved
in the department. Although the Hedonistic and other
problems would seem to be put aside in such an attempt, they
could not be so really.
Still farther, the department of Ethical Homiletics, or
Moral Suasion, would open up a distinct field of Ethics, with
difficulties of its own. Yet these could not be met with-
out having before us all the compass of Ethical Duties, and
their Sanctions and Motives, as furnished by the experience
of ages, criticised and corrected by the science of Mind.
How to apply the moral forces at our disposal, so as to over-
come the rebellious impulses of human nature, is something
52 ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
more than the Rhetorical art of Persuasion. It includes the
tact and management of parents, teachers, authorities, and
all those that are in any way responsible for the moral
training and control of human beings.
Once more, there is another region of Ethical discussion
respecting the nature of Virtue ; namely, to supply guidance
to the virtuously disposed man, in cases of difficulty. This
is the old casuistry. It is, as it were, the conscientious man's
"Best Companion". Both under Justice and under
Benevolence, there occur positions of perplexity ; some of
which, indeed, are irresolvable, while others can be cleared
up by the application of Ethical principles. "We shall find
that Mr. Stephen occasionally comes across instances of
conflicting obligation, and shows his usual subtlety in dis-
posing of them.
This last department does not yet exhaust the field of
human conduct ; there remains the art of Prudence, as regards
Self, which, as being one of the recognised cardinal virtues,
and as touching our Social Duties at many points, seems to
be legitimately included under Ethics. For my own part,
however, I would much rather see it kept quite apart. It is
the art of Happiness, or making the most of life, and needs a
quantity of minute consideration of ways and means, far
beyond what is required for determining social duty. It is,
in fact, the most difficult of all arts. A perfect theory of
Hedonism is not needed as a guide to Justice or Benevolence
(though, of course, it would be of use in those regions of
conduct) ; it is needed for the pursuit of individual happiness.
Prudence, as a virtue, means simply the preservation of our
individual efficiency, with a view to our social duties. It
does not comprise the highest economy of our means for
individual happiness. Indeed, society would be jealous of the
devotion to this ideal, as possibly interfering with the
sacrifices that our proper duties might involve.
As I wish specially to ascertain what are the bearings of
Psychology on Ethics, I am concerned to point out, in the
first instance, how well we have got on without a science of
Mind. The remark last made is germane to this inquiry.
I concede the value of a Hedonistic science (which would
presuppose an advanced Psychology) in the art of Individual
Happiness ; I do not admit its importance, in the same
degree, for the Ethics of Duty. Our present Ethics has been
arrived at, without any Psychological aids whatever. Those
enormous difficulties of calculating human pleasures and pains
cannot have oppressed mankind generally, as they do our
ethical philosophers. How is this ?
ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS. 53
My first answer is to recall attention to the character of
the primary moralities those that are involved in the very
existence of society. There is unquestionably a process of
calculation here ; but, on the one side, stands the preserva-
tion of the race collectively, on the other, the pleasures of a
few individuals. It is needless to dwell upon this aspect of
the case.
The next answer consists in noting the practice of
transferring subjective comparisons to objective equivalents.
Of all the modes of overcoming the difficulties of Quantita-
tive computation in Mind, the one most prevalent is, to fix,
rightly or wrongly, on certain outward facts that are looked
upon as concomitants of the internal states, and to measure
these accordingly. A few examples will suffice.
Take the case of external injuries to the person. All men
do not feel precisely alike under the same bodily hurt ; but
we presume that two contusions will cause greater suffering
than one. We can even make allowances for certain obvious
differences of constitution as the relative strength, or age of
the sufferers, and the comparative times of recovery. Next,
as regards Property. We take for granted that a man's
feelings will follow the extent of his losses, as compared
with his means. Seeing that three-fourths of all the
advantages and disadvantages of life can be brought under
a money-value, the region of strictly subjective estimates
is reduced to a limited compass. The pleasures and
pains of Keputation have all their outward expression and
estimate. A man is happy according to the number of his
friends and admirers ; and the admiration of each has its out-
ward measure not to be mistaken. The law grants reparation
for slander, by giving a value to the terms used, without
inquiring minutely into the natural feelings of the sufferer,
except in so far as some outward circumstances can attest
their speciality. " Whoever is angry with his brother with-
out a cause shall be in danger of the judgment : and whoso-
ever shall say to his brother, Kaca, shall be in danger of the
council : but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger
of hell-fire". I can hardly conceive a more puzzling case for
Hedonistic calculation than the comparison of worldly posses-
sions with the sanctity of the human remains after death.
Yet the general public makes no difficulty in equating the
two, and the administrations of the law give effect to the
equation. A bad case of tomb desecration is treated as the
equivalent of a middling burglary ; and the valuation passes
as satisfactory.
The truth is that, in the primary morality, the difficulties
54 ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
of calculation are seldom an obstacle to our moral judgments.
It is only by the slumping of Security with our collective
interests under one comprehensive title Greatest Happiness
that an argument can be founded on such difficulties.
When social preservation is once attained, and when we
begin to think of improving our arrangements so as to
increase our collective pleasures, we have to calculate much
more narrowly; we have not often the overwhelming majority
of reasons that makes us punish the thief and the murderer.
Still, it will be found that the calculation is always
transferred from the feelings themselves to an objective
rendering, and that the difficulty of verifying that rendering
seldom presses upon us. It wants a very close attention to
the details of social duty, to discover the places where a
Psychological Hedonism, and Psychology in general, come
specially into play.
But before encountering those cases in Mr. Stephen's
handling, I must first notice the properly Metaphysical
problems that have found their way into Ethics. I agree
with Mr. Stephen's version of a Metaphysical question, as con-
trasted with a Psychological. The chief example is Free-
will, which, I apprehend, need never be introduced into
Ethical science, considered as the investigation of Duty.
There are cases of individuals that have been plunged into
mental distress by the difficulties of Eree-will and Fatalism,
and for such persons some comfort should, if possible, be
afforded. But I lay down provisionally, as the test of a
Metaphysical question, the circumstance, that the holders of
opposite views regarding it accept the same rules, and act
in the same way in their practice. So long as I find that a
Determinist and a Free-will advocate employ identical
motives under identical circumstances, deal out punish-
ments, rewards, persuasion, on precisely similar estimates of
their effects, I regard the question, whatever importance it
may have otherwise, as devoid of Ethical bearing.
I now proceed to notice Mr. Stephen's handling of Psy-
chology in relation to Ethics. His first estimate of the
existing state of Psychology is rather despairing. " To ask
which are the primitive and elementary passions, how they
are related, and how the derivative passions are compounded,
is to ask questions which admit of no definite answer." In
other words, Psychology has not yet begun to be ; for,
hitherto, the analysis of compound states is its only pre-
tension. Sociology cannot be much more advanced. " The
ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS. 55
intricate actions and re-actions between different elements
of the individual and the social organisation " defy all
attempts at resolution. Still, it is on this side that the
ethical problems can be attacked. And, in particular, a new
light bursts forth in the darkness with the " perception
that society is not a mere aggregate but an organic growth".
Mr. Stephen's statement of the Ethical problem is, " to
discover the scientific form of morality, or to discover what
is the general characteristic of the moral sentiments". This
would seem to indicate the old question as to the nature of
the Moral Faculty, but it really includes the Standard also.
" Ethical speculation must, as thus understood, be impli-
cated in psychological and sociological inquiries," notwith-
standing the treacherous foundation of all such. He proceeds
at once to attack the psychological problem of "the emotions
as determining conduct". Of course, it is the general law
of the Will, that we are moved to pleasure and from pain.
It may be doubtful whether any ethical discussion requires
to qualify this until we reach the problem of pure altruistic
conduct. Bentham, at least, was satisfied with the general
statement, when he gives, as the first sentence of his book :
" Nature has placed mankind under the governance of
two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. A man may
pretend to abjure their empire ; but in reality he will remain
subject to it all the while." And the fact is incontestable,
that we can carry on the government of mankind, on the
assumption that they are attracted by pleasure, and repelled
by pain, according to their known amount. Still there are
cases where the law does not strictly hold ; we are some-
times, for example, dominated by a painful idea, there being
a partial paralysis of that very power of the will that should
rid us of it. I doubt if this case comes up often in Ethics
as a necessary; it is rather a luxurious refinement in our
management of ourselves and others.
I consider that the important exceptions to the law of
Pleasure and Pain, are (1) Fixed Ideas, (2) Habits, and (3)
Disinterested action for others. Under each one of these
heads, there is, I conceive, a motive power to conduct,
without any reference to pleasure or pain. Mr. Stephen seems
bent on making out, that, in every case, the pleasure or the
pain is the operative factor. I have not space to discuss his
examples ; and I need not reproduce those that I myself
rely upon, for showing that the fixed idea is a power in
opposition to the normal law of the will. And when Mr.
Leslie generalises pain as representing tension, and pleasure
equilibrium, I venture to think that his survey of both fields
56 ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
is defective. His examples of pain are all of the acute sort;
and he does not exemplify pleasures at all. In the act of
taking food, the felt pleasure is an energetic spur, and equi-
librium is not attained till satiety stops the pursuit. Mr.
Stephen allows for the case of painful fascination, but he does
not see in it the extreme instance of a law that in all degrees
operates against the general law of the will.
I must here remark on Mr. Sidgwick's treatment of the
difficulty, in his recent criticism (MiND XXVIII.) on Mr.
Stephen's work. In his view, "the feelings that normally cause
action are not pleasures and pains as such, but desires and aver-
sions' ' . This gets over the exceptions to the operation of pleasure
and pain, but, as I think, by evading, rather than meeting, the
difficulty. It is not exactly the same as to assume that
lecause we act in particular ways, to do so must bring us
pleasure or remove pain ; but it goes a good way in that
direction. Desire and aversion are so close upon will, that
what they are, the will is almost sure to be ; they are, in
fact, will begun. Supposing that we are moved by some-
thing not a pleasure, say by a habit continuing after its
reason is passed away, that movement will take the shape of
desire, if there be any delay in carrying it out. So, in sym-
pathy, we desire the good of others, and, if that desire is
thwarted, we have an incidental pain, but that pain is not
the prime motive of the desire or the sympathy. There
remains still the question why are our desires ever called
forth by what is not pleasurable in itself, or our aversions
by what is not painful in itself. All our explanations must
start from pleasures and pains, viewed in their purely emo-
tional aspect, and we must give an account of the transition
from the non-active to the active, or volitional, aspect.
Mr. Stephen's section on the Keason as determining Conduct
is, I think, admirably worked out. The crowning inquiry
What is the most reasonable conduct absolutely? leads
him to discuss what he calls Types of character ; and this
resolves itself into the question What is the relative value of
different kinds of efficiency ? and this again into the mean-
ing of Utility, and theory of pleasure and pain, as connected
with the vitality of the system. At this point, he leaves the
Individual to take up Society, with its interests and
motives, and devotes a chapter to the relations of the
Individual and the Kace ; all which I regard as thoroughly
in point as a preparation for Ethics. The doctrine of
Evolution must be credited with this improvement in the
mode of attacking the Ethical problem. The nature of the
corporate sentiment is remarkably well set forth. The
ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS. 57
struggle for existence is fully allowed for ; and the right of
the stronger made somewhat painfully prominent. Next
follows a chapter on the Moral Law considered as to its form
and origin, as distinguished from its contents. The law
must be natural, not artificial ; it must grow, not be made ;
it must express the conditions of social vitality ; it must be
capable of expression as a law of internal character, not as a
law of external facts (Do not hate, for Do not kill) ; it must
be supreme, it must be social, and not mere individual self-
preservation.
Now as to the Contents of the Moral Law. This includes
the Cardinal Virtues ; and the mode of handling them brings
out a peculiarity of the author that is open to some remarks.
He begins thus: "The law of nature has but one precept,
' Be strong'. Nature has but one punishment, ' decay and
death '." Be strong, individually, means Be prudent ; Be
strong, socially, means Be virtuous. Starting so, the author's
first cardinal virtue is Courage. The value of this attribute,
the conditions and modifications of it, are well stated ; yet I
must demur to the supposition underlying the whole, that, by
mutual fighting and destruction of the physically weakest, the
race has been necessarily progressive. The author does not
neglect to remark that strength may be valuable in co-
operation, as well as in mutual hostility ; but the stress of
the exposition lies in the warlike situation, where strength is
opposed to strength, with mutual destruction of equal
portions, and the survival of the difference between the
strongest and the next strong. We have thus the paradox
of strength existing merely to annihilate both itself, and an
equal quantity of other strength. Fitness for the conditions
of life, on which the author dwells so much, is fitness to beat,
and not to be beaten ; and we are obliged to call this progress,
merely because, in some instances, the beater has been the
better of the two.
The cardinal virtue of Temperance is discussed at length
in its social bearings. The author is somewhat too sweeping
in his propositions here. I think he exaggerates both the
prevalence and the bad effects of gluttony, for example.
When he says " the man who is a slave of his belly is less
capable of all the higher affections, of intellectual pleasures
or refined enjoyments, and presumably selfish and incapable
of extensive sympathies," he overlooks a very common occur-
rence, namely, that devotion to the pleasures of the table
may be the one weakness of a very elevated character a
weakness having its root in the severe strain of an arduous
life. Because society expresses itself strongly upon the sins
58 ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
against Temperance, it does not follow that they produce a
corresponding degree of social mischief.
I have much more to say on the author's handling of the
next of the cardinal virtues Truth. He puts in the true
light the social value of truth, and points out many of the
allowed exceptions, some of these having also a social value.
Still, I think there is a want of thoroughness, even while
the essential ideas are expressed. It is justly remarked, that
the enormous stress put upon truth is due, in great part, to
the fact that it is so well denned. If telling a lie were as
incapable of precise definition as temperance or filial respect,
people would not be so ready to fasten upon every instance
of it. The exceptions to literal truth-speaking are so nume-
rous as to render its position among the cardinal virtues
very questionable, without affecting its value. Indeed, the
most important aspect of the virtue the taking pains to
assure ourselves of the truth of our affirmations is abso-
lutely made light of. Among allowable exceptions, we must
begin with the right of individual Privacy, which excludes
all prying demands on the part of others, and justifies de-
ception when invaded. This is a very large and important
field ; there is nothing corresponding to it in the other
virtues. Next, the case of war is always admitted ; a vic-
torious general is especially applauded for his " masterly
deception" of the enemy. There is not the same free per-
mission to deceive in the internal warfare of society, the
fight of parties, and the rivalry of interests ; but, in practice,
deception is general here also. The man of respectability
generally keeps clear of telling a downright lie; but, in order
to do so, he has often to act a lie. Not merely concealment,
but feints and false lures, are freely admitted in the struggles
of party ; if one party is unscrupulous, the opposing party
cannot be above board, without incurring loss. Then, again,
to smooth the intercourse of life, which the Irusquerie of
open avowals of opinion would sadly impair, we are obliged
to say what we don't believe. Charles Darwin told me of a
female relative of his, who could not say " I am glad to see
you," to an unwelcome visitor; this was very high virtue,
but would be fatal to the wife of a leading politician in Lon-
don. So, flattery is often exaggeration : Mill would be con-
sidered over-severe in his dictum, that flattery should not
be allowed to anyone that could not keep it within the
bounds of truth. The giving of characters and testimonials
to candidates for office, is almost always so far mendacious,
that the known defects of the party are not so explicitly
stated as the merits ; very often they are entirely omitted.
ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS. 59
The licence of counsel is a well-known case. Pious frauds
are known in all ages. These are now discountenanced ;
yet there is no proposal to discountenance habitual exagge-
ration in setting forth the beneficial consequences of virtue,
and the evils of vice.
It is undeniable that society depends very much upon
trustworthy information. But, there is an important quali-
fication. A fact once stated by a good authority is estab-
lished ; its iteration by a hundred other persons adds nothing
to its effect. Thus, while everybody must be just, if only a
select and known number are veracious, it is possible for
society to go on. We generally know whom we can trust, in
special circumstances, and whom not ; the theory of evidence
explores all the weaknesses of human testimony and makes
allowances thereupon.
The early attempts of parents to inculcate truth are a
curious study. They mainly take the form of impressing
self-crimination in case of committing faults. Authority
resents being baulked ; and it is an object to induce an
offender, who is necessarily the best informed, and frequently
the only, witness of his or her offence, to make full confession
at once. This is done partly by threats of double severity,
in case of detected falsehood, and partly by the promise of
leniency if the fault is confessed. It seems to me that it would
be better to imitate the criminal procedure of the law, and
not to ask young offenders to criminate themselves, but simply
to make their statement, and use it against them if need be ;
trusting to other sources of evidence. Following the approved
procedure, we might require one child to give evidence against
another, with the same limitations as in the criminal law ;
and might regard false evidence as a heinous offence ; much
more heinous, indeed, than the ordinary telling of a lie.
I advert to this particular instance, with a view of making
a general observation regarding the proper place of Truth
among the cardinal virtues. A virtue that has so many
exceptions, that is so often qualified by circumstances, cannot
well be accounted independent and self-supporting. Indeed,
in only one situation, is falsehood a crime in the eye of the
law; in all other cases, its culpability is moral, and its punish-
ment awarded by public opinion. It is often an adjunct of
legal offences ; but the substantive offence is something
apart. An accountant falsifies his books : his crime is not
the falsehood, but the defrauding of his employers. A false
accusation is libellous, because of the slander, not because of
the falsehood ; a false compliment is not illegal.
I think, therefore, that in dealing with the vice of lying,
60 ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
more should be made of the actual mischief than of the form
of untruth. Lying is bad, because it is the tool of dis-
honesty in every shape. A dealer that palms off upon me a
bad article for a good, tells a lie, no doubt ; but I prefer to
describe him as a cheat. A servant that neglects his work,
and tells a lie, or suggests one, to cover the neglect, is dis-
honest and base. Truth, as we see, has many exceptions ;
honesty has none. Some one misrepresents me, in order that
I may lose favour with those that I depend upon ; a " lie " is
not strong enough to express the viciousness of the act, nor
precise enough to show its criminality.
A remark in the direction now indicated is made by John
Grote (Moral Ideals, p. 220) : " The proper moral aspect of
truthfulness seems to me to be that it is one case of the
very wide duty of faithfulness to trust, which alone renders
possible the correspondent virtue of trustfulness." " Truth-
fulness comes more simply thus, as a branch or case of
faithfulness, than as a branch or case of ' openness,' which
latter, as a virtue, is a matter of difficult consideration."
The proper and characteristic region of truth, where it
has an independent and unqualified obligation, is the inves-
tigation of nature, with a view to the extension of our
knowledge and resources. All looseness of observation, and
of statement of facts, all hasty generalisations, and fallacious
inferences, are sins against this form of truth.
A brief definition of the social virtues Justice and Bene-
volence concludes the author's review of the contents of the
Moral Law. The next chapter is more exclusively psycho-
logical, being the discussion of Altruism, or the possibility
of self-sacrifice. I concur with the general drift of the
reasoning, so far as implying that altruism has not a selfish
origin. But, when the author tries to make out, that sym-
pathy follows necessarily our power of representing to our-
selves the feelings of others, I am bound to differ from him,
having for a long time held the same view, and at last
abandoned it. I mean, however, to confine my remarks to
his mode of dealing with the frequent intrusion of Malevolent
pleasure into our representation of the pains of others. He
takes the bull by the horns, and boldly affirms that the
pleasure of Malevolence is, with some exceptions, not a real
fact, but an incidental accompaniment of some other facts.
Here I am compelled to join issue with him, and to pro-
nounce his review of the particulars one-sided and incom-
plete. Dr. Chalmers before him wrote a dissertation entitled
" The Inherent Misery of the Vicious Affections," and
maintained that malevolence generally, while being inci-
ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS. 61
dentally pleasurable, is intrinsically painful. I contend for
the very opposite ; and hold that malevolence is intrinsically
one of our intensest pleasures, and only extrinsically and
incidentally painful. I believe, moreover, that to get at the
exact truth on this question is of vital importance in all
sociological as well as ethical reasonings.
Mr. Stephen is too well versed in human nature, to be
ignorant of the voluptuous pleasure in cruelty. But, while
probably admitting it as a morbid extreme, he endeavours
to explain away the more common cases of apparent delight
in suffering. The child's pleasure in spinning a cockchafer
is no greater, he contends, than in spinning a top. A savage
throws down a crying baby, not from delight in its misery,
but from torpid sympathy (this may be admitted). Much of
cruelty is due to intellectual torpor ; or I should rather say
it is due to the natural delight in suffering, which sympathy
would neutralise. Then, of course, when we have enemies
to combat, "we rejoice in their sufferings as the mark of their
defeat. A generous mind conquers an enemy, with the least
expenditure of suffering." To all this I might urge the
previous question, namely, that but for our malevolent disposi-
tions, enmities and fighting would not have been the rule in
the past history of the species. Mr. Stephen is somewhat
staggered by the existence of personal dislikes, or unreason-
ing antipathy ; and endeavours to make this out as a case of
misplaced sympathies. " The hatred which is generated is
always a more or less painful emotion "; notwithstanding
which, it is freely indulged. That our developed sympathies
have, in many ways, restrained the pure malevolent passion,
is freely admitted ; but why the necessity of all this re-
straint ?
It is not easy, in a short space, to present the most de-
cisive instances of our undying malevolence, and at the
same time, to meet the attempts that may readily be made
to explain away their force. Yet I will make the endeavour.
We cannot do better than begin with one of Mr. Stephen's
own cases : " Nothing, of course, is more common than to
find men take pleasure in humiliating and mortifying their
neighbours," and the first example is " The critic rejoices
in tormenting a sensitive poet " ; of course, not all critics,
but a sufficient number to enable the fact to be stated
generally. Now, after going over all Mr. Stephen's palliatives,
I find nothing in them that can set aside the inference from
this fact. There is not the intellectual defect of being
unable to conceive the pain inflicted ; there is not necessarily
rivalry of interest, or injury to be avenged ; there need not
62 ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
be even personal antipathy or dislike. No doubt, the
presence of any of these causes would increase the pleasure ;
yet it is there, independently of them all. Well, then, let us
interpret the situation. An intellectual man, in a civilised
community, after ages of endeavour to improve our human
sympathies, finds positive pleasure, of considerable amount,
in inflicting the keenest anguish upon another intellectual
man, with whom he has no quarrel whatever ; his pleasure
being great, because he knows that the sufferer feels acutely.
And so frequent is this occurrence, that it is a type, and not
simply a solitary case. The interpretation is not yet complete.
The critic addresses thousands of readers, whose pleasures
he is catering for ; a large mass of those readers also enjoy
the poet's torments, being equally free from any cause of
quarrel with the victim. If this is not the pleasure of
malevolence, pure and simple, I am at a loss to know what
to call it. The poet may be a bad poet, but any mischief
that his badness might cause is easily warded off. But he
is not supposed to be bad ; his only crime is to be sensitive.
I will take a few more instances promiscuously. The
delight in teasing is one of the earliest manifestations of
our nature. The boyish pleasures in cruelty of all sorts
would offer a fund of examples ; and, I cannot accept Mr.
Stephen's theory of the spinning of the cockchafer. A large
field is opened up in the reception accorded to apprentices
at their first entry into a shop or trade. Something similar
is reproduced in the well-known ceremonies on board a ship
crossing the line. These usages, having once got a hold,
are kept up for no other reason that I can see, than to
reclaim a few small regions from the humanitarian influences
of modern times, and to give full vent to the pleasures of
tormenting fellow-beings.
I should like an analysis of " temper " from a disbeliever
in pure malevolence. A burst of rage or angry passion is to
me simply an eruption of the malevolent feeling, made use
of by way of redressing some pain or affront that we are
suffering from. If there were no intrinsic delight in giving
pain, retaliation, like punishment, would be remedial and
nothing more. But, as there are tyrants in the family, the
school, the shop, the state, who are overjoyed when anyone
commits a fault, so there is a satisfaction in being angry, far
beyond the necessities of self-protection.
The delight of witnessing punishment is too manifest to
be explained away. The assembling of thousands at execu-
tions is not yet forgotten. Now that they are private, the
press-correspondent must still depict the demeanour of
ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS. 63
the poor wretches as they mount the gallows, and resign
themselves to the executioner's drop.
I wish farther to obtain an adequate explanation of the
pleasure of laughter, comedy, and humour ; all reference to
the delight in malevolence being left out. The case is par-
ticularly strong, for this reason : the suffering inflicted upon
the subjects is never deadly ; it spares life and limb, and
fortune ; it must not even go the length of slander or de-
famation ; it affects most usually the single point of pride or
dignity ; yet the pleasure of the infliction is a standing dish
in life's feast. If to make a man appear humiliated can be
so great a satisfaction, what would it be to see him stripped
of all his possessions, tied to the stake and made to die an
excruciating death ? It is no answer to say, we should
revolt at going such lengths ; it is merely by artificial re-
straints, and by bringing other feelings into play, that we
are made to stop where we do.
It would take us too far to go into the wide subject of
sensational crimes worked up for our entertainment in ro-
mance, and depicted upon canvas. But for our lurking
pleasure in the contemplation of suffering, these could not
interest us ; indeed, if our sympathy were alone affected by
spectacles of misery and horror, a very large part of the
history of the past would be unbearable. The much de-
bated pleasures of tragedy are not so enigmatical, when
allowance is made for the uncrucified malevolence of our
nature.
John Grote (Moral Ideals) devotes a section to the
passion of malevolence, likewise with the view of explaining
it away. " Moralists, it appears, have been wrong, both on
the one side in disputing the existence of pure ill-will, and
on the other in considering it native in the same manner in
which good- will is. Ill-will is perhaps a form of or mode of
wndictivolence, i.e., is connected with a feeling of ourselves as
somehow wronged." I have quoted cases enough to dis-
pose of such an explanation. True, we usually need a
pretext for inflicting suffering ; but we can often dispense
even with this. Mr. Sidgwick seems to me to be nearer the
mark, when he says, " Malevolent feelings are as natural
and normal to man as the benevolent ". But he would still
confine their operation to resentment for harm done to us.
Mr. Stephen appeals to our delight in pungency of sensa-
tion, or love of excitement as such, in order to complete his
explanation of malevolent feeling. But a neutral pungency
has a certain efficacy as against dulness, without amounting
64 ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
to fascination ; whereas, we soon tire of a pungency mixed
with pain, as in a shock of genuine fright.
It is as an obstacle to the vindication of Sympathy, or
disinterested impulse, that Mr. Stephen makes so great an
effort to explain away pure malevolence. The effort seems
to me uncalled for ; sympathy can hold its own, as a fact of
our constitution, notwithstanding our delight in suffering.
Indeed, the two facts, properly viewed, help to attest each
other. Malevolence is overcome by sympathy ; and sym-
pathy never proves itself more efficacious than in checking
malevolence. Mr. Stephen's vindication of sympathy as a
fact not resolvable into any egotistic impulse, seems to me
most just ; but, as already stated, I think he leaves out a
factor necessary to the explanation. He comes nearer
the mark (at p. 257) when he dwells on the " corporate
spirit," which he would make a product of sympathy. For
my own part, I prefer to invert the terms, and to say that
it is during our activity with others, that we contract the
habit of corporate identification, out of which proceeds
sympathy.
Before quitting the discussion of malevolence, I must note
its bearings on Ethics. I consider that some of Mr. Stephen's
analytic difficulties can be smoothed down by its mediation.
For example, he thinks that Psychology has failed to give
an account of the powerful sentiment of Patriotism. In
my opinion, whatever strength belongs to the sentiment
may be adequately explained, if, in addition to the social
feelings that bind us to our co-patriots, we take in national
vanity, and the hatred of rival powers. In the total absence
of these last two feelings, I doubt if patriotism is ever very
strong ; the only circumstance that could give it intensity
would IDC something that increased to an exceptional amount
the social feeling, as unusual harmony of sentiment and
closeness of sympathy in the general body of citizens.
A much more important application, and one that es-
pecially concerns the Evolution-theory of Ethics, is the
bearing of malevolence upon the sentiment of power and
authority. The delight in power would be considerable,
apart from malevolence ; but this feeling gives two very
marked contributions to its intensity. First, power gratifies
malevolence directly ; giving us either the fact or the idea of
making others suffer. Next, it exempts us pro tanto from the
malevolence of others ; a very influential consideration that
weighs with the most generous minds. Now, there can be
little doubt that the legitimate compression of men's wills,
for general protection, is almost always exceeded by the pure
ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS. 65
love of power (even omitting plunder). The only cases
where power is not excessive are those where the people are
unusually recalcitrant ; this is in some degree true of the
English, who, in certain instances, would much resent being
over-governed. The important practical inference is that
power must always be made to justify itself. The tendency
of the evolution- view of society is to make out every institu-
tion to be good for its time ; a great and mischievous error.
Allowing for the unavoidable congruity between beliefs or
practices and the wants of the people at the time, the possi-
bilities of error from misjudgment, on the one hand, and
from the bias of over-government (or at times under-govern-
ment), on the other, are so great that the mere fact of the
existence of any institution never dispenses with the scrutiny
of its actual workings.
Mr. Stephen's discussion of the Kule of Conduct, as both
prudential and sympathetic, is very ably and satisfactorily
conducted ; and, although a much shorter demonstration
would satisfy me, I perused his reasonings with the greatest
pleasure. He very properly tries to go as far as he can in
making sympathy its own reward ; but makes the due
reservations that the case requires.
The chapter entitled " Merit " contains a section on Free-
will, which I consider part of the Metaphysic of Ethics,
and unnecessary in a practical treatise. Yet the handling is
admirable ; it covers the hypothesis of chance-motives, and
also the difficulty of making us responsible for what we
cannot help. That men are amenable to motives is a
sufficient reason for plying them with motives. It is a
question not of metaphysics, but of humanity, whether we
should trust solely to punishment for keeping people right,
or try in addition to circumvent them by an education that
renders them indisposed to crime.
The chapter on Conscience is a purely psychological dis-
cussion ; it is in fact one of the two old standing questions
of ethics. The author remarks " To explain fully what is
meant by conscience, or by any other mode of feeling, would
require a complete psychology, such as is not at present in
existence." He does not, however, make the most of his
own psychology, but gives us a dissertation, very interesting
in itself, and conducted with his usual ability, on the Sense
of Shame. It seems as if he had prepared a criticism on
Darwin's theory of Blushing, and inserted it in the present
chapter. The feeling of Shame is a part of the more
general and comprehensive feeling of Social Disapprobation,
which Mr. Stephen was as competent to deal with as anybody
5
66 ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
I know. I turn back to what he says in a previous chapter,
namely, " that as every man is born and brought up as a
member of this vast organisation, his character is throughout
moulded and determined by its peculiarities ". The pres-
sure of society is not confined to making us blush when
we run counter to its dictates ; it has many more powerful
motives at its disposal. And Mr. Stephen acknowledges as
much before he has done with Conscience, when he calls it a
corporate sentiment, often very hard to distinguish from a
moral sentiment. There is a low conscience, made of fear,
and a higher kind containing elements of good-will to our
fellows and our society. Mr. Stephen dwells much upon the
Family, as the true school of morality ; and presents a type
of family life, which is one of the few things in the volume
that I should be disposed to consider exaggerated. If, in
order to our being moral, we had to be subjected to such
family influences as Mr. Stephen depicts, few of us, I think,
would have much morality to show. Indeed, seeing that
only a small proportion of men or women are competent to
the parental requirements, even in the most advanced
community, the defects of the family training have to be
made up by the society outside the family.
The ninth chapter contains the objections to Happiness
as the criterion of virtue, and states the superior advantages
of adopting Health as the criterion. I confess that I think
his discussion of the value of health, as a means of happi-
ness to the individual, is not equal to the strain that it has
to bear. The remarks about securing happiness through
health contain much truth, but stand greatly in need of
qualifications. The shortness and the inadequacy of the
handling confirm the remark, already made, that Ethics
needs a Hedonic, as well as a Sociological prolegomenon.
Hedonics is not a very advanced science ; yet there are a
few points which could be stated with some degree of pre-
cision ; and one of these is the relationship of Happiness to
Health.
Although I cannot help admitting the force of Mr. Sidg-
wick's criticisms on the displacement of Utility as a criter-
ion, I am more tolerant of the attempts of the Evolutionists
to help out the Happiness-test with any others that can
supply its defects. Instead of simply wishing anyone Hap-
piness, I recognise a superior force in the expression
" Health and Happiness to you ". So, as ethical reasoners,
we may very well couple the two.
The chapter on Morality and Happiness deserves every
commendation. The question whether, and how far, virtue
ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS. 67
brings happiness, is subjected to a sifting examination, than
which nothing could be more thorough. The negative
conclusion is inevitable, in the hands of such an uncom-
promising reasoner ; while everything is done that can be
fairly done to palliate the unwelcome conclusion. Mr.
Sidgwick had previously gone over the ground, and had
arrived at the same general result ; but Mr. Stephen has
taken especial pains to soften the fall from the conventional
optimistic view. I do not wish to open up the discussion ;
but there is one remark that helps to explain, to my mind,
the nonchalance of mankind generally on the disconnexion
between virtue and happiness. So precarious is human
life altogether, so much at the mercy of a thousand accidents
is our happiness, that we look upon an act of uncompensated
sacrifice as merely one of the numerous evil contingencies
of our lot. If, apart from the occcasional call to sacrifice
ourselves for our country, or our family, we had each an
assured existence of tolerable comfort for seventy years, the
hardship of the demand would stand forth with peculiar
prominence ; struggles would be made to evade it, and to
score the usual term of a happy life. But while a father, in
sending one of his sons to die on a foreign battle-field, has
to count upon fatalities of a different kind for the rest, un-
connected with the safety of his country, he puts the whole
into one sum, as part and parcel of the lottery of life.
As I have referred at such length to Mr. Stephen's recent
work, I will add that if I had his practised faculty for the
criticism of style, nothing would give me greater pleasure
than to express my admiration for the literary art shown in
his volume. The epithets that occur to me as most appli-
cable to the author, are " a logician, and a logical rhetori-
cian ". His logic has rarely a flaw, and his rhetoric, instead
of shining as pure ornament, is the devoted slave of the
logic. How often does he dispose of a subtlety, by a single
allusion often from the most familiar sources ! What could
be better than his remark on the very popular maxim, that,
in order to be happy, we should not aim at happiness :
" We have as it were to keep a secret from ourselves, and
to hit the mark by pretending to look in the opposite direc-
tion."
The general plan of the work is, no doubt, suited to the
author's own conceptions of the scope of Ethics ; and it is
useless wishing it to have been otherwise. If we desire a
different course to be taken, we must commit the execution
to a different hand. My own inclination would be for
68 ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.
prompting some one to mark a broad line between moral
legislation and moral advice ; instead of regarding the two
as continuous and homogeneous. It is very well to say, the
law makes a step in advance when it rises from " Kill not "
to " Hate not " ; but the change is a radical change of
grpund, where motives have to be invoked of an entirely
novel kind. The moral disposition passes beyond human
law, whose sphere is limited to externals. There is an
important advance upon " Kill not," still within the legal
sphere, when we add, Do not maim or injure in any way,
do not defame or slander, do not teaze or annoy ; and
although a comprehensive sympathy would include all that,
the law does not enjoin the sympathy, but punishes the
forbidden acts.
A. BAIN.
IV. A CKITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
I.
IT will be generally admitted that the amount of attention
bestowed on the philosophy of Kant is one of the most
noteworthy phenomena in recent English philosophical litera-
ture. Besides the remarkable monument to Kant's influence
recently offered by Mr. Max Miiller in the form of a trans-
lation, we have had within the last five years what the
latest worker in this field 1 has described as " a penetrating
exposition of Kant's central doctrine by Dr. Hutchison
Stirling : an eloquent and suggestive account of the first
Kritik by Professer Caird : a well reasoned resume of the
theoretical and moral philosophy by Professor Adamson:
and an able and elaborate review of current English opinion
on Kant by Professor Watson". It is evident, again, that
the main aim of most of this work 2 is not merely to throw
light on an interesting department of the history of thought,
but rather to effect a radical change in current English
philosophy : the writers desire that our philosophy should
" return to Kant " (Adamson), should obtain from the study
of Kant a "philosophical rejuvenescence" (Max Miiller),
should in Mr. Wallace's briefer, but yet more solemn
phrase " learn Kant ". They plainly consider that the only
obstacle to this result is the want of due intelligence on the
part of the students of philosophy who remain obstinately
unkantised : that, as Mr. Watson says, " Kant has opened up
a new way of ideas, which should win general assent the
moment it is seen to be what it really is ". Under these cir-
cumstances it seems desirable that some of the yet uncon-
vinced persons should endeavour to co-operate with the efforts
that are thus liberally being made to instruct them, by ex-
plaining clearly, and as completely as is consistent with due
brevity, the reasons why they remain unconvinced. And, in
default of more competent or more representative writers, I
have determined, after considerable hesitation, to undertake
this task.
One main reason for my hesitation may perhaps be here
1 Prof. Wallace, in the preface to his recent work on Kant in Black-
wood's Philosophical Classics.
2 1 must except the " penetrating exposition " of Dr. Stirling ; who
considers Kant's method " a laborious, baseless, inapplicable, futile super-
fetation ".
70 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
explained, in order that the point of view from which this
article is written may be better understood. It is, briefly,
that I cannot regard the criticism of Kant on which I am
about to enter as anything but a pis oilier : it is not what I
should have wished to write on the subject to which it
relates, but the only thing open to me to write according
to the view that I have just given of the occasion for writing
something. I should have preferred, if I dealt with Kant at
all, to treat his work in a more sympathetic and more his-
torical manner ; to explain carefully how his doctrines are
related to those of his continental 1 predecessors, and how
even when they appear to me most manifestly invalid, we
may yet understand the process by which an acute and
truth-loving mind was led to hold them, at a certain stage
in the development of metaphysical speculation in Germany.
I feel it to be somewhat of an anachronism, and not altogether
in good taste, to bring to bear upon the weak points as I
regard them of the Kantian system, the minute, unreserved
and unqualified criticism which a system or method of philo-
sophy challenges and requires when it is first offered to the
acceptance of students. I should have much preferred to
apply this manner of criticism not to the doctrine of Kant
himself, but to the doctrine of these contemporaries of mine
who are inviting us to learn the lesson of Kant and obtain
thereby a new philosophical birth. But this latter course, I
conceive, is not really open to me ; because no attempt has
yet been made to put this latter doctrine before us in a form
in which it would be worth while to apply serious criticism
to it. In fact I am hardly warranted in making the assump-
tion that there is such a common doctrine ; and that all or
even most of the writers above referred to have really learned
from Kant the same lesson and, in their own philosophical
speculations, are pursuing the same "way of ideas" under
his guidance. I think, however, that I may with approxi-
mate accuracy speak of Professors Adamson, Caird, "Wallace
and Watson as belonging to the same school without, of
course, meaning to saddle any one of them with responsibi-
lity for the precise statements made by any of the others.
And I might perhaps be able to give a general account of the
method and conclusions of this school which would not be
found altogether misleading and erroneous. But as no one
1 1 say * continental ' because, as Kant shows no sign of having really
understood Hume's position whatever fruitful suggestions he may have
derived from him and every sign of having misunderstood Berkeley's, I
do not consider it particularly instructive to dwell upon his historical
relation to his English predecessors.
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 71
of them has yet expounded their view of the universe in a
direct and systematic manner, it would be futile to attempt
to criticise it in the only way in which philosophy appears
to me worth criticising : that is by testing as rigorously as
possible the clearness and legitimacy of its premisses, the
cogency of its procedure, and the consistency of its conclu-
sions. And it would, in my opinion, be especially futile to
attempt this under the guise of a discussion of Kant's doc-
trine ; since it is quite clear to me that the English Neo-
kantians if I may venture so to call them differ from
Kant in points that I regard as fundamental. Indeed, when
I have been reading the criticisms with which Prof. Caird
and Prof. Watson intersperse their exposition of Kantism, I
have often longed to call up the philosopher of Konigsberg
himself, and to ask whether if the parts of his system which
these disciples assail were abandoned, the remainder would,
in his opinion, be of much value whether the edifice of his
transcendental philosophy would not be ruined from top to
bottom, and need to be rebuilt from its foundations, and
refashioned into something very unlike his own construction.
This, at any rate, is my view of the situation : the English
Neo-kantians appear to me to be living with every appearance
of comfort in a mansion of thought which never was very
firmly based, but from which they have ostentatiously re-
moved the imperfect foundation that it originally had. And
this being so, a systematic reconstruction which I could not
presume to undertake appears to me an indispensable pre-
liminary before any adequate criticism can be attempted of
the doctrine that they have learnt from their master. If
therefore I criticise anything I must criticise Kant : and so
far as this criticism may fall on points that no one will
defend, I must throw the responsibility for its irrelevance on
my Neo-kantian contemporaries. It is Kant's philosophy
that they are professedly commending to our attention, in
the eloquently suggestive, well reasoned, and ably elaborated
treatises before mentioned: it is Kant's "way of ideas"
which, we are told, ought to win our assent as soon as it is
understood : and if, as I think, it is some philosophy quite
different from Kant's that they really have in their minds, it
is surely high time that this other philosophy should be
placed on an independent basis and duly reasoned out from
its own proper premisses.
I propose then to attempt a brief examination of the
Critical Philosophy, in which I shall try to expose what seem
to me the radical defects of its procedure ; taking it as
offered for the acceptance of Englishmen, at the time at
72 A CEITICISM OF THE CKITJCAL PHILOSOPHY.
which I write. I have called the method and system which I
propose to examine Critical rather than Kantian, because
this is the style which the English Neo-kantians seem to
prefer, especially when they are emphasising the claims of
their master to a more than mere historic interest. At the
same time the term involves a serious ambiguity; which,
however, we can hardly expect our Neo-kantians to take
pains to dispel, since they derive from it a not unimportant
rhetorical advantage the same kind of advantage that ac-
crues to " liberal " politicians from the similarly ambiguous
denotation of their party. For the term "critical" espe-
cially if we spell it, as these writers usually do, with a small
c does not lose its common meaning for the ordinary reader
by becoming the proper name of Kant's doctrine : though it
denotes the method of a particular school, it still connotes a
faculty and a habit of mind which all schools would allow to
be valuable and important to a metaphysician the faculty
of detecting flaws and blemishes in any intellectual product
to which it is applied, and the habit of scrutinising carefully
the processes and results of thought, with a view to such
detection. These qualities do not necessarily accompany
eminent inventive or constructive genius in any department ;
indeed, they are commonly thought to be somewhat alien
to it. We expect a "critical" philosopher to be keenly
sensitive to any inexactness or uncertainty in his premisses,
any want of cogency in his inferences, any inconsistency in
his conclusions ; but we do not expect him to be necessarily
original, penetrating, or profound. Now it so happens that,
while no one would deny to Kant originality and penetration,
the excellences which the term "critical" thus surrepti-
tiously attributes to him are, in my opinion, those to which
his claims are most disputable : and in fact, it will be the
main aim of this paper to show that the system that has
appropriated the term Critical as its proper appellative, does
not really deserve the title in the wider sense which I take
to be still current and legitimate. A critical philosophy is
surely nothing if not self-critical : and Kant, though a pene-
trating critic of other philosophers (when he understands
them) seems to me very deficient in the faculty or habit of
self-criticism. This deficiency I find manifested in two
different manners : first, Kant does not seem to have ever
been clearly conscious of the "presuppositions" involved in
his Critical procedure, still less to have compared them
impartially with the presuppositions of his dogmatic pre-
decessors ; and secondly, under the fatal temptations of
symmetrical system-making to which his fertility in subtle
A CEITICISM OF THE CBITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 73
distinctions and analogies rendered him peculiarly prone, he
seems to intermix with his most profound and plausible
reasonings fallacies and inconsistencies of a very palpable
kind. Now the general objections that I entertain to the
procedure of Criticism are so fundamental that, if valid, they
amply justify me in rejecting it ; but since I cannot suppose
that they have not been fully considered by the advocates of
the Kantian system, I should not feel the confidence that I
still do feel in their validity, if they were not supported by
the cumulative force of narrower objections to particular
arguments and details of the system. To exhibit fully this
cumulative force would require a book rather than an article ;
but I must try at least to give some representative examples
of these more special objections besides stating the more
general ones : and therefore must criticise Criticism in some
detail.
At this point, however, the ambiguity just spoken of recurs
in another form : since when we speak of criticising Kantian
Criticism, we may either (1) use the term "criticise" in a
wide and general sense, or (2) we may use it in the special
signification which Kant has fixed on it : that is, we may
propose to test the validity of the Kantian system by
applying to it its own precise procedure, and demanding
that the transcendental knowledge it offers shall be de-
monstrated on general grounds to be possible, before we
consent to examine its details. Now I certainly think that
this latter method is one which, on Kant's own principles,
we have a primd facie right to adopt : that if it was legiti-
mate and opportune for him to ask " How is (dogmatic)
Metaphysics possible," it must be equally legitimate and oppor-
tune for us to ask, ' ' How is Critical Philosophy possible ' ' . For
the occasion and justification of Kant's question is stated by
himself to consist in the lack of steady progress in the soi-
disant science of metaphysics : and the most convinced
adherent of the Kantian system must admit that the Critical
Philosophy has not, as Kant hoped, succeeded in removing
the reproach. So far as it was true 1 in 1783 that " while
every other science is incessantly advancing, in this
we are continually turning round on the same spot, without
getting a step farther," 2 it must, I think be allowed that
1 I do not mean to say that it was true : on the contrary, I think that
the statement is far too violent and sweeping. But it had a certain
element of truth : and my point is that to whatever extent it was true
then, it would be true now to nearly the same extent.
2 Prolegomena, Introduction,
74 A CBITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
the contrast is hardly less marked in 1883 : if it was then
found " impossible to produce unanimity among those who
are engaged in the same work, as to the manner in which
their common object should be attained," there is, I fear,
no clear evidence that it has become more possible now.
And therefore if it was competent to Kant to " suspend all
metaphysicians solemnly from their occupations" till they
have shown the possibility of metaphysical knowledge, it
must surely be competent for us Englishmen to impose a
similar inhibition on the Critical philosophers, until the
" credentials " of Criticism have been tested and found
satisfactory.
Here, however, I suggest this question chiefly in the hope
that the consideration of it may cause our Neo-kantians to
abate somewhat of that air of superiority which they are in
the habit of adopting towards all whom with a great ex-
tension of the term as used by Kant they are pleased to
call Dogmatists : all, that is, who seek knowledge on the
great questions of ontology without first asking " How is
such knowledge possible ? ' ' Unless the Critical Philosopher
can first explain how his knowledge is possible, he would
seem to be only a dogmatist of a new kind : and I do not
perceive that he ever does premise such an explanation. He
may perhaps reply that I might equally well ask him to
prove the possibility of this explanation, and so on ad infini-
tum: but this answer, if valid, would only show more
cogently the unreasonableness of his original attack on his'
Dogmatists. However, I do not now wish to press this
argumentum ad hominem : since the criticism that I propose
to apply to the Kantian system will only be of the common
and humble kind : I shall not demand to be shown how
Critical Philosophy is possible, but merely that it is proved.
In order to proceed systematically, I shall begin by
examining the account that Kant gives of the premisses or
point of departure of his system, which appears to me open
to very serious criticisms. But before I state them, it will
be well to notice at the outset certain fundamental
objections which different classes of instructed readers
are likely to feel to the kind of criticisms that I am about
to make. It will be said by some that Philosophy, pro-
perly viewed, has no premisses, in the sense in which I am
assuming Kant's system to have them; that is, it has no
basis of knowledge or irrefragable belief, independent of its
own work, and on which this stands or upon which it logically
depends ; that though, in making its way into our minds, it
must begin from some cognition that is not yet philosophical,
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 75
this point of departure must not be mistaken for its founda-
tion, since Philosophy is in reality self-centered and has its
principle of highest certainty within itself; so that, when
fully comprehended, it really gives support to the cognitions
from which, in the process of being learnt, it has to start,
and does not need to receive support from them. Again, it
will be said by others that Philosophy, properly viewed, has
no particular premisses ; that what it starts with is the whole
aggregate of what is taken for knowledge or reasoned and
systematic thought, so far as this is a wider term than
knowledge by the thoughtful part of society to which the
philosophising individual belongs ; that his function as a
philosopher is to bring this aggregate into clearer coherence
by impartial reflection on it, any conclusions he may reach
as to the superior validity of particular portions of the
aggregate being arrived at in the course of the reflection
itself. Now I should quite allow the force of one or other
of these answers if I were professing to criticise certain other
kinds of philosophy in the manner in which I am about to
criticise Kant e.g., I should allow the force of the former
answer if I were criticising an avowed disciple of Hegel, and
the force of the latter if I were criticising an avowed dis-
ciple of Keid. But I cannot admit the applicability of either
on behalf of a philosophic method which, like Kant's, pro-
fessedly seeks and obtains knowledge as to the nature of our
faculty of knowing in order to establish the limits of its
legitimate exercise : since no one can maintain that cognitions
relating to our faculties can have even ultimately and when
the philosophy is complete logical priority over cognitions
relating to the manifestations of these faculties. The know-
ledge that we have faculties of knowledge so and so consti-
tuted must always, I conceive, remain an inference from the
knowledge that we have such and such knowledge. Hence
in order to attain any valid conclusions as to the " faculty of
reason in general" which Kant, in the preface to his first
Kritik, states to be the subject of his inquiry, he must have,
as the premisses from which he starts, some valid cognitions
attained by the legitimate exercise of this faculty ; and any
defect of certainty in these presupposed cognitions must
attach also to his Critical conclusions. Indeed, as we have
already seen, the Critical procedure assumes this presupposed
knowledge to be not only as trustworthy as we can get, but
so much more trustworthy than certain other widely accepted
systems of beliefs, i.e., Rational Psychology, Ontology and
Theology that the ascertainment of the conditions of the
76 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
former will afford us cogent reasons for denying the possibi-
lity of the latter.
We have therefore to ask (1) What are the (apparent)
cognitions of his own and other minds which Kant assumes
to be really valid knowledge ? and (2) How are we justified
in assuming this, at the outset of the Critical procedure?
The answer that Kant gives to the former of these questions
in the passage in which he answers it most explicitly, l
appears quite clear and definite : Pure Mathematics and
Pure or Kational Physics constitute the knowledge assumed
to be real. And I think that this was undoubtedly one of
Kant's points of departure, and that he had perfect confidence
in its legitimacy ; hence, though I shall presently show that
it was not his only point of departure, it will be simpler to
consider it by itself in the first instance. How then does
Kant justify this very important preliminary assumption of
his philosophy ? I know no passage in which he answers
this question very completely ; and I am inclined to infer
from this that he has never fully realised either the impor-
tance or the difficulty of the question : the more because
our Neo-kantians, for the most part, hardly appear to
realise them at all. 2 The difficulty, in my view, arises
from the attitude of complete scepticism which Kant asks
us to take up with regard to dogmatic metaphysics, with
the attitude of unquestioning reliance which he adopts
towards mathematics. What broad distinction is there
1 Prolegomena zu jeder Jdinftigen Metaphysik . 5. "Indem wir . . .
voraussetzen, dass solche Erkenntnisse aus reiner Vernunft wirklich sind,
so konnen wir uns imr auf zwei Wissenschaften der theoretischen Erkennt-
niss .... berufen, namlich reine Mathematik und reine Natur-
wissenschaft.
2 I ought, perhaps, to make an exception in favour of Mr. Watson, who
does devote some pages to this question in the first chapter of his book.
But after a careful perusal of the pages, I find it difficult to grasp Mr.
"Watson's view of the subject. On the one hand, he says, in the most
unqualified way (pp. 5. 6), that " the special facts and laws of the mathe-
matical and physical sciences " are Kant's actual premisses " not proposi-
tions which he seeks to prove but data which he assumes ; " of which
" the particular philosophical theory we adopt will in no way alter the
nature or validity : " he even opines (p. 16) that " it would have appeared
to Kant mere folly to prove the truth of mathematical and physical
propositions ". On the other hand he says (p. 10) that " an examination
into the nature of knowledge is forced on us as a means of justifying , if that
be possible, the universal and necessary principles which are imbedded . . .
in the special science : " and also (p. 1) that " the request ... to prove the
supposed absoluteness, objectivity or necessity of the particular facts and
laws which no doubt exist in our consciousness ... is perfectly reasonable ".
I can hardly suppose Mr. Watson to mean that I am justified in assuming,
apart from Criticism, that the special laws of mathematics and physics are
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 77
between the intellectual process by which the apparently
self-evident universals of the latter science are known,
and that by which the human mind is led to affirm the
apparently self-evident universals of the former? The
manner in which Kant sometimes (e.g., Prolegg. 5) tries to
exhibit the distinction seems to me palpably inadequate.
He says that "pure Mathematics and pure Physics can
exhibit their objects to us in intuition, and hence, sup-
posing there should occur in them a cognition a priori, can
show us the truth or harmony of the cognition with the
object in concrete, that is, its reality, from which we could
then proceed analytically to the ground of its possibility ".
But this does not clearly affirm more than that the mathe-
matician or physicist can show one or more particular
concrete examples of any universal proposition that he lays
down : and no one knows better than Kant that no accumu-
lation of such particular examples can establish the validity
of the universal proposition, qua universal. In the case,
however, of Mathematics Kant means a good deal more than
this : he means that mathematics can show us its object in
a " pure a priori intuition," can, as he otherwise says, " con-
struct " it. This meaning is most clearly expressed in a
passage in the Kritik (' Methoden-lehre' i. Haupst. 1. Abschn.)
where the essential difference between mathematical and
philosophical cognition is developed at some length.
" Philosophical cognition," he says, " is the rational cognition obtained
from concepts, mathematical that obtained from the construction of con-
cepts. By constructing a concept I mean representing a priori the intuition
corresponding to it. For the construction of a concept, therefore, a non-
empirical intuition is required which as an intuition is a single object, but
which nevertheless as the construction of a concept or general notion must
express something that is generally valid for all possible intuitions which
fall under the same concept. Thus I construct a triangle by representing
the object corresponding to that concept either by mere imagination, in
pure intuition, or after this on paper also in empirical intuition, in both
cases however a priori." 1
Now I will grant that the distinction thus laid down
true for me individually, but not that they are true for mankind generally ;
and that that is Kant's assumption : since nothing can be more manifest
than that, so far as Kant assumes anything with regard to the laws in
question, he assumes their "objectivity" and "universal validity".
Cf. Prolegg. 5, 14 20. And again I can hardly suppose Mr. Watson to
mean that I am justified in assuming the truth of special laws and yet
not similarly justified in assuming the truth of the more general principles
on which these laws depend. Hence, I am unable to collect from his
various statements any consistent view that has even a primd facie
plausibility.
1 Hartenstein's ed., p. 478; Rosenkranz' ed. p. 552, 3.
78 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
holds in the case of Geometry, from which Kant's illus-
tration is drawn : I will grant that geometrical reasoning is
distinguished from philosophical by being referred to an
object which as concrete and individual can be perceived
and not merely thought. But Kant's distinction is drawn
in favour not of Geometry only but of Pure Mathematics
generally : and it is certainly not obvious that algebraic or
even arithmetical reasoning involves any similar reference to
an individual concrete object. The reader will therefore
look with some curiosity to see how these branches of
Mathematics can be shewn to proceed " aus der Con-
struction der Begriffe : " and I cannot but think that he will be
rather surprised when he comes upon the following expla-
nation.
" In Mathematics, however, we construct not only quantities (quanta) as
in Geometry, but also mere quantity (quantitas) as in Algebra,, where we
abstract completely from the properties of the object that has to be thought
according to this quantitative conception. We accordingly adopt a certain
notation for all construction of quantities generally such as addition, sub-
traction, extraction of roots, &c. and having also characterised the general
concept of quantities according to their different relations, we represent in
intuition every operation by which quantity is produced and modified,
according to certain general rules. Thus when one quantity is to be divided
by another, we place the signs of both together according to the form de-
noting division, &c. ; and thus Algebra arrives by means of a symbolical
construction, no less than Geometry by means of an ostensive or geometrical
construction of the objects themselves, at results which our discursive
cognitions by means of mere conceptions could never have attained."
This passage appeared to me to show conclusively the
careless and imperfect manner in which Kant has thought
out this part of his doctrine. He has begun by giving us, as
the differentia of Mathematics, that it " constructs " its con-
cepts, denning "construction" to be the representation a
priori of a concrete individual object corresponding to its
concept : and then proceeds to give, as a particular case of
this construction, the "symbolic construction" of Algebra,
as explained in the above passage. But it is plain that in
this "symbolic construction" there are no individual con-
crete objects corresponding to the concepts of quantity em-
ployed in the algebraical reasoning, except the symbols that
we write down on paper, and that these are neither more nor
less individual and concrete than the symbols of ordinary
language used in philosophic reasoning; so that the dis-
tinction sought to be established between mathematical and
philosophical cognition breaks down altogether. Yet Kant
is so satisfied with this explanation that he substantially
repeats it a few pages later in a passage "On Demonstration,"
in which he tells us that the procedure of Algebra in dealing
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 79
with equations is " a construction, not geometrical but by
characters (charakteristisch) in which, by means of signs,
we exhibit in intuition the concepts especially of the relation
of quantity . . . and secure all our inferences against error by
placing each of them visibly before the reasoner's eyes :
whereas philosophical cognition must dispense with this ad-
vantage as it must always contemplate the universal in
abstracto, &C." 1
Surely it is hardly necessary to point out that the al-
gebraist can no more bring his reasonings " vor Augen" by
the simple expedient of writing down his X'B and y's, his +
and - &c., than the philosopher can by similarly writing
down his philosophical terms with verbs, conjunctions, &c.,
appertaining. Surely it is manifest that the universals of
Algebra are just as much contemplated in abstracto as the
universals of Philosophy, the superiority of Algebra lying in
greater definiteness of conception not in any " concrete " or
" intuitive " presentation of what is conceived and in short
that Kant having established a plausible distinction between
Geometry and Philosophy is forcing it on to the alien matter
of Algebra with a violence that must be palpable to, every one
except himself.
So far as Arithmetic is concerned, there is another passage
(Prolegg. 10) in which Kant seems to offer a different account
of the procedure of Mathematics in this department. He says
that " Arithmetic accomplishes its concepts of number by
successive addition of the units of time " ; thus suggesting
that it is the pure intuition of time by which the concepts of
number are " constructed ". Now it is true of course (1)
that the process of counting one, two, three, . . . occupies
time, each number being thought a moment later than the
preceding ones ; and (2) that some process of counting is
necessary to the full realisation of the small numbers
which are the only ones that we ever do fully realise. But
it does not therefore follow that the abstract units summed
up in the notion of any number are units of time : indeed, it
seems to me manifest that they are not, and that on the
contrary when we fully realise the meaning of (say) " four,"
the four parts of this whole are necessarily conceived simul-
taneously and not successively although, as I have said, a
process of counting is required to attain this realisation.
Time is no more involved in the notion of number, than it
is in any other notion which is at once complex and definite :
since for the full realisation of any such conception we
1 Hartenstein, p. 499, Rosenkranz, p. 568.
80 A CRITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
require a process of synthesis in which we dwell on each
part separately. And it may be observed that this view as
to the relation of Arithmetic to Time seems to be rather
doubtfully held by Kant : at least there is no suggestion of
it in the discussion of Time in the Transcendental ^Esthetic.
A similar hasty extension to Arithmetic of a view originally
formed by a consideration of Geometry may be seen, I
think, in Kant's famous distinction between "analytical"
and " synthetical " propositions or at least in the discussion
in which he illustrates and defends this distinction. I do
not deny that in a certain sense arithmetical equations are
synthetical : that is, an act of synthesis is required to form
the concept of each successive number in counting ; and the
validity of arithmetical reasoning depends upon the possibi-
lity of such syntheses. But this is not what Kant means in
affirming that 7 + 5 = 12 is not a merely analytical proposi-
tion ; he means to deny that it can be obtained by inference
from the definitions of numbers or, in his own words, from
"mere analysis of their concepts," granting their concepts to
have been legitimately formed. Now it is doubtless true
that the proposition 7 + 5 = 12 cannot be obtained by
mere analysis of the notions 7 and 5, or even of the whole
series of numbers up to 7. But Kant would hardly deny
that it may be obtained from the proposition 12 = 7 + 5
by simple conversion : and it is easy to show that this latter
proposition can be strictly inferred from propositions which
Kant can hardly deny to be analytical. For, first, I do
not see how he can deny that 12 = 11 + 1 is an analytical
proposition, since this is what the symbol 12 signifies,
according to the rules of arithmetical notation : secondly,
it must similarly be admitted of numbers from 10 downwards
that 10 = 9 4- 1, 9 = 8 + 1, &c., &c., are analytical; and,
thirdly, since Kant says that "the whole > its part"
is analytical, I hardly suppose that he would deny this of the
closely connected quantitative axiom " the whole = the sum
of its parts taken in any order". If so, the proposition
12 = 7 + 5 may obviously be deduced from the above
premisses.
In short Kant appears to me to fail altogether in making
out the resemblance between Geometry and Arithmetic
which he requires for the purposes of his argument, and
therefore his distinction between the self-evidence of mathe-
matical and the self-evidence of metaphysical premisses
palpably breaks down.
Let us now consider how the case stands in respect of the
non-mathematical universals of Physics : e.g., the proposi-
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 81
tion that every event must have had a cause, or that matter
is indestructible. Kant has no more doubt that the validity
of these propositions may be unhesitatingly assumed prior
to criticism, than he has in the case of the universals of
Mathematics : " Pure Mathematics and pure Science of
Nature would not have needed for their own safety and cer-
tainty any such deduction as we have made of both ". 1 But
the ground of this certainty is stated differently in the two
cases, since the concepts used in the non-mathematical
universals of Physics cannot be " constructed a priori " :
and therefore, while the universals of Mathematics are said
to " rest on their own evidence," the non-mathematical
universals of Physics have to " rest on experience and its
thorough confirmation " 2 (durchgangige Bestatigung) . Simi-
larly in the second paragraph of the Preface to the first
edition of the Kritik, Kant refers to the principles of Physics
as " principles . . . the use of which is sufficiently
guaranteed (hinreichend bewahrt) by experience ". But
how can Kant consistently say that these universal proposi-
tions are sufficiently " confirmed " or " verified " by ex-
perience, when he at the same time maintains as a
fundamental point in his argument that experience cannot
really establish universal propositions ? If experience cannot
establish them, it must be obvious that it cannot adequately
" confirm " or " verify " them qua universal. Is it possible to
adopt the answer to this question suggested by Mr. Watson ?
Can we suppose that Kant really means that the " safety
and certainty " of the universals of Physics may be assumed
not because experience can prove them as it manifestly
cannot but because they are " undoubted," because every-
body does assume them and experience does not contradict
him ? that, in Mr. Watson's words, it " would have
appeared to Kant mere folly " and " a voluntary creation of
self-tormenting difficulties," to " ask philosophy to prove
what no one denies " ? that, in short, he relies not strictly
on induction from experience, but on Common Sense uncon-
tradicted by experience ? But what is meant by saying that
the principle of causality is undoubted ? Grant for the
sake of argument, and in spite of the prevalent belief in
free will that it is undoubted by Common Sense, it cannot
be said that its absolute universality within the limits of
possible experience which is its fundamentally important
characteristic from the Critical point of view is undoubted
1 Prolegomena, 40. The emphasis on the words italicised is Kant's
own.
2 Prolegomena, l.c.
82 A CRITICISM OF THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
by philosophy : and it is difficult to believe that Kant would
have deliberately appealed to Common Sense as an authority
on a question at issue among philosophers, when we recall
his severe censure on the Scotch school for making such an
appeal. 1
But how impossible it is for Kant to appeal to Common
Sense with any consistency, appears more manifestly when
we ask what he means by the " experience " that verifies
the universals of physical science ; since there is at any rate
no doubt that his view of it is fundamentally different from
the common sense view of the plain man. Common Sense
undoubtedly means by my experience of physical facts
cognition of something that exists as cognised independently
of my or any man's cognition : while it is, of course, a
cardinal point in Kant's system that I do not know things
as they are but only as they impress my own and other
human minds. But if Common Sense is so completely
thrown over as regards the extra-cognitional existence of
the object of perception, its authority can hardly remain
worth much as regards .the strict universality of the prin-
ciple of cause and effect. In fact the two cases seem primd
facie parallel ; as in each case we have a proposition assumed
in ordinary thought which reflection to most people
shows to be not self-evident, and therefore to require some
kind of proof. I am not now considering whether it is
possible for Kant to prove one of these propositions and
disprove the other ; but whether it is legitimate to assume
one on the authority of Common Sense while yet rejecting
the other : and I submit that, whether the plain man's view
of the matter is worth much or little, it must be clearly
unphilosophical to play fast and loose with him as Mr.
Watson is disposed to do.
To sum up : I maintain that the premisses of Criticism, so
far as we have yet examined them, are illegitimately and in-
consistently assumed. Grant that the universals of Mathe-
matics are apparently self-evident : the same may be said of
many of the discredited universals of Metaphysics ; and
Kant has failed to show any such fundamental difference in
mathematical method, w r hen compared with that of dog-
1 Prolegomena, Introduction. " They therefore discovered a more con-
venient means of carrying the matter with a high hand without any insight,
viz., by appealing to the common-sense of mankind ... as long as a
morsel of insight remains, a man will certainly avoid this desperate resource.
For if you look at it this is nothing but an appeal to the judgment of the
multitude, at whose applause the philosopher blushes, while the popular
wit triumphs and gives himself airs on the strength of it."
A CRITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 83
matic metaphysics, as would warrant us in relying absolutely
on the former appearance of self-evidence, while altogether
distrusting the latter. Grant that the currently accepted
universals of Mathematics and Physics are in a sense "verified
by experience " ; still, strictly taken, this can mean no more
than that they are in harmony with our experience, so far
as it has yet gone ; and, according to Kant himself, this
cannot establish their strict universality. Grant, again,
that an effective appeal may be made to Common Sense, in
Mr. Watson's manner, against the " voluntary self-torture "
of raising doubts as to the universal truth of mathematical
axioms or the principle of causality, within the range of
possible experience ; still, such doubts have been raised by
philosophic intellects, and Kant has himself told us what
to think of the misguided persons who appeal to Common
Sense against Philosophy ; and even if he had not told us,
his own divergence from Common Sense on the fundamental
question of external perception would have disabled him from
making such an appeal consistently.
But, as I before said, I do not regard the point of departure
that we have so far been occupied in examining, as the only
point of departure of Kant's system. I do not think that
in his own view he requires to assume the certainty of
mathematical and physical universals in order to establish
his Critical doctrine. In fact the very passage in the Pro-
legomena, in which this assumption is made, suggests that it
belongs to the " analytical method " employed in that
treatise, which a previous passage has expressly dis-
tinguished from the synthetical method chiefly used in the
Kritik. And it seems to me clear from many particular
passages in the Kritik, as well as from the general drift of
that treatise, that Kant, while he considers himself justified
in assuming the certainty of mathematical and physical
universals, considers also that Criticism is competent to
establish them by a process of reasoning in which this
assumption is not made. I pass, therefore, to examine the
precise nature of this process.
As I understand Kant, this part of the Critical procedure
consists (1) in obtaining by reflection on and analysis of or-
dinary experience of particular facts as distinct from
general premisses or conclusions of science a knowledge of
the complex nature and functioning of the mind that ex-
periences, and thus of the precise manner in which our
different faculties sense, understanding, and imagination
necessarily co-operate in producing the composite result
which we call experience : and (2) thence inferring certain
84 A CEITICISM OF THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
necessary characteristics of this experience, and corres-
pondingly universal laws of its objects. Here, then, again,
our first duty is to make clear to ourselves his con-
ception of the fact to be analysed, as he takes it prior to
analysis. As I have already said, it is fundamentally
different from the Common Sense notion of experience so
far at least as experience of physical fact is concerned. An
empirical cognition of physical fact, in Kant's view, what-
ever else it may be, is not the cognition of an object that
exists as cognised independently of this cognition. His
grounds for discarding this element of the Common Sense
view I shall presently consider ; meanwhile I wish to ask
what Kant exactly does mean by saying that we have " ex-
perience of objects," since he does not mean that we know
things as they are. His language on the subject is a little
perplexing : as he tells us on the one hand (Prolegg., 5)
that " experience is nothing but a continuous synthesis of
perceptions " : and on the other hand (Prolegg., 18) that
"judgments of perception" are distinguished from judg-
ments of experience by being merely subjectively valid.
But how can a synthesis of what is merely subjective give
us knowledge of objects ? or rather what is the meaning of
" object," if it is somewhat that results from a synthesis
of merely subjective elements ? Kant's answer to this
question appears to me confused and inconsistent : it is
given as follows in the most explicit passage that I can find
(Prolegg., 18) :-
" All our judgments are at first mere judgments of perception ; they are
valid merely for us (for our subject), and it is not till afterwards that we
give them a new reference, namely, to an object, and insist that they x are
to be valid for ourselves always and for everybody else : for if a judgment
agrees with an object all judgments concerning the same object must also
agree among themselves, and thus the objective validity of the judgment
of experience signifies nothing else than its necessarily universal validity.
But also conversely, when we find reason to attribute necessarily universal
validity to a judgment, we must also consider it objective, i.e., as expressing
a property of the object ; for there would be no reason why the judgments
of others should necessarily agree with mine, if it were not the unity of
the object to which they relate, and agreeing with which they must neces-
sarily also agree among themselves."
Now to the first part of this passage I make no objection,
1 Kant's w r ords are ..." nur hintennach geben wir ihnen eine
neue Beziehung . . . und wollen dass es auch fur uns jederzeit und
ebenso fur Jedermann giiltig sein solle ". The only way of making the
sentence grammatical is to refer the " es " to " Object " : but as in all the
rest of the passage it is always to " Urtheile " that " Gultigkeit " is attri-
buted, I have preferred to regard the " es . . . solle " as an accidental
lapse" from the plural ("Urtheile") to the singular. The same view is
taken in Mr. Mahaffy's translation.
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 85
except that I cannot regard as psychologically accurate
Kant's account of two successive mental acts involved in
any empirical judgment first, the judgment of perception,
and then the reference to an object. I recognise no such
doubleness in my ordinary experience : but I so far agree
that when I reflect on any judgment that I make concerning
any external object, and ask what is implied in it which is
not implied in a mere affirmation concerning a transient
feeling of my own, I certainly find in it the implication of
" universal validity," which Kant here makes explicit. I
regard a mere sensation using this term to denote a psy-
chical phenomenon and not its physical concomitant as
existing, being there, for me alone ; or at least, I assume that
other minds can only know it representatively, by the
exercise of imagination : but an objective perception is as-
sumed to be the perception of something that is there,
at least potentially, for all minds alike. As I have said, I
find also implied in my notion of an object cognised, that it
exists, as cognised, independently of my cognition; but,
assuming for the present that this implication has been
eliminated, I should be willing to accept "objective validity"
as merely meaning " universal 1 validity". But I do not
understand how Kant can with consistency assert that, con-
versely, a universally valid judgment must be a judgment
expressing some property of the object. For Logic is, in
Kant's view, an a priori science, in which universally valid
propositions are laid down : and yet he expressly says
and indeed gives it as a reason for the peculiar success
of Logic that it has " not only the right but the duty to
make abstraction from all objects of knowledge and their
differences ". 2 And even if we confine the statement to the
mathematical and physical universals which Kant while
finding the ground of this universal validity in the mental
conditions of knowledge, the forms of sensibility and thought
declares to be "objectively valid" or "valid of objects of
experience," it still seems to me misleading to say that the
universal validity of these judgments implies " the unity of
the object to which they all relate ". I cannot see that
1 1 have omitted the idea of ' necessity ' because it seems to me to involve
a certain ambiguity. The existence of particular objects of experience,
qua particular, is commonly thought as contingent and therefore not neces-
sary ; but true judgments relating to them are thought to be necessary, in
the sense that they cannot be contradicted by any right-judging mind.
2 The quotation is from the third paragraph of the preface to the 2nd
edition of the KritiL Of. also ' Transcendent. Logik,' Einleitung ii. :
" General logic abstracts, as we have shown, from all reference of knowledge
to its object".
86 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
it implies more than certain general resemblances in the
objects of different minds. For instance, it would be quite
possible for me and any of my readers to agree that two
straight lines cannot enclose a space, or that every event
must have a cause, and yet to have no agreement at all as
to the particular sizes and shapes, the particular movements
and other changes, of the material things that make up the
external world of each of us. I lay stress on this, because
it always seems to me one of the most glaring deficiencies in
Kant's theory of knowledge, that he offers no explanation of
the indisputable fact that we have all of us speaking
broadly a common external world (though each of us
stands in a different relation to it), instead of having a
number of different external worlds subject to the same
general laws. So far as I can see, while theorising at least
ingeniously as to the origin and nature of the universal
elements that enter into our notions of objects, he leaves the
particularity of objects altogether unexplained : although the
distinction that he explicitly draws, in the case of Logic,
between " forms " of understanding and " objects " under-
stood, would lead us to suppose that it is in the particularity
of the object that the essence of its objectivity is to be
found.
But I do not propose to dwell further on this point at
present. Let us concentrate our attention on the universal
elements which reflection shows us everywhere in the
object- world of every mind : and let us consider more closely
the analysis bywhich these universal elements are distinguish-
ed and classified, and by which the nature of all cognising
human subjects is believed to be ascertained sufficiently for
the establishment of valid critical conclusions about them
i.e., conclusions as to the necessary limits of their possible
knowledge. We find that two of these universal elements,
Space and Time, are referred by Kant primarily to Sense as
distinguished from Understanding : and since this reference
is argued by him in a separate and preliminary part of the
treatise the idealistic conclusions of which are, I think,
assumed to be established in the more elaborate analysis
that follows it will be convenient to take this more ele-
mentary argument first.
The " metaphysical " exposition of Space and Time as
forms of sense carefully distinguished by Kant, in his
second edition, from the "transcendental" exposition of the
same notions, in which the strict universality of mathema-
tical (and even physical) cognitions is assumed may be
divided into two parts : Kant seeks to show in the first
A CKITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 87
place that Space and Time are mental forms ; and, secondly,
that they are forms of perception or sense and not of under-
standing. The second part of the argument I am not con-
cerned to dispute : it seems to me completely effective as
against the Leibnitzo-Wolman view, and indeed its conclusion
would, in my opinion, be indisputable, supposing the first
part of the argument to be valid. I have no doubt that my
notion of Space or Time is primarily the notion of a concrete
individual fact, and not of a mere class of relations : hence
if Space and Time are mere forms of human cognition and
not facts belonging to a real world whose spatial and temporal
existence is independent of the existence of human minds
I shall not dispute that they are forms of what we may
allow Kant to call the "outer" and the "inner" sense
respectively.
But are Space and Time mere forms of human cognition ?
It is certainly not self-evident to me that they are not, nor
do I think it capable of being proved from any self-evident
propositions ; but it is an inevitable assumption of my ordi-
nary thought that they are what I apprehend them to be
independently of my or any man's cognition : and I cannot
perceive that Kant, in the ' Transcendental ^Esthetic,' has
given me the least fragment of a positive reason for abandon-
ing this assumption as invalid. For brevity, I will here take
the case of Space alone. His points are two : (1) that the
notion of space cannot be derived from external experience,
because in order that I may apprehend things as out of me
and out of each other, the notion of space must be already
there (" schon zum Grunde liegen ") ; and (2) that the notion
of space is a necessary one, for I cannot imagine space anni-
hilated, though I can very well think it emptied of objects.
As regards the first point, it is indubitable that I cannot
apprehend material things as being outside my body, or
outside each other, without apprehending them as being in
space, because the two notions are identical ; but I cannot
see that this proves the notion of space to be " schon zum
Grunde liegend " any more than, e.g., the notion of colour
is in all visual cognitions. Introspection does not show me
that I first perceive things to be there and then perceive
them to be coloured : I perceive them to be coloured in per-
ceiving them to be there : and yet no one maintains the
notion of colour to be not derived from experience. It is
no doubt true that I can imagine myself cognising things in
space, as the blind do, without cognising them as coloured;
but I know no ground for believing that this is what actually
happens, in the case of persons with full visual organs. Ke-
88 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
flection shows that observable progress in our experience of
objects always takes place, not by definite additions of new
elements, but by the gradual consolidation into definiteness of
vague apprehensions of difference and similarity ; so that the
newest fact definitely apprehended is always apprehended by
means of notions which in a sense were there before. I see,
therefore, no reason why we should not suppose a simultaneous
gradual emergence into definiteness of our notion of space
along with other notions admittedly empirical. No doubt
if, with some commentators, 1 we take Kant's " schon zum
Grunde liegen " to mean merely that the notion of space
is logically presupposed in the perception of extended things,
this particular objection is irrelevant : but then, as it seems to
me, Kant's argument has no longer even an apparent tendency
to establish his conclusion. For this logical presupposition
can mean no more than that the notion of space is involved
as an element in the more complex notion of matter ; but
that can surely be no reason why it should not be derived
from experience, if other elements of this compound are
admitted to be so derived.
Let us turn, then, to the second argument, that space is
a necessary notion, as shown by the psychological experiment
of trying to abolish it. This argument seems to have been
regarded as weighty by writers for whom I entertain a sincere
respect ; but I am bound to say that it appears to me to
combine the two worst demerits that any argument of a
systematic writer can have it really tends to prove the
reverse of the conclusion that Kant draws from it, and it
incidentally contradicts another principle of fundamental
importance that he elsewhere lays down. In the first place
I must define carefully the only sense in which I can admit
the impossibility of imagining " dass kein Eaum sei". It
does not seem to me clear that I cannot, at least for a brief
period, eliminate space from my consciousness ; indeed there
seem to me to be at least two kinds of cases within my ex-
perience in which this result is often either nearly or quite
attained, (1) when I am absorbed in the solution of an alge-
braic equation, and (2) when I am absorbed in listening to a
musical performance. But I quite admit what I rather
understand Kant to mean, that when I contemplate or con-
sider space, I am unable to conceive it annihilated. Only
this space that I am unable to conceive annihilated is not
conceived by me as a mere form of my or of human cog-
nition, but as something that exists independently of my
1 E.g., Prof. Caird, Philosophy of Kant, Part II., c. iii.
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 89
cognition of it ; hence if it is legitimate to infer anything
from the inconceivability of its annihilation, it must surely
be the necessary existence of space apart from my sensibility,
and not its necessary existence as a form of my sensibility :
so that Kant's argument would really tend to prove the
opposite of his conclusion. But does this characteristic,
that its annihilation is inconceivable, really distinguish space
from matter, as Kant here asserts? Certainly I do not find
that I "can very well think" space without objects in space:
and I should have supposed that Kant would have found
the same difficulty, since he elsewhere gives it as a synthetical
a priori cognition of the pure understanding that " the quan-
tum of substance in nature can neither be increased or di-
minished ". How can we " very well think " space as emptied
of all matter, if it is a necessary condition of experience that
we should think in nihilum nil posse reverti ? Whither is the
matter that is thought out of space conceived to go ? Until
this question has been satisfactorily answered, it hardly
seems to me worth while to discuss the present argument
further.
If then the "metaphysical exposition" of Space as a
form of sense breaks down, let us see whether the " trans-
cendental exposition," in which the strict universality of
geometrical propositions is assumed, could render any effec-
tive assistance, supposing the assumption allowed. Why
can I not have universal knowledge of space as existing
independently of my cognition, no less than of space con-
ceived as a necessary form of my cognition? Kant's
answer to this question, as obtained by comparing the
Kritik and the Prolegomena ( 9), appears to consist of two
parts ; he holds (1) that I cannot know universal truths
concerning " things-in-themselves " or objects that exist
independently of my cognition, because I can only know
the characteristics of such things " when they are present
and given to me " ; and he holds (2) that I cannot im-
mediately know the thing in itself at all, since " its proper-
ties cannot migrate (hiniiberwandern) into my faculty of
representation " (Vorstellungskraft) - 1 We ought to begin
by considering the second of these arguments, since if valid
at all, it would obviously render the first altogether super-
fluous ; but I find ft difficult to believe that Kant can have
seriously relied on it. For if I cannot have immediate
1 1 have preferred to treat this part of Kant's argument in the form in
which it is given in the Prolegomena, as being more clear and explicit
But the passages in the Kritik seem to me equally to imply the two tenets
stated in the text.
90 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
knowledge of any entity unless it " migrates into my Vor-
stellungskraft," must I not for the same reason be equally
unable to have mediate knowledge of it, or even any valid
belief or conception of its existence ? Thus Rational Psy-
chology, Cosmology, and Theology would vanish in a
twinkling leaving nothing for Criticism to confute ; but
with them also, the "the things-in-themselves " in whose
existence Kant is determined to believe, and which he
continually represents as causing in us the sensations
which we refer to matter. And not only are material
things in themselves thus eliminated, but all knowledge of
other minds than my own is cut off; for another mind
cannot migrate into my faculty any more than anything
else can. Knowledge of my past feelings would seem to
vanish also ; since, as being past, they cannot form a part
of the present operation of my cognitive faculties. I need
not pursue the reductio ad absurdum further ; it is clear that
whatever may be the necessary conditions of knowledge,
migration of what is known into the faculty of that which
knows cannot be laid down as one of them : I pass, there-
fore, to examine the narrower argument on which, as I
think, Kant has really more reliance. And I quite admit
that it seems at first sight plausible to say that I cannot
immediately know the non-ego except when it is present
and given to me, and therefore cannot have certain universal
knowledge about it. But on looking closer this reasoning
seems to me to involve, in a subtle form, that confusion
between psychical and physical fact which has been so
fruitful a source of error in theories of cognition. The
argument, in fact, transforms a merely material and em-
pirically known condition of bodies acting on other bodies,
into a dogmatically assumed condition of a mental opera-
tion. In our ordinary experience of material changes,
the bodies that we find acting on other bodies appear
generally to be in local contiguity : and it is possible that
this is always the case, and that some day gravitation
will be explained so as to exhibit the same general law.
But what has this to do with the conditions of the purely
psychical phenomenon which we distinguish as knowledge
of matter or space ? The Kantians do not surely mean
to materialise mind so far as to localise it ; if not, the
object of knowledge can never be properly said to be in
local contiguity to the knowing mind. What meaning
then can be attached to the statement that the mind can
only know what is " present and given to it," except that
it can only know in fact, what there is to be known ? To
A CRITICISM OF THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 91
the geometer it undoubtedly appears that certain universal
relations existing in the non-ego are presented to his mind as
necessary ; and Kant cannot surely maintain that the im-
possibility of this is self-evident : but, if not, the assumption
that such knowledge is impossible stands revealed as a mere
naked dogma, in the very centre of soi-disant Criticism.
And the negative dogma has to be supplemented by a
positive one : for if I cannot have universal knowledge of
anything except the forms of my faculty of knowledge, why
should I be able to state anything that will always be true
of these? Is the future history of my faculty " present and
given " ? or its immutability ? or its similarity to the cogni-
tive faculties of all other human minds ? If not, what can
possibly be gained for the universal validity of our geometri-
cal cognitions by transferring Space from the non-ego to the
ego?
Here I must break off. It may perhaps be said that in
all this article I have not really attacked Kant's stronghold,
but merely skirmished in his outworks ; since I have not
dealt with the more elaborate and complete analyses (and
synthesis) of the ' Transcendental Analytic ' in which the
combination of the forms of Sense with the forms of Under-
standing is expounded. It may be maintained that it is
here that the real establishment of Criticism is to be found,
all that precedes being merely preliminary and provisional.
I am quite willing to accept this view of the case : and
propose accordingly to criticise separately the argument of
the ' Transcendental Analytic ' in a subsequent article.
And I shall be quite content with the effect of the present
paper if the readers of it will come with me to the discussion
of the ' Analytic ' in a perfectly neutral state of mind, as
regards the " transcendental identity " of Space and Time :
since if these have not been shown to be forms of Sense
"before the argument of the ' Analytic ' is entered upon, I am
confident that this conclusion cannot be validly established
in the course of that argument ; and therefore that the
complex hypothesis of faculties which Kant there puts
forward to explain the fact of knowledge will be found to
be generally unwarrantable, as well as forced and fallacious
in details.
HENRY SIDGWICK.
(To be continued.)
V. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
SUBJECTIVITY IN PHILOSOPHY. A BEPLY.
Dr. Francis Ellingwood Abbot breaks his lances with much
gaiety of heart, but his thrusts are not always so instantaneously
fatal as he fondly imagines. In his recent article on " Scientific
Philosophy" (MIND XXVIII., 488), he obtains over me what he
evidently thinks is an easy victory, but only by means of an open
and palpable, though doubtless unintentional, misrepresentation,
which, since the question raised is of great general importance,
I think it best not to let pass unnoticed. Dr. Abbot quotes
the following passage from the very brief Introduction to my
Time and Space :
"By the term consciousness, in this Essay, is always meant conscious-
ness as existing in an individual conscious being ; and proofs drawn from
such a consciousness can have no validity for other conscious individuals,
unless they themselves recognise their truth as descriptions applicable to
the procedure and phenomena of their own consciousness. Doctrines, if
true, will ultimately be recognised as such by all individuals whose
consciousness is formed on the same type, that is, by all human beings."
On this Dr. Abbot comments as follows :
" Here is luminously presented the cardinal and universal contradiction
in all non-solipsistic form of subjectivism : (1) The assumption that the
Ego knows only the changes of its own consciousness ; and (2) the assump-
tion that the Ego knows other Egos to exist that * are formed on the same
type '. One of these assumptions necessarily destroys the other."
Now, in the first place, my words contain no assumption of an
Ego at all, unless we suppose Dr. Abbot to use the word Ego
loosely for "individual conscious being" ; and secondly, granting
this use of the word, they contain no assumption " that the Ego
knows only the changes of its own consciousness ". This assump-
tion is not to be found in the words, either expressly or by impli-
cation. Nor can it be read into them from the rest of the book.
It is an assumption which the book repels in all its parts, and
more particularly perhaps by the distinction drawn out and
applied at the beginning of chapter hi. between history and
analysis.
What my words do contain is this : first, that the conscious-
ness treated of in the book is consciousness in its ordinary sense,
as every one knows it in his own case, not a transcendent or
world-consciousness ; secondly, that readers, in order to test the
truth of what I bring forward, must examine their own conscious-
ness, in which I expect what I say to find an echo. It is just
because I think that the states of my consciousness are not only
states of my consciousness, but are also a knowledge of something
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 93
not included in my "individual conscious being," that I urge
other individuals to test them in the same way that I test them
myself, namely, by the method of introspection. Employment
of the method of introspection, by simply analysing consciousness,
is not equivalent to assuming the total isolation of individuals, or
Egos as Dr. Abbot calls them, from each other. Consciousness as
existing in an individual is not equivalent to consciousness having no
knowledge beyond the individual. The former expression speaks of
consciousness quite generally, as found in any individual ; the
latter speaks of the particular consciousness of one individual.
The analysis of consciousness as found in individuals must deter-
mine our views both of what individuality means, and what the
relations are between individual conscious beings and their
environment. The analysis of consciousness, as the prerequisite
of assigning a philosophical meaning to any other term whatever,
is insisted on throughout the book, but it is the special purpose of
the passage which is quoted by Dr. Abbot from the Introduction,
and wrested by him to imply the assumption of isolated individ-
uality in conscious beings. I speak of consciousness qua con-
sciousness, and he understands me to speak of it qua individual.
It would not have been worth while to correct Dr. Abbot's
misstatement, were not the point raised by it one which is of
prime importance, both in itself and for the place which it
occupies at the very threshold of philosophy ; so that a mistake in
this matter may prevent our ever philosophising at all, however
much, and in a certain sense ably, we may write on philosophical
topics. Yet it is not my purpose, and I am not to be understood,
in what follows, to speak on behalf of any other views than my
own. For this I have no authority. Dr. Abbot has quoted me,
among others, as an instance of what he calls " subjectivism " in
philosophy, and has, in doing so, as I think, palpably misrepre-
sented me. What I therefore wish to do is, to point out what I
consider the true sense of the word subjective as applied to philo-
sophy.
The point thus raised lies at, or rather across, the threshold of
philosophy ; through it you must enter or not at all. It is a
peculiarity of philosophy to have one of its knottiest points at its
very commencement, a sort of pons asinorum, passing which in
safety you have already made some considerable progress in
philosophy, not passing which, you remain an outsider. Whether
it is to the advantage of philosophy to have so hard a matricula-
tion, is not so clear. It certainly procures her many enemies in
the guise of friends. But doubtless the maker of the human
mind knew best.
One form of the pons may be thus stated : I have sensations
and other feelings, and remember them ; I see and feel niy own
body and other objects external to it ; I see and hear other
human bodies moving and speaking as my own body does; I
connect my own movements and words with my own feelings and
94 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
volitions ; I am finally aware that I do all this. Now where and
what is the Ego? Note before going farther, that all this is
common sense, it is a description of consciousness as found in an
individual conscious being. But it is not as yet philosophy. We
have affixed no philosophical meaning to any of the terms used.
Now we are going to attempt this. To return then, Where and
what is the Ego ?
If the term is applied at all, there are only three things
to which it can be, that is to say, (1) to the / defined as the
awareness of doing all this, (2) to the me defined as one among
the many objects of this awareness, and perceived by it always as
materially embodied, (3) to both taken together. If the / is
called Ego, then the Ego means nothing but abstract conscious-
ness, abstracted, not from its own content, but from its agent
or Subject. If the me is called Ego, then the Ego is equivalent to
soul or mind, the agent or Subject, abstracted from consciousness.
In the former case, the Ego is consciousness with unlimited
content ; in the latter, it is a particular agent or agency among
others which compose our picture of existence. If, thirdly, the
term Ego is applied to the / and the me taken together, this union
of opposite attributes, a finite agency with an unlimited con-
sciousness, is very difficult to think of as real.
Such is one statement of the facts which constitute^jwhat I
have called the pons asinorum or matriculation in philosophy.
Not that the problem consists in finding out how to apply the
term Ego rightly, but in being aware of the most elementary
difficulties which oppose themselves to applying rightly this or
any other term of philosophical significance. In the case of the
Ego, it is clear that we should be involved in immense perplexi-
ties in applying it in any of the three ways stated. If we applied
it to the J, we should find ourselves dealing with abstract
consciousness of objects, no matter what, under that term. If
to the me, we should have the object, not of philosophy, but
only of psychology before us, a being incapable of knowing any-
thing save through the medium, possibly the distorting medium,
of its own nature. If to both together, we should be identifying
the Ego with a world-consciousness. We should, for instance,
fall into the very contradiction which Dr. Abbot signalises, if we
first called the me the Ego, and then identified it with that
abstract unlimited consciousness signified by the word /. for,
taken as the me and not the /, the Ego is one finite individual
among many, and taken as the I and not the me, it is " only the
changes of the Ego's own consciousness " that can be known to
it. Any one who should do this could logically escape from the
contradiction only by regarding himself as the Anima Mundi.
The first indispensable problem in philosophy, therefore, is to
get a clear view of those facts or phenomena of consciousness,
which compel us to draw the distinction between the / and the
me. Not that it signifies what words we use to call them by,
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 95
so long as the words we select convey the distinction clearly. I
do not remember using the opposition of I and me for the purpose
before the present occasion. But the distinction itself is all-
important. It is only by attending to it that contradictions like
that signalised by Dr. Abbot can be avoided. Dr. Abbot seems
to think that neglecting it is the panacea. Let us see why it
cannot be neglected, why we must pass the pans, if we would
philosophise.
When we first turn our attention to philosophical matters, we
find ourselves as percipient agents in presence of a world of
things and persons, which appear as objective agents. This is
state the first. Next we become aware, that all our knowledge
of objective agents, in the widest sense, is given us in the shape
of consciousness. We and our consciousness thus appear to
remain the only known existents. This is state the second. It
may be considered as represented in the history of philosophy by
Fichte. Next we notice, that our knowledge of our self is in
precisely the same case as our knowledge of everything else ;
that our self is resolved into our knowledge of self, just as other
objects were resolved into our knowledge of objects. Thus
thought goes on sublimating the idea of agent, and removing one
sublimated form after another, till with the removal of the last
of them, say Fichte' s Absolute Ego, the most sublimated form of
all, the limit is reached, and, with a turn of the hand, you have
knowledge of objects completely generalised, knowledge per se,
cut loose from all individual beings, and stepping into their place
as the sole individual being itself. Not agents perceiving and
perceived, but consciousness subjective and objective, at once
opposed and identified, this is what now seems alone to exist.
The affairs of consciousness are, so to speak, completely liquid-
ated ; agents must be got, if at all, out of the assets, not assets
out of the agents. This is state the third. It is represented, I
need hardly say, by Hegel, who, like Spinoza before him, is the
exponent of Realism, not of Nominalism.
Now, as Hegel constantly urges, there is no escaping this
dialectic, unless by renouncing philosophy altogether. And why?
Because it is not possible logically to deny the identical proposi-
tion, that whatever is felt, known, inferred, or suspected, is part
and parcel of feeling, knowledge, inference, or suspicion, that is,
of consciousness ; be the content what it may, even if it be some-
thing known to be in some sense unknowable. This identical
proposition neither derives nor loses any part of its cogency from
the fact that consciousness is found existing only in individual
beings. It is when we identify consciousness with the individual
conscious being, when, like Dr. Abbot, we can see no difference
between the whole content of consciousness and a knowledge of
the individual's conscious states, thus identifying its entire range
of knowledge with a knowledge of its terminus a quo alone, that
the contradictions which force on the Hegelian dialectic begin.
96 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
The fact, that consciousness is found existing only in individual
beings, is itself a known fact, that is, a part of knowledge as a
whole, and cannot be understood without reference to the com-
prehensive whole of which it is a part. And therefore the inquiry
into consciousness as a comprehensive whole takes logical pre-
cedence of the inquiry into states of consciousness as composing
separate individualities, or as arising in separate conscious
beings.
This being so, what those who would philosophise have to do
is plainly this, to analyse consciousness as such, and see what is
meant by agent and individual, neither denying nor yet assuming
them. To deny them is to assume a knowledge of them, and to
assume a knowledge of them is to fall back into the same pre-
philosophic state, the dialectic of which we have just witnessed.
In other words, the facts of consciousness which constitute the
pons must be fairly faced. But what many writers on philoso-
phical topics do is not only to run away from the facts and fall
back on the assumptions, but to represent the doing so as philo-
sophy. I refrain from characterising this representation. But
if, besides this, the contradictions flowing from these assumptions
are attributed, by those who make them, to the very men who
point out the contradictions as a reason for not making them,
then that acme is reached of which Dr. Abbot has just furnished
an instance.
Let us turn, however, to the philosophical way of dealing with
the problem. The facts which constitute ihepons, if fairly faced,
will yield an entrance into the citadel of philosophy. Take
consciousness to analyse without assumptions, attending to those
facts in it which constitute the pons, that is, to those which force
on the dialectic process just described, and it will be found that
they constitute a method of philosophising, which method is
applicable to the other facts of consciousness, and will bring out
results accordant with pre-philosophic common sense, but in the
form of results not of assumptions. We must use the facts of
the pons as a method, going on beyond the pons and beyond
Hegel ; not making these facts the whole of philosophy as
Hegel did, by identifying thought itself with agency, but
singling them out first from all the facts of consciousness,
formulating them as a method, and then looking at the rest
in their light. We can neither stay with Hegel nor go back
to Scholasticism. Those who after the experience of Hegel fall
back upon Scholastic assumptions of whatever stamp, Substances,
Subjects, a priori Forms, Innate Faculties, Eeidian " Common
Sense," or what not, are like Pliable in the allegory, who
scrambles out of the Slough of Despond on the side he had
fallen in from, the side next the City of Destruction. Forwards
is the only watchword in Philosophy ; and the facts of the pons
are the means. That very function or operation of consciousness
(taken simply as consciousness) which consists in its becoming
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 97
aware of consciousness as its own content, or objectifying itself, is
that conscious function which is the special organon of philosophy.
It is only since Kant made Apperception the central point of
his system that this could have been distinctly seen to be the
case. Consequently it is only since then that the clear line of
distinction between the different senses of the word Ego, or, in
other words, between psychology and philosophy, could be drawn.
Both have their origin in the same circle of facts of conscious-
ness. But philosophy adopting the method of Apperception,
otherwise called Introspection, or sometimes, as by myself,
Beflection, ranges over the whole field of consciousness objective
to apperception, analysing whatever comes forward therein, while
psychology, assuming the me as an object already known to exist
in space among other objects, investigates its actions and re-actions
with those other objects, and the states of consciousness which
result from them, in the character of their results.
We have long been familar in this country with the latter,
psychological, line of thought, which, previous to the philosophical
being contra-distinguished from it, is nothing but the development,
more or less scientific, of the natural assumptions of common
sense. The other, the new and philosophical line, is barely known
at all, except in the shape of certain absolute idealistic theories,
supposed to be its consequences, and most of which are under-
stood to have been already given up in the country of their
origin. It is not generally understood, that Kant was but the
exponent of results in philosophy which had been slowly ripening
since the time of Descartes, that he opened as well as closed an
epoch, and that the fruit of his speculations is a method of
analysis, philosophical not psychological, co-extensive with
experience in its largest sense, and built on no other assumption
but the existence of analy sable phenomena.
The terms Subject and Ego came into vogue through Kant,
indicating the same agent as the old psychological terms, soul and
mind, but describing it by a different circumstance. Soul described
it as living, mind as intelligent ; subject and Ego describe it as self-
conscious. By singling out the circumstance of self-consciousness
to describe the agent, the foundation of a great advance in point
of method was laid, namely that of abstracting, in thought, for the
purposes of analysis, consciousness from its agent. Accordingly,
Scholastics are discontented with Kant's change in the use of the
terms subject and object, subject having previously meant a substantia,
and object whatever was known to a psychical substantia, as so
known. For Scholastics wish to retain the assumption of mind
as a psychical substantia, and the assumption of substantia as an
a priori conception in mind. Kant's distinction between conscious-
ness and its agent lets in light on this double assumption.
The term subjective, therefore, in modern philosophy, does not
mean belonging to an individual mind. Nor does objective mean
known to an individual mind. " Subjectivism," as Dr. Abbot
7
98 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
calls it, does not involve " Solipsism ". In modern philosophy,
subjective means as in consciousness, and objective means as in
existence; they express the two inseparable moments of an
apperception. The distinction which they draw is between
Mowing and being, not between the mind and things known to the
mind, both of which are things already supposed to exist
objectively. This is the tool with which modern philosophy
works, and by the use of which she is differentiated from
psychology, which is a science, and stands on the distinction
between the mind and things known to it, as a distinction already
drawn. Philosophy stands on no prior distinction, but is the
simple exercise of apperception with analysis of its content. It is
experience itself. This is the true meaning of the subjectivity of
modern philosophy.
This new method of modern philosophy is what the philosophical
public has sooner or later to become acquainted with. So far as
I know, it has found no exponent in Germany ; though who can
pretend to keep pace with the publications of a country where
book-production is so enormously over- stimulated ? One would
be glad to think that, among those who for the last twenty years
have been somewhat noisily harking back to Kant, some one had
seen and disinterred that one point in his system, the distinction
of consciousness from its agent, which gives philosophy as a
whole a definite method, experiential not transcendental, without
basing it on psychology. This definite method of philosophy,
which makes it one pursuit, not a group of pursuits, I for my part
call Metaphysic. It deals with the meaning of Existence, and
philosophy can aim at nothing less.
The name, I am aware, is distasteful to the educated public,
but, as I said, sooner or later they must become acquainted with
the thing. Perhaps I have made it harder to obtain a hearing for
the thing, by giving it so unpopular a name. Still I am convinced
the name is the right one, and I hope that in the end it will ap-
pear so. A philosophy is really wanted, and the want cannot be
supplied by giving us a group of philosophical pursuits. The
unity of method, if it is a fact, (and it is), requires some more
definite name than Philosophy to express it.
Apart from the name, however, there are far weightier reasons
why the new philosophical method should be disliked and mis-
understood. Nothing is more natural than the cleaving to old
prepossessions. It is not yet seen, that analysis neither preserves
nor destroys facts, but simply records them. What it destroys
is old prepossessions about them. If I analyse a triangle into
three lines meeting each other at three angles, I do not destroy
the triangle, though I may destroy the notion that it is the
expression of an abstract principle of triangularity one and
indivisible. So with the soul. If I analyse the soul into con-
sciousness under some definite law of sequence and co- existence ;
or again, if I analyse it into some configuration of etherial sub-
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 99
stance, upon the functions of which a human consciousness
depends ; I do not destroy the notion of it as a reality. What I
destroy is the prepossession that it is the expression of some
abstract psychical principle one and indivisible. Of course, I may
analyse falsely. But the remedy for that is better analysis.
Analysis, not prepossession, is the ground to which we must come
at last.
Still, however naturally a new method may be disliked, however
difficult it may be to understand, there are two ways of attacking
it ; one by argument, the other by misrepresentation. Argument
involves a real attempt to understand, and this I admit may be
difficult in the face of honest prepossessions. No one respects
common sense more than I do, but I respect it as common sense,
not as philosophy. The functions of the two are different.
Metaphysicians may have long to wait before they are understood;
this they must expect ; but at least they may resist being mis-
represented.
I do not say that, when I wrote Time and Space, the book from
which Dr. Abbot quotes, I could have stated the position therein
adopted so clearly as I hope I may now have succeeded in doing.
Thought proceeds tentatively in philosophy as elsewhere, from
less to greater clearness, the application of the principles adopted
bringing out their value and their scope. Kant himself is a not-
able instance of even the originator of a great principle not clearly
distinguishing it from its involucra. Lesser men may, therefore,
well be pardoned if, in their first attempts at applying a new
method, their language is not always consistent with what
increasing insight shows to be involved in it. The new method
comes from Kant, it is true ; but it was not to be found in him
disengaged and ready for use. It had first to be quarried.
Kant's system was the issue of a conflict between two great
lines of thought, the refined Scholasticism of Leibniz, and the
sceptical empiricism of Hume. Kant was penetrated with the
thoughts of both lines, and proposed his system as the settlement
of their conflict. This is why the position which his system
occupied was so commanding and central. And in this system,
so commandingly placed, Apperception was the central point, and
pivot of the whole ; a subjective process, a process in consciousness*
Hence the subjectivity of modern philosophy.
But note that this subjectivity is subjectivity of method only.
To know what things are, you must ask what they are known as ;
you must go to apperception. It is a direction of how to philosophise .
What is the Ego ? Go to apperception. What is Existence ? Go
to apperception. But what is Apperception ? Apperception is
simply the act of acquiring distinct experience. The word fixes
the loose term experience more precisely, ascertains its meaning.
It is obvious that this prejudges no question whatever. Perhaps
it will be said, surely there must be some one who apperceives ;
apperception is not possible without an appercipient. Very likely,
100 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
is the reply, but go to apperception. Apperception, if anything,
will tell you what an appercipient is. If it is known at all, it must
be an object to apperception, for without apperception no
experience.
Apperception, then, tells us what things are known as, what
words describing them mean. It is the pivot-act of the method of
our knowledge. It is not the creator or destroyer of the things
which are its objects. It is not its own self-producer. What
producing, maintaining, destroying, mean, what reality in the objects
means, must be learned from apperception. But whether the
objects have reality in the world of things, as well as in apper-
ception ; whether they are produced, maintained, destroyed, and
when ; that is, co-existently with what other objects they exist
or cease to exist ; this must be learned from the objects ; apper-
ception witnesses only. Soul and body, for instance, are two
objects of apperception. Apperception gives (1) their analysis, (2)
their existence, as objects of apperception. But other objects of
apperception, viz : the laws and existences of nature, whether seen or
unseen, give them their reality, in the sense of a place and function
in the universe of things.
Apperception being thus the pivot of philosophical method, it is the
method of philosophy, and the method only, which is subjective.
The content of apperception is objective and real ; at least, there is
nothing in the method which militates against its being so. But the
method is subjective thoroughly. Nothing is admitted as known
except in terms of consciousness. All knowing is consciousness.
But this is very different from saying that the Percipient, or
Appercipient, is the centre. Take the Subject of consciousness for
the central point, and the method is no longer subjective. An
assumed object of apperception then usurps apperception's place.
And moreover, the objects of that usurping Subject are affected
with unreality ; they come into consciousness through the
medium of the Subject's own nature ; he sees them not as they
are, but only as they appear to him, he being what he is. A
philosophy which understood subjectivity in this way would
deserve the stigma of " subjectivism". In such a system, every-
thing is topsy-turvy. An object is where consciousness should be,
at the centre of knowledge ; a tinged and refracted consciousness
is where reality should be, in the objective universe of things.
The true subjectivity of philosophy, its subjectivity of method,
is what gives it (1) unity, (2) correlativity, to the special sciences
taken together. These one and all, single out some object, or group
of objects in relation, as their subject-matter, and begin with
assuming its existence. Not so philosophy. Philosophy begins
with questioning everything. What is an object ? What is exist-
ence ? What is a subject ? What is knowing ? If the Theory
of Knowing, Erkenntnisstheorie, assumes the existence of the Sub-
ject, it is psychology ; if otherwise it is philosophy. But in this
case it must proceed by the method of apperception. It is apper-
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 101
ception by which the distinctions between subject and object,
knowing and known, knowing and being, are first drawn. Every-
thing is thus tested by the subjective method of philosophy, that
is, by apperception as an act of knowing, the act of experience.
Even apperception itself does not escape. It might seem, at
first sight, as if apperception, being a conscious act of attention,
so modified the states of consciousness which are its objects, as to
prevent their being seen as they really are, distorting in the very
act of perceiving them ; as if it partly made the phenomena, while
professing only to witness them. But it must be remembered, that an
apperception is as much an object to subsequent apperceptions, as
primary states of consciousness are to rudimentary apperceptions.
Apperception can itself be analysed, and, by comparison of many
cases, its comparatively invariable contribution to knowledge, the
greater vividness due to its act of attention, can be distinguished
from the highly variable contributions of its various objects. This
cannot be done with the Subject, or with the Object, supposed as
real factors of knowledge, because these factors, taken by them-
selves, have no phenomenal content. Whereas apperception, as
subjective moment, is itself phenomenal and analysable, by sub-
sequent apperceptions to which it becomes an object. In short,
apperception is the name for a distinct experience, whenever it
occurs ; and, being phenomenal, one experience is controlled and
tested by others. In this sense it is that apperception is tested
by itself. If as an act of attention it modifies phenomena, it can
also assign the limits of the modification.
Accordingly, when the final question is put, What is Appercep-
tion ? it is put by one apperception to the rest, recalled in memory
from previous experience, and the answer also is given by apper-
ception. The answer, which turns partly upon the objective
reality of acts of attention, can here be only briefly given, without
developing the consequences with which it teems. It is this.
Apperception, as an object of apperception simply, is the act of
experiencing ; but apperception, as an object in relation to other
objects of apperception, is a psychological process, depending upon
those real physiological and psychological conditions, which give
to individual conscious beings their place and function in the
universe of things.
SHADWOKTH H. HODGSON.
THE UTILITARIAN 'OUGHT .
I have read Miss Martin's able Note on this subject (in MIND
XXVIII.) with much interest ; but (through my fault rather
than hers) she has not quite caught my view. I fully allow
that the quantitative axiom or intuition on which I dwelt has
no power to drive any one to adopt the universalistic rather
than the egoistic standpoint. But the altruistic or universal-
102 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
istic impulse operates in conduct before it is philosophically
recognised (Miss Martin does not seem to have noticed that I
expressly laid down as my fundamental fact ' I feel a desire for
your happiness ') and its operation forces on me the conviction
that it is happiness qua happiness, not qua mine, which is for me
the general end of action; for while my seeking my happiness
(which I often do) is quite compatible with the hypothesis that
happiness qua happiness is my end, my seeking your happiness
is quite ^compatible with the hypothesis that happiness qud
mine is my end. Nor does the immense amount of casual
Egoism in the world at all refute my view that, with those who
reflect at all, this attitude is the normal one. It is commonly
not by deliberate choice as against the general happiness, that
a piece of egoistic happiness is preferred, but by keeping the
idea of the general happiness out of sight ; or, in many cases,
by some such ' flattering unction ' as, e.g., that the suffering
which might be alleviated, at the cost of some indulgence of
one's own, is so infinitesimal a drop in the ocean of misery
as to make the sacrifice quixotic. This voluntary blindness or
self-deception does not, as a rule, outlive the actual moments
of gratification ; and the perpetual reversion, in the intervals
of life between, to the impartial and reflective standpoint of
the general end, cannot but give to such moments the air of
aberrations. And by calling happiness qud happiness ' the gene-
ral end of action,' I mean neither that it is what ought to be
aimed at, nor what is at any moment desired or most desired :
I mean that it is that with which the idea of ultimate end is
most habitually associated. A man may say with truth that
success at the bar is his ultimate and pervading end, without
implying that he ought to have adopted that profession rather
than another ; and if he neglects important business for a day,
and amuses himself in the country, which is what he that day
most desires to do, he will feel unreasonable, because he has
within a short period of time acted as if two mutually exclusive
things, amusement and success at the bar, were 'the end'. I
feel a similar unreasonableness when I adopt, through Egoism,
some course which entails on the whole less happiness, less
therefore of that which in my habitual view and by inveterate
association is identified with end- stuff; for conduct gave me the
chance of conforming to that view, in spite of my opposed ego-
istic desire. And here has come in the axiom. Happiness being
posited as the general end, then, in every alternative which pre-
sents a pair of particular ends, it ought to be seen that that
which entails more happiness is the greater end has more of
what is habitually regarded as conduct-directing stuff; and a
jar is produced by conduct which, being directed to what has
less conduct-directing stuff, would lead an impartial spectator
to suppose that the above axiom is not seen.
Those to whom this view appears logical (if there be any such)
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 103
might still hold that it has no particular substance or import-
ance. Personally, I should be hard to convince on this point ;
inasmuch as I never consciously prefer or feel inclined to prefer
my own happiness to the greater happiness of others, without
feeling an obstacle in the passionless axiomatic reflection that
two is more than one, and that my happiness, since it ' cannot
be a more important part of good, taken universally, than the
equal happiness of any other person,' ought (from my habitual
standpoint as to the end of action) to be a lesser aim than the
greater happiness of any other person or persons. Whether the
axiom, when this latter obligational form is given to it, ceases
to be ' scientific,' seems to me a merely verbal question. The
word is at any rate an intelligible one, to describe that quality
of quantitative axioms which is common to them all, and in
comparison with which any element that is not common to them
all that differentiates, e.g., a quantitative axiom in Ethics from
a quantitative axiom in Geometry appears quite subordinate.
EDMUND GURNEY.
VI. CKITICAL NOTICES.
A Study of Spinoza. By JAMES MARTINEAU, LL.D., D.D., Prin-
cipal of Manchester New College, London. London : Mac-
millan, 1882. Pp. xii., 371.
That Dr. Martineau's reflections on Spinoza would command
attention by their intrinsic value, and would be presented in a
shape fitted to attract it, might be known beforehand. But I
must confess to a certain agreeable surprise in finding how much
ground we have in common, and how much of substantial
agreement is possible between critics who set out, if not from
opposite, yet from considerably different points. The agreement
is enough to show that modern philosophical studies are not the
chaos of hopelessly discordant conjecture which they are often
assumed to be, and even to suggest that our existing divergences
may turn out, in the view of successors capable of a larger com-
prehension than our own, to be less than they seem to us. Dif-
ferences of result certainly remain ; in the present case, however,
those which I shall have to point out are in matters rather of
interpretation, and that in points of admitted obscurity, than of
general appreciation. I will premise that Dr. Martineau has
equipped himself with all the resources furnished by modern
research and discussion; a task of which the faithful perform-
ance, considering the rapid increase of the literature on the
subject within the last twenty or even ten years, is in no wise to
be undervalued. The work of criticism and inquiry which has
of late thrown so much new light on Spinoza, some of it in
quarters still but little explored by English readers, has been
diligently mastered. Dr. Martineau shows equal familiarity with
the textual and historical studies of Land or Sigwart and the
strictly philosophical discussions of Trendelenburg or Camerer.
The same thoroughness is apparent in the biographical part. No
point is missed, and some new ones are made, such as the pro-
bable identification of the Spanish town of Espinoza whence the
family of Spinoza took its name. And the photograph of the
Wolfenbiittel portrait makes a welcome addition. It seems
likely that this picture or a similar archetype is the origin of all
the other portraits of Spinoza which are not misnamed or mere
inventions of engravers. I do not at present feel sure that the
engraving of 1677 is immediately derived from it, though ap-
parently Dr. Martineau does ; let us hope, however, that the still
forthcoming volume of the Spinoza Committee's standard edition
will clear up all doubts.
Here we are chiefly concerned with Spinoza's philosophy.
Dr. Martineau gives good promise at the outset by his excellent
note on the scholastic use of formal and objective, the first dim-
CEITICAL NOTICES. 105
culty which the modern reader encounters on the threshold of
Spinoza's system : and he holds throughout to the cardinal
principle of making Spinoza his own interpreter. If I have any
general objection to make, it is that the earlier writings, the
Cogitata Metapliysica and the treatise De Deo et Homine, are
somewhat too freely called in. My own feeling is that outside
the Ethics (and the letters immediately connected with their ex-
planation) one is never quite sure, for various reasons, of having
to do with Spinoza's mature and settled thoughts. In particular
I believe the Cogitata Metapliysica to contain records of different
and partly inconsistent stages of speculation, besides being con-
ventionally limited to Cartesian lines, or what might fairly pass
for such. These sources ought to be used only as secondary
evidence, and then with great caution.
Among Spinoza's metaphysical doctrines that of the Attributes,
delivered in the first and second parts of the Ethics, is the most
fundamental; that of the eternity of the mind, delivered in the
fifth, is the most difficult. I do not find myself remote from
Dr. Martineau in the apprehension of either of these. It must
be admitted that Spinoza's conception of Substance and Attri-
butes is a speculation in unstable equilibrium. If we consider
the plurality of the Attributes in their diverse kinds, the system
seems on the verge of monadism ; if we consider their unity as
constituting one intelligible substance apprehended under these
kinds by the same intellect, it seems on the verge of a pure
idealism. Yet it is certain that Spinoza himself would have
strongly rejected either alternative. It must be admitted, again,
that in any view Spinoza's doctrine, as Dr. Martineau says,
" does not clear the relation between the many and the one "
in the sense of explaining the existence of finite things. I should
say, however, that he never professed to clear it in that sense.
But, on the supposition that we put aside and that Spinoza
would have put aside as idle the question how things came to
be many, does he clear the relation in the sense of showing us
how to conceive the manifoldness of phenomena (being there in
any case) in conjunction with the unity of Substance ? This he
certainly professes ; and it is difficult to say that he accomplishes
it. Let us assume that finite things, as given in Extension, or in
any of the postulated Attributes to us unknown, are made intel-
ligible or real in the sense of modern metaphysic by their
correlation with their ideas in the Attribute of Thought. Con-
sider, then, how it stands within Thought itself. Shall we take
this and that idea of a finite thing (which, in Spinoza's special use of
the term, may be but need not be in a finite consciousness, and
anyhow is not the idea, i.e., concept of the thing in the ordinary
sense) as built up of simpler and ultimate elements, in other
words, shall we treat the Attribute of Thought as a world of
mind-stuff? Historically, this is not in Spinoza's way of think-
ing. Critically (and this appears to me on reflection, let me
106 CEITICAL NOTICES.
say in passing, the fatal objection to all and any " mind- stuff "
theories) our assumed element of thought or mind, when we
have come to it, will be no better than a new variety of Ding-an-
sich. Mind per se, as we may call it, obtained in this fashion, is
no less nonsense than matter per se. Or, to put it in another
way, we are trying to make a physico-psychological auxilium
imaginationis do duty for metaphysic.
On the other hand, shall we treat the Attribute as not a com-
posite whole made up of elementary parts, but a continuous
whole diversified in many forms, as a plane by figures drawn on
it ? In that case we are effectually enough delivered from the
nightmare, as old as Plato, of the multitude of unrelated par-
ticulars. But then Spinoza, who himself warns us that geome-
trical figures are not real things, may perhaps be chargeable witn
leaving no more reality to any kind of things than to geometrical
figures. The separateness and individuality of things do not
belong to substance as it is " in itself". They are limitations of
its boundless reality, and so far illusive, though not, when rightly
apprehended, delusive ; they are functions of the perceiving
intellect. And this I believe to be the drift, if it is not the
explicit conclusion, of Spinoza's thought. A mode (practically
equivalent to thing) is an affection of Substance, subsisting and
conceived in and through some Attribute. And we find in detail
that the individuality of a corporeal thing is reducible to the per-
manence of a certain kind of relation between phenomena of
molecular motion (Eth. ii., 13, Lemmas 1 and 3, and Def ., pp. 88-90
in ed. Van Vloten and Land) . Here, again, we are confronted with
the Attribute as a blank field or "Grand der Erscheinungen," and
with the inevitable question of critical philosophy How is
knowledge possible ? It is with more zeal than judgment, there-
fore, that one or two modern expounders of Spinoza have striven
to make out that he supersedes this question. It would not be
fair to say, however, that he has no sense of it : he approaches
it, perhaps as closely as in his conditions was possible, in his
singular and intricate doctrine of the idea ideae : as to which I
may note that I am not satisfied by Prof. E. Caird's extremely
ingenious endeavour to remove from Spinoza's point of view the
ambiguity which appears to me inherent in it. Take the concept
of a circle, say, in the consciousness of Peter, a mathematician.
This is, as a mode of the Attribute of Thought, idea affectionis
cuiusdam corporis Petri. But as Peter's conscious thought, idea
circuli, it involves no perception or knowledge of that affection.
Are we to say that the knowledge of a mathematical theorem is
not adequate unless, in the same act, it is consciously realised that
a certain affectio corporis, namely, the process of molecular motion
in the brain which is parallel to the act of thought, is its condition
and correlate ? Prof. Caird's explanation appears to me to require
this or something like it. Neither can I find in Spinoza that the
CEITICAL NOTICES. 107
equation of the two meanings of idea is confined, as that explana-
tion seems also to require, to the case of adequate ideas.
The view that particular things are, as particular, relative to
the understanding is incompatible with the view that Spinoza's
essentiae rerum have any independent reality. Dr. Martineau
holds, apparently following Camerer's argument on this point,
that they are real and external. This introduces, to my mind,
a needless and insoluble difficulty, which vanishes if we are care-
ful to distinguish infinite from eternal, as Spinoza himself always
does. It is true, I conceive, that every res singularis whatever is
in a sense eternal, that is, quatenus sub aeternitatis specie intelligi
potest ; and further that this eternity is quoad essentiam only, since
only God or Substance, whose existence is necessary, can be
called eternal quoad existentiam. The essentia of a thing is really
nothing but the sum of the conditions necessary and sufficient
for its existence. Nature being uniform, those conditions are
invariable so long as the meaning of our terms is not varied : the
knowledge of them is a true knowledge independent of this and
that time or place. To know a thing by its essentia, is to know it
sub specie aeternitatis, or, in Spinoza's language, its essence is
eternal (not a res aeterna, for essentia is not res at all unless and
until made actual in existentia) . If at a given time and place the
conditions are actually present, then the thing itself is present,
or its existentia is determined.
In Spinozistic language the essentia of a circle in analytical
geometry is that the general equation of the second degree be
reducible to the form
(x - ) 2 + (y - (3)* = r 2 . ^
And whoever has mastered the demonstration of this may be
said to know the essence of the circle sub specie aeternitatis, that
which he knows being true throughout space and at all times, or
rather without respect of time. Any given equation of the
second degree which satisfies these conditions determines the
existentia of a particular circle, and may be called its actualis es-
sentia. The mathematical relation, whether expressed in the
analytical or in the geometrical form, is aeterna veritas, or in
Spinoza's habit of speech the essence of the circle is aeterna
veritas. But to infer that it is an " eternal thing " in the same
sense as the res immediate a Deo produdae, seems to me without
need and without warrant. I have taken a geometrical example
for simplicity's sake and after the pattern of Spinoza himself
(De Intell. Emend., ad fin., p. 32, ed. V. and L.) though he does
not ascribe reality to geometrical figures : but the reasoning
appears to be no less applicable to the case of a res singularis
acknowledged to be as real as a finite thing is capable of being.
In the same way Dr. Martineau goes with those who read into
the self-maintaining conatus of particular things (Etli. iii., 6 and 7,
etc.) a meaning which introduces again without warrant, as I
think an element of contradiction into Spinoza's psychology.
108 CEITICAL NOTICES.
I have nothing to add to what I have said elsewhere on the
point : but it may be observed that this question and that of
essentia must go together in any case, since the conatus is ex-
plained by Spinoza himself to be nothing else than the actualis
essentia (essentia realised in existentia) of the particular thing :
cf. the definition of cupiditas in appendix to Eth. iii.
With regard to the eternity of the mind, Dr. Martineau comes
to much the same conclusions as my own by a slightly different
road : and I have no criticism to make save that the exposition
might in places have been improved by a minuter attention to
Spinoza's own expressions. Thus Dr. Martineau suggests with
some diffidence that the " intellectual love of God " seems to be
identical with what is described in its psychological aspect as
acquiescentia (p. 275, note). But there is really no room for
doubt, since it is plainly said by Spinoza that the name of animi
acquiescentia may be properly given to it (Eth. v., 36, Schol.) A
charge of contradiction brought elsewhere against Spinoza in the
purely psychological department (at p. 259) might in like manner
have been saved by noting that the " aliquid bonum esse iudicare "
of Eth. iii., 9, is not the same as the "vera boni et mali cognitio "
of Eth. iv., 15. It is satisfactory to find that the attempts of one
or two German critics to force upon Spinoza a doctrine of per-
sonal immortality in the popular sense meet with no favour at
Dr. Martineau' s hands.
The philosophical part of the book will not be easy reading, I
think, to a student who has not the text of the Ethics before
him : but I incline to count this for a merit rather than a defect.
I will end with a little philological note for which I have no
other context. Dr. Martineau thinks Spinoza's use of honestum
and honestas in Eth. iv., 37, Schol. 1, a curious one. (Honestas =
cupiditas qua homo, qui ex ductu rationis vivit, tenetur ut reliquos
sibi amicitia iungat : honestum = id quod homines, qui ex ductu
rationis vivunt, laudant). It seems to me that Spinoza's de-
finitions almost exactly answer to the classical French use
of the word honnete, current then as now, and doubtless
familiar to him (abundant examples may be seen in Littre, s.v.) ;
the honnete homme is he who adds to moral freedom from re-
proach courteous manners, and, to use Dr. Martineau's own
term, " openness to friendship " or rather to friendly intercourse
and the amenities of good society, for amicitia is here more
extensive and less emphatic than our English word. If this be
so, there is nothing to be surprised at in Spinoza's Gallicism :
he knew French as well as Latin, or possibly better. For the
rest, honestas appears to differ from humanitas (Eth. iii., ' Affect.
Def.' 43) only in being guided by reason to the purposes of a
reasonable man's life, and thus bearing a distinct note of moral
approbation.
FEEDEEICK POLLOCK.
CEITICAL NOTICES. 109
The Alternative ; a Study in Psychology. London : Macmillan,
1882. Pp. xxxi., 387.
The anonymous author of this book is a disciple of the Com-
mon-sense school of Philosophy. His adhesion is uncompro-
mising one may say Johnsonian. " Common-sense is the
mental quality which disposes the bulk of men to unanimity
under like circumstances, and to conservatism in respect of the
actual system of their beliefs," and " tends to mould all accessions
to belief." This tendency to conservatism of belief may easily
acquire the momentum of prejudice and stolid disinclination to
scrutiny and analysis. The author does not always take care to
keep himself sufficiently aware of this. On the contrary, when
one or other of certain data like "Free-will " is in question and
at stake, his "moral and religious faculties " do not hesitate to
assert their sacred privilege of rebellion, and call on "Will" to
" decree the truth of the questionable datum ! "
This device is called "the arbitrium". The arbitrium is the
short and simple way "to prevent research from bolting". The
other features of the author's method call for no remark ;
though he thinks that his procedure by " reconstructive defini-
tions " is something new, at least in modern times. But this is
only one of the many innovations, first discoveries, first rid-
dances, &c., scattered liberally over his pages, which may not
appear quite so new to his readers. His manner, however,
is only the natural foible of an enthusiastic student, who, so
far as one can judge by this book, has not read very widely
in philosophy and psychology, and who loves to think things
out for himself, and to coin words to fit his own thinking.
It is, therefore, but the shadow that attends his ardour and
freshness, and without it very likely we could not have had
them.
The aim of the book is a very serious and earnest one no
less than the redemption of man from the evil that is in the
world and in himself. The " reconstruction of psychology" is
entirely subordinate to this main purport " a mere husk". Two
things fall to be said here about this " husk," and then it may
be left for the main concern. First, it occupies three-fourths of
the volume, and, secondly, it is not so much " a study of psycho-
logy," as a miscellany of psychology (often of the good old-fash-
ioned kind called "rational"), ontology, theology, ethics, logic,
metaphysics or Kritik, and transcendental biology. But the one
thing needful is " The Alternative" : "Either puppet, dupe, and
victim of unconscious forces, or self-denying conduct for the
achievement of Wisdom". "My intention in laying bare the
abjectness and wretchedness of our condition coincides with that
of the Gospel without its supernaturalism and mysticism. It is
to stir an insurrection against the Infernal in Nature, for the
subversion of the reign of Instinct and substitution of that cf
110 CEITICAL NOTICES.
Wisdom and Will." It is already easy to guess that this gospel
is Manichean, and that the saving truth completes its orbit
round two foci (1) Free-will, and, (2) the rest (?) of Nature
and Human-nature. Its author has first to prove the existence
of the Evil One, and this he has no difficulty in doing. Satan
and his emissaries are those parts of conscious and "uncon-
scious mind and its environment," which he has called "the
Infernal in Nature". The Good Principle, again, is partly what
is not infernal in nature, but chiefly the "free-will". Of course,
he has also to prove the .existence of Ormuzd, and that is not so
easy ; but when at a loss, he calls for an arbitrium. So the
" Will " is a kind of causa sui, and by its own arbitrary interven-
tion is made self-evident. It is at once defendant, witness, and
judge ; and thus confirmed in existence, is ready to enter on its
redeeming career, which consists in re-inforcing and giving effect
to " the moral faculties " and the supernal in nature.
Evidence in detail of "an unconscious part of the mind and of
unconscious mental event," is to be found on almost every page,
and Book ii., chap. 3, is devoted to a more concentrated and
systematic psychological "deduction," which falls in with "the
induction" (of physiology) that "the unconscious part of the
mind is corporal". These are by far the most interesting and
suggestive parts of the book, and comprise not merely an excel-
lent res'time, but also many new and some notable contributions
to the physiology of mind. Mind is defined to be "a concrete
or sum of concretes that either is or involves what lacks nothing
essential to a subject of consciousness"; and "bodily organs are
constituents of the human mind " not mere accessories. Ac-
cordingly the author's psychology is not of that lame kind that
deals with mind as no more than " a complement of conscious-
nesses". Take a few of his varied illustrations. He finds
unconscious mental event or state presupposed by the emotional
intimation that seems to say to the man of letters ' Now is the
time to write ' ; "to the mathematician, ' I am about to solve the
problem for you,' to the poet, 'Your muse is about to sing'".
Unconscious or cerebral mind is the muse of the poet, the genius
or daemon of the philosopher, the paraclete of the saint. It must
be "an unconscious equivalent of an intuition of a quantity of
time " that determines awakening at a purposed hour. Mr.
Lecky, in his History of Rationalism in Europe, shows how uncon-
scious mental events, accumulating, have undermined belief in
miracle, and the supernatural generally. There is a striking
passage in TJie Grammar of Assent to the same purpose, ending
with these words " As assent sometimes dies out without tan-
gible reasons sufficient to account for its failure, so sometimes in
spite of strong and convincing arguments it is never given," which
words point unmistakeably to unconscious mind, or cerebration.
So too, the growth of the historical sense, and of the cultured
literary sense that Mr. Arnold sets so much store by, supposes
CEITICAL NOTICES. Ill
latent change and development. " Events in which scrutiny
may detect unconscious equivalents of conscious restraining pru-
dence are common." Eecalls to interrupted work, and returns in
discourse to the question, sometimes imply such equivalents.
And so on, till our author concludes that such psychological
observation and inference, " coupled with physiological induction,
establish overwhelming proof that all consciousness is the effect
of unconscious event, and" he goes on to add with strange
inconsistency " and, that, except in the few instances of men who,
at the cost of self-denial, endeavour to live according to Wisdom, all
human intentional action is the effect of unconscious unintuitable
event ". The italics are ours to nail the self-contradiction. And
the inconsistent exception brings us to the second pivot round
which his doctrine turns " Free-will ".
A series of definitions leads up to " Will ". "Intention is a bent
of the mind to act according to a present guiding idea"; but
" choice " is a twofold intentional act of a unique kind, namely, a
study of motives followed by a " preference " of one, but in such
wise that the " preference " involves neither bent nor accordance, as
it is " an uncaused event " and " not determined by any antece-
dent " : and so the differentia of this species of " intention " denies
and excludes the genus under which it is subsumed! "Willis
power or faculty of choice." That is to say, it is the cause of un-
caused events ! "He who affirms that an event presupposes a
cause, denies the possibility of choice." Eather say, he thus affirms
"the possibility of choice" as defined, since he preserves the
unity of the twofold single act, by enabling " the study " to stand
in some relation to the other constituent element, "the prefer-
ence ". But it appears that the datum that every beginning has
a cause, must " humble its pretensions to another exception,
viz., that a beginning of this or that part of Time ... is
uncaused". Unfortunately for the lonely exception, "volition,"
in search of a mate to give it countenance and help, abstract void
time, or time-in-itself, if conceivable at all, can certainly not be
conceived with parts and beginnings. The contents of time are
evidently what make it divisible into "hour, day, year, or cen-
tury". It is only they that begin and end; and these events in
time are not uncaused "volitions," of course, excepted. Yet
stout free-wilier as he is, the author allows himself to speak of
" the reasons of voluntary conduct, duty, dignity, love of the
divine ". It has reasons, and is yet undetermined ! But when
driven to bay by the determinist arguments, which it must be
said he shows no wish to ignore or elude, he takes refuge in an
arUtrium. Let the Will "decree that Will exists, that we are
responsible ! " As if such creation out of nothing was not the end
of all responsibility. Fiat Voluntas ! To what, then, is caprice
self-created and self -enthroned, to be answerable, amenable, or
conformable ? Is character to be charged with conduct that does
not issue from it ? See how lawless and irrational this autocrat
112 CEITICAL NOTICES.
" Will " is in a sentence that follows : " And what though the
arbitrinm cleave to an error, if it achieve for man the greatest
possible dignity and happiness. . . . Truth . . . is of
infinitely less importance." But he is not quite easy about
leaving "Will" sole and sovereign umpire in its own quarrel,
and returns to his dialectic. Take this sample of a rebutter :
" Eegularity of conduct would be characteristic of a reign of Will,
and the regularity would be a condition of predictableness."
" Eegularity," the issue of what is determined by no rule, and
conforms to no law ! It is difficult to see what need he has for
such paradoxes, when in the immediate context he gives admir-
able demonstration that neither "attention" nor "intention"
requires free-willing. If, then, without these dissolute atoms of
uncaused event, we can be intent on Wisdom, attend to Eighteous-
ness, and dwell on it, what more is needful to salvation ? Has
not his gospel unnecessarily burdened itself with " Free-will " ?
If this be so, and he could have known it in time, it might have
saved him from the next prank of this "Old Man of the Sea,"
when it entangles him, as he thinks it cannot help doing, in
sundry speculations about " the Soul ". "A free- agent must
either be, or involve, a soul." Here, again, he fails to note that
chaotic uncaused events stand in no need of any common cause
or place, and admits of none, coming as they do from nowhere
out of nothing ; and, further, it must be said they have nothing
in common, for if they had, they would be mutually determined
and so extinguished. And again, if no faculty or agency, " will,"
is required by them, much less is a soul, as a subject for this
unnecessary and impossible " will " to inhere in. The soul is
superfluous twice over. Besides, on p. 214, he has put the case
of the body as " choosing agent," and free-will obtaining notwith-
standing. The soul is, therefore, for him a threefold super-
numerary. Yet it allures and engages him. He inclines to the
supposition that "certain atoms are qualified to be, in certain
relations, subjects of the quality, life," and conscious life. But
why only certain atoms ? Why exclude any from the kingdom of
life and mind in potentid, if we admit any ? Then there would be
souls in the stones, but badly circumstanced, imprisoned in un-
congenial surroundings. Every stone, in fact, would be a dis-
orderly concurrence of potential souls, any one of which might,
at any time, when more happily situated, become "a cardinal
atom," living and life-giving nucleus of an organism, formed of
other atoms, less emancipated and less wise for themselves,
gathering around it in subservience and conformity ; and for
final beatitude might even attain to be subject of consciousness
and "free-will". The hypothesis is certainly not new; it is, he
admits, "the reverse of prepossessing"; but "it is the only
visible plank within reach of the drowning datum, that animals
and plants are durable things," and also, of course, the datum of
free-will; and so, "however improbable" it may be, "common-
CEITICAL NOTICES. 113
sense demands" its adoption to save these doctrines, and our
personal identity and continuity here, and perhaps hereafter !
It is after all only one arbitrium more. But what does it save ?
Not "free-will" as we have already seen. And can we be sure
that atoms are " durable things " ? An elaborate chapter on
" Substance " makes this more than doubtful, tending to show
that atoms are nothing but concretes, for us and so far as we
have gone "ungenerable " and undeconrpo sable ; nay, that any
apparently simple single thing is " a veiled plurality," an aggre-
gate or complement of attributes or relations which have and
require no subject or support but themselves in their together-
ness. Where then in this unsubstantial flux and endless multi-
plicity of relations, relating to relations with no principle or
term anywhere, is the author to find "unity" or "permanence,"
or " durable things " ? The " soul " or " cardinal atom " is
only the brain writ small, and inscribed (shall we say ?) in the
pineal gland; and, as Idem per idem is no explanation, the
" drowning" data are not thereby resuscitated. At the best, we
are only back again at the body " as choosing agent," or cause
of, uncaused events. The episode of the "soul" proves inte-
resting, but fruitless and suicidal.
He is ready to extend "The Ben 1 ex Theory" to all human
activity "volition excepted," and the rdle for which "Will" is
retained is "the transference of man from one kind of reflex
actions to another, from primary automatism, which makes him
puppet, dupe, and victim, to a secondary automatism conformable
to wisdom". Is this 'the happy dispatch' of Free-will, or is it
still to remain, enjoying otium cum dignitate, its occupation gone ?
There follows an inquiry into the factors and constituents of this
ultimate beatific automatism of Wisdom, " whose service is perfect
freedom". The author is intuitionist in Ethics. His morality is
absolute. The "moral faculties" and conscience are innate.
This precludes any inquiry into their genesis. " The idea of the
moral imperative symbolises it as a thing that is independent of
the contingent." Yet "it is knowable only by " (as?) "a con-
tingent aspect which depends upon the emotive constitution of the
person knowing !" With these presuppositions, it will be under-
stood that he adds nothing to the utilitarian controversy. Indeed,
he scarcely enters on it. Yet, he includes Happiness, and such
" praeter-moral " constituents as "health," "beauty," and "cir-
cumstances that enable prudence and industry to exclude pain,"
in the Summum Bonum, in this following Aristotle. The cardinal
constituent is Wisdom; the rest are Generosity, Courage, and
Fortitude. The highest good is a social ideal. "Wisdom is
heart-knowledge (i.e., "sentiment" or "emotive perception")
determined by impero-moral goodness, and combined with a
knowledge of human nature that exempts the subject from
imposture," a very shrewd and English appendix ! Impero-moY&l
goodness comprises Eeverence and Benevolence. But why
8
114 CEITICAL NOTICES.
exclude the three kinds of magnanimity above-named ? Surely,
they may interest a quickened conscience, and be determined by
the sentiment of obligation or duty ; may be felt to be imperative
as well as beautiful. Benevolence and Eeverence are also kinds
of "altruism," and that is "disposition to confer benefit on
another". Has Eeverence this mark? Elsewhere it is defined
to be "the sentiment of the sacred" disposing to worship and
politeness. What is "the sacred"? Its proper parts are
"dignity and sacred authority," yet it does not exclude "the
flagitious or imbecile," and appears capable of surviving faith in
both God and man (p. 348). In another place, Eeverence comes
to include or supersede Justice and Equity and the mere " Con-
suetudinal Moral Faculty ". Benevolence, again, may become
" /Sfope?*-affectionate," and then it is "adult"! This is the en-
thusiasm of humanity, and the Buddhist love of all living things.
But how can it ever get beyond affection, and what would it be
worth if it could ? Of a piece with this, is the picture of the per-
fect man (p. 364) who has attained to " detachment," and can
" painlessly dispense " with " sympathy and mutual helpfulness".
He takes no pleasure in those things, and yet, " cherishes " them !
Such a pitch of " non-egotistic altruism " is inhuman and absurd,
but very well illustrates the larger Egoism, which altruism cannot
transcend in its most strenuous flights, because it is the ground
and atmosphere of both egotism and altruism. "Adult benevo-
lence " is " Charity," whose counterfeit is " love of the neighbour
for God's sake". Yet, "the vicarious charity or counterfeit of
charity which Christ set in motion was a means of indirect culture
of Benevolence". This is what Eeverence, feeding on theology
and making the food it feeds on, has done for the world, and our
author's hope is, that, while "godliness" is not "goodness," and
the counterfeit is neither the reality of true human loving-kindness
nor its equivalent, yet in some way they may become transmuted
into what they simulate, and what has been well done for God's
sake, may come to be better done for Man's sake. The Christian
ways and means were indispensable, but "if Christ's enterprise
succeed, the tissue of godliness will be converted into the tissue
of Wisdom."
Is not this very much like saying that an immense secular
illusion was needed to deceive man into " goodness" ? And how
can "godly behaviour" effect any "transmutation," when no
previous conduct bears any relation to present " choice"? Is not
the attainment of the highest good as likely or as little likely
without as with Christ, since "uncaused events" can be neither
helped nor hindered? "Free-agents" may begin to-morrow by
the grace of Fate, Chance, Caprice, or Free-will, for those are
all names of one goddess to perform acts in accidental conformity
with Wisdom ; and they may equally leave them off the day after.
There can be no prevision either way no probability only and
always barren and bewildering possibility. Endowed with free-
CRITICAL NOTICES. 115
will, man cannot be "puppet, dupe, and victim of unconscious
force" nor "fool of nature," supernal or infernal. The fatal
gift condemns him to be the victim of Chance for ever. Neither
heaven nor hell can prevail against it. There can be no stability
anywhere in human nature only perpetual disproof of the
obsolete phrase, Ex nihilo nil fit. This article of the faith is a
traitor let into the camp unawares a piece of supernatural
dynamite. To save the purpose of his book, the author should
have been content to oppose to " the infernal " " the divine " in
nature and man, including the "intention" and "attention" that
obtain in the order of nature ; and to place his hope and confidence
in "the orderly concurrence of aptitudes" that makes for
Cosmos and Wisdom, discerning that the " dependence of person-
ality on self-denial" is its dependence on a higher self, which in
denying the lower only affirms itself, and that freedom is this
inward necessity, or self-determination by a self that is never
undetermined and devoid of character. The goal may be beyond
our reach in any case : with " free-will," it must be.
The miscellany contains many curious observations and re-
flections. Through it we travel by devious ways, often eccentric,
sometimes irrelevant, always interesting and pleasant. We make
the tour with a friend, who is a very "uncommercial" traveller,
fond of by-ways, of contemplative loitering, of what may be
called minute metaphysical botanising by the way, a lover of subtle
distinctions for their own sake, and of new names for his new
"species". There is a great deal of "definition," but very little
"reconstruction"; aphorism and epigram, but no system. Thus :
"Apperception" is not "Eeflection," and neither provides the way
of studying consciousness. "You attentively perceive self, and
inattentively discern (apperceive) self as subject of the attention."
But can the self-feeling or sense of intimacy that usually accom-
panies our perceptions, be called discernment, i.e., is the subject
ever object ? At all events, "apperception " tells us nothing about
the Ego, or subject of consciousness, which may be an illusory
symbol (p. 136). "Eeflection" is "attentive perception," of a
state of consciousness, and like all "perception," is entirely referent
to objectivity. When we reflect, we feel or apperceive that we
are doing so. No "intellectual operations" will stand the gaze of
"reflection" or direct introspection. So far Hume and Comte
were right, and yet there remains a way for psychology in the
study of "records". Several pages are occupied with an account
of "incomplete unapperceived consciousness," and nowhere is his
subtlety finer. This kind lies between "unconscious mental
event" and "complete apperceived consciousness". There is a
genealogy of "Eeason": "Thesic affection," "Thesis," "Judg-
ment," "Eeason". The first is sub-conscious. "Thesis" is
nascent unapperceived judgment. "Inference" implies "dis-
covery "(?) There is cerebral redintegration underlying Hamilton's.
Such is unconscious "general synthesis" or attribution, whence
116 CEITICAL NOTICES.
arises knowledge of concretely qualified things. Unconscious
memory is like a phonograph, and something more, for "recogni-
tion" does not always imply prior discernment. "Sense-percep-
tion" does not receive very adequate treatment. What there is,
is mainly on the lines of Eeid and Hamilton. The seeming of
independent outness is trusted, but not explained; unless the
" inapparitional constituents" of percepts account for and justify
it. One of these is the intuition of "power". We discern
relations which are independent of discernment. These form
"inapparitional objects," and are not to be confounded with so-
called "abstract ideas" which are only terms or words. There is
no "abstraction" but only "subtle discrimination" of elements
in concretes, and distinction of inseparables. So far Nominalism
holds. But "the supersensuous faculty" which intues "inap-
paritional objects" may be wanting in minds like Hume's and
Extreme Nominalists. Perhaps they are cases of arrested
development, or survivals. Nevertheless, their disability does not
prevent the author from engaging in the customary argument with
Hume and Mill, which is forcible, and fresh, and inconclusive.
In truth, it is not a question of dialectic, but of "discernment".
Like "gulfs yawn between different orders of mind as regards the
ideas of Time and Space". To the author, Time and Space are
not given at once infinite or indefinite, but "piecemeal"; and in
the case of Time, he thinks the idea of the future may obtain before
that of the past. To him, they are given "void," to others with
inevitable content. To Kant, they are given as subjective forms,
to the author as objective and symbolic of existence independent
of the percipient. To Kant a priori: to the author, "in ex-
perience". A chapter is devoted to proving that there is no a priori
knowledge whatever. Lack of faculty for " paradoxic experience "
may disable one for perceiving motion, since it "involves the
seeing at an instant what coincides with a divisible time". A
similar structural divergence or incapacity may account for any
want of appreciation of the chapter on Logic. But that "on
Number" is very striking and congenial. Equally sympathetic is
the humorous definition of Philosophy and very appropriate to
end with. "When speculation achieves a knowledge of a system
of explanatory general theses short of being satisfactory to
common sense, its product is a Philosophy."
J. BuENS-GlBSON.
On Mr. Spencer's Unification of Knowledge. By MALCOLM GUTHKIE.
London : Triibner, 1882. Pp. 476.
In this large and closely reasoned volume Mr. Guthrie follows up
the criticism of Herbert Spencer which he put forth in his previous
work On the Formula of Evolution (MiND XVII. 150). The main
object of his investigation is to decide how far our great evolutionary
CEITICAL NOTICES. 117
philosopher has really attained that which he himself sets down
as the goal of all philosophy, namely, the unification of know-
ledge. Mr. Guthrie treats his subject so minutely and with such
detailed precision that it is impossible to give even an outline of
his central argument within the limits of a brief review. He
takes up Mr. Spencer's various positions, one by one, in First
Principles, in The Principles of Biology, and in The Principles of
Psychology ; examines them each in separate detail ; and inquires
how far they are consistent with one another, or how far they
really tend to unify knowledge. Every apparent lacuna in Mr.
Spencer's exposition, every seeming change of meaning in Mr.
Spencer's terms, every suspected shade of shifting connotation in
Mr. Spencer's language, is subjected to a rigorous and searching
logical examination. In particular, all those ideas, such as
"equilibration," "polarity," and "physiological units," which
are most peculiar to and characteristic of Mr. Spencer's thinking,
are analysed in the most thorough manner, and every possible
flaw in their composition is carefully exposed. Moreover, sundry
side- arguments are directed against Professor Bain, Clifford,
and other upholders of the double- aspect theory, as well as against
Spencerian evolutionists in general (including the present writer).
All these arguments are extremely close and sustained in char-
acter, oftenest turning upon that most fundamental of all critical
points, the nature of the terms employed. It will be obvious,
therefore, that a reviewer can only deal with the book satisfac-
torily from the point of view of its tone and general purport,
rather than from the point of view of its actual content. To
criticise a work so minutely critical, to analyse what is itself a
condensed analysis, would clearly be impossible in anything less
than the space occupied by the original under review.
Confining consideration, then, to the manner in which Mr.
Guthrie has performed his work, and the spirit in which he has
undertaken it, we may pronounce his book a useful critical aid
to the student of Mr. Spencer's volumes. Mr. Guthrie assumes
no attitude of determined hostility to the evolutionary system :
on the contrary, he is in all essentials an evolutionist, though he
cannot always accept tne shape in which Mr. Spencer presents
the doctrine to us. In his present work, he takes up definitely
as his text the unification of knowledge, and to that text he sticks
throughout with commendable closeness. His central contention
is that Mr. Spencer uses the phrase in question in several distinct
significations, or rather that he has several distinct methods for
unifying knowledge, none of which will really effect his purpose,
but of all which he continually speaks as if they were merely one
and the same. Many of these criticisms are acute ; some of them
are extremely subtle ; and others seem to us to fail through
insufficient realisation of other people's philosophical concepts.
In dealing with the continuity of motion, with polarity, and with
several other allied physical questions, Mr. Guthrie brings up
118 CEITICAL NOTICES.
various striking objections to the mould in which parts of the
Synthetic Philosophy are cast ; and these objections, based
mainly upon the recent theories of energy, have probably occurred
to many other critical readers of Mr. Spencer's works. On the
other hand, his criticism of the double- aspect theory seems to us
to fail from a certain incapacity on the author's part to place
himself exactly at the standpoint of his antagonists ; nor do we
think that he has ever really succeeded in thinking himself into
the idealist position, even to the extent necessary for combating
its main points. Again, he has hardly entered fully into the
kernel of Darwin's theory of natural selection, especially as
regards the fundamental importance of so-called spontaneous
variation. But on the whole, nobody can read his careful critical
examination without feeling that he has thrown light upon the
central thread of Mr. Spencer's reasoning. Whether one agrees
with him or not, he compels one to follow the text closely, to
compare part with part, to ask one's self definitely whether this
statement is or is not consistent with that. Sometimes we may
think he fails fully to catch Mr. Spencer's meaning : sometimes
we may recognise that he has the advantage of employing a
later and more precise physical terminology against an earlier
and less accurate one : sometimes we may frankly acknowledge
that he has hit upon a real gap in the exposition, or a real
desideratum in the logical argument, which ought to be filled up
or rectified by future evolutionists. Especially may we admit
that his work has genuine value as suggesting lines of future
research by putting a finger down definitely upon the weak
points of our existing knowledge or our existing theories. But
the most important fact about the book is its strict and obvious
honesty of purpose. Whether we agree with Mr. Guthrie or
disagree with him and we have occasion here and there to do
both we feel throughout that his one object is to elicit truth, not
to gain a party triumph. He starts with no prejudice or pre-
possession, and he tries to the best of his ability to arrive at a
just judgment. Owing much to Mr. Spencer, he differs greatly
from the common critics, who are mainly actuated by theological
animus. This characteristic desire for fairness and freedom from
bias makes his criticism a really useful one for philosophical
students : and while we have often seen cause to disagree with
him during its perusal, we cannot deny that we have found it
eminently suggestive, and of no little use in aiding to clear up
and define many floating notions upon various hastily- accepted
forms of current thought. Several of his points are well worth
answering hereafter, and at fuller length.
GEANT ALLEN.
CEITICAL NOTICES. 119
Metaphysics : A Study in First Principles. By BOKDEN P. BOWNE,
Professor of Philosophy in Boston University, and author of
'Studies in Theism'. London: Sampson Low, 1882. Pp.
xiii., 534.
A work on Metaphysics in the proper meaning of the word,
and a pretty comprehensive treatment of the subject, deserves
attention. Prof. Bowne divides Philosophy into the theory of
knowing, investigating the possibility of knowledge, and Meta-
physic, investigating the true nature of reality. To the latter
problem his own answer, constituting this book, is given under
the old-fashioned but useful division into Ontology, Cosmology
and Psychology : treating of Being, the World and the Soul as
objects not of "empirical" but of "rational" cognition; not as
phenomena, but as they really exist, or rather as it is necessary
for us to think about them. That it is time to bring these sub-
jects again before the English public in a comprehensive way,
and to reconsider them in the light of all that has been learned
since Hume's day, will probably be admitted, however little
agreement there may be as to the likelihood of reaching positive
results, or as to the method in which the inquiry should be con-
ducted.
His own method our author derives from Herbart. " We take,"
he says, "the theory of things which is formed by spontaneous
thought, and make it the text for a critical exegesis in the hope
of making it adequate and consistent. We take the notions of
common sense as they exist, and the functions ascribed to them,
and change them only as reason itself prescribes " (p. 19). That
is, he takes the notions of common sense about Being, Change,
the Finite and the Infinite, Space, Time, Force, &c., and compares
them; and if any variance or contradiction appears, he either
modifies one or another, or rejects such as are least reconcilable
with other conclusions, until the greatest attainable harmony
results ; and this remainder, he contends, is " how we must
think about reality". He does not, however, confine the exami-
nation and comparison of notions to the jetsam and flotsam of
common sense, but extends his survey to the definitions of phy-
sical science, and to the distinctive doctrines of philosophers :
hence much of the book is controversial.
At the very outset there is a controversy as to method. Prof.
Bowne rejects the Psychological Method of inquiring into the
origin of ideas as " utterly inverted and worthless ". He says :
"When ideas come their validity can be decided only by reflection on
their content and the evidence with which they appeal to the mind. After
a belief is found to be groundless, the psychological account of its origin
is in order, and has a certain interest ; but before this it is philosophically
irrelevant. Misconception on this point is as common among the intui-
tionists as among the empiricists. The former think a proposition is
placed for ever beyond the reach of attack when it is shown to be innate ;
as if the innate must certainly be true. Indeed the empiricists themselves
120 CEITICAL NOTICES.
agree with the intuitionists upon this point. Mill in his Examination of
Hamilton admits the infallibility of primitive beliefs, but raises doubts as
to what beliefs are truly primitive. He thinks that if we could look into
the mind of the baby as it lies in its nurse's arms, we should get the origi-
nal philosophical revelation" (p. 13).
Without commenting on the general looseness of statement in
this extract, some remarks may be made upon now prevalent
misconceptions of the Psychological Method. It seems to be
supposed that according to experientialists every belief of which
we can trace the origin must be false, and even that if any belief
could be shown to be innate it must be true ; but in fact they hold
neither position. Let us notice the latter first. When Mr. Bal-
four (with whose book our author is well-pleased) quoted from
Mill, to prove his agreement with Hamilton, the passage above
referred to, many readers were surprised, as they were perhaps
meant to be. Mr. Balfour, however, admitted that Mill's declara-
tion had, in relation to his doctrine of evidence and the bases of
his philosophy, no significance, since he thought no beliefs were
original. The reader's surprise testified to the reasonableness of
this admission ; for had the case been otherwise, had innate ideas
played any positive part in Mill's logic or philosophy, it would
long ago have been familiarly known, and the passage quoted
(Exam, of Hamilton, p. 172, 3rd ed.), instead of being an unexpected
revelation, would have been underscored in every copy.
But I am inclined to go further, and to doubt whether the
passage in question really bears the sense that has been put upon
it. I will transcribe a sentence : " Could we try the experiment
of the first consciousness in any infant its first reception of the
impressions which we call external ; whatever was present in
that first consciousness would be the genuine testimony of con-
sciousness, and would be as much entitled to credit, indeed there
would be as little possibility of discrediting it, as our sensations
themselves ". For Mill's phrase, " the genuine testimony of con-
sciousness," adopted for economy's sake from Hamilton whilst
arguing with him, Mr. Balfour proposes to substitute by way of
improvement, original judgment : but this is a mistaken kindness.
The word judgment in its proper and natural use stands for a
somewhat complex state of mind, often for a state having the
suggestion of generality, and therefore at least partly repre-
sentative. But I suppose that Mill in writing the above sentence
did not contemplate the possibility of the infant's "first reception
of the impression we call external " being other than a simp-
lest, particular, presentative state, one therefore which, though
possibly differing in some way from " sensations," agreed with
them in this, that it was what it was, and could not be discredited.
This certainly is characteristic of every simplest, particular, pre-
sentative state of consciousness whether the first or any subse-
quent. It is true that the words credit, belief, and their opposites
are strictly inapplicable to such states; but they are used by
CEITICAL NOTICES. 121
Mill in the same sense of the " first consciousness " and of sen-
sations.
On referring to Mill's next sentences, however, it may be thought
that this defence will not suffice. "-But we have," he goes on,
" now no means of ascertaining by direct evidence, whether we
were conscious of outward and extended objects when we first
opened our eyes to the light. That a belief or knowledge of such
objects is in our consciousness now, whenever we use our eyes or
our muscles, is no reason for concluding that it was there from
the beginning, until we have settled the question whether it could
possibly have been brought in since." Here, it will be said, he
speaks of "beliefs or knowledge," which must be somewhat com-
plex, and different from those sensations which are admitted to
be generally Mill's data. I confess that the language is not
perfectly guarded : but neither is that of other writers ; and in
their case particular expressions are interpreted' in the light of
general doctrines. Mill must be treated in the same way ; and
my interpretation is that, between the sentence first quoted from
him and the two last, his mind made an unrecorded transition
from an hypothesis about original consciousness, which was not
inconsistent with his own views, to a different hypothesis such as
he thought his opponents might be capable of, but which, as his
treatment of it shows, he himself was far from entertaining. The
correctness of this interpretation cannot be proved, but must be
submitted to the judgment of good readers. If it is right, there is
no ground for attributing to Mill the doctrine that innate or
primitive judgments or beliefs must be true. Yet upon the strength
of this passage Prof. Bowne attributes the doctrine to empiricists
as a body : whom, indeed, he rarely mentions without making a
mistake. Probably no experientialist thinks any belief is really
innate even in the individual ; but to the earlier organised beliefs
most would allow a presumption of truth and a strong presumption
of present or past utility. For the other school, their doctrine of
original beliefs, and the ground upon which they regarded such
beliefs as infallible, viz., that they have a supernatural warrant,
were formerly very excusable. And for my own part, I confess
(though perhaps Mill was less superstitious) that, if it could be
shown by the Psychological Method or otherwise that con-
sciousness "in its pristine purity" testified to the externality
of Matter, or the self-activity of Mind, or to the coexistence
and conjunction of Ego and Non-Ego mutually determining and
determined, it would be a great shock to my habitual sentiments,
and for a time at least would perturb my views of many things.
Similarly, I suppose, most people, whether reasonably or not,
would in fact allow to beliefs thus accredited unusual authority.
As to the other supposition, that according to experientialists
any belief traced to a natural origin must be false, it implies an
extravagant misconception of the Psychological Method. Dis-
tinguishing, with the help of recent criticism, between the use of
122 CRITICAL NOTICES.
that method within the science of mental phenomena where it is
admitted to be applicable and harmless, and its use in examining
the validity of beliefs : the latter employment, as I understand it,
is chiefly twofold. First it may be explanatory, tending to show
the real nature, meaning and content of a belief ; and this, where
the content is disputed, seems a necessary preliminary to testing
the validity, but can hardly itself affect the truth of a belief;
though it may alter its apparent bearing and interest, which is
often quite as annoying. Secondly, the employment of the Psy-
chological Method may be controversial. Suppose that the validity
of a belief has been maintained on the ground that it is indis-
soluble, and therefore even if not valid at least necessary for us :
this method enables us to conceive the solubility of beliefs whose
terms are not separable by a direct effort. Or suppose someone
maintains the validity of a belief on the ground that it is innate,
connate, an original principle of human nature, a necessary con-
dition of reason, or something else to the like effect : this method
permits the reply that, whether the alleged belief be true or not,
the grounds assigned cannot prove it to be true, because it can be
shown not to be innate or original, or sometimes that in the cir-
cumstances it would have arisen even if it were false. These
surely are good arguments as far as they go ; but such arguments
do not in general prove, and are not meant to prove, that the
belief is invalid.
In some cases, however, it seems to me that the application of
the Psychological Method does tend directly to invalidate beliefs,
or at least to bring them into grave suspicion, namely, such as
refer to special and changeable relations ; of which the most
important are moral beliefs. For all beliefs that can be shown
to be products of experience are of course relative to the environ-
ment, and, supposing them true at any time, their trustworthiness
from time to time must depend upon the permanence of those
relations in the environment to which they correspond. Since,
then, moral beliefs and sentiments are relative chiefly to the
social environment ; and since society, especially at certain
periods, undergoes profound and rapid changes (relatively greater
than those of the universe at large, or of the planet), it is to be
expected that during such periods of social change the moral
beliefs and sentiments of large sections of the community will
lag behind and grow less trustworthy, being adapted to the state
of things which is passing away, but only imperfectly to the pre-
sent. Hence the revolution is dangerous not only to the weak,
but also to the inflexible. In other cases, again, where the object
of belief is transcendent (such as ghosts or their efficient causes),
and not to be proved or disproved by direct means, the Psycholo-
gical Method (or its sociological counterpart, the Historical) may
at least raise so much suspicion as to shift the burden of proof.
For if any belief is generally accepted, it rests of course with
those who are dissatisfied with it to give their reasons : but if by
CBITICAL NOTICES. 123
the Psychological or Historical Method the belief is shown to
have originated in fancy, illusion, and superstition, it seems a
fair demand that its supporters should re-establish it upon firmer
grounds.
But these defensive remarks are growing into a digression : to
return to Prof. Bowne's own method, the distillation of common
sense. It does not seem certain that such a process, even if per-
fectly conducted, must at present lead us to the truth. Granted
that in the long run the collective human mind may be expected
to faithfully reflect the nature of things, it may as yet be far
from doing so. And if the collective representation of the world
is still only fragmentary and distorted, the result of a critical
emendation and adjustment may be wholly chimerical. As our
author observes, "every analogy of nature points to the view
that our faculties are most trustworthy in their developed form" :
and similarly with common sense ; it may still be at a very
imperfect stage of development, far short of its ultimate enlighten-
ment : and I hope it is so. Besides, common sense is not equally
enlightened upon all subjects. No one would now think of con-
structing Zoology from an examination of common sense. That
authority is not a polymath but a specialist, and must be con-
sulted chiefly on its speciality ; which, no doubt, is conduct and
morals. Even there it is not a final authority; but it has at
least reflected upon the subject long and seriously, however im-
methodically, and has been instructed by an infinity of experi-
ments. But in Metaphysic there are no crucial experiments :
hence in Theology we do not find the agreement that there is in
morals ; and outside Theology the reflections of common sense upon
metaphysical questions are never prolonged and hardly serious,
because error of opinion is not felt to be important. It is a primary
caution for interpreting the dicta of common sense upon such
matters, that its occasional exponent never understands what he
is saying. He believes in the externality of bodies and in causa-
tion. But what does he mean by it ? Here, then, the explanatory
use of the Psychological Method may be recommended. More-
over, the collection of data upon which the comparison of common
sense opinions is to be founded snould be at least representatively
exhaustive, that is, it should represent all types. Such a collection
and collation is certainly very desirable ; but, after all, the work
that contained it would probably be not so much science as a
museum. It is clear, again, that the satisfactory prosecution of
this method requires the utmost impartiality both in collecting
opinions and in comparing them.
These difficulties are inherent in the method, but there are also
perhaps some shortcomings in Prof. Bowne's employment of it.
One misses definiteness of reference, without which the citation
of common sense seems of doubtful warranty. Definite reference
may be either to the phraseology current in different countries
and ages, or to the recorded opinions of men who, without being
124 CEITICAL NOTICES.
much sophisticated or of a speculative turn, have been remark-
able for good sense. Our author seldom cites either sort of
witness, so that it is a relief when he turns to the known opinions
of philosophers.
I have dwelt thus at length upon method partly because of its
interest, partly because the actual contents of this book do not
lend themselves to succinct treatment either by exposition or
reply. There are more arguments in it than in almost any book
of its size not mathematical ; and since they are as a rule very
tersely stated, and often fallacious, it would need another book
nearly as large to do them justice. A certain thread of argument,
however, runs throughout, and one or two passages are of prin-
cipal importance to its continuity ; so that should they upon trial
prove weak, utter dissolution must ensue. It will be well to
examine one of these, and thus at the same time give an example
of the method.
Prof. Bowne finds that Being is activity; and that a Thing
must be viewed as a concrete and definite principle of action.
The common theory is, he says, that a plurality of things exists,
which are independent of one another, and yet act upon one
another, and by their interaction form the system of the universe.
But these notions of independence and interaction are incom-
patible : for if two things are truly independent, how can one
influence the other? "Neither coexistence nor contiguity in
space throws any light upon interaction ; and since interaction
must be affirmed the only way out is to deny the independence of
the plurality, and reduce it to a constant dependence, in some
way, upon one all-embracing being, which is the unity of the
many, and in whose unity an interacting plurality first becomes
possible " (p. 126). But to this the reader naturally objects that
the hypothesis of one all-embracing being is needless : it is enough
to suppose things to be mutually dependent. The author states
this objection, and proceeds to answer it. I give the statement
and answer at length in his own words ; and as a detailed criti-
cism of it would take too much space, and would be needless in a
scientific journal all whose readers judge for themselves, I merely
indicate from stage to stage in brackets some of the difficulties
that occur to me.
" Why not make them mutually dependent, so that the series of things
A, B, C, &c., shall not depend on Alpha, but on one another ? In this way
each member of the system would exist only in connexion with the other
members, but the system itself would be independent. . . . One mani-
fest objection is that it seeks to make an independent out of a sum of
dependents. A, B, C, &c., are severally dependent, but A + B + C + &c.,
is independent. But if A, B, C, &c., are distinct [shifting ground] ontolo-
gical units, this is absurd. There is nothing in the sign of addition which
is able to transform a dependent thing into an independent [ignoratio
elenchi]. There must be some bond underlying that sign, and that bond is
interaction. When two mathematical quantities are found to vary toge-
ther, one must be made a function of the other, or both must be made a
CEITICAL NOTICES. 125
function of some third quantity common to each. When a series of things
vary together, it is equally impossible to regard them as absolute units
[false analogy]. Some one thing must be independent, and all the rest
must be in some sense functions of that one. As interacting, a state of
each must imply a certain state of all ; and this is impossible so long as
there is not some being common to all [petitio principii]. We conclude,
then, that the whole can never be reached by summing the parts, but that
the parts must be viewed as phases of the whole " (pp. 126-7).
I had rather (to parody an old saying) a man should say I did
not exist than that he should try to prove my existence by such
an argument : but no doubt Being is indifferent to the ludicrous.
Besides the fallacies above noted, the whole passage is an ignoratio
elenchi ; for the point to be proved was that the rejection of the
notion of interdependence from the essence of particular things
and the recognition of their mutual dependence, was insufficient
to reconcile common sense to the notion of their interaction;
but what the author sets himself to prove is the necessity of an
independent universal. At an earlier stage of the argument there
is another lapse of thought. He assumes that if the interaction
of particular things is irreconcilable with their independence, one
of these qualities must be wholly rejected from their nature : but
is it not a better reconciliation to suppose that things are depen-
dent upon one another or interactive in some respects, but not in
all ; e.g., that they are mutually independent as to existence, so
that the annihilation of one by another is impossible, but depen-
dent in other ways, as with respect to position ? Can that be a
satisfactory reconciliation of common sense which sacrifices any
one of its notions ?
It must be confessed that the passage to which special atten-
tion has thus been drawn is every way an unfavourable specimen
of our author's performance. He generally reasons much better:
but if the reader shall think that the above argument is a crisis
of the book, and shall condemn it there, the remaining arguments,
however interesting and instructive as dialectical exercises, will
have lost their interconnexion. The tendency of those arguments
may be inferred from what we have seen : their most important
conclusions are like the premisses of the majority of people who
have been called upon to hear sermons. In the Introduction the
name of Lotze is invoked to sanction them ; but the interest of
Lotze lies not in his conclusions, but in his method of treating every
question. Prof. Bowne's style, too, is for the most part far better
than in the above quotation, whose very grammar stumbles amid
the confusion of its thought. Where the reasoning is good the
style is very good ; clear, direct, and energetic. On the whole the
book should be a useful one : especially to any unsophisticated
plain man of common sense who thinks his ideas of the universe
are clear and consistent, and whom it will wholesomely disillusion ;
and to the experiential philosopher who contemplates a work
on the same subject, and who will find here great variety of
126 CEITICAL NOTICES.
objections and difficulties, by surmounting which he may set his
own doctrines upon a desirable eminence.
CABVETH BEAD.
Der menschliche Wille vom Standpurikte der neueren Entwickelungs-
theorien (" Des Darwinismus " ). Von G. H. SCHNEIDER, Ver-
fasser des Werkes Der tJiierische Wille. Berlin : Diimmler,
1882. Pp.498.
This work, a bare notice of which appeared in the last number
of MIND, is a serious attempt to apply the doctrine of evolution
to the phenomena of human volition. Herr Schneider is favour-
ably known as the author of a volume on animal volition which
was reviewed in this Journal (see No. XIX). He has been a wide
and a careful observer of animal life, and has thoroughly assimi-
lated the teaching of the great modern evolutionists. These
qualifications eminently fitted him for the work of tracing the
development of will throughout the scale of animal life. The
same qualifications would lead one to expect an interesting and
suggestive treatment of the more complex phenomena of action
in the human species. For it is certain that the time has
arrived for bringing to bear the doctrine of evolution on all sides
of human psychology. The growth of the mind alike in its intel-
lectual, emotional and volitional aspect can only be made clear
and intelligible by help of the comparative method and of the
well-grounded hypothesis that the history of the individual is in
a manner determined by and a reflexion of the history of the
species, or rather of the whole ascending series of species. The
writings of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Darwin, together with those of
younger evolutionists, as the essays of Mr. Grant Allen in the
thorny region of aesthetics, and the work of Mr. Leslie Stephen in
the no less difficult tract of ethics, have proved incontestably
that human psychology is destined to receive valuable illumina-
tion from the new doctrine. And now a young German writer
has added a solid piece of work in the psychology of volition.
Herr Schneider has done much to establish the proposition that
the growth of the individual will is inexplicable without a refer-
ence to ancestral history and inheritance. He appears, indeed,
to claim a larger place for the play of instinct in human life than
Mr. Spencer does. In this respect he is abreast with Prof. Preyer
of Jena, whose work on the development of the infant mind was
recently reviewed in this Journal (see MIND, No. XXVII). There
is, however, a danger attending the first application of a new
theory, namely, that it will be pressed too far, and forced to
explain what it is really inadequate to explain. This danger, it
may be said at once, is fully illustrated in the present volume.
Herr Schneider is at his best when dealing with the simpler
phenomena of human volition ; when he comes to grapple with
CBITICAL NOTICES. 127
the more complex facts, his interpretations often seem hasty and
insufficient. Throughout, his treatment of the subject is charac-
terised rather by novel and out-of-the-way observation and bril-
liant suggestion than by penetrating insight and exhaustive
explanation. In the more ticklish problems of analysis he is apt
to strike the reader as superficial or onesided. To say this, how-
ever, is only to say that even in the most ingenious hands the
doctrine of evolution can only be made to yield a partial inter-
pretation of the facts of human psychology. In trying to under-
stand such problems as how we come to desire objects rather
than the pleasures which they yield, how we acquire the power
of postponing action and weighing motives, and how we form the
habit of identifying for a time the happiness of another with the
end most desirable for ourselves, we appear still to be thrown
back on the older method of careful introspective analysis, aided
by ample objective observation of the mental processes of others.
Herr Schneider's work opens with a section headed "General".
This discusses first of all the nature of conscious or, as he prefers
to call them, "psychical" actions in their relation to those which
are purely physiological. Psychical actions are all those
wnich are accompanied by subjective states. The most elementary
psychical antecedents are impressions due to the immediate con-
tact of the organism with outer things, in which the discriminative
or intellectual and the emotional (pleasurable or painful) side are
not as yet differentiated. The psychical antecedents are in every
case real conditions of the action, the intervention of consciousness
being regarded as a necessary stage in the evolution of life. It
is, however, exceedingly difficult to determine the line of demar-
cation between psychical and purely physical actions. The
so-called reflex actions, which the author subjects to a careful
examination, really include both sorts. While the lower reflexes
are clearly non-psychical, the higher ones, including all those
"in which the stimulation as well as the movement enter into
consciousness in any degree," such as coughing, sneezing, scratch-
ing one's self, blinking, are psychical. It may be added that the
author extends the idea of reflex action by including along with
psychical and physiological, purely mechanical processes. Any
two mechanical phenomena having a causal relation constitute a
mechanical reflex. This is clearly to regard the end of an action
as nothing but the terminal phenomenon in a series of pheno-
mena ; and this is avowedly the author's view of purpose. All
tthis seems, however, to confuse the region of the inorganic and
the organic, and to empty physiological terms of their distinctive
meaning. The peculiarity of the result reached in the case of
physiological processes, namely, self-preservation, preservation of
species, surely differentiates these sufficiently from mechanical
movements. And the best way of describing the process appears to
be by the analogy of consciously purposive actions, provided that
we steer clear of the error that there is any conscious prevision
128 CEITICAL NOTICES.
in the case. For the rest, while the author is quite right to
insist on the fact that psychical phenomena accompany certain
reflex actions, he has not shown how it is that the psychical ele-
ment becomes a necessary co-operant condition in action as life
evolves. The author proceeds to deal with the notion of mental
inheritance, seeking to render it clearer by help of the idea of
inherited "causal relations" between mental states. It is these
relations which are inherited, not the states themselves. By this
the writer seems to mean that no intellectual phenomena, images,
notions, &c., can be transmitted. Perceptions of the individual
are the necessary antecedent of all representative states ; what
inheritance does is to give to new perceptions the power of excit-
ing feelings, and also to facilitate greatly the combination of
intellectual states one with another. Among other examples of
inherited relations or, as we are wont to call them, associations,
the author cites the child's fear of a dark room or other cavity,
which represents innumerable experiences of danger from wild
animals. He rightly emphasises the fact that inherited feelings
and impulses appear only at the stage of individual development
which answers to that in which the race has had the correspond-
ing experiences. Thus, because a very young child shows no
fear of the dark, we cannot argue that this fear is not instinctive.
He will certainly betray such a fear when from six to twelve
years old if brought into a dark wood or a dark cave. This
"general" section closes by an application of the principles of
adaptation and natural selection to the phenomena of human
action.
The second part is devoted to Instinctive Actions. These
include all in which there is " a psychical striving towards the
preservation of the species without consciousness of the end of
this striving". Instinct is thus contrasted with consciously pur-
posive (zweckbewusste) action. Instinctive actions are either Sensu-
ous or Perceptual, according as a sensation or a perception is
necessary to call forth the impulse. Since the absence of a con-
scious representation of the end is the differentia of instinct, and
such end is a relative and variable idea, it follows that one and
the same action may be called instinctive and consciously pur-
posive or fully voluntary. Thus aiming at being ri'ch without
any thought of the utility of wealth in relation to individual and
family preservation and wellbeing is a relatively instinctive action.
A perfectly volitional act includes a consciousness of the ultimate
end, namely, the preservation of the species. A chapter follows
on sensuous instincts, which include all those reflexes in which
there is a psychical concomitant, as well as other movements
which are compound reflexes (such as sucking). The movements
before birth, together with the first movements of the new-born
child, are all regarded as sensuous instincts. There is in one
place a passing reference to the accumulation of energy in the
motor nerves and a consequent need of movement (p. 119) ; but
CRITICAL NOTICES. 129
no use is made of the supposition that a movement might arise
spontaneously or without the presence of a stimulus. The author
shows considerable ingenuity in accounting for these early in-
stincts. Thus he argues that the first inspiration is brought
about by a sensation of cold and pain. Even the adult tends to
draw in the breath quickly and energetically when suddenly
exposed to cold or other painful sensation. This causal relation
has been brought about by natural selection for the purpose of
securing the first action of the breathing mechanism. This would
account for the fact that no children without tactual sensibility
survive birth. Besides the act of breathing, those of crying,
sobbing, sucking, movements of the hand and lips in search of
the breast, taking the finger and other objects into the mouth,
and so on, are dealt with in the same interesting way. Herr
Schneider further throws out striking suggestions as to the genesis
of some of these early movements in the course of the evolution
of species. Thus he thinks that the movement of sucking may
have gradually arisen by a transformation of the licking move-
ment of the lowest mammals. Besides these connate sensuous
instincts, there are others which are acquired in the course of the
individual life by practice and habit. Actions when rendered
perfectly automatic by repetition are brought about wholly by
tactual and muscular sensations, and without any aid from those
representations of the several movements which were necessary
conditions in the earlier stages of the acquisition. These sensa-
tions play an important part in all habitual movements, and,
though often fugitive enough, serve to differentiate them from purely
physiological movements. This chapter on sensuous instincts
contains an elaborate discussion of the conditions of pleasure and
pain. Herr Schneider seeks to define with precision the limits of
the law that pleasure coincides with beneficial, pain with injurious
effects. In this he follows closely, though apparently in ignorance
of the fact, in the footsteps of Mr. Grant Allen. Pleasure is in
all probability connected with a furthering, pain with a hindering of
the process of life. But in order to understand what is fitted to
further vital activity it is necessary to take into account the fixed
inherited tendencies of the organism towards self-preservation.
The discussion is throughout ingenious, and contains good criti-
cisms of current theories. Yet it may be doubted whether the
author has really done justice to the difficult problem which he
here attacks. If dealt with at all in this work, it certainly should
have been in a separate chapter, and not in the course of an
exposition of a certain group of movements. Much the same
may be said of another discussion interpolated into this chapter,
namely, on the relation " of feeling to the sensations ". By this
the author means the relation of the emotional to the intellectual
(discriminative) side of sensation. He argues with some force
against Horwicz that feeling is not absolutely prior to discrimina-
tion, but that the simplest conceivable psychical condition is a
9
130 CRITICAL NOTICES.
consciousness of transition from a state of rest to one of excitation.
In this mental state the emotional and the intellectual side are
not yet differentiated, although the former element is the more
prominent. It is only in the higher stages of development that
the objective (intellectual) and the subjective (emotional) sides
are distinguishable. And what applies to the relation between
feeling and sensuous discrimination, applies also to the relation
between these and the sensuous impulse. At first they all three
run together, and only gradually become differentiated. The
place of the sensation and the impulse in the economy of the
organism is thus conceived : " The sensation is the connecting
link ( Vermittelung ) between the partial peripheric influence and
the raising of the collective life-process to a greater accumula-
tion of energy, while the impulse guides this central excitation
to definite single peripheral parts (muscles), and is the medium
for bringing about these phenomena" (movements?) (p. 193).
Here again, while we find much that is ingenious, we miss a full
and masterful handling of the subject. More particularly we
should have been glad of a fuller inquiry into the meaning of
impulse (Trieb) on its subjective side.
Passing now to Perceptual Instincts, we find an interesting
account of the early movements which are preceded by the dis-
crimination of an object or by a perception. The action of
reaching out and grasping an object is taken as the type of these
movements, and the explanation of this shows that the author
has been a careful observer of infant life. To anyone who has
closely watched a child, or who will take the trouble to read an
account of children's movements by a writer like Prof. Preyer or
our author, it must be quite clear that the acts of stretching out
the head, the body, and the hand are to a large extent inde-
pendent of accident and trial, being definitely fixed by inherited
dispositions. Imitative actions are brought under this head.
They are perceptual in so far as they are supposed to follow
immediately the perception of another's movement without the
intervention of any representation of that movement in terms of
muscular experience. Here, too, we have a pretty full treatment
of expressional movements, though the author returns to the
laws of expression in his final chapter. Herr Schneider appears
to me to press the hypothesis of inheritance too far in this
chapter. Thus he attempts solely by help of inherited association
to account for the cry of the child. But the child not only cries
when he sees a stranger, especially " a man with a great beard":
he cries at all manner of strange sights and sounds ; and it seems
simpler to say that all strange impressions when sudden are apt
to disturb and vex the mind. Still more doubtful is the author's
theory of inherited sexual taste. He seeks to account for the
youth's apparently capricious amatory feelings in the following
way. The youth is affected by a maiden as like himself as possible
physically and psychically. And the reason is that his ancestors
CRITICAL NOTICES. 131
have in the main chosen this type, and with happy consequences,
so that pleasurable associations with this kind of person will be
inherited. Both the accuracy of the fact and the validity of the
explanation may be doubted. Is it a fact that the majority of
men chose mates as like themselves as possible ? And if so, how
did the early ancestors acquire the taste before any inherited
pleasurable associations had been built up ? Possibly the author
means that the first selection of homologous mates was accidental,
and favoured by natural selection, but he leaves his readers in
the dark on this point. In this chapter, again, we have a long
discussion of the relation of the perception to the feeling called
up by it. The author seems to be making problems for himself
when he asks how it is that a perception can call up a feeling,
but not conversely a feeling a perception. He becomes perplexing
when he discusses the relation of the feeling excited by a percep-
tion to the sensuous feeling which is its base. Altogether most
of this passage, which is called forth by the views of Horwicz, is
somewhat feeble, showing plainly enough that the author is not
thoroughly familiar with the nicer problems of psychological
analysis. He would probably have done better by leaving aside
the views of Lotze, Wundt, and Horwicz on such subtle points
as the relation of pleasure to stimulation, and the priority of the
intellectual or of the emotional, and by confining himself to those
more manageable questions in what may be called historical psy-
chology, for which he has proved himself so well-fitted.
The third section treats of consciously purposive or perfectly
voluntary actions. Here the author follows pretty closely in the
steps of Mr. Herbert Spencer. He shows how the consciousness
of end gradually evolves, beginning with the representation of the
special direct result of the action, taking in more and more of the
indirect and remote results, and ending in the representation of
the all- comprehensive end. Unhappily there is again interposed
here one of the unsatisfactory discussions of abstract points,
namely, a chapter on the relation between feeling and intellectual
and volitional states. These discussions are clearly digressions,
having no business where they come, and serving greatly to ob-
scure the course of the exposition ; and they do not fully grapple
with the difficulties of the subject. In the present instance,
moreover, one must complain of misstatement. The author
accuses not only Leibniz and Locke, but recent English writers
(H. Spencer and A. Bain), of talking about feeling as though it
were a knowledge of the good and bad, the useful and detrimental.
The truth is, of course, the very reverse, namely, that English
psychologists have drawn the sharpest distinction between the
intellectual and the emotional element in mental phenomena.
The perplexing phenomena of deliberation and choice are fairly
treated, with a good deal of aid from Wundt's doctrine of
apperception. Then there follows why here one does not exactly
see a chapter on one-sided, unsuitable and abnormal actions, with
132 CEITICAL NOTICES.
a pretty full account of the actions of hypnotised patients. It
is interesting enough, but serves still further to give to the work
a loose and unmethodical character. Then we are taken on to
consider the moral aspects of the subject, the nature of good, and
the rival claims of optimism and pessimism. Herr Schneider's
treatment of ethical questions offers little that is new to readers
of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Leslie Stephen. In some respects
it leaves much to be desired. The conclusion that the ends of
happiness and of the preservation of the species perfectly coincide,
and that life as such secures enjoyment in its wake, needs a good
deal more demonstration than Herr Schneider thinks it necessary
to give. His tone reminds us much of that of the most sanguine
of the English followers of the evolution- standard. This san-
guineness of temperament conies out most clearly in the conclud-
ing remarks on education. The notion that the doctrine of
inheritance will at once clear away all the difficulties of paeda-
gogues, and show clearly how intellectual and moral training
should shape itself, may be said to prove the confidence of an
enthusiast. Herr Schneider has shown himself to be capable of
thoroughly sound scientific remark. If he will only put away the
temptation to resolve the subtleties of analytic psychology, and
to give the world counsel as to the ends of conduct generally, and
the true methods of teaching, he can easily accomplish something
of enduring value in evolutional psychology. In any case we
would venture to ask him in the future to keep these ends as
distinct as possible one from the other.
JAMES SULLY.
VII. NEW BOOKS.
[These Notes do not exclude Critical Notices later on.]
Studies in Philosophy, Ancient and Modern. By W. L. COUETNEY,
M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford, Author of "The
Metaphysics of John Stuart Mill". London: Rivingtons,
1882. Pp. vii., 204.
The common feature of these Studies " is intended to be a
vindication of the Kantian standpoint, as against popular English
Philosophy on the one side, and later German Metaphysics on
the other". There are two studies of ancient philosophy; in the
first of them Parmenides is considered as a representative of
" Ancient Idealism," in the second Epicurus as a representative
of " Ancient Hedonism ". The first of the essays that deal
with modern philosophy is entitled "The Failure of Berkeley's
Idealism". As Parmenides was an incomplete Idealist because
" he did not predicate being of thought but thought of being,"
so Berkeley was an incomplete Idealist because "his Idealism
is built on sensations rather than on reason ". But in several
ways he " tends towards a truer Idealism ". The study of
Berkeley is followed by a discussion of the various ways in
which the word Cause has been used. After this come
essays on "the New Psychology," and "the New Ethics".
Mr. Courtney maintains that the problem of philosophy is still,
after all the changes introduced by " the new Psychology,"
identical with the old problem, "Is Mind to be explained from
the side of Matter, or Matter to be explained from the side of
Mind? " (v.) The evolutionist view of ethics is essentially
different from the older views, for it does not accept the dis-
tinction of ethics from all other sciences which was formerly
allowed by every school of thought (vi.). In the next essay it is
argued that "the Kantian explanation of experience remains un-
touched" by the psychology of evolution. But the Critique of
Pure Reason is inconsistent with the Critique of Practical Reason.
Can we with the Hegelians give up the Logic of Kant for the
Ethics? It does not seem likely that this solution of the paradox
of Kant will be accepted (viii.). As a philosophy of religion the
Hegelian view presents difficulties. " Yet, even so, the attempt
to make God the equivalent of 'the idea which runs through
things,' though a device which is as old as Plato, is too noble to
be either wholly fruitless or wholly false " (ix.).
The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics. By J. B. STALLO.
("International Scientific Series," Vol XLII.) London: Kegan
Paul, 1882. Pp. 313.
The object of the present investigation is "to inquire whether
134 NEW BOOKS.
or not the validity of the mechanical theory of the universe in
its present form, and with its ordinary assumptions, is indeed
absolute within the bounds of human intelligence ". It is found
that each of the four propositions " which, in conjunction with
the principle of the conservation of both mass and motion, may
be said to constitute the foundations of the atomo-mechanical
theory " either comes into conflict with some requirement of this
theory itself or is incapable of explaining laws of chemistry or
physics that ought to be deduced from it. "Metaphysical
thinking," which is denned as "an attempt to deduce the true
nature of things from our concepts of them" has given rise
to certain "structural fallacies of the intellect" (c. ix.). The
mechanical theory exemplifies all these "radical errors of meta-
physics". The fallacy "that things exist independently of and
antecedently to their relations; that all relations are between
absolute terms," has led to the theory of " the absolute finitude
of the world," to " the reification of space," and to " modern
transcendental geometry" (cc. xiii., xiv.). "Like all metaphysical
theories, the atomo-mechanical theory has its cosmogonies."
The nebular hypothesis is beset with difficulties both in " its
reral cosmogenetic," and in "its special Laplacean form"
xv.). It is concluded that "the atomo-mechanical theory
is not and cannot be, the true basis of modern physics ". But
Mr. Stallo points out that the denial of the atomic theory " does
not imply the metaphysical thesis of the absolute continuity of
matter"; nor does it imply the denial that all physical action is
"in conformity with constant and uniform law" (c. xvi.).
The Ultimatum of Pessimism. An Ethical Study by JAMES WILLIAM
BARLOW, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Dublin.
London : Kegan Paul, 1882. Pp. 109.
The Ultimatum of Pessimism, "the pessimistic justification of
life," is "the grotesque absurdity of what we may call the
Blister or Poultice Theory of the Universe". But in their
destructive polemic against the Positivist "theory of social
eudemonism," the Pessimists have done good service. This
theory, according to Hartmann, is the third and last stage of
"the eudemonistic illusion"; the first stage being the belief
that happiness is attainable by the individual "in life on earth
as it exists at present," and the second the belief that it is
attainable "in a transcendental life after death". Since "the
Blister theory" the theory of the unhappy Unconscious that
creates a miserable world to get rid of a portion of its own
unhappiness is insufficient as a justification of life, we ought
not to continue to exist, " if the pessimistic arguments are
really sound and valid". "But, before destroying ourselves,
it will be well, as a last chance, to take a look at the second
stage of the eudemonistic illusion." It is found that even if
we "take the system of materialism as obviously that which
NEW BOOKS. 135
apparently involves annihilation of conscious life by resolution
of the bodily organism into its elements," a future life is possible.
"If, now, the transcendental world can survive the shock of
materialism, it is not likely to succumb before a more spiritual
theory of the mind." "But it should never be forgotten that,
the strength of our position here lying in our ignorance of the
transcendental world, too much caution cannot be used if ' ana-
logical reasoning ' must be pressed into service for controversial
purposes."
Spinoza : Four Essays by J. P. N. LAND, KUNO FISCHER, J. VAN
VLOTEN, and ERNEST EENAN. Edited by PROF. KNIGHT, St.
Andrews. London: Williams & Norgate, 1882. Pp. xiv., 170.
The first of these (translated) essays deals with Spinoza as a
philosopher. The Editor in his introductory note draws atten-
tion to the fact that " Prof. Land has revised the translation of
his Essay for this volume ; and has added to it much new and
important matter". The second paper is biographical. In the
third, Spinoza is regarded as "the (glad) herald to mankind of
the good news of its majority ". M. Eenan's well-known Address
is chiefly a study of the personality of Spinoza.
Hamilton. By JOHN VEITCH, LL.D., Professor of Logic and
Ehetoric in the University of Glasgow. Edinburgh and
London : Blackwood, 1882. Pp. 268.
The first chapter (pp. 1-35) of this volume of " Blackwood's
Philosophical Classics " contains a sketch of the life of Hamilton
and a general view of his character as a philosopher. The rest
of the book is an exposition of the distinctive doctrines of his
philosophy. The author has " not attempted to discuss the
Logic of Hamilton in this volume. There was not space to do it
justice." He protests against the habit of " judging an author
or determining his opinions by a formula called historical, which
is to grasp all systems and fix the place of each ". " Hamilton,
above all men, deserves to be read, and needs to be studied
before he is judged or rather caricatured." With regard to Mill's
criticism, he remarks that "Mr. Mill may be strong in the region
of the axiomata media, and the bearing of such principles on prac-
tice and life, but he is certainly weak where Hamilton was strong."
Essays in Philosophical Criticism. Edited by ANDREW SETH and
E. B. HALDANE. With a Preface by EDWARD CAIRO. Lon-
don : Longmans, 1883. Pp. 277.
"This volume, which is dedicated to the memory of the late Pro-
fessor Green, consists of nine Essays by members of the Universities of
Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. Its object is to show the
bearing of the Critical Method, as it has been developed in Germany, to
the questions which are at present at issue in the philosophical world, and,
more especially, to elucidate the relation which, on the principles of this
method, must exist between philosophy and science. The first two Essays
by the Editors' Philosophy as Criticism of Categories' and 'The Relation
136 NEW BOOKS.
of Philosophy to Science' are in a manner introductory, and elucidate the
general standpoint with special application, in the second Essay, to the
notion of organic development as employed by science. The other Essays
embrace a criticism of the conceptions of ordinary logic, of political
economy, and of the Spencerian sociology. The Philosophy of History,
the Philosophy of Art, and the ultimate value of the Historical Method
are treated in separate Essays ; and the possibility of a Philosophy of
Religion is also discussed in connexion with modern Pessimism and
Comte's religious theory."
The Stoics as Teachers. An Essay on the Influence of the teaching
of Stoicism on the Civilisation of the early Koman Empire,
being the Hare Prize Essay for 1881. By C. H. HEEFOED,
B.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. Cambridge : Johnson,
1882. Pp. 99.
Mr. Herford discusses the Influence of (1) the Stoic Logic, (2) the
Stoic study of Nature, (3) the Stoic Ethics. Under the last head
the general social influence of Stoicism is first considered ; then
its influence on the Eoman law is traced " in a threefold appli-
cation of what in that system is meant by reason " ; lastly the
" positive legislation " that was determined by the principles of
Stoicism is discussed. It is decided that " the positive legisla-
tion of Marcus betrays but too faithfully the defects of Stoicism
as a social and civilising power ".
Attempts at Truth. By ST. GEOEGE STOCK. London : Triibner,
1882. Pp. 248.
The subject of about a third of these Essays is Spiritualism,
which Mr. Stock regards as " a new religion," on the ground that
it " has been able by dint of miracle to establish a belief touch-
ing man's destiny" (p. 137). The principal subjects otherwise
discussed in the volume are Ethics, Theism, the Idealism of
Berkeley, the writings of Mr. Charles Bray.
The Philosophy of the Upanishads and Ancient Indian Metaphysics,
as exhibited in a series of articles contributed to the " Calcutta
Eeview ". By AECHIBALD EDWAED GOUGH, M.A., Lincoln Col-
lege, Oxford, Principal of the Calcutta Madrasa. ("Triibner's
Oriental Series".) London: Triibner, 1882. Pp. xxiii., 268.
This work on Indian philosophy is not a reprint but a new
work, although articles contributed to the Calcutta Review have
been used in preparing it. Mr. Gough has given translations of
several of the Upanishads together with " extracts from the
works of the Indian schoolmen," and especially of bankara, "the
greatest of the expositors of the philosophy of the Upanishads ".
" The term Upanishad imports mystic teaching, and the synony-
mous term Vedanta means a final instalment of the Veda." It
is in one of the hymns of the Eigveda " that is first suggested
the primitive type of Indian thought, the thesis of all the
Upanishads, viz., the emanation of the world and of all the
forms of life that successively people it, out of the sole reality,
NEW BOOKS. 137
t-lie self that permeates and vitalises all things, through the
agency of the unreality that overspreads it, the self-feigned fiction,
the cosmical illusion, Maya" (c. i., p. 15). During the period
in which philosophy began in India, the Aryan race derived from
the indigenes the doctrine of metempsychosis, which is not
found in the Veda. " The sum and substance, it may almost be
said, of Indian philosophy is from first to last the misery of
metempsychosis, and the mode of extrication from it " (c. i., p.
20). Release from metempsychosis is attained by recognition of
the impersonal self (Atman or Brahman), as the only reality,
with which the sage becomes identified (c. iii.). The mode of
arriving at knowledge of the self has not been left to the exercise
of the individual intellect, but has been revealed by gods and
semi-divine teachers (c. iv.). The primitive thesis of Indian
philosophy is the doctrine of the impersonal self ; this doctrine,
in its developed form, is known as the Vedantic system. The
primitive antithesis is the doctrine of the Buddhists that every-
thing proceeds from nothingness and returns to it (c. vii.). The
Sankhya philosophy, said to have been founded by Kapila, affirms
that the world has a real principle of emanation, Prakriti, and
that there is a plurality of Selves or Purushas. Colebrooke and
many other Orientalists have believed that the doctrine of Maya
is comparatively modern. This is an error which has its origin
in the acceptance of a polemical statement of an opponent of the
Vedantins who tried to show that the primitive Vedanta and the
doctrine of the Sankhyas are not in contradiction. But, as a
matter of fact, "in the very beginning of Indian philosophy, in
the teaching of the Upanishads no less than in the teaching of the
Vedantic schoolmen, the world is an illusion. . . . The one
self in all souls is the only true being " (c. ix.).
Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order. By Dr. HERMANN
OLDENBERG, Professor at the University of Berlin, &c.
Translated from the German by William Hoey, M.A., D.Lit.,
&c. London : Williams & Norgate, 1882. Pp. viii., 454.
" Dr. Oldenberg has in the work now translated successfully demolished
the sceptical theory of a solar Buddha, put forward by M. Senart. He has
sifted the legendary elements of Buddhist tradition, and has given the
reliable residuum of facts concerning Buddha's life : he has examined the
original teaching of Buddha, shown that the cardinal tenets of the pessimism
which he preached are ' the truth of suffering and the truth of the deliver-
ance from suffering' : he has expounded the ontology of Buddhism and
graced the Nirvana in a true light. To do this he has gone to the roots of
uddhism in pre-Buddhist Brahmanism : and he has given Orientalists
the original authorities for his views of Buddhist dogmatics in excursus at
the end of his work."
Schelling's Transcendental Idealism. A Critical Exposition by JOHN
WATSON, LL.D., F.R.S.C., Professor of Mental and Moral
Philosophy, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. Chi-
cago : Griggs (London : Triibner), 1882. Pp. 251.
138 NEW BOOKS.
The second-published volume of the series of " German Philo-
sophical Classics for English Eeaders and Students " (the first
noticed in MIND XXVIII., 604). After dealing, in three chapters,
with the Philosophy of Kant, Earlier Philosophy of Fichte, and
Schelling's earlier Treatises, the author in four chapters (Pro-
blem of Transcendental Idealism, Theoretical Philosophy, Prac-
tical Philosophy, Teleology and Art) analyses the Transcendental
Realism, criticises the System of Identity and summarises Schel-
ling's Later Philosophy in two chapters more, and then concludes
with some remarks on the relation of Schelling's philosophy as a
whole to that of Kant and to the thought of the present
day. " Schelling erred by taking Kant too literally and neglect-
ing the spirit of his philosophy. . . . Hegel in relieving the
critical philosophy of the beggarly elements clinging to it and
allowing it to rise up to the higher zones of spirit, is the true
follower of Kant."
Science and Sentiment, with other Papers, chiefly Philosophical.
By NOAH PORTER, D.D., LL.D., President of Yale College.
New York : Scribners, 1882. Pp. 506.
The essays and lectures contained in this volume are, as the
author says, " philosophical in their themes, but not severely
philosophical in their mode of treatment ". Most of them are
attacks on those modern philosophers and " scientists " whose
tendencies are regarded by Dr. Porter as " dangerous". A very
indistinct and often inaccurate idea of the doctrines of J. S. Mill
and other writers is conveyed in a very diffuse style. Dr. Porter
calls his own views "Christian philosophy"; but he remarks
that "the distinctive principles " of this philosophy "have been
held by not a few men who did not accept Christianity as
historically true or in any sense as supernatural. Socrates,
Plato, Marcus Antoninus, Theodore Parker, Francis Newman, are
by no means isolated examples". In the first of these essays
("Science and Sentiment"), from the facts that science has its
origin in sentiment, and that sentiment " furnishes and shapes
the ends of science," it is inferred that " Science should often
recognise in Sentiment an important element and datum of
proof ". The next essay is " a Plea for the Science of Man," who
is "now in danger of being eliminated out of the Kosmos". In
a paper on "Force, Law, and Design," Dr. Porter undertakes
to prove that the existence of laws of nature implies design in
nature. He argues in the last two papers in the volume that
the influence of Kant has on the whole been favourable to
theology ("The Kantian Centennial"), and that "increased
catholicity, or, it may be, indifference of Christian believers in
respect to theological definitions and controversies is not neces-
sarily an indication of diminished loyalty to Christian truth"
(" The Collapse of Faith ").
NEW BOOKS. 139
The Student's Handbook of Philosophy. Psychology. By B. F.
COCKEE, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Psychology, Speculative
Philosophy and Philosophy of Beligion in the University of
Michigan, U.S.A.; Author of " Christianity and Greek Philo-
sophy," and " The Theistic Conception of the World ".
London : Hodder and Stoughton, 1882. Pp. 200.
Empirical and Rational Psychology, embracing Cognitions, Feelings,
and Volitions. By A. SCHUYLEE, LL.D., President of Bald-
win University, Author of " Principles of Logic," and a
series of Mathematical Works. New York : Van Antwerp,
Bragg & Co., 1882. Pp. x., 484.
The first of these books is " one of a series of ' Handbooks of
Philosophy ' designed to embrace Psychology, Logic, Ontology,
and Philosophy of Eeligion ". It is compiled from the works of
various authors to whom references are given at the end of each
section. The philosophers quoted as authorities are of different
schools, but an attempt is made in the book to preserve a certain
consistency of doctrine. " The science of mind (Psychology)
must be placed at the commencement of the philosophic system,
not simply as a preliminary discipline but as a fundamental part
of philosophy." After "Prolegomena" (pp. 1-19) and "Metho-
dology" (pp. 20-40), division is made of Psychology into "phe-
nomenal " and " dynamical " and the division is carried out as
regards Intellect from p. 67 to p. 191, Intellectual " Conscious-
ness " being first treated generally from p. 48 to p. 66. " Sensi-
bility " and " Will " are each disposed of in four pp. at the end.
The divisions of Dr. Schuyler's book are Part I. Cognition
and the Intellect ; (1) Acquisition, (2) Eepresentation, (3) Ela-
boration (pp. 19-413). Part II. Feeling and the Sensibility (pp.
417-460). Part III. Volition and the Will (pp. 463-484). In Part
I., the section on Elaboration is turned into a treatise on
Logic (pp. 240-413). In Part II. the Feelings are classed as
" physical, vital, and psychical ". Part III. contains an argu-
ment in favour of the doctrine of Free-will.
Die Religion des Geistes. Von EDUAED VON HAETMANN. Berlin :
Duncker (C. Heymons), 1882. Pp. xii., 328.
The last work of the author, Das religiose Bewusstsein der Mensch-
heit im Stufengang seiner Entwickdung (MiND XXVI., 288), and
the present work " are related to one another as the historical and
the systematic part of a philosophy of religion ". The present
volume begins with " an analysis, as exact and impartial as
possible, of the religious consciousness ". It is shown in this
first part (" The Psychology of Beligion ") that the religious
sentiment has an intellectual, an emotional and a volitional
element. Beligion must have an object, and its object must be
regarded as superior to man ; this is seen in the apparently
exceptional case of Buddhism, for non-being is regarded by the
Buddhists as the ground and the final cause of all that exists.
140 NEW BOOKS.
Eeligion " in the truest sense," however, is found in feeling.
But without the impulse to realise objectively something which
the religious consciousness regards as an end, religion in the full
sense of the term could not exist. The intellectual and emotional
elements in religion are to be estimated according to the kind of
" religious will " they produce. Just as religion considered as a
belief of man has three aspects, so it has three corresponding
aspects when it is regarded as a revelation from God. But all
these aspects are aspects of a process which is in reality a unity.
In the second part of the book (" The Metaphysics of Eeligion ")
we find that the " concrete monism " of the author is " the syn-
thesis of the one-sided truths of theism" and " abstract monism ".
The religious consciousness postulates " eudemonological pes-
simism " and " teleological optimism ". Abstract monism pos-
sesses only the first character of a religious view of the world,
theism only the second. The last part of the book (" The
Ethics of Eeligion ") shows how, according to the view that has
been developed, " deliverance from evil " is possible both for the
individual and for the sum of things. The result of the greatest
possible development of the religious consciousness would be
that religion should no longer need expression in symbols or in
churches. Although the triumph of " the religion of the im-
manent spirit " will never be complete, yet religious progress will
constantly bring us nearer to this end.
Anti-Savarese. Von ANTON GUNTHEE. Herausgegeben mit
einem Anhange von PETEE KNOODT. Wien : Braumiiller,
1883. Pp. xii., 318.
This posthumous work was intended as a reply to a criticism
of Giinther's doctrines that appeared in an Introduction to the
Patristic philosophy, by Savarese, published at Naples in 1856.
Since the brevity of the exposition makes it difficult to understand
" for those who have not read Giinther's writings," the Editor,
who has already written a biography of Giinther, explains the
essential parts of Giinther's system of philosophy in an Appendix
which is more than twice as long as the work itself. The points
dwelt on are : " the theory of Self-consciousness, the doctrine of
the Categories, Dualism, Man as synthesis of spirit and nature,
the Trinity, World-idea as the Non-ego of Godhead, Creation "
(p. v.).
JOH. FEIEDE. HEEBAET'S Sammtliche Werke. In chronologischer
Eeihenfolge, herausgegeben von KAEL KEHEBACH. Erster
Band. Mit einer lithographirten Tafel. Leipzig : Veit,
1882. Pp. Ixxxiv., 428.
The first volume of a new edition of Herbart's Collected
Works, the previous edition of Hartenstein (1851-3) being out of
print. The new edition, running to twelve volumes to be issued
in four or five years, will not only include all separate pieces
published after the appearance of Hartenstein's edition, but will
NEW BOOKS. 141
collect for the first time a number of valuable critiques contri-
buted by Herbart to different periodicals, will add some papers
not before published, chiefly paedagogical, and will besides give
in Supplements a quantity of matter, not from Herbart's own
hand, that throws light on his mental development or has some
biographical interest. In the present volume his earliest philo-
sophical and educational writings, to the year 1805, are given in
the chronological order to be maintained throughout. The
volume opens with Joh. Smidt's " Recollections of J. F. Herbart "
(pp. v.-xxvii.), written out at Hartenstein's instance in 1842, but
hardly used by him, because of the free references to people then
living.
Kurze Tcritische Darstellung der Anfdnge und Entivickelung der Utili-
tarischen Moralphilosopliie in England. Von FEIEDE. W.
HOENY, Bacc. Art. Cantab. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Er-
langung der Doctorwiirde eingereicht bei der philosophischen
Facultat der Universitat Leipzig. Leipzig : Hundertstund
u. Pries, 1881. Pp. 74.
The general result of this examination of English Utilitarianism
is that " the harmony of all interests is only an illusion " ; the
first condition of all true morality is self-denial. The author
divides the history of Utilitarianism into four periods, (1) Hobbes
to Locke, (2) Locke to Hume, (3) Hume to Bentham, (4) Bentham
to J. S. Mill. Lastly, the views of Mr. H. Sidgwick are discussed.
Grundlegung der reinen Logik. Ein Beitrag zur Losung der
logischen Frage, von Dr. GEOEG NEUDECKEE, Privatdocent
der Philosophic an der Universitat Wiirzburg. Wiirzburg :
Stuber, 1882. Pp. 80.
Dr. Neudecker regards the modern systems of Logic as built on
rotten foundations. At the same time he does not agree with those
who think the Aristotelian logic will triumph over all recent
systems. Logic, according to his view, must be founded on the
theory of knowledge. The distinctive doctrine of his theory of
knowledge is that certainty is found in " the immediate union of
thought and being," and that this union takes place in the ego as
its form. " The ego is the beginning of knowledge because only
in its form are thought and being immediately united " (p. 18).
Ludwig Feuerbactis Philosophic, die Naturforschung und die philoso-
phische Kritik der Gegenwart. Von ALBEECHT EAU. Leip-
zig : Barth, 1882. Pp. 249.
A short account of Feuerbach's philosophical and literary
activity (pp. 1-21) is followed by discussions of the criticism to
which his views have been subjected and of his relation to other
philosophers. The author thinks that, although philosophy seems
to have emancipated itself from theology, the emancipation is not
yet complete. He has prefixed to his book a passage from
Schopenhauer in which this idea is expressed in a characteristic
manner.
142 NEW BOOKS.
Die Grundlagen der Kanfschen Erkenntnisstheorie. Eine Einfiihrung
in die " Kritik ;der reinen Vernunft". Von Dr. WILHELM
MtiNZ. Breslau :" Koebner, 1882. Pp. 78.
For the solution of the problem of the Kritik it was neces-
sary that Kant should put to himself the questions, "How is
perception possible ? " " How is representation possible ? " " May
not our knowledge be an illusion?" But besides making the
assumptions that he was compelled to make by the conditions of
his problem, he made others that were accepted by him from
preceding philosophy. These are of three kinds, (1) logical, (2)
psychological, (3) metaphysical. If we return to Kant it must
not be to his contested assumptions, but only to his fundamental
idea "that there is a subjective, ideal element as well as an
objective, real element in our representations, that our intuition
of the world is a product of two factors, of the mind and of
things". Philosophy must seek in science and especially in
physiology the answer to the question, how is the subjective
element related to the objective element in our representations.
Studien iiber die Association der Vorstellungen. Von Dr S. STEICKEE,
o.o. Professor an der k.k. Universitat in Wien. Mit einer
Abbildung in Lichtdruck. Wien: Braumuller, 1883. Pp. 95.
The conclusion that is drawn in the last of these Studies from
the results of those that precede it is, that in all intense thought
we consider whether that which we think is true or not ; that
this is so even in thinking of works of art. We have no criterion
of the truth of our impressions but memory. Of the causal con-
nexion of our representations " we have no criterion but our own
feeling of satisfaction". Taken along with the explanations that
are given, these propositions no longer seem so paradoxical as at
first. But the interest of these studies is not entirely in the con-
clusions they lead to ; the account that is given of various kinds
of association is very clear and is interesting in itself. In the
first of the series the doctrine is maintained that our ideas of
(pure or empty) words and of musical notes are the products of
motor impulses to the muscles of the larynx ; they are merely
suggested by auditory impressions. The result of a discussion
of Kant's assertion that we cannot imagine space to become non-
existent is, that Kant has here expressed in another form the
psychological observation already made by Berkeley that ideas of
extension and of colour are inseparable. The reason why we
cannot get rid of the idea of space is that the organ of sight is
never, so long as consciousness is present, entirely inactive ; we
are always receiving impressions of colour, (ix. " The Necessity
of the idea of Space.") In other Studies the origin of the idea of
space and of its dimensions is discussed.
Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie seit Kant. Dictate aus den
Vorlesungen von HERMANN LOTZE. Leipzig : Hirzel, 1882.
Pp. 111.
NEW BOOKS.
The fourth of the series of Lotze's paragraphs for dictation in
lecture, now being published by Prof. E. Behnisch. The Intro-
duction (1-11) covers the ground from Descartes to Hume, and
the exposition is then given in six chapters : Kant (11-36) ;
Fichte, after Eeinhold (36-49) ; Schelling (49-59) ; Hegel and
School (59-74) ; Jacobi, Fries and others to Schopenhauer (74-87) ;
Herbart (87-101). An Appendix gives a complete list of the
courses of Lectures announced and delivered by Lotze throughout
his academic career from 1839 to 1881.
L? Evoluzionismo di Erberto Spencer. Esposizione critica di GIO-
VANNI CEBCA, Dottore in filosofia e lettere. Verona e
Padova : Drucker e Tedeschi, 1883. Pp. 196.
In this volume Dr. Cerca has given a very clear and full account
of the philosophy of evolution. The value of his exposition is
increased by references to earlier writers who have contributed
suggestions that find their place in a philosophical view of science,
and to the work of students of special departments of science
who have recently developed the theory of evolution in some par-
ticular direction or verified some portion of it. Mr. Spencer is
regarded as the first thinker who has been successful in the
attempt to construct a scientific philosophy. But philosophy
must be, as G. H. Lewes has shown, " an empirical metaphysic,"
and there is a metempirical element in Mr. Spencer's system.
The basis of all " the Spencerian metempiric " is the identifica-
tion of an unknowable force with the unknowable absolute (c. v.)
The principle of the persistence of force is "an illusory sym-
bolical conception ". The doctrine of the first part of First Principles
has the merit of separating the knowable from the unknowable ;
its defect is that, instead of making the separation of the fields of
religion and science complete, it regards the unknowable as com-
mon ground. But the conception of the unknowable absolute
" is a just conception only in the field of religion, not in that of
science and philosophy ". " The philosophical theories of Spencer
acquire their full value only when they are liberated from that
conception taken from religion " (c. iii.) The philosophy of evolu-
tion, deprived of its metempiric, is not a monistic system, for it
recognises the relativity of knowledge and confines itself to phe-
nomena. In this it agrees with Neo-Kantianism and with
Positivism, of which systems it is the necessary completion.
Like the first of them it is critical and like the second it is scien-
tific ; it is distinguished from both by having a synthetic principle,
the law of evolution, which combines the results of the special
sciences in one generalisation.
THOMAS WHITTAKER.
.- CORRESPONDENCE.
MR. T. DAVIDSON ON FATHER PESCH.
In MIND XXVII. (pp. 424-427) there appears a review of the Institu-
tiones Philosophic Naturalis of Tilmannus Pesch, S.J., from the pen of
Mr. Thomas Davidson. The review in question contains many inaccuracies
and serious mis-statements of facts, the more important of which I may
perhaps be allowed to point out. Mr. Davidson first relates the causes
that eventually resulted in the Encyclical Aeterni Patris, and then proceeds
to criticise the book which he believes to be intimately connected with the
purpose of the Encyclical. I begin with his second point.
I. " Natural Philosophy as understood by our author . . . sets out by as-
suming the universal principles of reason, and then endeavours, by means of
these, to enter into the being of things. . . . The author makes no attempt
to justify this procedure except by calling the views of those who deny its validity
plagues or pestilent poisons . . . impious, atheistical, and so on" [The
italics throughout are not Mr. Davidson's.] Now this last statement is con-
trary to fact ; for (1) at p. 6, F. Pesch introduces the question of procedure ;
the first thesis in the book (pp. 8-12) seriously and directly discusses its
validity, where four distinct arguments are advanced to establish it [a], (2)
The views of adversaries are nowhere in this context called " impious, atheis-
tical, and so on." [/3] Something quite different occurs at p. 10 ; and (3) the
instances alleged of "pestis" p. 4 ; and "pestiferum venenum," p. 9, can in no
sense be taken as an intended justification.
II. It is next stated that, " The ' universal principles of reason ' which
he (F. Pesch) adopts, seem to be the existence of a God . . . the in-
fallibility of the Pope, the authority of Thomas Aquinas, and the impiety
of modern physicists and philosophers, who, trusting in their own reason
venture to dispute any of these principles ". Now, that such should seem
to be the case to Mr. Davidson is a psychological fact it would be impos-
sible for me to deny. I confine myself then to the objective statement
that the imputation is entirely false. And these are the proofs :
In regard of the " infallibility of the Pope " (for the " existence
of a God " will be touched upon later). Now, in the treatise itself (pp.
1-729), no Pope is, I believe, ever mentioned anywhere ; and certainly no
argument is drawn directly or indirectly from his authority. True, the Pope
is mentioned three times in the Prefaces (pp. vii.-xvii.), but no "universal
principle " regarding his authority is in any sense whatever laid down, [y]
As regards the "authority of Thomas Aquinas". It is a principle
admitted in all existing schools of Catholic philosophy, that, as far as a
man follows the authority of St. Thomas Aquinas or of any one else, he is
essentially not a philosopher. St. Thomas taught as much when he
wrote in the first question of his greatest work, 'locus ab auctoritate quae
fundatur super ratione humana est infirmissimus '. (Sum : Theol : I. q. i.
a. 8, ad 2dum). And Cardinal Zigliara in his much used text-book (Vol. i.
p. 270) writes " Fateor, imo glorior me juvari doctrinis Ss. Augustini et
Thomse, sed hoc ideo, quia eas serio et diutius perpensas mea ratio veras
deprehendit ". Now, a priori, F. Pesch could not have been ignorant of
what every beginner in philosophy hears in his earliest lessons, [S] Further,
a posteriori, the facts are against Mr. Davidson. For F. Pesch damages his
principle considerably, if he ever held it, by deserting St. Thomas at p.
570, and seems quite ready to have left him at p. 454. Unquestionably,
however, St. Thomas is quoted, one way or another, hundreds of times,
and with admirable aptness and richness of erudition, but in no case is his
COBEESPONDENCE. 145
authority an element in an argument. For he is either quoted historically,
as having held a certain doctrine (as at pp. 90, 120, 240, 264) ; or because
of the clearness, or propriety of his exposition (pp. 96-98, 186, 211) ; or as
agreeing with the doctrine stated or inferred (pp. iii. 158, 458, 603), or as
stating a principle which commends itself (pp. 603, 605). Hence the
phrases used, " ut ait S. Thomas" ; "scite S. Thomas" ; "Id ipsum S.
Thomas, quare rede ". [e]
With regard to the last supposed principle, " the impiety of
modern physicists and philosophers who, trusting to their own reason,
venture to dispute any of these principles," it is to be remarked (1) that
no such connexion of ideas occurs in the book ; (2) that no modification
of it occurs as a " universal principle " ; (3) that, on the contrary, for
modern physicists as such, and as a body, F. Pesch has no small praise (p.
436). Their consensus is for him a principle of argument (p. 188). Their
facts are his groundwork (p. 696). He calls them " viri doctissimi, peritis-
simi " (pp. 589, 624). [j
Still Mr. Davidson's imputation of principles is not without some
attempt at proof. This proof is taken from pp. ix. x. xi. of the preface.
The character of this proof passes beyond the limit of logical qualifi-
cation, it is simply painful. [77] It is to be noted therefore that the
proof is taken solely from the Preface. This Preface is not an introduction,
but quite extrinsic to the work. No important demonstration is intended,
it is merely a reasonable discourse. It even precedes the two Indices. In
it the author states the purpose of his work. He further states that he has
chosen to follow in general the method of treatment marked out by St.
Thomas. He adds the reason for so doing in the terms of Pope Leo, whose
words for himself and for those to whom particularly that preface is ad-
dressed, are most weighty. Just so much and no more is the sense of the
Preface in this matter. But even supposing the Preface to contain an
announcement of "principles," the 729 pages that follow substantially
belie the 3 pages from which Mr. Davidson detaches several sentences. [6]
III. Further on we read, " the work before us ... is a mere attempt
to justify intellectual authority such as the Catholic Church pretends to
possess " (ib.). Such an attempt in a work like the present would cer-
tainly indicate an unsound mind. But, in point of fact, the question of
such justification never occurs in any sense whatever in the 729 pages of
the book ; and putting aside the probable arguments from a consensus, and
the mention of facts vouched for by some authority (as at pp. 514, 517,
715), there is no argument from authority in the whole treatise, [i]
IV. Attention is called to " two principles which vitiate the book from
beginning to end ; first, the admission of authority in thought, secondly
the use of the hypothesis of an omnipotent God " (p. 426). Now with
regard to the former, it is simply contrary to fact ; for in the treatise in
question, authority in thought is not admitted except in the sense ex-
plained just above. And with regard to the use of the hypothesis of an
omnipotent God, I remark that the substantial work of the treatise is
represented by the 68 Theses of the first Index (pp. xix.-xxiii.) ; the last
two of which need not here be taken into account. [K] Analyses of the char-
acter of the demonstration by which the remaining 66 are established gives
the result, that there are 196 arguments (or thereabouts) in which this
hypothesis/orms no part, and 24 in which it is used. It is of course true
that, outside of these formal and carefully elaborated arguments, much use
is made of this " hypothesis," as it is termed ; but it is so employed as
never to vitiate the demonstration. For in the very few instances where
it is a capital premiss, it is rightly supposed to be granted by those for
whom the particular thesis or proof is intended (as at pp. 52, 492, 512-22).
If it occurs elsewhere, it is either historically as part of some theory men-
10
146 CORRESPONDENCE.
tioned (p. 497) ; or to show the point of contact between the doctrine
of God, and the subject directly and properly under consideration (as in
the corollaries and scholia, passim) ; or with special explanation (pp. 401,
458). If it is introduced in the answer to a difficulty, almost without
exception the reason is that it has already formed an express element of
the difficulty. As to the use of this hypothesis " rendering philosophy
impossible," I remark, that it cannot have this result unless the existence
and attributes of God are in no way cognisable by the unaided light of
reason. Because if God be known by the reflection (or intuition !) of
mind, the Divinity is thereby Itself an object of philosophy. [X]
And now let us turn to the historical portion of Mr. Davidson's notice.
I. At p. 424, we read, " More than half a century ago.
the Jesuits . . . were trying to force on the Churcn a kind of
materialism (i.e., sensism) after the manner of Condillac ". This is quite
inaccurate. Sensism makes no essential difference between sense and
intellect. The latter, at the best, is but a higher mode of the former. The
Jesuit school, however, and in particular the Roman College, has f always
taught that these two operations of the human subject are essentially dif-
ferent ; the one being organic, and the other inorganic, the latter moreover
being in no sense a transformation or modification of the former. This is
not sensism, and this the Jesuits have always taught, [/*]
II. It is stated (pp. 424-5) that " Leo XIII. could not restore the
ancient Thomism, because his hands were tied by a decree of the Congrega-
tion of the Index which had declared Rosmini's words free from censure".
Now (1) The said Congregation never gave the sentence " nihil censura
dignum," [v] but " dimittaiitur ". This " dimittantur " is by no means an
approval, as the Congregation itself with the express confirmation of Leo
XIII. has recently declared. [] (2) As it is quite certain that a judgment
of the Congregation of the Index is held to be of its own nature reversible
by the Pope, the Pope's hands were not tied, [o]
III. At p. 424, the Jesuits are said to have applied to Leo XIII. for a
rehabilitation of pure Thomism against the improved Thomism of Rosmini.
This statement is strangely at variance with facts. (1) Subsequent to the
Aeterni Patris a radical change of professors and a corresponding change in
the character of the teaching was made at the Gregorian University (the
Roman College of old), the Thomism of the Jesuit tradition being sup-
planted by a Thomism more according to the Dominican tradition. [TT] (2)
The eminent Jesuit professor, now Cardinal, Franzeiin, was in no way
consulted on the subject of this Encyclical. (3) A distinguished Jesuit
professor of the old regime at the Roman College and personal friend of
the writer, knows nothing whatever of the alleged application, [p] (4) Not
so much the Jesuits, but the bishops and professors of the Catholic Church,
en masse, have expressed their admiration of, and their rational obedience
to, this act of the Pope, [o-] (5) His Eminence Cardinal Pecci, brother of
Pope Leo, in a communication to the writer of this reply, relegates the
imputation in question to the category of ' quisquilise '. [r]
IV. Finally the Jesuits are said, after the Encyclical, to have " at once
begun to flood the world with books, professing to be ' secundum principia
S. Thomae Aquinatis,' but really emphasising views that are often quite as
much at variance with those of St. Thomas as with those of Rosmini,
against which they were directed " (p. 435). This sentence is sufficiently
vague and general ; but its clear charge of duplicity I simply deny, [v]
Then as to the assertion that Rosmini is the adversary really, though
covertly, aimed at, 1 ask for a single passage in support of the statement. [<p]
In a note at the foot of p. 426, attention is called to the fact that, under
the names of H. Spencer and G. H. Lewes, one work only is mentioned
by F. Pesch, and it is there clearly implied that he is ignorant of the rest.
CORRESPONDENCE. 147
The inference is as uncalled for as it is incorrect. " The fact is " (these are
the words of F. Pesch to the present writer) " I have read and studied the
works of Spencer very attentively and quoted them as far as I judged con-
venient for the whole intent of my work. As for Lewes, I know that he
has written, besides the History of Philosophy, also other works." [x\
Other matters for want of space must be passed over in silence.
St. Bernard's Seminary, Solihull. H. T. PARKINSON.
In appending a few notes to this ' Reply,' which with the author's per-
mission I have been allowed to see, I am requested by the Editor of
MIND to be very brief, and I shall try to be so, although I am thus com-
pelled to omit much that I should like to say.
[a] This thesis lays down that empiricism (by which the author means
sensism) is (a) without foundation, (b) self-contradictory, (c) fraught with
the most fatal consequences to science and life, and (d) physically repugnant
to man. Even if the author proved this, which he does not, except in the way
I have said (see below), it surely would not in the smallest degree follow that
" Natural Philosophy is the science considering natural bodies, as subject to
metaphysical reasons," or " The science of physical things through meta-
physical causes ". (Reasons = Causes !) Besides Metaphysics and Physics,
F. Pesch acknowledges the existence of Logic, Ethics and Mathematics, and
indeed places Metaphysics on the same line with Physics and Mathematics
as a branch of real science (p. 1). Why then, should Physics be reduced to
metaphysical causes, rather than vice versa, or rather than to mathematical
causes? I may remark that the above definition precedes the thesis in ques-
tion by two pages, and is in no way dependent upon, or justified by it.
[/3] I have not said that all these terms, or any of them, were used "in the
context ". But even in this context empiricism is spoken of in these terms,
" Quae pestis magnam partem doctorum hominum veneno infecit (p. 8) ;
and on p. 4, among the " causes of this recent pest," " mores corruptela
depravati " holds the first place.
[y] The principles named "seem" to me to be the principles of the book,
because I can nowhere find any others stated. I should indeed be glad to
find out what are the principles " according to " which the book is written.
If it is taken for granted that the Pope is " ille omnibus Christian!
orbis populis a Deo O.M. prsestitutus Doctor et Magister," what difference
does it make how seldom he is mentioned ? It is true that " no * universal
principle ' regarding his authority is anywhere laid down " ; nor have I
said anything to the contrary ; but his authority itself is used as a universal
principle. What the authority of the Pope declares to be contrary to the
Christian revelation, is and must be a principle and criterion of truth in
all Catholic philosophy, and it is utterly vain to attempt to deny this.
F. Pesch's whole doctrine of creation has really no other basis than the
authority of the Pope " illius omnibus Christian! orbis populis a Deo
O.M. praestituti Doctoris et Magistri ". That this authority is not cited, is
an utterly indifferent matter (cf. next note and the Syllabus).
[8] It is unfortunate that some people frequently forget their earliest
lessons. One of these is Professor Talamo, an intimate friend of Pope
Leo, a professor in two of the Roman Colleges and a member of the
Council of the Papal Academy of St. Thomas in Rome. He writes, " Our
school, treading in the steps of a universal and constant Christian tradition
distinguishes two orders of truth, one rational, the other super-rational,
and, without separating or confounding them, tries to unite them. Never-
theless, it does not overlook their difference in value, and while it allows
revealed theology to develop chiefly by the light of the outward word of
the incarnate Logos, and afterwards by that of other, rational criteria, it
strives to build up philosophy, primarily with the criteria of reason and,
148 COERESPONDENCE.
secondarily, with those of common sense, history, scientific tradition, and
where it is necessary and useful, also of divine revelation " (II Rinnovamento del
Pensiero Tomistico e la Scienza Moderna, Siena, 1878). Will F. Parkinson
tell me what is meant by ' scientific tradition,' as distinguished, on the
one hand, from history, on the other, from divine revelation, if it is not
human authority ? Again, does not F. Pesch himself tell us that " in all
time it has been fixed and ratified by the wisest men that those who have
excelled in the most copious knowledge of divine and human things, and
in the most accurate insight into the beginnings and causes of individual
things, ought to be followed in the study of truth"? Is not this the clearest
assertion of human authority in science ?
[e] These phrases are used, no doubt ; but so are others, distinctly recog-
nising St. Thomas's authority. For example, on p. 229, we read : " Num-
quid talis determinationum internarum multitude forte unitati entis obstat ?
Non videtur. NAM, IPSUM S. THOMAM DICERE audivimus, solum per
naturam ipsius ' esse simpliciter ' quod in substantia reperiatur, pluralita-
tem formarum substantialium ejusdem rei impediri." And similar pas-
sages might be quoted. Cardinal Zigliara's profession is excellent and, I
am sure, sincere ; but he fails sadly in it in practice, as the book alluded
to, as well as his other works, abundantly show. In the one case where
F. Pesch * deserts ; St. Thomas, he does so only to attach himself to other
ecclesiastical authorities (" auctores").
[] This is a very one-sided account. There is surely a difference between
a principle stated and a principle used, and I maintain that the principle
of the impiety of empiricists is employed in many parts of the book in
order to discredit (and F. Pesch rarely does more) their doctrines. On p.
4, an attempt is made to discredit Empiricism by ascribing its origin to
corrupt morals, Protestantism and so on. If in any way Empiricism was
due to corrupt morals, it was to the corrupt morals of the Catholic Church
against which it and Protestantism were a healthy reaction.
[?;] I am sincerely sorry to have pained F. Parkinson ; but I do not see
that a proof (I never meant it as such) is any worse for being taken from
a preface, or why a preface, even if it stood before a hundred ' indices,'
should not contain a statement of principles. At any rate, I cannot any-
where else in the book find a statement of principles.
[0] As this is a mere assertion, I meet it with a direct contradiction.
[t] I have already answered this sufficiently. The book, I repeat, is an
attempt to find a basis for ecclesiastical authority. But I think it is dis-
tinctly unfair to say that F. Pesch must, therefore, be of unsound mind.
He seems to me to have an unusually strong mind, though it is sadly
warped by authority and prejudice.
[*] For any other reason than because they invalidate F. Parkinson's
statement ? I can imagine no other. The last three theses, and they are
the most important in the book and those up to which the whole book
leads, assume, what is nowhere proved, the existence of an omnipotent
God. These theses are, (a) The laws of nature are necessary indeed, but
only hypothetically ; (b} Miracles are possible ; (c) Miracles may be dis-
tinguished from natural events and recognised as of divine origin. These
are theses of Natural Philosophy !
[X] All this, even were it true, is beside the mark. Enough is granted,
when it is admitted that there are theses in the book in which the hypo-
thesis in question is a " capital premiss ". In a treatise on Natural Philo-
sophy it cannot be " rightly supposed to be granted " by any one.
[//] To this I reply that the Jesuits even now, FF. Liberatore and Cornoldi
among them, teach sensism, whatever they or their pupils may say to the con-
trary. I cannot now enter into the details of this subject ; but I assert that
the philosophy of the leading Jesuits of this century is sensism and nothing
MISCELLANEOUS. 149
but sensism. Their " intellect " is no more an intellect in any proper sense
than is the reflection of Locke. Any one who will patiently read a recent
work Sulle Dottrine Ideologiche del P. G. Maria Cornoldi, d.C.d.G. by the Abbe"
Petri, can readily convince himself of this. Even St. Thomas does not
hesitate to say that " Sense is a sort of defective participation in intellect ".
However, he must not be held responsible for particular statements.
[i/] For a very good reason ; because it can give no such sentence, and I
am astonished that F. Parkinson should not know this. I am likewise
astonished that he should think " nihil censurd dignum " the equivalent of
"free from censure". However, one at least of the consultors of the
congregation, F. Trullet, advised that this very sentence should be given.
[] " Dimittantur," however, is the most favourable sentence that the
Congregation of the Index can give, as every one acquainted with its con-
stitution well knows.
[o] A judgment of the Congregation of the Index is, I believe, not rever-
sible, when the infallible Pope, acting as chairman of it, as Pius IX. did in
the case in question, pronounces it ex cathedra. Therefore, the present Pope's
hands were and are tied. That he feels this, is clearly shown by many facts,
notably by these, that his intimate friend, Card. Zigliara, wrote a large volume
in order to weaken the force of the " dimittantur," and that he himself gave
the definition referred to for the same purpose. In spite of all this, the
fact remains that the philosophical works of Rosmini received the most
favourable verdict which the Congregation of the Index can give.
[TT] This speaks badly for the Jesuit tradition, but has nothing to do with
the question at issue. The change which took place in the Roman College
did not result in the substitution of Dominicans for Jesuits, as professors,
but of Jesuits of one shade of opinion for Jesuits of another. There is no
such thing as a uniform Jesuit tradition. The Jesuits lost nothing by the
change in question.
[p] I have never said that Franzelini or any one else was consulted on
the subject of the Encyclical ; and that many ' eminent professors ' knew
nothing of the application, I am prepared to believe. Still this does not
in the smallest degree prove that such application was not made.
[o-] Of course ; if he had restored pure Platonism or Epicureanism, they
would have done the same thing. But what has this to do with the
matter ? The first person who in this century advocated a restoration of
Thomism was Rosmini.
[r] Very likely ; but it is true, all the same.
[v] And I " simply " deny that there is any " clear charge " of duplicity.
At the same time, even if I had made a " clear charge " of duplicity, I do
not see how F. Parkinson is in a position to deny it.
[$] This is a strange request, since, however many views I might point
out as emphasised in opposition to Rosmini's, it would always be possible
for F. Pesch or F. Parkinson to say that Rosmini's view was not in the
author's mind, especially as Rosmini's name (and this I distincthj said) does
not occur in the book. What I maintain is that the purpose of the whole
movement to which this work belongs is to emphasise, under name of
Thomism, views opposed to Rosmini's ": and this is true.
[x] Here I am willing to accept F. Pesch's assurance that he knows other
works of Spencer besides those mentioned by him ; but I appeal to any
one, whether what is said on p. 7, of his work does not fairly suggest the
opposite conclusion. And even he himself claims no more with regard to
Lewes, than this : " I know that he has written, besides the History of
Philosophy, other works also," which is surely little enough. But proofs
of shallow learning are easy enough to find in the book. It is amusing, for
example, to see Whewell classed along with Comte as a " positivist ".
THOMAS DAVIDSON.
IX. MISCELLANEOUS.
Mr. WILLIAM CYPLES, author of An Inquiry into the Process of Human
Experience, died suddenly, of heart-disease, at Hammersmith on the 24th
of August last. He was born, on the 31st of August, 1831, at Longton in
the Staffordshire Potteries, the child of parents engaged in the industry of
the place, and after educating himself, under the influence of his mother, a
woman of unusual strength of mind, he entered upon the life of a jour-
nalist. Becoming editor of several provincial papers in succession, and
contributing at the same time largely to the best periodical literature,
besides publishing two volumes of verse (" Pottery Poems " and " Satan
Restored ") and (anonymously) several works of fiction, he came finally to
London (from Nottingham), in 1877, on the completion of the philosophical
book to which he had devoted his chief thought for many years. During
the composition of this work, he entered into relations with several of the
foremost thinkers of the day and received much encouragement from them.
When the book at last appeared in 1880, it did not at the time receive
nearly as much recognition as it deserved, though it was reviewed immedi-
ately, at length, in MIND XVI 1 1., and afterwards in the Contemporary
Review. In MIND XIX., the author replied, with great force and spirit, to
some criticism that had been made upon his peculiar terminology. Unfor-
tunately, his health began from this time to give way, and the end came
upon him before the assurance that his labour had not been in vain. He
had steered right into the stream of modern scientific thought in regard to
mind, while he had also in him a straining after the ideal not the less
marked because of the modest terms in which he spoke of offering ' some
hints as to the higher phenomena of consciousness " after " attempting to
set forth" the "lower laws" of "the Process of Human Experience".
Those who knew him speak of him as a man of great refinement and
nobility of character.
Mr. CECIL JAMES MONRO died at Hadley, near Barnet, on the 25th of
November. Readers of MIND may remember the admirably pointed Note
which he wrote in No. IV. on "Locke's alleged Anticipation of Mill's
Theory of Syllogism"; also his masterly Critical Notice of Mr. Venn's
Symbolic Logic in No. XXIV. The pulmonary disease which has carried
him off at the age of 49, attacked him first as far back as 1860 and has
prevented him from giving adequate public proof of his remarkable
powers and attainments. There has been no more ardent worker at the
recent developments of logical science, to the study of which he brought
the training of an accomplished mathematician. He was also a versatile
literary scholar.
The late ALFRED BARRATT, author of Physical Ethics and a prominent
contributor to MIND, had been engaged for some years upon a work in
General Philosophy when he was suddenly struck down in the spring of
1881, at the age of 36. The MS. was found upon examination to be so far
completed in the more important (constructive) part that it is now being
seen through the press (by Mr. Carveth Read). It will be published early
in the year by Messrs. Williams & Norgate under the title of Physical
Metempiric. The main text will run to about 250 pp. ; while the essays
that appeared in MIND will be reprinted in an Appendix. There will be a
short introductory memoir by Mrs. Barratt, with contributions from the
Master of Balliol, the Warden of All Souls and the Head-Master of Rugby.
MISCELLANEOUS. 151
A "SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH" has lately been formed "to
unite students and inquirers in an organised body, with the view of pro-
moting the investigation of certain obscure phenomena, including those com-
monly known as Psychical, Mesmeric or Spiritualistic, and of giving publicity
to the results of such research ". It has resolved itself into six Committees
charged respectively with Thought-reading, Mesmerism, Reichenbach's
Experiments, Apparitions (Haunted Houses, &c.), Physical Phenomena
(commonly called Spiritualistic), and the Literature of the subjects. Part
I. of the Proceedings of the Society, published in October (Triibner), con-
tains besides an introductory address from the President (Mr H. Sidgwick)
a Report from the Committee on Thought-reading, by Prof. W. F. Barrett
and Messrs. E. Gurney and F. W. Myers, with supplementary Reports from
Prof. Balfour Stewart and others. The reports turn mainly on the per-
formances of some girls in the family of a Derbyshire clergyman, in the
way of guessing some number, word or card without (so far as appears)
any of the ordinary means of communication between wilier and guesser.
The chief reporters have satisfied themselves so completely of the reality
and genuineness of the phenomena as already to believe that further ad-
vance along the same line of research "will necessitate a modification of
the general view of the relation of mind to matter to which modern science
has long been gravitating". It is not easy to work against gravitation,
and those who contemplate such a necessity have reason to be both active
and wary. Having the advantage (over some of the other Committees) of
dealing with a class of facts which can be tested with perfect rigour, the
' Thought-reading ' Committee should find out what is the exact limit of
those maidens' powers. If they can do what is reported, one would expect
them to do more. If they can do no more, there must be some good reason
for it, which it should be possible to discover. Meanwhile, the hearsay
matter drawn into one or other of the Reports might have been left over.
Mr. WILLIAM WALLACE, of Merton College, has been appointed Whyte
Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, succeeding the late T. H. Green.
Professor W. DILTHEY has been called from Breslau to fill the Chair in
the University of Berlin vacated by the death of Lotze.
THE JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Vol. XVI. No. 2. W.
T. Harris Hegel's Four Paradoxes. M. Tuthill Use, Beauty, Reason.
H. K. H. Delff Dante's Epochs of Culture (trans.). R. A. Holland-
Philosophy in relation to Agnosticism and to Religion. Hegel On the
Absolute Religion (trans.). Hegel Philosophy of the State (trans.). J.
Dewey The Metaphysical Assumption of Materialism. Notes and Dis-
cussions. Book Notice (J. H. Stirling, Text-book to Kant).
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. Vllme Annee, No. 10. A. Espinas Les
etudes sociologiques en France : La science sociale contemporaine (ii).
P. Janet Un precurseur de Maine de Biran. Th. Ribot Les affaiblisse-
ments de la volonte. Analyses et Comptes-rendus. Notices biblio-
graphiques. Rev. des Period. No. 9. H. Joly Psychologic des grands
hommes (fin). A. Espinas Les etudes sociologies, &c. (fin). Notes et
Discussions (Grocler Les principes de la mecanique de la liberte).
Analyses, &c. Notices bibliog. Rev. des Period. No. 12. A. Fouillee
Les nouveaux expedients en faveur du libre arbitre. P. Tannery His-
toire du concept de 1'infini au sixieme siecle avant J.C. F. Paulhan
Les conditions du bonheur et 1'evolution humaine. Analyses, &c. (W.
Graham, The Creed of Science). Rev. des Period.
LA CRITIQUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. Xlme Annee, Nos. 27-42. F. Pillon
Le programme de 1'enseignement moral dans 1'ecole primaire (28) ; A pro-
pos de la notion de nombre ; 1'influence du monisme contemporaire en
152 MISCELLANEOUS.
psychologie (30) ; A propos du substautialisme de Mme. Clemence Royer
et de M. Roisel (32, 37, 41) ; A. Costa, Uieu et Fame : Essai d'ide'alismc ex-
perimental (42) ; L. Foucou, Les preliminaires de la philosophie (42). C.
Renouvier V. Egger, La parole interieure (29, 32, 33) Positivisme, pessi-
misme ; Vivre la vie en vaut elle la peine ? (31) ; La logique du systeme
de Schopenhauer (34) ; La metaphysique de Schopenhauer : Idealisme,
materialisme, monisme (38, 39) ; La philosophic de reflexion : analyse
des minima de conscience (40, 42, transl. from Mr. Sh. Hodgson). F.
Grindelle J. Sully, Le pessimisme, histoire et critique. W. James Ration-
alite', activite, et foi (35, 36, 37).
LA FILOSOFIA DELLE ScuoLE ITALIANE. Vol. XXV. Disp. 3. F. Bona-
telli Intorno al valore teoretico dei principii practici. T. Mamiani Cos-
mologia e psicologia. T. M. I sette enigmi del mondo. T. M. Ancora
dei problemi sociali. T. M. Delia interpretazione panteistica di Platone,
di Alessandro Chiappelli. Bibliografia (T. Davidson, The Philosophical
System of A. Rosmini-Serbati, &c.), &c.
RIVISTA DI FILOSOFIA SCIENTIFICA. An. I. No. 6. E. Morselli Carlo
Darwin. G. Rosa La filosofia positiva della storia. G. Boccardo Gli
eretici in economia politica e la loro missione nella sociologia. G. Romiti
L'uniformita nelle leggi dell' evoluzione animale. G. Buccola La
riproduzione delle percezioni di movimento nello spazio tattile, ricerche
sperimentali. Rivist. Bib., &c.
ZEITSCHRIFT FUR DIE PHILOSOPHIE, &c. Bd. LXXXI. Heft 2. J.
Kreyenbuhl Die Teleologie als Weltanschauung (iii.). 0. Caspari Her-
bart's Realismus u. das Problem der Idee als Musterbild mit Riicksicht auf
R. Zimmermann's Anthroposophie. B. Miinz Die vorsocratische Ethik.
E. Zbller Die philosophischen Forschungen in Schweden. Recensionen, &c.
ZEITSCHRIFT FUR VOLKERPSYCHOLOGIE u. SPRACHWISSENSCHAFT. Bd.
XIV. Heft 2. A. F. Pott Zahlen von kosmischer Bedeutung,
hauptsachlich bei Indern u. Griechen, u. Wichtigkeit von Genealogien im
Mythus (Schluss). F. Philippi 1st JTlJTi accadisch-sumerischen
Ursprungs 1 S. Maybaum Zur Pentateuch kritik. Beurtheilungen.
PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Bd. XVIII. Heft 8. E. Wille
Kant's Lehre von der urspriinglich synthetischen Einheit der Apper-
ception. E. v. Hartmann Die Grundbegriffe in Lasson's Rechtsphilo-
sophie. Recensionen u. Anzeigen (E. Wallace, Aristotle's Psychology, &c.).
Bibliographic, &c. Heft 9, 10. E. Feuerlein Die Idee der Verantwortung
u. ihre Stelle in Recht, Politik, Ethik. J. M. Void Kant's Teleologie.
P. Natorp Analecten zur Geschichte der Philosophie. J. Nathan Vom
Gesetz der vielen Ursachen. Recens. u. Anzeigen. Th. Lipps Logisches
zur Abwehr. Bibliographic, &c.
VlERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FUR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Bd. VI.
Heft 4. A. Wernicke Den Manen Darwin's. F. Staudinger Zur
Grundlegung des Erfahrungsbegriffs (i.). G. Helm Der Aether u. die
Wirkungeii in die Feme. G. Heymans Die Methode der Ethik (Schluss).
Schmitz-Dumont Die Kategorien der Begriffe u. das Congruenzaxiom
(Schluss). Anzeige (F. Y. Edgeworth, Mathematical Psychics), &c.
Other BOOKS, &c., received : C. A. Buchheim, Lessing's Nathan der
Weise, Oxford (Clar. Press), pp. 302. Papers read before the Medico-Legal
Society of New York, N.Y. (Vanden Houten), pp. 530. G. Cesca, II nuovo
Eealismo contemporaneo della Teorica della Conoscenza in Germania ed Inghil-
terra, Verona, Padoua (Drucker e Tedeschi), pp. 193. N. Grote, K'Voprossu
o Eeformje loyiki, Leipzig (Brockhaus), pp. xviii., 349.
No. 30.] [APRIL, 1883.
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
L PSYCHOLOGICAL PKINCIPLES.
I. THE STANDPOINT OF PSYCHOLOGY.
IT is nowadays generally, though by no means universally,
conceded that Psychology is a science and not a branch of
philosophy. Nevertheless it must be allowed that the two
subjects are closely connected ; indeed it is matter of fact,
that to philosophy the Science of Mind is indebted for its
very existence. For what has been so often remarked of
the other sciences holds good also here, viz., that practical
needs were the beginning of theoretical inquiries. Only at
first sight can it seem strange to associate philosophy with
practical wants : a glance at its history will suffice to show
that whatever may have been its success or failure, its incit-
ing motive has always been not curiosity, or the mere desire
of knowledge, but, as even its name implies, the need of
wisdom. 1 In seeking to find their bearings in the world and
know what is truth and what is good, men were led to
investigate what seemed nearest to them, their own minds ;
and how largely psychological inquiries have furnished the
turning-points of philosophy is evident from such opposed
terms as Idealism and Materialism; Sensationalism and
1 There is perhaps no definition of philosophy which better expresses its
practical intent than that which Kant gives as its Welibegriff: Philosophy
is the science which connects all knowledge with the essential aim of human
reason (teleologia rationis humance). K. d. r. V.. " Methodenlehre," 3.
11
154 PSYCHOLOGICAL PKINCTPLES.
Eationalism ; Determinism and Libertarianism. Until
comparatively lately, the interest in psychical facts rarely
extended farther than seemed required by such problems
as those concerning the nature of things, the criteria of
knowledge, and the grounds of moral responsibility. But
the world has now come to see that philosophers, as such,
make bad psychologists ; and also, for the matter of that,
mere psychologists bad philosophers : the one lacks the
scientific eye for facts generally, the other the speculator's
feeling for improving ideas. These considerations of method
are, however, in any case, enough to warrant the treat-
ment of psychological questions apart from all side-references
to the weightier matters of philosophy. Such a separation
has been amply justified by the results as regards the
physical sciences ; that is to say, these sciences have gained
immensely by it ; nor can the advance of philosophy be per-
manently retarded by the extension and systematisation of
special departments of empirical knowledge. In fact there
is much to be said though this is not the place to say it
in favour of the opinion that the chief business of philosophy
is with the assumptions involved in the methods and data
of the several sciences. 1 But if so, though philosophy and
science both give and take, yet philosophy must take before
she can give. At any rate, save for those who regard philo-
sophy as independent of experience and the human mind as
competent to evolve the world db initio by a process of pure
thought, it is an obvious advantage to start with knowledge,
or what purports to be knowledge, already in some measure
formulated and systematised. For this first elaboration of
its material, philosophy may be trusted to make a due return :
there is no reason to fear that the benefits of division of
labour will be less here than elsewhere. In the case of Psy-
chology, then, it is contended, that it is not called upon to
ascertain the validity of knowledge or to provide a theory of
the external world, or to discuss the existence of a substan-
tial Ego or the nature of the connexion between Matter and
Mind : these questions, if they are to be dealt with at all,
must be relegated to philosophy. There is a certain depart-
ment of experience, as we must be content to call it for the
present the facts of which either coexist together or succeed
each other in ways that are known in a more or less discon-
nected fashion by everybody : to give a clear, distinct, orderly
1 On this point there is an interesting paper, quite one of the signs of
the times, by E. Zeller : " Ueber die Aufgabe der Philosophic u. ihre
Stellung zu den iibrigen Wissenschaften," Zeller's Vortrcige, 2te Sammlung,
p. 445.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. 155
and complete account of these facts and relations is the
problem of Psychology as a science. Any discussion of the
bearing of this science upon the leading questions of philo-
sophy will be best deferred till its proper standpoint as a
science is determined.
In the several natural sciences the scope and subject-matter
of each is so evident that little preliminary discussion on this
score is called for. It is easy to distinguish the facts dealt
with in a treatise on Light from those that belong to one on
Sound; and even when the need arises to compare the results
of two such sciences as in the case, say, of Light and Elec-
tricity, there is still no difficulty ; apart, of course, from any
which the imperfect state of the sciences themselves may
occasion. Theoretically, a standpoint is attainable from
which this comparison can be made, in so far, say, as the
facts of both sciences can be expressed in terms of matter and
motion. But with Psychology, however much it is freed
from metaphysics, all this is different. It is indeed ordinarily
assumed that its subject-matter can be at once denned :
" It is what you can perceive by consciousness or reflection
or the internal sense," says one, ''just as the subject-matter
of Optics is what you can perceive by sight." Or, " Psycho-
logy is the science of the phenomena of mind," we are told
again, " and is thus marked off from the physical sciences
which treat only of the phenomena of matter ". But whereas
nothing is easier than to distinguish between seeing and
hearing, between the phenomena of heat and the phenomena
of gravitation, a very little reflection may convince us that
we cannot in this fashion distinguish internal from external
sense, or make clear to ourselves what we mean by pheno-
mena of mind as distinct from phenomena of matter.
Let us begin with the supposed differentia of Internal and
External : What are we to understand by an inner sense ?
The conception of a sense is in strictness rather physiological
than psychological; but waiving this for the present, we may
say that the psychical states directly consequent on the ex-
citation of a particular sense are independent of feeling and
volition, and liable to manifest themselves ex abrupto and out
of all regard or relation to the existing "contents of con-
sciousness ". They are, moreover, in every respect sui generis
as regards quality; so that no one sense can supply the
materials of another, and the possession of five senses fur-
nishes no data as to the character of a possible sixth. Now
such a description will apply but very partially to the so-called
internal sense. We can imagine consciousness without self-
consciousness, still more without introspection, much as we
156 PSYCHOLOGICAL PKINCIPLES.
can imagine sight without taste or smell : we suppose a
mouse can feel, but not that it reflects upon that fact. It
must indeed be granted that without self-consciousness some-
where there could be no science of any psychical life, whether
high or low ; just as without hearing there could be no music.
But this does not entitle us to speak of self-consciousness as
a sense, nor enable us with any exactness to characterise the
subject-matter of psychology. For without self-consciousness
there would be not only no psychology, but no "ology" of
any sort, inasmuch as self-consciousness is the first outcome
of that stage of mental and social development on which the
power to form and compare general conceptions depends,
and is itself more or less involved in any exercise of that
power. Thus we do not by means of it passively receive
impressions differing from all previous presentations, as the
sensations of colour for one couched differ from all he has
experienced before : the new facts consist rather in the
recognition of certain relations among pre-existing sensations,
i.e., are due to our mental activity and not to a special mode
of what Kant called our sensibility. For when I taste I
cannot hear that I taste, when I see I cannot smell that I
see ; but when I taste I may be conscious that I taste, when I
hear I may be conscious that I hear : in this way all the objects
of the external senses are recognised as having new relations
by the mis-called "internal sense". Moreover the facts so
ascertained are never independent of feeling and volition and
of the contents of consciousness at the time as true sensa-
tions are. But perhaps the most summary way of disposing
of the conception of an internal sense is to cite the evidence
of the mental pathologist : there is no more analogy between
self-consciousness and a sense than there is between blind-
ness or deafness and delirium, or what in popular language
is called "being beside yourself". Or if we consult the
physiologist we find there is no organ or " centre," and no
evidence of any such, that could be regarded as the "physical
basis" of this inner sense.
To the conception of an internal perception or observation
the preceding objections do not necessarily apply, that is to
say, this conception may be so defined that they need not.
But then in proportion as we escape the charge of assuming
a special sense which furnishes the material for such percep-
tion or observation, in that same proportion are we compelled
to seek for some other mode of distinguishing its subject-
matter. For, so far as the mere mental activity of perceiv-
ing or observing is concerned, it is not easy to see any essential
difference between this process whether the observations are
PSYCHOLOGICAL PBINCIPLES. 157
psychological or physical. It is quite true that the so-called
psychological observation is more difficult, because the facts
observed are often less definite and less persistent, and admit
less of actual isolation than physical facts do ; but the process
of recognising similarities or differences, the dangers of mal-
observation or non-observation are not materially altered on
that account. It may be further allowed that there is one
difficulty peculiarly felt in psychological observation, the one
most inaccurately expressed by saying that here the observer
and the observed are one. But this difficulty is surely in the
first instance due to the very obvious fact that our powers of
attention are limited ; so that we cannot alter the distribu-
tion of attention at any moment without altering the con-
tents of consciousness at that moment. Accordingly, where
there are no other ways of surmounting this difficulty, the
psychological observer must either trust to representations
at a later time; or he must acquire the power of taking
momentary glances at the psychological aspects of the phase
of consciousness in question. And this one with any aptitude
for such studies can do with so slight a diversion of attention
as not to disturb very seriously either the given state or that
which immediately succeeds it. But very similar difficulties
have to be similarly met by physical observers in certain
special cases, as, e.g., in observing and registering the pheno-
mena of solar eclipse ; and similar aptitudes in the distribution
of attention have to be acquired, say, by extempore orators
or skilful surgeons. Just so little, then, as there is anything
which we can with propriety call an inner sense, just as little
can we find in the process of inner perception any satisfac-
tory characteristic of the subject-matter of psychology. The
question still is, What is it that is perceived or observed?
and the readiest answer of course is : Internal experience
as distinguished from external, what takes place in the mind
as distinct from what takes place without.
This answer, it must be at once allowed, is adequate for
most purposes, and a great deal of excellent psychological
work has been done without ever calling it in question ; yet
the history of philosophy seems to show that much of the
confusion in modern theories of knowledge is due to this
unquestioning acceptance of the distinction of internal and
external experience by psychologists. It is then here con-
tended that however valid from certain points of view, and
when duly explained this distinction still is not one that can
be drawn from the standpoint of psychology, at least not at
the outset. From this standpoint it appears to be either (1)
inaccurate or (2) not extra-psychological. As to (1) the
158 PSYCHOLOGICAL PEINCIPLES.
boundary between the internal and the external was, no
doubt, originally the surface of the body, with which the
subject or self was identified: and in this sense, the terms
are of course correctly used. For a thing may, in the same
sense of the word, be "in" one space and therefore not in,
i.e., out of, another; but we express no intelligible relation if
we speak of two things as being one in a given room and the
other in last week. Anyone is at liberty to say if he choose
that a certain thing is "in his mind " ; but if in this way he
distinguishes it from something else not in his mind, then to
be intelligible this must imply one of two statements, viz.,
that the something is actually or possibly in some other
mind, or, his own mind being alone considered, that at the
time the something else does not exist at all. Yet, evident as
it seems that the correlatives in and not-in must both apply
to the same category, whether space, or time, or presentation
(or non-presentation) to a given subject, and so forth; we still
find psychologists more or less consciously confused between
" internal," meaning " presented" in the psychological sense,
and "external," meaning not "not-presented" but corporeal
or oftener extra-corporeal. But (2), when used to distinguish
between presentations, (some of which, or some relations of
which with respect to others, are called " internal," and
others or other relations, "external") these terms are at all
events accurate : only then they cease to mark off the psy-
chological from the extra-psychological, inasmuch as psycho-
logy has to analyse this distinction and to exhibit the steps
by which it has come about. On this ground objection may
be taken also to the negative differentia of inextension pro-
posed by Dr. Bain, as well as to Kant's doctrine that a
special kind of inextension, viz., time, is the form in which
psychical facts appear. As to Dr. Bain, he on second
thoughts rightly disposes of his own distinction. After
stating that "the department of the Object, or Object-World,
is exactly circumscribed by one property, Extension," and that
" the world of Subject-experience is devoid of this property,"
so that " all that comes within the sphere of the subject is
spoken of as the Unextended ; " he proceeds to say: "But,
as Object-experience is also in a sense mental, the only account of
Mind strictly admissible in scientific Psychology consists in
specifying three properties or functions . . . through which
all our experience, as well Objective as Subjective, is built
up". 1 The fact is, then, that this distinction too is made
from another than the psychological standpoint ; from that,
1 Mental Science, pp. 1 and 2.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PEINCIPLES. 159
viz., of a theory of Knowledge, as when Dr. Bain in opening
his work says : " Human Knowledge, Experience or Con-
sciousness falls under two great departments," &c. a state-
ment, by the way, which would surely have been clearer
both in itself and in relation to its context had the word
Consciousness been omitted. Similar remarks apply also to
Kant quite apart from any discussion of his theory of an
internal sense. It may be true that from the point of view
of a theory of Knowledge psychical facts as known are but a
flux of presentations, whereas physical facts as known are the
positions and motions of bodies attracting and repelling each
other according to mathematical laws ; but this does not
really help us to define psychology. For the facts of psycho-
logy and the facts of physics are, as known to somebody, both
alike facts of psychology, whatever else they may be. It is
not, however, worth while to discuss this point further at
this stage ; but we have still to examine whether the dis-
tinction of phenomena of Matter and phenomena of Mind
furnishes a better dividing line than the distinction of internal
and external.
The term Phenomenon has several meanings, or rather
several implications, of which now one, now another, is em-
phasised. Thus we have (1) what is manifest, patent,
evident : here the implications are that there are eyes to see,
ears to hear, &c., and still more, that all such can see, hear,
&c. ; those that do not are not normal : this the lexicons call
the objective meaning. Then we have what appears, as dis-
tinct from what is (fyaivbpevov as opposed to ov) ; and here
there are two implications, on either or both of which stress
may be laid : (2) on the subject side there may be error,
Schein, as the Germans say, in place of Erscheimmg ; or (3),
on the object side, what is to be seen or understood may be
related in some unknown way to an unrevealed and incom-
prehensible ens per se. We may call (1) the popular meaning,
(2) the sceptical, and (3) the philosophical. As popularly
used, then, Phenomenon is equivalent to "fact," " event,"
&c., but generally with the understanding that the fact or
event is of scientific interest. But, because of the flavour of
(2), and the more decided flavour of (3), that are apt to hang
about the term ; it is surely better for purely scientific writers
to make but sparing use of it, as indeed the more careful of
them do. Especially is this desirable in the case of psychology,
now that the Kantian use of " phenomenon" implies a view
of psychical facts which some may not be prepared at the
outset to accept, and which there is no need to anticipate. 1
1 Kef erring of course to the rdle of the Thing per se in the "JEsthetik,"
and especially to the theory of an inner sense.
160 PSYCHOLOGICAL PKINCIPLES.
Let us, however, retain for a moment the popular use of the
word, because its implications may serve to make clearer the
difficulty of distinguishing between the facts of psychology
and the facts of the so-called Object-sciences. The word
Phenomenon, as we have seen, implies presentation to a
subject, and wherever there is presentation to a subject it
will be allowed that we are in the domain of psychology.
But in talking of physical phenomena we, in a way, abstract
from this fact of presentation. Though consciousness should
cease, the physicist would consider the sum total of objects
to remain the same : the orange would still be round, yellow
and fragrant as before. For, the physicist whether aware of
it or not has taken up a position which for the present may
be described by saying that phenomenon with him means
appearance or manifestation, or as we had better say
object, not for a concrete individual but rather for what Kant
called Bewusstsein uberhaupt ; or as some render it, the objec-
tive consciousness ; i.e., for an imaginary subject freed from
all the limitations of actual subjects save that of depending
on ' ^sensibility" for the material of experience. However,
this is not all, for as we shall see presently, the psychologist
also occupies this position ; at least if he does not, his is not
a true science. But further, the physicist leaves out of sight
altogether the facts of attention, feeling and so forth, all which
actual presentation entails. From the psychological point
of view, on the other hand, the removal of the subject re-
moves not only all such facts as attention and feeling, but
all presentation or possibility of presentation whatever.
Surely, then, to call a certain object, when we abstract from
its presentation, a material phenomenon ; and to call the actual
presentation of this object a mental phenomenon, is a clumsy
and confusing way of representing the difference between the
two points of view. For the terms "material" and "men-
tal " seem to imply that the two so-called phenomena have
nothing in common, whereas the same object is involved in
both ; while the term "phenomenon" implies that the point
of view is in each case the same, when in truth what is em-
phasised by the one the other ignores. It appears, then, that
we are once more bound to conclude that Psychology cannot
be marked off from the other sciences by any method which
suffices to mark these off from each other. We shall see
this still more clearly, perhaps, if we reflect for a moment on
the current dualism of Mind and Matter, and we can do this
without any serious trespass on the metaphysical domain.
But probably it will be at once urged, Why meddle with
metaphysics at all, if psychology is really an empirical
PSYCHOLOGICAL PBINCIPLES. 161
science? For nobody takes up psychology in these days
without religiously disavowing all metaphysical assumptions ;
but then, it is to be feared these good people forget how
many such assumptions they are liable to be committed to
by common language. Hearing so often that philosophy is
the vocation of a select few, we little dream that our great-
grandmothers' philosophy is embodied in our mother-tongue.
No doubt it would be pedantic to quarrel with the ordinary
use of the terms Matter and Mind ; and there is no need to
maintain that ontology in any form is chimerical. But it is
surely within our province to inquire whether the conception
of Matter and Mind as two substances is not scientifically
obscure and one to be avoided. For the term substance is
not straightway applicable in the same sense both to mate-
rial and mental facts. When we speak of matter as a sub-
stance, the conception we form is due to certain relations
among presentations as given to us ; but when we speak of
psychical substance we mean the subject to whom these
presentations are given. And if we proceed to call our pre-
sentations modes or states of such a substance, we are sub-
suming a more general relation under one more special. The
presentation of an object to a subject is, it is maintained, a
fact co-extensive with our experience : whereas that relation
among presentations which has led us to the conception of
substance is but one among others. We cannot, then,
include the relation of subject and object in presentation
under the category of substance and mode without making
the induction that a conception which is appropriate to a
part of our experience is so to all. Such induction may turn
out true, but it is at least premature. The subject might be
rightly ranged under the category of Substance, even though
its objects are not its modifications ; but the point here urged
is that Mind as a name for Subject + Presentations ought
not at the outset to be brought under this category.
Paradoxical as it may appear, we must then conclude that
Psychology cannot be defined by reference to a special sub-
ject-matter as such concrete sciences, for example, as mine-
ralogy and botany are ; and, since it deals in some sort with
the whole of experience, it is obviously not an abstract
science, in any ordinary sense of that term. To be charac-
terised at all, therefore, apart from metaphysical assumptions,
it must be characterised by the standpoint from which this
experience is viewed. It is by way of expressing this that
widely different schools of psychology define it as subjective,
all other positive sciences being distinguished as objective.
But this seems scarcely more than a first approximation to
162 PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES.
the truth ; and, as we have seen incidentally, is apt to be
misleading. The distinction rather is that the standpoint
of psychology is what is sometimes termed " individualistic,"
that of the so-called object-sciences being " universalistic " :
both alike being objective in the sense of being true for all,
consisting of what Kant would call judgments of experience.
For psychology is not a biography in any sense : still less a
biography dealing with idiosyncrasies, and in an idiom
having an interest and a meaning for one subject only, and
incommunicable to any other. Yet, notwithstanding this
avowal, it would doubtless be thought by many a rash thing
in these days to maintain that the standpoint of psychology
is individualistic. Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, on the one
hand, Leibniz and the "Wolfians on the other, have, we are
taught, combined to bring individualism into discredit, and
its day is over. It is true that some of the best philosophical
writing we have had in England of late has been directed to
showing the shortcomings of these two lines of thought.
But perhaps the remark may be ventured that our English
neo-Kantians, as they are sometimes styled, scarcely take all
the pains they might to distinguish between psychology and
epistemology. The fault of Locke and Berkeley was that
they regarded the theory of knowledge as a psychological
problem, and set to work accordingly to study mind simply
for the sake of this problem, but none the less their stand-
point was the proper one for the science of psychology ; and
however surely their philosophy was foredoomed to a col-
lapse, there is no denying a steady psychological advance as
we pass from Locke to Hume and his modern representatives.
By "idea" Locke tells us he means "whatsoever is the
object of the understanding when a man thinks " (i.e., is
conscious), and having as it were shut himself within such
a circle of ideas he finds himself powerless to explain his
knowledge of a world that is independent of it, but he is able
to give a very good account of some of these ideas themselves.
He cannot justify his belief in the world of things whence
certain of his simple ideas " were conveyed " any more than
Robinson Crusoe could have explored the continents whose
products were drifted to his desert island, though he might
perhaps survey the island itself well enough. Berkeley
accordingly, as Prof. Eraser happily puts it, abolished Locke's
hypothetical outer circle. Thereby he made the psycho-
logical standpoint clearer than ever hence the truth of
Hume's remark, that Berkeley's arguments " admit of no
answer"; at the same time the epistemological problem
was as hopeless as before hence again the truth of Hume's
PSYCHOLOGICAL PEINCIPLES. 163
remark that those arguments "produced no conviction".
Of all the facts with which he deals, the psychologist may
truly say that their esse is percipi ; inasmuch as all his
facts are facts of presentation, are ideas in Locke's sense,
or objects which imply a subject. Before I became con-
scious there was no world for me ; should my consciousness
cease, the world for me ceases too : had I been born
blind, the world would for me have had no colour ; if
deaf, it would have had no sounds ; if idiotic, it would
have had no meaning. Psychology, then, never transcends
the limits of the individual : even the knowledge that
there is a real world, as common-sense assumes, is, when
psychologically regarded, an individual's knowledge, which
had a beginning and a growth, and can have an end. In
fact, for the psychologist it is not essentially knowledge,
but partly possible, partly actual, presentatioflirin the mind
of A, B, or C : just as this page is for the printer essentially
"copy," and only for the reader essentially "discourse". 1
But what the psychologist has to say about knowledge is, of
course, itself knowledge, i.e., assuming it to be correct ; the
knowledge about which he knows is however for him not
primarily knowledge, but " states of consciousness ". But now
though this Berkeleyan standpoint is the standpoint of psycho-
logy as we find it occupied, say, by J. S. Mill and Dr. Bain
psychology is not pledged to the method employed by
Berkeley and by Locke. Psychology may be individualistic
without being confined exclusively to the introspective
method. There is nothing to hinder the psychologist from
employing materials furnished by his observations of other
men, of infants, of the lower animals, or of the insane ; nothing
to hinder him taking counsel with the philologist or even the
physiologist, provided always he can show the psychological
bearings of these facts which are not directly psychological.
In some cases this is easy and certain, nay, almost instinctive;
in others it is difficult and problematic at the best. Nor again
are we bound, because we take the individualistic standpoint
as psychologists, to accept the philosophical conclusions that
have been reached from it ; unless, indeed, we hold that it is
the right point of view for philosophical speculation : a
psychologist may be an idealist in Berkeley's sense or in
1 Cf. Art. " Philosophy and Psychology," by the Editor, MIND XXIX.,
pp. 15, 16. This seems the most fitting place for the writer to state that
this paper was planned and in good part written before the appearance of
the Editor's article in the last number rendered much of it superfluous.
The Editor, however, wishes it to appear for the sake of other papers that
are to follow.
164 PSYCHOLOGICAL PBINCIPLES.
Fichte's, but he need not. He is just as free, if he see
reason, to call himself after Hamilton, a natural realist ; only
psychology will afford him no safe warrant for the realism
part of it. Once again the psychological standpoint shuts
out dualism, and indeed any form of ontology, and along
with them the representative theory of perception : these
too may be true, but from this point of view there is no
contrast or parallax possible which can give them a psycho-
logical basis.
It may perhaps serve to set this view of psychology in a
clearer light if the reader will allow a brief digression, in
which the attempt will be made to exhibit more explicitly
the epistemological standpoint as it is here conceived. In
the course of the development of that theoretical Individual
whom psychologists sometimes unconsciously assume in order
to avoid the difficulties besetting questions of heredity the
Individual, that is, who is taken to have existed continuously
from the dawn of psychical life there was a stage, not long
posterior to the acquisition of language, at which the expe-
rience of one individual, so far as this could take the form of
conceptions and find expression in words, became common
property. At this point a new conception became possible,
which we may call for the present, that of Mind in general,
or Mind with a capital M. The term is not a happy one,
neither is it accurate, but it is current, and some of the con-
fusion between psychology and philosophy is due to its
general use. This interchange of experience by means of
speech not only sharpens, as iron sharpeneth iron, but brings
into existence a higher kind of Experience, in which the
individual transcends the limitations of his own direct per-
ceptions. This " intersubjective intercourse" 1 reveals the
fact that certain uniformities of coexistence and sequence
among perceptions are generally or universally experienced.
There is no need to say : When A sees x he next hears y ; for
the like holds of B, C, D, . . . ; it is possible to say at once:
The lightning flash is followed by thunder. Once started upon
this track progress may be indefinite : ever new investigators,
ignoring the subjective interests of what they perceive, add to
the stock of common Experience. This higher Experience,
it need hardly be said, consists of conceptions, not of percep-
tions, which qua perceptions can only be subjective and
individual. It is so far independent of place, time and per-
son that it can be embodied in symbols and applied in the
comprehension of perceptions by any mind indifferently for
1 1 am indebted for this term to Dr. Duhring's Natiirliche Dialektik, s. 2.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PEINCIPLES. 165
whom the constituent symbols have a meaning. It is thus
at once Thought and Knowledge the product of combined
human activity and a clue or scheme, more or less accurate
and complete, of what was, is, or will be perceivable. When
so regarded the organisation of this joint product becomes
itself the object of investigation, and a new set of conceptions
emerges. It is found to have a certain general structure,
which we term logical : that is, it can be represented as
compounded of hierarchies of conceptions having " the
matchless beauty of the Eamean tree," and of judgments
expressing certain relations among these, and depending on
other judgments as their logical conditions. Such an analysis
leads to the detection of sundry conceptions as yet inchoate
or ill-assimilated, and sundry contingent judgments having
no logical warrant. It thus suggests an ideal of what a
system of knowledge might be, and it becomes possible to
give a formal outline of this ideal. But what of those out-
standing knowledges that have not yet been caught up into
the ideal ? For some a place in the general system is only a
question of their own more perfect elaboration ; but with
others there is a more serious difficulty. A place for them
can only be found at the expense of knowledges already
recognised as logical members of the ideal in course of con-
summation. Here is a new and hard problem : how are we
to decide between knowledge and knowledge ? But again,
even in the orthodox ideal, as at present realised which-
ever it is there are certain highest conceptions ; how are
these conceived ? and certain so-called principles, assumed
but not subsumed ; what warrant have they ? It is to meet
questions like these that there has arisen a theory of Know-
ledge. 1
This meagre outline may suffice to exhibit generally the
character of the subject-matter and methods of a scientific
epistemology. The subject-matter is this body of know-
ledges, and from a comparison of these the ideal of knowledge
is derived : the part played by mathematics in this respect
from Descartes onwards to Kant of course needs no mention.
The logically more coherent mass effects the disintegration
of the less coherent, and not contrariwise : Magna est veritas
et prcevalet. And the critical study of this epistemological
structure itself perhaps refutes, as it proceeds, some of the
1 There is indeed a very different question often associated with the
term, w&, Are things known as they are in themselves 1 To the question
as so stated no answer has been, or indeed ever will be given, for it is
nonsensical. Resolved into the rational form : Are things truly or really
known 1 it is but another aspect of the problems mentioned above.
166 PSYCHOLOGICAL PKINCIPLES,
hypotheses with which it began. Like Locke's " poor Indian
philosopher," for example, "who imagined that the earth
always wanted something to bear it up," the student of this
higher logic might set out with the notion that as axiomata
media were logically dependent, so Principles must either be
deduced or else have only a subjective guarantee. But he may
find there is a sort of gravitation in knowledge too, that what
seemed true of the parts is not true of the whole, that so far
as first principles are reached, the system is logically rounded
off by the ajraywyr) et? aSvvarov. 1 We sometimes hear talk
of the criteria of certainty, and certainty it must be admitted
is a purely psychological fact. But strictly speaking there is
no such thing as a criterion of certainty as distinct from a
criterion of truth or knowledge. The certainty with which
one man, or even all men, may assent to a proposition will
not justify the critical philosopher in accepting it as true ;
but, contrariwise, its truth will justify their certainty.
Though we have every reason to regard certainty as a valuable
preliminary guide to truth, it is not the ultimate criterion.
But it may be said : " There is at all events one case in
which certainty and truth are one and inseparable, viz., when
I turn my attention to what is passing in my own conscious-
ness and say, for example, I am now feeling cold, or perceive
that the fire is out. Of this testimony of consciousness I am
absolutely certain, and there can be no knowledge if this is
not true, and yet there is no evidence of this truth but my
certainty." Good, but so much of this as is " absolutely
certain " is not knowledge, but material for knowledge : so
much of it as can claim to be knowledge is not absolutely
certain. What is beyond doubt is the existence of your
presentation ; what is not, is your description, analysis or
classification of it. It is with such intellectual assimilation
that knowledge about this state of consciousness begins, and
at once a distinction is possible between the process psycho-
logically considered and logical methods for securing a correct
result between subjective perception and scientific observa-
tion.
Comparing Psychology and Epistemology, then, we may
say that the former is essentially genetic in its method, and
might, if we had the power to revise our existing termino-
1 " Principieii konnen als solcbe nicht genetiscb entwickelt werden ;
denn sonst waren sie keine Principieii und batten vielmehr einen fremden
Anfang. Sie sind daher nur durch einen Erkenntnissgrund im Gegensatze
des Sachgrundes darzuthun. Alle blosse Erkenntnissgriinde laufen auf
einen indirekten Beweis binaus." Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuclmngen,
1862, ii, 406.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PBINCIPLES. 167
logy, be called Biology ; the latter, on the other hand, is
essentially devoid of everything historical, and treats, sub
specie cetemitatis, as Spinoza might have said, of Human
Knowledge, conceived as the possession of Mind in general.
The principles of psychology are part of the material, the
logical worth and position of which a theory of knowledge
has to assign ; but they are not, neither do they furnish, the
critical canons by which knowledge is to be tested. Yet in
three several ways epistemology has been supposed to depend
upon psychology, in so far, viz., as psychology might explain
the origin of knowledge, the process of knowing, or the limits
of the knowable. But it can answer none of these questions
in the way required. To ask them at all betrays serious
misconception as to the nature of psychology. (1) Even
assuming that certain forms or facts of knowledge are what
they are, not because our experience has been what it has ;
but because before all experience our nature was so pre-
formed ; still, for aught we could see to the contrary, these
innate elements might like some bias in the blood to which
indeed Descartes compared them have required the correc-
tive medicine of experience. Nay, it is hardly too much to say
that at any given stage of development this is what happens :
experientia docet. Psychological innateness has then no neces-
sary connexion with logical priority except for a philosophy
that confounds knowing and thinking. (2) Again, the process
of knowing throws no light on the "reality" of knowledge.
There have been those who regarded psychology as a species
of mental chemistry ; but if it is, it can never resolve a per-
ception into a ternary compound of elements contributed
partly by the external reality, partly by a sensory medium,
partly by the mind. It can show under what circumstances
a given individual will come to regard this or that as con-
ceivable or inconceivable, and be subjectively certain that
his conceptions tally with things : how it was, for example,
that the old Chaldsean was just as sure of his astrology as
some modern Laplace of his astronomy ; but it can contribute
nothing towards the decision in an imaginary dispute between
them. All that psychology can tell us only concerns the rela-
tion of a given concept a or 5 to other concepts in the mind of M
or N, and the intellectual feelings that accompany any judg-
ments they make concerning these concepts ; but the question
in epistemology is not what will M or N predicate of x or y,
but what ought he to predicate, or rather what ought to be
predicated. (3) Finally it is, no doubt, as Locke says,
" useful to know the extent of our comprehension" ; but can
we by " an inquiry into the nature of the understanding,"
168 PSYCHOLOGICAL PBINCIPLES.
which is to reveal "the utmost extent of its tether," ascertain
the limits of human knowledge ? May we not say of such
an attempt what Locke himself said of the attempt to ima-
gine infinity : it is like trying " to adjust a standing measure
to a growing bulk"? Psychology can tell us what senses
we have and what is the sensibility of each, but it cannot
even then say how far their deficiencies may be met by
other means : had Locke lived to-day he would hardly, for
example, have maintained as sweepingly as he did, that all
connexion between secondary and primary qualities is undis-
coverable. Psychology may tell us perhaps what are the
limitations of consciousness from moment to moment (" die
Enge des Bewusstseins," as the Herbartians say) ; it may
even ascertain statistically the stock of ideas an average
mind will hold, but it can fix no limit to the logical extension
or intension of such ideas, to the facilities afforded by sym-
bols for their readier command, or to the amount of simpli-
fication or explanation of which they admit. One factor
among many upon which depends the rate of growth of
knowledge is this "extent of our comprehension"; just as
the rate at which we should bale out the Atlantic would
depend in part on the size of our buckets. But what actually
limits knowledge at any one time is definite ignorance, and
whenever such ignorance has been removed it has been not
by any extension of the psychological tether, but by the
methodical application of existing knowledge by means of
experiment, criticism, hypothesis and verification, to the
obstructing ignotum. So far knowledge has contained the
means of its own advance, and mere psychology cannot tell
us whether this is to hold always or must cease at some
point, while there remain possibilities of knowledge still
beyond.
Psychology seems in fact far more intimately related to
Metaphysics, that is to say to theories about Being and
Becoming, than to theories of Knowledge. Its connexion
with the latter, as terms like Sensationalism and Rationalism
show, has been due to confusions such as we have been
just discussing. But between monistic or monadistic theories
of the Universe, whether idealistic or realistic, and the
dualism of ordinary common-sense, if a decision is possible
at all it is, at all events, not possible without taking account
of psychology. The natural outcome of speculation from the
psychological standpoint is idealism, while from the stand-
point of the physical sciences materialistic speculations are
an equally natural result. In everyday life our practical
interests lead us to occupy now the one point of view and
PSYCHOLOGICAL PEINCIPLES. 169
now the other with no concern about their general relations.
In some cases facts of mind appear to have no correlatives
or equivalents in facts of body and vice versa ; in others the
relation is so intimate and familiar that we talk indifferently
of mind and head, heart and feelings, keen sight and keen
eyes, skill and cunning, or dexterity and handiness. Hence
the dualism of Mind and Matter and the conception of man
as a melange of both with which modern speculation begins.
Since the time of Descartes our knowledge of particular
facts connecting these two " aspects," as it is now the fashion
to call them, has enormously increased. Evidence is
advanced for an automatism more thoroughgoing than any
of which Descartes dreamed. Man, the paragon of animals,
is held to have been evolved from some structureless pro-
tozoon, mind and organism advancing step by step together.
The manifold forms of reflex action, and the ingenious adapta-
tions of structure found not only in animals but even in
plants, seem to imply something psychical where there is
else no evidence of it. Small wonder, then, that we hear of
physiologists and psychologists who say : We have found
our several phenomena exactly related yet differing indeed,
but differing only as the concave differs from the convex. 1
The wonder is the less when we are told that modern
physics has made for ever clear the impossibility of an
interaction between mind and matter. Even Descartes and
Locke sometimes allowed themselves to talk of an influxus
pliysicus. But now it is said, we are shut up to some form of
occasionalism unless we resolve this " mystery of mysteries,"
as Hamilton termed it, by the assumption of a psycho-physical
monism. Whatever be the philosophical value of such a doc-
trine, it is manifestly desirable, at a time when other sciences
are perplexed between the teleological and the mechanical, for
psychology to be, so to say, as psychological as it can. When
the relations of two sciences are in question, it is indispens-
able that the position and conceptions of each should be
clear of all confusion. And whatever be the final outcome,
it is contended that the treatment of Psychology which is
known as that of subjective idealism is most likely to prove
logically coherent, and is that which will best subserve the
co-ordination of psychical facts with physical, when the time
comes to attempt this in a scientific way.
JAMES WAKD.
1 This favourite simile of Fechner and Lewes is, as was pointed out to
me by Professor Geddes, really due to Aristotle (Eth. Nic. L, xiii., 10).
12
n. REACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE
HYPNOTIC STATE.
IN the autumn of 1881, a series of public exhibitions was
given in Boston by an itinerant "mesmeriser " who was
attended from city to city by a remarkable hypnotic subject
whom we will designate as A. B. He was about 30 years
of age, an extreme blonde, with narrow and retreating chin
and protuberant brows, a cabinetmaker by trade, of fair
intelligence and physical development, the head of a small
family, and, he said, prone to sleep-walking from boyhood.
Physicians and others elsewhere by whom he had been
manipulated, had directed their attention almost solely to
the determination or demonstration of the reality of his
abnormal state, and had repeatedly used to this end such
drastic tests as in the normal state cause considerable pain.
Pistols had been discharged near his ear, sharp instruments
thrust into his body, caustic substances- applied to the sensi-
tive parts of the mouth and nostrils, and strong electric
shocks given through various parts of his body, so that it
was with difficulty and only by promising to abstain from
everything painful and unpleasant, by allowing him to bring
a friend to watch me, and by a small pecuniary compensa-
tion, that he was induced to visit the laboratory at appointed
intervals.
Dr. James Braid, as is well known, explained most of the
phenomena to which he gave the name of hypnotism as
due, not to odic or mesmeric or vital force or to any in-
fluence which came from without or passed beyond the
limits of the human body, but only to an unusual degree of
" concentration of Attention " variously directed by sug-
gestions of many kinds. Although confessedly not a psy-
chologist, he believed he had succeeded in showing that
nothing transcendent but only subjective phenomena were
involved, and quotes approvingly a statement describing his
work in this field as a study of the " pathology of attention ".
The important researches of Heidenhairi in Germany,
though perhaps fortunately conducted without full under-
standing of Braid's results, and though fruitful and sug-
gestive in the highest degree, were not long continued after
Burger demonstrated that all his effects upon hypnotic
subjects might be produced by suggestion without any
REACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE. 171
material stimuli 1 or physical contact. Although G-. Schneider
has distinctly asserted that the psychological cause of hyp-
notism must be found in attention, Dr. Gr. M. Beard of New
York has urged this theory more radically and consistently
than any one since Braid, in 1877 and in a number of publi-
cations since. On the other hand, the opinion has been ex-
pressed in nearly all of the many recent studies of Keaction-
time or the Personal Equation, that the most effective way of
reducing this was by a strong concentration of attention upon
the expected stimulus and the intended- reaction. Although
fatigue, practice, and strength of the stimulus are co-factors
in determining reaction-time, it is thought that by opening
certain nerve-tracts or by preparatory innervation of the
reacting muscles, the attention acts as a special agent .in
this acceleration. 2 Thus it had long seemed desirable to
submit the hypnotic to the test of the physiological theory
of attention. To this end the first object with A. B. was
to determine the simple reaction-times in the normal and
in the abnormal state respectively.
For this purpose the following arrangement of apparatus
was found serviceable. The primary electric current was
made to pass through a Halske hammer in such a way as
to be interrupted whenever the finger of the operator broke
the contact with the platinum-point of the screw, by pressing
down the spring which held the lever against it. The
breaking of this primary circuit released a steel rod vib-
rating 107 times per second, which had been drawn and
held in a slightly bent position by a magnet in the same
circuit, and at the same instant gave a distinct shock to
the left forefinger of the hypnotic subject through a second-
ary or alternative circuit ( Nebenschliessung ) . He was directed
to press the lever of a relay key with his right forefinger
(which closed the primary current and arrested the vibration
of the rod by drawing it firmly to the magnet again), as soon
as possible after feeling the shock in the left forefinger, having
been placed in another room that he might not hear the
click of the operator's key and react from a quicker perceived
auditory impression. Thus the time during which the rod
was vibrating would represent the reaction-time desired. To
record these vibrations a tinsel pen was fastened to the end
of the rod and allowed to play upon the surface of a hori-
1 See Note entitled " Kecent German Eesearches on Hypnotism," by the
writer (MiND XXI. 98), for digest and literature of these researches up to
the date of writing.
2 Cf. inter alia, Wundt, Grundz. der Physiol Psychologie, 2te Aufl. ii. 226,
and Hermann, Handb. der Physiologie, ii. 286, &c.
172 KEACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE.
zontal Marey drum covered with smoked glazed paper, the
magnet and vibrating rod being supported on a Marey screw
sledge apparatus, and this moved slowly from one end of
the drum to the other by a band connecting wheels on the
axes of the drum and the screw of the sledge respectively.
Thus it was possible to record 40 or 50 reactions without
stopping the apparatus.
After the first series of reactions in the normal state had
been taken, and a few minutes allowed for rest, it was with
some anxiety that I saw the attendant make the necessary
"passes" and seat A. B. again before the apparatus. Pre-
vious subjects had not been able to hold their attention to
the work of making the reactions, or failed to comprehend
what was wanted, or passed from the abnormal state into a
state closely resembling sleep, and soon ceased to react at
all. A. B., however, after a time, not only reacted to every
stimulus in a series of from 40 to 50, but pressed down the
key with the right forefinger with increasing energy till
towards the end of the series this movement became pro-
longed, violent and almost crampy, the reaction-time, how-
ever, not differing essentially from the first to the last part
of the series. After he was roused, 15 minutes were allowed
for rest before a final series of reactions in the normal state
was made. The following table presents the average reac-
tion-time for three observations made on successive weeks
and recorded in vibrations of a rod swinging, as was above
stated, 107 times per second :
TABLE I.
NORMAL
REACTION-TIME.
ABNORMAL
REACTION-TIME.
NORMAL
REACTION-TIME.
Number
of
reactions.
Average
reaction-
jime in vi-
brations.
Number
of
reactions.
Average
reaction-
time in vi-
brations.
Number
of
reactions.
Average
reaction-
;ime in vi-
brations.
Average
time of the
two normal
series.
Number
of the
series of
observations.
31-0
32-3
50-0
20-7
39-0
42-0
37-1
I.
22-0
44-2
49-0
18-3
35-0
391
41-6
II.
36-0
29-0
49-0
231
28-0
31-0
30-0
III.
35-1
20-7
37-3
0-328
0-193
0-348
Average time in the three
series in seconds.
From this table it appears that the reaction-time, though
reduced in the abnormal state from 33 to 19 hundredths of
BE ACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE. 173
a second, is by no means extremely small. With scientific
men who have measured their reaction-time from hand to
hand in a similar way, the results vary from 108 to 191
thousandths of a second. 1 But for one presumably not
practised either in such reactions or in fixing the attention
very long or sharply the result is noteworthy.
Scarcely less so is the following table of average errors, in
which all those reaction-times in excess of the average
reaction-time are themselves averaged in the plus column,
and those less than the average reaction-time are averaged
in the minus column, no account being taken of those few
cases in which the time of a single reaction chanced to
coincide with the average time of the entire series :
TABLE II.
NORMAL.
ABNORMAL.
NORMAL.
No. of the
series of
observations.
Cf. Table I.
8-7
8-5
9-8
3-2
15-5
7-6
I.
18-5
14-8
3-5
3-4
9-6
11-7
II.
7-1
7-6
12-0
3-8
5-5
5-2
III.
The most obvious result from this table is the very slight
variation of the minus average error, amounting to but "032
of a second, and indicating an approximation to a limit or
minimal value not apparent in the reaction of the normal
state. In the abnormal state the reaction-times are much
more uniform than in the normal state, and the reactions in
excess of the average time are few, and their excess corres-
pondingly great, while in three or four individual reactions
the time is reduced almost to one tenth of a second. In the
second observation, when the sleep seemed soundest and the
reaction-time was least, the average error in excess was also
very small, suggesting the possibility that the few slow
reactions which so increased the average reaction-time in
the first and especially the third observation were due to
ineffective tendencies to awake. 329 reactions, however, are
too few to base any conclusive inferences upon, and at this
point our subject and his "mesmeriser " whom he attended
went to a distant city, and no suitable subject has yet been
found on which to continue our observations.
1 See Hermann's Handbuch der Physiologie, ii. 263.
174 EE ACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE.
Along with these observations another series of studies of
simple Association-time, suggested by the methods of Galton 1
and Wundt, 2 was begun upon A. B. and another hypnotic
subject. Lists of familiar monosyllabic words were carefully
prepared beforehand in perpendicular columns on long strips
of paper. When the hypnotiser pronounced a word in this
list, the hypnotised subject was directed to think as quickly
as possible of any other word suggested by it, and pronounce
it while an observer recorded as nearly as possible upon the
revolving drum the instant when the hypnotiser's word and
the subject's response respectively were heard, that the
"association-time" might afterwards be measured by sub-
tracting from the total interval the time occupied in reacting
upon the simple apprehension of the hypnotiser's word. In
these experiments it has been assumed that the first word
suggested to the subject's mind by the word thus sprung in
upon his consciousness will lie along the track of easiest,
quickest, or most automatic association, which track would
be left for less frequented lines, somewhat in proportion to
the time taken for deliberation or for choosing between
several words simultaneously suggested by the " call-word ".
Indeed Galton intimates that his method lays bare the
habitual ruts of thought in a way which exposes mental
character to an often embarrassing extent. In the way
above described, and by having one long familiar with the
subject to control him, as far as it was possible to be
done for this purpose, A. B. was caused to react on 40
words in the normal, and then on as many more in the
abnormal state, reversing this order (i.e., pronouncing to the
subject in the normal the same list of words that had before
been given in the abnormal state and vice versa), at the next
sitting, three or four days later, and numbering each word
and series on the revolving drum in correspondence with the
order of words in the lists, so as later to connect with each
reaction its time.
The list comprised about 340 words, yet the simple obser-
vations, though more numerous than those of either Wundt
or Galton, seem to the writer far too few to warrant any
definite inferences as to the question chiefly contemplated at
the outset, viz., What are the laws or categories, and what
is the time of the various kinds of association in the normal
and abnormal states respectively. Another negative result
was that, except in time, no greater difference appeared
between two successive reactions from the same list of words
1 Brain, July, 1879, p. 149, et seq.
2 Dr. M. Trautscholdt, in Wundt's Philosophische Studien, i. 2. s. 229.
EEACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE. 175
whether the subject was in the same state during both series
or in the normal state during one series and in the abnormal
state during the other. An exception to this generalisation,
however, may be noted in the case of a third finical subject
who affected latinisms in the normal state, responding, e.g.,
to the series 'saw,' 'drive,' 'file,' 'church,' 'pew,' by 'divide,'
* advance,' 'wear away,' 'clergyman,' 'occupant,' respectively
when normal, and by 'board,' 'go,' 'nail,' 'pew,' 'sit,' when
hypnotised. In both states in all subjects a strong tendency
was noted, amounting to at least 24 per cent, of the whole
number of reactions, to follow the sentence-order in asso-
ciating words. ' Sit,' e.g., was responded to by ' down,' 'eat '
by 'enough,' 'late' by 'come,' 'rail' by 'road,' 'lag' by
'behind,' 'paint' by 'brush,' 'kill' by 'don't,' 'sleep' by
' sound,' &c. Next in frequency, both in the normal and
in the abnormal series amounting, as approximately as
such classification could be made, to 14 per cent, of all
were what may be called the associations of common
life: e.g., ' speak ' 'read,' 'hot' 'cup,' 'toe' 'foot,' 'sleep'
' bed,' ' write ' ' pen,' ' sun ' ' moon,' ' dine ' ' supper,' ' fat '
* tallow,' &c. Another category of some 8 per cent, is allite-
rative or rhythmic : e.g., 'slice' 'lice,' 'rage' 'range,' 'gape'
'gob,' 'dough' 'door,' 'scrap' 'strap,' 'just' 'joint,' &c.
These seemed to predominate slightly in the abnormal state.
This latter state, however, presented some unlooked-for
peculiarities. Nearly 5 per cent, of the words given in the
abnormal state elicited no response whatever, the subject
apparently not hearing them, though they were spoken dis-
tinctly and near his ear. These words 'sit,' 'wish,' 'tie,'
'tell,' 'right,' 'hate,' 'skin,' 'throw,' 'thick,' present no
obvious difficulties, and were responded to readily enough
in the normal state, as indeed were some of them which
chanced to be repeated in a subsequent abnormal state.
Again, 2 per cent, of the words in the abnormal state were
simply repeated, as naively as though that were what was
required, although this was not once observed in the normal
state. A tendency was also observable to repeat a respon-
sive word several times in a series of reactions, whenever it
would fit, and in the case of one subject when it was quite
inappropriate. In a series of 23 words, e.g., 'change,' 'break,'
'run,' 'hold,' 'speak,' were all responded to by fast\ In a
series of 18 words, 'wife,' 'drink,' 'lug,' and 'lick' were all
responded to by 'up*. The second subject responded to
'pound,' 'bite,' 'toil,' 'kick,' 'stick,' 'send,' and 'our' alike
by 'hard' these words occurring within a series of 26 words.
Again, 'stoop,' 'rest,' 'low,' 'verb,' 'fault,' 'hatch,' were all
176 EE ACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE.
responded to by 'high'. Occasionally no coherence what-
ever between the call-word, and the response was ap-
parent in the abnormal state e.g., 'Alps' 'me,' 'art' 'you,'
'glass' 'boot,' &c. Not unfrequently the articulation was
imperfect, and the abnormal reactions were so quick that
sometimes the latter part of the word was not heard. ' Sword/
e.g., was understood 'sew,' and the response was 'needle';
'ripe' was heard as 'rye,' and the response was 'wheat';
'like' was heard as 'light,' and the response was 'dark'.
When several words are pronounced alike, or when one
word has several connotations, the tendency was observed
in both states to prefer the more material or sensuous mean-
ing except when this tendency was overruled by the influence
of analogy with other words near it in the series. When,
e.g., the preceding word was ' post,' ' not ' was apperceived
as 'knot,' as appears from the reaction 'pine,' but when
'will' had just preceded, 'knot' was taken as 'not,' and the
reaction was 'why'. The words 'lie' and 'kill,' happening
to come near the end of one abnormal series, seemed to
excite A. B. as if they caused dreams of scenes in which he
was concerned with actions represented by these words.
Finally, it may be mentioned that in all the word-reactions,
as in all the simple reactions, the reaction-time was shorter
and more uniform in the abnormal than in the normal states.
In discussing these results, it seems first that fresh ground
is gained for confidence in only those methods which enable
all phenomena of this class to be studied without taking the
character of the subject into account. It is true that no one
can define the field for possible conscious imposition and
fraud with absolute certainty, but on the other hand the
best men are very easily deceived, and when the experience
to be interpreted or narrated presents anything unusual, the
strongest subjective conviction is anything but scientific.
When, as in the Breslau researches, the axes of the two
eyes are made to diverge, one to roll up and the other down ;
when all the complex phenomena of colour-blindness tested
by the subtlest methods are consistently produced in one
eye, the other remaining normal ; when a normal eye suffers
an accommodation-cramp so intense as to read very fine
print at a distance of an inch from the anterior surface of
the cornea ; when ignorant working-men write backwards or
pronounce long sentences which are repeated to them in a
foreign language ; and when the sense of dizziness from
whirling about seems mainly abolished, 1 the reality of an
1 See Dr. Beard's letter in an article on "The Sense of Dizziness in Deaf-
mutes," by Prof. W. James, Amer. Journal of Otology, iv. (Oct., 1882), 15.
HE ACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE. 177
abnormal state of some kind cannot be disputed. So, too,
when A. B. can and does reduce his reaction-time as in Table I.
at the first sitting, and can gaze at a large sunny window with
dilated pupils for 13 minutes without winking, and produce
the other self-consistent and uniform results given above, we
consider the test of the reality of an abnormal state of some
kind to be better than the unflinching endurance of torture
which we know to be possible with a strong will, or even
than the testimony of the best men or the most respectable
citizens.
The general phenomena of Attention are familiar to all
both subjectively and in its more common physical effects.
It is well known that the reproduction of anything similar
to an expected object facilitates our perception of it, as in
the oft-mentioned facts that we recognise a new word quicker
if told what language it is in, or a very dimly remembered
face if told where we have met it before. Expectation de-
velops many and often unsuspected aids in apprehension,
while the new or unexpected always meets more or less
opposition or delay in reaching consciousness. Since the
suggestive dissertation of Herbart 1 in 1822, attention has
come to play a very important role with psychologists, with
whom it has had much to do in undermining the theory of
faculties, until, as is known, with Wundt it may be called
the central psychic category. Though not, as several writers
have lately asserted, entirely identical with apperception,
which Steinthal and Lazarus make no less central in folk-
psychology, it has many elements in common with it. Thus
in the literature of philology and physiology, as well as in
insanity, popular delusions, and education, it has come to
occupy an important place. Dr. G. Buccola has lately
shown 2 that cultured people react more quickly than the un-
cultured, and that the personal equation of idiots and the
insane (who can rarely be hypnotised) is greatly prolonged.
This latter he thinks due to distraction or defective power of
voluntary attention, and he believes that only men of more or
less mental power can be hypnotised. Dr. Beard, 3 who has
1 De Attention/it mensura causisque primariis, in Werke, vii. 75.
2 " La durata del discernimento e della determinazione volitiva," in
Eivista di Filos. scientif., i., 2, p. 19.
3 See Nature and Phenomena of Trance, by G. M. Beard, M.D. (G. P.
Putnam's Sons, N.Y.) On p. 31 is a list of the author's many publications
on this subject. See also Muscle- Reading by same author, 1882. For fur-
ther notices of the more important literature on this subject see Appendix
to Prof. Ch. Baumler's Der sogenannte animalische Magnetismus oder Hypno-
tismus, Leipzig, 1881. Also a still fuller list in G. P. Mobius, Ueber den
Hypnotismus, Leipzig, 1881.
178 REACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE.
distinguished very clearly between the positive and negative
field of hypnotic attention, compares common consciousness
to a large chandelier with all its jets lighted, but burning
dimly, while inducing the hypnotic state is like turning off
all the jets but one, which burns all the more brightly. If
these general views be correct, no one can deny its great
importance for all departments of psycho-physics and educa-
tion ; for if psychic processes, or any considerable number of
them, be reactions " delayed only for compounding," it sug-
gests no less a problem than that of a virtual prolongation
of human life, so far as it is made up of these reactions.
Upon the Attention-hypothesis a great number of neural
disorders are seen to be only exaggerations of states familiar
to every normal mind, and we are enabled to throw over-
board at once a formidable array of names and hypotheses
which have long obscured and discredited facts of this order,
while the field of experimental psychology is opened up still
wider to those who have learned to respect and apply its
methods, with no necessity for neurological science to "begin
over again," as Claude Bernard is reported to have sadly
feared during his last days on hearing of the first of the
recent German studies of hypnotism.
The observations made on A. B.. certainly do not favour
the conjecture of Bain that " action from within is sus-
pended " in this state, nor the theory of Dr. Hammond of
New York, that the function of the cortex is " eliminated ".
It is true we cannot make even such approximate estimates
as Exner assumes of the time of conducting impressions and
impulses in the spinal cord ; x but, making the most liberal
allowance for spinal as well as for peripheral time, we
find on record some 18 hundredths of a second in the normal
and 10 in the abnormal state remaining as central or reduced
brain-time, concerning the partitions of which, between the
basal ganglion and the cortex, we have extremely few data
for inference. The fact that, with certain subjects, stimuli,
if sudden or monotonous, like abnormally long fixation,
instead of causing irradiations of excitation in the nervous
centres, according to Pfliiger's law, or otherwise, are not
diffused but accumulated and intensified, causing, e.g., as in
Charcot's subjects, muscular contractions to become per-
manent, and producing sometimes circumscribed tonic
rigidity, naturally suggests that the normal power of resist-
ance in certain vase-motor centres controlling the blood-
1 As is shown in Du Bois Keymond's Archiv, 1879, " Ueber die Abhang-
igkeit der Reactionszeiten vom Ort des Reizes," by J. v. Kries and G.
Stanley Hall.
EE ACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE. 179
supply of the brain is impaired, allowing increased vascu-
larity, brain-blushing, or local erethism, which may also be
assumed in explaining what athletes call getting the second
breath, the blood being proportionately diminished in other
parts of the brain. On this hypothesis an hypnotic subject
would be one with an irritable habit of excessive action in
these centres. Kosenthal's observation 1 that nitrate of amyl
arrests hypnotism, is not inconsistent with this hypothesis,
which on the whole is more favourable to the theory of
restricted diffusion of stimulus within the highly vascular
centre than to the automatist's view that only lower centres
are active in the hypnotic state.
Behind the circulatory is of course always the molecular
aspect of the cerebral changes, which Tamburini thinks
should be chiefly regarded in judging the various degrees of
this state from gaze to coma. Except Wundt's inference
from his studies of reflex action, that the excitatory is pre-
ceded by an inhibitory stage of cell-action, and the fact that
the vigour of cell-action, and perhaps the evolution of heat,
does not coincide with the increase of blood-supply, very
little is known here. In the dread of admitting the study
of psychoses into physiology, we may speak of the "lability"
of passion and irrepressible volition, or of the erethism of
temper and that too with real and increasing advantage;
but in the study of our central question, viz., what were all
the causes which enabled our subject to reduce his reaction-
time from 18 to 10 hundredths of a second, it simply shows
lack of intelligence to ignore the psychological or subjective
side of the problem.
From this side science, and indeed apperceptive as distinct
from associative thought in general, may be described as the
power of correlating and intensifying certain impressions by
dichotomising and crowding off irrelevancies. Yet if certain
large tracts of thought are sunk in forgetfulness or torpid
indifference, others are apt to be uncritically over-estimated
or morbidly dwelt upon often up to the point of illusion. If
the sphere of ideas is unnaturally restricted or morbidly
contracted, selfishness and egoism or mono-ideism, often
deepening into positive insanity, are liable to result. Certain
concentrative kinds of mental alienation and our age of
specialities seems particularly to favour forms of monomania
coexist with permanent or transient species of inhibition
of normal motor reactions or various degrees of anaesthesia.
The depth of sleep and abstraction may be measured by the
1 See Centralblatt fur Nervenheilkunde, 1882, p. 89.
180 EE ACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE.
intensity of the sensuous stimulus required to arouse us
from them, and when a department of the various stimuli
which, as they crowd in along all the sensory nerves, keep
the various psychic elements awake, ceases to affect con-
sciousness, its equilibrium is disturbed, and illusions are
unrepressed. Anxiety in " labile " dispositions is apt to
sharpen into localised pain. If we concentrate attention
upon an image at the centre of the field of vision, its peri-
pheral tracts seem to grow dark, as indeed does the centre
itself with some observers, when the attention is fixed on a
point in indirect vision. When A. B. was directed from the
work of reaction to another entirely different subject by the
operator, flushing, palpitation, and powerful psychic excite-
ment were caused ; he must always be roused into the
normal state and again hypnotised before impressions of a
new genus were given, as indeed was generally the practice
with the exhibitor whom he attended, while within the
limits of that genus great mobility of attention was common.
All these facts and more or less current conceptions are in the
general line of the hypothesis of a tonic cramp of the atten-
tion. So, too, are common curative and prophylactic mea-
sures, e.g., preoccupation, interest and exercise for the idle,
the same and music for the insane, rubbing a sore spot on
the skin to dissipate the painful irritation, blowing in the
face or a sharp tap upon a part of the body not concerned
in the action, as a means of rousing from the hypnotic state,
&c. Possibly, too, the case of another hypnotic subject who
was able to bring down his reaction to 27 hundredths of a
second in the normal, and only to 54 in the abnormal state,
may be accounted for by assuming that the work of reacting
could not with him be brought out of the negative field into
the focus of attention. Five abnormal reactions of this
second subject were excluded because delayed over an entire
second. The attention of this subject appeared to be too
concentrated on the person of the hypnotiser to fully com-
prehend the action desired.
But while the attention-theory has much explanatory
power, and may enable us to regard many abnormalities and
neural disorders as only exaggerations of states familiar to
every normal mind, and while it enhances our conception of
the power of the mind over the body, it is time to remember
that there is yet much obscurity and confusion and great inade-
quacy about it. Shall we say that the hypnotised animals of
Kircher, Czermak, and Preyer were suffering not from fear but
from an abnormal concentration of attention in which animals
have been thought to be deficient ? Do hibernating animals
EE ACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE. 181
and the fakirs, who present phenomena which Braid and
others since have regarded as belonging to the same category,
simply hypnotise themselves, and do the East Indian ecsta-
tics, and even hibernating animals, fixate their navel in
passing into trance only because it is at a convenient dis-
tance for easy accommodation, and because they have not
one of Heidenhain's buttons at hand ? In cataleptic states,
as has been lately shown by Kieger, 1 contractile energy is
more evenly distributed between flexor and extensor muscles
than in ordinary motion, antagonistic muscles being stimu-
lated at the same time. Again, how shall we explain the
imitative diseases which Hecker has described as psychic
pests, and which present so many elements in common with
hypnotism ? It has been said that not only another's yawn,
but even opening a pair of tongs will cause yawning, while
if we bethink ourselves this stimulus is ineffective. When
the hypnotic subject pronounces long foreign sentences cor-
rectly after his controller, &c., is the attention turned on, or
is the action purely automatic and unconscious ; and does
hypnotic colour-blindness fall within the positive or negative
field of attention? When, e.g., a hand is made insensitive
to pain, is it due to abnormally intense inhibition of sensa-
tion or motion by consciousness, or is it better conceived as
an entire detachment and vagrancy of attention from con-
sciousness, of which it is commonly conceived only as a
concentration. Does life cultivate the mind only in spots or
nodes, and are these so imperfectly bound together by associa-
tive and apperceptive processes that special stress upon one
of them causes it to isolate itself still more till the power of
self-direction is lost, and devolution and disintegration slowly
supervene ? Ablation of the cerebral hemispheres, as is well
known, makes some animals hypersensitive reflex machines,
as are some hypnotics, but surely this must destroy any
rudimentary power of attention the animal may possess.
Consciousness seems to be of many degrees, and total un-
consciousness in men is probably rare even in syncope,
coma, &c., and can of course never be proven a matter of
much importance for forensic medicine ; and when our hyp-
notic subjects forget their names and cannot be made to
recognise the presence of wife or husband, shall we assume
without further question a concentration of consciousness in
some other direction ? Inhibition is often active as well as
1 See " Ueber Hypnotismus " in Sitzungsberichte der physik-medic. Gesell-
schaft zu Wurzburg, 1882, s. 31 ; also, " Ueber norinale u. kataleptische
Bewegung" in Archiv fur PsycMatrie, xiii., 2, 427.
182 KEACTION-TIME AND ATTENTION IN THE HYPNOTIC STATE-
voluntary, and it is not conceived as merely the negative
side of a concentration of psycho-physical energy. What is
wanted now is the careful and prolonged psycho-physical study
of individual cases both of hypnotism proper and of allied
states, including even hysteria in its myriad forms. If Atten-
tion be an essential factor in these abnormal states, it is
evident that they take on as countless forms as it has direc-
tions and modes of movement and concentration. But we
cannot consider this conception of hypnotism as by any
means established as yet. Not only does it as yet fail to
explain many facts, but it can hardly be brought to do so
without quite radically reconstructing the notion of it familiar
to common consciousness, and thus weakening its explanatory
power in some such way as Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Hegel,
Fichte, and others, in trying to include the universe under
the single categories of Will, Unconsciousness, Reason and
Ego respectively, have confused these important conceptions.
However it may be in other domains of philosophy, the psy-
chologist who confesses to any one predominant rubric or
system is an idolater, in whom abnormal mono-ideism has
already begun its negative as well as its positive concentra-
tive mischief.
To the consideration of some of the above problems and
difficulties we hope to return later, in the light of studies
already in progress. Meanwhile the writer desires to express
his obligations to Professor H. P. Bowditch, of the Harvard
Medical School, in Boston, for placing the resources of the
Physiological Laboratory at his disposal, and for valuable aid
and counsel.
G. STANLEY HALL.
November 6th, 1882.
III. ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PKOBLEMS IN
LOGIC.
IT is rather depressing to find that in spite of the rapidly
increasing number of works on Logic, we are apparently no
nearer a satisfactory solution of certain fundamental logical
problems than we were some time ago : the proper scope
and functions of Logic, its relation to Psychology and Meta-
physics, the method of establishing or determining its first
principles, and especially the true relation of formal to
material reasoning, all these seem to offer as much debate-
able ground as they ever did. Hence our most pressing need
at present appears to be, not more Logics, but a thorough
and comprehensive ' Prolegomena Logica ' or, as we might
prefer to call it, a Philosophy of Logic. Such a work should
not only put forward a consistent theory with regard to each
of the above topics, but should undertake to analyse, com-
pare, and criticise carefully the various doctrines in regard to
them which have already found more or less wide acceptance.
We might think that, without entering upon any such long
and difficult task as the above, much good work might yet be
done within the commonly recognised sphere of Logic, in the
development of details, in the elaboration and extension of
subordinate branches of theory ; and no doubt it may. What
we actually find, however, in most logical treatises, is not
this separation of scientific details from philosophical
problems, but an intricate and perplexing intermixture of
them. Each writer introduces a more or less hasty and
fragmentary philosophy of Logic of his own, and makes the
rest of his work as closely as possible dependent upon it ;
problems are discussed within the science and as digressions
from the main topics, which would be much more satis-
factorily treated as outside it or introductory to it. And such
discussions are very partial, for while logicians take up now
one and now another of these topics, wherever support for
their special theses appears capable of being derived from
them, they arbitrarily exclude others which seem to be no
less important to clear and sound logical theory. Professor
Jevons, for instance, declines to argue the point whether
logical axioms or first principles are primarily laws of
thought or laws of things, while he gives us a chapter upon
the "Philosophy of Induction," in which he maintains that
all inference consists simply in rendering explicit what is
184 ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PKOBLEMS IN LOGIC.
already implicit in thought, and that there is therefore no
fundamental difference between Inductive and Deductive
reasoning; others, however (see, e.g., Mr. Keynes, MIND
XIII., 120), would make the fact that the principles of For-
mal Logic are necessities of thought, its distinctive charac-
teristic, and that which must for ever divide it from the
Logic of Induction. Again, in the development of the
symbolic instruments of thought, Jevons dispenses with a
discussion of the relation in which language, or symbolism
generally, stands to thought itself; while according to the
view put forward by Mr. Keynes in MIND XV., 362, " On
the Position of Formal Logic," this appears to be a matter
of prime importance. By all this and by much besides which
will readily suggest itself, the great need of such a
Prolegomena Logica as that described above, is evidenced.
We shall never see our way through these puzzling problems
until we have before us a careful and comprehensive philo-
sophical exposition of them ; and in order to this the ground-
work of Logic must be made a matter of distinct and critical
investigation. It must not be hurriedly and partially dealt
with merely in order to prepare the way for some special
treatment of this or that special department of logical science ;
the aim should be to render plain the ultimate bases upon
which the various theories already put forward, rest, and to
effect if possible some reconciliation between them : we would
fain believe that a deeper analysis of the facts would bring
into good working harmony theories which now seem only
to stand in each other's way.
In the meantime, however, while we are waiting for some
great light to rise and shine upon us in a Philosophy of
Logic, we are compelled from time to time to deal ourselves
in a fragmentary way with certain of the problems which
properly belong to this Philosophy, and which indeed cannot
be satisfactorily treated in isolation. Although in this way
we may make some progress, each attempted solution of a
difficulty must lose greatly both in clearness and certainty by
the fact that its fitting with the whole, of which it is but a
part, is not apparent.
It is with such an explanation and proviso only, that I
venture to call attention in the following pages to certain
questions affecting the relative position and value of the
Inductive and Deductive logical processes. These questions
are (a) What are the essential characteristics of all funda-
ment al criteria of inferred truth? (~b) What is the logical
value of the common distinction of Laws of Thought and
Laws of Things ? (c) What, in the last resort, are we to
ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PEOBLEMS IN LOGIC. 185
understand by the terms Synthetical and Analytical
Eeasoning ?
In both Deductive and Inductive logical processes we are
chiefly concerned with the general : general propositions are
usually put forward as the basis of the one, and as the goal
of the other ; and hence Mill has warmly maintained that
the attainment of the Inductive goal ought to be regarded
as the indispensable condition of the existence and value of
the Deductive arguments. So we will first examine the
basis of that method of inference which is thus presented to
us as logically prior. We will ask, what is the fundamental
criterion of the truth of our inference when we arrive induc-
tively at a general proposition ?
In the replies commonly given to this query there is some
confusion : now, it is answered vaguely, the Uniformity of
Nature ; now, more precisely, the Law of Causation ; and
again, Particular Experiences ; while in regard to all, appeal
is made equally to the authority of Mill's Logic. Now
although Mill's treatment of the principles of Induction is
somewhat confusing, he has himself pointed out that the
Law of Causation, being a general proposition, requires like
all other general propositions inductive proof, and he throws
us back for this proof upon Simple Enumeration. I conclude
therefore that there is to be found in Mill, final justification
only for the view of those, who hold that all the evidence we
can have for our material inferences, lies at bottom in parti-
cular experience. Although in appearance Inductive logicians
may be standing fast upon some general principle or axiom,
yet when pressed in regard to the value of this, they invari-
ably fall back upon particular intuitions merely, as their real
ultimatum. Let us ask then, whether we can be justified
in regarding a general proposition as being proved by parti-
culars alone.
That particular experience may suggest a law, or account
psychologically for the belief of it, we may allow ; but this is
quite a different thing to allowing that in any usual or con-
sistent sense of the term, it proves the law. When we
talk of the proof of a proposition we do not mean merely
anything which disposes the mind to accept it, for this an
emotional bias might do. We mean something more. When
one thing is proved by another, its truth is held to 'Jbe
involved in or dependent upon the truth of that other. Now
Material Inference, by the school we are at present consider-
ing, is acknowledged to be a synthetic process : in it we are
said to proceed from knowledge of one thing to knowledge of
another, by reason of, or on the ground of, the first knowledge.
13
186 ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS IN LOGIC.
This latter clause serves to distinguish the process from a
synthesis of mere imagination, an arbitrary addition of
thought to thought ; and the main practical function of the
Logic of Induction is just to enable us to draw the line firmly
and clearly between these two. But if the existence of
one thing is regarded as a ground or condition of the existence
of another, it is implied that some fixed definite relation
obtains between them, that some accredited law of the
things has become a basis of conscious inference in regard to
them. That A is B, here and now, is, however, a judgment
fundamentally disparate from the judgment, that this A, or
some other A, will be B the next time we meet with it, or
always. The one is an analysis of a particular intuition ;
the other is a synthetic judgment with regard to what is
extra-intuitional ; it is a proceeding from the known in the
sense of what is intuitively apprehended, to that which is
unknown; we find a particular fact and we conceive a
general law. And all attempts to make these particular facts
do duty for general laws appear to proceed on that most fatal
and yet most alluring of all conceptions, that analysis can be
made to do the work of synthesis.
A way out of the difficulty which presents itself to some,
to Professor Jevons for instance, lies in maintaining that,
although particular facts do not and never can prove general
laws in the sense of rendering them absolutely certain, yet
that they may render them more or less probable, and that
this suffices for our purpose. What however is the meaning
of this " rendering more or less probable " ? Either it must
mean, I think, that particular experiences can prove propor-
tional propositions, though not universal ones ; or else it
must refer merely to the psychological fact that we are
disposed, though not obliged, to expect repetition of a
frequently observed order of phenomena. The first inter-
pretation is open to all the objections which have already
been urged against the power of particulars to prove uni-
versals, for proportional propositions are only a species of
universals ; the second is a reference to psychological facts
for confirmation of logical principles, a procedure which,
having regard to its frequency, we must here carefully
consider.
When Formal Logicians appeal to Psychology they call to
their aid necessities of thought, but Material Logicians usually
lay hold only upon tendencies of judgment, force of association,
and so on. In support of the principle of Uniformity
we have the fact brought forward, that after long con-
tinued observation of a certain order of phenomena we do
ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PEOBLEMS IN LOGIC. 187
actually expect its recurrence, whether we can conceive
the subversion of the order or not. This fact that beliefs
have been generated by experience is one of the most import-
ant in Psychology ; and it is there generalised into a law of
mind, just as in the physical sciences observed relations
between phenomena are generalised into laws of those
phenomena. But to substitute this law of mind for the
principle of Uniformity of Nature would evidently be only
to substitute one generalisation for another : or if, neglecting
the generalisation, we regard only the particular psycho-
logical facts from which it was drawn, we are then merely
substituting an appeal to particular internal intuitions for an
appeal to external : and neither procedure can help us at all ;
both are but repetitions of the old methods under a new
guise. And we may further ask, what claim has any mental
law to be regarded as in any sense a ground for acceptance
of a law of things ? For according to the Empirical School,
the permanence of the mental order is dependent upon the
permanence of the physical order ; hence to argue from the
observed constancy of the one to the universality of the other,
is to argue in a circle.
There remains however yet another alternative : suppose
that after all, although to the great distress of most Material
Logicians and to the exceeding joy of most Formalists, it
turns out that the principles of Induction are necessary
judgments, that they are general intuitions; can we not
then find in a law of thought that proof of a law of things
which we need ? The doctrine that the principles of Induc-
tion are necessary has already been maintained by G. H.
Lewes, Mansel, and others ; and have we not here an easy
way out of our difficulties ? We can proceed to test laws of
nature not by an appeal to mere laws of association, but by
an appeal to necessities of thought. We can prove the
general proposition, All A is B (here, let us say, = All events
have a cause), by pointing out simply that in this or that
attempt to conceive an A which is not B, we do not succeed.
That A is B, we then argue, is a law of mind, and being a
law of mind it must also be a law of things, at least so far as
we human beings are concerned. Now there are two assump-
tions in this argument. The first is similar to that which
we have already criticised in regard to inferences from
association : it is, that the observed inability to connect A
and not-B establishes a law, not of things, as it happens
but of thought ; we believe, on the strength of our particular
observations, that there is a fixed relation in thought between
A and B such that not only we but all men always will find
188 ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PEOBLEMS IN LOGIC.
themselves unable to subvert it ; and this judgment is an
inference and a generalisation exactly similar to those to
escape from which we rush to it. The second assumption
(one which is indeed involved in the first) is, that no diver-
gence shall ever arise between what we experience and
what we feel ourselves compelled to think or judge,
that intuition shall never be contradictory of necessary
inference. To some this may scarcely appear to be an
assumption ; yet others have argued that we often believe
the inconceivable, and that things at one time incon-
ceivable may become conceivable by the repeated effects
upon the mind of new experiences ; and such experiences
must at least begin by being contradictory to a so-called
necessary conception. Mill thought (rightly or wrongly),
that if we were transferred to a world, where upon the
addition of two objects to two objects we invariably received
the visual and tactual impressions of five objects, we should
come to conceive 2+2 = 5 just as easily and even neces-
sarily as 2 + 2 = 4. This may of course be debated, but I
doubt whether it can upon Mill's own premisses ; and most
of those who take a contrary view to Mill, and hold that
necessary judgments are necessary for ever, should in
consistency look upon mind as constitutive of the objective
world after Kantian fashion, and not upon the world as
formative of mind after the Spencerian. And surely we are
not to be dragged into the depths of Transcendentalism,
before we can fix upon a criterion of truth, in the every-day
sense of the term.
Hence we arrive at the conclusion, that we can no more
prove our criteria of material inference by an appeal to neces-
sities of thought, than we can prove them by an appeal to
tendencies of thought: in both cases we are attempting to
prove a law of nature indirectly by an appeal to certain par-
ticular internal intuitions, having failed to prove it directly
by an appeal to those particular external intuitions to which
it primarily relates ; and the only result seems to be, that we
thereby disguise from ourselves the fact that we cannot prove
it at all. These principles of Induction must be general
synthetic propositions, and since these are not reducible to
or provable by particular experiences of any kind, they must
stand on their own strength altogether ; we must say of them
simply that they are ultimate beliefs : if people find belief of
them necessary, well and good : but if not, we must beg them
as postulates : and it will be part of the task of the philoso-
phical logician, so to elucidate and formulate his principles,
that the granting of them will be as far as possible unhesi-
ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PEOBLEMS IN LOGIC. 189
tating. Doubtless he will not be altogether indifferent to
this question of necessity, though its interest for him will be
different from that which is generally supposed. Since that
which people necessarily conceive they are very ready to
believe, the logician will be saved a great deal of trouble if
he can succeed in exhibiting his first principles as necessary
beliefs ; but his attempt to do so must not be confused with
an attempt to prove them. The theory of Evolution might
lead one to anticipate little opposition on the part of the
Empirical School of thinkers to a representation of the
principles of Induction as necessary. The constancy of
certain relationships among phenomena may produce, they
hold, an inability to conceive them as otherwise related ; and
those followers of Mr. H. Spencer who allow necessity to the
judgment that two straight lines cannot enclose a space, need
not feel much put out if required to concede the same in
regard to the Law of Causation. In any case, it would seem
that, as logicians, the question of necessity or non-necessity
need not vitally affect them. Mill, however, was troubled,
we know, by the idea that if the existence of general intui-
tions were admitted, his Logic of Induction would be at an
end ; and there are others now-a-days who share his terror.
Let us examine the true cause of it.
When it is pointed out that Formal inferences depend upon
Laws of Thought, and Material inferences upon Laws of
Things, the fact to which at bottom attention is called, is,
that the principles of the one are necessary, while those of
the other are not : and it appears that if ever this distinction
is set aside, the one great and sufficient barrier between the
Logic of Induction and the Logic of Deduction will be broken
down, and the former become swallowed up in the latter.
If the criteria of inductive inference are necessities of thought,
they will be accepted as soon as propounded, and afford no
scope for debate or explanation : while the subsequent logical
process seems to consist entirely in deduction from them as
major premisses. Hence the office of the Inductive Logician
would no sooner have begun than it would cease to be ; he
would have to propound his principles simply, and then take
himself off the ground. But we may ask him critically
whether after all the case is much mended, supposing we allow
him in regard to his first principles even all that he has hither-
to claimed. For is it not true that, according to the common
theory, the very first inductive effort, the establishment of
a comprehensive law of nature, is in strictness the beginning
and the end of all that it is appropriate to the purely Induc-
tive Logician to do? As soon as Mill has obtained, as a
190 ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PKOBLEMS IN LOGIC.
criterion, the Law of Causation, it is plausibly argued that
all the subsequent development of his so-called Inductive
Methods (except in so far as they are methods of observation
and discovery) is a purely formal and deductive task. And
whatever be our principle or criterion, the same may be said ;
the very fact of its generality seems to put an end to any but
a syllogistic use of it. It is the dread of this speedy consum-
mation which has already led Inductive Logicians to try to
palliate or in some way to detract from the universality and
dogmatism of their first principles ; they almost seem to
glory in the fact that they do not quite believe them. Ingress
into the deductive sphere, however, cannot be avoided by
any mere casting of doubt upon principles ; if we mean to
use these as criteria, we must state them in a general form
and reason from them as major premisses ; and any surmise
we may cherish as to the possibility that after all our con-
clusion may not be sound, is nothing to the point. Even if
we refuse to state our principles as universal propositions,
and prefer a particular major, our reasoning from it is still
deductive in form. In representing Induction as Inverse
Probability, Jevons aims at supplying us with particular or
proportional propositions for our starting-point instead of with
universal ones, but he does not thereby prevent, nor does he
apparently intend to prevent, the subsequent process of
inference from being essentially formal and deductive.
We now face the question, wherein after all does the
distinction, which at first seems so marked, between Induc-
tion and Deduction lie? Does it lie in the fact that the
principles of the one are analytic, and those of the other
synthetic judgments ? Or is it not possible that both may
be synthetic ? That the axiom of syllogism is synthetic, is a
doctrine not altogether unheard of: Prof. Bain maintains that
it is a law of things and an inductive generalisation, presenting
no essential differences to other fundamental inductions ; and
Mr. H. Spencer's account of the ratiocinative process
would lead us to a similar view. Most Formal Logicians,
however, assume it to be analytic ; yet their general language
in regard to the function and value of syllogism, their view
that by its means we attain positively new judgments, may
well raise doubts in our minds as to their true meaning.
They add, indeed, that it deals only with the necessary
relationships of ideas, and aims only at introducing consis-
tency among ideas ; yet they certainly do not mean to say
that the relationships are such as have no counterpart in
nature; they may be laws of mind, but they are not the
less laws of things also. Still, it is argued, the newness of
ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PEOBLEMS IN LOGIC. 191
the judgments which form the conclusions of formal reason-
ings, consists only in the fact, that in them is rendered
explicit that which was before implicit. Now what does
this phrase, "rendering explicit what was before implicit" really
mean ? Perhaps we shall find that it is accountable for much
logical darkness.
The word " implicit " may here bear two interpretations,
which are unfortunately apt to be confounded. It may
mean either implicit in language, or implicit in thought :
"implicitness in language" means that the knowledge is
possessed in a symbolic form merely, and waits to be
interpreted into actual thought ; and this is scarcely the
meaning which Formal Logicians are willing to accept :
" implicitness in thought," however, seems to mean that a
certain judgment concerning a given subject, though not
actually made, was a necessary one. But this to some may
appear paradoxical. Wherein, it may be asked, lies the
necessity of the conclusion, if, being in possession of the
premisses, we have not actually made it ? It has been argued
by some, that apart from symbolism all Logic must cease or
sink into Psychology, if the inferences it deals with be declared
necessary ; for all that then remains to be done, it may be
said, is to describe the way in which we do reason, and not
the way in which we ought to reason. But this cannot be
decided off-hand ; Kant held that there might be necessary
judgments which yet were not necessarily made ; all seems
to depend upon whether the judgments are analytic or
synthetic. If in regard to given phenomena A and B the
necessary judgment be synthetic, we may argue that, although
when these are presented together and reflected upon, it may
be found inconceivable that they should not be related after
a certain manner, it may yet be quite possible to think of
either alone without any reference to the other ; and when
B and its relation to A are out of mind, we may form
judgments concerning A which will be inconsistent with that
relationship, and hence require a memorandum of it to which
we must constantly refer. Such memoranda of the most
important and universal relationships of phenomena may
appear to be exactly what all logical axioms supply, and
their use will be to guide us in the making of inferences
which, after all, may justly be described as necessary. To
say, however, in such a case as the above, that in relating B
to A we had only rendered explicit what was before implicit,
would be very misleading. The implicitness here could only
refer to the possibility of our becoming aware of the necessity
of the given relationship. In bringing any valid synthetic
192 ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PEOBLEMS IN LOGIC.
principle to bear upon a subject, we are adding to our
knowledge of that subject ; and if the subject be a matter-
of-fact, the principle is to be regarded as a law of nature.
So if it be maintained that the axiom of syllogism is synthe-
tic, like those mathematical axioms to which it is so often
compared, it does not appear that the movement of thought
in syllogising can differ in any essential respect from the
movement which is supposed to take place in material
reasonings. Why, we might well ask, should the principles,
" All events have a cause," and " All things co-existing with
the same thing (or same part of a thing) co-exist with each
other," be logically distinguished? What is the force of
saying that the one enables us to attain new knowledge,
while the other only enables us to arrive at new judgments ?
Apparently there is none. Nor can we make use (under the
present hypothesis) of the old distinction of Matter and
Form ; for Form would now mean simply some universal
relationship of things ; and in this sense the Law of
Causation might be said to relate to Form quite as much as
the axiom of syllogism. So we have apparently only saved
the doctrine of the necessity of the inference in syllogism,
together with its implicitness, at the cost effusing completely
the Logics of Induction and Deduction. This result how-
ever is hard to accept ; we are vaguely aware of some great
gulf between the two Logics, and fortunately we are not
obliged to give up our case until we have considered closely
the remaining alternative, namely, that the necessity of
inference in syllogism is not a necessity of synthesis but of
analysis. We begin by asking, what under this supposition
will be the force of the phrase " implicit " as applied to the
knowledge obtainable from the premisses of a syllogism?
Now we have seen that we can without inconsistency talk of
a necessary synthesis which yet fails to be made ; but how
can we possibly talk of a necessary analysis which yet does
not always take place in thought ? The " newness of judg-
ment " which results from syllogising, is generally said to
consist in thinking together attributes which we had not
before thought together. But if we had not before thought
them together, how is our judgment analytical of previous
thought ? All analysis presupposes a corresponding synthesis,
but here we are not supposed to find any previous synthesis
which corresponds to our final analytical conclusion. And
if we do find it, would it not appear, that apart from symbolic
thought the drawing of the conclusion of a syllogism is mere
idle tautology, not the rendering explicit what was before
implicit, but the repetition of a part of knowledge which was
ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PEOBLEMS IN LOGIC. 193
before quite as explicit as it is now ? If this be so, there is
then no movement whatever of thought except in the retro-
grade sense of dropping out or neglecting some parts of
our knowledge and retaining others. We seem to find here
another instance of that confusion of analysis and synthesis
which is for ever besetting human thought ; judgments are
spoken of as analytic, while yet at the same time they are
regarded as making some contribution to thought. But
Professor Caird seems rightly to maintain that the purely
formal judgment is no judgment ; it is mere tautology. We
gain nothing whatever either for truth or for thought by
saying A A ; and neither do we by saying AB is B, so long
as we do not allow ourselves to pass to any B which possibly
is not A. This judgment, however, AB is B, expresses, I
think, the whole of the truth that is syllogistically obtained.
To show this let us take as an example the old syllogism :
Men are mortal ; Socrates is a man ; /. Socrates is mortal.
Complex conceptions are formed by the combination of two
or more attributes, and any predicate which is universally
affirmed of a subject may, if we like, be added to those which
form its definition ; and the affirmation of any predicate is
in fact always a momentary introduction of it into the
notion of the subject. Having realised the full meaning of
the proposition, All men are mortal, our notion of man
becomes if we represent rational and animal by a and &,
and mortal by c abc ; we have then only to add similarly
this predicate abc = man, to the subject Socrates, x, and our
conception of Socrates is then xdbc : the further process of
drawing the usual syllogistic conclusion, x is c, completely
parallels that in which we judge AB is B, or, Men are
animals. This conclusion is a mere repetition of a part of
that which has been already thought ; it is no new judgment
so long as the content of the two premisses is kept clearly in
mind, and not merely symbolically recorded. If we think
the whole xabc, we think at the same time, in the very same
act, each of the components as related to each other as parts
of one whole ; and it is only to this relation in regard to two
of them that we call attention in the conclusion of the
syllogism. We are not of course obliged to keep the whole
of our knowledge in regard to any subject always in mind,
and to prevent overburdening ourselves we may drop out a
part of it, and think xc instead of xbc ; but in thinking xbc
in the premisses we have actually, that is explicitly, thought
this conclusion xc. And I scarcely think that in a syl-
logism we generally do in thought drop out the middle
term ; the conclusion we carry away with us is rather,
194 ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS IN LOGIC.
Socrates a man mortal, than Socrates mortal. In any
case the fact of our not retaining all the knowledge we have
got can scarcely be put forward as a ground for treating the
part which is retained as a new judgment.
According to this, so far as thought itself is concerned, we
need no axiom of syllogism at all ; mediate inference becomes
indistinguishable from immediate as regards the formal
process. This indeed would seem to be implied by those
who ground syllogistic inference ultimately upon the so-called
Laws of Thought, All A is A, &c. ; but according to the
foregoing, these Laws are not really laws of thought at all ;
they are mere tautologies, formal judgments, which as Prof.
Caird says, are no judgments. So, in regarding the process in
syllogism as analytic, we seem at the same time to be forced to
regard it as idle. In apparent conflict with all this, however,
we have the fact that in syllogising we do in some way make
progress in knowledge, and very important progress too.
The solution we would offer to this difficulty is, that the
process in which the progress lies is prior to and independent
of all the said formal principles. If both major and minor
are synthetic judgments an advance is made in forming each
separately, while there is a further advance in thinking them
in conjunction. It is this latter point which I think has
served to give the principle of syllogism an air of synthetic
value. We know that we may go on indefinitely judging
man to be mortal at one time and Socrates to be man at
another, and yet never be aware that Socrates is mortal,
because when we are thinking of Socrates's humanity, we
have dropped out of memory the connexion of humanity
and mortality ; in order to get the whole, Socrates man
mortal, of course all the elements which go to make that
whole must be simultaneously presented. The recollecting
however, at a suitable juncture, knowledge stowed away in
memory, is a process with which no formal principle has any-
thing to do ; we can only say of it that it is an accident which
happens more frequently to the intelligent. In getting the
premisses of a syllogism we may say perhaps that implicit
knowledge often becomes explicit, but this implicitness is
only latency in memory. That however the entire value of
Formal Logic consists in its pointing out to us certain
methods of manipulating symbols by which deficiencies of
memory and of mental grasp may be to a great extent over-
come, is the conclusion which I hope we may now reach.
Suppose we are looking at some object and become aware,
it may only be by degrees, that it is of a certain form, design,
colour, &c. ; our notion of it has then come to be that of a
ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PEOBLEMS IN LOGIC. 195
certain tolerably definite cluster of attributes, and the larger
and more definite the cluster, the more extended is our
knowledge of it. Now what we do in syllogising is to cluster
similarly attributes round a given subject ; but the addition
of them here takes place generally through an effort of
memory or imagination, and not through an effort of ob-
servation. We may argue that as we do not, in perceiving
the conjunction of attributes ABC, think we require a fresh
observation or any reference to the axiom of syllogism in
order to become aware that AB or BA, CA or AC, BC or
CB, are conjoined, so neither should we hold that these con-
stitute fresh judgments, when, the feats of memory being
completed, we have before us the group ABC in mental
presentation.
But the number of attributes we are able to predicate of
any individual may be indefinitely numerous, and we cannot
possibly introduce them all at once into our notion of the thing.
And here it is that language, or symbols as systematised
and employed according to rules given in Formal Logic,
come to our aid. In a Sorites we may have forgotten every
link of the chain but the last by the time we arrive at the
conclusion; each link, however, is preserved for us in
symbols ; we have before us, on paper it may be, the
collection dbcdefg, &c., a whole of which each letter is a part,
and we can then confine our attention to any two parts and
interpreting them in thought, bear away with us the know-
ledge of their mutual relation. The importance of language
in giving, in this and in similar ways, increased scope, facility,
and system to thought can scarcely be exaggerated. But
what it does for thought is what in a small way a calculating
machine may do for the mathematician : the rules for working
the machine are not mathematical axioms, and neither ought
the rules for manipulating logical symbols to be regarded as
expressive of fundamental laws of thought, though their
relation to those laws may be very profitably explained. The
Dictum or any other axiom of syllogism has value when
regarded as a precept for the conduct of symbolic thinking
only ; but as such it may enable us to arrive at new judg-
ments, judgments which, moreover, we might never have
been able to make without it. By manipulating symbols in
a manner which duly represents the movements of real
thought and preserves their results, we may, without think-
ing, arrive at conclusions which are exactly those which real
thought would have yielded, but which nevertheless far
transcend anything which thought unaided by symbols would
ever have accomplished. Looked at in this way, Formal
196 ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PEOBLEMS IN LOGIC.
Logic may be said to enable us to extend our knowledge of
things, but this is not because it enables us to analyse our
knowledge, but because it aids us in the performance of com-
plicated syntheses : it shows us how to carry on by means of
symbols a synthesis of syntheses to which thought unaided
would have been inadequate. We have said that the so-
called Laws of Thought were not properly speaking laws of
thought at all ; if we are to give them any psychological
reference, we must say of them only that they are attempts
at a description or explanation of intuition ; to give them out
as principles to which thought must conform, is to say that
we must not intuite that which we do not intuite, or refrain
from intuiting that which we do, which is surely empty and
absurd : taken as relating to thought-symbolism, however,
they may serve as negative precepts regarding the employ-
ment of symbols ; they may check us in making combinations
of symbols which could not be interpreted into actual
thought. An analytic judgment is, as we have said, no
judgment at all, but an analytic proposition may be of use in
calling attention to and preserving clearly in symbolic repre-
sentation that which belongs to the correspondent thought.
Thought itself is altogether synthetic ; hence our logical
first principles or criteria of inferred truth are all synthetic
judgments. The sole aim of all logical methods and
processes, whether they be called material or formal, is to
enable us to make sound new syntheses, and extend our
knowledge of things. Formal Logic treated simply as an
exposition of the methods of assisting thought-processes
generally by symbolism, may fitly be regarded as a very
important although completely dependent branch of General
Synthetic Logic. This General Logic will comprehend all
methods which can be generally applied for the bringing of
new judgments to the test of fundamental principles, or for
the formation of such judgments as will evidently fall under
the given principles. Supposing one of these principles to be
Causation, and be it remarked, we need not consider our-
selves limited to one, then all Mill's Inductive Methods,
which have been accused of being deductive and formal, fall
rightly within the scope of Synthetic Logic ; they point out
to us the best means of practically bringing new judgments
into relation with a certain fundamental principle of synthesis.
Similarly, if we start with any other synthetic principle,
say, for instance, with the third of Kant's Analogies of
Experience, it will belong to Logic to develop the general
methods of applying it.
It might be well in conclusion to show what in accordance
ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL PEOBLEMS IN LOGIC. 197
with the foregoing must be the philosophical outcome of a
logical treatment which, failing to distinguish clearly real
thought from symbolic, ends by identifying all Logic with
what has been called Formal Logic, and gives as fundamental
principles of judgment precepts for the manipulation of its
symbolic instruments ; but the task would be too long to
enter upon here. Those who agree with the above however,
will readily concede that if, with Professor Jevons, we hold
that all inference consists in rendering explicit that which was
before implicit, and that the fundamental logical principle is
that similars may be substituted for each other, then all
thought becomes reducible to tautology or to mere verbal
transformations.
In conclusion it may be well to sum up the chief points
of argument.
(1) That all Logic is concerned with the development of
general methods for the application of the criteria of inferred
truth.
(2) That these criteria are general synthetic judgments,
accepted in Logic as axiomatic or ultimate, and expressive
of laws of things.
(3) That the fact of the necessity or non-necessity of
these judgments is not one upon which the common distinc-
tion of Inductive or Material and Deductive or Formal Logic
can be made to depend.
(4) That Formal Logic (so-called) is entirely concerned
with the development of the symbolic instruments of thought,
and that logical analysis taken in connexion with thought
itself is unmeaning or idle.
(5) That, as a consequence, Formal Logic (more properly
Symbolic Logic) is completely subordinate to Material : that
Material Logic deals with all general methods of obtaining
valid synthetic judgments ; and that the sole function of
Symbolic Logic is to provide an instrument which will aid
thought in the accomplishment of extensive and complicated
syntheses.
M. MAKTIN.
IV. " NATUEAL EELIGION."
IT would be useless and impertinent to occupy space with
any detailed account of a work which every possible reader
of this paper must have read; and almost equally so to
lavish praise on the spirit of peace and progress in which it
is conceived, and on the well-known style, at once so
weighty and so brilliant, in which it is executed. _ Its
author's object is briefly this: putting " supernaturalism "
and dogma on one side, to show that the "natural" Uni-
verse of facts and feelings supplies, in actual existence and
operation, diverse elements of religion, which only need to
be generally recognised for what they are, and to be con-
sciously united, to make up a Religion something fully
worthy of that name, though in relation to the indi-
vidual it might also be called Culture, and in relation to the
world Civilisation. In dispersion, these diverse elements are
comparatively weak ; they are misunderstood, often held to
be opposed to religion, and even mischievously discordant
among themselves ; one set of men neglects one of them and
another another. Like the sticks of a faggot, they will find
their true strength in union; and the possibility of their
union is that they do, as a matter of fact, appeal to a common
instinct and excite a common feeling, that of devoted self-
forgetting admiration. This feeling, which is no other than
worship, is specifically religious ; and when it has found its
true and complete Object, it will be a single Eeligion, em-
bodied in a single universal church, " a great commanding
union of hearts and minds," the invigorating influence of
which will be felt in every department of life.
There can, of course, be no doubt as to what the elements
must be. The same threefold division of the higher life has
commended itself even to those who differ completely in
their point of view with regard to it. With Plotinus, the
three constituents are roads for attaining that elevation of
mind in which the Infinite may be apprehended, and which
" I myself," he says, "have realised but three times as yet,
and Porphyry hitherto not once ": they are that " devotion
to the One," to the ordered unity of things, which is the
mark of the natural philosopher ; the love and moral purity
of devout and ardent souls ; and " the love of beauty which
exalts the poet ". With Goethe, they are the elements of
1 Natural Religion. By the Author of Ecce Homo. London : Macmillan,
1882. Pp. viii, 262.
"NATUBAL EELiaiON." 199
Culture ; which he sums up as " Life in the Whole, in the
Good, in the Beautiful". With our author, as we have seen,
they are the sufficient elements of Religion ; not, as in the
idea of Plotinus, mere paths to an unknown god, but actual
present possession and worship ; and he discriminates them
as concerned with the eternal laws of the Universe, with
Humanity, and with Beauty, or more briefly as Science,
Morality, and Art.
The argument by which this view is supported is naturally
aggressive as well as constructive ; and on the aggressive side
it seems unanswerable. Parts of the same lesson have been
taught in different, though not less impressive ways, by Mr.
Matthew Arnold, Mr. Ruskin, and the Positivist writers ;
but it is here re-enforced with all the weight of the author's
individuality. We can have nothing but admiring assent
for his exposure of the pettiness and vulgarity of what he
calls the lower life ; and of the incapacity of the existing
dogmatic religions to meet the needs of the higher life, by
supplying a synthesis which may embrace all its elements in
one "great atmosphere of thought and feeling". Nor can
we differ as to the importance, for human welfare, of Science,
Morality, and Art, of a wider knowledge of Natural Laws,
a wider love of Humanity, and a wider appreciation of
Beauty. Our doubts begin when we turn to the positive
additions which the present view of Natural Religion has made
to the previous enlightened conceptions on these subjects.
And to glance first at the elements separately : the book
gives the impression that its author has been habitually in
very much closer contact with Morality, especially as studied
in relation to history and politics, than with Science and Art.
His picture of the scientific man, perpetually wrapt in con-
templation of Law and Unity, is a very common ideal with
those who appreciate the vastness of the leading scientific
conceptions, and whose imaginations are impressed by the
miraculous command of space and time which modern dis-
covery has brought, but who have never been lost in the
wilderness of laborious detail through which almost every
investigation has to pass. The sunlit peaks are often better
seen from a distance than from the myriad rough and
tortuous paths by which they are actually scaled. And in
a vast amount of scientific work, which is concerned with
facts, there is much that is positively alien to the contem-
plation of laws ; for the relation of facts to laws is perpetually
not only obscure, but of a kind which could not possibly come
within the purview of Science. Things simply are, thus and
thus, in behaviour or topography ; the manner of their
200
having become so has been, of course, in every stage a
natural process, as is the gradual accumulation of particular
grains of sand in one particular heap ; but to our eyes the
greater part of natural process must be a myriad-fold accident,
which might have given quite different results without any
apparent violation of law. Even so large and interesting a
law as that of natural selection everywhere presupposes
individual variations which, for us, are strictly accidental.
And as the course of differentiation is followed, and the atten-
tion narrowed down from the dominating laws of a multitude
of species, which are constant under a multitude of condi-
ditions, to the uniformities prevailing among smaller and
smaller groups, the facts which, for aught we can see, need not
have been as they are, occupy more and more of the ground,
and seem often as remote from deduction, and from any
vitalising conception of law, as the streets and squares of a
city which a cabman has to master. Even in the simpler
region of inorganic matter, each of the most familiar chemical
compounds has qualities which cannot be accounted for, which
could not have been prophesied, and which can only be regis-
tered ; and this would remain equally the case, if the wildest
dreams of the mechanical theory were realised. But even
apart from this, and supposing the peaks to be always more
or less in view, can their effect upon us be reckoned on as an
unchanging quantity ? The conceptions which really open
up new fields in the physical universe, such as the atomic
theory, the correlation of forces, evolution conceptions
which have a very different effect on the imagination from
the gradual filling up of these territories with subordinate
laws and facts are necessarily few and far between; and
in their merely scientific aspect the mind adapts itself to
them with really terrible ease; so that even the last and
greatest of them will probably be not much more exciting
to our grandchildren than gravitation. And the very
search for larger and larger and more and more uniting
conceptions, which has an exciting character of its own, is
in some degree opposed to the excitement of novelty : to find
anything in the future as exciting as the correlation of forces,
we should have to find some force which could not be corre-
lated ; which in the interests of unity would scarcely be de-
sirable. Supposing that the " vast unity," which our author
himself admits to be " not yet discoverable or nameable," is
really the God whom we seek to know, and supposing it were
discovered and named, so that (to take the simplest depart-
ment only) all known quantitative laws those of the velocity
of falling bodies, of the diffusion of gases, and a thousand
"NATURAL RELIGION." 201
others could be embraced in a single formula ; it seems cer-
tain that interest in Nature would then and there begin to
decline. The forward path would be closed; search and
pursuit would have lost their great incentive ; the imagina-
tion, set in motion (as our author describes it) by glimmer-
ing regularities and suggestive analogies, would find its
function gone ; and worship of the hugeness of the conception
would fade away in an atmosphere of unaspiring familiarity.
Fortunately there seems at present no danger of the vari-
ous forward paths converging on this paralysing goal ; laws,
like objects, stand side by side, e.g., those of magnetic cur-
rents and those of heredity ; and nothing like an all-embrac-
ing unity presents itself. But then in ceasing to strain after
the idea of such a unity, we cease to find mere regularity so
very imposing. How is invariableness of operation in Time
a grander idea than mere size or distance in Space ? of which
latter one of the most imaginative as well as one of the ablest
of recent men of science, the late Professor Clifford, declared
his unmitigated contempt. He would certainly not have
prostrated himself before the geological millenniums and
the stellar distances, to which our author oddly points as
bringing the greatness of God home to us by the fact of its
having been actually computed. And a case like Clifford's
would almost alone serve to show that, if there are occasions
when these conceptions overpower us with a primitive un-
reasoning delight in which the utter relativeness of vastness
in Space and Time can be forgotten, such experience is some-
thing to be just accepted in thankfulness, not to be reproduced
at will, or pressed on others in the way of a truth or a duty ;
for the cold touch of reason may at any moment make it
look both illogical and vulgar.
Against such objections our author would perhaps still
urge the scientist's actual devotion to his employment.
Luckily for us mortals, such devotion, in the sense of an
ant-like impulse towards the day's work and a certain solid
contentment in it, is far from rare. But ants must not
despise one another ; and while any busy man may feel for
vapid idlers the sort of contempt here specially attributed to
students of Nature, it must surely be exaggeration, in these
days of specialism and division of labour, to describe the
feeling of an average man of science towards an average man
of business as " the pity of an apostle for a heathen ". Our
author scornfully regrets that men who might be scientific
discoverers often " end ignominiously in large practice at
the bar". It is of course a loss to the world when rare
talents are wasted on work which does not demand them ;
14
202 " NATUEAL BELIGION."
but that is not now the question. What we are considering
is the worker's normal attitude towards the object of his
study; and experience, I think, shows that the scientist's
devotion to science is not normally devotion to an " infinite
Unity" or a " beatific vision"; that in fact it partakes about
as little of the nature of worship, and about as much of the
nature of interested and healthy activity concentrated on
successive limited points, as the intelligent lawyer's devotion
to that extremely unscientific and un-unified object, the
Common Law of England.
This somewhat unreal treatment of the pursuit and pur-
suers of scientific studies might more readily pass muster, as
the outcome of the author's sanguine and powerful imagina-
tion, did it not directly connect itself with deeper flaws in
his argument. Thus he perpetually urges on us the com-
parison of the scientific attitude towards Nature and the
old Hebrew attitude towards the Eternal. But must not the
religious sense of awe in the Jew have had at least some
reference to the conviction, so strikingly and repeatedly ex-
pressed, that the ways of its Object were not only higher
>than his ways, but unsearchable, past finding out a convic-
tion which would scarcely enliven the occupation of the
scientific investigator ? Again, a great point is made, in this
comparison, of the fact that knowledge of natural laws is the
means of securing the maximum of safety and well-being in
life, so that scientific men describe knowledge of Nature as of
no less paramount importance than Jewish prophets described
worship of God. But such knowledge the author himself
represents as directed mainly to prevention and circumven-
tion, and as resulting in a " transaction with Nature," a
" propitiation " of a blind and inhuman Power, which might
crush us but for our cunning and pliability. Surely, then,
when one passes on from the special knowledge and the
knower's application of it, to his general emotional attitude
towards the Power itself, we shall hardly see there any very
striking parallelism with the Jew's confident self-abandon-
ment to an initiating, disposing, and protecting Providence.
This further topic, however, of the inhuman or antihuman
aspect of Nature, will find a more convenient place in the
sequel ; and from Science we may now pass for a moment
to Art.
Here there is less to complain of, as far as the description
of the worshipping attitude is concerned. In mere point of
quotable authority, the gospel of Beauty has great advan-
tages : Goethe and Schiller, the very word "Hellenism," are
far stronger reeds to lean on than any supposed declarations
203
of scientific agnostics and sceptics " that their pursuit tends
to worship". It is indeed beyond question that the hahit of
enthusiastic admiration is a much more real, natural, and
necessary characteristic of artistic than of scientific activity;
while for the world at large the difference is even more
marked. For, in the first place, a very far larger amount of
direct labour is necessary for really intelligent glimpses of the
unities of Nature than for true enjoyment of some form of Art ;
and, in the second place, those persons are exceptional for
whom, through a natural bent of mind, the admiring awe, say,
in the conservation of energy can fill up and transform as
many moments of life as the admiring delight in favourite
poems, pictures, or melodies. And this difference will only
come out more strongly, if it exists in spite of adverse con-
ditions, and if Art in our day is really handicapped (as our
author suggests) by having a less robust set of professors,
and so presenting less of "healthy and manly vigour,"
than its rival, Science. But if the character claimed
for Art is tolerably secure on its own ground of Beauty, we
cannot but feel a little of the old unreality at the point where
it is carried beyond that ground, and made to help out
Science in the proof that Nature, with all its faults, can still
be worshipped for being awful and One. We are told that,
owing to the appearance of this feeling in Art towards the
end of the last century, artists for the first time " began to
feel that their pursuit was no desultory amusement, but an
elevating worship". The clear sense of " something priestly
and prophetic" in the poetic mission is dated from the age
of Goethe and Wordsworth, and has "increased the self-
respect of artists ever since". This is a puzzling argument.
It cannot surely mean that this sense of a unity in Nature
has a more exalting influence than other, and especially than
supernatural, conceptions have had and can have, where they
did or do exist. "Desultory amusement" would be an odd
description of the art of the Eumenides, the (Edipus Coloneus,
and the Divina Commedia. Our author has himself expressly
shown how in ^Eschylus and Sophocles "religion and patriot-
ism were undistinguishably blended " ; he remarks on the
Christian orthodoxy of Michael Angelo, and Dante, and
Milton, and how ^Eschylus and Dante "were greater than the
Sceptics"; he draws attention to the fact that, when the
fervour of Pagan religion, as such, became impossible in
Greece, " the great imaginative poets come no more ". One
cannot but reflect that on his own theory there was a glorious
opportunity for them to reappear in the succeeding century,
when the scientific and unifying study of Nature was receiv-
204
ing from Aristotle the most momentous impulse it has ever
known ; but let that pass. As applied to our own century,
the argument, if it is to do the work required of it without
ignoring the inspiration and dignity that poetry may draw
from supernatural conceptions, is bound to mean that poets
who have definitely turned their backs on those conceptions
and so have foregone that special inspiration and dignity,
have been rediscovering their inspiration and dignity in the
conception of Nature as a vast and single Power. Nothing
less than this will serve : for to suppose that, in a poetical
mind where those further conceptions exist, they can be
kept separate from the view of what Nature would be without
them, is futile ; and the page in which our author is reduced,
by the exigencies of his argument, to eliminate from Words-
worth's view of the Universe the Christian faith which in
the same breath is described as having ''preserved him from
pessimism," is perhaps the only approach to a juggle in his
book. But when we look at the poets of exclusively ' ' natural ' '
Nature, does his account at all hold? Is it any awful
Unity that they reveal to us? Is it not, on the other
hand, in the Pagan qualities of Nature, in her beautiful and
sensuous aspects, that Mr. Swinburne and his fellows have
sought and found their inspiration? Beyond Goethe, the
most companionless of great men, can our author point to a
single instance in support of his contention ? while even in
Goethe, the indifference to the moral principle, to which he
himself draws attention, is fatal to the sense of Unity as he
describes it.
Further difficulties suggest themselves in respect of the
place that Art would hold in our author's ideal community;
where " every one would have some object of habitual con-
templation, which would make life rich and bright to him,
and of which he would think and speak with ardour". As
regards pictorial and plastic Art, its relation to the religion
of the future seems equally full of doubt, whether the religion
be " natural" or " supernatural". For if, on the one hand,
it is hard to imagine an appropriate mythology, and therefore
a mode of concrete embodiment, for the spiritual elements of
such defecated " supernaturalism " as may reject the dogmas
and miracles of current religions, we have on the other hand
no assurance that the arts of visible representation can enjoy
the widest and deepest sort of popular life apart from such
elements. And as regards the place of the other art of re-
presentation, Poetry, in a community where Morality is as
natural and little noticed an element as the air men breathe,
there is a deeper and more disturbing question. It may dis-
205
pense with supernaturalism : can it dispense with evil ? How
far, judging from experience, may not its scope and sublimity
be held to depend on the existence in the world of a large pro-
portion of sin and suffering? Life is to be indefinitely
brightened ; but can a great and various human literature
dispense with shadows as completely as Fra Angelico's pic-
tures of angels? Will Othellos be written when lagos are
impossible ? Will Satan be an epic hero when he is impo-
tent ? Does it not look as if the levelling up of life to condi-
tions where mental and spiritual conflicts will have largely
ceased in attainment and contentment, must level down a
large proportion of the great poetic heights ? So far from
the mark of this ideal community being, as our author pro-
phesies, that genius will be "of ordinary occurrence " there,
may not imaginative genius lose its pabulum in the absence
of contrasts, just as humour would in the absence of incon-
gruities ? And may not days of full contentment prove
unfavourable to moments of rapture ?
To pursue these questions would be here out of place ; and
I gladly turn to the third department of life that in which
our author shows himself in his full strength the department
of Morality, or Keligion on its social and political side. It
is here that his strong imaginative grasp of history, and of
large aspects of human nature, gets its fair chance ; and the
defects in his argument, which may invalidate his conclusions
as to present and future possibilities, will still leave his work
almost unassailable on purely historical ground. What, for
instance, can be truer than his glance at the opposite errors
of Fatalism and Titanism, at the fate of the men who under-
rate and of the men who overrate the effective force of their
own wills? How striking is his range of illustration: e.g.,
where the quality of determination to accept the truth of the
Universe, however disagreeable, is exemplified in the attitude
respectively assumed towards the lying court-prophets, to-
wards Pharisaism, and towards the secularised Middle-Age
Church, by the Hebrew prophets, primitive Christianity, and
the Keformers ! What reality he gives to the conception of
Hebrew prophecy, not only in its continuous grasp of social
and political phases, but in its limitations : e.g., its failure to
recognise that even a prophet may be something else besides
true or false, namely, mistaken ; and its denunciation of the
worship of natural forms, addressed to a particular nation
under particular conditions, and therefore irrelevant to the
truly religious element in Greek nature-worship ! Even if
we demur to the summing up of Jewish history as "the
dealings of * Certain human group with Necessity," how
206
impressive remains his picture of the Bible as a whole, as
one book, treating of the chequered fates of a nationality
which merges at last into a world-religion; as an "Epic of
Human Action " with a practical and temporal aim, exhi-
biting through a history of centuries the fundamental anti-
thesis of inspiration and rules, of living and dead Morality,
and leaving it "in the act of revolutionising the world";
but also as a fragment, peculiarly likely to be misunderstood
and abused by literal and limited interpretations ; so that
the attempt of the Puritans " to rise once more to the same
general view of human affairs" fails, "because they have no
clue to the centuries immediately behind them " ! What
width and clearness in his views of the formation of theologies
and religions : shown, e.g., in his passing description of the
older theologies as busying themselves quite as much with
laws as with causes, and drawing no sharp line between
natural and supernatural events, and of the gradual change of
method through which Science assumed the domain of law,
and Theology of supposed suspensions of law ; and again in
his account of the distinction between scientific and imagi-
native knowledge, and of the unfortunate consequences to
Religion of the earlier predominance of the latter; and,
above all, in his disentanglement of the two conceptions
mixed up in every moral religion laws, including penalties,
and the worship of Man specially illustrated in the rise of
Catholicism, the " marriage between Rome and Jerusalem,"
and in the " Christian legalism " which was bound to super-
vene, where " the free morality" had become the religion of
races only just ripe for the legal stage ! What novelty he
can give even to trite themes : e.g., in his notice of the inhe-
rent pugnacity and mutually destructive effects of partial
religions ; and in his admission that Religion, like originality,
is apt to be troublesome, and has been at times more mis-
chievous than the cynicism of Secularity, while yet "the
life of the soul" is vindicated in the ardour that characterises
all religions, not merely true religions ! And with what
rapid and pregnant touches he brings out order among the
crossing and confusing currents of the great stream : e.g., in
his brilliantly drawn-out comparison of the higher Paganism,
of primitive Christianity, and of Science, to the three stages
of childhood, youth, and manhood, and specially his vindica-
tion, as against Schiller, of the faults of Christianity as those
of youth, not of old age ; in his contrast of Paganism as it
appeared in its decrepitude in the older civilisations, and in
its new birth as a corrective of the Christian and monastic
reaction ; in his brief sketch of Religion as the great state-
" NATUEAL EELIGION." 207
builder, from Moses, through Mohammed, Gregory, the
Teutonic reformers, the pilgrim fathers, on to the prophet
of Utah ; and especially of the primarily national and revo-
lutionary character of Christianity, of its compromise with
Borne and the grandeur of Latin Christianity that Holy
Koman Empire which " is to Borne what the Christian
Church is to Judaism, the resurrection of a fallen nationality
in an idealised shape " and then of the gradual break-up of
.the consolidated world-church, and the spasmodic efforts of
national states, as in Scotland and even in the France of the
Revolution, to preserve the idea of a public religion ! How
trenchant, again, are the criticisms in which his views of the
past are brought to bear on the present : e.g., his exposure
of the vague and idle notion that there might be a sort of
return to classical Paganism, as though it had been the
invasion of a Semitic religion, and not the inevitable course
of development, which put the old fascinations to flight ; his
demonstration of the fortuitous nature of any apparent alli-
ance between the misnamed " atheistic " tendencies of modern
Science and the modern spirit of ^Revolution ; his conception
of the aspect that our national faults may present, when
magnified in the total working of one nation on another, of
England on India ; his exposure of the want of free adapta-
tion of means to ends in ecclesiastical politics, seen in the
fantastic revivals called reformations, made by "those who
cannot see the end," and so "fix their eyes, as the next best
thing, on the beginning"; his scorn of the hollow apology
for private sects of supernatural religionists in a secular state,
that they are a return to the conditions of primitive Chris-
tianity, to the conditions of the Church which " defied and
vanquished philosophy," while "its modern imitation is
retiring before it," and the "private judgment which the
apologists appeal to is on all hands rejecting supernatural-
ism " ! How impressive, too, if we can look at the words
simply as they would strike us in a book of history, is his
description of nationality as a sort of atmosphere round
individual members of a nation, which, when any shock
makes the individual conscious of it, becomes religion a
thesis characteristically illustrated by the transformation of
the Jewish nationality into Judaism by the waters of Baby-
lon, and by the behaviour of the American in Europe,
preaching America in season and out of season; and how
skilfully he uses the history of great institutions, springing
up for the most part in an unreasoning and half-conscious
way, and flourishing, without fear of damage from antiquarian
researches, so long as they have a visible and palpable use,
208
to support his conception of a Church, not as a society where
membership depends on opinions, but as a social organism
into which a man is born, able to be disowned by him only
when it refuses to make itself coextensive with culture and
civilisation ! How convincing, lastly, are the passages where
he touches on the absence of any firm conception of the
origin, raison d'etre, and future of the State, and of any such
general view of human affairs as Hebrew prophecy in an
archaic manner supplied ; and where he urges that history
can only cease to be a chartless sea, on which men take short
aimless voyages or from which they shrink back appalled,
by vindicating the interpretation of human society as not
only its proper business, but as a prime part of religious
teaching !
But this instinct for viewing things historically, which
lights up so many portions of the argument, seems in some
degree answerable for what I cannot but think a grave weak-
ness in the argument taken as a whole. For after all, the
great problem which our author is facing is the problem of
the present and the future ; he himself emphasises this again
and again. Our need, and his, is for a religion which the
most civilised men of this generation may recognise as the
common essence of views and sentiments hitherto regarded
as disparate or antagonistic ; in order that, having recognised
it, they may promulgate it among their less enlightened fel-
lows. Either there is, or there is not, such a religion, latent
or rather dispersed in the actual views and sentiments of
existing men. If, as our author holds, there is such a reli-
gion, which only needs to be set free and consolidated,
it must have certain qualities in relation to the advanced
class of minds which are to recognise and propagate
it ; and the meaning of its principal terms, such as
"God" and " worship" and " religion" itself, must be
a meaning which these advanced minds, here and now, do
or can naturally attach to them. Now that these same terms
have borne other and lower meanings in relation to less ad-
vanced minds may be most interesting from the point of view
of history and development ; but unless we are careful to
distinguish our historical inquiry into what has been from
our examination of what is or can be to distinguish our
survey of past religions from our search after that particular
thing which we can hold, here and now, to deserve to be
known and preached as Eeligion those other meanings
which the term has included will be apt to confuse the
idea of this new thing which we are to denote by it ; even as
in Ethics we are familiar with the confusion that results
209
from mixing up questions about the original elements and
historical formation of Conscience with questions about its
nature and authority as a present fact. Now in his account
of Eeligion, our author seems unconsciously to take advantage
of ambiguities incident to this double way of regarding the
subject. Thus he points out that benevolence has not always
been thought one of the necessary attributes of God ; there-
fore, he argues, benevolence cannot be regarded as part of
the necessary connotation of the name God. Perfectly true;
historically, of course, it cannot be so regarded. But this
slips on into the conclusion that we, here and now, can wor-
ship as God a scientific order of things towards which,
according to the author's own admission, our natural feelings
may be at their best " fear and cold awe," and at their worst
dread and despair a conclusion which no amount of history
can justify, simply because the point is one on which we
interrogate, not history, but the minds and hearts of ourselves
and our contemporaries.
"But," it may be said, "though benevolence is not an
attribute of impersonal Nature, it is an attribute of Man in
his moral aspect ; and Morality is one of the essential factors
of the new ' Natural Eeligion '." This, however, only brings
out the inherent flaw in our author's composite definition of
Keligion; and the point demands particular attention. It
is on regarding the elements of Eeligion as a whole, that h
specially insists : this is the distinctive point in his view.
"Man," he says, "has still grand spiritual interests, which
are all-important to him, and which he partly feels to be so ;
only to his misfortune he has ceased to think of them toge-
ther in the whole which they constitute." It is to the
breaking up and distribution of its elements "under other
names or under no name," that he attributes the attenuation
of the meaning of Eeligion. But things which are confess-
edly distinct can only be bound into a whole by some prin-
ciple of union, external or internal. The orthodox view of
God or Providence is a real bond, though an external one.
He is regarded as a common originator, the source of good-
ness and beauty as well as the ordainer of laws ; and in his
case the disruptive shock, produced by the fact that in their
operation the laws often show themselves the reverse of good
and beautiful, can always be parried for many minds by the
doctrines of probation and future compensation. Usually
the fact that we, in our relative and conditioned lives and
enforced balance of pleasures and pains, often declare that
pleasure in the present "more than counterbalances" pain
in the past, is taken advantage of, projected into the future,
210
stripped of its relative character, and made a justification for
the absolute sum-total of evil in the Universe. Even those
whose logic refuses thus to embrace creative goodness and
created evil under a single scheme, may still find in the mere
notion of Omnipotence a bond for the discordant elements ;
for there is nothing incompatible between power and caprice ;
and it is a coherent view that things which move us to delight
and admiration, and things which to all eternity would seem
to us ineffaceable blots on creation, have both emanated from
a source more or less indifferent to our susceptibilities. But
such a bond is denied to the elements of our author's reli-
gion; for the simple reason that one of these, Beauty, is
directly founded in man's feelings and in his inalienable sus-
ceptibilities to pleasure and pain, and another, Moral Good-
ness, is indirectly so founded, and that these are presented
as co-ordinate with the third element, the dominance of
immutable Law. Here then the discrepancies between what
we approve and what we find in the world cannot be sub-
sumed under any community of origin, or swallowed up in
any uniting hypothesis. We cannot appeal to Omnipotence:
for however much we acknowledge the overmastering force
of natural law, and our own practical submission to it, we
have admitted into our Religion, as co-ordinate with the
recognition of that objective law, the recognition of some-
-thing else which is not practical and objective, but experiential
and subjective, namely, our own feelings of approbation and
repugnance, before which Omnipotence is powerless, or rather
is meaningless ; a power that should make us approve of
uncompensated pain, of that the essence of which is to be
objected to, being not so much an impossibility as a contra-
diction in terms, and none the less so for being called Omnipo-
tence. As long then as we reckon feelings, as well as
objective facts, among the elements of which our Religion is
to consist, we find for these elements no inner bond, capable
of replacing the external bond of supra-human ordinance ;
and the discordance can escape notice only so long as we
take a resolutely one-sided view of Nature. The Eternal
and Immutable cannot be cut in two ; and as soon as natural
law, in the shape of a complete set of facts, 1 is set side by
1 1 may be told that it is not facts, but their abstract unity, that we are
to worship : but this position is one to which our author does not keep at
all consistently, and which moreover is only plausible so long as it is
vague. The inspiring unity must obviously be a unity of law; for no one
could feel inspired by the bare idea that a number of different things are
included in a single sum-total of things. But then, as we have seen, no
such single unity of law presents itself. And the more we concentrate our-
" NATURAL RELIGION." 211
side with the joyful feelings that some of the facts inspire,
and we are told to worship the combination, the opposite
sort of facts insists on putting in its claim for recognition,
and the combination falls to pieces. We may pour our oil
and vinegar into one vessel, but we shall not, by so doing,
conceal their antagonistic nature, or come to regard them
with a homogeneous feeling. If they are to combine, it can
only be in the menstruum of a supernatural theology.
And in the present instance the pouring them into one
vessel, be it observed, is a purely voluntary act on our part ;
they are not so given us. A consideration on which our
author more than once dwells suggests the exact difference.
He rightly insists that among the contents of Nature we
must include Humanity itself, and the slow but sure develop-
ment of altruistic sentiment and social order : these, then,
may be rightly ranked under a common name with things as
different from them in the sentiments they inspire as plague
and earthquake, so long as the name employed has no refer-
ence to the inspired sentiments. Such a common name is
Nature : it is a uniting conception, external to our sentiments,
between things which have, whether we love or hate them,
the common quality of occurring or appearing in obedience
to immutable laws quite independent of our individual will.
This unity is one in the making of which we had no concern,
and in which, therefore, things towards which we entertain
the most opposite feelings may be forced upon us side by
side. Religion, on the other hand, only has value for us as
a principle of unity produced in our own hearts, and embrac-
ing things towards which, whether we regard them as attri-
butes and actions of a single supreme Person or as distinct
phenomena, we experience a common feeling of ardour and
devotion. It was thus a true instinct which led Goethe,
to whom our author points as the great seer of the unity of
things, to preserve his conception from disintegrating influ-
ence by steadily turning his back on ideas of suffering and
sacrifice. The worship of a unity of facts, apart from a
unity of feeling, has as truly the note of superstition as to
worship some single fact or object, e.g., a reptile, that one
selves on the separate or subordinate laws, the more difficult is it to
work up any large emotion towards them in abstraction from their effects
on human senses or on human fates. Nor does this apply less, but rather
more, if we attempt to regard them under an aspect of unity which our
author often substitutes for that of regularity, that, namely, of an external
Power or Necessity ; for since we interpret the notion of Necessity from
within outwards, it seems to contain the relation to ourselves at its very
core ; so that any emotion connected with it is peculiarly unable to leave
that relation out of account.
212
dreads or dislikes ; and to call it religious would be to fail in
distinguishing Keligion, as something to be acknowledged
here and now, from the historic religions in which such
superstitions have freely mingled.
If I seem to be pedantically pressing what after all is only
a verbal point, I might at least reply that the importance I
have attached to the matter of definition in no way exceeds
that attached to it by our author himself. In his preface he
attributes much of the disastrous contention which he deplores
to the want of a true definition of Keligion; and it is by
means of just definitions that he hopes to show the funda-
mental agreement between those who believe that they are
hopelessly opposed. But if words are of importance even
here, where our author believes that this fundamental agree-
ment already exists, still more must they be so where it as
yet does not exist ; and the words used have a weighty bear-
ing on the actual propagation in an ignorant or hostile world
of the truths on which he insists. We may admit those
truths to the full, and still inquire what sort of difference in
the practical acceptance of them will result from their being
preached as a religion. Especially, how would such a mode
of presenting them be likely to affect the revolutionary part
of society, to whose enlightenment our author naturally
attaches the greatest importance ? Viewed in this light, it
seems to me that no more dangerous word than " Keligion"
could be selected, under which to rank things as different as,
on the one hand, the glow of healthy pleasure ^from an un-
selfish action or from a work of art, and, on the other, the
fact (in our author's own words) that "if we could measure
all the misery there is in the world, we should be appalled
beyond description ". The realisation of this latter appalling
fact, which is as much an exemplification of natural law as
that the sun will rise to-morrow, may be quite as important
in the interests of mankind as access to the former sources of
pleasure ; but the attempt to bring them all under one grand
conception, and to carry them all down in a lump by the
impressive connotation of the word Keligion, seems not only
unreasonable but prejudicial. In the attempt to be grand
and impressive, our appeal will lose the strength which would
belong to it on the humbler ground of literal truth. It is as
though one should try to get a child to swallow medicine by
giving it at meal-times and representing it as food ; which
would merely produce in him a distrust of food in general,
without making the medicine any the more palatable. And
as regards this question of preaching the godhead of Nature
to the poor and needy, we must remember that in proportion
" NATURAL EELIGION."
as the conditions of a man's life are hard and narrow, is it
impossible that he should take our author's all-round and
impartial view of Nature. The view from the Brocken at
which Goethe gazed, the gorse in bloom before which Lin-
naeus knelt, are not for all ; they would not be for all even
could they be physically presented at will. Absorption in
the imposing and cosmical aspects of the Universe presup-
poses some considerable degree of leisure and comfort : the
mind, like the body, needs room to expand. We shall not
reconcile men to the rigour and narrowness of their lot by
pointing to the stars ; but by appealing to their sympathy
with their kind, and by opening up for them an imaginative
interest in the future of this planet, through indications that
the conditions of life on it are slowly improving. The reli-
gious imaginations of a favoured few, soaring above mundane
things, may be able to find rest and support in the Cosmos ;
but if for the large majority of human toilers and sufferers
the shelter of this half-way house is bound to fail, the religion
that cannot reach Heaven will find its account, like Antaeus,
in keeping to the earth. And within this narrower circle
the distinction, for religious purposes, of the personal centre
from that which encompasses it, becomes still sharper ; for
the terrestrial environment contains plenty of what is far
more alien to the idea or possibility of worship than the
unoffending stars. It is only by distance that the hostile
and depressing side of Nature's character vanishes : poets
may praise the moon for her beauty without thought of her
bleakness and sterility, and the many will merely remain
indifferent ; but if the earth and the life on it be so praised,
the many will rebel.
The lesson must, of course, be learnt, as our author plainly
sees. Of the texts which he suggests for the teachings of his
"free clergy," one of the first is that the path of happiness
for the individual is and must continue a hard one, and that
it is not blocked by simply artificial barriers, or able to be
cleared by any sweeping change in the present social fabric.
This is a most important thing to inculcate, and there is
nothing to hinder anyone from setting to work at inculcating
it : but it is a piece of hard and repulsive common-sense ; it
belongs to the laws of Nature, but not of Nature as in any
way worshipful. Even a preacher who took his texts from
our author's own pages might find them somewhat less than
inspiring : it may be a consolatory, but is hardly a religious,
suggestion that " we become insensible to whatever evil does
not affect ourselves"; nor would the apology for life that
"though the happiness in it is not great, the variety is," be
214
a hopeful theme to expound to a congregation of factory-
hands. The thought that for very long to come many lots
must perforce remain hard and narrow, and that perhaps for
ever happiness in life will be to many but a transient bloom,
forces to the front an aspect of natural law which it seems
like mockery to dignify with any sacred name. There is no
dignity in privation and suffering, regarded as mere pieces of
unavoidable fact. The Christian, in taking up his cross daily,
may find that he can thank God for the cross as well as for
the strength to bear it : but he is enabled to do this solely by
that confidence in the ultimate designs of Providence which
the hypothesis before us excludes ; his cross has dignity and
sacredness as part of the design of a personal and moral
Being. If a Stoic can ever be said to bless his cross, it must
be simply provisionally, as a means, a school of discipline for
learning endurance and so reducing the burden of future
crosses i.e., for reducing something which the very fact of
his seeking to learn so to reduce it shows that he regards
essentially as an evil ; and the moral beauty of Stoicism
seems merely degraded and obscured, when the " natural "
weight and hardness of the cross, and the pitiless laws of
weight and hardness, just because they are eternal and
irreversible, are put on a sort of equality of excellence with
the human qualities that resist their pressure ; and are even
combined with the very virtues which prevent the spirit
from bowing beneath them, into an object of enthusiastic
contemplation before which the spirit is to bow.
But there is another and still more vital objection to this
compound religion. Eeligion must be for all : it must be
looked on by its members as within the reach of all. A
Utilitarian may find it possible to hold that conscious exist-
ence is desirable on the whole, and that his principle is being
carried out in it, if only the number of lives in which happi-
ness preponderates exceeds those in which the balance is
irretrievably reversed ; but he will not go so far as to demand
from one of these hapless and uncompensated individuals
any attitude towards such conditions but one of sick rebel-
lion. Such an attitude on their parts will only be regarded
by him as part of that unfortunate lot which, while regret-
ting it, he holds to be an item of conditions that are on the
whole desirable ; and it will thus introduce no fundamental
discord into his view of the Universe. But then he does not,
or will not if he is wise, call his view of the Universe a reli-
gion. The connotation of that word seems alien to the very
possibility of such exclusiveness. It seems impossible for
anyone who holds a body of beliefs and sentiments in the
215
manner for which our author contends the only manner,
that is, which justifies the treatment of them as a religion
consciously to admit that for others a similar holding of
them is absolutely out of the question, and that consequently
his "religion" is one in which these others are for ever
precluded from sharing. I am only vindicating for " wor-
ship " the unique and lofty sense which our author throughout
ascribes to it, when I say that a God whom we cannot all
worship is a God whom none of us can worship : in the very
act of admitting that to some, through no fault of character
or perversity of judgment, he is and must be the reverse of
worshipful, his worshippers cease to worship him. So fun-
damental is this catholicity in the very notion of a lofty
religion, that the notion dissolves in the presence of even a
single case where the catholicity fails : touched by the mys-
terious implacable reality of a single life in whose owner's
refusal to worship we can see no moral or intellectual flaw,
the divinity to which our souls have clung becomes a cloud.
It will be no valid answer to this to say that the individual's
power of worship overflows the limits of his individual lot
to point to instances showing that, even in the absence of
supernatural hope, incurable personal ill does not necessarily
Eroduce a spirit of rebellion or a yearning for general annihi-
ition. I do not deny that the enlightened Stoic no less than
the blind devotee may thus occasionally cast himself under
the car of Juggernaut, and that the self-devoting impulse of
the human spirit may make a car of Juggernaut even out of
such an abstraction as destiny. Even so, it would be hard
to prove that in his conviction of the inexorability of that
destiny there lurked no shadow of doubt as to whether his
eyes were truly in sight of the ultimate issues of things ; and
such a doubt means hope. But let that pass : grant that we
approve and admire such a spirit : what is it that we admire?
It is surely the love for humanity, the sympathy with others'
welfare, which the sufferer is able to oppose to his own fate ;
and the religious and worshipful character of such love and
sympathy I have not for a moment called in question : what
I question is the religious and worshipful character of the
fate itself. The inhuman fate and the human feelings, the
very things which our imaginary humanitarian wins our
admiration by opposing one to the other, and which I regard
as essentially opposed, are the very things which our author
unites, under the theoretical title of divinity and by the prac-
tical claim for worship. If he ever gets a Stoic to profess
agreement with him, the spectacle may be sublime, but it
will be neither logical nor religious ; for keeping steadily in
216
view the point under discussion which is the attitude of the
innocent sufferer towards nothing more nor less than the
laws by which he suffers we might fairly say that, so far as
his attitude was not one of aversion and even hatred, it par-
took rather of the nature of fanaticism than of religion. If
we call the spirit of wanton self-immolation " religious" in
the Hindoo, it is with distinct reference to his want of
enlightenment, and solely by that relative and historical use
of the word to which I have already adverted a use quite
out of place in the gospel of the enlightened future.
The result of our author's welding of non-personal law with
personal virtue in his " natural " object of worship seems, in
fact, simply to mar the true and beautiful aspect of that
other great gospel of the future which is in its way a
" natural religion " the " Keligion of Humanity ". Positiv-
ism, though it does not profess to grapple with the mystery
of evil, at least does not bend the knee before the system of
natural law of which evil is a prominent feature : indeed its
most popular English exponent has treated even the more
majestic aspects of "cosmic emotion" with very scant cere-
mony. The consequence is that the religion of Humanity is,
up to a certain point, one in which all may share; it has that
essential note of a religion. Many may find it inadequate ; but
no one will be excluded from it by discovering, in the deepest
depths of his personal experience, the incompatibility of the
elements he is asked to unite. Whether the unique religious
sentiment, on which the Positivist no less than our author
insists, can permanently exist towards a Being whose gifts
to us, as individuals, have come from no personal love and
comprehension, and who, for all our service, is powerless to
help us in the direst straits of life, is a separate question.
But even those to whom the apparently uncompensated evil
in the world is too huge a fact for a " religion " to pass by
with regretful acquiescence, who find the mingled peace and
ardour which belong to true "worship" impossible on such
terms, and who cannot recognise the living head of a spiritual
kingdom in an image wrought of even the finest human
material, merely because it is bigger and grander than them-
selves, may still feel that the dream of such a deity is an
imposing one ; and that the element which our author would
contribute to it is one rather of weakness and disunion than
of dignity and strength, not so much the head of gold as the
feet of clay.
The language I have used may seem to some unduly
pessimistic : at any rate, it may be said, if some things can-
not be remedied, the less they are thought about the better.
217
It would be easy to reply that the very prominence which one
is impelled to give to these things may fairly be reckoned
among the practical ill results to which a deification of
impersonal law leads. The one is the natural answer to the
other : for if ever there is an excuse for calling attention to
Nature's darker side, it is surely when one is asked to worship
her. But in the present controversy no such excuse is
needed : the book before us contains passages which make it
impossible to doubt its author's own intense realisation of
that darker side. In addition to remarks already noticed,
I may refer especially to the place where he recognises
how easily the existence either of individuals or of whole
communities may sink below suicide-mark ; and to the con-
cluding pages in which he himself describes the pessimistic
position. This man sufficiently shows that, whoever else
may, he at any rate does not sit light to the significance of
irremediable evil, nor escape the chill blight under which
"others," and so the panacea of feelings and work for others,
become infected in our eyes with the paltriness and transience
of our own personality ; while at the same time the spirit of
courageous wisdom which breathes through every page of his
book, shows how little ground honest clearness of vision on such
matters need afford to the usual charges against pessimism.
But that he recognises the rock of offence only makes it
stranger that he should imagine himself to have got round it.
All this grief and pity at things as they are, and desire to have
them otherwise, which are such real elements in his own
mind, have been kept in abeyance in the passages where he
insists on confronting now an "atheistic" conventionalism,
and now a paralysing pessimism, with the vigour and
enthusiasm of worship taking no account of this tertium quid,
this grief and pity, which is neither of the opposed terms,
which is entirely remote from the enthusiasm of worship, and
yet so little paralysing or conventional that it may be the
very life-blood of the enthusiasm of duty.
An impression is in fact created by particular expressions,
as well as by the general treatment, in the latter part of
the book, that the writer's eminent sanity has interfered
with his keeping steadily in view the depth and height
of the meaning attached by him, in the first part, to
the chief terms of religious phraseology. Nothing, for
instance, could be more reasonable than to include, as a
main subject of popular teaching, the demonstration that
" the institutions left us from the past are no more dia-
bolical than they are divine, being the fruit of necessary
development far more than of free-will or calculation ".
15
218
Yet, so far as they are matters of necessary development,
these so-little divine institutions are parts of an order
so divine that in the earlier chapters we have been bidden to
call it God. Again, when insisting on the recognition of
that law of Nature which is independent of us, on the acknow-
ledgment that " the universe is greater than ourselves, and
that our wills are weak compared with the law that governs
it," he says that the lesson " ought not to be mastered as a
mere depressing negation, but rather as a new religion"
with perfect justice, if " religion " could mean merely the set
of conceptions and emotions by which our lives may be most
wisely adjusted, but surely not with justice if it is to retain
in its connotation the habit of enthusiastic contemplation.
" Great " is a conveniently vague word ; but worship is too
peculiar and personal a feeling to admit among its objects
two standards of greatness ; and to worship two masters is
harder even than to serve them. If we make the attempt,
we find at once that either Nature or Morality must be
sacrificed ; for by the standard of the latter an impersonal
and unmoral Universe is not " greater than " but less than
ourselves. And again strangest instance of all in the very
act of recognising the sense of an unmoral Power outside us
as one which does and well may strike man with terror and
" eternally trouble his repose," the author thinks it enough to
add that the word " religion," in its ordinary usage, is not taken
to include this aspect, and that such feelings belong rather
to "superstition"; that is to say, this exponent of the
" egregious mistake in nomenclature " by which " religion "
has been wholly diverted from its proper meaning, this
champion of Keligion as inclusive of our whole feeling towards
Nature, is found overleaping the radical objection to his own
definition on the crutch of that limited and perverted usage
which it is the aim of his whole treatise to supplant.
The so-called unity, which will survive the recognition
of the "natural" God as the power of corruption, reaction,
and barbarism, no less than of beauty and progress, may
seem the stranger for the doubt whether, even on our
author's own ground, it was necessary. What drives him to
conceive the divine power, whether external or immanent, as
nothing less than co-extensive with Nature? Is there no
distinction between deadness and life ? Is it only in metaphor
that Evolution could be described as not merely a gradual
process but a gradual victory? Is the idea of a divided
Nature, and of a divine Being working itself clear from stub-
born elements of grossness and imperfection by a process in
which it is for us to share, too absurd even to be mentioned ?
219
Perhaps, however, this spiritual development could have no
interest or meaning for those whose spirits are to have no
continuing share in it, so that any such transfigured
Manicheism is excluded from a purely mundane religion.
The same honest determination to keep to the most rigidly
mundane conceptions, to find common religious ground for as
many persons as possible by " taking the scientific view frankly
at its worst," must further, I suppose, be taken to explain
the exclusion from the argument of all metaphysical along
with all supernatural views. "At its worst " may perhaps
be intended to mean "at its least philosophical" as well as
" at its least obviously religious " ; whence the conspicuous
absence of any hint that the " what "or " how " of Nature
has ever been a philosophical question, or that any view of
the external world other than the crudest realism of
" common-sense " has ever been put forward. Or is it
possible that a suspicion, inevitably suggested by the descrip-
tion of the scientific position in the opening chapter of the
book, is really well-founded ; and that the "philosophy " which
would transcend the dualism of mind and matter is to our
author, no less than to the scientist, as much an object of
scorn as the pseudo-learning which he brackets with it, the
" erudition " and " commentatorship " which create dogmas
out of the untested dicta of the past ? In either case, one
cannot but remark that resolutely to ignore the philosophical
stand-point is scarcely the most hopeful or legitimate way of
lessening the gap between the thinkers and the masses,
which he regards as so ominous a sign of our times.
And now, to pass to a final topic one which the conclud-
ing pages of the book make it impossible to avoid how do
the peculiarities of the author's view of Natural Eeligion
affect its relation, which he so prominently suggests, to
Supernaturalism ? (I adopt this last unfortunate and mean-
ingless term, as I suppose he does, because common usage
supplies no other single word for the suggestion of supra-
mundane existence and hope.) First, then, must not the
disintegrating effects of that jarring unmoral element which
has so long distressed us, be traced on from the Natural into
the Supernatural Eeligion ? No scientific mind can imagine
the transition from the " natural " to the " supernatural " as
a leap : it is only the self-stultifying word " Supernatural "
itself, which prevents the proverb "Natura non habet saltum"
from being as applicable here as anywhere else. And it
would surely be meaningless to deny to the object of our
"natural" worship to that which we are to regard here
with all the sentiments of devotion and faith that we can
220
muster a true kinship and continuation with that further
something which is introduced expressly to give their fullest
scope and satisfaction to those very sentiments. Hence a
teacher like Dr. Martineau, who is quite in agreement with
our author in regarding " Supernaturalism " not as the root
but as the crown of moral life, can bring in his supernatural
religion as a thoroughly invigorating and irradiating influence,
because as a necessary means for the further continuance
and development of the moral nature, and for the satisfaction
of unsatisfied moral cravings. With such a teacher, Super-
naturalism is immediately akin to the spiritual element in
life which at once suggests and warrants it ; and includes
both the explanation and the necessary issue of that spiritual
element. But how different is the case, when an unmoral
and unspiritual element has been included in our " natural "
object of worship. How can that element be reasonably got
rid of? If " Existence " has any continuous relation to our-
selves, could it be reasonable to regard as less than a necessary
condition of existence that for which, as a condition of our
present existence, our very widest powers of emotional
realisation have been demanded? Here, then, no special
alliance of the spiritual with the "supernatural" will be
defensible. The government of the departments of the
Universe which are beyond our knowledge may just as well
be unmoral as that system of " natural law " which we know :
there will be no reason why a future life should imply moral
purification ; why satisfaction should ever be given to our
yearnings for a compensating issue to Nature's myriad
injustices ; or why the v\rj of cramping conditions should
not be as immortal as the spirit which struggles to transcend
it. On such terms, the intuition of the " supernatural " had
no business on our author's pages ; it perishes before it is
conceived; it is irrelevant to the very needs which are
supposed to suggest it.
And lastly, suppose for a moment that he would consent
to drop the discordant impersonal element in the " whole "
which he presents for our worship. Natural Religion would
then seem divisible into virtuous action, conquests over
Nature in certain directions, and a healthy exercise of the
various bodily and mental faculties, on the one hand ; and on
the other, manful endurance of the inevitable tedium,
ugliness, and evil, of which a large part of Nature consists.
It becomes then most important to realise what amount of
difference will be made by the addition to these elements of
even a faint intuition of a "supernatural" Providence, and
of even a bare hope of a future life. It is a difference which
221
our author, judged by some of his concluding passages, can-
not be accused of explicitly minimising ; since he recognises
as legitimate the doubt whether " the known and natural can
suffice for human life " a doubt for which, as thus generally
expressed, might be advantageously substituted the precise
and scientific statement that for some human lives it does
and will, and for others it does not and will not, suffice ; and
he practically admits that for many logical minds (does it
need much reading between the lines to add for his own ?)
the new element is the philosopher's stone which turns the
dross of life to gold. But surely when we look back over the
treatise from this final point, we cannot fail to see that by im-
plication the difference in question has been minimised
throughout, and that the pervading contradiction of the book
has been here again exemplified ? How many men will find
that they can believe or even half-believe the one gospel, and
throw the whole strength of their preaching into the other ?
This question implies no denial that " religion deals in the
first instance with the known and the natural," and no asser-
tion that mundane morality is dependent on the survival of
Supernaturalism. We may go so far as to say that, were there
men who could find it possible and honest to preach one gospel
as a supplement to the other, those scientists who should treat
them as reactionary opponents on a vital point, instead of as
the more advanced and sanguine wing of their own progressive
party, would be guilty of very short-sighted and unscientific
conduct. But the question is just of this possibility ; of the
possibility of a common attitude of enthusiasm towards
things so different as life with and life without the " super-
natural" element, towards two " Eternals" one of which has
for its essence the Love and Righteousness which are ex-
pressly excluded from the other whether these things can
ever to the same man seem so like each other, that he can
pass from the one to the other without any paralysing fall of
temperature, and regard and preach the mundane gospel
with the worshipful fervour that our author demands of him.
To pursue into detail the radical difference of attitude which
Supernaturalism carries into every corner of life, and so
into every corner of that with which in either case the
preacher deals, would carry us too far: it must suffice to
suggest that, as addressed to the majority of mankind, the
keynote of the one gospel is resignation, and of the other,
hope.
EDMUND GUENEY.
V. ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 1
IT was in 1839, with the publication of the third volume
of the Philosophie Positive, that Comte promulgated his new
conception of social science. Four years earlier Quetelet
had made public in his book On Man and the Development
of his Faculties the result of his statistical studies. But
neither of these works had much immediate effect on the
general intelligence of England or even of Europe. In 1843
J. S. Mill's System of Logic first saw the light. There the
English public had its earliest introduction (if we except
some review articles) to the views of the Positivist chief on
the laws of intellectual progress and on the proper mode of
studying moral phenomena. To the principles and ideas of
method found in the Philosophie Positive Mill gave a generous,
if somewhat sober, welcome : but he shrank, even at the
first, from the imperial and sacerdotal tendencies of syste-
matic sociology. For Quetelet a more enthusiastic apostle
was prepared in H. T. Buckle. The first volume of his
History of Civilisation, which came out in 1857, began by
introducing to English readers the surprising uniformities
which the Belgian statistician had shown to be exhibited in
the actions of human beings.
From another quarter man's amenability to the methods
of science was enforced with more originality. Darwin's
Origin of Species in 1859 broke down the barriers which
natural classification had opposed to the regress of scientific
inquiry : and in 1862 Mr. Herbert Spencer's First Principles
gave some coherent account of the way (already adopted in
his Principles of Psychology, ed. 1855) in which Science hence-
forward must show what a thing is by tracing the process by
which it has come to be. In 1871 Darwin's Descent of Man
expressly showed how the general principles of evolution
might serve to explain the characteristics of civilised man.
These views, like those of Buckle, found in Germany even
more enthusiastic welcome than in England. There the
Darwinian example was followed up by applying evolutionist
ideas to ethics and to language : and the German translation
of Buckle's work by Euge soon reached a fifth edition.
Vast issues would emerge if we were to ask how far this
revolution in the attitude of science to man was due to con-
temporary or antecedent changes, either in metaphysics or
1 Inaugural Lecture at Oxford, 7th December, 1882.
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 223
in the methods of historical study. As usual, no doubt, no
one department of activity can be singled out as the foun-
tain-head. Experience, by unobserved attractions amongst
intellectual and moral steps of progress, prepared men's
minds in silence ; and once a conspicuous instance had been
signalled, the law so detected was rapidly extended over the
whole range of the scientific problem. Successfully applied
in a considerable branch of knowledge, the idea of evolution
was no longer a hypothetical dream : and development, which
had hitherto mainly figured in books on logic and metaphy-
sics, seemed to gain corroboration when it found a graphic
illustration in the phenomena of nature. Naturalists had
been partially aware that the seemingly abrupt intervals
between the characteristic types of animal and vegetable
species were the sum of many gradual and unimportant
variations appearing in the several individuals of a group.
They had complained of the difficulty of separating species
from species, and of giving a classification which did not
confuse what nature had put asunder, and put asunder what
nature had conjoined. They had seen the analogies of struc-
ture between different orders of animals, and had scarcely
failed to note the parallel between the gradations which
mark the growth of the adult form out of the embryo and
the differences which divide the various adult forms in a
species from each other. But if they observed these facts,
the only lesson they drew was that the plan of organisation
was essentially the same through all orders of animal life,
and that distinction of species was a subjective device only,
employed with but indifferent success to simplify the anoma-
lies characterising the real objective world.
The motto of older science had been ' Isolate the pheno-
menon to be studied ' : Divide et impera. Each species was
treated as a complete and independent object, and in the
first instance examined for itself. The new way of looking
at things reaffirmed an old philosophic dictum that the par-
ticulars could not profitably be studied except under refer-
ence to their enveloping system. It now became a scientific
postulate that the structure of animal, plant, or anything,
should if possible be regarded as a function of several agen-
cies, and be explained by estimating the relations in which
the object stood to other natural agents. Each natural
object thus came to be held a point continually affected by
and reacting upon its surroundings until an approximate
equilibrium between them and it was reached. At every
stage in the course of existence the individual, endowed with
its special capacities, is subjected to pressure from the action
224 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
of other active capacities around it, engaged in a struggle
where in extreme cases it may conquer or die, but whence
in general it will issue with a structure variously modified
and accommodated. The plant and the animal, in particu-
lar, owe the specific differences which they possess to-day
partly to inherited energies, partly to adjacent influences.
The existing fauna and flora are the product of the inter-
changes of action which in infinitely varying degrees have
gone on amongst the creatures of the past ; and they in their
turn are now undergoing influences which will in course of
time result in a novel phase of terrestrial habitants. Fol-
lowing up the vistas thus suggested to the imagination, we
seem, as we recede into the depths of the past ages, to
approach forms of greater simplicity, more widely modifiable
by circumstances, and only after slow processes of accommo-
dation acquiring stability and permanence. It seems even
possible by the aid of analogies to trace out the hypothetical
steps by which such a rudimentary organism has in the lapse
of countless ages embodied in itself a complex framework of
organs, a system so stable in ordinary conditions that to us
whose records only count by thousands of years it seems a
necessary portion of the Cosmos.
Such a suggestion, though far from new in the history of
knowledge, came like a revelation to the caterers for the
reading public. It soon led to the inference that man too in
his moral and spiritual, religious and artistic, powers of to-day
is a product of circumstances, no less than the animal and
the vegetable organisms. He too is due to the action of his
conditions upon a vast vacuum of possibility for develop-
ment : and here too we can go back along the line, and
here too it must have been a long line by which out of a
being with hardly any morality or spirituality at all he has
grown into a complex intellectual product possessed of art,
science, and religion. But as we are emphatically reminded
by Comte and others there is one feature which demarcates
man from the animal world. The animals and vegetables
stand, each as an individual in its species, alone, separately
exposed to the influences of their environment. But man is
essentially a social being. Even where, as in case of the
social bees and ants, some analogy is presented to a human
community, the unions are really unlike. The hive and the
ant-hill are as it were a magnified individual, marked by a
unity even closer than a human family. The hive may in
fact be compared to a dioecious plant : the queen, working-
bee and drone, are only three fractions out of which the
' great-bee ' is made up. Here, and here alone, we find
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 225
realised the ideal community of Plato. To such an extent
is this the case that some modern savants incline literally to
accept Virgil's dictum about the hive (mens omnibus una est)
and maintain that there is one collective consciousness for
the whole group. No doubt there is a tendency in the
specialised developments even of human societies to lead to
a considerable amount of social stratification. It may not
go so far as those characteristic differences of physique which
voyagers in the Pacific note between the two halves of the
social scale ; it may not always mark off the victims of seden-
tary and mechanical pursuits in the way to which the Greek
aristocrats referred with so much pride. But it is charac-
teristic of all semi-barbarous societies to exhibit such physical
divergencies : and it is rather the ideal of ethical progress
than the actual law of any society to maintain amidst speci-
ality of function a general unity and common ground of
human development, both moral and physical.
This sociality, so characteristic of the human being, acts
as a sort of elastic buffer between the individual and the
outward world. In the case of man, therefore, the problem
of evolution has to be approached in two stages. First of all
there is a study of the elements and forces which contribute
to organise society, and shape the forms of its religious, eco-
nomical and political structure. It is desirable to ascertain,
if possible, the laws which govern the sympathetic connexions
between one part of the body social and another, and the
order in which its states succeed each other. This is the
problem, known in a limited and practical aspect to the
Greeks as Political Philosophy, and to the moderns, with a
wider scope as Sociology. The second stage of the problem
the problem of explaining the genesis of the moral and
spiritual man has been called Ethics. It regards man not
as an individual in nature, but as a member of a social
body, of a social organism which accumulates and transmits
to him the influences of external circumstances. In this
social organism so-called are stored up the means by which
man both intellectually and materially lives. If we take the
solitary savage hunter as the nearest approach to the purely
animal type, we find a being who meets the natural forces
directly and alone. Without companions, tools, or means of
union, he is the plaything of elementary nature, and has no
reserve forces, no accumulations, no capital, to meet unusual
demands upon his resources. His life is a mere aggregation
of several struggles for the means of life, in which no instant
has any bearing upon or derives much benefit from the
achievements of another. But even the hunter, and still
226 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
more, the more social types of humanity, cannot be treated
as a mere resultant from the action of direct physical modifi-
cations. The social factor interferes from the very first.
Social man earns his daily bread not by his direct action
upon nature, but through the instrumentality of an economic
system of capital and labour : he thinks and learns by means
of a language which is under the guardianship of his nation,
by means of a scientific pabulum which is stored up in books
and protected by corporations : he loves his kind and wor-
ships his God by means of permanent institutions into which
the social body has constituted itself.
Man was, in short, declared to be a social and what is
perhaps even more, an historical animal. It was proclaimed
that the mechanism of society had made him what he is. It
seemed as if here we again had a picture before our minds of
the rude and spiritually naked being who gradually as he
lives puts on from his social environment some mental,
aesthetic and moral characters, some forms of thought and
principles of conduct, and who, having lived, hands down to
his children if not these forms and principles themselves, at
least an organism predisposed to develop them under much
slighter stimuli than were needed for the parents. The
animals inherit only such capabilities, only such capital, as
can be organised in their bodily framework. But in man's
case the achievements of one generation are laid up for the
use of another : and the individual enters upon a great inheri-
tance of potential wealth, the secret of employing which is
entrusted to him by tradition from his forefathers. This is
the true heredity in human culture : and not any imaginary
localisation of categories and ideas in the lobes of the brain,
such as the last and grotesquest phase of the hypothesis of
innate ideas would ask us to believe. From this objective
cornucopia of mental and moral wealth man fills his own
individual cup : but, in so doing, he is but drawing from the
bank money which he and his kind deposited there, and
using it, if he uses it well, so as to increase the number of
talents, if ill, so as to diminish the capital of humanity.
A similar conclusion had been brought home, and in a
more strikingly real way, by the lessons which had been
drawn from statistical researches, especially as prosecuted
since the third decennium of the present century. A quiver-
ing horror passed over society as it read in the pages of
Buckle that in a fairly large given population the yearly
number of births, deaths, and marriages, of crimes, of sui-
cides, and even of unaddressed letters which found their way
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 227
to the Post-office, remained without any noteworthy varia-
tion from one year to another. Even those familiar with
the adage in the poet Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus
were far less deeply impressed with the law thus expounded
than when it was stated in the shape of a tolerably constant
ratio between the cost of a bushel of wheat and the yearly
number of weddings. There is a tribute, so the founder of
moral statistics is never weary of repeating which mankind
pays with more regularity than what it owes to the treasury
of the state : the tribute which it pays to crime. Year after
year the same crimes, the same punishments, it is asserted,
reappear with alarming uniformity in each country, in each
group of human beings living under similar conditions. It
seemed as if there were a fixed tale of victims set apart every
Christmas to be offered in the course of next year on the
altars of Hymen or of Libitina. And whereas Siissmilch,
who, a century ago, called attention in Germany to these
uniformities in the birth, death and marriage rates, had
used them to illustrate the doctrine that Providence did all
things with mathematical accuracy, the new school rather
left an impression that a horrid Moloch ruled the destinies
of mankind. What the theologians had called God, the
scientific metaphysicians styled cosmic forces and natural
laws. A gruesome Setebos, who cared nothing for indivi-
duals but only for the kind, and who, as palaeontology had
illustrated, had but slight sympathy even with any kind,
seemed to be the only god left to sport with this lower
world.
The statistical theorists proposed to clear the way for a
science of social man, by getting rid of the objection that the
acts of individuals are not amenable to calculation. They
offered proof that by observing these acts over a sufficiently
large group especially a group possessing political, national
or social uniformity we should find that the acts due to
individuals are one year in quantity and quality merely a
repetition of what they had been the year before. The
greater the mass of individuals observed, the more individual
peculiarities both physical and mental are obliterated in a
general average or mean. Such an average man (homme
moyen) is the proper subject of all social propositions. The
acts which were specially selected for observation were the
criminal statistics of a country, the lists of suicides, and the
numbers of marriages. There are few available statistics
for good actions : but by a remarkable application of meta-
physical subtleties, Buckle argued that, the sum of human
action being constant, a plus on the bad side must be com-
228 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
pensated by a minus on the good side. As for marriages
there may be some doubts as to the place they should have
in the classification : but here the ingenious theorists found
a point which they did not let slip. " If there is one circum-
stance in life," said Quetelet, who is quoted with admiring
acceptance by his followers, " where a man has most inte-
rest in acting circumspectly and using all the power of his
free-will, it is unquestionably when he proposes to marry."
But with the marriage-lists before us, it is clear that this
free-will counts for nothing.
This reference to free-will does not seem particularly happy.
However necessary circumspection may be in theory for those
bent on matrimony, it is probably not very largely exercised :
and even if it were, though it might lead to some difference
in the persons chosen, it would barely affect the numbers of
the unions. Landor at 36, though theoretically aware that
" marriage unrols the awful lot of numberless generations,"
at once declares "I'll marry her" when he sets eye upon a
young lady at a ball, and carries out his whim. And many
people probably would echo the gentleman in Miss Austen's
novel : " I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun ".
It seems even more pitiful to speak of the free-will of the
criminal and the suicide. Without probing very deeply the
mysteries of these dark chambers in human history, it may
be said that, unless free-will merely means the absence of
external compulsion, the criminal and the suicide, apart from
the not infrequent cases where he is the victim of disease,
passion and intoxication, rather drifts in semi-fatalism to-
wards his miserable goal than actively purposes and pre-
determines it. If such statistics prove anything, it is rather
that in the ordinary run of life " volition is extremely rare :
nearly the whole of the practical life of man is and has ever
been transacted by an unconscious force" (The Alternative,
p. 385). Though even this may be going beyond the evi-
dence.
It should be added that the amazing uniformity sometimes
alleged to appear in the yearly budget of crimes was conside-
rably overstated ; that the limits of variation were wide, and
that much depended upon the manipulation of the tables of
data. It should still more be added that such deviations
were to be expected, so long as the acts tabulated were
known at least to depend on certain conditions, which varied
in some cases apart from human interference, but in others
were distinctly modifiable by it. There is no doubt, for
example, that an abundant vintage means an increase of
crime of one kind : that a failure in the harvest means
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 229
increase of another kind of crime. And as to the modifying
power of legislation, there is as little doubt that the social
condonation which, e.g., attends suicide removes a powerful
stimulus against the act, and renders any formal legislation
perfectly nugatory.
But even with such drawbacks, enough remains to make
it clear that individualism has not the whole bundle of keys
to the secret of man. Man must not be studied in isolation
from his surroundings. Living in a community, he volun-
tarily renounces a part of his individuality, to become a
fraction of a great body which also has its life and its various
phases. " It is," adds Quetelet, " the portion of his indivi-
duality which has been thus put in pledge that ultimately
regulates the chief social phenomena. It determines the
customs, requirements, and national spirit of a people. And
the regularity remarked in the series of events must be attri-
buted not to the wills of individuals, but to the habitudes of
that concrete being we call a people and regard as endued
with a will of its own and ways which it is reluctant to
change." In normal circumstances the average man may
be described as the child of his people. The explanation of
his actions, his beliefs, his rules, is not to be sought in him,
but in the collective being from which he derives them.
Alike for good or for evil, the average man and it is of him
that science can most obviously treat is only an exponent
of the tendencies and wishes prevalent in the medium to
which he belongs. The criminal, in this light, is seen to be
the product of a diseased society : a society which has the
same longings, the same estimates of worth, as the thief and
the murderer, but has not the same temptations and the
same constraints. The good man, too, owes half his good-
ness to the sympathetic opinion in which he lives, and which
bears him up into heights of sacrifice and charity which his
unassisted energies would never reach. Man is not an inde-
pendent monad in the world : he and the society in which
he is set are bound by chains of habit, by a tendency to
persist in statu quo, a power of inertia which whenever the
will is dormant carries on the movement which it has with
mechanical repetition, and even struggles against the will
which seeks to alter it. It is thus evident that ethics cannot
stand independent of politics. Hence every soul which has
found what it deems higher truth seeks by an instinct of
self-preservation to form an association, to found a brother-
hood, feeling that unless it can stand strong in the sympathy
of a band, it will soon fall back into accustomed paths.
Hence the powerlessness of legislation which can only attack
230 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
an isolated offence : hence the omnipotence of an education
which can create a tone of character and mode of feeling
with which the beneficial agencies of law will find themselves
in harmony.
It is scarcely to be wondered at if these considerations
tended to shake the conventional methods of ethics out of
the steady grooves in which they had run for more than a
century. English moral philosophy had cut itself completely
off from the two great ethical thinkers of the 17th century.
Hobbes had the honour of having his main political and
moral theses condemned not long after his death by the
University of Oxford : and Cudworth had to sustain the
more emphatic condemnation which the practical under-
standing of his country casts upon the metaphysician.
Hobbes unfortunately wrote under the tension caused by an
age in which the all-consuming fire of partisanship turned
both writer and reader into polemics rather than students of
truth : and Cudworth made the mistake of supposing that
the most idealist of philosophies, and that an ancient system,
could come home to the needs of modern England. Yet it
is not too much to say that calm examination of Hobbes and
Cudworth might have prevented much tedious iteration of
moral commonplaces in the literature of the 18th century.
Ethical thought, however, took another direction, at least
in England. It rejected the attempt made by Hobbes to
base ethical obligations on the authority of a sovereign power
in the commonwealth, as well as the attempt made by Cud-
worth to show them founded in an intelligent order of things
anterior and superior to human affairs. The moralists from
Locke and Butler down to the second quarter of the present
century made it their main care to steer clear of metaphy-
sics, and to keep up no more than a minimum contact with
theology and jurisprudence. This was a natural recoil from
the Scholastic amalgamation between the Christian graces
and the heathen virtues : and no less a recoil from the hybrid
progeny of ethics and jurisprudence, which under the name
of Natural Law commended itself to the philosophers of the
Continent. The English moralists took up a definite, if
somewhat narrow, problem. They discussed the abstract
question of the principles in the individual man which enable
him to distinguish between right and wrong, and which lead
him to pursue the former and avoid the latter. How is a
man by himself to decide what is right ? And why is he to
do what is right ?
The answers to these questions divide last-century moral-
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 231
ists into two groups : the Utilitarians and the Intuitionalists,
as they are generally called. The Utilitarians sought to
establish that the true test of right or wrong conduct is,
whether it conduces or not to the happiness of human beings.
The moral sentiments seem no doubt to have another rule :
but it will be found that they soon learn to reserve their
approbation for what is useful, and their disapproval for what
is injurious to the community. In earlier stages of the theory
it was supported by theological presuppositions. Apparent
exceptions were got over by the reflection that although cer-
tain kinds of good conduct had no obvious usefulness in the
present world, they were still advantageous in consideration
of the bounteous rewards awaiting their authors in the world
to come. But gradually as the theory was secularised, it was
laid down as a general principle that the merit of what were
commonly regarded as good and virtuous actions was based
on the preponderance of advantage which the prescribed
conduct would in the long-run secure for the best interests
of the great majority of human beings. The problem of
morality seemed at last simplified and brought to a workable
test. Some doubts might be raised as to what were the best
interests of human beings : but they were settled by an
appeal to the general uniformity alleged to exist in the
common estimate on these matters. The suggestion made
by the theory was at any rate all in favour of progress and
reform. Utilitarianism demands continuous adaptation of
ordinances and beliefs to needs. No dignity, however sacred
or august, however ready to take its stand on unquestioned
and superhuman authority, can conceal its weakness when
required to produce as credentials a proof that the world is
ascertainably the better for it. But utilitarianism often
brought hardships in the train of its exceeding haste to
remove abuses. And that not merely through the common
error which makes the advanced philanthropist think he
knows what is good for others better than those others know
themselves. Benevolent despotism, were it otherwise right,
is but a secondary evil. There is another and deadlier
source of mischief.
The experiential process through which beliefs and institu-
tions have been established is often the slow ingathering of
ages : and the transient individual is seldom in a position to
estimate fairly the weight of the testimony in their favour.
So much in social growth has been due to forces operating
beyond the ken of consciousness or memory, forces of which
an analytic estimate would require, and probably in most
cases exceed, the utmost resources of logic and computation.
232 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
The utilitarian, anxious to have nothing held sacred except
what can bring objective witnesses on its behalf, is only too
likely, as human nature goes, to forget that he has not a
' dry light ' of impartiality, but is fired with a zeal which,
however honest in abstract professions, is liable to the attrac-
tion of personal prejudices. He is guided by the maxim
which if good in law is questionable in logic : De non appa-
rentibus et de non existentibus eadem est ratio. What he could
not detect by his means of observation, that he denied to
exist. He elevated his single powers into a standard of non-
existence. His principle may have been abstractly just, but
it could only be applied under the guidance of historical
analysis, and with due regard to the complex constituents of
human nature. Instead of looking at the matters of morals
and religion as so many things in juxtaposition, he had to
learn that they were held together by real though indiscern-
ible ties, and that one portion could not be harmlessly dis-
severed from another. The want of such a perception that
a delicate sympathy beats through every fibre of human
association made the older utilitarians harsh and sometimes
vulgar in their methods.
To some minds probably it was even a graver charge that
the utilitarian theory did away with the fixity which was at
least in theory associated with the recognised moral distinc-
tions. Eight and wrong seemed to be made dependent on a
mere difference of weight when consequences were laid in
the scales of the balance : and even if the consequences were
professedly general averages, it might be urged that they
were probably subject to periodic variations, or even in some
cases to revolutions. But such a complaint, though probably
legitimate against occasional applications, is invalid against
the principle of the method. It is an external and casual
limitation of the utilitarian principle which stops it short at
those partial or temporary utilities which we call expediency.
The horizon of utility can be pushed out beyond the limita-
tions of a particular time or place : it can transcend the
bounds fixed by individual fancy and desire, and make itself
conterminous with the furthest conceivable limits of the dis-
tant and the future. Yet when it thus looks at human actions,
as it were sub specie ceternitatis, and approximates to that ' idea
of goodness ' which Plato made the ultimate canon of con-
duct, it may be questioned whether it has not changed the
basis of its character, and surreptitiously appropriated the
note of idealism.
The other theory of last century which attempted to justify
the belief in moral distinctions was that of a Moral Sense or
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 233
Conscience. Man, according to this view, possessed a special
and original power of distinguishing right and wrong a
spark of the divine light, which, if he only kept his eyes open,
would always show the right path. Against this infallible
arbiter within the breast, no merely outward authority, no
argumentation which failed to alter conviction, could count
as worth anything. And yet the believer in such a sense
must sometimes confess himself without any test to mark off
the voice of God within him from the suggestions of mere
impulse. The rights of conscience easily became a cloak for
a motley mass of motives. Selfish interests can scarcely ever
be proved absent : and often the so-called intuitions of con-
science are merely the reflexion of judgments current in the
social stratum to which the individual belongs. And so far
as the theory asserted that the individual soul had a sure
light discerning moral good from evil, it stated what practice
showed to be untrue. Individual man is no more infallible
in moral than in other judgments : his isolated verdicts can
no more be accepted as decrees in one case than in the
other.
The advocates of the theory really had their eye on two
points, not always in very close or necessary connexion with
each other. The one was that moral good and evil are not
arbitrary or esoteric distinctions, but rest upon a common
and permanent element of human nature, and that therefore
this fundamental nature, common to all men, must be able
to detect their existence. The doctrine of an innate con-
science was an asseveration that right and wrong are due to
no metaphysical subtleties or scientific reasonings, and are
derived from no merely historical facts, but are the very
characteristic work of humanity, the seal and symbol of
man's place in the universe. The second point was that in
judgments upon human conduct, no less than in the pro-
cesses which lead up to action, there is abundant room and
frequent need for a tact or delicacy of discrimination, of an
intuitive understanding, which does not admit of formulation
in rules, and cannot support itself on strict syllogisms. The
theory, in short, was an awkward recognition of one feature
common to aesthetic with moral judgments. Art and the
conduct of life require more than the powers of abstraction
and analysis which are commonly held sufficient for science.
For the great bulk of mankind the validity of their moral as
of their aesthetic principles must depend, not on their scien-
tific acquaintance with the principles of art and morals, but
on constant familiarity and contact with great and good
examples, on the generation in them of a moral and aesthetic
16
234 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
taste which instinctively recoils from evil and aspires to live
with the fair and good. Both require a power of looking at
things as a whole and in the concrete ; because ars longa,
vita brevis est because the analysis of science lingers and
conduct presses for decision.
While what precedes is more especially true of the moral
sense, Conscience has a peculiar feature of great historical
moment. And that is its reference to a moral law, and to
the idea of duty. Conscience is described as the vice-gerent
of God the witness in man to a law which governs the
moral world. The sense of duty is the recognition that every
act, instead of standing alone, is confronted, as soon as it
emerges into being, with the laws of a great spiritual king-
dom, of which man, as a reasonable being, is a citizen, and
to whose general aims and regulations he is bound to con-
form. It is this feeling of a higher and better world, of a
truer self, which conscience bears evidence to. Here man
finds a safeguard against petty claims, temporary perturba-
tions, human weaknesses : here in the conception of a uni-
verse, to which every act must be relative and subordinate,
the human soul seeks a law to limit its extravagances and to
consolidate its efforts after right. But such a view of con-
science found little support amongst English moralists.
Yet the theory of Conscience kept alive the truth that no
act can count as moral which does not spring from the
heart : that mere arguments are powerless in morals what-
ever they may avail in science : that in morals the soul must
feel itself in immediate contact with and direct vision of
goodness. It failed to show, however, that this immediacy
of presence does not come without preparation. And of
most applications of the term conscience it may be said, that
the appeal to its authority is a protest of the party in posses-
sion, the beati possidentes in a man, against the new candi-
dates for reception into his mind. Very early in the growth
of consciousness in most men, the character settles into a
condition of stable equilibrium, or of adaptation to the im-
mediate environment. The mind becomes moulded in a
stereotyped form which resists any attempt at modification.
The reaction of this fixed self against new influences is what
we call conscience. Hence, from the instinctive repugnance
to anything strange to its old tone, its manifestations are
chiefly in the way of negation and objection. In this attitude
lies both its strength and its weakness. It is too apt to take
a stranger for an enemy. Its true function is rather to warn
than to judge : it notes discordance and inconsistency, and
excites wakefulness : and the harmony to be secured may
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 235
occasionally come not by rejecting the new, but by showing
that the stranger is only a friend in disguise.
Both of these schools were essentially products of a Pro-
testant and critical age. The theory of Conscience neglected
the supplementary doctrine that the Church in its catholic
unity is the depository of truth, and that the whole body of
the faithful must afford a corrective to the idiosyncrasies of
the single believer. The critical theory of Utility forgot that
in a creative and organic age much takes place which has
not legitimated itself by registering its birth on the records
of memory. Hence a reaction came against the somewhat
theological hypothesis of a fixed conscience, with its depend-
ence upon an abstract and impersonal law of duty, as well as
against the dry and mechanical conception of utility, which
neglected, or seemed to neglect, as unaccountable and absurd
much that the finest sensibilities of mankind held dear. Men
were weary of the excessive individualism which left men
isolated in the universe subject only to the awful voice of
duty on one hand or to the calculations of utility on the
other. Human life was after all something in and for itself,
not merely a series of actions subservient to various uses,
and not merely a table of examples intended to illustrate
eternal laws.
The change in the conception of human life was heralded
by a new tone in the poets. The moralising and didactic
tone gave place to a freer and more catholic spirit which
sought sympathy outside the region of propriety and had
other ideals than improvement and edification. The very
moral came to be the sign of limitation : the moralist stood
in contrast to the concrete human being : and moral philo-
sophy itself was replaced by Ethics as the more comprehen-
sive term. The signs of the coming emancipation from the
narrowing divisions which the religious and political schisms
of the 16th and 17th centuries had branded into the very life
of men were seen already in the years immediately antecedent
to the French Revolution . The dawn of a humanity which
was neither Church nor Dissent, neither monarchical nor
anti-monarchical, was apparent both in the mild and hesitant
accents of Cowper and in the fierier and more fitful utterances
of Burns. But the new spirit scarcely gained articulate ex-
pression of its own aspirations and aims till the time of
Wordsworth and Shelley. And even in them the old anti-
thesis revived : and neither heard the full notes of the music
of humanity. The echoes of ancient conscience reverberate
through that world of nature where Wordsworth taught man
236 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
to be at home : the sentences of the moral law are written
on the ancient hills ; the birds sing and the flowers bloom
to gladden, to purify and to strengthen the heart of man.
And Shelley, with all his bright and passionate absorption
in the life of clouds and skylarks, is haunted by the perplexing
memory of the old struggle between the tyranny of ancient
custom and the nascent rights of human tendernesses. For
the fullest utterance of the change which was coming over
men's minds we must go to Goethe, who, as he watched and
waited through the phases of contest and victory, of vagary
and resolute endeavour, between the old world and the new,
seemed for the time to concentrate in himself and to mould
in plastic outlines the sympathetic tide which was swelling
and swaying through western Europe.
It was with a light heart that the enthusiastic generation
which had grown up in the fostering airs of the Devolution
went down into the open plain where the freedom of nature
replaced the law of duty, and where the demand for utility
was hushed in the presence of full enjoyment. They seemed
to gain release from the toilsome restrictions of humanity,
an entrance into "an ampler ether, a diviner air". The
watchwords of the new school were Nature and Komance :
at first the two seemed not inconsistent. The unity of
existence was loudly affirmed against the old logical distinc-
tions which had come to mean real separations. Man was
to be studied not as unique, as isolated from the rest of crea-
tion, but as at best an elder brother in the grand family of
animate nature. The line which had hitherto divided his-
tory from physics, ethics from physiology, was doomed to
obliteration. The natural world was declared to have a
history no less than the spiritual : laws, institutions, language
and religion to have their growth as well as plants : to speak
of the former as made by man to be as meaningless as to
assert it of the latter. Here was reaction against the fancy
that the forms encircling man's life are due to conscious
ingenuity, and that by a bold stroke reversing the line of
historical growth it was possible to carry men on vast lengths
in the path of progress. It was felt that individual effort,
even when in the hands of a lawgiver and wielding the force
of an empire, was weak against nature and destiny. The
gigantic forces directed by a Napoleon had shivered to pieces
when they came directly into collision with the Olympian
powers of Nationality.
Coming on the back of these impressions, the suggestion
that man in his present condition represents the result of a
struggle for existence, in which he has stood the brunt of the
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 237
battle better than his animal compeers, does not at first
sight promise much help to a theory of ethics. The law
which the process of life shows to be the prevailing lesson of
nature is that weakness is the chief sin, and strength the
chief virtue. The evolution of the forms of animate existence
has been a silent but solemn discourse illustrating the various
texts of the gospel of force ; and any moral which can be
inferred from the spectacle is the morality of egoism.
Morality thus collapses in the single virtue of prudence, and
self-regarding prudence. To help the weak, to relieve the
suffering, to teach the ignorant, would be to run counter to
the law of nature which leaves them to die. Intelligence,
recognising the general tendency by which the less highly
endowed abandon the field to their superiors, would conform
man's action to this truth, and not attempt to alter the
course of natural events.
Or, if the main emphasis were laid upon the apparently
accidental character of the process by which the several
interactions between cosmical circumstances and a germ of
life lodged in some rudimentary organism slowly accumulated
their effects to produce the man of to-day, a new intensity
might be given to the fatalistic creed which treats man as
the irresponsible product of the physical aggregate. Nature
is then presented not as a Goshen of romance and freedom,
but as a prison where it is fruitless to knock against the
bars : as a compact structure where the inflexible chain of
causation binds event to event. Consciousness, and with it
the sense of freedom, is treated as a mere illusion, which
plays upon the surface, but has no effect upon the movement
of the machinery which drives on blindly until it has
exhausted itself in final collapse. Man, like other things in
the field of phenomena, cannot move except because some-
thing else has moved or instead of saying that he acts, we
should say that he has been acted upon. Or, in the words
of a determinist of the pre-scientific period : " The man
differs from the knife as the iron candlestick differs from the
brass one : he has one more way of being acted upon. This
additional way in man is motive : in the candlestick is
magnetism." Mind in short was treated as a name for
certain occasional phenomena no doubt somewhat unac-
countable which accompanied the natural processes ; and it
was denied other influence than that of interpreter between
the social arrangements which had been the outcome of
evolution, and the individual who found himself, by no act of
his, planted in their midst.
Metaphysically, again, the idea of Evolution gave a new
238 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
aspect to the old quarrel between mechanical causation and
teleology. It left no place for the theory of a conscious
designer, an intelligent mind planning beforehand the course
of the universe : but it emphasised more than ever the
relativity of every detail in the universe to every other and
to the whole. It set aside for ever the belief that man had
been the constant aim of the providence of a utilitarian
deity : but it taught that a boundless variety of phenomena
naturally came upon examination to present themselves as
the differentiation and development of a governing principle.
Everywhere there was evidence of a power of rectification
and self-adjustment in the universe : a universal vis medicatrix
naturae. Even so-called inanimate matter seemed as if it
must be conceived invested with some powers analogous to
life, to will, perhaps to thought. Thus a principle of life
or a more elementary and comprehensive principle than life
(" Wer darf ihn nennen ? Und wer bekennen ? ") keeps up
perpetual correlation and sympathetic concurrence between
the successive and coexistent constituents of the cosmic
process. Mere juxtaposition and sequence are replaced by
more intimate unity in the bosom of a potent totality. The
consensus of functions and interdependence of parts were so
patent in all provinces of nature that metaphysicians seized
upon the hint to modernise their theories : and in Hart-
mann's philosophy the waning speculation of Germany
provided, under the title of the Unconscious, an ontological
basis for the conceptions of the biologist. As consciousness
had been driven from the field of adaptation, it was natural
for those who looked upon mind as a late product of
evolution, to introduce this picturesquely gloomy Power to
give a sort of blind direction and unity to the process which
made the wishes of individuals subserve the great interests
of the kind.
Apart from these metaphysical inferences from the theory
of Evolution, there were others more intimately related to
ethics. Instead of fixed and absolute moral distinctions, it
seemed to suggest a gradual process in the discovery of
morality, a slow and intermittent emergence of moral con-
ceptions, coming out into clearer outlines, and extending to
applications at first undreamed of. Morality was evidently
not the equipment of the primitive barbarian, but a growing
and increasing ideal which was formed in humanity itself,
and moulded itself upon the lines laid down by the require-
ments of society. Its fundamental fact was the sociality
of man, and its development consisted in successive disco-
veries of the relationships which that fundamental fact in-
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 239
volved, and in laying bare the conditions of social well-being.
At first these conditions were but roughly and sometimes
even erroneously conceived. But as life grew more complex
and of richer content, and as knowledge increased, the per-
ception of these conditions revealed a greater number, and
defined them with greater accuracy.
In these considerations it is tacitly implied that in ethics
we have something specially human ; a province as it were
set apart from the general economy of nature. Within the
charmed circle of a society, the struggle for existence was
temporarily at least reduced to peace : though it still raged
outside in the relations between different societies. On the
day when man, from the needs of physical existence, was
driven to combine with his fellows into a society, he turned
his back upon nature, and laid the foundations of a new
kingdom. The society at first had narrow limits, and was
tainted by exclusiveness. But in its essential germ, it had
the promise of great things. It had broken the ban of
nature, which lays down self-seeking as its law. And this
radical change in the attitude towards the problem of life is
dependent upon the entrance of a new faculty upon the
scene, the power of conscious intelligence. By its means
there is formed the idea of a totality of which the individual
is a member. He learns that he is not for himself, but for
something which includes and dominates himself : an idea,
at first somewhat confused with his own and other personal
interests, but capable of being made more and more clear.
The recognition of this dependence of the individual upon a
permanent something in which he finds the central prin-
ciple of his being is the characteristic note of morality.
He has more ways than one of describing it. He may
speak of it as the reason that is within him, the voice of
conscience, the sense of duty, the subordination of the lower
nature in man to the higher ; his true self as opposed to the
temporary instincts and changing phases which pass across
his consciousness. Yet if it is himself, in another sense it
is not himself: but something divine, and universal, a
common humanity, an epiphany of the divine. Or, he may
describe the bond of his allegiance as due to the social
community, to the state, to the body politic. It is in the
ordinances of the society that he finds the most tangible
expression of conditions on which his life as a human being
depends, the standard for repressing accidental and temporary
aberrations. But these ordinances barely suffice to mark
out the framework of such regulative : they vary from time
to time and from community to community : they are not
240 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
wholly free from temptation to selfishness and truckling to
one-sided impulses any more than the court of appeal in the
individual. And hence in order to secure a safe and stable
rule, beyond the disturbing influences of individual and par-
ticular selfishness, the standard is placed in the ideal self
which is the far-off goal to which the whole creation moves,
that self-subsisting unity which is conceived as the source
of all our moral being and as the infinitely perfect life
towards which the gradual enlightenment of humanity is a
constant effort of approximation. From one point of view
the moral progress of humanity is the gradual unveiling of
God ; just as from another it has been called a becoming like
unto God.
But of these three points of view, which place the moral
centre respectively in the reasonable self, in the social com-
munity, and in God, the last as it were keeps in the back-
ground as the ultimate arbiter, and does not enter as a
factor into the process. He is the last judge, not the
immediate referee : still less a party in the contest. He
works through the two subordinate principles, his two
visible representatives, the state and the individual reason :
neither impeccable, and yet both indispensable. Through
means of the community the selfish involution of the intel-
lect is in part removed : there grows up by slow degrees the
distinction between what is for individual interest and what
is for the common weal. At first naturally with many
drawbacks : for the common weal is readily identified with
the interest of the stronger and dominant part of the com-
munity, and it is only gradually that these anomalies are
discovered, and still more gradually that they are set right.
And even when the inequalities within the state have been
removed, they operate between different states, where par-
ticularism still has its place. Laws indeed to a certain
extent hold good with some uniformity even beyond national
and state limits : there are fundamental points of agreement,
for example, between the civil and criminal codes of different
countries. But political divisions keep up to a considerable
degree the old inequality of special and private interests : and
with these political divisions the religious often go hand in
hand. All of these influences interfere with the full realisa-
tion of the true centre and universal source of human life ;
they prevent the revelation of the universality of human
nature in a complete brotherhood of all men. If morality
begins with the love of the brother whom we have seen, it
culminates in the love of God whom we have not seen : if it
begins with the recognition however imperfect of the
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 241
solidarity between man and man, in some limited degree,
it must ascend to the recognition of a great brotherhood of
all times and generations, an ideal and abiding foundation in
which we live and move and have our being.
It is under the stimulus of sociality that the moral instincts
are awakened. There is abundant evidence that the sense
of duty, and the voice of conscience, owe their contents and
even peculiarities of form to the medium in which they grow
up. But the same may be said of intellectual and aesthetic
judgments no less than of moral. It is under the influence
of distinctions already fixed in language that the child
perceives the individual objects of sense around him : he
enters upon the inheritance of a classification that has been
gradually made. And that classification itself was originally
due to the co-operation of individual minds, correcting their
inequalities and peculiarities. The development in every
sphere of activity and culture is under the sanction and the
control of the body politic. The individual movement is
subject to the condition of recognising the common will or
judgment as an essential element. No scientific proposition,
for example, will dare to pretend independence of general
assent from all who can understand it. But nobody would,
therefore, assert that its authority is derived from the social
acceptance which attends it. And so in morals. Here too,
authority may lay down duties : and these derive their
sanction from the force of the collective body : just as certain
pseudo-scientific dogmas derive it from the same power.
But the moral obligations strictly so-called do not derive
their authority from society, though the quasi-legal enforce-
ment of those obligations is first exercised by society. Their
moral character depends on the recognition by the reason of
their essentiality to what is found to be the higher kind of
life. They are arrived at through experience social ex-
perience ; but they pre-suppose a form or category the
legislative attitude and power of reason, which is filled up and
realised in experience.
But while we recognise the essentiality of the social factor
in every aspect of human development, it is needful to enter
a protest against a tendency to hypostatise it into a separate
power over against individual man. That there is antagonism
between society and the individual is obvious. For, on one
hand, the so-called society may really be an exclusive associa-
tion of which the individual is not strictly speaking a mem-
ber : its laws, to which he is subjected, are then the laws of
an alien body. And, on another hand, the society represents
an average of opinion from which the individual to a greater
242 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
or less extent diverges, and an accumulation of experience
to which he has not attained. In the latter case, its action
upon him is paedagogic : it exercises an educational function.
Still even here the relation is that between the elder and the
younger generation, between the majority and the minority.
And while, during the one stage of life, the individuals are
initiated into the existing laws or mysteries of the craft of
the common life, in the other they are supposed to be active
in carrying on these laws a step farther. The social laws,
though they present themselves at first as antagonist to
personal prejudice, are still the work of originative individual
wills which make themselves the spokesmen and leaders of
their community. It is only because they present themselves
as contrary to selfish wishes, and as accepted without distinct
consciousness of their origin, that they seem to spring from
a more than individual and even more than human source.
The work of moralisation does not stop short at adaptation
to existing conditions : it is not merely an adjustment of the
individual to the forms and laws which he finds prevailing.
For the structural arrangement of society, and the conse-
quent mould in which the conceptions of human life must
present themselves, have been the work of accident ; not the
creation of free wills co-operating equally and fairly, but
partially the effects of despotism and violence, of superstition
and ignorance. The social organism which would give the
basis of morality must be sought elsewhere than on earth :
it lies, as Plato said, as a pattern in heaven. The conscious-
ness of true unity and continuity between the individuals of
a society was found (even in a nation otherwise headless and
disunited) realised in the faith in the national gods, the
powers who held ultimate sanction over the fabric of social
materials, and in whom there was a shadow from the con-
suming fire of tyranny, and a shelter from the storm of
anarchy. In actual forms of social union this consoling
sense of the supremacy of right is scantly present ; and,
therefore, instead of assigning to the moralist the province of
deducing the merit of the virtues from their power of con-
tributing to the welfare of the social structure, it is well to
note that the social fabric is the creation of individual
agencies, that it is largely an object for correction and
improvement, and above all that the social organism, when
taken for the standard of ethics is an idea, and has yet to be
carried out into fact.
The conception of the social organism is derived from the
recent researches of biology. The microscope about half a
century ago revealed the fact that animal and vegetable
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 243
bodies consisted of cells, each of which surrounded by its
enclosing wall had an independent existence, whilst it was
also conjoined with others into complex fabrics, or tissues,
and thus helped to make up the several organs of the body.
Here then was a structure apparently single which yet
embraced within it a number of separate beings. And what
was true of cells, was similarly true of the several organs.
" We must look upon the body," say Virchow, " as an organ-
ism of many members, animated throughout : each of its
parts works as part of a machine, and yet each of them at
the same time has the life, the reason of its action in itself.
Many lives are combined in one collective life : many
separate existences with independent capacity of living and
acting are placed in mutual interdependence." A hint was
thus given for interpreting afresh the old analogy between
the individual man and the social structure. Human beings
were treated as cells in a social organism, as at once depen-
dent and independent : the organism was supposed to have
or be the collective intelligence which governed the actions
of its elementary parts. An attempt was even made to find
an analogue to the tissues in the new conception of a social
organism : but the exponents of the doctrine are hardly
agreed as to what this analogue precisely is. At any rate,
there was a reversal in the old view : forthe real life and central
force of society was supposed to inhere in the collective body,
and the individuals retained only a fragmentary existence.
It was admitted, indeed, that analogy would find the best
parallel to the social organism in the lower forms of animal
life, where each segment turns into a separate existence
when divided from the parent. For it seems clear that in
the social organism separation of a part does not imply the
death of that part. And yet it is well not to be too dogmatic
even on this point. A highly specialised element of the social
organism would barely survive if he were deprived of his
surroundings and left to pick up subsistence for himself. It
is only certain parts of the social fabric which can maintain
existence when severed from the parent. And in such a case
we may compare the process to reproduction. The parent
body can discharge from itself certain germinal forms which
in the shape of a colony may preserve independent vitality.
In a highly elaborated society, where differentiation of func-
tions was carried far, not any part of the organism could
serve to make a new and independent structure, but certainly
some portions could. We have heard the story of the
Gentleman and the Basket-maker.
But even with these admissions the view seems open to a
244 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
farther criticism. Physiology tells us of the separate and in
one sense isolated structures which co-exist in the body of a
human being. But the unity of that body lies in the con-
tinuity of life and the feeling of personal identity. This
unity is not in any way homogeneous or comparable with
the division and separation of material parts. It is unaffected
by any hypothesis which represents the united consciousness
as a sum of the constituent consciousness of the parts, or as
an illusory unification of the single consciousness of the seve-
ral moments of life. Consciousness is in its very essence
undivided : or rather it is itself unity and the force which
keeps the divided in one. As we know it, consciousness is
connected with individually concrete human beings. A
natural tendency prompts us to presuppose a similar principle
of unity wherever we find a harmonious adjustment of part
with part, similar to our own case. But in this transference
we are liable to error. We are apt to suppose a sort of
material unity like that which is exhibited in our own living
organism. We find a unity in the social structure as it
stands in quasi-materialised form before us. In reality, the
social organism of which we speak is a stage of consciousness
which we do not reach or recognise without an effort. From
another point of view it may be called a generalisation from
the actual associations family, church, state, which we
find around us : a something which though in general
characters resembling them yet at the same time comprehends
them all. As such it exists nowhere : glimpses of it are to
be found everywhere : but the full reality has no concrete
manifestation.
The body of the social organism is a spiritual body : it
exists in thought, and can only be realised as an idea. It is
in the first instance a creation of the mind, which no doubt
proceeds to give such realisation in concrete form as it can,
by the fuller organisation of society. But after all the per-
formance falls sadly short of the reality : we find only frag-
ments and have to construct from them a whole. And
further it is from the individual consciousness that the centre
of unity comes : that is the true source of life which goes on
extending its range of influence, strengthened no doubt by
the co-operation of other individual consciousnesses till it
spreads abroad in a boundless life, which may be called
divine. What happens is not that the individual surrenders
himself to an outside comprehensive will, but that he gradu-
ally learns to lay aside the isolating attachments which kept
him apart, and discovers that he and others are really one.
Moral life is not the work of a bureaucracy which transmits
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 245
to individuals the orders and dispositions of the central
authority of the social organism, but is the spontaneous
co-operation of individuals, enlightened by experience and
education, towards the harmonisation of human action, the
removal of inconsistencies and unnecessary collisions from
the path of progress.
The social organism, therefore, is an inappropriate name
for an ideal unity. Literally taken it is a fiction. Science
working with terms like these is barely in a fit position to
throw stones at the Kealists of the Middle Ages. A social
organism, with its organs and tissues, is a mere abstraction,
formed by the help of analogy, and though it may occasionally
be useful as a corrective to impatient reformers who believe
that they can modify the individual quite apart from his
environment, it is out of place as a governing principle of
ethics. The true value of the social organism is rather to
emphasise the need of studying the moral environment of
man. This environment he partly finds around him, he
partly helps to make or modify it. But man morally as well
as physically has great liberty of choice and change in that
environment : he can rise out of it, he can turn his back
upon it, and adopt a new social atmosphere, to some extent,
of his own. When the voice of the social environment comes
to him, with its "They say": his "What say they?" is
accompanied by "Let them say". The social environment
is not to be identified with a social organism.
Those who use such terms must at the same time admit
the double-edged nature of their tools. In the conception of
an organism, the independence and originality of the parts
from one point of view must be set against their dependent
and derivative place in the whole : and the supremacy of
the totality must not let us lose sight of the priority of
its constituent elements. Otherwise we fall into the con-
fusions which attend the unwary employment of relative
abstractions. A thorough metaphysical analysis of the
conception of whole and parts must be followed up by a
theory of the implications of organic and of ideal unity. It
is in such analyses that Hegel rightly placed the funda-
mental problem of philosophy. But to those who have
learned on approved authority that Hegelianism is a worthless
figment of arbitrary constructiveness, it is more convenient
to conjure with quasi-real and quasi-scientific phrases. The
collective will of a social organism is a phrase which slurs
over incompatibilities which baffle reconciliation and pro-
cesses which cannot be easily traced. Yet the collective
action only lumps the resultants of a complex group of
246 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
actions and reactions of individual wills. It is because our
intellectual mechanics fails to calculate the result from the
partial effects, and cannot estimate the forces of sympathy
and antagonism, that we allow the collective body an influ-
ence distinct from the actions of the component units, plus
their reactions upon each other.
The phrase social organism, as used to denote the subordi-
nation of individuals to their social aggregate and the
centralisation of their life and action in the system of this
aggregate, is scarcely adequate to represent the ideal
character of the principle which underlies and controls the
actions of individuals. The action of a society is always
describable as a function or peculiarly-constituted compound
of the actions of individuals. The only real agents in the
process are human individuals. It is in the individual human
consciousness that the process of ethics is transacted : the
action of soul upon soul takes place only indirectly, through
the medium of physical agencies. By the aggregate of these
physical agencies, or external goods such as human bodies,
land, machinery, railways, churches, factories, policemen,
the communication between human souls is in various degrees
facilitated : and as the fact that they have been so consti-
tuted by human needs gives the aggregate a certain unity
and interdependence, we may call the whole fabric a social
organism, and allow that in the study of it men and women
are as much parts of it as the machinery in the mills, or the
gold in the banks. For the purposes of ethics, however, the
important point is to remember that man, though he builds
himself as a stone in this structure, is also and always the
builder and even the architect.
Only man builds in two senses. In one sense he builds as
the ants do in the ant-hill, or as the coral insects on their
rock. His works are ushered into being with the same
blindness to ends, with the same unintentionality, which
marks the processes of organic nature. Before he has time
to reflect, he is forced into action, and the consequences of
his action bind him for the future. In his case, as in the
rest of nature, the powers and aptitudes he possesses tend to
form orderly systems. But this adaptation comes slowly and
at much cost. Intelligence steps in to abbreviate the pro-
cess. It brings into close connexion what previously was
merely coexistent : it builds up the several elements into
unity, and thus prepares the way for exclusion of hetero-
geneous and inconsistent elements. When man can thus
construct a plan or scheme in which his works may form a
part, he works in another and a peculiarly human way. He
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 247
is guided by ideas. To them institutions and associations
minister constructive material. In consciousness the details
of a social organism are invested with a totality which they
did not have in their actual and temporal existence. In the
so-called real world of space and time, in the sense-world,
that organism nowhere exists full and developed : the
organism of the ethical idea has its reality from the reason.
The unifying systematising power of reason is that light
which never was on sea or land, it is the consecration which
thought gives to the world. In the sensuous reality we see
one thing and we see another : but it is mind which places
causation, which with increasing energy traces connexions
between what time and place have separated, and refers them
to a governing unity. Such governing unity of the existing
materials and forces the unity which the vulgar eye,
engrossed and absorbed in its own special range, fails to
recognise is what is called an idea. As the very truth of
the particulars from which it emerges, it serves by its very
contrast with the fragments as they exist to suggest reforms
to fill up the gaps.
To discover this unity is the discovery of the true self. It
involves an act which may be variously described as abstrac-
tion, as reflection, as self-knowledge. The mind has to
detach itself from its temporary and accidental individuality
and to lift itself into its universal element. Intelligence, in
order to be free and conscious, so as to act with originative
force, must withdraw back from and carry itself beyond its
embodiment in concrete interests. The soul that is to
discern the true spirit of the times, the real possibilities of
action, must retire for a while from the stage of life. The
real freedom of will the power of absolute initiative must
be purchased by self-renunciation. The gift of inspiration
which is but another name for the liberation of intelligence
from its sensual bonds comes to those and only to those
who have the heart to isolate themselves from the sweep of
the current, and who survey the mystery of life from some
vantage ground of speculation. The soul which is to become
an agent and not a mere vehicle in the career of human
affairs must retire into the desert. Such withdrawal is typi-
fied in the "four times seven days " during which the Buddha
remained fasting under the tree of knowledge, " enjoying the
blessedness of redemption," before he went and preached his
new gospel at Benares. It is typified no less in the marvel-
lous detachment of Socrates in the midst of the social and
political activity of Athens.
The dawn of morality was the moment in the life of an
248 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
individual when he saw that his own selfish interests were
not the whole substance of his life. The perception probably
came from some shock when one whose life had been closely
bound up with his own had passed away, and he felt that
the nobler part of himself had gone, and that he had failed
to recognise before the grave his full fellowship with the
departed. For death has been at many times the revealer
of a tie which the jars and distractions of life kept out of
sight. At such seasons in domestic life when reflection is
aroused, the whole institution of domesticity rises up in con-
sciousness with full and vivid outlines which startle the
careless habitues of the social structure. It is no longer a
mere bundle of precise duties, of details going to make up
the tale of a contract, no limited specification of points in
which certain things are expected and required. On the
contrary the institution becomes " an image of the mighty
world": it claims to be felt in every field of activity, to be
the focus towards which all action converges. On a larger
scale other associations carry out the same process. They
realise in various degrees the unity of human kind : making
the individuals no longer outside each other, in animal inde-
pendence (more ferae), but members of a common being,
dependent on a common life, united by practice which fol-
lows their faith in an idea, an idea which is not seen, and
yet supports the conduct of those who "live by admiration,
hope and love ". Thus in many ways, not less in the lesser
circles of social brotherhood than in those greater but yet
imperfect unities known as states and churches, man becomes
moral, not by the mere aggregation which drifts him into
these associations, but by the translation of them into ideas,
principles of universal significance, watchwords for which
life is to be spent and death faced ungrudgingly.
Yet all ideas embodied in institutions are limited by their
range : the simplest and purest associations for common
aims look coldly on the Gentiles outside : they generate new
and subtler selfishness which hides its unsightliiiess under
the guise of an angel of light. Even on the heights of
moral grandeur, where devotion to an idea becomes sublime
and pathetic, the old enemy of the soul can whisper, "Ye
shall be as gods," and snatch away from high achievement
the gracious beauty of unselfish surrender. Asceticism,
which checks the cravings of the sensuous nature, leaves
open the door for spiritual vanity and worship of the
individual soul : and benevolence, which bestows its goods
to feed the poor, may yet want the spirit of perfect love.
Ever must the idea be revived, in wakefulness and recollec-
ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 249
tion, of the one ideal and universal state which is also the
one universal church; ever, "faith become a passionate in-
tuition " that the Son of Man is also the Son of God, the
heir of infinite aspirations, which cannot be realised fully
in anything short of universal brotherhood, and in the
ultimate conformity of actions to the true reasonable life of
collective humanity.
Thus, if man is the portion of a system, with his place
and duties dependent upon his position, he is also the
creator of the organisation : and it is in his individual
consciousness that the dry bones of legal and social rules
gain the power of an organic and organising idea. He is
not a mere blank sheet on which society imprints the texts
which expound its interests. Too often indeed man does
little but reflect his environment : and orthodox authority
has many means for securing his conformity. And for the
average human being the sense of social sympathy when he
acts in the general interest is a useful criterion of conduct.
But even then, the individual helps to make the verdict to
which he conforms : he is in part creator of the social
standard. And in other cases the individual may lead the
society after him especially when they see that he is free
from selfish motive and has the clear vision of reality.
There are times when the individual must set social decisions
aside. There is an honour in the eyes of society which
stands rooted in dishonour : a social sanction which ought
to be withstood. The individual appeals from the society
which is, to the society which he sees by the eye of faith,
ready to be revealed : the sturdy independent, if his inde-
pendence is founded upon insight, comes to lay the basis of
a new social code : and even the blood of the martyrs
certifies the growth of the church. Always the social code
requires if progress is to be the law of life, and if ethics as
the science of ideals is to survive to be extended and per-
fected by continued discoveries in the immense range of
those conditions of true human life, wherein lies the infinite
problem for human faculties.
The province of ethics thus divides into two departments.
On the one hand, there is the theory of individual man, first,
on his natural side, as a subject of psychological investigation,
as a creature of sense and emotion and desire: and, secondly,
as a reason, with the faculty of ideas and ideals. The theory
of knowledge, of its conditions and the evidence they bear to
a unity of principle underlying even the senses and feelings,
the doctrine of reason, as the ultimate former of emotion
and shaper of action, constitutes what we may call the
17
250 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOQY.
logical and metaphysical side of ethics. On the other hand,
ethics has to confront the phenomena of society, economical,
juridical, and religious, to examine the relations of the
individual to the various forms of social organisation, to
emphasise the priority of the human idea in its totality to
the fractional aspects under which it appears in the indus-
trial world, in politics, in churches, and in the pursuit of
science. No precise line can be drawn separating the sphere
of ethics from that of law or of religion. The moral nature
of man is the ultimate standard both for the jurist and the
theologian.
When I thus define in two directions the province of
ethics, I am reminded of one whom friendship would not
otherwise allow me to forget. My predecessor needs no
eulogy. But we all need encouragement and light from
those who have gone before us on a way which we also must
walk. And there are constant temptations to simplify the
work of life by shutting the eyes to everything that lies out-
side one clear and single duty. It is a great thing to have
the example of him who did not find it inconsistent with
strenuous and profound investigation of those so-called ab-
stract principles, on which rests the very possibility of
morality itself, to give earnest and sympathetic attention to all
the social movements in which ethical force shows itself, and
to do what in him lay to render the idea of human brother-
hood a reality. And even for those who could not occupy
his theoretical standpoint or find themselves in harmony
with the special directions of his work, there is the lesson
suggested that this is no time to sit down mourning for
an imaginary past, but a period in which the academic
association must realise, actually and actively, its raison
d'etre in serving the moral, intellectual, and religious develop-
ment of the nation and the world. It is well occasionally to
look back with grateful affection to the great traditions of
our past. It is even more needful to prepare ourselves to
take a worthy part in moulding the age to come : solicitous
that by the full measure of our abilities, unbiassed by merely
scholastic interests, the Oxford of the new generation may
be not perhaps more learned or more dignified, but wiser in
discerning the main line of public good, readier to co-operate
in the movement towards making life beautiful, true and
honest, and more generously zealous to become to England
without distinction of rank or sect a high court of intellectual
and moral justice.
W. WALLACE.
VI. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
MR. H. SIDGWICK ON THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
A review by Mr. Sidgwick of any philosophical doctrine is sure
to contain much of interest for its adherents. His objections,
even when directed from the point of view of an outsider, may be
taken as fairly indicating some weakness in, or imperfect statement
of, the doctrine. In MIND XXIX., he lays before us the first
instalment of a comprehensive criticism of the Kantian theory,
and those who think that the most valuable philosophic training
is to be obtained by the earnest study of that theory, will have
an opportunity of judging how a candid inquirer, of independent
view, estimates its worth. The introductory article, it is true,
does not carry the criticism to the heart of the problem, but it
deals with some isolated points of interest and gives a foretaste of
the general spirit with which the criticism is animated.
Perhaps it may be allowed to me to say that Mr. Sidgwick's
position, so far as can be judged from the article referred to,
albeit that of an outsider, seems hardly that of the ' impartial
spectator'. Throughout there is a tone of only half -concealed irri-
tation or impatience, evidenced in the ironical compliments to the
miscalled " Neo-Kantians " ; in the captious remarks on criticism
with its small "c" ; in the dogmatic utterance respecting Kant's
appreciation of his English predecessors ; and in the remarkable
strength of the epithets applied to some of Kant's positions. At
the same time there appears to underlie the whole review a much
more definite conception of philosophy generally and of some parti-
cular philosophical notions than is compatible with perfect fairness
of treatment. The demand that a philosophical analysis of know-
ledge shall make good its data, its mode of procedure from them
and therefore its results, though 011 the surface formal, may
readily and in this case does probably cover a somewhat de-
veloped fundamental view. Perhaps it is the presence of some
such view that gives to certain statements of Mr. Sidgwick a
curiously old-fashioned air. Some criterion is applied the nature
of which is not evident on the surface. I am much struck, in
this connexion, with Mr. Sidgwick's easy fashion of using and
interpreting the data of Common Sense.
Applying his demand regarding the form of a philosophy, Mr.
Sidgwick asks what knowledge is accepted by Kant as the pre-
supposition or groundwork of his investigation into the conditions
of knowledge. The answer to this being pure mathematics and
theoretical physics, so far at least as their fundamental notions
are concerned, Mr. Sidgwick, censuring the " Neo-Kantians " for
their negligence in omitting to examine the significance of such
assumption, proceeds to inquire into its validity. It is with this
252 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
portion of the article that it seems possible to deal in isolation ;
all the rest, with the possible exception of the critical comments
on Kant's arguments respecting Space, is preliminary to the
future treatment of the central doctrines.
The argument with respect to these mathematical and physical
principles is briefly that Kant's acceptance of them as a basis is
illegitimate and inconsistent : for (1) no reason can be given why
they should be assumed without inquiry while the notions of
theoretical metaphysics are rejected ; (2) no valid proof of the
principles is possible on the Kantian ground ; (3) if their truth be
assumed as a matter of Common Sense, Kant contradicts his
own contemptuous declarations regarding that philosophic re-
source, and is, by other doctrines of his own, cut off from its aid.
Discussion of these points is rendered very difficult by reason of
the ambiguous character of the terms which are, perhaps of
necessity, employed by Mr. Sidgwick. " Proved," " valid," and
the like, are terms about the significance of which one might
argue ad infinitum, and in respect to Kant's doctrine regarding
mathematics there is a special and additional source of ambiguity.
To prove the validity of the mathematical notions might mean
not only to show that these notions have evidence in themselves,
that fruitful deductions from them are possible, and that their
validity is taken as extending beyond the empirical observations
of the thinker who employs them, but to show how such pecu-
liarities are possible. I cannot avoid the reflection that Mr. Sidg-
wick demands from Kant that as a preliminary for his analysis
of experience he shall assume its very results, that acceptance of
mathematical notions shall depend upon adequate insight into the
grounds of their possibility. Kant's position appears to me suffi-
ciently simple. He takes as empirical marks of mathematical
notions, universality and necessity, and no theory respecting the
ground of the said marks will alter the nature of the acceptance
of them. Apparently Mr. Sidgwick thinks that universality to
take the more patent example must be based either on absolutely
exhaustive survey, or on a theory which shall prove the right to
accept part for the whole; from which it follows that, as the first
course is impracticable, and the second is the result of the philo-
sophic analysis, universality cannot be assumed at the outset. It
appears to me, however, that Kant is right in claiming insight into
universality as not merely a quantitative aggregate of separate ex-
periences, but as a qualitative appreciation of the character of the
facts experienced. Whatever theory be adopted, the acceptance
of such notions as valid for a special order of facts will not be
affected ; and as mere matter of history, we know that Kant held
the same view regarding mathematical notions in conjunction with
two quite distinct theories of their possibility.
Mr. Sidgwick's remarks with regard to the rejection of meta-
physical notions by Kant do not seem warranted by anything Kant
has said. Kant discredits them on the ground that fruitful appli-
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 253
cation of mathematical and physical universals has been made,
while no such result has followed in the case of metaphysical
notions ; but all three are placed on the same footing when an
inquiry into the grounds of their possibility is undertaken. More-
over, the criterion, which, as the result of the inquiry, is applied
to distinguish metaphysical from mathematico- scientific notions,
does not bear upon the conceptual evidence or even self-evidence
of these principles, but on the possibility of realising them in
experience. In other words, the theorems of metaphysics are not
proved false, but unreal.
Mr. Sidgwick, however, thinks that the criterion is in itself
insufficient, and accordingly enters on a somewhat elaborate
examination of Kant's theory of mathematical evidence. I find
it difficult to follow the reasoning ; for Mr. Sidgwick seems to me
to overlook certain characteristic features of Kant's method, e.g., the
distinction between notion and intuition, and the intermediate
place occupied by the schema. It follows from the first that we
are not to identify truth and reality ; from the second, that we
are not to regard the realisation of a rule of construction as a
perceived fact. The schema is at once concrete and individual,
and yet not an empirical fact, a matter of observation. Perhaps
it is because Mr. Sidgwick regards the mathematical intuition as
a single, definite object, and not as a schema, that he is so
astounded and indignant at Kant's expressions in regard to
Algebraic processes. He evidently thinks that the intuition
required by Kant is to be found only in the letters and signs
of operation by which these processes are represented. Kant's
brief expressions are sufficiently careless, but they are only directed
towards the statement, that the intuitive character of all genera-
tion of quantities is additionally evidenced by the fact that where
the intuition is not a quantum but quantitas generally, we never-
theless preserve the reference to intuition by employing signs
of operations in intuition, signs for subtracting, equating and
the like. These symbols are not, as in the case of geometrical
schemata, resembling specimens, but representations of general
rules of construction in intuition. I can hardly think that Mr.
Sidgwick is serious in supposing that it is only because we write
algebraic symbols on paper that algebraic processes are assimi-
lated by Kant to geometrical. Mr. Sidgwick appears to hold that
algebraic reasoning is distinguished from reasoning in abstract, i.e.,
from analysis of notions, simply by superior definiteness of the con-
ceptions. I think he will probably find that the definiteness of
conception here implies reference to intuition, although a " con-
crete and individual " image need not be present. Surely Mr.
Sidgwick would not suppose that reasoning about a triangle is in
concreto while reasoning about a chiliagon is in abstracto. If so,
he has misconstrued a fundamental Kantian distinction.
Supplementary arguments are added respecting Arithmetic and
its synthetical character. With respect to one of these (p. 79),
it may be remarked that, even though time be involved in the
254 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
elementary process on which counting is based, it does not follow
that the notion of time should present itself as an integral part
of each arithmetical quantity. It is always we who count and
yet the notion of ourselves is not part of each arithmetical notion.
The other argument is a repetition of an old discussion respecting
the well known 7 + 5 = 12. Mr. Sidgwick thinks this not
synthetical, on the ground that 7 + 5 = 12 is deducible from
12 = 7 + 5, that this again is deducible from strictly analytical
propositions by reversing the statement of the generation of
numbers up to 12, and adding the axiom, itself analytical, that
a whole is equal to the sum of its parts "taken in any order".
On all this it is sufficient to say that the difference of view rests
upon overlooking the reference to intuition which is for Kant
the mark of a synthetical proposition, that reversal of the series
of numbers is only possible on ground of the previous series of
syntheses by which they have been generated, and that an axiom
which explicitly contains the mark of intuition " taken in any
order " can hardly be declared analytical in Kant's sense of that
term. The whole matter of this proposition is well discussed in the
older books on Kant and in Eiehl, whose treatment is very careful.
Turning then to the universals of physical science, Mr. Sidg-
wick finds that these are accepted by Kant, apparently on the
ground that experience confirms them. But according to this very
Kant, experience cannot prove such statements, and if they are
taken as dictates of Common Sense, it is forgotten that many
philosophers have questioned their validity. Here we have the
old ambiguity regarding the term prove. Kant's position, I take
it, was a very simple one. He finds that in all scientific investi-
gation, in every experiment or observation, certain rules are
implied, of scope such that comparison of individual cases cannot
be accepted as their basis, and by means of which progress in
knowledge is made. The existence of such principles calls for a
theory of knowledge which shall offer some explanation, positive
or negative, of their ground. The ' safety and certainty ' of the
physical principles is the condition of no proposition in the theory
of knowledge itself.
As to the remaining argument, bringing Kant's expressions
before the bar of Common Sense, it has not to my mind any
special pertinence. I cannot speak so unhesitatingly as Mr.
Sidgwick does regarding Common Sense, which as a rule is
wholly unaware of the significance of its own dicta and therefore
liable to a distracting diversity of interpretation. In philo-
sophical matters, it probably signifies the sum of what a thinker
takes to be true, without being able to render a reason therefor.
It is only right to add that Mr. Sidgwick most fully acknow-
ledges that the central doctrines of the Kritik are not dependent
on the acceptance, in one sense or another, of these mathematical
and physical principles. His discussion of them, therefore,
stands on its own ground, and is to be taken as a mere criticism
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 255
of Kant's power of dealing with isolated questions. In them-
selves they appear to me to have only historical importance,
and I cannot but think that " Neo-Kantians," as Mr. Sidgwick
insists on calling them, do well not to embrangle the exposition
of Kant's ' new way of ideas ' with an extensive discussion, the
very significance of which only becomes apparent in the course
of working out the ' new way '. A thinker rarely starts from
the logical ground of his theory, and it is, moreover, the very
peculiarity of philosophy that it does and must return upon its
presuppositions and infuse into them a new significance.
E. ADAMSON.
KANT'S THEOEY OF MATHEMATICS.
Though it is usual to allow a critic to complete his criticisms
before offering any comment on them, I ask permission to depart
from this course as regards one point in Mr. Sidgwick's " Criticism
of the Critical Philosophy" in MIND XXIX., for two reasons:
first, because Mr. Sidgwick may perhaps be able to clear up my
difficulties before the conclusion of his series of papers; and,
secondly, because it seems to me to be of the utmost importance
to Philosophy especially when the Kantian Philosophy is under
discussion that the true nature of Mathematics and Mathematical
reasoning should be understood.
Mr. Sidgwick substantially accepts Kant's views as regards
Geometry. He differs from the great Critic as regards Arithmetic
and Algebra, which are two branches of the Science of Number
but which evidently do not exhaust that science though Kant has
not in terms referred to Trigonometry, the Differential Calculus,
&c. Mr. Sidgwick's objections to the Kantian theory of the
Science of Number appear to be two : (1) that the symbolic con-
struction of concepts in Algebra is not essentially different from
the symbolic construction of concepts by means of verbal or
written signs in Philosophy; and (2) that Arithmetic does not
contain synthetical judgments as Geometry does.
To take the last of these objections first, Kant was not bound
to prove that 7 + 5 = 12 is a synthetical judgment. He admits
that there are analytical judgments in Arithmetic and Algebra,
and if he made a blunder in selecting an example of a synthetical
judgment it does not affect his general theory. I do not indeed
admit the blunder ; but if the existence of synthetical judgments
in the Science of Number must be conceded, the question as
regards 7 + 5 = 12 is hardly worth debating. Will Mr. Sidgwick
maintain that such propositions as db = ba (or, in its arithmetical
expression, in multiplication it is indifferent which number we
take as multiplicand and which as multiplier), Newton's Bino-
mial Theorem, Taylor's Theorem or De Moivre's Theorem are
analytical propositions? Or that though they are themselves
256 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
synthetical judgments they are deduced by strict logical Accesses
from analytical judgments? Neither of these positions appears
to me to be tenable : and if they are not, we must concede the
existence of unproved synthetical judgments in the Science of
Number; in which case, if that science possesses absolute cer-
tainty, these judgments must be absolutely certain although un-
proved. Granting this, the precise number of such judgments is
of little consequence.
Eeturning now to the former question, Mr. Sidgwick thinks the
Algebraist " can no more bring his reasonings ' vor Augen' by the
simple expedient of writing down his x's and y's, his + and his ,
than the Philosopher can by similarly writing down his philo-
sophical terms with verbs, conjunctions, &c., appertaining". I
rather apprehend Kant's meaning to be that though the x's and
y's are only symbolical representatives of quantity, their relations
are exhibited in intuition and that, so long as we are dealing with
these relations only, our processes can be verified by intuition.
The distinction is not so much in the writing down of the symbols
as in the processes which we perform on them when they are
written down. If I sought to expand (a + b + c + d) 3 by a mere
calculation in my head, I might easily forget or overlook one of
the terms when making my final tot, but this error is almost
excluded when the characters stand out before me on paper.
Nothing similar to this occurs in Philosophy. The relations of
the World, the Soul, and God cannot be exhibited in intuition, and
in fact (according to Kant) cannot be discovered at all. Let me
add that even the working out of an algebraic development in
one's head does not seem to be a merely logical process. It
involves actual multiplication and addition, the symbols being
present to imagination if not to sense.
I confess, however, that I am not quite satisfied with this
explanation, and the proof of the identity of the geometric and
algebraic processes which seems to me almost conclusive, is an in-
direct one. It is that which is afforded by what is called Analytic
Geometry (the term analytic being used in a sense quite distinct
from the Kantian) and also by Trigonometry, in both which sciences
we frequently discover new geometrical truths by purely algebraic
processes. It is true indeed that certain synthetical propositions
must be assumed from Geometry as the basis of each of these
sciences. We cannot prove that the equation ax + by + c =
represents a right line without assuming that in similar (that is,
mutually equiangular) triangles the corresponding sides are pro-
portional, and also that the three angles of any plane triangle are
equal to two right angles. And the very same geometrical pro-
positions must be assumed in order to show that sin or tan is a
constant quantity while another well-known geometrical theorem
proves the fundamental proposition that #in*0 + cos^O = 1. But
though this is true, it seems to me equally clear that we cannot
regard all the results of Analytic Geometry and Trigonometry as
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 257
mere logical inferences from the geometrical propositions thus
assumed. If it were so, the introduction of algebraic symbols
and algebraic processes would be a mere roundabout way of
drawing inferences from geometrical premisses : whereas in point
of fact new theorems have been established in this way which
the mere geometer or mere logician is still unable to verify. 1 I
have indeed maintained that new truths may be discovered by
mere (deductive) logic, for a man may happen to put together two
synthetic premisses which had never been thought of in conjunc-
tion before, and thus arrive at a really new conclusion. But I
think all who have studied the nature of pure (deductive) logic
will admit that the synthetical conclusions which can be drawn
by syllogism or sorites from a limited number of synthetical
premisses is likewise limited, and that their number cannot be
really added to by the introduction of any number of analytical
premisses. If this be conceded, it must also be admitted that
both Analytic Geometry and Trigonometry contain a mass of
synthetical conclusions which cannot possibly be explained as
mere logical inferences from the synthetical judgments originally
borrowed from Geometry. Is there anything analogous to this
in Philosophy ? Have we any means except mere reasoning
for deriving conclusions from our original premisses ? And have
we any original synthetical premisses to start from ? These are
questions which must be . answered by every one who seeks to
assimilate the method of Philosophy to that of Algebra ; and he
can hardly excuse himself from answering them even if he can
show that Kant did not draw the true distinction between the two
methods. Kant's conclusion may still be perfectly correct, viz.,
that the Mathematical method (in all its forms) is inapplicable to
Philosophy, and that the indefinite progress which we are able to
make in the Mathematical Sciences affords no evidence of our
ability to make a corresponding progress or any progress in
Philosophy. We all know that many accomplished mathemati-
cians are very poor reasoners, while an able logician unaccustomed
to mathematical processes, though well aware of all the first prin-
ciples assumed in Euclid or Algebra, would almost certainly fail to
discover or even to prove many well-known geometrical and alge-
braic theorems. These facts seem to me sufficient to show that the
1 Sometimes every step of the algebraic process can be translated into a
corresponding geometrical process, and the algebraic result is thus attained
by a corresponding geometrical one. At other times this is not the case,
and the processes though ending in the same result are apparently quite
distinct, whereas, in merely logical processes there seems to be but one
mode of reaching the same conclusion from the same premisses. The extent
to which algebraic considerations have entered into geometry may be
inferred when I believe I can safely challenge any one to answer the
following question by pure geometry : Given the three sides of a triangle,
what is its area ? And when the algebraic process involves any power
higher than the cube, geometrical representation becomes impossible.
258 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
Mathematical Method is distinct from the Logical, and does not
consist of pure reasoning. And is any other than the Logical
Method applicable in Philosophy ? I wait for an answer.
W. H. S. MONCK.
IS SELF-SACEIFICE AN ENIGMA?
I am venturing to offer a few remarks on a very old subject.
It is not that I have anything fresh to say, but I should like once
again to point out a very common and injurious mistake. Mr.
Leslie Stephen, in his Science of Ethics, has spoken of the
association between misery and virtue, and of the general exist-
ence of vice and suffering, as a puzzle and an enigma. I should
be sorry to appear anxious to weaken the authority of Mr.
Stephen's views, since in the main I sympathise with them, and
in some of them I even permit myself to feel a personal interest.
On the contrary, it is because I believe rash assertions about evil
to be fatal to the cause which we both have at heart, and which
I may call the liberation of Moral Philosophy, that I wish to
submit some rather obvious reflections.
When I say that I deny that there is any mystery or puzzle or
enigma of any kind which attaches itself to the general existence
of suffering and crime, or is involved in the misery of virtuous
failure and in the reality of self -sacrifice I may appear in the
light of a presumptuous dogmatist. But my object is to point
out that dogmatism and presumption belong to the man who
proclaims the enigma, much rather than to myself who deny it.
For the assertor does not mean merely that evil is a fact which,
like other facts, in the end is inexplicable, and so is a mystery.
He must mean that evil is specially puzzling, and he implies by
consequence that he has some reason which would lead him to
expect the absence of this evil. For surely if, like myself, he
knew of nothing whatever which conflicted in his mind with the
presence of evil, then, like myself, he would cease to find any
special mystery in the matter.
Well, if so, the difference between him and myself is that, aware
or unaware, he commits himself to a statement which I find to
transcend the powers of my understanding ; and the question is
whether I am obstinately blind or he presumptuously dogmatic.
I naturally am forced to adopt the latter view.
Why should evil not exist, and why should not this or that
virtuous man be wretched ? You may say that it conflicts with
a moral government of the Universe. But, if so, you assume this
moral government of the universe, and (I must be allowed to add)
you assume very miLch more. For you feel that self-sacrifice
involves injustice, and that a Moral Governor would not be so
unjust. But here you quite forget that justice is one duty
amongst other duties, and that a Divine Euler, like his human
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 259
counterparts, might at times find a duty which overrides bare
justice. Thus, assuming that the "Universe is morally governed,
you assume besides that the rule of justice can have no possible
exception in favour of another and a higher duty. These as-
sumptions are assuredly not so self-evident that to deny them
should entail the charge of presumption.
But I shall be told that the Governor of the Universe is omni-
potent. Perhaps ; but, as I could never find out what that means,
I can hardly be expected to admit it as true.
If however the person who finds evil so puzzling, is willing to
give up the Moral Governor who never can be more than barely
just, I do not see after this how he will succeed in defending his
puzzle any longer.
He may say : But all evil, and with it self-sacrifice, are surely
undesirable. Yes, perhaps so, I reply ; but do you dare to
assume that the desirable must be real and the real desirable,
and that, if I hesitate to follow, I am presumptuously diffident ?
And, suppose that I do follow and do assume with you that the
desirable must be real, then how am I to know that pain, crime,
and self-sacrifice are really undesirable? I do not see how to
affirm this, unless I am prepared to say that the world as it
stands is worse than nothing, or unless again I have reason to
judge that another world, better and more desirable than ours,
really is a possible alternative. But for myself I do not possess
such knowledge. For anything that I can tell, every possible
alternative (if any alternative is possible) might turn out in the
end to be less desirable. Of course, if you know better, you are
right in speaking otherwise ; but I should be glad to be shown
the foundation of your knowledge. If you wish me to agree that
a change in the character of our world is really desirable, you
must show me first that the change is possible, and next that it
would not bring on some other alteration which we all should
regret. And I think I may say that you will not find it easy to
perform this task.
And, if I am further pressed with the objection : But possible
or not possible, desirable or undesirable, you can fancy a change
that you do desire ; then I answer : Yes, I can fancy a great deal,
spring without winter, eternal youth, and the first flush of passion
always at its height. But how can I desire these unless for the
moment at least they seem possible, and possible without an
overbalancing result of loss and misery? And is this seeming
possibility anything better than an illusion ? Are you prepared
to make our irrational fancies the measure of the Universe ? If
so, you may be right, but once more I must ask to be excused
from following you.
Of course I, like other men, do look upon evil as something
which, we may say truly, ought not to exist ; but then I try to find
out what I mean by this phrase. What I mean is first of all that
human wills ought with all their strength to endeavour generally
260 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
to make evil non-existent. And in the second place I mean that it
is one of our special duties (though not our sole duty, nor even our
chief duty) to aim at the putting an end to injustice and to the
possibility of self-sacrifice. In this sense we may say that, from
a moral point of view, evil and with it self-sacrificing virtue are
both undesirable ; we must look on them as things which ought
not to be. And so far we are agreed. But if you then propose
to rush straight away from this moral duty of finite beings to the
general nature of the Universe as a whole, if you find courage
to assume that our moral struggle is in the Universe a rent and a
conflict a conflict which we have reason to think cannot really
be there, and so find puzzling well, if so, I admit that you have
justified your enigma, but you must allow me to add that the
limits of my intellect seem no limits to yours. You seem first of
all to know that the whole is a harmony, and then to be sure
that the presence of anything that to us seems a discord must of
necessity make that whole discordant. I admire, but cannot
follow you.
I am afraid that, when some readers hear a poor ' ontologist '
like myself uttering warning cries about the limits of our know-
ledge, they will think of Satan mighty in the Scriptures or
rebuking sin. And yet I feel bound to submit to their attention
that very rule which first made me an ontologist, still keeps and
will keep me one : Where yon find a puzzle you are making an assump-
tion, and it is your duty to find out what that assumption is.
F. H. BEADLEY.
ME. H. SPENCEE'S CLASSIFICATION OF COGNITIONS.
The works of Mr. Herbert Spencer have probably aroused
more opposition and elicited more criticism than those of any
other living writer. The great majority of Mr. Spencer's critics
have attacked him from without, that is to say, they have con-
tested his whole system and denied all his main propositions.
A few have taken him in flank, and admitting some of his
principles have contested the conclusions that he has drawn from
them ; but, so far as I know, he has not yet had to withstand
the charge of failing to carry his principles to their logical and
legitimate result.
While I am conscious of the extreme temerity of challenging
Mr. Spencer upon his own ground, I am sustained by the con-
sciousness that I am more Spencerian than Mr. Spencer himself,
and by the belief that his splendid discoveries have a wider
application than even he himself allows.
" The presentation of Intelligence as an adjustment of inner
to outer relations that gradually extends in Space and Time, that
becomes increasingly special and complex, and that has its
elements ever more precisely co-ordinated and more completely
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 261
integrated, leaves us with a conception which obviously requires
further development. The various degrees and modes of Intel-
ligence known as Instinct, Memory, Eeason, Emotion, Will, and
the rest, must be translated in terms of this conception. If, as
above alleged, the several grades of Mind and its component
faculties are phases of the correspondence and factors in the
correspondence, they can be interpreted as such." So says Mr.
Spencer, and so upon his showing I thoroughly believe ; but when
he subsequently undertakes the classification of " the several
grades of Mind and its component faculties," he abandons alto-
gether this presentation of Intelligence as an adjustment of
inner to outer relations, and adopts instead of it the principle
of representation ; classifying the mental faculties not with
direct reference to their correspondence with circumstances in
the environment, but with reference to their degree of repre-
sentativeness. That such a principle is erroneous as a basis of
classification, Mr. Spencer's own words, as quoted above seem to
me to sufficiently indicate, and that the resulting classification is
faulty grouping together widely different faculties and separat-
ing those that are closely alike I shall now endeavour to show.
Mr. Spencer's classification of Cognitions is, as is well-known,
as follows :
" Presentative Cognitions ; or those in which consciousness is occupied in
localising a sensation impressed on the organism occupied, that is, with
the relation between this presented mental state and those other presented
mental states which make up the consciousness of the part affected ; as on
cutting one's finger.
Presentative-representative Cognitions ; or those in which consciousness is
occupied with the relation between a sensation or a group of sensations
and the representations of those various other sensations that accompany
it in experience. This is what we commonly call perception an act in
which, along with certain impressions presented to consciousness, there
arise in consciousness the ideas of certain other impressions ordinarily
connected with the presented ones : as when its visible form and colour
lead us to mentally endow an orange with all its other attributes.
Representative Cognitions ; or those in which consciousness is occupied
with the relations among ideas or represented sensations, as in all acts of
recollection.
Re-representative Cognitions ; or those in which the occupation of con-
sciousness is not by representations of special relations, that have before
been presented to consciousness ; but those in which such represented special
relations are thought of merely as comprehended in a general relation.
Here the concrete relations once experienced are, in so far as they become
objects of consciousness at all, only incidentally represented, along with
'the abstract relation which formulates them. The ideas resulting from
this abstraction, do not themselves represent actual experiences ; but are
symbols which stand for groups of such actual experiences represent
aggregates of representations. And thus they may be called re-representa-
tive cognitions. It is clear that the process of re-representation is carried
to higher stages, as the thought becomes more abstract."
As to the first class, that of Presentative Cognitions, Mr.
Spencer would surely be himself the first to admit that all cog-
262 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
nitions, even those here classed as Presentative, contain repre-
sented elements. When I cut my finger the sensation of
smarting pain is indeed presented, but the mental states that
make up the consciousness of the part affected, although many
of them are presented, yet include also a crowd of others that
are wholly represented. Mr. Spencer has elsewhere worked
out with unrivalled analytical skill the process by which an
individual builds up a knowledge of his own organism ; and the
mental states which make up the consciousness of the part
affected must include representations, more or less distinct, of all
those muscular, tactile and other sensations by which this part
became known as distinguished from other parts. That such
cognitions as that instanced above require a separate place in a
classification is clear, but that they can be classed as wholly
presentative cannot be admitted.
The class of Presentative-representative Cognitions is suscep-
tible of division into two, by a distinction which, thougn not at
all sharply defined, is yet very important. Those cognitions, of
which Mr. Spencer's example of tne orange is a type, and which
constitute the class of ordinary percepts, form only one of these
divisions. Suppose, however, that the object presented to my
senses, instead of being an orange, is a bael fruit, and suppose
that this object is quite new in my experience. After an ex-
amination of the fruit, followed perhaps by an examination of
the parent plant, I decide that, although not an orange, it
belongs to the order Aurantaceae. In this case it cannot be said
in the terms of Mr. Spencer's classification, that consciousness is
occupied with the relation between a sensation or a group of
sensations and " the representations of those various other
sensations which accompany it in experience ; " for the group of
presented sensations composing the consciousness of the bael
fruit has never been experienced before. Yet consciousness is
occupied with the relation between a group of presented sensa-
tions those answering to the characters of the fruit and a
group of represented sensations answering to the characters of
the natural order Aurantaceae. Hence, while the cognition is
undoubtedly Presentative-representative, inasmuch as one term
contains presented elements while the other does not ; yet it is
excluded by the accompanying definition from Mr. Spencer's
group of Presentative-representative Cognitions.
In the next class that of Eepresentative Cognitions Mr.
Spencer includes " those in which consciousness is occupied with
the relations amongst ideas or represented sensations, as in all acts
of recollection". It seems clear from this expression, as well as
from the name of the group and its position in the scheme of
classification, that this class includes representations of the pre-
vious classes only ; the word ' or ' appearing to mean that the
term ' represented sensations ' is an equivalent substitute for the
term ideas '. If this is a correct interpretation of Mr. Spencer's
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 263
meaning, the group is open to a double objection. In the first
place it includes more than acts of recollection. For if I am
unable to determine the natural order of the bael plant while it
is actually under examination, but upon subsequent reflection,
when I no longer have it before me, I am able to refer it to its
position, it is clear that this is a cognition in which consciousness
is occupied with the relations of represented sensations. The
represented sensations corresponding with the characters of the
bael fruit form one term of the relation which constitutes the
cognition, and the represented sensations corresponding with
the characters of other plants of the natural order Aurantaceaa
form the other term. Yet this determination of the natural order
of the plant is not an act of recollection. It is a process of
reasoning ; and hence, though it is strictly representative, it is
excluded from Mr. Spencer's class of Eepresentative Cognitions.
The artificial character of this classification is well demonstrated
by the same example. If I have both the bael plant and other
Aurantaceous plants before me, the determination of the natural
order of the former is a Presentative Cognition. If the bael
plant is present, while for the characters of other Aurantaceae I
have to depend on my memory, the same process is a Presenta-
tive-representative Cognition : while if the bael also is remem-
bered the same process belongs to yet another class, that of
Eepresentative Cognitions. To return to the consideration of
this class, not only does it exclude cognitions that are strictly
representative, but it includes also cognitions of the highest
degrees of re-representativeness. For it is manifest that cognitions
of the most abstract and re -representative character admit of
recollection even more perfectly than do cognitions that contain
presented elements. As the remembrance of a presented sensa-
tion is never as vivid as the presented sensation itself, so the
cognition into which a represented sensation enters, can never
be as vivid as the cognition in which the sensation was actually
presented. But, on the other hand, a highly re-representative
cognition may be as vivid during its remembrance as during its
original conception. If Mr. Spencer meant to include among
Eepresentative Cognitions the recollection of re-representative
cognitions, then I would submit that not only is the definition
imperfect, but that the position of the class of Eepresentative
Cognitions should be above instead of below that of Ee-repre-
sentative Cognitions ; since if these latter are remembered, that
is, represented, the remembrance adds one more grade of re-
presentation to their already highly re-representative character.
From the foregoing considerations it appears that Mr. Spencer's
departure from his own principles has been productive of error,
that there is an additional principle beside that of the degree of
representativeness which should guide us in the classification of
cognitions, and that this other principle is actually the more
fundamental and important of the two, and must govern the
264 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
primary divisions, while the degree of representativeness may
well form a subsidiary principle for the demarcation of the sub-
divisions.
Bearing in mind Mr. Spencer's proposition that Intelligence is
the correspondence of Relations in the Organism with Eelations
in the Environment, the classification of Cognitions that I would
propose is as follows :
Class I. The Cognition is the revival in consciousness of a pre-
viously established Relation. Cognitions of this class admit of
division into three sub-classes.
a. Both terms of the revived Relation contain presented elements.
This sub-class is coextensive with Mr. Spencer's class of Pre-
sentative Cognitions. But the form of statement here adopted
avoids the inaccuracy which appears to me to exist in his defini-
tion of that class. In the case which he instances of the cut
finger, there is a relation established between the presented
sensation of the smart from the wound, and the mental states,
some presented and some re-presented, which make up the con-
sciousness of the part affected. While both terms contain
presented elements, only one is entirely composed of them, the
other being partly represented. Cognitions belonging to this
sub-class are those Percepts which, being of the lowest and least
differentiated form, merge on the one hand into Sensation and on
the other into Eeasoning.
b. One term only of the revived Relation contains presented ele-
ments. This is the process of Perception in the ordinary sense of
that term. The difference between the Perception of an orange
and the classification of a bael fruit clearly is this. The group
of mental states corresponding with the group of characters of
colour, form, size, &c. presented by the orange, has previously
been brought into relation with the group of mental states cor-
responding with the other characters of succulence, odour,
texture, &c. which are not now presented but are represented in
consciousness ; and the revival of this previously-established
relation is the process of Perception. On the other hand, the
group of mental states corresponding with the characters pre-
sented by the bael fruit has never before been present in con-
sciousness. It has to be brought into relation with other groups
of mental states, either presentative or representative, until a
group occurs with which a relation of similarity can be estab-
lished. The establishment of this new relation constitutes a
process of Eeasoning, and the character of the process is not
affected by the presentative or representative character of the
terms which are brought into relation. The next time that the
bael fruit comes under notice it is perceived to belong to the
orange family ; the perception being the revival of the relation
which was established on the first occasion. Of course, collo-
quially speaking, the fruit was perceived the first time it was
seen ; but the perception amounted only to its perception as a
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 265
solid vegetable product, probably a fruit. That is to say, so far
as it resembled other solid bodies, other vegetable products, and
other fruits; in other words, so far as there was a revival of
relations previously established between mental states correspond-
ing with similar presented characters, and mental states corres-
ponding with characters possessed but not presented ; so far
there was Perception. But those cognitions whose terms had
not previously been brought together in consciousness, that is to
say those by which its characters were found to resemble
the characters of other Aurantaceous plants, were processes, not
of Perception but of Eeasoning. It may be said that since no
two objects are precisely alike, nor does even the same object
ever present precisely the same group of characters to observa-
tion, perception as here denned cannot exist ; but this is an
unnecessary refinement. As in the external world (assuming for
the sake of argument that an external world exists) there is
every degree of difference between the groups of characters
presented and groups of characters previously experienced, from
identity to the widest dissimilarity, so in consciousness there is
every degree of gradation between perception and reasoning ; but
although not sharply demarcated, the processes are none the less
broadly distinguishable.
This second sub-class of Cognitions is coextensive with the
Presentative-representative Cognitions of Mr. Spencer as he
defines them, and with the first of the two groups into which as
I have explained above, that class seems to me divisible ; and in
this case again the view here presented appears to express the
nature of the cognition with greater accuracy. For ordinary
perception is not a presentative-representative cognition in the
sense that one term is wholly presentative while the other is
representative. The visible form of an orange, for instance,
which enters into one term of the relation constituting per-
ception, is itself a cognition containing elements both presenta-
tive and representative. Hence it seems to me more correct to
speak of Percepts as cognitions of the first class, one term of
which contains presented elements.
c. Both terms of the revived Relation are wholly representative.
This is the process of Eemembrance. It includes part of the
Eepresentative Cognitions of Mr. Spencer, together with re-
representative cognitions of all degrees of remoteness from
presentation. On the other hand, all those representative cog-
nitions in which consciousness is occupied with the establishment
of a new relation between terms, however low the terms may be
in the grade of representativeness, and however often they may
have separately or in other relations been present to con-
sciousness, since they are excluded from the class, are excluded
from the sub-class also.
Class II. The Cognition is the establishment of a new Relation in
consciousness. This is the process of Eeasoning. It may be
18
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
carried on between terms of all degrees of representativeness
not excepting the very lowest. When both terms are presented,
as in the case, to use Mr. Spencer's example, of a cut finger, it
may appear to be straining the sense of words to call any part of
the resulting cognition a process of Eeasoning ; yet if that par-
ticular spot has never been cut before, there must be the
establishment of an altogether new relation ; a relation between
the presented sensation caused by the cut, and the states of mind,
part presentative and part representative, which make up the
consciousness of the part affected, two terms which have never
before been brought into the same relation : and the establish-
ment of a new relation is Eeasoning. That the same condition
of Mind has already been adduced as an instance of Perception
is an apparent but not a real inconsistency, for it was then stated
that the lowest form of Perception merges into Eeasoning on the
one hand and into Sensation on the other ; it is indeed the
starting-point from which they diverge. While the mental
process by which we cognise a cut on the finger is from one
aspect a perception, it is from another aspect a ratiocination.
It is indeed a double process. Although the place has, we
suppose, never been cut before, it has been the starting-point of
innumerable sensations of touch, pressure, temperature, &c.,
which, combined with innumerable sensations of muscular ex-
ertion and of vision, constitute, when represented simultaneously
and with various degrees of vividness, the complex mental state
forming consciousness of the part affected. On the other hand
there have been previous experiences of cuts, which enable a
new experience of a similar character to be classified with them
and distinguished from sensations accompanying other injuries.
Now what occurs in the mind when the finger is cut ? There
occurs, as has been said, a double process. There is (1) the
revival of a previously- established relation between some sensa-
tion and the group of mental states which make up the con-
sciousness of the part affected; and there is (2) the establishment
of a new relation between the quality of this sensation and the
quality of other represented sensations which are known to have
proceeded from cuts. There is thus a process of perception and
a process of reasoning. That the two processes do occur and are
distinct is easily shown. If a blind man were asked how he
knew that it was his finger that was cut, and not any other part,
the question would appear absurd, and if answered at all it
would be by the reply that he perceived that it was his finger.
But if he were asked how he knew that his finger was cut and
not bruised, he would say that he recognised the feeling to be
like that of previous cuts. By thus giving a reason he would
make the formal admission that he arrived at this cognition by a
process of reasoning. Doubtless the process may virtually be
called one of perception, and the distinction here made is an
analytical refinement, but it is a not inapt illustration of Mr.
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
267
Spencer's doctrine that Perception, Eemembrance, and Beason-
ing, distinct as they are in their developed forms, blend at their
origin and spring from a common root.
Like the first class of cognitions, the processes of Eeasoning
and their results admit of subdivision according to the repre-
sentativeness of the terms between which the relation is estab-
lished, but unlike that class these subdivisions do not admit of
precise definition. Whether the bael fruit is classified from
actual comparison of its presented characters with those of other
Aurantaceae, or from comparison of its presented characters with
the remembered characters of these ; or whether its characters as
well as theirs are remembered, makes a marked, but not a
material difference. Nevertheless, since, " as the process of re-
presentation is carried to higher stages, thought becomes more
abstract," the degree of representativeness forms an index to the
elaborateness, complexity, and abstractness of the reasoning.
The following table shows clearly the classification proposed :
The Pro-
cess is
termed
Intelligence
le corres-
pondence of
Relations in (
the Organ-'
ism with Re-
lations in
the Envi-
ronment.
Revival of a
previously- <
established
Relation.
/Both, terms of the
( Relation contain
I presented ele-
1 ments.
/ One term only con-
\ tains presented
J elements.
Percep-
tion.
! Percep-
tion.
I Both terms are
f wholly repre-
sented.
Establishment of a new Relation.
Remem-
brance.
Reason-
ing.
The Re-
sults are
termed
Per-
cepts.
Con-
cepts.
I trust it will be apparent from the tone of the foregoing
criticism that it is written in no carping or caviling spirit.
Believing as I do that Mr. Spencer's System of Synthetic Philo-
sophy is an expression of the highest development that the
human intellect has attained, it would be strange indeed if it
were so. But it is no disparagement to a worker whose field of
operations extends over two universes the universe of material
things and the universe of mind if an acre here and there
is cultivated somewhat imperfectly ; or if, when the territory
opened up by him comes to be parcelled out in plots, each of
which engrosses the whole labour of a worker or a band of
workers, small irregularities of the surface come into view which
were overlooked in the more extended survey.
CHABLES MEECIEB, M.B.
VII. CKITICAL NOTICES.
Physical Metempiric. By the late ALFRED BAERATT, author of
Physical Ethics. London and Edinburgh : Williams & Nor-
gate, 1883. Pp. xxvi., 311.
This volume contains all that could be printed of a work upon
which the late Alfred Barratt had been engaged for some years
before his sudden and untimely death in 1881. Mrs. Barratt
has prefixed a short memoir of her husband, giving a simple and
graceful account of his early distinction and unceasing intellectual
activity : the memoir also contains recollections by Prof. Jowett
and other friends. Every one will remember Barratt's contribu-
tions to MIND some four or five years ago. These essays, which
nave been reprinted as appendices to the present work, were pub-
lished chiefly to defend or explain the doctrines of his first work
on Physical Ethics : with which again this posthumous treatise is
closely connected ; for the germ of it is to be found in an appen-
dix to the author's earlier one. On my mentioning to him once
the stimulus I had received from that portion of his writings, he
said that he now thought he saw his way to carrying much fur-
ther the speculations there initiated. He must then have been
engaged with Physical Metempiric.
The very title will to many readers seem like a contradic-
tion in terms : Metempiric they have been accustomed to regard
as a wearisome region of speculation and endless debate, con-
trasted with physical science by the unreality of its object,
its uncertain methods and its vacuous results. Those, how-
ever, who read farther will acknowledge that, as understood by
the author, this collocation of terms in the title is justified by the
contents. The book gives a more definite form than has hitherto
been assigned to a theory of the ultimate nature of the world
which, whether or not it be finally accepted, has already pre-
sented itself dimly to many minds, and seems to belong to the
speculative tendencies of our age. It is closely related to the
doctrine of Mind- stuff, often discussed in this Eeview and else-
where.
Our author's preliminary division of the field of human know-
ledge and inquiry needs the attention of any one who would
understand the sequel.
"All possible objects of speculation [he says] lie wholly within, or
wholly or in part outside, experience. The former region, Empiric, has
two divisions, Physic and Metaphysic. Physic, or Physical Science, is the
science of the external universe, or objects in space. Metaphysic includes
the whole remainder of Experience, or the knowable ; that is to say, first,
Metaphysical Science, which comprehends both the sciences of the inner
experience (such as Pure Logic and Pure Psychology) and also the Psycho-
physical Sciences, which deal with the special relations between inner and
CEITICAL NOTICES. 269
outer, such as the science of sensation and the science of action (of which
Ethic and Politic are parts) ; and, secondly, Philosophy, which treats of
experience as a whole, its nature and its relation to its parts. Metempiric^
on the other hand (if I may adopt a convenient term of Mr. Lewes's),
includes all speculations which are not directly or indirectly verifiable by
sensation, which therefore transcend Experience and lie in the region of
the Unknowable" (p. 1).
To appreciate the bearings of the divisions and definitions in
this passage we must grasp firmly the meaning of ' Experience '
as there used : it is limited to the private experience of each
individual. To each man, therefore, the experience of every
other, being unverifiable in sensation, transcends experience and
is unknowable. Physic and Metaphysic, then, deal with the
world as it is known to anyone in one's own experience ; but the
unknowable region of other consciousness belongs to Metempiric :
and the purpose of the book is, in brief, to set forth a theory that
the ultimate nature of things or noumenal world is such other
consciousness or feeling, of which the world of matter moving in
space is phenomenal.
This metempirical theory the author argues and explains by
means of the ' Physical Method '. Until recently, he says, Phy-
sical science was the only department of knowledge which was
either certain or exact or progressive ; and this advantage it had
because in its region alone measurement and experiment were
possible. Metaphysic and Metempiric on the other hand made
no progress, chiefly because they did not see how to guide their
inquiries by Physical evidence. But lately this difficulty has
been overcome, and Metaphysic has been revivified by taking the
physical phenomenon which accompanies every conscious state
as its symbol; by which means we are able as in Algebra "to
work in terms of the symbols and thus arrive at results in terms
of the symbols, which have only to be retranslated to be true of
the states of consciousness which they symbolise. ... As the
eye can study itself through its phenomenal reflexion in a mirror,
so by the help of this method the mind is able to study its own
working and history through its symbolism in physiological and
other material phenomena." By this device the certainty and
exactness of the Physical Method have been introduced into
Metaphysic, and considerable progress has already been made
there, especially by Mr. Spencer and by the German Psychophy-
sicists. In Physical Ethics Barratt himself applied the Method to
the sphere of Morals, and the object of the present work is to do
the same for Metempiric.
To the Positivist's preliminary objection that all speculations
transcending experience are to be avoided, he replies that in fact
no one does or can do so, and therefore it is desirable that the
form in which such beliefs are held should be as reasonable as
possible, and what is reasonable must be decided after argument
by experts. As for the data of Metempiric everyone recognises
270 CEITICAL NOTICES.
them ; for the first and most fundamental of them is the assump-
tion by each of us that there exists experience or consciousness
other than his own, "the denial of Solipsism": so much every-
one necessarily assumes. The belief probably arises from the
connexion of one's own experience with a body, the perception
that other bodies are similar to one's own, and the inference that
they are connected with other consciousnesses or systems of ex-
perience. However originating, such a belief is necessary to
harmonise our view of nature, and still more our relations to
Society ; and the above origin assigns to it the same basis as all
beliefs have, even the most assured namely, Association. But
if those considerations do not prove it, there is no other way of
doing so. It is strictly and absolutely unverifiable : by no means
can another's consciousness become a part of my own or enter
into my experience. "If in my picture which I call the universe
I find it necessary to draw other men painting too, no doubt I
make them painting with real paint, but it is my paint all the
time ; that part of my picture which depicts their pictures is in
no way different from the rest of it, and does not go at all to
prove their existence outside my picture." The most austere
Positivist, then, believes in other consciousness, in that whose
existence is unverifiable, and is therefore a Metempiric.
The Metempirical system that starts from such a datum will
of course be very different from those doctrines that have made
the unknowable region something different in nature from the
knowable : it is only an extension of the knowable beyond our
individual knowledge ; so that the relations among the parts of
the unknowable must be similar to those of the knowable. Ap-
plying the Physical Method we see at once that whatever has
been hitherto proved by that method in Metaphysic as to the
conscious states of the inquirer himself, may now be extended to
other consciousness (though there can no longer be direct verifica-
tion) and taken up into Metempiric. The most suggestive prin-
ciple obtained was the evolution of consciousness ; which, whilst
it could lead the Metaphysician only as far as he was able
to verify the inferences by observation of his own conscious-
ness, the Metempiric can follow much further : for (as was
observed in Physical Ethics) " if a man believes in the existence
of consciousness in any object that is not exactly identical with
himself, he has no right to draw an arbitrary line at any particu-
lar degree of difference and to assert that within that line is
consciousness but without it none ". Hence a belief in the uni-
versality of consciousness has long been spreading ; and the
Physical Method now enables us to lay at the foundation of
Metempiric the principle that " Consciousness is coextensive with
Matter, or rather with the Motion of Matter ". As every motion
is a link in the causal chain of the universe in space, so every
state of consciousness is the "result of other conscious states,
not in the organism alone but running alongside of the physical
CEITICAL NOTICES. 271
series of motions into the inanimate world, into the flux of forces
which constitutes the physical universe ; they must be components
of another conscious universe, of which the physical is only the
sign and the phenomenon. . . . The universe of matter is phe-
nomenal, that of consciousness noumenal . . . the former is
the universe as it appears, the latter as it is in itself." We thus
obtain an explanation of the nature of Things-in-themselves, a
belief in which is nearly as inevitable and ineradicable as that in
other consciousness, but equally incapable of proof.
If now we inquire into the ultimate nature of consciousness,
the Physical Method points us to the ultimate nature of Matter
as far as we know it, that is, to the doctrines of Molecular Phy-
sics. Barratt assumes that the principle of Atomism is estab-
lished, at least that matter may be described as ultimately
consisting of "centres of force or motion". Corresponding to
these, then, we must suppose centres of Consciousness, which
may be called Monads ; and the noumenal universe we must
imagine to consist of an infinite number of monads, of which the
material universe with its infinite atoms is phenomenal. Pos-
sibly, indeed, this constitution of the world is not quite ultimate :
it has been suggested that atoms may have arisen out of an
uncentralised continuous substance ; and, if this be ascertained,
the Physical Method will regard monads as having been evolved
from an uncentralised continuous consciousness. But meanwhile
it is convenient to begin with atoms and monads, and see what
we may learn about the one from what we know of the other. If all
ultimate atoms are alike, so are all monads. As the total mass
of the physical universe is constant, so is the number of monads :
and as each atom so each monad is eternal and unchangeable.
Motion of an atom is the phenomenon of feeling in a monad,
change of motion represents change of feeling, velocity symbolises
intensity. The ways in which atoms interact are signs of the
ways in which monads affect each other. Force impressed on an
atom corresponds to sensation in a monad ; force expressed to
volition : not that the feelings of a simple primitive monad amount
to the distinction of sensation and volition, but only to the rudi-
ments of what will subsequently appear in those forms of con-
sciousness to a perceptive monad at the centre of an organism.
For an organism is an arrangement of atoms, i.e., noumenally, of
monads, by which the incident forces of the universe are co-ordi-
nated in relation to some central monad : evolution of the organism
brings to the central monad or Ego an extended perception and
conception of the universe as an object, and this is attended with
the growth of self-consciousness.
The perception of the universe as an object, and self-conscious-
ness in its whole extent, are built up out of simple feelings. And
every feeling in one monad is caused by change of feeling in
another. Impressed feeling or sensation in monad A is the effect
of a change or expression of feeling, or rudimentary volition in
272 CEITICAL NOTICES.
monad B ; but the change of feeling in B appears to A as a
motion of the atom which is the phenomenon of B. To perceive
the motion of an atom, however, is only a kind of feeling : the
phenomenon of B's feeling in A's consciousness is itself feeling,
and therefore noumenal; and this again appears to B and to
every other monad as atomic motion. Hence there are not two
worlds, a noumenal and a phenomenal, but only one with a dis-
tinction of aspects noumenal to each internally and phenomenal
to all externally.
It will have been noticed that this theory regards feeling as
producing motion, not motion feeling. It opposes equally the
common notion that feeling is an effect, consequence, or sign of
motion, and the view recently taken by some philosophers that
feeling and motion are simultaneous, and only different sides or
aspects of the same fact. There is nothing, our author says, to
show them to be simultaneous ; the popular belief that they are
in sequence is true, only the terms of the sequence are in an
order the reverse of what is supposed. Feeling, in fact, is the
cause of motion, and not merely cause in the sense of antecedent,
but "efficient cause" in an intimate and essential way. The
notion of causation as the mere relation of antecedent and conse-
quent is taken from the interaction of phenomena only, and of
them as such it is true and sufficient ; but in sensation and voli-
tion we are conscious of something more than this, we have to do
not with a mere relation of phenomena among themselves, but
with the relation of noumena and phenomena, and efficient causa-
tion seems to be a good name for it. Indeed, of this efficient
causation, the causation observed between phenomena is itself
phenomenal : for phenomena consist of atoms and their motions,
and these are only signs of monads and their feelings. If one
phenomenon produces a change in another, that is a sign that a
feeling in one monad has caused a change of feeling in another.
If a moving body seems to cause a feeling in me, I must interpret
it thus : the movement is first an effect or phenomenon of feeling
in some other monad, and secondly it is identical with my own
feeling, which in turn will have corresponding phenomena to
other monads, and so on without end. How the object is identical
with my feeling, differing not in itself but only in its associations,
and thus obtaining a different name, may appear from this :
" Any conscious state may either be connected through association with
ideas of other states, so that what fills consciousness is the relation between
it and others, whereby it is perceived as an object external or not, or it
may at once seek expression in action, perfect or imperfect, in which case,
so far as it is perceived at all, it is referred to the whole Ego, and not to
other separate states ; it is thus not an ' object ' or quality but an emotion
or feeling. To take an example : if we go near a fire, the resulting state of
consciousness may become either the * object ' fire or the * feeling ' warmth,
according to the trains it sets up ; if it set up a cognitive train, it is an
object ; if an active, a feeling or emotion" (p. 203).
CEITICAL NOTICES. 273
And how a moving object is a phenomenon of feeling in some
other monad may appear if we suppose that the moving object is
an air-wave impinging on the ear and setting up a nervous cur-
rent, and that when this reaches a certain part of my brain I hear
a sound : the ordinary view treats the sound as a consequence of
the nervous tremor ; but is not rather the nervous tremor a part
effect of sound- sensation existing beyond our organism, i.e., in
other monads ?
How else " do we represent this sound when outside us, that is, as an ex-
ternal object or force ? Surely not as aerial vibration alone, for that is not
the whole force ; it is hardly even part of it : for except as to certain tactual
ideas which are practically evanescent, these aerial vibrations are light
reflected from the vibrating particles, and manifesting them (in idea) to
the eye : when we speak of sound as an external force or energy, we include
in it not only its visual part, but its audible part too. But if this be so,
where is the difficulty ? The visual elements in the external object 'sound'
produce the visual vibrations in ear and brain, the audible element pro-
duces the audible sensation of hearing. The process or * message ' to the
ear gives off at each point processes to the eye, and that to the eye gives off
processes to the ear. And of these the eye, happening to be the keener,
can trace the progress of the message to the ear, the auditory centre ; but
if our ear were keen enough, it also could trace the progress of the message
through the eye to the optic centre " (p. 210).
Visual and tactual feelings are so much more universal and
definite than others that the external world, including the nervous
system, is regarded as primarily consisting of them ; but to regard
the other sensations as caused by them is unwarranted. " There
is nothing in visual states essentially different from others, or that
makes it mysterious how visual states should accompany or even
cause or pass into other conscious states, or vice versa ; in fact this
is a process continually observed in what we call association,
which is really nothing else than one state causing or becoming
another" (p. 209). Hence of course the forces or movements
which are the phenomena of mental states are " continually
transformed and retransformed, each of the forces affecting a
special sense is, on its way to the organ of sense, perpetually
sending out little rills of other forces which affect other senses, so
that the audible message is visible and the visible audible" (p. 212).
The universe as a phenomenon, then, is something felt, and the
cause of that phenomenon is feeling.
It is impossible, of course, to give any notion of the details of
this remarkable system, or of the interspersed comments on con-
flicting views, and shrewd replies to anticipated objections ; which
prove the author to have been equally ingenious in self-defence,
in criticism, and in construction. No inconsiderable portion of
the present work is occupied with discussing the views of Green,
Prof. Caird, and Mr. Balfour; and it was to have been supple-
mented by a comprehensive survey of all past and present opinions
that offer any comparison with his own, from Hylozoism to Mind-
stuff; but this latter portion was not ready for publication. Had he
274 CEITICAL NOTICES.
lived, it is probable that he would have gone on to construct a
Philosophy of Politics and a Philosophy of Religion. Some hints of
the latter doctrine are to be found in ch. ix. of the present volume,
on Monadism and Monism, and in the fragments of his preface.
For the Politics, Appendix II. may be consulted : and to this a
special interest attaches, since it shows that the character of his
mind was not to be hastily inferred from a superficial acquaint-
ance with Physical Ethics. The Egoism conscientiously maintained
in that work was not regarded by him as alone an adequate guide
to conduct. Much of his difference from Utilitarians was upon a
question of classification : he assigned to Politics that considera-
tion for the happiness of mankind at large which they usually
include in Ethics.
That an unfinished work should be faultless in style, or even
securely fenced against all objections to its main theses, is not to
be expected. Yet as to style the want of revision may not be an
unmitigated evil : for the scrupulosity that begins by removing
every blemish, often goes on to disfigure many a grace, and arrives
at pedantry in seeking precision ; while the spontaneous utterance
of this book, though seeming at first too ample and unrestrained,
flowing like an inundation rather than a river, proves on closer
acquaintance to be the natural expression of copious thought, and
pleases the more it is read. And even as to matter, if there
can hardly be too much deliberation, yet subsequent care will
hardly redeem the first wanderings of a perverse or desultory
understanding : the worth of a system of philosophy depends upon
its primary conceptions ; and, these determined, it only remains
to elucidate them better and free them from verbal difficulties, to
protect them from mistake and conciliate prejudice. In spite of
much imperfection, then, in the expository treatment of Physical
Metempiric, the principal fabric of the argument will probably
seem to the reader, as he proceeds, to be always gaining in
solidity.
At the outset the word Metempiric is strangely used. Lewes,
its inventor, wavered perhaps as to its meaning, but at any rate
he would not have applied it to that which may be at present
verified in any human experience. To Barratt, however, every-
thing is unverifiable and therefore metempirical that cannot
become part of the experience or consciousness of any given per-
son or monad ; and such is the position of every other conscious-
ness. Yet every consciousness believes in the existence of others,
and is largely made up of representations of them. These points
are insisted on at some length with much emphasis, but the
reader is apt to treat them as a matter of course ; and when they
are stated as the basis of what is to follow, he is inclined to sus-
pect a new system of Philosophy whose only postulates are so
very reasonable. All he objects to is limiting the word experience
to one's own consciousness, when we are agreed that there are
other people whose experience is as good as ours : this looks like
CEITICAL NOTICES. 275
an unprepossessing quibble and raises a prejudice against the
sequel. I believe, however, such prejudice is misleading: the
author in thus limiting the word experience only seeks to convince
the Positivists that even they acknowledge something beyond it.
His system does not require any such limitation of words : its
rational merits would remain whatever they are if all this were
forgotten : some other phraseology only would fall away. The
distinction, for example, between Metempiric and Metaphysic
would disappear : or at most Metempiric would become an Onto-
logical extension of Metaphysic. There seems, indeed, a serious
objection to his making Metaphysic include Psychology as a
science solely verified by private experience : for if we omit from
this science all that depends on our belief in the existence and
testimony of other minds, little will remain, and that little will
lose much of its certainty.
Again, the conception of the Monad is beset with some obscur-
ity. Its existence is supposed to be indicated by the atom, its
symbol : but what is its nature ? Barratt sometimes calls it a
centre of Consciousness, sometimes a Trag&r, also Cogito, Ich
denke, Pure Ego. Some of these expressions, together with
the symbolising atom, and reminiscences of Leibniz, suggest
the notion of a spiritual entity, the subject of conscious-
ness : and this clearly would be nugatory ; for if we are to
have some entity besides consciousness, we may as well take
the atom at once and search no further. He says, however, ex-
pressly, " the monad is no soul of different nature to matter, it is
the inner reality of all material phenomena" (p. 157). In other
words, I suppose, it is Feeling : but how can Feeling be a centre
of feeling ? In one sense every relation is such a centre : when-
ever feelings match or edge one another, there is a centre of
feeling. But if this is the meaning, an atom must be the
phenomenon of a relation ; and that cannot be, because every
change of Feeling is a relation, and change of Feeling we have seen
to be symbolised by change of motion. To get at the meaning we
must fall back upon the author's suggestion that as atoms may be
vortices of ether, so monads may be aggregates of what was at
first uncentralised feeling: i.e., they maybe mere feeling integ-
rated by association in forms that have been rendered stable
perhaps by natural selection. If this be the nature of monads, it
seems to me a very fruitful conception, but still to bear as many
difficulties as suggestions. How such monads affect one another,
ingenuity may perhaps imagine : but why must there be an inter-
vention of atoms, and how can there be ? For if atom and monad
are really the same, in cognising an atom we have an intuitive
knowledge of other consciousness ; if they are not the same,
Dualism is still with us, and mind and matter would be as good
words for me as noumenon and phenomenon, indeed better by
some syllables ; while to call the opposition only a distinction of
aspects will not, I hope, perplex any understanding.
276 CEITICAL NOTICES.
The difficulty about the nature of monads is closely connected
with that hard saying about " efficient causation," but this is
hardly developed enough to challenge criticism, and really nothing
depends upon it. It is enough to notice the reversal of the ordi-
nary doctrine about feeling and motion, and the assertion that
motion is the effect of feeling. Barratt has certainly not proved
this ; and besides many objections that might be urged against it
from outside, some arise from within the system. It is admitted
that feeling is always preceded by motion, as (for example) a
sound by an air- wave striking on the ear; but it is urged that this
air- wave is itself preceded by sound arising beyond the organism :
similarly with warmth. And possibly common sense agrees to-
this. But if you prick your finger, what is the character of the
feeling in the pin ? Besides it was posited that an atom is the
phenomenon of a monad, a moving atom of a feeling monad.
But movement cannot equally represent all feelings. All different
feelings must therefore be phenomenalised in that which moves :
an atom must contain phenomena of sound, warmth, smart
qualities of all possible feelings. But there are some feelings
which we know only as such, and never as qualities : in these,
then, we seem to have direct intuition of other consciousness.
However, the atom of physical science is not supposed to have
all qualities, but only the muscular, tactual, and visual.
This remark naturally leads to a consideration of the Physical
Method, a conception of greater promise, surely, as a clue in
Ontological inquiry than any other that has ever been offered.
With what modifications it should be accepted, or how far it is
likely to lead us in that labyrinth, cannot at present be discussed ;
and it is impossible, without a strong sense of dissatisfaction at
the task, to multiply criticisms to which there can no longer be a
reply. For undoubtedly the intelligence that with extraordinary
resource foresaw and refuted so many objections could have met
with unexpected explanation many more, and would have used
them to illustrate the truths they seemed to obscure.
CAEVETH BEAD.
The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics. By J. B. STALLO.
("International Scientific Series," Vol. XLII.) London:
Kegan Paul, 1882. Pp. 313.
Mr. Stallo tells us that he means his book to be "a contribution
not to physics, nor, certainly, to metaphysics, but to the theory
of cognition". His aim is to purge out the leaven of old meta-
physics which still taints modern physics. It is a common belief
that modern physics has escaped "from the cloudy regions of
metaphysical speculation". He thinks this belief is only in part
a just one. The common " misconceptions in regard to the true
logical and psychological premisses of science are prolific of errors,
CRITICAL NOTICES. 277
whose reaction upon the character and tendencies of modern
thought becomes more apparent from day to day". It is in the
true behalf of physics that he writes. It is to further " the great
endeavour of scientific research to gain a sure foothold on solid
empirical ground, where the real data of experience may be
reduced without ontological prepossessions ". He is thus, if not a
contributor to physics, at least a candid friend of the science. In
spite of his seeming disclaimer, therefore, it may be allowed to a
mere student of physics to make some answer to his criticisms,
so far at least as they bear on accredited physical theories.
We have first to deal with what Mr. Stallo calls the " mechani-
cal theory of the universe in its present form". This theory
" undertakes to account for all physical phenomena by describing
them as variances in the structure or configuration of material
systems". In the light of it " the ultimates of scientific analysis
are mass and motion, which are assumed to be essentially dis-
parate". It thus ''involves three propositions, which may be
stated as follows : (i.) The primary elements of all natural pheno-
mena the ultimates of scientific analysis are mass and motion.
(ii.) Mass and motion are disparate. Mass is indifferent to motion,
which may be imparted to it, and of which it may be divested, by a
transference of motion from one mass to another. Mass remains the
same whether at rest or in motion, (hi.) Both mass and motion are
constant" These, with the assumption of the molecular constitu-
tion of bodies, lead to "four other propositions, which may be
said to constitute the foundations of the atomo-mechanical theory.
They are these : (1) TJie elementary units of mass, being simple, are
in all respects equal. (2) The elementary units of mass are absolutely
hard and inelastic. (3) The elementary units of mass are absolutely
inert, and therefore purely passive. (4) All potential energy so-called
is in reality kinetic."
The last four propositions are to the author the Quadrilateral
of the atomo-mechanical theory, and against it his onslaughts are
made. He takes for granted that they form together a single and
undivided stronghold which is overthrown when a breach is forced
at any point. His method is to throw his strength against the
weak places, and to make out that all is won when the weak
places fall. This method will do if the solidarity of the theory is
a fact and not a mere "ontological prepossession ". But it misses
its end if the weak places are but outworks, and unacknowledged
outworks, after all. The attack on them may be energetic and
victorious, but the real stronghold is nothing the worse. Its
defenders are not concerned with what happens beyond their
lines. This is the answer that any physicist who is familiar with
the best and latest teaching in his subject is bound to make to
many of Mr. Stallo's criticisms. The chief points made against
the Atomic Theory refer to unessential or provisional or discarded
parts of it. Its best expounders would yield up most of them
without feeling that the central doctrines were at all weakened.
278 CEITICAL NOTICES.
In illustration, let us see how the " four propositions " are dealt
with.
(1) The " equality of the elements of mass " is (we are told) an
essential doctrine of modern physics. On what grounds ? The
author shows that he has a good knowledge of modern scientific
writings, and on occasion quotes freely and fully from them. But
he is hard pushed to find a physicist who will own to this founda-
tion of the science. It would be easy to name half-a-dozen, with
Maxwell and "Thomson at their head, who theorise as if the exact
opposite were the truth. Wundt, Herbert Spencer, Thomas
Graham, C. E. A. Wright, F. W. Clarke, are the only authorities
offered ; they are quoted from magazine articles ; each manifestly
speaks in a tone of tentative suggestion ; none is aware that his sug-
gestion is really an essential foundation of the mechanical theory.
We must in fairness ask for better proof that the doctrine is
widely held or held at all before we own that our withers are
wrung. The fatal argument brought against the doctrine thus
foisted on physics is that "the whole modern science of chemis-
try is based upon a principle directly subversive of it a principle
of which it has recently been said that it holds the same place in
chemistry that the law of gravitation does in astronomy". This
is the principle of Avogadro or Ampere. It requires the ultimate
small parts of different gases to be of different weights. The
answer is that the chemists are probably right ; that modern
physics has nothing to say against them ; and is willing not merely
to grant the point but to go a long way towards an explanation of
it. So that we escape altogether the collision between physics
and chemistry, in which physics was to suffer so grievously (for
the author somewhat unaccountably takes for granted that
"chemical concepts" must be sound). It is not essential to a
consistent mechanical theory that the ultimate small parts or
atoms of which bodies are built should be equal in mass. The
author says nothing to make it apparent that it is essential. A
multitude of facts indicate that the atoms are unequal, and physics
takes cognisance of the indication.
(2) The " rigidity of the elements of mass" is the next founda-
tion that must be destroyed. It is no less an "imperative require-
ment of the mechanical theory " that the atoms shall be perfectly
hard and unyielding than that they shall be perfectly equal. To
establish this we have a quotation from Newton, who in the
Opticlts, among other guesses, says, "It seems probable to me
that God in the beginning formed matter in solid massy hard
impenetrable movable particles". Nothing more than this.
Modern physics can scarcely be held accountable for the faulty
dogma on such slender grounds. What it demands in the
ultimate indivisible particles of matter is elasticity, not rigidity.
And, as our author admits, two of the most conspicuous hypo-
theses of the science the Kinetic theory of gases, and the Vortex-
theory of the atom take account of the elasticity of the ultimate
CRITICAL NOTICES. 279
particles, and go far to explain it. As the author's aim seems to
be to involve the current doctrines in mutual conflict, he is un-
willing to allow that the two great theories just mentioned have
any shadow of foundation. On the Vortex- theory he is especially
severe, but he plainly shows that he has failed to grasp it. He
cites Maxwell's account of it from the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
and so far as the words go he cites it correctly. But it is a true
paradox that one must be something of a mathematician to under-
stand what a real theory the Vortex-theory is, and the author is
not a mathematician. Like the undulatory theory of light as
compared with the corpuscular theory, its consequences flow
without subsidiary hypotheses from its initial data. The more
these consequences are worked out the more phenomena the
theory is found to explain. And the work of deduction is so
difficult and intricate that it will be long before the resources of
the theory are exhausted. The mathematician in working it out
acquires the feeling that, although there are still some facts like
gravitation and inertia to be explained by it, the still unexamined
consequences may well include these facts and others still un-
known. As Maxwell used to say, it already explains more than
any other theory, and that is enough to commend it. All the
strict consequences of the undulatory theory were not deduced at
once, and the formation of shadows and astronomical aberration
were at first thought to be inexplicable by it. But closer research
changed these difficulties into triumphs. The Vortex- theory is
still in its infancy. We must give it a little time. Mr. Stallo's
a priori objections to it are not very grave.
" It seems to be evident," he says, " that motion in a perfectly homo-
geneous, incompressible and, therefore, continuous fluid is not sensible
motion. All partition of such a fluid is purely ideal ; in spite of the dis-
placement of any portion of it by another portion, a given space would at
any moment present the same quantity of substance absolutely indis-
tinguishable from that present there a moment before. There would be no
phenomenal difference or change. A fluid both destitute and incapable of
difference is as impossible a vehicle of real motion as pure space ; it is as
useless for the purpose of accounting for the phenomena of material action
as the quasi-material medium without inertia of which Eoger Cotes said
that it was not to be distinguished from a vacuum."
This is not hard to answer. That vortex-motion in the universal
fluid is not " sensible motion " is surely an objection of the
" ontological" kind, such as the author affects so much to despise.
If it means that he cannot conceive of himself perceiving such a
motion, it is clear that he has forgotten that his organs of sense
are but aggregates of vortex-atoms like everything else. And if it
is shown that two vortex-atoms can act upon each other so as to
change each other's paths and vibrations just as two visible gross
bodies might do, the impact of a vortex-atom stick on a vortex-
atom head may quite well give rise to the idea of " sensible
motion " in the head. No one who has seen two vortex-rings in
280 CEITICAL NOTICES.
collision with each other, or the impact of vortex-rings against a
candle flame, can fail to have a lively idea of their sensible motion.
In fact the ineffaceable stamp of rotational motion originally
impressed on the portion of fluid forming the vortex-ring
differentiates it for ever in kind from the irrotational fluid in which
it swims. In virtue of its inalienable vorticity the matter of the
ring is qualitatively distinguished from the non-vorticose matter
round it. A space half -filled with vortex-ring and half with
irrotational fluid would be sensibly, phenomenally, really, different
and distinguishable from the same space wholly filled with irrota-
tional fluid. Given the vortices in the fluid there are and eternally
will be differences in it. By virtue of these differences it is perfectly
capable of acting as "the vehicle of real motion" and of "account-
ing for the phenomena of material action ".
The author manages to make the Vortex-theory look small by
classing it with what he calls an " analogous attempt to dispense
with the necessity of endowing the elementary atoms with the
intrinsic property of elasticity ". This is Secchi's wild speculation
on the impacts of hard atoms in rapid rotation. He thought that
such atoms might rebound from each other when they met pretty
much as if they were elastic. The speculation was founded on a
misunderstanding of a mechanical theorem of Poinsot's. The
mistake was apparent to any one who looked into the matter ; the
theory never had the slightest vogue ; and it explained nothing.
But seven pages are given by Mr. Stallo to slaying the slain. Two
pages dismiss Thomson's theory ; and the simple reader is left
with the impression that, if Secchi's theory is bad on the face of
it, Thomson's is worse in the ratio of seven to two. This is an
example of the kind of special pleading which mars the author's
argument. He is nothing of a judge, he is often a mere advocate;
for he makes points when he can, and at times succeeds in
blurring over the distinction between valid theory and invalid.
Physics counters his second line of attack, then, by denying that it
is essential to a true mechanical theory to assume that the ultimate
elements of matter are perfectly rigid. Many direct indications
show that even in bodies called simple the small parts are not
only elastic but capable of definite intrinsic vibrations. And the
most fruitful theory of matter yet propounded accounts for both
the elasticity and the vibration.
(3) The third essential proposition " that the elementary units
of mass are absolutely inert " stands on a different footing. It
amounts to this that motion cannot be transferred from one body
to another except the bodies are in contact or are connected by
a continuous material medium. In the author's words : " Action
at a distance is impossible ; there are in nature no pulls, but only
thrusts ; and all force is not merely (in the language of Newton)
vis impressa but vis a tergo ". Modern physics accepts the state-
ment. What is urged against it? Just this, that " science is in
irreconcilable conflict" with it. "Action at a distance, the
CRITICAL NOTICES. 281
impossibility of which the theory is constrained to assert, proves
to be an ultimate fact inexplicable on the principles of impact and
pressure of bodies in immediate contact. And this fact is the
foundation of the most magnificent theoretical structure which
science has ever erected" that is, of course, the theory of
universal gravitation. Our author makes much of this fact
of gravitation ; it is the type and symbol, as it is the last resting-
place, of "action at a distance". There are other actions of a
mechanical kind, such as light and heat, which are transmitted
from sun to planet ; for them he has no difficulty in conceiving a
continuous material carrier. But gravitation is an "ultimate
fact," in spite of the protests of all scientific thinkers from
Newton downwards. Indeed the author has so realistic a con-
ception of Newton's own quantitative law, that he makes light of
Newton's own disclaimer against taking the law for a qualitative
fact. In a letter to Bentley, Newton writes : " That gravity
should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one
body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum
without the mediation of anything else by and through which their
action may be conveyed through one to another, is to me so great
an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical
matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it ".
This is explicit enough. The constant efforts of men of science
since Newton's day to account for gravitation without assuming
action at a distance tell in the same way. The author reviews
them briefly and points out that none of them hitherto have been
successful. His triumphant conclusion is that they never will be
successful, and that the "mechanical theory" is hopelessly
discredited because this "ultimate fact" is inexplicable on the
principles of impact and pressure. If gravitation were the only
unexplained phenomenon in nature and had baffled scientific
research for centuries, this position might be justified. But it is
too soon to crow so loudly. Let us consider a little what it is
that has to be explained, and in what way the quantitative state-
ment of how gravitation acts is connected with the why. Professor
Lodge has put this so clearly in a recent lecture 1 that I cannot do
better than give his words. Newton would have entirely agreed
with him.
" If a man explained the action of a horse on a cart by saying that there
was an attraction between them varying as some high direct power of the
distance he would not be saying other than the truth the facts may be so
expressed but he would be felt to be giving a wretchedly lame explana-
tion, and any one who simply pointed out the traces would be going much
more to the root of the matter. Similarly with the attraction of a magnet
for another magnetic pole. To say that there is an attraction as the inverse
cube of the distance between them is true, but it is not the whole truth ;
and we should be obliged to any one who will point out the traces, for
traces we feel sure there are."
1 Nature, January 25 and February 1, 1883.
19
282 CRITICAL NOTICES.
Newton's law of gravitation, endowed by some with a mystic
physical reality, simply amounts to this that as an observed
fact two particles of matter when apparently left to them-
selves will approach each other and that the rate of change
of their motion of approach varies in magnitude inversely as
the square of the distance between them. Nothing in astro-
nomy would be altered if every atom were provided with an
angelus rector who pushed it at every instant with a nicely
judged force towards its neighbours. Nothing will be altered
if it is found that vortex-rings in an all-pervading fluid are
so pushed towards each other by the stresses their intrinsic or
pulsating motions set up in the fluid. It is merely for brevity
to Mr. Stallo as to many others a misleading brevity that the
word ' attraction,' with its metaphysical associations, is used in
the statement of the law. ' Attraction' in his sense is not &fact;
much less is it the "foundation of the most magnificent theoretical
structure which science has ever erected". But are the vortex-
atoms pushed towards each other according to the Newtonian
law ? No one can yet say. The mathematical difficulties have
not yet been overcome, and gravitation is after all but a residual
phenomenon compared with the other actions which take place
between the atoms. As Professor Lodge says :
" We must remember how small a force gravitation is. Ask any educated
man whether two pound masses of lead attract each other, and he will reply
no. He is wrong of course, but the force is exceedingly small. Yet it is
the aggregate attraction of trillions upon trillions of atoms ; the slightest
effect of each upon the other would be sufficient to account for gravitation ;
and no one can say that vortices do not exert some such residual, though
uniform, effect on the fluid in which they exist, till second, third, and every
other order of small quantities have been taken into account, and the theory
of vortices in a perfect fluid worked out with the most final accuracy."
This time, then, Mr. Stallo has aimed at a real foundation of
physics, but his attempt to destroy it by bringing it into collision
with the "magnificent structure" of astronomy is a failure.
Astronomy has no doctrine at variance with physics. It utilises
an observed relation; but it does not theorise on the cause of
this relation. Such theorising is for physics; and every step
gained seems to show that physics is theorising in the line
of truth.
(4) The last of the four propositions that all energy is essentially
kinetic is a consequence of the last. If there be no such thing
as action at a distance, then change of shape, of configuration, in
systems of bodies is associated inevitably with movement of the
circumambient medium. The kinetic energy which is not in the
moving system (and which, therefore, on a one-sided view seems
to have become potential) is really transferred as kinetic energy
to the medium. The alternation between the kinetic and potential
forms in the energy of an oscillating system is, fairly regarded,
only an appearance. The energy is alternately in the system of
CRITICAL NOTICES. 283
bodies and in the medium, but it is kinetic in both. In other
words there is no energy other than what depends on motion.
What seems transformation is only transference. This is most
perfectly illustrated in the vortex-theory. A circular vortex-ring
may be crimped into little stationary waves, and will oscillate
indefinitely about its mean form. At the end of each swing its
parts seem momentarily at rest ; in common phrase the energy of
its oscillation is for an instant entirely potential. But the eye
which looks for the forces maintaining the oscillations will see
that at that instant the flow of the fluid around the ring is altered
from the mean. The altered flow means altered pressures on the
ring; and these tend to restore its form again. But at the moment
when the ring was still the energy of its motion was not latent
in it in any form ; it was in the fluid and was manifested in the
altered flow of it. Mr. Stallo has altogether failed to see that
this is a possible view. Against it he merely heaps up instances
in which the phrase ' potential energy ' is used by men of science.
He then infers that each instance is a contradiction of the pro-
position that all energy is kinetic. The inference is entirely
irrelevant. To say that energy has become potential is merely to
say that it has disappeared from the arbitrarily isolated system we
are choosing to consider. We have merely to take a wide enough
view to see that it is still present and still kinetic. We may quite
consistently, when speaking to instructed listeners, speak of it as
potential. We do not contradict ourselves any more than when
we speak of the sun as travelling across the sky. Mr. Stallo's
long and laborious chapter proves nothing but his reading. His
conclusion that the history of the theory of energy is " that of
a progressive abandonment of the mechanical proposition" proves
how greatly he has misread. Those who are now ' making
history ' in regard to the theory of energy are each and all inspired
with the faith that this fundamental mechanical proposition
is true.
The author claims that, having discussed the cardinal principles
of the mechanical theory, he has shown " that they are severally
denied by the sciences of chemistry, physics, and astronomy".
We have met his claim by showing that his cardinal propositions
are not essential, or that his presumed contradictions are nothing
if not verbal. We shall not follow him in his examination of the
chemical Atomic Theory and the Kinetic Theory of 'Gases. His
criticisms of these are often shrewd even if they are not new.
But he betrays an unfamiliarity with the subject-matter scarcely
less striking than his familiarity with what has been written and
speculated about it. If people always used words accurately and
with the same meanings it might be safe to take the words as
corresponding with things. But it is dangerous to deal in words
exclusively, even when they are the words of approved men of
science. Those who have dealt in the things that are faintly
shadowed by the words have the clue to their meaning, and from
284 CRITICAL NOTICES.
within can read into them much that they fail to express. Hence
working men of science understand each other's language, even
when it is imperfect, a thousand-fold more clearly than the
clearest-headed of those who are hearers only. Mr. Stallo has
been a diligent and painstaking hearer and reader. We are
convinced he would never have written at least the first half of
his book if even to a small extent he had also been a doer. His
criticisms apply not to the concepts of physics in the truest sense,
but, where they are good, to the verbal expression of them. And
even then he is too often content with a semblance of refutation
when a little further examination would have led him to an
opposite conclusion. He has the further fault (we have noticed
it before in American writers), of not distinguishing between first-
rate authorities, whose dicta are worthy of the carefullest consi-
deration, and third-rate or fourth-rate writers, whose opinions can
scarcely be called science. In dealing with a disputed question
a kind of balance of authorities is sometimes struck, and to
an Englishman at least the principle of manhood suffrage is
too crudely allowed to decide the issue. Scientific questions
are of course not to be settled by authority, but in Europe
it is often held that some teachers are better entitled than
others to say what is accredited doctrine and what paradox.
Mr. Stallo has sometimes failed to distinguish the two, and set
down both alike to the account of " modern science ".
Enough has been said to show that the book is worth reading,
but with caution and a grain of salt. On the more strictly
metaphysical parts of it I do not venture an opinion.
DONALD MACALISTEK.
Nature and Thought : An Introduction to a Natural Philosophy.
By ST. GEORGE MIVAET. London : Kegan Paul, 1882.
Pp. 261.
Mr. Mivart presents us with a series of dialogues between F.,
a mild, easy and rather simple youth, who has played at scepti-
cism and is now in a state of unstable equilibrium, ready for
conversion, and M., his " guide, philosopher, and friend," who
seeks to lead him into that outer court of the temple of Catholic
Truth, Natural Theology or "Philosophy". This is sufficient
indication of the pith and purpose of the book and, without
saying anything about its literary setting, it may be allowed to
pass on to an appreciation of the author's main positions, and his
way of defending them. His essential theses are four : (1) The
possibility of absolute certainty ; (2) A known world-in-itself , the
postulate of science ; (3) The possession of absolute, necessary
and universal truths, which lifts the origin and nature of man
above the plane of " Nature," and makes a supernatural anthro-
pology possible; (4) The possibility of theology, theodicy, and
CRITICAL NOTICES. 285
supernatural religion and morality. His method of philosophy is
an amalgam of common-sense and psychology, making " use of
all our means of information," and "justifying the spontaneous
natural dictates of man's uncultured reason by philosophical
analysis ". A system of propositions each self-evident, and all
coherent is true, and such a one is this "natural philosophy".
The challenge may very well be accepted ; and both his principles
severally and their harmony be called in question.
(1) We attain "absolute certainty" by being furnished with
" intellectual intuition," a faculty of positive and potent direct
insight, and no "impotence" or process of reflection actus not
actio, an instantaneous glance and not an inquiry. " Whatever
is evident is true" and absolutely certain, a doctrine identical
with Descartes' appeal to clear ideas, although that is pre-
viously condemned on p. 19, and Descartes is included amongst
those philosophers whose analyses of consciousness have been
incomplete and one-sided. That is " evident" which is an object
of "intellectual intuition," and such objects constitute "objec-
tive evidence," which by coinciding with " subjective evidence,"
or the feeling of assurance and certitude, give " absolute cer-
tainty ". These objects, again, are a kind of occult qualities
called " objective concepts," which inhere in the things them-
selves, and swing in meaning between Scholastic realism and
Platonic idealism, so that it is difficult to say decidedly whether
Mr. Mivart takes them to be ante res, in rebus, or inter res, or what
else the res are themselves. This way of seeing percepts, con-
cepts, and realities double, looks very like seeking the ground
of the ground, the rationale of the irrational, and the reason of
the faith that all reasoning presupposes. Surely the faculty and
its objects are both pure assumptions, and quite gratuitous after
the author has said, " self-conscious reflective thought is then
our ultimate and absolute criterion," where he appears to accept
Eeflection as the critic, and ultimate inexpugnability on reflection
as the criterion of truth ; and yet he almost immediately after-
wards rejects every kind of reflective test in favour of intuition,
justifies the high value he attaches to the testimony of language
and common- sense, because of the superior clearness and distinct-
ness of direct thought (i.e., intuition), of which he considers them
products, and subjects Mr. Spencer's universal postulate to a
special criticism, which takes the form of the sophism of the
false infinite, thus, after Mr. Balfour : A thing is true because
we cannot conceive the opposite ; but how do we know that this
proposition is true ? by the same warrant, because we cannot
conceive the opposite ; and so on ad inftnitum. Unfortunately,
it can be shown, by the same sophistical reflection back into an
illusory infinite, that self-consciousness can never have begun to
be, since we cannot know without knowing that we know, and
so ad infinitum. But this is not serious criticism worthy of the
conciliator of common-sense. Another way the author has of
286 CEITICAL NOTICES.
meeting Mr. Spencer's test of inconceivability, is by affirming the
conceivability of the unimaginable. ''I cannot imagine my own
annihilation, but I can conceive it ! " he says, not observing that
in conceiving it, "I" remain and am. Yet when it is said that
" conception is not tied down to experience, though imagination
is," one can well believe it, if one has already accepted the " objec-
tive concepts"; but it will be incredible, if one sees that concepts
are only images in outline waiting to be filled in. Throughout
this dialogue on certainty, it maybe noted that "objective" is
taken to mean "noumenal," objects are confounded with things-
in-themselves, and such words as "being," "existence," and
"things" are freely used, but left undefined, as if we all knew
and were agreed on what they meant. By a curious argument,
memory is made to witness to our knowledge of noumena or
absolute certainties ; for " it enables you and me to know events
that once really happened, and to recollect objects separated by
more than a quarter of a century's interval from our present con-
sciousness. We thus know real existences, which are objective
or external to us, but of which our senses can tell us nothing."
But did they tell us nothing? And what are these "objects"
and "events" in memory but representations of what was once
presented in sense-perception ? Memory has not carried us beyond
the circle of phenomena.
(2) We are thus brought to the edge of the second affirmation,
that we can have a certain knowledge of "an external world
existing independently of ourselves such as physical science pos-
tulates". By this an unphenomenal world is meant, and the
relativity of knowledge is denied, for we have absolute knowledge
of the world as it absolutely is. The world is representative, but
to represent means to " make the thing present" and so we have
direct vision of the world-in-itself with all its absolute primary
qualities, and even its secondary qualities, like " objective sound,"
and with an immediate assurance of its truth and being by intui-
tion. What we perceive without or against our will gives us this
world-in-itself; as if the presence or absence of the feeling of
effort in the complex of a percept made it more or less than a
phenomenon. For the most part, Berkeley is met with the mere
counter- assertion of the noumenal existence of phenomena, as
"unthinking substances, and things-in-themselves," but the author
also uses against him the distinction between conception and ima-
gination, where he says "I cannot imagine a thing existing
unperceived by anybody, but I certainly can conceive it," and so
we have " an apprehension of external objective conditions of
real independent bodies," unlike the sensations and relations
between sensations, on occasion of which we intuite them ! Ad-
mitting that Berkeley is irrefutable, so far as ordinary experience
goes, if the position of Locke and Kant is granted that our per-
cepts are compounded of "our own ideas and sensations only,"
Mr. Mivart simply contents himself with denying that premiss,
CKITICAL NOTICES. 287
and begs the question. But even allowing it, he thinks that
phenomenalism is not so compatible with scientific experience and
thought, for these require us to believe that "the numbers, shapes,
solidities, and motions of bodies," and even their secondary quali-
ties, "really exist objectively" i.e., absolutely and in them; and
so science postulates unphenomenal phenomena, and there is no
difficulty about it, for, even admitting Lewes's "greeting of the
spirit," our intellect has power to subtract this subjective element,
and concentrate its gaze on the pure noumenal residuum. It is
not easy to see why Mr. Mivart sets his face against a mitigated
idealism like Berkeley's or Ferrier's, which offers him the most
plausible ground for postulating a Universal Consciousness, unless
it is the fear of consequences and logical issues.
(3) The third position is carried by a tour de force. It is only
necessary to posit an ' ' innate power " and faculty of pure intel-
lectual apprehension of absolutely necessary and universal truths,
seen to be such by their own evidence. It is not that universality
in experience gives the feeling of necessity, as when poor F. says
of such in variables, "They certainly do strike me as true for all
the times and places / can think of"; although Mr. Mivart admits
that association and "custom" may be the divinely appointed
occasion of our apprehending absolute truths. Causality or
" influx" is one of these truths, known by spontaneous intellectual
intuition; and this without any sense-mediation in the case of
" the inflow of the influence of motives upon our will". " Good-
ness" is another, sui generis, absolute, self-justified, underived,
and intuitively discerned. So too " oughtness" is "unanalysable,"
and "moral" means inexplicable. Pleasure, interest, happiness,
and "moral sentiment" are at the most mere accessories or
coincidents. Possessed of such absolute cognitions as these and
their issue, language, man has his origin and nature secured
against Darwinian and evolutionary assaults. Here Mr. Mivart
is very positive about what animals can and cannot do (pp. 165-6),
and about Darwinism, which is a " superstition" reposing neither
on reason nor evidence, but on "ignorance of what reason is,
and, above all, ignorance of the meaning of the word ' goodness',"
and so Darwin's derivation of man and his speech and morals
falls to pieces, chiefly because he could not define the undefinable.
But, if possible, the Agnostic doctrine of relativity is more " ex-
tremely pernicious " and "foolish".
(4) We have now a supernatural anthropology in ovo, and are
prepared for the last position ; and it only remains, as a prelimi-
nary, to establish the soul. This is done by hypostasising the
original synthetical unity of apperception, as soul, the substantial
form or principle of individuation, in a way shown to be illegiti-
mate by Kant a century ago (p. 185). It is an immanent principle,
an immaterial entity that acts, directs, controls, unifies, organises
(p. 189), and yet it is not " a numerically distinct something," is
only the living body from a dynamical point of view, the sum of
288 CEITICAL NOTICES.
its energies (p. 188), and apart from the body "an abstraction"!
It is, in fact, a bundle of these and other contradictions. All
living plants and animals are souls, and there is no hiatus except
two, one between the unliving and life, the other between the
highest merely animal life and man. Such things " we know
most intimately," and it is enough to simply affirm them. The
human soul is immortal, because "in a sense" out of space and
time (p. 225), and transcends while it pervades the body, for
(p. 227) intellect and will are not immersed in the body, and are
without organ ! All this appears as pure free play of the imagina-
tion, without a particle of real proof, but it is a postulate of the
theodicy, which requires a future life of rewards and punishments
(p. 229) ; and there is yet another proof of immortality, namely,
the soul's "power of intervening as a free cause, and modifying
the whole chain of physical causation by a quasi- supernatural act
of volition". This doctrine of Free-will is also a proper propae-
deutic to the doctrine of miracle, prayer, providence, and revela-
tion (p. 223); free-will being itself a kind of miracle, for "my
free volition is a truly uncaused action which intervenes in the
course of physical causation, and alters the whole future of the
universe for all eternity". Mr. Mivart brings forward nothing
new in defence of free-will, which he finds in the usual way, by
confounding the sense of incompulsion we sometimes have with
an intuition of absolute origination we never have, and thus get-
ting " a new force entirely distinct from the force of the motives,"
and yet strange to say acting "in conformity to our perception
of duty " ! In building up his theology, Mr. Mivart proceeds as if
the Transcendental Dialectic had never been written. The world
may be eternal, but it may be taken as one well-ordered whole,
and then requires a cause of harmony. He does not show how
we can think the totality, and assumes without proof that cosmos
is a fact and a contingent fact, whereas chaos may be equally a
fact, and neither may be absolute, while both may be eternal and
necessary correlatives. When he is thinking of the world as a
machine, it requires a transcendent dew ex machind, but at other
times he is driven on to think of an immanent and pervading
anima mundi (p. 200). The proverb, Nemo dot quod non habet,
provides the self-existent absolute cause with abundant attributes,
and the process of clothing culminates in anthropomorphic im-
personation; while in another place " de-anthropomorphisation "
goes on till even " existence" cannot be predicated unambiguously
(p. 206) . The author is an optimist because he is a believer in
God, and he is a believer in God because he is an optimist (pp.
208-9). By another circulus, the divine goodness proves the
future life, which itself depends on the divine goodness (pp. 244,
&c.) The theodicy advances by minimising pain and evil in a
way that is ungenerous when we are not the sufferers, by making
good come out of and depend on evil, a manufacture that fails
where there is no future life for the creatures, and by many
CEITICAL NOTICES. 289
appeals ad ignorantiam to the possibly stubborn nature of things,
"the range of objective contradiction" or essential absurdity
possibly limiting omnipotence, the inscrutability of the divine
purposes, the "vast scheme of infinite beneficence" past finding
out, the possible existence of intrinsic or "objective beauty"
where men find ugliness, and so forth. In fine, theology and
theodicy are the offspring of desire " a desire that all that
is highest and best ideal perfection should really exist," and
accordingly no one " could dare to be impartial, unless he would
dare to be voluntarily and deliberately as impious as absurd".
J. BuKNS-GlBSON.
Hamilton. By JOHN VEITCH, LL.D., Professor of Logic and
Ehetoric in the University of Glasgow. (" Philosophical
Classics for English Headers. ") London and Edinburgh :
Blackwood, 1882. Pp. 268.
One chapter (pp. 1-35) in this volume is devoted to biography :
the remaining eleven are occupied with Hamilton's philosophy.
The Psychological doctrines, the Nomology and the Ontology, are
all fairly and, in the main, fully presented. But we miss the
Logic. No small omission, everybody will allow : and we can
only regret that " there was not space to do it justice ".
The doctrines and teaching of Hamilton himself, we are not, of
course, here called upon to discuss. We are simply concerned
with our author's presentation of them, and with his amplifica-
tions, amendments and corrections. And, first of all, we observe
that Prof. Veitch is thoroughly alive to certain of the weaknesses
of the Hamiltonian philosophy, and that he does not refuse to
expose a defect when he puts his finger on it. Thus, he frankly
acknowledges Hamilton's inconsistency in maintaining that Con-
sciousness is coextensive with Mind, while at the same time
upholding the doctrine of Mental Latency. He sees also and
admits that, in his theory of External Perception, Hamilton laid
an unwarranted stress on one single source of objective knowledge
Locomotion. And if we ask, How does Hamilton's doctrine of
the immediate knowledge of the Ego in Perception accord with
his other doctrine that we have no immediate consciousness of
self at all, but only reach it mediately ? he is ready with the
answer, "I confess there seems to me some very considerable
ambiguity in the doctrine of Hamilton regarding our knowledge
of the Ego . . . On this point of the mediate or inferential
knowledge of the Ego, Hamilton cannot be said to be quite con-
sistent." There are, also, points in the Ontology that he considers
inadequately expressed or erroneously conceived. But there are
points in Prof. Veitch' s own psychology that we cannot regard as
altogether satisfactory : one or two of which we may now allude
to. Grant, for instance, that Hamilton was inconsistent in his
290 CRITICAL NOTICES.
doctrines of consciousness and mental latency, there is surely
another way of getting over the difficulty than by impugning the
fact of subconsciousness. It seems more in harmony with the
evidence, to admit the fact and to extend the meaning of "psy-
chical" or "mental" so as to include it; and if there is such
a thing as thoughts "simmering" in the mind, and if Memory
means with Prof. Veitch, as it did with Hamilton, the Conserva-
tive or Eetentive Faculty, " the power of retaining knowledge in
the mind, but out of consciousness," this becomes absolutely
imperative. Again, exception is taken to Hamilton's classing
Desire with Will ; on the grounds that Desire is, in its origin,
more properly allied to Feeling, and, in its result, "a tendency
pointing to one definite issue, the realisation of the object or
aim represented ". But, though it be indisputable that Desire in
one aspect may be regarded as Feeling, it is no less evident that
in another aspect it is one of the Active Principles of our nature
like appetite and instinct ; and this last seems to give its dis-
tinguishing characteristic and to forbid our sundering it from
Volition. At any rate, Prof. Veitch will carry few along with
him when he proposes to erect it into a separate mental province,
and to classify the phenomena of mind in the fourfold fashion
Knowledge, Feeling, Desire, Will. Once more, a word on the
Perception problem. Undoubtedly, Hamilton exaggerated the
power of Locomotion in supplying us with a knowledge of Body,
and his doctrine of Natural Dualism ill consorts with the dictum
of a mediate knowledge of self ; but is there not at least one other
flaw in his teaching equally worthy of notice and of comment ?
Why have we no redding-up (as Ferrier would say) of Hamilton's
theory of the visual perception of distant objects? This, we had
always thought, was a vital point in Hamiltonian Eealism ; and
explanation is certainly required : all the more so as Bailey's
exposure (and Bailey was himself a realist of the stanch type)
has appeared to so many absolutely conclusive, and his argu-
ments have not yet (so far as we know) been answered.
Next, as to the treatment of Mill. We hardly think that Prof.
Veitch has made the most of this great adversary, even for his
own purposes. Certain of his criticisms, indeed, are relevant
enough and pointed enough ; but others of them are little short
of captious. There is scarcely argument in such phrases as
" quibble," " simple caricature," " strained verbal interpretation,"
&c. ; and one has reason to complain that Mill has been positively
misrepresented in the matter of Knowledge and Belief. Without
question, Hamilton's use of the word Belief is altogether objec-
tionable, and, what is more, he himself vacillates in the employ-
ment of it. In ordinary philosophical usage, we are said to
believe what we have not an immediate experience of, we believe
on evidence adduced or on trustworthy and satisfactory testimony
(memory, accredited authority, &c.) ; we believe as the result of
probable (contingent) or analogical reasoning. But we cannot
CEITICAL NOTICES. 291
rightly be said to believe either in an object "which I perceive
now and here in this time and this space," or, speaking generally,
in "the original data of reason". And no one need be surprised
if this abusive application should react unfavourably on the doc-
trine to be conveyed. It is quite a mistake, however, to suppose
that Mill was ignorant of the particular signification that Hamilton
attached to Belief, or that he allowed himself to be carried away
by a mere verbal ambiguity. A careful study of the short quota-
tion from his Examination on p. 118 (to go no farther), and an
impartial comparison of this passage with the longer one from
Hamilton on the page immediately preceding, will, we presume,
lead most readers to a different conclusion from Prof. Veitch's.
At all events, it appears to us that Mill has here presented the
Hamiltonian doctrine very fairly and succinctly, and that his
criticisms have both relevance and force. Nor has strict justice
been done to Mill on p. 160, where a close examination of the
phraseology would show that there is nothing so very ludicrous
in the idea of " a present knowledge of the object represented, as
a condition of the representation"; and, on p. 232, a protest may
be entered against the criticism founded on the wording of the
first edition of the Examination, while the amendment of the
fourth edition is relegated to a foot-note, and that although the
amendment goes far to meet the criticism of the text and deprive
it of its edge.
A word on Hamilton's erudition. That this was very great,
indeed vast, is beyond all question; and it is generally agreed
that there have been few men in any age or in any country so
well equipped for the task of writing a history of Philosophy as
Hamilton. Indeed, the complaint is that he wasted his energies
in editing Eeid, when he might have been better and more pro-
fitably employed ; and with just reason may our author speak of
his "extraordinary research" and of his work as "wholly with-
out a parallel in Britain ". But we all know that Hamilton had
a knack of turning his learning against an opponent in a way not
altogether to be commended. The only refutation that he often
found it convenient to give to an adversary was the proof that
what he urged had been anticipated that it was not new. As
though the want of originality detracted from the strength of an
argument ! We had expected a gentle reference to this from a
disciple so loyal, yet so discriminative, as Prof. Veitch.
WILLIAM L. DAVIDSON.
Linguistic Essays. By GAEL ABEL, Ph.D. London : Triibner,
1882. Pp. 265.
In his Koptische Untersucliungen Dr. Abel has long been known
not only as one of Lepsius's most distinguished pupils, but as a
prominent leader of the " Junggrammatische Schule ". In the pre-
292 CEITICAL NOTICES.
sent work he endeavours to show that a thorough-going study of
language must be no mere formalism, but rather a philology in the
sense of a comparative national conceptology. Instead of dis-
cussing grammatical questions according to parts of speech, Dr.
Abel makes a systematic attempt to realise the psychological
value of the lexicon and to connect grammar and dictionary by
conceptual ties.
" If language is ever considered as an object of psychological study, and
every language regarded as reflecting a complete and peculiar view of the
world, a different method will have to be pursued in analysing its contents.
Grammatical forms will have to be classed not only according to the part
of speech in which they occur, but also in harmony with what they imply.
Any one notion indicated by grammar, instead of being studied separately
in each part of speech to which it ministers, will have to be traced through
all the various forms embodying it, and confronted with the independent
words of the language exhibiting the same idea. To make the parts of
speech the only class-heads of grammatical study is to hide the thoughts
of a people under the mere form of their words, and impede the investiga-
tion of the multitudinous concrete by the exclusive consideration of one,
and this the most abstract, feature of speech."
Hitherto, students of language have, for the most part, been
engaged in seeking and formulating the laws of phonetic changes,
but a far more important study is that of the laws of conceptual
evolution as manifested in the rise and fall both of word-meanings
and grammatical forms. How are concepts generated and con-
catenated ? How are impressions co-ordinated ? These are the
questions that interest the psychological student of human speech,
and it is because Dr. Abel believes that the signification of words
and forms reflects a nation's general view of mind and life, and
carries on his researches upon the basis of national and inter-
national linguistic analysis, that we gladly recommend these
thoughtful and attractive Essays to the readers of MIND.
Students of English especially may be congratulated upon a
contribution to their branch of knowledge which combines no
ordinary amount of empirical tact with a degree of Sprachgefithl
unusual even in the Germans themselves.
The first four essays deal with the psychology of the dictionary.
In " Language as the Expression of National Modes of Thought"
it is pointed out how, strictly speaking, translation from one
language into another is not only difficult but well-nigh impos-
sible. The German ' Freund ' is not the French ' ami, ' nor is
' decision ' equivalent to ' Entschluss '. On going into a strange
country and adopting another language we cannot precisely
render our old ideas by the new words, nor can we help the new
words unconsciously changing our opinions. The English dic-
tionary is singularly rich in words denoting various shades of
colour, whereas the German is remarkably poor. " Tints which
in German only he who has an exceptional eye for colour can
distinguish, and then has to describe by paraphrase out of his
own head, are in England recognised as of course, and in con-
CEITICAL NOTICES. 293
sequence named with special words." It is, we think, generally
admitted that accurate observation of natural phenomena is
more prevalent in England than in Germany.
Employing the method of concomitant variations, Abel seeks
to show how changes in idea and feeling uniformly accompany
the successive stages of linguistic progress. The Hebrew, Latin,
Russian, and English words for ' love ' are analysed so as to
display each nation's concept as a separate system of feelings and
thoughts, to be compared with the concepts of other nations.
Synonyms are carefully discriminated by this able investigator
and the English verbs of ' command ' are classified according as
the purpose is defined or not, binding or otherwise, &c. The
question of desynonymisation is engaging the attention of English
philologists just now, more especially in connexion with the
Philological Society's Dictionary. If " il faut savoir la gram-
maire et connaitre les synonymes lorsqu'on veut etre roi de
France," it is alao necessary to know the conceptual inter-
dependence of grammar and lexicon in order to become master
of a language.
In the essays on "Philological Methods," and "The Connexion
between Dictionary and Grammar," we see in what way Dr.
Abel is endeavouring to establish Comparative Lexicography as a
sister- science to Comparative Grammar.
"The psychological method is not content to take etymological and
syntactical forms as starting-points for linguistic research. Only if every
notion in the lexicon is likewise made the point of issue for special inquiry
is language adequately apprehended. If the notion is abstract enough to
admit of also being expressed by grammar, etymology and syntax will be
needed to throw light upon it, as well as semasiology. If it is concrete,
semasiology will have to be chiefly consulted ; but etymology and syntax
will have'to be called in likewise to account for the form of the word; and
illustrate its meaning by derivation and use. ... To successfully
carry out the psychological treatment of the lexicon we shall have to con-
front whole groups of words, in contra -distinction to the old synonymical
method, which compares only a few nearly allied words. For the various
aspects of a notion to be collectively represented in the array, a sufficient
number of illustrative shades must be taken. ... By interpreting the
German terms of causality, ' Grund ' and ( Ursache,' very little is known of
the Teuton view of these fundamental notions. To really understand them
it is necessary, besides investigating many other substantives, to consider
the particles ( weil,' ' warum,' ' wodurch,' * wieso ' ; the prepositions ' durch,'
'mit,' 'von'; the verbs 'machen,' 'schaffen,' 'wirken'; the subjunctive
as implying cause ; the Gothic and Old High German instrumental case and
much else that is relevant."
This treatment of the lexicon seems to us imperfect owing to
the non-recognition of the principle of antithesis. If we want to
know what the English understand by ' forgiveness ' it is not
enough to say 'pardon,' 'condonation,' 'grace/ 'remission,'
' absolution,' ' amnesty,' ' oblivion,' ' indulgence,' ' reprieve,' ' con-
ciliatory,' ' unresented,' &c. : we must take into account their
opposites ' revenge,' ' rancour,' ' ruthlessness,' ' vindictiveness/
294 CEITICAL NOTICES.
* implacability,' ' avenger,' ' Nemesis,' ' Eumenides,' &c. Again,
in many cases, as Roget has well shown, two ideas which are
mutually opposed, admit of an intermediate or neutral idea,
equidistant from both, and these must be known before the con-
cept is fully gauged. For instance : ' identity,' ' difference,'
' contrariety ' ; ' beginning,' ' middle,' ' end ' ; ' past,' ' present,'
* future '. Sometimes the intermediate word is simply the negative
to each of two opposite positions : ' convexity,' ' flatness,' ' con-
cavity'; 'desire,' 'indifference,' 'aversion'; or, the standard with
which each of the extremes is compared, as in ' insufficiency,'
* sufficiency,' ' redundance '- 1
The essays on "Coptic Intensification" and "The Origin of
Language " are based upon what Dr. Abel considers the irrefrag-
able evidence adduced in his Koptische Untersuchungen, which, he
thinks, will permanently influence our views of primeval language.
In the Cratylus, Plato would have us understand by /u^/ta T^
0a>i^9 not merely onomatopoeia, but a consistent sound- symbolism,
which attributes conceptual significance even to individual letters.
And the Coptic grammarian of to-day, " though he has to content
himself with determining a few vowels, saves the theory by estab-
lishing it on a historical basis ". But it is a mistake to style the
ninth essay "The Origin of Language"; it should rather have
been called " Characteristics of Primitive Speech". From a psy-
chological point of view it is by far the most important of Dr.
Abel's studies, but we cannot do more here than point out the
salient features of the question. 2
On first looking into an Egyptian dictionary we are struck by
the fact that almost every sound may have any meaning (Homo-
nymy) and, conversely, nearly every meaning may be expressed
by any sound (Synonymy). ' Ab,' for instance, means to
dance, heart, calf, wall, to proceed, demand, left hand, figure ;
whilst ' to cut ' is expressed by more than thirty different sounds.
And this is not all. We find in Egyptian three forms of linguistic
antithesis, that of sound, of sense, and of sound and sense. E.g.,
(a) Inversion of sound : teb-bet fig ; (b) Inversion of sense : ken
strong- weak ; (c) Inversion of sound and sense : so c s becoming,
c ses unbecoming.
How are we to account for this ? We feel at once that this is
a class of linguistic phenomena which can only be explained by
the application of the psychological method. At first sight, such
a state of things would seem to involve unintelligibility.
The occurrence in so many languages, notably in Arabic, of
1 [Cf., the Article on "The Logic of Dictionary-defining," by Rev. W. L.
Davidson, in MIND XXII., 212-31. ED.]
2 The present writer hopes to treat the subject at length in an early
number of the Zeitschrift fur Volkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, when
he will propose a classification of primitive linguistic phenomena upon a
psychological basis.
CRITICAL NOTICES. 295
words with polar meanings cannot be explained by fortuitous
Homonymy, but must result from the principle of universal Rela-
tivity. Thinking being a synthesis of thesis and antithesis in
rapid alternation, we should not be surprised to find polarity in
the expression characteristic of early mental life. As Prof. Bain
(Logic, i. 54) well says :
" The essential Relativity of all knowledge, thought, or consciousness,
cannot but show itself in language. If everything that we can know is
viewed as a transition from something else, every experience must have
two sides ; and either every name must have a double meaning, or else for
every meaning there must be two names. We cannot have the conception
* light,' except as passing out of the ' dark ' ; we are made conscious in a
particular way by passing from light to dark, and from dark to light. The
name 'light' has no meaning without what is implied in the name 'dark'.
We distinguish the two opposite transitions, light to dark, and dark to
light, and this distinction is the only difference of meaning in the two
terms : ' light ' is emergence from dark ; ' dark ' is emergence from light.
Now, the doubleness of transition is likely to occasion double names being
given all through the universe of things ; languages should be made up,
not of individual names, but couples of names."
It must not be forgotten that, in Egyptian, every word is first
written by letter, and then explained by a supplementary picture,
pointing out the order of conceptions to which the word belongs.
When ken is used for ' strong/ we find behind the alphabetically
written word a picture significant of strength ; in the same way
we may always know when the word stands for ' weak ' from the
accompanying illustration indicative of weakness. And what the
picture was to the written word, gesture and expression-reading
were to the spoken word. If, as is most probable, the root, or
perceptual reflex, was repetition of a syllable, then ken-ken would
be ' strength- weakness,' and ken alone would be ' strong- weak '.
A differentiation would be Buhe-hurry, &c., metathesis of sound
for inversion of meaning.
In conclusion, we would express the hope that Dr. Abel may
find many fellow- workers in this new and promising field of
research.
H. M. BAYNES.
Geschwhte der EtTiik in der neuern Philosophie. Von FEIEDKICH
JODL, Privatdocent der Philosophie an der Universitat zu
Miinchen. I. Band. Bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts ;
mit einer Einleitung iiber die antike und christliche Ethik.
Stuttgart : Gotta, 1882. Pp. xii., 446.
Herr Jodl's work, of which the first volume is now published
(cf. MIND XXVIII., 606), promises to be a valuable contribution to
the history of ethics, and a valuable aid to ethical study. To a
large extent its value is due to its definite and restricted aim.
Much that usually goes under the name of ethics finds no place in
296 CEITICAL NOTICES.
it. The detailed treatment of the virtues and the application of
moral principles to conduct, the consideration of which forms so
large a part both of ancient and modern ethical works, are here
omitted; so that the author has had grave doubt whether his
work "has a right to be called a history of ethics" at all. But
the book really gains by this omission ; for an opportunity is thus
given of bringing into clearer light the more fundamental questions
of ethics the question as to the nature of morality, and that
regarding its origin. To trace the way in which these two
questions have been dealt with in modern philosophy is Herr
Jodl's aim. His book thus occupies ground distinct from that
covered by such works as those of I. H. Fichte and Vorlander.
Leaving to these writers to trace in detail the way in which ethical
questions have been dealt with by different moralists, Herr Jodl
attempts to exhibit the progress of philosophical views regarding
the foundation of ethics and the origin of moral ideas.
The initial difficulty that attaches to any history of ethics is of
course not overcome by this method. That difficulty arises from
the fact that an author's ethical doctrines naturally depend upon
his metaphysical or at least theoretical standpoint. Hence the
principles of ethics cannot be properly explained apart from
theoretical philosophy ; so that a historian of ethics, who attempts
to treat his subject apart from metaphysics, is in danger of leaving
its fundamental principles in obscurity, while, if he attempts to
make them clear, his tendency may be to expand his work into a
history of philosophy in general. It would be too much to say
that Herr Jodl has hit the happy mean between the two extreme
courses entered sufficiently upon theoretical philosophy to make
his principles clear, without ever discussing it for its own sake.
His tendency indeed is to treat ethical as too much independent of
general philosophy. He even contends expressly in one place
(pp. 356-7) for the complete independence of ethics: "a science
of ethical principles is possible (he says) independently of all
metaphysical and theological constructions ". And to a certain
extent this is no doubt true. So far as theology is concerned,
when it is connected with ethics at all in modern thought, it is
usually by being made dependent on morality and not conversely.
And there are undoubtedly developments of metaphysics which
have no essential and direct bearing on ethical questions. Herr
Jodl however means more than this; the ethical agreement of
Leibniz and Spinoza being brought forward to prove the indepen-
dence of ethical principles on an author's metaphysical or specu-
lative view of things. But with regard to this, it is evident, in the
first place, that the same general doctrine of ethics may be quite
correctly deduced from speculative principles which yet differ from
one another in metaphysically important respects, just as the
same physical effect may equally well result from either of two or
more possible causes; while, in the second place, were this not
the case, ethical harmony but metaphysical discrepancy between
CEITICAL NOTICES. 297
the principles of Leibniz and Spinoza might only prove the incon-
sequence of one of these philosophers, not the disconnexion of
ethics and metaphysics. An answer to the inquiry into
what is moral, i.e., into what is good or best in human
action, implies a view of human nature both rational and sensitive
and of the ends it is fitted to subserve. We cannot determine the
end without first of all studying the organism of which it is the
end; and the study of man implies the study of reason, man's
distinctive characteristic. Hence the inseparable connexion of
metaphysics as the theory of knowledge with ethics as the theory
of action, and the dependence of the latter on the former.
More than any other historical development, perhaps, English
ethics is independent of expressed metaphysical views, and to it
nearly one half of the present volume is devoted. The points in
dispute among the English moralists of the 17th and 18th
centuries were expressly points of moral philosophy ; and we seem
able to trace the succession of moralists almost without reference
to their speculative opinions.
After introductory chapters on ancient and medieval ethics and
on the beginnings of independent ethical inquiry in modern
philosophy, Herr Jodl proceeds to trace the development of
English and Scotch ethics from Hobbes to Adam Smith, the
subsequent and concluding chapters of the volume being devoted
to the ethics of the Cartesian school in France and of the French
Uluminati, and to the two developments of Cartesianism, Spinoza
and Leibniz.
The treatment of the English moralists is in many respects the
most interesting part of the volume. Till recent years some
of the most characteristic systems of English ethics had been
almost unknown in Germany. Butler especially was treated there
with even greater neglect than was for long Shaftesbury's lot
among ourselves. Even in I. H. Fichte's work, the former
receives no mention at all, and in Vorlander he is dismissed with
three pages to Bolingbroke's fifteen. Herr Jodl shows more sense
of proportion by omitting the latter altogether and restoring the
former to his rightful place as, along with Shaftesbury and Hume,
the greatest of English moralists. By his clear and judicious
account of this whole period, Herr Jodl does much to supplement
the work begun by Gizycki's excellent monographs. He describes
the leading features of the various ethical theories and contro-
versies, and shows how the inquiry into the foundation of
morality gradually gave place to that into the origin of moral
ideas and judgments, till in Adam Smith who, with finer analysis
than any of his predecessors, discussed the psychological process
by which ethical judgments arise the question as to the objec-
tive basis of morality was altogether avoided (p. 250). But, just
on this account, Smith's fine analysis of the moral feelings leaves
him without any answer to Herr Jodl's first question What is
the moral good? For he shuns the inquiry into the moral
20
298 CRITICAL NOTICES.
standard in accordance with which his ideal " disinterested spec-
tator " forms his moral judgments.
On the whole Herr Jodl is perhaps not quite free from the
leaning usually attributed to German writers towards a one-
sidedly empirical interpretation of English thought. And this
leaning is hardly justified by the interesting contrast it enables him
to draw bet ween English empiricism and the rationalistic movement
as typified in Spinoza. Thus in discussing Shaftesbury, there is a
tendency to minimise the rational element in his system. His
" moral sense " is interpreted throughout as merely sensitive ; and
this has certainly the advantage of giving him a consistent theory.
But at the same time it takes away from the force of his argu-
ment against Hobbes in favour of disinterested affections, and is
even opposed to some of his own utterances. " Shaftesbury
speaks indeed in various passages," Herr Jodl allows (p. 172),
" of the reason in opposition to the imaginations and fancies of
men, of the necessity of keeping them in restraint, and of man
being more rational as this is more strictly done." But this
" reason," according to our author, "is merely the sum of a man's
reflex affections, the sum of the previous expressions of his ' moral
sense '." Shaftesbury, however, goes further than this ; for it is
only through the rationality of men that the reflex affections
forming the "moral sense" are possible, and they are distinctly
spoken of as " rational " (Inquiry, I. ii. 4). To say, as Herr Jodl
does, that according to Shaftesbury " the ethical does not arise
from reason, but from a natural feeling, an inner impression, and
is therefore not ' rational ' but ' sensational,' " is to make his
doctrine consistent at the expense of calling "not 'rational' but
'sensational,'" what Shaftesbury himself calls not "sensitive"
but "rational".
With regard to the standpoint from which Herr Jodl looks on
the general progress and tendency of ethical systems, it seems
better to delay criticism till the completion of his work has fully
explained its method and point of view. At present, this first
volume may be recommended as a clear and suggestive treatment
of the period it covers.
W. K. SOBLEY.
Ueber das Wesen und die Bedeutung der menscJilichen Freiheit und
deren moderne Widersacher. Von HUGO SOMMER, Amtsrichter
in Blankenburg am Harz. Berlin : Eeimer, 1882. Pp. 100.
The doctrines set forth in this volume are derived from Lotze,
who is regarded by the author as having in the history of
modern philosophy a relation to Kant which is like the
relation of Newton to Kepler in the history of astronomy.
Lotze has proved that all knowledge must necessarily be, as
Kant showed that it actually is, subjective. But all experiences
CEITICAL NOTICES. 299
are events, and not, as Kant supposed, " expressions of a change-
less inactive existence" (p. 10). Every experienced change is a
change of the whole being. In the decisions of the will, therefore,
we may study the whole nature of man. " The specific character
of a decision of the will consists in the free choice among several
motives offering themselves at the same time to consciousness "
(p. 12). By developing all that is implied in the fact of freedom,
we find that our life is bound up with all other changes that take
place, with the whole process of change in the universe ; that
the " world-process " has a single end which is a good of absolute
value ; and that the specific nature of our existence consists in
this that it has an end which is our highest good, and which is
of absolute value because in working towards it we are promoting
that good which is the end of the " world-process ".
It will be evident from this sketch that the author discusses
not merely the question of the freedom of the will, but all the
principal questions of philosophy. The object of his able exposi-
tion is indeed to show that a system of philosophy may be
constructed by " harmonising with one another and with the
rest of our knowledge " the results of an investigation of " the
fact of freedom" (p. 17). The chapter containing the funda-
mental ideas of this system (pt. i., ch. 2) is preceded by a
chapter in which the general conception of freedom is fixed.
Freedom " in its positive sense " is the capability of self-
determination according to internal motives, and not a " cause-
less self-determination ". The practical needs of life did not
supply any occasion for the formation of this conception, but
they caused " a negative conception of freedom " to be formed.
Freedom in the negative sense is the capability of holding our-
selves free from motives that are contrary to our true nature,
that is, to our nature as moral beings. Since men are very often
influenced by motives that are not in accordance with their true
nature, freedom has come to mean, by an inadvertent extension
of the negative conception of it, freedom from all motives what-
ever, and its positive sense has been forgotten. An entirely false
notion of freedom has thus formed itself, that of a " causeless
self-determination " which, as immediate experience proves to us,
is impossible. But this is not the true idea of freedom ; deter-
mination according to motives, instead of being contrary to the
freedom of the will, is an essential condition of it.
By observation of what takes place in ourselves, we may
discover all that is implied in the fact of freedom. Every
internal experience is pre-eminently one of feeling, thought, or
will. But no experience consists simply in one of these things ;
all three elements feeling, thought, will (Fiihlen, Vorstellen,
Wollen) are present to a certain extent in every experience.
When we will anything, for example, there is always present in
more or less intensity the thought of what we ought to do, and
the feeling that there is something which we ought to do. But
300 CEITICAL NOTICES.
here, as in all experiences, feeling is the central element. Ideas
of what it is that we ought to do have changed in the course of
history, but the feeling that there is something which we ought
to do has always been present. It is therefore in the feeling of
moral obligation that we discover our true nature. But that
which we ought to do is felt by us to have an absolute, not a
merely relative value. Now there cannot be anything of absolute
value unless everything that happens in the universe is directed
towards a single end ; and that only" can be of absolute value
which either itself makes part of this end or has for its specific
character the tendency to the realisation of it. Thus we are led
to the teleological view that has been described.
But this view requires further development before it can
become a philosophy. As a preliminary to this, there is a dis-
cussion of the questions " In what does the truth of our know-
ledge consist?" and " What is its criterion?" (Pt. i., ch. 3.)
It is concluded that truth does not consist in any kind of corres-
pondence between our thoughts and the things outside us, but in
a character that belongs to our mode of putting together our
internal experiences. Our thoughts are true when their nature
as internal events is understood, when they are placed in logical
relations to the rest of experience. The criterion of truth is the
feeling of the universality and necessity of ultimate axioms.
The problem that remains is, to find a centre for the positions
that have been laid down. This centre is found to be the con-
ception of the Absolute (das absolute Weltwesen) a conception
which can only be satisfied by the idea of " a living personality ".
(Pt. i., ch. 4.)
Immediate experience, according to the author, is the source
of all our knowledge. But all experience is referred to ourselves
as conscious beings. To exist is to be conscious of existing. If,
then, there is a single highest being, which is the ground of all
reality, this being must be conscious. By looking at experience
more closely we shall obtain a clear view of the relations of the
absolute being to individual beings and of these to one another.
Internal events for the most part are not spontaneous. They
must therefore be caused by other beings. The chief problem of
philosophy since Descartes has been to make this "reciprocal
action of beings " conceivable. Lotze was the first to solve the
problem. His solution enables us to infer from the fact of recip-
rocal action that only a single conscious being can be the real
ground of everything that exists ; that the reality of all individual
beings in the universe can only consist in modes of the self-con-
sciousness .of this one being. For Lotze's solution of the problem
is this : that any change of state in any particular being is at
the same time an agitation (Bewegung) of the substance that
forms the ground of the existence of all particular beings, an
agitation which, since it reverberates more or less strongly
(schwacher oder starker wiederklingt) in all other beings in the
CEITICAL NOTICES. 301
universe, may appear as a corresponding change of state in any
one of them. And this explanation is meaningless unless we
suppose that the " Weltsubstanz," the ground of all reality, is a
conscious being.
The idea at which we have arrived is in its present form too
abstract. But we have seen that the process of change in the
universe considered as a whole has an end of absolute value.
Now an end of absolute value can only exist for a personal being.
We must therefore add the idea of personality to the idea we
have already reached. It is true that we are ourselves persons,
and that we are limited beings ; but personality is not in itself a
limitation. And the conception of a perfect personality, when
life has been given to it by means of the religious sense, no longer
remains an empty form.
In the Second Part of his book Herr Sommer discusses the
chief objections to the doctrine of free-will. He maintains that
the objection that freedom is inconsistent with the law of causa-
tion disappears when for " causeless self-determination " is sub-
stituted "the true positive conception of freedom, the capability
of determining oneself to an act of will according to internal
motives" (ch. 2). Since our will itself and our whole nature
belong to the universal order of things, freedom cannot be a con-
tradiction of this order (ch. 4). Kant's doctrine of freedom is
discussed in this division of the book, and his position in the
history of philosophy is reviewed. But most space is taken up
by an examination (1) of Modern Materialism, (2) of the philo-
sophical views of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann.
The Kantian criticism led to the theory that reality is to be
found in subjective experience, but Kant himself was prevented
from completely developing this view by his separation of pheno-
mena from things-in-themselves, and by his position that the
thing-in-itself is unknowable. His doctrine of freedom, in the
form in which he has expressed it, is contradictory. But Kant's
true view of freedom is outside the contradictions of his system.
It is to be found in his definition of "practical freedom" as
"independence of the will on everything but the moral law
alone". This doctrine of practical freedom remained defective
only because Kant did not formulate his moral principle in a
perfect manner. If he had not neglected immediate experience
he would have seen that in the highest sense happiness and
morality are correlates. But he described correctly the nature
of moral freedom; and one of the causes to which we may
ascribe the appearance of exaggeration in the principle of the
categorical imperative is a justifiable opposition to the "ration-
alistic eudaemonism " of the century.
In the chapters on "The Objections of Materialism" and on
the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, Herr Sommer's
method is to criticise the leading principles of each system with a
view to showing that the fact of freedom and its significance
302 CEITICAL NOTICES.
cannot be rightly understood by those who adopt these principles.
He analyses successively the conceptions of matter, force, space,
time and law in order to prove that materialism has no philoso-
phical coherence ; that it " is only a theory of the appearances of
reality in the world of representations, not a metaphysic of the
reality itself" (p. 66). The materialist has no place in his
system for freedom, because it is not part of the mechanism of
the world of appearances. Those characteristics of modern life
to which materialism owes its popularity estrangement from
ideals and the desire for simple explanations of things have
determined the form of the philosophical systems of Schopenhauer
and Von Hartmann. The philosophy of Schopenhauer is founded
on his doctrine of will. If, therefore, we see reason for rejecting
this doctrine, we must reject his philosophy as a whole. Now
the will, as we know it in experience, has definite characters,
which are inconsistent with the conception of will as the thing-
in-itself, and also with that which Schopenhauer imagined as
the content of his conception of "will". Besides this, the
actually perceived world of phenomena cannot be explained from
Schopenhauer's point of view. Through separating phenomena
from things-in-themselves he is led to regard every act of the will
as determined and at the same time absolutely free. It is a merit
of Hartmann to have rejected Schopenhauer's conception of a
causeless freedom. He has understood the nature of freedom on
the formal side ; but his view of it is defective because he has not
understood what is the essential character of man : the motives
he takes into account are too few and too simple ; for the will as
we know it in experience is conscious, and is characterised by the
(more or less intense) feeling of moral responsibility which always
accompanies it.
The philosophical theory developed by Herr Sommer is, as he
says himself, constructed " on an ethical basis ". The defects of
this mode of philosophising become most apparent in the last
chapters of the volume. In the criticism of materialism, for
example, the materialistic view of the world is condemned not
simply on the ground of its bad metaphysics, but also because it
does not supply any test of the moral worth of that which exists.
And in the chapter on the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Von
Hartmann it is contended that these philosophers have no right
to apply the term "pessimism" to their "nihilistic" view of
things, on the ground that their theoretical philosophy does not
admit the conception of a better and a worse (p. 76, note) ;
though it seems clear that this term refers only to their view
of things in relation to the happiness of mankind. It is
true, as Herr Sommer remarks in his preface, that all theories
of the world are necessarily from the human point of view.
But that the human point of view is not exclusively the
ethical point of view may be shown by considering again
the classification of experiences into those of feeling, thought,
CRITICAL NOTICES. 303
and will. Although (as has been said) each of these three
kinds of experience has an element of the two others, and
although feeling is always the central element, yet the selection
of a decision of the will as the primary experience from which a
philosophy is to be thought out seems a little arbitrary, when we
consider that the central feeling may not be identical in the three
cases ; and further reflection shows that it is really one of these
other kinds of experience that ought to have been selected. For
philosophical contemplation is distinctly an intellectual state of
mind. Now the central emotion present in those kinds of expe-
rience that are pre-eminently intellectual is not ethical in its
character. It is of its own kind, just as much as the ethical
emotion ; it is sometimes called ' curiosity,' sometimes ' the
love of truth for its own sake '. This is the emotion in which
philosophy has its origin ; the desire to find moral meanings in
things is merely a perverting influence.
The influence of the ethical point of view is, however, not
perceptible in all parts of Herr Sommer's book. The doctrine, for
example, that reality is to be found in subjective experience, is
beyond the influence of ethical considerations. But why should
the term " thing-in-itself " be entirely rejected in the statement
of the last results of metaphysics, as it is by Herr Sommer and
by other writers who accept this doctrine ? According to the
view they take, there is a sense in which the external world,
when it is distinguished from that which is fundamental in
subjective experience, is an illusion. Probably they would say
that they prefer to express this distinction by some other term
because the term " thing-in-itself " has been regarded as the
name of something " unknowable ". But this is an accident,
not an essential part of the conception of things-in-themselves.
And if, by bringing the doctrine of " the subjectivity of know-
ledge " into relation with Kant's application of the term " thing-
in-itself to a reality outside the individual mind, we can arrive
at a consistent metaphysical theory, this, on the other hand, is
an argument for retaining the term.
Herr Sommer's conclusions as to the existence of an absolute
being and as to the attributes of this being, could not be drawn
from the doctrine of the subjectivity of knowledge without the
help of an assumption with regard to the form of all experience.
This assumption is that analysis cannot resolve self -consciousness
into anything simpler. Now if such an expression can be found
for the form of experience that self-consciousness is seen to be a
special manifestation of it and not its universal character, there
can be no philosophical proof of the existence of the Absolute
otherwise than as the conception of an ideal limit of the develop-
ment of the human mind.
The doctrine of free-will, as it is understood by Herr Sommer,
is not indeterminism. The only defect in his treatment of the
will is the tendency to take it as an ultimate fact ; and this would
304 CEITICAL NOTICES.
not be of much importance if his account of it were regarded as
a foundation for ethics rather than for philosophy generally.
But his treatment of Schopenhauer's doctrine of will is inade-
quate. He shows conclusively that Schopenhauer's " will " is
not the will as we know it. But he passes over the question
whether " will " in Schopenhauer's philosophy may not be an
expression for a primitive element in mind which is disclosed
by analysis.
The explanation of Herr Sommer's use of the term " freedom "
may be found in the first paragraph of his Introduction. He
speaks there of freedom as " the specific expression of the true
nature of man," and says that the need of free development has
grown in all nations in proportion as their civilisation has become
higher. Thus it is evident that he means by freedom first of all
what is ordinarily meant by it, that is, freedom from external
constraint. But he adds to this the idea of something positive,
of that " spontaneity " which it will always be necessary to dis-
tinguish in some way from merely mechanical action. Further,
in order that we may be " practically free," this spontaneity
must manifest itself under a specifically human form ; that is, its
mode of manifestation must be determined by "an inner rule,"
the moral law. But why should this freedom be ascribed to the
will ? This is explained when we consider that spontaneity may
manifest itself in action of some kind, and that conscious will is
always present in action of the kind that is specifically human.
Thus, when we are speaking of action, freedom, explained in this
way, might be called "freedom of the will". But after all it
does not seem desirable to make use of the term even in this
sense. For if we grant that associations with indeterminism
might be got rid of, the objection still remains that to identify
human freedom with free-will in any sense would be to take a
restricted view of the nature of freedom ; seeing that " spon-
taneity," in a specifically human form, manifests itself in art and
in thought just as much as in action.
T. WHITTAKER.
VIII. NEW BOOKS.
[These Notes do not exclude Critical Notices later on.]
Evenings witli the Skeptics, or Free Discussions on Free Thinkers.
By JOHN OWEN, Eector of East Anstey. 2 vols. London :
Longmans, 1881. Pp. 464, 516.
By an extremely liberal construction of what Scepticism is and
includes, Mr. Owen has bound together, with a connective tissue
of conversations after the manner of Friends in Council, a
series of biographical studies of men who had very little else in
common than a more or less persistent love of thinking for them-
selves, and has succeeded in presenting us with the first instal-
ment of a very interesting if somewhat miscellaneous book, which
in several respects at least justifies his expectation of filling up a
gap in the history of philosophy in English literature. His wide
definition of Scepticism when spelt with a " k," as sustained
search with as much suspense as is needful, allows him to select
the materials of his history from the promiscuous mass of inquiring
minds who have sought truth in all times by question, analysis,
criticism and circumspection, without regard to whether they
have remained in doubt, seeking and freethinking to the end, or
have finally found truth and rest by alien ways like feeling,
intuition, faith, acquiescence in authority, or the free play of
imagination. Thus it comes that Parmenides, Democritus, and
even Socrates and Plato are numbered with Pyrrho and Sextus
Empiricus, and other thorough-paced Greek Sceptics; that the
sketch of Hebrew and Hindu Scepticism comprises the drama of
Job with its denouement of miracle, Ecclesiastes closing with a
categorical imperative, the idealism of Kapila, Vedantist mysticism,
and Buddhist dogmatic nihilism ; and that, in the 2nd Vol. on
Christian Scepticism, Augustine, Erigena, and Aquinas are
reckoned typical doubters as well as Abelard and Occam. It is
difficult to understand on what ground Mr. Owen has left any
thinker say, Aristotle or Duns Scotus out of his list. At the most
it can only have been with him a question of degree, and there
seems no reason why we should not expect to find Kant and
Hume, Hamilton and Mill, and with them all the moderns, in
future volumes, as we are already promised not only Montaigne
but Giordano Bruno. There might be much gained by a pre-
sentation of the whole history of philosophy with its sceptical
side uppermost, and Mr. Owen's is an excellent popular essay in
that direction, which is specially successful in demonstrating the
corrosive and unsettling tendencies of the activity of Schoolmen,
like Aquinas, who have been in general accounted dogmatic
306 NEW BOOKS.
tendencies which, accumulating and finding a focus in Occam,
constituted a leading factor of the Eenascence and Eeformation.
These studies do not profess to have been drawn from original
sources, but while making use of the many monographs and
histories extant, like Prantl's, Eousselot's, Haureau's, and Stockl's,
it is evident, so far as I have been able to ascertain, that the
author has in many cases and on most material points sought to
verify their statements. That the paper on Occam is an under-
statement of his utter scepticism, will be apparent to any one
who looks through the Qaodlibeta and Centilogium, where Occam
criticises the whole ecclesiastical dogmatic system in detail,
taking it to pieces and crunching it up bit by bit, often with
rough Rabelaisian humour, and always with Voltairean zest, and
with the blunt outspokenness of an Englishman. And it is
scarcely possible to take the mysticism, in which he finds a
refuge from the charge of heresy, so seriously as Mr. Owen
appears to do. When Occam tells us that what we cannot know
and believe by reason, we may know and believe, or believe with-
out knowing, by grace of infused faith a gratuitous and arbitrary
gift, he certainly places himself within the pale of the Church
again per saltum and by magic ; but the unedifying performance is
more like a supple feat of ironical mystification than a sincere
and cordial submission to the supernatural, and as a covert
attack is even more injurious than the open one. By the
dramatic setting of his work, Mr. Owen has undoubtedly suc-
ceeded in investing philosophical subjects "with a human,
homely, and familiar interest ". [J. B.-G.] .
The Greek Philosophers. By ALFEED WILLIAM BENN. 2 vols.
London: Kegan Paul & Trench, 1882. Pp. xxxii., 402;
xii., 430.
The author, who is known to the readers of MIND both other-
wise and by his articles on " The Eelation of Greek Philosophy
to Modern Thought " (Nos. XXV., XXVI.) incorporated in the
present volume, has had as his object "to exhibit the principal
ideas of Greek philosophy in the closest possible connexion with
the characters of their authors, with each other, with their
development in modern speculation, with the parallel tendencies
of literature and art, with the history of religion, of physical
science, and of civilisation as a whole ". The chapters as far as
" Epicurus and Lucretius " have already appeared in the West-
minster Review. Not before published are three chapters on " The
Sceptics and Eclectics," "The Eeligious Eevival," "The Spirit-
ualism of Plotinus" (ii., pp. 120-362). Critical Notice will follow.
The Origin of Ideas. By ANTONIO EOSMINI SEEBATI. Translated
from the Fifth Italian Edition of the Nuovo Saggio sulV Ori-
gins delle Idee. Vol. I. London : Kegan Paul & Trench,
1883. Pp. lii.,382.
NEW BOOKS. 307
Bosinini, first introduced in writing of his own to English
readers by Mr. Davidson (See MIND XXVI., 317 and XXVII.,
398), is now to be made farther known in a translation of the
earliest of his more important works. The present volume (to be
followed by two others) contains the whole of the examination of
previous theories of the Origin of Ideas which Eosmini's method
required him to make before producing his own theory. He
divides them into two classes : (1) Theories which err by Defect,
i.e., by not assigning to Ideas an adequate cause (Locke's, Con-
dillac's, Eeid's, Stewart's the last, especially, very exhaustively
discussed) ; (2) Theories which err by Excess, i.e., by assigning to
Ideas a greater cause than is necessary (Plato's and Aristotle's,
Leibniz', Kant's the last, again, at greatest length). The un-
named Translators have substituted an expository preface of their
own (pp. vii.-xli) for Eosmini's, written as that was " with special
reference to the Catholic public in Italy and to the condition of
philosophical controversies at the time the Nuovo Saggio was first
published" (1830).
Hegel. By EDWARD CAIED, LL.D., Professor of Moral Philo-
sophy, University of Glasgow. Edinburgh and London :
Blackwood, 1882. Pp. 224.
None of the contributors to the series of "Philosophical
Classics for English Eeaders " had a more difficult task set him
than Prof. Caird, and no one has produced a work that, upon a
first inspection, more judiciously and successfully blends philo-
sophical exposition with biographical narration. The attempt to
set forth, in so short compass, the main ideas and inner meaning
of Hegel's thought deserves special examination, which will
follow later on.
The Causation of Sleep. By JAMES CAPPIE, M.D. Second Edition,
Ee-written. Edinburgh : Thin, 1882. Pp. 207.
This work re-enforces a thesis which the author originally
maintained as far back as 1854. The argument is mainly physio-
logical, but is also intelligently supported from the psychological
side. It is thus summarised at p. Ill :
" In the causation of sleep we have not one or two but a combination
and succession of conditions inseparably linked together. The first change
is a modified movement in the molecules of the brain tissue ; the last is
compression of the whole organ. From lessened activity of the molecules
spring a less active state of the capillary circulation and diminished stress
through the cranial cavity. Next, we have a change in the balance of the
circulation, in producing which the weight of the atmosphere, causing
backward pressure in the cerebral veins, is an essential agent. With the
altered balance of the circulation there is a change in the balance of active
pressure ; it is less from within and more on the surface it is less expan-
sive and more compressing. With a certain amount of compression con-
sciousness is suspended."
308 NEW BOOKS.
First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of
the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80. By J. W. POWELL,
Director. Washington : Government Printing Office, 1881.
Pp. xxxiii. 603.
In this magnificent and lavishly (for the most part finely)
illustrated volume, the Eeport proper is followed by a variety of
Memoirs, from different hands, on the anthropology of North
American Indians. Especially notable here is the longest memoir
of all (pp. 269-552) by Col. Garrick Mallery, on " Sign Language,"
which enters at some length into the general theory of the sub-
ject and brings together from other sources a quantity of matter
for the comparative study of the very elaborately recorded and
figured gestures of the Indian tribes. The Director also, in
several shorter memoirs, " On the Evolution of Language,"
" Sketch of the Mythology of the N. A. Indians," and " On
Limitations to the Use of some Anthropologic Data," is seriously
concerned to bring the objective work of the Bureau into rela-
tion with the results of psychological inquiry and philosophical
thought. Future Eeports will be looked forward to with interest
by all who see the present one.
La Psychologie de I' Association depuis Hobbes jusqu' a nos Jours.
(Histoire et Critique.) Par Louis FERBI, Professeur a 1*
Universite de Eome. Ouvrage couronne par F Academie des
Sciences morales et politiques. Paris: Germer Bailliere,
1883. Pp. 378.
For the present, we note only that this prize-essay by the
distinguished Eoman professor is divided into three parts. The
first two are historical, in accordance with a division he makes of
two periods the earlier extending from Hobbes, Locke, and
Berkeley, through Hume and Hartley, to Priestley and E. Darwin
(pp. 1-7.7) ; the later from Brown, through the Mills and Prof.
Bain, to Mr. Spencer (pp. 79-225). In the remaining critical
part (pp. 228-336), Association is considered as involved in the
production and the reproduction of knowledge, as accounting for
mental faculties, the notion of personality, &c., and in its other
psychological and metaphysical applications. An Appendix gives
some special citations bearing on the history of the doctrine,
with M. F. Bouillier's Eeport to the Academy on the merits of
the Essay.
Hume-Studien. II. Zur Eelationstheorie. Von Dr. ALEXIUS
MEINONG, a. 6. Professor der Philosophic an der Univer-
sitat in Graz. Wien : Gerold's Sohn, 1882. Pp. 182.
Dr. Meinong, the first part of whose Hume-Studien was reviewed
in MIND XL, 386, takes as the subject of his second part the
general theory of Eelation. His method is the same as when he
treated the doctrine of Modern Nominalism. He goes forward
NEW BOOKS. 309
from Hume to the later English thinkers, also backward to
Hume's predecessors ; and in the present case has so much to say,
before Hume, on Locke's theory of Relation that the ' Study '
might be named as much after the one as the other. It is, in fact,
part of the author's object, in these careful studies of English
philosophical thought, to bring Locke again into due credit in
Germany. The present essay is intended as only a first handling
of the fundamentally important subject with which it deals, to
be followed up by a more exhaustive treatment. Such as it is, we
hope to examine it more closely on another occasion.
Grundziige der Naturpliilosopliie. Dictate aus den Vorlesungen
von HERMANN LOTZE. Leipzig : Hirzel, 1882. Pp. 112.
The fifth of the series of Lotze's paragraphs for dictation in
lecture, prepared for the press by Prof. E. Eehnisch. They are
presented by the editor under the following heads : Introduction ;
Motion ; Moving Forces ; Mass, Matter and Space ; Nexus of
Natural Processes ; Physical Hypotheses ; Organic Life. At the
end is given Lotze's leaving-certificate from the University of
Leipsic, as a student of philosophy and medicine.
Die Grundprobleme der Logik. Von Dr. JUL. BERGMANN, ord.
Prof, der Philosophic an der Universitat zu Marburg. Ber-
lin : Mittler, 1882. Pp. 196.
In the author's Pure Logic published in 1876 and noticed in
MIND XVII., the intention was stated of preparing a second
volume on Applied Logic. Instead of completing this, however,
he has now felt compelled to publish, in a new shape, a general
review of his position ; chiefly owing to the difficulties felt by
some of his former readers. At a first glance, the new volume
appears to consist mainly of a re-statement and re-arrangement,
in a more condensed fashion, of some of the leading views ex-
pressed in the former one. [A. S.]
Die Scliriften Notkers u. seiner Schule. Herausgegeben von PAUL
PIPER. Erster Band, erste Liefg. Freib. i. B., u. Tubingen:
Mohr, 1882. Pp. clxxxiii., 368.
Reprint of the works of Notker (d. 1022) and his school at the
monastery of St. Gallen. Of the first volume, which is to include
the philosophical works, the present first part (after an elaborate
introduction) gives the translation of Boethius's De Consolations
Philosophiae, with commentary, in early German.
II nuovo Realismo contemporaneo della Teorica della Conoscenza in
Germania ed Inghilterra. Studio critico di GIOVANNI CESCA,*
Dottore in filosofia e lettere. Verona e Padova : Drucker
e Tedeschi, 1883. Pp. 193.
1 Printed, by mistake, Cerca in the notice of a previous book, MIND
XXIX., 143.
310 NEW BOOKS.
"The new Eealism" is the doctrine that is to reconcile the
admission " that something exists independently of conscious-
ness " with the principle of the relativity of knowledge. The
first part of the present volume is an exposition of the theories
of the external world that were formulated by Descartes, Locke,
Berkeley, Hume, Eeid, and Kant. This serves as a historical
introduction to the next two parts, in which " contemporary
German realism " and " the new English realism " are critically-
studied. In the fourth part, the results of the preceding investi-
gation are summed up and the doctrine of the author himself is
explained. He regards Mr. Spencer's "transfigured realism" as
nearest the true doctrine ; but the thing-in-itself must be thought
of merely as " the objective factor in experience," not as identical
with the absolute. The theory of knowledge does not make the
attempt to get rid of dualism ; it leaves this for metaphysic.
By studying the conditions of the evolution of consciousness, we
find ourselves compelled to admit something beyond conscious-
ness. This result cannot be obtained unless we admit the objec-
tive validity of the law of causation. Kant could not admit this
consistently with his principles, and the law of causation was
with him purely a priori ; but for evolutionists this difficulty does
not exist. [T. W.]
Emanuele Kant. Per CARLO CANTONI, Professore di Filosofia all'
Universita di Pavia. Vol. secondo. " La Filosofia Pratica
(Morale, Diritto, Politica)." Milano : Brigola, 1883. Pp.
xv., 430.
This volume continues Professor Cantoni's exposition of the
Critical Philosophy, but does not complete it. The account of
the sesthetical, teleological and theological views of Kant is held
over for a third volume. It is now three or four years since the
appearance of the first volume (see MIND XVI., 601) which was
devoted mainly to the Critique of Pure Reason and the Metaphysic
of Natural Science. The qualities there noticeable distinguish
the present exposition of Kant's ethical and political doctrine.
A clear style, very complete knowledge, and an eminently judicial
faculty enable Professor Cantoni to give what may fairly be
called an objective representation of the Kantian theory. A good
study of the predecessors of the Kantian ethical doctrine (pp. 1-50)
and a critical examination of the doctrine itself (pp. 207-272) add
to the interest of the work. We hope soon to recur to Professor
Cantoni's work and to give a more complete account of its merits.
As it stands at present, wanting the third volume, many threads
are left loose which the author will have to gather together, and
on his success in this task the value of the whole must depend
for the greater part. [E. A.]
IX. MISCELLANEOUS.
Under the new Statutes of the University of Cambridge, Electoral Boards
have been constituted both for the existing Chair of Moral Philosophy (in
which Mr. H. Sidgwick is at present acting as deputy for Prof. Birks, who
is disabled) and for a Chair of Logic and Mental Philosophy which it is
decided to create within a short time, as soon as funds are available for its
endowment. The Boards are largely composed of experts in the different
subjects, including some who have no connexion with Cambridge.
A portrait of Professor Bain, subscribed for by " Old Students and
Friends" and painted by Mr. George Reid, R.S.A., has been presented to
the University of Aberdeen. The remainder of the fund raised in recogni-
tion of Prof. Bain's services, on his retiring from the Chair of Logic at
Aberdeen in 1880, has been devoted to the founding of a gold "Bain
Medal," to be awarded yearly for philosophical study in the University.
Messrs. Appleton & Co. of New York have published, under the title
Herbert Spencer on the Americans and the Americans on Herbert Spencer
(pp. 96), " a full Report of his Interview and of the Proceedings at the
Farewell Banquet of Nov. 9, 1882," with a short preface by Dr. E. L.
Youmans. The report of the " Proceedings " at the Banquet not only
includes the speeches delivered, with the letters of apology sent by eminent
men who were unable to be present, but also three " unspoken speeches "
(suppressed at midnight) which are thus described : " What Mr. Youmans
did not say"; "What Mr. Ward was ready to say"; "What Mr. Leland
got no chance to say ". What Dr. Youmans " did not say " to the toast of
" Spencer's Philosophy of Evolution : the most original achievement in the
history of thought " is worth reading for the sketch it gives of the evolution
of Mr. Spencer's own thought.
THE JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Vol. XVI. No. 3. S. H.
Hodgson Philosophy in relation to its History. E. Trentowski The
Sources and Faculties of Cognition (trans.). J. Dewey The Pantheism of
Spinoza. Hegel On the Absolute Religion (trans.). M. W. Sewall The
Idea of the Home. A. Wilder The Chaldaean Oracles (reprint of Thomas
Stanley's translation, with notes). M. Tuthill Use, Beauty, Reason. C.
E. Lackland Mephistopheles. Notes and Discussions.
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. VHIme Annee, No. 1. C. Leveque L'esthe-
tique musicale en France : iii. Psychologic de 1'orchestre et de la symphonie.
G. Seailles Philosophes contemporains : M. J. Lachelier (i.). G. Tarde La
statistique criminelle du dernier demi-siecle. Notes et Discussions (P. Tan-
nery et A. Fouillee La liberte et le temps). Analyses et comptes-rendus
(J. Watson, Kant and his English Critics ; G. J. Romanes, Animal Intelli-
gence). Rev. des Period. Correspondance (L. Dauriac Sur la memoire
de 1'intonation). No. 2. F. Bouillier De la responsabilite morale dans la
reve. Th. Ribot L'aneantissement de la volonte. J. Joly Les origines
du droit dans leur integralite. Analyses, &c. Notices bibliog. Rev. des
Period. Correspondance (A propos de la reforme du baccalaureat). No. 3.
C. Richet La personnalite et la memoire dans le somnambulisme. M.
Guyau De 1'idee de sanction. G. Seailles Philosophes contemporains :
M. Lachelier (fin). Analyses, &c. (M. Miiller, Kant's Critique of Pure Rea-
son, &c.). Rev. des Period. Correspondance (M. Poletti A propos de la
statistique criminelle).
LA CRITIQUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. Xlme Annee, Nos. 43-52. Sh. Hodg-
on - Analyse de la se*rie des percepts (43). F. Pillon Le but superieurs
312 MISCELLANEOUS.
de la pedagogic (44) : L'evolutionnisme italien (47). C. Ren.ou.vier
Reponse a differentes objections contre le fondement juridique de la
morale (45, 46, 48, 49) ; Les nouvelles chicanes contre la possibility du libre
arbitre (50) ; Les objections de M. Fouillee contre la conciliation du libre
arbitre avec les lois du mouvement (51).
LA FILOSOFIA DELLE ScuoLE ITALIANE. Vol. XXVI. Disp. 1. L. Ferri
Un nuovo libro sulla coscienza. B. Labanca Le distrazioni mentali. P.
d'Ercole L'ente possibile, ossia la base filosofica. T. Mamiani Intorno
alia sintesi ultima del sapere e dell'essere. T. Ronconi Sulle induzioni
che J. S. Mill dice improprie. T. Mamiani Marsilio da Padova riforma-
tore politico e religiose del secolo XIV. ; studiato da Labanca. T. M.
Primo concetto d'un congiesso di filosofi Italiani nel prossimo anno 1883.
RIVISTA DI FILOSOFIA SCIENTIFICA. An. II. No. 1. G. Buccola La
memoria organica nel mecanismo della scrittura, ricerche sperimentali. A.
Asturaro Egoismo e disinteresse (Bentham e Kant). G. Seppilli Le basi
fisiche delle funzioni mentali : ii. La circolazione del sangue nel cervello in
relazione ai fenomeni psichici (con quattro tavole). Riv. Sintetica (E.
Morselli II Ddmone di Socrate), &c.
ZEITSCHRIFT FUR PHILOSOPHIE, &c. Bd. LXXXII. Heft 1. W.
Scliuppe Was sind Ideen? Aprent Zur Erkenntniss des Wesens der
Materie. Achelis Ueber die sogenannte reine Erfahrung des Empirismus.
Recensionen (J. H. W. Stuckenberg, Life of I. Kant ; G. S. Morris, Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason, &c.). Bibliographic.
PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Bd. XIX. Heft 1, 2. A. Harpf
Goethe's Erkenntnissprincip. J. Bergmann Einige Bemerkungen zu R.
Lehmann's Aufsatz " Ueber das Verhaltniss des transcendentalen zum
metaphysischen Idealismus ". E. v. Hartmann Zur Pessimismus-Frage.
Recensionen. Literaturbericht. Bibliographic, &c.
VlERTELJAHRSCHRIFT FUR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Bd.
VII. Heft 1. E. Laas Aphorismen liber Staat u. Kirche. F. Staudinger
Zur Grundlegung des Erfahrungsbegriffs (ii., Schluss). Ths. Achelis
Die Ethik der Gegenwart in ihrer Beziehung zur Naturwissenschaft.
Anzeigen. Selbstanzeigen, &c.
PHILOSOPHISCHE STUDIEN (Herausg. von W. Wundt). Bd. I. Heft 4.
W. Wundt Die Logik der Cheinie : Eine methodologische Betrachtung.
E. Tischer Ueber die Unterscheidung der Schallstarken. E. Tischer
Bemerkungen liber die Messung von Schallstarken mit Riicksicht auf
psychophysische Versuche. W. Wundt Ueber die Methode der Minimal-
anderungen. E. Kraepelin Ueber die Einwirkung einiger medica-
mentoser Stoffe auf die Dauer einfacher psychischer Vorgange (ii.) W.
Moldenhauer Notiz uber die einfache Reactionszeit einer Geruchsemp-
findung. W. Wundt Schlusswort zum ersten Bande.
Other BOOKS, &c., received : C. N., What is Religion, annotated by R.
Lewins, London (Stewart), pp. 63. W. J. Gill, Analytical Processes, New
York (Smith), 1876, pp. 483 ; also three recent Papers reprinted from the
Boston Index. W. James, The Sense of Dizziness in Deaf-mutes, Cambridge,
U. S. (Rep. from Amer. Journal of Otology, Oct., 1882), pp. 16. G. S. Hall,
The Education of the Will (Rep. from Princeton Review, Nov., 1882), pp.
34. M. J. Savage, H. Spencer : His Influence on Religion and Morality,
Boston (Ellis), pp. 14. H. P. Bowditch and G. S. Hall, Optical Illusions of
Motion (Rep. from the Journal of Physiology), pp. 11. 0. Liebmann, Ueber
philosophische Tradition, Strassburg (Triibner), pp. 32. A. Stohr, Vom
Geiste, Wien (Holder), pp. 38. G. Cesca, Le Teorie nativistiche e genetiche
della Localizzazione spaziale, Verona e Padova (Drucker e Tedeschi), pp. 158.
No. 31.] [JULY, 1883.
MIND
A QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
I. ACEITICISM OF THE CKITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 1
II.
IT would, I suppose, be generally held by those who regard
the " Return to Kant " as the next step which English philo-
sophy ought to take, that the ' Transcendental Analytic,' in
which a metaphysical basis is constructed for physical
science, is, of all Kant's work, the most immediately impor-
tant for English students. To Kant himself, indeed, the
negative and destructive side of the argument in the first
Kritik, which is mainly developed in the ' Transcendental Dia-
lectic,' was, I think, more fundamentally important than its
positive side : he was more concerned to demolish dogmatic
metaphysics than to establish physical science, of which the
principles and procedures appeared to him to be adequately
guaranteed by experience, without any transcendental deduc-
tion. But the destruction of Rational Psychology, Cosmology
and Theology has but a remote interest for English students
of philosophy. This kind of dogmatism has never been
dominant among us since the time of Locke : some kind of
rational theology, indeed, has been kept in existence by the
argumentative needs of positive theology, but it can hardly
be said that any system or method of rational theology at
least in the Kantian sense is a force to be seriously reckoned
1 Concluded from MIND XXIX.
21
314 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
with at present, in the region of independent philosophical
speculation. At any rate all the schools of philosophy that
were dominant in England when Kantism began to be
preached Empiricism Idealistic and Materialistic, and the
philosophy of Common-sense as represented by Hamilton
agreed in accepting what we may speak of broadly as the
negative results of the Kritik ; and even granting that they
got at these results too hastily and by too short cuts, still, it
would hardly be of fundamental importance to return to
Kant in order to reach the goal of philosophic nescience by
a more regular road.
Again, it may reasonably be held that Kant himself attached
paramount importance to what may be called the ontologi-
cally constructive part of his system, the establishment of
the belief in " God, Freedom and Immortality" on the basis
of practical faith. Indeed, for Kant as a man, we may almost
say that the rest of his work was only valuable as leading up
to these conclusions : and it is characteristic of Kant that he
never seems to lose the man in the philosopher. But no
serious attempt has yet been made, by those who are com-
mending Kant to our notice, to lead the English mind to his
moral theology : and since, as I explained in my former
article, my concern now is not with Kant historically re-
garded but with Kantism offered as a method of dealing
with our present philosophical problems, it would be idle
to criticise the Kantian moral theology until some competent
expositor seriously asks us to believe it.
It is, therefore, the theory of knowledge given mainly in
the 'Analytic ' which is to ground us in Kant ; and it is accord-
ingly against this theory that one who declines to be thus
grounded is called upon to direct his main criticisms. It is
true that the ' Analytic ' presupposes the exposition of the
forms of sensibility given in the '^Esthetic ' ; but the only con-
clusion that it is needful or even desirable to carry from
the latter to the former is just that Time and Space are
necessary forms of sensibility. This is all, I conceive, that
Kant holds to be requisite in order to explain how the
synthetical a priori propositions of geometry or arithmetic
are possible. The understanding, of course, has to grasp the
particulars of a priori intuition in order to construct a mathe-
matical proposition ; but Kant does not consider that an
explanation of this process is required for the establishment
of the possibility of pure mathematics.
The question, then, which the elaborate analysis of the
'Analytic ' is required to answer relates primarily to the legiti-
macy of the synthetical a priori propositions of rational
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 315
physics (including applied mathematics): I say "legiti-
macy" because in the present article I shall not take Kant's
argument as assuming the universal validity of such proposi-
tions, but as designed to establish their validity in respect of
all objects of sensible experience. 1 This question is only
directly dealt with in the part of the treatise which deals
with the systematic presentation of the Principles of the
Pure Understanding : to which accordingly, from this point
of view, the preceding discussions must be considered
merely as introductory. But in fact the problem which
Kant is called upon to solve has become more comprehen-
sive by the attainment of the conclusions of the ' ^Esthetic '.
If Time and Space are merely forms of our sensibility, our
empirical cognitions of particular objects seem to require
explanation as much as our universal cognitions relative
to such objects. If things do not really exist in time
and space independently of our consciousness, why do we
ordinarily think of them as so existing, and why is this
thought apparently confirmed by the whole of our experience,
including the communicated experience of other human
beings ? What is the real significance of this mass of appa-
rently certain and consistent cognitions, by an indefinite
number of human beings, of one aggregate of material things,
extended and moving in one space and perduring through
one time ?
This, I say, is the problem with which, I conceive, Kantism
is called upon to deal ; but it is importantly different from
the problem with which Kant actually does deal, though I
cannot perceive that he ever shows an adequate conscious-
ness of the difference, while his English expositors appear to
ignore it altogether. For instance, Mr. Watson tells us
repeatedly that Kant offers an explanation of " the special
facts of ordinary experience " (as well as " the laws embodied
in each of the special sciences"); that "he sought for a
hypothesis adequate to account for the facts in their com-
pleteness". 2 But Kant, so far as I am aware, nowhere
1 See my former article, MIND XXIX., pp. 76-83. Since that article was
written I have read with much interest Dr. Vaihinger's full and careful
discussion of Kant's starting-point and procedure in his Commentar zu Kanfs
Kritik der reinen Vernunft, I., 2. I am glad to find myself in substantial
agreement with the conclusions of this learned and acute commentator, at
least on the most important questions raised by him.
2 Cf. Kant and his English Critics, chap. 1. I must observe that Mr.
Watson is peculiarly unfortunate in his language ; since Kant has expressly
repudiated, in the strongest possible terms, the notion that his reasoning
involves a " hypothesis ". Cf. Pref. to 1st ed., p. 9, " Ich habe mir selbst
das Urtheil gesprochen dass in dieser Art von Betrachtungen . . .
alles was einer Hypothese nur ahnlich sieht, verbotene Waare sei ".
316 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
professes to explain and certainly nowhere does explain
the apparent objectivity of our empirical cognitions so far as
the particular characteristics of their objects are concerned ;
he is entirely occupied with their universal and necessary
characteristics which alone, in his view, are capable of being
known a priori. He does not profess to give an account of
what experience is, but what it must be; of the "rules of
pure thinking of an object," " conceptions which may relate
themselves to objects a priori," "principles without which
no object can be thought". 1 How, indeed, could it be
otherwise, if, as he has before told us, " no concepts which
contain anything empirical are to be admitted" into Trans-
cendental Philosophy ? 2
Let us take, then, the problem as Kant defines it, and
endeavour to get a clear view of it, before we examine his
method of solving it. In the first place, what precisely does
Kant mean by the " Object," of which he proposes to deter-
mine the necessary conditions ? "What distinctions does he
draw at the outset between objects and other nameables ?
In the first place it seems evident that he does not, for
the most part, 3 mean to include under this term all that,
in a wider sense, we are accustomed to call " objects of
thought" or "of knowledge". For instance, Logic, as
Kant expressly tells us, is not concerned with objects : the
forms of thought with which Logic deals are not " objects,"
for the general purposes of the ' Transcendental Analytic,'
though of course capable of being scientifically known, and
therefore of being compared and classified, and made the
subjects of judgments universal and particular, affirmative
and negative, categorical and disjunctive, &c. The "object"
of Kant's transcendental analysis must have elements sup-
plied by some sense. At the same time we cannot say
that any feeling, or even any combination of feelings thought
under one notion, can be an object in the narrower
Kantian signification of the term. The latter might perhaps
be inferred from the definition that Kant gives in one pass-
age ( 17, p. 118). " Object is that in the conception of
which the manifold of a given intuition is united." But he
has already explained ('^Esthetic,' 3, p. 63) that the sensa-
tions of colours, sounds and heat, " because they are merely
1 ' Transcend. Logik, Einleitung,' pp. 84, 5, 9. My references throughout
are to Hartenstein's edition (1867).
2 'Einleitung,' p. 51.
3 1 insert this qualifying phrase, because there certainly seem to be some
passages in which " Object " must be understood in this wider sense.
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 317
sensations and not intuitions, do not help us by themselves
to know any object"; so that we cannot suppose that any
synthesis of the manifold of such sensations would by itself
constitute an object for Kant's purposes not (e.g.) the syn-
thesis of different sounds recalled under the notion of " the
tune I heard last night ". How then are we to distinguish
the kind of sensible manifold of which the combination con-
stitutes an object for Kant ? So far as material objects are
concerned, 1 we must, I conceive, identify it with what, in
ordinary thought, is distinguished as an object of perception
from mere sensation, by the implicit belief that it exists
independently of our consciousness. Such an implicit belief,
though Kant nowhere affirms it to be involved in the con-
ception of an empirical object which he analyses, certainly
seems to me to be more or less definitely suggested by much
of the language that he uses about it. Take, for instance,
the following ( 14, p. 112): "All experience contains,
besides the intuition of the senses, by which something is
given, also a conception of an object which in the intuition
is given, or appears ". It seems clear that the object which
is thought as appearing in the intuition is at the same time
thought to exist independently of it : and the same may be
said of the phrases elsewhere used, where an object is said
to be thought "through" or "in relation to" a "Vor-
stellung ".
In this way we seem led to the singular result that the
combined manifold of sensible elements, which in Kant's
view constitutes an object, can only be distinguished from
other combined manifolds of feeling by a characteristic
which Kant's theory declares to be illusory ; the char-
acteristic namely of being thought to have an existence
independent of the perception in which it is presented.
What I call outward objects are nothing but mere " modi-
fications of my sensibility," merely " in me," " determina-
tions of my identical self" ; and yet in thinking of them as
objects I inevitably think of them as existing independently
of the modifications of my sensibility by which they are
perceived. I do not see how this conclusion can be avoided ;
and yet I cannot perceive that Kant is ever clearly aware
that the notion of an empirical object which he is occupied
in determining a priori is a notion which contains this
illusory element. On the contrary, in important parts of
1 As the constructive importance of the c Analytic ' is explained by Kant
himself to lie in its relation to the principles of physics, I may venture
here to avoid the peculiar difficulties that I find in making Kant's view of
" Selbst-anschauung " clear and consistent.
318 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
his argument he appears to me to forget that it is an il-
lusion, in spite of the explicit language in which he has.
elsewhere characterised it as such. For we find among the
characteristics of empirical objects laid down as a priori
cognisable, that they must contain a (phenomenal) substance
that is thought of as remaining unchanged amid all pheno-
menal change : but it seems impossible to think this and at
the same time to think of all phenomena as merely modifi-
cations of my sensibility. Yet Kant nowhere seems,
conscious of this primd facie contradiction, or makes any
effort to explain it. It seems to him absurd that " the
thing-in-itself " should " wander into my consciousness":
yet, so far as I can see, neither he nor his English ex-
positors find any difficulty in conceiving the phenomenal
thing to wander out of it. Both he and they seem to hold
that I can know objects to be merely modifications of my
sensibility, combined in certain ways by my understanding ;
while at the same time I also conceive them as different
from the modifications of my sensibility and as perduring
when the latter cease. Indeed, this unconscious contra-
diction seems to run through Kant's use of his cardinal
term " Vorstellung " : the " Vorstellung " is now identified
with its object, and now again contrasted with it, without
any attempt at reconciling the two incompatible views.
At one time we are told that " outward things are nothing
but mere Vorstellungen"* while again it is declared that,
" the determination of my existence in time is only possible
through the existence of real things which I perceive outside
me and not through the mere Vorstellung of a thing outside
me ". 2 Will it be said that these really existent phenomenal
things, though independent of my consciousness, are im-
plicitly thought by me to be in relation to " consciousness
in general," and that it is this relation which gives them
their permanence, when they cease to be modifications of
my sensibility? This which resembles the Berkeleyan
mode of reconciling Idealism and Common-sense is an
explanation certainly suggested by some passages in our
recent English expositors of Kant. Thus (e.g.) Mr. Caird
says, 3 that by the recognition of the data of sense as
objective " the data of sense are taken out of their mere
singularity as feelings, and made elements in a universal
consciousness, in ' consciousness in general ' ; or, to put
i Esthetic,' 3, p. 64.
2 In the ' Eefutation of Idealism,' p. 198.
3 Philosophy of Kant, c. viii., p. 341.
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 319
the same thing in another way, they are related to a con-
sciousness, which the individual has, not as a mere indi-
vidual, but as a universal subject of knowledge ". But
whatever happens to the data of sense in Kant's psycho-
logical laboratory, it is at any rate certain that they do not
cease to be modifications of sensibility. Hence in order to
explain how phenomenal things can be conceived to exist
independently of my or any other man's sensibility, we
should have to suppose not merely a rational consciousness
which all men share, but a universal quasi-human sensi-
bility, modified similarly to the human ; and I need hardly
describe the emphasis with which any such chimera would
be repudiated by Kant.
I can only explain Kant's indifference to the difficulty
above pointed out by referring it to the confusion or at
least fusion that continually takes place in his mind be-
tween the phenomenal objects which are " insgesammt in
mir," and the things-in-themselves of which the former are
phenomenal. Here I am glad to find myself in close
agreement with Mr. Caird, who says (c. v., p. 278) that
Kant " treats the object which the understanding deter-
mines through synthesis of the manifold given in sense as
identical with, or at any rate phenomenal of, the object that
affects sense ". To express my view exactly, I should vary
Mr. Caird's phrase very slightly, and say that Kant always
regards the one object as phenomenal of the other, but
often identifies the two so completely that he speaks of both
indifferently by the same name in the same passage, even
in the very transcendental discussions in which the dis-
tinction between the two is of fundamental importance.
Thus he tells us ( 14, p. Ill) that " two ways only are
possible in which synthetical Vorstellungen and their objects
can agree . . . either if the object alone makes the
Vorstellung possible, or the Vorstellung alone makes the object
possible. The former ... is the case with phenomena
in respect of what in them belongs to sensation " ; whereas
the latter, of course, is the case in respect of the forms of
intuition and thought. Here it seems evident that the
object which makes the Vorstellung possible so far as its
sensational elements are concerned, cannot be the pheno-
menal object which is itself constructed out of such sensa-
tional elements ; it must therefore be the noumenal object
which affects sensibility ; on the other hand it seems no less
evident that the object which the Vorstellung makes possible
must be the phenomenal object.
To sum up : the notion which Kant has formed of the
320 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Object which he seeks to determine a priori is not adequately
clear or consistent ; for, in the first place, while interpreting
objectivity to mean universal validity, he does not clearly
recognise that the particular objectivity of our common
material world, assumed in ordinary thought and the reason-
ings of physical science, lies beyond the range of his a priori
explanation ; and, in the second place, he surreptitiously
includes in the notion of his (phenomenal) object the
characteristic of existing in some manner independently of
our sensibility, which is inconsistent with his reduction of
its matter to mere modifications of our sensibility, combined
and ordered by thought.
Let us now pass to consider the manner in which he deals
with the problem as stated by himself; that is, with the
ascertainment of the a priori characteristics of empirical
objects. Before examining the particulars of Kant's treat-
ment of this problem, we may, I think, reasonably scrutinise
the general nature of the method adopted. As I before
hinted, I do not claim, in asking how Transcendental Philo-
sophy " is possible," to " suspend all Transcendentalists
from their business " until the question has been satisfactorily
answered : I am aware that in the progress of knowledge
many things have been done which had been plausibly shown
to be impossible, and perhaps the work of Transcendental
Philosophy may be one of them. I only ask the general
question, because the defects that I find in the details of
Kant's method are just such as I should expect to find in
the work of a philosopher who had never seriously applied
to his own procedure the criteria by which that of his dog-
matic predecessors had been tried and found wanting.
How, then, does Kant think that we can know the neces-
sary intellectual conditions of experience ? To a " dogmatic "
metaphysician, of course, the question would not seem to
present any particular difficulty ; for these intellectual con-
ditions are a part of the universe of being, and there would
seem to be no obvious reason why they should not be known
as well as anything else, and at least no a priori reason why
they should not be known a priori. But the case is primd
facie different for Kant ; since the great negative result of
his ' Analytic ' is that the categories or fundamental forms of
thought are only of use for binding together the impressions
of sensibility, and can only produce positive knowledge by
their application to these impressions ; so that no knowledge
is possible of things that cannot be made objects of experi-
ence. But if we are unable to penetrate to things beyond
experience, why should we be any more able to discover the
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 321
conditions which lie if I may so say lehind it ; since the
latter cannot any more than the former become empirical
objects, according to Kant's definition of the term ?
To this question Kant's language in the ' Introduction '
suggests the very naive answer that I have got my mind by
me and therefore must be able to find out all about it ; so
that there can hardly be any difficulty in framing a complete
inventory of the " curta supellex " of my a priori possessions. 1
It does not clearly appear why the scantiness of our intel-
lectual furniture should be thus taken for granted : primd
facie, the world of thought is as extensive as the world of
things ; how then can we know a priori that Thought's own
resources are so limited ? But granting this assumption, it
is at any rate manifest that the inventory cannot be made
out by any direct observation of my faculties, but only by
a reflective analysis of their products, experience and thought
about experience ; and in fact, I presume, it is by such an
analysis that Kant conceives logicians to have separated the
formal a priori element furnished by the understanding in
ordinary empirical judgments. Let us grant that this sepa-
ration can be performed, and that the eleven or twelve
forms thus obtained can be demonstrated to be necessary :
it still seems to me unwarrantable to assume that they are
derived from the mind and not from external sources. But
as this fundamental assumption is common both to the
4 ^Esthetic ' and to the ' Analytic,' it has been sufficiently
dealt with in my former article, and I need not dwell upon
it further. Here I will only observe that, even if we grant
this assumption, and accept the general accuracy and " apo-
dictic " certainty of the analysis of judgments performed by
logicians : it still does not appear how the results of this
analytical procedure can be known to have the systematic
completeness which Kant repeatedly claims for them, and
on which he lays great stress. 2 He seems to think that
because the Understanding or Faculty of Judging has an
essential unity we will afterwards enquire how this, again,
is known therefore its fundamental forms have been
obtained from a common principle, and therefore systemati-
cally, and therefore completely. But in fact he has estab-
lished no kind of rational relation between the unity of the
1 Cf. ' Einleitung,' vii., p. 50. " Der Verstand . . . (lessen
Vorrath, well wir ihn nicht auswarting suchen miissen, uns nicht verborgen
bleiben kann," &c.
2 Qf. 'Analytik der Begriffe,' 1st Hauptst. beginning pp. 91, 2, and
the contrast of his method with that by which Aristotle's categories were
obtained ; also 3 Absch., p. 101.
322 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
understanding and the multiplicity of its forms the
categories are no more systematised by being referred to
one understanding than beads are systematised by being
strung on one string. What Kant does is simply to take
these forms from the ordinary logic, subject to one or two
changes for which the need, he thinks, is evident when we
pass from the point of view of General to that of Transcen-
dental Logic ; and to assume their systematic completeness.
His confidence in the traditional logic would seem to be
due to what he notes as a remarkable characteristic of this
science, viz., that it was completed by its founder Aristotle,
and has " taken no step forward " since his exposition.
The characteristic would certainly be a remarkable one, if
it were correctly attributed: but in fact it is rather Kant's
historical blunder that is remarkable, since the very forms of
judgment to which the Transcendental Philosophy gives
special prominence the different kinds of Relation are not
clearly or expressly distinguished by Aristotle, who pays no
attention to any but categorical reasoning. There could not
be a more striking proof that the method of reflective
analysis, by which alone the forms of judgment and reasoning
would seem to be ascertainable, does not ensure systematic
completeness.
But let us suppose that Kant's inventory of the forms of
judgment is perfect, and may be known to be so with
apodictic certainty : the important part of his task still
remains : he has to show with the same certainty how they
are necessarily applied in our experience of objects. Now
the cognition of an object through sense is not a judgment,
though it may involve judgments, explicit or implicit : it
requires, as Kant explains, the co-operation of Understand-
ing, Imagination, and Sense : and it is in the account of this
co-operation that the difficulty of obtaining any certain or
trustworthy results by his method becomes most manifest.
I suppose that every one who, accustomed to English
empirical psychology, has come to Kant expecting to have
the necessary conditions of experience demonstrated to him
by a non-empirical method, must have felt astonished and
bewildered at the elaborate psychological system put forward
in the ' Transcendental Analytic '. Kant appears to be, if I
may so say, at home among his faculties behind the scenes,
where a process is supposed to go on of which only the
results are presented on the stage of empirical consciousness :
and in tracing this process he gives us statement after state-
ment which if not empirical must be nakedly dogmatic
" synthetic a priori" propositions, in a region where it would
seem that no Anschauung can be supposed to come in.
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 323
For instance ; it is laid down at the very outset of the
treatise that Sense is passive or " Receptivity," Understand-
ing active or " Spontaneity " ; and accordingly that sense-
perceptions depend on " affections," conceptions on " func-
tions " and " acts "- 1 Now it is hardly necessary to say that
Sense and Understanding are, in Kant's view, distinguish-
able by other characteristics besides the pair thus contrasted :
viz., that sense is the source of the concrete, particular
element in our cognition, and Understanding of general
notions. This is evident (e.g.), from the argument in the
' Esthetic ' by which Space is shown to be a form of Sensibility
as distinct from Understanding : since this argument does
not introduce the distinction of " activity" and " passivity " :
its point consists entirely in showing that Space is not
merely a generic term for many similar relations, including
an indefinite number of spaces " under " it, but represents a
concrete whole including " in " it all particular spaces. It
seems clear therefore that in the statements that Sense is
passive or a Receptivity and Understanding active or a
Spontaneity we have, implicit or explicit, synthetical
universal propositions ; and hence, I conceive, Kant is bound
to explain how these synthetical universals are supposed to
be known. If they are to be " apodictically " certain, as is
implied in Kant's account of his method, whence is this
certainty to be derived ? If it is obtained independently of
ordinary experience we seem to require, on Kant's principles,
some sort of transcendental intuition which shall present us
not with things in space or events in time, but with the
nature or relations of the " Yermogen " or " Fahigkeiten "
of the human mind. If no such chimerical source of know-
ledge is assumed and I need hardly say that it is not
claimed by Kant the only alternative is to suppose that
reflection on ordinary experience shows us a necessary con-
nexion of inactivity with particularity and of activity with
generality in our cognitions. But if the terms "active," "re-
ceptive," &c., connote as they seem to do the presence or
absence of the empirically known fact of volition, I cannot con-
ceive how the connexion can be thought to be necessary ; since
experience at least my experience does not present it as
universally subsisting : I can find numberless instances in
my experience of general notions presenting themselves in
1 " Functionen," "Actus," "Handlungen ". I cannot profess to under-
stand the exact relation of "Function" and "Handlung" in Kant's ter-
minology ; since I find that " Function " is stated to be " die Einheit der
Handlung" &c., and on the other hand that "alle Urtheile " are "Func-
tionen der Einheit ".
324 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
consciousness without my being conscious of any antecedent
volition : and I know no ground for assuming an unconscious
volition in such cases. If, again, it be said that the terms
" active " and " spontaneity " are not intended to imply con-
scious volition, I ask what conceivable attribute they can
signify, and how this can be known, either in experience or
out of experience, to be universally predicable of the mental
source of general notions. Will it be suggested that the
mind may be said to be " active " so far as the qualities
or characteristics of cognita are regarded as effects of
which the mind, and not anything outside the mind,
is the cause? The least reflection will show that this
cannot be Kant's meaning ; since in this sense, " activity "
must be attributed to the mind qua, sensible as well as to the
mind gud intellectual. For not only is the matter of sense-
perception, according to Kant, necessarily " formed " by
Sense no less than by Intellect ; even this matter must be
conceived to be what it is, partly because the human mind
is such and such, and not merely because external causes
are such and such.
I have laboured I fear to the weariness of the reader
in endeavouring to find a plausible ground for this transcen-
dental dogma of the essential activity of intellect in contrast
to the passivity of sense, because the indirect importance of
it in Kant's a priori construction of objects of experience
appears to me very great ; since it is, as I conceive, con-
cerned in the parentage of two other synthetical universal
propositions, which have somehow escaped the barrier of
Criticism, and roam freely through the argument of the
' Analytic,' doing serious damage to its cogency. These are
explicitly enunciated in the following passage at the com-
mencement of the ' Deduction of the Categories,' as re-
written by Kant in his 2nd edition ( 15, p. 114.)
"The connexion (conjunctio) of a manifold can never enter into us through
the senses, ... for it is an act of the spontaneity of the Vorstdlungs-
Jcraft ; and as, in order to distinguish this from sensibility, we must call it
understanding, we see that all connecting, whether we are conscious of it
or not . . . is an act of the understanding. This act we shall call by the
general name of synthesis, in order to show that we cannot represent to
ourselves anything as connected in the object, without having previously
connected it ourselves, and that of all Vorstellungen connexion is the only
one which cannot be given through objects, but must be accomplished by
the subject itself, because it is an act of its spontaneity."
It will be admitted that we have in this argument two
synthetical universal propositions : first, that the Senses cannot
be the source of that combinedness or connexion of manifold
sense-data which is an element of the notion of an object of
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 325
experience : and, secondly, that the Understanding must be
the source of this, being the sole faculty of synthesis. Now
here again, as in the case of the proposition just discussed,
I must ask the reader to bear in mind that my objections to
Kant's argument are not dogmatic but critical : I do not
profess to prove the contradictory of either of these fun-
damental assumptions : I merely urge that they require
a justification which yet, on Kant's own principles, it
seems impossible that they should obtain. How can I
know as a necessary truth that the Faculty or Recep-
tivity by which the concrete particular element of cogni-
tion is obtained cannot be the source of the unity in which
the manifold data of sense are combined when thought
of as qualities of an object ? I imagine that Kant is
led to affirm this dogma by first inferring from the physical
separateness of the chief organs of sense that sensa-
tions, as physical facts, are originally separate and so
require a process of combination, and inferring, secondly,
from the passivity of sense that it cannot be the source of this
combination. But it is, of course, obvious that we have here
no concern with the physical antecedents or concomitants
of sensation. From the point of view of transcendental
analysis, I can only define Sense as the source of particular
concrete elements of cognition ; and if so, it is surely quite
unwarranted, except on the assumption of some such tran-
scendental Anscliauung as I before suggested, to affirm that
sense cannot present us with these elements as conjoined.
Even supposing that in experience combination or con-
junction was found to be always due to the activity of the
mind so far as this is empirically cognisable, this empirical
evidence could not, on Kant's principles, give his proposition
the apodictic certainty with which he claims to lay it down.
But though the confirmation of experience could not
supply Kant's argument with the basis that it requires, it
may not be irrelevant to ask how far experience does con-
firm it. So far as my own experience goes, it seems to me
certainly true that, for a clear and distinct perception of an
object, some amount of voluntary attention is necessary :
but it does not seem to me that the volition which thus
comes in has any more relation to the unity of the object
than it has to the manifold of sense-data : it rather appears
that both the manifold elements and their conjunction are
vaguely and obscurely given in the kind of sense-perception
that can occur without conscious attention, and that both
are pari passu raised out of this vagueness and obscurity by
the voluntary act of attending to, or concentrating conscious-
326 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
ness on, them. Further, that the combination of sense-data
may be perfectly involuntary would seem to be shown, so
far as experience can show it, by the coalescence of primary
and revived feelings through association to which our recent
empirical psychology has given great prominence : since in
many cases the coalescence is so complete that the distinct-
ness of the elements is indiscernible in ordinary conscious-
ness, and requires a trained faculty of analysis to apprehend it.
It may be said that this kind of coalescence is quite different
from the conjunction of which Kant speaks, and could not
give us our notion of the " unity " of the object. Even if this
were granted, it would only make way for a similar argument
against Kant's theory : since I do not see how the cognition
of an object of perception as one, involving as it does a dis-
tinction of the one object from other concomitant sense-per-
cepts, is in the least explained by Kant's reference of this
unity to the necessary unity of self-consciousness. I have
endeavoured to separate this reference from the argument
discussed in the preceding paragraph, because I admit the
proposition that self-consciousness 1 "must be able to accom-
pany all my Vorstellungen" as one of which reflection shows
the contradictory to be inconceivable. I cannot conceive
a feeling, thought, or volition as mine, without conceiving
it as referred to a permanent identical self; and in this
reference it is implicitly conjoined with other phenomena
of the same self. But I see no ground for identifying this
conjunction with the conjunction of the manifold in an
object. The differences between the two kinds of synthesis
appear to me fundamental. First, self-consciousness accom-
panies all mental phenomena in the same manner if not
empirically in the same degree and therefore conjoins all
alike to each other ; whereas an object is always known as
distinguished from other objects and from merely subjective
feelings of the percipient. Again, the essential characteristic
1 1 do not mean that this proposition is exactly Kant's : indeed in trans-
lating " das Ich denke" by self-consciousness I have excluded the implication
that the "Ich" of self-consciousness is a "thinking" as distinct from a
" feeling " Ego, in order not to anticipate the subsequent discussion as to
the relation of self-consciousness to the operations of the understanding. I
am also unable to follow Kant in the distinction that he endeavours to
establish between " pure " self-consciousness, cognisable a priori as a neces-
sary accompaniment of " Vorstellungen," and empirical self-consciousness.
E.g., his statement, " Das empirische Bewusstsein ... 1st an sich zerstreut
und ohne jede Beziehung auf die Identitat des Subjects," seems to me the
reverse of true : I can suppose " Vorstellungen " to take place without self-
consciousness, but I cannot conceive a consciousness accompanying these
which does not involve a reference to the "identity of the subject".
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 327
of the unity given by self-consciousness is that it is a unity
combining changes or successive differences : whereas the
unity required for the notion of an object necessarily involves
the combination of simultaneous differences. Indeed, if
appeal be allowed to experience, nothing can be more mani-
fest than that the conjunction of the varying elements of
consciousness which is given by their reference to an identical
self has no tendency to bind them into objective union. Thus
(e.g.) when we wake from a dream, we are simultaneously
conscious of the identity of our dreaming self with our waking
self, and of the absence of any connexion between the appa-
rently objective world of the dream and the world in which
we find ourselves on waking.
But further : even if it were granted that the synthesis of
the manifold in an object cannot be attributed to the mind
qua sensitive and merely receptive, but must be due to an
"act of the spontaneity of the Vorstellungskraft" it still
seems to me unwarrantable to identify the source of synthesis
with the Understanding, as Kant has previously defined and
used this term that is, with the faculty of judgment, of
which the fundamental forms are given in the list of cate-
gories. There is indeed a singular naivete in the phrase by
which Kant, in the passage above quoted, announces this
identification. He says that " die Spontaneitat der Vor-
stellungskraft " must be called Understanding " to distin-
guish it from Sense". But why must it be so called,
or rather, can it be so called, consistently with the account
that Kant has previously given of Understanding and its
operations, without surreptitiously introducing a synthetical
a priori proposition, at least as illegitimate as any of the
dogmas of Kational Psychology that Kant afterwards
attacks? What ground have we for assuming that the
Faculty of Conception and Judgment or " mediate cognition
through concepts ' ' is also the faculty to which the synthesis
that forms an object of perception out of sense-data is due ;
and accordingly assuming that the forms of judgment, as
analysed and classified by logicians, will also regulate this
latter synthesis ? It is not enough to say that we cannot
actually separate perception and conception, and that
percepts can be " nothing to us as thinking beings "
unless thought under general notions : because, so far
as this is true, it is equally true of the sensations which
Kant distinguishes as merely subjective, such as the " fine
flavour of wine, which does not belong to the objective
characteristics of the wine, even considered as a pheno-
328 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
menal object "- 1 Such flavours, however, when reflected
upon and considered merely as feelings, necessarily become
in the wider sense which I before distinguished from
Kant's ' objects ' of thought and judgment ; they are
classified in wider and narrower groups, distinguishable by
differences of quality, which we apply as predicates in
judging of all, some or one of the group, categorically, hypo-
thetically or disjunctively. Thus I may judge that some or
all various flavours are agreeable, that the flavour of this
claret is full but not delicate, that if the flavour of Chablis
be combined with that of oysters the pleasure of both is
heightened, that the flavour of champagne is either sweet
or dry, &c., &c. But it appears obvious to me, and I under-
stand Kant to hold, that this application of the forms of
judgment has no tendency to give objectivity in the
Kantian sense to the merely subjective feelings thus re-
flectively compared and analysed : hence there is no
apparent reason why it should have this effect in the case
of the other sense-data which do become elements of pheno-
menal objects.
Again, even if it were granted that the object of experience
is the result of a synthesis of which the modes or forms
are identical with those of the faculty of judgment, I cannot
see that it would follow necessarily that we should be able,
as Kant says, to determine intuitions in reference to the
categories : e.g., to say a priori that among the manifold of
sense-data we shall find some element that can only be
thought as the subject of empirical judgments while other
elements can only be thought as predicates. This deter-
mination, however, is essential for Kant's purpose of supplying
a rational basis for physics. In considering this part of his
argument it is necessary to take note of the distinction and
relations conceived by him to exist between Understanding
and Productive Imagination : which I have so far avoided
noticing, because, while they have no fundamental import-
ance in reference to my criticism, I could not pretend to
give a consistent account of Kant's doctrine with regard to
them : since he sometimes expressly distinguishes the syn-
thesis of the Imagination from that of the Understanding,
and sometimes, with equal definiteness, speaks of " one and
the same spontaneity under the names of Understanding
and Imagination ". At any rate it is some operation of this
double-named spontaneity acting on Time, the pure form of
all sensible experience, which gives us the " Schemata" or
*<Transc. ^Esth.,'3, p. 63.
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 329
ob priori rules for the application of the categories to phe-
nomena : i.e., certain " time-determinations " which must
necessarily characterise objects of experience whatever the
particular quality of their sensible matter may turn out to
be. Now I cannot perceive that Kant gives any good
reason for expecting to find this correspondence between
categories and time-determinations : all that appears to me
to follow from his previous arguments granting them valid
is that, if in virtue of the forms of judgment we can affirm
anything a priori of objects generally, it must be something
relating to time. Since, however, he considers that he has
worked out this correspondence with systematic complete-
ness, let us proceed to examine its details.
According to Kant, the four classes of categories Quan-
tity, Quality, Relation, and Modality are correlated respec-
tively to the " series of time," the "content of time," the
" order of time," and the " Zeitinbegriff in Ansehung aller
moglichen Gegenstande ". The last quoted phrase does not
seem to me very lucid, especially as " Moglichkeit " is one
of the categories whose application has to be determined ;
and since the schematism of the categories of modality does
not lead to any distinct principles of a priori physics, I shall
confine my remarks to the first three heads. In dealing with
these it will be convenient to consider, along with the sche-
mata, the principles that are supposed to be cognisable through
the necessary application of the category in each case : for
it is in this way that the forced and violent character of the
whole procedure, especially as applied to the first two groups of
categories, is most easily seen. To begin with the first
head. The "schema" of Quantity the time-determina-
tion by which the application of the logical category of
Quantity to phenomena is regulated is said to be Number.
Number is a " Zeitbestimmung " which refers to the
" series of time " : and on this a priori application of
the logical category of quantity to time depends the axiom
that " all intuitions are extensive quantities ". Now there
is doubtless an important difference between logical quantity
and arithmetical quantity : in passing from the former to the
latter we advance from the merely indefinite plurality, in-
volved in the relation between a general notion and the
particulars which it classifies, to a perfectly definite plurality.
But I cannot perceive that the transition introduces a time-
determination. I do not see that the definite plurality
involved in the notion of number has any more essential
relation to our sense-perceptions than the logical cate-
gories have : and since Kant expressly tells us that his
22
330 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
categories " unabhangig von Sinnlichkeit bios im Ver-
stande entspringen," I suppose that their essential charac-
teristics must, in his view, be conceivable independently
of any reference to our forms of sensibility. But if
conceivable at all, they clearly must be conceived as twelve :
their twelveness must be as independent of time as any other
of their characteristics. And, more generally, it seems
obvious that the parts of any logical whole, when definitely
known, are as essentially numerable as the parts of a physical
whole : so that in Kant's definition " number is the unity of
the synthesis of the manifold of a homogeneous intuition,"
the four last words appear to be an illegitimate restriction,
according to his own view of the relation of Intuition to
Thought. The only reason that Kant has for regarding
Number as a time-determination would seem to be the fact
that it takes time to count : the synthesis of which number
is the result is effected, he says, " dadurch dass ich die Zeit
selbst iri der Apprehension der Anschauung erzeuge ". But
in counting six I do not make a synthesis of time any
more than in the logical process of drawing a conclusion
from premisses ; though in each case the process no
doubt occupies time. The parts of the number six, when
conceived abstractly, are surely conceived as simultaneous,
not successive : and whatever they are they are certainly
not units of time. 1 But again : when we consider the
schema of quantity in connexion with the principle based
upon it, that " all intuitions are extensive quantities,"
we see that just as the transition from indefinite to definite
plurality was ignored in Kant's account of the relation of the
category to the schema, so here another important difference,
that between discrete and continuous quantity, is unduly
slurred over. I cannot say that Kant ignores it altogether :
he certainly does mention it, as it were accidentally, in the
course of a subsequent discussion of intensive quantity. But
in all that he says of the extensive quantities or "homogeneous
manifolds" of intuition, he does not hint that such quantities
are continuous and not discrete ; nor that some of the most
familiar relations among them as that between the circle
and its radius are incapable of being adequately represented
1 1 do not mean to say that Kant identifies the units of number with
units of time : he is of course perfectly aware that the parts of time must
"be extended quantities. But I think that in his desire to work out his
system symmetrically he goes as near this identification as he can without
committing himself to a manifest error : when he says that " Arithmetik
bringt ihre Zahlbegriffe durch successive Hinzusetzung der Einheiten in
der Zeit zu Stande" (Proleyom., 10).
A CRITICISM OF THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 331
by the relations of definite numbers. If the ignoring of this
distinction were merely a negative defect, it might be hyper-
critical to lay stress upon it ; but it has, I conceive, helped
to lead Kant into a positive misstatement. He says 1 that
an extensive quantity is one in which the " Vorstellung " of
the parts makes the "Vorstellung" of the whole possible,
and therefore necessarily precedes it. Now if such quanti-
ties were discrete and consisted of a finite number of units,
this might be said ; but I do not see how it can be said of an
extended quantum which is necessarily conceived as con-
tinuous and divisible without limit. Surely there is a serious
error which Kant's dialectical acumen would have been sure
to note in any other writer in the statement that in thinking
any portion of time I think a successive progress " wo durch
alle Zeittheile und deren Hinzuthun endlich eine bestimmte
Zeitgrosse erzeugt wird "; so far as it implies, as it certainly
seems to imply, that a definite consciousness of the parts
precedes the consciousness of the whole. For, of however
many parts we may be definitely conscious in forming the
notion of a given time or line, as all these parts are them-
selves extended quantities, they must be conceived as in
their turn divisible into other parts of which the definite
consciousness has not preceded.
I have laid stress on this misstatement, because it seems
to me a good illustration of the incorrectness of Kant's general
assumption that the understanding " cannot separate what
it has not previously bound together," in its application to
phenomena. In my view the essential function of thought,
in all its departments, is not primarily or mainly the binding
together of isolated elements into a whole ; but a process by
which we pass from the consciousness of some vague mani-
fold, the elements of which are (1) obscurely thought or even
(2) have a merely potential existence, to a consciousness of
the same manifold as not only more connected, but more
distinct in its parts, and not only more distinct but fuller.
Now in other parts of Kant's treatise he seems to me to
recognise at least implicitly both effects of this process : thus
in his account of analytical judgments ('Einleitung,' iv.,
p. 40) he expressly notes the progress from obscurity to dis-
tinctness in the elements of a conception : and in his discus-
sion of the ' Transcendental Ideal ' he seems at least to suggest
the progress from potential to actual fulness in our notions
of individual objects. But in the ' Transcendental Analytic*
he views the function of the Understanding as merely one of
1 * Axiomen d. Anschauung,' p. 156.
332 A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
synthesis of what is given as separate, and accordingly
falls, in the region of mathematics, into the manifest error
just noticed.
I hold, therefore, that no support can be derived for
Kant's general theory of Schemata from his application of
it to the particular case of Quantity. But if the schema-
tism of Quantity breaks down, that of Quality fares,
I must say, much worse. I remember that an old com-
mentator of Leibniz, when he comes to the Monadology,
cannot refrain from suggesting that his author's real aim
must have been to try " quousque tandem pergeret bruta
hominum assentiendi humilitas ". No one would think of
attributing such a motive, even in jest, to the earnest and
candid Kant ; but I do not find in this part of his reasoning
the patient ingenuity which rarely deserts him even when
he is most astray from truth ; and it seems to me to require
a "bruta assentiendi humilitas" to accept it as a cogent
establishment of the relation which he declares to exist
between the (logical) quality of a judgment and the intensive
quantity of a phenomenon.
He begins by affirming dogmatically that " reality is that
in the object which corresponds to feeling . . . the trans-
cendental matter of all objects ". The statement appears to
me surprising, and inconsistent with language used by Kant
elsewhere. I do not understand why reality should be thus
equated to matter alone, instead of form and matter com-
bined. I should have thought that, though space and time
were not real in abstraction, they were at any rate real as
elements of formed phenomena : and I should have thought
that Kant distinctly held this view, since he repeatedly asserts
that in his system space and time have " empirical reality"
and it is with empirical reality that he is here concerned.
But, suppose this proposition granted, I should have thought
that the schema of the category of Reality was thus obtained :
that the categories of Eeality and Negation, in their applica-
tion to phenomena, would be interpreted as representing the
presence and absence respectively of Feeling, regarded as
the content of Time. This, however, would not suit Kant's
purposes ; as he is desirous of connecting his schema with
the principle that " the real in all phenomena has intensive
quantity," and is capable of continuous diminution down to
zero ; and hence he lays down that the schema of a reality
is the " continuous and uniform production of it in time ".
Now here again I wish to make clear that I am not
raising any question as to the truth or falsehood of the
above-mentioned proposition or rather propositions, since
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 333
there are two which do not necessarily involve each other :
I am only unable to understand the grounds on which Kant
claims acceptance for them. They obviously cannot be
generalisations from experience ; and it seems absurd to say
that they can follow necessarily from the application of the
categories of Reality and Negation to the content of Time.
For there is nothing more evident about the logical antithesis
of affirmation and negation, when abstractly contemplated,
than its absoluteness, and the apparent absence of any pos-
sible mediation or transition between the two terms. It
presents itself as the simplest form, the purest essence, of all
antithesis : that a thing must either be or not be is one of
the fundamental " laws of thought " in the logical tradition.
No doubt, in the physical world we find continuous transition
everywhere ; which constitutes a serious difficulty in applying
to nature the results of logical analysis and division. But
this primd facie unadaptedness of logic to fact Kant does not
in any way overcome : he simply jumps from the one to the
other by the aid of an unwarranted dogma that " every feel-
ing has a degree or quantity by which it can fill the same
time more or less till it vanishes into nothing" a dogma
which is, in fact, substantially the principle itself that is
afterwards supposed to be proved by it.
Not less remarkable is the deduction which Kant makes
from his principle of the 'Anticipations of Perception' : w&,that
we cannot have experience of a vacuum. We are first told
that reality corresponds to feeling, and negation to absence of
feeling ; and the possible continuous diminution of the real
down to zero is inferred as corresponding to a similar dimi-
nution of feeling. But then we suddenly find that we
somehow know a priori that " every sense must have a
definite degree of receptivity," and accordingly that below
the point at which any kind of sensation stops below what
we may call the sensible zero the transcendental matter
corresponding to such sensation must be still conceived as
possibly existing, in any one of an indefinite number of con-
tinually diminishing degrees. Thus " we see that experience
can never supply a proof of empty space or empty time,
because the total absence of reality in a sensuous intuition
can never be perceived, neither can it be deduced from any
single phenomenon, and from the difference of degree in
their reality ; nor ought it ever to be admitted in explanation
of them ' ' : and thus the schematism of the category of Nega-
tion seems to end by demonstrating its strict inapplicability
to phenomenal reality.
I hardly know where to begin to criticise this singular
334 A CRITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
argument. (1) If the matter of all phenomenal objects con-
sists of mere modifications of our sensibility, how can we
consistently suppose a phenomenal object to exist corre-
sponding to modifications which, by the very nature of our
sensibility, cannot possibly occur? And (2), if we could
suppose this, by what transcendental intuition do we know
that our senses must be incapable of perceiving phenomenal
reality below a certain degree ? And (3) , even granting that
we must suppose as possibly existent a phenomenon that
cannot possibly appear, and therefore that we can never
have direct experience of void space and time, it still is not
clear why the assumption of such a void can never be admitted
as an explanation of phenomenon : for, granting that an
apparent void cannot be known to be real, it does not surely
follow that it must be known to be merely apparent. And,
finally, it seems to me that this corollary from the 'Anticipa-
tions of Perception ' must land us in serious difficulties when
we try to make it consistent with Kant's express ^nterpreta-
tion of the first ' Analogy of Experience ' to the discussion
of which I will now proceed.
The schematism of the categories of Kelation at any rate
of the first two pairs and the establishment of the corre-
sponding a priori principles form a part of Kant's doctrine
which has, on various grounds, more interest for most
students than what has just been discussed. For, first,
the principles in question are propositions which we com-
monly regard as requiring some kind of proof, whereas the
' Axioms of Intuition ' would commonly be thought to be
self-evident : secondly, the proof that Kant offers in each
case, is one that does not seem to need as a basis Kant's
general doctrine as to the relation of the understanding
and its categories to time and the schemata; it would
remain to be dealt with on its merits even if that general
doctrine were abandoned as untenable ; while at the same
time, as was before said, the relation of the categories to
time-determinations does not here appear to be so forced and
artificial as it does in the case of the other categories. The
relation of logical Subject to its Predicates is clearly analo-
gous in some way to the relation of phenomenal Substance
to its Accidents : substance, again, is conceived as remaining
permanent while its accidents change : so that it is at any
rate a plausible view that the schema of the category of
subject that in phenomena which may be known a priori
to be cogitable only as subject and not as predicate is the
permanent. There are, however, two objections to the
doctrine. In the first place we can obviously apply, and do
A CEITICISM OF THE CKITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 335
in ordinary thought apply, the category of subject to other
elements of experience or consciousness besides the per-
manent matter that we conceive as underlying phenomenal
change : all cognita whatever not merely accidents as well
as substances, but the merely subjective feelings which Kant
distinguishes from the objective characteristics of pheno-
menal objects, must be made subjects of predication when our
knowledge respecting them is made explicit : hence there
does not seem to be any reason why we should also find for
the category a special application to something that cannot
be thought as predicate. And secondly, so far as we con-
ceive the permanent substance as something that possesses
equally permanent attributes, the distinction of subject and
predicate is inevitably reintroduced within this notion of
substance which is put forward as corresponding to subject
only. And Kant, of course, does conceive his substance as
having the attribute of quantity, which remains as unchanged
as the substance : his first ' Analogy of Experience ' ex-
pressly states "that the quantum of substance in nature is
neither increased nor diminished ".
Let us now consider the transcendental proof which Kant
offers of this principle which may, as I have said, be taken
quite independently of the doctrine of the categories and
their schematism. The proof is briefly this. All phenomena
exist in Time, which does not itself change, all change
having to be thought in it. As Time "fur sich" cannot be
perceived, there must be in objects something to represent
time, unchanging and of which all change can only be
thought as a determination. This is Substance : as it cannot
change, its quantum cannot be decreased or increased.
Now, first, it does not seem to me true that is, not
truly to represent our common thought as expressed in our
common language to say in this absolute way that " Time
does not change ". I should say that change and perman-
ence, succession and duration are inextricably combined in
our notion of time, so that it is as true to say " Time passes"
as that Time abides. However, I will not dwell on this
point, as I am quite prepared to admit that I cannot con-
ceive change without the conception of somewhat that
remains unchanged besides Time. But I see no reason why
this somewhat should necessarily be conceived as permanently
unchangeable. For instance : suppose a manifold is pre-
sented consisting of elements which we may represent by the
four letters abed : it appears to me that I can perfectly well
conceive the four elements changing one after another so
that ultimately an entirely new manifold aj)^^ should be
336 A CEITICISM OF THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
found to have substituted itself for abed; provided that,
while a is changing into a 1} bed remains unchanged, and so
on for each of the four elements.
Perhaps it may be said that this presentation of coexistent
elements is not really possible, because " our apprehension
is always successive" ; or, as Kant states it more definitely in
the ' Deduction of the Categories ' in his first edition, " as
contained in one moment, each Vorstellung can never be
anything but absolute unity". I just note that we have
here another of those strange dogmas of Transcendental
Psychology which Kant can neither consistently support by
an appeal to an experience nor claim to know a priori : and
I remark further that this particular dogma is altogether
contrary to my own experience, so far as I can know it by
reflection ; since I am continually conscious of an apparently
presented manifold of quite simultaneous sensations and
sense-perceptions. But even if it were granted that
" apprehension," strictly speaking, is always serial ; I do
not see how Kant can deny that I can have a simultaneous
manifold in my consciousness somehow, whether it be
strictly presented or partially represented ; and this is all
that I require for the purposes of the above argument.
The notion, then, of an absolutely permanent substance
does not appear to me to be necessarily involved in the
notion of change, as Kant argues : and I do not see that he
gives any other cogent reason for affirming a priori the
existence of such a substance in nature. There are, more-
over, other difficulties in the way of accepting his account
of the notion. The language in which he introduces it seems
to imply that substance can itself be perceived ; since the
necessity of finding it in the objects of perception is expressly
stated to follow from the fact that " die Zeit fur sich" cannot
be perceived, and the consequence would seem to fail if
Substance also was incapable of being " fur sich wahrgenom-
men ". Yet, whatever precise meaning we give to the words
last quoted, it is hard to see how the characteristic they
express can be attributed to Substance, as Kant conceives
it "the substratum of all the real" any more than to
Time. Then, again, what kind of quantity is it that is
attributed to substance ? Kant has distinguished two kinds
of quantity, extensive and intensive : does he mean to attri-
bute both, or if not, which of the two? There seems no
doubt that he conceives his Substance as extended in space,
as he identifies it with the Matter of which physicists assume
the permanence. It remains, therefore, to ask whether the
parts of this extended substance differ in their intensive
A CEITICISM OF THE CEITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 337
quantity or not. He has already, in discussing the ' Antici-
pations of Perception ' rejected the assumption that " das
Eeale im Raume allerwarts einerlei sei " : hence we must
suppose that the parts of his Substance have different inten-
sive quantities. But thus his Substance turns out to be an
aggregate of heterogeneous substances : and yet, as the
ground for assuming its existence was that we might have
something to represent, in Mr. Caird's words, the "unity
or self-identity of time itself," this heterogeneity is surely
a very singular and inappropriate characteristic.
Here I must conclude. The category of Causality, which
I refrain from touching, is perhaps the most interesting of
all : on the other hand, the amount of discussion in the
English language which has recently been bestowed on
this is so disproportionately large, that I shrink from adding
anything to it, if it be not absolutely necessary. The tree
is known by its fruits, but it is hardly needful to dissect
them all ; and I conceive that I have already examined the
particulars of Kant's system sufficiently to support my
general objections to his method. In conclusion, I will only
say that my objections are not urged from the point of view
either of Empiricism or of the Common-sense Philosophy.
I do not hold either that our common a priori assumptions
respecting empirical objects require no philosophical justifi-
cation, or that verification by particular experiences is the
only justification possible. But I see no ground for expecting
to get anything better by the method which Kant has mis-
called * Criticism '. This, as I have tried to show, is as
dogmatic in the worst sense of the term as that of any
preceding metaphysician : and I do not see that we are likely
to gain by exchanging the natural and naive dogmas of the
older " transcendent " ontology, for the more artificial and
obscure, but no less unwarranted, dogmas of this newer
" transcendental " psychology.
H. SIDGWICK.
IL MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA.
Prof. Schaarschmidt in his excellent preface to Spinoza's
Korte Verhandeling van God, &c. (Amsterdam, 1869), has drawn
attention to the somewhat one-sided view usually taken of
Spinoza's position in the evolution of thought : the im-
portance attributed to the influence of Descartes and the
slight weight given to the Jewish writers. He concludes
his considerations with the remark : " Attamen in gravis-
simis rebus ab eo (Cartesio) differt et his ipsis cum Judseorum
philosophia congruit, quorum quidem orthodoxiam repudiavit,
ingenium ipsum et mentem retinuit." (Prsefatio xxiv.)
The subject is all the more important because even an
historian like Kuno Fischer (G-esch. der neuern Philos., 3rd
ed., 1880) still regards Spinoza as a mere link after
Descartes in the chain of philosophical development, re-
jecting the view that he belongs rather to Jewish than
Christian Philosophy. The hypothesis that Spinoza was
very slightly influenced by Hebrew thought has become
traditional and is to be found in the most recent English
works on Spinoza. Mr. Pollock writes that the in-
fluence of Maimonides on the pure philosophy of Spinoza
was comparatively slight (p. 94). Dr. Martineau tells
ns somewhat dogmatically that " no stress can be laid
on the evidence of Spinoza's indebtedness to Eabbinical
philosophy " (p. 56). These opinions seem in part based on
a perusal of Maimonides's More Nebuchim and of Joel's Zur
Genesis der Lehre Spinozas (1871), taken in conjunction with
Mr. W. E. Sorley's " Jewish Mediaeval Philosophy and
Spinoza" in MIND XIX. Neither Mr. Pollock nor Dr.
Martineau seems acquainted with Maimonides's Tad Hacha-
zakah. It is to the relation of this work to Spinoza's EtMca
that I wish at present to refer. 1
Maimonides (1135-1204) completed his More Nebuchim
about 1190, its aim being to explain on the ground of reason
the many obscure passages of Scripture and apparently ir-
rational rites instituted by Moses. Hence the book was
termed the " Guide of the Perplexed," being intended to
lighten the difficult path of Biblical study. As might easily
1 While on the subject of works concerning Spinoza and Jewish Philo-
sophy I may give the following titles : E. Saisset, " Maimonide et
Spinoza," Revue des deux Mondes, 1862 ; Salomo Rubinus, Spinoza und
Maimonides^ Vienna, 1868.
MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA. 339
be supposed it is only concerned in the second place with
philosophical ethics. The influence of such a book on
Spinoza is, as might be expected, most manifest in the
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. The Yad Hachazakah, however,
or the " Mighty Hand," written some ten years previously,
has far greater importance for the student of Spinoza's
Mhica. Its author originally termed it " The Twofold Law,"
i.e., the written and traditional law Bible and Talmud,
and under 14 headings or books considered some of the
most important problems in theology and ethics. Portions
of the Yad were in 1832 translated by Herman Hedwig
Bernard and published in Cambridge under the title : The
Main Principles of the Creed and Ethics of the Jews exhibited in
selections from the Yad Hachazakah of Maimonides. Of this
book I propose to make use in the following remarks on the
thought-resemblance between Spinoza and Maimonides. 1 I
shall omit all matter which has not direct bearing on
Spinoza's Ethica, however interesting it may otherwise be,
and endeavour to make allowance for the age and theologico-
philosophical language in which Maimonides wrote. We
have rather to consider the spirit in which Spinoza read the
Yad than that in which it was composed.
1 Two other translations of the First Book of the Yad may be men-
tioned, both " edited " by the Polish Rabbi, Elias Soloweyczik. The first
into German (Konigsberg, 1846) omits the last or fifth part of the First
Book containing : " The Precepts of Repentance ". The second into
English (Nicholson, 1863) nominally contains all five parts, but really
omits many of their most interesting sub-chapters (e.g., Part III., c. v.-vii.,
on the relation of a scholar to his teacher and on respect for the wise).
This English edition too loses much of its scientific value owing to the
omission or perversion of many paragraphs where the editor has with a
very false modesty thought Maimonides too outspoken for modern readers.
On the title-page stand the words : " Translated from the Hebrew into
English by several Learned Writers." The chief of these "Learned
Writers " is Bernard, who has been freely used without apparent acknow-
ledgment. Portions of the remainder appear to be translated from the
German and not directly from the Hebrew. Appended to this English
Edition is a translation of the 5th Chapter of Book xiv. of the Yad :
or " Laws concerning Kings and their Wars ". Whatever may have been
the causes which gave rise to this so-called English translation, it must be
noted that Soloweyczik's German translation is an independent work,
suffering from none of these faults and of considerable value to the student
of Maimonides.
Before entering upon a comparison of the intellectual relation of Mai-
monides to Spinoza, I may refer to a close connexion between Spinoza's
method of life and Maimonides's theory of how a wise man should earn
his livelihood. It seems to me the key-note of Spinoza's life by the optical
bench, his refusal of the professorial chair. " Let," writes Maimonides,
" thy fixed occupation be the study of the Law" (i.e., divine wisdom) "and
thy worldly pursuits be of secondary consideration." After stating that
340 MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA.
Let us first of all consider Maimonides's conception of
God. This is contained in the " Precepts relating to the
Foundations of the Law," and the " Precepts relating to
Repentance," especially in the chapters entitled by Bernard
" On the Deity and the Angels " (p. 71) and " On the Love
of God and the true way of serving Him " (p. 314), which
correspond roughly to Ethica i. and v. of Spinoza. Mai-
monides, to start with, sweeps away all human attributes
and affections from the Godhead. God has neither body
nor frame, nor limit of any kind ; He has none of the ac-
cidental qualities of bodies " neither composition nor
decomposition ; neither place nor measure ; neither ascent
nor descent ; neither right nor left ; neither before nor be-
hind ; neither sitting nor standing ; neither does he exist in
time, so that he should have a beginning or an end or a num-
ber of years ; nor is he liable to change, since in Him there
is nothing which can cause a change in Him." (B. 78.)
Add to this, God is one, but this unity is not that of an
individual or a material body " but such an One that there
is no other Unity like His in the Universe." (B. 73.) That
God has similitude or form in the Scripture is due only to
an " apparition of prophecy " ; while the assertion that God
created man in His own image refers only to the soul or
intellectual element in man. It has no reference to shape
or to manner of life but to that knowledge which con-
stitutes the " quality " of the soul. (B. 106.) The " pillar of
wisdom " is to know that this first Being exists, and " that
He has called all other beings into existence, and that all
things existing, heaven, earth and whatever is between them,
exist only through the truth of His existence, so that if we
were to suppose that He did not exist, no other thing could
exist." (B. 71.) Among the propositions which Spinoza in
the Appendix to Ethica i., tells us that he has sought to
prove are, that God exists necessarily : " quod sit unicus ;
quod sit omnium rerum causa libera, et quomodo ; quod
all business is only a means to study, in that it provides the necessities of
life, he continues : " He who resolves upon occupying himself solely with
the study of the Law, not attending to any work or trade but living on
charity, denies the sacred name and heaps up contumely upon the Law.
Study must have active labour joined with it, or it is worthless, produces
sin, and leads the man to injure his neighbour." . . . " It is a cardinal
virtue to live by the work of one's hands and it is one of the great charac-
teristics of the pious of yore, even that whereby one attains to all respect
and felicity of this and the future world." (After Soloweyczik, Part III.,
Chap, iii., 5-11). Why does Spinoza's life stand in such contrast to that of
all other modern philosophers 1 Because his life at least, if not his philo-
sophy, was Hebrew !
MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA. 341
omnia in Deo sint, et ab ipso ita pendeant, ut sine ipso nee
esse nee concipi possint " words which might almost stand
as a translation of Maimonides. Cf. also Efhica i. 14 and
Corollary, and 15.
That God is not divisible (B. 73) Spinoza proves, i. 13 ;
that He is without limit, i. 19 or better, Principia Cartesii 19 ;
that God is incapable of change, i. 20, Coroll. 2 ; the notion
that God has body or form is termed a " childish fancy," i.
15, Scholium ; while the infinite and eternal nature of God
is asserted at the very commencement of the Ethica. .Add
to this that Maimonides's conception of the Deity, without
being professedly pantheistic, is yet extremely anti-personal
and diffused. Still more striking is the coincidence when
we turn to the denial of human affections : Maimonides
tells us that with God " there is neither death nor life like
the life of a living body ; neither folly nor wisdom, like the
wisdom of a wise man ; neither sleep nor waking ; neither
anger nor laughter ; neither joy nor sorrow ; neither silence nor
speech, like the speech of the sons of men ". (B. 79.) Com-
pare with this Spinoza's assertions that the intellect of God
differs toto ccelo from human intellect (i. 17, Schol.) and that
" God is without passions and is not affected by any emo-
tion of joy or sorrow" "He neither loves nor hates any-
one " (v. 17 and Coroll.).
Curiously enough, while both Maimonides and Spinoza
strip God of all conceivable human characteristics, they yet
hold it possible for the mind of man to attain to some, if an
imperfect, knowledge, of God, and make the attainment of
such knowledge the highest good of life. There would be
some danger of self-contradiction in this matter, if their
conception of the Deity had not ceased to be a personal one,
and become rather the recognition of an intellectual cause
or law running through all phenomena which, showing
beneath a material succession an intellectual sequence or
mental necessity, is for them the Highest Wisdom, to be
acquainted with which becomes the end of human life.
This intellectual relation of man to God forms an all-im-
portant feature in the ethics of both Maimonides and
Spinoza ; it is in fact a vein of mystic gold which runs
through the great mass of Hebrew thought. 1
1 The Talmudic picture of the world to come where " the righteous sit
with their crowns on their heads delighting in the shining glory of the
Shechinah " is thus interpreted : their crowns denote intelligence or wis-
dom, while " delighting in the glory of the Shechinah " signifies that they
know more of the truth of God than while in this dark and abject body.
The attainment of wisdom as the self-sufficient end of life is one of the
342 MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA.
Before entering upon Maimonides's conception of the
relation of God to man, it may be as well to premise what
he understands by intelligence. The Rabbinical writers
oppose the term quality or property to the term matter (B.
Note p. 82) ; most frequently, and in the Yad invariably,
when the two terms are opposed, the former signifies intelli-
gence or thought ; so that in the language of Spinoza we
may very well term them thought and extension. If we leave
out of account the angels, to whom Maimonides rather on
doctrinal and theological than on philosophical grounds
assigned an anomalous position, we find that all things in
the universe are composed of matter and quality (i.e., ex-
tension and thought) though possessing these attributes in
different degrees. These degrees form the basis of all
classification and individuality. (B. 82-84.) We now arrive
at a proposition which may be said to form the very founda-
tion of Spinoza's Ethica : " You can never see matter with-
out quality, nor quality without matter, and it is only the
understanding of man which abstractedly parts the existing
body and knows that it is composed of matter and quality ".
(B. 105.) This coexistence of matter and quality or ex-
tension and thought is carried even, as in Spinoza's case,
throughout all being. Even " all the planets and orbs are
beings possessed of soul, mind and understanding ". (B. 97.)
Spinoza in the Scholium to Ethica ii. 13, remarking on the
union of thought and extension in man continues " nam
ea, quae hucusque ostendimus, admodum communia sunt,
nee magis ad homines quam ad reliqua Individua pertinent,
quae omnia, quamvis diversis gradibus, animata tamen sunt ".
The parallelism is all the more striking in that in this very
Scholium a classification is suggested based on the degrees
wherein the two attributes are present in individuals. Dr.
Martineau, in a note on this passage (p. 190), remarks on a
superficial resemblance between Giordano Bruno and
Spinoza : " Bruno animates things to get them into action ;
Spinoza to fetch them into the sphere of intelligence" It
will be seen- at once how Spinoza coincides on this point
with Maimonides, who wished to explain how it is that all
things in their degree know the wisdom of the Creator and
glorify Him. Each intelligence, according to the latter
philosopher, in its degree can know God ; yet none know
highest and most emphasised lessons of the Talmud and its commentators.
The strong reaction against a merely formal knowledge at the beginning of
our era led the founder of Christianity and his earlier followers to a some-
what one-sided view of life which neglected this all-important truth.
MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA. 343
God as he knows himself. From this it follows that the
measure of man's knowledge of God is his intelligence.
With regard to this intelligence it may be remarked that
Maimonides identifies it that " more excellent know-
ledge which is found in the soul of man " with the
" quality " of man, i.e., his thought-attribute, and that this
" quality " of man is for him identical with the soul itself.
(B. 105.) The bearing of all this on Spinoza's theosophical
conceptions must be apparent ; yet this is but a stage to a
far more important coincidence the principle, namely, that
the knoivledge of God is associated always in an equal degree with
the love of God : what Spinoza has termed the " Amor Dei
intellectualis ". Understanding the work of God is "an
opening to the intelligent man to love God," writes Mai-
monides. (B. 82.) Further, " a man however can love the
Holy One, blessed be He ! only by the knowledge which he
has of Him ; so that his love will be in proportion to his
knowledge ; if this latter be slight the former will also be
slight ; but if the latter be great the former also will be
great. And therefore a man ought solely and entirely to
devote himself to the acquisition of knowledge and under-
standing, by applying to those sciences and doctrines which
are calculated to give such an idea of his Creator as it is in
the power of the intellect of man to conceive." (B. 321.)
This intellectual love of God is for Maimonides the highest
good ; the bliss of the world to come will consist in the
knowledge of the truth of the Shechinah ; the greatest
worldly happiness is to have time and opportunity to learn
wisdom (i.e., knowledge of God), and this maximum of
earthly peace will be reached when the Messiah comes,
whose government will give the required opportunities.
(B. 308, 311, &c.) Furthermore, the intensity of this in-
tellectual love of God, this pursuit of wisdom, is insisted
upon : the whole soul of the man must be absorbed in it
" it cannot be made fast in the heart of a man unless he be
constantly and duly absorbed in the same and unless he
renounce everything in the world except this love ". (B. 320.)
It will be seen at once how closely this approaches Spinoza's
" Ex his clare intelligimus, qua in re nostra salus, seu
Beatitude, seu Libertas consistat ; nempe in constanti et
aeterno erga Deum Amore " (v. 36, Schol.), and " Hie erga
Deum Amor summum bonum est, quod ex dictamine
Bationis appetere possumus " (v. 20). Spinoza's " third
kind of intellection," his knowledge of God, is associated
with the renunciation of all worldly passions, all temporal
strivings and fleshly appetites ; it is the replacing of the
344 MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA.
obscure by clear ideas, the seeing things under the aspect of
eternity, in their relation to God. There is in fact in
Spinoza's system a strong notion of a ' renunciation ' or
' re-birth,' by means of which a man becomes free, thence-
forth to be led " by the spirit of Christ, that is ly the idea of
God which alone is capable of making man free " (iv. 68,
SchoL). This notion of re-birth or renunciation has very
characteristic analogues in the 'Nirvana' of Buddha and the
' Ewige G-eburt ' of Meister Eckhart. It is, however, peculiarly
strong in the theosophy of Maimonides. Having called to
mind that contemplation of the highest truths of the God-
head has been figuratively termed by Eabbinical writers,
" walking in the garden," I proceed to quote the Tad :
" The man who is replete with such virtues and whose bodily constitu-
tion too is in a perfect state on his entering into the garden and on his
being carried away by those great and extensive matters, if he have a cor-
rect knowledge so as to understand and comprehend them if he continue
to keep himself in holiness if Tie depart from the general manner of people,
who walk in the darkness of temporary things if he continue to be solicitous
about himself, and to train his mind so that it should not think at all of
any of those perishable things, or of the vanities of time and its devices, but
should have its thoughts constantly turned on high, and fastened to the
Throne so as to comprehend those holy and pure intelligences and to
meditate on the wisdom of the Holy One . . . and if by these means
he come to know His excellency then the Holy Spirit immediately dwells
with him ; and at the time when the spirit rests on him, his soul mixes
with the degree of those angels called Ishim, so that he is changed into
another man. Moreover he himself perceives from the state of his know-
ledge that he is not as he was." (B. 112.)
Separate the notions of this paragraph from their Tal-
mudic language and they contain almost the exact thoughts
of Spinoza the passage from obscure to clear ideas and
the consequent attainment to a knowledge of God. Mai-
monides's assertion that the man himself perceives that he
has attained this higher knowledge is perfectly parallel with
Spinoza's proposition, that the man who has a true idea
is conscious that he has a true idea and cannot doubt its
truth (ii. 43.) The parallel between this Medieval Jewish
Philosophy and Christian Theology is of course evident,
and probably due to the fact that both had a common
origin in Ancient Jewish Philosophy, if the analogy of
Buddhism does not point to a still wider foundation in
human nature.
Still one point in the relation of God and man, wherein
Maimonides and Spinoza follow the same groove of thought.
With the former the " cleaving to the Shechinah," the
striving after God, is identified with the pursuit of wisdom.
This is in itself the highest bliss the attainment of wis-
MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA. 345
dom is as well the goal as the course of true human life ;
wisdom is not to be desired for an end beyond itself for the
sake of private advantage or from fear of evil, above all not
owing to dread of future punishment or hope of future
reward but only in and for itself because it is truth, it is
wisdom. Only " rude folk " are virtuous out of fear. (B.
314.) Spinoza expresses the same thought in somewhat
different words : he tells us, that the man who is virtuous
owing to fear does not act reasonably. The perfect state
is not the reward or goal of virtue, but is identical with
virtue itself. The perfect state is one wherein there is a
clear knowledge and consequent intellectual love of God ;
and this is in itself an end and not a means (iv. 63 and v.
42, &c.).
We may now pass to a subject which, in the case of both
philosophers, is beset with grave difficulties namely, God's
knowledge and love of himself. We have seen that in both
systems the knowledge of God is always accompanied by a
corresponding love of God ; we should expect therefore to
find God's knowledge of himself accompanied by a love of
himself. This inference, however, as to God's intellectual
love of himself seems only to have been drawn by Spinoza ;
Maimonides is, on the other hand, particularly busied with
God's knowledge of himself. To begin with, we are told
that God because he knows himself knows everything. This
assertion is brought into close connexion with another:
all existing things from the first degree of intelligences to
the smallest insect which may be found in the centre of the
earth exist by the power of God's truth. (B. 87.) Some
light will perhaps be cast on the meaning of these proposi-
tions by a remark previously made as to Maimonides's con-
ception of the Deity as an intellectual cause or law. Behind
the succession of material phenomena is a succession of
ideas following logically the one on the other. This thought-
logic is the only form wherein the mind can co-ordinate
phenomena because it is itself a thinking entity, and so
subject to the logic of thought. The ' pure thought ' which
has a logic of its own inner necessity is thus the cause, and
an intellectual one, of all phenomena. That system which
identifies this ' pure thought ' with the godhead may be fitly
termed an intellectual pantheism or a pantheistic idealism.
It is obvious how in such a pantheistic idealism the proposi-
tions that God in knowing himself knows everything ; and
that all things exist by the power of God's truth can
easily arise. Such a passage as the following too becomes
replete with very deep truth : " The Holy One . . .
23
346 MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA.
perceives His own truth and knows it just as it really is.
And he does not know with a knowledge distinct from Himself
as we know ; because we and our knowledge are not one ;
but . . . His knowledge and His life are one in every
possible respect, and in every mode of unity ; . .
Hence you may say that He is the Jcnower, the known and
knowledge itself all at once. . . . Therefore He does not
perceive creatures and know them, by means of the
creatures as we know them ; but he knows them by means
of Himself ; so that, by dint of His knowing Himself, He
knows everything ; because everything is supported by its
existing through Him." (B. 87.) What fruit such con-
ceptions bore in the mind of Spinoza must be at once
recognised by every student of the Ethica.
Let us compare these conceptions with their Spinozistic
equivalents. " All things exist by the power of God's
truth." To this Ethica i. 15 corresponds " Quicquid est, in
Deo est, et nihil sine Deo esse neque concipi potest."
" God in knowing himself knows everything." I am not
aware of any passage in the Ethica where this proposition is
distinctly stated, yet it follows immediately from Spinoza's
fundamental principles, and is implied in i. 25, Schol. and
CorolL, and elsewhere (ii. 3, &c.) It is of course involved
in God's infinite intellectual love of himself, (v. 35).
" God does not know with a knowledge distinct from
himself." " His knowledge and His life are one." " He is the
knower, the known, and knowledge itself." " His perception
differs from that of creatures." Compare the following
statements of Spinoza. " Si intellectus ad divinam naturam
pertinet, non poterit, uti noster intellectus, posterior (ut
plerisque placet), vel simul natura esse cum rebus intellectis,
quandoquidem Deus omnibus rebus prior est causalitate ;
sed contra veritas et formalis rerum essentia ideo talis est,
quia talis in Dei intellectu existit objective. Quare Dei
intellectus, quatenus Dei essentiam constituere concipitur
est re vera causa rerum, tarn earum essentiae quam earum
existentiae " (i. 17, Schol.). These words are followed by the
remark that this is the opinion of those " who hold the know-
ledge, will, and power of God to be identical," which pro-
bably refers to Maimonides. " Omnia quae sub intellectum
innnitum cadere possunt necessario sequi debent " (i. 16.)
" Sicuti ex necessitate divinae naturae sequitur, ut Deus
seipsum intelligat, eadem etiam necessitate sequitur, ut Deus
infinita infinitis modis agat. Deinde, i. 34, ostendimus Dei
potentiam nihil esse, praeterquam Dei actuosam essentiam "
(ii. 3, Schol.). Such expressions sufficiently show that God's
MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA. 347
knowledge, i.e., his " intellectus," and his action i.e., his life
are one and the same. " Nam intellectus et voluntas, qui Dei
essentiam constituerent, a nostro intellectu et voluntate toto
coelo differre deberent " (i. 17, Schol.). Which sufficiently
marks the difference between the divine and human intellect.
Shortly, although in certain formal assertions of the Ethica
this view is somewhat obscured, yet I venture to suggest
that the only consistent interpretation of Spinoza's system
is summed up in the following words : that the intellect of
God is all ; his thought is the existence of things ; to be
real is to exist in the divine thought ; that very intellect is
itself existence ; it does not understand things like the
creature-intellect because it is them. 1 This is almost the
exact equivalent of Maimonides's proposition that God is
" the knower, the known, and knowledge itself".
As a step from theology to anthropology we may compare
the views of the two philosophers on the immortality of the
soul. We have seen that Maimonides identifies the soul
with the " quality," i.e., the thought-attribute in man. This
quality not being composed of material elements cannot be
decomposed with them ; it stands in no need of the breath of
life, of the body, but it proceeds from God (the infinite in-
tellect). This " quality " is not destroyed with the body,
but continues to know and comprehend those intelligences
that are distinct from all matter (i.e., it no longer has know-
ledge of material things and therefore must lose all trace of
its former individuality), and it lasts for ever and ever. (B.
106.) A certain crude resemblance to jEthica, v. 23 and
Schol., will hardly be denied to this view of immortality ;
but a still closer link may be discovered in the question
whether this immortality is shared by all men alike. From
the above it would seem that for Maimonides this question
must be answered in the affirmative, but when we come to
examine his notion of future life we shall find this by no
means the case. For him goodness and wisdom wicked-
ness and ignorance are synonymous terms. 2 He classifies
all beings from the supreme intelligence down to the
smallest insect according to their wisdom, the degree of
" quality " in them. The wise man who has renounced all
clogging passions and received the Holy Spirit, is classed
1 Of. also Kuno Fischer's identification of Spinoza's Substance with
Causality.
2 Many passages might be quoted from the Yad to prove this. A some-
what similar though not quite identical distinction of good and evil occurs
in the More Nebuchim (b. i., c. 1), where they are held equivalent to true
and false respectively.
348 MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA.
even with a peculiar rank of angel " the man- angel ". On
the other hand, the fool, the evil man, may be in possession
of no " quality " and therefore incapable of immortality.
The future life of the soul of the wise is a purely intellectual
one ; it consists in that state of bliss which Spinoza would
describe as perceiving things by the " third kind of intel-
lection " : it is perceiving more of the truth of God than
was possible while in the dark and abject body ; it is in-
creased knowledge of the Shechinah ; or again, to use
Spinoza's words, a more perfect " Amor Dei intellectualis ".
(B. 296.) On the other hand, the reward of the evil man is,
that his soul is cut off from this life ; it is that destruction
after which there is no existence; "the retribution which
awaits the wicked consists in this, that they do not attain
unto that life, but that they are cut off and die." (B. 294.)
Shortly, Hell and Tophet are the destruction and end of all
life; there is no immortality. I will only place for com-
parison by the side of this a portion of the very remarkable
Scholium with which Spinoza concludes the Ethica :
" Ignarus enim, praeterquam a causis externis multis modis
agitatur, nee unquam vera animi acquiescentia potitur, vivit
praeterea sui et Dei et rerum quasi inscius, et simul ac pati
desinit, simul etiam esse desinit. Cum contra sapiens, qua-
tenus ut talis consideratur, vix animo movetur, sed sui et
Dei et rerum aeterna quadam necessitate conscius, nunquam
esse desinit, sed semper vera animi acquiescentia potitur".
Obviously Spinoza recognised some form of immortality in
the wise man, which the ignorant could not share ; the one
ceased, the other never could cease to be. 1
The influence of Maimonides on Spinoza becomes far less
obvious when we turn to his doctrine of the human affec-
tions. On the one hand, this is perhaps the most thought-
out, finished portion of Spinoza's work ; on the other hand,
1 It is a curious fact that the last words of the Ethica are very closely
related to a paragraph in the last chapter of the More Nebuchim ; wherein
we are told that it is knowledge of God only which gives immortality.
The soul is only so far immortal as it possesses knowledge of God, i.e., wis-
dom. To perceive things under their intelligible aspect is the great aim of
every human individual, it gives him true perfection and renders his soul
immortal. In striking correspondence with this is Chap. 23 of the 2nd
Part of the Korte Verlicmdeling van God, &c. We are told that the soul
can only continue to exist in so far as it is united to the body or God.
(1) When it is united only to the body it must perish with the body.
(2) In so far as it is united with an unchangeable object, it must in itself
be unchangeable. That is in so far as it is united to God, it cannot perish.
This " union with God " is what Spinoza afterwards termed the " know-
ledge of God". The coincidence has been noted by Joel (Zur Genesis
der Lehre Spinozas}.
MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA. 349
Maimonides's somewhat crude " Precepts relating to the
Government of the Temper," are an unsystematic mass of
moral precepts, exegesis, and interpretation of the Talmud ;
added to which only certain portions are yet available in
translation. Nevertheless, we may find several points of
contact and even double contact.
According to Spinoza the great end of life the bliss which
is nothing less than repose of the soul springs from the
knowledge of God. The more perfect the intellect is, the
greater is the knowledge of God. The great aim then of
the reasoning man is to regulate all other impulses to the
end that he may truly understand himself and his surround-
ings that is, know God (iv. Appendix c. 4). All things,
therefore, all passions, are to be made subservient to this
one end the attainment of wisdom. Following up this con-
ception Spinoza proves that all external objects, all natural
affections, are to be so treated or encouraged, that the
body may be maintained in a state fit to discharge its
functions, for by this means the mind will be best able to
form conceptions of many things (iv. Appendix c. 27,
taken in conjunction with iv. 38 and 39). For this reason
laughter and jest are good in moderation ; so also eating
and drinking, &c. ; music and games are all good so far as
they serve this end ; " quo majori Laetitia amcimur, eo ad
majorem perfectionem transimus, hoc est, eo nos magis de
natura divina participare necesse est" (iv. 45, Schol.) Nay,
even marriage is consistent with reason, if the love arises
not from externals only but has for its cause the " libertas
animi " (iv. App., c. 20). Shortly, Spinoza makes the
gratification of the so-called natural passions reasonable in
so far as it tends to the health of the body, and hence to
the great end of life the perfecting of the understanding or
the knowing of God. We may gather a somewhat similar
idea from Maimonides. I have already pointed out that in
the terminology of the latter 's philosophy " to be wise," to
"delight in the Shechinah " or "to serve the Lord" are
synonymous. Eemembering this, the following passage is
very suggestive : " He who lives according to rule, if his
object be merely that of preserving his body and his limbs
whole, or that of having children to do his work, and to
toil for his wants his is not the right way ; but his object
ought to be that of preserving his body whole and strong,
to the end that his soul may be fit to know the Lord . . .
it being impossible for him to become intelligent or to ac-
quire wisdom by studying the sciences whilst he is hungry
or ill, or whilst any one of his limbs is ailing. , . . And
350 MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA.
consequently he who walks in this way all his days, will be
serving the Lord continually even at the time when he
trades, or even at the time when he has sexual intercourse ;
because his purpose in all this is to obtain that which is
necessary for him to the end that his mind may be perfect
to serve the Lord." '(B. 174.) Elsewhere Maimonides tells
us that a man should direct all his doings trading, eating,
drinking, marrying a wife so that his body may be in
perfect health and his mind thus capable of directing its
energies to knowledge of God. (B. 172.)
Other points of coincidence may be noted. Spinoza
attributes all evil to confused ideas, to ignorance. Mai-
monides states that desire for evil arises from an infirm soul
(here it must be remembered that soul is the " quality " of a
man, his thinking attribute). " Now what remedy is there
for those that have infirm souls ? They shall go to the wise, who
are the physicians of soul." (B. 159.) Here evil is brought
into close connexion with ignorance as its cause. 1 The
characteristic of the wise man is that he avoids all opposite
extremes, and takes that middle state which is found
in all the dispositions of man ; the rational man cal-
culates his dispositions (i.e., his affections or emotions)
and directs the same " in the intermediate way to the end
that he may preserve a perfect harmony in his bodily con-
stitution." (B. 152.) There is an echo of this in Spinoza's
" Cupiditas quae ex Eatione oritur, excessum habere nequit "
(iv. 61). Maimonides holds haughtiness and humility ex-
tremes ; the wise man will steer a middle course between
them. (B. 154.) Spinoza tells us " Humilitas virtus non est,
sive ex Katione non oritur " (iv. 53). In the Tad we read,
when a man is in a country where the inhabitants are
wicked (i.e., ignorant), " he ought to abide quite solitarily by
himself." (B. 176.) In the Ethica : " Homo liber, qui inter
ignaros vivit, eorum, quantum potest beneficia declinare
studet " (iv. 70). According to Spinoza all the emotions of
hate, for example vengeance, can only arise from confused
ideas, they have no existence for the rational man who
1 It may be worth while remarking how the key-note to the moral Re-
formers who preceded the so-called Reformation is the conception that the
wicked man and the fool are one and the same person. In woodcuts (cf.
those in the Narrenschiff, 1494, and the recently discovered Block-book c.
1470) and in words (cf. Sebastian Brand, Geiler von Kaiserberg, and
Thomas Murner) it is the ever-inculcated lesson. It is curious that this
re-establishment of morality on a higher intellectual basis in preference to
the old penal theory has ever from Solomon to Spinoza found such
strong support in Hebrew Philosophy.
MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA. 351
marks the true causes of things. Maimonides writes of
vengeance that it shows an evil mind, "for with intelligent
men all worldly concerns are but vain and idle things, such
as are not enough to call forth vengeance." (B. 197.)
Spinoza terms the passions obscure ideas (iii. Final para-
graph), and in so far as the mind has obscure or inadequate
ideas its power of acting or existing is decreased. Curiously
enough Maimonides speaking of the passion anger says :
" passionate men cannot be said to live." (B. 164.)
Taken individually these coincidences might not be of
much weight, yet taken in union I think they show that
Spinoza was even in his doctrine of the human affections
not uninfluenced by Maimonides ; albeit to a lesser degree
than in his theosophy.
It may not be uninteresting to note one point of diver-
gence, namely, on the insoluble problem of free-will.
Spinoza reduces man's free-will to an intellectual recog-
nition of, and hence a free submission to, necessity. Mai-
monides on the other hand tells us distinctly that " free-will
is granted to every man " ; that there is no predestination;
every man can choose whether he will be righteous or
wicked, a wise man or a fool. (B. 263.) With regard to
the question of God's pre-knowledge and whether this must
not be a predestination, Maimonides writes: "Know ye that
with regard to the discussion of this problem, the measure
thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea ".
He hints, however, that its solution must probably be sought
in the fact that God's knowledge is not distinct from him-
self, but that he and his knowledge are one ("the knower,
the known and the knowledge itself are identical"). Mai-
monides cautiously adds that it is impossible for man fully
to grasp the truth regarding the nature of God's knowledge ;
and, while granting God pre-knowledge, still concludes : "But
yet it is known so as not to admit of any doubt that the
actions of a man are in his own power and that the Holy
One, blessed be He ! neither attracts him nor decrees that
he should do so and so." (B. 270.) Perhaps the ordinary
work-a-day mortal will find Maimonides's evasion of the
problem as useful as Spinoza's attempted solution !
In the above remarks I have considered only the Yad
Hachazdkdh, because hitherto attention seems to have been
entirely directed to the More Nebuchim (cf. Joel, Sorley and
others). It is not impossible that in the intervening ten
years Maimonides somewhat altered his views. I should
not be surprised to hear that the More was held more
'orthodox' than the Yad. The latter, despite much Tal-
352 MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA.
mudic verbiage and scriptural exegesis, notwithstanding
many faults and inconsistencies, yet contains the germs of
a truly grand philosophical system, quite capable of power-
fully influencing the mind even of a Spinoza. Such a reader
would, while rejecting the exegesis, recognise the elements
of truth in the pure theosophy (cf. Joel, Zur Genesis, p. 9),
and this is the point wherein the two philosophers approach
most closely. In the second place, I have confined myself
entirely to the influence of the Yad on the Ethica. Greater
agreement would have been found with the Korte Verhande-
ling van God, &c., while Spinoza's views of Biblical criticism
(especially his conceptions of prophets and prophecy as
developed in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus) owe un-
doubtedly much to the Yad. Yet I wished to show that
the study of Maimonides was traceable even in Spinoza's
most finished exposition of his philosophy. Those who
assert that Spinoza was influenced by Hebrew thought
have not seldom been treated as though they were accusing
Spinoza of a crime. Yet no great work ever sprung from
the head of its creator like Athena from the head of
Zeus ; it has slowly developed within him, influenced
and moulded by all that has influenced and moulded
its shaper's own character. Had we but knowledge and
critical insight enough, every idea might be traced to the
germ from which it has developed. While recognising
many other influences at work forming Spinoza's method of
thought, it is only scientific to allow a certain place to the
Jewish predecessors with whom he was acquainted. Critical
comparison must show how great that influence was. We
naturally expect to find considerable divergences between
any individual Jewish philosopher and Spinoza ; these diver-
gences have been carefully pointed out by Mr. Sorley, but
they are insufficient to prove that Spinoza was not very
greatly influenced by Hebrew thought. My aim has been
to call in question the traditional view of Spinoza's relation
to Jewish philosophy, i.e., that he learnt enough of it to
throw it off entirely. I cannot help holding that, while
Spinoza's form and language were a mixture of mediaeval
scholasticism and the Cartesian philosophy, yet the ideas
which they clothed were not seldom Hebrew in their origin.
He might be cast out by his co-religionists, but that could
not deprive him of the mental birthright of his people
those deep moral and theosophical truths which have raised
the Hebrews to a place hardly second to the Greeks in the
history of thought.
Hebrew Philosophy seems to have a history and a de-
MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA. 353
velopment more or less unique and apart from that of other
nations ; once in the course of many centuries it will pro-
duce a giant-thinker ; one who, not satisfied by the narrow
limits of his own nation, strives for a freer wider field of
action, and grafts on to his Hebrew ideas a catholic language
and a broader mental horizon. He becomes a world-
prophet, but is rejected of his own folk. Such an one of a
truth was Spinoza, and another perhaps, albeit in a lesser
degree, Moses, the son of Maimon. 1
KABL PEAKSON.
1 When the More Nebuchim became 'generally known, its author was
looked upon by a large section of the Jews as a heretic of the worst type,
who had " contaminated the religion of the Bible with the vile alloy of
human reason " !
III. ME. HEKBEKT SPENCEE'S THEOEY OF
SOCIETY.
I. THE IDEAL STATE.
WHEN in 1879 Mr. Herbert Spencer published his Data of
Ethics in advance of the second and third volumes of his
Principles of Sociology, he gave as reasons for thus depart-
ing from his philosophic programme his fear lest he should
not be able to reach in its proper order the last part of the
task which he had marked out for himself, and his unwilling-
ness to leave altogether unfulfilled the purpose which ever
since 1842, when he wrote his letters on The Proper Sphere of
Government, had been his " ultimate purpose lying behind all
proximate purposes," that, namely, of " finding for the
principles of right and wrong in conduct at large a scientific
basis". 1 All his many readers are glad in thinking that
hitherto this fear has proved groundless, and now that Cere-
monial Institutions and Political Institutions have been investi-
gated, we may hope for the completion of that work on
Morality of which the Data of Ethics forms but the introductory
part. It may seem, therefore, that the present is not a
well-chosen moment in which to criticise Mr. Spencer's
ethical principles and method as apparent in his already
published works, but it may possibly add to the interest with
which we shall read any book or books that he may have in
store for us if in the meantime we consider what he has led
us to expect.
Not the least interesting fact about Mr. Spencer's con-
ception of Ethics is that its chief outlines have remained
unaltered for at least thirty years. While he has been
maturing an idea of evolution of which but faint glimpses
were granted to us in 1851, two cardinal doctrines have been
undisturbed from first to last, or rather after every expedition
into the material, moral or social world he has returned to
his original theme with new faith, new proofs and illustra-
tions. Scientific Ethics must still begin with a study of the
relations which will exist between men in that ideal state of
society to which we are tending. A law of equal liberty
is still the main law, perhaps the only knowable law of those
1 Data of Ethics, Preface.
ME. H. SPENCEE'S THEOEY OF SOCIETY. 355
relations. Mr. Spencer has indeed cautioned us 1 that Social
Statics "must not be taken as a literal expression of his
present views," and has given us certain more definite warn-
ings concerning the qualifications with which it should be
read, warnings to which it is hoped that due regard will be
paid in what here follows; still Mr. Spencer "adheres to
the leading principles set forth" in his early work, has found
new arguments for them in his Data of Ethics, and has
applied and defended them in many another book and essay.
It would seem, therefore, to be our own fault if we fail to
understand the general nature of that undertaking which lies
before him in the last part of his task.
Out of the many passages in which Mr. Spencer has stated
his general doctrine of ethical method, the following may be
chosen as one of the most concise :
" One who has followed the general argument thus far,
will not deny that an ideal social being may be conceived as
so constituted that his spontaneous activities are congruous
with the conditions imposed by the social environment formed
by other such beings. In many places, and in various ways,
I have argued that conformably with the laws of evolution
in general, and conformably with the laws of organisation in
particular, there has been, and is, in progress an adaptation
of humanity to the social state, changing it in the direction
of such an ideal congruity. And the corollary before drawn
and here repeated, is that the ultimate man is one in whom
this process has gone so far as to produce a correspondence
between all the promptings of his nature and all the require-
ments of his life as carried on in society. If so, it is a necessary
implication that there exists an ideal code of conduct formu-
lating the behaviour of the completely adapted man in the
completely evolved society. Such a code is that here called
Absolute Ethics as distinguished from Relative Ethics a
code the injunctions of which are alone to be considered as
absolutely right in contrast with those that are relatively
right or least wrong ; and which, as a system of ideal con-
duct, is to serve as a standard for our guidance in solving, as
well as we can, the problems of real conduct." 2
Absolute Ethics stands to Eelative Ethics, or Moral Thera-
peutics, in somewhat the same relation as that in which
Physiology stands to Pathology. 3 We must have a science
1 Social Statics^ Preface to American edition of 1864, adopted in Preface
to stereotyped edition of 1868.
2 Data of Ethics, 105.
3 Social Statics, c. 1, 3 ; Data, 105.
356 MB. H. SPENCER'S THEORY OF SOCIETY.
of social and moral health, before we can have a science or
an art which shall deal with social and moral disease. And
moral health implies social health ; the perfect man cannot
exist in an imperfect society, nor the fully evolved man in a
partially evolved society. To make any progress in ethical
science we must conceive a " perfect," "normal," "ideal,"
" fully evolved " society. In the comparison thus instituted
between Kelative Ethics and Pathology, one who has had no
"preparation in Biology" may fancy he detects some con-
fusion between immaturity and disease, but it will be better
for him not to meddle or make with these comparisons. In
the Social Statics the doctrine seems clear enough that, in so
far as an existing society differs from society as it will ulti-
mately be constituted, it is diseased. 1 Whether Mr. Spencer
would hold such language now may be doubted, but the
theory that Absolute Ethics is a Physiology to which Eela-
tive Ethics is the corresponding Pathology is restated and
defended in the Data.
Now Mr. Spencer differs from some other promoters
of ideal commonwealths in this, namely, in believing
that the natural and normal course of human progress
tends towards the realisation of his ideal. Not that he
thinks all movement progress, for he points out that there
has been in some instances positive retrogression. There
are backwaters in the stream of history, not to speak of
stagnant pools. There is social dissolution as well as social
evolution. Still social evolution is in some sense normal.
There are always forces which are making for it, though
they may be thwarted and neutralised. Indeed, it seems to
be his present opinion that the ideal state contemplated by
Absolute Ethics can never be quite attained, though we shall
approach indefinitely or perhaps infinitely near to it, always
provided that cosmic processes do not outrun the evolution
of humanity, " reduce the substance of the earth to a gaseous
state" 2 and end all things in the complete equilibration of
universal and, it may be, eternal death. 3 I know of no
formal proof that the ideal state contemplated by Absolute
Ethics is necessarily beyond our attainment, but in First
Principles this seems to be either assumed or implicitly
proved both as to the balance between mankind and its
environment and as to the balance between society and
the individual. The former " can never indeed be abso-
lutely reached," and the process which adapts individual to
society and society to individual must go on until the balance
1 Ch. 1, 3. 2 First Principles, 181. *Ibid., 182.
MB. H. SPENCER'S THEORY OF SOCIETY. 357
between the antagonistic forces approaches " indefinitely
near perfection". 1 Perhaps there is something in the doc-
trine of rhythm as conceived by Mr. Spencer which forbids
our hoping for more than this. At one time he took a more
cheerful view, for we were told in Social Statics that all
imperfection must disappear, that "the ultimate development
of the ideal man is logically certain as certain as any con-
clusion in which we place the most implicit faith ; for
instance, that all men will die". This Mr. Spencer formally
proved as follows: "All imperfection is unfitness to the
conditions of existence. This unfitness must consist either
in having a faculty or faculties in excess ; or in having a
faculty or faculties deficient; or in both. A faculty in excess
is one which the conditions of existence do not afford full
exercise to ; and a faculty that is deficient is one from which
the conditions of existence demand more than it can perform.
But it is an essential principle of life that a faculty to which
circumstances do not allow full exercise diminishes ; and that
a faculty on which circumstances make excessive demands
increases. And so long as this excess and this deficiency
continue, there must continue decrease on the one hand and
growth on the other. Finally, all excess and all deficiency
must disappear ; that is, all unfitness must disappear ; that
is, all imperfection must disappear." 2 Where Mr. Spencer
now finds the error in this plausible reasoning is not so plain
as might be wished, but certainly he is not now convinced
by it.
In the Data of Ethics we are told that " however near to
completeness the adaptation of human nature to the condi-
tions of existence at large, physical and social, may become,
it can never reach completeness ". 3 And here what seem to
be very serious limitations are set to the process of adapta-
tion, so serious that the passage may perhaps betray some
momentary " lack of faith in such further evolution of
humanity as shall harmonise its nature with its conditions". 4
We learn that " in the private relations of men, opportunities
for self-sacrifice prompted by sympathy, must ever in some
degree, though eventually in a small degree, be afforded by
accidents, diseases and misfortunes in general . . . Flood,
fire and wreck must to the last yield at intervals opportuni-
ties for heroic acts." 5 Now poor unscientific Virgil painting
his golden age got rid of the possibility of wreck by " omnis
feret omnia tellus," a suggestion which betrays a want
1 First Principles, 175. 2 Social Statics, c. 2, 4. 3 Data, 96.
4 Data, 67. 5 Data, 96.
358 MB. H. SPENCER'S THEORY OF SOCIETY.
of " preparation in Biology". Mr. Spencer, though he cer-
tainly does not regard the enterprises of industrialism as
" priscae vestigia fraudis," should, one would imagine, be
ready to say that the fully evolved sailor, with body and
mind perfectly adapted to all the rhythms of season and
wind and wave, will think any talk of wreck no better than
a pedantic allusion to the classics. But so long as we are
subject to accidents, diseases and misfortunes in general, we
have hardly come even "indefinitely near" the perfect state
which allows no " scope for further mental culture and moral
progress ".
Were we here speculating as to the future of the human
race it would become us to consider what are Mr. Spencer's
reasons for setting to progress bounds which it shall not
pass, and also to ask whether, if mankind is always to
fall so very far short of adaptation to its environment as
to continue permanently subject to flood, fire and wreck,
accidents, diseases and misfortunes in general, there must
not to the very last be at times a very wide divergence
between the desires and aims of the individual and those of
his neighbours. So long as we have not discovered all truth
discoverable by man, so long as there is scope for further
mental culture, there may well be danger lest some new
discovery or invention should throw the social machine out
of gear and introduce discordant notes into the pre-estab-
lished harmony.
But here we are dealing with the ideal of Absolute Ethics,
the fully-adapted man, the fully-evolved society. Nor have
we plausible pretext for grumbling if Mr. Spencer will not
allow us to be quite perfect. All tends towards the best in
this only possible evolution. The life of man will be sociable,
rich, nice, human, long, and not only long but broad. There
will be the greatest totality of life, quantum of life being
estimated " by multiplying its length into its breadth ". 1
Industrialism will have supplanted militancy, the religion of
enmity will be reconciled with the religion of amity, and
egoism will lie down with altruism. Without further ques-
tion, therefore, whether we are embarking under a Christo-
pher Columbus who will make for a real concrete America
hereafter to be peopled by an ingenious and thriving race, or
under a Raphael Hythlodaye who steers for Utopia, we will
suppose this ideal state made real and see what may be
said of it.
In the first place, we must notice that in this state there
'.Data) 4 8.
ME. H. SPENCER'S THEORY OF SOCIETY. 359
will not be any right or wrong in our sense of the words ;
certainly no wrong in any sense at all, and with us right
seems to imply possibility of wrong. The four sanctions of
morality will have become useless, and their existence will
perhaps be pronounced essentially unthinkable. No religious
sanction, for no fear of the supernatural ; no legal sanction,
for no command of earthly superiors ; no social sanction, for
society will never be displeased ; no internal sanction, for no
war in our members, no lusting of the flesh against the spirit,
or the spirit against the flesh. If such words as right, duty,
ought survive at all, they will survive as pretty archaisms of
uncertain meaning. May not even the same be said of
liberty; what meaning can it have when no one is ever
tempted to interfere with his neighbour's desires ? Law
goes too, at least law in one of its meanings. When we say
of these fully-evolved men that they will obey the law of
equal liberty or any other law, we can only mean that they
will obey in the sense in which matter is sometimes said to
obey the law of gravity. In short, our ideal code is a code
"formulating," not regulating, "the behaviour of the com-
pletely-adapted man in the completely-evolved society ".
This, as I think, is Mr. Spencer's view of the ideal
state. In the most interesting chapter of his Data, he has
sought to show that not only the external sanctions of
morality, theological, legal, social, but also the internal
or specifically moral sanction are the accompaniments of
imperfect evolution. 1 As we become better and better
adapted to our environment, self-coercion, like every other
form of coercion, tends to disappear. We are brought
to the " conclusion, which will be to most very startling,
that the sense of duty or moral obligation is transitory, and
will diminish as fast as moralisation increases ". " Evidently,
then," we are told, "with complete adaptation to the social
state, that element in the moral consciousness which is ex-
pressed by the word obligation, will disappear." 2 This is
just what we should expect : the notion of obligation or duty
disappears. But here as well as elsewhere Mr. Spencer can
not be brought to say, perhaps would deny, that the ideal
will ever be quite perfectly realised. " In their proper times
and places and proportions, the moral sentiments will guide
men just as spontaneously and adequately as now do the
sensations. And though, joined with their regulating influ-
ence when this is called for, will exist latent ideas of the
evils which nonconformity would bring, these will occupy the
l Data, c. 7. *Data, 46.
360 ME. H. SPENCEB'S THEOKY OF SOCIETY.
mind no more than do ideas of the evils of starvation at the
time when a healthy appetite is being satisfied by a meal." 1
. . . " With complete evolution, then, the sense of obliga-
tion, not ordinarily present in consciousness, will be awakened
only on those extraordinary occasions that prompt breach of
the laws otherwise spontaneously conformed to." 2 This,
however, though for some reason or other it will be the last
stage of human progress, is clearly not the ideal state, for
further adaptation is conceivable. " Ideal congruity " is not
yet realised. The ideal man must be adapted to " extraor-
dinary occasions," as well as to ordinary occasions. The
perfect man will never be prompted to break the law. The
moral sentiments will lose their " regulating influence " over
competing motives, and the "ideas of the evils which non-
conformity would bring" having become latent must finally
vanish. Whether absolute perfection be practically possible
or no, whether or no there will always be some slight tremors
and oscillations about the point of equilibrium, it must be
with the perfectly-adapted man and the perfectly-adapted
society that Absolute Ethics must deal. Obviously to accept
as ideal anything short of absolute perfection would be to
vitiate the whole procedure. " No conclusions can lay claim
to absolute truth, but such as depend upon truths that are
themselves absolute. Before there can be exactness in an
inference, there must be exactness in the antecedent pro-
positions. A geometrician requires that the straight lines
with which he deals shall be veritably straight ; and that his
circles, and ellipses and parabolas shall agree with precise
definitions shall perfectly and invariably answer to specified
equations. If you put to him a question in which these con-
ditions are not complied with, he tells you that it cannot be
answered. So likewise is it with the philosophical moralist.
He treats solely of the straight man. He determines the
properties of the straight man ; describes how the straight
man comports himself; shows in what relationship he stands
to other straight men ; shows how a community of straight
men is constituted. Any deviation from strict rectitude he
is obliged wholly to ignore. It cannot be admitted into his
premisses without vitiating all his conclusions. A problem in
which a crooked man forms one of the elements is insoluble
by him." 3 The geometrician is not to be put off with
slightly crooked lines because they are the straightest that
can be made, nor can the moralist accept as straight a man
46. 3 Data, 47.
3 Social Statics, c. 1, 3, cited and defended in Data, 105.
ME. H. SPENCEE'S THEOEY OF SOCIETY. 361
who is on " extraordinary occasions" prompted to break the
moral law.
This should be well understood, for Mr. Spencer not uri-
frequently sets before us a less remote ideal, a state through
which we shall pass on the way to an ultimate goal, but
not itself by any means the goal. There will be a time
we might call it the Silver Age when society will still
coerce the individual but only for a few purposes. There
will still be laws in the lawyer's sense of the word, the
individual will still be compelled to submit his will to the
wills of others. But the sphere of political coercion will
be much smaller than it at present is. To enforce the
law of equal liberty, to protect life, limb, reputation, and
property, to compel the performance of contracts, will still
be the function of the state. Within this narrow sphere the
coercive force will for a time be more active than it is at
present. When Mr. Huxley labelled Mr. Spencer's political
theory as "Administrative Nihilism ' }1 the latter replied that
what he desired was " Specialised Administration," and hehas
said that the phrase laissez faire does not fairly represent his
opinions. 2 The state should give over meddling with many
or most of those matters which are now thought proper sub-
jects for coercive regulation and should concentrate its efforts
on the provision of justice swift, cheap, foreknowable in
accordance with the law of equal liberty. Political coercion
should be specialised. Bentham himself has not spoken
more strongly than Mr. Spencer of the ills which flow from
our law's delay, and Mr. Spencer thinks that the remedy lies
in concentrating upon the administration of justice those
coercive governmental forces which are now dissipated in a
thousand and one channels. But beyond this provisional
paradise there lies the veritable land of promise. Perhaps
the individual's "right to ignore the state" of which we
read in Social Statics 3 will never be admitted as a right in
our sense of the word, for the existence of a right seems to
imply some probability or at least possibility of infringement,
but the day will come when coercive co-operation will give
way to voluntary co-operation, and no society will attempt
to retain a member who wishes to be quit of it. Whether
any particular type of voluntary society will be called a state,
or a body politic, or the like, would seem to be a question
barely about the future history of language, but membership
of every social body will be terminable at the will of the
Critiques and Addresses, I. 2 Essays, Third Series, v. 3 c. 19.
24
362 ME. H. SPENCEE'S THEOEY OF SOCIETY.
member, whose will, however, cannot but be consonant
with the will of each of his fellows.
It is necessary to state this clearly, for in his Data of
Ethics Mr. Spencer sometimes uses words which, if I have
caught his meaning, might mislead an unwary reader.
Thus a department of Ethics is marked off which " con-
sidering exclusively the effects of conduct on others,
treats of the right regulation of it with a view to such
effects". 1 This division of Ethics comprises the field of
Justice. We then read as follows : " This division of
Ethics, considered under its absolute form, has to define
the equitable relations among perfect individuals who limit
one another's spheres of action by co-existing, and who
achieve their ends by co-operation. It has to do much more
than this. Beyond justice between man and man, justice
between each man and the aggregate of men has to be dealt
with by it. The relations between the individual and the
state, considered as representing all individuals, have to be
deduced an important and a relatively-difficult matter.
What is the ethical warrant for governmental authority?
To what ends may it be legitimately exercised ? How far
may it rightly be carried ? Up to what point is the citizen
bound to recognise the collective decisions of other citizens,
and beyond what point may he properly refuse to obey
them?" 2
This passage certainly starts in the key of Absolute Ethics ;
we are ''among perfect individuals"; but seemingly at the
mention of the state it passes into some Eelative mode.
If we are still dealing with perfect individuals, and the ques-
tions which we are asked are " relatively-difficult," the other
questions of Ethics must indeed be superlatively easy. What
is the ethical warrant for governmental authority ? None ;
for no perfect individual will coerce his equally perfect neigh-
bour. As to obedience and disobedience, the only doubt is
which of these two words is the more inappropriate when
we speak of the relations between fully-evolved men. Of
course, therefore, these questions are questions of Kelative
Ethics ; one of the factors they involve is the infliction of
Eain, and of this Absolute Ethics has nothing to say. " The
iw of absolute right can take no cognisance of pain, save
the cognisance implied by negation." 3
Again, in the "prospects" which Mr. Spencer takes at
the end of each section of his Sociology, he seems to contem-
plate as the final condition of humanity a condition which
1 Data, 109. 2 Ibid., 109. 3 Ibid., 101.
ME. H. SPENCER'S THEORY OF SOCIETY. 363
neither he nor others would call absolutely perfect. Thus
he raises the question What is to be the ultimate political
regime ? l He thinks that it will not be the same in all com-
munities, and then speculates as to the future of the British
Constitution, and ends by saying that " neither these nor
any other speculations concerning ultimate political forms
can, however, be regarded as anything more than tentative".
In the immediately preceding sentence he says that " muni-
cipal and kindred governments may be expected to exercise
legislative and administrative powers subject to no greater
control by the central government than is needful for the
concord of the whole community ". The age of ultimate
political forms during which mayors and aldermen (in their
ultimate form) exercise legislative powers under the control
of the central government is not, I take it, the final epoch of
equilibrium in which there will be no " scope for further
mental culture and moral progress "; it is at best a penulti-
mate age. So again, when " somewhat more definitely and
with somewhat greater positiveness," Mr. Spencer infers the
political functions which will be carried on by those ultimate
political structures, and predicts that citizens whose natures
have through many generations of voluntary co-operation
and accompanying regard for one another's claims, been
moulded into the appropriate form, will entirely agree to
maintain such political institutions as may continue needful,
and then mentions among such institutions "the agency
for adjudicating in complex cases where the equitable course
is not manifest, and for such legislative and administrative
purposes as may prove needful for effecting an equitable divi-
sion of all natural advantages " 2 when Mr. Spencer speaks
thus, he has not before him the ideal of Absolute Ethics, but
some preparatory millenium during which adjudication and
legislation will still be necessary. Adjudication implies con-
flict. So legislation also implies an imperfect adaptation of
man to circumstances ; for even if it be said that all the
citizens will of their own free-will and without fear of pun-
ishment obey every law when made, the dilemma must yet
be met : either the laws will bid them do only such things
as they would have done if no laws had been made, or the
laws will in some instances bid them do other things ; in the
former case the laws are futile ; in the latter either the laws
are pernicious, or the citizens are not yet perfect. In the
ultimate state there will be no place for command, place only
for counsel or advice, for arguments which will convince the
1 Political Institutions, 577. 2 Ibid., 579.
364 ME. H. SPENCER'S THEORY OF SOCIETY.
reason, not coerce the will of the citizen ; and in this sense
must be understood the saying that, "however great the
degree of evolution reached by an industrial society, it cannot
abolish the distinction between the superior and the inferior
the regulators and the regulated". 1 The final form of
regulation is advice.
No one will blame Mr. Spencer for failing in his Political
Institutions to describe that ideal state which is the subject-
matter of Absolute Ethics. But even when in the Data he
is dealing expressly with Absolute Ethics he sometimes
writes as though he had not firmly grasped this ideal
state. As is well known, he classifies the duties of one indi-
vidual towards other individuals thus : he first distinguishes
Justice from Beneficence, and then divides Beneficence into
Positive and Negative. This may be a sound classification
in Moral Therapeutics, and conceivably, though in a some-
what non-natural sense, it may be applied to the conduct of
the fully-evolved man in the fully-evolved society. Duty in
our sense of the word there will be none, for every man will
always do his duty. Still, conceivably we may be able to
classify the social actions of fully-evolved men as just, posi-
tively beneficent, negatively beneficent. But then on one of
the last pages of the Data of Ethics we are 
